Prologue
Sierra
The thing about nostalgia?
It lies like a drunk ex with gas station flowers and a half-assed apology he thinks counts because he remembered your name.
It convinces you that you’re ready to walk back into a place you’ve avoided for years and not melt into a pathetic puddle of unresolved feelings and emotional backwash.
I last nine seconds. Yes, I counted every humiliating one of them like the emotionally stable adult I am.
Bull riders only need eight seconds to score. I lasted nine. Someone hand me a belt buckle for my spectacular display of denial.
The lodge still smells like pine, coffee, and wet wool from the drying racks—a scent that hits like a shot of childhood you didn’t ask for.
My boots squeak on the hardwood as I step into the great room, and my traitorous eyes snap straight to the display case.
Same glass snowmen. Same tiny scarves.
France. Japan. Iceland.
The smug little bastards still have more passport stamps than I do.
Though Everett probably has them beat, considering he vanished for nine years.
I swallow the lump clawing up my throat. “Hey, you frosty little freaks. Still standing guard?”
Guarding the window seat.
My window seat.
My heart—dramatic little hussy that it is—flutters like it didn’t get the memo that we’re healed and emotionally evolved now.
“Stop it,” I mutter. “You’re not seventeen. You’re a grown-ass woman with a 401(k) and therapy receipts. You can survive one stupid window.”
I step closer and run my fingers along the ledge, tracing the tiny scratches I know by heart.
“Still prefer the company of ghosts, I see.”
His voice slides up my spine the way his fingers used to—low, and so intimately familiar it detonates every memory I’ve spent years duct taping shut.
My shoulders lock. Pride snatches the wheel. “The ghosts talk back now.”
An infuriating warm and confident chuckle rolls through the room.
I turn, and there he is.
Bigger. Broader. Beardier.
The bastard.
Ovaries, I swear to God, stand down. This is not a drill. This is a crisis.
No eye contact. No horniness. Full-blown emotional hypothermia.
He’s the kind of man who makes rational women forget basic facts—like their blood type, their PIN number, or you know, their address. Which I’m sure works out great for him. They just follow him home and climb into his bed like it’s the logical next step.
Not that I’m bitter. Shut up.
