“You’re telling me Hailee Howard changed her name?” Josh stared out the window of his home office overlooking Central Park. He ran his fingers through his dark hair and let out a sigh of annoyance about the girl who’d seemingly disappeared in an instant.
After years of pining over a girl-turned-woman who obviously didn’t want him, he moved on. He moved on to superficial relationships and meaningless one-night stands. And he fully blamed the one woman who broke his heart and proved to him that love didn’t exist, which made it even easier to blame her for his bad choice in women.
But he also had a lot to thank her for. If it hadn’t been for her leaving him so broken, he never would have found out what he was good at, so really, he had Hailee Howard to thank for his spectacular career and lifestyle that, at times, felt completely hollow.
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” Sam said with a hint of laughter edging his words.
His cousins never understood how Josh could have fallen so hard in high school. Well, all of his cousins except for one, Kyle North. He was the only guy he could talk to about Hailee Howard, but that stopped about ten years ago when Josh was tired of sounding pathetic.
If he really wanted to up his pathetic score, he would have told them he’d fallen for Hailee in junior high, so he was grateful he’d kept that to himself.
“And she’s back in Silver Ridge?” Josh’s tongue ran along his bottom lip as he attempted to moisten his mouth, which had turned as dry as sandpaper with this news. He cleared his throat and loosened his tie as he stared out the window in disbelief.
Dirty snow outlined the streets in small slush piles, and except for a few die-hard joggers and unknowing tourists, the park wasn’t swimming with activity like it normally did this time of day. A huge snowstorm was barreling toward New York City, and most people knew to take cover.
Josh Turner always loved when the city got slammed with a snowstorm. It was one of the few times the city actually slowed down to a crawl, and only a few brave cabbies took to the streets, and parents were actually forced to spend time with their kids.
It was also one of the rare times while living in New York that he was reminded of Silver Ridge.
“So, how long is she in town for?” Josh asked, sitting back down at his desk.
Josh knew the flight times to Seattle like the back of his hand. Instead of taking exorbitant vacations to exotic places, he opted for visiting his family in Silver Ridge.
Every.
Single.
Time.
Much to the dismay of whomever he was dating at the time. Not that he’d ever take any of them home with him anyway. He’d never found himself in a relationship that he wanted to share with the world beyond his little cosmos here in the city.
“A week at the most, unless I scare her away sooner.” Sam laughed into the phone.
“And how would you do that?” Josh asked.
“I’d imagine coming back home to a place where you’d hoped they’d all forgotten you isn’t easy.” Sam barked orders at his dog, Romeo, and then continued. “And arriving on your first day and being invited to a homecoming party probably isn’t her idea of a fun time.”
Josh laughed and shook his head. “Then why do it?”
“After everything she put you through?” Sam let out a sigh. “The least I could do is make her feel a little uncomfortable on her way to feeling welcomed.”
“Just make sure enough people show up. The one thing you don’t want to do is invite her out to a party where no one shows.”
Even though Josh was burned by the woman, he didn’t want to see her go down in a blazing glory of flames and shame in her hometown.
“In this town?” Sam scoffed. “Impossible.”
“Doing an open bar? That’ll get the townspeople to come running.” He chuckled.
“Of course.” Sam went silent for a few beats too long.
“What? What aren’t you telling me?” Josh tapped his finger on his desk and waited a few seconds. “Well?”
“She’s kind of famous.” Sam reveled in this kind of information, especially if he was the one doing the revealing to the bigwig cousin in New York.
“Famous or infamous?” Josh retorted.
“She’s a celebrity in her own right. In fact, doing what you do, I’m surprised you don’t know who she is.”
Josh straightened in his chair and quickly woke up his computer. “What did you say her name was?”
“I didn’t.”
“Well, are you gonna?” Josh asked impatiently.
Clearly, Sam was having far too much fun with this little game of keeping Josh in the dark.
“What’s it worth to you?” Sam toyed with his younger cousin a little more.
If Sam were in front of Josh, he’d wrestle him to the ground for the information, but he had an entire country separating them. Good thing for Sam North.
“You know, all you North men aren’t invincible,” Josh teased.
“I’ve never dreamt we were.” Sam laughed. “But the info is gonna cost ya.”
“Cost me what in particular? You already have my pride and enough dirt on me to make me stay in New York for the rest of my life.”
“Let my family stay at your place in New York and experience the finer things in life.”
Josh knew full well the North men could all afford the finer things in life, but he took the compliment just the same.
“You know your family is always welcome.”
“Well, my family, in particular, might be expanding.”
“What? As in you’re going to have a kid?” Josh joked.
“A daughter.” Sam’s voice was filled with unmistakable pride and excitement. “A little baby daughter.”
“Congratulations, man. Wow. You’re making your brothers uncles. Wow. I’m in complete shock.” Josh held in his true feeling, which was that he was surprised it hadn’t happened sooner as much as Sam played the field.
Owning the region’s finest and largest ski resort happened to put a never-ending supply of eager ski bunnies in front of all the North men, but Sam took to the lifestyle the most.
Or at least he did.
“Thanks. My baby girl is not even here yet, and I love her to death. I’ve even polished up the shotgun.”
“What, so she doesn’t wind up dating men like you?” Josh teased.
“Exactly.”
“Does the mom know you’re not exactly the relation—”
“People change,” Sam interrupted. “Speaking of, it’d do you good to remember that if you go looking Hailee up.”
He wasn’t sure he wanted her to change. He liked her exactly as he remembered, feisty, quick-to-temper, fiercely loyal, gentle, and sweet. The most contradictory set of characteristics a person could have, and she had them all in full force.
“Well, I would look her up, but you’re doing a really outstanding job of not telling me her name.”
There had been a time or two—or two hundred—that Josh had gone looking up Hailee Howard over the years. Every time he’d hit Enter on his keyboard, Josh found himself holding his breath for the results.
But he’d finally stopped doing that.
For the most part.
Because the results always slammed a big zero on his screen.
And now his cousin was messing with him.
He typed in Hailee Howard once again into the search engine, and nothing came up. If the NSA wanted to know how to wipe a person clean from the internet, they needed to reach out to Hailee because she’d done a fantastic job of making herself invisible.
“Tell me this before I tell you her name,” Sam said wryly.
“Shoot.” Josh pressed his lips together and took his hand away from the keyboard as he waited for Sam’s question.
“What would you do if she was even more gorgeous than you remembered?”
“Life isn’t about looks, Sam. Of all people, I’d imagine you’d know that more than most. Your endless supply of ski bunnies should have told you that. Sometimes, substance is nice.” Hearing that Hailee had only gotten prettier certainly made his curiosity swell. “But it’s good for her that the braces did her well. Beyond that, I have absolutely no interest in seeing her other than flipping her up on my screen and getting a quick look.”
“You really think you can type in her name, give her a once-over, and never look her up again?”
“Yeah. Totally. It wasn’t like she spent the last two decades blowing up my phone. Believe it or not, after the first decade, I got my dignity back. I’m not going to go after a woman who doesn’t want me. I have plenty who do.”
“You do,” Sam agreed, but there was a trace of apprehension. “But have you ever connected with any of them like you did with Hailee?”
“That was all high school stuff. You said it yourself. I grew up and finally moved on.”
“True.”
“Since when did you become a romantic?” Josh laughed, tapping his keyboard to bring his computer back to life again. The thought of getting to see Hailee after all these years was literally creating an ache he never expected.
“It happens to the best of us.” Sam laughed. “Or maybe the worst of us. Either way, it happens.”
Maybe it was because she was Josh’s first, but there was nothing like holding Hailee in his arms and feeling her warm breath against his chest or her soft whimpers of pleasure as they made love for the first time. He hardened merely thinking about her, and that was when he realized he didn’t want to know her name. He couldn’t afford to go down memory lane again. He didn’t need to start dreaming about a woman who—
“Her name is Emilia Hudson.”
Before he could stop his fingers, he was typing her name into his computer, and within seconds, hundreds of pictures populated his screen with the most beautiful, familiar woman he’d ever seen.
“Well?” Sam asked.
“Well, what?” Josh asked, staring at the woman he’d never stopped loving.
“Pretty cute, huh?”
“We both know that’s a vast understatement.”
“We do,” Sam said simply. “Make you want to catch a red-eye out here?”
“Not a chance.”
“Really?” Sam asked, surprised.
“Really. That time in my life has come and gone,” Josh told his cousin as the cursor hovered over a blog she appeared to own. She certainly wasn’t hiding with her new persona. Part of him wanted to click on the link, and the other part wanted to stay far away from anything she had to say. “What brought her back to Silver Ridge, anyway?”
“Her job.” Sam sighed and reprimanded his dog, Romeo, again and laughed. “If having a baby is anything like dealing with Romeo, I’m going to be in for a world of exhaustion.”
“Yeah. I have a feeling you haven’t even hit the tip of the iceberg yet, cuz.” Josh laughed, trying to stay focused on the conversation at hand.
His fingers were nearly itching with anticipation at the thought of opening her blog, but he had more self-respect than that and a phone full of numbers of women who actually wanted to be with him.
It was hard to get over Hailee running off without ever saying goodbye, but knowing she went to all of the trouble to even change her name so he couldn’t find her took the situation to an entirely different level. He was equal parts offended and baffled by how a high school relationship could go so wrong. What in the world did he do to chase her off?
Josh had loved Hailee with all of his heart, and it took a lot for him to get over what she did. What was even more bothersome was that he didn’t even know what it was that he’d done to make her run away from not only him but his sister and Silver Ridge.
To find out she’d changed her name only intensified the sting.
No. It wasn’t a sting at this point. It was downright burning anger. Josh smacked his index finger on the Enter button, and Hailee’s blog opened right up to her latest post. Josh glanced at the clock on his computer and shook his head. It had gone live less than an hour ago, and she already had over two hundred comments. That was insane. Numbers like that very rarely existed in the blogging world.
He found himself sucking on his bottom lip as he realized she wrote about relationships.
And life.
And within that moment, all the hurt, pain, longing, and confusion boiled up into a massive burst of resentment.
“Who the hell does she think she is?”
“Pardon?” Sam asked.
“She dares to answer people’s questions about life and love when she abandoned her own?”
“Well, I guess it doesn’t sound so great when you put it that way.”
“Damn straight.” Josh stood up from his chair and paced back and forth behind his desk as his mind spun a million miles a minute. All the compassion he’d felt earlier went right out the window.
No. This make-believe Emilia woman needed to be taught a thing or two, and he was precisely the man to do it.