T U R N I N G B A C K
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...
Trish Rivers lives a good life.
A happy life.
A safe and predictable life spent running the cafe at her family’s campground, perfecting her award-winning recipes, and terrorizing the local small town bartender with her endless supply of bad jokes.
Trish has never wanted more—or at least, she’s never admitted she wants more, but that was before Kennedy March showed up on Vancouver Island.
That was before Trish realized falling for your sister’s girlfriend’s best friend doesn’t fit into a safe and predictable life, especially when you’ve never fallen for a girl before.
Kennedy’s not sure why life as a real estate star in Toronto doesn’t feel quite as shiny as it used to, but a spontaneous vacation to visit her newly coupled-up best friend seems like the perfect opportunity to ignore the problem.
Three weeks without client calls, benefit galas, and, most of all, dating apps is worth braving the woods for, but her plans for relaxation come crashing to a halt at the sight of Trish—the absolutely off-limits and definitely straight little sister of her best friend’s new girlfriend.
There’s no path to each other that doesn’t end in disaster, but the farther they go, the more Trish and Kennedy realize it might be too late to turn back.
E X C E R P T
I grab the container out of Clover’s hand with a little too much force. She gives me a look but doesn’t say anything as I open the passenger side door to place the meal on the seat, where Kennedy will soon be given shotgun privileges.
I use the moment I’m turned away from the rest of the group to have a little chat with myself.
“You are twenty-six,” I mutter under my breath while I pretend to be fussing with the Tupperware. “You are not a teenager. You are happy and satisfied with your life, and some random girl from Toronto is not going to march in here and make you forget that, okay?”
A high-pitched squeal from behind me makes me jump, which, in my hunched-over state, results in me banging my head against the edge of the car’s doorframe hard enough to see stars. A guttural groan rises from deep in my gut as I duck out of the car and take a few staggering backwards steps. My skull pulses with pain. I press a hand to my head and drop a few f-bombs.
My swearing turns into shrieks when I bump into something behind me and a burning hot liquid is suddenly seeping into my sweater and down the back of my jeans, scalding my skin along the way.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” someone shouts, and then the next few seconds are filled with a flurry of activity I can barely make sense of through the continued throbbing assaulting my brain.
I’ve still got my hand pressed to the top of my head when all the spots finally clear from my vision and the pain dulls enough for me to process what happened: Kennedy came out of the airport and ran into Kim’s arms for a squeal-fuelled embrace, which resulted in me bumping into the two of them and knocking Kennedy’s freshly-made pumpkin spiced latte out of her hand, thus dumping the searing coffee all over my flesh.
I’ve never liked Starbucks. Their baked goods are an affront to the culinary arts, but this takes things to a whole new level.
Clover is dabbing at my jeans with a wad of napkins from off the dashboard while Emily inches my shirt up my back to make sure we don’t need to take a trip to the emergency room.
“Yeesh,” she says, sucking in a sharp breath. “It’s really red.”
Kim and Kennedy are staring at me with similar expressions of horror. Kennedy’s suitcase is sitting abandoned on the sidewalk a few feet away, her Starbucks cup lying on its side in a puddle of milky, spiced coffee splashed against the pavement.
“Ah, Starbucks,” I drawl. “Nothing pairs better with the scent of simmering flesh than pumpkin spice.”
