As I walked past the school, I glanced across the playground to the dark row of houses on the opposite side. My eyes immediately landed on the staircase behind one of the garages, and a wave of déjà vu hit hard.
Why were those stairs so familiar? I’d never been to that house before.
I shrugged the feeling away. They were probably familiar just because I’d walked down this street three hundred times on my way to work at the bar. I lived two blocks up in the same neighborhood—though my place wasn’t nearly as nice as the homes on this road.
I kept walking but couldn’t help a second glance at the staircase.
It had been over two weeks since the night I’d had five too many tequila shots and smoked a joint with a couple of tourists who’d stopped at the bar. And in those two weeks, I couldn’t get this dream out of my head.
There was a girl. A beautiful girl.
And that staircase.
Fucking weed. There was a reason I rarely smoked.
Something about the mixture of marijuana and tequila did strange things to my mind. I didn’t get the typical munchies or surfer-dude vibes. Things got hazy, nothing stayed in focus, and my memory took a hit.
Never again, Jackson. Never. Again.
I blamed this on Logan fucking Kendrick. The only reason I’d gotten drunk and smoked that joint was because he’d shown up in Lark Cove.
Why couldn’t he have just stayed a stranger? Logan would be in Charlie’s life, our lives, for good. Not that I didn’t want Charlie to have a father—I wanted whatever was best for her—but change sucked and Logan was bringing a truckload of it to my simple life.
So the night he’d shown up in town, I hadn’t handled it well. I’d poured a shot to take the edge off, followed by two more. When those tourists had come in, the bottle hadn’t lasted long. And when one of the guys had passed me a joint, I hadn’t thought twice before taking a hit.
The rest was a blur.
I remembered fuzzy pieces from that night. I remembered locking up the bar and taking a piss outside the back door by the Dumpster. I remembered walking past the playground. And I remembered the dream I had that night.
It was about a girl floating through the air with long, wavy hair the color of spun gold. Then there were flashes of those stairs.
After one last look over my shoulder at the staircase, I turned the corner of the block and headed down First Street toward the highway.
Toward my sanctuary, the Lark Cove Bar.
I’d moved to Lark Cove about nine years ago from New York City. The moment I’d driven through the small, lakeside town, a calm had settled over my soul. Moving here had been the best decision I’d ever made.
There were no blaring horns from taxis and angry drivers. We didn’t have bums sleeping on our street corners. There were no smelly subway tunnels or towering skyscrapers. The only things on the horizon here were mountaintops.
It had only taken a week for me to adjust to the still nights, no traffic to lull me to sleep.
Lark Cove suited me. There were a couple of churches and a motel. A single school for all grades. The town only had one diner, but I didn’t need a slew of restaurants to choose from. Most meals I ate at home or at the bar. If I had the extra cash, I drove the thirty minutes up to Kalispell for something different.
Though I preferred to leave Lark Cove only when absolutely necessary. With a small grocery store and a gas station, I could keep my fridge stocked with the essentials and fishing supplies.
I didn’t need stores or shopping malls when I had the lake. When I was on my fishing boat, floating on the open water with a cup of worms in the cooler and my rod in a pole holder, I didn’t need much else.
Just the lake and my bar.
Lark Cove was one of many small towns located along the highway that ran around Flathead Lake. The bar’s neon sign lured a lot of tourists off the highway as they passed through. Though, we served a loyal local crowd too.
Other than the diner, we were the only establishment in Lark Cove that served food. Thea had come up with the idea to do brick-oven pizzas a while back and they’d been a huge hit. Add to that our cold beer and stiff drinks, and the bar was rarely empty these days.
Especially during the busy summer season.
We’d become a popular hangout spot for all of the nonlocals pretending to be local. This was a beautiful slice of Montana and it attracted rich people from across the country like flies. They’d come in and buy up a chunk of land along the lake, then build a massive vacation home. Those houses sat empty except for a week or two each summer. Some people would stay into the fall, but as soon as the snow flew, they’d be gone.
Most of the local townsfolk didn’t like the influx of out-of-staters each summer, but I didn’t mind.
Paying customers were all the same in my book.
And there were usually a couple of hot women who’d come to town every summer looking for some no-strings-attached sex. They were more than willing to fuck the rugged Montanan for a few weeks before going back home, never to admit they’d slummed it with a bartender on their summer vacation.
That worked for me too. I got sex without having to worry about some girl becoming a stage-four clinger.
I didn’t need drama in my life. I didn’t want drama in my life. So I kept my inner circle small.
I had Hazel, the woman who was more of a mother than the real one had ever been. I had Thea, who was practically my sister. And Charlie, my niece, whether we were related by blood or not.
It was a short list by design, and if Logan took Thea and Charlie away from me, I’d never forgive the rich bastard.
I made it to the bar and opened the back door, walking down the short hall past Thea’s office and the kitchen.
“Hey,” I said, getting Thea’s attention as I stepped up to the bar.
She looked up from the journal she’d been drawing in. “Hi. What are you doing here?”
I shrugged. “I was bored at home. Thought I’d come in and keep you company.”
It was Thea’s night to work, but I’d been too restless to stay at home. The unanswered questions were spinning in my head. Would she move back to New York with Logan or would she stay in Montana? What would happen with Charlie? Before I knew it, I was off the couch, out the door and on my way to the bar.
“Want a beer?” Thea set down her pencil and sketch pad, then picked up a pint glass.
“Nah. I’ll just have a Coke.”
She gave me a sideways glance, probably because I rarely turned down beer on Saturday nights. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m good. Just don’t feel like drinking.”
I’d been drinking a lot lately and needed to slow it down. The last thing I wanted to do was become a drunk. Besides, the last couple of times I’d gotten drunk, I’d fucked up royally. First by smoking that joint two weeks ago. Then by drinking too many beers before Charlie’s sixth birthday party and acting like an idiot.
“Been busy?” I asked after she set down my soda.
“Not bad. There was a good dinner rush tonight. Those guys in the corner booth have been here for a few hours. Wayne and Ronny were in earlier, but they both called it a night and left.”
That was about normal for midnight on a Saturday. We were usually busy all afternoon and evening, but the crowd would thin to just a few diehards wanting to stick it out until we shut down at two.
“Where’s Daddy Dearest tonight?” I muttered.
“Hey.” She frowned. “Don’t be like that.”
I winced. “Sorry.”
No matter how many times I told myself to give Logan a chance for Charlie’s sake, I couldn’t get past the fact that because of him, everything here was changing. Because of him, I could lose two of the three members of my family.
“It’s okay,” Thea said. “And he’s at my house with Charlie.”
I nodded and took a drink of my soda, swallowing a grumble.
“Are you sure you’re okay with covering the bar all next week?”
“Like I told you yesterday when you asked me that same question ten times, yes. I can handle the bar all week.”
“I know you can handle it. I just feel bad dumping it all on you short notice.”
She’d come down last night and asked me to cover for her. Logan wanted to take her and Charlie to New York for a week. I’d told her she was moving too fast but promised to manage the bar.
And even though she knew I was more than capable, she would fret. Thea ran most of the business side of things at the bar. She’d taken them on after Hazel had decided to retire.
Thea kept the books, ordered from the distributors and made the schedule. At times, she treated me more like an employee than a partner. She’d forgotten that I’d spent years at this bar before she even moved to town.
“It’s fine, Thea,” I reassured her again. “Consider it my penance for the whole kissing thing.”
Her face soured. “Don’t ever do that again. That was disgusting.”
“Disgusting? My kisses aren’t disgusting.”
“Don’t pout.” She scolded with a smile. “I’m sure all the women who throw themselves at you think you’re a great kisser. But since I’m the closest thing you have to a sister, I can say it was disgusting.”
“Yeah.” I grimaced. “It was kind of gross.”
Another bad decision made while drunk.
Our kiss had lasted all of two seconds before she’d pushed me away. I’d done it to see what Logan would do if he thought maybe he had some competition with Thea. No more pre-partying for children’s birthday parties.
“Why don’t you sit down?” She nodded to a stool. “I’m going to go check on that table and then we can talk.”
As she left to check on the customers, I took my Coke and a tray of peanuts around the other side of the bar. When Thea was done refilling drinks, she pulled up a seat next to me and stole a couple of my peanuts, cracking the shells and then dropping them on the floor.
I loved that about this place. We weren’t some fancy bar in the city where people were required to use coasters. We were all about the neon signs on the walls, peanut shells on the floor and classic country music on the jukebox. I didn’t even care that I had to spend twenty minutes sweeping up shells after every shift.
“Do you want to tell me what’s been bothering you?” Thea asked.
I grinned as I crunched a peanut. For as long as I’d known her, she never let me stew.
“Nothing.” I scratched the scruff on my cheek. “I don’t know. These last few years have been the best, you know? No drama like we had as kids. We’ve got a good gig here at the bar. Finally don’t feel like I’m scraping pennies together. I guess I’m just pissed that things are changing. This guy . . . he’s a game changer.”
“Is that really so awful? Logan’s not a bad guy, and Charlie adores him. She deserves a father, Jackson.”
“I know.” I sighed. “It’s just . . .”
I trailed off, not wanting to admit that I was jealous. How did you tell your best friend that you didn’t want her kid to have a dad because for the longest time, you’d been the guy playing that role?
I’d always suspected that Thea might meet a guy one day. Hell, she deserved to be happy. I could compete with a stepdad. But I didn’t stand a chance with a real dad, especially when he had millions of dollars and could give Charlie her every desire.
“I’m sorry.” Thea shook her head, understanding settling on her face. I didn’t have to tell her I was jealous. She’d already figured it out. “I didn’t think of how you’d be feeling about all this. But you’ll always be her uncle Jackson. She loves you so much.”
I hung my head. “But I can’t spoil her like he can. I don’t have that kind of money.”
“It’s not a competition, and it’s not about the things you buy her. She needs love from you both.”
Did she? If Charlie had her dad, would she really need Uncle Jackson? She’d have her dad to play with her and he’d be the one to build her forts. He’d be the guy helping to sneak animals into their house when Thea wasn’t looking. Logan would be the one to take her fishing or hiking around the lake.
That was, if they even stayed in Montana. I had a bad feeling that this “vacation” they were taking to New York would become permanent.
“She’ll forget me if you don’t come back.”
“What?” Thea’s eyes went wide. “We’re coming back. This is just a vacation.”
“You might decide to stay.”
She shook her head. “No, I won’t. I’ve already told Logan I won’t be moving back to New York. This is just a vacation.”
“Hope so.” I stood from my stool and went behind the bar for a refill. “While you’re there, go get a Giovanni’s meatball sub for me. Damn, I miss those things.”
Giovanni’s had been our spot. Thea and I had each lived close to the restaurant as kids, and whenever we had the money, the two of us would share one of their famous foot-long sandwiches. Even after both of us moved out of Brooklyn for jobs in Manhattan, we’d still go back for a meatball sub.
Usually we ate there when one of us was in a bad spot.
She’d taken me to Giovanni’s after her boyfriend had cheated on her with her best friend. I’d bought our sub before breaking the news that I’d be moving to Montana.
For years, Giovanni’s had been our safe place.
A sad, faraway look crossed her face. “I doubt we’ll be spending much time in Brooklyn.”
“Probably not.” Logan was no doubt an Upper East Sider. “I wouldn’t go back either.”
Not to New York. I wouldn’t go back to a place where there were more bad memories than good.
I took the soda gun and filled my glass, then grabbed Thea’s sketch pad to flip through the pages. “You’ve almost got this one full.”
“When I get back, you’d better have a new one waiting for me.”
I chuckled. “Done.”
Thea had been a perpetual whiner during the first few months after she’d moved to Montana. She’d complained constantly about how boring and slow it was at the bar. So I’d bought her a sketch pad, then told her to quit bitching and draw. Ever since, whenever she ran out of room in one pad, I bought her another.
“Who were you drawing tonight?” I asked, reaching the end of the book.
“You’ll see.”
I turned to the last page and nearly fell over.
That hair. It was the girl from my dream.
Even though the drawing was a black and white, it was obvious her hair was light and long and wavy. She was in profile, her high cheekbones resting perfectly over a shy smile. Somehow, Thea had reached into my mind and yanked out my dream girl.
“She’s hot.” Hot wasn’t the right word, but I didn’t want to get all gooey in front of Thea. Beautiful. Stunning. Ethereal. Those big words would just lead to questions I didn’t want to answer, so instead, I went with hot.
I looked up from the book and scanned the bar. I knew she wasn’t here, but I wished she’d be back. “I’m sorry I missed her. Who is this?”
Thea’s jaw dropped. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. Who is this?” I glanced at Thea, then back down again, wanting to keep my eyes on the page. “Was she just passing through or do you think she’ll be back?”
Please, let her be here for the summer. Let this woman be real.
“Do I think she’ll be back?” Thea’s voice rose as she stood from her stool and rounded the bar, only to snatch the sketch pad away. “Give me that.”
She looked at it for a moment, then shoved it in my face. “That is Willa, you dipshit.”
“No fucking way.” I yanked the pad from her hands. Willa? The timid blond girl? She was the science teacher’s daughter and a kid. There was no way Willa was this gorgeous woman. “She doesn’t look like this.”
“Yes fucking way she does.”
I bent closer to the paper, studying it before looking back at Thea. “She does?”
“Oh my god.” Thea tossed up her hands and walked away to check on her customers. It gave me a chance to study the page.
This couldn’t be Willow. Willa. I was shit at remembering names. When I’d first met her, I’d tried to memorize it just like she’d told it to me. Willow. Except I’d memorized it wrong. She’d corrected me a few times, but Willow had stuck.
Willa. With an a. Willa.
I repeated it ten times.
“Do you see it yet? Or am I really that bad of an artist?”
“Huh?” I jerked up, forcing my eyes away from the drawing as Thea came back. “I, uh, gotta go.”
In a daze, I hugged Thea good-bye and walked out—taking her sketch pad with me. I was going to get to the bottom of this and find out why I’d been dreaming of Willa for two weeks.
Starting with a phone call.
My feet headed down the route home as I dug my phone from my pocket and dialed the number.
“You’d better be in jail if you’re waking me up at this hour,” Hazel answered.
“Not in jail.” Not that she’d come bail me out anyway. She’d leave my ass in a cell until I’d learned my lesson. “Sorry to wake you.”
“Are you okay?”
Am I? “Uh, sure.”
“Then why are you calling me after midnight?”
I sighed. “This is going to sound strange.”
In the background, blankets rustled and a bed creaked as Hazel shifted around. “Jackson, are you drunk?”
“No. I swear.” I wasn’t drunk, but I was really damn confused. “Do you know where Willa lives?”
“Willa Doon?”
“Yeah, Willa Doon. You work with her at the camp, don’t you?”
Hazel had retired from bartending but got bored after a week, so she volunteered at the Flathead Summer Camp. I was pretty sure that Willa worked there too.
“Yes, I work with her. She’s the director. Why do you need to know where she lives?”
Fuck. I should have gotten Willa’s address from Thea. She might have asked fewer questions. Though between her and Hazel, it was a crapshoot, since they both lived for giving me shit.
“I—I just . . .” How was I going to say this without sounding like I was drunk? There wasn’t a good way, so I just blurted it all out. “I had a dream about her a couple of weeks ago and I can’t get it out of my head. I want to talk to her.”
Hazel stayed silent. All I heard was the sound of my own boots hitting the sidewalk.
“Hazel?”
“You had a dream and now you want to talk to her. At this hour?”
“Oh, right.” It was dark. The curse of being a bartender. My day didn’t start until lunch and went well into the night. I often forgot that most people didn’t sleep until noon and go to bed after three. “Never mind.”
“Wait, Jackson.” Hazel stopped me before I hung up. “I don’t have her address off the top of my head, but she lives at her parents’ place. Above the garage.”
My feet skidded to a stop. How had I known she was going to say that?
“It’s that nice brown house by the school,” Hazel told me. “The one with the big cottonwood tree in the front yard and the strawberry patch off to one side. Do you know which one I’m talking about?”
“Yeah.” It was the house with the staircase on the backside of the garage. “Thanks. Sorry to wake you up.”
Hazel laughed, her hoarse chuckle loud in my ear. “I love you, Jackson Page. I’m glad you’ve finally clued in.”
Clued in? Before I could ask what she meant, she hung up.
I nearly called her back for an explanation, but I doubted she’d answer now that she knew I wasn’t in trouble. So I stuffed my phone back into my jeans and kept walking. It didn’t take me long to reach the playground, but before I stepped off the sidewalk and onto the grass, I paused.
Should I wait? Maybe it would be better to return tomorrow at a decent hour. Yeah, after another night of that damn dream.
I abandoned the cement for the lawn. There was no way I was waiting.
My long strides took me past the soccer goalposts and jungle gym. I slowed as I came toward the swing sets, studying them more closely as that déjà vu feeling crept back in. But I sloughed it off and kept walking, right up to the staircase.
When I reached the base, I stopped short of the first step. Okay, this was beyond weird. Had I been here before? This spot felt so familiar.
It had to be a part of my dream. This staircase was just something I’d fabricated, because there was no way I’d climbed these steps before. I took the first step, then the second and by the third, the weird feeling disappeared. I’d never been up here before, of that I was certain.
I would have remembered all these flowerpots.
Along the wall of the garage, planters filled with flowers overflowed onto every step. It was hard to tell the exact color of the petals in the dark, but the greenery had crept so far onto each stair that my size-twelve boots could barely fit without squashing leaves.
I was forced to climb the staircase right against the railing as I made my way to the landing at the top. The exterior light was on, illuminating the door, but inside it was completely dark.
Because it’s one in the morning, dumbass.
I looked down the steps, debating whether or not I should knock. What was I even going to say? Hey, Willa. Remember me? Turns out, I’ve been dreaming about you. Crazy, huh?
She’d call the cops before I had the chance to finish.
Still, my doubts didn’t stop me from rapping my knuckles twice on the tan door. I regretted it instantly.
I was going to scare Willa to death.
I turned, hoping she hadn’t heard me knock. If I was lucky, I could make my escape and she’d never know I was here. But right as my foot landed on the first step down, a light flipped on inside.
Shit. I manned up and came back to the landing, shoving my hands in my pockets to keep from fidgeting. As I waited for the door to open, I said a quick prayer that I’d gotten the right house and I wasn’t about to be greeted by an angry man with a shotgun.
A long, narrow window next to the door was covered with a sheer curtain. A dainty hand yanked it to the side and Willa’s face appeared behind the glass. Her eyes flared as she looked me up and down.
“Hey.” I slipped a hand from my pocket and gave her a corny wave.
Her face disappeared from the window and she freed the deadbolt. My heart was thumping in triple time as she turned the door’s knob.
“Jackson?” She opened the door an inch.
“Yeah, it’s me. Sorry, it’s late.”
The door opened wider and she stepped under the frame. Her hair was piled in a huge, blond nest on top of her head. She was wearing yellow pajama pants with white stars on the cotton and a thin, white V-neck tee.
“What are you doing here?” Her arms crossed underneath her breasts, thrusting them higher. In the cool night air, her nipples hardened.
My cock jerked behind my zipper and I used every bit of my willpower to keep it from growing hard.
“I, uh . . . this is going to sound crazy.” My motto for the night. “I’ve been having these dreams. About . . . you. I was wondering if maybe you’d want to, um . . .” I should have thought this through. What exactly did I want from Willa?
A date, I guess.
“Um, what?” she asked, waiting for an answer.
“Would you want to maybe go out sometime?”
Her mouth fell open, ever so slightly, and I stared at her bottom lip. It was so full and pink. Her lips were the perfect shade for her complexion. They matched the sexy blush of her cheeks.
“You want to go out with me?”
I nodded, the corners of my mouth turning up as I waited for the inevitable yes.
But my grin fell when she took one big step backward.
And slammed the door in my face.
