C H A S I N G S T A R S
Nestled in a towering fir forest on British Columbia’s famous Vancouver Island, Three Rivers Campground is calling you to come relax, explore, and maybe even fall in love...
Clover Rivers is completely, totally over her ex.
Sure, her first ever relationship with a girl might have ended in a catastrophic breakup people still whisper about, but Clover is done with it.
The four years since have made her stronger. Smarter. Four years have turned her into the kind of woman who doesn’t believe in wishes on stars or miraculous second chances. As an aspiring environmental scientist, Clover puts her faith in cold, hard data, and the data says there’s no way anything good can come of messing around with a girl who already broke her heart.
Neavh Beaudoin is completely, totally still in love with Clover Rivers.
When a series of disasters lands her living on her cousin’s couch—and back in the small island town she never thought she’d see again—Neavh is forced to confront the truth: leaving Clover behind was the biggest mistake of her life, and she’d give every star in the sky for another chance.
As cramped small town life makes it impossible to ignore the way the two women still spark like a wildfire, Clover realizes Neavh’s reasons for leaving might not have been so straightforward, and the future she’s planned for herself in the meantime might not fit as well as she thought.
The data suggests they’re only in for another heartbreak, but every theory’s got the tiniest chance to be proven wrong—especially when your last shot at love might depend on finally getting things right.
E X C E R P T
“Why did you come back?”
She freezes, her mouth dropping open and that panicked look returning to her eyes. I watch as she opens and closes her mouth a few more times, her gaze locked on mine.
“I’m sorry,” she finally murmurs, her voice hoarse. “I—”
A flash of irritation shoots through my chest.
“I didn’t ask you to apologize. I asked you why.”
I want an answer. A real answer. There has to be a reason she came back to a tiny tourist town on Vancouver Island, and it can’t just be to spend time with her cousin and work in a bar.
Not when it’s this town.
Not when it’s my town.
She jerks her hands out of her pockets and runs them through her hair instead, her face pinched in an expression I can’t read.
“There were…a lot of reasons.”
She shakes her head like she knows that’s not enough, but she doesn’t add anything else.
Newt starts whining again as he tries to work out what’s gone wrong.
“Any you care to share?” I ask. “Or are you just going to…to…”
The iciness I tried to put in my tone fades as I trip over my words and stutter to a stop.
I was going to throw it in her face: the way she left without telling me anything, the way she threw aside all our half-baked plans and desperate wishes on summer stars without even bothering to explain why she couldn’t go through with them until it was way too late.
If I use that against her, I’ll be admitting those plans and wishes mattered at all, and the only reason I can face her now is by telling us both they didn’t.
She’s still fighting to come up with something to say. She paces up and down the trail, her hands still digging into her hair and making a mess of her bobby pins.
“Look,” she manages to choke out, “can I…can I buy you a drink or something?”
I literally wheeze.
I’m so shocked I can’t even be embarrassed by my reaction. My eyes flare wide as my muscles rigid. I don’t know what I expected her to say, but it wasn’t that.
She winces at the look on my face and holds up her hands.
“I mean, can we just sit somewhere?” she clarifies. “I want to tell you. I want to talk to you. I just…fuck. Fuck.”
She spins around and starts pacing again, her movements jerky and erratic. I’m stuck frozen in place as I watch her, waiting for the shock to wear off.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’ll go.”
She takes a few steps towards the trailhead and then stumbles to a stop.
“Oh, wait, fuck. You’re going that way.” She turns around again and points past me. “I’ll go that way. I—”
“Neavh.”
She goes still and presses her lips together, squirming a little as she waits for what I have to say.
I’m not even sure what my answer is until it leaves my mouth, but once the words ring out through the forest, there’s no taking them back.
“You can buy me a drink.”
