Free A Promise Worth Remembering (Promises Collection) by Cyndi Faria

Prologue
     
    Three months ago, Bailey Yant hadn’t understood the treacherous power of the Cosumnes River. How she could admire the water’s glassy surface one moment and then be trapped within the blackened undercurrents the next until a boy pulled her from the river’s watery embrace, teasingly urging her to join the high school’s junior varsity swim team.
    Three weeks ago, she hadn’t imagined she would fall in love with that boy—a Pierce , a college freshman, the neighbor her Uncle Mark forbade her to see.
    Three nights ago, she hadn’t dared dream Tucker would meet her at Kissing Rock, the boulder within the part of the river that straddled their lands, and present her with a necklace carrying a white, quarter-sized stone pendant to signify his promise to love her forever and to fulfill her dream of raising a family in Safe Haven someday.
    According to Miwok legend, Kissing Rock guaranteed the wishes shared between lovers would come true. So she’d believed Tucker. She’d believed the family feud between the Yants and the Pierces would never, ever, ever tear them apart.
    Tonight, after she’d received news she’d made the swim team, they’d planned a meeting to celebrate. At least, they were supposed to have met. Three hours ago. Tucker hadn’t shown. Now, with her heart racing like the rushing river, Bailey crossed the cobbled rapids onto Pierce land, thinking only of calming her fears and holding Tucker close.
    The ten-foot-tall door stood like a sentinel guarding the Pierce estate. An owl hoo-hooed in the tree tops that cloaked the porch’s shingled awning. Leaves reflected the bright orange globe that hung overhead. Branches snapped, bushes shook their fronds, something small scurried about the corner of the porch—all loud enough to rake nails down her chalkboard nerves.
    Her first knock barely rattled the front door. Because of the feud, her uncle had forbidden her from associating with the Pierces. She’d never met Tucker’s father in person…
    Whether caused by the trek through the water or nerves, she wiped her slick palms across her dry shirt but couldn’t rid the tackiness. She glanced behind her to the naked driveway. Tucker usually parked his truck there, the oil stain as glassy as she imagined her moist eyes. Had he parked his car inside the garage?
    Again, she knocked. Harder this time, until the pain in her knuckles breached the pain in her chest. She’d already peeked inside Tucker’s bedroom window and saw his backpack was missing, too. So was his letterman jacket. The one they’d used as a pillow for their heads when they’d laid on the Rock .
    She knocked a third time, the force sending the little rodent into hiding.
    From inside the house, light footsteps echoed when she expected a heavy crack, crack, crack on the hardwood floors.
    A dark haired man with stark blue eyes opened the door and held her stare. Tucker’s image thirty years in the future stared back.
    “Mr. Pierce, I’m—”
    “I know who you are. And I know what you think you are to my boy.”
    His terse words made her want to scamper away with that little mouse. Tucker must have told his father about their relationship—but why? She swallowed the fear and focused on her joy. Tucker had revealed their friendship! He wouldn’t have, unless he’d been ready to shout his love for her to the world. Had she given him the same courage? “Is Tucker here?”
    Mr. Pierce sneered. “No.”
    “Ah—I haven’t heard from him in a couple of days and I was wondering if—”
    “I can see you’re worried.” He eased the door half way closed. “Don’t be. He doesn’t need your type in his life. Not anymore.”
    Her type? She reeled back and gaped. Tucker had promised not to let the family feud come between them, but his father obviously wasn’t ready to let go of his undeserved rancor. Since the California Gold Rush, Copper Mountain and the division of land ownership had jabbed a thorn between the Yants and the