Sterling Touch (Sterling Falls #6)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

[Vale]

Ten years old

M y mother’s death had been my fault.

Even though I’d never met the woman.

Even though I understood the biology behind her death.

Her passing has haunted me and my six older brothers.

However, the ghost I’d been more afraid of during my life was a living one: my father.

While he appeared to hate my brothers, ranging on a spectrum of fire and brimstone toward the younger set to a flame-throwing dislike of the older ones, he was simply indifferent toward me until I was ten years old.

That was the year of big changes.

From birth, my eldest brother Stone was the only father-figure I had, which was a lot of pressure to put on a boy who was twelve years older than me.

Hero worship hardly described my feelings for him.

But there was another boy who became equally important to me.

He’d been the true hero in my story.

No one ever forgets the day they fell in love.

I can still recall the heat of the black asphalt shingles on the sloped roof outside my bedroom window.

My butt aching on the hard, scratchy surface and my worn gym shoe-clad feet planted at an angle to keep me steady, to prevent me from slipping off the covering over the extended porch.

My knees were tucked up to my chest, skinny arms wrapped around my shins.

My chin was lowered, but my gaze never wavered from the stables.

A space devoid of horses since the passing of my mother a decade earlier.

With my eyes focused on that weathered barn, I couldn’t help thinking my father’s death had equally been my fault.

A whisper in my ear.

Sebastien hollering.

Knox swinging his fists.

I’d close my eyes, but I was afraid of what I’ll see.

Every memory of that slow, slurred voice waking me from sleep sent a shiver rippling down my spine.

“There you are.” A deep masculine voice pulled me from my haunting thoughts.

He knew my hiding place, which wasn’t much of a hidden spot considering the roof of the overhang was fully visible to anyone who’d look.

Plus, it was broad daylight, and the early May sun was beating down on me.

Even the wind seemed to be dead that day.

However, my heart was hammering, reminding me I was very much alive.

The sensation was becoming more and more frequent whenever Cortland Haven was around, which seemed kind of silly considering he was Stone’s age—twelve years older than me and a grown-up at twenty-two.

Not to mention, he was Stone’s best friend, and a figure in my life as constant as my brothers.

In the last year, though, something in my brain flipped whenever I was around Cort.

Like a lightbulb switched on, only it intermittently flickered.

Like the electricity didn’t quite catch, missing the connection between the bulb and the socket or something.

Still, a blink of light glowed here and there.

That fluttering illumination was Cort.

“We’ve been looking all over for you, Little Bee.”

My name is Vale, short for Valentine.

Little Bee was the nickname he’d given me, claiming I was always buzzing around Stone and him, eavesdropping or under foot.

The name seemed silly to me as I was almost a teenager.

Officially in the double-digits, soon enough I’d be grown, and leave Sterling Falls like Stone and Cort had.

I’d go off to college and put this small mountain town behind me.

Cort lowered himself to sit beside me, practically mirroring my position, only his knees were spread wider when he bent them, and his arms casually looped around his legs, one hand circling his opposite thick wrist to lock his arms in place.

Cort reminded me of the Vikings I’d seen in an old picture book.

Dirty-rust hair that hung to his shoulders and a smattering of facial scruff.

He was big and burly, and always a little sweaty, but I didn’t mind.

“Why you hidin’, Little Bee?” His voice was much lower than it’d been when he was younger and running around our property with Stone.

“I’m not hidin’. I’m in plain daylight,” I sassed, not looking over at him until his bicep bumped into my thin shoulder, nearly knocking me over.

I whipped my head in his direction, prepared to scold him for touching me.

Like when Sebastian points his finger in my direction, and I swat it away.

My brother right above me in birth order could be so annoying .

Only, when I looked at Cort’s big face, his expression turned from tease to torture in the flap of a heartbeat.

“Bee,” he whispered, reaching out for my face and swiping his callused thumb underneath my eye.

I blinked, caught off guard by the sudden, yet tender, touch.

The firmness of the pad of his thumb.

The featherlike stroke.

I realized then I’d been crying.

Crying tears I hadn’t even felt which seemed stupid.

I wasn’t sad that my father was dead.

Wasn’t sorry he was gone.

Maybe that’s why I was crying, because I felt guilty that I wasn’t more upset, which was downright backward.

I couldn’t possibly mourn the loss of a dad, because I’d never really had one.

I had Stone.

Surprising me again, Cort hoisted my tiny frame onto his lap, wrapping his arms around me like a giant bear and pressing my head to his chest. His heart thumped beneath his worn T-shirt.

One that smelled a little stinky.

Heat emanated through the threadbare cotton against my cheek.

He also felt like an emotion I wouldn’t recognize for a while longer.

On that day, I hadn’t known how badly I’d needed that hug until it happened.

Something inside me clicked.

The lightbulb tip hit the socket just right and the bulb finally illuminated to its full capacity.

A one-hundred-watt crush on Cortland Haven burst into brightness.

A crush I dreamed of acting upon, doodling our names together in my secret journal for months, before Cort and Stone had a major falling out.

Until Cortland Haven became the enemy.

Unfortunately, my heart never got the memo.