Because the truth is a living, breathing secret with stormy gray eyes and a laugh like sunshine.The truth is playing with her crayons on my living room floor right now, waiting for me to come home and tuck her in.
And Maverick Hall, the man who shattered me once, is standing in the one place I thought I was safe.Fate has a cruel sense of humor.
Because now, after all these years, after all this time convincing myself I’d moved on, Maverick is back.Not just back in town.Not just a ghost in my memories.But back in my world, my orbit, my carefully built life.
And I don’t know if I can survive being consumed by him again.
Chapter One
Coming Home
Maverick
I swore I’d never come back to Franklinton.Said it a hundred times over the years, usually drunk, usually to people who didn’t give a damn.And yet here I am, rolling down the same cracked highway that leads straight into the place I once called home.
The town sign appears like a ghost out of the morning mist:
WELCOME TO FRANKLINTON, LOUISIANA.POPULATION: TOO DAMN SMALL
I let out a humorless laugh and tighten my grip on the steering wheel.Six years I’ve been gone, and not a damn thing has changed.
The air here feels different.Heavy.Sticky with humidity that clings to your skin, seeps into your bones, and refuses to let go.The pines on either side of the road lean in close, like they’re trying to choke the life out of you.Maybe they’re just warning me,Turn back before it’s too late.
Too late for that.
I left this place swearing I’d be more than the town drunk’s son.More than the screwup who couldn’t get his shit together.I was going to carve my name into the world with ink and prove I was more than the shadows people whispered about.And I did, for a while.I got good at tattooing.Built a reputation.Slept around enough to forget her face most nights.
But reputation doesn’t pay the bills when your head’s screwed up, and running doesn’t keep you warm when the world turns cold.Which is why, when Laine Gray called offering me a spot at House of Ink, I didn’t think twice.They’re booked out for months, thanks to that ball of energy they call Skye and her social media obsession.They needed another set of hands.I needed a lifeline.Simple as that.
At least, it should’ve been simple.
The closer I get to town, the louder the ghosts get.I pass the diner with the neon sign that never worked right, the gas station where I spent my first paycheck on beer, the old bar where I picked my first fight.Same streets.Same houses sagging under the weight of time.Same damn silence pressing in from all sides.
And then I see her.Not in the flesh, not yet.But in memory.Zora.
My hands tighten on the wheel until my knuckles bleach white.I thought I’d burned her out of me years ago, thought the whiskey and the women and the miles would’ve drowned the memory.But driving back into this town, I swear I can hear her laugh in the wind, soft and low, the way she used to laugh just before she’d let me kiss her.
