The Forever Formula

Table of Contents The Forever Formula About the Book Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven The Marrying Kind Acknowledgments The Forever Formula Copyright © 2023 Kendall Ryan Copy Editing by Pam Berehulke Formatting by Alyssa Garcia All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes only. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. About the Book Welcome to Kodiak Canyon, where the men outnumber the women, the beards are impressive, and the beer is home-brewed. Second chances and first loves . . . Rachel Tyson never expected to be single, unemployed, and starting over in the remote mountain town she’d worked so hard to escape. After inheriting her grandfather’s rustic cabin, her only goal is to sell the thing and move on. The place holds too many memories—not all of them good. But complicating her plan is the big, grumpy, and highly overprotective Noah Hart. They share some ancient history, and maybe a secret or two. But Rachel doesn’t need saving this time. Not really, anyway. Too bad Noah isn’t about to let her get away again. Overprotective hero. Free-spirited heroine. Opposites attract. Slow burn. Small-town gossip and loads of feels. This one has it all. Don’t miss The Forever Formula! 1 MOVING ON Rachel After a full day of sitting in the driver’s seat of my little car, my entire body ached. But with each passing mile marker on the long stretch of highway, I knew I was being called home. And while home wasn’t a place I had been in a long time, I could use a little comfort, a little familiarity right now. Not just because my life had completely imploded a few weeks ago when I broke off my engagement with Roger, or even when I’d been laid off from the hospital where I’d worked for the past seven years. It was so much bigger than that. I’d also recently lost my grandfather, the man who’d raised me, and some days . . . well, the realization that I was officially alone in the world made it hard to breathe. I twisted the knob on the radio to turn up the volume on a country song I used to know all the words to, and that seemed to chase away some of my more somber thoughts. And if that didn’t totally do the trick, well, I had a five-pound bag of red licorice from my last gas-station stop sitting in my lap that should provide a much-needed jolt. Or at least a sugar rush. I knew what my best friend Megan would say. Dust yourself off. Put on some lipstick and get on with it. And that’s exactly what I intended to do. It didn’t matter that Megan was three years younger than me . . . she had always been somehow wiser than her years. She was the one good thing I had left back at the hospital where we both had worked. We resuscitated a teenager from the brink of death the first day we met, and our friendship was instant after that. Grabbing another licorice stick, I took a healthy bite and sang along to the twangy country song with my mouth full. Good manners didn’t necessarily matter when you’d been alone for going on sixteen hours. But I was through with most of my trip now. I’d started off in Houston and driven west, appreciating all the details that I hadn’t in so long. The pastures in West Texas. The little adobe-style pink houses in New Mexico. Gosh, even the smell of cow manure as I cruised along the highway was comfortingly familiar. Then, the changing landscape in Colorado, rugged and rocky and colorful. The trees were somehow greener here. It had been muggy when I’d left Houston, but the humidity was no surprise. I’d gotten used to the Texas summers after living there for the past decade. Even the early morning rain hadn’t been enough to cool the air. It had only made it more oppressive—difficult to breathe. Now, though, the air was clean and fresh, and the sky was painted a brilliant robin’s egg blue. I never expected to be ending an engagement at this age. I’d always felt like a late bloomer, and now I would be starting over from scratch. But that’s exactly what I hoped this was—a fresh start. A chance to reconnect with myself, nurse my wounds, and maybe even make some new goals for myself. There was no use in looking back. Maybe that’s what my grandfather wanted when he left me his property in the mountains. It was a magical place, after all. Acreage and river access. Miles of hiking trails and towering pine trees. Also, thanks in large part to the family of brothers living next door, the place had always held a special intrigue. My mouth twitched with a smile for the first time since I began this road trip. The Hart brothers certainly inspired plenty of teenage fantasies and hope-filled daydreams. We’d spent summers chasing fireflies and catching bullfrogs, and winters building snowmen and sledding on the hills between our two neighboring properties. My first kiss was with the oldest brother, Jameson, which could have possibly led to more firsts had he not been such a gentleman. With my curiosity piqued, my mind wandered freely. Would they all be married now, maybe even with a few kids between them? Or maybe they’d all moved away to the city for work, just