Chapter 1

1

LAUREL

“ N ice van.”

The compliment from a random woman at the gas station made me grin. “Thanks.”

I was really proud of my ride since I’d done almost all of the work myself.

The woman shot an exasperated look at her husband, who was putting gas into their SUV at the pump next to the one I’d just used. “If you’d listened to me last year, we could’ve had one of those right now. Then we wouldn’t be rushing home because it wouldn’t matter that there aren’t any rooms available for miles. We could just stay in our van.”

I had no interest in getting in the middle of their argument. Luckily, I’d already gotten my gas, so I ducked into my van and started the engine. She was still ranting at him as I pulled out of the parking lot, and I shook my head at the thought of them spending every day and night together confined in a small space.

Van life wasn’t for everyone, but it had been perfect for me over the past two years. Growing up in the foster system meant that I didn’t really have roots anywhere. So when the social media algorithms started showing me all the videos about people transforming vans into their living space on wheels, I found myself quickly intrigued by the bohemian lifestyle. Especially when so many of the influencers shared posts about how little they spent each month.

Money had been tight for me when I bought my van. It took me an entire year to save up for my used Dodge Grand Caravan, and it needed a ton of work before it was safe for me to hit the road. I’d come a long way since those days when I pinched every penny by living in the van with only the basics. Back then, I spent my nights in a sleeping bag on the back seat, used cheap sun shades to block the windows, and stored my stuff in plastic crates. To supplement the discounted meals I got at my waitressing job, I had a power inverter strong enough to make tea in an electric kettle and cheap stuff to eat like ramen, eggs, and soup in a mini cooker that had a five-inch skillet and hot pot.

I’d made improvements to my sleeping setup first since I could learn that from videos online. Wanting to feel a sense of community that had been sorely lacking in my life, I started a social media account dedicated to the changes I was making. My following had grown by leaps and bounds as I posted each upgrade I made, from ripping out the back seats so I could put in a mattress to the swivel table I installed when I first started to get serious about becoming an influencer.

My social media accounts had gotten so big that last year I was able to quit my waitressing job to hit the road on a permanent basis. My needs were pretty simple, so the money I brought in between affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, and creator funds more than covered my expenses.

One of the downsides to traveling by myself was that I didn’t have anyone to turn to besides the map app on my phone when I took a detour. And there wasn’t anyone else to take the wheel in bad conditions, like the heavy snow that started only thirty minutes out from the gas station.

Patting the dash, I murmured, “C’mon, girl. We gotta make it to our next stop before the worst of the storm hits.”

I grew up in Florida, so I didn’t have any experience driving in the snow. Luckily, my van was old enough to have the all-wheel drive option that was phased out twenty years ago, which helped a little as I slowly navigated streets with lessening visibility and increasing slickness beneath my tires.

After another half hour, it got bad enough that I got completely turned around, and my map app kept updating the route. I breathed a deep sigh of relief as I rolled past quaint storefronts, happy to know that at least I wasn’t in the middle of nowhere even though I had no clue how far off track I’d gotten.

Spotting an open space in front of a hardware store, I pulled into it. Once I was safely parked, I realized the snow wasn’t coming down as hard as it seemed while I was driving, but it was still pretty bad. Hopefully, I could find someone to point me in the right direction before it became impossible to drive. But first, I needed to call Gwynne so she wouldn’t freak out thinking something horrible had happened to me.

Grabbing my phone from the holder mounted on my dash, I pulled up my call history and hit her name. My best friend answered before the first ring even finished.

“You didn’t fall off a mountain, did you?” she asked.

I shook my head, rolling my eyes. “If I had, would I be calling you?”

“Probably not,” she huffed.

Gwynne was most likely the only person in the world—besides those who only knew me online and had never met me in person—who would miss me if any of the worst-case scenarios running through her head had actually happened. I was used to how her mind worked since we’d been best friends for the past five years, so I wasn’t surprised that she was worried about me driving off a mountain road.

We had met when I’d been sent to a new foster home shortly after my sixteenth birthday. Most of the other kids ignored me, but Gwynne had come straight up to me and announced that we would be great friends. And she’d been right.

“I did manage to get completely lost, though,” I admitted with a rueful laugh.

“For real?” she gasped. “Did your GPS glitch or something?”

“No, but it started snowing about an hour ago, and it kind of threw me off.”

“Ugh, snow. Brrr. Thank goodness you got your heater core replaced before you left for this trip.”

The costly repair had been one I’d been putting off since my travels had mainly been to warmer parts of the country until now. It was a very good thing that I’d taken care of it before I hit the road this time around, or else I would’ve been freezing my butt off. “You have no idea how cold it really is.”

“Hey, I’ve seen snow,” she protested. “Like once, when I was twelve.”

I snorted. “A few flakes during the only time in a decade that it got cold enough in South Florida for it to snow is nothing like the bone-chilling freeze that I’m in right now. Trust me, all those dreams we had about how much fun it would be to go sledding and have a snowball fight totally missed the fact that we would also be miserable because our fingers and toes would feel like they’re about to fall off.”

“Dang, girl. Tell me how you really feel about the cold.” She giggled before her voice turned serious. “But really, if you’re not enjoying this trip as much as you thought you would, maybe you should cut it short?”

My nose wrinkled at the suggestion. “I don’t know. I was looking forward to posting some amazing photos with snowy mountains in the background and a steaming mug of hot chocolate in my hand.”

“I get it.”

“Plus, I haven’t had the chance to take more than a couple of pics with the super cute hat you got me,” I teased, reaching up to tweak the pom at the top of the personalized beanie she’d given me as an early Christmas present. It was red, cream, and dark gray, with a leather patch that had my social media handle on the front.

She heaved a dramatic sigh. “Then I guess there’s no other choice…you must risk frostbite so that my fantastic find can be properly shown off to millions.”

“Million, singular,” I reminded her since I’d just passed that milestone last month. It was a huge accomplishment that bumped up what I was getting on sponsored posts to a nice amount. I still had a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that I was being paid thousands to post about stuff that I enjoyed…and I even got those items for free. But I’d learned the hard way at a very young age how quickly things could change for the worse, so I knew those offers could dry up any day. So even though I had more money coming in than I needed to live, I hadn’t changed my thrifty lifestyle except to make my van more comfortable and safer.

“Yeah, but your videos go viral all the time, so they get seen by lots of people who don’t follow you,” she pointed out.

My cheeks filled with heat. Although there was no denying how successful I was, I still wasn’t great about receiving compliments—even from my best friend. But I supposed that was understandable since I hadn’t gotten many of them growing up.

“True,” I conceded. “I guess I should go find someone to help me figure out the safest route for this leg of the trip instead of blindly following my map app. I’ve stopped in a cute little town, but not many people are out and about.”

“Probably because it’s snowing.”

“Yeah.” I sighed, zipping up my coat. “The hardware store I parked in front of seems to be open, though. I guess I could try there first.”

“Sounds like a great plan to me,” she agreed. “After all the work you did on your van, hardware stores should be your comfort zone.”

“Yup, and the name of this one is beyond cute—Frost and Found. I’ll have to ask if it’s okay to take a couple of pics of the storefront for a collage post of my travels.”