I watched her go.
Every Ranger instinct I had screamed at me to follow her.
Every piece of the boy I used to be stood there bleeding.
Because Felicity McKenna had just looked me in the eye and pretended I’d never existed.
And the worst part?
I didn’t believe her.
Not for a damn second.
2
FELICITY
Ididn’t breathe until I reached my car.
Even then, the first breath hurt.
I slid behind the wheel, shut the door, and locked it like that thin sheet of glass and metal could protect me from the man standing on the sidewalk behind me.
Hersh McDougal.
No.
Blaze now, apparently.
My hands shook as I shoved the key into the ignition.
Sixteen years.
Sixteen years since he climbed into an old truck and left with a duffel bag, a crooked smile, and dreams of becoming an Army Ranger.
Sixteen years since I stood in my bedroom window and watched him drive away, telling myself he would write.
He did write.
My stomach twisted so hard I almost doubled over.
He wrote every week for a year.
I knew that now.
I’d known it for sixteen months.
My father died two years ago, and eventually I went home to clean out the house.
I cleaned out the house I’d sworn to never live in again.
I found the cedar box hidden behind old paint cans in the garage.
Dozens of letters.
All addressed to me.
All unopened.
