The Rivals of Copper County (Copper County #2)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

WATT

“Watt! Yoo-hoo! Watt Bartlett!” a feminine voice called as I walked down Weaver Street one pretty autumn morning.

I cringed, snapped my eyes to the ground, and tried like hell not to indicate I’d heard it.

Autumn in Western New York was supposed to be glorious and delightful.

In my hometown of Copper County, every front porch was adorned with pumpkins and cornstalks, window boxes overflowed with gold and purple mums, the tree branches at the orchard were heavy with apples and pears, and the leaves around scenic Copper Lake were ablaze with color.

Here in O’Leary, the slightly larger neighbor of Copper County, sunlight bathed the street, and O’Learians bustled to and fro on their errands while the scent of smoke from some industrious person’s woodstove mingled with the crisp breeze.

On days like this, it was impossible not to be perfectly content with my life .

At least until one yoo-hoo had caused my blood pressure to spike and my happy autumn vibe to be ruined.

The fact that my friend Ollie—and a dozen of our closest friends and neighbors—were there to hear it only made it worse.

“Watt? Watt Bartlett ?” Ollie singsonged under his breath. “Don’t you hear lover girl calling for you?”

Thankfully, he was able to give me shit without indicating that either one of us had noticed the woman dressed in high-visibility pink and hopping up and down in front of a table festooned with pumpkins and fundraising fliers.

I focused on avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk. Meticulously. “What were we talking about?” My voice came out tinged with desperation. “Your strange, recurring John Ruffian dream? Or football? Because I think Derry will be home from his mom’s in time to watch the game, if you wanna come over. Or?—?”

Kayla’s voice cut through the air again. “Oh my heck, it is you! Watt! Watt, honey!”

I closed my eyes and inhaled a breath, trying to recenter myself in the autumnal reverie and contentment I’d been this-close to achieving?—

“Watt! Come on over here and tell Missy and Tom about how we’re going to prance together on the day after Thanksgiving!”

—but I couldn’t achieve that ever-elusive contentment unless I could make it to the grocery store without having to tell anyone anything about prancing .

Suddenly, I was shoved through the front door of Nickerson’s Books you checked in on them yourself.

If I were a betting man, I’d say Jasper had finally arranged for someone to clear out the house. I’d see a For Sale sign soon, and then someone new would buy the place. Property on Copper Lake never stayed on the market for long.

And that was good. The past was the past.

Jasper Wrigley was none of my damn business.

I glanced up, realized I’d accidentally loaded six gallons of milk into my carriage, and cursed under my breath as I set five back.

Down the center aisle, someone burst into raucous laughter, and I instinctively turned to look. A lean man with shaggy, gold-tipped hair threw his arm over the shoulder of the woman beside him with easy grace and pulled her against his side.

My stomach somersaulted .

I felt the weight of that arm on my own shoulders like a phantom touch. Recalled the precise weight of it the way I remembered the weight of Derry against my chest when he was a newborn. Knew the warmth of it the way I knew the warmth of the quilt my mom had pieced for my bed.

“Holy shit,” I said under my breath.

The man turned, caught me staring, and gave me a puzzled smile.

I squeezed my eyes shut briefly, then opened them and returned my friend Parker’s greeting.

Losing. My. Mind.

This wasn’t like me. I was easygoing, as Ollie had said. Steady and settled. Like a tree or whatever the fuck. I didn’t jump at shadows. I didn’t get overwhelmed with emotion.

I sure as heck didn’t get emotional about Jasper .

I mean, yes, okay, I had missed him… briefly. We had been friends. Better friends than I’d let on with Ollie. Even, maybe, best friends. And once upon a time, for a single golden summer, I’d hoped we could be… more.

I could also admit that I’d felt… not great… about the way we’d left things. I’d fucked up by wanting more—and immediately regretted it—but then Jasper’s parents had needed him home right away, and he’d left Copper County without giving me a chance to explain or apologize or say goodbye. It had felt even worse the following summer when I’d waited for a light in the window that had never come on.

But I’d been a kid—seventeen, eighteen, like Derry was now?—and the biggest worry in my life had been playing hockey. Stuff that was important then became trivial once I had a mortgage to pay and a kid to raise. So I genuinely wasn’t sure where my strange mood was coming from, but it had to stop.

I mean, worst-case scenario, if Jasper Wrigley ever did come back to town, I’d simply nod and shake his hand. I’d say in the calm, measured voice of an almost thirty-seven-year-old, “Jasper. How have you been?” Because that was what adults did .

I grabbed a container of Derry’s pricey protein powder and threw a package of frozen berries in my cart.

At the last second, I grabbed a pack of candy corn and threw that in, too, as penance to Dave for my earlier outburst.

I chatted for a moment with Bennett Graham about the deer herd that had begun ransacking gardens around the lake.

I had a pleasant exchange about the carburetor on the Chevy I was restoring with Joe Cross, our local mechanic.

When I saw Dave up on a ladder, placing the final turkey on a giant pyramid of paper Thanksgiving centerpieces right in front of the checkout, I took a second to praise his artistic taste and engineering skill. Maybe what I needed was to stop thinking about things so hard.

“It’s not as easy as it looks,” Dave said, peering at the display with pride.

“At least you only have to do it once a year,” I called back, basking in my contentment and all-around settledness as I turned to load my purchases onto the conveyor belt.

This time, when someone turned around to give me a friendly smile and even flashed a pair of startling blue eyes at me, I didn’t flinch. I gave the man a polite, distracted smile. I could be a friendly neighbor without thinking everyone was a ghost from my past.

But then the guy opened his damn mouth.

“Watt?” the ghost whispered in a voice I knew—and would, as much as I loathed to admit it, never mistake for another for as long as I lived. “Hey, Watt. How have you been?”

Much later, I might remember that Jasper looked nervous and hopeful. I would definitely recall that I’d meant to be calm and adult.

Right then, all I could think was that Jasper Wrigley—beautiful, confident, too-smart-for-his-own-good-or-mine Jasper, my very first crush—was standing in front of me.

How was it possible?

Twenty years of time folded in on itself in an instant, and it felt like teenage Watt and I were standing on top of one another in the goddamn checkout aisle. All the frustrated longing and unrestrained joy that young and untried boy felt at this surprise appearance of his soul mate were living inside me.

But adult me was in there, too, noting that Jasper had somehow gotten even more beautiful while he was away. The strong cut of his jaw, the high cheekbones, and the full lips I’d last seen in a black-and-white magazine ad were suddenly in front of me, in living color. My chest heaved, my dick stirred, and a voice in my brain sighed, Fucking finally.

The world went blurry at the edges, and I could hear my heartbeat pounding like it was coming from the other end of a long tunnel as my brain overloaded. The recycled store air seared my lungs, and my palms itched to grab hold of something—possibly Jasper—to keep my balance.

I wasn’t settled.

I couldn’t remember what settled felt like.

My overloaded brain screamed at me to say something, do something, MOVE , and my legs obeyed. I took a step back… and then another, and another…

And I landed on my ass, smack in the display of holiday decorations, sending the entire flock of turkeys flying through the air like spectacular poultry confetti.

Eyes still on Jasper, I scrambled to my feet. “I…” I held out a hand to ward him off. “You…”

But I still couldn’t make my mouth work right, and I was very afraid I was going to say something I’d deeply regret.

So, ignoring the shocked gazes of a dozen Coppertians, O’Learians, and one unfairly beautiful Copper-plate… I bolted out the door.