My gut clenched, the ringing in my ears nearly drowning out my music. I’d never seen him before, but I recognized his deep blue eyes-they were the I took in his thin gray hair and weathered face, the mud caked on his oldīoots and jeans. “Mason?” A man lurched around the hood of the ancient pickup, something like panic Mason and Emily will have to decide what they really want-and if they’re willing to fight for it. Their tentative relationship is threatened when Mason is put in the crosshairs of the local gang and the town sheriff. Mason knows he isn’t good enough for her, and Emily knows she should stay away, but that doesn’t stop the pull they feel toward each other. Mason and Emily are opposites in nearly every way, but neither can deny the attraction between them. Still, she can’t help but be drawn to him. Her life doesn’t need more complications, and this distractingly attractive, clearly damaged boy promises nothing but trouble. She has enough on her plate with mothering her younger siblings and protecting a secret that could destroy everything, when she runs into Mason-literally. He just wants to survive until his eighteenth birthday so he can escape this backwater town and finally be free.Įmily is struggling to keep what’s left of her family from falling apart after a horrible accident stole her mom. Mason’s not interested in bonding with these newfound grandparents.

Apparently he’s got grandparents-parents of the father he knows nothing about. When his mom ends up in prison, he’s shipped off to the middle of nowhere. Mason’s life is far from perfect, but it turns out it can get worse.

Enriched by Jody Hedlund