was a teenager during the age of grunge and boy bands and remembers those years as the best and worst of her life. She is a lover of music, happy endings and reality television and is a secret University of Kentucky basketball fan. She is also the author of Pushing the Limits, Dare You To, Crash Into You, Take Me On and the novella Crossing the Line.

Katie would love to hear from her readers. Contact her via her website, katielmcgarry.com, follow her on Twitter @KatieMcGarry, or become a fan on Facebook and Goodreads.

www.miraink.co.uk

Acknowledgments

To God: NIV Isaiah 43:18—Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.

For Dave: Because real love means walking hand in hand even during the rough times and during the questions that feel impossible to answer. There is no other person on earth I’d rather have by my side in those difficult moments, as you forever bring me hope.

Thank you to…

Kevan Lyon—This journey would be close to impossible without you. Thank you just doesn’t feel like enough.

Margo Lipschultz—I have loved Echo and Noah from the moment they appeared on the page, and I wasn’t sure anyone else could love them as much as I do until I met you. Thank you for all your faith in me and in them.

For everyone at Mira Ink who has helped me with this book and the others in this series. I am honored to have such an amazing team surrounding my books.

Angela Annalaro-Murphy—I am truly blessed to have you as a friend, a best friend…a sister.

To Kristen Simmons and Colette Ballard—One of the best parts of this journey has been meeting the two of you. Thank you for your fantastic friendship. I love you both!

Kelly Creagh, Bethany Griffin, Kurt Hampe, Bill Wolfe and the Louisville Romance Writers: Thank you for your continued love and support!

To my readers: Echo and Noah’s continuing story is possible because of your support. You have no idea how much I appreciate you all!

As always, to my parents, my sister, my Mount Washington family and my entire in-law family—I love you.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise for Katie McGarry

About the Author

Title Page

Acknowledgments

Noah

Echo

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Extract

Playlist for Breaking the Rules

Q & A

Noah

Echo shifts, and the cold rush of air against my skin causes my eyes to flash open. The Colorado State Park Ranger for the Great Sand Dunes wasn’t kidding when he said temperatures drop overnight. I stretch the muscles in my back then turn onto my side in order to touch Echo again. My palm melts into the curve of her waist.

She’s curled in with her back to me, and she’s tugged the blanket tight to her neck. Her tank top no longer provides protection against the elements. Last night was hot, in more ways than I can count, and the cover wasn’t required for any of our activities—neither for the sleeping nor the kissing. Without a doubt, this has been the best damned summer of my life.

Outside the tent, birds chirp, and off in the distance an engine sputters to life. Gravel cracks as a car leaves the campground. Echo releases a contented sigh. She’s gorgeous in her sleep. Her red curls flow over her shoulder, and a few strands cover her face.

We’ve got one week before we have to return to Kentucky. College orientation is starting, and my place of employment, the Malt and Burger, will reopen after being closed for renovations. I’ll no longer be a burger-flipper. Instead, I’ve entered management, where I’ll be teaching other assholes how to flip burgers. Who’d have thought I’d be the responsible type?

My hand wades through the mess of clothes near Echo’s head, and I dig out my cell. Seven in the morning.

Good and damn.

Good—Echo slept through the night again without a nightmare and damn, she needs to wake up. I’ve got a promise to keep to a nine-year-old.

I lean down and press my lips to Echo’s shoulder while my finger teases the strap of her tank. A disgruntled groan slips from her throat, and I chuckle as she halfheartedly swats at my hand. “Go away. I’m sleeping.”

My nose brushes the hair away from her ear. Her sweet scent overwhelms my senses, and my mouth waters. I’m about to trash my intention of seducing her awake and replace it with plain seducing, but there’s one lesson I learned quickly at the start of our road trip: Echo’s not a morning person.

I gently nip her earlobe. While mornings aren’t her thing, she’s definitely a night girl. “I promised Jacob I’d video chat with him today. You wanted to shop for a new dress, and we have one more stop before we hit Denver.”

Jacob—my younger brother.

I spent the past three years of my life plotting and scheming to gain custody of him and our youngest brother, Tyler. This spring, after experiencing one of those life-altering moments you see in the movies, I walked away from the custody battle and gave my brothers the life I could never provide. I shattered the fucked-up remains of my heart in the process. But Echo, being a damned magical siren, gathered the pieces and has slowly sewn them together.

“I take it back,” Echo mumbles into the pillow. She fails at pulling the cover over her head when I pinch the blanket with my fingers to keep it in place. “I don’t want a new dress for Denver. You take the keys and go chat with Jacob.”

Echo’s been invited to an art showing, and this one has her on edge. If I had to guess why, I’d say she’s tired of the same pretentious jerks acting like they know everything. I’ve been over this nonsense since our second week, but Echo’s into it, and I’m into Echo. “We need to map out the rest of our trip so I can call ahead and get shifts. I need cash if you want to stay in a hotel again.”

I worked at the Malt and Burger for two years in Louisville, and thanks to their employee travel program, I can take swing shifts at sister stores throughout the nation. Gas and food on this trip hasn’t been cheap, and then I sent a chunk of money to my best friend, Isaiah, for a deposit on an apartment.

“I’ve got money.” Echo nestles in like it’s three in the morning instead of seven, and damn if she doesn’t look sexy doing it.

Even with the slump she’s hit this past month, Echo did well earlier this summer by selling her paintings at galleries. I agree she could finance us, but the only thing I have left is my pride, and I’ll eat shit before anyone rips that from me.

“I’m earning my way,” I say. “If you don’t come with me today, we’ll end up going through Kansas again.”

She wrinkles her nose but has yet to open her eyes. “It’s a large country, Noah. We can live without seeing Kansas again.”

“If you wake up and come with me, we’ll have plenty of time to plan a new route.”

“Know what I haven’t had plenty of in two years? Sleep. Now—shhhh. I’m nightmare-less, and you’re ruining my streak.”

Echo’s been nightmare-less for seven days. It’s a big milestone, for both of us. “Echo...”

“Please,” she whispers in this sensual Southern drawl full of the cracked grogginess that drives me crazy. “Pretty please?”

Everything inside me softens. Hands down, this girl owns me. I gave up caring this past spring how fucked I am because of it. “Five minutes.”

“An hour.”

“Ten minutes, and we’ll stay in a hotel tonight.” We’re visiting Colorado Springs for the next two days before we drive to Denver. It’s our last sightseeing trip before going home. Until this point, I’ve been adamant we camp.

Accepting her silence as consent to the deal, I hook an arm around her and draw her into my body. Echo flips, resting her head on my bare chest, and I don’t miss the unrepentant smirk. Her breath tickles my skin, and the thought of seducing her creeps back into my brain. I shove the impulse away. I made a deal and I’m a man of my word.

With the soft sound of her even breaths and her body molded to mine, my eyelids grow heavy. I battle the urge to sleep along with her. This summer has brought a sense of peace I haven’t experienced since I was fourteen, since the night before my parents died.

A herd of footsteps race past the tent, and seconds later a small kid’s voice yells, “Hey, wait up.”

I force my eyes open. “Come on, baby. It’s time.”

“You’re mean, Noah.”

The blanket falls off her arm as I slide a finger down her shoulder. Goose bumps form along her skin at my touch. She may be cranky, but she’s responding.

“A deal’s a deal,” I remind her.

“I changed my mind. I’d rather sleep.” With her eyes still shut, she hunts for the cover, but I kick it off. She presses her lips together. “I’m serious. You’re the meanest person I know.”

I kiss her neck then blow on the skin, pleased with the smile she’s fighting.

“Does that feel mean?” I ask.

“Horribly.” She giggles. “It’s torture.”

Echo rolls onto her back, tossing her arms over her head, and flutters her emerald eyes open. Her red hair sprawls over the array of pillows, clothes and blankets. My heart warms when I spot the spark in her eye.

I love her. More than I thought I was capable of, and I would sacrifice my life for her happiness.

She sucks in a breath when I caress her face. It’s a slow movement, one that memorizes her skin. We’ve been traveling since graduation in June, visiting art galleries, exploring the country and each other. But there are some places that we haven’t been, and while I’m fine with waiting until Echo’s ready, there’s that span of time when she looks at me and I kiss her lips where I wonder: Will this be our first time?

Echo’s phone rings. She blinks repeatedly then bolts upright. “Crap.”

It’s a miracle her cell has power. She’s had a bad habit this summer of not plugging it in.

Echo tosses my shirt at me before grabbing her cell. “I forgot to call Dad last night, and he’s going to be ticked.” She drops her voice so she can mimic his pissed-off tone. “‘I thought you were going to be responsible, Echo. You said you’d call every other day by seven.’” She returns to her normal voice. “Just crap. Will you please put your shirt on?”

“Your dad can’t see I’m shirtless.” Because she’ll go red-faced and stutter if I’m not fully clothed while they talk, I slip the shirt on and unzip the tent. “Don’t forget to tell him I’ve been respectful.”

I glance over my shoulder to see her answering smile freeze. The cell continues to ring, and Echo holds it in her hand, staring at the screen. Her face is void of color, and her body begins to tremble.

“Baby?”

Nothing.

I edge closer and run my hand through her hair. “Echo.”

The cell stops ringing, and Echo turns her head in a movement so slow that it’s painful to watch. The eyes that were full of life moments before are now wide and terrified. “It was my mom.”

Echo

Alexander, my baby brother, cries in the background.

“Is he all right?” I ask.

“Yes,” my father says on the other end of the line. “Just hungry. Can you hold on? Ashley needs his blanket.”

“Sure.” I listen as Dad thumps up the stairs of our house.

Alamosa is a small town in southern Colorado and the closest thing to civilization near the Great Sand Dunes. With that said, it was still a tortuous, caffeine-free, thirty-minute ride to coffee. Noah, being, well...awesome, waits in the winding line for my latte while I sit at the sidewalk table and chairs.

He glances over his shoulder at me again. His shaggy hair covers his eyes so I have a hard time deciphering his emotions. Noah was quiet, unusually pensive, during the drive in, and that bothers me.

Two girls in line admire Noah, and I don’t blame them. He’s undeniably hot: tall, dark brown hair, chocolate-brown eyes and cut in all the right places. The jeans and black T-shirt he wears definitely amplify that. Plus, he has swagger.

As one of the girls drops her purse, he’s got a little more swagger than I’d like as he helps her collect her items.

“I’m back,” says Dad.

“Okay.”

It’s like watching a horror film in slow motion. She tucks her hair behind her ears, gives him a hesitant smile and speaks. The girl is pretty—very pretty. I run my hand over the scars on my left arm. Sometimes I don’t understand why Noah’s with me. Especially when I’m so...

“You’re quiet today,” Dad says. “Are you okay?”

Noah answers the girl then motions at me with his chin. Both girls turn, and their faces fall. Noah waves. I wave back. Butterflies tumble in my stomach when he flashes his wicked grin.

“Echo?” Dad prods.

“I’m fine.” I blink three times, and Noah raises an eyebrow.

“Lying?” he mouths.

I throw a mock glare at Noah, and his shoulders move with a chuckle as he refocuses on the counter.

I haven’t told Dad that Mom called because I don’t know how I feel about it, so I’m hardly ready to listen to his opinion. There’s no absolving Mom in Dad’s mind, and I’m not sure that’s fair. I forgave him for his part of the night that changed my life, so shouldn’t I at least try to forgive Mom? Nausea rolls through me, and I fight a dry heave. Okay—shouldn’t I at least consider trying to forgive Mom?

“How’s Ashley?” My stepmom, and an excellent change of subject.

A year ago she was my wicked stepmother from Oz. Now she’s my stepmom who means well, but doesn’t know when to stop. Like when I ask her thoughts on an outfit, and I’m not really searching for complete and utter honesty, and she drones on for twenty minutes about how I should wear something that flatters my figure because, let’s be honest, God blessed me in the top area, but fell short on the hip portion...yeah, that’s how Ashley talks.

“She’s good. Alexander still wakes up at night so she’s having a rough time functioning during the day. I’m worried that she’s sleep deprived.”

“Uh-huh.” Try two years of insomnia, then we can discuss tired.

“Where are you heading next?” he asks.

“We’re going to stay in Colorado Springs for the next two nights, then we’ll head to Denver. Noah and I are visiting a gallery there. This one is huge. I hear people have been trying to get an invite into this show for weeks.”

“That’s good.”

That’s good. I roll my eyes. The men in my life don’t understand the biggest part of me. Sometimes Noah shows the same disappointing amount of enthusiasm.

“I assume Noah’s treating you well,” Dad says, like he’s one hundred percent on board with me being on this road trip with—how did he refer to Noah before I left Louisville? Oh, yeah, as a guy I barely knew, that is if I really paused and thought this through. Which, according to him, he doesn’t believe I did, but hey, I’m here and Dad’s in Louisville. I won this round.

“He’s treating me great.” My dad and Noah have an unsteady relationship. Dad respects Noah for seeing beyond my scars and for being there for me during an awful period this past spring, but he’s still wary.

On the outside, Noah can still come across as the rough foster-care kid, and what parent would be thrilled with his daughter taking off for an entire summer with a guy half her school is terrified of? The day before Noah and I left, Dad sat me down and talked to me for a long time about how “this is a phase in your life” and not to do anything I would “regret” and that if I ever needed him, to call.

“Echo...”

Warning flags. The use of my name along with any dramatic pause by my father means bad, bad—very bad—news. I accidentally forgot your favorite stuffed animal at the hotel...your mother is bipolar...your brother, Aires, is being deployed to Afghanistan. Bad news.

“I’m considering selling the house.”

“Oh.” I slump back in my seat, half relieved to discover that the plague hasn’t been intentionally released into the world, but then a sickening sensation strikes. “Oh.”

“I’ve considered it for years,” he continues. “But it was your home, and I didn’t want to take something else away from you after you’d lost so much.”

Like how I’d lost Aires when he died in Afghanistan, or how I’d lost my mind after a visit with my mother went horribly wrong at the end of my sophomore year of high school.

That type of lost.

“But now that you’ve graduated and are moving on, I thought Ashley and I could start somewhere...” He cuts himself off.

“New,” I finish for him.

There’s a crackling silence on the line, and Dad releases a heavy sigh. “Yes.”

He’s not replacing me. He’s not shoving me away. Yes, Dad has a new wife and a new baby, but I’m not being thrown out of this family. I’m part of it. I’ve talked this over with my therapist, Mrs. Collins, again and again, but the nagging doubt still slices through me like a ragged knife.

“What are your thoughts on my selling the house?” he asks.

I’ll miss sitting in the garage and watching Aires’s ghost work on his car as he counseled me through my high school life crises. I’ll miss staring at the constellations my mother painted on the ceiling of my room. I’ll miss the happy memories. That house has been one of the few constants in my life.

A knot in my throat keeps me from saying those things. My world’s changing again, and sometimes I hate change. “Mom called this morning.”

The hydrogen bomb I dropped alters the entire conversation.

* * *

I ram my thumb on the icon for Off and toss my cell onto the table. Blood swooshes in my veins, and each throb in my temple ticks me off more. Obviously, Dad and I were never meant to see eye to eye.

With his legs kicked out onto the sidewalk and his fingers laced across his stomach, Noah regards me from across the table. “Vexed?”

“Vexed? Did we enter medieval times?”

“It means mad,” he says.

“I know what it means. Why are you using it?”

He shrugs casually. “It was an ACT word. Figured if I had to learn the shit I might as well use it.”

I giggle in spite of myself then stop when dread weighs down my entire body. “Yeah, I’m vexed.”

Noah edges my ignored latte toward me. I pick it up and attempt to disappear by pulling my legs along with me onto the seat. “Dad doesn’t get it.”

He says nothing and glowers at the mountains in the distance. Noah overheard most of the conversation between me and Dad, at least my side of it. I drink, and the latte is like little shards of heaven in my mouth. A part of me relaxes with the introduction of caffeine into my system.

“What if I told you I don’t get it, either?”

With the coffee still poised at my mouth, I have to force the swallow. “What?”

“I don’t get why you’re interested in talking to your mom. What she did...it’s not forgivable.”

My forehead wrinkles as I set the cup on the table. “I never said I’ve forgiven her. I told Dad that maybe I should answer if she calls again. Maybe I should listen to the voice mail instead of deleting it. She’s my mom.”

“You talked to her before and didn’t get anywhere.”

“But maybe I should talk to her because...because...” Because...I don’t know, but I do know that there’s a hollowness inside me. This dull ache that screams that something’s missing. I felt this before—after I lost Aires and before I recovered my memories.

I believed that the cure would be this summer. That leaving home and spending time with Noah would heal the wound.

“I did get someplace the last time Mom and I talked. I remembered what happened that night, and I learned that she’s on her meds again, and that she’s being responsible about her condition. You don’t understand what life’s been like for her.”

“She tried to kill you.” He says it as if he’s telling me something new—something I don’t agonize over every single time I look in the mirror.

“Really?” I thrust my scarred arms into the air. “Guess I forgot.”

Noah swears and glances away. Two guys our age walk past, gawk at my scars then stare at each other. Ashamed, I lower my arms to my lap and close my eyes when I hear the whispered “freak.”

The table slams into my knees, and metal cracks against the sidewalk. My eyes flash open to find Noah’s chair flipped backward. I’m trapped by the table, and I press my hands against it, desperate for escape.

Noah grabs the nearest guy, twists the material of his shirt near his neck and pounds him into the wall. “Say it again, asshole. Say it to my fucking face.”

The table screeches against the sidewalk as I push it away and scramble to my feet. “Noah! No!”

The guy trembles in Noah’s grasp and his friend, thankfully, isn’t much help as he gapes at a distance. If this had happened to Noah and Noah’s best friend, Isaiah, had been here, it would have been a bloodbath. But then again, Noah would never disrespect a girl.

I place my hand on Noah’s biceps. His eyes flicker to mine and soften the moment our gazes connect.

“Let him go.”

It takes a second, but Noah releases his white-knuckle grip, though not without an extra shove. He refocuses on the guy then jerks his head in my direction. “Apologize.”

My lips flatten, and I wish I could disappear. One minute here. Another gone. Into thin air. No longer freaking existing.

The guy’s eyes linger on my arms, and it’s not too different from the way Noah stared at me the first time he saw my scars this past January when I’d fallen on the ice. Except back then, I was hiding them from the world. This spring, I gave up trying to care what the world thought, but moments like this...I have to admit I care.

“I’m sorry,” the guy whispers.

“It’s okay.” But it’s not. He called me a freak. I heard it, and so did Noah. Once an insult like that has been released, there’s no way to take it back. It becomes one more cut on my soul.

Noah slides away and the guy runs off, his friend trailing close behind. Around us, people have stopped what they were doing to focus on me and Noah. What’s worse is that when they reanimate, they lower their voices and talk to one another as their eyes zero in on my scars.

My foot taps the sidewalk. Somehow I thought graduation was going to be the end of this torment. That the moment I walked across the stage, all the demons that haunted me during high school would somehow be exorcised.

I can handle the questioning looks and sometimes the appalled shock, but the words still hurt. Even if they’re whispered. Especially if they’re whispered. I wonder if I’ll ever fit in.

Noah reaches over and touches my cheek, but I lean back, not allowing him the opportunity to seek redemption. Noah should have let the taunt go, but he didn’t. He drew more attention to my scars. He made more people stare, made me more of a spectacle than I already am. Instead of two guys thinking I’m a freak, an entire crowd of people thinks the same thing. For the first time since we left Kentucky, Noah did something that made me feel worse.

12 След.

A Pushing the Limits Novel

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