Soul Searching (Sweetwater Peak #1)

Collins

Three things stood out through my windshield, and all of them were ominous: a jagged mountain range with one peak towering over the rest, a gray sky heavy with rain, and a plume of black smoke rising a little too close for comfort.

How close? Close enough to be billowing from under my hood.

Nestled in the shadow of the tallest peak in the Elk Spine mountain range, Sweetwater Peak was quiet, quirky, and quaint. It was also the last place I wanted to be.

As if my car could read my mind, the engine started to shake and sputter.

Well, that wasn't a good sign.

"I get it," I said aloud.

I hadn't taken great care of this car. I couldn't even remember the last time I'd driven it.

For the past three years, it had been tucked away under a tarp in a storage unit in Meadowlark—about two hours south of Sweetwater Peak. I'd gotten to the unit by hitching a ride with a nice couple I'd met on my flight from Portland to Jackson. They were heading to a guest ranch in the area for a week.

I liked having the freedom of knowing my car was accessible if I needed it… without having to go all the way home. So, a storage unit had seemed like a good solution.

Now that my car sounded and felt like it was going to give out at any moment, I regretted not taking my twin sister up on her offer to pick me up from the airport today.

But I'd needed time to mentally prepare to see Clarke and my parents.

I loved my family—really, I did. I was just a firm believer in the whole "distance makes the heart grow fonder" thing.

I'd never loved my family more than when I wasn't living in the same town as them.

Boundaries worked a hell of a lot better when there were thousands of miles between us.

I let out a loud sigh, though not loud enough to drown out the rattling unmistakably coming from my engine. The car started to slow, even though my foot was still firmly on the gas pedal.

Shit.

At this point, I didn't have a choice but to pull as far as I could onto the soft shoulder of the road. It wasn't wide enough to fit the whole car, but if I went any farther, the Camry and I would be careening down the mountain.

I got out and slammed the door a little harder than necessary before walking to the front. I knew a little bit about cars—like how to check my oil and change a tire—but I didn't even know where to start with the black smoke situation.

"Maybe this is a sign," I muttered to no one in particular.

If I had any company of the spiritual variety, they hadn't made themselves known yet. But it was only a matter of time as I got closer to Sweetwater Peak.

"Maybe I should just hop in, throw it in neutral, and coast back down the mountain."

Thunder boomed around me, the reverberation shaking my chest like I was standing next to the speakers at a concert.

I took a deep breath before I popped the hood and was promptly enveloped in smoke. My lungs burned as it wrapped around me, and I started to cough as I stepped back, trying to fan it away.

I wasn't clear of it until I was ten feet in front of my car, and even then, I spent an embarrassing amount of time bent over with my hands on my knees, hacking.

"Can't"—cough—"catch"—hack—"a fucking"—cough—"break. Can you, Collins?"

I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and looked at the top right corner.

No service. Of course.

There was a pocket of cell service in Sweetwater Peak, but it didn't extend very far outward. The last hour of the drive was a dead zone.

There was a string of texts from Clarke on my screen. The last one had been delivered an hour and a half ago.

Clarke: Remember how you said you were going to be here before noon?

Clarke: Weird that it's almost five, and you're still not here.

Clarke: You're not even here yet, and you're already giving me stress-induced gray hair.

Clarke: Seriously, Collins. Where are you?

Well, there was no use trying to text her back when I knew the message wouldn't go anywhere until I was inside the town limits.

I should've called her while I was driving. I should have told her where I was, so she knew to come rescue me when something inevitably went wrong and I wasn't home when I said I would be.

Clarke was always saving me.

Something cold and wet hit my nose, then my arm, then the top of my head. Thunder clapped again, and as if that was all the rain needed, it started to pour.

I didn't make for the shelter of my car right away. Instead, I stood there with my eyes on the engine and let the rain soak me all the way through.

I'd already resigned myself to sleeping in my car as soon as the smoke started pouring out of the engine, so there was no need to rush.

Tomorrow morning, someone would have to drive down from Sweetwater Peak for some reason.

There was only one way in and one way out.

They'd spot me, and then I'd be on my way home again. This was just a little hiccup.

I moved the bar that kept my hood up out of the way, then let the hood slam shut. I checked that the emergency brake was pulled all the way up before I crawled into my back seat, the pepper spray from my center console clutched in my grip—just in case.

Believe it or not, this was how I would prefer to be welcomed home.

I loved a sunny day as much as the next person, but when I came to Sweetwater Peak, I always felt like I needed to do it under the cover of something. A storm like this was perfect.

I hoped it lasted through tomorrow. Then no one would be outside when I rolled through town, or when I pulled my suitcases out of my trunk and dragged them to wherever Clarke had arranged for me to stay.

It probably would've been easier to stay with her or my parents—especially considering all of them thought I was coming home to help out with the family business.

My parents owned Toades Antiques—the only antique store in Sweetwater Peak.

They also owned the building that Toades, and several other local businesses, were in.

Earlier this year, a developer came sniffing around, trying to get my parents to sell it all.

I didn't love Sweetwater Peak the way Clarke did, but I loved the idea of my family's livelihood being leveled and replaced by a gas station or a parking lot even less.

I was also… super out of money. I hadn't had a photography job in over a year—not since the incident. I'd been skating by on savings and the firm belief that things would work out. Unfortunately, they didn't.

So here I was, with about $340, a clunker of a car, and a bag of beef jerky to my name—running home to Mom and Dad. They just didn't know I was running home. They thought I was selflessly coming to help, that I had some time off and wanted to spend it in Sweetwater Peak.

And I was going to let them believe that. Actually, I was going to do everything I could to make sure they believed it.

I let my eyelids flutter closed as I listened to the rain hit my car. It was loud enough to focus on. My mind didn't wander, which was good, because I knew exactly where it would wander to—*Why aren't they talking to me?*

I shook that out of my head. Not now.

Instead, I tried to count the raindrops, the thunderclaps, and the flashes of lightning that lit up the space behind my eyelids every once in a while.

I was nearly ready to doze off when I heard a noise outside my car.

I sank lower into the seat as I tried to look out the window to see if I could spot anything, but there was too much rain and it was mostly dark.

I didn't get spooked very easily, but I had some sense of self-preservation. When I felt my heartbeat move to my ears, I clutched at my pepper spray a little tighter.

I wrapped my fingers around the window crank and rolled it down a little to see if that helped my visibility. With my other hand, I moved the mechanism on the top of my pepper spray to "shoot," knowing it would only work if its target was a living, breathing thing.

*Breathe, Collins. It's just this town playing tricks on your mind already.*

The window was open wide enough that I felt the rain hitting me, and then I saw it—a face.

I didn't have time to think before I let the pepper spray rip with a scream.

I knew it met its target when the face in front of me was covered with hands and let out a scream of its own.

"Fuck!" it yelled. It sounded masculine. The pepper spray had been a good call.

"Oh my god, are you okay?" Another voice—this one feminine and… familiar.

I rolled my window down more and took in the sight in front of me. A man—a very tall man—on the ground with his hands over his eyes. And a woman who looked a lot like what I saw in the mirror every day.

"Clarke?" I called out to the woman behind him.

"Fucking hell, Collins," she said as she crouched down. "Do you have a water bottle in there?"

Oh shit. Did I just pepper-spray Clarke's boyfriend again or something? She hadn't said anything about a boyfriend.

I grabbed a plastic water bottle out of the cupholder and scrambled out of the car. I kneeled on the other side of the man.

"Open your eyes," I said to him. "We have to flush it out."

"No thanks, I'm good here," he said, and I almost laughed.

"Brady," Clarke said. "I'm really sorry my sister pepper-sprayed you, but believe it or not, this isn't the first time this has happened. We're pros."

"I don't know if I can open my eyes," he said with a groan.

"Yes, you can, you big baby," I said without thinking, and Clarke shot me a withering look.

The man—Brady—moved his hands off his eyes and looked up at me. His dark hair stuck to his forehead, and water ran down his face. I couldn't see what color his eyes were in the dark—light, maybe green or blue—but I could see that I'd done a number on them.

"Collins Cartwright," Clarke said. "Meet Brady Cooper."

Brady Cooper. That was familiar. Wait… was this the upholsterer? The one Clarke got me a temporary gig with? The one who said I could stay in his extra room?

I'd just maced the man keeping me from couch-surfing at my sister's or sleeping in our childhood bedroom at my parents'.

"Charmed," I said, and then poured the water into his eyes without warning.