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Prologue

Noel

My momma was too beautiful to die.

At least, that’s what everybody said.

Penelope Jean Harris was the scion of our town’s founder and prettiest girl in three parishes. She was head majorette in high school and homecoming queen and prom queen and every other queen. She was Peach Princess, Teen Dixie Peach, and Miss Dixie Gem. She would’ve gone on to be Miss Louisiana if my daddy hadn’t made her a Mrs.

I was eleven—that strange age between too big to play in the creek in only my panties and too little to sleep without the closet light on. I loved Dolly Parton and butterflies and picking peaches straight off my daddy’s trees and eating them, jumping in the lake and running after jackrabbits with my little brother Leon.

In the summer the trees were rich green, and the sweet scent of peach juice filled the air. In the winter they were sparse, bony hands, reaching palms up to heaven. Branches like fingers spread, grasping for hope.

Momma’s hazel eyes crinkled at the corners whenever she looked at me or my brothers or my daddy. Her sweet smile was warm sunshine when I got cold.

She would wrap me in her arms and sing an old sad song when I was sleepy or cranky or “out of sorts,” which is how she’d put it. I pictured “sorts” as ivory dominoes I could line up and knock down or slap off the table, across the room. I’d pull her silky brown hair around me like a cape and close my eyes and breathe…

Then she was gone.

She went for a walk one crisp winter evening along the narrow, dirt road that runs past our orchard out to the old house on the hill. Frost was in the air; bonfires were burning. T

he man driving the truck said she came out of nowhere.

He never saw her.

She never saw him.

Six weeks later, in that same orchard with peach blossoms on the trees and dew tipping the grass, on the very spot she died, my daddy took his life with his own gun.

I guess sometimes love makes you forget things can get better.

I guess he didn’t see a bend in the road up ahead.

I guess he only saw a straight line leading deeper and deeper into black.

My daddy was the star of his high school football team… but Life threw him a pass he couldn’t catch with Momma’s death.

Our world changed forever that winter.

Dolly says love is like a butterfly, soft and gentle as a sigh, but from what I’ve seen of love, I think it’s more like a tornado, shocking and violent and so powerful it can rip your soul out of your mouth…

It’s faster than you can run, and it blows one house away while leaving the next one peacefully standing.

I didn’t know which way love would take me, quietly or with the roar of a freight train. I should’ve known. I should’ve realized the moment I saw him.

It was both. It was quiet as the brush of peach fuzz, but it left my insides in splinters. It twisted my lungs and lifted me up so high only to throw me down with a force that rang my ears and flooded my eyes.

It all started the summer before they left, a month before my brother was sent to fight in a war everybody said was over.

It all started in the kitchen of my momma’s house…

Seven Years Ago

1

Taron

“Rise and shine, Slick.” Sawyer slaps my foot, knocking my legs off the couch, and I come up with my fist clenched.

“What the hell…” Defense is an instinct to me, born out of a childhood where I had to fend for myself.

“Be at the truck in seven minutes.”

I scrub my eyes with my hand instead of punching. “Seven. It’s still dark.”

“We’re on farm time now.” His voice mimics our drill sergeant’s and he closes the bathroom door without looking back.

Farm time, military time… no wonder he adapted so easily to basic. Lifting my phone, I see it’s only five. Shit. Looking around, I try to get my bearings in the large, dark room. The hint of a dream still lingers at the edge of my brain.

Soft skin, soft hair… A scent so familiar, but I can’t place it—sweet, but earthy. I want to close my eyes and bury my face in her neck and just breathe…

It was only a dream.

A dream I’d like to finish for once.

With a low growl I stand, pushing down the wood in my shorts and searching the floor for the jeans and tee I wore on the drive in last night.

We arrived at Sawyer’s place after midnight, and I crashed on the couch in the living room, thinking I’d sleep more than five hours. We finished boot camp last week and got our marching orders. We’re full-fledged Marines now, with only a few weeks before we head out to South America for an eighteen-month assignment.

Eighteen months if we’re lucky.

I find my shirt at the same time something warm and wet smears down my face.

“What tha—!” I shout, falling back on my ass.

My heart is in my throat as the bathroom door opens again, casting a column of light across the floor. A big, black and gray dog with one blue eye and one brown eye stands in front of me. It looks like it’s grinning. I’m pretty sure it knows it scared the shit out of me.

“Akela, come.” Sawyer’s voice is sharp. “Bathroom’s yours.”