Starcrossed Colorado (Hart County #1)

2. Emma

TWO

Emma

“Come on, baby. Don’t do me like this. Haven’t I always been good to you?”

I caressed the steering wheel of my 2001 Nissan Altima. She’d been making weird noises for the last several miles. Clanking. Then some kind of grinding. None of it good.

“You can do it,” I cooed. “We’re almost there. Baby, please.”

Stella whimpered from the passenger seat. Then leaned over to lick my cheek. I appreciated the moral support.

The drive had been going so well until now. I’d left West Oaks, California, yesterday morning. Stopped in a secluded area on the Nevada/Utah border to get a few hours of sleep overnight. Stella had cuddled up with me to keep us both warm. Maybe sleeping in my car in the desert wasn’t the safest idea, but it had worked out fine. What my overprotective father didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

From there, the morning had gone without a single hitch. But what was a new adventure without the unexpected, right?

Perhaps not completely unexpected. Maybe I should’ve paid for a trip check on my Nissan before leaving. Or gotten those repairs that I’d kind of, sort of known were inevitable. And possibly more expensive than this poor old chariot was worth. But I had paid for this car with my own money, and that meant something to me.

We just had to make it a little teeny bit farther.

I had only five miles to go when the concerning noises turned dire. My gas pedal started to go. Then I saw smoke leaking from inside the hood.

Oh, come on.

I managed to get over to the shoulder and sputter to a stop right in front of a billboard that read, Welcome to the Hart of Colorado. You’re Going To Love Hart County!

Hmmm. I sensed irony.

Checking my phone, I confirmed what I’d already suspected. No service. “Shit,” I muttered.

Stella licked my cheek again.

I looked over and smiled, stroking my fingers into the golden fur at her neck. “We’re gonna be fine. A little walk on a summer evening never hurt anybody, right?”

Right.

Heaving a deep breath, I got out and patted the hood of the car. “Thanks for a good run.” She’d gotten me almost the entire distance to Silver Ridge, and for that I was grateful.

Maybe it was fitting that my old car had expired. When I wiped my slate clean, I was thorough about it, wasn’t I? Like the way I’d blown up my entire life during the last semester.

Nobody could accuse me of doing things half-assed.

My downfall had begun last October, not long after I’d started my grad program in music education at a prominent school in Southern California. I’d been so proud and more than a little starstruck.

To earn some extra income, and also because it sounded fun, I took a gig as a violinist for a local theater company. That director. Wow, he had been charming. Floppy hair, a million-dollar smile. Somehow confident and self-deprecating at once. Always staring at his messy stack of papers, pushing his black-framed glasses up his nose, while most of the women and half the men in the play couldn’t take their eyes off him.

It started out innocently. For the longest time, I insisted there was no way he could be flirting with me. But one day, I ran into him at a popular lunch spot, and we got to talking. He invited me back to his office. Definitely flirting. I knew what he wanted, and I wanted it too.

Freeze frame, right there. If only I could tell myself to turn him down. That the thrill wasn’t worth it.

We kept our relationship a secret, since he was my boss. The sex had been hot, too. In his office, my apartment, backstage after hours…

Stella had never liked him. That should’ve been a clue.

Looking back, I felt so stupid. He’d used every trick in the book on me. How had I not seen it? But when you wanted to believe in something bad enough, I guess you could convince yourself of anything.

I could, anyway.

Then, a few months ago, his wife returned from a stint teaching in London. Yes, that’s right. He’d hidden the entire fact that he was married . And it turned out she was a professor at my school. In the music department , where I was a master’s student.

The whole thing exploded, and soon, everybody knew. The faculty, the students. When I told the administrators I wouldn’t be back next year, they didn’t fight me on it. If anything, they were relieved.

I was in desperate need of a new beginning.

So here I was in Hart County, Colorado, taking some time off in a different state to figure myself out. With hard work and some luck, I would have things settled by the end of the summer. Ideally, I would be able to move to a different grad program to finish my master’s. I’d missed the usual deadlines, but I had an advisor pulling for me. I was already waitlisted at one school, and I had several other prospects. I believed it would work out because it had to.

My family would never need to know the real reason I’d transferred. And all of that bullshit would be so far behind me that it couldn’t touch me.

I shook myself off, like I could already imagine it gone.

Stella jumped out and sniffed at the wildflowers growing along the shoulder. I went around to the backseat to grab the essentials. My hair fell forward as I checked the contents of my messenger bag. It held Stella’s treats, my wallet and phone, and my journal and pen. Things I couldn’t live without.

From the trunk, I grabbed my violin case. I debated for a moment over the guitar, finally deciding to take it too. My case had a padded strap. I could carry it a few miles, no problem. My keyboard was another story. Unless I could somehow rig a harness on Stella’s back…

My retriever mix perked up and looked at me, furry brows knitting like she knew what I was thinking.

“No, you’re right. That would be ridiculous. The keyboard will wait.” So would my music books and my suitcase full of clothes. I was wearing cutoff jean shorts, an old Nirvana hoodie, and sneakers. Good enough to get me where I was going.

I closed and locked up the car. Snapped Stella’s leash onto her collar. “And we’re off. Our new adventure awaits.”