by Karina Halle
Outside, thunder rumbles, drawing our attention over to the windows. Cherry Peak rises in the distance across the river, a mass of dark clouds approaching from the north. That’s home to me. Ravenswood Ranch lies in the foothills, the perfect place to raise beef cattle. There’s the Queen’s River running past, then the open plains and rolling hills that run alongside it, the elevation toward the peak slow and gradual, going from tall grass to pine and eventually to alpine. All seven hundred acres belong to the Nelson family. Hopefully they always will.
“Could be lightning strikes,” Del says, and when I look at her, there’s worry on her brow. My brother Fox is a smoke jumper and the two of them are close. Del doesn’t seem to worry about much but she’s always worrying about Fox.
“Could be,” I tell her, taking a swig of the beer. “But you know better by now than to worry about him, don’t you?”
She stares out the window for a few beats until she comes back to earth and realizes what I’ve said. She gives me a sheepish grin while straightening her shoulders a moment later. “I know. But you know it’s my job to worry about you boys.”
No. It’s your job to worry about Fox. You don’t give me half as much hell.
Not that it bothers me. Like I said, Del is like a sister to my family. But I’ve been noticing over the years that her attention is a bit lopsided when it comes to my brothers.
“And it’s my job to worry about the herd. I better go back to the ranch, make sure I’m around in case there are problems.” I pound back the rest of the bottle and place a twenty-dollar bill on the bar before waving goodbye to the others.
The air outside has changed dramatically since I’ve been in the bar. Earlier it was hot as sin with the kind of humidity that makes your clothes stick to your skin. Now with the coming storm and the evening settling in, the air pressure has transformed. There’s a freshness to it, like it’s crawling with life and electricity. The dark clouds are starting to crowd over the ranch, and long sheets of grey rain are skirting across the river. The skies above the town have an eerie golden glow from the setting sun. In minutes, the deluge will be here.
I used to love summer storms as a kid. I’d be the first to run out into them with my arms out, feeling that charge in the air, calling on the lightning until Jeanine would pull me back into the house, where I would watch with Mav and Fox from the windows. Once a strike of lightning lit our old shed on fire and we had to call on a lot of help to put it out. I’m pretty sure that’s what triggered Fox’s fascination with flames.
Now, though, storms just cause nothing but problems for me. Because of North Ridge’s placement, settled at the southern end of British Columbia, with dry, rolling hills on one side, the start of the Selkirk Mountain range and the Kokanee Glacier on the other, a long, deep lake in the middle, it’s the perfect breeding ground for storms. In the winter, they can bury the town in drifts or kill your cattle if it comes in too early. That’s when Maverick has his work cut out for him as head of the local search and rescue team.
In the summer, the lightning brings a constant threat of wildfires, which Fox fights, and if not that, flash flooding. Last year we had a hell of a time when a mudslide took out a few of our cows. Three of them didn’t make it. I know by now you shouldn’t get emotionally attached to beef cattle, but every loss like that hurts.
As I head toward my dusty, beat-up Tacoma, I feel a tug in my brain. It wants to reflect on the past. Not last year, not the year before.
It wants to think about Rachel.
It wants to think about Rachel and that time we were caught in a thunderstorm.
The first time I ever saw her with new eyes.
The first time I kissed her.
I pause at my truck and hold down my baseball cap as a gust of wind comes through. Part of me probably should have stayed behind in that bar, just to be around company. I know I would have put pint after pint into my system trying to poison the feelings out of me. It would have ended as it usually does, me passing out on a cot in the back room, Del laying out Advil and Gatorade beside me for the morning. In fact, it was my father who earlier today encouraged me to take the night off, head down to the pub and let loose.
The other part, the older, smarter part, knows that I have work to do and a head I need to keep on straight. It’s the braver part, to be honest. Knowing when I get back to the ranch, that my dad and grandpa will probably be out, that I’ll be alone. With the worker’s cottage empty for now—our old ranch hand David just left for university last week—the place is deserted and there’s something about the open sky and the towering peaks that make your brain go into overdrive. When you’re alone on a ranch, you have a lot of time to think. A lot of time to dwell on what could have been, on everything you should have done differently. Thank God I have the dogs and the horses for company.
That said, it’s not uncommon to have Mav drop by. Even though he shares a swanky alpine-style chalet with Fox on the opposite end of town, something compels him to come by every other night, either to have dinner with us or to lend a hand. Especially in the summer, when search and rescue isn’t in as high demand, reduced to a few hikers going off into the mountains and getting lost.
I get in the truck and hold my breath until the engine turns over. She’s been giving me trouble lately and I’m too stubborn to trade her in for a newer vehicle. She gets the job done and, well, there’s definitely a lot of sentiment at play.
It was in the back of this truck where I first told Rachel I loved her.
“Fuck,” I mutter after a moment, sitting in the parking lot just as the skies open up and the rain starts to pour down, a drumbeat on the roof that builds and builds but the crescendo never comes. It’s almost maddening.
Hearing that Rachel is in town has put me in a mental time machine. Six years ago I pushed her away because I had to, because I was stupid and immature and full of blind rage and the kind of naivety only young love can grant you. I pushed her away, brutally, irreparably, because of my own selfish choice. Six years ago I blasted my own heart to smithereens because I thought I had no other option, and even though I’ve tried every day to put it past me, tried to move on, the truth lingers. It’s kindling for future flames.
I never told Rachel the truth about what happened that night. Why my knuckles were raw and bleeding. Everything was a lie, right down to me telling her, yelling at her, that I didn’t love her anymore.
It’s a lie that’s been trailing me ever since, like my shadow, except darker and deeper.
And it’s far too late to come clean.
What good would it do?
The rain doesn’t seem to be letting up. I shake my head, trying to bring myself back to the present. But what use is the present right now when the past has its nails in it, firmly holding on. How can I go on and shove this all aside, how can I step forward with my life knowing she’s here?
She’s here.
It’s enough to make me go crazy.
I put the truck in drive and peel out of the parking lot, faster than I mean to, the wheels skidding in the rain before I straighten out and pull out onto Main Street. The cracked stone façade of the library, the yellow, red, and peach colors of the historic storefronts, Sam’s grocery store that the locals still shop at even with a new giant Safeway around the block—they all blur past me as I hit the gas, getting luck with the lights, green leading the way until I’m on the highway heading toward the ranch. Rain splatters on the windshield and my wipers can barely keep up.
Up ahead there’s a car pulled to the side of the road, a figure hovering beside it.
Even though I just want to get back to the ranch and don’t feel like dealing with anybody, I’ll never drive past someone who might need my help. That’s the first rule of thumb out here—help others as you’d like to be helped. It’s a wild, unforgiving land and people need to stick together.
Without thinking, I pull the truck over to the side of the road and assess the situation.
There’s somethi
ng strangely familiar about all of this. I don’t know if it’s the force of the downpour, Cherry Peak and the ranch completely hidden by thick mist, the look of the old car, or the way the figure moves in the distance. But it’s enough to make me stay an extra second inside, grappling with the feeling of déjà vu as it smokes through my veins.
I take in a deep breath and step out.
I’m soaked in seconds and I pull my cap down against the lashings as I walk along the side of the road toward the figure.
But it’s not just any figure.
“Having some trouble?” I ask.
There’s a change in the air, like there’s a lightning storm concentrated right between us, building, swirling until I look up.
And meet her eyes.
Rachel.
Right here. Right now.
Standing before me like a rain-soaked ghost, an angel dragged from the river, long dark hair framing her white skin.
It’s like the lightning strikes me.
Right in the heart.
About the Author
Karina Halle is a former travel writer and music journalist and The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today Bestselling author of The Pact, Love, in English, The Artists Trilogy, Dirty Angels and over 20 other wild and romantic reads. She lives on an island off the coast of British Columbia with her husband and her rescue pup, where she drinks a lot of wine, hikes a lot of trails and devours a lot of books.
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Halle is represented by Root Literary and is both self-published and published by Simon & Schuster and Hachette in North America and in the UK.
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Hit her up on Instagram at @authorHalle, on Twitter at @MetalBlonde and on Facebook (join her reader group “Karina Halle’s Anti-Heroes” for extra fun and connect with her!). You can also visit www.authorkarinahalle.com and sign up for the newsletter for news, excerpts, previews, private book signing sales and more.
Also by Karina Halle
Contemporary Romances
Love, in English
Love, in Spanish
Where Sea Meets Sky (from Atria Books)
Racing the Sun (from Atria Books)
The Pact
The Offer
The Play
Winter Wishes
The Lie
The Debt
Smut
Heat Wave
Before I Ever Met You
Rocked Up
After All
Wild Card (North Ridge #1)
Maverick (North Ridge #2)
Bad at Love (November 2017)
Hot Shot (North Ridge #3, Jan 2018)
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Romantic Suspense Novels by Karina Halle
Sins and Needles (The Artists Trilogy #1)
On Every Street (An Artists Trilogy Novella #0.5)
Shooting Scars (The Artists Trilogy #2)
Bold Tricks (The Artists Trilogy #3)
Dirty Angels (Dirty Angels #1)
Dirty Deeds (Dirty Angels #2)
Dirty Promises (Dirty Angels #3)
Black Hearts (Sins Duet #1)
Dirty Souls (Sins Duet #2)
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Horror Romance
Darkhouse (EIT #1)
Red Fox (EIT #2)
The Benson (EIT #2.5)
Dead Sky Morning (EIT #3)
Lying Season (EIT #4)
On Demon Wings (EIT #5)
Old Blood (EIT #5.5)
The Dex-Files (EIT #5.7)
Into the Hollow (EIT #6)
And With Madness Comes the Light (EIT #6.5)
Come Alive (EIT #7)
Ashes to Ashes (EIT #8)
Dust to Dust (EIT #9)
The Devil’s Duology
Donners of the Dead
Veiled
