Tessa Tarrington's life was in the toilet.

Job? Fired.

Dad? Heart attack.

Current residence? Childhood bedroom.

Love life? Non-existent.

Her life was swirling in the bowl, just waiting for the ultimate flush.

Until a few months ago, everything was tripping along at a wonderful pace. Great job. Fantastic apartment. Friends. Not a toilet bowl in sight. After graduating from college nearly one thousand miles from her childhood home of Gibson's Run, Ohio, she'd landed a job as a writer with Evanston and Evanston, a specialty publisher located in New Orleans.

The small print house specialized in untold stories and memoirs. But they had a dirty little secret: none of their authors wrote a single word, except their names at book signings. E&E relied almost solely on ghost writers.

Four years into her career as a ghost writer, Tessa's assignments were far-reaching. She'd written about a politician's wife's story of cancer survival and a bestselling song artist's memoir about rising from poverty in Canada. She'd shared stories that needed to be told while remaining neatly tucked away in the shadows — the credit for her beautifully crafted words resting on the stars of the stories themselves. The number one goal of a ghost writer: remain a ghost. And she performed her duties flawlessly until ... the terrible, awful day.

While away at her college homecoming, her apartment was robbed. Notes for two current pieces and four future contracts were stolen — sold to the highest tabloid bidder. Her anonymity went from walking down a street unhindered to hiding from paparazzi. No longer the writer of stories, she was the story. Clients dropped her like a hot branding iron, leaving her unemployed and a pariah in the world of publishing.

While her professional life was falling apart, she received the phone call she'd dreaded since her mother's funeral three years earlier. Her father was in the hospital with a suspected heart attack.

One flight to Columbus and seventy-two hours later, she'd accepted a long term substitute position at her alma mater. She returned to New Orleans long enough to pack up her coupe and head home to the town she'd left in the dust. Being near her father was necessary. The lone bonus for returning to her hometown of nearly three thousand residents was that the publicity about her came to a screeching halt.

And now, the one threshold she'd promised to never cross again was about to become her daily purgatory for the foreseeable future. She was back in high school. Her years of matriculation in the Gibson's Run Local Schools were a series of embarrassments, humiliations, and harassments. All beginning with her sixth birthday when Ryland Jessup gave her "Days of the Week" panties.

Holding the seven pairs of egg-rolled undies in their long rectangle box, with embarrassment she had piddled in her white overalls from Suzi's On Main. From her sixth birthday through the seventh grade, she'd been known as Pee-Pee Tee-Tee. Thankfully, the when she'd entered McKinley Jr. High, the taunt became too long for the cool kids, but the ever clever Ryland shortened the dreaded nickname to T.T.

Throughout her Ryland-tortured adolescence, she sought the simple comfort of blending into the halls, the back row of class, and the loser lunch table for one. She'd been an above average student who only received knocks for shyness, and lack of class participation.

The one bright spot was Joey Taylor, the starting centerfielder for the GRHS Grizzlies and the center of her tiny universe. He was the lone reason she shoved the comforter from her face every morning. Not that he knew she existed beyond the praise band at church, and when the Grizzlies won the state baseball championship Joey Taylor had swung completely out of her orbit along with the last good thing about Gibson's Run.

Despite vowing never to return, she had a reoccurring fantasy of coming back to town to be honored as a Hall of Fame alumna. And, maybe she'd imagined Joey Taylor giving her introduction speech. And maybe, just maybe, she'd envisioned Ryland Jessup fifty pounds overweight and balding, sitting in the audience while she gave her acceptance speech.

"Well, as I live in breathe. If it isn't T.T. Tarrington."

A shiver ran down her spine at the sound of the voice she would recognize fifty years from now. Swiveling, Tessa locked her gaze with steely gray eyes that seemed to twinkle with a bit of the devil.

"Ryland Jessup."

Full head of hair and the evidence of a flat belly beneath his GRHS polo shirt.

Swirl. Flush.

Tessa's lungs burned as she sucked in a breath to keep her scream in check. Ryland Jessup. Of course her first day back at GRHS had to mirror her last with his smarmy grin and busting biceps blocking the hall. She resisted the urge to look down to confirm zero puddles. Once a piddler always a piddler.

"What brings you back to high school, T.T.?" Looping one thick, muscled forearm over the other, he leaned against the row of freshly painted lockers. His gaze raked over her body from the nothing heels of her sensible black flats to her simple ponytail before settling his overly inquisitive gaze directly on her face.

With a swipe of her hand over her forehead, she locked a stock sorority smile across her lips and spoke through clenched teeth. "I'm filling in for Mrs. Monahan while she's on short term disability for her hip."

"Huh, that puts you here for the rest of the semester."

She nodded. "I need to get to class." Without a word of dismissal she pivoted, taking long strides toward her classroom.

"Hey, wait up." His sneakers squeaked as he jogged to catch her. His hand clamped on to her shoulder and he spun her to face him. "That was kind of rude, T.T. We're colleagues now. Don't be all standoffish like when we were kids."

Her mouth dropped open.

"Yeah, kind of like this ..."

A dangerous combination of twenty years of teasing and weeks of paparazzi pursuit exploded. "Are you kidding me? Standoffish? Rude? You've called me T.T. since I was six years old. You remind me every time I see you of the most humiliating three minutes of my life. You're a rude, insensitive jock who, I imagine, returned to high school because this is the only place bullying is still tolerated in America."

He slid away from her. His face reflected shock and maybe a little awe.

She knew it was rude. She didn't care. She just needed to get away from him. Running the twenty feet to her class room, she slammed the door shut.

* * *

Ryland walked toward the athletic office located outside the boys' locker room. Flipping the light switch, he ignored the buzzing of the bulbs kicking to life. His chair groaned under the bulk of his six foot, six inch frame.

T.T. Tarrington was back in Gibson's Run. She had just gone down the hall before disappearing around the corner to the upperclassman wing. He'd seen her with his own eyes.

She was still as pretty as a fairytale princess. Corn silk hair brushed the top of her waistband and eyes the color of spring grass sparkled. But gone was the shy waif who barely peeped outside of the church praise band. Somewhere between graduation and this morning, T.T. discovered a voice. And that voice was a shrew.

Ryland couldn't recall the last time he'd been torn down so viciously in public. Coaches kept their yelling to offices and...