Page 1 of Salvaged Heart

1

BECKHAM

JUNE

T he drive from the University of Tennessee to Lake Norman had always been one of my favorites, especially on days like today. A crash on I-40 had pulled us off the highway onto back roads that wound up and down the Blue Ridge Mountains, passed one-stoplight towns and over French Broad River, its surface glittering dreamily under the early June sun. Life felt simpler out here. I was tempted to pull off at one of the many access points, strip down to nothing, and spend the rest of the day lazing by the river’s edge.

Just one perfect day of relaxation.

That’s all I needed. A day with no responsibilities. No next steps to think about. Just carefree and off the grid.

Soon.

This summer would be everything I needed to get my head back on straight and get my life moving again.

I turned up the stereo as it switched to a familiar—and, as much as I hated to admit it, incredibly catchy—song. T. Swift wasn’t the soundtrack I’d have picked for this trip, but Laurel had chosen it before falling asleep about three and a half seconds later. Could I have changed it? Sure. But she’d just switch it back the second she woke up. So, it had been me and Taylor’s greatest hits for the last two and a half hours.

Laurel looked as peaceful as the river we had just crossed, fast asleep in the passenger seat. Her long, toned legs stretched out on the dash, bare toes painted in Volunteers orange. Her blue eyes were closed, thick lashes brushing the tops of her rosy cheeks as slow, even breaths escaped her full, pink lips. She was stunning—classically beautiful, with blonde hair that fell in soft curls around her face and over slender shoulders. The kind of girl guys dreamed of marrying. Building that white picket fence for. Having two kids, a dog, and the rest of the American dream with.

Yet, here she was, riding shotgun to me , of all people.

Don’t get me wrong, I knew I wasn’t hard to look at. I was six-foot-three, in great shape from playing college baseball, and had a decent enough face. But man, was I lost.

Completely directionless.

The sum of all my life’s dreams had ended with a nine-to-five loss to Texas A&M three weeks ago. Now, instead of a dream, all I had left was a slow-healing rotator cuff tear, forty-thousand dollars of student debt, and a virtually useless degree in General Studies. Even that had taken me five years to get. Not because I wanted to squeeze another year out of my lackluster baseball career either, but because I was too stupid to get the degree in four years like the rest of my peers. I’m pretty sure my Geometry Professor only passed me my third try so he wouldn’t need to see my sorry ass for yet another semester.

Laurel, on the other hand, wasn’t just beautiful. She had big dreams paired with the finances and drive to achieve every single one. In August, she would start Veterinary school. In four years, she’d have her Doctorate, and in ten, she would open her own practice and spend her free time neutering kittens for the Humane Society.

Every second of her life was planned out. Why she was dragging me along for the ride, I’d never know. I didn’t even have past the end of August figured out, and I only had plans that far because Laurel had made them for me in the first place.

I smacked my head back into the headrest and tightened my grip on the steering wheel, trying to banish my destructive thoughts. A surly disposition would be the final nail in the coffin when it came to Laurel realizing she was so far out of my league that she was practically orbiting Jupiter. I needed just a fraction of Laurel’s confidence that I would figure it out this summer. That time away from Knoxville, lakeside, with a project to focus on would be precisely what I needed.

I had to believe that.

It probably wasn’t the best thing for a boyfriend to admit, but I felt relieved when Laurel got waitlisted for the summer internship she’d desperately wanted. Now, we could spend the summer sleeping in, staying up late, and catching up on all the quality time we’d missed. My excitement for the summer only grew after Laurel’s great-aunt passed away in April. I know that sounds horrible, but they weren’t particularly close. Close enough, though, that Aunt Millie had left Laurel a third of her lakeside mini-mansion, with the condition that she renovate it with the other beneficiaries—her cousin Margery and stepbrother Anders—and sell it to the highest bidder.

According to the stiff lawyer, who’d read the will to us one rainy Tuesday morning not long after Millie’s passing, the money from the sale was to be used for specific purposes. In Laurel’s case, part of the funds were for a down payment on a veterinary practice, while the rest would establish a trust fund for her future children. “Or should I say your future children,” the lawyer had amended with a glance to the band he’d clearly mistaken for an engagement ring.

So, after several back-and-forth conversations with cold, all-business Margery and flighty, hard-to-pin-down Anders, it was decided that the summer months would be spent renovating the property. Margery—who was “ entirely too busy to take a summer lazing out at the lake ”—would front the cash. As with most things, Laurel would be the brains of the operation. Myself, the brawn. And Anders…well, that was still to be determined. Laurel wasn’t confident he would even show up.

“Are you sure you’re okay helping this summer?” Laurel had asked one afternoon over neatly organized boxes and packing tape. We’d been moving our stuff out of our separate dorms into a shared ten-by-ten storage unit that Laurel liked to joke was our first home together. “You don’t get much out of this agreement.”

“I get an entire summer with you.” I’d pointed out. “But, if you’re concerned about a lack of payment, I am sure we could come to an agreement.” My overzealous eyebrow wriggle had a laugh bursting from her perfect lips. “Plus, we can get plenty of practice for all these kids we’re supposed to be making.”

That earned me a dramatic eye roll, but nothing further was said. The truth was I was more than happy to help out this summer—ecstatic, in fact. This project was the exact sort of thing I had always been good at. Something I could actually contribute to the future of a relationship that felt one-sided at best.

As a child, I followed my father, watching him putter and fix things around the house. At first, my role was simple—fetching supplies and handing him the right tools. But as I grew older, my responsibilities slowly expanded. By the summer before I started at UT, I could hang drywall, lay floors, and tackle basic plumbing and electrical issues, along with a whole host of other handyman tasks. I probably should’ve followed in my father’s footsteps and become a contractor, but I clung to aspirations of playing professional baseball and a deep fear that if I let Laurel go off to college without me, her tail lights would be the last thing I ever saw of her. Five years later, after barely graduating from that very college, I still clung to a different version of that same fear—one day she’d wake up and realize she should’ve left me in that driveway after all.

By the time we pulled off at exit 28, I’d managed to derail my negativity train and was once again filled with excitement at the thought of some much-needed one-on-one time with the love of my life.

“Babe.” I gave Laurel’s thigh a gentle squeeze. She hadn’t stirred the entire trip back, yet “Cruel Summer” played for the fourth time in as many hours, and I found myself shamefully knowing more of the lyrics than I cared to admit. “We’ll be there in about ten minutes. You missed a few calls not long ago.”

Laurel stretched like a cat waking from a long nap in the sun before scooping up her iPhone and letting out a long-suffering sigh. “It was Anders.” She dropped the phone back down. “Looks like he beat us there. I’m sure he’s raiding Aunt Millie’s jewelry as we speak.”

Before the will, I could count on one hand the number of times Laurel had mentioned Anders. Even after six years of dating his sister, I’d never met the guy. From what I gathered, he was several years older and had bolted from their shared home the day he turned eighteen. If he’d come back for the occasional holiday, I had no idea—but his trips hadn’t overlapped with any of ours to Laurel’s family home. He didn’t call, didn’t write, didn’t email. As far as I knew, until the inheritance came up for grabs, he hadn’t sent a single text to his sister during the entire course of our relationship.

The guy was an enigma, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t slightly curious. “Did Anders have a falling out with your parents or something?” I stupidly asked. “Does your brother speak with them at all?”

“Step.” Laurel shot back, popping the P like it was its own syllable. “He is my stepbrother. I do not share a single piece of DNA with that man. He wanted to be a part of our family as much as I wanted him in it. Not. At. All.” The last three words were punctuated by her throwing items into her purse. “The only reason he is coming back now is because he stands to make over three million dollars off Aunt Millie’s house. Why she included him, I will never understand. I can only hope whatever his stipulation was, it prevents him from blowing it all immediately and takes him as far away from me as possible.”

I focused on the winding road I was navigating down the peninsula, doing my best to hide the shock on my face. I knew Anders was a sensitive subject for Laurel, but clearly, I was missing something. A million questions caught in the back of my throat, but I swallowed them down before I could do something stupid, like ask one of them.

“Beck, please do me a favor and don’t believe a single word that comes out of his mouth. Anders is a silver-tongued snake. He will have you thinking you're best of friends and then screw you over when you least expect it.”

“You don’t have to worry about me.” I tried to give her a reassuring look as we turned off Arbor Ct. into the driveway. “I will go the entire summer pretending I can’t see him. All you have to do is say the word.”

She giggled and pecked my cheek. “Let’s at least start the summer by attempting to be civil. I’ll let you know when my patience has worn thin.”

“I give you an hour tops.” I placed the car in park next to a beaten-up motorcycle, which I presumed belonged to Anders, not missing the sour look that overcame Laurel’s face at the sight of it.

“You are entirely too optimistic. The only way I make it an hour is if he has already drowned himself in the lake.” But instead of malice, a playful tone laced her words.

“Harsh, babe.” I shot her a wry grin before stepping out into the shadow of the lakeside manor we would call home for the next two months.