PROLOGUE
The Arizona heat bore down on Caleb Stone with a ferocity he had never experienced in his eight years of life. Heat shimmered off the blacktop of the playground like sequins glittering on his mother’s fanciest dress. He had heard folks say it was so hot one could fry an egg on the sidewalk. He’d never heard that expression before now, but then again he had never lived in a warm climate in his life. Folks were saying that it was the hottest October on record here in the Grand Canyon State. Just his dumb luck!
“It’s an inferno out here,” Caleb muttered to himself. “No one told me we were moving to Death Valley.” So far Arizona wasn’t anything his mother had promised it would be. Instead of Arizona being awesome, all he’d experienced were scorching temperatures and stupid kids. Moving from Alaska had been a total fail.
None of the boys in his class who were shooting hoops during recess wanted to give him the time of day. Caleb was the new kid at school, transplanted from Moose Falls, Alaska, after his parents split up. Did he smell or something?Did they think he had cooties? He hadn’t been asked to join in even once.
His older brother, Xavier, didn’t have a problem making friends. He was already on the football team and making a name for himself. Everyone loved him. Back home in Alaska Caleb had also been popular. As far as he was concerned, Arizonans had no taste whatsoever. Didn’t they appreciate charm, pee-your-pants jokes, and handsome good looks?
Landon, his younger brother, had found a group of nerdballs like himself to hang out with. They did dorky things like work with microscopes and specimens. Landon had found his tribe, even if they were dweebs. Birds of a feather flocked together, he supposed. But where was his posse of like-minded kids? Ones who were cool and funny and liked to play jokes. It wasn’t fair that he was the odd person out. What had he done to deserve this? Not a bleepity-bleep thing. He was so mad he wanted to cuss, but the thought of it getting back to his mother stopped him. She was already going through enough heartache. Caleb hated seeing her with red-rimmed eyes in the morning after crying herself to sleep.
He never wanted to make anyone hurt the way his dad had made his mom ache. Caleb wanted girls to like him, but he wasn’t sure about the love part. As far as he could tell, it was a lot of trouble.
The girls here in Arizona were different from back in Moose Falls. They liked him. A lot.
In class they kept passing him notes filled with red hearts and smiley faces. They would write down their phone numbers and ask him to call them. So far he hadn’t called a single one. He was only eight years old, and he didn’t need or want a girlfriend. Plus, he didn’t have a cell phone. His mom and dad thought he was too young for one.
He felt a sharp pain in his chest at the thought of his dad. He was back home in Alaska probably wishing they hadn’t left. Things had been bad at home for a long time with lots of shouting and slamming doors. He’d hated his father at times, even though he really loved him. He kept that love way down deep where no one could see it. He didn’t want Xavier to be mad at him for still loving their dad, not when he’d done so much to hurt their mom.
Sometimes it just made his head hurt. Why couldn’t he just have a normal family? That way he wouldn’t have had to leave Moose Falls in the first place.
“You’re special, Caleb. And don’t you ever forget it.”
His grandmother Hattie had whispered those words in his ear before they’d left Moose Falls. Just thinking about it made his eyes fill with tears.Don’t cry, he told himself. If the fellas saw him crying, they would probably think he was a baby and call him names. He needed to be strong like Xavier. He never cried.
“Hey, Caleb. Do you want to push me on the swing?” Denise Hall was standing next to him fluttering her eyelashes. She was pretty, he supposed, with long, curly hair and a nice smile.
Caleb shrugged. Honestly, he’d rather be playing hoops with the boys. He didn’t understand girls or what they wanted from him. But for some reason they were drawn to him like a magnet.
“I was going to ask Caleb to play jacks with me.” Another girl—Samantha, maybe—stepped in between him and Denise. “So, do you wanna?” she asked, pressing the point.
Suddenly, he was surrounded by five girls, all of them pestering him with requests.
“You’re the nicest-looking boy in the whole school,” Shayna Lockett whispered in his ear. “I have a crush on you.”
He felt his cheeks getting flushed. The girls swarmed around him, all trying to get his attention. He felt like a member of a famous boy band. Caleb wasn’t sure what to do in the situation. There was only one person on the planet who could handle this.
He channeled his father, Red, the coolest dude in the universe.
Caleb held up his hands. “Ladies, I appreciate the warm welcome, but if you could give me a little space I’d appreciate it.”
With smiles and apologies, the girls backed away from him and headed over to the swings, giving him exactly what he had requested. It was as if he had special powers or something.
“I could get used to this,” he murmured. He could feel a huge grin stretching from ear to ear.
“Hey, Alaska.”
Caleb rolled his eyes and turned toward the squeaky voice coming from behind him. Hal Tanner was standing there gawking at him. With a head of red hair, round cheeks, and a face full of freckles, Hal looked like a Cabbage Patch Kid. Hal was in Caleb’s class, and he seemed to think him being from Alaska was hilarious. He kept making jokes about Caleb living in an igloo and eating raw fish for dinner. He was incredibly lame, but for some reason he was popular.
Clearly, he didn’t know the first thing about Alaska or how cool it was to live there.
A powerful wave of homesickness washed over him. He missed Moose Falls and the huge mountains he could see from his bedroom window. He missed wearing cable-knit sweaters and going tobogganing with his brothers. And he missed having a best friend.
“Yeah. What do you want?” Caleb asked Hal. He wastired of trying to make inroads with him and the rest of the guys. If necessary, he would simply be a lone wolf and go his own way. He could make it on his own, especially since he could still hang out with Xavier and Landon. He would never be alone.
“How do you get all the girls to pay attention to you?” Hal asked with his head cocked to the side. “You draw ’em in like bees to honey.”
Caleb jutted out his chin. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” It felt nice to get some of his mojo back.
