Chapter One

“So, how does it look?”

I chewed my bottom lip and studied the piece of paper I’d brought with me. The picture of the small rancher didn’t do it justice. In fact, it barely matched the one sitting in front of me at all. The front door was discolored, the siding hung off on the left, and I hadn’t even looked at the barn yet.

Serves you right for buying a house without actually looking at it first.

I sighed, then put on the best smile that I could. “It’s charming,” I told my sister.

Thankfully, my phone didn’t have video chat. I’d made sure to stick with the bare essentials for this trip. No texting, no video chats, and no cameras.

My sister wasn’t convinced. “Show me.”

“I can’t.” At least that much was true. “I only brought the one phone, remember?”

Greta released a frustrated sigh. “I still don’t understand why you flew clear across the country to do this. You know we have mountains a few hours from here.”

“Which is exactly why I did. If I stayed back in California, you would’ve driven up one weekend and dragged me back home. Being on the east coast means that probably won’t happen.”

“But for an entire year?” my sister whined.

We’d already been through this. I wasn’t in the mood to go over it again. “I need this, Greta. We’ve been plugged in since Mom and Dad got us our first computer. I need a break.” Not just from our company but technology as a whole, which included cell phones.

“If you could even call it that,” my sister said, oblivious to my thoughts. “We played Oregon Trail. I wouldn’t exactly call that plugged in.”

“No,” I agreed, “but I’ve been coding since high school. We’ve been running our business since before we dropped out of college. I need to do something else for a change.”

“Which is fine,” Greta reminded me, “I just wish you wouldn’t do it so far from home. You don’t know anyone out there. Who will you talk to? Who’s going to listen to you ramble on about your next big idea? I need you here with me. Not for the company but… I don’t like you being so far away.”

I smiled fondly at my sister’s words even though she couldn’t see me. “I promise to call you every single week to check in. I’ll be fine,” I assured her, wincing when my voice hitched in the back of my throat.

“Carley…”

“What? You’re going to make me cry is all. Really, I’ll be fine. The time away will be good for me.”

“You’ve never taken a vacation,” she said as I walked up to the front door of the beige rancher. “How are you planning to last a year?”

“I’ve taken a vacation before,” I said, ignoring her last comment.

“That was one weekend,” she corrected me. “A vacation lasts a week or more.”

“What are you trying to say?” I asked, cradling the phone between my shoulder and ear so I could push open the door with a little force. “Oh dear.”

“What? What is it? Is everything okay?”

Turning on the light, I wrinkled my nose at the faded wallpaper and ancient decor. This place is going to be a lot more work than I thought. Then again, fixing up the place would give me something to do. Something that didn’t include dating, coding, or the app my sister and I co-founded so many years ago.

“It’s perfect,” I said to her as well as myself. It might not have matched the listing, but it was exactly what I needed.

“Yeah, well, I still think one year is too long.”

“Oh? And what do Mom and Dad say?” No doubt the three of them had a bet on how long I’d last.

“Mom and Dad think you’ll last the month,” Greta said, “but I have a feeling you’ll be home by the end of the week. Without the Internet or your phone, what could you possibly find out there to do?”

Looking around the living room, I said, “I’m sure I’ll come up with something.”

“And you’re really sure you want to do this?” My sister was practically begging now. We’d rarely been apart, and while she might’ve been three years younger than me, we were closer than anyone else I’d ever known.

“You know, you could’ve come out here with me.” In fact, I’d suggested it.

“If I did, who’d run the business?”

We had plenty of employees who were more than capable of looking after things while we were gone. Even so, I did feel a little better knowing she’d be the one attending those meetings instead of someone else.

“Okay,” I said, “but one of these days, I’ll have to fly you out here.”

“Preferably in the spring,” she said. I could almost imagine her wrapping her arms around herself. She never did like the cold. “You should’ve waited.”

“I’ve waited long enough.” I’d made plans to unplug and go off the grid for close to a year. The longer I waited, however, the less likely that possibility became. I needed to recharge, and in a world full of social media and websites, this was the best way to do it.

“One week,” Greta said with a little more confidence than before. “If I don’t hear from you in one week, I’ll send an entire rescue party.”

“With the orange helicopter?” I teased.

“And more. Be careful out there. I’ve been listening to the forecasts for the area. It sounds like it could get a little rough in a few days.”

I waved her concerns away as I slowly made my way into the small kitchen the rancher had. Much like the rest of the house, it wasn’t at all what I expected. However, instead of letting it get under my skin like most things usually did, I saw it as a challenge and a way to clear my mind.

The bait traps and fly paper would have to go, but for now, it was home.

“No looking at news sites or forecasts,” I ordered, grimacing when I ran my hand along one of the counters which was covered in dust. Okay, so maybe it’s a little more work than I’d like, but… “Don’t worry about me,” I said to my sister when she didn’t reply. “I’ll check in in one week,” I promised, hanging up the phone once we were through.

In my sister’s defense, this was the first time I’d ever moved away from home for any length of time. I lasted a whole three days during summer camp before the staff had to call my parents so they could take me home. As for college, the campus was a short forty-five-minute drive away. But out here? Clear across the country?

There was no way I could go home now. Especially if my sister’s reports were true. She could’ve just been saying it, but then again, I was in the mountains, and it wasn’t like I hadn’t read about the storms out here before. They wouldn’t be as bad as what one might experience in the far northeast, but they’d still be enough to slow me down.

Which was exactly what I needed. After spending seven years building up Fated Hearts, a dating app my sister and I had thought up, I needed a vacation. Not just for one week, either.

My life was full of bad reviews and hate mail that I couldn’t avoid. Unplugging was how I hoped to get away from all of it. If I’d stayed, I would’ve been in my office, reading over every single word while trying to think up ways to make everyone else’s life a little bit better.

“You can’t please everyone,” I said, echoing something our mother said time and again. She was right, of course, but the negative reviews and emails where one spouse blamed me for their divorce from someone else using the app stung just as much.

I never set out to break up someone else’s marriage. At the time, there weren’t many dating apps out there. Those that did exist were very basic and didn’t offer much social interaction for their users at all. But Fated Hearts did. I’d integrated everything, from a user’s social media to photo sharing and their own personal websites if they had any.

I made it easier for the users to read up on one another and see the person living behind the screen instead of someone hiding behind it.

Fated Hearts was a small project Greta and I wanted to do. We’d never expected anything to come of it, so when things took off, we had to scramble to get it up and running before someone else sniped one of our ideas.

I’d been running on all cylinders ever since. Unlike Greta who can compartmentalize everything and ignore those reviews, I’ve focused on them day after day. If I took a vacation like she suggested, I never would’ve left the hotel room.

A week also didn’t sound that long. Especially not after working almost nonstop for years.

“Which is why I’m here,” I told the empty rancher.

Yes, the house needed some work. And yes, I probably should’ve picked a place closer to home if only to be closer to my sister. But I was here now, and like it or not, I was going to do everything in my power to stay.

One year.

One year without fancy phones, laptops, or an Internet connection of any kind.

“I can do this.”