Parallax 2011, Idyllwild Arts Academy

her horses. She should have kept it that way.

His name was Jackson Wyatt. A big boy from a small town, she met him when she was sixteen, the year the stars in her life aligned. Her momma told her he was no good and, for once, her momma was right. He broke her heart, plain and simple. Thing is, her heart was the only thing she ever had. And once that was gone…well, there was no point in living. She fell twice. She fell hard.

She never recovered.

Jackson Wyatt was a ladies’ man. There was no denying it and there was no hiding it. He was smart, he was sly, and he was cold. He wore Levi’s jeans and a leather jacket, pointy-toed boots and aviators. Later, he became the CEO of a Fortune Five-hundred company, bringing it up from its ashes and burning it back down again. He never did learn about empathy. Maybe if he had, he’d have made it big. He came to town dragging a string of tattered hearts, each one prettier than the last. He wore them like a diamond-studded wristwatch. Until Keeley. That one caught his eye: beautiful in that quiet way of hers, wild beneath the surface, a storm of passion just waiting to break through. Wyatt knew about that passion; he had a load of it himself. So he tossed aside all those diamond wristwatches in favor of the moonstones in her eyes.

It didn’t happen easily, of course. Keeley wasn’t interested in Jackson Wyatt, a blow that hit him hard in the chest; a blow that made him more determined to make her his. Maybe if she’d been smart, she’d have held on; maybe if her momma had educated her on the finer points of men, instead of lecturing on about the devil in them, she’d have made it. But that girl was an innocent, naïve to the core. Horses don’t teach you about life. Jackson Wyatt was the first to show her this.

Wyatt could see the only way to Keeley’s heart was through her horses, and he began to worm his way into her life. He was there at six o’clock when she arrived at the show ring. He was there in the stands when she won her ribbons.

All summer he trailed after her, patient as the devil on Monday morning. It didn’t take long for her to notice him either. He was a good-looking sort: strong jaw, a five o’clock shadow darkening his face, eyes rich and smoky like a wolf’s.

Keeley wasn’t immune to beauty; she’d spent enough time with her horses to be able to recognize it. She wasn’t immune to his charm either. It took all summer, but once he had that girl in his arms, she was as good as his.

Her momma warned her about him; said he was a rogue, the devil’s spawn, a godforsaken monster. Keeley brushed those warnings aside. Because she was free; for the first time in her life, her heart beat for more than a twelve hundred pound animal. Every time she saw his face, her breath caught like it did when she cleared a four-footer, or when she broke in to a lope after rounding the last barrel. And when he kissed her…well, she couldn’t breathe at all.

That summer was the best of her life. Little Miss Perfect, her lips all glossed and her cheeks apple red. She laughed louder and more often than she ever had. She couldn’t keep her hands still; those hands of hers, small and slen105