A Cold Creek Reunion by RaeAnne Thayne Read Free Book Online Page A

him was middle school, which in Pine Gulch encompassed seventh through ninth grades. She had been in seventh grade, Taft in ninth. He had been an athletic kid and well-liked, always able to make anyone laugh. She, on the other hand, had been quiet and shy, much happier with a book in her hand than standing by her locker with her friends between classes, giggling over the cute boys.
    She and Taft had ended up both taking a Spanish elective and had been seated next to each other on Señora Baker’s incomprehensible seating chart.
    Typically, guys that age—especially jocks—didn’t want to have much to do with younger girls. Gawky, insecure, bookish girls might as well just forget it. But somehow while struggling over past participles and conjugating verbs, they had become friends. She had loved his sense of humor and he seemed to appreciate how easily she picked up Spanish.
    They had arranged study groups together for every test, often before school because Taft couldn’t do it afterward most of the time due to practice sessions for whatever school sport he was currently playing.
    She could remember exactly the first moment she knew she was in love with him. She had been in the library waiting for him early one morning. Because she lived in town and could easily walk to school, she was often there first. He and his twin brother usually caught a ride with their older brother, Ridge, who was a senior in high school at the time and had a very cool pickup truck with big tires and a roll bar.
    While she waited for him, she had been fine-tuning a history paper due in a few weeks when Ronnie Lowery showed up. Ronnie was a jerk and a bully in her grade who had seemed to have it in for her for the past few years.
    She didn’t understand it but thought his dislike might have something to do with the fact that Ronnie’s single mother worked as a housekeeper at the inn. Why that should bother Ronnie, she had no idea. His mom wasn’t a very good maid and often missed work because of her drinking, but she had overheard her mom and dad talking once in the office. Her mom had wanted to fire Mrs. Lowery, but her dad wouldn’t allow it.
    “She’s got a kid at home. She needs the job,” her dad had said, which was exactly what she would have expected her dad to say. He had a soft spot for people down on their luck and often opened the inn to people he knew could never pay their tab.
    She suspected Ronnie’s mom must have complained about her job at home, which was likely the reason Ronnie didn’t like her. He had tripped her a couple of times going up the stairs at school and once he had cornered her in the girls’ bathroom and tried to kiss her and touch her chest—what little chest she had—until she had smacked him upside the head with her heavy advanced-algebra textbook and told him to keep his filthy hands off her, with melodramatic but firm effectiveness.
    She usually did her best to avoid him whenever she could, but that particular morning in seventh grade, she had been the only one in the school library. Even Mrs. Pitt, the plump and kind librarian who introduced her to Georgette Heyer books, seemed to have disappeared, she saw with great alarm.
    Ronnie sat down. “Hey, Laura the whore-a.”
    “Shut up,” she had said, very maturely, no doubt.
    “Who’s gonna make me?” he asked, looking around with exaggerated care. “I don’t see anybody here at all.”
    “Leave me alone, Ronnie. I’m trying to study.”
    “Yeah, I don’t think I will. Is that your history paper? You’ve got Mr. Olsen, right? Isn’t that a
coin-ki-dink? So do I. I bet we have the same assignment. I haven’t started mine. Good thing, too, because now I don’t have to.”
    He grabbed her paper, the one she had been working on every night for two weeks, and held it over his head.
    “Give it back.” She did her best not to cry.
    “Forget it. You owe me for this. I had a bruise for two weeks after you hit me last month. I had to tell my