That Reilly Boy

Cara

My family (the Gambles) and the Reillys are on generation four of a low-key family feud. We’re like the Hatfields and McCoys or the Capulets and Montagues, but without the body count (that I know of). It’s not easy to ignore each other in a small town, but our families have managed it for decades.

Hayden Reilly and I are no Romeo and Juliet, though. Sure, we secretly dated in high school, but we haven’t seen each other in years. Now he’s back in town and he’s hellbent on buying the house I live in with my mother, as if she’d sell the house our ancestors built to a Reilly.

But we have to sell it to somebody. It’s a money pit, drowning us in endless upkeep and repair costs. It’s too bad my mother’s last words to my dying father five years ago were a vow to keep the house in the family.

Hayden

I want that house. Almost two decades ago, I worked up the nerve to step onto the Gamble’s front porch, hoping to take Cara to Homecoming. Her dad threw me off the property with a harsh threat I’ve never forgotten, and I left Sumac Falls the day after graduation. I worked hard and I made a lot of money. Now I’m back and I’m going to take that house away from the family that’s looked down on mine for generations.

Even if I have to make Cara Gamble my wife to get it.