The wedding invitation sat on Mara's kitchen counter for three weeks before she finally opened it. Cream cardstock, elegant script, a venue in the mountains. Her best friend Claire was getting married at the old Riverside Lodge—the same place where Mara had spent that summer eight years ago. The same place where she'd met Daniel. She shouldn't go. She had a dozen excuses ready: work deadlines, her cat, a prior commitment she could easily invent. But Claire had been there through everything—the breakup, the move to Seattle, the years of rebuilding herself. She owed her this. Mara just hadn't expected him to be there.
The lodge looked exactly the same. Wooden beams, stone fireplace, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the river where the light turned everything golden at sunset.
Mara felt
