Chapter One

Abby

I let out a sigh of relief when I finally spot it. The town’s welcome sign, shining brightly in the sunlight, stands at the point where the road splits in two.

I slow down to inspect it, and I’m surprised by the fresh coat of paint glistening in the sun, reflecting the care put into its maintenance. The words “Welcome to Valor Springs” are crisp and bold, inviting me to the town that is going to be my new home.

A town whose existence I only recently discovered.

Up until a month ago, I had no knowledge of Valor Springs or that I had roots in the town. My mother was the only family I ever knew, and she always changed the subject whenever I brought up the topic of her past. The one time she opened up was to tell me she’d lost her family and I was all she had. The clear heartbreak I heard in her tone was all I’d needed to put a cap on that topic, and I never brought it up again. It was not until she was gone and I got a visit from a lawyer that I learned about the past life my mother had kept from me.

A secret she took to her grave.

I clench my hands on the steering wheel as I drive past the sign, wondering for the hundredth time if I am making the right choice by moving to Valor Springs. I just uprooted my entire life from the city I grew up in to move to some town no one’s ever heard of—my mother’s hometown.

It’s too late to second guess myself now; I’m already here. Besides, I have nothing left in the city to return to.

A soft meow comes from the backseat of my car, reminding me of the companion I brought with me. Frowning, I glance in the rearview mirror to see the black cat blending into the car seat, copper eyes glaring right at me.

“What’s wrong, Whiskers?” I reach back in an attempt to run my hand over her fur, but she swats me, scratching my hand in the process and leaving yet another mark on my skin. “Ouch!” I quickly withdraw my hand and resist the urge to glare back at the Bombay cat my mother left in my care. “I know you hate my guts, but we agreed to get along at least for this trip, didn’t we?”

The cat hisses at me in response, prompting me to roll my eyes at her. My mother’s cat and I have never quite gotten along. There’s always been something akin to a sibling rivalry between us, and maybe it was petty of me to feud with a cat, but Whiskers can be very mean when she sets her heart to it. It never bothered me before because we only ever saw each other a few times a month, but now…she’s all I’ve got.

This furry little menace is the closest thing to family I have left.

“I know you miss her,” I say, my voice cracking, but I hurry to clear it. “I miss her too. Don’t you think she would have loved for us to get along?”

The cat hisses at me once more, and I am not entirely convinced that Whiskers is not a moody teen trapped in a cat’s body. In the month she’s been under my care, she has exhibited all the signs of a teen going through her first heartbreak.

I understand the heartbreak, though, because I feel the same way.

Unwilling to endure a feud with the cat, I decide I might as well offer an olive branch to her so that this move is easier on us both. With one hand firmly on the steering wheel, I reach out for my purse to dig around for the treats I keep handy for moments like this, but the purse drops to the floor of the car.

“Shit!” I curse, reaching down blindly for the bag but come up empty. I consider letting the cat sulk a little while longer until we’ve arrived at our new home, but she picks that exact moment to meow loudly again, starting up a chorus of earsplitting protests. “Okay, alright! I hear you,” I tell the petulant cat. “You are cranky and want your snacks. Give me a second.”

With another sigh, I pull over to the side of the road and park my car before reaching for the purse where it fell. I dig around the contents, looking for the box of treats I always carry with me, but don’t find it.

Oh no. No. No. No.

“No, please!” I cry out, emptying the contents of my purse on the passenger seat and rummaging through my things for the box. I could have sworn I packed it this morning.

It has to be here!

“Maybe it’s in the glove compartment,” I tell the noisy cat, shifting my focus to that, but the treat box is not there either. I check the floor to make sure it didn’t fall out of my purse, but no such luck.

I let out a shaky breath, my lips trembling with frustration, and I can feel myself slowly lose control over my emotions. For a month, I have bottled up my feelings, pushing through my days with a brave face, and now it seems the dam is breaking. Losing the only family that I had was painful on its own, but learning that everything I knew about my childhood was a lie broke me.

When the lawyer came to see me with the will, I was sure the only thing I was getting from my mother was her gardening books. She loved reading about gardening despite living in a building without a single plant in sight.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

It felt like a punch to the gut when I was told that the will in question was not even my mother’s, but her sister’s. My aunt. A woman I had no idea existed.

In her will, she’d left behind property worth nearly a million dollars to my mother or her next of kin, which the lawyer claimed was me. It didn’t make sense then, and it still doesn’t. If my mother grew up with such wealth, why did we live off food stamps the majority of my life?

Heck, we lived in a shitty one-bedroom apartment with paper-thin walls and obscenely loud neighbors. I don’t remember a time we weren’t late on rent, and most winters, we had to suffer through the cold because we couldn’t afford proper heating.

When the lawyer told me about the estate, I was sure he was pranking me or that it was some kind of scam. Why would my mother let us suffer if she had family and could have afforded to give us a different life?

Why would she keep this part of her life from me? Why would she lie to me?

It wasn’t not fair that I had to find out about her lies when I was still grieving, still missing her.

I fight back the tears, but they spill anyway. My chest clenches painfully, and I feel myself teetering too close to a panic attack. I quickly crack open the window, but it provides me no reprieve. I tug at the neckline of my dress, but it’s not actually restricting my airway in any way.

But I can’t breathe. I need air.

Breathe, Abby!

But I can’t!

I push open the door and pour out of the car, falling to my knees, but I have enough sense in me to close the door so that Whiskers doesn’t slip out.

Breathe, Abby!

Slow and steady… Breathe. You’re okay. You are fine.

But I don’t feel fine. Not one bit. Despite what the voice in my head—which sounds a lot like my mother’s—wants me to believe. I’m not okay.

I’m scared, terrified of what awaits me in this strange little town. What if I uncover a truth I am not ready to deal with or find myself shunned by the very people who carry precious memories of my mother I never knew? What if she didn’t leave but was instead forced out?

What happens when I find my family and they kick me out as well?

It’s okay… Breathe…

I force in slow, deep breaths, shoving back the panic attack, and wait until my heart isn’t hammering in my chest anymore to sit up and take stock. I’m sitting on the rough gravel at the side of the road and leaning against the car, trying to talk myself into climbing back into the car and driving the rest of the way into Valor Springs. From a distance, I can see the buildings, the first sign of civilization I have seen in a while.

Soon, it’ll be dark, and it's best if I make it to town before then and get settled in my aunt’s inn.

My inn. Christ, it feels strange to refer to it as mine when I’ve never even seen it or met the previous owner—will never get to meet her.

My head falls back against the car door with a heavy sigh. Looking up toward the sky on the other side of the road, I see it.

I see him.

Next to the deserted road stands a massive billboard I can’t believe I hadn’t noticed sooner. The words “Welcome home, hero!” are massive and illuminated by the evening sun, but I barely see them. No, it’s the image next to the words that steals my breath away.

The image is a full-body shot of a man in military fatigues with a gun strapped to his side. All but his face is covered, and my eyes stay fixated on it—a handsome face with a short dark beard, a clenched jaw, and icy blue eyes staring right at me.

His chiseled features seem to come alive in the golden light of the setting sun. My gaze lingers on the billboard, and for several minutes, I see no one but him. The military uniform fits snugly around his powerful frame that exudes such strength that I feel awe wash over me. His broad shoulders stand proud and firm, and my breath is stolen with just how the sun dances on his olive skin, highlighting the rugged lines of his face.

He is perfect, his eyes carrying an intensity in them that has my stomach fluttering with excitement.

He’s all I can focus on, the troubles that have sent me to Valor Springs and those awaiting me are forgotten, along with the lies I have been fed my entire life and the secrets that are only now coming to light. None of that matters as I stare into the most magnificent gaze I have ever seen. Just looking at this man’s picture and the confidence in his gaze somehow puts me at ease.

With those beautiful eyes, he makes me forget that my life is a mess.

“Not my best picture, I must say.”

I shake my head. “It’s perfect,” I sigh dreamily, a smile I haven’t felt in ages stretching my lips. “I can’t imagine someone who looks so perfect is real. They don’t even look like that in movies anymore.”

“I’m flattered you think so,” counters a deep voice, and my eyes widen in alarm when I realize the voice is not in my imagination. It’s too clear and near for it to be anything but real, but it can’t be, can it?

My head whips away from the billboard to the massive man standing a few feet away from me. He is standing near the rear bumper of my car with his back to the setting sun so his features are in shadow, but that only makes his already intimidating frame seem dominating. He is massive, like a real-life version of the man on the billboard, but that can’t be right.

Am I hallucinating?

I’ve seen this happen before in movies. When someone is under so much stress, they start hallucinating people who are not real. Is that what’s happening to me?

“You’re not real.” I chuckle at the thought that I am finally losing my mind. It wouldn’t be surprising if that is indeed the case. I’ve had one too many one-sided conversations with Whiskers for it to be normal. If seeing the man of my dreams is the way I finally lose it, then I will gladly embrace the insanity.

The man chuckles, coming closer and dropping to a crouch in front of me, and my gaze drops to those powerful thighs that stretch his camo pants, and… Oh, Lord! The bulge pushing against his fly is obvious enough to have me blushing. I have never seen a man with such a huge…package—not that I make a habit of looking at men’s packages—but his is too impressive to ignore. My cheeks flush at the sight, and in a normal setting, I would look away, but this is not real. This gorgeous man with his massive frame is a figment of my imagination, so I can look my fill.

When my panic attack eases and he disappears, at least I will have the memory of him to get me through the next couple of days.

My graze trails the strong forearms resting on his thighs, and I spy a string of dark tattoos that disappear into the sleeves of the dark green T-shirt he has on. I want to reach out and trace the large veins popping on his forearms, but I am scared that he will disappear if I touch him.

I don’t want him to disappear. Not yet, at least.

This is the most at peace I have felt in so long, and I want to hang on to the feeling a while longer. My handsome vision is watching me with striking blue eyes shadowed by the black cap he has on and sporting a smirk that dances on that sexy mouth, and I can’t help but wonder how it would feel pressed against mine. Yeah, I don’t want him to puff away just yet.

“What makes you so sure that I’m not real?”

“Because you’re not. You can’t be.”

“How can you tell?”

I chew nervously on my lip before dropping my gaze from those icy blues to the massive pecs outlined by his T-shirt. I can tell he is ripped even through his clothes, with the kind of strength one gets from years of discipline and manual labor.

But he’s not real.

“I know that if I touch you, you’ll disappear,” I say brokenly. “I don’t want you to disappear.” If he leaves, then it will be only me and my late mother’s cranky cat who can’t stand me again. I don’t want to deal with reality just yet.

The man chuckles once more, the sound deep and a little rusty, almost as if he hasn’t made the sound in years, but it has heat welling up in my stomach and my core pulsing needily. I haven’t felt anything like this for any man ever. Never met one that was capable of causing my heart to beat this fast or a tremor to rack my system.

“What if I touch you instead?”

I blink at the man, but he doesn’t wait for my answer as he brings his hand to my face and cups my jaw, brushing his warm, calloused fingers down my cheek, and I melt on the spot.

There is nothing sexual in the way he touches me, but that simple graze makes my nipples pebble beneath my dress and a warm heat spread through my core. My breath catches in my throat, and I lean in like I’m touch starved, and he indulges me. He trails his hand over my jaw before dropping it to my hand and bringing my fingers to his lips; his hot breath brushing my skin causes my eyes to flutter. I hold my breath in anticipation, my heart hammering in my chest, nearly punching its way out, when I feel those firm lips press against my skin.

He’s kissing me.

My hallucination is kissing me.

“Was that real enough for you?” he asks, and my eyes fly open as sudden realization washes over my body, followed quickly by mortification.