AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Excuse me?”
“You know me, Callum. Do I seem like the type who likes getting knocked around or being treated like a servant in my own home or being belittled all the time? Do you think I’d ever choose that life if my dad’s own life wasn’t in the balance?”
“No,” I say without hesitation. Juniper would never stand for that.
She should have fucking called me, except I gave her no reason to think she could. When I ended things, I ended it swiftly. Once she started seeing Joshua, there was no way we could ever be friends.
Juniper takes a deep breath and then releases it. “Thank you for taking care of my father. It was the only barrier to me leaving. I’ll figure out a way to repay you.”
“You don’t have—”
“I’ll repay you,” she says in a tone that’s not to be argued with.
But I don’t intend to debate with her. I’m not taking a dime in repayment as I have more money than I know what to do with. I change the subject and bring it back around to satisfy my curiosities.
“I want to understand something,” I begin softly, hoping the gentleness of my tone alerts her to the fact I don’t want to fight. “How did you end up with Joshua? It never made sense to me.”
“Does it really matter?” she asks.
It shouldn’t, but it does. It matters because Juniper was my one true love and I lost her. A man I despise and who doesn’t deserve her moved in. I need clarity.
“Yeah… it matters a lot. Always has, but I was never in a position to ask. So I’m asking now.”
CHAPTER 6
Juniper
It matters a lot.
So I’m asking now.
Callum and I had what I thought was the most perfect love story ever created. I was the girl from the wrong side of the tracks—raised in Kings Beach. He was the stepson of Preston Willard, one of the wealthiest people in Incline Village.
I’ll never forget our first meeting. I was working in my dad’s shop, running the front desk. He was a watercraft mechanic and very good at what he did. But Lake Tahoe was flush with people who knew how to fix boats, so business was never booming. Dad could work on engines and still handle anyone who happened to stroll in.
I didn’t work there because he needed it but because I loved hanging out with my dad. I loved my mom in equal measure. Coy and Olivia Ryan were the absolute best parents in the world. My mom loved small kids and ran a daycare out of our home. As a teenager, I was not as enamored of the little beasties, so I worked for my dad as well as waited tables during tourist season.
One gloriously sunny day, the bell on Dad’s shop door chimed and in strutted Callum Derringer. I knew who he was—every single girl on the north side of the lake did. He was the star in all the sports he played, including club hockey, and he had the looks and swagger to make him seem like a god. The dark hair, dark eyes, and tanned, ripped body of a young man who took working out seriously had all the girls drooling. He was seventeen and already sporting a trim beard that he still wears to this day.
His younger stepbrother, Joshua Willard, walked in behind him. He always tried to emulate Callum, including the confident walk, but he never quite managed it. And because he was not Callum and it was obvious he was nowhere close, he always had a chip on his shoulder. He was my age… just fifteen… but God was he a douche.
Joshua’s WaveRunner wasn’t cranking and they hauled it over to my dad’s shop since it happened to be the closest. Joshua approached the counter first and looked down at me imperiously. “I need to see your best mechanic. Got a job for him.”
“There’s only one mechanic but he’s the best. He’s busy right now, though. What type of craft do you need looked at?”
Joshua leaned an elbow on the counter and ran his eyes over me. I could tell he found me attractive, but he was irritated I wasn’t hopping to do his bidding. In hindsight, maybe that was a warning flag.
“I don’t have time to pass messages on through you,” he said, reaching into his wallet and pulling out a twenty-dollar bill. He slid it across the counter to me, no doubt having watched his dad grease wheels this way in the past. “Now… run along and grab him.”
I almost laughed at the attempt to buy me with a twenty but next thing I knew, Callum was there, pushing Joshua aside. “Don’t be a dick,” he growled. Placing both his hands on the counter, he shot me a disarming smile. “Think we can schedule a drop-off for a WaveRunner and someone can look at it when they get a chance?”
“Sure,” I replied sweetly, pulling out a blank diagnostic ticket. “My dad can get to it later this afternoon.”
“Your dad, huh?” Callum asked, bending at the waist and crossing his forearms on the counter. It brought his face level with mine so I didn’t have to bend my neck to stare up at him. “Is he a nice guy?”
“The nicest,” I assured him, but the words seemed garbled as I was so dazzled that Callum Derringer was actually conversing with me.
“Nice enough to let me take you out for an ice cream while he’s checking out the WaveRunner?”
