Won’t Back Down (Wayward Sons #2)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

SAWYER

“ I s it safe?”

The voice came from under a blanket in the back seat. I looked out through the windshield of my ancient clunker of a truck and scanned the beach. Practically every student from Sutter’s Ferry High School was here, drinking and dancing around a massive bonfire. This was the annual unofficial summer kickoff for us locals on Hatterwick Island. I was pretty sure my passenger was going to hate every minute of this party, but that was her call, not mine.

“Yeah, no grownups waiting to rat you out to your parents. You can come out.”

A slim figure popped up in my rearview mirror, caramel hair mussed from the blanket, cheeks flushed, and hazel eyes sparkling with excitement. Willa Hollingsworth scrambled awkwardly into the front seat, and I absolutely did not notice the long, tanned legs beneath her cutoffs, or the swimsuit top peeking out from under her Oxford shirt. She was my best friend’s little sister, for God’s sake.

Jace might just rip me a new one for helping her sneak out tonight.

“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?”

“Yeah, rules.” I smiled as her eyes darted away to the beach before she pulled them back to me. I could practically feel the anticipation coming off her, but there were nerves, too. In all likelihood, she’d spend a good part of the night cuddled up with someone’s dog. “You’re probably the last girl on the island who needs to hear this, but I have to say it anyway.”

She folded her hands primly in her lap and waited patiently, those long-lashed eyes fixed on mine. They were a mix of gold and green with streaks of gray. A guy could get lost in those eyes. In the worlds behind them…

“I’m listening.”

Damn it, where was I? Oh, right.

I ticked off the points on my fingers. “Don’t take drinks from anyone. Pull the can straight from the cooler yourself. Guard whatever you drink and don’t leave it unattended. Don’t go anywhere with randos. Don’t leave without me, Jace, 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, no matter how early, you come find me. I’ve got no problem leaving whenever you’re ready.”

That was too true. I wasn’t going to come tonight at all. Given what I lived with, hanging out with a bunch of drunk classmates was hardly my idea of a good time. But I never could say no to Willa.

“Understood.” The corners of her mouth tipped up in a shy smile that made my heart do a little shimmy in my chest. “Thank you for helping me escape the tower, Sawyer.”

I wished I could do that for her more often. I’d never understood why Willa’s parents kept her on such a short leash. They let Jace do whatever he wanted, more or less. 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 were afraid she’d tarnish the Hollingsworth name somehow? Being shy and uncomfortable in the public eye was nothing to be ashamed of—unless you were a Hollingsworth, I guess. But how was she ever going to get comfortable with it if they never let her go anywhere and do anything?

“Anytime, Wren.”

I grinned when her cute little nose wrinkled at the nickname. I’d been calling her that since we were kids, because she’d always been one to hide in the corner of a room full of people, the way a wren would roost in the corner of a porch.

Rolling her eyes at me, she slid out of the truck. She wasn’t a kid anymore, and she wanted to be part of things, just 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 had a problem being seen with her, but the island’s princess showing up with the son of the town drunk would have made for gossip that might get back to her parents. They had enough of a problem with Jace’s friendship with me—no sense kicking that beehive.

Willa didn’t stride straight into the crowd the way her brother would have. She reached the sand and skirted the edges of the group, darting forward and back like a sandpiper in the surf, probably looking for her friends.

“Jace is gonna kick your ass for bringing her,” Ford announced, making his way toward me with Bree, a girl who’d been as much his shadow as his partner in crime since elementary school.

“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 all these people here? No way this isn’t getting back to her parents.”

“I’ll talk to Jace.” And I needed to do that before he spotted his sister, but I wanted to make sure she was okay first. She might just get so overwhelmed by all the people that she’d want to leave in the next ten minutes. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Surprised to see you out tonight,” Ford continued. “You said you weren’t coming.”

Not wanting to admit that Willa was the only reason I’d changed my mind, I shrugged. “It’s the start of our last summer before you and Jace head to the mainland for college. Shame to waste any of it.”

I didn’t know what I’d do without the other Wayward Sons. These guys were brothers to me in all but blood. A family we’d all chosen when our own had fallen short. Well, except for Ford, who’d won the parent lottery. His moms had unofficially adopted us all. But this would be the first time we’d split up for any real length of time, and that was just one of the changes barreling down on us that I didn’t know how to handle. Ford and Jace were headed for lives that would take them away from here, and Rios and I would stay. Rios 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 Rios and I would look after Willa, too, in Jace’s absence—as best we could, from our positions in what their parents considered 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, but nobody else had a chaperone hovering, and I needed to find Jace anyway. Willa just wanted to be a normal high school girl for the night, and there wasn’t a guy on the island who’d lay a hand on her with all four us here. She’d be fine without me going all mother hen on her.

I scooped up a Coke and wandered toward a group of girls on the far side of the bonfire. Chances were, Jace would be at the center of them, 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 the 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 holding court 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. She sat at his feet, clearly 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 came up beside 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 no place?—”

“She’s fine.” I pointed to where I’d spotted her down by the shoreline, predictably playing with someone’s dog. Rios’s younger 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. And there won’t be much of that once you leave for school.”

Jace’s shoulders came down a notch. I knew he worried about what would happen 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 the 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 energy. 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 Willa again, though my brain helpfully offered 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 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. That might be the only good thing about Jace leaving in two months: 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. Even though she hadn’t truly been there 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 everybody’s attention.

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 said she was going to get food.”

I didn’t have time to track Gwen down on the off chance she knew where Willa had gone off to.

Where the hell was she?

Starting to get really concerned, 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 farther down the sand, she probably thought that didn’t count.

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. But would she have headed up the beach or into the woods?

Without a flashlight, searching the woods was a recipe for a sprained ankle. I’d explore the beach for a stretch. If I didn’t find her, I’d head back to the truck to grab a light. Breaking into a jog, I headed north along the shoreline. Worst-case scenario, we got caught in the rain. We wouldn’t melt. I’d get her home safe, either way.

But when I hadn’t found her in any reasonable range of the party, worry rolled 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 she’d gotten overwhelmed and hadn’t been able to force herself to navigate the crowd to find me. Maybe she’d taken herself home. The island was only three miles across at its widest point, and she was no stranger to walking. I should go back, see if she’d found one of the guys. At least grab a flashlight from my truck.

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.