Everything before her was confusing and hard to grasp. He not only had to deal with the huge campus but also wild, quirky Austin. Suddenly, a million people were circling around him shouting new ideas and beliefs.

All he’d done that fall semester was study. He’d wake up every morning with too many things on his to-do list and fall asleep cussing himself that he didn’t get it all done.

When he went home for Christmas break, he wasn’t sure he could make himself go back to college. He was out of his depth.

The farmer had welcomed his son home but said nothing. They worked together from before dawn until after dark. The winter sun warmed him and for the first time in months he slept solid each night. Father and son finished one project after another.

Ben felt himself growing stronger, not just physically but mentally. He made a stand. He not only went back, he went back early, if for no other reason than to prove to his father that, though he loved the land, he wasn’t a farmer. Or a quitter.

For the first time, Ben had felt angry at the world. He had wanted more than just studying. He’d wanted freedom and he needed to knew his own strength. Moving off campus was one step. Drinking became the second. The first week back was always a party going on round the clock somewhere, and he managed to find the location. A new year. A new semester. A new world.

His friends were new, too, and another kind of education began.

Most of January had been a blur. He did remember what an idiot he’d been, trying to find life. If he hadn’t wised up, he would have lost his scholarship. He would have lost the future he wanted. The future he now had.

But that cold January in Austin, there was one weekend that stood out. Three days, two nights with a girl at a waterfront house on Lake Travis. The place was packed that weekend, but he remembered only one person. They’d spoken of things he’d never talked about with a girl and made love without saying a word.

She’d told him they were two souls, lovers in another lifetime, who were just meant to cross once. He didn’t really understand what she meant, but he’d wanted to believe her.

Then she’d slipped from his bed and his life without saying goodbye. People at the lake house knew her nickname was Red, but nothing more.

He skipped classes for a week looking for her and drank her memory away at night.