Her voice was prissy, edgy … entitled-sounding. He didn’t like her. But he had already known that; he’d never cared for slackers. He whirled to face her, forcefully blocking the kiwi, coconut … Psh. He wasn’t smelling that, he reminded himself. “What did you do to my system?” he demanded.
A look of shock flashed over her face. Then she scowled. “Do? Do?” she sputtered. “I scanned inventory.” She gestured to the boxes. “Which still isn’t done, and there’s no way to pack up all the flowers. I’ve sold some of them.”
“Perfect. Awesome.” He took in a deep breath. Janet had left town and left this … this … ignoramus in charge.
He examined the boxes, looking at the inventory codes. This was the problem with importing so many flowers—his system knew when they were getting ripped off and rejected it. Scanning all the boxes, he frowned. They’d had a big shipment today. She was right: other companies would never accept the boxes back now that they’d been unpacked, but his inventory program wouldn’t accept them, either. Now he would have to manually fix it and get this insane hacker program off the system. He was looking at two hours of work in the best-case scenario. “I don’t have time for this.” His hand squeezed into a fist.
She exhaled, shaking her head. “Tell me how to help.”
Having her so close made his brain scramble like an old version of the Tetris program that he and his brother used to play. He glared at her. “You’ve done enough, don’t you think?”
For a second, he thought he saw her eyes grow misty, but then she simply pushed her shoulders back and stood up to her fullest height. He unwillingly noticed that in those ridiculous shoes, she was probably five-ten-ish. Admittedly, he liked taller girls. He was an even six-one.
“Fine.” She let out a short breath. “Then I’ll get these boxes out to the dumpster.”
“Oh, no.” Adam looked at the pile, feeling like he had to be the one in charge. “Go ahead and clean up the flowers that are out and put them in the back fridge. I need to pull off all the inventory numbers. Then you can get the boxes out.”
She narrowed her eyes, making him wonder if she would listen to him. “Who do you think you are you? Napoleon Bonaparte—sweeping in, taking charge, and handing out orders?”
It was stupid, but the reference to the French emperor put a grin on his face that he hoped she didn’t see as he turned back to the computer and restarted it. “Obviously, you show up in history class. Nice work.”
With a humph, Destiny relented, seizing the closest flowers and marching them to the back. “Man, you’re just the funniest guy I’ve ever met.”
He scoffed, not caring what she thought of him. He didn’t know why he even replied. “You’re right. Guess I’m just the type that everyone calls when actual work needs to be done. I don’t have time for fun.”
She stopped next to him.
He looked up at her. At this range, with her emerald-green eyes and pale skin and long eyelashes—not to mention that red hair—she was striking. He could see why people mistook her for Fate, though he thought Destiny was much prettier.
It didn’t matter how beautiful she was. It was clear that everything about him repelled her.
When she leaned closer to him, he didn’t know if he should move or stay. She eventually pulled back, but her fruity scent continued to overwhelm him. “You don’t remember, do you?”
“What?”
“Summer of seventh grade.” She bit the bottom of her lip expectantly.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Spin the bottle. You kissed me, remember?” Suddenly, her cheeks flushed, and she looked away.
His mind raced as he thought back, and then he understood. It made him smile. “Listen, sweetheart, you’re going to embarrass yourself. Why don’t you finish the flowers, then get those boxes out, and I’ll close up.” Yes, he sounded arrogant and dismissive. If he were honest, there was a tiny part of him that wished it had been him that kissed her.
She stayed there. Then her hands flew to her face. “Oh my gosh, that wasn’t you?”
He didn’t even look back up. Of course it wasn’t him.
“That was your brother.”
“Far less handsome brother, I might add.” It was a stupid thing to say, but he was tired of Chase at the moment. He’d recently won a national bronco-riding contest, and that win had included prize money and a big fat F250 Ford Truck, which he paraded around like he was Zeus touring Olympus. Idiot.
She sputtered and finally stomped away.
Twenty minutes later, he kept her firmly pushed from his thoughts as he worked, methodically figuring out how the system had been hacked. To him, it looked like Janet might have accessed some supplier the night before, and it had triggered the breach. Feeling semi-guilty that he had blamed Destiny, he told himself he would apologize if she was still there when he was done. He’d lost track of where she was, but he thought she’d made a couple trips to the dumpster.
He stood, picking up the last of the boxes and going to the back of the shop. He didn’t have to wait long to see her.
It was a marvel he’d missed the fact that his brother in his noisy truck had shown up. It looked like he was in full flirt mode. Destiny stood on top of a stepping stool, the same one Janet always used to climb up and put the boxes into the dumpster. She stared down at Chase, laughing with a brilliant smile on her face.
Unexpectedly, jealousy shot through him. Yeah, of course Chase was here and talking to her. Apparently, he’d already kissed her in the seventh grade.
Adam rolled his eyes and trudged out the back door. The least he could do was go spread some jerkiness to both of them.
Chase noticed him approach and gave him a chin up. He was decked out in full rodeo glory gear: belt buckle, wranglers, boots, and hat—the picture of everything Adam wasn’t.
Physically, they were pretty much a match. Granted, they hadn’t tested how much of a match lately. They shared an apartment at MSU—had been for the past year and a half—but they hadn’t come to blows in a while. While Chase stayed fit with rodeo, Adam, admittedly a computer geek but also a lover of all things outdoors, stayed fit in other ways. He was a trained hang gliding instructor and an avid hiker and biker; he could handle Chase.
Chase grunted at him. “Destiny tells me your system freaked out.” It wasn’t lost on Adam that Chase kind of enjoyed the fact that his system might have freaked out.
Giving him an unamused look, Adam held out the boxes to Destiny. “Operator error.” He knew it wasn’t a fair assessment at the moment, but he didn’t really care after seeing how chummy those two looked.
Destiny glared at Adam. “I didn’t do anything.”
He’d been talking about Janet, but he didn’t correct Destiny’s assumption that he was referring to her instead. Shooting Chase a glare, he retreated back to the shop.
“What’s his problem?” Destiny muttered.
“Don’t worry about him,” Chase said, loud enough for Adam to hear. “He’s been in a mood lately.”
Adam, stewing in his irritation, almost missed Destiny’s small shriek. With a start, he swiveled around and found she had fallen off the stepping stool, straight into Chase’s arms.
Chase wore a big grin, and their faces were mere centimeters apart. “Well, Destiny Morningstar, it looks like you’re back within kissing distance, and I’m a much better kisser than I was in seventh grade. Should we give it another try?”
Chapter 3
Chase Moon didn’t consider himself a lucky man. Well, wait, yes, okay—modesty wasn’t really his strong suit. Of course, he would never say “lucky”; he would say “touched by the divine.” For him, good things just happened.
Much to his brother Adam’s annoyance, people simply liked Chase, liked helping him. Chase had talent, too, especially in rodeo. Yeah, he was “strutting” around town, as his brother had called it, wearing his belt buckle and riding his truck to prove a point. He’d won the truck—Woot!
&
nbsp; Heck, he was willing to give just about anybody a ride anywhere, and he thought that was fair payment. He’d even helped his brother haul everything over to the wedding two days ago. You’d think Adam would have been grateful Chase had the truck, but no … he hadn’t even said more than a reluctant “thanks.”
Most of the time, he and Adam got along. They did have one big thing in common: football. They’d both been state-winning high school quarterbacks for Snow Valley. Football season always brought them together—watching games, laughing, messing around. Even at MSU, football season was the one thing Adam took time off from creating code for.
But at the moment, it was spring, and Adam had been consumed with “taking over the world,” as Chase teasingly put it. Seriously, he would wear the same set of clothes for days and walk around with a serious case of bedhead. Chase worried that if he didn’t live with him, Adam probably wouldn’t eat or sleep or be halfway normal. He would seriously forget to eat—how did that happen?
But as Chase held Destiny Morningstar in his arms, all thoughts of his big brother’s moodiness fled. All thoughts of being the luckiest guy in Snow Valley filled him.
Except holding Destiny brought back all his memories of Fate.
Destiny locked eyes with him, and he found that he was already making a laundry list of the ways the two girls were different. Fate had had blue eyes, ocean blue, and they’d been terrifying when she’d been angry at him at rodeo practice or when he’d purposely teased her to get her attention. He knew Fate had looked at him like a brother. They’d lived on ranches right next to each other. They’d been in the same grade, the same class, their whole lives. They’d been in rodeos together. He’d seen her with buckteeth before the braces, and she’d seen him in his chubby junior high days.
Then, the summer after their senior year, two days before the accident, he’d asked her to go to the fair with him. Yeah, okay, maybe it didn’t seem like a big deal—going to the fair, spending the night riding rides and eating cotton candy. But it had been their first date, and he’d wanted to be more than friends.
As he stood here with Destiny in his arms, a million thoughts whirled in his mind, and he said one of the stupidest things he ever could have said. “Fate’s hair was a lot different than yours.” He didn’t know how or why he said it; it just slipped out.
From the look on Destiny’s face, it was the wrong thing to say. She shoved herself out of his arms. “Yes, it was.”
He helped steady her. “I didn’t … I’m … sorry.” Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Turning to the stepping stool, she gathered it together and didn’t look at him. “It’s fine.”
He could tell it wasn’t fine. Of course it wasn’t. Didn’t he just hear his mother talking the other day about how it was a big deal Destiny had come for the wedding at all, since she’d refused to come home for two years? He couldn’t get over the fact he’d been so stupid, but he couldn’t stop cataloguing more things, in his mind, that were the same and different about her and Fate. Destiny’s shoes made her tall, but Fate had only been a few inches shorter than him without shoes, so Destiny was about three or four inches shorter than Fate. Fate had been curvier, while Destiny was sleeker, like a yoga girl.
He squeezed his eyes tighter and tried to block out all those thoughts. “Hey, listen, I’m really sorry. I just … You caught me off guard.” He reached for the stepping stool. “Let me carry that for you.”
Hesitating, she let him take the stool out of her hands. Vulnerable eyes stared back at him—vulnerable and deep and green, not like Fate’s ocean blue. These were a different shade: Hawaii ocean. He’d only been there once; his grandparents had surprised them when Adam graduated from high school, and they’d taken him and his brother and parents for a week. The thing about Hawaii he couldn’t get over was how many shades of color the brilliant shores displayed.
“Where does this go?” He held up the stool.
Startled out of her thoughts, she motioned to the shed next to the dumpster. “In there. Thank you.”
He’d seen Destiny at the wedding. Briefly. Honestly, he hadn’t even been sure if that was her. Her hair was longer than when she’d come to the funeral, and she was thinner. She hadn’t stayed long, hadn’t hung out with any of Fate’s friends like she’d used to. All those summers … They’d all been friends. Hadn’t they? “I wanted to talk to you at the wedding, but then I couldn’t find you. I did see you once on campus with your sorority sisters.”
“Oh.” She looked breathless. Then she put her hands on her hips. “Why didn’t you come to talk to me then?”
He wasn’t going to touch that with a ten-foot pole. Part of the truth was that he’d known she wouldn’t want to talk to him, or even remember him. The other part of that truth was that he hadn’t been sure if he wanted to remember, either. Remember Fate. He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
She blinked and started toward the store, talking over her shoulder. “Well, it was good to see you. I didn’t know who I’d run into this week because I’m pretty busy at the store.” She paused, looked back, and smiled. “But it was good to see you.”
The fact she acknowledged that was more than he’d been hoping for. He grinned. “You too.”
She looked at her phone. “I’ve got to lock up. Janet gave me a ride in this morning, but my aunt will be here to pick me up soon.”
Before the words could even form as thoughts, he blurted, “I’ll give you a ride.”
After checking her phone, her eyes flashed up to him. She looked doubtful. The way her hair swung over her shoulder and the way her legs looked like they went on forever stirred something within him.
“Really. I wouldn’t mind at all.” In fact, there was nothing he would enjoy more. Though part of him, a small part, felt bad. She wasn’t Fate. Fate was gone.
Hesitating, she started texting. “Are you sure?” She looked up.
“Yep. If you’ll remember, I live right next to your aunt and uncle.”
“Right.” She finished texting and then moved to the store. “I’ll just lock up or …” She sighed and rolled her eyes. “I’ll ask Adam to lock up when he leaves.”
Chase nodded. “I’ll just wait.” It was best he didn’t engage Adam too much. He’d learned that when Adam was focused, as he’d been lately, it was best to stay as far away as possible.
She returned five minutes later, and actually smiled when she climbed up into the passenger seat. “I heard you won the truck.”
Was it his fault that his ego swelled every time someone brought it up? “I have the bruises to prove it.”
She sat back in the seat, watching him turn up the Tiffany Chance song on the radio. “All you rodeo people love country music,” she remarked, grinning.
He knew she was thinking of Fate—he was, too. And dang it all if the way she smelled didn’t put him even more on edge. “Ah, come on, you love it.” He kept singing, knowing he didn’t have the best voice, but he didn’t have the worst, either.
She let out a light, unexpected laugh, which only encouraged him more. He gunned it down Snow Valley Main Street, careful not to go too fast but still making a gleefully noisy announcement that he was coming through.
Her laughing got louder. “Chase, I forgot how fun you are.”
Then he had another idea. “Do you have to be back soon?”
Looking baffled, she shook her head. “No, Aunt Faith said dinner would be around seven.”
Perfect. He turned, heading to pick up Owen and Vince at the mechanic shop. “I told some friends I’d take them mud bogging out by the Sanders’ place. There’s some good mud right now with the spring frost melting. Are you in?”
Her eyes sparkled. “Okay.”
At the end of Main Street he turned, heading out by the fairgrounds where the mechanic shop was. He put his foot on the gas, gunning it. “Yee-haw!”
Chapter 4
Destiny sat at the dinner table with her Aunt Faith, Uncle John, and Daniel and Grant, their sixteen-year-
old twin sons. Her hair was wet from the quick shower she’d had to take after Chase dropped her off fifteen minutes ago. She’d been dirty, to say the least. There’d been multiple times she’d had to get out and help push, but she hadn’t minded; she’d just taken off her shoes and pushed in her bare feet.
Once she’d even pushed down Owen, who hadn’t hesitated to return the favor. They’d both ended up completely covered in mud. At that point, Chase had jumped out, helped her up, and given Owen a threatening look. But Destiny knew it’d all been for show. He’d looked … happy. And surprised. Actually, Destiny had been surprised herself. She hadn’t expected to be able to let loose and have so much fun. Those were the guys she’d hung around with during the summers with Fate. It was different, but she was surprised at how much it had felt the same, too.
They said grace, and then Aunt Faith smiled at her. “I’m glad you had fun with Chase and the boys.” A touch of sadness crossed her face, but she covered it by asking Daniel to pass the rolls.
“Owen and Vince and Chase are crazy,” Grant said, and his eyes lit up. Daniel and Grant were complete “ranch” kids. Both were into rodeo, but Grant was a bit wilder. “I’ve seen them rope calves in under ten seconds. And that’s not even their main events. And Chase …” He let out a low rumble. “Man, he’s good.”
Daniel shrugged. “Yeah, he’s good, but you can’t have rodeo be your life.” He turned to his father. “Right, dad?”
Uncle John took a piece of roast and passed it to Destiny. “Well, rodeo is fun, and it might pay, but I’d prefer if you guys focused on your studies.” He nodded to Daniel. “Look at Chase’s brother, Adam. Now that’s a boy that’s going places. I heard that if he gets into this graduate program, he could be working for top companies all over the world.”
Grant looked annoyed. “Just because Fate fell off a horse doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try to get a truck like Chase’s.”
Awkward silence.
Destiny closed her eyes and tried to take a long breath of air. Then she opened them and looked at Aunt Faith and Uncle John. Their gazes locked, their expressions unreadable.
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