Prologue #2
“You… would?” My voice cracks like I haven’t hit puberty yet.
“That’s crazy, right?” She leans forward, laughing as she shakes her head.
“Uhh… no… I mean, I don’t know.” I quickly do the math in my head.
Nope. Still way too young to get married on the spot.
“I know, it’s a silly thing to say.” She gives my hand a brief tug before releasing me and jogging down the way we came, yelling over her head. “I just love it here.”
A smile pulls at the corner of my mouth as I watch her disappear in the rows. It’s a sentiment I totally understand.
Life in Newhope, on the coast with my big ole family, is a lot like what she’s describing.
We didn’t grow peaches. We grew champion football players, but our roots are deep. I know what it means to love a place so much.
I pick up the pace and jog back to where we left the basket, and she hauls it onto her hip with a grunt, inspecting the fruit inside. “This should be enough.”
“Here.” I reach over and take it from her. “I can carry them.”
She looks like she might argue, but instead she crosses her arms walking beside me. Dove and I are the same age, but she’s always seemed smarter than me somehow.
Maybe it’s because she makes me feel like English is my second language. She’s not just beautiful, she’s wise.
“I heard you’ve got a secret, Maverick Murphy.” She presses her elbow into my side, and I almost drop the basket.
Her tone is sassy, and when she blinks those ocean eyes up at me, I clear my throat, fumbling for a reply. Can she see it in my eyes? Does she know what she does to me?
I’m going to kill Knox if he told her how I feel. I shared that with him in strictest confidence, and if that little dickhead spilled the beans…
“Don’t look so scared. I’m not going to out you!” Her laughter is a bell. “Kimmie told me she drives you to your hockey games, and your mamma has no idea. That’s pretty good knowing your mom. Nobody can get anything past her.”
“Oh.” My shoulders relax, but my guilt over my other secret rears its ugly head. “Yeah. It’s a lot of sneaking around.”
“Hockey?” Her brow arches. “Why not football?”
Shrugging my shoulders, I study the path ahead of me littered with fallen fruit. “If I played football, they’d all be watching me, it would be in all the papers. Every single thing I did would be under the microscope…”
I remember how it was for my “cousin” Austin.
He’s not really my cousin, and I wasn’t technically alive when he was our high school’s star quarterback.
I’ve only heard him talk about it with Edward, and I just know how it would be.
My uncles were all famous NFL players, and my dad has a popular sports podcast.
“Hockey’s mine,” I continue. “It’s fun, and I don’t know. I just kind of took to it.”
Every year when they’d ice down the civic center in Sterling, Uncle Zane would drive all us kids over to ice skate. He couldn’t get over how fast I picked it up. He said I was a natural.
“That’s what I heard.” Dove watches me with a hint of pride in her expression. “Kimmie said you’re really, really good. She said you might have what it takes to play in the NHL!”
My lips twist, and it’s true. Still, all I say is, “Maybe. I really love playing.”
“So why all the secrecy?”
“Mom wants me to be a golfer,” I confess guiltily. “But I play golf like I’m missing a limb.”
“You mean you play golf the way most people in the south play ice hockey?” Her sweet laughter loosens the fist in my chest.
“Yeah,” I nod, lifting my eyes to hers. “I guess you’re right.”
“Well, I think it’s cool.” She pokes my arm.
For a moment, we walk in silence. Dove Rhodes thinks I’m cool. The sense of possibility drifts through my mind again, and I sneak a glance at her walking beside me.
Dove is petite, but she has really pretty curves. The neck of her dress scoops low, showing off the soft skin at the top of her chest. All my fifteen-year-old fantasies burn in my forehead at the sight of one gentle bounce…
I tear my eyes away, doing my best to be a gentleman, when my foot lands on a hard peach lying on the path. It rolls, and with a yell, I go down.
“Oh!” Dove also yells, and I realize I accidentally threw the basket at her.
She’s falling too, and she yelps my name.
I reach out, doing my best to catch her, but I can’t catch her and break our fall at the same time. So I throw my body between hers and the ground, landing with an Oof! on my back, another hard peach right between my shoulder blades.
She falls on top of me, and I hold her waist. We’re breathing fast, and I blink straight up at the sky. “Are you okay?” I croak.
Despite the pain in my upper back and legs, I’m very aware of every place her soft body is touching my hard one.
Akela, her gray husky who never leaves her side, jumps all around us, lifting her nose and letting out a little howl-bark.
“It’s okay, Akela.” Dove turns, moving so her stomach is flat against mine.
She’s lying on top of me, and my heart thunders in my chest. I imagine wrapping my arms around her like we’re in one of those movies our moms love.
I imagine rolling her onto her back as the music swells, as a beam of sunlight shines through our profiles, as I lean down slowly, sealing my lips to hers…
“I should’ve warned you about fallen peaches,” she laughs, wiggling off me. “You knocked us both down!”
“I guess I wasn’t paying attention.” I sit up, looking around at the spilled fruit scattered across the path. “They’re ruined. Do we need to pick more?”
“I’m not sure there are any more.” She sits back looking up at me.
Her cheeks are flushed a pretty pink, and the way she smiles, the slow blink of her eyes… Did I hit my head, or is it possible… Is Dove Rhodes looking at me the same way I always look at her?
A jackrabbit thumps in my chest, and all the summers we’ve spent together, all the years I never dared to say what I was thinking, all the times I wanted to ask if it would be okay if I kissed her…
I can’t let this moment go. I might not get it again.
My lips part, my breath quickens, and I’m about to ask, when a male voice cuts in on our moment.
“Here you are.” It’s Corey Hayes. This rich guy from town, who’s always “just dropping by” the place. “Didn’t you hear me calling? What happened?”
I’ve met him before. He’s like twenty-five or something, and the way he looks at Dove makes me want to punch him right in the nuts.
“Let me help you.” He reaches down to take Dove’s arm, and she lets out a yelp. “What’s this? You’re bleeding?”
My senses perk up, and I stand quickly. “Bleeding?”
“I must’ve cut my arm on the basket.” Dove sounds confused, and I’m right at her side.
“You’re not okay,” I say, touching her carefully.
That dick Corey steps right in front of me, blocking my view. “We’ve got to get you down to the house. This looks serious. You need stitches.”
“Don’t overreact,” Dove huffs, and I’m doing my best to get around this guy.
It’s too bad the Bradford growth spurt my uncles are always talking about hasn’t kicked in yet. I’d shove him aside.
“I’m taking her to the house. You, collect these peaches and meet us there.” Corey Hayes gives me a sharp order, and I almost snap back that he’s not my dad.
Only that would make me sound as immature as I feel right now.
“It’s okay, Mav.” Dove smiles, looking back at me before going with him. “They’re not ruined. You can save them.”
Her pretty face relaxes the fist in my chest. “Okay…”
Picking up the basket, I watch as Corey holds her arm, half leading, half dragging her down the hill to her parents’ house.
I look around at the fallen peaches we were gathering for ice cream. The sun is setting. Our family is waiting. They’re probably wondering what’s taking us so long.
I look up the hill at that tree where her grandfather’s spirit lives, then I look down at that peach that threw us to the ground. Dove’s soft body in my arms. It was the best ten seconds of my life so far.
You can save them… I start collecting the damaged fruit. Her smile glows in my brain.
We changed today. I don’t know where or how, but this was the beginning. Corey Hayes might’ve taken her away from me this time, but it won’t happen again.