Megan Hart - Lovely Wild

From New York Times bestselling author Megan Hart comes a haunting and insightful novel about a woman trying to find her place in the world…

Brought up in the savage captivity of her unstable grandmother’s rural Pennsylvania home, Mari Calder once yearned for rescue. Now she struggles every day to function as an adult in the confines of normal society. Left with only a foggy recollection of her childhood, she’s consumed with being a dutiful wife to her husband, Ryan, and mother to their two children.

But an unexpected twist of events returns her to that long-forgotten house in the woods. Soon, Mari is greeted with reminders of a past life, the clarified memories only inviting a new level of strangeness into her fragile world. To protect her family, she must find the beautiful, powerful strength hidden in her inner chaos. Because someone is bent on exploiting Mari’s trauma, and as normal and wild begin to blend, a string of devastating truths force Mari to question all she thought she knew.

Praise for the novels of New York Times bestselling author Megan Hart

“Hart’s beautiful use of language and discerning eye toward human experience elevate the book to a poignant reflection on the deepest yearnings of the human heart and the seductive temptation of passion in its many forms.”

—Kirkus Reviews on Tear You Apart

“A fantastic story that will stick with readers.”

—RT Book Reviews on Tear You Apart

“A tense look at dark secrets and the redemptive power of truth.”

—Kirkus Reviews on The Favor

“Heartfelt…the detailed physicality involved in caring for an elderly loved one is portrayed vividly and compassionately.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Favor

“This is a quiet book, but it packed a major punch for me…[Hart]’s a stunning writer, and this is a stunning book.”

—Super Librarian on The Space Between Us

“[A] haunting, devastating, heart-wrenching tale…this story will stay with you long after you reach the last page.”

—RT Book Reviews on Precious and Fragile Things

“Deeper is absolutely, positively, the best book that I have read in ages…the story line brought tears to my eyes more than once.… Beautiful, poignant and bittersweet…Megan Hart never disappoints.”

—Romance Reader at Heart, Top Pick

“Well-developed secondary characters and a compelling plot add depth to this absorbing and enticing novel.”

—Library Journal on Broken

Lovely Wild

Megan Hart

www.mirabooks.co.uk

To the wild at heart

who walk in grass with bare feet and catch the fireflies

To my children, my greatest achievement—

I love you more than anything else

And to Emily Ohanjanians

for helping to turn that book into this one, here’s to many more!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

Dedication

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

THIRTY-TWO

THIRTY-THREE

THIRTY-FOUR

THIRTY-FIVE

THIRTY-SIX

THIRTY-SEVEN

THIRTY-EIGHT

THIRTY-NINE

FORTY

FORTY-ONE

FORTY-TWO

FORTY-THREE

FORTY-FOUR

FORTY-FIVE

FORTY-SIX

FORTY-SEVEN

FORTY-EIGHT

FORTY-NINE

FIFTY

FIFTY-ONE

FIFTY-TWO

FIFTY-THREE

FIFTY-FOUR

FIFTY-FIVE

FIFTY-SIX

FIFTY-SEVEN

FIFTY-EIGHT

FIFTY-NINE

SIXTY

SIXTY-ONE

AFTER

Lovely Wild Readers Guide

Questions for Discussion

Listening Guide

Copyright

ONE

IN HER DREAMS, she is still wild.

But she’s not dreaming now. At the moment, Mari Calder stands at her kitchen sink rinsing out a pot in which macaroni and cheese is still stubbornly clinging. She takes the sponge, rough on one side but not so much that it will scratch the expensive, shiny pot, and she scrubs. Macaroni softens under the stream of hot water that turns her fingers red. White suds cover her hands, and noodles stripped of their cheesy orange coating swirl into the drain where they catch and swell.

They look like maggots.

Tenderly, Mari scoops them into her palm. She leaves the water running, the rush and roar of it nothing like the sound of a waterfall. She dumps the sodden, bloated macaroni into a trash pail overflowing with the similar dregs of meals left unfinished. She stands over the trash for some long moments, staring at the waste.

She’s never hungry anymore, at least not the way she used to be. Here in this house she has a pantry full of cans, jars, bottles and boxes. Waxy containers of chicken broth snuggle next to bags of exotic rice in multiple colors and boxes of instant mashed potatoes. Cookies, crackers and potato chips in crumpled bags shut tight against the air with plastic clips, or sometimes dumped without ceremony into tight-lidded plastic containers. Clear, so she can see what’s inside. So she can run her fingertips over the contents without actually touching them.

And always, always, snack cakes. They come wrapped in plastic, two to a package, in flimsy cardboard boxes. She likes the chocolate kind best, though she’ll eat any flavor, really. Her very favorites are the special ones that come out for holidays. Spongy cakes shaped like Christmas trees or hearts or pumpkins, covered in stiff icing she can peel away with her teeth. Mari buys them a box at a time, casually, like they don’t matter to her at all, but she never puts them in the pantry or in the special drawer where all the other snacks go. She hides them. She hoards them.

She doesn’t have to. Her fridge is always full. The freezers, too, both of them, the small one in the refrigerator here in the kitchen and the full-sized chest freezer in the garage. Sometimes, mostly at night when everyone else is asleep, Mari likes to stand in front of the freezer and peer inside at all the wealth she has collected.

Ryan never seems to notice or care how much food there is in the house. He comes home from work and expects—and finds—dinner waiting for him. No matter what kind of effort Mari has to make to provide it, she makes sure there’s always a full meal. Takeout or homemade, there’s always a meat, a vegetable, salad, a grain, a bread. Fresh bread. She can’t get enough. Mari usually makes it herself. She uses a bread machine to help her, but she’s still the one who fills the pan with carefully measured amounts of water, flour, sugar, salt, yeast. Every morning she bakes a fresh loaf, and every night they eat it.

Sometimes, Ethan helps her with the preparation. Kendra used to, but now she’s too busy with her cell phone or iPad, texting and tweeting and whatever it is teenage girls do. But Ethan is still young enough to like cracking the eggs and measuring the flour.

At eight, Ethan is still young enough for Mari to relate to. Oh, she loves Kendra, her firstborn, her daughter. They do girly things like shop for shoes, paint their nails, hit the chick flicks in the theater while Ryan and Ethan stay home. Mari loves her daughter, sometimes with a fierceness that takes her breath away...but she doesn’t really understand her.

It’s not that Kendra is unknowable. Even at fifteen, she still talks to her mom. Unlike her friends, whom Kendra has revealed barely speak to their parents unless it’s to complain. Sure, there have been some bumps along the way. Temper tantrums, pouty faces, arguments about curfews or grades. Mari supposes this is normal and is grateful it’s never been worse.