Hidden River Secrets (Hidden River Academy Book 2) Read online

  “Ready for that ice-cream?” He asked, like I hadn’t soaked his t-shirt through right then. I slid into the passenger seat. The car swung out onto the gravel road, and I watched the trees parting above us, spearing into the inky blue sky.

  “How much gas do we have?” I asked, looking over at the dashboard display.

  “Enough,” he said. “Enough the if you’re about to suggest we fuck off home, we could do that. They’ll be pretty pissed, but you can, I dunno, fake period cramps or something and say you twisted my arm until I drove you home.” He grimaced. “It might work?”

  “I don’t want you to get in trouble for me,” I said. “Wouldn’t that get you in deep shit for your scholarship?”

  Colt sighed, his hands smoothing over the steering wheel as we turned onto the highway, toward freedom and the classy all-night dining experience that was Denny’s.

  “I’d do it, if you asked me to,” he said after a minute. Something ticked inside my heart, a pulse of emotion I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but it was growing, unfurling. It was like a secret that I’d always known. I stared at him.

  “What?” He asked, suddenly defensive.

  “You like me,” I said.

  “Uh, you’re alright. Tolerable, I guess,” he muttered. “You don’t eat your fries with mayo, and that’s a crime, but I let it slide.” I stared at him harder.

  “Holy shit, you have a crush on me.”

  “Now that’s some bullshit,” he said, but his words were weak. I sat back in my seat and stared out the front windshield, swallowing hard.

  “We need to go back,” I said.

  “What?”

  “You’re going to take me home, and get into shit, and maybe get your scholarship revoked, because you’re… you’re trying to rescue me, when really, I just need to be a big girl and face facts. My boyfriends are fucking each other behind my back and are probably in love with each other-” I cleared my throat. “My point is, you’re emotions are clouding your judgement, and we need to go back to the camp site.”

  Colt kept driving, not looking at me once.

  “I’ll take you back if you want,” his voice was soft, “but you gotta promise me something.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Don’t let those assholes treat you like dirt and then go crawling back to them.” The SUV was slowing. He was braking, to pull off on a turn-around. He paused at the top of the overpass, and turned to look at me. “Don’t think for a minute you’re not worth the best treatment, the best guy or guys, because you are.”

  The intensity in his eyes, lit up amber-green from the lights on the dashboard, had my breath sticking in my throat.

  “I’ll be here to catch you when you fall, because I hate myself and enjoy torturing the shit out of myself watching the only girl I’ve ever met and cared about throw herself at two football losers who can’t keep their dicks to themselves,” he said, reaching out with one hand. I let him touch me, our fingers brushing up against one another. It felt like my heart was going to thud right up my throat, and that he could hear the heavy beat of my pulse.

  “I don’t understand you,” I said, “I… you knew I was with them.”

  “You think emotions are fucking rational?” He asked. “You think I didn’t tell myself it was completely stupid to fall for someone who’s like, twice taken, and by guys I actually kinda like on top of it? If they weren’t so busy looking out for themselves and accidentally shitting on you, and also apparently making out with each other, they wouldn’t be half-bad. Not worth one of you, both of them added up together, but they’re not half-bad.”

  “That’s a lot of math that doesn’t make sense,” I mumbled. His hand was warm on mine, his finger tips rough over my palm. I wanted him to touch me more, either more intensely, or not at all, because the light brush of it was over-whelming.

  “Yeah, well, nothing makes sense,” he said. The tic-tic of his turn signal filled the empty silence between us. “So what do you want to do?” He asked me after a minute.

  I looked down at our hands, before reaching up and wrapping my fingers in the neck of his shirt. All along he’d been there, waiting at the edges, not making a move because he’d respected me and my choices too much. Of the three guys, he’d just been good to me, not looking out for himself at all.

  I did the only thing that made sense to me in that moment. I leaned up, knowing that once I did it, there was no going back. I kissed him.

  I was going to regret it later, maybe, probably, but I did it anyway. Because my life seemed to take twists and turns always because of a single kiss, and I hated the direction I was speeding in that moment. Because I needed to feel grounded. Because the way he looked at me like, he knew me better than anyone I’d ever met. We were from the same place, same shit different life, but we’d lived the same way, and no-one would ever understand me like he did.

  And after I ran out of reasons to make the best-worst decision of the last few months of my life, I did it because I needed to feel real again, and the only way I’d begun to feel like I mattered was when someone else’s breathing stuttered because of me, or their fingers faltered on my skin.

  “Mia,” he said, his mouth an inch from mine.

  “Don’t say we shouldn’t.” I was done letting other people decide how they were going to hurt me and ruin my life. “Don’t.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, and sighed.

  “Okay,” he said, “but don’t say I didn’t try to stop you.” He kissed me back, and the painful feeling inside of me stopped short, something beautiful spreading open in it’s wake. I clung to him, and tried to forget about the next day, and what would come from it, and instead just stayed in the moment. That very second was all I had, anyway. I’d never been innocent, but that night had put to death any hope I had for the future. If I was going to make mistakes and burn every bridge behind me, there was no-one better to do it with than Colt Lawson.

  And when I pulled away to catch my breath, he looked at me like there was no one else he wanted to set the world on fire with than me.

  “Here’s to ruining everything,” I whispered, the words rough as they spilled out of me. Colt smiled, wry and sad, and didn’t bother answering me, replying with a kiss instead.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “Fuck camp. Fuck the school. Let me take you some place safe?” He searched my face with his eyes, looking for the right answer from me. I swallowed, my throat tight and then nodded.

  “Okay,” I said, “take me somewhere safe.” He closed his eyes in relief for a second, and looked to the road. The turning single tic-tic’d once more, and our headlights cut across the woods as we turned back onto the road and left the camp, and all my heartbreak, behind us.

  Dying to know what happens next?

  Mia, Buck, Shawn, Colt, and all the rest are waiting for you!

  Pre-Order here:

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  Thank you.

  If you’re reading this, you finally got the right copy of this book, and I can’t thank you enough for being patient and kind.

  It has been an absolute shit-show with this book, figuring out what went wrong, how it went wrong, and fixing that. I’ve been quiet and didn’t do the best job of talking about it, and I’m sorry for that. Really sorry. You deserved more updates, me telling you what was going on behind the scenes. This hit me pretty hard, as this book is one of the favorite things I’ve ever written (and I’ve had that ending scene in my head for… at least two years now), and sharing it with you was the only thing I’ve wanted to do.

  Hopefully it was worth the wait and you loved it. If you did, please leave me a review on Amazon, and join me over on Facebook: http://pxlme.me/rvGrrf8X

  I’m trying to do something really special for all my readers to make-up for this debacle, so if you come hang with me, I’ll be posting up something cool really soon as a thank you and an I’m sorry for how borked this release was.

  - Kit

/>   (KT Strange)

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  About the Author

  KT Strange is an internationally best-selling and Top 100 Amazon author from the Great White North. After spending a decade in the music scene babysitting drunk rock-stars, she’s finally ready to settle down and write books inspired by her life on the road with bands and her love of everything paranormal.

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