Two
Julia
The taxi pulled up to my apartment. I paid and jumped out, wishing I could stay there forever. Living in the back of a cab for the rest of my life would beat going home for a week. I knew I was being overdramatic, but I couldn’t help it. My sister had a way of getting under my skin. After just one phone call she had me agreeing to an entire week in Mountain Creek. I didn’t know how she did it, but I hated her for it.
After I let myself into my apartment, I pulled my dark hair back into a ponytail and grabbed my suitcase from my closet. I sighed deeply and rolled my eyes. I still couldn’t believe I was letting Lacey talk me into this. The last thing I wanted was to go back to Mountain Creek. Even for one week…
My entire life started and ended in that small town. I was always the girl who wanted out. When I went to college just a few miles away, it was with one goal in mind: Get the hell out of Mountain Creek. College was a means to an end. It was my one chance to start the life I always wanted.
If I’m being honest, that’s the reason my parents always liked Lacey better. She was the townie. Totally happy to stick around Mountain Creek forever. She got married at the ripe old age of nineteen and popped out three kids in five years. Me? I had other plans. And those plans definitely did not include Mountain Creek.
In my last year of college, I was still living at home with my parents. They were secretly hoping I would give up my dream of becoming a big city lawyer and settle for practicing family law right there in my hometown.
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” my mother asked a hundred times. “You could still help people and this way, the people you help would be the very same people you’ve known forever. What could be better than that?”
My response was always the same: “New York City, Mom. New York would be better than that.”
I never even considered staying in Mountain Creek until I met Kellan Alexander.
Kellan was part of the Alpha Squad, a unit of the military built entirely of elite shifters. Muscular. Brooding. Dark. Mysterious. Exactly the kind of man every twenty-one year girl wants, right? I was no exception. I fell for him. Hard and fast.
I wish I could say I played hard to get. That he wooed me or slowly seduced me, but that’s not how it happened. Kellan walked into Jackson’s pub one night and boom, I was a goner. From the second his dark brown eyes locked onto mine I was head over heels for him. The more time we spent together, the more I liked him.
Our sexual chemistry was intense. It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. There were nights when we couldn’t keep our hands off each other no matter where we were. We would collide in the backseat of his car or in the bathroom at Jackson’s. Anywhere. Any place. Our bodies reacted to each other like magnets. We were drawn together.
But, more than that, he understood me. I could talk to him about things my family only made fun of. I told him I wanted to move to New York once I passed the bar exam. I spent hours gushing over all the things I would do if I lived there. He never once told me I was being stupid. He never did anything except support my dreams.
Kellan understood because he had dreams of his own. He told me all about how badly he wanted to become a member of Alpha Squad. He’d been in the Navy since he was eighteen, but his dream was to do something that really mattered and to him, that was the Alpha Squad.
“It’s my purpose, you know?” he told me one night while we were sitting in our booth at Jackson’s. “I don’t know how else to explain it. When I think about the one thing I was put on this Earth to do, it’s that. I have to be an Alpha. I just have to.”
I guess I should have seen it coming, you know? All the signs were there. But at the time all I could see was his ambition. To me, it only made him that much sexier. If I had opened my eyes, I may have been able to prepare myself for it. Maybe I would have seen the signs in time for me to get out. But I didn’t and the night he told me he was leaving was the worst night of my life.
He came to me that night with a huge smile on his face. He was going to be an Alpha. He was finally getting his dream. His wish. And what was I compared to that? Nothing more than a lose end he needed to tie up before shipping out.
I took a deep breath and threw a pair of underwear into my suitcase. The more I thought about that night with Kellan, the less I wanted to go home. I even went so far as to pick up my phone, ready to call Lacey and tell her to shove it, but I stopped myself.
As much as I hated to admit it, Lacey was right. It was time. I couldn’t hide out in New York forever. No matter what Kellan did to me back then, I still had family in Mountain Creek and they needed me. Besides, hadn’t I done okay despite Kellan? Hadn’t I recovered from the heartache and made something of myself? Wasn’t I a big city lawyer?
Hell yeah I was.
I imagined walking through downtown Mountain Creek. It was easy to picture the streets lined with people from my childhood. Mr. Jensen the banker. Alice Townsen, the town gossip. Margie Anderson, the prom queen who married the quarterback of the football team. They had cubs right after high school. They would all wave at me somewhat hesitantly. Their smiles would be a little forced because they wouldn’t know what to expect from the new Julia Prewitt. I’d spent so much time away that all they knew about me was from the town gossip. They would corner me and ask questions about my life without really wanting to know the answers. I would give the answers proudly not giving a damn what anyone thought.
I would stop at Angie’s café and order one of her famous scones. I looked everywhere, but I still hadn’t found a bakery in New York that could beat Angie’s. My mind drifted to the high school where my favorite English teacher still taught. I was sure Mrs. Peterson would be happy to see me. She, of all people, would be proud of where my life ended up. I thought about the flower shop my mom and dad owned. It made me smile to picture them sitting behind the counter together. I hadn’t realized it, but I really did miss them.
As I finished packing, I realized it wasn’t Mountain Creek I was dreading going back to. It was the memories that awaited me there. I didn’t want to become that heart-broken girl I once was. I didn’t want to let everything I went through back then once again define me. I wanted to stay here, in New York, where I was strong and confident.
Where I knew who I was.
Where I was safe.
I squeezed the pair of socks I was holding. My eyes closed, and I breathed slowly. Just the thought of being back in that town was hard.
Still, I couldn’t help but remind myself that my life in New York wasn’t perfect. There were things I missed from Mountain Creek, things I could never get in New York. Like Angie’s scones. And judgmental looks from my Aunt Miriam.
I could already hear her voice, “Met any nice guys in the city? No? Well, of course you haven’t Everyone there is either a drug addict or only interested in whores! All those damn big city shifters…”
I smiled to myself at the thought. Thinking of my Aunt Miriam was actually the thing that resigned me to my fate. I was going back to Mountain Creek. I was going to spend an entire week in the company of my family. I was going to face the snide comments with a smile.
So, what if I was still single? I was kicking ass and no one could take that away from me. Not my family or my hometown and certainly not Kellan Alexander.