a phone call from a Holly Huckleberry telling me that she’d found me a match.
I thought it was a spam call to start with and was about to hang up on her until she said six words that had me on full alert.
“He lives in Snow Valley, Montana.”
I damn near dropped the phone.
She refused to tell me any more than to explain that I was to get on an airplane this morning and to be holding a red rose when I walked out into arrivals.
So that’s what I’m doing.
I walk alongside the other passengers from the plane we just disembarked toward my future husband.
My heart races, my skin feels like ice, yet inside I’m burning up.
This could be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.
Or it could be the best.
Blowing out a slow breath in the hope it calms me even just a little, I continue forward, my eyes darting everywhere, waiting for him to spot me, to get my first look at my future.
As I step out, everything around me starts to blur, the lights becoming brighter than they really are, and I’m forced to stop in order to get myself together.
I focus on the tiles beneath my feet for a few seconds as I slow my breathing, and when I look up, I lock on to one pair of eyes.
A pair of eyes I remember so well. They’re almost as familiar as my own.
But they’re different.
I don’t see the happy-go-lucky boy from my past within them.
All I see is anger. Hate. Dark shadows that never used to be there.
I stumble back in shock. On one hand, I feel like I’ve just come home, and seeing his face only makes it seem that much more real, but at the same time, I feel like he’s a stranger when not so long ago he was the person who knew me better than anyone.
“S-Spencer?” I stutter, almost thinking that I’m seeing things and that it’s not him before me.
His eyes bore into mine. Not so long ago, I’d have been able to read all his thoughts. But his walls are up too high for me even to attempt to scale them right now.
“Let’s go.” His rough voice slams into me like a freaking truck. It’s so deep, so gravelly, so… sexy.
Spencer was always hot, but we were just kids back then. His frame was thinner, his face less defined. But the man he’s turned into… whoa.
His hand wraps around my upper arm, his fingers digging into my skin painfully and he pulls me from my frozen position in the middle of the arrivals area.
“Uh… I… uh… can’t. I’m meeting some…” He looks back at me, his knowing eyes narrowing as they hold mine for a second before dropping to the rose in my hand. “No,” I gasp. “You?”
“Let’s. Go,” he repeats.
I stumble along behind him, my brain too busy trying to figure out what the hell just happened.
Part of coming back here was so I could see him again. But I never expected him to be the one waiting for me. To be my future husband.
Despite his attitude toward me, I can’t help the butterflies taking flight in my belly.
I really have just come home.
Chapter Two
Spencer
Our mother has had some hair-brained plans over the years, but to order my brothers and I brides for Christmas, that really takes the cake. I get what she’s trying to do. I love this little town as much as the next resident, but I’m really not sure this is the best way to go about saving it.
I’ll never forget the looks on my brothers’ faces when she dropped the bomb and told us to expect our beloveds to turn up over the coming days.
She’s always been a romantic, it’s probably got something to do with all the sappy romance novels she’s addicted to, but to actually believe that this is going to be okay, she really must have faith in love.
I, however, like to think I’m a little more of a realist.
Love exists, I can’t deny that.
It’s incredible, exhilarating, life-changing. All the things everyone tells you it is. But when you give your heart to someone, you’re trusting that they’re going to look after it. And when they don’t… fuck, that shit hurts.
No one warns you what that’s like. And even if they did. You can never be prepared for it.
I tried not to think of the woman I’d been matched with. I knew that if I did, I’d only imagine one person.
Golden blond hair. Clear