Once Wild by Cara North

Parker Chadwick (the third) fled Boston on a football scholarship since his parents would only pay for him to attend an Ivy League school and he wanted to play at a state one. He felt good leaving his pretentious family, fake friends, and false life behind him. The 10 year class reunion wasn’t the reason he returned home, though. His mother’s illness, his father’s funeral, and a potential coaching job at the private school were life events all vying for his time and attention. He had to admit there was one person he was curious about. He made his way to Pat’s Pub and found more than one good memory in his favorite booth there. They had kept that promise, twenty-one, Pat’s Pub. No one even knew he was in town that night.

Dixie Sweeting, better known as Sugar, wasn’t running from her past anymore. In fact, she was ready to walk into that class reunion and prove that even the wildest of children could grow up to be responsible adults. No one really understood her back then, but she had dealt with her demons. All of them, but one. The man who just slid into the booth seat across from her wearing a smile as big as Texas. She hadn’t seen him since her twenty-first birthday. This was their spot. Even though they couldn’t order drinks, they could order food and no one from their school would see them together. Then he left and he only returned once, when she turned twenty-one. He kept that promise and she kept hers. She was his little secret. He was her escape from reality. Some things never change, and some things do.