Chapter 1 - Julie

Snow is coating the town, and it makes the town look like a postcard. The old original buildings that line Main Street have stark white dust on the awnings and overhangs. Lights glow in the gray, overcast light. It's downright cozy.

We're used to the snow here, so it's business as usual. A couple of the bridge ladies are in this morning, just like always, the only difference being the number of layers they are bundled up in.

I'm attempting to get the last of the restocking done for our family market. We run the town store in Greyson Ridge and have since the town started during the Gold and Silver Rush. Somehow, despite my older brothers initially committing to running the store, I am the only one here.

My brother Greg swears up and down that he'll move back home and help run it when "the time is right." Meanwhile, I am about to turn thirty and am still not in college. I'm here, taking care of the shop in his place.

Dad is too old to be around daily like he used to. He still tries to make it up to the store a couple times a week to check in on things. I'm pretty sure the only reason Mom comes in for the bit of time she does is to catch up on the town gossip.

Most days, she's only here for an hour before she wanders off in search of some fresh scandal, like someone not mowing their yard or whatever new rumor about my friend Bernadette is circulating.

Mom is settled in on the stool up at the front counter, gossiping with Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Lettie. I'm doing my best to tune them out as I label and arrange boxes of pasta. My mind wanders to the book I'm reading. I would much rather live in my head with my fictional characters where I can escape the monotony of my day.

I put a single headphone back in one ear with my audiobook, picking back up where George and Clara left off their argument. Such angst. I could live off other people's drama in books and be entirely satisfied in life.

"You know, Susan, we should try to get Julie to go out with my son, Kyle," Mrs. Lettie says as if this isn't the twentieth time she's suggested it. Her words filter through my attempt to focus on the plot in my ear.

Maybe I should just put both headphones in if they're in matchmaker mode today.

"Julie, why don't you do something with that hair of yours? You could be so pretty if you just made it less frizzy," Mrs. Lee comments around sips of her coffee, dragging me out of my daydream and back to reality.

It takes so much effort to pull my face into a strained smile and nod in a strange version of agreement. I don't know what else to do. I can't help but wonder who they want me to impress around here. The cabbages?

"Don't you want to find yourself a boyfriend?" Mrs. Lettie chimes in, with a solemn nod from my mom, as if the act of finding a boyfriend should be the epitome of accomplishment in my life.

I hate this idea they have that my existence will only matter in the context of a man. I swear none of them have made it out of their dated idea that women are only capable of bearing children and supporting their husbands. Anything else is clearly not possible for a woman.

I respond with a single shoulder shrug and just shake my head. I'm not sure how to even respond to their constant prodding and meddling.

If I had a dollar for every time the bridge ladies had set me up a blind date with someone's son or cousin… I'd at least be able to pay for my next trip to the bookstore.

"You need a man in your life," my mother sighs, "This whole shacking up with that woman. It's just not right."

I want to remind her that Georgia is just my roommate and my friend, but it doesn't do any good. She's been reading into my relationship with my friend for years. I'm sure it stems from Georgia's extremely tomboyish sense of style.

Georgia rocks a short pixie haircut, she's covered in tattoos, and wears men's shirts and cargo shorts pretty much year-round, which results in all the older ladies in town being absolutely convinced we are lovers or, at a minimum, positive that Georgia likes her own variations of peaches.

Judgmental old biddies. It's none of their damn business either way.

Their conversation dissolves into a dissection of my roommate's likelihood of being a lesbian, as well as mine, and I attempt to drown them out some more. I just need to divert them off onto some other topic that will keep them occupied instead of my love life, or rather lack thereof.

"Man, crazy how many tourists we've had stay through winter, right?" I call over my shoulder, and all three sets of wrinkled, tired eyes perk up at the morsel of new gossip. That's all it takes, and the three of them start off on a tangent about "That Cult" who's moved in with Lena Murphy and all the weird sightings there have been around town.

"Merl was telling me the other day that he has been having to chase off more and more of those tourists trying to hike around the mine. He's just at his wit's end with it," Mrs. Lettie sighs as if she is the prime authority on my Uncle Merl's state of mind.

"Did he tell you about that thing he saw last week?" my mom gushes, her eyes wide and her face stretching into a devious, wide grin. She's probably eager because she thinks she has some tidbit of news that the other ladies do not. "He said it had to be bigger than a bear. Crazy times."

"Okay, but how much of that whiskey had he been into when he saw it," Mrs. Lee says, and I slowly back away.

My job is done here. They'll go on about Uncle Merl for a solid hour now and leave me alone.

George and Clara are in the throes of a rather passionate argument in my ear, and I laugh quietly to myself as I get back to my stocking duties. I take a deep breath, trying to push down the thoughts of how embarrassed the ladies make me, and tune them out again.

I move on to a box of canned vegetables and pick it up to carry it to the back of the store. I vaguely pick up on the chatter of male voices as I head toward the canned goods shelves in the back.

"I need grapes and nuts for the fluffy little booger. He loves them, but I swear he's going to eat me out of house and home with those little ‘feed me' looks." The voice carries through the store, booming. I recognize it as the voice of someone in Cyrus's team.

The thought fades, losing the battle for my attention as George and Clara's now passionate love-making intensifies. I tune everything else out even more as George's "throbbing manhood" is described in grand detail, but my annoyance at the ladies and their rumors pulls my focus again.

The ladies are really getting under my skin today—I can't even enjoy my book properly. I genuinely don't understand how they can't see how insulting their endless attempts at matchmaking and meddling are.

If I were a lesbian, which would be perfectly reasonable, they still shouldn't care what I am up to as long as I'm not hurting myself or anyone else. I don't understand why the most entertaining topic of conversation in this town is the love interests, or lack of interest, of every unattached person in town.

The box in my hands collides with something solid and I bounce backward from the force, the twenty-five pounds of canned vegetables smacking me firmly in the chest as the ground rushes up toward me. I tense, bracing for the impact that I know is coming, but before it does, I feel strong arms wrap around me, and the motion of the fall halts.

A jolt of heat rushes through me, and I shove at the box awkwardly. The box slides from between us and crashes the last foot to the ground, cardboard bursting and cans clattering across the aisle.

The powerful arms clench around me, and a large, hot hand presses hard against the small of my back. It feels like a bolt of electricity has hit my body. My breath catches in my chest, and my eyes lock on the bright, hazel eyes inches from my own. Heat flares through my body as my hands tighten around the large biceps holding me. His glistening, soft skin makes the lightness of his eyes more startling up close.

Kaius.

I breathe out a little gasp as he raises me back up and sets me on my feet. His breath seems to hitch simultaneously as my hand slides up to his shoulder to steady myself. I grasp at my headphones, pulling them out as the narrator details George's every thrust. It is just too much to handle with Kaius this close. He's tall and muscular, with high cheekbones that should be illegal.

Too many ideas, and my body is responding far too enthusiastically with his arms around me. For a split second, I swear his eyes flash brighter, the pupils becoming slits instead of circles. I blink, trying to clear my mind, and take a closer look.

"So, this is your idea of customer service, is it, Julie? Launching yourself at unsuspecting victims with the grace of a freight train? I"d say you"ve outdone yourself this time. Perhaps there should be a sign to warn shoppers, or maybe you should wear a bell so they can hear you coming."

The green eyes of the tall ginger of their group, Rufus, are dancing at the humor, but it stings. Worse, the tittering gasps of my mother and the bridge ladies seem to be adding fuel to the fire as they all giggle at his comment. I glance behind my shoulder, and it looks like the entire store has gathered at the end of the aisle to stare and laugh.

Oh, my God. Kill me now.

I blush hard and push away from him, my hands flat against the firm planes of his chest. I make a beeline for the back of the shop. I hate being the center of attention—crowds are the absolute worst. Having several people in the store gathered, staring, and laughing at me, brings me right back to my feelings about being the youngest sibling, the only girl. My brothers and cousins still tease me relentlessly. It's my personal version of Hell.

This is all Kaius's fault.

I think back to that first time I'd seen him at Lena's. He seemed to be the prankster of their little group. In hindsight, I wonder if he's not so much a prankster as he is a jackass. We'd all been at Lena's for book club, which had turned into some kind of joint hangout when we went out back for ax throwing. It had devolved into a nonstop session of Bernadette flirting shamelessly and Kaius giving Rufus and everyone else a hard time.

I don't think he could speak to anyone the whole night without being sarcastic or downright insulting. He'd been using Roscoe, the town's informally adopted pet raccoon, to terrorize his friend, who seemed to be genuinely afraid of him. Maybe he's just the type that gets off on making people around him feel less worthy?

As the memories fade, I can't dispute the intense feelings caused by being close to him. My body is still weird and tense. This reaction of my body clenching and throbbing after he touched me screams of all the things I read about in my romance novels, but there's no way I can consider something like that with someone who's so inherently mean-spirited with their jokes.