With one scowl, I fell just that much harder for Callum Ashford—NFL star turned small town brewer. He’s not only older, but he’s my brother’s best friend. Two very important reasons I should stay away.
Only two years ago, after the worst night of my life, he kissed me and I can’t keep him off my mind.
When the only house available to rent in town happens to be the one across the street from him, the close proximity does its work.
We can’t keep our hands off each other. Yet as the heat rises, so do feelings. He might want me, but he wants peace more.
There’s a darkness within him I know he fights. Just as there are secrets his family needs to uncover. But when the danger comes full force, it won’t be from the obvious corner. No, we both have our pasts we chose to hide.
And our fears.
Yet when I break, he catches me.
And I hope I have the strength to do the same.
**Legacy is an age gap, best friend’s little sister, small town romance and the first in the Ashford Creek series featuring Callum and Felicity. Each one can be read as a complete standalone. A HEA is guaranteed!**
Teaser Excerpt:
Ashford Creek. Home of small town lore, single dads, a bakery that judged you, a brewery owned by a former NFL linebacker, a couple of restaurants without a rivalry, family drama, secrets, and most likely a murderer.
And why the hell did I continue to live in a town that my family had not only founded long ago but tried to destroy multiple times? I’d run from what crawled beneath and moved out of town. Gone to college, played a sport to the best of my abilities, had a career in which thousands upon thousands of people knew my name.
Found a life.
Lost that life.
Then, I moved back to this hellhole known as Ashford Creek.
Yay.
“What’s crawled up your butt?”
I narrowed my gaze at my best friend Rune before going back to pull the tap. A customer needed a beer, a shit beer since it wasn’t one of mine, but the customer was always right. At least, that’s what they told me.
“Nothing,” I finally answered, since Rune wasn’t about to let me off with just a glare. The man was damn persuasive and annoyed the hell out of you until he got the answers he wanted.
That was probably why we were still best friends after all these years, despite the fact I’d lived far from the area for over a decade, and why he was such a damn good bartender. It didn’t matter that he owned the bar and grill. He was at his best when he was behind the bar, watching over the town residents and making sure we stopped fucking things up. We weren’t always great at it, but Rune did his best.
I much preferred my brewery. Yes, we served beer behind the bar and some small eats, but we weren’t open as late as the Summit Grill, nor were we open every day for the public. The scent of scarcity made reservations a top hit, and we sold more beer because of it. People would line up for hours for just a taste of the latest small batch in whatever four packs we sold that month.
I didn’t need to be behind the bar in order to get my job done. The fact that I was behind the bar today just to help Rune notwithstanding.
Rune finally shoved my shoulder, lifting his brow as the light above us glinted off his septum ring. “I totally believe that ‘nothing’ you just said. Seriously, what’s going on with you?”
I shrugged. “Not a damn thing. I’m just being myself. I’m sorry that I’m too much of an asshole for you right now.”
Rune rolled his eyes. “Well, now that you mention it, you’re always an asshole, so you looking like you want to stab my customers is pretty much on brand for you. However, if you could stop looking like you want to stab my customers, that would be wonderful.”
“He looks like that when he walks into Ashy Buns, so I assume it’s just his face.”
I turned and looked at the familiar voice and did my best not to roll my eyes. Fiona, said owner of Ashy Buns, loved to get under my skin. First off, who the hell named a bakery Ashy Buns? It made no sense, and frankly, it felt rude. She hated her job, hated her bakery, and hated the town. Sure, I might complain about the town, and I might hate some people within the town for good reasons, but I didn’t actually hate Ashford Creek. I was just an asshole sometimes.
Fiona, however, was just completely ridiculous. Her icy blonde hair was pulled back into a tight bun on the top of her head, and she had this new cat eye makeup thing going on that I didn’t understand. She glared at me as she pointed to the wine behind me.
“Can I get you something, Fiona?”
“You can get me a few things, Callum,” she purred. “In fact, why don’t you get out from behind that bar, and we finish what we should have after high school?”
I resisted the urge to look over at Rune, who snickered behind me. Asshole. Fiona and I had never dated. Not in high school, and sure as hell not when I’d come back home. She’d always wanted to date the quarterback of the football team, and since Rune had turned her down, she’d tried for the tight end. I’d run faster away from her than I had on the field, and she’d never truly forgiven me. Even when I’d been playing in the NFL, she’d tried to find a way to hit on me and treat me like shit at the same time. I never quite understood her. Nor did I feel the need to any longer.
“Fiona, what do you want to drink?”
The edge in my voice was not lost on her, and her gaze narrowed. “Are you really going to let this man continue to work here?” the woman asked as if she hadn’t just been hitting on me.
“Sure. I’m good like that. What do you want, Fiona?” Rune said, this time his voice was not as sweet.
The bakery owner rolled her eyes. “Chardonnay. The buttery kind, not the kind that tastes like olive juice. You would think you would learn by now.”
I pasted on a grin, poured her a Chardonnay, being sure to fill up the proper amount and not giving a single drop extra like I might have with nearly anyone else in town, and handed it over. “Are you opening a tab?”
“Maybe. It depends on what I have going on later.”
This time, Rune just threw his head back and laughed, and I flipped him off.
“Let me ring you up,” I said dryly in answer.
There was just something diabolical about that woman, and one day, I hoped she would eventually just close up that bakery of hers like she kept promising and go away. Of course, she wasn’t the only person in Ashford Creek I would wish would go away, but I just needed to get over it.
By the time she went back to her table, my head ached, and I knew I was done for the night.
“Stop glaring at me,” Rune said after a moment. “You’re all done for the night. Now we can get on to being customers and let my staff do what they’re supposed to.”
“It’s about damn time,” I snarled, though I smiled as I said it.
I did like helping out Rune. He helped me out at the brewery all the time. He was my best friend, and we’d been friends since we were kids. Between him and his brother Atlas, we’d run Ashford Creek scared when we’d been kids. My brothers Bodhi and Malcolm had joined us, as well as a couple of other town mainstays like Kellan and Thatcher. We’d been a menace on our small town, and I knew our reputation still tended to be a little loud for some of the town’s residents.
Series Reading Order:
Book 0.5: Careless (Prequel)
Book 1: Legacy
Book 2: Crossroads
Book 3: Westward
Book 4: Patience
Book 5: TBA
