The force of the collision knocked Everly back a few steps. She’d never been that coordinated, so she managed to trip over her own feet and almost fell on the floor.
But she didn’t fall because the brick wall she’d just collided with happened to have arms and hands.
“Whoa! Are you all right?”
She looked up to see that the brick wall wasn’t a brick wall at all, but it was a guy. A hot guy. And his hand was around her elbow now, holding her up from hitting the linoleum. He wrapped his other hand around her waist and pulled her back up to standing. Everly’s feet were still tangled for a moment. By the time she got them sorted out, a good ten or fifteen seconds had passed since he’d asked the question, and she still hadn’t answered him.
“Sorry,” Everly muttered. She wasn’t sure if she was all right or not. She’d hit her head on his chest—she thought. Maybe it was his shoulder? Either way, it had seriously felt like she’d ran into something solid and unforgiving—not a person, but an immovable fortress.
“You should be more careful.”
Everly opened her mouth to say something else. Maybe to caution him about watching where he was going, too, but when she looked at his face, no words would come out of her mouth.
His eyes were a bright green, and they seemed to be glowing. Not like something out of a horror movie, but a soft glow that ebbed and flowed with the flicker of the fluorescent lights overhead. His hair was a dark blond, or maybe a light brown, and it was messy, but not in a bad way. It had a bit of a wave to it and fell over his forehead on one side, but not enough to cover those eyes. His teeth were perfectly white and straight, maybe even a little sharper than most people’s, and his body….
Everly closed her eyes to try and regain her composure, but holy hell, his body was like something out of a movie. Visions of a calendar one of her friends back home had gotten for Christmas one year came to mind. It had been called Colorado’s Finest Firefighters. This guy could be the cover model for that calendar. If he had a big hose.
The dirty innuendo that thought could’ve been misconstrued for made her face heat to the point where she was afraid she might catch on fire herself.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, opening her eyes, but trying not to look at him. “I’ve gotta go.” She skirted around him and rushed off to find her dad, hoping that they could just get their stuff and go home. Maybe she should go sit in the SUV.
“Hey, there you are,” Jim said as she caught up to him in the cleaning aisle. “What do you think? The cloth mop of the sponge mop?”
“I don’t know, Dad.” Everly was so flustered, and she was desperately hoping that the guy didn’t come into this aisle. She just wanted to hide from him… from the world.
“What’s the matter?” Her dad sounded genuinely confused. “Your face is bright red. Are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, Dad. I’m fine,” she said. “I just… I’m kinda tired. Would you mind if I go sit in the car?”
“No, that’s fine,” he said, handing her the keys. “You want that?”
Everly looked down and saw that she was still holding the box of cereal. “Oh, uh… I guess.” She dropped into the cart and then carefully turned around, brushing her long, dark hair behind her ear. She headed down the aisle, careful when she got to the end to make sure that no one was coming around the corner. She didn’t need a second collision.
As she pushed through the door at the front of the building, she couldn’t help but glance back over her shoulder to see if that guy was still around. She didn’t see him anywhere. That was probably a good thing. She didn’t need to be looking at guys like that anyway.
Outside, the cool fall air brushed against her cheeks, cooling them. She was wearing a jean jacket with a built-in hoodie, something all the kids at her school in Denver loved, but she wasn’t sure how it would fit in here. Would her clothes be too trendy?
She didn’t care at the moment. She shoved her hands deeper into her pockets and rushed to the SUV, unlocking it and sliding inside as fast as she could. The door shutting behind her was a relief. No hot guys were gonna be able to infiltrate her dad’s vehicle.
Taking some deep breaths, Everly tried to calm herself down. It was just a guy. It wasn’t a big deal. Granted, she’d never really had a boyfriend before. She’d gone on a few dates back in Denver, but most of the guys she hung out with were just her friends. She’d always been too busy studying or taking care of her grandma to think about dating.
Not that she should be thinking about dating this guy either. There was no way in hell a guy who looked like that would be interested in dating her.
She was pretty enough, she supposed. All of her friends always told her she had the prettiest blue eyes. Her skin had always been clear, and her hair was sort of glossy and framed her face. The dark color contrasted nicely with her lighter skin tone. She didn’t exercise much, but she also tried to eat healthy most of the time. She wasn’t tiny, but she definitely wasn’t overweight.
She was honestly just pretty average, she supposed.
Her dad said she was beautiful and looked “just like her mom.”
Everly wouldn’t know much about that. She’d only seen her mom in the few pictures her dad had kept. At least, in the last eleven years. She didn’t remember much of anything from when she was a little girl, when her mom was still around.
The sound of a motorcycle starting up behind her had her eyes fixed on the rearview mirror.
It was him—hot guy. It would figure that he would ride a motorcycle. It looked like a fairly new model, too. Jet black, like a cool guy would ride. At least he was smart enough to put on a helmet. Wouldn’t want to break that handsome head of his. She rolled he eyes at her own ridiculousness. Whatever he had bought must’ve fit in the pocket of his leather jacket because she saw no bags. And she was really looking.
Before he pulled out of the parking lot, he turned his head and looked directly into the reflection of her eyes.
Everly scrunched down in the seat, trying her best to hide from the world.
Or at least from him.
His motorcycle tore up the road as Jack Grey sped through town, winding his way over the asphalt roads that led back to his village in the woods. When he was obeying all of the traffic laws and going the speed limit, it would take ten minutes at best to get there; under these circumstances, he expected to make it in less than five.Assuming he didn’t run into Sheriff Meyer or any of his men. Jack didn’t need another citation for speeding.If they had any idea what his reflexes were capable of, they wouldn’t be worried about him crashing. It would be nearly impossible for him to collide with any other vehicle or lose control of his.But then… he shouldn’t have been involved in the collision in the grocery store either.He could’ve avoided it. Thinking back, he could’ve moved to the other side of the aisle or darted around her. But then, the girl would’ve likely noticed how quickly he had moved, and that woul
“Are you all right, Ev?” Jim asked as he set the bags of groceries and cleaning supplies down on the kitchen counter. “You’ve been acting a little strange since the cleaning aisle.”“I’m fine, Dad,” Everly assured him, even though it wasn’t quite true. Something about that guy at the grocery store had completely thrown her for a loop, and it wasn’t just hitting her head on his chest. There was something different about him, something… weird.“Do you want to eat first or start cleaning?” Jim held up the two deli sandwiches they’d stopped to get on the way out of town at the little shop on the corner of the main street. They’d also noted a coffee shop, a donut store, and a restaurant that looked like a pretty popular place, judging by the number of people going in and out. It was a Saturday afternoon, though. It might not be that busy on a weekday.Everly looked around. The
No matter how many blankets one put on a wooden floor, it was still much harder than a mattress. Even the mattress Everly had slept on the night before in the crappy little hotel her dad had pulled into for the night had been much more comfortable than this.It wasn’t helping that the moon was so bright. There were no curtains or blinds on the windows yet. Knowing her dad, there wouldn’t be either, not until Everly either bought some or learned how to sew. Guys just didn’t think about that sort of thing, did they? Would he hang any pictures up in any of the rooms? Probably not unless she asked him to.The moon was bright, that was for sure. She couldn’t really see it while she was lying on the floor of her old bedroom—now her current bedroom, she supposed—but when she sat up and looked out the window, she could see that it was full. For it being fall in the northwest, there sure weren’t a whole lot of clouds in the sky either.
Toby scratching at the door was nothing out of the ordinary. It was how Everly had woken up for the last few years, since he’d first learned not to tinkle on the carpet when he was about three months old. She hadn’t slept well, so it wasn’t easy to drag herself up off of the floor, throw on some clothes, find her shoes, and put his leash on him to take him out. Back home in Denver, they had a fence around the back yard, so all she’d have to do was open the door. Her dad had said he’d put one in here, but she doubted he’d get to that anytime soon.Jim was leaning against the counter in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee when she walked out into the living room area. She waved at him, leaning back so that he could see her through the doorway.“Mornin’, honey,” he said. “Where are you going?”“Toby has to pee,” she said, stifling a yawn.“Be careful.”“I&
“What do we know about her, and what’s the plan?”Chase Pine was appropriately named. Jack and Chase had been best friends for as long as Jack could remember, and as fast as Chase was, any time they raced (which had been more frequently when they were younger) Chase was always the one chasing Jack from behind—trying to catch up. It was all right, though; Chase was a good guy to have around when things got tough.That hadn’t happened much over their first eighteen years, but the arrival of this girl from seemingly out of nowhere was possibly going to change that.Sitting in a booth at the diner, Jack kept his voice low as he answered Chase. There weren’t a lot of people around, but there were a few, and there was no reason for anyone to hear what they were talking about. In the booth next to Chase was their third wheel, Bridgette Shade, Bridge for short. For years, when girls were gross, Bridge had been the only one either of them co
A thousand pairs of eyes seemed to be on her—everywhere she went. Despite her father’s reassurance that everything was going to be fine, and she’d fit right in, Everly had yet to experience that part of coming to Cook High School. So far, she’d never felt more like an outcast than she did when she walked into the building.People were whispering, holding their hands in front of their mouths, some of them even blatantly pointing at her. And not a one of them had had the decency to even introduce themselves to her, at least not through third period. Now, she was on her way to her fourth-period class, history, trying to make it down the hallway without bumping into anyone, but it was difficult. The building was fairly old, and it was clear there were more kids attending the school than they’d planned for whenever it was built, so there wasn’t a lot of room in the hallways.After history class, she had lunch, and that would definitely pr
Making her way through the narrow aisle to sit between Jack and some other guy Everly had only glanced at was no easy task, and about three steps from the chair, she caught her shoe in the strap of someone’s purse and nearly bit it. She fell forward, catching herself on the desk part of the chair, her notebook and folder flying free from her grip.Whether it was instinct or something else, Everly had no way of knowing, but she felt Jack’s strong hands on her again, this time on her upper arms. He was able to reach her without even getting out of his chair. Once it was clear that she was fine, he slowly shook his head, like he couldn’t believe what a klutz she was.He was right, wasn’t he?Across the classroom, kids snickered, some even laughing out loud. Everly felt her face catch fire again. “Thanks,” she mumbled. Jack said nothing, just slid his chair in the other direction, away from her.“Here.”T
The moment Everly Harrison had walked into the classroom, Jack had felt his heart rattling around in his chest again, just like at the grocery store. He’d been smelling her all day, like some sort of baked good, walking down the hallway spreading her tasty goodness all through the school. So far, he’d been able to avoid her.But here she was, literally falling right into his lap.Okay, not his lap, but his arms.While he knew it was actually a good thing that they had a class together, that didn’t make him any more excited about it. How he’d gotten the good fortune of getting her to sit right next to him, too, he couldn’t say, but his friend Tim who usually sat there and was home sick was going to get an earful, especially if he came back the next day to find his seat had been taken. Mr. Donald wasn’t one for letting them pick their own seats on a regular basis, so he’d likely tell Tim to take the last empty chair in the