Chapter One

Bryn

present day

Please don’t let that be Tory.

“Please, please, please,” I whispered my plea to no one in particular. I had stopped praying long ago when my prayers fell on deaf ears. My pleading was more of a way of silently panicking.

“What is it, Aunt Bryn?” Cullen asked from the backseat.

I had hoped he would fall asleep while I drove around, looking for his mother. Unfortunately, he was still awake, and I blamed my sister for that. If she had been at home like she should be, then he would have been tucked in bed at this time, but that wasn’t the case.

“Nothing, buddy. Just lie back and close your eyes,” I suggested, knowing that wasn’t going to happen.

Cullen was wise for his four years. With a mother like Tory, a kid grew up fast. Even if I was doing all I could to give him some semblance of a stable home life, his mother was screwing that up every chance she got.

“Is that Mama?” he asked, leaning forward in his seat.

I winced as Tory took the metal pole in her hand and swung hard, slamming it into the windshield of a Jeep.

Oh God.

No.

Not that Jeep .

I stopped the car behind the familiar Jeep my sister was currently beating the hell out of in the parking lot of a beach bar. She was going to draw attention to herself—if she hadn’t already. She was yelling at the Jeep as if it were a person.

“Do not get out of this car, Cullen. Do you hear me?” I said, looking back at my nephew, who was watching with wide eyes as his mother acted like a psycho.

He nodded his head and looked at me a moment. “What is she doing?”

“I don’t know. Just stay in here. No matter what. Stay in this car. Promise me.”

“I promise,” he replied, his voice shaky from nerves.

With that reassurance, I jerked open the driver’s door and got out of the car and went to stop my sister. “I swear to God, Tory, if you swing that thing one more time, I am going to hit you with it,” I told her as I advanced on her.

She barely glanced at me. “Yeah, right,” she replied.

“Give me the pole now,” I demanded.

She glared at me. “No.”

“Cullen is in the car, watching you act like a lunatic. Stop this. What you’re doing is illegal. You can get arrested for this. We don’t have the money to pay for the damages. You can’t keep a job, and the one I have”—I pointed at the Jeep—“well, the guy who owns this Jeep gave it to me. Why are you doing this?”

She opened her mouth to say something when blue lights lit up the darkness. The pole was then shoved into my hands as Tory hurried to our car and climbed inside the driver’s seat. I stood there, holding the metal pole, unsure of what to do or how to proceed. This was not the first time my sister had let me take the fall for her actions.

Her reasoning was because of Cullen. I always did it because of Cullen. I was so tired of cleaning up her messes.

We were here in The Shores, Alabama, because of her. Just when we got settled in a place and I found a job, she would do something to ruin it. Then, we would have to leave. I was done leaving.

This time, I had chosen where we would move with more careful planning. I didn’t just stop at the first town we came to. No, I brought us to the town that I’d once heard my aunt say Rio’s mom was from. After Rio’s mom had overdosed and he was taken away, I had written the name of this town down. Knowing, one day, I would go find him.

Life just hadn’t happened the way I’d hoped, and I hadn’t been able to go find him when I turned eighteen.

I’d gone to the gigantic farmers market two weeks ago when we arrived in town, not only because of their Now Hiring signs everywhere, but also because I had asked the girl who rang up our meager groceries at the store if she knew a Rio March. She had known exactly who he was, and that had led me to the market.

I needed a job, but I also wanted to find Rio without him knowing I had come here, looking for him. When he saw me, he paused, studied me a moment, then put down what he had been carrying to walk around the counter toward me. Rio March was all grown up, but I recognized him immediately.

He stopped a few feet in front of me and tilted his head as he continued to look at me. “Bryn Wallace?” he’d asked with a look of amazement.

I was sure he had never expected to see me again.

I nodded.

The grin that broke out on his face was breathtaking. Often, I had told myself that the memories I had of Rio March were exaggerated. He hadn’t been as beautiful as I remembered. His smile hadn’t been magical. My crush on him had only been a childhood infatuation.

But I had been right. Rio March was all that and more. He gave me a job on the spot. Making more money than I had expected. Twice, he stopped while I was on my lunch break to ask if I was enjoying my job. We didn’t talk about life or get to know each other again. Coming here, I had hoped for more, but as each day passed, I realized that I’d been holding on to a young girl’s dreams. Rio had moved on from those days in the trailer park. I was just a girl he used to know.

Other than those two brief interactions, I didn’t see him other than in passing at work. I’d had no idea that Tory was someone socializing with Rio. There had to be a reason for her to vandalize his Jeep. My stomach felt sick as I thought of the reasons why. Jealousy was the only one I could think of when it came to my sister. Her beauty had always gotten her too much attention, and she expected it. However, if a guy triggered her crazy switch, then things like this happened.

The blue lights were drawing closer, and I was still standing there with a metal pole in my hand. Cullen was in the car, and as screwed up as Tory was, he needed his mother. He didn’t need the stigma of his mother being in jail. I had lived that life. I didn’t want it for him. However, if I were to go to jail, could Tory feed him, and would she make sure he had all he needed?

“What the fuck?!” a male voice roared.

I jerked my gaze from the horrible damage to see Rio and another guy walking in my direction. Rio looked murderous. The blond guy looked horrified. What was I going to do?

The blue lights finally made it to the scene of the crime, and there I was with the pole in hand, a furious Rio, and my sister in the car with her son. I didn’t know what relationship she had with Rio. Heck, they had barely known each other back when we were kids. There had to be something going on between them for her to bash his Jeep. Was that why he had kept his distance from me at work? Was he dating my sister? He knew how I had once felt about her, so maybe he hadn’t known how to tell me, or maybe he hadn’t thought anything of it at all. Tory was stunning. She had only gotten more gorgeous with age.

“Bryn?” Rio said my name, and I looked at him.

I didn’t know what to do. No words were coming. I was just standing there. Mute.

“What the fuck? And I thought I’d pissed off a crazy tonight. Turns out, you did,” the blond guy said.

I shifted my gaze to him then. He was Tory’s type. I could believe she had been dating that one more than I could Rio. He had the bad-boy look to him she was drawn to.

Had Bryn attacked the Jeep because she thought it was his?

“What the hell did you do?” Rio asked me.

My eyes swung back to his. If I told him the truth, he would press charges. At least, there was a good chance he would press charges. There was a small chance that he wouldn’t if he thought this was my doing. Maybe I was putting more faith in the friendship we’d once had, but deep down, I couldn’t believe he would have me arrested.

“I d-d-d-didn’t know th-th-th-this was your Jeep,” I stammered. When I was nervous like this, it was harder to control the stutter that I had worked so hard to overcome. Lying to Rio and taking the blame, however, had brought it back full force.

His scowl deepened. “You fucking bashed in my Jeep, Bryn? What is wrong with you? Although this is crazy as hell, you could have at least made sure to trash the right vehicle. Dammit!” Rio stalked over to observe the damage and ran a hand over his short hair.

“Got a call from someone who was leaving the bar. Said there was a female beating a Jeep up. This yours?” the cop asked Rio.

He locked both hands behind his head, just staring at the damage. “Fuck,” he groaned.

I felt sick to my stomach.

“You do this?” the cop asked me.

I paused only for a moment because I knew I had to say something. Cullen was in the backseat. If I told them the truth, then he would witness his mother being arrested. I couldn’t do it to him. I also wasn’t sure I could even get the words out if I tried to talk.

“No, it was a misunderstanding. You can go,” Rio told the cop just as I opened my mouth to confess.

I swung my gaze to his, waiting for him to say more. That small part of me that had thought Rio wouldn’t press charges if he believed it was me had been right. It made me feel even worse instead of relieved.

“Are you sure? She’s holding a metal pole, and that Jeep is going to need extensive body work,” the cop said with a concerned expression on his face.

Rio nodded. “Yeah. It’s fine. You can go,” he replied.

“Shit,” the blond guy said under his breath. He was as surprised as the police officer.

The cop shook his head and shrugged. “All right then, but if this is a lovers’ spat and it goes beyond this, I’ll be taking you both in. Clear out of here.”

“We will. It’s done,” he assured the cop.

With one last glance at me, he looked disappointed that he wasn’t going to be able to arrest anyone over this before walking back to his car.

“Tha—” I started to thank Rio, but he held up a hand.

“Don’t speak. Just go. I don’t want to look at you,” he said, his hard glare on his beat-up Jeep.

“Better go on before this sinks in and he snaps out of his shock,” the blond guy told me.

I wanted to explain it all, but I was afraid of what Rio would do to Tory. Maybe he would let her off the hook too. I just couldn’t be sure. I wanted to tell him I would pay for the damage, but I was barely able to keep the bills paid and food in the apartment. Yesterday, Tory had been fired from her second job since moving here. I didn’t know when she would find another job.

“I a-a-a-am so s-s-sorry,” I stammered, needing to say something.

There was no way to describe how horrible I felt. Keeping Tory safe for Cullen’s sake wasn’t always easy, but this was by far the most difficult thing I had done. Speaking had become easier for me when I was calm and could speak slowly and think about my words. But tonight, I felt the block there, taunting me. Reminding me how my brain was broken.

“Go ,” Rio roared.

I jumped back, startled, then hurried to the driver’s door to get in before I remembered Tory had gotten in the driver’s seat. Keeping my head down, I went over to the passenger side and quickly got inside.

“Oops,” Tory said as I closed the door. “Guess I got the wrong Jeep.”

“D-d-don’t sp-sp-speak. Not n-n-n-now. Jus-jus-just don’t talk to me,” I said as calmly as I could, but the stuttering was still there. My heart was pounding in my chest. I wasn’t sure I could control my words when I felt like this.

“Whatever,” Tory replied. “You’re so damn dramatic.”

I turned my head to see Cullen staring at me, wide-eyed. He looked so scared. For him, I would keep my mouth shut. It was all I could do.