Go Your Own Way

Chapter 1-1

Chapter One

Scarlett Parker was astutely aware that she was the least favorite of all the Parker sisters. She had a difficult personality and a tendency for hysterics, and she found every opportunity to be the center of attention. She could be loud, crazy, and she suffered from a crushing lack of confidence.

No one would believe the last, though.

What they often perceived was Scarlett being vibrant, a magnet that drew everyone to her, with a ton of friends. She was vivacious, bold, and happy. They were wrong, because the reality was that everyone who flocked to her acted on the same shallow surface, hiding all their depth and suffering from the same crushing lack of confidence. None of them were what she could call a close friend. In fact, Scarlett had no confidantes, no lifelong best friends with whom she could share her hopes, her dreams, her secrets and fears. The friends she hung with were really just acquaintances, and they came together for what? To talk about everyone, to gossip, and to feed off everyone else’s misery, because none of them were comfortable in their own skin. That was something every one of them would stubbornly deny, even to themselves, because that was easier than admitting that everything that made up Scarlett Parker was everything she wasn’t and certainly didn’t want to be.

She was the second youngest daughter of Robert and Susan Parker, younger sister to Brandyne, Taz, Naomi, and Ivy, and older sister to Mason, who had every right to despise the ground she walked on. All because of a jealous moment, a moment in time that had crushed Scarlett, when the one guy she’d secretly crushed on for more than half of her eighteen years fell in love not with her but with Mason, her geeky, unladylike, boyish, and out-there sister. Mason had been running the other way, wanting nothing to do with a crazy hot macho cowboy, but he’d had eyes only for her.

It had shattered a hope that Scarlett had built and prayed on every night before going to sleep, a fantasy she’d carried of one day being his, of Justin Broadstone noticing her, falling in love with her, of being Scarlett and Justin forever. Instead, the dream had shifted into a nightmare and had become Mason and Justin, a fact, a relationship that was very much in her face and twisted the knife in her heart a little more every day.

She had even pictured their names engraved on the invitations to the wedding she’d dreamed of having one day, where he’d pledge his undying, everlasting love to her. Except that dream had disintegrated in a moment, a blink of an eye, a crushing blow that no one around her could or would understand.

She was seen as the evil one, the one in the wrong, and Mason, her awkward and uncool younger sister, now had the man of Scarlett’s dreams.

So what was she to do when everything in her life absolutely terrified her?

She glanced out the passenger window of the learner car, an older four-door Volkswagen with a gearshift in the center and scratchy cloth seats. The storefront windows of Ace’s Driving School were tinted and in much need of a wash. The three cars in front were parked and lined up at the curb, Scarlett in the last one alone. The other two were plain boxy Cavaliers that she hated to drive, and they were occupied by two other driving students waiting for their instructors to appear.

Three men walked out the glass front door. The first had a combover and was wearing polyester brown pants and a tacky yellow golf shirt: Mr. Happerstein, who insisted on being called Mister, her first driving instructor. Oh, not good! He glanced her way a second and then turned away as if in shock at having seen her. That one look screamed out his disdain for her. Of course he remembered their time together, considering she’d rear ended a pickup at a four-way all because he’d told her “Don’t hit the gas” when he took off his seatbelt to reach for his buzzing phone, which was stuffed in his sports coat on the back seat. She’d thought he’d said “Hit the gas”—her mistake, which had cost him two months in a neck brace.

The other man who was staring at her over the clipboard in his hands was Jim Baum, with gray hair and a pot belly hanging over faded blue jeans. He took in Scarlett gripping the wheel, which was the only place she could think to put her hands. His eyes said everything, as if reminding her of their last meeting, when she’d flunked her fifth driver’s test. That had been pretty much a given, considering she’d backed into a parked car. She hadn’t shared the details of that mishap with anyone. The back end of the driving school’s car had been crushed when she somehow threw the car in reverse and floored it out front of the school, hitting the parked car behind her, which had belonged to a sixty-year-old woman with bottle glasses and an afro. That had been the woman’s first and last time behind the wheel. Of course she wanted to scoot down the seat and hide her embarrassment from Jim’s unfriendly gaze, as he stared at her now as if reminding her of his words: “Some people were never meant to drive, and you’re one of them.”

The tension of being known, stared at with dread and nothing friendly, had her finally looking straight ahead through the front window, still squeezing the steering wheel in silence. Scarlett was securely belted in, dressed in clothes that she knew looked good on her, which boosted her confidence: a cream cardigan over a black tank, newer blue jeans, and bright red open-toed sandals. Only now her legs and feet began to tremble.

She heard the passenger door open and fought the urge to shut her eyes, wondering which lucky guy had drawn the short straw and gotten her. She didn’t look over when the door closed. She kept her eyes focused straight ahead, seeing Jim going to the other cars ahead of her. He gave her one last look with a shake of his head before climbing in the car and closing the door. So much for her boosted confidence.

She heard the seat shove back beside her and gathered her courage to glance over, and who was there but a man she’d never seen before? The guy was seriously hot, aloof, mysterious, and ripped, wearing a ball cap and a jean jacket. He had long legs, dark glasses, and not so much a beard but the sexy whiskers of a man who hadn’t shaved in a week. The whole package next to her had her seriously wondering whether he was in the wrong car. Here he was, giving her nothing as he stared at his phone, texting something. She took in his unsmiling full lips and wondering for a second whether he had any idea she was even there. She cleared her throat, not used to anyone ignoring her or not giving her that first appreciative nod, that smile and superficial once over. This seriously hot guy was giving her nothing and was still ignoring her, which only added to her nerves, taking her confidence down another notch.

She needed to say something and was racking her brain as she felt sweat gathering under her arms, hoping to all hell her deodorant held up.

“May want to loosen your grip on that wheel. We aren’t going anywhere until I say we are. Try breathing,” he drawled in a way she’d not heard a man talk to her before. To make it worse, he still hadn’t glanced her way as he continued to thumb through whatever he was looking at on his Android. It was one of the newer models, copper, with a bigger screen. Nice.

“Hmm” was all he said as he shut off his phone before tucking it in the pocket of his jean jacket and holding the keys out to her. “Start the car. Let’s get this show on the road.”

“Huh?” She just stared at the man and the keys he dangled before her. Then she realized he was watching her as he slowly pulled away his glasses and she took in the darkest blue eyes she’d ever seen. She swallowed the thick lump that was cutting off her ability to draw a reasonable breath.

“You know how to start a car?” he asked.

“Yes, of course I do.” She grabbed the keys and realized her hand was shaking, so she fisted it around the keys, taking the obvious ignition one. At least that much she could figure out, though it took two tries to get the key in. Pull it together, Scarlett! She could do this. She was determined to master the one thing that absolutely terrified her: driving a car. Being in charge of something that was bigger and more powerful than her may have excited some people, but if she ever told people that was the one thing that terrified her, she knew every one of them would likely fall to the ground in laughter.

A warm hand covered hers before she could turn the key.

“Look at me.” He had a deep voice, strong, authoritative.

She turned her head and took in his features, the solid jaw, the square face, and the fact that he made the passenger seat appear as if it were made for a child. His chest was wide, impressive, and it crossed her mind that he probably looked drool-worthy without a shirt. It was his lips that her gaze kept dipping to. She was so in trouble and so pissed off, because driving instructors were not supposed to look like this.

“What are you scared of?” he finally said, and for a minute she wondered whether he was about to make fun of her.

She let go of some of her tension as she leaned back in the driver’s seat, about to say the one word that was such a lie but seemed to be socially acceptable: Nothing. As she faced him again, though, and opened her mouth, what came out instead was “Everything.”