PROLOGUE
Coyote Ridge High School
Senior year
Sawyer Walker couldn’t believe that there were only two weeks left before he graduated and left Coyote Ridge High School in his dust. As far as he was concerned, he’d done everything there was to do there. It was time to take his rightful place in the world. It was time to make their dream come true—a family-owned business was in the works and the only thing he was waiting for was that damn diploma to say he was through once and for all.
College wasn’t on his radar. At least not yet. Maybe not ever. With Travis gone off to the army, Sawyer needed to stay home and help out as best he could. And he knew, with the help of his younger brother Kaleb, who only had one year left before he was through with high school, they’d be well on their way in no time. After all, Walker Demolition was Kaleb’s dream in the beginning. The rest of them had just adopted it. And now they were only a few short steps away from making it a reality, by God.
Now, he just needed to get through the next ten days of school and he’d be well on his way to bigger and better things. But first, he needed to get to chemistry class, or he’d be looking at another day of detention, something he certainly wasn’t looking forward to. As it was, he’d spent far too many hours in that classroom over the course of the last four years.
Sawyer moved to the right side of the hall, dodging other kids, grinning and winking at a couple of giggling girls as they passed.
“Sawyer!”
Spinning around, Sawyer noticed Corey Harper and Cameron Aldridge making their way toward him. It didn’t take but a second for him to realize what they were about to do to the girl just in front of them.
Kennedy Endsley.
He grinned, taking a step back to watch the spectacle as it played out in front of half the student body, all crammed into that long, narrow hallway.
Kennedy was one of those girls who spent more time with her nose stuck in a book than she did doing anything else. He’d heard she had big dreams of being a veterinarian one day and maybe that explained all the time she spent studying. She looked every bit the nerd she was with her tall, slightly overweight body, her unruly red hair pulled back in a ponytail, her glasses perched on her narrow nose, and her braces glinting in the light every time she opened her mouth. She rarely smiled, but she was the first to answer a question whenever the teacher tossed one out, and for him and his buddies, she was the person to sit beside in class because the teachers rarely called on anyone else. Shit. Why would they when she clearly knew everything? And if Kennedy wasn’t reading, which she just happened to be doing right at that moment, then she was writing something down. No matter what, she generally wasn’t paying any attention to what was going on around her—just like now.
“Hey, Kennedy!”
Sawyer watched as Kennedy spun around, lifting her head from the book she’d had her nose in just in time to come face-to-face with Corey and Cameron, and then . . . Bam! Her books went flying out of her hands, scattering across the floor, and the hallway erupted in laughter.
“Oops,” Cameron said, kicking one of her books out of his path. “Didn’t see you there, nerd girl.”
Sawyer glanced down at Kennedy, watching as she bent to pick up her books. Their eyes met briefly and she glared at him, fire shooting from her gray eyes. Yeah, she was pissed. But what had she expected?
“Come on, man. Let’s get to class,” Corey said, slapping Sawyer on the back. “Only two more weeks of this hellhole and then we’re done.”
Pulling his eyes away from Kennedy, Sawyer fell into step with his buddies. It wasn’t like he was going to help Kennedy pick up her books. So, why was it that he felt a strange throb in the center of his chest?
Surely that wasn’t guilt.
Was it?
KENNEDY CROUCHED DOWN on the floor and gathered her books, one at a time, while the other kids did their best not to step on her now that Corey and Cameron had stopped kicking her things. She was so ready to get out of this place, to leave these people behind. Looking up, trying to avoid getting her hand beneath someone’s shoe, something that happened quite frequently, she found herself staring into the smoky blue eyes of none other than Sawyer Walker. He was laughing, at her, no doubt, while his buddies continued to kick her books every which way.
She hated Sawyer and his friends. Hated them with a passion. She had no idea what she’d ever done to draw their attention, but it was a given that at least once a week she was going to be picking up her books off the floor, or trying to get her locker open when they felt compelled to somehow get it stuck.
She’d even had to deal with the jocks spreading rumors about her, namely when they tried to convince Everett Seymour that she had a crush on him. Which she didn’t. But he didn’t seem to realize that and although he wasn’t much to look at, he’d taken the news to mean he could harass her as well.