Yours for the Season (Puck Struck #2)

Chapter One

JT Cox never thought that Hart’s Landing would surprise her. But that was before she saw her name on the sign welcoming folks to her hometown.

Welcome to Hart’s Landing.

Home of Gold Medalist JT Cox.

“What in the hell?” she said, slowing her car to gawk at the sign as she rolled down the two-lane road.

The double yellow line in the center was faded and obscured by a layer of salt, sand, and snow and her car was jostled by a series of frost heaves as she tried to make sense of the new sign.

When did they put her name on the welcome sign and why hadn’t anyone told her they had? Man, her hometown was so weird.

The sign wasn’t quite accurate. JT didn’t live there; it wasn’t her home. She grew up there and her parents still lived there. But if home was a place where a person could feel comfortable, embraced, and at peace, this was not JT Cox’s home.

Her parents guilt-tripped her constantly about not coming home enough, but this place didn’t exactly love her.

Well, maybe it loved her now. But if they were only going to love her because she won gold at the Olympics, she figured they could fuck right off.

Her memory was good enough to recall her entire childhood here and the way they’d treated her.

She shook her head, trying to clear the memories.

She didn’t need to relive this now. It was Christmas, which meant chocolate and candy canes and pine smell everywhere.

She was happy to see her family, at least in theory.

The town wasn’t the only thing that didn’t understand her as a child.

Her family still didn’t. She was the weird jock in a family of artists.

She was also the gay one who the town had thought was weird for playing on the boys’ team but maybe now they were happy to pretend they’d supported her in her quest for gold.

Yeah, right. They hadn’t done a single thing to help her. Unless you counted making JT so driven by spite that she’d excelled just to shove it in their stupid faces.

She drove past the high school, a building that still looked like a converted factory.

By the time JT got there they’d traded out walls that stopped two feet short of the ceiling for redone classrooms, but the feeling that the town cared so little for education that they repurposed a shoe factory remained.

They tried renaming it, but no one forgot the dim lighting, the three-quarter walls, or the way the carpet smelled like metal and bleach.

Her stomach fluttered when she put her blinker on to turn down the road to her parents’ house. The sand spread across the road to help with the snow and ice shifted under her tires as she slowly made the turn onto a road that hadn’t been repaved for years.

The house had smoke curling from the chimney and light in all the front windows when she pulled into the driveway.

She bounced along the ruts created by years of driving and parked her car next to her brother’s.

Either her sister, Emerson, or brother-in-law, Clark, must have popped out to run an errand, probably something super helpful her mom asked them to do.

Emerson and Jonathan were always jockeying to be the favorite kid. JT didn’t even try anymore.

She grabbed her duffel out of the trunk and turned around at the sound of the door springing open. She dropped the bag on the snowy ground and crouched down before her puppy Toby flew into her and knocked her on her ass.

“Oh, I missed you too, girl,” she said, laughing and trying to hug the wiggling yellow Lab, who was so excited she didn’t know whether to lick JT’s face or to run around the yard. At least JT would always be her favorite.

Toby raced around the car only to return to JT ten seconds later, tail wagging so hard she couldn’t walk straight.

JT hadn’t been this happy since she won the gold medal game.

As she rubbed Toby’s silky Lab ears, she wondered if that was true.

Toby was probably better than the medal, but it was close at least.

JT’s dad walked out, shrugging his barn jacket over his sweater and stamping his feet deep into his Bean boots. “Drive okay?”

JT nodded. “Yeah. Roads were fine, not too much traffic.”

He wrapped her in a hug. “When was the last time there was traffic around here? There’s only two thousand people in the town.”

“You don’t need a lot of people to have traffic, just a couple of dumbasses. Last time I checked there were plenty of those here.”

He laughed.

“Jasmine Cox, you just got here and you’re swearing already?” JT’s mom was standing on the porch, wearing one of JT’s old hoodies—now splattered with paint.

“Mom, you say that like you think she stopped swearing at any point in the past fifteen years.” JT’s sister, Emerson, stood in the doorway, smiling as Brooke, her toddler, gripped her leg.

JT crouched down to be at Brooke’s level. “Brookie! How’s my tiniest niece?”

Brooke smiled and JT felt her heart grow three sizes.

Brooke was so cute with her head of red curls, unsteady feet, and determined face.

Brooke squealed and did her best to run toward JT.

JT scooped her up and twirled her around.

It was likely that JT would be ready to kill her parents in ten minutes, but the toddler hug was great.

JT buried her face in Brooke’s neck and plastered kisses all over her until she laughed so hard JT joined her. JT set her down on the porch, careful not to get her socks in the snow.

“Jaytee, Christmas.”

JT nodded. “Christmas? Is that happening this year?”

Brooke giggled. “Jaytee. Santa gonna come.”

JT looked up at her sister. “Oh yeah? I bet you’ve been wicked good this year.”

Brooke nodded solemnly.

The door creaked open. “Are you interrogating a toddler?” Jonathan, JT’s older brother, stood with his hands in his pockets and looked so much like their dad JT felt like her brain had glitched.

JT hugged him. “More like talking to the main draw. Where’s your bunch?”

He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Beth gave them cocoa. Sorry to have to break it to you but marshmallows are way cooler than you.”

“How can I argue with that? Did she make extra?”

“Not extra, just an absolute boatload. She knew you were coming.”

Toby bumped JT’s leg. “That will be great, but I gotta take my girl for a walk first. I’ll be back in a little bit. You wanna go for a walk, girl?” She wagged so hard her butt did a full circle.

JT’s mom pursed her lips. “You just got here. It’s not like we haven’t been taking care of Toblerone.”

“I know, Mom. I appreciate you taking her while I was at camp, but I can take her now. Then I can hang out with the little guys for a while before dinner.”

Her dad put his hand on her mom’s shoulder and tugged gently. “Come on, let’s get out of the freezing cold. She’ll be back soon. It’s too cold to walk far.”

“I don’t understand why she feels the need to leave so quickly. She just got here,” her mom muttered as she went back inside.

Home for less than five minutes and JT had already disappointed her mom. Had to be some kind of record.

JT grabbed Toby’s leash and headed down the road before it got too dark.

Toby settled quickly into the walk, her tail bouncing side to side and her steps jaunty.

People came to New Hampshire for the foliage or the skiing or the lakes.

They didn’t come for the bleak season when it was freezing and everything was gray.

But JT loved it. There was a bite to the air as it skated across her face.

The air was crisp, clear, and with a hint of smoke from someone’s fireplace.

JT wished she could love the town as much as she loved the way the winter air snapped with cold, the way the woodsmoke-flavored air filled her nostrils and the way the promise of snow comforted her.

She wished she could feel at home here. But years of not being accepted here made that an impossible dream.

JT wandered down to Ms. Grant’s house. Someone had painted it a deep blue with white trim and a red door.

The paint changed the entire character of the place without making it seem unfamiliar.

JT hoped Ms. Grant was okay. She’d always looked out for JT at school, even when opposing fans were obnoxious or even cruel.

Toby was sniffing a pile of leaves when JT’s phone dinged. She dug her phone out of her back pocket. Tommy.

Drinks. 7. Dolan’s Pub.

JT had zero interest in seeing all her former classmates at a bar, but it had been too long since she’d seen Tommy in person, so she said yes.

Meet you there. You better not stand me up.

He sent back a laughing emoji. I’m bringing Ali. Don’t be late.

JT’s stomach flipped over at the sight of Ali’s name.

Tommy’s older sister was JT’s first crush.

Looking back, it was clear Ali never thought of JT as anything other than Tommy’s best buddy, but she was always kind, even when other people weren’t.

She even told her boyfriend, Kyle, off once for making jokes about JT.

Tommy told JT that Ali and Kyle got divorced last year.

JT was glad to hear it; Ali was always way too good for him.

JT’s mom was going to give her a hard time for going out on her first night home, but JT hadn’t seen her best friend in way too long. Leaving the house for a few hours should also keep her from getting too annoyed with the parents.

Toby pushed the door open to the kitchen, leaving JT to kick off her shoes before following her inside. The kitchen was warm and smelled like cookies and bread.

Jonathan’s kids, sporting cocoa mustaches, rushed over to JT.

“Auntie JT, can we see your medal?”

JT looked over their heads at Jonathan.

He smiled. “They’ve been asking about it for weeks.”

Something shifted inside JT’s chest. She crouched to their level. “Do you think I carry my medal everywhere?”

The twins, Harrison and Mabel, looked at each other with creeping panic.