When 22-year-old Summer Stafford’s parents split halfway through her senior year at college, Summer’s world is rocked. Everything she thought she knew—heck, everything she thought she wanted for her own life—feels like a lie. The truth is love is a risk. And the true kind, the kind that lasts, might even be a fairy tale. Reeling from the divorce, Summer derails her own future by breaking up with her parent-approved boyfriend and giving up her lifelong plans for a big-city career. She moves back home, business degree in hand. Dad needs her to fill the gaps her mother left behind; Summer needs to find who she is outside of the cookie-cutter life that failed so miserably for her parents. Ford O’Neal’s future involves one person: himself. He doesn’t have a permanent address and he definitely doesn’t commit. To a place or a person. Raised by hippies, he plans just far enough ahead to secure his next stop, this one landing him at a work-study program at Heritage Plantation where he can grow his own herbal and medicinal creations. |
When Ford’s five months are up, each of them must decide if love is really worth the risk.
That girl wound me up. Her mouth and the way it worked, shaping either words or kisses, was something else.
I’d endured an entire week of her moody silence as she ignored me with no explanation. If that hadn’t been confounding enough, she’d come to me with those puppy dog eyes that begged for attention and forgiveness. Had I given it to her? Damn straight. No questions, no giving her a hard time for seven days of silence that would make a monk proud.
It was that mouth. Had to be it. And the way she locked her arms around me when I kissed her hard or went limp when I pulled away too soon. She had no idea what she did to me. But if this kept up, she would find out sooner rather than later.
And then she’d gone and asked me about love. I knew she was scared. Her mom leaving had really screwed her up. I wanted to reassure her she wasn’t going to end up like that, but she wouldn’t have heard me anyway. Too wrapped up in the hurt. But love—that was one thing I knew to be off the table. This would be fun and we would be friends. We’d have a great time and make some great memories before I left in October. But love? Not happening. I wasn’t ready for all that. I had too much life to live before I allowed that.
Cold weather plants. That was the next project. The next adventure. And no girl—no matter how meaningful—was going to stand in the way of the adventure. Maybe for my dad, that had worked out, but not for me. I intended on living every experience I could to the fullest. Then maybe, just maybe, I’d be ready to settle somewhere. But that girl would have to be pretty amazing.
Unbidden, an image of Summer in that bathing suit sprang to mind and I groaned aloud. Just thinking the word “amazing” was enough to make me remember her that way—dripping wet, legs up to her neck, and glaring at Casey with death rays for eyes. As passion went, anger was a powerful version, and I couldn’t help but wonder what it would’ve been like to have her that worked up at me.
Come tomorrow night, I’d have the chance to find out. Well, the passion anyway. Hopefully not the anger. Both possibilities made me grin.
As I worked on closing up shop for the night, I made a mental note to find Casey and ask him about local eateries that didn’t feature peanut shells on the floor and fried bar food as the special of the day. Or better yet, maybe I’d ask Mazie.
I wondered what sort of place Summer would expect for a first date and then immediately brushed the thought aside. I definitely didn’t want anything about our night to be typical. In fact, I intended to go out of my way to make sure it wasn’t. Typical or expected weren’t what Summer needed. Good thing, nothing I had in mind was either one.
This book sounds awesome and I, for one, cannot wait to read it!
For more information on the book visit Heather's website.
You can buy the Kindle edition here and the paperback edition release date is to be confirmed!
Other books by Heather include Across The Galaxy, Dirty Blood and Whisper which you can find more about on her website.