Far From Home

Romantic Suspense

Standalone Novel

Chapter 1

Greta

Standing at the edge of the lake, my bare feet sank into the soft sand. The sun was just beginning to dip behind the tall trees on top of the cliff, casting a pink and orange glow over the water. The early evening in the summer was perfect for a swim. Light enough to see everything, but getting dusky to give it a magical feel.

I felt like the world was for the taking. I’d graduated from college a month before. At the end of the summer, I’d begin my career teaching high schoolers music.

Squelching my toes into the shallow stretch of sand along the shoreline of the lake, I savored the feel of cool sand on my soles and between my toes.

Tomorrow would bring my road trip with the love of my life, Blake Cooke. He’d planned the route, so I didn’t know if there would be beach, sand, or swimming. I didn’t want to know. I left the details to him, and I would feed him snacks as he drove us.

Blake had graduated a month ago. His future was in building houses. If he had his way, he would build sustainable houses for young adults who wanted to get on the housing ladder and could start small.

I still lived at home with my parents. My older brother, Derek, lived at home in between semesters, too. He was studying for his MBA in LA.

I stayed local to go to college and avoid a heap of debt. Not that my parents minded. They’d be over the moon if I stayed at home forever. But they knew how much I loved Blake and that I’d be moving in with him as soon as we’d saved a deposit for our house and found the right property. If I had my way, it would be a plot of land on the perimeter of my parents’ acreage overlooking the lake.

During high school, we spent all our free time together. Because Blake’s family home was across the street from mine. However, Blake pursued his degree in the next state over. It was the nearest college offering his course. Our high school daily interactions were the opposite of our time at college, with infrequent weekend and holiday meet-ups. We stayed strong, never wavering in our commitment to each other.

I loved him, and he loved me.

We both knew when we started our new careers, him on a building site and me in a high school, we wouldn’t be spending a lot of time together, only evenings and weekends. I’d be marking books, and he would do a bunch of overtime so we could have our house sooner.

That was the time to be adults. It could wait until we got back. Which was why we were taking off for a month-long road trip. Just Blake and me and the long road ahead.

I couldn’t wait.

The only things I would miss were my lake and my evening swim.

My family owned the lake, which was a small portion of our property. Only there did I find perfect peace. Not that my life was awful, it wasn’t. I had awesome parents and a pain in the ass brother, two years older.

I smiled, squinting across the glassy water. Our family’s woodland area was behind me. Beyond the small woodland lay the house where I grew up. It perched on top of the hill.

Looking across the small lake, around to the left were semi-high rocks that people leaped off to bomb into the water, and a little further around those rocks was a nook that Blake and I hid away in when we wanted to make out and slip our hands into each other’s swimwear.

For as long as I could remember, I swam in the lake every day.

My parents kept the gate open to the woodland next to our garden fence so the whole town could use it.

On holiday weekends, everyone brought chairs and foldaway tables, their picnics and inflatables. On Saturday nights, my parents gave the lake over to the teenagers and college kids.

The lake was far enough away on the other side of the woodlands that whoever was there didn’t disturb us at the house.

My absence from the lake would be brief before I returned, if I had my way, and I would be engaged to Blake. He hadn’t proposed yet, but I knew he wanted to marry me, and I was an absolute yes.

I glanced over my shoulder to make sure my shirt and towel remained hanging on the branch of the tree that lightning had hit when I was a kid.

I brought little down to the lake when I swam. In the summer, a towel sufficed, but multiple layers were necessary in colder weather.

Blake wanted me to bring my phone, but what was the point? I left my house, jogged down the hill, walked through the opening where the gate was always open, and then walked through the woodland for a few minutes to come out the other side of the lake. The same routine every evening.

My swimsuit was already on, and I wore my special swim shoes, like wetsuit socks. They were comfy enough to walk down to the lake.

Still, I liked to feel the sand on my soles once I got there. So for a few minutes, I meditated, scrunched my toes into the sand, and felt immense gratitude for all the good in my life.

Without taking my eyes off the distant rocks on the other side, I lifted one leg and slipped on my swim shoe, then did the same with my other leg to slip on the other shoe.

I walked along the shore for a few meters once they were on my feet. I felt grateful for this peaceful space. When I pushed my legs through the water, counting my breaths, I thought of nothing but the water.

It calmed me.

Wading in with long strides, I stayed upright until my shoulders went under, then I submerged. Curling into a ball, I wrapped my arms around my shins and brought my legs to my chest. Exhaling, I slowly sank to the bottom like a giant stone. It only took seconds, as the lake wasn’t that deep in that part. When I could press my feet to the ground, I shot forward in a long breaststroke. It was a competition I set myself to see how far I could swim underwater. Sometimes I broke my distance record, sometimes I fell way short.

As I emerged to the surface, I saw I’d gone further than yesterday but shorter than my record.

Blake didn’t share my passion. He wouldn’t step a toe in the water. Not for all the tacos in the world. He said he’d watched the film Jaws, and that was it for him. No desire to be any deeper than his ankles.

He knew sharks weren’t possible in the lake, but the idea of swimming in it remained unacceptable. No matter what I promised I’d do with him. And we had pretty much done everything we could do naked.

After an hour of swimming across the lake, I turned in the water to move towards the shore. I took one last look at the tranquil lake, then let out a contented sigh.

The sound of footsteps snapping branches underfoot drew my attention to the woodland. I could see Blake jogging through the trees and then towards the sandy part of the shoreline.

He had a broad grin on his face.

“Hey, beautiful,” Blake called out.

“Hey, handsome,” I replied with a smile, enjoying the familiar feeling of his smile aimed at me.

I was older than him by three months, and he turned twenty-two a week ago.

I watched him saunter down the sloping bank of grass to the waterline.

Blake Cooke.

My boyfriend. Handsome beyond all measure. Everyone wanted him in high school and then at college, and he only wanted me.

No one had turned my head since I fell for Blake when I was nine years old outside the principal’s office. I cradled a bruised wrist, which later proved to be fractured. Post-surgery and physiotherapy, it completely healed.

It didn’t matter if it hadn’t because I gained Blake’s love.

I was getting shoved around by the older kids because they thought I was a rich kid. It didn’t matter that my parents worked blue-collar jobs, and we weren’t rolling in money. They saw the land we had and assumed I was a rich kid.

I would not put up with the bullying, so I waded in, threw a punch, and missed my target of Johnny Barker’s chin. He stepped to the side, which meant that with the momentum of my intended punch, I fell on the floor, my wrist taking the brunt of my fall.

The kids laughing at me gave Blake enough time for him to stride up to the group, punch all four of the boys, knocking them on their asses. He then scooped me up and carried me inside the school building.

That’s how I was sitting next to him outside the principal’s office, and that’s when I fell in love with Blake Cooke.

He’d been my protector ever since, and he wanted to marry me.

Blake was giving me his indulgent smile that made my belly flip.

“Time to get out, babe. Dress to put on, dinner to get to, late-night parties to attend. Naked time,” Blake called out in his deep, throaty, older-than-his-age voice.

God, I loved his voice, especially when he was whispering in my ear while we cuddled in the back seat of his truck. It vibrated right through me. He could be telling me the traffic news, and I’d still want to lick him all over.

“But I like it here,” I called back.

I giggled as he dropped his head back, exposing his throat, looking at the early evening sky.

Treading water, I swirled my arms forward and backward as my legs kicked under the surface. I had been swimming in the lake. My mom called me her water baby. I thought of it as my lake, and I hoped to get married on the shoreline to Blake Cooke one day. Raising our children nearby and introducing them to the water as soon as I could.

“Come on, let’s get going,” Blake said, grinning at me.

Blake loved meeting me on the shoreline when I swam. He would watch me emerge from the water, and it made me feel like a supermodel.

“You still gonna marry me?” I called out.

Blake pulled out a lazy grin. God, I loved it when Blake aimed that lazy grin at me.

“I need to propose first.”

“Yeah, you need to get on with that.”

He shook his head, grinning at me, and then I could see his chuckle even though I couldn’t hear it from this distance.

“Yeah, I’m gonna marry you, just not today,” he said, like he always said.

“Tomorrow?” I asked, like I did every time.

“Not tomorrow. We’re going on our summer road trip.”

Blake held up one hand, palm facing me, as I took my time to swim until my feet hit the bottom of the lake and I stood. My shoulders were out of the water.

“Slow it down, baby. This is the best bit.”

That comment warmed my belly. I did as Blake asked, finding my feet and strolling out of the water at the pace of a wedding march.

“The next day?” I continued our previous conversation.

Blake continued talking with laughter in his voice.

“I know Vegas is on the route planner, but no, we’re not getting married in Vegas.”

“You’re right about that. I’m marrying you right where you stand. Next to the tree that almost killed me when it fell in that storm when we were eleven.”

All humor dropped from his voice when he spoke again, grazing my body with a scorching stare.

His stare reached my toes as they emerged onto the sandbank. I felt the tingles run up my legs and halt inside my bikini bottoms, like they were holding my desire hostage. Once Blake’s eyes met mine, I was a foot away from him. He handed me my towel that I’d slung over the branch of the dead, felled tree. To hide my erect nipples and thighs pressed together, I held the towel by the corners, pressing its length against my body.

By the feeling in my belly, giving me the slow stare, I couldn’t wait for us to be together tonight. We were each other’s first time back when we were eighteen. Blake made me wait until I turned the legal age, and then he took me under the stars. That was a promise we’d made to each other when we were fifteen.

Blake and I had done every intimate act, but we’d never spent the entire night together. Blake lived across the street from me with his sister. I lived with my parents and brother. There wasn’t a time or place for us to share a bed for the night.

But this road trip meant we’d be spending thirty nights together. I couldn’t wait for that either.

His hand shot out to grab my wrist. Then he lifted it so my surgery scar on my wrist was facing him, and he dotted kisses along the scar line. He’d closed his eyes while he did so, and when he opened them, he pinned me with his stare. My heart thudded at double speed.

He was gorgeous, loving, sweet, and all mine.

“That’s a date, baby,” he whispered.

I heard that loud and clear.

“Can’t wait,” I whispered.

“You’ve gotta stop looking at me like that, or I’ll throw you over my shoulder and take you to the other side of this lake, and I’ll take you in daylight, not under the canopy of stars like you want.”

I felt my cheeks heat up. My desire for Blake must have been evident on my face, even though he knew me so well in every situation.

He put his hands in the pockets of his long shorts, and it did not help the direction my eyes took when I saw he was hard for me.

“I’m not sorry,” I whispered, then brought the towel up to cover my mouth and nose, keeping my eyes uncovered to keep staring at Blake.

He shook his head and grinned at me. Then, he dropped his chin to his chest. All I could see was his longish hair in waves falling forward. Whenever we made out, that long hair tickled my forehead. It tickled my stomach when his mouth went lower, too.

I took a step forward, put my palm to his forehead, and pushed his head so he was standing straight again. Rolling up onto my tiptoes in my wetsuit shoes, I leaned in and kissed his neck.

“Let’s get back,” I whispered, keeping my mouth near his ear. “The faster we get through family dinner, the faster we can get to the party.”

He dropped his hand to stroke his knuckles against my ribs.

“Yeah, and the faster we get to naked time,” he replied, giving me his lazy grin.

Blake wasn’t as chaste in his return kiss. He stretched his arms forward, hands to my thighs, and then hoisted me up, guiding my legs to wrap around him.

Yep, he was hard for me.

“Where’s your top?” he asked.

“Usual place. My shirt is hanging off the branch over there,” I said, sticking my arm out to give Blake direction.

He would have known this because he’d passed me my towel. We stood still, with him looking over his shoulder, then turning his head back to me.

“You mean my shirt,” he said.

Ah, he wanted to make a point.

“Yeah. You smell nice, like all the time. I love wearing your shirts.”

“I buy the same laundry detergent as your mom does. Why does my shirt smell any different?”

“It just does,” I replied, bouncing to get him to walk.

“You’re weird.”

“Yeah, and you still love me.”

“That I do, Greta Woods, that I do.”

He let my legs drop until my feet hit the floor, and then he grabbed my hand, tugging me to the tree. I snatched the shirt down, lifted it over my head, and wrapped the towel around my waist.