When 22-year-old Summer Stafford’s parents split halfway through her senior year at college, Summer’s world is rocked. Everything she thought she knew—heck, everything she thought she wanted for her own life—feels like a lie. The truth is love is a risk. And the true kind, the kind that lasts, might even be a fairy tale.
Reeling from the divorce, Summer derails her own future by breaking up with her parent-approved boyfriend and giving up her lifelong plans for a big-city career. She moves back home, business degree in hand. Dad needs her to fill the gaps her mother left behind; Summer needs to find who she is outside of the cookie-cutter life that failed so miserably for her parents.
Ford O’Neal’s future involves one person: himself. He doesn’t have a permanent address and he definitely doesn’t commit. To a place or a person. Raised by hippies, he plans just far enough ahead to secure his next stop, this one landing him at a work-study program at Heritage Plantation where he can grow his own herbal and medicinal creations.
Summer is gorgeous and smart and fun to be with, the perfect way to pass five months. It won’t be love—Ford’s got too many things to accomplish, too many places to go, before he settles down. Yet Summer pulls him in, challenging him to rethink his own philosophy.
When Ford’s five months are up, each of them must decide if love is really worth the risk.
Chapter 12
“What did you expect?”
Something about the way he said it struck me as much more
serious than the usual banter between us suggested. I chose my answer
carefully. “Fun. Spontaneous. Light.” I shrugged. “Meaningless.”
His expression darkened. His blue eyes filled with
something—not anger. Heat. Intensity. He leaned close. “Summer Stafford, you
could never be meaningless.”
Any other moment with any other conversation and I would’ve
melted into a puddle from that look. But right now, I couldn’t get past the
emphasis he’d put behind those words. And the contradiction it made when put to
our situation. I leaned back, putting distance between us as my brows creased
in confusion. “You say that, but how can it not be meaningless if you’re
leaving in a few months?”
“My leaving in the future doesn’t take away from the fact
that we’re both here right now. In this moment. With these feelings. That has
all kinds of meaning.”
Heather loves Mexican food, hates socks with sandals, and if her house was on fire, the one thing she'd grab is her DVR player.
Heather is a co-founder of Accendo Press, a publishing group she operates with fellow authors: Angeline Kace and Jennifer Sommersby. Accendo (a-CH-endo), A Latin word, means “to kindle, illuminate, inflame, or set fire.” This is something Accendo strives to do inside a reader’s imagination with every title released. For a complete list of titles and author bios, visit www.accendopress.com.
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