A race car driver trying to outrun his past collides head-on with the woman he wants to forget.
When Callie Ryder and Trent Miller meet for the first time, it ends in real tragedy. He loses a brother. She loses her sister. By the time they cross paths again in Montana, neither of them has dealt with their grief.
They both make a bad decision, and the resulting pregnancy will bind them together forever. They are not a good fit. He races stock cars, she’s an actuary who has made a living out of managing risk. But their reluctant marriage has its benefits—even if those are just physical.
They could have it all if they could only learn to like each other. They won’t realize what they’ve got until an accident threatens to take everything away.
General Release Date: 23rd July 2024
I see the cloud rising like a bad omen against the clear Montana sky. At first, I think the wheat’s on fire, but I spot the car glinting red in the distance, coming too fast on the dirt track between the fields. The driver’s either lost or stupid or both. In other words, a tourist.
I’m blocking the long drive to the clapboard house up on the rise. I’ve got the hood propped on my old pickup. It’s idling rough and I’m watching the timing belt whir, thinking that’s the culprit.
The car brakes when it comes level, drawing me into its dust storm. A woman gets out. For a second, she’s surrounded by the haze, and I don’t know her. As the dust settles, I recognize the girl she used to be. She says something to me, but I can’t hear it over the blood throbbing in my eardrums like whitewater rapids.
She hasn’t changed all that much in ten years. Back then she was hollow-boned and light, awkward on the ground, looking everywhere except for where she was going. But you had the feeling she’d be graceful in the air. And I almost threw her over her horse helping her into the saddle that day. Callie Ryder. Back then the name made me laugh. She was anything but. Couldn’t keep her damned feet in the stirrups.
Her brown hair is long, not stylish, like she can’t be bothered to cut it. She’s wearing a formless sundress in a bland shade of blue, but I get a hint of the curves beneath it. I’m not close enough to see the freckles I remember, or the brown eyes. I don’t want to get close. I don’t want to know if she still has that shy smile that came out about as often as the sun on a cloudy day.
I focus on the wheat swaying behind her. I’ve seen enough in my first glance to know she’s still got a careless kind of prettiness. She’s grown into her body, but she still seems unaware of herself and her surroundings. I’m kind of amazed she’s still alive. If I could have seen what was coming that day, I would have put my money on her to be the one to take that misstep and be pulled into the river. Not her sister.
It always would have been my brother and not me to go in like a hero and try to rescue horse and rider. Except it wasn’t like him to lose at anything. That one time was all it took.
Callie Ryder’s mouth is moving, and I have to drag myself back over the years. It’s a hellish ride.
“Are you from around here?” she’s asking.
“You could say that,” I respond. She doesn’t recognize me. I pull my baseball cap down over my eyes.
“Do you know the Millers?”
“They’re hard people to know.” It’s not untruthful. I’ve been trying and failing to get to know them since the day I was born twenty-six years ago.
“Is that their house up there?”
“They haven’t been here for a long time.” Again, it’s not exactly an untruth. They’ve been distant ever since that day.
“My GPS isn’t working out this far and my phone’s dead anyway, but this has got to be it. Back in town at the gas station, they said to turn onto the first road I saw, and this is the first one, I mean the first passable one. Maybe I turned too soon? The guy said it wasn’t far, but I’ve clocked at least ten miles since I got on here. Is there a real road I should have turned on?”
“Real?” I echo. “Oh, you mean paved. Won’t find many.”
“I have the Millers’ address. Maybe that will help.” She ducks back into the car and comes out with what looks like an album. She opens it and she reads aloud from it.
“Give it here, let me see that.” I wipe my hands on my faded T-shirt in case I’ve got engine oil on them. When I reach for the book, she hesitates like she can’t bear to part with her most precious possession. I pluck it from her grasp.
It’s a scrapbook of tragedy. The first article I see pasted on the page is cut old-school from the Harley Gazette, the rest are distorted photocopies of different stories, probably taken from micro-fiche. They all have variations of the same headline. Millers Lose First-born in Tragic Accident. Or Dam Fails and Takes Tourist and Local Boy in Flash Flood. I don’t need to read them. I know the story by heart.
It was an easy summer job, guiding city dwellers on a tame trail at a dude ranch. I was sixteen, Chet just shy of eighteen. The river was low but wide. We’d crossed it a thousand times. The dam burst upstream on a clear and cloudless day. It was a fluke. I guess most accidents are.
Mallory Ryder was a stunner and she knew it. She had no experience, but she wanted to ride fast. She wanted to show off. When we slowed up at the river, she got impatient and pushed her horse on ahead. When the water came rushing, I remember how she laughed. She kept going toward the other side. She never made it. My brother went in after. I don’t have to look at the date to know it’s been ten years to the damned day, but to see it in print makes my eyes ache.
I flip another page. There are other clippings in there from before that day. There’s my brother on the front page of the Gazette in his football uniform with that big smile, the dark eyes, the strong jaw, the black hair longer than Dad liked, but Chet could get away with anything. I realize I wear it the same way now. If Dad ever noticed it’s long enough to touch my collar, he doesn’t seem to give a shit.
If I look closely at the grainy photo, there I am off to the side on the bench. So like my brother, but second string in football and in life. I’m gazing up at him with a mix of wonder and worship. There’s envy there, if anyone would have looked close enough to see it. To see me. But Trent Miller doesn’t even get his name mentioned.
“You want to tell me what this is all about. You’re not stalking the Millers, are you?” I close the book and toss it back to her.
“I just need to see them. We, um, we have some shared history.”
It was ancient history, and no one needed to dredge it up.
“There’s something I need to say to them,” she continued.
There was nothing she could say, as far as I was concerned. “You want me to pass along a message if I see them?”
“No. I have to do it in person. Do you know where I could find them?”
“Sorry. I can’t help you.”
“Do you know anyone around here who could? I don’t have much time left. I’m only here for the weekend. I’ve got a flight back to Jersey tomorrow.”
“In that case, here’s what you do,” I say, leaning against the side of the pickup. “Head west down this road here.”
“Which way is west?” she asks. The sun is hanging low in the sky and in a couple hours is going to fall off the edge of the world.
I point to where it will meet the horizon. “Thataway. Continue on the way you were going. Take the road until it ends, then head north.”
“Which way is north?”
“Make a right. Take that road until it meets the highway and take that to the next exit south. Stop in the bar there and ask for the Millers.”
She nods, but she looks doubtful. She bites her lip. She squints at the clapboard house with the white porch at the end of the dirt drive. “Are you sure that’s not the Millers’?” she asks. She’s taking in my mother’s garden in front, the bunkhouse behind it, the wheat fields all around and the forest rising up in the back. She notices Mom’s late model Jeep. Her gaze lingers on Dad’s flatbed pickup. The one that used to be Chet’s. I straighten up and block her view.
“I am positive you’re in the wrong place.”
“Okay. Well. Thanks.” Her eyes have already moved away from me.
“Don’t mention it,” I drawl.
She’s about to get in her car when she stops and looks at my truck. “Do you need a ride or anything?”
It almost makes me feel bad for what I’m doing to her. Almost. “I’m all right.” That’s the only thing I’ve said to her that’s an outright lie.
She nods, already looking down the road.
She kicks up more dust as she pulls away. The grit makes my eyes water. My mouth tastes like gravel. Why the hell is she so intent on stirring things up? I watch the cloud drift toward home. There’s no way to contain it. But Callie Ryder? If she wants to reach the Millers, she’ll have to get through their leftover son first.
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