Against the Wind Read Free Page A

outside where you could watch the small, rushing stream that passed by the house. “So what’s that car doing parked there?”
    â€œThat’s the new tenant.”
    â€œTell me you didn’t rent the place to some rich society woman from the city out here for the summer.”
    â€œOf course not.”
    â€œI changed the lady’s tire last night and that’s what she looked like to me.”
    â€œShe’s not some society woman. She used to live in Wind Canyon when she was a girl. She recently lost her husband. She wanted to come home and I thought this would be the perfect place for her to recover from her loss.”
    Jackson frowned. “What’s her name?”
    â€œSarah Hollister.”
    â€œDoesn’t sound familiar.”
    â€œShe was Sarah Allen when she was a girl.”
    Jackson took the news like a sucker punch to the stomach. Sarah Allen. Damn, he had known her voice sounded familiar. Sarah had been two grades behind him in school, though he was three years older. He thought she was the prettiest, sweetest girl he had ever seen.
    Man, had he been wrong.
    Oh, she was pretty. From what little he could see last night, she still was. But even back then, Sarah was a social climber, a middle-class girl who wanted to be part of the in crowd, to socialize with the kids whose parents had money.
    It had taken him weeks to work up the courage to talk to her. That first time, she had seemed almost shy. A fewweeks passed while he madly saved his money. Like a lovesick fool, he had asked her to his senior prom.
    Sarah hadn’t just said no. When she realized some of her friends were watching, she had pointed at him as if he were something stuck on the bottom of her shoe, and started laughing.
    â€œJackson wants to take me to the prom!” She ignored his red face and the hands at his sides balled into fists. “How would we get there, Jackson? In that old, beat-up car of yours? Or maybe your brother could loan us his bicycle.”
    He had turned and walked away when he wanted to punch something, maybe hit the guy laughing even harder than she was, the school’s pretty-boy quarterback, Jeffrey Freedman. Jeff was the guy who gave him and his younger brothers, Gabe and Devlin, more grief than any of the other kids in school.
    He and Freedman had gone at it once before and Freedman had come out the loser. Jackson might have hit him again except that by then he’d started team-boxing and his coach, Steve Whitelaw, had taught him that the street fighting he was so good at would only get him into more trouble. He was learning to channel the talent he had with his fists into a sport that eventually won him a scholarship.
    Jackson glanced back at the cottage. He was no longer that same insecure boy who had left Wind Canyon sixteen years ago. But he would never forget the girl who had made him feel less than a man.
    â€œYou remember her, don’t you?” Livvy asked, breaking into his thoughts. “She was real pretty, thick dark brown hair and big blue eyes. She was kind of shy back then.”
    â€œShy? I’m afraid that isn’t the Sarah I remember. And I don’t want her here.” He started toward the cottage, but Livvy caught his arm.
    â€œWhat are you doing? I’ve already taken her money.”
    â€œThen give it back.”
    â€œShe doesn’t want it back. She wants a place to raise her little girl. I thought it would be nice to have a child around—and maybe some female company once in a while.”
    â€œFine, but not here.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œBecause I said so. Go back to the house, Livvy. I’ll take care of this.”
    â€œBut…but…”
    Jackson just ignored her and kept on walking. He tried to tell himself he wouldn’t get the least satisfaction from throwing Sarah Allen off his land.
    But he knew it wasn’t the truth.
    Â 
    Sarah hummed as she worked in the quaint little cottage,