Wayward: St. Croix Falls Book 1 Read online

  St. Croix Falls Book 1

  Wayward

  By Melody Personette

  This is a work of fiction. The characters and events described herein are imaginary and are not intended to refer to specific places or to living persons alive or dead. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher except for brief quotations embodied in critical reviews.

  Copyright © 2019 Melody Personette

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 9781089771883

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One:

  Chapter Two:

  Chapter Three:

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Dedication

  To all the Indie authors out there. Keep writing. Don’t give up. It’s worth it in the end. :)

  Author’s Note

  Hi! If you want updates, bonus content and sneak peeks you can join my newsletter at www.melodypersonette.com.

  Chapter One:

  Mia stared at the charming house looming in front of her with her hands wrapped around the cardboard box containing her favorite books and movies. This was her life now… A pretty blue house with cream trimming. It even had a white picket fence out front!

  How did her mom expect her to survive this? All Mia’s life she had woken up to the sound of cars and honking and trains zooming past. She’d walked the busy, crowded streets to her public school near the business district. The city was her haven. And now it was all gone. Forever. They couldn’t be further from their old home if they tried. It was as if her mom had looked on a map and found the one place in the state where someone would have to drive more than two hours to get to the nearest city.

  Mia hadn’t even known that was possible!

  She wasn’t a small-town type of girl. Not by a long shot. Mia had big dreams, too big of dreams to fit in St. Croix Falls in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania.

  Her mom came up behind her with a sigh. “I know this is going to be an adjustment, but this will be good for us.” She wrapped an arm around her daughter’s shoulders and pulled her in close.

  Mia made a face. Good for us? More like good for her. Her mom had been pretty tight lipped about the whole moving thing. After three weeks and a very long drive there, Mia had decided an hour before they reached town that she was done arguing. Her mom wasn’t the sort to lie to her daughter or keep things from her. One way or another, sooner or later, her mother would fill her in. Mia had to trust that she knew what she was doing. Even if right now Mia really, really didn’t see the bigger picture or why the heck they were standing in front of 19430 Wood Acre Drive.

  “Maybe,” was all she said instead.

  It wasn’t worth getting into the same argument they had had for the past three weeks. Yeah, that’s right. It took her mother all of three weeks to find St. Croix Falls and this picture-perfect little home. No, scratch that. It had taken her a week! The other two weeks had been full of quitting her job as a nurse, figuring out school stuff and packing every square inch of their beautiful, wonderful apartment down the street from Mia’s school and her mom’s work.

  Mia took a deep breath and reeled in her bitterness and deep want to whine. She plastered a lukewarm smile on her face. “Yeah,” she said. “What’s life without a little adventure, right?”

  Her mom beamed, and Mia’s half-hearted answer was worth it to see that smile on her face. She gave Mia’s shoulders a squeeze and then let go. “That’s the spirit! Get that box inside. Pick any room you want. I’ll get the kitchen stuff.”

  Mia nodded. Biting her lower lip, she walked onto the sidewalk and unlatched the front gate, letting it swing open. This was place was too picturesque. It looked like one of those scenes on a postcard. But again, what was life without a little adventure? Besides. Mia only had one more year of high school after this school year ended and then she could go and buy her own flat in the city. Not that she would want to leave her mom but… she could never imagine herself happy in a town like this where they didn’t even have a Walmart.

  She strode up the sidewalk cutting through the front yard and pushed open the white front door. By the time they’d rolled up to the new house it was almost ten thirty so when she opened the door and stepped inside, the whole place looked ominous. Frowning, Mia balanced her box with one hand against her hip and searched the wall with the other until she found the light switch.

  When the lights came up, she had to admit… her mom knew how to pick a nice place. The whole house had wood flooring and nice light blue walls… a little too blue for Mia’s taste but whatever.

  To the left was a small den/office area and ahead of that, also to the left was a bathroom. The stairs to the second floor was on the left as well, by the bathroom. Mia peeked further into the house and found an open floor plan. A large living room to the left, the kitchen to the right and the dining room next to the kitchen.

  A pair of French doors by the dining room led out onto a white porch. It was too dark out to get a good look at the backyard but from the pictures her mom had shown her, Mia could tell it was decent sized. She’d never had a backyard. All her life she’d always had the roof of her apartment complex where Mrs. Nelson planted her fruits and vegetables and where people would string fairy lights and barbecue during Summer evenings. Mia would miss that. She would miss the view too. Getting to go up to the highest point of the apartment complex and stare out at the city. A lot of people hated heights, but Mia loved them.

  Grimacing, she headed up the stairs before her mom showed up with the kitchen appliances. The upstairs was nice… Three rooms and two baths. One for the master bedroom and one on the opposite wall between the two other rooms. Mia pushed open the doors to both of them and did a mental survey of which was the largest. She decided to take the one on the right. Mia set her box down on the floor in the middle of the room, claiming it as hers and went to the window. Those frilly white curtains would have to go. Stat.

  Mia pushed them aside and frowned when she saw that the house next to them had a window adjacent to hers. She’d have to remember to close the blinds when she changed and stuff. Who knew who was in that other room?

  Mia was about to flick the curtains back into place when she caught a sliver of movement out of the corner of her eyes. She pushed the curtain back and peered out, eyebrows furrowed. She saw a flicker of movement behind the blinds of the window. A shadow. Mia leaned forward. She sucked in a sharp breath when she saw parts of the blind flip up and caught sight of two brilliant green eyes watching her. They widened a fraction and the blind quickly snapped back into place.

  Yeah… she would definitely have to keep those drawn until she could put blinds up. She didn’t need any creep lo
oking in on her. Mia put the curtains back into place and headed downstairs to help her mom with the rest of the boxes.

  In the kitchen she could hear her mom moving things and setting boxes down. On her way out, Mia glanced at the house next to theirs. Her eyes went to the window. She couldn’t bring herself to look away even as she headed to the trunk and reached for a random box. The shadow flickered across the blinds again and this time they pulled up to show off a half-hidden face. A male face. A good looking one too from the profile Mia saw. Those green eyes didn’t have to search for long before they found hers and the intensity of them nearly made Mia drop the box in her hands. A shiver ran down her spine. Mia could have sworn the temperature dropped several degrees, a coldness coating her skin. His eyes narrowed as if accusing her of something. The guy’s lips pressed into a thin line and then he snapped the blinds back into place.

  Even with his scrutiny gone, Mia still felt like she was trapped by his gaze. She couldn’t move… frozen as she stared at the window waiting for the blinds to come back up, so she could see those striking eyes again. Mia might have stood there all night if her mom hadn’t cleared her throat and ushered her toward the house. “That box goes in the kitchen,” she said, giving Mia’s shoulder a small push.

  Mia shook herself from her trance and glanced away from the window. That was… freaky. She shook her head once more and then strode back into the house. The whole time they finished unloading the car, Mia still couldn’t get those searing green eyes out of her head. All she could think was… this was not how she had planned to spend the last month of her school year.

  ***

  Mia thanked her lucky stars that she had such a kind mother who didn’t make her start school the day after they moved in. The school year was more than halfway over, and her mom had decided to give Mia a few days to get used to their new hometown.

  Hometown.

  The word made Mia want to gag.

  After changing into a pair of maroon sweatpants and a simple black t-shirt knotted in the front, Mia headed down the stairs with her laptop tucked under one arm. Her back ached from having to sleep on an air mattress last night. Hopefully, the delivery guys would show up soon with their beds. Maybe then, once she had her bed and could decorate her room, this place would feel more like home.

  Doubtful but… Mia had to give herself some hope if she wanted to get through this transition.

  Downstairs, she found her mom frowning at the inside of the fridge. A very empty, white inside of the fridge.

  “We don’t have any food in the house,” she said as if she had expected to wake up and for the fridge to have magically filled itself.

  Mia shrugged, sliding to the floor with her back against the wall and opened her laptop. She needed to write a review on her blog for the post-apocalyptic movie she’d watched last week. “Well that’s kind of what happens when you move into a place and don’t go shopping…”

  Her mom gave her a haha-you’re-so-funny face and shut the refrigerator door. “I don’t have time to go shopping. I’m meeting with the store’s previous owner this morning to finalize the transaction,” she said. Her voice started to rise in pitch, which was what happened when she got overwhelmed.

  Mia half shut her laptop and closed her eyes. Starting at a new job, especially opening her own storefront was no slice of pie. Her mom’s dream had always been to open a bookshop. She’d been saving for years but neither of them had ever thought it would actually happen. That she would ever have the chance to make her dream a reality. And yet here they were. There had been an open storefront in town that her mom had snatched up right along with the house. So now she would be an entrepreneur and own her very own business. Just like she’d always wanted.

  The two of them had already anticipated that she was going to be gone a lot, which meant lots of alone time for Mia. After her dad had left when she was little, it had been just the two of them. They had gotten each other through some of the hardest times of their lives.

  She knew her mom was already stressing about being her own boss and doing all this on her own. Mia hadn’t made the move easy for her at all… The least she could do was go out and get some groceries. She could stop at Starbucks on the way there. If they even had a Starbucks in town.

  “I’ll go out and get food,” she said at last, shutting her laptop completely and getting to her feet. They had towed her car behind them on their way there so they’d both have their own cars.

  Her mom looked like Mia had just descended from Heaven. “Oh, would you? That would be incredible.”

  “Yep. No problem.” Mia closed her laptop down on one of the kitchen counters. She fished her keys out of her pocket, twisting the ring around her finger.

  “I shouldn’t be gone too long… though I still have a lot to do before this store will be ready, so I may be home a little late,” her mom said, hugging her and kissing her on the forehead.

  “Alright. Well give me a call and let me know.”

  “Will do.”

  Mia was halfway to the front door when her mom’s uncertain voice stopped her. “This will be good for us, right?”

  Mia frowned but didn’t turn around.

  “I know this is hard. I know you don’t want to be here but… we’ll be OK, right?”

  Mia closed her eyes. She could be such a brat sometimes. Whining and complaining. But afterward she always felt like crap for making her mom feel bad. And over the past three weeks, all Mia had done was whine and make it very known that she did not want this move to happen. Now she realized how awful it must have made her mom feel. Here her mom was, doing the single mother thing. Doing the best she could, working hard, trying to make the right decisions for the two of them and Mia was giving her hell for it. That was selfish and stupid. Her promise to herself from yesterday in the car came back to her. It was that promise that made her turn around and give her mom an almost real smile. “Yeah,” she said at last. “We’ll be OK.”

  Visible relief flooded her mother’s face and made her whole body slump. She pressed her lips together in the way she did when she was trying not to cry and nodded. Mia gave her mom another smile and then turned back around. She shoved her feet into a pair of flip flops and headed out.

  Another total bummer about living in a small town: having to drive. Mia had gotten her license in the city, but she hadn’t driven in… well, since she took her license test. Who needed a car when one could walk or take the bus or train? Her mom had bought her this old, cheapy one for just in case. Unlike Mia, who didn’t care for driving, her mom wanted to be prepared in case anything happened. Mia wasn’t sure what that anything was but now she was glad her mom had bought her this car a year ago. It was one of those old Jeeps. Blue and faded.

  Flipping the keys through the air, Mia opened the front door. She tossed the keys again and this time they slipped between her fingers and hit the ground. “Fail,” she muttered to herself, grinning as she stooped down and scooped them up.

  She put the car in reverse. After glancing both ways, she pulled out of the driveway. Easy peasy. Grinning, Mia headed out of the neighborhood and toward town.

  The town of St Croix Falls was as small as they came. Two stop lights. Three drive throughs (none of which were Starbucks, unfortunately) and a small historic looking town center lined with cute little shops.

  Mia pulled into the Casey's gas station that had a grocery store built in. For now, she could pick up the essentials and then have her mom go really grocery shopping later

  Inside Mia found almost everything she needed. She set her rather large pile of groceries on the counter. While the guy rang up her things, she noticed a coffee machine off the side.

  “Can you put a large coffee on there too?” she asked.

  The cash register guy nodded as he finished bagging her things. Once she had everything put into some of those brown paper bags that were supposedly horrible from the environment, she snagged a foam cup and made herself some coffee.

  Mia sto
wed all her groceries in the back of the car. She grinned as the engine started, sipping her coffee. Not such a bad outing if she did say so herself. She’d found food for breakfast, lunch and dinner that would last them a few days. Enough time for one of them to run out and get real food. And she’d gotten herself a half-decent cup of coffee. It was no macchiato, but it would do.

  With her coffee in one hand and the other on the steering wheel, she started to back out, Mia’s thoughts were still half on her success at finding food when she hit the gas a little too hard and the car jerked backward. A blaring horn sounded behind her. Mia gasped, pressed on the break right before she hit the black car she could now see in the rearview mirror.

  “Crap,” she muttered, panic fluttering in her chest. She set her coffee cup down a little too hard and put the car in park. Mia bit her lip as she got out. She should have just gone hungry and waited for her mom to drive to the store.

  “Sorry,” she said, coming around her car and waving at the guy in the front seat of the shiny black car. She walked to the driver’s side. “I didn’t mean to…” Mia’s words caught in her throat when her gaze snagged on a pair of bright green eyes. Unusually bright. Gorgeously bright. That belonged to an equally gorgeous guy. Chiseled jaw and a pair of sunglasses perched in his gelled black hair. His lips turned up to show off perfect white teeth. That was the guy. The guy from last night. Whose window was adjacent to hers. Who had been staring at her.

  An eyebrow quirked up at her and Mia realized she was gaping at him like she’d never met a boy before. “Sorry,” she repeated, her face warming in embarrassment. “I just… um, I didn’t see you there.”

  “Really? My car’s kind of hard to miss…” His voice was deep and throaty. He had the sort of voice that made girls fall in love in those romance movies she watched. And yet… there was an edge to it. A sarcastic twist that rubbed her the wrong way.

  Mia frowned. “Well if you hadn’t pulled out all of a sudden then yeah, you and your car would have been more noticeable.”