The bus ride from Albuquerque had taken place in virtual silence. The passengers not involved in sleeping were all making covert glances at her. Of course it hadn’t helped that a gaggle of news media people had seen her and them off at the bus station. Cries of “Miss Wilde, Miss Wilde! Can you tell us what you feel?” still echoed in her head. She thought she’d become used to the numbing publicity, or rather notoriety, over the last five years.

Marina Wilde felt the same, however, about everything this time, even if the circumstances had changed dramatically. She was numb. Not even the latest developments had penetrated to that mislaid organ she called a heart. She’d lost her reputation years ago and with it, all claims to human empathy. “Alone in the World” one recent headline had blared.

“Farm girl” had been her description before infamy struck. She’d grown up with that label and found it neutral, satisfactory. It was only after the tragedy that the media rechristened her “Lovesick Farm Girl.” “Lovesick Farm Girl Tries to Murder Rival” was one of the less vicious headlines. Now, returning to Socorro was possibly an act of courage. Marina only hoped there’d be no reporters when she arrived in town. Today was a Monday in a May grown slowly warmer.

It helped that Jason and Juliet had left at least two years ago. They’d moved to his uncle’s ranch in Montana, and word had it that Jason would inherit the spread, a good-sized property, when his uncle finally succumbed to his COPD. Marina couldn’t help but be glad. They would be spared embarrassment all around.

When the bus pulled into the Socorro station, there were no reporters waiting. Marina accepted her suitcase from the intrigued, gum-chewing driver, thanked him, and started off down a side street to her destination. Few people were around and nobody came out of doors to stare at her. She did get looks when she entered the dusty office of Blaine & Neufield, but the receptionist’s manner was deferential to the point where Marina wondered if her notoriety had jumped to a new and altogether stranger level.

Mr. Neufield was already out of his chair when she was brought to his office and he gave a Marina a hearty handshake. “Awfully good to see you. You know your uncle has authorized a damages suit for wrongful imprisonment?” When she shook her head, he quickly added, “Spoke to me just before he went into the hospital. He’s back at the nursing home now.”

She nodded and accepted the set of keys he gave her. Seeing her silence, the lawyer felt it necessary to talk enough for both of them. Through the welter of words she heard one unexpected point. Marina cleared her throat and jumped in with a question.

“That’s right. He came in about a month ago. Your uncle signed all the papers,” he replied a shade too brightly (or defensively). “He’s your aunt’s nephew so that makes you cousins. You didn’t know him when you were growing up?”

Marina shook her head. Her aunt and uncle weren’t much for talk, even about family affairs. They’d adopted her when she was ten, after her parents had been killed in an interstate highway accident. Her upbringing had been chilly. Aunt Hester had never liked her sister-in-law, or rather her sister-in-law’s Latina heritage. And Marina knew she looked very much like her mother.

Now, she’d learned that her mother’s nephew, Peter, had been appointed caretaker of the ranch she’d come home hoping to manage. All she knew how to do was ranching. She’d finished her GED in prison and taken some college courses. She’d never thought of life after prison, preferring to retreat into a fantasy world when safe in her cell, while watching her step outside that refuge.

In fact, real life didn’t seem too genuine to her right now. That was her main problem, of course. One her aunt never failed to blame her for. “You always have your nose in a book,” was the most frequent complaint. Marina loved to read all sorts of books, nonfiction and fiction. But as she became a teenager, romance books became her favorite occupation. Nor was she content with just following the story, but wove romantic improbabilities into the world around her. Inevitably, she discovered that real life romance was elusive.

Or so she thought until she started high school and met Jason Legrand. He was the knight in armor of all her collected fantasies—the Regency rake who tossed aside the obvious beauties for a shy wallflower. Marina never rated herself pretty, even when the newspaper and magazine stories depicted her as “beautiful” and “seductive.” If she could describe herself she would say she had long straight jet black hair and hazel eyes, nothing out of the ordinary. She couldn’t see herself through others’ eyes, and her aunt already disliked her growing loveliness.