Emma's POV
The truck pulls up to the Willowbrook border and my heart stops.
Everything is exactly as I remember.
Snow blankets the pine trees like someone dusted them with powder. The road curves through white fields. In the distance, smoke rises from chimneys. The village sits nestled between mountains like it's been waiting for me.
Grace's truck comes around the bend and the moment I see her face, something inside me breaks open.
She's thinner than I remember. There are new lines around her eyes. She's aged years in the three years I can't recall. But when she sees me, her face transforms into pure joy.
She pulls over and jumps out before the truck fully stops.
"Emma," she shouts. "Oh my God, Emma."
I get out of the hospital car and Grace crashes into me. She's crying so hard her whole body shakes. She hugs me so tight I can barely breathe but I don't care. This hug feels like coming home.
"You're safe," Grace keeps saying. "You're finally safe."
I hold my sister and I realize something. This is real. This moment. This feeling. Everything since I woke up in that hospital bed has been confusion and fear and nothing making sense. But Grace's arms around me make sense. Her tears make sense. The relief flooding through me makes sense.
"I'm home," I say. And I mean it.
Grace pulls back and looks at me. She touches the scar on my head gently like it might hurt. Her eyes fill with fresh tears.
"Come on," she says. "Let's get you to the cabin."
I say goodbye to the driver Liam sent. I don't take the money he gave me. I don't want anything from that world. Grace loads my few belongings into her truck and we drive deeper into Willowbrook.
The village unfolds like a memory I'm slowly recovering. There's the general store where I used to buy flour for the bakery. There's the diner where everyone gathers for breakfast. There's the small clinic where Grace works. And there on Main Street is the bakery.
My bakery.
It's painted blue with white trim and there are Christmas decorations still hanging in the windows. It looks warm. Welcoming. Like it's been waiting for me to come back.
"Rachel's been running it," Grace says quietly. "Your best friend. She kept it going when you left. She wanted to maintain it for you."
Something in my chest twists. I have a best friend I don't remember. I have a bakery I built. I have a life here that was real and good and I just... forgot.
"She's going to be so happy to see you," Grace adds.
We drive past the bakery toward the edge of town where our childhood cabin sits. The little house with the wraparound porch. The garden out front where Mama used to grow vegetables. The place where Grace raised me alone after our parents died.
Grace parks the truck and I step out into snow that crunches under my feet. The air is crisp and cold and it smells like pine and wood smoke. It smells like home.
"Come on," Grace says softly. "Let me show you."
Inside, everything is exactly as I remember. The kitchen with the old stove. The living room with the stone fireplace. The bedrooms upstairs. Grace has kept it perfect. Like a shrine to the life I lost.
I stand in the middle of the living room and I just breathe.
For the first time since waking up, I feel like myself. Not the Luna from Liam's stories. Not the warrior woman in those photographs. Just Emma. The baker. The sister. The girl who survived.
"You can stay here as long as you need," Grace says. "I work days at the clinic. You can rest. We'll figure things out together."
I nod and Grace hugs me again. This time it's gentler. Like she's afraid I'll break.
That first night, I sleep in my childhood bed and I don't have nightmares.
The days that follow blur together in the best way possible.
Grace helps me ease back into life. I start working at the bakery again with Rachel. The moment I walk through those doors, muscle memory takes over. My hands know how to knead dough. My nose knows when the bread is done baking. My heart knows this place belongs to me.
Rachel cries when she sees me. She hugs me and tells me how much she missed me. She says things like "I knew you'd come back" and "This bakery is yours, it always will be." She's kind and funny and exactly what I need.
Days become weeks.
I develop a routine. Wake up early. Work at the bakery. Help Grace with small things around the cabin. Take walks through the forest where nothing is threatening. Sleep in a bed that doesn't smell like hospitals.
The nightmares fade. The constant panic eases. My head still hurts sometimes but it's getting better. Dr. Hayes visits once a week and says my body is healing. She's optimistic about my memories returning eventually.
I'm not sure I want them to.
The life I had here was simple. Good. Quiet. I worked hard. I had a friend. I had my sister. I had safety.
What do I have at Frost Peak except confusion and a man who scared me.
Rachel notices I'm thinking about something heavy one afternoon while we're cleaning up.
"You're brooding," she says. She's doing the dishes and I'm wiping down the counter. "That's your thinking face."
"Just wondering about things," I admit.
"About the hot Alpha guy," Rachel asks. She's grinning but there's something protective in her voice.
"How did you know he was an Alpha," I ask.
"Honey, he had Alpha written all over him," Rachel says. "I could smell it from across the room. And the way he looked at you. Like you were the only real thing in the world and everything else was just decoration."
I shiver thinking about Liam's eyes. About how he looked at me like I belonged to him.
"He's not coming back," I say. It's supposed to be a statement but it comes out like a question.
Rachel shrugs. "I don't know. But if he does, you just let me know and I'll throw something at him."
I laugh because she's serious. Because she'd actually do it.
Three weeks after arriving in Willowbrook, I'm closing the bakery. I'm wiping flour off the counter and humming to myself. The day was good. We sold a lot of bread. A few customers remembered me and welcomed me back. I'm starting to feel like I belong here again.
The sun is setting. The sky is painted orange and purple. Snow is starting to fall, light and soft.
I'm locking the front door when I see him.
Across the street, under the streetlight that's just flickering on, there's a man. He's carrying lumber on his shoulder like it weighs nothing. He's wearing work clothes. Jeans and a flannel shirt. But the posture is wrong. The way he moves is wrong.
I'd know those shoulders anywhere.
I'd know that dark hair and that profile even from this distance.
Liam.
My heart stops.
He's here. In Willowbrook. Carrying lumber like he belongs here. Like he didn't just let me go three weeks ago. Like he didn't agree to let me have my life back.
He hasn't seen me yet. He's walking down the street toward what looks like the lumber mill on the edge of town. He's moving like he knows exactly where he's going.
Like he's already integrated himself into this world.
Like he's planning to stay.
Every instinct inside me screams to run. To go back inside the bakery and lock the doors. To call Grace and tell her he's here.
Instead I stand frozen on the sidewalk watching him disappear around the corner toward the mill.
He came to Willowbrook.
The Alpha who said he was letting me go. The man I told to stay away. The one who scared me so badly I fled his world.
He followed me anyway.
And I have no idea what that means or what he wants or what's about to happen next.
All I know is that everything just changed.