Came the Closest (Del Ray Brothers #3)

Prologue

Lake Water Eyes

Cheyenne

May, Twenty-Four Years Ago

The day I met my forever best friend really shouldn’t be classified as anything but ordinary. There was nothing exemplary about it, really. A little too much wind gusting a little too hard, maybe, or a little too much sunscreen slathered on pale, wintry skin to keep the lake clean.

But it was just a normal day.

Mama woke Beau, Justin, and me up early even though summer was starting. She poured Honey Nut Cheerios into her coffee mug and into my plastic bowl while the boys scarfed down their Cap’n Crunch. Daddy and Grandpa skied, and then, later that morning, Grandma presented my brothers and me with our beginning-of-summer tasks.

Beau, age 12, was supposed to help Daddy close in the sunroom.

Justin, age 9, was assigned flower watering duty for the summer.

Me, age 6, had to help someone who needed it.

It sounded silly, but then, Grandma had always sort of known when things were coming. Not specifics, of course. Just premonitions. She could smell rain, and she could feel storms. As it turned out, she could predict just what my summer project was meant to be, too.

I was lazing in the hammock tied between two strong backyard oaks, wind flapping the pages of my book, when Daddy called for me. I’d go anywhere he called, but when he was tinkering in the garage, I couldn’t get there fast enough. Mama always said Daddy was happiest when he was in there, with black oil on his hands and that twinkle in his eye.

“Comin’,” I hollered back.

I clambered down from the hammock, tossing my book onto it, and raced around the house. And then I skidded to a stop, cement scraping my dirty bare feet, my mouth hanging open.

There was a boy in the garage. One who wasn’t Beau or Justin or those summer neighbor friends they had that liked to pull on my blonde pigtails. This boy had wild dark curls and a bloody scrape on his bony knee and eyes that reminded me of the lake. His shorts were all dusty and there was another scratch on his elbow.

“Annie,” Daddy said, beckoning me with a crook of his greasy fingers. “This is Colton. He was out for a bike ride and took a bit of a spill. Do you think you could run on inside and ask your mama for some Band-Aids?”

I only took my eyes off the boy long enough to see the flat tire on his green bike. There was something about him—what, I didn’t know. I had never seen him before.

He shouldn’t have felt familiar.

But he did.

Familiar like my favorite blue shorts or Grandma’s blueberry muffins.

“Annie,” Daddy said again.

I blinked then, and looked at him. Daddy rose his dark brows and tipped his head toward the screen door into the house. It meant he wanted me to get on with what he’d asked me to do. Daddy was never mean. He just didn’t like when my brothers and I didn’t listen.

Stealing one last curious look at the boy, I slinked around them into the lake house. But then I stopped there, because I heard Daddy start talking.

“You wait here for a minute, son,” he said. “We’ll have your knee and that tire fixed up right quick. My wife will probably want to call your parents. Do you know the number?”

“No,” the boy said quickly.

Intrigued further, I pressed my back to the wall next to the door.

“No?” Daddy repeated.

“No,” the boy said again. “My mom’s gone and my dad isn’t home.”

“I see.” The tone of Daddy’s voice said he didn’t see at all. “There’s no one to call?”

Based on the nonresponse, the answer was also no.

“Well, then, I guess you’ll have to stay here until someone comes calling.” Footsteps moved across the garage, heavy ones because Daddy had his work boots on. I jumped, but I wasn’t fast enough. Daddy didn’t even look surprised when he stepped inside and looked down at me. “Annie, tell your mother we’re going to have another person for lunch, would you?”

I frowned. The boy was staying for lunch? But it was our first one here this summer.

Daddy noticed my ire. He glanced over his shoulder and then took me by the hand, leading me a few steps further inside. I loved it when Daddy held my hand. It was so strong and steady. I guessed that’s why Mama loved it when they danced on the deck to Steve Winwood.

“Listen, Annie,” he said quietly, kneeling before me. “You remember when you found that baby bird in the backyard last summer?”

“Uh-huh.” It had a broken wing, and we fed it with one of Grandpa’s syringes from the ranch ‘til it got better.

“Well, a little like we took care of the bird until it could fly again, I think this boy needs some of our TLC.” Tender loving care. It was one of Mama’s favorite phrases. That’s probably why Daddy’s eyes crinkled when he said it. “Does that make sense?”

“I guess so,” I said begrudgingly.

Daddy squeezed my hand. “Good. Now go on and do what I asked, all right?”

I did as told. And later that day, when a taller blond boy named Jordan came to get Colton, my grandma pulled me aside.

“That boy,” she told me, squeezing me to her, smelling of lemons and lavender, “is going to be your summer project.”

I didn’t believe her. But like with rain or with storms, I shouldn’t have doubted her, either.

Colton Del Ray did, in fact, become my summer project. It didn’t stop there, though. The boy with the messy dark hair and the lake water eyes?

He became my best friend.