Page 27 of The Lost Book of First Loves

“I doubt that’s possible.”

“Do you need me to walk you back?”

She did not want to find any other positive traits in Beckett Hunter, besides his undeniably beautiful carpentry, but June had to admit it was kind of him to suggest it, especially when she had interrupted his work.

“I should be fine. Thanks for the offer.”

She didn’t press him about letting her watch him work. As she waved goodbye and headed back to the cabin, she thought it probably wasn’t a good idea, anyway.

Chapter 11

Beckett

He watched until Juniper Connelly had slipped back into the trees along the path to Carson’s cabin.

She moved with grace, all long limbs and the slender build of an athlete—tall, strong, willowy.

Watching her move, it was hard to remember she had nearly died days earlier or that she was trying to adjust to life with an implanted device ready to shock her heart back to life if it stopped again.

Genetics could be a cruel son of a bitch.

He considered himself a winner in the genetics lottery. His grandparents on both sides were still active, including his paternal grandfather, who was nearly ninety and still insisted on mowing his own lawn.

Beck’s own parents were both strong and vital in their sixties, still working hard. His father was a judge in Los Angeles and his mother was a pediatrician with a busy practice. They loved him dearly and worried about him, living here in the wilderness.

He looked back in the direction June had taken. She watched his videos. He wasn’t quite sure what to think about that.

The video series had been a crazy whim in the first place. He still wasn’t sure why he had agreed to the idea when Ali and Xander had suggested it.

Xander knew exactly what he was doing when it came to social media. He was a travel vlogger with more than a million followers. His videos were stunningly shot, exploring off-the-beaten-path destinations with ethical care aimed at protecting and preserving.

Beck had thought producing a video of him working was a ridiculous suggestion, but he had figured it wouldn’t hurt anything. Who would want to watch a washed-up attorney creating a tabletop out of wood and resin?

Turns out, plenty of people. The video had been enormously successful, so he had agreed to make a second one and a third.

The money he earned off the channel, he donated to some of Soledad’s favorite causes, including the foundation in her name that gave scholarships to underserved students in the school district where she had taught.

If Beck ever imagined his audience, he pictured other artists who were doing similar work, looking to compare techniques, maybe.

He didn’t imagine a busy tech executive watching him work as a way to help her relax after a hard day.

Sometimes his life didn’t feel real, even to himself. The past five years seemed to have passed in a blur and he felt as if he had lived an eternity since then.

He felt the familiar raw pain in his gut when he pictured Soledad the morning he had last seen her, bright and happy and newly pregnant.

She had only been going for a walk on her first day of summer vacation from teaching her first graders when everything had been taken away by one angry, revenge-filled, psychotic mother.

Beck let out a breath and only realized he was holding one hand curled into a fist at his thigh when Hank padded over and brushed his head against it.

He uncurled his fingers and scratched the dog’s head. “I’m okay,” he assured the Aussie. “Don’t worry about me.”

Still, the dog stayed beside him, planted on his haunches as both of them watched a ground squirrel scamper across the trail Juniper had traveled.

Finally, Beck returned to his workshop that smelled of sawdust and resin and lacquer.

This was his sanctuary, his cathedral, the place he came when he needed to empty his mind and focus on something physical that required skill and effort.

The work, along with the unlikely friendship he had forged with Carson Wells, had saved him. Beck had come here at the lowest point in his life, intending only to stay a few weeks in the remote cabin owned by a friend of his father’s.

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