Claiming The One (Meadowview Heat 3; The Meadowview Series 3)

by Rochelle French

  After he’d received Abbie’s email, he’d taken off from where he’d been stationed on a fifteen-thousand acre fire in Washington, ditching work for the first time in years, putting his career at risk by doing so. Thank God his crew boss was understanding. He’d taken two days to drive the distance and his body was letting him know that ten years of living off the back of a motorcycle sucked.

  Although evening was setting in, the air hadn’t yet cooled off. Heat still shimmered off the windows of Meadowview’s downtown businesses and sweat trickled down his neck. Time to head down the street to the Goldpan Pub. He undid the throatlatch of his helmet, then whipped the black cap off and tugged free the red bandanna he’d tied around his head to keep the sweat out of his eyes. He shook his head, sending a spray of sweat flying.

  “Well, crap on a cracker, if it isn’t Hunter Thorne.”

  Momentarily blinded, he swept the handkerchief over his face before turning to see who’d recognized him the minute he stepped into town. A bright-eyed, dark-haired, and close to tiny woman stood before him, grinning.

  “Michelle Cranson,” he said, smiling when recognition hit. “It’s great to see you. I think the last time was at our graduation.”

  “Actually, the last time you saw me was down at the river before the sheriff’s department broke up the graduation party. You and the rest of the football team took off like bandits, leaving us girls holding the booze.”

  He tipped his head back and laughed. They’d run with different crowds then—he with the jocks, Michelle with the Goths—but in a community as small as Meadowview, even the socially divided groups had a tendency to mingle when it came to free booze and parties.

  “At least the cops showed pity on you girls and didn’t haul you off to juvie.”

  “Nah, just made us dump out the booze and sent us home after making sure we had a designated driver,” she said. “And it’s Michelle Engle now. I married Dan Engle a few years ago.”

  “Really?” Dan had been a lineman on the varsity team when Hunter was the quarterback. From what Hunter could recall, Dan couldn’t stand Michelle, often casting insults behind her back. And to her face a couple of times, if he remembered right. Insults she’d hurled right back at him. “Can’t say I ever saw the two of you as a couple,” he added, then hoped he hadn’t offended her.

  “We ended up at Stanford together. I about peed my pants when he asked me out. Guess it was the whole opposites attract thing. Apparently he’d had a crush on me since seventh grade.”

  Hunter smiled, glad to see a familiar face. Then he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye and his smile faded.

  Damn. Just what he needed—to run into Theo Courant.

  Hunter swiveled his gaze around the lean man standing in the doorway of the Goldpan, searching for Theo’s friends. Jack Gibson and Ethan Sawyer had hung around Theo like ticks on a dog, and none of them had liked him much. Neither were in sight, but a young woman dressed in a wide-brimmed straw hat and a purple cotton sundress stepped out into the afternoon sun and stood gaping at him. Chessie, Jack Gibson’s sister. Several years younger than him, right? Was she remembering when her older brother had smashed his nose in and gone to juvie for it?

  “Thorne. I see you’re back in town. Staying long?” Theo’s voice came out low, like a warning.

  Hunter shrugged, keeping his gaze on Theo’s hands, which were firmly fixed in his front jeans pockets…jeans that probably cost five hundred dollars. The Courants were one of Meadowview’s oldest families and one of California’s richest—they’d made a fortune stealing gold from the northern California hills and rivers during the Gold Rush and after.

  In contrast, Hunter’s family had been one of the multitudes of middle class—his mom had taught high school physics and his father had owned a car dealership until both of them died in a car wreck when Hunter was in college.

  Meadowview hadn’t left him much…just a few memories he’d tried to put on the backburner.

  “We’ll see,” he said, as noncommittally as he could without appearing offensive. After all, he couldn’t be sure Jack Gibson wasn’t around somewhere. His nose itched, the same way it did every time he recalled getting it cracked in three places by Jack’s fist.

  Yeah, some things he deserved. A crooked nose was one of them.

  “You two still live in Meadowview?” he asked, nodding to Theo and Chessie, making meaningless small talk, because what the hell else was he supposed to do? This felt like a showdown in some old Western.

  “I live in San Francisco now,” Theo said, “but I come back often to see my sister. She married Ethan Sawyer a few months back. They both live here now.”

  Huh. Ethan had dated Liz the remaining years of high school, but they’d broken up when both went off to college, if Hunter remembered correctly.

  Theo placed an arm on Chessie’s shoulder and tugged her close, as if saying, “back off. This one’s mine.” Hell, Theo didn’t have to worry—getting laid wasn’t on Hunter’s agenda for his return to his hometown.

  “You two together, then?” Hunter asked, gesturing to Chessie and Theo.

  Chessie burst out laughing. “Hell, no! He’s just trying to grab some boob.” She knocked Theo’s arm off her shoulder, and turning to him, said, “Shove your hands in your pockets like a good boy so they don’t wander any more.” She turned back to Hunter. “God, it’s like he never graduated from high school or something. So, are you moving back or visiting?”

  Michelle interrupted before he could answer. “Oh! If you’re moving back, I’m a Realtor now, and I’ve got an adorable little house going on the market as a rental in a few days. Oh, wait—I’d forgotten.”

  “Forgotten what?”

  She looked away, staring through the window of Swinton’s Bakery, appearing intent on the display of cupcakes decorating the front window, and then shrugged. “Uh…it’s Liz Pritchard’s house. She’s getting married.”

  Ice chilled his veins, followed by a rush of heat. Vaguely, he was aware of Theo stepping closer to him.

  “News to me, but good for Liz,” Theo said quietly.

  Yeah, good for Liz, Hunter found himself thinking, and realized he meant it. For the first time in years, anger didn’t eat him up from the inside when he thought about her. Maybe communicating with Abbie had smoothed over some of his rough edges when it came to Liz.

  Although until he saw her, he wouldn’t know. But even as part of him hung on to the anger, another part recognized how good it would be to let go of the resentment, what a relief it would be not to carry around the dead weight.

  His jaw tightened. Or was forgiveness overrated?

  “I’m handling the rental,” Michelle added. When he didn’t respond, she glanced back at him, frowning. “Sorry. I guess I screwed up. I shouldn’t have brought up Liz. I know you two used to be best friends and all, but then…I mean, it was like you guys hated each other during the rest of high school, after…you know…”

  Hunter felt the familiar gates of iron close over his chest. He and Liz had been best friends once, back when they were kids, growing up a street away from each other. And until Liz’s mom Tina had gotten hooked on alcohol, she and his mother had been best friends, just like him and Liz.

  But all that had changed the year they’d fallen in love. After a drunk Tina had crashed with him in the car, his parents forbade him to hang out with Liz anymore. Tina had screamed about betrayal and wouldn’t let Liz anywhere near him. Their families had taken on the role of Capulets and Montagues and they’d been destined to play their parts, desperately in love but forced to stay apart.

  Tragic love, Shakespeare style.

  But being high school kids, they’d found plenty of ways around that. A drunken Tina had been clueless that her daughter was having sex every night for months on end in the bedroom across the hall from hers. One afternoon of unprotected sex out at Suicide Rock on the Maidu River led to Liz getting pregnant. They’d made all sorts of plans then, about getting married, rai
sing their baby together. Best friends forever.

  Until Liz lied to him.

  “Uh, Hunter? Should I not have brought up Liz?” Michelle asked, her brow creased.

  “I doubt Thorne here has any interest in our Liz,” Theo said, interrupting before Hunter could respond. “Some things are meant to stay forgotten. Buried in the past.”

  Hunter flicked his gaze at Theo, who now wore an insolent grin on his face, his hands still buried deep in his front pockets, and an ankle hooked over the other. What a fuckhead. Yeah, Hunter got it—the guy was trying to protect his friend, but he didn’t have to be a dick about it.

  “Don’t you have a fortune to blow through, or something?” Hunter ground out, then regretted his statement and grew embarrassed. What was it about Meadowview that made him act as if he were twelve?

  Theo didn’t take the bait and. Instead, he grinned even wider, flashing bright white and perfectly straight teeth. “Money to spend and women to seduce—my agenda for today. And tomorrow. And the day after that.”

  Chessie snorted. “Ignore him, Hunter. Theo’s the CEO of The Courant Foundation, and he does more good for this town and the world than he’d ever let anyone know. He’s back in town to help Michelle and Dan start a new charity.”

  “Really?” Hunter drawled, giving Theo the once over. In high school, Theo had been the rich kid—the guy who partied constantly and always had a girl or two or three draped around his neck. He’d been one of those kids destined for great things, not because of what he did but because of the silver spoon dangling from his mouth.

  The only charitable thing Hunter could ever recall Theo doing was befriending Liz after Hunter had exploded her world. So yeah, maybe the guy wasn’t a total ass after all. But Hunter would reserve judgment on that one.

  “Michelle and Dan convinced The Courant Foundation to head up the Save the River Otters charity,” Theo said. “Kick-off event is tomorrow afternoon. Down at the main bridge over the Maidu River. You should come.”

  “Not in town to support otters,” Hunter said. He gave Michelle an apologetic grin. “Although it’s a worthy cause. Those things are cute.”

  Theo snorted, as if aware Hunter had just tried to make up to Michelle for dismissing her charity, then said, “Chessie and I have dinner plans with my sister and her hubby—we gotta go. Hunter, welcome back to Meadowview. Hope you find what you’re looking for.” Unspoken were the words, “…and then take off again.”

  Years before, Hunter had left Meadowview as the star quarterback, headed off to play college ball. To most in the small town, he’d been a sports hero. To a few others? An asshole for what he’d done to Liz. He’d planned to return a success—a hero.

  He never did.

  And now? Now he was no success. Just a firefighter with a blown knee and dusty memories of once vibrant dreams.

  He jutted his chin in Theo’s direction as a means of saying goodbye, then watched as the man sauntered down the wooden planked sidewalk, full of insouciance and privilege, then reach out and pinch Chessie’s ass. She swatted it away, but turned and laughed at a smiling Theo. What would it be like to be so free? So unburdened by guilt and resentment and—dammit—anger?

  “Hunter? You good?” Michelle’s words buzzed around his head before settling into his brain, and he finally turned to her.

  If Michelle was dealing with Liz over the rental, she’d have her contact information. And he needed to contact Liz. Desperately. He cleared his throat, then spoke. “I’m cool. Being back in Meadowview has tripped some wires in my memory banks, you know?” When she nodded in understanding, he added, “Uh, you wouldn’t happen to know where Liz is, would you?”

  Michelle’s brows shot up. “I’m meeting her tomorrow afternoon, before the charity event, at her mom’s old place. You should stop by, say hello. That is, if you two are talking again.”

  Hunter shoved his hands deep in his front pockets. “What happened was a long time ago, Michelle. Years. I think it’s high time Liz and I talked again. Especially now—”

  Especially now their daughter wanted to meet them. And had specifically asked him to find her mother.

  The same mother who’d so callously once handed off their child to strangers.

  The whir and hum of the sprinklers in the morning air mingled with chimes from St. Dominican’s church bell. Meadowview in the morning, just as Liz remembered. The familiar summer sounds of Meadowview added a sleepy rhythm to Michelle Engle’s patter. A month ago, when Liz first made the arrangements to meet a Realtor, she hadn’t been prepared to be speaking to one of her former high school classmates on the phone.

  Michelle had been a year ahead of Liz in school—in Hunter’s graduating class, Liz realized with a start. Once, a long time ago, Michelle had been Liz’s compatriot in detention. Liz smiled as she compared the Michelle she once knew to the woman standing before her. Michelle’s interest in cheap beer and body piercing in high school had been transposed into a passion for rental statistics, tax rates, and zoning codes.

  Apparently, somewhere along the way, Michelle had also developed a passion for Dan Engle, one of the school football stars from their high school. A nice guy, Liz recalled. He hadn’t been one of the jerks who claimed he’d slept with her. Kudos to Michelle for scoring one of the good guys.

  “I had the sprinkler system repaired already,” Michelle said, drawing Liz’s attention back to the yard in front of her. The faded white picket fence leaned inward. Michelle struggled with the latch on the gate, waving to Liz to follow her.

  Hesitantly, Liz stepped through the gateway and into the yard where she’d once performed cartwheels and somersaults for her mother…and where she’d sneaked her first kiss with Hunter.

  Even with the warm morning sun, her hands went clammy. She shivered, missing her Levi jacket but thankful for the woven silk cardigan covering her shoulders. The outfit wasn’t her style, but today she’d dressed the part of an upper crust woman on an excursion to the country. And upper crust women wore cardigans, not faded Levi jackets. Elizabeth Picard wouldn’t be caught dead in Levis of any type.

  Too bad. Liz missed her 501s.

  She let her gaze travel the length of the yard, noticing the weeds and dead dandelions, and frowned. Damn. So much needed to be done. She’d told Gerald that arranging to sell the place would only take a couple of hours. He expected her back in Marin later that evening. Staring at the mess of a yard before her, she was grateful she’d arrived several hours earlier than scheduled.

  She cringed inwardly at the unkempt scene before her, and then kicked an empty beer can. A cigarette butt tumbled out. It was a painful reminder of the last time she saw Tina, beer can in one hand, cigarette in the other, standing at the faded white picket fence as Liz once again stormed away from her home, her mother, and her town. Damn her mother for making her life miserable.

  Liz cut off the thought. No sense in playing a game of “what ifs.” The past was the past, and she’d come here to bury hers.

  “You have good bones, Liz.”

  Startled, Liz turned quickly to Michelle. Too quickly, as the world went dark for a moment. “Excuse me?” she asked.

  Michelle pointed to the house, once white but long gone a faint orange-grey, tinged by the iron embedded in the local dust. “Good bones. The place needs some cosmetic work, but nothing that a dash of paint can’t fix.”

  “Crap,” Liz muttered under her breath. She could only hope the interior of the house was in better shape than what she could see of the exterior. Tina had never been a competent homeowner, but on the few times Liz had come back to Meadowview to visit her mother over the years, the house hadn’t looked this bad.

  The last time Liz had been back was just a few months ago, in the winter, on an obligatory visit to check in on her mom and to go to the Fireman’s Ball with her friend Jack Gibson. Her former home had been dingy then, but had it been so decrepit? Had she simply not noticed how her mother’s life was crumbling around her?

  With ti
red legs, she stepped up the wooden steps and onto the porch and gave what had formerly been a hanging potted fern a nudge. Poor thing had probably died shortly after Tina, she realized.

  Liz had been on a trip deep in the Amazon rain forest with Gerald when Tina had passed on. Her mother had been cremated three days before Liz even knew she was dead. She’d never known if there had been a funeral for her mother.

  Not that anyone in Meadowview would have come. The Pritchards weren’t exactly among the town’s elite.

  More like the dregs of society.

  Overhead, a low-flying airplane moved heavily through the air, rattling the single-pane windows, drawing her attention away from her morbid thoughts. A fire-retardant bomber. She cocked an eye at Michelle. “Forest fire?”

  Michelle nodded. “There’s a five-thousand-acre fire burning in the national forest, about fifty miles from here. The bombers have been using the Meadowview airport, so you may get buzzed. But don’t worry,” she added hastily, “the fire is too far away to do any damage. If the winds shift, though, you might see and smell smoke.”

  Great. A wildfire. Just what she needed—another reminder of Hunter, the hotshot firefighter.

  As if being in the house where they’d once made love didn’t trigger enough memories. Odd—she’d been coming home for years now but hadn’t been consumed by thoughts of Hunter before. Could it be that her plan to sell the place was dredging up all those old memories? Whatever it was that kept triggering thoughts of the boy she once loved, she hoped it would evaporate. She’d had enough.

  She let out a breath, slow and steady, willing the thoughts of her past to escape her body and her mind. Carefully, she cranked the key in the lock and swung the door open.

  The stale scent of dust and mildew hit her, along with the sultry remnants of her mother’s perfume. She forced the wave of emotion that threatened to well up back down deep into her chest. Michelle stayed behind, allowing Liz to enter her childhood home alone.