Return to Me

  Chapter Five

  Four years later…

  Autumn in Montana is a sight to behold. Rich foliage weaves a magical spell of green, gold, orange, and red so deep it looks like rubies have been sprinkled along the lush tree line. This show of color and beauty was probably the singular most thing that Paige had missed about her home state.

  Sometimes the longing had become an unbelievably acute ache deep in her chest, during the years she’d spent at the university. She could still vividly recall the hours she'd spent listening to the discordant sounds of traffic and people and life that seemed to go on in a continuous loop far below her fourth floor window; the culture shock had made her wistful at times for the solitude of the wild country home she’d left behind.

  But the one thing she had never been was lonely. Erik had seen to that. When she had transferred to Chicago for her last year of school, Erik had followed, and later, when he had decided New York was the perfect place for his advertising agency, she had conveniently snagged a job in the Big Apple, this time following him half way across the country.

  By the time Paige received the call about her stepfather’s untimely, or slow in coming-depending how you looked at it-death, the pattern of lead and follow between the two had become so firmly ingrained that it seemed perfectly natural for her oldest and dearest friend to pack a bag and book the adjoining seat on the redeye flight she caught a mere sixteen hours later. She hadn’t wanted to go, initially. Denmari had done little more than wreck her and her mother’s lives and the money could go to the state of Montana for all she cared. It had been Erik, in a rare bout of sensibility, who had calmly reminded her that Denmari's estate was her family heritage, passed down from her grandmother to her mother and now, finally, to Paige herself.

  "Think of your mother. Do this for her. Do it for yourself."

  And loathe as she was to return to the city of Helena and that turbulent chapter of her life, no matter her love of the land and the quiet, there was no denying that what Erik said made good sense. And after a much needed reflection, Paige realized that had her inheritance been only money, she would have gladly let it go unclaimed, given it away, stuffed it in a piñata-anything to avoid going back home. But as it was, much more than dollars and cents were at stake. Her family-her true family, not the mockery it had become since Denmari had entered their lives-was on the line. She imagined her gentle, sweet mother doing pirouettes in her grave at the thought of her only daughter leaving her family estate to neglect and eventual ruin.

  Once the decision was made, there was no going back, and besides, Paige reasoned, Erik probably wouldn’t let her back out even if she’d been inclined to do so. Which she wasn’t. No, she made up her mind in a relatively short amount of time to return to Helena, settle the accounts tied to the estate, and methodically wipe every trace of Denmari from the house. His scent, his belongings, all of it would be gone before she returned to New York or her name wasn’t Paige Frey.