She’d spent too much of her life as a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. She’d spent too much time trying to fit into the lifestyle her family thought of as normal. She wasn’t Annaliese or Lisbeth. She was Mari the Misfit. She’d spent too much time trying to atone for that. No more.

She sold her court reporter’s equipment, sublet her apartment for the summer, loaded her suits and her guitar in the back of her Honda, and headed for Montana. She had made no plans beyond summer, beyond basking in the glow of enlightenment. She was free to be herself at last. Born anew at twenty-eight.

Still, all the self-revelation of the past two weeks didn’t completely dull the sting of Brad’s betrayal. Lucy would have understood that, having won, lost, and dumped an astounding number of men herself. She and Lucy should have been sitting on Lucy’s bed right now in their nightgowns, eating junk food and trashing Brad, and then trashing men in general until they ended up laughing themselves into tears.

Dammit, Lucy.

Guilt swept through her, chasing a current of resentment. She wanted Lucy to be there for her. How selfish was that? She had a case of wounded pride and jitters over finally finding the nerve to stand up and be herself. Lucy was dead. Dead was forever.

Feeling disjointed, disembodied, Mari sank down on the edge of the bed. She reached out blindly for the guitar she had propped against a chair and pulled it into her arms like a child, hugging it against her. She held it at an angle so she could rest her cheek against its neck. The smell of the wood was familiar, welcome, a constant in a life that had too often seemed alien to her. This old guitar had been a friend for a lot of lonely years. It never found fault in her. It never cast judgment. It never abandoned her. It knew everything that was in her heart.