Page 1 of Bullied Pretend Mate (Silverville Firefighter Wolves #3)

Silverville is just as gorgeous as I remember.

When you’re driving through the mountains, the creek trickling along just outside your window, it’s peaceful.

Serene. Even if the smells of ash and smoke linger in the air, driving into Silverville gives you a great sense of contentment, which likely mostly comes from the mountains themselves rather than the town.

Still, I can see why so many people are still flocking up here to enjoy the early spring weather, despite the wildfires.

That thought makes me swallow as I turn onto Main Street, small shops, bakeries, and coffee shops sprouting up on either side of me as I drive.

This town is picturesque, quaint. The smells of baking bread and fresh espresso float through my open window, as do the sounds of laughter and gentle murmurs when someone pushes into the cafe, smiling and greeting another on their way.

“It’s fine,” I mutter to myself when their eyes linger on me. “Everything is absolutely fine.”

In California, my choice of car felt bold. Fun.

Here, it feels like I’ve painted a huge look at me sign on my back, rolling through town in my lime-green Jeep. As if the people around here don’t have enough of a reason to stare at me, to mark my return to town.

I think about the last time I was here. The public, embarrassing admonishment from the alpha supreme, Holden Sorel.

My senior year of high school was the worst year of my life, and it ended with me standing before the supreme, head bowed, trembling as he boomed about the danger we had put the entire town in.

Forcing that thought from my head, I take a left and leave downtown behind me, delving into the residential neighborhood that sprawls out before me. Tiny little white houses with tiny little front yards. A few kids are playing on the lawn, toys turned over on the grass.

The closer I get, the more a knot forms in my throat.

All the same streets line up and fall down around me like dominoes. People I recognize from dinners at my grandmother’s house as a kid, people who would wave to us.

Before they knew I was a magic wielder. Before my family decided they’d be better off getting rid of me altogether. At least I know I’m the only Villareal in town, my grandmother being the only one brave enough to stay through fire after fire.

Pulling into the driveway is harder than I thought, jostling my body in a pattern of bumps that feels like braille, a silent communication to my nervous system.

We have arrived at Grandma’s house .

Which used to mean stuffing myself into a dress that didn’t fit for a Sunday dinner I most certainly didn’t want to attend. Picking at my food, hunger climbing up my insides as I pushed it around with my fork. Still, no matter how little I ate, my body was up for discussion.

“Give Maeve a bit more broccoli. Good to get her greens, you know.”

“Why don’t you have water with dinner tonight?”

“We’re short one piece of garlic bread. Why don’t you skip?”

As a kid, I didn’t spot the difference between me and the other kids—the siblings and cousins who existed in the “right” kinds of bodies. Once I was a teenager, the adults got a lot more forward, one uncle even feeling emboldened to tell me I would be a lot prettier if I weren’t so fat.

“I am not my past,” I mutter to myself, thinking about the phrases my therapist and I worked on before I came home this week. “My past can’t control me.”

Still, standing next to my Jeep and staring up at my grandmother’s house feels like a religious journey of sorts. Coming full circle to the place that hurt me most.

And I still can’t quite believe the email I received from her attorney’s office.

To: Maeve Villareal

From: Fogue Legal Associates

Ms. Villareal,

It is with great sadness that I’m reaching out to inform you that your grandmother, Calantha Villareal, has recently passed.

Your grandmother has long entrusted Fogue Legal Associates with the handling of her assets, dealings, and final will and testament.

We currently hold said document, and, with the event of her passing, it is time to read the document to the inheritors of the estate.

We ask that you please join us on the following date for the reading of your grandmother’s will. Should you have any questions or concerns, we may discuss them more thoroughly in person.

Once again, we are sorry for your loss and hope this news finds you in good health, if not in good spirits.

Please contact us at your earliest convenience to confirm that you will be attending the will reading.

Regards,

Phillip Stone

Sr. Attorney, FLA

I’d had to read the thing twice, blinking hard to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating the message. Firstly, I was shocked that my grandmother had even remembered who I was. Second, I was shocked that she cared. That I was listed on a document somewhere to be contacted after her death.

None of my family members had even reached out to tell me she was sick. If she were sick, maybe they didn’t know either. I still have no idea how she passed.

Swallowing down the feelings rising up in my throat, I force myself to take a step forward, and another, until I’m standing at the front door, staring through the little glass pane at the top.

Inside looks exactly like I remember—the long hallway leading in, the living room to the left, the kitchen just behind it. The staircase leading to the second story is beside the front door. To the right of that is the large dining room with family portraits.

Fresh flowers are wilting on the entry table.

I jerk back from looking through the window and turn around, walking to my Jeep. I can’t stay here—I just wanted to come and look. See if I could get some amount of closure from seeing this place one last time.

“I can leave whenever I want,” I mutter under my breath, knowing I’m going to need a thousand more therapy sessions to deal with the stress of coming back here.

Hopping back into the Jeep, I grab the seat belt and click it into place, not even letting myself relax in the seat before I throw the truck into reverse and hurry back the way I came.

***

There is a motel in Silverville, but there’s no way in hell I’m staying there. Instead, I’ve booked an Airbnb for a couple of nights.

What’s nice about it is that it’s gorgeous, a little two-story house tucked right between the old firehouse—now turned stationary store—and the bakery.

Right across from where I’m staying is the Silverville market, where they’re currently having the farmers market, and a large green space with a little stage.

Two guys stand up there with guitars, and I realize they’re setting up to play some music.

It’s nice. Outsiders might think Silverville is the perfect little town, a beautiful place to grow up.

I even saw a newspaper this morning that said the town has enjoyed its longest stretch without fires since the original incident.

When I think of the word— incident —it makes me shiver. It’s the word I’ve used in my head for years to encompass everything that happened that night, everything that happened in the following days.

The five of us are out on that ridge together. Valerie running. Aurela is getting off without even so much as a slap on the wrist. Phina and I are here, taking the brunt of the punishment.

And Tara vanishes, as though she never existed at all.

A few days before I left Silverville for good, I’d wandered around the charred, wrecked ground, looking for her bones.

I’d learn later that the fire had been hot enough to turn her bones to nothing but ash.

A fine, shifting silver dust that would come to coat the entire town, fluttering down through the sky like edible glitter dropped into a cocktail.

Like we were living in a snow globe.

It only added to the feeling of being trapped, and I couldn’t get out of here fast enough.

I grab my suitcase and haul it up out of the back of my Jeep, darting my gaze left and right before hurrying to the Airbnb door, punching in the code I got from the owner, and dragging my bag up the stairs.

The place is just as cute inside, and I decide to set my mind to work. Taking out the ring light, I set it up, check angles, and retake photos. It helps me forget about what I’m doing, where I am.

Until dinnertime rolls around, and I realize I’m starving. I can smell roasted tomatoes, garlic, and basil floating in from the restaurant next door.

Once a cheap pizza-by-the-slice kind of place, they’ve seemed to up their game now, offering sit-down service and pasta, a whole assortment of Italian treats. I want nothing more than to grab my bag and a book and walk down there, to settle in and treat myself to an eggplant parmesan.

But there’s only one problem—the musicians in the park have drawn a crowd. Sunday night has brought with it families and groups of teenagers, along with women walking in their sundresses, taking advantage of the unseasonably warm spring night.

“I am not going to hide,” I whisper, shaking my head, standing up, and shaking out my entire body. This place has made me feel ashamed for far too long, especially about something that wasn’t my fault.

It wasn’t any of our faults.

I stop to look in the mirror, touching up my lipstick and fluffing up my hair before I grab my purse—with a paperback inside—and head over to the little restaurant.

They seat me right away, giving me a table on the balcony, and I thoroughly enjoy my time, listening to the music and feeling the gentle breeze through my hair as I sit, sipping on a limoncello and twisting noodles around my fork.

When I’m there too long and my food starts to cool off, I flick my finger toward it, warming it up inconspicuously.

And I almost think I’ve gotten away with it, trying to enjoy a night in Silverville, when I step out the front door of the restaurant and come face-to-face with my past.

Phina Winward is walking down the other side of the street, pushing a baby carriage. Her blond hair flutters back from her face, and she laughs, reaching in, her focus completely on what must be a baby inside that stroller.

Even with the time that’s passed, she looks so much like she used to. Thin, but not quite as thin as she was. And she looks much happier than I’ve ever seen her.

She still lives here. And she has a baby .

The thought is impossible to me.

A teenager walks alongside her, wearing an outfit I’m supremely jealous of, her nose practically buried in her phone. Phina says something to her, and the girl rolls her eyes, tucking the phone into her pocket and taking over pushing the stroller.

It’s at this moment that Phina looks up and sees me standing there.

For a wild, fleeting moment, I think that maybe she won’t recognize me. That, while I still have the same body, I’m definitely not the same girl I was before. My hair is better, for one, and I never would have been wearing the romper I have on now in high school.

No, Phina Winward has never seen me in anything but too-big pants or shorts, one of my dad’s shirts draped over my body shamefully, the draping not really doing much to hide the shape of me.

But she does recognize me. I see it in the way her eyes widen, how she stands up a little taller.

And then, like something out of a nightmare, she taps the teen next to her on the shoulder and gestures for them to cross the street.

My mouth fills with battery acid, and I turn, booking it a few houses down and ducking into the alley, circling around to the Airbnb, hands shaking as I punch in the code.

Has she lost her mind ? Does she not realize what it would look like for the two of us to be standing together, talking to one another on the street?

Even after all this time, I know the residents of Silverville are not going to be kind to us.

Honestly, I’m pleased that I haven’t been run out yet, that I’ve managed to park and eat.

As though it’s a vampire after me and not just an old friend, I turn off all the lights in the Airbnb and lay down on the couch, folding my hands over my stomach and forcing myself to take long, deep breaths.

I won’t be here for that long. I’m just going to meet with the lawyer, take whatever plate, bowl, or mean message my grandmother has left for me, and get the fuck out of Silverville.