Trying Not to Love You - Special Edition

Ellison

Copeland James was my first love, my first heartbreak, my first everything.

Then he left without explanation, and never came back.

My sisters and our closest friends helped me pick up the pieces, but my heart hasn't been whole since the day he walked out of Magnolia Ridge.

I've learned to live with what could have been... until his mother's illness brings him back to our small town. He's older, harder, and more magnetic than I remember.

He's a man now. The man I learned to live without. And yet, he's back, stirring everything I thought I'd buried, making my world feel unsteady.

Because loving him nearly destroyed me... and now, I'm still trying not to love him.

Copeland

I left Magnolia Ridge with nothing but a duffel bag and a decision.

I told myself joining the Marines was the right choice. That loving her meant protecting her, and this was the way to do it.

I was wrong.

Now I'm back, years later, and she's just as breathtaking as the day I left. All these years, I imagined she'd have moved on, married someone else, but she's still single, and in my heart, she's still mine.

But Ellison doesn't see me the way I see her, not anymore. All I find in her eyes is the wound I left behind. The one that never healed.

I didn't fight for us back then, but I've learned. Now I'm ready for battle, fighting for what we could be while she tries not to love me.