Chapter 3: The Ghost of Willow Creek**
The chill of the autumn storm hit Julian like a physical blow as they pushed through the café’s brass-latched door. He scooped Lily into his arms, shielding her small frame beneath the thick wool of his overcoat. Her arms instinctively wrapped around his neck, the plush bear pressed between them.
“Down this way,” Lily whispered against his ear, pointing past the alley toward the derelict canal path.
Julian’s mind spun into overdrive. For six agonizing years, he had lived as a ghost. He had abandoned his career, moving from city to city, drowning his guilt in lonely diners and quiet apartments, clutching that single vintage photograph as his only tether to sanity. He had believed Clara was dead because believing she had survived without him was a pain too monstrous to endure.
*Why didn’t she contact me?* the bitter thought whispered.
Yet as he sprinted along the cobblestones, shielding his daughter from the driving rain, the answer hit him with brutal clarity. Clara knew how reckless he was. If he had known she was alive and pregnant, he would have torn the world apart to find her, leading Kane’s wolves straight to her doorstep. She had sacrificed their love to give their daughter a heartbeat.
Ahead, nestled between two abandoned brick warehouses, stood the rusted awning of *Dahlia’s Florist*—boarded windows, cracked glass, and a rusted iron gate hanging off one hinge.
“In there,” Lily murmured, her voice trembling slightly from the cold. “Mommy said it’s our castle.”
Julian pushed open the heavy wooden door, the scent of dried lavender, damp earth, and mildew washing over him. In the corner, beneath a flickering kerosene lamp, lay a cot covered in woolen blankets.
May you like
And lying upon it was the woman he thought was lost to the earth forever.
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