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I used all the strength I could muster up in my lower body to try to get her off. I didn’t get her completely off, but I did manage to leave her unbalanced. It was enough to give me the time I needed to strike her back, which ultimately forced her off of me.
Then, I scrambled to my feet and started moving in the opposite direction. The entire pub was a mess of people either jumping into the mix and fighting with one another or standing back, steering clear, and trying to clean up the mess of alcoholic drinks everywhere.
My eyes went to the stools where Jeremy and I had been sitting. He wasn’t there.
A moment later, I saw him at the exit. I was struggling through the sea of people, attempting to avoid getting hit, when he looked back, saw me, and sent a sinister smile my way.
What was that all about?
I got to the exit as fast as I could, hoping to catch him, but it was chaotic in the pub. By the time I managed to get outside and scan the parking lot, I didn’t see Jeremy anywhere.
Confused by all that had happened but not so far gone that I was willing to wait around for Stacy to find me and start another fight, I decided it was best to get out of there.
I walked away from the pub and toward my car. I’d had one drink and a few sips of the cherry margarita. I wasn’t drunk by any means. That said, if I had been, I was sure my fight would have cleared things up rather quickly for me.
Twenty minutes later, I was grateful to be home.
But my relief was short-lived. Because not even twenty-four hours later, the police showed up at my front door, and I learned that Jeremy was nowhere close to being the guy of my dreams.
Instead, he was a nightmare.
ONE
Daisy
Two Months Later
“Oh, no. Please don’t stop.”
Despite my plea, I moved slower and slower until I finally came to a stop.
I groaned. “Great. This is just great.”
If this wasn’t bad enough, I was now talking to myself. I could only hope nobody else was in the area, or I might be taken for a crazy woman.
This was so much harder than I thought it was going to be. That was just it, though. There wasn’t a single thing I could now say was too hard that I couldn’t see it through. I’d learned at least that much over the last two months.
What a whirlwind life had been.
After everything that had happened two months ago, I had no choice but to pick up and leave where I’d been living, so I could find a new place to settle down. Nobody needed a fresh start more than I did. Truth be told, as big of a nightmare as the whole situation had been, there was a part of me that wondered if what happened had been a good thing.
Technically, on the surface, it was all bad. God, I still thought about it on occasion.
But deep down, it was hard not to think it was the best thing that could have happened to me. Because there hadn’t been anything tying me down to the place I left—Birch Creek, a place that wasn’t bringing me any joy—and I remained there simply because it was familiar.
I needed the change. Desperately.
Following what happened, I decided to pack a bag or two, hop in my car, and try to find a new place to call home. Once I found a new place, I’d return to where I came from, sort out my things, and take the final steps of selling my place. There was nothing left in Birch Creek for me.
But I hoped I could find it here—Scarlet Valley, Pennsylvania.
Scarlet Valley was home to the Keystone Mountain Ski Resort.
I was not a skier or a snowboarder. In all my years on Earth, I’d experienced a lot of things, but winter sports at a ski resort hadn’t ever been one of them. At least, not regularly. I’d taken a handful of lessons years ago—I might have been ten or eleven at the time—but I could count the number of lessons I’d had on one hand, because I never stuck with the sport.
Apparently, I believed it was wise to take another stab at it at the age of twenty-nine.
But how did people make this look so easy?
