CHAPTER ONE
Ember
“Wait,she has the special edition release? Tell me she has the entire trilogy.”
“Even better. She has the prequel, too. And it’s in this gorgeous box.”
“Oh my God! I’ve wanted that set for so long. It was a limited print!” My best friend and fellow book lover, Dottie, gushed on the speaker phone. She loved romance while I was more of a thriller type gal. But my sister- hardcore romantic.
“I’ll put it aside for you. She has so many. I didn’t realize she bought so many in hardcover.”
“There’s nothing like the smell of a book. Can’t smell your kindle now, can you?”
I chuckled. “Thanks for making me feel better, Dot. You always do.”
“Of course. I should’ve canceled my plans and came with you. My parents are driving me crazy.” Dottie whispered the last part before muffling the next few words.
“What?”
“Never mind. I thought someone was coming. The coast is clear. So how long do you have to clean out the storage unit?”
“Until the end of the month. It’ll probably take me just as long. Seems like she has a lot more stuff than I anticipated.”
I took a deep breath and blew it out as I looked around at all of the scattered boxes. When my younger sister Elena died in a car accident two years ago, my whole world turned upside down. I was never close with my family, my parents the kind of folks who distanced themselves from most others including their own children. But Elena and I were like glue, close while growing up and still close after. After my sister and I graduated high school, they moved across the country, neither one of us wanting to go. We stayed behind, and I took care of their house while Elena moved into an apartment a few towns over to be closer to her job at the local hospital.
We talked every day and had dinners together often. So when the fateful call came two summers ago that she was gone my world fell apart.
I’d never forget the headlines in the Appleridge paper.
A young life taken too soon. A drunk driver and a wrong way crash caused the death of a local, beloved nurse.
My parents moved back home, but their grief and mine together were too much. I moved out a few months later and into an apartment with Dottie.
Life hasn’t been the same since.
For a long time, I ignored the notices about my sister’s storage unit. I remembered filling it up with her before she moved, her apartment too small to store anything. But when the auction notice came, I couldn’t ignore it anymore.
Two years later and it hurt like hell still.
“We all seem to gather a lot more crap than we like to.” Dottie agreed.
“Ain’t that the truth. Every time I clean out my closet, I ask myself where I got half the shit in there.” I blinked a few tears away as thoughts crowded my mind and picked up a leather-bound book, the cover readingMy Passwords. I cracked it open. Dust tickled my nostrils. “I found Elena’s book of passwords. Maybe there'll be some secrets in here.” I joked as I thumbed through the book. It looked like lists of websites with usernames and passwords, nothing too interesting.
But then I read one listing a website called Mountain Mates. Username- Spicysugar. Password- Findahusbandb4mysis.
My mouth fell open and a tsk sound emerged from my throat.Wow.
“What? What did you find?” Dottie asked impatiently.
I snorted, thinking of my sister with a look of glee on her face as she set the password. “Have you ever heard of a website called Mountain Mates?” I put the book aside and grabbed my phone off the nearby box. Moving out of the phone app, I opened theGoogleapp and quickly typed in Mountain Mates.
“No, what is it?” Dottie replied, curiosity etched in her voice.
My eyes scanned the words, and my hand flew over my mouth as I let out a chuckle. “No way.”
Mountain Mates- the number one dating website in America! Find your own mountain man and start your love story today! Or are you a mountain man looking for love? Make a profile and wait for the messages to come pouring in. You can even score your very own mail order bride. All for the low price of nineteen ninety-nine a month.
A dating website. For mountain men.
