Wild Card (North Ridge #1)

“Besides,” my mother says, flashing her sharp eyes toward me, “Doctor Cooper is a quack. He’s just being overly cautious about it all because there’s nothing else to do in this godforsaken town. I might just head over to Kelowna, or even Vancouver, and get a second opinion. I mean, I feel fine.”

I find myself nodding, even though she doesn’t look fine. It might be the cancer, it might just be because she’s gotten so much older. When you haven’t seen your mother in the flesh for a long time, the experience can be jarring. “You know I’ll take you, but I have to drive. And we’ll have to actually put gas in the car.”

She gives me an odd look. “You’ve changed, you know that? What happened to my baby girl?” And then she tries the key again, huffing and puffing at how it won’t turn over.

I sigh and take out my cell phone. I didn’t have service five minutes ago and I don’t have service now. Godforsaken town is right.

When I left North Ridge six years ago, I made it a point to never return. I thought maybe if my mother begged for me to come back, if she said she missed me, needed me, I would have. But that never happened. It never happened because she never missed me. I did see her in Alberta for my cousin’s wedding four years ago, but that’s been the extent of it.

As for me missing her, well…Toronto is my home now. The life I have built there has become my whole world. My advertising career, my boyfriend Samuel, my friends, my condo. Everything that means something to me is in that city.

I honestly hoped I’d never see this place again.

And I especially didn’t think I’d have to put my life on hold. When I told my boss Ed that I’d be going down to help my mother, he graciously gave me permission to take off as much time as I needed. My account would be transferred to Pete, who works below me. I wouldn’t have to worry.

But I do worry. I worry that this isn’t going to be a quick trip at all, that my mother will need me even though that’s the last thing she wants. I mean, she might have to get part of her lung removed and she has no one here, not really. My father has been in prison for the last four years, thank God, which leaves her all alone.

Besides, in the last three days I’ve been back in town, I haven’t heard her talking to any of her friends. When I asked about them, she just waved me away and told me to get her a cigarette.

Which I won’t, of course. The number one thing she’s complained about since I’ve been here is that I’ve put on weight (which I have, so sue me), followed by that I’ve “changed,” and that she has to quit smoking. It doesn’t seem to matter that she has lung cancer, she still doesn’t think she needs to quit. That, or she doesn’t care.

The only thing she does seem to care about is Hank, though it’s in a total roundabout way. She’s been acting like she’s going to this dinner tonight out of charity, but I can tell she’s looking forward to it.

Me, on the other hand, well, as long as the Ford Tempo is out of gas and we’re stranded here on the side of the highway, I’m not complaining. It’s embarrassing, for sure, to have this happen in your old town where anyone you know can see you as you’re parked awkwardly on the side of the road, but the sooner we get help, the sooner we can return to her shitty apartment and hopefully I can whip up a simple pasta for us.

I ignore the fact that Hank Nelson is nothing if not persistent and will hold you to a rain check.

Speaking of rain, the ominous clouds are now above us and in minutes I know we’re going to get drenched. The weather in this area is predictably unpredictable as always.

“Stay here, I’ll flag someone,” I tell my mother before opening up the door and carefully stepping outside.

Even though it’s the height of summer, this highway is more or less a dead end. After it crosses the Queens River toward Ravenswood Ranch, it continues on toward a provincial campground and then just ends. As such, there’s only been a few cars passing by, most of them packed to the roof with camping equipment, none of them local. One thing about this place that some people find charming is that if you’re in any sort of trouble, the locals are first to help you out.

Which is why I don’t expect to stand by the side of the road for too long. Not even when a loud, thunderous boom sounds from above and the clouds seem to crack open with rain.

“Shit,” I swear, getting drenched in seconds as the rain pours down, hard enough to bounce off the pavement. I move to get back inside the car when I spot headlights coming toward us. I peer through the hair plastered against my face and stick out my thumb before I decide to start frantically waving.

I can barely see through the rain now, but as the car gets closer, I see that it’s a truck.

A forest green Toyota Tacoma.

A car that’s far too familiar to me.

I remember the day that Shane Nelson finally saved up enough money to buy it.

Oh God, please let him have sold that beast to someone else.

But before it even starts to pull to the side of the road, my heart is already sinking.

No, it’s not just sinking.

It’s twisting and turning over on itself, a hard, tangled knot in my chest.

I know it’s him.

My ex-love. The reason I stayed in North Ridge for longer than I should have.

I need to get back in the car. Lock the doors. Do something totally irrational and foolish like run down the highway in a thunderstorm in the opposite direction.

But I don’t. Because my mother is right. I have changed. I’m no longer that girl that ran away. I might not be here by choice but I’m going to stand my ground, no matter what he did to me.

Even if there’s a hurricane in my chest, matching the storm outside, equally as vicious.

Shane steps out of the vehicle in that easy way of his, as if the rain isn’t pelting him in the face. His ball cap is pulled down and he walks toward us in a hurried half lope.

Every single memory of him is slamming into the front of my brain, no longer buried in the back. They morph and change, from us together as children, to dating as teens, to every wild and real and beautiful thing in between, and suddenly the memories fade and it’s just the here and now.

“Having some trouble?” he asks, just a few feet away now. My breath hitches at the sound of his voice. It’s deeper somehow, more gravelly. More everything.

I’m tongue-tied. Dumb on my feet.

Then he tips his cap back and his eyes meet mine. I was expecting the look of shock on his face, because I know I’m the last person he’d expect to see. There’s just a small spark, a flash, and then it’s buried behind that cold, handsome face.

Fuck me.

“Rachel?” he asks gently, but his voice is flat.

God, his voice. It slithers into my bones.

I swallow and nod. “The car is out of gas,” I say feebly, as if he’s a stranger.

He is a stranger.

He’s been a stranger in my own damn memories.

“Okay,” he says, blinking.

This is awkward. It’s painful. I don’t even feel the rain anymore, just this burning in my chest.

I can’t believe this is happening.