Page 1 of Only Ever You
Chapter One
LUNA TALTON
A gust of salty air blew my hair wild. I lifted a hand to catch it and smooth it back. I looked out over the water, marveling at the view. The mountains towered in the distance and the sun struck sparks off the ocean’s surface. Even though I’d grown up in Alaska, it never failed to wow me. Whenever people told me they didn’t believe in any kind of spirituality, I would tell them they just needed to go to Alaska. Because it was truly a spiritual experience. Nature here snatched your breath right out of your lungs and reminded you that the whole world was a cathedral.
“Luna!” My friend Casey’s voice reached me and I spun around.
She was lugging a cooler all by herself and stumbled a little on the rock-strewn shoreline. I hurried over and reached for the other handle. “What’s in here?” I asked.
“Food,” she teased. “We have empty coolers too. Everyone tells me we have fish to catch. Have you ever done this?” she asked me as her gaze whisked over to several fishing nets propped up against another cooler nearby on the beach.
“Of course! Dipnetting is an Alaskan tradition. If you grow up here, you have to do it. I can’t even imagine not doing it.”
After we set the cooler down, I opened it to peer inside. “Oh wow, you didn’t mess around.” When I glanced up at Casey, she grinned. “Well, you said we might be here all day.”
Someone called her name. She looked over her shoulder, a smile stretching across her face. Her cheeks went pink when I chimed in, “You are so in love.”
She shrugged. “I am. And, it’s really the best thing ever.”
I impulsively hugged her. “Everyone deserves love like what you and Leo have,” I said just before her fiancé reached us.
“Hey, Luna,” Leo said, stopping beside us. “Ready to net some salmon?”
“Absolutely!”
Leo chuckled, holding two fishing nets aloft. “I have two options for nets. There’s my favorite, which is the cedar handle. I also brought a stainless steel one.”
Casey studied the nets before her gaze bounced to me. “People arereallyinto the nets for this. I can’t dipnet yet. I haven’t been here a full year yet.”
“You can watch. It’s fun,” I replied.
I glanced around the area. Seagulls were calling raucously in the air, and I could hear the distant screech of an eagle. We were at the Kenai River in Alaska, a favorite destination for dipnetting. The activity was aptly named. You gathered on the shoreline at the edge of the water with handheld fishing nets to catch the salmon swimming upriver. Some people chose to dipnet with nets dangling over the edge of boats, but I’d always preferred to be on the shoreline. We were near the mouth of the river, where the fish came rushing in from the ocean in a race to spawn before they died. If they didn’t get scooped up in a net, they would spawn and die.
The beach was getting crowded. There were regulations for the size of the nets and just about everyone had an opinion on the best nets.
I started to suit up in my neoprene fishing waders. Casey looked around, commenting, “This is crazy!”
“What do you mean?” I asked as I stepped into my wading boots.
“You and Leo told me about it, and Maisie was telling me—” Casey turned away as Maisie called out a greeting. We waved back and Casey continued, “I guess I didn’t realize there would be this many people. Parking is practically a competitive sport.”
I grinned. “It’s awesome. Fun though it is, it’s serious. People rely on the salmon they catch here to feed their families. One person can get up to twenty-five salmon with an additional ten salmon for each family member. That’s a lot of food. Not to mention how fresh Alaskan silver salmon is.” I tapped my fingers together in the motion for a chef’s kiss.
Maisie reached us with Amelia, Lucy, Tish, Griffin, and more trailing behind her. Recently, I’d started to feel like the odd one out. Many of my friends were happily married or coupled up, and I was still very single. I couldn’t even imagine being anything but single.
“Hey, Parker,” Griffin called.
My eyes instantly swung in his direction, while I ordered my hormones to ignore Parker Reeves. I also studiously ignored the inconvenient embarrassment that he didn’t recognize me.It was ten years ago. Forget about it.
“Hey, hey,” Parker said with a lopsided grin when he stopped by our group.
“Is this your first year dipnetting?” Casey asked him.
Parker shook his head. “No, ma’am,” he teased. “I might have only moved to Willow Brook in the last year, but I am a born and bred Alaskan.”
“Well, I’m gonna watch and learn. Show me your net,” Casey said.
Beck stopped beside Maisie. “That sounds a little inappropriate, Casey,” he teased with an exaggerated brow waggle.
