Sneak Peek Won’t Back Down
I drowned when I was sixteen.
My brother”s best friend brought me back, but nothing was the same. I can”t remember what happened. My parents dragged me away from my island home in the name of keeping me safe, and thrust me into hell instead.
I came back to Hatterwick to rebuild my life and--hopefully--my memory.
Now a new inheritance threatens to expose those long buried secrets, and someone will stop at nothing to ensure I never remember what really happened that fateful night.
The only thing standing between me and whoever wants to hurt me is a marriage of protection with the boy who saved me--now a man grown and determined to keep me safe at all costs.
But what began as protection turns into more. Because he”s the key to unlocking what hides in the shadows of my mind, which will either save or damn us both.
“Is it safe?” The whisper came from beneath a blanket in the backseat of my ancient clunker of a truck, though there was no one else in the vehicle but me.
Through the front windshield, I scanned the jubilant chaos on the beach, where practically every student from Sutter’s Ferry High School milled about a massive bonfire, dancing, drinking, and otherwise throwing off the shackles of the school year at the unofficial, annual summer kickoff on Hatterwick Island. I was pretty sure my passenger was going to hate every minute, but that wasn’t my call to make.
“Well, in the sense that there are no grownups here waiting to rat you out to your parents, yeah. You can come out now.”
The blanket rustled, and a slim figure popped up in my rearview mirror, brushing caramel hair back from her face. Willa Hollingsworth awkwardly scrambled over the back of the seat and into the front. Her cheeks were flushed with excitement, and her hazel eyes sparkled with a mix of anticipation and nerves as she looked out at the gathering. Like probably every other girl who’d be here, she wore a swimsuit beneath her cut-offs and Oxford cloth shirt. But she wasn’t like every other girl here. She was my best friend’s little sister, and there was every possibility Jace was going to rip me a new one for helping her sneak out to be here tonight, even though he’d participated in similar covert operations on her behalf countless times before in a bid to save her from their overbearing parents.
I tore my gaze away from the tanned legs I absolutely hadn’t noticed, and focused on doing my due diligence as one of her three additional unofficial big brothers. “Before you head out there, let’s go over the rules.”
One slim brow arched in an expression that was the sole betrayal of her privileged upbringing. “Rules?”
“I’m aware that you’re probably the last girl on the island who needs to hear this—” In all likelihood, she’d end the night cuddled up with someone’s dog. “—but I have to say it anyway.”
She folded her hands primly in her lap and fixed those long-lashed eyes on mine in patient expectation.
A mix of gold and green with striations of gray, a guy could get lost in those eyes. In the worlds behind them.
“I’m listening.”
Damn it. Where was I? Right.
I ticked each point off on a finger. “Don’t take drinks from anyone. Pull the can straight from the cooler yourself. Guard whatever you do drink, and don’t leave it unattended. Don’t go anywhere with randos. Don’t leave the beach without me or one of the other Wayward Sons. If anybody makes you feel uncomfortable, find one of the four of us. If you want to go home at any point, come find me. I’ve got no problem leaving whenever you’re ready.”
I hadn’t actually wanted to come out myself tonight. Given what I lived with, hanging out with a bunch of drunk classmates was hardly my idea of a good time. But I could never say no to Willa.
“Understood.” The corners of her mouth tipped up into a shy smile. “Thank you for helping me escape the tower, Sawyer.”
I wished I could help her do it for more than the night. I’d never understood why Willa’s parents kept her on such a short leash. They let Jace do more or less whatever he wanted. Was it because she was a girl? Because she was two years younger? Or was it because she wasn’t quite like everyone else, and they didn’t want her somehow tarnishing the Hollingsworth name? As if it was a crime to be uncomfortable in the public eye. How was she ever going to get more comfortable if she wasn’t allowed out in the first place?
“Anytime, Wren.”
Her cute little nose wrinkled at the nickname I’d given her when she’d been a kid because she’d always been apt to hide in the corner of a room full of people, the way wrens so frequently roosted in the corner of a porch. But she didn’t object. Instead, she slid out of the truck. No longer a child, but a young woman who just wanted to be a part of things like everyone else.
I followed a minute later, close enough to keep an eye out, but not so close anyone would think we were here together. Not that I was ashamed to be seen with her, but the island princess showing up with the son of the town drunk was gossip that would be far more likely to make it back to her parents, and I didn’t want her getting in trouble over it. They had issue enough with Jace maintaining our friendship.
Willa didn’t stride straight into the throngs, as her brother would. She reached the sand and skirted the edges of the group, darting forward and back like a sandpiper in the surf as she presumably looked for her friends. One of mine broke from the crowd, trailed by the girl who’d been as much his shadow as a partner in crime since elementary school.
“Jace is gonna kick your ass for bringing her,” Ford announced.
“She’s got just as much right to celebrate the end of school as the rest of us,” Bree argued.
“I know that, and you know that. But with the number of people here, what are the chances word won’t make it back to her parents that she’s here when she’s supposed to be at home?”
“I’ll handle Jace.” Something I ought to do before he spotted his sister wandering the crowd. But I wanted to make sure she was okay first. There was every possibility she’d get overwhelmed by all the people and want to leave in the next ten minutes. It wouldn’t be the first time.
“Surprised you came out tonight,” Ford continued. “You said you weren’t coming.”
I hadn’t planned to. Not wanting to admit that Willa was the only thing that had changed my mind, I jerked my shoulders in a shrug. “It’s the start of our last summer before you and Jace head to the mainland for college in the fall. Shame to waste any of it.”
It would be the first time our quartet was split up for any real length of time. Just one of many changes barreling down the pike that I didn’t know how to handle. Ford and Jace were bound for higher education and lives that would take them away from here. Meanwhile, Rios and I would stay. Him to protect his sisters from their hot-headed father. Me to look after my own dad, to make sure he didn’t drown in the bottle he’d fallen into years ago when he lost my mother and baby sister in childbirth. And we’d look after Willa, too, in Jace’s absence. The best we could, anyway, from our positions in what her parents would consider the gutter.
“Then let’s get to it, my man.” Ford swung an arm around my shoulders and steered me toward some coolers.
I couldn’t keep my eye on Willa without being obvious about it, and I needed to find Jace anyway. Nobody else here had a chaperone hovering, and she’d wanted to just be a normal high school student for the night. There wasn’t a guy on the island who’d lay a hand on her with all four of us here. She’d be fine without me going all mother hen on her.
I scooped up a Coke and wandered toward a gaggle of girls on the far side of the bonfire. Chances were, Jace would be at the center of it, holding court. It might’ve been easy to hate him for that but for the fact that he was just such a damned good guy. He didn’t lord his position in the high school hierarchy over anybody, and not once since we became friends in first grade had he ever made me feel like less. That wasn’t something I could say about most of our classmates.
Turned out, he wasn’t alone. Rios sat on a picnic table, guitar in hand, singing and smoldering at Cara Conroy, the junior he’d had his eye on since midterms. From where she sat at his feet, she was eating up all that Latino swagger and the smooth baritone of his voice. I did him a solid by not bursting into laughter. Who was I to interrupt his fun?
Instead, I sidled up to Jace, keeping my voice low. “Need to talk to you about something.”
“What’s up?”
“Willa’s here.”
His head snapped toward me. “What?”
“She wanted to come.”
“This is hardly the place?—”
“She’s fine.” I pointed to where I’d spotted her down by the shoreline, predictably playing with someone’s dog. Rios’s sister, Gabi, and another of their friends, Gwen Busby, were with her. “It’s not about drinking or hooking up. You know that, man. She just wants to be like everybody else. She’ll have little enough opportunity once you leave for school.”
Jace’s shoulders drooped. I knew he worried about what would become of her when he wasn’t there to run interference with their parents. “Alright. Fine. You’ll keep an eye on her?”
“Of course. The party isn’t gonna go on all that long, anyway. A storm’s rolling in.” Now that I wasn’t focused exclusively on Willa, I could feel the electricity in the air and see boil of clouds in the distance to the east, a stark contrast to the sunset wash of sky behind us.
“Weather guys said that was going to miss us.”
“They’re wrong.” I knew it with the certainty of a fifth-generation fisherman who’d grown up as much on the water as on the island.
Jace searched out his sister again. “Hope they’re right, for her sake.”
We both watched her for a minute as she romped in the surf with the dog. Assured that she wasn’t in danger of an anxiety attack, and that she seemed content, I finally let myself relax a bit. For all I hadn’t wanted to be here, it was hard to resist the air of celebration. This was a party, after all, and I was here with the guys who were brothers to me in all but blood.
As twilight gave way to dark, groups began to cluster tighter, and couples started peeling off to find a patch of sand away from the firelight to make out. It wasn’t the general air of horniness in the air that had me seeking out Willa again, though my brain helpfully offered up a flash of those lean, tanned legs. I hadn’t seen her for a bit, and I wanted to check in, make sure she was still okay and that no guys had decided to try their luck with the shy little island princess. Not that I had any kind of a claim. I was just looking out for her. Making sure nobody took advantage.
You keep telling yourself that, Malone.
All this noticing I’d been doing of Willa as definitely not a sister was a problem. One that might well be the only good thing about Jace leaving in two months, so he wouldn’t be around to notice and call me on it. Not that I’d dare do anything about it. Shit, Willa deserved so much better than the likes of me. But I needed to get a handle on things and find some way to shove her firmly back into the sister column she hadn’t truly occupied for more years than I was willing to admit.
Friends. We were friends. That was all we’d ever be. And that was fine. I was damned lucky to have her as that. A girl like her would’ve been well within her rights not to give me the time of day, let alone all the shy smiles and deep, quiet conversations we’d shared over the years.
The rumble of thunder had been moving steadily closer over the past hour or so. The air held an electric edge that told me things were gonna get rained out in short order. As if underscoring the point, a bolt of lightning split the sky, lighting up the beach like a beacon. It was enough to get the attention of all the revelers.
From somewhere closer to the fire, I heard Jace call out, “Storm’s coming in! Let’s get all this wrapped up.” Taking charge, as usual. And because he was still a Sutter by blood, folks listened.
He’d trusted me to keep tabs on his sister, so as people began gathering up their gear, I wove through, cursing the lack of light that kept me from seeing faces clearly until I was practically on top of people. Still, as kids began to stream back toward vehicles, I hadn’t found her.
Spotting Gabi, I grabbed her arm. “Where’s Willa?”
Her eyes widened. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her in a while.”
She promised she wouldn’t leave without one of us.
“What about Gwen? Could she be with her?”
“Maybe? I haven’t seen her in a bit either. She was hanging around my brother, listening to him play.”
Which meant Willa wasn’t with her, because I’d been right there. Where the hell was she?
Squashing the rising tide of concern, I tried to put myself in her head, to imagine where she might have gone. I didn’t see the dog she’d been playing with earlier. If she’d gotten overwhelmed, she might have stepped away. While she’d promised not to leave the beach, if she’d taken a walk further down it, she probably wouldn’t have thought that counted.
Following instinct, I headed north, toward the section of the island that her grandparents owned. It was the largest uninhabited stretch of Hatterwick. She knew that area like the back of her hand. If she’d wanted to get away, that would’ve felt safe.
When I spotted the single set of footprints headed up the beach, I relaxed a bit and broke into a jog to follow them. Worst case scenario, we got caught in the rain. We wouldn’t melt.
But when I lost the trail a few minutes later, worry rolled back in with the tide that was steadily rising. The wind had kicked up, and the storm was all but on top of us now.
“Willa!” I bellowed her name, over and over.
What trouble could she have gotten into on her own? She was too smart to go into the water on this side of the island. She well knew about all the riptides. And she’d hardly risk a swim when an obvious storm was coming.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it hadn’t been her who’d come this way. Maybe I ought to go back and see if she’d found one of the rest of the guys.
I was just on the verge of turning around when I heard a soft sound beneath the gale winds. What was that?
“Willa?”
I spun in a circle, hunting for the source. And despite all my certainty, I looked toward the water.
In the next flash of lightning, I spotted something white amid the frothing waves.
A slim, pale arm.
Terror turned my insides to ice. “Willa!”
I was already running toward the ocean when I saw that arm disappear beneath the surface.
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