Chapter 1
Willow
“It’s alright Ms. Bubbleworth. We will find you a good home.”
I put my finger through the cage to give the chicken a little pat. Her first instinct is to lash out and try to bite me. But on my second attempt, she fluffs up her feathers in appreciation. We don’t normally sell grown chickens in the store and so this one is all alone. A chicken that nobody wants.
“If you spent as much time looking for jobs, or going back to college, as you do petting that chicken, then you might have some sort of future. Unlike that silly bird.”
My father. Always so practical. I can’t blame him. He worked hard to start this feed store in this small mountain town. He provided for his family and he is a good dad.
It must be hard when your only daughter was the one with the good grades, on the right track for success, and a bright future ahead of her. And then she drops out of college and comes home with no plan and no idea what to do. So as well as feeling lost and confused, I can add guilt to the pile of things I am struggling with.
“Of course you have a future Ms. Bubbleworth.” I tell the chicken. “I’m sure we both do, we just have to figure it out.”The chicken gives me a sideways, thoughtful look, as though she is thinking up some grand plan for us to escape, but even she thinks the future looks bleak.
“Can you figure it out while you are cleaning up the store room?” Dad hands me a broom.
I head to the store room and start sweeping. I don’t mind it. Sure, it’s not great working in dad’s store. And sure, I wish hadn’t had to move back in with my parents. And it’s true, I should be looking for a better job. But ever since I came home I’ve been feeling a little… wilted.
I’m a failure. And it’s not something I’ve ever really experienced before.
Such a bright future.
She’s going to change the world.
She’ll be showing them big city folk how it’s done.
The whole town would talk about my bright future.
According to my dad, and my mom, and the people in this town. Good grades and a polite, sunny disposition was all that was needed for that right track / bright future life.
But in the real world. The world of business college, living alone in a big city, being stuck in an office all day looking longingly out the window. In that world, good grades and well mannered meant absolute squat.
And it was one of those days, in a world of gray and computers and being locked indoors all day, that I decided that was not the life for me. I just wanted to come home to my mountain town.
I would rather be here sweeping out a store room and spending my days talking to a chicken. But for dad, mom, and the rest of the town, nobody could understand what went wrong, to see me back here, wearing a feed store apron and sleeping in my childhood bedroom.
Dad passes by the storeroom just as the front door bells jingles, signaling a customer.
“Get that, would you Willow?”
It’s ten o’clock and dad, a creature of habit, likes to take his morning ten right at ten o’clock.
Walking out to the counter I can see a guy looking along the back shelves. Moving to the left and leaning over the counter, I get a glimpse of jeans and a leather jacket. Leaning over just a little more, okay, I’ve practically climbed on top of the counter, but nobody can see me, and now I can see make out broad shoulders, the strong jawline, the hair black as sin.
Falcon Kingsley.
A name only spoken in hushed, whispered tones.
He was the baddest of the bad. Kingsley’s are famous in this town. The good Kingsley’s were a little wild but grew up to be respectable members of society. One of them is even the town mayor. But the Kingsley cousins…they took wild to a whole new meaning.
Bad seeds, my father called them.
“Don’t you go near those Kingsley cousins. Don’t even look at them.” My mother used to warn me. Like any of the Kingsley boys would look my way in high school. But the warning was enough to strike fear, and a little excitement, in a young, good girl’s heart.
Falcon Kingsley was my age. No, two years older, but he was in my year at school. Of the bad Kingsley cousins, Falcon is the youngest and rumored to be the baddest of them all. He would skip school, smoke, ride his motorcycle, date a different girl each week.
And then he disappeared.
