Synopsis
One memory.
One special summer.
The one thing Bliss had lost herself in when the fear and sickness were too much, moments never to be damaged by the harsh reality that followed… until now.
Bliss York didn’t live a normal teenage life. She didn’t go to Friday night football games, walk the halls with her friends every day, go to her prom or even walk to receive her diploma. It had all been taken from her the fall that she was fifteen years old and she was given the diagnosis no one ever wants to hear.
She had leukaemia.
Seven years after spending a summer with a girl who he knew would always be his first love and the one who got away, Nate Finlay returns to Sea Breeze to help his fiancé open her new boutique clothing store. When the new employee walks in Nate is taken back seven years to the girl he thought he’d love forever. The one who never answered his calls or returned his text. The one who shut him out completely with not even a goodbye and broke his heart.
They’ve each become someone different. No longer the young teens with stars in their eyes. But does that matter when your heart still says that’s the one.
Excerpts
Just as I was about to finish chapter two a shadow fell over me. I figured it was Larissa. Looking up I grinned, about to ask if she had herself a hot date. My eyes locked on a familiar face. One that was older, a face I remembered, from two long summers ago. A face a girl would never ever forget. His silver eyes were stunningly breathtaking.
He was sixteen now but his muscular bare chest looked at least eighteen. I really hoped Larissa didn’t see him. Her tiny bikini and D cup boobs would draw his attention real fast.
“Bliss,” he said, remembering my name.
“Nate,” I replied as I sat up. I’d day dreamed about him often since that meeting on the beach when I was thirteen years old.
He smirked like he was impressed. Like he expected me to remember him but wasn’t positive I would.
“I was beginning to wonder if you still lived around here.” He spoke then moved to take a seat beside me. He made it look sexy and cool, just like I remembered from that summer. He wasn’t awkward, didn’t weirdly squat, like most people do in the sand.
“You’ve looked for me?” I asked. My heart doing a happy flutter in my chest. He had actually wanted to find me.
“Of course I did. You’re my favorite memory about this place. Sure as hell ain’t my grandpop’s bar.”
He cursed. Eli never cursed. My brother’s did when my parents weren’t listening, but they didn’t do it in public. When they were out having to work on the farm they would curse for the sake of cursing. The way Nate did it seemed much older. Like he was sure of himself.
The door to Octavia’s swung open and out stepped a tower of boxes. I stopped, because the tower was tipping towards me, and just before it crashed I spoke.
“Careful,” I said, before reaching to steady the body behind the cardboard. “Can you see where you’re going?”
A heard a squeal and then they came down. I moved to help when my eyes locked with a pair I knew all too well. I’d only seen eyes like that once before and they were blue and deep and cool. The long thick dark hair tumbling down past her shoulders was also familiar to me. She was older and her body now curved in all the right places. She had definitely developed since the teenage years. No longer fifteen she’d become a woman.
Bliss York had been my first love. Or so I’d thought back then. Come to find out she’d been my first lust, because I had no idea how to love. Her face could stop traffic and that was without any makeup. She was as natural as I remembered. Nothing fake about her. Her smile had once made everything perfect in my world.
“Oh, I’m sorry. . .” she said, trailing off as her eyes scanned my face. I saw the realization there. She remembered me. Knew who I was. The boy who had given her that first kiss. Told her he would love her forever. Then I left after a summer of what I thought was the beginning of forever. I’d been a bit of a dreamer back then. It was before I realized that women weren’t as soft and pretty on the inside as they were on the outside. My mother was perfect, inside and out, but my little sister Ophelia had a definite evil streak.
“You work here?” I asked before she could say my name. I didn’t want to remember that summer. I had remembered it for far too long. Once I finally got it through my head that Bliss York wasn’t the perfect girl, I’d let myself forget her entirely.
She opened her mouth to speak, then slowly nodded her head.
I knew that Octavia had hired someone to help her get things ready. I just hadn’t been told her name. Not that it mattered. That was seven summer’s back and a part of my past that would stay there.
I picked up a fallen box. “I’m Octavia’s fiancé Nate.” That should answer her questions and also lead her to believe I didn’t remember. “I’ll get these boxes to the recycle bin.”
I didn’t wait for her to give me her name. I went to work picking up the rest of the fallen boxes. She didn’t move for what felt like several minutes, but was actually just a few fleeting seconds. I was tense. Not sure why. If she told me who she was and asked if I remembered, I could still act as if I’d forgotten. Seven fucking years had passed. We’d been kids then. We weren’t now. I was a different person and I was sure she was too.
“Okay, um. . .thank you,” she said. I wanted to look up and watch her go. To take in the woman she’d become. To see just how much her body had changed. The glimpse I’d allowed myself at first had been impressive and I wanted another. She had been a beauty back then. Now she was gorgeous and I had to fucking work with this beauty for the next two weeks.
Shit.
This would only happen to me.
Theories....
My biggest theory is that Nate either isn't really engaged and its just a publicity thing for the opening of Octavia's shop or he is being forced into it, but i cannot think of anyone doing that so i am going with the first one and my biggest reasoning is a quote from one of the excerpts above and that is...
" It was before I realised that women weren’t as soft and pretty on the inside as they were on the outside. My mother was perfect, inside and out, but my little sister Ophelia had a definite evil streak."
If he was so in love, wouldn't Octavia be on that list.....
Secondly i think that we are going to either love or hate Octavia, like she will either be the nicest person on the planet or she will be the Nan of this series.
Bliss is going to end up telling Nate about the illness in an argument or he will find out from a third party.
After Bliss' illness i have a feeling that Cage and the men are going to be even more protective than before and this will lead to a heated confrontation between Nate and Cage
There needs to be a father/son moment in this book between Nate and Rush and we can also add some Dean into that, i am almost a 100% convinced that Dean owns Live Bay, we only really know of one bar in Sea Breeze and what Rocker wouldn't want to own Live Bay where they have live rock acts.
There is going to be more interconnecting with the other children and i cannot wait.
This needs to be a Bliss/Nate HEA because it has promised so much and for people like myself who have been waiting since 2014 for this book and these characters i am more than a little terrified that they wont get a HEA.
This is probably going to be the most emotionally charged book in the entire series because of the topic and the fact that we have literally read them as they were born and then they grew up and it is going to be one hell of an emotional roller coaster and one i am really hoping lives up to the high expectations i have for it.
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What are your theories for this book....
