Or maybe it was just set to rewind.
I blinked as I came up around the side of the boulder, sure my mind had to be playing tricks on me. Eyes convincing me of something that wasn’t there. Something thatcouldn’tbe there.
A woman was facing away, wearing underwear that were soaked and nothing else. Long locks of cinnamon hair clung to the slick moisture of her back and shoulders as she lathered a bar of soap over her skin.
A thousand memories impaled me. A cyclone of old joy and demolished dreams and the most gutting sort of shame. All of it crashed together to boil a riot of fury in my blood.
It couldn’t be her.
It couldn’t be.
Like the woman felt the rush of my presence, she whirled around.
That was the moment the cornflower-colored eyes I would never forget widened back at me. So blue they were nearly purple.
Eyes that had always danced with mirth and shyness and vulnerability.
For a moment, I was frozen by them.
Fucking staked to the spot.
Before her name that was nothing but a barb of guilt and rejection fell as a whisper from my tongue.
“Daisy?”
TWO
DAISY
Cash Cunningham stoodthere like a dark cloud beneath the rays of the sun. Hands clenching and unclenching.
So gorgeous my belly fisted and my soul ached as I lay eyes on the boy who had been scored in my psyche like a brand.
Well. Not so much a boy anymore.
He was all man.
Wearing worn jeans and a tight white tee that hugged every muscle of his intimidating frame and a plain cap on his head.
Locks of brown hair barely curled out at his ears.
Face hard and ferociously beautiful and so different than I remembered.
He was so much bigger than before.
Hewn of ripped, rugged muscle, and every bit of exposed skin was covered in ink.
I wanted to take the time to evaluate every detail, but eyes the color of the forest were glaring back.
A toil of greens and golds and browns. Almost familiar. You know, all except for the disbelief and hate that roiled in their depths.
The man was the very definition of shooting daggers.
It wasn’t until then I realized I was basically standing there nude in the freezing river.
Surprise ripping out of me, I dropped the bar of soap into the river and my hands flew up to cover my very bare breasts that were peaked and pebbled from the ice-cold water.
Oh, crap, no.
