Nash Brothers Box Set - Carrie Aarons Page 0,240

reliable in their own way.

And the only one left just happens to be the one who makes my lungs stop working whenever I see him.

Just then, as if I’ve conjured him by imagination, a figure running in the direction of our car appears over the horizon line on the road.

Pure male adrenaline jogging toward us at a steady pace. A body well over six feet … I know this because tiny chills have run down my spine when we’ve stood next to each other and I’ve been forced to look up. Tanned skin slicked with sweat stretched over taut, wiry muscle, with thick, athletic thighs pumping rhythmically as he pounds the pavement.

Fletcher Nash, in the flesh. Of course, the second person I run into in Fawn Hill is the one man I should be actively staying away from.

One year, I’d promised myself.

So why, in the first two seconds of spotting him in the zone during a workout, do I want to throw every new principle I’ve adopted right out the window?

As he nears, our eyes connect, and a flicker of recognition runs over his face. I feel the world go full-on slow-motion, with Fletcher’s steps slowing and the tires on the car all but coming to a stop. Those blue eyes, the color of the sea outside my window in Santorini, blink twice, and his tongue darts out to wet his lips. He’s all hard lines and lean control, and I often wonder what he was like before he stopped drinking.

It’s more than just physical attraction between us, though. I’ve never been alone in a room with Fletcher, and yet, I can tell that he and I are the same. He knows next to nothing about my past, but when he looks at me, I feel as if he understands the pain inside my chest.

Presley honks violently, snapping me out of my trance, waving her free hand out the window in a furious greeting of her brother-in-law. Fletcher raises a hand, waving back, and smiling with all the pearly whites in his mouth showing.

“You go, bro!” Presley yells as we pass him, her brother-in-law not stopping his run to chat with us.

I can’t help it when my head swivels backward, staring at his retreating form as those perfectly sculpted calves carry him over the hot pavement.

“He runs six miles every morning. Told me once that it helps with the cravings,” my best friend divulges.

The last thing I need is temptation, especially in the form of a recovering addict who would never be able to give me the kind of support I’d need in a relationship.

So, I turn back around and root myself firmly forward in my seat.

No good will come from ogling Fletcher Nash, even if I have a hard time shutting down the thoughts racing through my head.

2

Fletcher

The itch in the back of my throat is so strong, that it takes everything in my body to even sit up in bed.

No, this itch is not physical, it’s not something you can clear with a drink of water or a cough drop. This irritating feeling, a throb that cannot be shooed out of your brain with a silly distraction like song lyrics, is bone deep … it sits in the marrow.

The itch is addiction, and even after almost five years of sobriety, I wake up each day with the overwhelming urge to drink. To drown myself in a bottle of cheap tequila, or my favorite IPA, or the crisp hard cider that Mr. Hinard makes on his orchard just over the county line.

I can name you almost every brand of vodka in the liquor store next to the pizza place on Main Street. Not because I’ve stepped foot in there in five years, but because in the ten years before that, I could have checked in like it was a long-term-stay hotel I frequented.

To push past the cravings takes every ounce of energy in my body. I have to literally latch my hands behind my back to keep them from grabbing my keys and heading out in search of a buzz.

That’s the thing no one can quite explain when you go through rehab and start attending meetings. They say it will be hard, that your sobriety is essential to living a healthy life, that if you stop drinking, everything will turn around. Counselors tell you to focus on the positive and surround yourself with people who live a life you aspire to have. Other recovering alcoholics warn about the dangers