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

Pierces. Frowning, she turned, not willing to let herself be poisoned by Mr. Pierce’s hatred. She’d go home and wait for Tucker to call…
    “Tucker’s gone.”
    Mr. Pierce’s words stopped her forward motions. Stopped her pulse as her chest clenched. She glared over her shoulder.
    “Left us both. Off to college and out of this town. Better you know that truth now. He got what he wanted and what he wanted from you was never about love.”
    Bailey froze at the man’s implication she’d had sex with Tucker when she hadn’t. Heat rolled over her face in angry waves, but her denial was swift. Mr. Pierce’s claim was a lie. But Tucker… Tucker hadn’t talked to her in three days. He hadn’t met her at the Rock . His truck was gone. His clothes… Had he abandoned her, just like her mother had, leaving her with an uncle the same day she’d first met Tucker?
    Heart pounding, she staggered backward and almost fell off the single slick step.
    “Tucker’s not coming back anytime soon. He’s moved on. Best you do the same and forget about him.” The door slammed shut.
    Somehow, she managed to make her way home. For days, she waited. Weeks. Until finally, she wished she’d never met Tucker Pierce. Wished she’d drowned that day in the river. Wished she’d never given her heart to a boy who’d never planned on keeping his promise.

Chapter One
     
    A gunshot thundered through Miwok Canyon and Bailey Yant's breath fled her lungs like startled sparrows from a threat. A threat, like her decade-old memory of Tucker Pierce, she couldn’t escape. The blast came from the direction of his family’s property, jarring loose his promise to make her dreams come true. Instead, he’d left her shattered.
    She clutched the wire roll and pliers to her chest. She’d been using the tools to repair a slice in the chain link that surrounded Safe Haven Tiger Preserve. She narrowed her eyes at the Pierce’s side of the Cosumnes River. Unfortunately, the hunting reserve abutted her sanctuary. And as the blast faded, unlike their opposing agendas, she walked the fence line—bending, crouching, swimming through brush in search of openings through which one of her tigers could escape. As of late, someone—she suspected Old Man Pierce, Tucker’s father—had targeted her refuge by slicing random holes in her fence. Although, the only proof she had was booted footprints stamped in the muddied earth.
    Two month ago, after she’d filed a restraining order against Pierce Sr. for nearly running her off Crooked Bridge road, he’d warned her in arbitration: “A cat on my property is a dead cat. And I’ve set the bounty high.”
    Only no tiger had ever breached her containment.
    Soon after was when the trouble with Old Man Pierce began all over again. He upped his vigilance to claim her lands by threatening to shut down her tiger preserve. Copper Mountain, the one her prized tiger was named after, literally loomed over her daily—a harmless reminder of land she’d never have.
    Still, Pierce land teased her tigers, teased her mind to fondle the reason for Tucker’s disappearance ten years passing had yet to reveal, teased her heart to crack open and replace icy numbness with smoldering embers just like he had tempted her with promises of forbidden love.
    With determined steps, she worked her way along the river and, eventually, found her feet planted on Kissing Rock adjacent to the secluded riverfront. The slab promised to transform lovers’ dreams into reality, but she didn’t believe in fairytale wishes once held by childish whims. Similar to the creek at her feet that lapped deep groves in the peppered-colored rock and eroded petroglyphs depicting long-ago lovers, time had eaten away her dreams of again finding love. Of family.
    Downturned lips joined her lowered head and a few blond tendrils landed on her shoulders. Shoulders she instantly jerked upright. She tightened her tummy to stiffen her spine.
    More than a year had lapsed