LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter One

      Getting out of bed was usually the easiest part of Ethan Renault’s day. It wasn’t only a promise of a fresh start, it was also a reminder that he was alive and healthy and had made it through the previous day without a single drop of booze.

      The real struggle didn’t begin until he padded barefoot to his kitchen and flipped on the switch of the coffee maker. That was when he started to think of how much he would prefer a swig of Jim Beam over a double dose of the strongest, darkest brew available in the coffee aisle at Duncan’s Market.

      Ethan had bought himself a top-of-the-line Keurig the same day he’d signed his discharge papers. Listening to the expensive machine gurgle water as it heated was his reward for all the times he’d had to endure the trumpet blast of “Reveille” to make him spring from his rack during boot camp and then again in BUD/S training.

      It had been six months since Ethan had officially left the United States Navy and landed in the small town of Sugar Falls, Idaho, to restart his life. Yet, except for the gourmet coffee maker sitting on the counter, the tiny kitchen in the apartment he’d rented above a downtown storefront was still just as sparse as the day he’d moved in.

      The place had come furnished with only the basics and every once in a while, Ethan might pick up a few things at the market to add to the fridge. But it wasn’t as though he enjoyed many meals at home. For some recovering alcoholics, socializing and eating at local restaurants with full-service bars might prove to be too much of a temptation. With Ethan, though, dining out provided him with more accountability—more eyes watching to keep him in line.

      Besides, when he was alone, he had too much time to think.

      As the coffee brewed, he made his way back to the bathroom and cranked the shower faucet to the highest setting. He was barely under the steaming spray long enough to get wet when he heard a pounding knock.

      It wasn’t even 0700 yet, so the chances of someone paying him a social call this early were pretty slim. They probably have the wrong apartment, he thought as he washed the shampoo from his hair. Yet, the knocking continued. Ethan debated staying in the shower and just ignoring whomever was banging on his front door. But what if it was a neighbor who needed a favor? Or a friend from one of his meetings who needed some encouragement?

      Stepping out on the cold tile floor, he grabbed a towel and made his way toward the hall as he dried himself.

      “Hold on a sec!” he yelled, crossing to his bedroom and grabbing a pair of jeans off the top of his dresser. The knocking paused briefly, but resumed before he could get his fly buttoned. Geez, what was this person’s major emergency?

      He tugged one of the thermal shirts off the hanger so quickly, the plastic triangle flew off the nearly empty closet rod. Ethan barely had his arms shoved through the sleeves when he finally yanked open the front door.

      A woman he didn’t recognize stood outside on the narrow landing, a lit cigarette hanging from the tight, thin line that was her mouth. She flicked the cigarette over the railing, not bothering to see where it landed below, and exhaled a cloud of smoke. “Ethan Renault?”

      “Can I help you?” he replied without confirming his identity.

      “You the same Ethan Renault who went to Sam Houston High?”

      He narrowed his gaze, studying the woman before him. There were dark circles under her eyes and a permanent crease between her brows, as though she wore a constant frown. Had he gone to school with her?

      When he didn’t immediately respond, she continued. “Yep, it’s you all right. Your hair might be shorter, but you still do that twitching thing with your fingers that makes you look like you’re about to run off at the drop of a hat.”

      Ethan shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked forward on the balls of his bare feet. “Do I know you?”

      The woman gave a snort, as though she expected quite a different response when she showed up unannounced on a stranger’s doorstep this early in the middle of February. But Ethan patiently waited her out.

      It was then that he noticed someone else standing on the stairs behind her. A young girl with dark, tangled hair holding a plastic grocery store bag kept her head down, fixated at the hole on her canvas sneaker where her big toe was popping through.

      “I’m Chantal DeVecchio,” the woman finally said, her added eye roll conveying her annoyance at not having been recognized right away. “And this,” she said, gesturing to the girl, “is your daughter, Trina.”

      * * *

      “But I don’t have a daughter,” Ethan told the woman who no longer looked anything like the eighteen-year-old cheerleader he’d once taken to the prom. His chest felt as though it was caving inward and he had to straighten his back and brace a hand against the door frame.

      “She’s yours,” Chantal said. “And it’s about time you man up and take care of your responsibilities.”

      Ethan’s spine stiffened even more at the insult to his masculinity and the implication of his negligence. His eyes darted between his former high school girlfriend and the dark-haired child who appeared to only be interested in the patterns her sneakers made on the snow-covered steps. While he didn’t know much about raising kids, he at least knew better than to let them go running around without socks when it was only twenty degrees outside.

      “Why didn’t you call me?” What he really wanted to ask was why had Chantal waited almost twelve years to spring such a life-changing surprise on him. “Or tell me before now?”

      One minute, he’d been getting ready to head out for his regular breakfast over at the Cowgirl Up Café, wondering if today would be the day he’d finally convinced the shy server who waited on him every morning to go out on a date. The next minute, someone was banging on his front door and then accusing him of being a deadbeat dad to a child he’d never even known about.

      “Because I didn’t find out I was pregnant until after you’d joined the Navy and shipped out. It wasn’t like you left a forwarding address before you and your dad ran out of town that summer.”

      It was true, Ethan had enlisted right after graduation. His dad was in the oil rigging business, constantly on the move to different cities depending on the latest job. Ethan had already switched high schools five times in three years and, that summer, the only new start he’d been eager to make was the change that would finally begin his adult life.

      Scanning the alley behind the row of Victorian buildings that made up the downtown business district of Sugar Falls, Ethan

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