Wild Card (North Ridge #1)

Wild Card (North Ridge #1)

Karina Halle




Prologue


Rachel



The word love never sounded so wild as it did when it came from the lips of Shane Nelson.

That one simple word that would set my heart loose, like a horse galloping across the plains, free and real and pure. And yet my heart would always return.

My heart would always return to him.

“I love you, Raven,” he’d say, and I wouldn’t just hear it. I’d feel it. I’d live it. The love he had for me, the love I had for him—it was in my every breath. It hitched the moon in my sky.

Raven was my nickname, partly because it sounded like Rachel, partly because he grew up on Ravenswood Ranch, partly because it was at that ranch, nestled at the foot of Cherry Peak where the forested slopes yield to rolling hills of yellow grass and sagebrush, that I fell in love with the clever birds.

It’s where I fell in love with him.

Shane and I would spend hours on horseback, riding side by side, pretending to help out his father and grandpa by checking on the cattle while the birds called to each other from the tops of the ponderosa pines. The reality is, we just wanted to spend every second we could together. We were nothing if not inseparable.

It’s like we knew that time was running out. Even as a teenager, there was a sense of urgency, like a ticking clock that was counting the long minutes until a bomb went off. I so desperately wanted to run away from North Ridge and never come back. I so desperately wanted, needed, Shane to come with me.

But even though he told me he would, I knew he wouldn’t. His home, his heart, was here. Not with me. And as time continued to wreak havoc on us, as we made wild love like we were dying, afraid of the distance when we weren’t skin to skin, the more Shane continued to pull away. I didn’t see it at the time but then again, you never do.

Loss of love is the most terrifying feeling in the world. It’s the feeling of your heart emptying, slowly being drained. Because that’s the thing about love. It’s free to give. It’s never free to receive. We all know the cost of loving someone, of being open-hearted, open-souled. We know that at any moment it could all end. The world is filled with worst-case scenarios. People die. People cheat. People fall out of love. People lose sight of who they are, or what they want. People…they grow apart.

I’m still not sure what happened on that fateful night—which of the above it was that made everything crash and burn around us. What led Shane to do the things he did, what made him smash my bleeding heart into smithereens.

All I knew was that the love we shared was over.

Years of being full.

Heartful, soulful, wonderful.

All gone.

And he finally gave me the will, the drive, to leave North Ridge behind.

Never to look back.

Never to return.

Until now.





1





Shane





“I heard that Rachel Waters is back in town.”

It takes a moment for the words to properly sink in. I slowly raise my head and look at Delilah as she cracks open a beer for another customer.

“Come again?” I ask her, ignoring the stillness in my chest.

A flash of something comes over her green eyes, maybe pity, maybe trepidation. I hadn’t heard Rachel’s name uttered in ages and yet Del’s treating it like we just broke up yesterday.

It wasn’t yesterday. It’s been six years since Rachel Waters left the town of North Ridge, British Columbia, six years since I last saw her. I haven’t even been able to stalk her on social media. She’s had that shit locked down since the day she left, as if she wanted to forget every single thing, every single person that had something to do with this little mountain town.

Most of all, she wanted to forget me.

So to hear that she’s back, well, it’s more than a surprise.

“She’s back,” Delilah says with a shrug, heading down the bar to slide the pale ales toward Jeremy and Finn, sitting where they’re always sitting.

“I heard that too,” Jer says, scratching at his scraggly grey beard. “Don’t know why, but I have a feeling it has to do with Vernalee. Beth down at the hospital says she’s been in a few times. Don’t know what for.”

Vernalee Waters is Rachel’s mother, and she’s tough as nails. She’s not the type to go to the hospital for anything, not if she can help it.

“I saw her today,” a voice from the corner booth says.

I turn on my stool to see Joe sitting there, palming a beer, cigarette smoke billowing from the corner of his mouth.

“What in God’s name do you think you’re you doing?” Delilah says, and in a flash she’s swinging herself over the bar instead of walking around it, stalking over to Joe’s table. She rips the cigarette from his mouth before stamping it out with the heel of her boot. “Damn it, Joe.”

Joe just laughs like he always does. I wouldn’t say he’s the town drunk as we have quite a few of those, but he’s definitely this bar’s drunk. And nearly every night here at the Bear Trap, the same song and dance plays out. Delilah, the bartender/owner and a girl who is pretty much a sister to me, dukes it out with Old Joe over smoking. If it’s not smoking, it’s that he’s snuck in a bottle of liquor, adding it to his drinks or just “forgetting” to bring money.

But their nightly routine is the least of my concern right now.

“You saw her, Joe?” I ask the old-timer.

He flashes Del a sweet smile and then nods at me. “Sure did. In Safeway. Almost didn’t recognize her. She looks good, though. Put on some weight, but she always was too skinny.”

I swallow, shifting in my seat. I want to ask more but I shouldn’t. Everyone in this room knows how it ended between us. Very dramatically, very publicly. Something neither of us would like to think of again. I pushed her away in a storm of lies, broke both our damn hearts, and the only good thing to come out of it is the fact that she left, far away from the demons in this town.

So, the fact that Rachel is here of all places and her mother was in the hospital, the two have to be connected.

This is throwing me for a fucking loop.

Somewhere, deep in my chest, a raw hope is starting to stir.

Delilah sighs, wiping her hands on her jeans, and jerks her chin at me. “Want another beer, cowboy?”

I fight the urge to roll my eyes. I hate that nickname. Cowboy. Granted, I do work on the family ranch as my full-time job but even so, it’s not like I wear a cowboy hat and boots on the street. Even now I’m dressed in black jeans, a battered old baseball cap with the ranch’s faded logo, a white tee under a red flannel. Tattoos under my clothes. Vans on my feet. Even though it’s the middle of summer here in North Ridge, the nights can be chilly.

“Would you run away with me?”