Sarina Bowen's Blog, page 9

First Chapter: A Little Too Wild by Devney Perry

Crew

“The plane is crashing. I gotta go.”

“Crew.” I could practically hear Sydney’s eyes roll on the other end of our phone call. “Stop being overdramatic.”

“What if it really was crashing? And your last words to me were an insult?”

“You’re not even on a plane,” she barked as the whirl of my wheels on the highway’s pavement hummed in the background. “Focus.”

No, I didn’t want to focus. I wanted to skip the lecture she’d started five minutes ago, then turn my army-green G-Wagon around and drive back to Utah.

“You need to be back in Park City on Monday for that photo shoot with GNU.”

“I know.” This was the fifth time she’d reminded me about that photo shoot. “I’ll be back in time.”

“You cannot be late. They are flying in from Washington just for this shoot.”

Also something she’d told me five times. “Don’t worry. I’ll be there. Trust me.” The last place in the world I wanted to be this weekend was Colorado.

“This trip couldn’t fall at a worse time.” Sydney sighed. “This sponsorship is huge. I don’t want to risk anything happening to screw it up.”

“Relax, Syd. It’ll be fine. I’ll be there Monday.”

“Is this trip one hundred percent necessary?”

“What would you like me to do? Skip my brother’s wedding?”

“Yes.”

I chuckled. “You are ruthless.”

“Which is why you love me.”

“True.”

Sydney had been my agent for the past three years and had made it her personal mission in life to make me, Crew Madigan, the face of snowboarding in America. So far, she’d done a hell of a job.

Her ruthlessness padded my bank account. As well as her own.

This Mercedes was my latest purchase, thanks to my recent sponsorship contracts. Syd had spent her commission on the same model, but in black.

“I’ll see you Monday.” There was no chance I’d linger in Colorado. My only obligation was the actual wedding tonight, and first thing tomorrow morning, I’d be on the road.

“Expect a phone call on Monday morning,” Sydney said. “Early. I don’t trust you to set your alarm.”

“One time, Syd. I was late for one photo shoot.”

She’d scheduled it for six in the morning because the photographer had wanted a sunrise shot, and when I’d set the hotel alarm the night before, I’d accidentally chosen p.m., not a.m.

Though Syd loved to rub that in my face, the shoot itself had worked out fine. The photographer was cool, and instead of worrying about a morning shoot, we’d just spent the day together, freestyling the Big Sky slopes in Montana.

With nothing staged or faked, the photos he’d taken had been epic. He’d captured a picture of me as I’d come off a cliff and bent for a grab, the afternoon sky at my back with mountain ranges and clouds in the distance.

That photo had landed on the cover of Snowboarder Magazine.

“Be on time, Crew.”

“I cross my heart.”

“And hope to die if you disappoint me.”

Why did I always feel like saluting Sydney at the end of a phone call? “See ya.”

She hung up without a goodbye.

I sighed, shifting my grip on the wheel. The drive from Park City was seven hours, and with every passing minute, the throb behind my temples intensified. For the past hundred miles, I’d begun to squirm.

Nagging as it was, at least Sydney’s call had been a brief distraction from the anxiety rattling through my bones. I had been in knots for weeks, dreading this trip.

Why couldn’t Reed have gotten married in Hawaii or Cabo?

My stomach churned as I neared the outskirts of Penny Ridge. For twelve years, I’d avoided returning to my hometown. Over a decade. After all that time, shouldn’t this be easier? After the life and career I’d built, shouldn’t twelve years have dulled the painful memories of home?

I was no longer the eighteen-year-old kid who’d run away from anything and everything in his life. Except as the speed limit dropped, the town coming into view, it was like being blasted into the past.

My heart beat too fast as I approached a sign with an arrow that hadn’t been there when I’d left.

Madigan Mountain

A new access point to my family’s ski resort. The entrance to a place I would have happily avoided until the end of my days.

The turnoff to town approached, so I slowed, hit my turn signal and pulled off the highway to Main Street. Buildings with red-brick faces sprouted up on both sides of the road, like walls—or jail-cell bars.

Another sign came into view, this one familiar and built into the median of the road.

Welcome to Penny Ridge

Located seventy miles from Denver along the ridgeline from Keystone, Penny Ridge had been my family’s home for generations. But the day I’d left town, I hadn’t looked back once. Not for friends. Not even for family.

As a professional snowboarder, there was no way to entirely avoid Colorado, not with its famed ski slopes and resorts. But I’d limited my time in the state, spending the bulk of it at alternative mountains.

Park City had become home. Montana was a favorite vacation destination. So were Canada, New Zealand and Japan. I’d travel anywhere in the world, especially if it meant distance from Penny Ridge.

Maybe I should have skipped my brother’s wedding. Except I hadn’t seen Reed in years. Hell, I hadn’t even met his fiancée. Weston and I hadn’t caught up lately either, and the only time I’d seen his fiancée, Callie, had been over FaceTime.

When both of my brothers had called about the wedding, asking me to come, I’d had a hard time finding an excuse not to show.

There was a suit in the back seat, pressed and ready for tonight’s ceremony and reception. My overnight bag was packed with a single change of clothes, limited toiletries and nothing more. I’d do this wedding, make an appearance, then disappear from Penny Ridge for another decade. Maybe two.

As I drove down Main, I took in the changes as I rolled down the blocks. Flip’s Gold and Silver was now Black Diamond Coffee. The Dive Bar was gone, replaced with a craft brewery. Mom’s favorite bookstore was a Helly Hansen franchise.

The coffee shop and brewery, she would have loved. The demise of her bookstore, not so much.

Her ghost walked these sidewalks. Mom haunted this town, these streets.

Tomorrow. I only had to stick this out through tomorrow. Then I’d get out of Penny Ridge.

People meandered the sidewalks. Half of the parking spaces were taken. It was fairly quiet this afternoon, something I suspected would change when the resort opened for the season next weekend. Then downtown would be clamoring with tourists.

As much as I longed to retreat to the highway, I headed for the winding Old Mine Road and started up the mountain.

My ears popped as I climbed and weaved past towering evergreens. With the new access point, I doubted this old road got as much traffic as it had in years past. Probably a good thing. It was too narrow for decent shuttles, and on icy days, the drive down could be treacherous.

Mom had always hated this road in the winter, given the sharp drop-off. She’d love that Reed had put in a safer road.

My oldest brother had been working hard for the past two years to expand Madigan Mountain. The new access road. More terrain. New residential and commercial properties. Not that I’d seen any of it firsthand, but Weston had told me that it was becoming a next-level resort. He’d even moved home last year to help Reed by starting a heliskiing operation.

They had more plans, some of which they’d shared, but whatever they had in store for the mountain was not my problem. I was here for one night and one night only.

I turned one final corner and the lodge and hotel came into view. The mountain stood tall and proud at its back.

It looked the same. It looked different.

It was home. Yet it wasn’t.

“I don’t want to be here,” I muttered as I drove past the parking lots.

The signage was new, branded with mountain goats. Beyond the hotel, a condo development hugged the mountain base. The new chairlift stretched toward the summit, leading to new runs that snaked white through the trees. And past the lodge, in a forest clearing, was a helipad. Weston’s helicopter was likely stowed in the adjacent hangar.

I pulled into a parking spot outside the hotel and hopped out, breathing the mountain air as I stretched my legs. It smelled like my childhood, snow and pine and sunshine. It smelled like good memories. And bad.

With my bag looped over a shoulder and my suit bag draped over an arm, I walked toward the hotel’s stone entrance. My grandfather had constructed this wooden A-frame in the fifties as the original ski lodge. Years later, a new lodge had been built and this had become the lobby to the connected three-story hotel.

At least with all the changes Reed had made lately, he’d left the red shutters on the windows. Mom had loved those shutters.

I dropped my eyes to the sidewalk. The less I took in, the better. The more I looked around, the more I saw Mom.

“Good afternoon, sir.” The bellhop opened the door, waving me inside.

The lobby smelled like vanilla and cedar. Tall, gleaming windows along the far wall gave guests a sweeping view of the mountain. As a kid, my brothers would chase me around the lobby in the summers, when there weren’t many guests and my parents were busy. The long-time front desk clerk, Mona, would snap at us whenever we got too loud. But Mom would always laugh it off, telling her we were simply testing the acoustics, then shooing us outside to play.

More memories.

“Excuse me.”

A man walked past me, snapping me out of my stupor. I unglued my feet from the floor and walked toward the front desk, passing a couple as they came out of the bar. The woman was dressed in a black gown. The man was in a gray suit. Each was carrying a cocktail.

They were most likely going to the wedding. There was a good chance Dad was in the bar, holding a tumbler of his favorite whiskey, and since that reunion was one I’d delay for as long as possible, I headed for the reception desk.

“Good afternoon, sir.” The clerk smiled, her eyes flaring slightly. She was young. Pretty. Blond hair with big hazel eyes. If this were any other resort, any other mountain, maybe I’d let her flirt. Maybe I’d get an extra key to my room and hand it over with an invitation.

But I was leaving first thing in the morning and had no time to play with my brothers’ employees.

“Crew Madigan,” I said. “Checking in.”

“Madigan. Oh, um, of course.” She stood taller, a flush creeping into her cheeks as she focused on the computer’s screen. “You’re in a suite, staying for two nights.”

“No, just the one.” I dug out my wallet from my jeans pocket, fishing out a credit card.

“There’s no charge, Mr. Madigan.” Reed’s doing, no doubt. “You’re on the third floor. Room 312. It’s the Vista Suite. How many keys would you like?”

“Also just the one.” This trip wasn’t pleasure. It wasn’t business either. It was family.

She worked quickly to get me my key card, sliding it across the counter. “Can I help you with anything else?”

“No, thanks.” With a nod, I walked away, heading straight for the elevators and the third floor.

The hallway greeted me with fresh paint, clean carpets and the scent of laundry soap. These hallways used to be racetracks for us. Reed, Weston and I had played hide-and-seek throughout the hotel until the time I’d hidden in a storage closet for an hour. By the time Weston had found me, every staff member and my parents had been in a panic.

That was back when Dad had actually cared about his kids’ whereabouts. When he’d been more than the cold, heartless widower who’d forgotten his three sons had just lost their mother.

I unlocked the door to my suite, letting it close behind me as I strode into the living room, plopping my things on the leather sofa.

The updates from the hallway extended into the rooms, making them feel up-to-date with that rustic ski resort vibe. It was a nice room, with a fireplace and sprawling view of the mountain. Perfect for one night and one night only.

I unzipped my bag, wanting to take a quick shower to wash off the road trip before the wedding started in an hour. But the moment I had my toiletry case in the bathroom, a knock came at the door.

Probably someone with the last name Madigan. Hopefully a brother, not a father. I checked the peephole, grinning at the man wearing a black suit on the other side.

“Hey,” I said, opening the door.

“Hi.” Weston smiled, pulling me into a hug and slapping me on the back. “About time you got here. I was starting to worry you weren’t going to show.”

“Tempting, but I figured you’d bust my ass, so here I am.”

“How are you?” he asked, coming inside.

I shrugged. “All right. It’s good to see you.”

“Yeah.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “You too.”

Weston was two years older, and when our family had fallen apart after Mom’s death, he’d been the one to see me through the darkest days. Instead of moving away to start his own life, he’d stayed in Penny Ridge until I’d graduated high school. He’d made sure that a fourteen-year-old kid hadn’t drowned in his grief.

He’d done what Dad should have.

Those four years, I couldn’t repay him for that. For all he’d done. I wasn’t here because Reed had called, even though it was his wedding.

I’d come because Weston had asked me to.

Not that I didn’t love Reed. But our relationship was different. After Mom, he’d gone away to college. He’d left us behind. For those first few years, I’d blamed Reed for abandoning us. But over time, that resentment had faded.

We’d all been devastated. We’d all needed to escape.

But unlike my brothers, I had no intention of returning home.

“You look good,” I told Weston as we moved into the living room, each taking a chair in the sitting area next to the windows that overlooked the mountain.

He seemed . . . lighter. Happy. There was a twinkle in his brown eyes.

“I am good,” he said. “Glad you’re here. Nice to talk to you face-to-face for a change.”

Conversation between us had been limited over the years. He’d been busy with his career in the military. I’d been consumed with professional sports.

Mostly, we’d talked via voicemail. The last time I’d actually seen him in person had been three years ago. Our travel schedules had coincided and we’d met for dinner in the Seattle airport.

“How do you like living here?” I asked.

“It’s been good. Retirement took a bit of an adjustment but I’ve managed to keep myself out of trouble.”

“Saw a helipad on my way in.”

He grinned. “This expansion has been amazing. The new terrain is insane. We’ve got decent snow already too. The base is solid. If you want to go up tomorrow—”

“Can’t.” I cut him off before he could talk me into it. “I’ve got to get back to Park City. There’s a sponsor flying in for a meeting.”

“Oh.” His smile faltered. “Thought we’d get you for a couple days at least.”

“Not this time.” Not any time. “Besides, I didn’t bring a board,” I lied.

I didn’t go anywhere in the winter without a snowboard, not that I’d be tempted to ride here. The memories . . .

The hotel, the lodge, the town were bad enough. I wasn’t sure I could handle being on the mountain.

“We do have snowboards here,” Weston said. “A whole rental shop full of them, in fact.”

“Next time.” There would be no next time.

Weston studied my face, undoubtedly spotting the lie. Once upon a time, he’d been both brother and keeper. When I’d told a bullshit lie to do something stupid, like go to a party or skip school to ride, those lies had gone to Weston, not my father.

Disappointment clouded his gaze as he dropped it to the floor before standing. “I’d better let you get ready. And I need to go pick up Callie and Sutton.”

“I’m looking forward to meeting them.”

“Yeah.” His face softened. “They’re excited to meet you too. Just to warn you, Sutton is going to ask you for your autograph. She found one of your old Olympic posters at a shop downtown. She wants to take it to school next week to show her friends.”

“I’ll sign whatever she wants.”

“Appreciate it.” Weston clapped me on the shoulder again, his version of another hug. “See you in a bit? I’ll save you a seat.”

“Sounds great.” I forced another smile, then waited for him to leave before I returned to the bathroom, taking a long look in the mirror.

Damn, I didn’t want to be here. But it was just one night.

I’d congratulate Reed and meet Ava. I’d meet Weston’s fiancée, Callie, and her daughter, Sutton. I’d ignore my father and his new wife, Melody. Then come dawn . . .

“I’m getting the hell off this mountain.”

After a quick shower, I styled my hair and dressed in my black suit. With my shoulders squared, I headed to the main floor, following a stream of people through the lobby.

“Crew.”

I turned at my name. Reed crossed the space, wearing a tux and an ear-to-ear grin. “Hey.”

“Thanks for being here.” He closed the space between us, pulling me into a hug, holding me so tight it took me off guard.

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” He gulped, then fussed with the boutonniere pinned to his lapel.

“Nervous?” I asked.

“Yes. No. I just want everything to go smoothly. But I’m more than ready to make Ava my wife. And I’m glad you could be here.”

“Me too.” It was even slightly true. For Reed, I was glad to be here. “You’d better go. I’ll be here afterward. We’ll catch up. Have a drink.”

“There’s a lot to talk about.” He laughed. “So I’ll hold you to that drink.”

He strode past me for the entrance to the ballrooms, greeting people as he walked.

I followed, in no rush. I fell in line with the other guests, shuffling into the ballrooms, taking in more of the changes. Structurally, the hotel was exactly as I remembered. But with the updated décor and style, it rivaled larger, glitzier Colorado resorts.

A new crystal chandelier illuminated the foyer between the ballrooms. The old industrial tile had been removed and replaced with a plush burgundy carpet. The elk and moose mounts had been swapped for wall art.

The line filtered through double doors to a room decked out in flowers and glimmering lights. An aisle, flanked by two sections of white chairs, led to an arched altar adorned with greenery and roses.

Reed stood chatting with Pastor Jennings, the man who’d busted me at thirteen for making out with his daughter at a middle school dance.

Familiar faces jumped out from all directions, including one that wasn’t all that different from my own.

Dad stood not far from Reed, laughing with the woman on his arm. She was tall and thin. Pretty, with a big smile and graying blond hair.

It wasn’t fair that she was here. Mom should have been here on her oldest son’s wedding day.

I clenched my teeth, my molars grinding, as a hand smacked my back.

“Hey, man.”

“River.” I relaxed instantly, letting my best friend from high school pull me into a quick hug. “How are you?”

“Can’t complain.”

River was one of the few people in Penny Ridge I’d kept in touch with over the years. Mostly because he was good about texting and had met me a few times to ride.

We’d both grown up with dreams of professional snowboarding. While I’d gone on to become a world champion, his career had fizzled. But there’d been trips when I’d invited him along. River was always good at providing levity in heavy moments and irritating the shit out of Sydney and my manager.

“What’s new?” I asked.

“Not much. Looking forward to another season. Think this is gonna be my year.”

It wasn’t. But I didn’t have the heart to break it to River that he just wasn’t good enough. Maybe he could have been, but he didn’t have the discipline to hone his skill and take it to the next level.

“I’m sure it is,” I lied. “Did you come with a date?”

“Nah. I’m here with my sister.”

“Raven’s here?”

“Yeah.” River searched the crowd. “She’s around here somewhere.”

But before he could find her, another man appeared at my side. “Crew.”

Fuck. So much for avoidance. “Dad.”

“How are you, son? Glad to see you.”

I nodded, holding his gaze for a moment. He looked . . . different. Maybe because he was missing his standard scowl.

“Oh, hello!” The woman he’d been standing with earlier swept past him, coming straight into my space for a hug. “Crew, I’m Melody. It is so good to finally meet you.”

“Uh . . .” I looked down at her, then to Dad, who just beamed at his new wife.

“You must sit with us,” Melody said. “The front row is for family.”

Family. That word felt like a knife to my spine spoken from a woman who hadn’t been around when my real family had disintegrated.

“Actually, I’m sitting with River.” I took my friend’s elbow, practically shoving him out of the line. “Nice to meet you.”

Melody’s smile faltered.

Dad put his arm around her shoulders, hauling her into his side. He bent to murmur something in her ear, but I didn’t stick around.

I pushed River along toward the middle of the groom’s section.

“Take it you haven’t talked to your old man lately?” River asked.

“No.” And I didn’t plan on changing that tonight.

“I got you. I’ll run interference.”

“Appreciated.”

River knew all about what had happened in high school. He’d had my back then and still had it now.

We lingered beside the aisle, standing between huddles of people all chatting before the ceremony started.

A swish of black hair caught my eye. I did a double take and the air was sucked out of my lungs.

Raven.

River’s sister had always been pretty. When I’d left here, she’d been a sophomore. Twelve years later, she’d grown into a woman who wasn’t pretty.

She was devastating.

Long, silky hair fell nearly to her waist. A handful of freckles dusted her nose. Her soft lips were painted a sultry red. A sleeveless, black dress hugged her lithe body.

The dress had a swath of leather around her torso, giving it a sexy edge. That and the slit that ran up her thigh. She had mile-long legs accentuated with a pair of strappy heels.

Goddamn. She was stunning.

Then again, she’d always snagged my attention.

There wasn’t much that River didn’t know about me. Mostly because we’d been friends for so long, but also because he’d been my confidant in high school.

But not once had I let it show how much I’d crushed on his sister.

“Raven.” He jerked up his chin, waving her over.

“Oh, there you are.” She smiled at him, then turned to me, flashing me those arctic-blue eyes framed by sooty lashes. “Oh.” Her smile dropped. “Hey, Crew.”

“Hey, Raven.”

“I’m going to go find a seat,” she told River.

“’Kay. I’m sitting with Crew.”

Without another word, she walked away, taking a chair on the bride’s side of the room.

Twelve years and all I got was a Hey, Crew.

Why did that surprise me? Raven had never seemed even slightly interested. The only girl at Penny Ridge High I’d wanted was the only girl who couldn’t have cared less. I was a world champion, an Olympian, and she still stared straight through me.

Maybe some things around here had changed. But not enough.

I needed to get the fuck off Madigan Mountain.

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First Chapter: A Little Too Close by Rebecca Yarros

Prologue

Weston

January in Upstate New York meant snow, and lots of it. Last night had dumped about three feet, but the skies were crystal blue this morning and perfect for flying over Fort Drum. I didn’t even mind the time it had taken to shovel out before driving out to the flight line, not when I’d spent most of this year on a rotation in the sandbox. I’d take snow over sand any day.

The below-zero temps were something I could live without, though.

I shouldered my helmet bag and walked into the 1-10 hangar, waving at a couple guys on their way out.

“Hey, Madigan,” one of the crew chiefs said as I climbed the stairs toward the locker room. “Harris is looking for you.”

“Thanks.” I gave him the nod and headed to the second floor, looking out over the birds we’d hangered yesterday before the storm.

I pushed through the door into the locker room, narrowly missing Carlson—another pilot—as he reached for the handle. “Shit, my bad.”

“No problem.” He caught the door. “Pretty sure Harris is looking for you.”

“I heard something about that. Thanks.” I headed for my locker.

“I think the promotion list might be out.” He lifted his brows at me and backed through the door, letting it swing shut.

My stomach twisted into knots as I put my gear away and got ready for the day. If the promotion list was out…

Don’t go there.

I wasn’t even in the zone for promotion yet, but getting picked up below the zone would be absolutely mind-blowing. It would also mean I’d have to sign on Uncle Sam’s dotted line for another two years after pinning the new rank.

But if Harris was looking for me—

My cell phone rang in my pocket, and I swiped to answer it before I looked at the caller ID.

“Hello?” I wedged the phone between my ear and shoulder as I hung up my coat on the metal hook.

“West?” Reed’s voice brought me up short.

Not looking at the screen had been a mistake. I wasn’t in the mood for anything my older brother had to say, not that I ever was.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. If something had gone sideways with Crew, our little brother, I would have heard from him directly, which only left Dad.

I wasn’t exactly sweating bullets over a guy who didn’t give a shit about me or either of my brothers. His one and only love was the little Colorado ski resort that had been passed down through our family.

“Why does something have to be wrong?” Reed countered.

“Because you’re calling at six a.m. your time.”

“Actually”—there was a tone in his voice I recognized, the nice one he only used when he had shitty news to deliver—“it’s seven o’clock.”

I glanced at my watch to make sure I had the time right, and my brow furrowed. Then it hit me. “You’re still in Colorado.” Guess he’d stayed after all.

Good for him, but no-fucking-thank you.

“Yeah.” He took a breath, as if summoning the courage for something. “Still working on the new lift and the condos and everything I sent that email to you and Crew about last month.”

“Right. Good for you.” I shut the metal door of my locker. “Look, unless there’s something you need, I’m scheduled to fly—”

“Just let me get this out,” he blurted.

I paused. Reed was flustered. Reed never got flustered. He was Mister Cool, Calm, and Collected at all times. Fuck, the guy hadn’t even batted an eye when he’d left Crew and me to fend for ourselves after Mom died and Dad had disappeared into a bottle.

Reed had gone back to college and lived his perfect little ski racer life until a torn ACL had forced him to pivot to getting his MBA at Stanford.

And me? I’d paused my dream of big mountain skiing to help Mom when she first got sick, and then gave it up completely when she died my junior year, leaving a gaping chasm in our lives. Leaving for college? That was a luxury only Reed could afford. Someone had to be the adult around the house, and as much as Reed loved pretending it had been him, swooping in on his college breaks to play savior, it hadn’t. It had been me, and only me, until I’d kept the promise I’d made to Mom and gotten Crew through high school. Only then had I given myself the permission to dream again, and eleven years later, I’d clawed my way through night and online courses for college and was living that dream as a helicopter pilot for the army.

“I’m waiting,” I said, my grip tightening on the phone. To say that Reed and I didn’t have the best relationship would have been the understatement of the century. I loved him, but I also really fucking loathed the load he’d left me to carry.

“We need a way to bring in high-end clientele while we’re building the condo development. A new income stream since we’re spending some major dollars right now.”

“Not my problem. You’re the one that decided to go back and work with Dad. Not me.” I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose, telling myself I shouldn’t care as I fought the pang in my heart that told me I most definitely did.

“I know that,” he ground out. “And Dad is never around. It’s just me and Ava running this.”

“Aren’t you supposed to have that fancy new lift open by November?” That was the typical opening month for Madigan Mountain.

“So you do read my emails. You just don’t respond to them.”

“Get to the point, Reed. My job doesn’t take kindly to being late.” It was one of the reasons I loved the army. I thrived on order and discipline.

“Okay. I’d like Madigan to start up its own heli-skiing operation. It would take the resort to an entirely new level, which is what we’re looking to do with the expansion.”

I sucked in a sharp breath, the possibilities whirring through my mind with the force of a hurricane. The higher peaks and ridges just behind the resort were perfect for that kind of operation. Nothing compared to Telluride or even Steamboat, but we could hold our own.

Not we. They.

“There’s only one guy I can think of who knows the backcountry around here like it’s his personal playground and already happens to know how to fly a helicopter.”

Silence stretched between us as I forced air through my lungs. There was no way he was asking this of me. No. Fucking. Way.

“West?”

“Ask someone else.” The door to the locker room opened, and I turned to see Theo Harris, my oldest friend and senior pilot, walk in, wearing a shit-eating grin on his face and waving a piece of paper in his hand.

“I don’t want to ask someone else.” Reed’s tone took on a desperate edge. “You’re family. This is our family’s business, Weston. Our family’s resort. Our family’s—”

“I swear to God, if you say legacy, I’m going to hang up.” I clenched my jaw.

Theo’s dark brows lifted skyward, and he lowered the paper.

Reed sighed. “You’d have full control of your own operation. You’d just operate under the Madigan logo.”

This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t. But as long he just wanted and didn’t need, then I could turn him down. There were plenty of other pilots he could hire. Plenty of guides too. Just none that could do both sides of it like me. I can’t seriously be contemplating this.

“What’s up?” I asked Theo, needing to cling to something in my real world and not the pretend one Reed was spinning.

“You made the promotion list! Below the zone!” He held out the paper.

Holy shit. I did it.

“Don’t you get what I’m saying?” Reed asked, apparently thinking I was talking to him. “I need you to come home, Weston.”

Fuck. Me.

* * *

Chapter One

Weston

Nine Months Later

Helicopters were my happy place. They were power, and lift, and drive—all without the constraints of runways. They weren’t confined to roads, and they didn’t require space to accelerate for takeoff. They simply launched into the sky from wherever they happened to be. They were freedom. At least they used to be. The shiny red slice of liberty I was currently signing for felt about as liberating as handcuffs. Because that’s exactly what it was.

It was a three-million-dollar leash.

The office clock in the steel building just off the tarmac in Leadville, Colorado, showed seven a.m., and my stomach churned as I debated my life choices for the millionth time since Reed called. But I signed, and signed, and signed, each signature tying me to the one place I’d spent eleven years avoiding like a prostate exam.

“You know, if I wanted to do dash-eighteen inspections at dawn, I would have stayed in the army,” Theo said from the doorway, clipboard in hand, the brown skin of his forehead crinkling as he raised his brows at me. He’d been my best friend for the better part of a decade, so I knew it wasn’t going to be the last time he looked at me like that.

“At least you’re not in A2CU’s.” Personally, I would have traded my jeans and Henley for my uniform in a second, but Theo had been ready to get out, which was the only reason I’d been able to talk him into coming with me. I handed over another stack of paperwork to the broker, stretching as I stood. We’d sent Maria’s husband and Theo’s family ahead to Penny Ridge yesterday, then driven into Leadville late last night, and my body ached from spending hours behind the wheel. I needed a run to loosen up after two straight days of travel, but this had been the only time the seller had been able to meet us for delivery.

“Everything in order?” the broker asked Theo.

“Serial numbers match up on everything,” Theo said with a nod, handing over the clipboard. “Ramos is still doing her once-over.”

Thankfully, Maria Ramos had been approaching her ETS date and been able to turn in her combat boots with us for this insane little venture. It was almost like the stars had aligned, or fate had smiled, or some other cliché bullshit. Either way, she was the best crew chief we’d had in our unit and the final piece I’d needed.

We left the building and stepped out into the early October air, where Maria was closing one of the compartments on the helicopter.

“How does it look?” I asked.

“Good,” she answered. “It’s well maintained. I mean, there’s every chance you two assholes could still fly it into the ground, but that would be pilot error.” She shrugged with a deceptively sweet smile.

We did the walk-around and I signed the last of the paperwork.

The broker reached out his hand and shook all three of ours in turn. “I wish you guys better luck than the last company that owned her.”

“What happened to the last company?” Theo’s brow furrowed, giving the helicopter a second look.

“Went under.” The broker shrugged. “Everyone thinks they have what it takes to own and manage a heli-skiing operation here, but…well…” Another shrug.

My ribs tightened like a vise.

“Anyway, I’ll go make some copies inside and then you guys are good to go.” The broker headed back into the terminal.

“They went under,” Maria said slowly, lifting her ball cap to tuck a strand of her brown hair back under the brim.

“Guess so.” I shoved my hands into the pockets of my cargo pants. Gone were the multicam flight suits and the rank on my chest I’d worked my ass off for. I was starting over from scratch—well, not entirely since I had Theo and Maria with me, but their support also meant I was responsible for them.

“West.” Theo turned and put his hands on my shoulders, looking me dead in the eye. “Look me in the eye and tell me this isn’t going to fail. I did not move my wife and kids to the whitest town in America—and I am not talking about the snow—for this to fail.”

“We’re not going to fail,” I assured him.

“Right. Now say it like you mean it.”

“We aren’t going to fail.” I cracked a wry smile and stepped back, taking in the clean lines of the Bell 212 and her shiny new paint. Failure wasn’t an option, not here, not with my family’s name on that paperwork.

“It’s not like we’re starting up on our own,” Maria added, zipping her jacket over her coveralls. “Scott signed for our new apartment last night, and he told me that little operation your family owns isn’t quite the mom-and-pop shop you described.” She tilted her head to the side. “I believe the words boutique resort came out of his mouth.”

“My brother Reed is expanding it,” I said by way of explanation. My friends knew everything they needed to for our business to succeed—my family was the owner of Madigan Mountain Resort, a small, family-oriented ski resort in Summit County, Colorado. They knew I’d been asked to open a heli-skiing operation to take Madigan Mountain up a notch. We weren’t competing with Breck or even A-basin or anything, but the expansion Reed was overseeing was going to catapult us in that direction. My friends also knew that I’d walked away from the resort, and every string that came with it, eleven years ago and hadn’t looked back once.

Not until Reed called nine months ago.

“You’re regretting this, aren’t you?” Theo asked, studying my face. “Because Jeanine is closing on a house I’ve never even seen before right now, and if you’re having second thoughts—”

“I just signed for a three-million-dollar aircraft.” I curled the brim of my hat, the only nervous gesture that eleven years in the army hadn’t cleared me of. “There are no second thoughts.”

“Good, because Scott is already unpacking,” Maria said, shooting me a sideways glance.

“We’re not going to fail,” I repeated. “I know these mountains like the back of my hand, and with us”—I looked over at Theo—“taking turns flying and guiding the backcountry tours, we’re going to be just fine.”

It was our love of backcountry skiing that had bonded Theo and I during the months we’d spent TDY in Europe that first year. The guy was just as good as I was, and I was damn good.

The broker came back from the terminal with a large blue folder that had his logo stamped across the front. “Paperwork is all here.”

“Thank you.” I took the folder. It wasn’t every day someone held his life in his hands, but here I was.

“You ever fly out of Leadville before?” the broker asked, two little lines appearing between his eyes.

“Yep,” I answered.

“High-altitude training,” Theo explained.

“Good. Hate to be the last person you ever saw,” the broker joked. “Keys are yours, metaphorically speaking, and the ones to the doors are in the folder. Pleasure working with you.”

“You too.”

We waved goodbye to Maria as she drove my truck from the airport, heading toward Penny Ridge, then Theo and I started the run-up and checks.

“You file the flight plan?” I asked through our headsets.

“You know I did. Smooth like butter,” Theo said as the engines ran up. “And look, a full tank of gas.”

“For three million, he better have filled the tank.”

 “How long is it going to take Ramos to get there?”

“About ninety minutes,” I answered. “It’ll take us about twenty to fly it.”

“You’re driving this time,” Theo commented. “That way if something breaks, it’s on you.”

I scoffed but nodded as we finished the checklist. Then I took the controls, got clearance from the tower, and launched us into the sky. There was nothing quite like the sound of this hum. It was different in every helicopter, but the beats were distinct in this model, which was pretty much a jazzed-up Huey.

The rotors beat the air into submission, and we took off. The air was thin up here—Leadville was the highest airport in the nation—and the gauges showed it.

We dipped off the peak and flew along the range.

“That’s some pretty blue sky you’ve got here,” Theo said, taking in the scenery.

“Colorado blue. There’s nothing quite like it anywhere else.” We followed the dips and lines through the valley, which had us following the road for the most part.

“Breckenridge?” Theo asked, looking out over the terrain.

“Frisco,” I answered as we veered east. “Breck’s just up there.”

“I can see the runs from here.”

We flew past Keystone and A-basin, then headed toward Penny Ridge, which sat just beneath the Madigan Mountain Resort. From the air, Penny Ridge looked to be about the same as when I’d left—a few new buildings here and there, but nothing significant. That was the beauty of a small town that stayed small.

And the mountains? Those never changed. Not really. The hunter green of the pines gave way at the tree line to jagged gray peaks that cut into the sky like chipped knife blades. We had a couple of weeks until the snow would stick, and another few after that to build enough of a base to open for the season. Just enough time for Theo to get to know the area as well as I did.

“All of the really good skiing is over that ridge.” I nodded toward the runs that were carved into the mountain, their thin strips of pale green slicing through the trees, accompanied only by the chairlift I’d helped repair too many times to count. “We’ll do an area orientation flight tomorrow if Jeanine doesn’t have you unpacking.”

“She will,” he answered with a smile, his voice softening like it always did when he talked about his wife. Those two were…iconic, enviable. That was the only way to describe their relationship. “But we’ll make time.”

From the air, I could see just how much the expansion was already underway. New runs had been cut in recently purchased land, and construction had begun for the new condo development, or whatever Reed was calling it.

And right there, between the existing resort and Madigan 2.0, was the building Reed had promised, along with an X-marked helipad. Not that I’d ever doubted. If Reed said he was going to do something, then it got done.

It was the shit he didn’t promise that had always been our issue.

“Looks like that’s all for us,” Theo said. “You know, it’s not every family that welcomes you home with a new hangar.” He glanced over meaningfully.

“Don’t go there.” I maneuvered the aircraft carefully, making sure I hadn’t missed any powerline construction in the last decade. “It’s too early.”

“My man, we are already going there.” Theo leaned forward as we approached the helipad. “Or is that not your name on the side of that building?”

“My last name,” I muttered, setting her down. And just like that, I was…here. My chest ached, and I knew it wasn’t only from the lack of oxygen up here at nine thousand feet.

There wasn’t much I could do about what was waiting for me outside the aircraft, so I concentrated on what was inside, starting the postflight. I cut the engines, and the rotors spun slower and slower, like a countdown to a confrontation that had been waiting the better part of a decade. I fucking hated this place, and now it was supposed to be my home again.

What the hell had I been thinking?

I kept my attention on the helicopter, deliberately looking away from the path that led toward the resort as we opened the unlocked building and got the bird onto the cart that would move it from the pad and into the hangar. Theo drove her in while I guided, my focus narrowed to getting her secured.

But then she was tucked away, and my time for self-indulgence was over.

Theo checked a text message after we got the hangar doors shut. “Jeanine is here.”

“Go,” I told him. “You have a whole house to unpack.”

“Maria should be here with your truck in”—he checked his watch—“half an hour or so. You going to be okay?”

“Absolutely.” Maria and Theo had bigger things to worry about than me.

He gave me a nod and took off through the side door of the building, leaving me alone in the hangar.

It was small but well-sized for what we needed. Packed correctly, we could probably fit another bird in here. Equipment lined one side of the building, and there were two walled-off offices along the other, both sporting windows into the hangar.

I could see the desks in one of them, where we would set up bookings and take care of the business end of the operation, and the other was empty except for the stack of plastic chairs that looked like they’d been taken straight out of the church basement. It was a good area to brief the skiers.

“It’s set up exactly how you asked,” a familiar voice said from behind me.

My jaw flexed with recognition. I should have locked the damn doors.

“It’s great,” I said, turning toward the helicopter instead of my brother. “Did you get all the equipment Ramos asked you for?”

“It’s here.” Reed walked over and stood at my side.

He had an inch on me, but what I lacked in height I more than made up for in muscle. He’d spent his years in boardrooms, and I’d spent mine in the gym or flying. We had the same dark hair and eyes, the same chin, and definitely got our dad’s ears, but that’s where the resemblance stopped.

“You look good,” Reed said, giving me a once-over.

“Thanks. War was great for my complexion. You look…” I spared a glance over his slacks and Patagonia vest to his perfectly coiffed hair. “Polished.”

“That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”

“It’s not.” I shrugged.

Reed scoffed. “I left the share agreement on your desk. You know, the one that gives you an increased stake for every year you’re at Madigan.”

I grunted. I wasn’t here for the shares and we both knew it.

He tilted his head in examination as he stared at the helicopter. “I thought you’d go with something more like what they’re using in Telluride. The Eurocopter—”

“Has a five-passenger limit and one engine for over two million,” I countered. “This triples that capacity with two engines at just under three million. And you signed off on it, remember?” The thrum of a familiar engine filled the hangar from outside. Maria had made it.

“I did.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Still, the hourly costs—”

I muttered a curse. “Am I talking to my brother or my business partner?”

His head snapped in my direction. “Will you talk to your brother? Because the only communications I’ve had with you for the last decade have been family business and this helicopter.”

I ignored the jab. “This is a Bell 212 HP-BLR. It’s been structurally overhauled and rewired within the last year, and yes, that’s fresh paint. It has less than ten thousand hours on the body and comes complete with gear cage”—I pointed to the long wire basket along the fuselage—“and rescue hoist.” I gestured toward the lift. “It has seating capacity for fourteen, and did I mention a second engine just in case that first one goes out?”

Reed rolled his eyes. “Weston—”

“Now the Eurocopter does have an operating cost that’s down around $875 an hour, and the Bell is going to take that up to $1,508, but even if we operate only at the Eurocopter’s capacity, we’re still going to profit about three grand a day.”

Reed opened his mouth, and I ran him over.

“Now, the Eurocopter is going to profit about $4,600 a day as long as they only book at five people. But the second they go to six, they have to take a second helicopter, and they won’t just book it for that one. They have a minimum of three. So let’s go with eight, just for fun.” I crossed my arms in front of me. “So, for eight people, our profit is seven grand a day and theirs is—wait for it—$6,300 a day because they have to eat the hourly costs for the second helicopter, and that’s before the cost of an additional pilot. We don’t have that issue. Every person over three is profit for us, and we can take parties of four or five. They won’t. You’re not the only one in the family who can do math. Oh, and did you hear the part about the second engine? Trust me, you’d care if you were the one flying it.”

Reed took a measured breath. “Damn, Weston, I wasn’t saying you made a bad choice.”

“No, you were just second-guessing it.” Like he always did.

“It’s a lot of money! And that thing is huge. Do you even think you can put it down on the ridgelines?”

If I can put wheels down on the edge of a bombed-out building in a war zone to load up a platoon of soldiers, then I’m pretty damn sure I can handle some tourists in the snow.” I turned to face my brother, looking into his eyes for the first time in years. “You’re the one who asked me to come back and get this operation running. You called me, Reed. If you’d like to get behind the controls, then feel free, but flying up at this altitude is more complicated than the hostile takeovers you’re used to—”

“That isn’t even what I do—”

“Facilitating in those boardrooms of yours.”

“For fuck’s sake, this is getting us nowhere.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “Have you always been this much of an asshole?”

“Yes.” That shut him up.

A couple seconds passed in awkward silence, and we both cracked a reluctant smile.

“I guess you’re not in the mood to hear, ‘Welcome home’?” Reed asked slowly.

“Just tell me he’s not here and I’ll consider that welcome enough.” Seeing Reed was one thing, but handling our father? Fuck that. Not today.

“No. He’s off cruising the world for his honeymoon.” Reed sucked in a breath. “You know, he’s really changed these last—”

“Not interested.” Dad had sealed his fate with me years ago when he’d disappeared into himself after Mom died and left me to raise Crew. Reed leaving us to fend for ourselves while he moved to Vermont for college had been a dick move, but Dad’s abandonment? My fists clenched.

I resented Reed. I despised Dad. There was a difference.

“I can see you’re going to make this absolutely easy on both of us,” Reed muttered.

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Yeah. You are.” He grabbed something out of his pocket, and a second later, keys flew through the air. I caught them. “Seasonal lodging is full getting the new hires trained, but one of the employee housing duplexes is empty. It’s unit sixteen, up the hill —”

“I know where the duplexes are. Thanks.”

Reed took another deep breath and closed his eyes for a second, as though he was on the search for inner peace or something. “You could just stay up at the house with me—”

“I’d rather go back to the sandbox for a year than step foot in that house.”

He sighed. “The fact that I know you mean that is something else, West. It’s the house we grew up in.”

“I need to unpack.”

He put his hands up like he was under arrest. “At least that means you’re staying long enough to do it. Welcome home.” He tossed a second set of keys at me and walked away, leaving through the side door, where Maria sidestepped to get out of his way.

“How much did you hear?” I asked her as I locked up.

“Enough. I thought middle children were supposed to be the peacemakers?” We walked across the parking lot that smelled like fresh blacktop and climbed into my truck.

“I was too busy taking care of my mom that last year, then raising Crew, to give a shit about peace.” And Reed had been having the time of his life on a ski team in Vermont.

Life was a lot of things, but fair wasn’t one of them.

“Crew’s your little brother, right? The X Games guy?”

“That’s him.” I put the truck into reverse and then backed out of the spot, flipping us around so I could pull out onto the road. At least this wasn’t new. “Let’s get you to your new place.”

“I stopped on the way in and picked up a few essentials for you.” She motioned to the back seat where I saw a grocery bag. “Figured you hadn’t eaten, and you’re kind of an ass when you’re hungry. Plus, I was hoping if I got in your good graces, you wouldn’t make us start today.”

“You’re not the first person to say that to me.” A smile pulled at the corners of my mouth. “And thanks for the groceries. We’re not starting until tomorrow and, even then, it’s just an area orientation flight.”

I got her dropped off at her new place and waved to her husband, Scott, as I pulled out.

I passed the picturesque, alpine-style resort my mother had taken so much pride in and kept driving up the mountain. Her stamp was everywhere: the heritage red accents of paint, the friendly staff that waved at me even though they didn’t recognize me, and the window boxes that dripped red and white flowers that had yet to give in to fall. Except she hadn’t planted those flowers, not in fifteen years since she’d passed.

There were a few new potholes as I headed up the hill, but everything else looked the same. I pulled into the cul-de-sac where the employee housing duplexes sat, then parked along the curb, my mind preoccupied with Reed’s comments.

Had I chosen the wrong helicopter? Had it been a mistake to go for occupancy and the security of dual engines? Were we capable of luring that kind of clientele here while the expansion was built, or had I just doomed us to failure? I hadn’t even been home for two hours and Reed was already in my head.

I slung one of my duffels over my shoulder, then lifted the grocery bag, fumbling with the car, house, and hangar keys as I walked up the path to the door. Everything depended on this first season. Maria and Theo had uprooted their entire lives for this—for me, for the opportunity to do what we loved while working for ourselves.

And as much as I wanted to beat the shit out of Reed some days, he’d called. He’d asked for help, and I’d answered. Why? Because as much as I hated this place, I was also wildly in love with it, and the thought of it slipping into some corporate sleezeball’s hands if the expansion failed and Dad ended up selling wasn’t something I could stomach.

I keyed open the door and didn’t bother looking at the layout as I walked through the living room and toward the kitchen. The units had been built when I was a kid, and they were all identical. An open-concept, shared space made up the rectangle of the living room, dining room, and kitchen. Every kitchen had the same model refrigerator and stove, and a washer and dryer was in a storage-style mudroom toward the back. Every unit had two identical staircases inside that framed the space, leading to separate, lockable hallways that led to separate two-bedroom units.

It seemed like a waste of space to give me a four bedroom, but I wasn’t complaining. I’d never been big on having people in my space, which was probably why I’d never made a relationship work the way Theo and Maria had.

Or maybe it was just that I’d never met someone who I wanted to be around twenty-four seven.

I yanked open the fridge and grimaced, shoving the bacon and eggs Maria had picked up for me onto an empty shelf. Whoever had been here last hadn’t cleaned out the fridge. Guess I knew what I’d be doing after my run. The place was colorfully decorated with throw pillows on the couch and poster-sized framed pictures on the wall of far-off locations like the Serengeti, which was odd, considering we were a ski resort, but I guess everyone got sick of snow at some point.

Climbing the staircase on the left, I took the bedroom and didn’t bother to unpack more than my running gear. Everything else could wait. The pressure I was all too acquainted with was in my chest, my head, begging to be released with every doubt that Reed had shoved into my brain.

Ten minutes later, I was laced up and could finally breathe. The trails were the same. The air burned my lungs with a familiar ache. The sun hit my skin with nostalgic intensity. My feet followed the rocky paths as though they’d never left them, as if I’d been running here yesterday and not ten years ago. I turned onto the dirt road that switch-backed up the mountain to the top of the lift and ran harder, pushing myself further. Only when my body screamed for mercy—and oxygen—did I turn around and jog back down, stripping off my shirt and tucking it at the back of my gym shorts. The fifty-degree air felt fantastic on my sweat-soaked skin.

It would take me at least a month to acclimate to the altitude, and longer to rebuild the endurance I’d gained while stationed at Fort Drum in New York.

By the time I got back to the house, all I could think about was food, and I fumbled in the kitchen for the cookware all the units were issued with, starting the bacon.

It was only ten thirty. How had my life changed so drastically in three freaking hours?

Because you said yes.

The sound of sizzling bacon filled the space as I cooked, turning the bacon with a fork.

The Bell was the right choice. It had the greatest capacity. Even if we grew to taking multiple groups to multiple runs, it was the way to go. It was the safer way to go. Then stop second-guessing yourself just because of Reed.

The front door opened and my head shot up. What the hell?

A blond woman walked in, answering a phone that was jammed between her ear and shoulder, juggling a purple backpack and another black bag, her attention on something behind her as she looked over her shoulder.

“Hey, Ava,” she said, tugging her keys from the door. “What’s up?”

My jaw slackened.

She had the kind of profile that belonged in photographs—high cheekbones, pert little nose, and a mouth that made my breath catch as it curved into a smile. That smile was fucking gorgeous, lighting up her entire face as she pivoted, and somehow I knew her eyes were Colorado blue. A nagging sense of déjà vu chewed at the edge of my mind, like a half-recalled memory from a drunken night.

But what was she doing in my house? Had Reed sent her? I opened my mouth to ask just as a miniature version of the woman appeared, scooting past her mother. The little girl saw me within a heartbeat, her little eyes flying wide.

I blinked.

She screamed.

Amazon | Apple Books | Kobo | NookOr get it at Audible

New This Week: A Little Too Late

What happens when the man who broke you heart walks into your office 10 years later?

You’ll have to read to find out!

Now live in paperback, audio & ebook formats! The audio is narrated by Andi Arndt and Sebastian York, and they’ve done an amazing job bringing Ava and Reed to live!

See: Amazon | Apple Books | Kobo | Nook | Google | Audio

How to behave when the guy who broke your heart two thousand miles away turns up in your office:

One: Don’t drop your lucky coffee cup in shock, even though it’s been ten years.

Two: Don’t get defensive when he asks how you ended up working his family’s ski mountain… and why you kept it a secret.

Three: Give him the worst room in the resort. He deserves it for suddenly waltzing back in like he owns the place. (Which he kind of does.)

Four, five, six, seven, eight and nine: Do not kiss him in the hot tub.

Ten: Try to keep your heart intact after you break all of your rules.

Because Reed is leaving again. Hate can't turn back into love. And it’s a little too late…

Get yours Amazon | Apple Books | Kobo | Nook | Google | Audio

First Chapter: A Little Too Late

Chapter One: Cheerful Mountain GoatsReed

There’s snow on the ground in Colorado. It must be fresh, because it’s still white and fluffy, and it coats every pine bough at the side of the road.

I haven’t seen snow in a while. And I haven’t seen snow on this road in ten years.

“Reed?” my assistant’s voice prompts. “Are you still there?”

“Yeah, sorry. Go ahead. I’m listening.” Sort of.

“What do you want me to do about the lunch tomorrow with those friends from Stanford?” Sheila asks as I coast down the two-lane highway in my rental SUV.

“Just postpone it.” The curve of the road is so familiar, even after all this time. It’s trippy.

“You postponed that lunch already,” she points out. “So I’m going to tell them to go ahead without you. That reservation at Four Palms shouldn’t go to waste.”

“Then why did you even bother asking me?”

“I thought I’d give you the chance to do the right thing.”

I roll my eyes. Sheila is a pain in my ass, but I’ll be lost when she goes back for her MBA next year.

She knows it, too, which is problematic.

“Next up—Prashant is concerned that Deevers hasn’t signed the paperwork for this new round of funding.”

“Deevers will sign. He’s a contemplative guy. Likes to sit a moment with big decisions. Give him a couple more days before you nudge.”

“All right. Last thing,” Sheila chirps as I slow down in anticipation of the final turn. “I’m not telling Harper that you have to cancel Friday’s dinner. You have to call her yourself.”

Fuck. “Uh… I’d forgotten about that dinner. Couldn’t you just...”

“Reed Madigan!” Sheila yells. “Don’t even finish that sentence. Just man up and call her. And if you forget, just know you’ll be walking to Starbucks yourself for two weeks after you return.”

“Two weeks, huh? That’s hardcore.” Honestly, I could just fire Sheila and find an assistant who’ll robotically do whatever I need. But I’m not going to, and we both know it. “I’ll call Harper,” I grumble.

“Okay, boss. That’s about all I need from you. What are you doing in Colorado, anyway? Is this some top-secret investment?”

“No. Just some personal stuff to take care of.”

“Personal stuff?” she asks, her young voice going high with disbelief. “You have a personal life?”

“Shut up.”

She laughs.

“My father decided to sell the family business.” I try to keep the irritation out of my voice, but it isn’t easy. I’m the only one in the family with an MBA. But did my father consult me? No way. He just dropped an email bomb into my inbox yesterday. In four lines of text, he let my two brothers and me know that A) he’d gotten remarried and B) he’s planning to sell the mountain property that’s been in our family for several generations.

I’m really not sure how I feel about it.

“What kind of family business?” Sheila asks.

“It’s a ski resort.”

Sheila says nothing for a moment, and I wonder if the call got dropped. That happens a lot in the mountains. But then she gasps. “Wait, really? Do you mean Madigan Mountain?”

“That’s the one. Doesn’t make you Sherlock Holmes, though, seeing as it’s named after us.”

“God, you’re a freak,” Sheila says suddenly.

“Hey—haven’t we talked about boundaries?”

“Oh, please. There’s such a thing as respecting boundaries. And then there’s you. I’ve been keeping your calendar for two years, and you never mentioned your family owns the coolest boutique ski mountain in the country. I’ve never even booked you on a flight to Colorado before this morning. I didn’t even know you were from there.”

I don’t try to argue, because she’s right—it’s weird that I never go home, and that I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about this place. But if she knew what hell it had become after my mother died, she’d understand.

“I mean, you went skiing at Whistler last year. That condo you rented was two thousand bucks a night, Reed. Why?”

“It’s complicated,” I grumble.

“What? You’re breaking up.”

“It’s complicated! You’ll lose me in a second.” The narrow mountain road passes between two tall ledges of rock.

“I c... hear... at all. BUT CALL HARPER DAMMIT!”

The phone makes those two high-pitched beeps that tell you the call has been dropped. Sheila naturally got the last word. Of course she did.

I put on my blinker and prepare to take the turn onto Old Mine Road. That’s when I spot the sign. Two Miles to Madigan Mountain. But it’s not the low-profile, carved wooden sign that used to stand here at the roadside. This one is new and bright and about three times larger than the old one.

And I hate it on sight.

A car behind me leans on the horn, and I realize I’m stopping traffic. So I make the final, familiar turn onto the steep and twisty road to my family’s resort. The SUV downshifts as I begin the climb. There are rocky outcroppings on either side, alternating with stands of tall pines. It’s only November, but the forest floor is white with snow.

Hell, this road is still as familiar as my own hand. The sight of it puts an ache right into the center of my chest. It’s like heartburn, I guess—inconvenient, but ultimately survivable.

I hadn’t planned to reschedule my whole life in order to suddenly fly to Colorado and face down my past, and the higher the car climbs, the worse this idea gets. Even though the windows of the SUV are rolled up all the way, I could swear I smell the scent of pine, and I hear the snap the needles make underfoot when you walk through these woods.

Almost a hundred years ago, my great-grandfather bought this spot at the end of a challenging old logging road. He passed it on to my grandfather, who build one of the first ski resorts in the Rockies.

The location is a challenge, though. When it snows, the road is difficult to plow. In weekend traffic, if someone takes a turn too fast and skids, the resulting fender bender can stop the flow of cars for hours while the tow truck does its job hauling the unfortunate victim away.

That’s why Madigan Mountain never became a sprawling international destination, like Aspen or Whistler. Our vibe was—and still is, I guess—a smaller, family ski mountain. Our customers like it that way. The regulars often book next year’s vacation before they’ve even left the premises.

It’s heartbreakingly easy to picture my mom waving them off with a happy smile. “See you next year!”

Even that brief memory stings. She’s been gone more than a decade, and it still hurts me. That’s why my brothers and I avoid this place.

And it’s not like my dad ever gave his three sons a good reason to visit. After Mom’s death, he became a surly beast. We all fled. Ain’t nobody got time for his bitterness.

But here I am anyway. Dad may be a decent hotelier, but he wouldn’t know a financing contract if it bit him in his grumpy ass. I’m here to make sure he doesn’t get fleeced.

You could argue that Dad’s finances are none of my business. After all, I’ve already made my own tidy fortune. But I have two younger brothers. Weston is a military pilot, and Crew is busy being famous. His daredevil ass could literally be on any continent right now, as long as there’s snow there. He doesn’t like to check in or return phone calls. Who knows if he even saw Dad’s crazy email?

I haven’t always been a great brother. After my mom died, I didn’t stick around for Weston and Crew. I hightailed it back to Middlebury College in Vermont. After graduation, I settled in Silicon Valley, where I made a career for myself with a Stanford MBA and a lot of ambition.

So I’m showing up because they can’t. Or won’t, in Crew’s case. I need to hear what the hell Dad is thinking. I need to know if he’s serious about selling a property that’s been in our family all this time.

It’s also the place where my mother is buried. If nothing else, I can put flowers on her grave one last time.

The road makes a final turn, and the resort comes into view. I find myself slowing down to take a good look.

The sprawling resort footprint hasn’t changed much in decades. The stone lodge my grandfather constructed in the fifties is connected to a three-story hotel that was added on later. That original lodge holds the hotel lobby, restaurants, and offices. And there are fifty rooms in the hotel. 

The resort follows a half moon shape, with most buildings facing the mountain. Slanted, late afternoon sunlight paints the snowy peaks a golden color. Down the slope is the big wooden ski lodge my grandfather built in the eighties. That’s where the day skiers go to rent their skis, book a lesson, or buy a bowl of chili.

And in the other direction—behind the hotel, and beyond my current view—there’s a spa, a heated pool, and a couple of hot tubs. There’s an outdoor pavilion where weddings are held during the warmer months.

All the buildings have peaked roofs and about a million shutters painted a color called Heritage Red. The summer after eighth grade, I painted a bunch of those damn shutters myself. For weeks, my hands were splattered with Heritage Red, and so were my shoes. But a guy has to earn money somehow, and there was a sweet pair of Rossignol skis that I just had to have.

The rest of the resort spreads farther along the mountain’s base. The foothills are dotted with fifty or so condo units that my family sold in the nineties. They have red shutters, too, which gives everything a unified appearance.

I’m a little stunned by how gorgeous everything is. I’d honestly forgotten just how striking the rugged mountain range looks against the blue sky. The resort looks well kept, too. The shutters are as fresh as ever. The gravel parking lot is well graded and carefully plowed.

My father had been such a wreck after my mother died that I wasn’t sure what to expect. If the place had crumbled to the ground, I wouldn’t have been shocked.

There are no indications of crumbling, though. Two new signs direct visitors to Skier Parking or Hotel Check-In. Each sign features a cheerful mountain goat—on the first, he’s driving a SUV with skis mounted on top, and on the other, he’s carrying a backpack toward the lodge.

I stare at these signs a little longer than necessary, because there’s something vaguely familiar about the art. I can’t quite put my finger on why.

But I’m not here to see the sights, so I pull up to the hotel. A young man hurries outside to greet me. He’s wearing a Madigan Mountain jacket in a snappy design. That’s new, too.

“Checking in, sir?” he asks.

“Uh, yes.” I haven’t given much thought to where I’ll sleep tonight. When your family owns a ski resort, you don’t have to plan ahead. It’s only November, so there’s no way the place is booked.

I suppose I could sleep in my old bedroom if I have to. Although my father just got remarried to a stranger, so I don’t know if that’s my best option.

“Name, sir?” the young man asks. He holds out his hand for my rental car key.

I let out a snort and toss him the fob. “The name is Reed Madigan. Thanks, pal.”

He makes the catch in spite of the shocked look on his face. “Whoa, really?”

But I’m already turning my back and headed for the door to the lodge. My father had better be in his office. We’ve got some talking to do.

 

* * *

Ava

How about trivia night at the Broken Prong? I text to my girlfriends. It’s been a few weeks since we made the other tables cry.

I don’t have a babysitter, Callie replies. Could we do drinks at my place? I’ll make frosé.

Sure, I reply immediately.

I’m sorry! Callie says. I know it’s more fun to get off the mountain!

She isn’t wrong. I spend entirely too many hours on this property. I haven’t had a real vacation in years. That’s the first thing I’m going to do when the sale of Madigan Mountain goes through—book a trip somewhere and put my two-week vacation on the calendar. It doesn’t matter where, just as long as I’m not responsible for calling a plumber if a pipe breaks or soothing a finicky guest when all the spa appointments are booked up.

In the meantime, Tuesday night is always girls’ night, no exceptions. And it wouldn’t be the same without Callie. Don’t worry about it, I assure her. We always have fun. What can I bring?

How about brownies? Callie suggests.

Then our friend Raven chimes in. I love Ava’s brownies! And so do my hips. I’m down for frozen pink wine at Callie’s.

“Ava!” my boss calls from the inner office. “Can you make my keys sing? I can’t find them!”

“Yep!” I yell back. “Hang on.” I wake up my computer and pull up the app I use to keep Mark Madigan organized. I hit a big orange button on the screen, and a moment later I hear the telltale chime of the hotelier’s keys in the other room.

“Found ’em!” he yells.

Of course he did. I pick up my hot chocolate mug and drain the last of my afternoon treat. In the text thread, Raven has sent us a funny gif of a woman drinking wine from a fishbowl. So I’m grinning down at my phone when a deep voice says. “Excuse me, is he in there?”

Before I can even look up, my heart skips a beat. That voice. It’s straight from my past. And by the time I turn my head to find him in the doorway, I’m already trembling.

Holy crap.

Holy.

Crap.

Reed Madigan is standing there. Right there on the carpet in front of my desk. I’m so startled that my hot chocolate mug slips out of my hands. It hits the slate coaster on my desk hard, and at a bad angle. And then my favorite mug—my lucky mug—makes an unholy cracking noise, before splitting into two pieces right in front of me.

Oh my God. Now I don’t even know where to look—at the ooze of chocolate spreading toward my keyboard? Or up into the startled eyes of the only man I’ve ever loved.

“Ava?” Reed says slowly. Like he can’t believe his eyes, either. “What the hell are you doing here?”

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How to finish a book when your squirrel brain has other plans

There are several phases to writing a book. There’s the initial attraction, when you’re in love with the idea. As you plan, you know this is the best idea you’ve ever had. This book will rock.

Then there’s the drafting phase, where you sit down and start unfolding the story onto the page. Everything is still bright and shiny. It’s like the first few months of dating—you haven’t made any big mistakes yet. You’re still killing this thing.

Finishing a book, though, is hard. Before you write the actual ending, you probably have to go back and print it all out and revise all the parts that aren’t working. It’s a chore. You’re reading chapter sixteen for the eighty-ninth time and trying to figure out why the pace is off. You’re bored, and you don’t know if it’s you or the book.

You’re at that part of the relationship, basically, when you argue a lot about whose turn it is to unload the dishwasher. And it aint’ pretty.

Simply put, this job is fun. But it’s not always fun. Finishing a book is hard. There’s a lot of anxiety involved. Will this finally be the book that just doesn’t come together? Is it going to end up in the trash? And will your readers like that weird thing you did on page 187? Wait—do you even remember how to use commas correctly? Are those jokes even funny?

It’s no wonder, then, that a writer in the Fear Phase of Book Finishing™ can barely focus. And I am sorry to say that experience makes this worse, not better. I’ve got more to lose than I did before, when nobody was watching. And a busy inbox that always resembles one of Dante’s circles of hell.

Naturally, I’ve tried All The Things people advertise to solve these problems. I’ve tried apps that cut off my access to the internet. I’ve tried Smart Notebooks and dictation and software that tracks what I do with my time.

But, to nobody’s real surprise, gadgets don’t work. Only habits do. Your mileage may vary, but I have a new favorite way to shut out the shiny world and concentrate.

My little trick for getting it done:

Every morning, when I’m drinking my first and only coffee of the day, I open my planner to a page titled “Let’s Go.” And then—in just a line or two—I write down my intentions for the day. It might look like this: “Finish the bus scene and brainstorm the fight scene. Take a walk. Pizza dinner.” Or maybe “Write 1200 words, buy groceries, go to yoga.”

Important distinction: this is not a to-do list! I have one of those, too. It’s longer. It’s boring, but also necessary. That’s where I dump my brain so the bills get paid and the doctor’s appointment gets made, etc. This is different! This is taking a quiet moment to tell myself what the ideal day looks like. It’s making a little promise to myself.

This isn’t a list, and nothing gets checked off. If I fail, that’s okay. Life happens. Maybe it’s not even my fault. Tomorrow’s intention might bear a lot of resemblance to today’s. No big deal. We move on.

Making a promise to myself feels good, though. I’ve got all those other voices in my head already—people who need me, people who love me, readers, etc. Why not give my own voice its moment, too? It’s like a two minute meditation on what I hope to do.

And more often than not, I actually do it.

First Chapter: Dauntless

Bowen

I’m not sure heaven and hell actually exist, but if they did, I have vague ideas of what my version of each would be. My heaven would be a perpetual warm, balmy, summer night. Like the one at seventeen, when I lied in the tall grass on the hill behind my mother’s garden, eating strawberries off the vine, staring at the stars and telling my sister about my first kiss, with a boy. Hell… well, that would be working at Vino and Veritas. Because it seems to be something that, no matter how hard I try, I completely and utterly fail at every single night.

I’ve only been employed for eight days, and worked four of them, and I’m pretty certain for Tanner, the manager, it’s been the worst four days of his career at the wine bar. Tonight, which happens to be a bustling Saturday night, he has me on bar back duties. It’s simple, straight-forward work. Make sure the shelves are stocked, the glasses make it back out to the bar after they’ve been washed, and that the condiments — lemon and lime wedges, olives, and maraschino cherries don’t run low. And for the first couple hours, I’m doing fine. Until it’s time to change a keg.

I’ve changed kegs before more than once, at parties in college, and never had an issue. But of course, this isn’t a keg at a dorm or in someone’s kitchen in high school. This is a professional keg, in a professional establishment, which has a whole bunch of shit I didn’t realize need careful consideration when changing a keg. Like the gas and the FOB and the coupler, which it turns out can, on rare occasions, fly off when you don’t have a great grip on it, causing beer to spray everywhere, and the coupler to almost take your eye out.

Hell, I say.

This job is hell.

I get everything under control fairly quickly, but I’m drenched in beer. Molly stares at me, her big eyes filled with empathy. You know it’s serious when Molly is feeling bad for you. I may not have been here long but one of the first things I learned was that Molly is the resident Calamity Jane. A title you would think I was gunning for on purpose at this point.

“Jesus,” Tanner says under his breath when he turns and sees me.

“Everything is fine,” I assure him. “Now.”

“Except you can’t exactly keep working while dripping beer everywhere,” Tanner walks up to me and tilts his head. “You have beer foam in your hair.”

“Shit,” I whisper and touch the side of my head. I yank out the elastic that is trying unsuccessfully to hold my chin length hair back. I sigh and just rub the foam in like it’s mousse, because what choice do I have? A few of the customers sitting at the bar are watching me. Most in shock or horror. Tanner notices and gently guides me back into the private storage area. “Can you run upstairs and ask my husband, his name is Jax, to lend you a T-shirt. And maybe a towel.”

“Yeah. Sure. Sorry,” I say and slink away.

My God, I am not this much of a klutz. What is going on? I immediately head for the stairs, climbing them two at a time because I want to get back to work. I think Tanner is still worried I’m a bit of a slacker because on my very first day my stupid alarm didn’t go off and I was late. It’s more than a little embarrassing having to tell your boss that your overslept on your first day. Especially when that day starts at seven in the evening. I didn’t elaborate further because I thought adding ‘I’ve had insomnia issues ever since my parents were killed in a car accident so sometimes, I fall into coma naps in the afternoon since I don’t always sleep at night’ would be worse than just being late.

After I knock on the apartment door and introduce myself to Tanner’s husband, who is blond and beautiful with a wicked cool accent like the chef at the bar, Jax loans me a plain, dusty gray color T-shirt. It’s a little short because I’ve always had a torso the length of a football field, but it’s passable. I rush back down the stairs, stumbling and cracking my ribs on the railing before landing in a heap at the bottom. I let out a string of obscenities at the bruises I’ll be sporting for weeks but luckily nothing is broken so I get up and hightail it back into the bar. There’s a band playing tonight, which is why it’s busier than normal. They haven’t played here before, but apparently, they’ve got a solid fanbase. There’s even a line outside.

I love live music, but I doubt I’ll get to enjoy it much tonight. I slide back behind the bar with Auden, who gives me a weary smile. “Just cut some lemons,” he says and reluctantly hands me a knife. “Carefully.”

“Sure thing.” I smile back and try not to feel too humiliated. The burly Scot has every right to be weary. Last shift I was opening a bottle of champagne for a customer and the cork blew off and beaned him right in the forehead.

I grab some lemons and tuck myself into a corner on the back of the bar and begin slicing. I manage to cut all the lemons without incident. When I refill Auden’s condiment holder, he looks at me like a proud parent when their kid learns to tie his shoes. So yay, and ouch, to that.

Autumn slides up to the bar just as I’ve decided to tackle loading some clean wine glasses onto the rack they hang from above the bar. Her eyes narrow on my shirt and her round cheeks get rounder as she grins. “That’s not your shirt.”

“Keen observation, fashion police,” I mutter. “Aren’t you supposed to be working on the bookstore side?”

“Shift ended and I thought I would stick around and enjoy the show,” she says, sliding into the last empty bar stool.

“The band is supposed to be good,” I tell her as she pushes her strawberry blonde hair over her shoulders. “They do covers from the seventies and eighties.”

“I wasn’t talking about the band. You’re the show I’m here to watch,” Autumn remarks with a glint in her hazel eyes. “I’m sorry I missed whatever new misadventure has caused you to wear someone else’s shirt.”

I love my only sister, and I know she loves me, but she’s annoyingly gleeful about my inability to handle this job. “I wish you were still underage so I could get you kicked out.”

“Sorry not sorry,” Autumn replies, still smiling brightly. “And Tanner said he would give me a free belated birthday drink.”

She waves at Tanner, who is over by the stage talking with a guy from the band. Tanner waves back and pauses long enough to call out to Auden. “Whatever Autumn wants is one me.”

Then he goes back to discussing something with the band guy, who I can’t help but notice is very easy on the eyes. And also, he looks nervous, possibly panicked. He runs a hand through his thick, brown hair and somehow doesn’t mess it up. It’s got height on top while staying very sleek on the sides. If you put him in a leather jacket, he could be an extra in Grease, minus the actual grease. His hair looks silky, not slimy. Even with his thick, straight eyebrows pinched and his blue eyes narrowed, he’s really attractive.

Autumn suddenly snaps her fingers in front of me. “Hello! Did you hear me?”

“No,” I admit.

“I said what do you recommend?” Autumn repeats what she must have said that I tuned out while staring at the hot guy. “I need a drink, remember?”

“I suggest whatever you drink, you have me make, lass” Auden interjects and smiles. “For all our sakes.”

Autumn is giggling now. I ignore her. “Is there an issue with the band?”

“Is that the name of a specialty cocktail?” Autumn kids.

Auden looks over to Tanner and the hot dude. My sister’s eyes follow. “Go find out.”

“Me? No.” I shake my head. “It’s not my place.”

“Might as well,” Auden adds. I think he’s just trying to get me to move farther away from him so I don’t clock him with anything again. But I do know my way around musical instruments and can set up a drum kit or tune a guitar in my sleep. It might be nice to actually show Tanner I have skills.

I slip out from behind the bar and make my way over to the two of them. The closer I get, the hotter the band dude gets. Those blue eyes are a really great cobalt color and the T-shirt he’s wearing with the band name on it — Imposter Syndrome — fits him perfectly, hugging some decent sized biceps and clinging to a very fit waist. His shoulders are broad, and that perfectly high and tousled hair just begs to be held onto during a blow job. I mean, if the guy gave them, but I’d bet money he doesn’t. There’s a really strong straight boy vibe coming off of him.

“I’ll ask Molly, our waitress. She plays in a band so maybe she knows a drummer,” I hear Tanner say to the hottie.

“Tanner, I am so sorry. I don’t know what else to say, but thanks for trying to save this for us,” the guy says and rakes his hair with his hand again.

“Dude, it’s saving my night too. You packed this place,” Tanner replies and then he notices me standing about a foot away. “Hey, Bowen. Did something else go wrong?”

He doesn’t mean it bitingly, so I force myself not to let his words chip away at my ego. “No, I thought maybe you needed help setting up the band or something. It looked like there’s an issue.”

The band guy tilts his head to look at me. His gaze is intense. I mean, it’s probably just the pressure of whatever the situation is, but damn, he gives a good stare. “Not unless you know a drummer who can get here in half an hour or less,” Tanner says.

“I might,” I say and now they’re both staring at me intensely. “I play.”

“You play the drums?” Tanner blinks at me in disbelief. “You play, like, well?”

Ouch. But I get it. Autumn talked me up to be this excellent, hard worker who could learn anything quickly, which is why he hired me and well, he must have doubts at this point. But I don’t. I know I can drum. “I was a music major in college. I mean, I didn’t graduate but I wasn’t kicked out or anything. I can play drums, guitar, and piano. Proficiently, I swear.”

“Can I show you our set list? See what songs you might know?” the hot band guy asks but before I respond my eyes fly to Tanner. I’m his employee, after all.

“If you really think your band member has flaked, I’m more than happy to let you borrow Bowen,” Tanner says, and his eyes move back to me. “If you’re cool with it.”

“Yeah. I love playing.” I do love playing, especially more than every job I’ve had here.

“Cool, let me show you the set list.” Hot band dude motions with his hand, and I follow him through the growing crowd to the corner of the stage. He grabs a piece of paper and hands it to me. “I’m Chase by the way. Ashton. I’m the singer.”

“Bowen,” I reply.

“Yeah, I know.” I lift my eyes from the set list, and as we stare at each other, he smirks. It amps up his hotness tenfold. “Tanner said your name.”

“Right,” I force myself to go back to scanning the song titles. They’re all songs I know well, thanks to my parents who loved music. “Here’re the ones I’m confident I can pull off.”

I point to seven of the ten. Chase’s eyebrows shoot to the ceiling. “Really? That many?”

“Yeah. My dad loved nineties grunge and my mom loved seventies and eighties music, so I grew up on a lot of these tunes,” I explain. “They’re the ones who first taught me how to play.”

“The drums?”

“Yeah. And everything else,” I shrug. He smiles again. Damn. I like it more than I should.

“Okay, cool, I’m gonna trust you completely,” he announces and clasps my shoulder. His hand is strong and warm. “Let me introduce you to the other guys.”

The other guys are Grant and Joe and the guy I’m replacing is “Fucking Bennie.” At least that’s how each of them refer to him. Grant and Joe seem nice enough but they definitely don’t seem to have as much faith in me as Chase does. Still, they’d rather take a shot with me than cancel the gig so the next thing I know, I’m settling in behind the drum kit.

I have no idea what I’m getting myself into. These guys could suck. I might end up looking bad by association, but honestly, it can’t be worse than how things have gone at Vino and Veritas so far. I take a deep breath and hope for the best.

It turns out to be a pretty great experience. These guys are more than okay. They’re pretty freaking great, actually. Chase has a fantastic voice, singing everything from Bon Jovi to the Eagles to Nirvana with ease. And the crowd loves him. He has great banter and a confidence and ease on stage that draws you in and makes you comfortable. We have a couple small mess ups, like I came in late on a song, but everything goes better than expected and I can see Tanner smiling in relief and approval. Feels good to play again, and to not just be a fuck up inside these four walls.

We’re short on songs, since there were a few I wasn’t sure I could play, so with only three songs to go, Chase grabs an acoustic guitar from the corner of the stage and tells the rest of us to take five. I walk over to the bar with Grant and Joe. Auden gives us fresh bottles of water while Chase starts strumming the chords to a dance song that was popular last year, only he’s doing it all slow and with a different cadence and it’s really freaking great.

Grant leans into me as he twists the cap off his water. His brown eyes are kind so I know he means no harm when he says, “He’s showing off now.”

Autumn wanders over to stand beside me and clutches my arm. “It is so awesome seeing you play again.”

I look down at her and try to deflect the words and the relief in her eyes. “Beats the hell out of a beer shower.”

Everyone claps when Chase is done, and I give him an impressed smile as I get back on stage. He winks at me. If I didn’t know better, I would think it was flirting. The rest of the gig flies by and ends in a roaring round of applause. As I step behind the bar again, Tanner gives me the first real smile I think I’ve seen since my first shift. “You did great!”

“He did,” Chase adds. I turn and see he followed me back to the bar. “I honestly can’t think of a way to thank you for saving our asses.”

“Don’t worry about it. I had a great time,” I reply, and his smile is making me smile and it feels a little like flirting again. But then a woman with short, dirty blonde hair and high cheek bones appears behind him and latches onto his arm.

“Chase! You were fantastic,” she coos.

“Thanks again,” Chase tells me and then he nods at Tanner and disappears into the crowd with the pretty blonde lady who is likely his girlfriend. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t just a wee bit disappointed.

“Can you clear some empty glasses off the tables, Bowen?” Tanner asks, looking nervous. I nod, and he hands me a tray.

I make my way through the crowd, being extra careful with the tray as I load it with empty wine and pint glasses. Suddenly, as I think I’ve forged a clear path to the bar, Autumn appears in front of me and I have to come to an abrupt stop. The glasses teeter and I panic, but luckily, I don’t drop anything. “Autumn! For crying out loud, do not ruin what is turning into the best shift I’ve had so far.”

“Did you see who your hot band buddy just walked away with?” she asks, a frown turning down her mouth. It looks incredibly unnatural on her. She inherited our mom’s bright sunshine-y attitude and rarely finds reason to frown. I picture the woman who curled herself into Chase in my head again. She does seem vaguely familiar and the way Autumn is glaring impatiently at me, I should definitely know who she is.

“Umm…  she run a rival Etsy store?” I ask, thinking this has to do with her side hustle selling hemp jewelry online. But her frown only deepens. “Someone from high school who used to tease you about your weight?”

Kids were brutal to her in high school.

“Ugh.” Autumn rolls her eyes. “It was Lacey Baldwin. How did you not recognize her? Her face is plastered everywhere!”

Yep. Now that she’s said the name out loud, I see it. “She looked different. She wasn’t in a pantsuit and she looked like a normal person.”

I scoot around my sister, eyes glued to the tray, and continue to the bar. Autumn follows along behind me. I slip behind the bar and Tanner takes the tray of dirty dishes from me. “Not one casualty,” he says in awe and my ego takes another kick to the nuts. “I’ll get these washed. Auden says you’re good with the condiments. Can you refill the olives and cut some limes?”

I nod and get to work. “Autumn, you should go home. You have finals soon.”

“Yeah. I know,” Autumn says tersely. She hates when I parent her. The only thing that makes her angrier is our older brother Woody doing it. To be fair, she kind of is the most grown-up person of the three of us. “You know, if your boy band singer is related to our arch nemesis, you can’t play with them again.”

“First of all, I haven’t been asked to play with them again,” I reply as I open a jar of olives and begin transferring them into the condiment container we keep on the bar. “Second of all, they look nothing alike, so I doubt they’re related. He might be dating her though.”

Autumn snorts at that. She does that a lot when she thinks people are idiots. It’s somehow more adorable than offensive. “Okay well, that’s even worse.” The freckles that pepper her ski jump nose form one giant freckle for a second as she wrinkles it. Then she almost jumps as a thought slams into her brain. “Oh wait! Maybe he knows campaign secrets. You should play with them again so you can pump him for information that could help Woody.”

Our brother is running for mayor and Lacey Baldwin is also running for mayor. This is why Autumn is talking like this. And also because she recently marathoned House of Cards as research when my brother decided to run in the emergency election. “Woody needs a miracle, not a double agent,” I mutter.

Autumn sighs in defeat and gives up on the silly idea. “Anyway, you sounded great up there. It’s good to hear you play again.”

“No big deal,” I reply casually, but it kind of is a big deal to her because she thinks I haven’t played since I quit school. I have, just not often and never when she’s around. “See you in the morning.”

“Okay.” Autumn smiles and makes her way to the door, like so many others are doing. Now that the band is done, the evening is winding down for everyone. I glance over at the stage. Chase is there packing up the equipment, but Lacey, our brother’s main opponent for mayor, is nowhere to be seen now.

I’m so busy concentrating on not screwing anything up, the next time I glance at the stage it’s bare. Chase is gone and I’m bummed I didn’t get to say good-bye. Molly walks over and asks Auden for two Shipley ciders for her table then she passes me a napkin. I’m about to ask her why when I see something scrawled on it.

Bowen

Band likes to unwind at my place after shows. Stop by after work.

187 Church Buzz 3.

Chase.

I thank Molly and tuck the napkin into the back pocket of my jeans. And then I narrowly miss cutting my thumb off as I start slicing limes again. I curse myself and concentrate on work and not the hot straight dude with the amazing voice.

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First Chapter: Wonderland

Riley

I stood at the hospital’s front doors, hesitating for the first time since I got the call that my grandfather was there and I was the only member of the family who was welcome.

That Grandpa Gene chose me came as a surprise, considering I hadn’t seen him in going-on-eight years. But in a family like ours, being the one who’s disliked the least isn’t exactly an accomplishment. There’s not much to like about any of us.

I’d stood outside this hospital eight years ago, on my last day in Vermont. I remembered the tower of concrete and windows like it had been stamped in my mind. Now, here I stood again.

This time, though, I would actually go inside.

Blowing out a breath, I rolled my shoulders, cracked my neck, and stepped into a sour-smelling vestibule. Beyond that, hallways branched in three directions. I squinted at the signs, which were full of medical words I couldn’t have pronounced aloud and didn’t know the meanings of.

A woman in scrubs came up to me with a polite smile. “Need a little help?”

“Um,” was all I managed for a second. Talking to people is either really easy for me, or really hard. When I’m somewhere I don’t know how to be, it’s fucking hard. I swallowed. “I’m here to see my grandpa.”

“Okay. Is he a patient here?”

“Well, he’s definitely not the chief of surgery,” I muttered before I could think better of it. Her smile turned tense, and I winced. “Sorry. Um, yeah, he’s a patient. His name’s Gene Meadows.”

“Super. I can walk you to the nurses’ station and—”

Before she could say more, a familiar voice resonated from down one of the hallways. “Don’t you talk to me like that, young lady! I’ve been wiping my own ass for seventy years!”

“Never mind,” I told the woman helping me. “I know where I’m going.”

I followed the sound of Grandpa’s outrage all the way to an open door. He was sitting upright in a metal-framed bed, one skinny leg protruding from the hem of his hospital gown. A woman in scrubs stood next to him, and another faced him from a few steps away with her hands on her hips and a disapproving frown. She wasn’t dressed like a hospital worker, and she had a notebook under her arm.

“Gene,” said the lady with the notebook, “the better you get along with the nurses, the quicker they’ll have you ready to get out of here. Do you know when your sister will arrive?”

“Not my sister.” As Grandpa Gene’s gaze swept across the doorway, he noticed me. He went still, then finished in a completely different, blank tone, “My grandson.”

The woman turned to me, some of the tension leaving her expression to be replaced with a cautious smile. “Oh, thank goodness. You’re Riley?”

I wasn’t sure where to look. It wasn’t easy to look at Grandpa, thin and frail and wearing a fucking hospital gown instead of a flannel shirt and overalls. But now that our eyes had met, it was hard to look away.

Still, the lady was talking to me, so I made myself turn to her and cleared my throat. “Yeah, I’m Riley.”

She had a kind smile, and she looked exhausted, which I could understand if Grandpa had been yelling at her for a while. “I’m Dolores Manuel. I’m a social worker for the county.” She pulled a piece of paper from between the yellow pages of her notebook. “I understand you’re able and available to give Gene a hand at home?”

I glanced at Grandpa, but I couldn’t glean from his expression how I was supposed to answer. I looked back at Dolores and nodded cautiously.

“Great,” she said. “I need you to sign this, and then we’ll be all set.”

I probably didn’t have enough information to take the pen she offered and sign where she pointed, but I couldn’t bring myself to try and read the paper. The print was small and close together. It would have been hard to read even if I wasn’t distracted by Grandpa’s eyes boring holes in me.

“Did you drive here?” she asked when I handed back the paper and her pen.

“No.” I’d taken two buses, then walked about a mile instead of waiting for the third one.

“Then I’m happy to give you two a ride home. Is that okay with you, Gene?”

We both looked at Grandpa.

“Sure, fine,” he said after a second, like it had taken him a beat to realize she’d asked him a question.

“I’ll make a quick call, and we’ll get going,” Dolores said, and she stepped out. The nurse followed her.

Which left me and Grandpa alone.

Our eyes met, and slowly, Grandpa’s blank expression turned into a faint smile. “Aw, kid.” He dropped his head back against the squashed little pillow tucked behind him. “Where’ve you been?”

“You know.” I shrugged. “Back in the city.” We both knew he wasn’t asking where I’d literally been. He was asking why I’d run off to New York and why I’d stayed away. But he didn’t call me on my bullshit, and now that I’d said a few words, it was easier to say a few more instead of falling into awful silence. “And now I guess I’m gonna be here awhile.”

He grunted. “I just need someone to sign the papers and get me out of this place. You don’t have to stick around. I’m fine. This was all an overreaction.”

I wasn’t sure about that. He looked like shit. But I didn’t want to argue with him. Not that we hadn’t had plenty of knock-down, drag-out fights without doing each other’s feelings any lasting damage, but that had been then. This was now, after years without contact.

“I don’t have anywhere else to be,” I told Grandpa honestly, making myself meet his eyes and hold them. “If you don’t mind me sticking around, that is.”

After a second that felt like an hour, he sighed. “Fine. If you’re offering, I could use a hand.”

My worry spiked. If he was admitting to needing help, he had to feel even worse than he looked.

“Your room’s still there,” he added.

Those simple words filled my head with memories of Grandpa’s place. I thought of the creaky stairs leading up to the bedroom tucked under the dormer window, facing east. The wide swing on the front porch overlooking the woods.

And Peter. A dozen versions of him all packed into a moment’s thought: from the bold slip of a little kid I’d first met, to the sweet, nervous preteen of a few years later, to the eighteen-year-old of that last summer, who’d turned hauntingly beautiful during our months apart. That August was the last time I’d seen him, when everything ended with my own declaration that still rang in my ears: “Have your fancy fucking life, then! I don’t need you either.”

Then…Peter’s arms windmilling as he slipped and fell. The sickening crunch when he’d caught his fall on an outstretched hand, the dull thud a half-second later when his head struck the ground—

“Kid? If you stay with me, you gotta help out,” Grandpa grumbled. “Deal?”

I swam up from the past and blinked at him, keeping my tone light as I said, “Great. It’s a deal.”

* * *

I waited in the beige hallway while Grandpa got dressed. Staring at my shoes, I tried to push back the tide of thoughts about Peter fucking Landry, knowing it would carry me somewhere I didn’t want to go.

I breathed in the antiseptic hospital air, not the woodsy scent of green leaves and rotting logs. I studied the glossy tile floor between the toes of my shoes, not the way Peter wrinkled his nose when he smiled.

When Dolores returned with another hospital worker, pushing a wheelchair, I had gotten myself under control.

I knocked on the door to Grandpa’s room. “Are you decent?”

“As I’ll get,” he called back.

I opened the door, relieved to find he looked healthier already just for having traded the hospital gown for a faded-green flannel shirt. Instead of the overalls I expected, though, he wore jeans and suspenders. The generous belly he’d always had was gone, and maybe with it, he’d lost his aversion to waistbands.

Grandpa noticed the wheelchair, and his eyes narrowed.

Before he could get his hackles up, I put a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s just get along so we can get to the lady’s car, and you’ll be home that much faster.”

I thought he might argue, but though he muttered a few inaudible words I was sure were curses, he nodded stiffly. The nurse hovered over him while he lowered himself into the chair, but he didn’t need any help.

Dolores drove a dark-green sedan with a trace of rust on the inside edge of its rear wheel well. I wondered what she did for the county. She must have been the one who’d called my mom about coming to help Grandpa. Then, Mom had called me. I hadn’t asked for many details as I threw a few things in the bag now slung over my shoulder and bought a bus ticket.

Now I wished I had asked questions. I couldn’t tell what was wrong with him, or what kind of help he was going to need.

“Okay, Gene, let’s get you in the front, here,” Dolores said with the take-charge manner of someone who dealt with grumpy people all day. She reminded me of Vicki, a social worker my brother had after juvie and before he turned eighteen. Vicki had been middle-aged, unflappable, tired around the eyes, and wore cable-knit sweaters. Dolores’s sweater was a cardigan with big plastic buttons, but everything else matched up.

When Grandpa was settled and Dolores had closed the car door, I took a step toward her.

“So, what’s going on with him?”

“Just old age and stubbornness, honey,” she said, giving my shoulder a squeeze. “The rest of it is for him to tell you, not me.”

She had a point, and maybe if she’d spilled all of Grandpa’s personal details to someone she’d just met, I would have judged her for it, at least a little. But I knew that if I asked Grandpa, he’d be pissed.

I got into the car, watching the back of Grandpa’s head and his stiff shoulders as Dolores drove us out of town and to the two-lane blacktop that led to Grandpa’s place.

As a kid, I’d been amazed by how Vermont towns just ended, suddenly becoming the country. Growing up where green space was the exception, not the rule, had made the quick transition out the car window seem like a magic trick. It still took me by surprise. As the years had passed since my last visit, I’d continued to think about this part of the world all the time. But I’d begun to wonder if it was as green, open, and fresh as I’d remembered, or if my memory had been playing tricks on me. It hadn’t been, though not everything was the same.

There were now a few big houses where I remembered small ones or empty pastures. Some were pretty fancy, including the massive, three-story colonial no more than an eighth of a mile from Grandpa’s, with marble greyhounds posted on either side of its driveway entrance.

The contrast between that gaudy place and Grandpa’s was almost funny.

When I was thirteen, I’d arrived here for the summer, and was greeted by a pile of rusty junk lying just past the mailbox, in plain view of the road. That kind of thing was par for the course at Grandpa’s place. He’d drag home some treasure with grand plans of fixing it up or using it for something, and instead it sat where he’d dumped it and he never touched it again.

From what I could tell, that same pile was still stationed by the mailbox, a mailbox that leaned at the same angle I remembered from years before.

When I realized the barbed-wire gate wasn’t stretched across the end of the driveway anymore, I leaned between the front seats. “What happened to the zebras?”

“Zebras?” Dolores gave us a disbelieving look as she slowly guided her car over the potholes in the gravel driveway. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I had a few,” Grandpa told her, then said to me, “They died. They were as old as you, and that’s old for zebras.”

The zebras had been mean as hell if Peter and I bothered them, but they’d mostly kept their distance, roaming the property at will within the bounds of the sagging barbed-wire perimeter fence. The sight of their stark stripes through the trees or in the meadows had reinforced the park’s magic for me.

“What about…” I started to ask, then hesitated, unsure I wanted to know.

Grandpa looked at me out of the corner of his eye and answered anyway. “He’s just fine. He’s still young for a tortoise.”

Relieved, I leaned back in the seat, watching the house come into view. It was kind of absurd-looking—the original, square, story-and-a-half had a metal shed tacked on one side, and a more typical, but still awkwardly boxy addition stuck to the other. Rusted cars were rowed up on the other side of the clothesline in the backyard, and the tall grass in the front yard made it clear Grandpa still hadn’t taken up mowing.

Through anyone else’s eyes, the place probably seemed like a dump. But my chest filled with warmth at the sight. For years I’d assumed I’d never set foot here again, but no other place had ever felt like home.

Dolores was glaring at Grandpa. “A tortoise?” she demanded. “Are you two messing with me?”

Grandpa’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror, and we both chuckled.

Dolores sighed, long-suffering, and put the car in park. “I’m going to come check on you in a week,” she informed Grandpa. Then she twisted around to look at me. “You too, honey. It’s really generous what you’re doing, by the way. Maybe he won’t say it, but I know your grandfather is very grateful.”

“He’s getting free room and board.” Grandpa jerked on the car-door latch, but it must have still been locked.

Dolores ignored him, looking steadily at me. “And as you’re his caretaker, I’m trusting that he will share what you need to know about his health and treatment.”

“I have been taking care of myself since that kid was in diapers,” Grandpa muttered, pinching the manual lock with his thumb and forefinger but failing to get a good enough grasp to pull it up and escape.

“Part of my job as Gene’s caseworker is to ensure that he not only has a support system, but that he’s willing to use it,” Dolores continued, raising her voice pointedly. With that, she faced forward and popped the locks.

Grandpa threw open the door and practically jumped out, like a horse leaving a starting gate.

But I hesitated there with Dolores, remembering Vicki, and how she’d seemed genuinely sorry during her last visit, when she told Quint she wouldn’t be back now that he was no longer a minor. Dolores seemed to mean well, which was more than could be said for most fucking people.

“Thanks, ma’am.” I scooted across the seat to get out.

“You’re welcome, honey. And good luck. You’re going to need it.”

By the time Dolores pulled away, Grandpa was almost to the porch steps. I watched him walk. He shuffled his steps like his right leg wasn’t bending the way it should, and when he reached the first stair, he leaned heavily on the wooden railing.

“Well?” he barked at me without turning. “You coming?”

I jogged the few strides it took to catch up to him, staying close as he went up, just in case he should fall. He didn’t, but he took each step slowly and deliberately.

Under our combined weight, the stairs sagged noticeably. “These steps could use some work,” I told him.

“Well, you can make that your first order of business. I told you there was work to do around here.”

If the front door locked, I’d never seen the key. Unlocked front doors—another enigma to a city boy like me. Grandpa went inside, leaving the door open for me to follow. I stepped through—and froze.

So much had been the same outside that I wasn’t prepared for the change inside.

Grandpa had never been much of a housekeeper. I didn’t think he’d ever run the old vacuum in the hall closet, and he’d probably never touched a dust rag. But he’d picked up after himself and didn’t leave dirty dishes in the sink overnight or laundry on the floor.

Now, though, stuff was everywhere. Boxed, stacked, piled… as though eight years ago Grandpa had packed up half the stuff to move, then changed his mind and stayed put. And then the filled boxes, piles of mail, and heaps of odds and ends had somehow grown and multiplied of their own volition. The result was strange teetering towers on every tabletop, and heaps of clothing and random junk in every corner. The house had always had too many hallways and corners, but now it felt more like an animal’s den than a house.

Grandpa must have known that seeing the house would surprise me because he looked anywhere but at me as he tossed his jacket onto a pile of clothes on the bench inside the door. Shoes were stacked under the bench, three-deep. I recognized one pair of rubber boots as something he’d bought for me when I was sixteen. Had they been sitting here since?

“Grandpa,” I said slowly, knowing I shouldn’t say anything but unable to stop myself. “What the fuck is going on?”

“Huh?” He glanced at me. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the house!” That wasn’t exactly true. I added a few things up in my head. Grandpa had needed to find someone to look after him once he was released from the hospital. But even though he looked a little stiff on his feet, he seemed to be getting around fine. Now that I’d seen the house, I had to wonder if maybe the thing that was wrong with him had less to do with his body and more to do with his head.

But fuck if I knew how to ask about any of that. So, yeah, we could start with the house.

He gazed around as though trying to see the place through my eyes. “I got a bit… behind on things, I suppose.”

“There’s got to be more to it than that.”

He looked at me sharply and huffed a breath—almost a laugh but humorless. “Ain’t that the truth.”

And while I stared, wondering what the fuck he was talking about, he trudged down the hall to the downstairs bedroom and closed the door firmly behind him.

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First Chapter: Underdog

Ty

“I think that’s enough for the day.” I leaned forward in the saddle and scratched Prince’s sweaty neck. “Let’s cool you down, and then you can go roll in the mud.”

Prince probably didn’t understand a word I was saying, but he understood scritches, and he leaned into them. In the mirror above the arena wall, I caught sight of him contorting his upper lip as he bobbed his head, and I chuckled. The kids at the barn all adored him, both because he was a giant puppy and because no other horse made faces like he did when he was getting scritches.

I chuckled, patted the spot I’d been scratching, and steered him with my legs toward the arena gate. He plodded along with his head down, same way he always did when we were done and he was stretching his neck. Not that I’d worked him very hard. It was, after all, the off season. Prince had come back from the Morgan Grand National and World Championship a week ago with a whole stack of titles in dressage, carriage driving, and sport horse in-hand—he’d earned himself some downtime. So right now, I wasn’t working him hard, just enough to keep him conditioned. We’d mostly been trail-riding since we’d come home; today was the first time he’d seen the inside of an arena since his last victory pass at Nationals.

At the gate, I leaned down to open the latch. We stepped through, and Prince waited patiently while I secured the gate again. Then we headed out to wander the property while he cooled down from his workout.

As he strolled along the dirt road beside the parking lot, I let the reins rest in front of the saddle. I reached up to rub some stiffness out of my neck as I exhaled a cloud into the crisp late October afternoon. I should’ve been relaxing as much as I relaxed my horses this time of year, but I was restless and twitchy.

I’d never been fond of those weeks when fall started leaning into winter. The cold didn’t bother me, but late October and early November meant my whole world went quiet. The afternoon was brisk in that way that meant winter wasn’t far off. The brightly colored leaves that drew leaf peepers in early autumn had long since dulled and dropped to the feet of bare-branched trees, giving the landscape a bleak, skeletal appearance. The competition season was over, ending in a flurry of colorful ribbons and rose blankets and spotlights around the same time the Vermont leaves went brown. The year’s frenetic pace came to a head at Nationals, and when that was over, the lights went down and didn’t come back up until spring.

Riding between the leafless trees that lined my muddy driveway, I itched for the arrival of spring. I longed for the excitement of new babies—I had six mares in foal this season—and the anticipation of week after week of competitions. It was all stress and chaos and noise, and I loved it, especially after the dark, dull months of winter.

Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t such an abrupt shift. If the show season faded out instead of being over the instant the last world champion of the year exited the coliseum after their victory pass. It was like leaving after a rock concert, except the concert lasted most of the year and there was nothing left to do but slog home from Oklahoma City and wait for the next show that was months away.

Or maybe I just needed to find something to do during the off season. This job occupied most of my time and energy, but the load was always lighter this time of year. We eased horses into less intense conditioning and training regimens so they wouldn’t overheat in the bitter cold. Some of my students took the winter off, so I gave fewer lessons.

On the other hand, a lot of my farmhands and grooms were college kids who left after Nationals, and I’d just lost three of my regular farmhands. One had just graduated college and taken a job I couldn’t compete with; one had been advised by his doctor to find a less physical job before his back gave out; and the third was moving to Montpelier to help care for his ailing grandmother. I didn’t blame them. If anything, I was just grateful they’d all hung on as best they could until Nationals was over.

They were gone now, though, along with the seasonal workers, and all of that meant there were fewer people to get things done. There was plenty that needed to be done, too—maintenance on the fences and buildings, clearing snow once it came, things like that. On the other hand, my brother and I weren’t gone for days at a time like we were the rest of the year, so we could get it all done and still have downtime.

Question was, how to fill that downtime?

As if I didn’t know. I asked myself that question every year, and the answer was always the same: dust off the Tinder profile, and—

Prince’s head snapped up, and he halted abruptly. Ears pricked forward, he fixed his attention on something in one of the pastures beside the driveway.

I thought it might be one of the mares—none of them were in season right now, but Prince was ever the ladies’ man who never missed an opportunity to look.

I followed his gaze, and…no. Not mares.

“Really?” I muttered as I watched the two muddy dogs galloping across the pasture. “Again?”

They were heading for the barn, which was no surprise. That was where the people were, and this pair was nothing if not friendly.

Rolling my eyes, I gathered my reins and turned Prince back toward the barn. With a gentle tap of my heel, I cued him into a light trot, and we reached the barn about thirty seconds after the dogs disappeared through the open door. Some voices filtered out, and there was a friendly woof.

I brought Prince to a halt and dismounted. Before I’d even started into the barn, though, my brother emerged, holding one dog by the collar while the other trotted happily behind.

“Think they want lessons?” Caden asked dryly.

“Probably.” I held out my hand for the second dog, who came up to me with no hesitation, tongue hanging out and tail wagging furiously. “Can you grab me a couple of lead ropes? I’ll take them home.”

Caden nodded. He let go of the dog, who didn’t go anywhere. Instead, it came closer and sniffed noses with Prince, who was fascinated by the pair.

I let the three of them get acquainted. The dogs—a yellow Lab and an Aussie Shepherd—had gotten loose several times in the last week or two, and they’d never been aggressive or unfriendly to people or to the horses. And Prince… Well. He really was convinced he was a dog sometimes, and he didn’t mind the Lab licking his face. I just chuckled. Good thing that was an old bridle and not a pristine piece of show tack.

Caden returned a moment later with a pair of lead ropes. We clipped them to the dogs’ collars, and they both wagged their tails even faster, as if they were thrilled at the prospect of going for a walk.

Gesturing at Prince, Caden asked, “You want me to take him while you deal with them?”

“Nah.” I held the reins in one hand and took the lead ropes in the other. “I’m just cooling him down. The walk will do him good.”

Caden shrugged. “Your call.”

He went back inside, and I headed down the driveway with my stallion plodding along on my right and the pair of escapees straining at the leads on my left. Prince, who was one of the most well-behaved horses I’d ever had, tried to trot after them.

“No.” I gently tugged his reins. “Walk.”

He tried again, tossing his head when I rudely refused to let him play with the other dogs.

“Just walk,” I laughed. He snorted indignantly and danced to one side.

Of course, the dogs took notice and decided he wanted to play, which he did. They just weren’t aware that he was several times larger than they were, and that his “paws” would probably hurt if they landed on one of theirs. And that was to say nothing of the lead ropes, which threatened to trip me.

“Oh my God.” I groaned as I tugged them away and nudged Prince with my elbow. “Really, dude? Really?”

Yes, really. He simply did not understand that he was a horse, they were dogs, and this was not recess, and when exactly had this become my life?

Fortunately, this quite literal dog-and-pony show only lasted for a few minutes. The pups belonged to Second Chances Animal Sanctuary, which was two driveways over from mine, and one of the owners was hurrying up their driveway as I was coming down the road.

“Oh, thank you.” Jon, the older half of the couple who ran the shelter, halted in front of me, looking equal parts exasperated, relieved, and sheepish. “Sorry they came to your place again. These two, I swear.”

I laughed. “Eh. I’d be worried if they were aggressive, but they’re—” I stumbled a step as Prince nudged me with his head so he could get the attention of his excited new friends, who were currently ignoring him and trying to jump on Jon, muddy paws and all.

“Blaine. Houdini.” Jon motioned downward with his hand. “Sit.”

The Lab sat. The Aussie Shepherd…did not.

“Blaine and Houdini, huh?” I cocked a brow. “So this isn’t new for them?”

“Ugh. No.” He took the lead ropes from me, and as I walked Prince in a circle to give the dogs some space, Jon added, “We’ve been trying like hell to keep them contained, but they can escape anything shy of Fort Knox.”

“Oh, I know how that goes.” I patted Prince’s shoulder emphatically. “This one has let himself out at shows like half a dozen times.”

Jon laughed. “They’re smarter than people give them credit for, aren’t they?”

“Uh-huh.” I gestured at the dogs. “If you need help containing them, I’ve been building shit to keep escape artists on lockdown since I was a kid.”

Jon’s forehead creased. “Yeah? My crew and I are pretty good with building enclosures, but we’re still kind of new at all of this. We could use all the help we can get for this pair.”

“Sure.” I smiled. “Fall and winter are pretty quiet for me, so just let me know.”

“I’ll do that. Thanks. We can—oh, hey! Landon!” Jon looked past me and motioned toward the dogs. “Could you take them back in?”

I turned, and whatever the guy said in response—an affirmative, I assumed—didn’t even register.

Because holy. Shit.

Across the road with a couple of leashes in his hand was a walking, talking version of Ty’s Hot Guy Checklist.

A crooked smile on full lips. Windswept hair that had probably been near-black at one time but was mostly gray now. Gorgeous dark eyes. The weather was cold, but he’d tied his flannel shirt around his waist, leaving on only a blue T-shirt stretched across a lean but powerful-looking torso, and his short sleeves revealed ink. So much intricately detailed and colorful ink. His right arm was tattooed all the way to the wrist, and the upper left was covered with what looked like a half-sleeve.

Seriously: holy shit. I had a thing for the tatted-up bad boy look, and this guy…goddamn.

Oblivious to me, he crouched and chuckled as he said to the dogs, “There you are, you idiots!”

They immediately tried to bowl him over, and the way he laughed as he petted them and tried in vain to avoid getting licked…oh, God. He was striking anyway, but he was also a sucker for animals? Be still, my heart. And the way his face lit up like that, especially against the colorless mid-autumn landscape—oh, yeah, it was definitely time to dust off ye olde Tinder profile, because he was stirring up a hunger I was always too busy to notice during show season.

Jon and the tattooed guy—Landon, wasn’t it?—clipped the leashes to the dogs’ collars, and then Jon handed me back my lead ropes. “Thanks again for catching them,” he said sheepishly. “And for offering to help us keep them contained. We’ll definitely be taking you up on that.”

“Don’t mention it.” I coiled the ropes and hung them on the saddle horn. “Just shoot me a text when you want to work on those enclosures—I’m around all the time, so unless I’m giving a lesson or something…”

“Great. Thanks.”

“Oh, he’s going to help us?” Landon rose, keeping the leashes in one hand as he dusted off his pants with the other. “That’ll be great. Then we won’t have to chase them down in the snow.”

Jon laughed. “Yeah, let’s hope. By the way, Landon, this is Ty. He owns Lost Acres Farm.” Jon gestured toward my driveway, then said to me, “Ty, this is Landon.”

I’d already heard him say the guy’s name, but my brain had been short-circuiting so badly, it took a second to connect some dots. Oh, this was Landon? The guy both Jon and his husband had been raving about recently for being a hard worker and great with the animals? They just hadn’t mentioned the part where he was holy shit hot.

Unaware of my brain skidding to a halt, Landon moved the leashes to the hand with mud on it, and he extended the other. “Good to meet you.”

“Yeah. You too.” I kind of regretted wearing gloves today, but maybe it was a good thing. Just meeting his eyes screwed with my ability to form words. Actually feeling the warmth of his skin wouldn’t help.

Landon gestured past me. “This guy’s gorgeous.”

I looked, having nearly forgotten that my horse was still standing beside me. “Oh. Thanks. This is Prince.” I patted the stallion’s neck. “I was just cooling him down when these two showed up.”

Landon held out his hand for Prince to sniff.

“Careful,” I said. “He won’t bite, but he will—”

Prince slurped Landon’s palm.

“—lick.”

Chuckling, Landon wiped his hand on his jeans again, then petted Prince’s face. “That’s okay. I work around dogs most days, so…” He half-shrugged, still petting Prince and watching him as if he were absolutely mesmerized. That wasn’t an unusual reaction—Prince was a stunning animal, even when he wasn’t polished up for the show ring—but something about the way Landon gazed at him melted my heart.

He’d been sweet and playful with the dogs. He clearly adored horses.

Because that wasn’t the quickest way for a man to win me over.

Not that I was interested in anything beyond hooking up with anyone, but even my resistance to relationships didn’t stop me from getting a little fluttery in the chest at the same time I was getting weak in the knees. A guy who had the tatted-up bad boy thing going and was good with animals? Yeah, that was hard for even me to resist.

He also works for the neighbor, doesn’t know you from Adam, and is probably straight. Get a grip.

“I should, um…” I gestured over my shoulder. “I need to put this guy away and… Anyway.” I cleared my throat. “Hit me up about the enclosure.”

“Will do.” Jon extended his hand. “We’ll talk soon. And thanks again.”

“Any time.” I shook his hand. Then Landon’s again. And…

Fuck.

A guy this hot? Working right down the street from my house? I was so screwed. Or, well, I needed to be screwed. Ideally sooner than later.

We said goodbye to the various animals, and I put Prince’s reins over his neck so I could get on. I put my foot in the stirrup and started to pull myself up. Naturally, I picked that moment to steal a glance at Landon, who was heading toward the driveway, and even with his shirt tied around his waist, he was still sexy as hell from the back.

“Shit!” I grabbed the saddle horn as my balance wavered, and I just managed to regain my dignity enough to get into the saddle without falling on my ass. That was all dumb luck and muscle memory from years of getting on and off squirrely youngsters. Otherwise, I’d have absolutely fallen flat in the mud right there in front of my neighbor, his ridiculously hot employee, and my very judgy horse.

“You all right?” Jon asked with a grin that suggested he knew only my pride had taken a hit.

“I’m good.” I gathered the reins. “See you two later.”

I steered Prince back toward the farm.

Stole another glance at Landon.

And absolutely busted him watching me.

No. No, he was admiring my horse. He was not interested in me. He was not interested in men. He just appreciated an exquisite animal like Prince. That was all.

I told myself that all the way home, because otherwise I’d never be able to walk, never mind ride, again.

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First Chapter: Unmanageable

Scott

I’m like a cat burglar … but the only thing I’m gonna steal is his heart.

Yeah, yeah, okay. That’s a cheesy line. But I revel in groan-worthy lines, and I’m not kidding about the cat burglar thing. Adrenaline is coursing through my veins as fast as the Winooski River spilling over a dam, and I’m feeling like a felon.

Probably because I’m, like, breaking and entering—or entering, anyhow. Edsel hasn’t given me a key, but he hides one under a fake rock by the porch. Easy peasy.

With my heart in my throat, I slip through the front entrance of his one-story house in the Old North End and shut the heavy door behind me.

While my current activities resemble a cat burglar’s, the similarities end quickly. I’m giving, not taking. Also, judging by Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief, cat burglars wear black from head to toe.

I’m about to get naked.

Setting down my reusable grocery bag of supplies, I survey the scene. My boyfriend’s living room is nicer than mine—most are—although it’s in a plain brick house not far from downtown. Nothing really special about it except the fact that he resides here.

But special is what you make of it. I just want to make him happy.

I flove surprising my boyfriend, and my tummy’s all aflutter thinking about the word boyfriend.

This is the longest relationship I’ve had in … ever. Sure, he’s spent most of it out of town on business trips and a volunteer search-and-rescue mission, but he’s coming back tonight and I’m going to show him exactly how much I missed him.

First things first. I get out the package of rose petals I bought at the Burlington florist. They were pricier than I expected, but he’s worth it.

Walking backward, I sprinkle a trail of petals down the short hallway to Edsel’s bedroom, like Hansel and Gretel on a mission from Cupid. After flinging handfuls on the bed as artistically as I can, I look around the room. It’s a tad messy, so I pick up his clothes from the floor. I examine a patterned shirt. Not sure I’ve seen him in this one before.

I shrug and throw it into the hamper.

Once the room is tidy, I survey the scene and clap my hands once. I’m amped and giddy and tempted to fling myself onto the bed and make rose petal snow angels.

Focus, Scott.

Carefully avoiding the flowers on the floor, I tiptoe back to the entrance, lock the front door, and grab the rest of my supplies.

A few moments later, champagne is chilling in an ice bucket, next to two flutes and these great chocolates imported from Napa.

Is it imported if it’s from the same country?

They’re a luxury, yes, but how else do I celebrate someone so special? That’s what credit cards are for.

Tapping my lip, I wonder if I should have gotten one of those chocolate fountains that you dip marshmallows in and then feed them to each other. And strawberries? But they’re out of season …

Candles! I pull them out of the bag, along with matches, and light them, then turn the bedroom lights off.

I check my phone. He’s supposed to be home any minute now.

One final thing.

Quickly, I strip down, folding my clothes and stacking them on the floor by the bed. Won’t be needing those any time soon, wink-wink. I may not be particularly buff, but I look good in it.

Then I fasten a silver glitter bow tie around my neck and arrange myself on the bed in the classic Burt Reynolds centerfold position: on my side with my head in my hand, showing off the tattoo on my hip. He said he likes my tattoo … he being Edsel, not Burt Reynolds.

I exhale and try not to fidget. Must not make rose petal snow angels, because strewn about, they’re so decorative.

Like me.

Music! I grab my phone and put on the romance playlist. “The Girl from Ipanema” starts up, and I hum, thinking about Brazil and warmth. But a chill comes over me. Vermont’s fall is nippy.

Well, if a boy is going to be nude, he may as well be comfortable. Trying not to disturb the floral display too much, I head to the thermostat in the hallway and adjust it.

Oh, Edsel’s going to be so surprised! I’m so excited!

Returning to the bed, I get back into position.

As the minutes tick by, I quiver with anticipation, and I start panicking that I got the date wrong. Or the time wrong.

But when he sent me his itinerary a few weeks ago, Google automatically uploaded it to my calendar. I checked his flights. He should be getting home at any moment.

Finally, the key sounds in the lock, the front door creaks open, and my heart rate increases tenfold.

He’s here!

I’m about to call out to him when I hear him say, “I can’t wait to get you naked.”

I’m going to respond that I’m already naked, when a deep male voice responds, “I want to fuck you so hard you feel me for days.”

Wait.

What?

Chills erupt all over my body, even though the heater’s on full blast. Did he bring someone home for a threesome? Because I guess I’d be into that, although I’d prefer to have just one love for the rest of my life.

Then it hits me. That cheating bastard.

I grab wildly for my clothes, scattering flower petals everywhere.

Edsel’s voice echoes down the hallway. “What the fuck is this?” Then, “Oh, shit.”

“What?” says his companion.

“Hang on a second. Let me deal with this.”

I have my boxers on and one leg into my corduroys when my now ex-boyfriend turns on the light and walks in, eyes hard, auburn hair mussed.

“What are you doing here, Scott?”

I pull up my pants and fasten them hastily. I don’t understand why Edsel looks so angry. We’ve been together three whole months. I wanted to do something nice for him.

But I guess I got it all wrong.

I want to sob, but instead I hold up a shaking hand as I reach for my argyle socks. “We’re done.”

He puts his hands on his hips. “What the actual fuck, dude? I told you I needed a break.”

I stick my toes in one sock. “I thought you meant you were going away for work.”

“I did go away for work.” He puts a fist to his forehead and sighs. “We aren’t exclusive. You’re like Walter Mitty—creating these fantasies that just aren’t true. You need to live in the real world.”

“No, I don’t,” I mutter, putting my foot in the other sock.

“Scott, when someone tells you they aren’t interested, you have to listen.”

“You never said you weren’t interested.”

He groans and rubs the back of his neck. “Fine. I’m telling you now. I don’t know what goes on inside your head, but you can’t just break into my house like this. Or anyone else’s.”

“Ed, you might need to get a restraining order,” his companion says, entering the room.

I get a look at my replacement. His lips are kiss-stung, and he’s everything I’m not. My body type is kinda “gets by on ramen.” He likely consumes nothing but steak, because he’s huge, with muscles. I’m sure if he turned around he’d have a perfect, solid ass like that shiny CGI character from Deadpool 2.

Dammit.

With one swoop, I snatch my shirt, coat, phone, keys, and wallet, stick my feet into my unlaced boots, and hiss, “You asshole. I never want to see you again.”

“Then that makes two of us, sweetheart,” Edsel says, his hand on his hip.

Shoving past them both, I run into the bracing air, the wind stinging my tear-filled eyes. I’m still shirtless, wearing the bow tie. And now I don’t remember where I parked my car. I had to drive around, because this neighborhood never has parking.

I groan, which turns into a yelp from the chill, so I keep running, looking for my car.

When I finally find it and put my key in the ignition, it doesn’t start. Because it’s a 2003 Hyundai that hasn’t been serviced in … approximately forever. I should get it looked at—if I had the money for repairs. I know a good mechanic, but I can’t expect him to work for free.

For now, though, there’s a trick. Wiggling the key, I pump the brakes, and with a groan, the engine turns over. I get going and creep back to my house, coasting as often as I can because the fuel light is on. I can fill it up when I get my next paycheck.

Whenever that is.

My not-trusty vehicle sputters out of gas about three blocks from my house, so I pull over to the side. The neighborhood isn’t that great, but it’s not like I have anything valuable in the car.

I take a moment to take off the bow tie, fix the laces on my boots, and put my shirt on, and then I zip up my jacket. I lock my car and jog to my house in the dark night, thankful that all the hiking I do keeps me in shape.

When I get to my cruddy apartment—part of a charming, falling-down 1930s mansion that’s been carved up—I bound up the stairs into the common hallway.

“Is that you, Scott?” My ninety-seven-year-old neighbor opens her door a crack.

“Hi, Mrs. Olson. How are you?” As anxious as I am to get home and lick my wounds, I need to be polite.

“I was hoping you could help me with the Facebook.”

Despite the day, I grin. I adore Mrs. Olson. She doesn’t complain about aches or pains in her body, nor any gossipy issues with her large set of friends. Nope, her issue is Facebook. I hope to someday be ninety-seven with Facebook as my biggest problem. “Show me what’s going on.”

She lets me inside. Her mail is on the floor, having been stuffed through the slot in the door, so I pick it up and set it on her front table. Her warm apartment is in much better shape than mine—but then, her son owns the place.

I follow her into her living room, where there’s a tidy desk with an older desktop computer that her kids set up.

After she shows me how she can’t log on because she’s forgotten her password, we reset it together, and she’s back in business.

As I go to leave, she reaches for her purse, but I hold up my hand. “No, ma’am. This is me being neighborly.”

“I pay the Johnson boy to water my plants. I should pay you for helping me figure out this damn machine.”

I shake my head. “It’s fine. I want you to enjoy Facebook. Send me any of those recipe videos you find.”

“Then thank you. Have a good evening.”

“You, too.” I close her front door behind me. When I get to my place, I gather up my own mail, and criminently, there are a lot of “Final Notice” envelopes. I toss them on the counter. I can’t deal with them right now. There’s too much month at the end of the money. Every month. Freelance writing doesn’t pay the bills.

Throwing myself on my couch, I let myself process everything I’ve bottled up since Edsel unlocked his door.

I’d thought I had something going with a search-and-rescue hunk who made me feel like I was his entire world.

Apparently not.

I look around at my place—futon that serves as both couch and bed, rickety wooden table and chair I picked up on the side of the road that’s both desk and dining set, laptop that goes to the blue screen of death with the worst timing—and compare it to Edsel’s home, where everything works.

Maybe I’m not good enough for him.

I’m tired of being lonely, but I need to not date anyone for a while. Because that’s how I get tangled up in these crappy situations. I want so badly for someone to love me that I keep thinking this guy is the one. But I’m always wrong.

Getting up off the sofa, I put on a beanie. My apartment is freezing, because when I turn up the thermostat, I can’t afford the bill. I open the cupboard. Looks like Cup O’ Noodles for dinner again.

But I’m going to eat it on china, by candlelight, with a glass of two-dollar wine. And I’ll take a bubble bath afterward.

Pulling out a pan to boil some water, I think, enough is enough. I can’t live like this anymore.

New Scott is going to job search with a vengeance and get out of this shithole apartment.

And more importantly, new Scott isn’t going to fall for the next guy he meets. Because it always ends in disaster.

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