High School Sweetheart (Sweetheart, Colorado) Read online

  High School Sweethearts

  Sweetheart, Colorado

  Frankie Love

  Contents

  High School Sweethearts

  1. Bailey

  2. Baxter

  3. Bailey

  4. Baxter

  5. Bailey

  6. Baxter

  7. Bailey

  8. Baxter

  9. Bailey

  10. Baxter

  Epilogue 1

  Epilogue 2

  More from Sweetheart!

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  About the Author

  Copyright © 2021 by Frankie Love

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  High School Sweethearts

  A Sweetheart, Colorado Romance

  By Frankie Love

  Prom Queen and King.

  The cheerleader and football captain.

  Voted Most Likely to Marry.

  We were in love, and at graduation I was naive enough to believe it would last forever.

  But then my boyfriend, Baxter Ryder, was gone.

  Rumors circulated: His parents were in the mafia, he was actually an AI prototype for the CIA, his family was in witness protection.

  I didn’t know what was fact or fiction, but I did know this: the guy I gave my heart to was gone and he never even said goodbye.

  Now, ten years later, I’m back in Sweetheart, Colorado, for our class reunion.

  My life hasn’t gone as planned. I’m broke, single, and clearly peaked in high school.

  But rumors are floating again. They say Baxter’s back in town.

  This Valentine’s Day it’s time to confront the man who broke my heart.

  Let’s hope he actually shows.

  Dear Reader,

  Baxter has a good reason for skipping town — it was to protect the girl he loved.

  Now he’s back in Sweetheart and ready to prove to Bailey that he meant every I love you, every I’m Yours, every Forever.

  This one’s full of sugary-sweet V-day heat… a love story over ten years in the making!

  xo, frankie

  1

  Bailey

  As I stand here in front of the mirror, I try to remember the last time that I felt so insanely nervous.

  "You okay?" Liv asks, brushing past me with a make-up bag in her hand. I nod.

  "Yeah, I’m fine," I promise her. I want to believe it. But in truth? I have no idea what this reunion is going to bring.

  It’s been nearly ten years since I left Sweetheart, and there was a good reason for getting out when I did. In high school, I had been sure that I would end up staying here, with the man that I loved; maybe we would do a little traveling of the world first, maybe we would explore and get out and have fun, but we would come back here, to where it all began, and start our lives properly once and for all.

  But that had been before the man I adored with all of my heart vanished off the face of the earth. Leaving me with no choice but to rework all of the plans I had put together for myself.

  I couldn’t stay in Sweetheart, I knew that much; the memories of the two of us were too fresh in my mind, too sharp and cloying in my head. I might love this small town, the way the neighbors nod at me as I pass by their yards as though I never left, but that doesn’t mean that I am planning to walk into my little white-picket-fence house and pretend like my heart didn’t shatter the last time I lived here.

  Instead of staying, I’d gotten out, moved to Denver and studied art, and now I work at a small art gallery in the city. And it’s a good life, a great one, even. But when I got the letter inviting me back to Sweetheart for our high school reunion, the memories from the past began to surface.

  Liv had called me as soon as she heard it was happening, told me that I was going to come down and stay with her and Trevor and the kids, and I knew that there was no way I was going to get out of this. Maybe I didn’t want to, either. Maybe I’ve been looking for an excuse to come back here. To finally put to rest the things that have been plaguing me all this time.

  "You sure?" Liv asks, furrowing her brow at me. She knows me better than anyone else in this small town, especially since I lost my parents; she’s the one who was there for me after the accident, helping me plan everything and keeping my head on straight even when I felt like I was losing my mind.

  She’s always been a mama bear, ever since we were in high school together; she married Trevor when the two of them were barely twenty and had Jamie and Jayla soon afterwards, marking out her territory as the town momma of Sweetheart at once. I miss her, I really do, and getting to spend some time with her and the kids is a gift.

  And it’s the reason, I keep telling myself, that I have come here in the first place. Even though I know that there is something else nagging at the back of my mind. A question that needs to be answered.

  "You’re not worried about he-who-shall-not-be-named, are you?" she wonders aloud as she good-naturedly nudges me out of the way of the mirror and slicks on some lipstick. I shake my head at once.

  "No, no," I lie quickly. She cocks an eyebrow at me. She knows me too well to believe that.

  "I heard that someone saw him at the airport this weekend," she remarks casually. I stiffen.

  "Saw who?" I reply, trying to play it cool. She tips her head to the side pointedly.

  "Baxter, of course," she replies. Hearing his name come out of her mouth, it’s enough to make the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I try not to think about him if I can avoid it, but it looks as though I’m not going to get much of a choice here.

  Baxter.

  Baxter Ryder.

  The two of us had met our senior year of high school, and I had known from the second that I laid eyes on him that he was the man for me. I know that a lot of people saw us as a cliché – head cheerleader and the quarterback, prom king and queen, the perfect couple. But I was perfectly happy living out every inch of that cliché for as long as I could make it last.

  And I thought that he felt the same way.

  When he told me that he loved me, I had believed it. I had believed him.

  But looking back – looking back, there must have been cracks in the surface of our love that I had just failed to see.

  Because nothing else explains the way he just dropped off the face of the earth right before graduation. One second we were in love, and the next, he didn’t exist anymore. My whole heart was ripped in two, and I could hardly stand to be in Sweetheart without him. Even the name of the town sounded like a mockery to me.

  It took me years to accept that it had happened. And even then, I still wanted to know what the hell I had done to earn that sort of treatment. He had held my hands on prom night and told me that he loved me. And then, he was gone.

  But where? And why?

  In the years since then, I have pondered that question a lot. Sure that there must be an answer to it that I just couldn’t quite make out. And yeah, maybe, if I’m being honest with myself, that got in the way of opening myself up to other men. Because the thought of allowing other men into my life when they might also hurt me like that – no, not a chance in hell.

  I don’t want to fall in love again. Not until I understand what happened to send Baxter running from me like his ass was on fire.

  And now, the ru
mors are telling me that he’s back in town. And I have to find out just how much truth there is to them. I don’t care what it takes, if I get my hands on him, I’m going to discover what he was hiding from me back then. I am going to find out what drove him away from me all those years ago.

  I fluff up my hair, freshly dyed at Liv’s salon with blonde highlights, and give myself a serious look in the mirror.

  It’s time to do this. Once and for all.

  One way or another, I’m going to find the truth.

  And I’m not leaving Sweetheart until I do.

  2

  Baxter

  My car crosses the threshold into the Sweetheart city limits, and I wonder what the fuck I am doing here.

  It’s been so long since I was last here that it takes me a second to remember the way to Jordan’s place. He doesn’t know I’m coming, but I need somewhere to crash, and this seems like the best way to go about it. Just for a night or two. Until this reunion is over. And until I can make amends to Bailey for what I did to her all those years ago.

  Shit, that is if she will even want to talk to me again. If she laughs in my face and tells me to go fuck myself, I won’t blame her. I ghosted her, after all.

  But she needs to know that I didn’t choose to leave her behind.

  I did it to protect her.

  And now that I am finally in control of my life, I don’t have to worry about that any longer.

  This reunion is hardly the shit I would have bothered with if it hadn’t been for her. As much as I cared about many people in Sweetheart, I had to turn my back on all of it, and I’ve managed to, almost completely – except when it comes to her. And all the memories of her that are still embedded into the hard drive of my head.

  I pull the car to a halt outside Jordan’s place, gather myself. He’s not expecting me. He’s probably going to be mad that I just turned up out of the blue, but honestly, I can’t worry about that right now. I need people to know that I’m back. And I need to make sure that the news gets to Bailey somehow.

  She’s probably in town now. The thought of her being so close to me is enough to make my hands sweat. I spotted her comment on the Facebook post about the Sweetheart High School reunion a few months ago, and as soon as I saw her name in text, I felt a jolt of energy run through me. I had to see her. I have to see her.

  I climb out of the car and head up the little path that leads to Jordan’s door. I hesitate for a moment before I knock, wondering if there is still time to find a hotel in this place, but I know that I’ll have to drive to the other side of the county to find one.

  And besides, a moment later, the decision is taken from me. The door springs open in front of me, and, right there before me, Jordan Francis stands with his jaw hanging open and his eyes bugging out of his head.

  "Baxter?" he demands. "Baxter Ryder?”

  "That’s me," I reply, and he shakes his head, looks me up and down as though he can’t believe that I’m really here.

  "After you called the other day asking for a place to crash, I thought for sure you’d back out, but here you are, in the flesh..." He trails off, clearly in too much shock to put everything he wants to tell me into words. "Come on, come in. We need to talk."

  I follow him into his home; it smells of chicken pot pie and lemon cleaner, and I peer into the living room to see a stunned-looking woman with a baby bump the size of a watermelon staring at me. Jordan tugs me towards the kitchen, away from her. Damn, he’s all grown up. I didn’t realize he had a kid on the way.

  I can’t help but feel a stab of jealousy that he has all of this. The two of us went to high school together. He had been on the football team with me, and we had been fast friends.

  But, once my past caught up with me, I had no choice but to accept that he could have this kind of life, and I couldn’t. He could have the wife, the kids, the little house of his own. I had to get out. Or bring chaos into the lives of everyone I cared about.

  "On the phone you were pretty vague about why you skippped town all those years ago." He pushes the door shut behind me. "Why didn’t you call–"

  "I didn’t know what to say," I admit. He stares at me.

  "So this is the best you could come up with?"

  "Pretty much," I reply. He doesn’t say a word for a moment, turning to put on a pot of coffee

  "You know what they said about you, right?" he asks me. "When you left?"

  "I have no idea," I reply. After I was gone, I tried not to look back, kept my eyes fixed forward. But sometimes, the memories hit me like a ton of bricks, and I knew that I couldn’t escape them so easily.

  "They thought you were an FBI agent," he explains. "Or a government experiment gone wrong. Everyone’s been wondering for years what happened to you.”

  "I know I have some explaining to do," I reply, and I check my watch. "But the reunion starts soon, right?”

  He stares at me, and then, to my surprise, he laughs. "Shit, dude, you never did make a lot of sense to me," he remarks. "Starts in forty minutes or so. You really ready for that??”

  "I am,” I reply, and I mean it. I didn’t come all this way just to drop out now. She’s here. I can feel it. Taste her in the air. I’m not getting out of here until I’ve had a chance to look her in the eye and tell her how sorry I am.

  Jordan sighs, shakes his head.

  "All right, you better get cleaned up. You’ll need to look good if you want to try and win Bailey back," he tells me. "But you’re not leaving town until you tell me everything that happened while you were gone, you hear me?”

  "Sure," I lie at once. Anything to get me down to that reunion. Because tonight is the night that I am going to see Bailey again. And, after ten years’ wait, I am so damn ready.

  3

  Bailey

  As soon as I step onto campus once more, memories of my high school years come flooding back into my head.

  "Hard to believe we’ve been out of here for a whole decade, huh?” Liv remarks, nudging me as she links her arm through mine.

  I nod. "Yeah, hard to believe," I echo. The annual Sweetheart Dance for students was held here earlier this evening, and now it’s time for the Sweetheart Reunion.

  I look around and try to remind myself that yes, I really am here, and yes, this really is happening.

  Over there, by the fountain in front of the main entrance – that's where I met Baxter for the first time. Is it strange that I can remember it so vividly all these years later? Some people would probably think that it is.

  The first time that I laid eyes on him, it was like a switch had flipped in my head. I knew everyone in Sweetheart back then, and yet, somehow, I had never met him before. Being the curious little thing that I was, I strode straight up to him, cocked my head to the side, and spoke.

  "Who are you?”

  He glanced over at me. He was leaning on the edge of the fountain, looking around, taking everyone in. He was tall, a good six feet, with bright blue eyes and messy dark hair that looked a little overgrown. He grinned at me.

  "Who’s asking?”

  "I am," I replied. "So? Who are you?”

  "I’m Baxter," he told me. "I’m new here."

  "I’m Bailey," I replied, sticking my hand out to greet him. "I’m not."

  He laughed, eyed me for a moment. Even back then, I could feel something bubbling between us. I didn’t have the words for it yet, but I soon would.

  The week that he got onto the football team, he asked me to come out with him after his first game. I agreed at once. I went to the stadium and cheered him on until my voice was hoarse, and he drove me in his beat-up old car out of town to a small diner where we shared milkshakes and fries like we were in the movies.

  He had moved here to live with his aunt and uncle, he told me – didn't explain what had driven him here in the first place, but frankly, I was crushing way too hard to think about that. He held my hand under the table, and, when he led me back out to his car, he kissed me for the first time.

&nb
sp; That kiss had imprinted itself on my memory like a brand, the pressure of his lips on mine, of his hands on my waist, pulling me close, making sure that I knew how much he wanted me. I had to catch my breath when he pulled back, and he leaned his forehead against mine for a moment, closed his eyes, as though he was sealing this moment in his memory for good. I knew how he felt. It was everything that I needed it to be. And way more than that, too.

  From there, we’d hold hands in school and hang out together every chance that we got. And I fell in love with him. So hard and so fast that I couldn’t control it. I loved him like crazy and he made me feel so loved in return.

  And then, he had vanished.

  And, right in this instant, I’m standing here, looking at the spot where we met for the first time, and feeling as though everything is about to come apart at the seams.

  "Come on, let’s go inside, I want to get a drink," Liv tells me, and I snap back to reality as she tugs me towards the main hall. It is bright with lights, loud with chatter, and there is cute, tacky Valentine’s Day décor hanging up everywhere I look.

  Inside, it doesn’t take long for people to start closing in on me to ask me what I am doing back here in the first place. It’s so strange, being around these people who I’ve known for my entire life, but haven’t seen in years. Liv does most of the talking, and I do most of the drinking.

  People are friendly and curious and I do my very best to deflect the most intrusive of their questions. I know that people think that I should have some inside information on what happened to Baxter, but I have nothing, and when people push me for more, I find myself getting uncomfortable.