Chapter 1
Chapter One
Jaxon
New Year’s Eve was a night I spent waiting for it to be over, even before it began.
It was the only holiday where I felt alone in a crowded room, and where the loneliness somehow echoed louder than the celebrations around me.
A night that had an unsettling way of dragging every thought I had been desperate to avoid back into the light.
Surrounded by couples, hands intertwined, heads bent close together, while I sat at the bar, alone, until Molly appeared at my side and started rambling on about needing to make a drastic change in her life. Whatever she was droning on about, I tuned out long ago.
While she was a nice girl to exchange quick pleasantries with whenever I popped into Beans both of those attributes were synonymous with unnecessary chaos and a lack of control around swirling small-town gossip, and I preferred to stay far from both since I had enough of that on the job.
“You know, you can be a real asshole sometimes.”
“Think what you will, but I’ve been honest with you from the beginning. It’s not my fault if you perceive things differently in your head.”
“Wow, Jaxon, wow. You’re really in a mood tonight.”
She wasn’t wrong.
I stared into my drink, absently swirling the contents around in the glass while the vibe behind me in the dimly lit bar was thick with an energy I couldn’t seem to touch, and no amount of champagne, vodka, rum, or whatever the hell people were drinking could numb the pain of my past.
The truth was, no drink, distraction, or fruitless countdown was ever going to erase the one thing that haunted me—the love of my life, who vanished without a trace over ten years ago. My heart clenched with the weight of that loss, making every celebration that followed feel hollow.
It didn’t matter how many faces I saw, how many “Happy New Years” I heard, or how many celebratory wishes for the promise of love, health, and happiness in the new year were exchanged.
The empty space in my chest was a hollow weight I couldn’t shake off, while the past kept slapping me in the face.
Everyone around me was celebrating something new, something promising, while I was stuck replaying the same damn heartbreak year after year.
Maybe I used alcohol to dull the edges on occasion, although it never really took the sting away if I were being honest.
Time didn’t heal; it just made the emptiness more familiar.
Fuck, I needed out of this funk.
I didn’t often wallow in my feelings, but this night always cast a dark, looming shadow over me.
Throwing back the last of my drink, I was damn grateful when I turned around and saw that Boden, my best friend, along with his fiancée, Lakelyn, my twin brother, Jameson, and his wife, Arizona, had finally arrived at McQuade’s.
“Maxim at Mom and Dad’s?” I heard Jameson ask our younger brother, Ford, as I approached them from behind.
“Yeah, Mom insisted, and Maxim was super excited once he heard all that she had planned.”
I chuckled, knowing our Mom probably let Maxim pick his favorite junk food from the grocery store.
“Fifty bucks says the only one who actually makes it until midnight is Maxim,” I said, draping my arms over their shoulders, pulling them into a hug, and anchoring them to me as a reminder of what was important—my family.
“I’ll take that bet. Shake on it?” Ford held his hand out toward me.
“Man, I love taking your money.” I smirked, shaking his hand before making my way over to the rest of our group.
“Hey, guys.” I clapped Boden on the shoulder before leaning in to kiss Lakelyn on the cheek. “I was beginning to think you weren’t going to show up.”
“Nah, just lost track of time.” Yeah, I wasn’t buying his sorry excuse for a second. “Plus, it’s tradition to spend New Year’s together.”
“You know there will be a day y’all switch out the bar for home with your families, right?”
“Doesn’t mean you aren’t any less welcome.”
I knew he meant well; he always did. Boden was a good man, maybe the best I knew. Although that didn’t mean I wanted his pity.
“Yeah, because that’s what everyone wants, a mopey-ass sulking in the corner.”
“Does that mean I can’t count you in for birthdays, family dinners, and game nights?”
“You know I wouldn’t miss that stuff for the world.” People say family isn’t always blood, even though I had a pretty spectacular one, but I’d always considered Boden my third brother.
“I’ve asked you this before, and you’ve always evaded the question, but seriously, what is it about New Year’s specifically that gets under your skin so much?”
“What’s your fee?”
“My fee?” He eyed me curiously.
“Yeah, if you’re going to be my shrink and analyze me, you should at least be charging me hourly.”
“You can pay me in beer,” he held up his drink for emphasis, “or hard labor on the job site once we break ground this summer on our place.”
Boden and his fiancée were in the early planning stages of designing their forever home, not far from where my still-under-construction place was being built out on the same lake.
“Perfect, I’ll supply the booze next time I’m in the mood to share, though you’ve gotta promise I get dibs on that comfier-than-fuck couch of yours for our session. This body’s running on a lifetime of regret, and you know I don’t half-ass anything, especially not on the job site.”
“Shit, man, I charge extra for regret.”
“So, I should bring pizza and whiskey then?”
“My door is always open for you, my friend, day or night.”
We clapped each other on the shoulder, as there was no more accurate statement or assurance.
Boden had my back, and I had his without question, and not just on the police force.
We were thick as thieves, bonded in providing a safe space to just be real with each other.
I could still feel his pain of losing his parents as if it were my own, and I witnessed firsthand how it altered his life.
While most teenagers would have balked at the responsibility and or fallen apart, Boden refused to do either. He didn’t just take on the role of guardian for his younger sister, Brooke; he carried that responsibility with pride and a selflessness that I found inspiring.
I perched myself on a stool and watched the game of pool going on in front of me, while to the right of the table, my brother stood with his back to me, and his body pinning his wife to the wall, completely oblivious to others around them.
From the angle I had, I could see the warmth radiating from Arizona; her delicate features were glowing, while she stared longingly at my better half with a starry-eyed gaze.
My chest tightened with genuine happiness for my twin, who had pined for Arizona from a distance since we were kids. Seeing his dream of starting a life with her come to fruition was gratifying to witness.
I wanted to say it gave me the thinnest thread of hope for my future, but I’d be lying.
That was what happened when you shared yourself with the one person you couldn’t envision living without, only for one day, poof, everything you thought you knew about them came crashing down around you, like a harsh punch to the gut, robbing you of the air to go on.
That was what Lily’s disappearance did to me.
Until that point in my life, I’d been pretty blind to the harsh reality that while everything happened for a reason, it didn’t always make sense. With no rhyme or reason, goodbye phone call, or a note left behind. Hell, not even a breadcrumb to provide any clue as to why, my world was upended.
Over time, I’d learn to live with the endless questions that lingered in my mind, offering no answers, only the uneasy feeling that something far greater had been at play, something that had forced her and her parents to vanish without a trace.
It was the one belief I kept coming back to, as the flip side of the coin was too devastating to think about.
When Lily left, it changed the trajectory of my life.
I had grown up knowing, like my twin brother, Jameson, that we’d follow in our father’s footsteps and become firefighters, but I no longer felt that deep, soulful calling that my other half did anymore.
With my life turned on its head, my overanalyzing brain shifted its focus and followed the path that led me to where I was today, a newly minted detective in our small town.
I hadn’t even told anyone about my promotion, since Chief Bassitt called me into his office and let me know that Detective Edgar was stepping into the Sergeant's role. Those around the station knew I was splitting my duties and saw it as a natural progression in my career. And if I were honest, being a detective had always been the goal I’d set for myself when I entered the police academy.
A vibrating sound pulled me from my runaway thoughts and had me looking toward the high-top table, where my brother’s cell phone did a little shimmy with each pulsating ring. I knew it was his because who else had a red phone protector other than him?
I glanced nonchalantly at the lit-up screen with the caller’s ID at the top, before doing a double-take when the name registered like some kind of twisted joke.
Lily.
I stared dumbstruck in a trance, convinced I was imagining her name on his phone.
It made zero sense.
It had to be a coincidence; it couldn’t be her. It was just another girl with the same name, I told myself.
“Fuck it.” Consequences be dammed.
I reached out instinctively, but as my hand hovered over the phone, the screen went black.
The ringing stopped.
A sick, cold wave of panic washed over me while my heart hammered in my chest, desperate to break free from the invisible walls that had held me together since she disappeared. Seconds stretched on, impossibly long, as I stared at the lifeless phone, willing it to ring again.
Countless thoughts raced through my head, but one predominantly stood out. Had I just missed the first sign of life?
My vision blurred, and I blinked hard when the phone’s screen lit up again. That time I didn’t hesitate. My thumb slid across the glass screen before I lifted the phone to my ear.
“Oh, thank God. I’m so sorry.” A rushed, feminine voice cut through the noise of the bar, and I knew instantly it wasn’t just anyone; it was her. “Arizona isn’t answering her phone and—” Her voice shook with panic.
“Where are you?”
“GPS says I’m two miles outside of town, but I’m stuck; my car has a flat tire.”
“T-town, as in Sutton River?” I stuttered, unable to mask my disbelief.
The last thing I heard before the call abruptly ended was her sharp gasp, a breath of pure shock that sliced through the static and lingered in my mind like a gut-wrenching echo. I yanked the phone from my ear, the screen now lifeless in my hand, while my attention sought out my brother.
The moment we locked eyes when he turned my way with Arizona’s hand in his, I saw red.
My fists clenched involuntarily as fury surged through me.
The anger rising in my chest, coupled with searing red-hot blood pulsating through my veins, had every nerve ending lit up like a live electrical wire.
But it wasn’t until Jameson’s smile, so bright I wanted to wipe the floor with it, faltered that my stomach twisted.
“You good?” he asked hesitantly.
“You’re my brother, my fucking twin, the one person who truly knows the pain I’ve gone through; I can’t believe you kept this from me.”
“I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
“No clue?” I laughed with distaste coating my tongue. “That’s rich. You have no fucking clue, and yet, the love of my fucking life just called you.” I shoved him in the chest with both hands, causing him to lose his footing.
“Shit, Jaxon. Let me explain.”
“Explain? The time for explaining has passed.” I curled my fingers into a fist and sucker punched him in the face. The crack of his nose beneath my hand hadn’t even begun to touch the surface of my wrath. “I’ll never forgive you for this.”
With those parting words, I moved through the crowd, which parted for me like the Red Sea, creating a clear path as I made my way outside the bar.