Chapter 1 - Nicole
The bathroom door rattles again, and I jump so hard I nearly drop my phone.
"Come on, Nikky. Don't be like that." Jason's voice is slurred, irritated. "We were having fun."
We weren't having fun. I was politely listening to him talk about his truck for twenty minutes while trying to figure out how to leave without causing a scene. Then his hand landed on my thigh. Then higher. Then I said no. Then he didn't stop.
I press my back against the cold tile wall and stare at my phone screen, at the three dots that mean Boone is typing. My heart hammers so hard I can feel it in my throat.
The dots disappear. Reappear. Disappear again.
"Fuck," I whisper, squeezing my eyes shut. "Come on, Boone. Please."
I shouldn't have called him. I should have called literally anyone else. The police. An Uber. My boss. Hell, I should have called Colt, even though it's Friday night and he's probably drunk off his ass at the Saloon like every other Friday night since the dawn of time.
But I didn't call any of them. I called *him*.
Because somewhere in the back of my terrified, panicking brain, the part that's been pathetically hung up on Boone Sullivan since I was a teenager knew that if I called him, he'd come. No questions. No hesitation.
The phone buzzes in my hand.
**Boone: Have you locked the door like I told you? I'm 10 minutes away.**
I slide down the wall until I'm sitting on the bathroom floor, knees pulled to my chest, phone clutched against my heart.
Ten minutes. I can survive ten minutes.
"Nikky!" Jason bangs on the door again, harder this time. "This is fucking ridiculous. Open the goddamn door!"
"Leave me alone, Jason!" My voice comes out steadier than I feel. Good. "I told you no. I'm leaving."
"The fuck you are." Something slams against the door. His fist, maybe his shoulder. "You came here with me. You're not going anywhere until we finish what we started."
We didn't start anything. I came to this party with Melissa and Tara, who disappeared the second we walked through the door. Jason started talking to me. He seemed nice at first. Funny. Normal.
Then he got me a drink. Then another. Then his hands started wandering and his nice-guy mask slipped, and suddenly I was just another girl who made the mistake of being friendly to the wrong man at the wrong party.
Story of my fucking life.
I text Boone again: **He's getting aggressive.**
The response is immediate: **I'm driving fast.**
I imagine him behind the wheel of his truck, jaw set, those broad muscular shoulders tense, brown eyes fixed on the road with that intense focus he brings to everything. Boone doesn't do anything halfway. When he commits to something—training a horse, fixing a fence, helping someone—he gives it everything.
God, I've been in love with him for so long it's embarrassing.
Not that it matters. Boone Sullivan is so far out of my league we're not even playing the same sport. He's thirty-eight, gorgeous in that rugged, mountain-man way that makes women stupid, and he's got his shit together. He co-owns a two-thousand-acre ranch with his brother and their four best friends. He's kind, loyal, hardworking, and according to Colt, he actually believes in true love like some kind of goddamn unicorn.
And me? I'm twenty-two, stuck bartending at the Blackwater Falls Saloon because my dreams died with my parents, and I apparently have terrible taste in men judging by my current situation.
Yeah. Real catch.
The doorknob jiggles violently.
"Open this fucking door, Nikky!"
"No!" I scramble to my feet, heart racing again. "Jason, I'm serious. Leave me alone or I'm calling the police."
