Anna Westergaard stares intently at the road ahead of her, enjoying the change of terrain up in the mountains as a distraction from the exasperated voice coming through the phone.

"I'm sure it is beautiful. All I'm saying is, why not just enjoy a vacation there, and then come back home?"

"Elsa, I sold my home. Quit my job. Signed a one-year contract. We've been over this! You don't have to keep judging my life decisions."

"I'm not judging, I'm just trying to protect you."

"You don't have to protect me all the time! I'm not a child."

"I know, Anna. It's just...I can understand the urge to get a change of scenery, but this feels a little extreme...like you're trying to run away from your entire past life."

"I'm not running away. I told you, this job opportunity came up, and I liked the idea of a new adventure! Helping out some small-town, rural doctor whose patients don't have the same resources or access that we have in Los Angeles! It's going to be a good thing. And after all, I have a one-year contract. I can't break that. But if I don't like it after a year, I can reevaluate. I can handle this, Elsa."

A moment of silence let her know that she had won the argument, but the silence went on just a bit too long.

"...Elsa?"

She looked at her phone and realized that she had no service, which had led her phone to drop the call. Looking at the terrain around her, which was now becoming dense with trees, she realized this wasn't surprising.

It would have been more surprising if her overbearing, big-city-lawyer older sister had let her win an argument.

Anna loved Elsa; truly, she did. She had been so appreciative for her sister's help and guidance in the past months since...but at some point, Elsa needed to let her live her own life again. Not the same life-there were simply too many ghosts there. But she wasn't running away. She just needed a change of scenery.

Going back to work would have been difficult anyway, but the fact that everyone around her knew made it even harder. Their greetings used the same words, but with this pitiful tone and expression that said, "Oh, it's Anna. Poor little thing."

Yes, she had been through a lot. But she had survived it all.

She was no one's Poor Little Thing.

This resolve occupied her thoughts as the road took her further up into the mountains, with the path becoming smaller, more winding, and less paved. Soon, it took all of her concentration to navigate the difficult terrain in the fading light of dusk-and the rain that had begun to fall through the trees.

Once she arrived, it would be worthwhile. Right? The pictures online, printed and sitting on her passenger seat to provide directions in the absence of phone service, showed a quaint but well-kept cabin. Rustic chic. The town itself had a similar feel.

Then there was the job. Anna had spent years as an ER nurse, then a nurse practitioner, before becoming a certified midwife as well. As much as she loved to be of assistance in an emergency, leading others to jokingly call her an adrenaline junkie, she felt that helping women to give birth to healthy babies and adjust to motherhood was her true calling.

Back in LA, she had delivered babies of women who had come from the worst possible situations. During her first delivery, the mother had been brought in from a prison, and was handcuffed to the hospital bed when Anna went in for her first checkup.

It was necessary work, for sure, but...it would be nice to send babies to loving families, bright, sunny farmhouses, and a community that would pitch in to help in the small town way she had only heard of, but never experienced.

In her hopeful musings, she must have lost focus just enough, because suddenly, she was sliding on a patch of muddy road. She tried her hardest to steer into the skid, but it was no use; her wheels rolled helplessly in the ditch on the side of the road.

She may have been stuck in a rut back in her previous life, but it hadn't been quite so literal.

Maybe Elsa had been right after all.

Anna surveyed the scene. She had no idea how close she was to any sort of civilization. At dusk in the woods, she had no idea who or what might be able to approach her. The temperature outside would be dropping, and as fond as she was of road trip snacks, she hadn't exactly stored enough food or water for an emergency.

Great.

She groaned, leaning her head back into the seat. Still no phone service. Still no plan. She found her thoughts drifting off to her first days working in the hospital. Another time when she had felt like she was in over her head. She had adapted eventually, after learning the routines, building relationships…

Meeting Hans.

She took deep breaths, fighting back tears, trying to think of a plan, when suddenly, she saw headlights approaching her car from behind.

Headlights. Help!

Sure enough, the pickup truck slowed to a stop next to her pitiful, stuck Nissan.

A man climbed out of the cab. He was older, with dark skin and salt-and-pepper hair. Anna kept her door locked, but rolled down a window.

"You're not from around here, are you? That car is near useless on roads like these. Need a tow?"

"Um, yes. Maybe I could borrow your phone? Call triple A or someone?"

The man chuckled. "If you want to be stuck here for hours, maybe days. Don't worry, I've got you."

He pulled a rope out of the bed of the truck, and quickly and efficiently tied it to the back of his pickup and the front of her sedan. He told her to push the accelerator as he drove slowly up the road; the tension in the rope increased until, finally, her car broke free and was back on the path.

The man stepped back out of the truck to collect his equipment.

"Where are you headed?" he yelled to her.

"Virgin River? I'm staying at Nattura Cabin."

"Ah, yes, I know where that is. Not too far from here now. Why don't you follow behind me? I'll make sure you get there without wrecking that little car of yours."

"Are you sure? Thank you so much for towing my car, I really appreciate it," she held out a bit of money for him. "Here. For your trouble."

He raised an eyebrow. "In these parts, people don't pay each other for kindness. We just look out for one another."

Anna blushed. She hadn't meant to offend the very first person she met in the area. She was only trying to be kind.

She recovered as the man climbed back into his pickup, leading the way at a slow but steady pace. She followed his lead in staying near the center of the road; the mud was much more of a danger than oncoming traffic, which seemed fairly nonexistent at this point.

She breathed a sigh of relief when they finally turned off the road and into a driveway, but then she froze when her headlights illuminated the building.

"What? No, this can't be right…"

She held up the picture from the internet. At some point, the dilapidated structure in front of her might have been the cabin she had agreed to stay in, but that point had been long ago. Now, the outside was covered in grime and cobwebs, the porch appeared rotted, and it was clear that no one had resided in the cabin for years.

The man who had helped her saw her frantic pacing, and approached, laughing when he saw the picture.

"Looks like Yelena played you. That's why you should always double check your vacation rentals."

"It's not a vacation! I'm supposed to live here for a year! It was in the contract for my job. This is not what I agreed to!"

"What job?"

"I'm a nurse practitioner, helping out the doctor in town. Apparently it's just him in his practice, and he's getting on in years, and they could use an extra set of hands."

"Ah, getting to be too much for the old codger, huh? Well, you'll have to take up the housing with Yelena. Here she comes now; I'd better get out of here. Good luck to you."

As he quickly got back into his truck, Anna realized she had never gotten the name of the man who had helped her. But never mind; she had bigger issues at the moment.

Yelena's SUV stopped in the driveway. She grabbed a few pillows and blankets from the back and walked briskly toward Anna, her face hard and unreadable.

"You must be Anna. No use standing around out here; let's go in."

Anna waited for the woman to step onto the porch first, but Yelena didn't hesitate and it didn't collapse under her weight. Anna stepped carefully into the cabin.

The inside looked no better than the outside: there was dust, grime, and various detritus everywhere.

Yelena had gotten to work on starting a fire in the old-fashioned parlor stove. She then moved around the kitchen, making feeble attempts to tidy up.

"Um...this is not what you promised in the pictures. It's also not livable. I was promised an adequate living space as part of our agreement, and this does not qualify."

"Oh, don't be overdramatic. I was planning on having it cleaned, but then...something came up. I'm the mayor of this town. I have things to do."

Anna stared at her in disbelief. "Is that...a bird's nest? In the oven?"

Yelena tossed it into the fireplace. "Not anymore."

Anna groaned, burying her face in her hands. "I can't believe this. I drove all the way out here, my car got stuck, and the cabin I'm supposed to live in turned out to be this-this-hovel…"

"It's not so bad. You're probably just hungry after your long drive. People always get cranky when they're hungry. Let me drive you into town for a bite to eat."

Anna sighed, defeated. "Fine. It's not like I could make anything here anyway."

She did think that some of the cold, dizzy, annoyed feeling probably came from hunger...but mostly, it was her situation here.

The two of them climbed into Yelena's SUV, and they began the drive into town. As the main road appeared, she looked around in slight disbelief.

"This isn't the same as in the pictures either...where's that cute little school house?"

"School house? We've never had a school here. Not sure where you got that idea."

"...From the pictures? The ones that you sent?"

"Huh. Strange."

They drove along the sad little road in silence, except for Yelena's occasional tour-giving.

"That's the general store. Oaken owns it, you'll like him. That right there is Doc Mattias's office, where you'll be working. And...here we are! Food. Kristoff and Sven's."

From the outside, it didn't look much like a restaurant, but she figured there wouldn't be many other options. When she walked into the house-like building, however, she was surprised to find a homey sort of tavern. It was dimly lit, but warm, with a bar, a fireplace with comfortable chairs, and a fair amount of tables. The decor was rustic, with decorations like the head of a large buck and...a bear?

"Kristoff! Have Sven prepare something for our new resident, please."

The man at the bar, who was drying and replacing various glasses, said, "You got it," and disappeared back into the kitchen.

At least here, Anna could warm up a bit, and hopefully get some food, although the decor gave her some doubts about its quality.

As if reading her mind, Yelena began raving about the place. "Sven is an amazing cook. Whatever he has available today, I'm sure you'll like it. Oh, and what a great time to meet your employer!"

Yelena ushered her to the bar, where a very familiar man sat with a glass of whisky.

"Destin, this is Anna, our new nurse practitioner."

"We've met, although I didn't get her name the first time."

"Anna, Destin Mattias. Although most people around here just call him Doc."

Anna's face reddened. The man who had helped her, whom she had offended by both trying to pay him and calling him old, was supposed to be her employer. She remembered, calming down, that she wouldn't be staying anyway.

"Nice to meet you, but I'm afraid I won't be staying."

"That's all right. I don't need you, and I didn't hire you, so there's no work for you here anyway. I built my practice on my own, and I run it on my own."

"Wait, what? Yelena, you offered me a job that didn't exist? Oh, this is just perfect."

"Oh, nonsense. The man doesn't know what he's talking about. Destin, you can't expect to do this job all on your own! What will happen to the town if something happens to you? And after all, wouldn't it be nice to have a woman's touch around here, especially one trained as a midwife?"

Anna rolled her eyes at the now-bickering pair, taking a seat at the bar a couple of seats away.

Kristoff re-emerged from the kitchen.

"Can I get you something to drink?"

"Can you make a cosmo?"

The man laughed loudly, and she scowled back at him.

"Not exactly. But I do have all of the boys back here. Jack, Jim…" he indicated a line of bottles of harder liquor than she was used to.

"Fine. Give me a Jim Bean, neat."

He poured the drink, and then gave her a surprised, slightly impressed look as she downed a large portion of it. It may not be her favorite, but the biting liquid helped to take the edge off of both her chill and her mood as she felt it go down.

"I didn't know city girls could shoot whiskey," the barman commented.

"What makes you think I'm a city girl?" Anna asked with an edge on her tone.

"Well for one, you asked me for a cosmo. Then there's the matter of your clothes."

Before she could look offended, he quickly added, "Not the way you look! It's just not exactly... practical for the terrain. Different from folks around here. It's not like Sven has a subscription to Vogue."

Anna rolled her eyes. She had worn boots. Fashion boots, granted, but it wasn't like she had shown up in stilettos.

Kristoff excused himself again and returned with a steaming bowl of...something. It was warm and smelled good, so Anna tried a spoonful. "Wow, this is delicious. What is it?"

"Virgin River's finest squirrel."

Anna choked.

"I'm kidding! It was a joke! It's just beef stew. Sven has it down to a science by now."

"Send him my compliments."

"So, what city are you from? I hear you're our new nurse?"

Anna scoffed. "I was supposed to be. As it turns out, the cabin is a dump, the doctor doesn't even want me working for him, and I'm getting out of here as soon as possible. I probably can't leave until tomorrow, though...is there some sort of inn around here where I could stay?"

"There's one couple that sometimes rents out a room, but he's a little...well, I wouldn't recommend it."

"Ugh. Perfect."

"I only have one room in the flat above the bar, and Sven doesn't have much space either. Sorry to disappoint."

"Well, it's no different from everything else since I arrived. I guess I can just sleep in my car. Can I at least get a refill?" she asked, holding out her glass.

"That, I can do."

She took another bite of stew, enjoying its warmth, when suddenly an awful smell reached her nose. She turned toward Yelena.

"Do you have to smoke?" Anna asked the older woman.

"Unfortunately, yes."

"Could you at least not smoke where I'm trying to eat?"

Yelena rolled her eyes. "Prissy city girls. I'd head home if you had any way to get back."

"Kristoff can take her!"

In her argument with Yelena, Anna hadn't noticed another man-presumably Sven-emerge from the kitchen.

"I don't usually take people places," Kristoff muttered drily.

"Yeah, but you also don't cook, so you might as well make yourself useful," Sven winked.

Kristoff rolled his eyes.

"All right, I'll drive her home. Yelena, you can head out."

The woman quickly offered her goodbyes and left. While Anna finished her dinner, Doc Mattias finished his whisky and took his leave, and Kristoff began to tidy the rest of the bar.

Anna stood, now realizing how much a few glasses of whisky had affected her, even with the heavy meal.

"Do you have a restroom?" She asked.

Kristoff pointed, then went to collect her dishes.

As he walked into the kitchen, Sven gave him a teasing look.

"I saw the chemistry between you two. Don't act like I'm not the best wingman ever."

"Did you also see the wedding ring?"

"Ooh, tough break. Well, where's the husband then?"

"I didn't exactly ask."

"Well, now you can. You're welcome. You haven't had anything that pretty to look at since Old Man Wilson put down his golden retriever."

Kristoff rolled his eyes. "Besides, she's not even staying. Did you hear the whole story about the cabin and the job?"

"Yeah, but you never know."

"Sven, you're my best friend, but you're also extremely annoying."

"You got that right."

When Kristoff returned to the bar, Anna was standing hesitantly in front of her stool.

"We can head out. My truck's around back."

Anna followed his lead, jumping up into the seat with some effort.

She looked around the truck, noticing the fair amount of equipment in the back, including a gun. She cringed.

"Does everyone around her have huge cars? And guns?"

Kristoff laughed. "It comes with the territory. You never know what you'll find out here. Deer. Bears. They're not for people, if that's what you're worried about. This isn't the city."

Anna rolled her eyes.

"That bear in your tavern-did you shoot that?"

"Yes I did. Only because I had to," he continued quickly. "We try to use bear spray if we can, but when I wound up in the path of an angry mama bear-well, it was me or her, and all I had was my gun."

"If she was a mother, she was probably just trying to protect her cub!"

"Right, which is why we try not to interfere with nature, but...out here, sometimes that's how things go."

She sighed, wishing her sister were here to meet her disdainful look and comment on the barbarism of it all. "Shoot! I forgot to call-but it's not like I want to hear the 'I told you so's right now anyway…" She was talking more to herself than anything, but Kristoff looked over at her.

"Call who? Your husband?"

"My sister."

"Ah. Is your husband planning to move up here as well?"

"No."

He paused, clearly waiting for more information, but the usually talkative woman did not elaborate.

"Well, here we are…" Kristoff cringed slightly as he looked at the cabin.

"Can I help you with anything?"

He walked her up to the door, then looked around at the sad state of the cabin's interior.

Anna sighed. "I guess it'll have to do for a night. At least I've got some blankets. And the fire warmed it up a bit."

She walked into the small bedroom to look around.

Kristoff cleared his throat. "Well...goodnight, then. If you want to stop by tomorrow morning before you leave, Sven makes a mean breakfast. On the house, for your troubles. I don't want to leave you with a bad impression of our little town." He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, but figured it was the least he could do.

She softened. "Thank you, that's very kind. Have a good night."

After he had left, Anna went to her car for a small box of her things. She used bottled water to brush her teeth, not trusting the tap, and then spread her blankets out on the sad, stained mattress. Before going to sleep, she glanced back down in the box, and removed a picture frame from one side.

Her wedding photo.

She sighed, replaced it, and cried herself to sleep.

As it turned out, her grief could follow her all the way out here.