No. His name is Bennett Kincaid. The boy I’d loved since I was old enough to know what a crush was. My middle school obsession turned college sweetheart. The boy I once gave every piece of myself, body and soul—and then mourned with a heart shattered beyond all repair when I thought I’d lost him forever.
But I suppose that name died with him. And while there is a part of me that is desperate to demand answers, I hold myself back. Because nothing will change the fact that losing him broke me, and it was all apparently a huge fucking lie.
“Whatever your name is, I never want to see you again. As far as I’m concerned, you died twenty years ago and you can fuckingstaydead.”
Turning on my heel, I storm out of the candy shop to the waiting Jeep I rented when I landed in Colorado.
And away from the ghost of the only man I’ve ever loved.
Bram
Half of Forbidden Pines is watching me with far more interest than is safe.
But I don’t fucking care.
All that matters is Josie. Sweet, bright, light-of-my world Josie. Here, in the last place on Earth I ever would have expected to see her.
My chest feels as though someone has dropped a giant boulder on it and I can barely drag in enough oxygen to fill my lungs.
Ignoring the stares and whispers around me, I force a smile for Janet, the cashier at the front of the store. Her father owns the candy shop and together they’ve kept it running for nearly a decade thanks to the slow trickle of tourists Forbidden Pines sees during the year.
Janet’s eyes are wide in her pale face as she rings me up, but she doesn’t ask a single question about my altercation with Josie and I don’t offer any explanation. The less the citizens of our chosen home know about what happened here today, the better.
Clutching the candy I picked out for Axel’s Little girl, I head out to my SUV, deliberately keeping my movements unhurried as I climb inside and start the engine. The entire way home I stick to the speed limit, refusing to give Sheriff Donnelly any more reasons to hassle us than she already feels she has.
But my patience has worn thin by the time I walk in my front door, and I make a beeline for my brother’s office in the hopes of avoiding the rest of the family.
And, thankfully, it works. Colt is there, hunched over some report or another on his desk. When he looks up, it’s my own face staring back at me, though there’s a bit more mischief in his smile. “Bram. What brings you to my inner sanctum on such a lovely day?”
“Josie is here.”
That’s all I have to say, and the change in my brother is as drastic as it is immediate. Every bit of playful mischief flees from his expression, leaving behind the calculating tactician I knowhim to be. Rising from the desk, he hurries over to shut the door behind me, closing us off from any curious ears—Little or otherwise. “Josie is here? Like here at the cabin?”
“No. I ran into her at the candy store in town.”
“Did she see you?”
“Yes. And yes, she recognized me. She called me Bennett.”
“Fuck.” Agitation pours off him as he paces, and I don’t need our twin connection to feel what he’s feeling. “We have to tell the others. And we have to find her. If she goes back to New York and tells everyone she saw you here…”
“I know.” For nearly two decades we’ve managed to fly under the radar, even as we built our logging empire out here in the mountains of Colorado. And with one impossible coincidence, the lives we’ve fought tooth and nail to build could unravel in a fingersnap.
“All right.” Pausing his jerky movements, Colt closes his eyes and breathes deep. And when his eyes open again, he’s calm, at least on the surface. “First things first, we need to call a family meeting.”
“Gray’s going to lose her mind.”
Colt’s face twists into a grimace. “Yeah, she is. But she deserves to know. They all deserve to know what we’re up against.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. But the thought of facing my family, of telling my baby sister that we might have to uproot our entire lives once again has my stomach twisting itself into a knot.
As if he can sense my distress—which he probably can—Colt claps a hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “I’ll gather everyone. You make the hot chocolate. Nobody can be pissed at the person who brings them hot chocolate.”
The attempt at humor loosens some of those knots in my stomach, at least a bit. “All right.”
With another reassuring squeeze, Colt opens the office door and disappears into the hallway. I give myself another minute to allow my system to settle before following him.
The kitchen is surprisingly empty. Usually Elias is in here, working on dinner or baking some kind of sweet treat for our “niece” Lanie. But fate must feel guilty for fucking up my life, because I have the kitchen all to myself as I work on whipping up a fresh batch of hot chocolate.
