Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 157273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Elite ballerina Allie Rousseau is no stranger to pressure. With her mother’s eyes always watching, perfection was expected, no matter the cost. But when an injury jeopardizes all she’s sacrificed for, Allie returns to her summer home to heal and recover. But the memories she’s tried to forget rush in and threaten to take her under.
As a Coast Guard rescue swimmer, Hudson Ellis knows that hesitation can mean the difference between life and death. He’s always prided himself on being in the right place at the right time, especially when it came to Allie Rousseau…until the night he left for basic. After the biggest regret of his life, the secrets he keeps mean he can never be with the one woman he wants more than his next breath.
When Hudson’s niece shows up on Allie’s doorstep, desperate to find her birth mother, Allie finds herself in an unimaginable position. Allie and Hudson’s past and present might be endlessly complicated. The thread that tied them to each other all those years ago may have unraveled, but the truth could pull them back together, or drive them apart forever.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter One
Hudson
Eleven years ago
On days like this, I understood why seventy-three percent of candidates for rescue swimmer school didn’t make it through training. I had two summers left to make sure I’d be in the twenty-seven percent who would.
The afternoon weather off the southern coast of Cape Cod served up six-foot seas, complete with whitecaps and a side of hypothermia for Memorial Day. It might have been miserable and challenging, but it was the perfect weather for practice.
Tired had hit twenty minutes ago, exhaustion followed ten minutes later, and I was quickly approaching full-out ruin, but I needed five more minutes. Another hundred yards would put me past my personal best in these kinds of swells, and I wasn’t quitting until I hit that mark.
Three hundred seconds was nothing in the scheme of things.
I concentrated on my breath work, kept my head down, and swam forward, counting each of those seconds. At two hundred and eleven, I sucked in a breath of pure salt water and came up coughing, ripping out my mouthpiece as soon as I was free of the swell that had overtaken the tube of the snorkel.
“Hudson!” Gavin shouted from my left, killing the motor of the twenty-three-foot fishing boat our father lovingly referred to as his fourth child, though she’d qualify as his first, given her age. “Enough for the day.”
“I need another thirty yards for a personal best,” I called back, treading water through the next swell.
“You need to get your ass in the boat before the swells get any higher,” he countered, looking over his sunglasses from the dashboard despite the overcast sky. “You’re wrecked. Thirty yards isn’t going to happen.”
“Go to hell.” I popped my mouthpiece in and prepared to go again just to prove I could.
“This hangover is kicking my ass, and unless you want Caroline at the helm for your next practice session, you’ll get in here before I have to circle back in this current.” He walked toward the stern as the boat drifted, then leaned over and unfastened the swinging top of the ladder before pushing it into the water.
Shit. He wasn’t kidding.
Our older sister was a clucking mother hen who would never remotely consider bringing me out in seas like this, which meant the personal best was going to have to wait. Frustration kept me warm for the next handful of strokes as I made my way toward the boat. Then I timed the stern’s rise and fall with the swells before heaving myself up the three-rung ladder.
“I’ve missed you and I’m glad you’re home, but you suck. I almost had it.” I climbed over the narrow swimming deck and onto the towel-covered seat, then pulled up the ladder. Dad would murder us if we didn’t protect the faded leather. The boat pitched again as I ripped off my face mask, then the hood of my wet suit, and tossed them into the black canvas duffel near Gavin’s feet.
“You wound me, little brother.” He touched his chest sarcastically and held on to the back of the driver’s seat with the next swell. “Let’s get home so I can listen to the lecture Dad’s been working on all day. I’d hate for him to go to all that work and have no one to deliver his speech to.”
“He’s just . . .” Words failed me, just like they had since he’d announced his decision in the middle of our parents’ café this morning.
“Disappointed that I’m dropping out of college,” Gavin supplied. “Unlike Caroline, who managed to get her degree while married and holding down two jobs.”
“Don’t compare yourself to our sister, and give Dad a break. He’s just stunned.” I peeled off the rest of my suit, leaving me in a pair of his old Hawaiian-print trunks once I ditched the diving socks too.
“I changed my major four times in two years,” Gavin said, reaching above the wheel for my Bruins cap. “Trust me, Dad isn’t shocked.”
Good point. Gavin was known for a good time, not for sticking things out.
“You could spend the night at Caroline and Sean’s while Mom smooths it over.” I made my way over the salt-and-sun-worn deck carpet toward him.
“I’m not leaving Mom with my mess. Subject change.” A smile curved Gavin’s mouth. “You’re barely seventeen and here you are dumping your savings into a new wet suit. It’s like you’re trying to actually swim your way to Alaska. Don’t think I didn’t notice that map above your bed.”
“Some dreams don’t change.” I’d stumbled onto a documentary three years ago and wanted to be a rescue swimmer stationed in Sitka ever since. Helping people? Check. Adrenaline? Check. Moving to the other side of the country from the only place I’d ever lived? Check. I grabbed the towel from the back seat, then ran it over my head and chest before dragging a T-shirt on. “And thank you for bringing me out. Dad gets busy.”