The Last Marigold

**Some wounds don't heal. They learn to hide.**

Rianne Vale has always been good at hiding the things that hurt.

She knows how to keep her composure when everything around her is falling apart. She knows how to care for others while keeping her own pain safely out of reach. And she has learned, over the years, that sometimes moving forward simply means refusing to look back.

But some losses refuse to stay buried.

When a young patient enters her life, Rianne finds herself becoming more invested than she ever intended. What begins as another case slowly becomes something personal, stirring memories of a loss she has spent years trying to survive.

And then everything changes.

In the aftermath of tragedy, Rianne finds herself drawn into the life of someone who understands a part of her grief without needing it explained. He carries his own pain, his own memories, and his own reasons for keeping the past at a distance.

Neither of them knows how to let go.

Neither knows how to move forward.

And neither expects that sometimes healing doesn't come from forgetting the people you've lost, but from finding someone who understands why you can't.

**Because grief can build walls between people-or become the one thing that finally brings them together.**