Chapter 1

Nine years later

Jude

I fucking hated weddings. All the frill. All the stress. And, in a town like Gypsum, it brought every single damn person into the lone church on Main Street. Including my family members, who were already inside.

I stood outside, not quite ready to go in yet. I patted the front pocket of my shirt out of habit for a cigarette. Months ago, Chuck had finally convinced me to quit smoking. “Your teeth look like corn kernels,” he said. “Ain’t no woman gonna kiss you like that.” The threat of missing out on pussy was one way to get any man to quit smoking. I had plenty of it back in Chicago waiting for me, too.

There was no way in hell that I would find it in this town. Not after all the shit that happened. Gypsum residents were famous for their long-held feuds and grudges. I was no stranger to that after running out of this town a high school graduate with nothing but a hundred bucks in my pocket.

Main Street hadn’t changed since I left. There were only two stoplights, and they flashed yellow all the time. The rest of the roads were backcountry and dirt roads. A few local storefronts were unchanged, but most of them were boarded up. Flat lands. Dry as hell. I hated coming back here.

A string of people walked by me to head up the stone steps of the church. Their eyes lingered on me. Hushed whispers followed them into the church. I rolled my eyes as I patted my shirt pocket again in aggravation.

Yeah, yeah. Fucking whisper all you want. I didn’t want to be here in the first place. Why did I let Chuck convince me to quit smoking?

“Jude Jacobs?”

My name came out like it was dipped in poison. I turned to face the speaker, and I wasn’t surprised to find that it was Mark and Joanna James. Speaking of grudges and feuds.

“Mr. and Mrs. James,” I said.

It sounded forced because it was forced. I didn’t want to talk to them, either. Just seeing Mark’s eyes, still cold and angry, reminded me of the past that I had done everything to forget. They were the ghosts of the past that I wanted to get away from, but it seemed impossible. The memories refused to let me live my life.

“You have some nerve coming here.” Mark’s hands clenched to fists at his side as he approached. “Did you come back for a much-needed ass whipping?”

I didn’t move from my spot next to the church steps. I needed a fucking cigarette. Bad. If I was going to run into the past, I needed something to take the edge off. Maybe a shot of rum at the bar down the street.

Joanna clung to her husband’s arm. “Don’t, Mark. It’s not worth it. This isn’t about us today. It’s about Emily and Dean.”

“That’s right,” I said coldly. “You’ll have plenty of chances to try and kick my ass later at the reception.”

“You’ve got some nerve, punk,” Mark spat, steering Joanna up the stairs to the church. “Don’t you even bother talking to Ava. You hear me?”

“Whatever, man. I’m here for Dean. That’s it.”

Joanna tugged Mark inside the church before anything else could be said. Years of angry accusations had been building up, but I had no plans to stick around and hear it all. I had already done everything I could to make amends with the James family. There wasn’t anything left in me to give.

I raked a hand through my black hair, wrecking the style, and I debated whether I really needed to be inside a church full of people who hated my guts. Gypsum wasn’t proud to have an extreme motocross athlete in their town. No, they were proud of people like Ava James and her squeaky clean track record. I had kept tabs on her career as a freelance journalist. She’d done quite well for herself from what I gathered. Not that it was surprising. It was Ava—the smartest girl in Gypsum with the most potential.

I hadn’t seen her since that summer we spent together. The thought of seeing her again did things to my heart that I didn’t like. It had been too long. Too fucking long. No amount of drugs and alcohol in the world could ease the ache in my chest when it came to Ava.

In all truth, I had accepted Dean’s wedding invitation because I knew Ava would be a bridesmaid.

I just had to get past a few obstacles if I wanted to talk to her. Then again, I wasn’t confident that I could survive another reunion with anyone. Dean would understand if I bailed on the wedding. Probably. I got the sense that he had argued with Emily about inviting me in the first place because she didn’t want me here for good reason. I couldn’t ditch him now.

“Look what we have here.”

“Speaking of unwanted reunions,” I muttered, turning to face my father for the first time in years. “What do you want?”

The years had not been kind to Billy Jacobs. He hunched over a cane as he shuffled toward me. His clothes smelled dirty and unwashed. I wrinkled my nose to contain my disgust. His face was yellow, too, from years of heavy drinking. Cirrhosis of the liver. That’s what my mom had told me after their divorce a few years ago. The liver was the seat of anger. So, it made sense that my father was a dick to everyone these days. I didn’t see a change, though, as he glared at me.

“You look like some gutter punk,” he said. “What the fuck did you do to your hair? Put something in it?”

“I wouldn’t make comments if I were you,” I replied, patting my shirt. Again. I really needed a damn cigarette. “Your skin looks like it’s melting off your face. When’s the last time you even showered?”

“A week ago,” he replied, and I grimaced at that. “I don’t have plumbing. Your rotten mother kicked me out. I don’t have money to turn my water back on.”

“That sounds like a personal problem to me.”

He glared at me again. “Some children take care of their parents, you know? Especially when times are tough. You’ve done nothing but cause us heartache and disappointment.”

“You don’t sound disappointed when you ask me for money,” I said. “Excuse me. I need to go the liquor store.”

“I’ll come with you.”

I stopped in mid-step with a sigh. There was no shaking my father. Either he wanted money or a free bottle of alcohol. I wasn’t in the mood to give either.

Church bells rang, a sign that the wedding was about to begin. I gladly climbed the steps, with my father wheezing angrily behind me the entire time. I could deal with a church full of people over my father any day of the week.

“What about the drink?” he shouted, raising a clenched fist at me. “You worthless piece of shit. Get back here!”

The doors slammed shut behind me. I moved across the quiet lobby in the direction of the swinging doors. There was a flutter of movement down the hallway when I walked by, but I didn’t let myself look. I could hear the whispers, though.

“He came. JJ actually came.”

I pushed the doors open to find the small church decorated with white lace, flowers, and all that frilly shit I hated. The back two pews were the only places empty. Several heads swiveled around to look in my direction as I stepped over to sit in the right back pew. Whispers filled the air.

I caught Dean’s eyes from where he stood next to the minister of the church. He was dressed up in a black tux as expected, looking freshly cut and shaved. Still looming and stringy, though. He offered me an apologetic smile from across the pews, but I shrugged my shoulders as I took a seat. None of this was Dean’s fault. He had done everything he could to defend me over the years, so I considered him one of my closest friends. He was also the only reason I graduated high school.

This wasn’t about me today. That was what I wanted to yell at every single person who turned to look at me with a variety of expressions.

I leaned back against the pew to wait for this entire shindig to be over with. I had promised Chuck that I would get on the next plane out to head back to Chicago and meet the buses. We had an event in Boston next week, but I was considering commuting out of Kansas tonight. Checking into the one and only hotel in Gypsum on the corner of Main Street had been an interesting affair. The young man behind the front counter had recognized my name the instant I had handed over my credit card. “You’re the famous Jude Jacobs?! Man! You’re a fucking legend around here. Your name is spray painted on the dirt bike track.”

I made a mental note to go look for this dirt bike track. It was hidden, according to that kid. They had to hide it because no one in Gypsum wanted to have another accident.

Tucking my hands into the front pockets of my pants, I leaned back to bounce a leg anxiously as the church doors finally opened. Four pairs of groomsmen and bridesmaids walked down the aisle together with their arms intertwined. Curiosity burned me from the inside as a sharply dressed couple walked down the aisle next. The maid of honor. The best man. All a perfect picture of unity and support for Emily and Dean’s wedding.

Ava James.

My breath hitched in my throat. Time had certainly done Ava James some good. Her dark locks were curled and shiny as they bounced about her shoulders and back. Gone was that teenage girl I remembered writhing beneath me in pleasure on that hot summer night before everything went to shit. Her heart-shaped face was still young, and her bright green eyes were still sexy as fuck, like a librarian in a porno. But she was also different.

The woman walking down the aisle had a confident twitch to her ass, for one thing. Not to mention those luscious breasts that wanted to spill over the top of her bridesmaid dress. But it was still more than that. Maybe it was the touch of makeup giving her that lustful, womanly sparkle I was seeing. Makeup can do crazy things.

“Shit,” I muttered under my breath, shifting in my seat. Just seeing her for the first time in years was already having a nice effect on my cock. I briefly wondered if Ava had been with anyone else since that summer night.

Probably not, right?

I had no idea if Ava even knew I was here at the wedding. Hell, I hadn’t thought I was going to be here this weekend. I couldn’t tear my eyes from her, though, as she took her spot at the head of the bridesmaids. The four of them leaned in to whisper to her before Ava’s eyes scanned the pews to land on me.

Those cat-like green eyes widened visibly. Her peach-colored lips fell open, but she quickly schooled her expression when Emily started down the aisle with her father.

The rest of the church rose to get a good look at Emily, dressed in a luxurious wedding gown. A chorus of “oohs” filled the church. I couldn’t look away from Ava, though, as she focused on Emily approaching the altar. If things could’ve been different—

I shut down that train of thought quickly. I had spent years going over the different scenarios, and all of them involved having Ava in my arms at the end of the day. But this was the reality of my fucked-up choices over that summer. This was the reality of losing the only woman I’d ever really wanted, and still wanted. I had to deal with this reality, even if I didn’t want to.