An incessant buzzing from her phone woke Cassie up the next morning. Swiping sleepily at the screen, she found a text message from her mom waiting.

Sorry I won’t make it up there until next week. This charity thing is crazy. I swear they just can’t handle anything without me. Hope you’re having fun with your dad.

A frown line appeared between Cassie’s perfectly groomed eyebrows. The whole reason she’d been dragged to the lake this summer was for family bonding time, but all three of them had only been together the first night. Her mom had gone back the very next day, citing issues with the charity event. Cassie knew the event was important to her mom, but this was getting a little ridiculous.

Since marrying her dad right after college, her mom had never had to work. Instead, she had a 50-hour per week schedule of events and committee meetings and galas that Cassie could barely keep track of. But her mom seemed to be even busier than usual lately, not to mention distracted. Her parents had never been the super gushy romantic type, but the one night they’d all been at the lake house had felt off, somehow. There was something buzzing at the back of Cassie’s head about her mom working more being somehow related to her dad suddenly working less…

But she was too tired to think about it that hard right now.

At least they’d all be together once her sister Diana came up for the Fourth of July week. Her summer internship at a law firm in Helena kept her busier than both of her parents, but that week was a nonnegotiable. It always had been, ever since they’d been little. Their parents both took off the entire week, no exceptions. The party they threw was one of the highlights of the summer for their friends.

Cassie didn’t care as much about the party as she did about finally having her big sister in the house. She had so much to talk to her about. What college should she choose? Why were their parents being super weird all of the sudden? And Cassie’s biggest concern she hoped her big sister could solve—how could she break up with Spencer without actually having to do it herself, thereby crushing her parents’ dream of a Huntington-Hart alliance? Her sister had broken nearly every heart there was at Helena Prep before she had gone off to school in California, their parents included.

California. It was a happy daydream in the dreariness of Montana winters. Cassie had grown up hearing from everyone how beautiful Montana was, but California was something else entirely. When she’d been out to visit her sister at Stanford a few times, everything seemed lighter and brighter. The air even felt sunnier. But her parents were anxious for at least one of their daughters to go to Columbia. Yet something deep inside Cassie wanted to rebel and follow in her big sister’s footsteps. Di had done so well out there. Maybe Stanford would be the right place for Cassie, too?

Groaning at the flurry of thoughts swirling around in her head before 8 a.m., Cassie flopped back down on her bed and covered her head with a pillow. She didn’t want to think about college, not yet. There was still the whole summer to worry about that. Well, maybe not the whole summer. Her dad would need to send a final check somewhere before September.

Her phone buzzed again and she nearly cried. She needed at least another few hours of sleep, but the world seemed against her getting any at all.

Hey are you up?

It was Marissa. Before she could think too hard about the decision, Cassie dragged herself out of bed, stumbled out the door and made her way down the hall to the guest bedroom. Her eyes were barely open, but she knew the hallway here with her eyes closed. And much better than the hallway at her house in Helena, where her mother insisted on redecorating every few months. At home, Cassie was always running into a new table or painting when she would try to sneak back into her bedroom at night.

Here at the lake house, nothing much had changed since she was little. They’d updated the kitchen and bathrooms ten years ago, but it was still the same cozy rustic wood interior and antlered decoration that she’d grown up with. The hall was and had always been mercifully free of random items for her to run into. The massive windows on one side looked out onto the cool, blue depths of the lake, but Cassie barely noticed it this morning with her eyes only half open.

At the doorway to Marissa’s room, Cassie paused and rubbed her sleepy eyes. Seeing an equally bleary-eyed Marissa still laying flat on the bed, curled on her side with her phone in her hand, Cassie crawled wordlessly under the covers next to her and shut her eyes.

“Sorry I was so wasted last night,” Marissa mumbled, her fingers tapping away. “And thanks for not posting any photos of me passed out online.”

“Shhh, still sleeping.”

“Did I do anything too stupid?”

“Yes, you danced Coyote Ugly style at the bar.”

“Shut up!” Marissa giggled, turning over to shove Cassie, who kept her eyes firmly shut. She considered telling her about all the dancing she’d actually done with Spencer but was too exhausted to work on her master plan. She had all summer to get the two of them together.

“Just go back to sleep, I’m exhausted.”

“We didn’t stay out that late, did we?”

Cassie kept her mouth shut as tightly as her eyes. She didn’t want to admit to Marissa that she’d gone out again after dropping her off. And then there was the long and weird conversation with her dad, who was suddenly very interested in ‘the Hanes boy’ as he’d called Logan.

With a sigh, Cassie rolled over and opened her eyes. Now that she was thinking about Logan and the promise she’d made to her dad, there would be no going back to sleep for a long time. She rubbed her eyes again and looked at the smiling and eager face of her best friend next to her in bed, a little pang whipping through her heart. Marissa’s dark curls were cute even when they were messy. They were physically total opposites, yet so alike in personality. Cassie would really miss her in the fall. Though she might not know if she’d be East Coast or West Coast, she hadn’t yet found a way to let Marissa know she was most definitely not going to Missoula with her.

One secret at a time.

“No, it wasn’t that late,” Cassie said with a smile, turning on her side to face Marissa. “And we’re up early enough to grab some breakfast at The Ranch.”

Marissa’s eyes lit up.

“Should we text Spencer to see if he wants to come?”

Ignoring the lump forming in her stomach at her friend’s excitement, Cassie shook her head firmly.

“Just girls today.”

Marissa beamed, her crush on her best friend’s boyfriend apparently not so strong as to warrant giving up a girls-only brunch. Cassie’s wide smile of relief was brief.

She really did need to break up with him soon.

In the end it wasn’t Spencer that interrupted their brunch. Marissa’s mom called her halfway through and demanded she come home early. Despite Marissa’s best and most creative pleading, it was apparently not negotiable. They headed back to the house so she could drop off Cassie and get her things.

“This is total crap,” Marissa said, shoving her clothes from the night before into her bag. “I’ll be back next week, I promise. I’m only working two days.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Cassie, waving a hand. “I’ll be here, busy not working.”

Marissa stuck her tongue out at her and Cassie threw a pillow in her direction. They both laughed, but the lump from earlier was back in her stomach. Cassie didn’t really want to be alone all day, with her mood now wildly different than it had been at the same time just twenty-four hours earlier.

Instead of bored, she was anxious. She’d been counting on Marissa to distract her from what she had to do. All it took was a few texts from Spencer, however, (Hey babe, so it looks like my ride just left early. Wanna pick me up and have some fun today?) to motivate her to get in touch with Logan somehow. If she couldn’t work her ‘Marissa is great’ angle anymore, she could at least get started on the ‘Cassie is busy with someone else’ part of her plan. Knowing it wouldn’t be that easy, Cassie hoped that if she brushed him off enough, Spencer would eventually get the idea she wasn’t interested anymore.

This whole request from her dad still bugged her, though. Why was it so important to him that Logan be okay? The thought was swirling around in her head but she had no idea where to begin. How did her dad even know his name?

Cassie grew more and more frustrated as she set about finding Logan on social media. At first it seemed like there was a match: a Logan Hanes was in her incoming freshman group at Columbia. But the profile was totally locked down and the picture was something weird and artsy with sharks so she had no way of knowing if it was even him.

He seemed to have zero information public, and most of his accounts were private so she couldn’t even try to glean information that way about where he was staying this summer. Did his family have a place up here? Most people did. Had she seen him previous summers? Honestly, she couldn’t remember, and shame prickled at the back of her mind. Twenty-four hours ago, she wouldn’t have even been able to place his face, but now he was all she could think about.

All because she’d nearly killed him with her car. Well, Marissa’s car. Maybe it was a good thing she’d left early after all. There’d be less chance of Logan spotting the car around town.

After an hour of fruitless searching, Cassie found herself scrolling through Instagram, trying to ignore the gnawing at her stomach at the thought of failing her father. How could she help Logan if she couldn’t even find him?

Suddenly, there he was in her feed. Someone had posted a selfie at Chez Pierre, one of the nicer restaurants in the next town over. Logan was standing right behind a blonde, smiling girl, a tray balanced on his arm and a look of concentration on his face. Cassie looked at the comment.

Good food and cute waiters. What else can a girl ask for on her birthday?

She frowned. Who had posted this, anyway? She looked at the name again. Brittney something. Cassie tried to remember who she was. A daughter of one of her dad’s business partners, maybe? She followed way too many people to remember how she knew them all. Cassie checked out Brittney’s other pictures, and there were two more from the restaurant last night. One of them had Logan in the background, with a similar caption calling him cute.

Cassie frowned and looked at the pictures again.

He was kind of cute, Cassie had to admit, just a little skinnier and nerdier than she usually fell for. Not that big and beefy was really her type either; it was just the type that she always seemed to end up with. She’d never really noticed Logan before, but apparently Brittney whoever had zeroed in on him right away. Was it his deep brown eyes that had grabbed her attention? Or his dark blond hair, worn slightly longer than most guys at school did? It was combed neatly in the pictures, but last night it had been sticking up all over the place like he’d been running his hands through it. His expression had been angry, too, when Cassie had seen him, not the concentrated-yet-lighthearted half smile he of course would need to put on to keep the patrons of the restaurant happy.

He was really cute, she realized the more she looked at him. There was even a little dimple on his cheek that was doing something funny to Cassie’s stomach the longer she stared at it. Why had she never noticed him? Was she really so shallow that she only noticed jocks?

She shook her head and tossed her phone down on the bed. She didn’t need to think he was cute to help him, though it would certainly help her quite a bit in order to make Spencer jealous. Now that she knew where Logan worked, it would be easy enough to figure out where he was staying this summer, and she could finally get this plan started and her summer back on track.