Chapter 9: The Unexpected Visitor
In late summer, when the wild blackberries were heavy along the split-rail fences, an unfamiliar black town car carefully navigated the gravel switchbacks of the mountain road.
The car stopped outside the workshop gate.
Stepping out into the dust was Victoria Montgomery.
She wore a tailored linen summer suit, dark designer sunglasses, and leather flats that looked awkward in the gravel. Her hair was styled with salon precision, but her face was drawn, her posture defensive, her eyes reflecting the quiet, hollow exhaustion of someone who lived in an arena where every conversation was a transaction.
David was at the open double doors of the barn, helping two apprentices true up a sixteen-foot walnut dining slab.
He saw her, wiped cedar dust from his denim shirt with a cotton rag, and walked slowly to the wooden gate.
Victoria took off her sunglasses, looking around the bustling timber yard—the solar-assisted drying kilns, the vegetable gardens, the laughing apprentices sharing a watermelon on the porch—with visible, disoriented wonder.
""Hello, David,"" Victoria said softly, her voice missing its former sharp confidence.
David stopped three paces away, resting his hands comfortably on the top rail of the cedar fence.
May you like
""Hello, Victoria,"" David replied, his voice calm and unhurried.
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