Counting Hearts Like Stars (The Happy Endings Resort Series Book 23)
Page 1
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
About the HER series
Sneak Peek: Breathe
About the Author
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Counting Hearts Like Stars
(The Happy Endings Resort Book 23)
Copyright © July 2017 by Alexia Purdy
Published by:
Lyrical Lit. Publishing
Cover Design © Melancholy Muse Designs
Cover background photography: © Depositphoto
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and are products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual events, or locales or persons, living or dead are entirely coincidental.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
About the HER series
Sneak Peek: Breathe
About the Author
*** All the books in the Happy Endings Resort Series are STANDALONE stories and can be enjoyed without reading the others, but we highly recommend you check out each fun new story releasing at the end of every month! ***
Two hearts breaking even. One unforgettable promise.
Lucas Lawler watched me with those brown eyes—eyes I’d spent years trying to erase. I almost didn’t recognize him when he showed up on my doorstep the moment I arrived back at the Happy Endings Resort in South Carolina. I thought he’d disappeared, but there were lies I should’ve looked past when it came to him. I should have never let go, especially when he didn’t know the truth.
Jennifer Heisen was back. She was the last girl I’d ever thought I’d see again. Even after all these years, seeing her revived every feeling I’d ever had for her, like time had never passed. I was still up for the sweet, innocent promises we’d made under the star-filled sky years before, but did she even remember them? There was only one way to find out, but the secrets we’d kept from one another might rip us farther apart than space and time already had.
We said our love was written in the stars, but even stars fall from the sky…
Prologue
Jennifer
“Do you trust me?”
Lucas held out his hand as I threw him a skeptical look. Staring out over the lake, I wanted to take it and join him in swinging over the surface of the water and jumping in. But I didn’t know how to swim, and I didn’t know if I should tell him. What if he made fun of me? Jennifer can’t swim. How about that? Only ten summers coming to Happy Endings Resort for the summer season and never swimming? How had she managed that?
“It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s just that I—I can’t….”
“Just hold on to me. I won’t let go.” Lucas held his hand out and waited for me to take it. I swallowed, sweat growing on my forehead as I felt faint.
“I can’t.” I turned and ran away, feeling my chest seize from a lack of air. Not taking note of where I was going, I ended up at the edge of the campgrounds and continued into the forest. Only then, when I reached a dip in the terrain, did I sink against a fallen log. Leaning into my knees as I grasped them, sobbing into my own shirt, I wanted to sink into the mulch. I sat there for what felt like forever before I wondered what time it was as I saw the light dimming above, filling me with panic. I didn’t know how far I’d gone into the woods or which direction to take back. My heart jumped again, and I was sure I’d die of something out there as the evening chills set in. I froze as I heard a crunch of twigs nearby.
“Jenni?” A familiar voice flooded me with relief, and I perked up. Jumping to my feet, I saw no one.
“Lucas?” I scanned the surrounding woods, but it was darkening quickly. A light flicked on and shined right into my eyes. I squeezed my lids shut, blinded.
“Jenni? Oh, thank god. Are you all right?” It was Lucas, and he nearly stumbled into me as he made his way over the dip in the terrain, branches snagging at his socks and shirt and scratching up his legs. He lost his balance and rolled on the ground, and I held my arms out to him once he had recovered. He readily took them as we sat back down and held one another for what felt like minutes.
“I’m so sorry, Lucas, I didn’t mean to run. I… I can’t swim. I just never told anyone.”
“That’s it? I thought I’d grown horns or a tail or something.”
I laughed, gra
teful for his innate sense of humor. “You’re insane.”
“Certifiable.”
“I just… I can’t swim. I never tried. Not since… not since I almost drowned at four years old. I just can’t do it.”
He rubbed my shoulders, and I took the comfort well, snuggling closer and enjoying the warmth radiating off his body. The night had arrived, and the air had literally dropped ten degrees. I shivered.
“Want to go back?”
I nodded. “Yes, but I won’t be able to find my way back. I forgot to check which direction I was going.”
“Come on, I can get us back. We should go slowly because there’re so many dips in the ground here. Might break a leg if we go too fast.”
“Okay,” I agreed, slipping my hand into his. He gripped me tightly, the connection igniting sparks along my skin as he pulled me out of the hole we’d settled in. I wanted to hold him closer, but the brush was thick enough that we had to walk one behind the other. Before too long, my teeth were chattering madly, and gooseflesh had flared across my body.
“Please don’t tell my mother I ran away. She’ll freak if she thinks I’m capable of dashing out here like an idiot.”
“No worries. She doesn’t exactly like me, remember?”
I groaned. “Oh, yeah. Hey, maybe if I tell her you rescued me, she’ll grow fond of you.”
He chuckled but cut it short as I slipped on a wet rock. Reaching out, he caught me just in time before I was a goner, mangled across the rocks.
“I’m sure she’ll totally blame me for letting you get lost in the first place. I’ll let her think what she likes. She’s already got me pegged as a troublemaker.”
“Oh, but you are!”
“You know you love me for it.”
“I do.”
At this, he paused in the middle of the path. The terrain was looking familiar. Still, he hesitated to continue.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“You meant that? You love me?”
I tapped his chest with my palm. “Of course, silly. You know that. We’ve been together since we were six, coming to this crazy place. You and me, together forever. Remember?”
He nodded, his eyes deepening with things unsaid. “I remember. I just wanted to make sure.”
“Make sure of what?”
“That you felt the same way.”
I peered at Lucas and wondered what was brewing up in that head of his. “You okay?” I asked.
He nodded. “It’s just… you said you wouldn’t be coming back next summer, right? That your parents were renting out your family’s cabin to vacationers instead of returning, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Only because we’re moving to northern California. Can you believe that? What the hell is there that isn’t here already? Nothing! More surfers? It might as well be China for all I care.”
“That would be worse.”
I groaned. “You know what I mean.”
He chuckled and pulled me closer, his heat deliciously enveloping my sixteen-year-old frame. I didn’t want to pull away ever, but the way his hooded eyes peered at me, flashing under the twinkling fireflies’ light, was doing things to my insides I’d never felt before.
“Promise me something then,” he whispered, his breath hot by my ear. I shivered, but it wasn’t from the cold anymore.
“What is it?”
“Promise me you’ll come back here when you can. Don’t fall in love with anyone else. Don’t get married. Come back here when you can, by twenty-five at least. Come back to your old cabin, and we can get married.”
“Twenty-five? That’s a long time to wait.”
“I’ll wait forever. Promise me?”
I laughed, but he was dead serious. I cleared my throat. “Okay. I promise. But you better think twice about making such a rash commitment. I intend to keep my word. And… what if it doesn’t happen? What if we never see each other again?”
“Oh, I plan to see you again and again and again. I’ll make sure of it,” he whispered as his lips grazed my neck, slipping down the curve and over my shoulder. I gasped as sparks of lightning shot down my skin, flaring up more gooseflesh as my mind settled on all sorts of forbidden things. I sighed into his chest as he stroked my back, his lips devouring mine with a feverish desire. I liked it, cherished it, and the night no longer felt frigid but sizzling hot as he laid me down in a soft bed of forest mulch and leaves, taking care to clear the rocks from our earthly bed. The moments vanished into a blur of passion and fire, into something I’d later fight to forget.
After that night, I never saw Lucas again.
Chapter One
Lucas
I slammed the hood of Ms. Ansley’s Z28 Camaro, pushing down with my weight to make sure it clicked shut.
“You’re all set. I highly recommend you don’t let your oil go for too long next time, ma’am. You pushed it a bit far this last time. Thick tar is really bad for your engine.”
Ms. Ansley frowned, waving her arms in the air as though to shove my words away. I busied myself wiping the grease off my hands and glancing at the Sweetbay Lake beyond the next row of houses. She had a good plot of land; her cabin stood overlooking a quieter patch of beach away from the main recreation areas of Happy Endings Resort. It brought a rush of memories since the silent and darkened cabin right next door, sharing the same beach, was the very same one belonging to Jennifer Heisen’s family, my first real girlfriend.
Now the cabin stood empty, for it was the end of the summer vacation season, and the tourists had gone farther south in search of warmer fare. Without anyone to occupy it, the cabin looked dreadfully lonesome. Like how it made me feel whenever I came upon it. Without Jenni, nothing about it felt alive.
I sighed as I gathered my tools and began reloading them into my Ford truck.
“I swear I had it changed not that long ago. It’s ridiculous to make us change it every three thousand miles. That’s just too soon. It’s probably a scam to make us pay for more oil.”
“It’s highly recommended to keep your engine functioning well,” I suggested. Tipping my cap her way as I finished placing my tools back into my truck’s bed, I threw her an award-winning smile, complete with deep dimples creasing my cheeks to lighten her mood. It worked like a charm. “You let me know when you reach another three thousand, and I’ll change the oil again.”
She nodded, rolling her eyes while her stern face softened with my smile. No one could resist it. I’d learned that little trick worked for more than just getting girls. It was darn near impossible to fight with someone with a smile like mine, and I squeezed it for all it was worth.
“Thank you, Lucas. Now why don’t I see you with any pretty girls lately? You’re not one of the bachelor-for-life kind of guys, are you?”
“Well, Ms. Ansley, they just can’t measure up to my list of requirements.”
“Don’t you be too picky now, or you’ll end up an old man, grumpy and wrinkled. All by himself just like Mr. Parsons down the way. That’s just a mighty shame.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about Mr. Parsons. He swears up and down he’s about to win that Powerball any day now. Don’t write him off just yet.”
“Hmm. That wrinkled old bag of bones will keel over if he wins. I guarantee it.”
“Never know. Bye, Ms. Ansley.”
“Goodbye and thank you, Lucas.”
I nodded and waved to her before jumping into my truck and cranking the ignition. She waved back, muttering about being a spinster herself and how it wasn’t all petals and roses. I shook my head as I pulled away, swinging the truck around to head down the service road to my trailer.
Once home, I grabbed a beer from the fridge and kicked my boots off as I sat on my couch. Snatching the remote, I switched on the tube and listened to the TV drone on and on without really listening to it. It was one of those old CRT kinds that weighed a thousand pounds, but it worked and I rarely parted with things that still functioned. Unlike the revolving door of my love life,
my home life was simple and comforting. A lot of the same. I was a creature of comfort and habits. Women kept me distracted when I wanted that kind of thing, but for the most part, I was too darn picky. None of them measured up to what I wanted in a woman.
Ignoring most of the newscast blaring on the screen, my mind was elsewhere, and it was all due to the one glance I’d taken toward the shore of Sweetbay Lake.
Jennifer Heisen. She was all over that place like white on rice. The last time I’d changed Ms. Ansley’s Camaro’s oil had been at my trailer. I hadn’t visited her cabin since Jennifer lived there years ago. It sent a rush of memories flying through my head and now, by myself in my trailer, there was nowhere to avoid them. I had to let them tick through like a film on the screen that was my mind’s eye.
Jennifer’s face stuck out the most in my memories, like a faded photograph. It’d been nine years since I last saw her, but not a day went by that her pretty smile didn’t flash across my thoughts. Closing my eyes, I wished I could reach out and touch her. Too much time had passed since I’d last kissed her, and her face was fading from my mind faster than I’d like it to. She’d moved across the country and had left me hanging on for one word, letter, or phone call from her. When none came and the days turned into months and then to years, I knew she had forgotten about me completely. She was probably living her new life in California with some surfer guy to curl up to. Who wanted to think about some small-town boy when she had the world as her oyster? I tried not to feel discarded, but sometimes the sting got through my shields.
“Shoot.” I finished off the last of the beer, got up, and groaned as I scanned the fridge for more. I was flat out of it. “Guess a store run is in the cards.”
At least I wasn’t inebriated. I was going to have to drive down out of the resort to grab some beer that wasn’t overpriced for the tourists. It wasn’t that far. I could even take a stroll to get it, but it’d take me right past Ms. Ansley’s cabin and worse, the Heisen’s dark, lonely cabin.