Page 1

CHAPTER 1

Samantha Rushford took one step out of the old gym and headed off the posse of lanky, slightly acne-prone teenage boys at the pass. “You know, Calvin,” she said, speaking to their leader, “if you bring anything into this gym that even remotely resembles an intoxicating substance, I’m going to have to report you, and you’re one of my best students. Being that graduation is just around the corner, I really don’t want to do that.”

Calvin nervously adjusted his tux tie and had the decency to look at least a little guilty as he contemplated his options.

“Listen to her, Cal,” a shorter, stockier boy to his right said. “Her brother’s the police chief.”

Smart boy, Leo.Sam stood straighter and crossed her arms in authoritative teacher fashion.

The tall boy in front gave her a wink. “Aw, c’mon, Ms.Rushford, haven’t you ever been eighteen?”

Oh, Lord, yes. Yes, she had been, and she didn’t want to remember it. “That’s why I’m giving you all a warning instead of blowing the whistle right now.” She turned her gaze back to Calvin. “So, I’m going to pretend I didn’t see that flask you just tucked into your tux jacket as long as you head up over the hill and get rid of it. Deal?”

For an instant, his expression turned defiant.Please, please listen, she pleaded silently. He’d come such a long way from an across-the-tracks kid to a talented artist who’d earned a scholarship to Rhode Island School of Design, one of the most prestigious art programs in the country. “Besides, don’t you guys haverealdates to keep you out of trouble?”

Calvin flashed a grin. “My date and all the other girls are inside waiting to see if Lukas Spikonos shows up—as if a big recording artist like him would actually come back to a place like Mirror Lake.”

Sam placed a hand over her chest. That sudden twinge was probably reflux. Her body rebelling against the slice of pizza with everything that she’d eaten an hour ago. Her heart couldn’t possibly have knocked loudly at the sound of that name. Not after all these years.

Lukas Spikonos. Greek god and recording artist who’d been compared at different points to John Mayer, Ed Sheeran, and “The Boss.” The wildly popular hometown boy who left their sleepy little tourist town to become the newest breakout singing sensation.

Oh, yes, there had been a special buzz about the gym, fueled by rumors that someone had thought they’d seen a big black tour bus pull off the highway outside of town, but Sam knew better. Lukas Spikonos was through with Mirror Lake for good. Not to mentionher. “There’s a good chance everyone will be waiting a long time for a celebrity who’s too busy to show. You guys will just have to make your dates extra happy to see you—without the happy sauce, right?”

The boy walked up the grassy hill behind the gym and emptied the booze into the bushes. “Better toss the flask, too,” she called. She knew the cops would be making the rounds because her brother Tom, who was head of the Mirror Lake PD, wouldn’t dare tolerate any shenanigans at the high school prom under his watch.

“Stay out of trouble, right, Cal?” she said as she held the gym door open.

“Right, Ms.Rushford,” he grumbled, holding up his hands in surrender. Once the boys all filed inside, she tugged the big metal door closed. She could only hope she’d shut out the trouble, too.

“Maybe you shouldn’t be so easy on those boys.” Her fellow teacher and best friend, Jess, had suddenly materialized at her elbow. “They’ll think they can get away with anything.”

“They’re good kids,” Sam said. She watched the guitar player in the student band on the stage at one end of the gym lean down and take a request from a pretty teenage girl in a red dress. It was a personal mission to convey to her students, especially the more troublesome ones, that someone cared.

She lowered her voice. “Besides, if it weren’t for my brother finding our stash of booze in my trunk on our prom night junior year we’d have gotten in even worse trouble.” Her oldest brother Brad, a successful restaurateur, had made them pour it out one bottle at a time while he stood and watched. Then she’d had to clean the restaurant toilets for the next month.

Jess shook her head. “We did push limits sometimes,” she said. “Some of which I regret.”

“We were teenagers. That’s what teenagers do. Although I am sorry about theBite Metattoo on my right butt cheek.” Which would be there forever. Sam had done a lot of limit pushing to irritate her controlling oldest brother who’d helped raise her after her parents had died, but it had been more to exert her independence than to rebel outright.

She’d also had the worst high school experience ever after being bullied senior year. It was at that time, when she was angry and abandoned by nearly all her friends except for Jess, that she could have gone down a much darker path. Ironically, it was her attraction to a bad boy that had turned her around and saved her. That bad boy had been Lukas Spikonos.

There went that spasm in her chest again. An image appeared in her mind of a young Lukas staring at her, his face illuminated by the blue glow of dashboard lights, looking for all the world like he wanted her more than breathing or eating or living.

Which ultimately turned out not to be the case. There was too much water under the Lukas Spikonos bridge to take a dip in again. But suffice it to say, Sam understood the value of intervention at critical moments in life when you’re young and stupid and one misstep can cause your life to take a very, very wrong turn.

“Hey, ladies,” Evan Wolensky, the AP physics teacher, said as he joined them. He pushed up his glasses with his wrist as he balanced two punch cups, handing one to Sam.

“Thanks,” she said.

He held the other one out as an offering. “Would you like some, Jessica?”

“Oh, thanks, Ev, hon,” she said. “Well, guess I better go man my corner of the gym. Wouldn’t want any bumping and grinding going on, now would we?” She beamed her usual friendly-but-striking smile, and as she reached for the punch, her gorgeous blonde hair shimmered, and her big blue eyes sparkled with humor.

Jess couldn’t help being a knockout, but she was always careful to rein in her charisma around Evan, who had a big crush on her. Yet Sam could tell that even a simple smile had atomic impact on him.

Evan swallowed, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing. He looked at Jess as if he were imagining a completely different kind of bumping and grinding. One involving him and her.

“Teachers, to your stations, please,” Joe Malone, their principal, said as he swept the area. He shot Sam a kind smile. And a wink. “Remember to leave enough room for the Holy Spirit between these children. No dirty dancing at Mirror Lake High prom. We have a reputation to uphold.”