Wild at Heart (Wild, #2)

by K.A. Tucker

“Just say what you want to say. Please.” She sighs. “Following Jonah around Alaska while he flies planes won’t be enough. Not for a girl like you, Calla. Loving him won’t be enough. Not forever.” Agnes smiles, as if to soften the blow of her warning. My stomach tightens. I expected this from my mother and, to a lesser degree, Simon. Never from Agnes. Maybe that’s why I’m not as quick to dismiss her words as scripture out of the Standard Parenting 101 handbook. “What will be enough, then?” Because I can’t imagine my life without Jonah in it anymore. Several beats pass as she considers her answer, the corners of her eyes crinkling with thought. “Find your place here. Something that’s going to give you—Calla Fletcher—purpose. Something that feels like you.” She nods slowly, as if agreeing with her own answer. “Find that, and then give it your all.” I hear what she doesn’t have to say out loud. My parents were madly in love—the kind of love that sunk its teeth in and held on despite decades apart—and they couldn’t make it work. If I follow my mother’s footsteps from twenty-seven years ago, newly pregnant and disillusioned about what life with a bush pilot in the wilds of Alaska would be like, focused on all that it’s not, I won’t last here, no matter how much Jonah and I love each other.