LITMIR.BIZ

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the leaves of the tree. If only she could recapture those days. Before she’d known about the other family. When she felt loved and chosen, blissfully unaware of her father’s heartache.

      Things between her and Jax had changed his senior year in high school. Under the basketball net at the end of the Pruitt driveway, he’d gotten all over Will, who’d accidentally knocked her down. Jax had never cared before if anyone wiped the concrete with her.

      At youth group, he’d looked at her differently. He would flush when she caught him staring. Drop his eyes. Scuff the toe of his sneaker in the dirt. Awkward, un-Jax-like.

      Then after dinner that spring, he took to climbing into the tree house. They’d sit in silence—again, very un-Jax-like. Watching the fireflies blink around them. Watching the stars wink overhead.

      Small talk at first. Had she seen the game on TV? What did she think about their chances for beating the church league team in nearby Onley next week? Gradually, he’d told her how he wanted to serve his country like his grandfather. How he wanted to see the world and live life without reservations, on the edge.

      He’d painted an irresistible picture of adventure. The kind of adventure she secretly longed for. Living life to the fullest, though part of her shied away from the prospect of leaving everyone and everything behind. Her ideal life would be a balance of the two—home and adventure.

      She’d believed Jax Pruitt was the bravest boy she’d ever known. The most handsome. The most everything.

      A late bloomer, Darcy found that boys didn’t give her much attention. They respected her athletic ability. Admired her tough, never-say-die spirit. But when it came time for the prom, she wasn’t the girl they asked.

      She was flattered, frankly, that Jax Pruitt spent so many of his evenings in the treetop with her. They never held hands or anything like that. He never touched her. They never kissed. Skittish as she was, she would’ve probably decked him if he’d tried. Not that he would’ve tried anything. She was the PK, after all.

      But things between them definitely altered. Beyond the tree house, they’d spent an enormous amount of time together working at his aunt Shirley’s shop that summer. And Darcy had loved every minute of it.

      As a very sheltered, immature sixteen-year-old, she’d had feelings she didn’t know what to do with. She’d dreaded the day Jax would report to Basic at summer’s end.

      Knowing something was coming didn’t always make it better. Like watching a hurricane offshore creep ever closer. Understanding the devastation the day would bring and yet unable to stop it from happening.

      “Wait for me in the tree,” Jax had told her in his husky voice. The voice he used with her. “I’ll be there first thing in the morning to say goodbye.” He’d also promised to write.

      She didn’t sleep that night. She got up early to wait for him in the tree house. He never showed.

      The house next door lay strangely quiet. The Pruitt car had already gone from the driveway. And Jax Pruitt never wrote her. Not once. The old ache resurfaced.

      Returning to the present, Darcy exhaled. Ironic that Jax’s return to Kiptohanock meant that, ready or not, her own adventures were about to begin. It was probably good she didn’t have to see Jax or his beguiling son today. Monday couldn’t have been more perfectly timed.

      “Darcy?” Her mother stood on the bottom step, peering through the branches. “What in the world are you doing up there so early, sweetie?”

      She sighed. “Thinking.”

      Praying. Trying to gather the courage to reach for a life full of the adventures she’d once dreamed about. But she didn’t say that to her mom. She couldn’t. PKs didn’t do that sort of thing, after all.

      “Your father said something about going to Assateague today. You want to join us?”

      Assateague meant the beach, climbing the redbrick lighthouse again, and at the Island Creamery, eating the best ice cream on the peninsula. “Coming.”

      She hurried down the stairs. A perfect day spent with those she loved most. She loved Mondays.

      * * *

      Pulling into the driveway, Jax immediately glanced next door. Darcy’s SUV was parked there, but her father’s compact car was missing. No signs of life at the bungalow.

      But it was Monday, of course. Darcy’s favorite day. His lips curved, and his gaze skirted to the backyard oak, its branches visible above the roof of the house.

      “Gwandma?” Brody piped from his car seat.

      Jax’s mother stepped onto the porch and waved. He’d spent the day fleshing out his ideas for expanding the business, while Brody sat in front of the television set.

      He unhooked Brody’s harness. Not good parenting, but when he’d tried initiating a game of catch, his son had refused. Without Darcy, Jax remained a no-go with Brody.

      When his grandfather came outside, Brody went ballistic with sheer joy. The toddler was glad to see everyone—anyone—but his dad. The optimism Jax had felt only last night faded.

      He had a long way to go before he earned Brody’s trust. Jax’s gaze flitted toward the tree house again. A long way before he regained Darcy’s trust, too.

      Throughout dinner, his attention wandered. Anna, her husband, Ryan, and their baby daughter had also come for the impromptu cookout. The backyard buzzed with the soft, fluted tones of his mother, sister and Charlie’s wife, Evy.

      Grandpa Everett had a surprise gift for Brody. His tanned little legs pumping the pedals, Brody rode the new Big Wheel along the brick path. Baby Ruby happily rocked in the baby swing Evy kept for her. Charlie and their dad speculated which pitcher would lead the Nationals to a victorious season.

      Jax’s thoughts were next door as they’d often been the last summer he lived here. When car lights swept the Parks’s driveway, he swallowed against a rush of feeling, refusing to give in to the clamoring of his pulse.

      He rested his hands on his stomach, his feet crossed at the ankles, a picture of nonchalance. But he didn’t fool his mother. He never had.

      Anna’s family left soon after. Charlie and his dad went inside to watch the last inning of the game. And Evy begged for the honor of giving Brody a bath before putting him in the Spider-Man pajamas Jax had brought, anticipating a late night out.

      No skin off his nose if she wanted to grapple with his son in the bathtub. But Brody would probably be a perfect child for everyone except his father.

      Jax started to help his mother clear the table, but she shooed him away. “I got this.” Her gaze slid next door. “I’m sure you can think of something to do with yourself for a little while.”

      It was his mom who’d asked him to go invite the little girl next door to join them for freezer pops that long-ago day. The lime-green had been Jax’s personal favorite, but thereafter, he’d given it up for Darcy.

      His mother stacked a few plates. “Probably lots to discuss. Among other things.” She gave him a sweet smile. “You two were thick as thieves, especially that last summer.”

      Jax flushed. His mother had known about that, too? He’d been eager to take on the world. Yet despite his outward bravado, he’d been inwardly conflicted about leaving home. Not unlike most eighteen-year-olds, he supposed.

      His mother nudged him. “Back where you began. Best place to start.”

      Maybe she was right. Maybe if he really hoped to start over, he had to begin where he’d left off. Where everything had unknowingly derailed for him.

      Bypassing the abandoned Big Wheel, he stuffed his hands in his pockets as he tromped across the grass. Darcy didn’t give herself enough credit. With her get-over-yourself common sense, he’d felt safe confiding his secret fears and aspirations.

      He’d told Darcy things he’d

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