Page 1 of Starcrossed Colorado

Prologue

Ashford,Three Years Ago

Lori had a secret.Correction: a secret fromme.

“What time will you be home tonight?” I asked her over breakfast. Maisie squirmed in her seat beside me, studying her pancake bites with the infinite fascination of a three-year-old.

Lori shrugged, averting her eyes. “It’s book club at Silver Linings. You know how the girls and I close the place down. You shouldn’t wait up.”

Wrong, I thought.

Book club had been two nights ago, and Lori hadn’t been there. One of the moms had stopped me yesterday and asked,Is Lori doing okay? We haven’t seen her around much lately.

Lori checked the clock and stood, already dressed in the scrubs she wore as a dental assistant. “I’d better get going. Can’t be late. We have a tooth extraction scheduled first thing.”

“Of course. Can’t upset the great and powerful Dr. Carmichael.”

Lori sighed. “Ashford, please don’t start.”

“I’m just not your boss’s biggest fan.”

“You’re hardly anybody’s fan. Except Maisie’s.” She stroked our daughter’s hair.

I grunted. Yeah, it was true.

Unlike me, Lori hadn’t grown up in Silver Ridge. She’d had no support system here at first, apart from mine. But when I’d left active duty, Lori had agreed with me that Hart County, Colorado, was the best place to raise our child.

Maisie had been a beautiful accident. The result of a single night between me and my best friend. As far as Lori’s father had been concerned, marriage was the only option, and I’d readily agreed. After the shitty way my siblings and I had grown up, I’d wanted to give Maisie a safe, stable home. And of course provide for the mother of my child, a woman I cared deeply for even if we weren’t in love.

We had agreed, from the get-go, that we could see other people as long as it didn’t affect Maisie.

I mean,Ididn’t see other women. But that was my issue, not Lori’s.

She stooped over Maisie, giving her kisses and smelling her hair. “Bye bye, buttercup. I love you.”

“Love you, Mommy,” Maisie said with a mouth full of pancake.

“I’ll pick you up from Auntie Grace’s, and we’ll have a fun afternoon. Okay?”

Maisie nodded.

Before she left, Lori held out her fist to me. I bumped it. “I’ll see you later,” she said. “Try to have a good day.”

“I’ll try. Be safe, okay?”

“Always.”

We were a team. No matter what, I had to remember that.

I went about my day. Taking Maisie to my sister’s house for the morning while I met my training clients. Then teaching my afternoon martial arts classes while Maisie was with Lori.

But the whole time, I was stewing.

We had to talk. And it couldn’t wait any longer. It had to be tonight.

If she was seeing some other man, she didn’t have to lie. If she wanted more with this mystery guy—if she wanted to end our marriage—then I guessed we could talk about that too. Maybe it had been inevitable.

The problem was this. Lori and I already had a secret that we’d kept from everyone here in Silver Ridge, including my closest friends and family. It had seemed necessary. Even innocent. Little more than an omission.

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