Just when it seems Emma Daniel has finally managed to piece herself back together, life threatens to rip her apart. Again.
Add a coffee shop, an almost hit-and-run, and one very hot, very stubborn Cuban-American with secrets of his own, and you've g...
Will pulled the car up alongside the rest of vehicles squashed into the tiny car park across the street from the town square. Next to him, Ryder was tapping absentmindedly on his knee.
He'd been fairly quiet on the ride over, much to William's anguish. He wasn't up for anymore arguing, but the weighty silence that followed that morning's revelations made him anxious. Meeting his estranged nephew had been bad enough. Hashing up memories of a sister he hadn't seen in years was even worse.
The kid was scratching the scabs off old sores every time Will looked at him.
Ryder looked like Eileen. He had her dark brown eyes and thick, dark hair, although his features were indisputably Latino, the blatant evidence of his paternity. He was olive-skinned, tall and muscular, but there was a delicateness about the young man that was entirely Eileen's.
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William remembered Ryder's father. He'd been a descendant of one of the many Puerto Rican natives who had migrated to the United States and made it their home. Eventually, he'd ended up in West Virginia.
Will had first crossed paths with him as a preteen and Jonathan had had to hold his twin back from trying to attack the foreigner who was trying to make moves on their sister.
He had never liked the smooth-talking boy with his uncanny ability to bed a girl with a devilish smile and a couple of whispered sweet nothings. And after Eileen had fallen pregnant, that dislike had immediately morphed into hate.
It's easy to judge him, Will thought. And it was. It was easy to put Ryder in the same hated corner of his mind where he had put Felipe so many years before.
Will shook his head, the SUV's door beeping as he pushed it open with a heavy sigh. His eyes surveyed the area. Misty Vale's town square was littered with people. The perfectly manicured lawn of the square was dotted with wooden benches, with lines of streamers in the American colours of red, blue and white suspended between huge redwood and oak trees.
There was a large amphitheatre area in the centre of the square, its circular grey rings almost entirely surrounding a raised stage with a metal roof.
People were there now, setting up microphones and testing speakers, running a last minute check on the stage lights. Vendors set up their stalls around the area, food and ice cream and flags and banners.
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