New Hope, Old Grudges Read Online Anne Malcom

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Contemporary Tags Authors: Anne Malcom Advertisement

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Except it didn’t happen.

He stepped back from the car. “Promise to get that brake light fixed?” he asked, tone still light but expression tight with confusion. “Winter’s closing in, and the roads get treacherous.”

I rolled my eyes. “I may have been gone for a while, but I know plenty about the roads. I grew up here.”

I wound up my window, but not before muttering, “Asshole,” under my breath, loud enough for him to hear.

Then I sped off. In the direction of hell, which had indeed begun to freeze over.

BRODY

I watched the Prius sped off much faster than it had been going when I pulled it over. A single brake light flashed as it made its way into town. It seemed like a ‘fuck you’ since there was no need to brake, and the woman driving quite obviously hated me.

I rubbed my jaw as the Prius turned around the bend that led to New Hope. I thought I had a pretty good reputation around town, a pretty good memory. And I definitely thought I was a good enough man to ensure that beautiful women didn’t hate me on sight.

I didn’t do drunken one-night stands. And I wouldn’t have needed to be drunk to sleep with the woman in the Prius. It sure as fuck wouldn’t have been one night either.

I pulled over plenty of beautiful women. I made it a point not to make any kind of advances toward any woman while wearing a uniform. I was well aware of the power imbalance and how fucking problematic that shit was.

Yet I was tempted as fuck when I pulled over the redheaded bombshell. Even more so when her green eyes had lit with a fiery hatred when they landed on me. I didn’t think a woman could be sexier when pissed off.

I just didn’t want this particular woman to be pissed at me. But she was. And I had no fucking clue who she was.

A breeze jerked me out of my thoughts. It had a bite to it. We’d already had our first snowfall, and Thanksgiving was amping up to be the welcome of winter with a blizzard predicted. Not that I held much stock in weather predictions, especially a week out. Shit changed on a dime out here.

I shook off the chill and went back to my vehicle.

“Hannah,” I said over my radio. “Need you to run this plate…” I rattled off the number that I’d memorized from the Prius.

“Got it,” Hannah replied, voice groggy.

“And I’ll pick you up a coffee on my way back to the station,” I said with a smile.

“Quad shot,” she requested.

“Ten-four.”

Then I drove in the same direction the stunning redhead had, back into my town. The one that I loved, but the one she obviously hated.

Along with me.

A puzzle.

One I’d figure out.

“Willow Watson,” I said aloud over my coffee—not a quad shot like Hannah because although I enjoyed coffee, I did not enjoy heart palpitations. Luke’s, the local coffee spot, did only espresso drinks that would put hair on your chest. The owner, Gretchen, was apparently a Gilmore Girls fan, and the name and branding were an ode to that. Not that I watched the show.

Willow Watson.

She was a local. Grew up here. We went to school together, apparently. She was the year below me. I searched my memories for the redhead with the freckles, captivating eyes, the flush in her cheeks. There was no way I would’ve looked over her. Like a lot of teenage boys, I was an immature asshole, and I was horny as fuck, so if there was a bombshell like her within a fifty-mile radius, I would’ve taken notice.

Not to mention all the bullshit I had going on at home. There was a lot from that period of my life I’d repressed, much of it a blur of football games, fights with my father and drunken nights in fields with a bunch of people I’d thought I had to impress.

But Willow Watson was nowhere in those memories. How in the fuck that happened was anyone’s guess.

She remembered me, though, and her memories were not good. I winced at the thought. I was a pretty cliché asshole during that period of my life, trying to make up for the bullshit at home, trying to seem strong when I really felt weak. So … yeah, I slammed some kids into lockers, teased people who were brave enough to be individuals when I was nothing but a clone.

But I didn’t even have a memory of being an asshole to her. That was not good.

It wasn’t good she hated me either, because I could not get her out of my fucking head. Why was she back in town? What happened to make her despise New Hope so badly? Who put that hurt behind her eyes? And why in the fuck did I want to hunt them down and kill them?

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