If Only

"Well, sorry, Sammy. But that's not how I operate."
I could feel the skin between my eyes creasing with bewilderment. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means I'm not about to watch on the sidelines while assholes like him treat you like shit," he seethed, pushing off the railing and taking a step closer towards me. "And I won't apologize for that."
A spark of an emotion I could hardly recognize ignited somewhere inside of me, my nails digging into the palms of my hands at my sides. It had hardly been a month since meeting Greyson, since he stormed into my life without warning, perceptive in a way that had slowly begun to unravel all the secrets that I had carefully buried.
Who did he think he was coming here and flipping my life upside down?
And why was I letting him?

*~~~&~~~*

Sammy had wanted to leave behind her small town in Kentucky for a place where nobody would know her or her tragic past. But moving to Stevensville, Montana a few years ago has offered her nothing near the calm life with a clean plate that she had desired.
Instead, a new group of friends whom she loves as if they were family. But also, Tyson Crawford. The boy she fell for sophomore year of college...now the dangerous man she can't get away from. As the dark secrets of her life become harder and harder to hide from her friends, dark secrets of their own begin to emerge.
And now that Greyson Shawnel is coming back to town - a man she's only ever heard of in her friends' stories - Sammy's entire world is catching on fire. Because Greyson can see through the cracks of her lies, and he doesn't intend to let it go on any longer. Even if there's a larger danger looming on the horizon, one that threatens them all...