The Butterfly Effect - Prologue - Willa
The Butterfly Effect
Book 1 Boggy Creek Valley
PROLOGUE
Willa
I sat in the kitchen, daydreaming about the one person who seemed to always take up the spare space in my head.
Aiden O’Hara.
If you looked up handsome in the dictionary, you’d see his picture under the word. Such a clichéd thing to say, but it was true. Dark brown hair and gray eyes that changed colors depending on his mood, the color of his shirt, or even if the sky was blue or cloudy. He had a body that should have belonged on a twenty-something-year-old instead of an eighteen-year-old. My older sister once said Aiden had hair that made a girl want to slip her fingers through it and see if it was as smooth and soft as it looked.
There was more to Aiden than his good looks though. He was kindhearted and would do anything for anyone if they asked. Aiden was smart. Very smart. Out of almost one-hundred kids in his graduating class, Aiden was on track to be the valedictorian, and I had overheard my mother telling my brother, Hunter, that Aiden could go to any college he wanted.
That wasn’t the path Aiden desired though. He was set to join the Navy right after high school, just like his daddy had done and his granddad as well. Aiden wanted to be a SEAL, and it was all he ever talked about. My brother, who was best friends with Aiden, had also thought about joining until our father was diagnosed with prostate cancer during Hunter’s junior year of high school. Hunter didn’t have the heart to leave, knowing things would be up in the air with the family orchard.
Boggy Creek Valley Apple Orchard. It was my father’s pride and joy…well, besides his three kids. My family owned one of the largest apple orchards in the United States. It had been in my father’s family for four generations and had started off with a few apple trees and a dream. Now? Two-hundred-and-fifty acres of trees and more than thirty-five different varieties of apples. My favorite was the Pink Lady, with my father’s and the rest of the Turner clan preferring Gala.
Lacy said I just had to be the different one.
With our father’s health unknown, Hunter had recently made the decision to not go into the Navy with Aiden like they’d originally planned. They were like brothers, and Aiden spent more time at our house than he did his own, especially after his father had died a few years back in a car accident. Aiden’s mother, Rose, was good friends with my mother, Mary, and she had leaned on our family a lot after the death of her husband.
Aiden’s grandfather owned a construction business in Boggy Creek, and his family had built most of the buildings around town. Most dated all the way back to when the town was founded. Aiden’s father had left the Navy to help his father run the business, and when Aiden had declared that he didn’t want to follow in the footsteps of the previous O’Hara men, his grandfather had given him his blessing to follow his own dreams. Aiden had promised him he would return to Boggy Creek someday to take over the family business. But he needed to pursue his own path until then.
My thoughts were interrupted by my sister when she walked into the kitchen and grabbed a box of Fruity Pebbles. She promptly poured some into a bowl and started to eat.
“I still don’t understand why you don’t use milk,” I said, before taking a bite of my oatmeal.
Lacy shrugged. “I don’t like it when it gets soggy. It’s gross.”
I laughed and went back to eating my breakfast as I stole glances toward the doorway.
When I focused back on my breakfast and my sister, she was giving me a once-over, a giant smirk on her face.
“What?” I asked.
She gave me a half shrug. “Baby sister is growing up. Do you have makeup on, Willa?”
My cheeks felt hot. “A little.”
Lacy winked. “You look beautiful, and I swear you grew up over Christmas break. The boys are going to stumble over their own feet when they get one look at you.”
I laughed and shook my head. There was only one guy I wanted to have look at me.
Aiden.
I was three years younger than Aiden, but that didn’t stop my lustful feelings for him. I wasn’t really sure when he had turned from my older brother’s best friend into the boy I had fallen head over heels for. He often had a starring role in my dreams, and I wanted Aiden to be my first. The man who would take away my innocence. High hopes for someone whom Aiden clearly thought of as his little sister. He hadn’t really paid much attention to me over the years, except for the occasional pat on the head, or an invite to go to the pond on his folks’ property.
Of course, I had always dressed like a tomboy so that I could keep up with Hunter and his friends. I wore baggy clothes and kept my hair tucked into a ponytail that I could hang out of the back of a baseball cap. And I’d never worn makeup before. That changed over Christmas break when two of my best friends, Ellen and Brighton—or Bree, as I called her—talked me into going shopping for more girly-type clothes.
Brighton was the one who knew all the fashion and watched every makeup tutorial on YouTube she could find. At her and Ellen’s direction, I got my hair cut and lighter highlights put in and learned how to put on the right amount of makeup so that it looked like I didn’t have any on at all. The one thing I loved about my new look was how my eyes seemed to stand out more, especially with the mascara.
This semester, Aiden would notice me. He had to. He was leaving in June for the Navy, and if I didn’t get him to realize that I had grown up and was well on my way to becoming a woman, he would never notice me. And worse yet, he might give his heart to another woman. This was my last attempt at getting him to look at me as someone other than a sister figure.
“I heard Aiden stayed the night last night,” Lacy mused.
I moved slightly in my seat. At any mention of Aiden, my stomach always did a weird little flutter. “Yep. Shouldn’t surprise you, he’s almost always here.”
She gave me a knowing smile. “Does him being here have anything to do with the sudden change in appearance?”
I gave her a gruff laugh and shook my head as I answered entirely too quickly. “No.”
“Liar.”
“Whatever, Lace,” I bit out with a roll of my eyes.
She ate a few more bites of her cereal. “He’s too old for you, Willa. And Hunter would never let it happen.”
I rolled my eyes once more. “It’s not like I’m sporting a mini skirt with a low-cut shirt on.”
“No, it’s worse. You’re in jeans and a shirt that shows off that new little body you’ve got forming.”
I stared at her and then said, “Aiden’s never looked at you like that, and you’re bigger breasted than me.”
She glanced down at her chest and then back over at me. “Um, I think you were gifted with the boobs in the family. I’m pretty sure your cup size is a B or C. I’m an A.”
That made my mouth twitch with a grin, but I remained silent. My sister did not need to know I was indeed a B cup and well on my way to a C, according to the lady my mother had taken me to last week for new bras. Mom said the number-one rule as a woman was to always have the right size bras. She said it made a world of difference.
As if on cue, Aiden walked into the kitchen in low-hanging sweatpants and no shirt, his broad chest on full display. My sister Lacy and I stared open-mouthed at him. If he noticed us gawking, he didn’t show it. He looked at us both with those soft gray eyes of his, then flashed his famous crooked smile. If you were lucky and he smiled widely enough, you were rewarded with his dimples. They didn’t come out as often as one would hope, and when he smiled at me like that, it felt like he was giving me a gift.
I was positive my insides melted—and I’m pretty sure Lacy’s did too, even though she would never admit it. She always said Aiden was a player and too handsome for his own good. That he would never be true to one woman, especially since he was going into the military.
Aiden finally spoke, looking between the two of us. When his eyes landed on me, his smile faltered for the briefest of moments. “Morning…Squirt.”
Did he pause before he used that stupid nickname he and my brother called me?
With a smile, I replied, “Morning, Aiden.”
With his eyes still on me, he said, “Morning, Lace.”
“Aiden, is it possible at all for you to wear a shirt?” Lacy nearly barked out.
After a quick glance down at his shirtless form, he looked over at my sister. “Does it bother you, Lace?”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to see Hunter half-naked, so why in the hell would I want to see you half-naked?”
Aiden gave a half shrug, then looked at me and winked.
I gave him a shrug back and took a bite of my apple.
He leaned against the counter and flashed me a wide grin. “Does it bother you, Squirt?”
I shook my head and answered honestly. “Nope, not at all. I rather like looking at you with your shirt off.”
Aiden tossed his head back and let out a roar of laughter as Lacy fought to keep from smiling before she let her inner mom come out to play.
“For Pete’s sake, Willa, you’re only fifteen and barely that,” Lacy reprimanded after she managed to get a stern look on her face.
I looked from my sister to Aiden. “Excuse me, but I turned fifteen back in October. And that doesn’t mean I’m blind, Lace.”
Lacy shook her head as she turned away from me. Aiden gave me a big smile, his dimples flashing. My stomach dipped, and I tried to ignore the way it heated my body in places I was pretty sure shouldn’t be heated.
Something in Aiden’s eyes changed. He walked around the table, leaned his head down, and placed his mouth close to my ear. “If only you were older, Willamina Turner,” he whispered.
I felt my face heat then. Finally. Finally , the day had come where Aiden O’Hara looked at me with a different set of eyes. I was no longer the little sister of Hunter Turner. I was now Willamina Turner, young woman with boobs bigger than my sister’s. I fist pumped internally as Lacy turned back to face us and Aiden stepped away from me.
Hunter picked that moment to walk into the kitchen. He took one look at my flushed face and asked, “What’s going on?”
Lacy pointed at me and gave our brother a warning. “You better watch out, Hunter, our baby sister has the hots for Aiden here.”
Hunter laughed and shook his head. “Willa, that is a heart that’s unable to love. Best you move on to a boy your own age.”
I stood up, my eyes swinging from my brother over to Aiden. I had taken way too much time this morning picking out what I was going to wear on our first day back from winter break to not let Aiden get the full view.
I’d decided to show off my new changes slowly. So, I’d picked a pair of skinny jeans that Bree said showed off my ass. A light blue shirt that also showed off my breasts, though not with cleavage. It was tight fitting and, as Ellen put it, left things to the imagination. My figure, although still not like my sister Lacy’s, was finally starting to fill out, and I was positive Aiden had noticed.
He watched me as I rounded the island, tossed my apple core, rinsed out my bowl, and then leaned down and put the dish into the dishwasher. When I stood and faced him, something was for sure different. He looked at me with an expression I had never seen before. I swore his eyes turned dark gray when our gazes met. The kind of gray that comes over the mountain tops when a storm is getting ready to come in.
Then he winked, and I nearly tripped.
He winked. Wait until I told Bree and Ellen about this.
“Did you do something different with your hair, Willa?” Hunter asked.
I glanced at my brother. “I did. I got highlights and cut about three inches off.”
“It looks nice,” Aiden said as Hunter looked at him. They exchanged a glance, and then Aiden turned and poured himself a cup of coffee before he leaned back against the counter, his eyes on me once more.
This time, Hunter stared at me a bit longer. “What are you wearing, Willa?” he asked.
I looked down at myself. “Jeans and a shirt.”
Lacy started to laugh. “Little Willa has gone and grown up on us, Hunter.”
He frowned. “Where’s the sweatshirt you always wear?”
“You mean the one that hides the rocking figure baby girl is growing into?” Lacy said, tossing a smile in Aiden’s direction. He lifted his coffee up to his mouth and took a sip.
Hunter looked at Aiden, then back to me. He slowly shook his head. “Yeah, I’m not liking this at all, Willa.”
With a grin, I walked over and reached up onto my toes to kiss Hunter on the cheek. “Don’t worry, big brother, I promise not to lose my virginity in the back of the gym under the bleachers like Lacy did.”
Hunter spun around and looked at Lacy. “What! Who was it? I’m going to kick his fucking ass.”
“Nice deflection there, sis,” Lacy hissed as she grabbed her backpack. “We need to go, some of us still have a first-period class.”
As I walked by Aiden, he reached down and took my hand, gave it a soft squeeze, and then dropped it. No one else had noticed, since Hunter was still walking after Lacy, asking about the guy who’d popped her cherry.
“Don’t let these high school boys sweet-talk you, Willa.”
With a smirk, I replied, “They haven’t so far. Besides, I’m saving myself for someone.”
He raised a single brow. “Is that so? Do I know him?”
It was my turn to wink. “You look in the mirror at him every day.”
That caused him to take a step back, but his eyes stayed locked on mine. For the briefest moment, I swore he was going to kiss me. Instead, he shook his head as if to clear some wayward thoughts, and then walked away.
I stared at his retreating form as Hunter walked back into the kitchen and grabbed a banana and a protein bar. I started to make my way to the door when Hunter called out my name. I turned and faced him as I walked backward.
He smirked and said, “Don’t talk to boys.”
With a lighthearted laugh, I followed my sister out of the house and to her car.
“Watch out there, Willa,” Lacy said as I slid into the front seat.
“What do you mean?”
Lacy glanced at me before she started the car. “I think Aiden O’Hara just noticed you’re not a little girl anymore.”
With a smile, I turned back and looked at the house. “Let’s hope so.”
Sighing, she pulled out and started down our long drive. “This could be a very dangerous game you’re playing with your young heart, sis.”
I stared straight ahead. “Maybe, but it’s a game I’m willing to play.”