Hart’s Landing (Hart’s Landing #1)

Prologue

Lydia

I would have been eighteen today.

Dying young put a serious wrinkle in my plans.

But it also put an important plan in motion for my four best friends.

They’re getting together at the old foundry site—our secret meeting spot on the edge of town.

It’s where we shared a million secrets, confessed crushes, told stories, talked shit, dreamed dreams, and occasionally passed around a bottle of cheap strawberry wine.

Today, they’re here to keep a promise.

Mila is the last to arrive.

“Sorry,” she calls, hurrying through the break in the fence. She moves with the agile, graceful steps of a dancer. “Class ran over.”

“That’s okay.” Gabi scoots over to make room for her in the circle, then hands her a bag of homemade cookies.

“Thanks.” Dropping to the ground, Mila tucks the sweets into her bag.

“I thought you were quitting ballet,” Rachel says.

“I am, but I haven’t exactly told my mom yet.

” Mila yanks the hairpins from her bun and pulls the elastic from her ponytail, red hair spilling over her shoulders and highlighting the freckles sprinkled across her nose.

“She’s still not over my rejection from Juilliard, so I’m trying to space out the disappointments. ”

Yasmine shakes her head. “I still can’t believe she didn’t speak to you for two weeks over that.”

“You got a scholarship to NYU,” adds Rachel. “That’s practically an Ivy League school.”

“Yeah, but Juilliard was her big dream for me. And since she trained me, she took the rejection personally.” It’s instinctive for Mila, making excuses for her mother. She shouldn’t. “So what did I miss?”

“Nothing yet,” says Gabi. “Hey, can I use your ponytail holder? Mine snapped on the way here.”

Gabi grins when Mila hands it over. “Ooh, it’s one of the good ones. Thanks.” Gabi lifts her thick blond hair off the back of her neck and puts it up. The light glints off the ladybug charm resting just above her collarbone.

Mila looks around the circle and smiles, a little sad, a little hopeful. She plays with the ladybug charm she wears around her neck, too. “It feels good to have all four of us here together, doesn’t it?”

I can hear it in her voice—the fear that they’re all growing apart. That nothing will ever be the same. They’re all feeling it. To be honest, I’m worried too. Because if my friends lose each other, they’ll lose me.

That’s another thing they don’t tell you until your heart stops keeping time: when the people you love stop loving each other, their memories of you fade. You fade. I might have been able to accept dying young from leukemia, but I’m not ready to be forgotten.

“It’s weird without her, though.” Yasmine glances at the empty space beside her, where I used to sit. “Even though she’s been gone for six months, it’s like I keep expecting her to text me. Or call. Or just show up. I can’t believe I’ll never see her again.”

“Same,” Rachel says softly. She wears her ladybug charm on a bracelet, which she cradles now in her other hand. “I have the letter for Alice.”

Alice. My little sister. If my heart could still beat, it would beat for her.

“What should we do with it?” Mila wonders.

“Rach, why don’t you keep it?” Gabi suggests. “There’s a reason Ladybug gave it to you, don’t you think?”

“Maybe.” Rachel sniffs. “God, I miss her.”

I miss them too, but I gotta say, death would have been way less scary if I’d known how often I’d get to see my besties from the other side.

But what I’ve seen lately is them pulling away from each other instead of coming together. Rachel clinging to a shitty relationship. Yasmine’s anxiety keeping her awake all night. Gabi’s constant stress-baking. Mila exhausting herself trying to please people.

Tonight, I want them to remember who they really are.

I want them to remember me.

“So, let’s focus on what we came here to do,” Gabi says in her captain-of-the-volleyball-team voice. “What we promised her we’d do—live tonight like there’s no tomorrow, because tomorrow is never guaranteed.”

Fun, right?

A lot more fun than sitting around crying over me. I’ve seen enough of that.

On my birthday, I wanted them to push each other to be brave, have an adventure, take a risk. My one condition was that each girl let the group choose her adventure, rather than deciding for herself. They know each other well enough to pick the perfect—and perfectly scary—thing.

“Did everyone bring their ideas?” Yasmine asks, pulling a leather-bound planner from her bag. She’s the self-appointed secretary for this meeting, preparing to write down everything they decide.

“Okay,” Gabi says. “Who wants to be first?”

No one volunteers.

“We could start with the easy one,” suggests Yasmine.

“Who’s the easy one?” Mila asks.

“You are,” the other three say at the same time.

“You need to let a certain person know how you feel about him,” Yasmine says.

Immediately, Mila starts shaking her head.

“A person whose family owns the bakery where you work,” says Rachel.

They’re talking about Gabi’s brother, Everett McKean.

“I can’t,” Mila blurts.

Yasmine leans forward. “Why not?”

“For one thing, he’s twenty. Twenty. He’s been at college for two years already. I’m just his kid sister’s friend back home. He still calls me ‘Freckles!’”

“Because he likes you,” Rachel points out. “If he didn’t, he’d just ignore you.”

“Exactly.” Gabi looks at Mila. “Look, Everett’s my brother, and I personally think he’s a disgusting cretin, but you’ve had a crush on him forever. Wouldn’t it feel good to just put it out there?”

Mila chews her bottom lip. “Put it how there how?”

“Kiss him,” says Yasmine, probably thinking of her latest romance novel.

“Kiss him!” Mila shrieks. “Out of nowhere? That’s terrifying!”

“More terrifying than always wondering what might have happened if you’d been less afraid?” Rachel asks.

“Um, one hundred percent yes.”

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Yasmine asks.

“Let’s see, he rejects me and I die of humiliation?” Mila slaps her hands over her face. “Please don’t make me do this.”

“I happen to know he’s making a fruit delivery to the bakery tonight.” Gabi’s eyes gleam with mischief. “You’re on the closing shift, right?”

“Yes, but—”

Yasmine raises a hand. “All in favor of Mila making a move on Everett, say aye.”

“Aye,” echo the other two.

“All opposed?”

Silence.

“Great.” Yasmine clicks the pen and narrates as she writes. “Mila will kiss the cretin. Sign here, please.”

Mila reluctantly takes the pen and signs her name.

“Why does it feel like my life is jumping the rails right now?”

They all laugh and move on to assigning the next task.

Mila doesn’t know it yet, but she’s right. After tonight, her life will never be the same.

She rides her bike to work that night.

When she reaches the fancy, wrought-iron truss bridge that separates the two halves of Hart’s Landing, she hops off her bike and leans it against one of the stone structures connecting the bridge to the embankment of the White Pine River.

I know what she’s doing.

Local legend holds that, during the 1800s, a girl was forbidden to marry the poor sailor she loved because her family had arranged her marriage to a wealthy man.

Every night, she tossed a stone into the river, whispering her longing beneath the stars.

On the night before she was to be the rich man’s bride, she went to the river and never returned.

Some say she sailed off with her love in the moonlight; others say she drowned.

Either way, lore has it that if you toss a stone with your beloved’s name off the century-old bridge, you might see her ghost at the water’s edge.

But she’s not a malevolent spirit—if your love is true, she’ll see it returned to you.

I haven’t met her yet, but I’m on the lookout.

Near the riverbank, Mila picks up an oblong rock, gray and smooth, about the size of a bar of soap. She takes a Sharpie from her small backpack, double-checks no one is watching, and prints Everett McKean across the surface in neat letters.

Scrambling back up the bank, she grabs her bike and walks it to the middle of the bridge. She looks at the stone in her hand, at the name printed on it. Then she draws back her arm and sends it sailing out through the latticework.

She doesn’t say anything out loud, but I know she’s making a wish as she watches it hit the water and sink below the surface, which glitters beneath the bright afternoon sun. For a moment, she thinks she sees someone at the river’s edge. Dark hair. A pale dress. She blinks, and the figure is gone.

A trick of the light.

Just after seven, Mila’s about to flip the Open sign in the window to Closed when the bell above the door jingles.

Twelve-year-old Stevie MacDougal stands in the doorway. “Hi, Stevie.”

“Hi,” he says adoringly, pushing his thick glasses up his nose. They make his eyes look huge. Or maybe that’s just what happens when he’s staring at Mila. “Is it too late to get a cherry lemonade?”

Mila smiles. “I can make you one.”

“Thanks.” He follows her to the counter and watches her pour him a cold drink like she’s a movie star and he’s her biggest fan.

(He is.) A skinny, ginger-haired seventh grader, he’s been in love with her since she first started babysitting him, when he was just nine years old.

He figures they’re destined to be together since they’ve got matching hair, and he comes into the bakery at least once every time she works a shift.

“Here you go.” She hands him his lemonade.

“Thank you.” When he digs in his pockets for money, she waves him off.

“On the house tonight,” she tells him.

“Wow, thanks.” His eyes go impossibly wider as he sips from the straw. “Want help cleaning up or anything?”

“No, that’s okay. But you better go so I can close up.”

Once Stevie leaves and she locks the front door behind him, Mila moves through her closing tasks on autopilot.

When the bakery is sparkling clean, but Everett still hasn’t arrived, she brings her bag to the kitchen, digs past the detritus that always seems to accumulate at the bottom, and closes her hand around the letter.

The one with the Juilliard return address.

The one that would have changed her life.

She takes it out and stares at it. Then, calm as can be, she crosses to the stove and lights a burner. When the flame clicks to life, she tentatively touches it with the corner of the paper. She switches off the burner and moves carefully to the sink, where she watches it burn.

When the flames threaten her fingers, she drops the remains of the letter into the sink and runs the water.

The back door opens. Everett stands in the doorway, backlit by the gloaming laying the day to rest.

“Hey,” she says casually, even though her pulse is thrumming like a train coming down the tracks. Because of what she just did, or because he’s finally here, I’m not certain.

“Hey.” Everett gives her a lopsided grin and runs a hand through his shaggy brown hair. “You’re still here. My deliveries took longer than usual tonight, so I thought maybe I missed you.”

“I’m still here.”

His mouth hooks up again. “I’m glad.”

Mila sways, and for a second I wonder if she’s about to faint. “Want something to drink?” she asks.

“Sure. I’ll just unload and move the truck so it’s not blocking the alley. Meet you up front?”

She nods and heads into the shop. He watches her go, admiring her long legs and the gentle curve of her hips. Her cute butt in those denim shorts. That red hair falling down her back.

He’s into her. Even from here, I can tell.

Everett turns out all the lights in the kitchen before making his way up front. It’s dark there, too, where Mila waits with two glasses of cold lemonade and a pounding heart. The only light comes from the street lamps shining through the windows.

I move a little closer. I always did love a front-row seat.

Mila hands Everett a glass and hoists herself up onto the back counter.

He takes a sip from his drink. “So what’s new, Freckles?”

“Are you ever going to stop calling me that?”

“Are you ever going to stop having freckles?”

She sighs. “Probably not.”

He grins. “You’re heading to New York, I hear.”

“Next week.” She hopes a sip of ice-cold lemonade will slow her racing pulse. “Going back to MSU soon?”

“Couple weeks.” He pauses. Then he moves closer, leaning one hip against the counter. Right next to her leg. He takes another drink and sets his glass down. “It’s hot tonight.”

Now we’re getting somewhere.

“It is.” Mila is barely breathing.

“We should go swimming or something.”

“Swimming? Where?”

“The beach.”

“Like…right now?”

He laughs. “That’s kind of what I was thinking.”

Mila’s expression is panicked. On a night like tonight, the beach will be full of kids hanging out. She’ll lose her nerve. She knows she has to do this here and now.

Like there’s no tomorrow.

She slides off the counter and faces him. Her next breath shudders a little when she exhales, her terror palpable enough for an incorporeal spirit to detect. Everett tilts his head and gives her a funny look. “You okay?”

With zero finesse whatsoever, Mila clutches him by the front of his shirt and pulls his mouth to hers. I’m cringing over here. But no sooner do their lips crash together than Everett puts his hands on her shoulders and lifts his head.

“Oh God.” Mila lets go of his shirt and takes a step back. “I’m so sorry.”

“Hang on. Do you smell something—”

BOOM!

Out of nowhere, a deafening crack shakes the ground beneath their feet, and a blast of heat and pressure rockets through the room. Mila covers her ears. Smoke pours into the front of the bakery from the kitchen.

Glancing toward the back, Everett curses and grabs Mila by the arm. He races toward the door, where he fumbles with the lock. Once he gets it open, he shoves Mila outside and follows right behind her.

“Go!” he commands, pushing her onto the sidewalk. “Run fast! Get away from the building!”

They barely make it across the street when the front windows of the bakery shatter.

Within a minute, sirens are screaming in the dark.