Page 6 of Sunkissed Colorado

“No, I didn’t take anything of yours with me. You were standing over my shoulder while I packed, remember? I don’t know where you put your shit. I’m not your secretary.”

He scoffed. “Believe me, I know. My secretary would never have stocked my pantry and freezer with this gluten-free, vegan crap.”

“Then throw it away! Buy your own groceries!”

“I really wish you would do something about your anger issues, Zandra. More than anything, that’s what came between us.”

“Really?”

I’d put years of my life into launching a startup with him. I’d been all-in. Then I found out Ian had been lying to meandto our investors. Because of Ian, my credibility had been destroyed when the startup went south.

ButIwas the bad guy.Iwas the bitch with anger issues.

“Ian, don’t call me ever again.” I hit End, tossing my phone onto the passenger seat. Chloe meowed.

“I agree. What a dipshit. What did I ever see in him?”

My eyes closed as I rested my forehead against the top of the steering wheel, trying not to cry. Chloe meowed sympathetically.

I’d known for months that I had to start over. I’d been stuck living in Ian’s guestroom in Chicago because I couldn’t afford to move out. No job despite searching, and no prospects. My former friends had lost interest in me once I didn’t have money to go out anymore. Ian was in debt too. But unlike him, I didn’t have a trust-fund cushion.

I’d been a good roommate, though. I’d cleaned and paid for groceries, not that Ian seemed to appreciate it.

Then I’d gotten word. My grandpa Manny had fallen in the storage room at Hearthstone, shattering his hip and fracturing his femur. A week later, he was still at Hart County General, and I was home to offer my help.

But I was also here to make a fresh start.

Unfortunately, that meant facing my parents. The very reason I hadn’t run home to Silver Ridge before now.

“Give me strength, Coco,” I said. “We’re gonna need it.”

I pulled back onto the road and steered toward my parents’ house. I hadn’t told them I was coming. Between Ian and packing up my life in Chicago, I just hadn’t been able to deal with Mom and Dad too.

Now, there was no more delaying. Time to rip off this bandage, possibly reopening the old wounds hidden beneath.

Or maybe I was just being dramatic, as Ian had often accused me of being.

My tires crunched over the driveway. It was half a mile long, twisting through pine trees. A huge clearing opened at the end with a sprawling house of red stone, manicured planting beds, and a carefully trimmed lawn. A slice of upscale suburbia in the middle of the mountains.

While our family’s business empire had started with Nana and Grandpa’s brewery, my parents had taken it to the next level. Mom and Dad had started their company Elevated Adventures when Iwas a kid. An outdoor excursion company for the elite set. After a few years, they’d expanded their operations all over the region. Their success had really taken off after I graduated and moved away.

Now, Javier and Eliza Alvarez were enjoying their retirement in luxurious style, leaving the day-to-day operations of their business to their employees. For Mom, that meant an active social life among the higher reaches of the Silver Ridge community. Dad had traded his former love of the outdoors for an obsession with playing the stock market.

My parents had never wanted me to move away from Silver Ridge. Even while I was in business school pursuing my dreams, they’d bugged me about coming home. Until I’d introduced them to Ian. Since then, Mom had been salivating for a wedding to plan. Or at least an IPO to brag about to her friends at the Hart County Golf Club.

But now, after all these years pursuing my fortune in Chicago, I was slinking home withnothing.

I knocked on the door. The housekeeper, Gladys, answered. Her eyes widened.

“Gladys, tell them we’re not interested in whatever they’re selling,” Mom’s voice called from somewhere inside. “Javi must’ve left the gate open again.”

My face heated. “It’s me,” I called out. Then lowered my voice. “Hey, Gladys. Sorry. They weren’t expecting me. It’s good to see you.”

Gladys squeezed my arm affectionately. “You too. Please come in, come in.”

As I crossed the threshold, Mom’s heels clicked rapidly across the hardwood floors. Then she appeared, practically shoving Gladys aside.

“Zandra! What on earth?” Mom’s face was smoother than the last time I’d seen her, especially for a woman in her sixties. But her dark eyes were the same, sharp and assessing. Judging.