Chapter 1

Kayla

A loud honk shakes me out of my blank state and a semi-truck rattles my windows as it nearly blows me off the highway. I glance down at the speedometer and realize I'm going ten miles below the limit but can't make my foot press harder on the gas pedal.

Why am I going home for the summer when I had a perfectly good job offer to work in the kitchen at my favorite bakery in the city? When I take a deep breath, I can almost smell the buttery croissants coming out of the oven, hear the metallic clang of the pan as the friendly and cheerful owner slaps it on the counter before sliding a batch of cookies or muffins in. I've been filling in as a barista on the weekends, something my dad already rumbles against.

The pleasant thoughts of the bakery turn to my dad's voice, that's been growing increasingly bitter and angry at me over the last semester.

You don't need extra spending money. Why waste that valuable studying time? If you're bound and determined to have a part time job, I'll call up one of my finance friends so it will at least look good on a resumé. Kayla, you need to stay on track! That damn bakery is a waste of time.

A line of cars passes me and I tell my phone to dial my best friend to block out Dad's imaginary tirade. Despite my foot not pressing harder, I'll still be home before I know it and then I'll have to hear it in real life.

"Are you back yet?" Lily asks, her lilting voice making me smile. "How's everyone? Did they turn your room into a guest room yet?"

"Hmmph," I say. "As if Mom would stand for that. I'm about a half an hour away."

My foot eases back some more. I may as well be driving a tractor at this point. Another truck blares its horn since it can't readily pass me. Instead of speeding up, I merge onto the shoulder and sigh.

"What in the heck was that?" Lily shrieks. "Are you okay?"

"I was driving too slow," I admit.

There's a moment of silence. "You really don't want to go home, do you?"

"It's not that," I say, but it kind of is.

"You're driving the speed limit now, right? Nobody's going to rear end you into a ditch while I'm talking to you, are they?"

"I'm stopped on the shoulder," I tell her.

"Oh, Kayla. Hang in there for a few weeks and I'll be back too."

This promise gives me my first genuine smile since I had to turn down the bakery offer. I tell her all about it, how it's just the first dent and pretty soon my dream will be nothing but a battered, unrecognizable wreck in the far reaches of my memory. Something I won't have time to think about once I'm firmly planted in my father's world of high finance.

My friends at school tell me to just stand up to him, tell him that's not what I want. I can still use what I've learned from the business degree I was forced into. But Lily knows the deal. She understands what my father is like, the level of perfection he demands from both me and my mother. Mom thrives on the life we lead. She chose it, after all. I was born into it but somehow ended up all wrong. Like a square peg being repeatedly crammed into a round hole, any edges I might have once had were all worn smooth.

Like my perfectly straight hair and flawless skin, the way my clothes are always flattering and stylish but don't make too much of a statement, never a wrinkle or scuffed shoe. Most people think I have everything, that every wish I ever make will come true. Only Lily knows what's been stirring within me for years, scratching and scraping to get out. But still just a tiny mouse in a world of lions.

Lily keeps trying to give me one of her patented pep talks, but she starts cutting out and I look up from twiddling my ballerina pink fingernails in my lap to the sky. It's growing dark for three o'clock in the afternoon and I put my signal on.

"I'm getting back on the road now," I tell her. Before she can congratulate me on this heroic act of bravery, I see the exit for the scenic route through the forest. "But I'm taking Old Mill Road. Uh, I've been wanting to see the bridge."

She snorts. "Yeah, make sure to stop and take pictures," she says, and even through the crackling static on the line, her sarcasm makes me laugh. "That'll add another few minutes."

She starts breaking up even more as I turn off the highway and enter the thick pine forest. I already feel calmer in the shade of the towering trees that block out the traffic noise from the highway. The fact this will add at least fifteen more minutes to my journey has nothing to do with it. Or not much, anyway.

"I can't hear you anymore, Lil," I say. "I'll call tonight after I'm settled in."

I think she says okay right before the call drops. With no one riding up my backside or whizzing past me blasting their horns, I think back to all the times we came to these woods on elementary school field trips. While the teacher was trying to point out fern varieties and keep the boys from tearing through spider webs, I was meandering off the path and getting lost in my own little world where I was a fairy. In charge of all the baking, I'd gather up acorns and pine needles and pretend they were ingredients.

"What are you doing with those?" one dark haired boy, a few grades ahead of me, asked when I rejoined everyone. In my daydreams, he was a prince who fell in love with me after he tasted the bread I made from my gathered items.

Like a damn idiot, I told him. "I'm going to make delicious treats with them."

He raised an eyebrow and pointed to one of the small branches in my hands. "That one's toxic. You'll kill us all."

Before I could answer that I was only playing around, he smirked and joined his group of older boys. A second later they turned and laughed at me. I chucked one of my pinecones at him, picturing it hitting him square in the forehead and knocking him out. Instead, he raised his hand as casually as if he were greeting a neighbor and plucked it out of the air.

"He's so cute and cool," Lily sighed, hauling me toward our own group to get back on the bus.

I wanted to argue, but she was right, damn it.

A commotion to my left snaps me out of my memories. The ferns and shrubs just ahead of me part and a massive buck flies across the road, his hooves seeming to be about to kick in my windshield. A doe jumps out right after him and I squeeze my eyes shut, jerking the steering wheel in the opposite direction as I slam on the brakes. I hit something hard enough to engage the airbag and it smacks me in the face with a loud clap.

Not even feeling the burn, I smash it down, terrified an injured deer is tangled up in my front bumper. I almost cry with relief to see I only collided with a tree.

"Oh, thank goodness." Shoving away the airbag some more, I rest my head and get my heart rate under control.

Thunder rumbles in the distance and I let out a string of swear words that not even the deer can hear because they're long gone. Embarrassed at my outburst, I try to reverse back onto the road, but the car makes a grinding sound before going completely dead.

Okay, this isn't dire. I have roadside assistance and it's not like I was in a hurry anyway.

Except I have no bars on my phone. Between the looming storm and the canopy of trees, I can't get a call out.

I shouldn't be much more than a mile from the highway, so I haul myself out of the car to get help. Fighting through a sea of ferns and tangled undergrowth, I trip and tumble forward. Banging into a tree with my hands to break my fall, a shower of pine needles flutters down all around me, clinging to my shirt and hair. Swiping them off, I head down the road, holding my phone out in front of me until I get a signal.

The calm and pleasant lady who answers the roadside assistance hotline assures me she'll get a tow truck to my location as soon as possible.

"Put your hood up and stand by the vehicle so they know it's you."

I agree even though fat drops are already splattering on me and my car is the only one out here. It's too far wedged against the tree to comply with her first request, so I stand dutifully next to it, peering down the lonely stretch of road for my tow.

It's a half an hour before I see a bright blue speck heading my way. By now the rain has been steady since I called and I'm soaked through and shivering.

The truck pulls up and a tall man jumps out, pulling his sweatshirt hood over his head but not before I see thick, dark waves.

"Why are you standing out in the rain?" An oddly familiar voice shouts as he jogs over to me. He stops dead in his tracks in front of me and I turn my face up to his, water dripping down my nose.

I get an instant flash of recognition even though it's been years since I've seen him. That signature dark curl falls over his forehead and those same amber eyes are scowling down at me. How many cringey poems did I write about those eyes? Memories wash over me, more torrential than the rain.

Gazing around corners to catch a glimpse of him, taking detours in the hall so I might pass him. Secretly ironing his football number onto one of my t-shirts and wearing it to bed. All the way back to elementary school, until he graduated three years ahead of me and I took to lurking anywhere around town I might see him. When I started college, I decided to let him go, along with all my dreams of him being the prince who fell in love with me somehow.

Is this really Liam Chase or am I still in a daydream, here in these woods? This man is much more muscular than the rangy teenager I recall, maybe even an inch or two taller. He's got a dark beard that can't hide the familiar, chiseled jawline, and the tiniest edge of a tattoo peeks out from the top edge of his sweatshirt. Those amber eyes, like perfectly brewed sun tea on a hot day, are the same, though. Unmistakable and with the same cockiness as he gets ready to berate me for standing out in the rain. Until those eyes widen.

"Kayla?" he asks, his voice huskier than I remember. Not that he spoke to me much back then. His sudden grin makes my jaw drop. He's way more handsome than he was, and that should be impossible. "Oh my God, Kayla Woods?"

He takes my wrist and pulls me toward his truck, wondering aloud what kind of person stands out in the rain.

"I'm surprised you didn't have your head tipped back like a turkey," he says, reaching behind the seat for a blanket to wrap around my shoulders once I'm in his truck.

His grin is teasing, infuriating, just like I remember. And I lean closer to him all the same as he looks me up and down.

"They told me to stand outside so you'd know which car it is."

My defense only makes him smirk. "I think I could have found the only red car on this road for three miles without you taking a bath," he tells me, shaking his head at me. "I'll be damned."

I can't make out if his wide smile is happiness at seeing me after all these years or if he's just thinking of more ways to tease me on the ride into town. I lean out and watch him as he expertly hooks up my car, seemingly oblivious to the downpour as he works. His sweatshirt is clinging to him by the time he starts the winch to pull my car onto the platform and he rests his strong hands on his hips as he watches it with a keen eye. I take in every inch of him as my old crush on him breaks free again, like dogs at a racetrack when the gate has been lifted. It's not going to be stopped, either.

Just like that I'm pining for him again, which adds another layer of misery onto my summer.

When he gets in, he pushes up his sleeves to reveal more tattoos as he cranks the heat and aims the vents at me. His hands rest lightly on the steering wheel and I try to catalog each work of art on his muscular forearms.

"You ready?" he says.

Grinning at me from ear to ear with that smirky confidence radiating from his entire being, I can only smile back at him. Liam Chase not only remembers who I am, he seems genuinely happy to see me. This is different. This has my heart pounding faster than when I crashed into the tree.

"I'm ready," I answer.

But, holy crap, am I really?