Page 13 of Hunter

“It’s going to be okay, Iz,” says McKenna.

Sure. Sure it is.

My cousin and I don’t get along, and now I’ve discovered the new wrinkle of Hunter Stewart’s dubious and vengeful presence on the production crew. Great. Just great.

“If you say so,” I say.

“I do!” she gushes. “And since your fourth stop is Skagway, I get to see you in…ten days!”

Now, that’s true enough and the best news I’ve had since I picked up the phone.

“I can’t wait to see you, Ken,” I tell her.

“Have you figured out your plan for the rest of the summer?” she asks. “Want me to find you a job in Skagway for July and August? You mentioned that, right?”

My original plan was to find a seasonal job somewhere in Alaska, and of course I’d like to be close to McKenna for a couple of weeks, but hearing that Hunter’s sought out a job on the show has thrown me for a loop. Why is he working on the show? If he wanted a business opportunity in TV production, why wouldn’t he choose a different show? Did he choose mine just to mess with me?

Before I decide to spend an additional two months in close proximity to him after the race, I need to figure out what’s going on with him...because McKenna’s wedding left me ice cold where Hunter is concerned.

“Let’s see what happens over the next few weeks, okay?”

She sighs. “Okay.”

“Hey, Ken,” I say. “I love you lots, girl. You know that?”

“I know,” she says. “I love you lots, too.”

We hang up, and I jump in the shower, relieved to find the pressure’s great, and the water’s piping hot. But I can’t relax now. I can’t stop thinking about Hunter and wondering what he’s got planned.

For the record, I didn’t go to Skagway last summer to get involved with him or to break his heart. Tanner contacted me to say that McKenna was feeling down and asked if I’d come north to cheer her up. Of course I said yes. I never expected my best friend’s fake fiancé’s brother to be the hottest, sweetest guy I’d ever met. Our attraction was instantaneous, and he was just as funny as he was cute.

It was one of those singular times when your chemistry with someone is off the charts, when you can’t stop thinking about them for two minutes no matter what you’re doing, when you start imagining dangerous scenarios that involve white picket fences and babies. It’s like a trance or a drug. And it isn’t love—I’m smart enough to know that—butoh my god, itfeelslike itcould bewhen you’re in the thick of it.

You find yourself wanting to make promises you can’t possibly keep, and agreeing to stay in touch when they live in Alaska, and you live 1,600 miles away.

It was a testament to the force of my attraction to Hunter that I said we could keep in touch when I left Skagway. And for a few weeks, it wasamazing…

...until it wasn’t.

Until I realized that I had withdrawn from my life at home in order to make room for him. I’d stopped going to choir rehearsal on Wednesdays, choosing to talk to him on the phone for hours instead. I’d said no to after-work drinks so many times that my friends had stopped inviting me. I even canceled a private lesson with one of my ESL students because I had a call scheduled with him.

When she called me in tears to share that she’d failed her English language exam, I was furious with myself...and I realized how much I’d changed in such a short amount of time. My body was in Seattle, yes. But my attention was focused on Skagway. Somewhere along the way, I’d started falling for Hunter Stewart, a circumstance that was actively threatening my full and happy life in Seattle. Panic set in, and I’d quickly come to my senses: I needed to break things off quick and clean with Hunter, and refocus my attention on my life in Seattle.

Unable to bear a phone conversation with him, I’d cried my eyes out before sending a text message telling him that things were over. He’d tried to convince me to give us another chance—he had no idea how desperately I wished I could—but I was resolute. As I’d shared with him at the Skagway airport, long-distance relationships didn’t work. It had to end. And it did.

Just as it had before.

My mind slides backward, like my finger lingered on the rewind button for a few seconds too long. And suddenly I am sixteen years old, spending my summer in Guadalajara. I am falling head over heels in love for the first time in my young life. I picture Santos’s handsome face—his light-brown skin, amber eyes, and jet-black hair. Santos had swept me away that summer, making me dream of the impossible. I gave him my virginity, and he gave me his. We made plans. We made promises. And when I got home to Seattle, I’d been relentless with my mother, begging her to let me return to him.

“Por favor, Mama,” I’d begged my mother through a rage of tears. “Please let me move to Mexico! I can live with Tia Dominga.”

“No, mi hija. No es possible. Necesitas—”

“The only thingI needis Santos! I love him! Ican’tlive without him!Please, Mama.Please understand!”

“Te comprendo, mi hija,” she’d said, her eyes heavy with sympathy as she sat on the edge of my bed. “I know you think you love him—”

“Idolove him!” I’d cried, picturing him waiting for me in the wrought iron gazebo in the center of the Plaza de Armas, arms outstretched, a gorgeous smile on his beautiful face. “I love him more than you! More than Papa! More than anything else in my life!”

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