Prologue
CALLIE
EIGHT YEARS AGO
Caelmore, Scottish Highlands
“Are you okay?” Lewis asked as I lay wrapped up tight in his arms.
A thrill of giddiness thrummed through me at the feel of his strong, naked body.
Lewis’s striking blue-gray eyes were filled with tenderness and awe.
Sometimes I couldn’t believe he was mine.
Not just because he was the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen in my life, but because that beauty ran deep.
Lewis was kind, attentive, smart, and funny.
And he belonged to me now, as I belonged to him.
That night we’d given each other our virginity.
No one else would ever have that from either of us.
The very thought of Lewis with another girl sent a bolt of panic through me, and I crushed it by kissing him fiercely.
“I’m more than okay,” I answered breathlessly when we finally broke the kiss.
He slid a hand around my nape and brushed his lips across my mouth. “I love you so much, Callie Ironside.”
“I love you too.” Feeling him pulse against my stomach, I giggled. “Again?”
He grinned, dropping his forehead to mine. “Ignore it. You’ll be sore.”
A twinge throbbed between my legs. “We can do other stuff.”
Lewis groaned. “I want to … but we need to get you home before my dad or yours finds us.”
We’d taken to sneaking into Lewis’s parents’ guest annex at the side of his house.
So far we hadn’t been caught, but Lewis was sure our luck was going to run out.
A glance at the alarm clock on the nightstand told me it was nearly midnight.
Usually, I told little white lies to my parents that I was at a friend’s house sleeping over, but I hadn’t tonight because I hadn’t expected to have sex with my boyfriend.
If anyone had been leading the physical side of things, it was me. Lewis was a perfect gentleman. I’d told him weeks ago I was ready to have sex, but he said he didn’t want to rush me. Tonight we’d snuck into the annex to fool around, but things escalated quickly, and I wasn’t sorry for it.
Lewis wasn’t merely my boyfriend. He was my best friend.
Since I’d moved to Scotland with my mum when I was ten years old, Lewis had been an important part of my life.
He’d taken me under his wing because he sensed I’d been through something.
And when I went through something even more traumatic, he was right there at my side. Ever my protector.
As we got older, we shared our pasts with each other.
I knew that Lewis and his wee sister Eilidh had lost their mum and had been through a terrifying home invasion experience a few years before my arrival.
We, unfortunately, had trauma in common.
But fortunately, having my best friend understand a horrific moment in my life had made me feel less alone and not as scared.
Lewis was protective and affectionate, and he always had my back.
I’d known since I was thirteen that I wanted him to be the kind of best friend I kissed every day.
It had taken him a little longer to catch up.
He’d been afraid of ruining our friendship.
But when I’d started dating our classmate and Lewis’s friend, Michael Barr, everything changed.
Lewis was jealous and hurt and finally admitted he wanted me to be his girlfriend.
Poor Michael got caught in the crossfire, and when I broke up with him to date Lewis, he stopped talking to both of us.
However, I was happy to report that he and Lewis had gotten their friendship back on track this past year.
Michael was dating Lana, a girl in our year who lived in Golspie.
All was well again. In fact, we had a nice friendship group that made school fun.
Lewis’s best friend since first year, Fyfe Moray, was now one of my close friends, too, and even more so since he’d started dating my friend Carianne.
Maybe we’d end up all getting married at the same time and raising our kids together.
The thought filled me with excitement for the future.
I wanted to work at my mum’s bakery in Ardnoch, maybe take over running it when she was ready to retire, and live there for the rest of my days.
After living my first ten years in LA, I could, hand on heart, say I never wanted to live anywhere but my wee village in the Scottish Highlands.
Lewis wanted to be an architect like his dad, so I imagined him working for his dad’s firm in Inverness and us building our house here in Caelmore on the edge of Ardnoch where the rest of his family had built their homes.
A perfect, simple, happy life.
I smiled dreamily at the thought and felt Lewis’s chest vibrate with his laughter.
“What’s that look for?”
I grinned harder. “Just really happy.”
His expression softened. “I’m glad. Me too.”
Spotting the twinge of worry in his eyes, I laughed. “But we need to get me home, I know.”
The truth was, I didn’t blame Lewis for being a little nervous.
My stepdad, whom I thought of as my dad dad, was a former Royal Marine and built like a brick shithouse.
He probably knew how to kill a man and get away with it.
Lewis might be a newly minted black belt in tae kwon do (as was I), but there were very few people who could go up against Walker Ironside and win.
With one last kiss, I rolled out of Lewis’s arms and got up to get dressed. In the end, we helped each other dress, copping a feel here and there, kissing and laughing, and taking twice as long to do it.
Eventually, we snuck out of the annex and got onto our bikes.
Lewis never let me cycle home alone, even though it was only a six-or seven-minute bike ride.
It was the height of summer, so it wasn’t fully dark.
This far north, between May and August, there was no true nighttime.
And between the end of May and the end of July, there was no astronomical twilight.
Tonight, the sky was the dusky dark blue of nautical twilight.
We’d switched on our bike headlamps, anyway, in case we passed a vehicle, which we did.
But soon we were cycling into the quiet street that housed my parents’ bungalow.
Slowing a few houses down, I hopped off and curled my fingers into Lewis’s shirt to bring him down for a kiss.
He was six foot three and still growing.
My boyfriend bent his head and kissed me voraciously.
Skin flushed hot, I reluctantly broke the contact.
I couldn’t wait to have sex with him again, and I could see the same thought in his eyes.
“Mum and Dad are going to Inverness tomorrow to buy a new car, and your mum is taking Harry and Morwenna to the petting zoo,” I whispered, referring to our respective younger siblings. “We’ll have the house to ourselves.”
“What time?” Lewis asked gruffly.
“I’ll text you when they’re getting ready to leave.”
He nodded and bent down for another kiss. “I can’t wait. I love you.”
I smiled against his mouth. “I love you too.”
Lewis waited until I’d settled my bike against the side of the house and slipped into the front door before he left.
I could still feel the throb of him between my legs as I toed off my shoes and crept quietly down the hall toward my bedroom. My brother, Harry, slept in the room across the hall from me, but that boy could sleep through a rave.
Mum had texted me earlier to ask when I was coming home, and I’d lied and said we were watching a late movie with Lewis’s parents. Hopefully, that lie wouldn’t come back to bite me in the arse.
The tiptoeing was pointless, because when I walked into my bedroom, it was flooded with light and my mum sat on the bed, her back against my headboard.
Guilt flushed through me as she stared like she could see right down to my soul.
For a long time, it had been us against the world. And then we’d moved here, and a shit ton of bad stuff happened that I didn’t like to think on too long before Mum and Walker fell in love. Walker quickly made me fall in love with him, too, and he’d been Dad ever since.
He’d legally adopted me after he married Mum because they both wanted peace of mind that if something were ever to happen to Mum, I couldn’t be taken away from Walker.
And when Mum fell pregnant with Harry, I was even more glad to legally be my dad’s.
I wanted us all to have the same name and feel like a real family, without any half-sibling labels or feeling like I maybe didn’t belong to him the same way Harry and Mum did.
Mum and I were still as close as two peas in a pod. When she’d first told me she was pregnant with Harry, I was excited but also a bit afraid that it would change our special bond. It hadn’t. Not even a little. And only for my love of Lewis Adair would I lie to her.
“You didn’t need to stay up,” I whispered as I crossed the room to open my chest of drawers. Pulling out my pajamas, I couldn’t quite meet her eyes.
“I wanted to make sure you got home all right.” She still had a strong American accent. There was a slight inflection of Scottishness on the ends of her words, but that was about it.
“Lewis made sure of it.” I sat down on the bed, waiting for her to get up.
I was practically my mum’s spitting image.
She fell pregnant with me when she was sixteen years old and had me at seventeen, so she looked way too young to be mother to a seventeen-year-old.
We had the same long blond, wavy hair, same eye shape, and the same nose and apple cheekbones.
The only differences were my mouth, which was slightly fuller, and my eyes were light blue while hers were brown.
Silence stretched between us, and my gut churned.
I disliked keeping things from Mum. I usually told her absolutely everything.
But I knew she feared I’d follow in her footsteps and get pregnant as a teen, too, so I couldn’t tell her about my night.
Lewis and I had been safe, and I was happy, and I didn’t want her parental concerns to ruin it.
Finally, Mum sat up and nudged me with her elbow. “Everything okay? Was the movie good?”
Feeling terrible, I nodded.
Her gentle touch on my chin brought my head around. Our eyes met.
Mum’s drifted over my face, searching. Knowing seemed to settle in her expression. “I thought you’d look different, but you look the same. My beautiful Callie.”
“Mum?”
She sighed heavily. “Please tell me you were safe.”
It shouldn’t surprise me that she knew. Mum always seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to me. “Mum …”
“We’ve never kept things from each other before, so let’s not start now.”
“Even … this stuff?”
“It terrifies me you’re growing up so fast … but even this stuff.”
I licked my lips nervously and finally admitted, “We were safe.”
The breath whooshed out of Mum and she leaned into me. “Did he look after you? Are you okay?”
I reached for Mum’s hand. “He loves me, Mum. He loves me so much and I love him. Sometimes I feel like I might explode with it. Like … as happy as loving him makes me, it hurts too.”
Mum covered our hands with her other. “That sounds like real love to me.”
“I’m not going to do anything stupid,” I promised her.
She met my gaze. “Callie, you are the best thing that ever happened to me, and I wouldn’t change having you for the world. But I want you to have your entire childhood, and mistakes happen. So … on Monday, I’m making you an appointment. I’d like you to go on birth control.”
Relief flooded me. I’d been so scared she was going to ask me to stay away from Lewis. “I can do that.”
Her lips pinched together. “And unless he asks me outright, we’re not telling your father.”
The thought of Dad learning about Lewis and me having sex sent a nervous chill down my back. “That’s probably for the best.”
Mum patted my hand again. “No more lying to me, though.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t … I’m sorry.”
“I know you are. I know you love him.”
Mum began to stand, but I grabbed her hand to stop her from leaving.
She looked down at me expectantly. “He’s my Walker Ironside, Mum.
I’m going to marry him and make a family with him, and we’re going to raise them right here.
I don’t want to have a kid as a teenager, but I want you to know that whatever happens, as long as I have Lewis and I have you and Dad and Harry, I’ll be the happiest person in the world. ”
Her eyes shimmered with unspent emotion as she reached out to caress my cheek.
“I believe you, baby girl. I’m happy for you.
It’s scary for me seeing you grow up … but all I want is your happiness.
And if you’ve found yourself your own Walker Ironside, I’m the happiest mom in the world. But you will not be a teen mom. Ever.”
I nodded because I truly didn’t want that either. “I love you.”
“Love you more than life.” She tapped my nose. “Now get some sleep, Juliet. I’m sure you want to see your Romeo in the morning.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Love that play, Mum. But bad comparison. That ended tragically. Lewis and I won’t.”
She smiled. “I know. Night, baby girl.”
“Night, Mum.”
I waited for her to leave the room and then sank into my bed.
Another silly, dreamy smile lit my face as I stared at the ceiling.
I couldn’t wait to grow up and buy a house with Lewis and share a bed every night.
To wake up to him and then, after a morning of sweet lovemaking, I’d head off to work with Mum at the bakery.
It seemed like a dream that I could be this happy.
I knew not everyone was given this kind of bliss or found the love I’d found as a teen.
However, my start in life hadn’t been great.
Mum had tried her hardest to make it good, and I’d always felt her love …
but my real dad was a nightmare, and he’d attempted to make our lives a nightmare.
First Walker and then Lewis had felt like the universe’s way of paying me back for my rocky start.
Now I couldn’t wait to start living the next part. Mrs. Adair. I giggled into my pillow. One day, I’d be Mrs. Callie Adair.
I’d miss Ironside as a surname because it was bloody sick, but I’d give up practically anything to make Lewis mine forever.
Mine forever.
I couldn’t wait for forever to start.