Return to Me by Riley Sinclair

smartass, that you could go to the boys’ school across town. It’s Catholic, but…”
         “I’ll think about it.”
         “That’s a no, right?”
         “More or less. Sorry.”
         “Well I’m not planning on going to a Catholic college…” She smiled, reaching around him to pour herself a fresh mug of coffee.
         “Then count me in , babe. So-we go back and tough it out for the rest of the year?”
         “That’s the plan.” She winced when the burning hot liquid scorched her tongue and blazed a trail down her throat.
         “Then it’s settled. We leave tomorrow. But tonight, tonight is ours. What’s something you’ve always wanted to do?” His blue eyes sparkled as he held her gaze.
         “You mean in the middle of the night, in the freezing cold, in the middle of Alaska?”
         “Yeah.” He grinned, his reckless by nature charm infectious.
         “Gee, that’s a hard one. We played in the snow the first night we came here. We even made snow angels. I just don’t know what could possibly be left to do.”
         “We could moon bathe.”
         “We’ll get pneumonia.”
         “Then what about skinny-sledding?”
         “Eeew.” She grimaced. “And ouch. Bad idea Erik.”
         “Midnight laser tag in the snow?”
         “Hmmm. Well it sounds better than skinny sledding.” Paige grinned, running for the bedroom they shared and the small pen light tipped laser pointers Erik had kept in his knapsack since the seventh grade. She unzipped the bag, reached into the inside pocket and pulled out the pens, tossing one to him on her way out the door.
         “Race you!”
     
     

Chapter Five
     
    Four years later…
         Autumn in Montana is a sight to behold. Rich foliage weaves a magical spell of green, gold, orange, and red so deep it looks like rubies have been sprinkled along the lush tree line. This show of color and beauty was probably the singular most thing that Paige had missed about her home state.
         Sometimes the longing had become an unbelievably acute ache deep in her chest, during the years she’d spent at the university. She could still vividly recall the hours she'd spent listening to the discordant sounds of traffic and people and life that seemed to go on in a continuous loop far below her fourth floor window; the culture shock had made her wistful at times for the solitude of the wild country home she’d left behind.
         But the one thing she had never been was lonely. Erik had seen to that. When she had transferred to Chicago for her last year of school, Erik had followed, and later, when he had decided New York was the perfect place for his advertising agency, she had conveniently snagged a job in the Big Apple, this time following him half way across the country.
         By the time Paige received the call about her stepfather’s untimely, or slow in coming-depending how you looked at it-death, the pattern of lead and follow between the two had become so firmly ingrained that it seemed perfectly natural for her oldest and dearest friend to pack a bag and book the adjoining seat on the redeye flight she caught a mere sixteen hours later. She hadn’t wanted to go, initially. Denmari had done little more than wreck her and her mother’s lives and the money could go to the state of Montana for all she cared. It had been Erik, in a rare bout of sensibility, who had calmly reminded her that Denmari's estate was her family heritage, passed down from her grandmother to her mother and now, finally, to Paige herself.
         "Think of your mother. Do this for her. Do it for yourself."
         And loathe as she was to return to the city of Helena and that turbulent chapter of her life, no matter her love of the land and the quiet, there was no denying that what Erik said made good sense. And after a much needed reflection, Paige realized that had her inheritance been only