Falling into You: A Falling Stars Stand-Alone Romance

by A. L. Jackson

Nine

  Richard

  A fist rapped at the bathroom door.

  “Occupied,” I grumbled low while I ran the towel over my face and down my chest, steam coating my skin and filling the air with mist and heat.

  One thing about staying at my parents’ was there was pretty much zero privacy. Everyone living on top of each other. But it was a small price to pay.

  Being near when everything felt so precarious.

  Ground unsteady and the world unsettled.

  My mind this jumbled mess, torn between the penalty I had to pay and wanting to go straight to Violet and drop to my knees. Beg her for forgiveness when I knew there wasn’t any to be had.

  That adorable face flashed through my mind. My guts clutched in shame. In regret and this loyalty that ran like fermented poison through my veins. A corruption that smoldered and ulcerated.

  Another round of impatient knocking thundered at the wood, and Royce’s voice seeped through, lowered in dire emphasis, “Listen, man, I got bad news. Just got off the phone with the prosecutor.”

  Dread turned my heated flesh to ice.

  Nothing but a flash freeze.

  My blood ran stagnant, and my chest stretched so tight it felt like my ribs were being ripped apart in some kind of wishing bone match.

  I stared at the wall. Locked in a fear that coursed.

  This time, he knocked a single knuckle, his voice so low I could barely hear it. “Come on, man, open the door.”

  Hands shaking, I wrapped the towel around my waist and cracked it open, my teeth grating when I saw him standing out in the hall.

  Expression grave.

  Horror in his dark eyes.

  “What happened?”

  Dropping his head, his hand came out to support himself on the wall as he seemed to try to gather himself. “The two women who’d agreed to testify before the detective went in with the evidence against Fitzgerald?”

  That dread took on a whole new life.

  The detective Royce had been feeding information to, setting Fitzgerald up, had gotten sworn statements from two of the women Karl Fitzgerald had been holding. Two women who had gotten free and were going to take the stand and testify.

  They were the smoking gun for the prosecution. Those who could vouch firsthand for the twisted depravity.

  “Yeah?” I could barely force the question out. Wholly unprepared for anything he was gettin’ ready to say.

  Silence stretched between us.

  Weighted with apprehension.

  Finally, Royce lifted his head. It exposed the grim expression carved on his face. “Both of them went missing, man.”

  “What?” Sickness punched from me with the question, shock hitting me like a landslide, disgust and hatred and outright fear rushing in behind it to knock me from my feet.

  They were supposed to be under police protection.

  My own hand was shooting for the doorframe to keep myself from dropping to my knees, the other coming to my mouth when my head slumped forward like it could calm the roil of nausea that burst in my stomach.

  Bile rising in my throat.

  “Fuck,” I muttered toward the ground. “Can’t fuckin’ believe this.”

  Except I could, couldn’t I? This was exactly why we were taking the measures we were. We knew just how dangerous these people were. Knew the lengths they would go to keep their perverted world under lock and key.

  “How long have they been gone?” I managed to ask.

  Royce roughed an agitated hand over his face, the king tattooed on the back of it flexing and jerking like it was itching to make its next move. “Since yesterday at least, maybe longer. Her last contact with them was a few days ago.”

  “Thought they were each assigned an officer to watch over them?” It was an accusation, venom ripping from my tongue.

  Royce looked over his shoulder behind him, and he kept his voice lowered when he returned his attention to me. “Yeah. Thought so, too.”

  The implication hung thick in the stagnant air.

  I blinked a thousand times. “His reach is long, man.”

  “Know it.”

  “Those poor girls.” Hatred burned hot in my chest. Already sure of their fate. Not like this was the first time someone had gone missing who’d dared expose this warped, evil empire.

  Royce’s hand curled into a fist. “They’ve all gotta pay. Every single one of them.” He trailed off, not even able to voice it.

  “I know.”

  He shifted his hard gaze to mine, though his voice was laden with the plea. “We have to see this through. It’s the only chance.” Knew well enough that plea was for both our sisters.

  For so many others out there that we couldn’t come close to knowing their names.

  It was so fucked up how the tentacles of that sordid world had slithered and crept and overcome. Winding through our lives without us knowing it until all of us were tied. And it just kept going deeper and deeper.

  “I won’t stop until those savages see justice.” Promise rolled from me on a threat.

  Royce nodded then swallowed, tat on his throat bobbing heavily. “Prosecutor said she’d like to talk with you. Wants to know if you saw anything in the years you’ve known Karl Fitzgerald that you could use against him.”

  His brow quirked at that.

  That dread doubled.

  “What the fuck am I supposed to say to her? She’s the last person I want to talk to.”

  I’d prayed I could stay off her radar. In the sidelines. Just an innocuous figure on the fringes there to support his sister.

  “You don’t fuckin’ panic,” he hissed. “Answer the questions you can answer. Make sure it’s clear you don’t know all that much.”

  Right.

  Didn’t know all that much.

  “Sounds simple,” I said, sarcasm dripping out.

  “You don’t have much of a choice, do you? It’s game time. And it’s not like you’re under oath.” His brow lifted. “It’s your job to keep it that way.”

  “Yeah, well a lie’s a fuckin’ lie.” I’d been telling so many they were going to bury me.

  “It’s the only shot we’ve got, man. Pretty sure this just proved that, yeah?”

  With that, he turned and walked away, leaving me standing there watching behind him.

  Wondering which of those lies would finally be the end of me.

  “Come on, come on, come on,” I muttered under my breath, my feet wearing a path in my darkened room, anxiety clawing through me like a bitch.

  Nearly choked on the relief when the low voice finally came through the line. “Richard.”

  “Kade.” I exhaled. “Why the fuck haven’t you called?”

  He blew out a sigh. “Quieter we stay, the safer we are.”

  I rammed the heel of my hand into my eye and tried to focus. To remember my purpose. “How are they?”

  “Secure,” he said.

  “You’re sure?”

  “There has been no new activity.”

  Relief blistered through my body. But it didn’t last long. Not when I could feel all of this comin’ to a head. Faster than we could let it.

  “You need to tighten security.”

  He roughed out a menacing sound. “Think I’ve got it covered.”

  Dude was a badass, but this wasn’t the time to get cocky.

  “The two witnesses went missing,” I told him.

  Silence shocked through the line before he uttered a hushed, “Shit.”

  “They’re cleaning their tracks.”

  “Knew they would, didn’t we?”

  “Yeah,” I answered.

  “We just have to push through and get them there safely. See it through. Only goal I’ve got.” He issued it like a promise.

  “We will,” I said, resolute.

  Sure of where I stood.

  After that?

  I would burn.

  I knew I would.

  Violet might hate me now? But when all was revealed, she was g
oing to curse my existence.

  Didn’t matter.

  This was the due that I owed.

  “We can’t fail them,” Kade murmured, his worry coming through.

  “And we won’t.”

  That face flashed through my mind.

  A splash of Violet lighting up behind my eyes. Color and life. That little girl at her side. Regret flashed and flared. Blinding my sight in my darkened room.

  “Stay safe,” I grated, “and keep me updated if you see anything out of the ordinary.”

  My mind flashed to the shadow I’d hunted in the night.

  That uneasiness taking hold. Rooting itself deep.

  “I will, brother.”

  I ended the call and clutched my phone in my hand, feeling like I was being skinned alive.

  Walls too tight. Closing in. Everything I’d been running from gaining speed. Beating and thrashing.

  Could feel a tornado approaching and getting ready to touch down.

  A force that would annihilate.

  Jagged rocks slayed my throat, and I tried to swallow around them.

  Unable to sit still for a second longer, I grabbed my favorite guitar propped on a stand near the wall, the one I took with me everywhere.

  Music was my only solace in the middle of this. Funny how it’d been what’d started it in the first place.

  The culprit.

  My love of a song clouding sound judgment.

  I sank onto the floor and leaned against the bed. I propped her on my lap, my fingers playing across the strings as my left hand curled around the worn neck.

  My head dropped back, and I closed my eyes, and I searched through the disorder for a melody.

  For peace.

  Every shade of Violet came rushing back.

  Her eyes and that mouth and her sweet, delicate hands.

  Body I wanted to get lost in forever.

  Bliss.

  My eternity that I would never touch.

  The words gusted, swept in like a soft breeze through a meadow.

  I closed my eyes

  I fell into a dream

  Watching through a looking glass

  Nothin’s what it seems

  Shards of ice

  Cold, bitter bliss

  That’s what I get

  For stealing that first kiss

  My eyes slowly opened, my gaze on my fingers that played along the frets. I reached out and touched it, the tiny violet tattooed on the inside of my left wrist. No matter where I went, whatever faraway place.

  A distant land.

  A darkened room.

  Lost in a trance.

  She was there.

  Ten

  Violet

  It turned out, I was just getting myself deeper and deeper.

  “Wallflowers would be honored to host your wedding,” I whispered into my cell, silently cursing myself for agreeing. But how could I deny her when Emily had just spent the last twenty minutes asking for something and apologizing for it at the same time?

  Asking for something she shouldn’t when her request made complete sense.

  The logical choice.

  The only choice, really.

  Which was why telling her yes was the only answer I could give.

  The problem was, I had no idea how I would get through this.

  I’d already been faltering. Running into Richard far too often. The man remaining in the distance but watching me through the space.

  Showing up in random places.

  Watching from afar.

  Those eyes intent. His spirit unrelenting.

  We hadn’t actually spoken since the run-in at the grocery store, but still, I felt as if he were picking me apart, piece by piece, sifting through the wreckage for something salvageable.

  Which I was nothing but a fool for even thinkin’ it. For even letting the speck of a thought infiltrate my mind—the thought that he might want reconciliation rather than seeking our complete destruction.

  Emily exhaled in relief from the other end of the line, but in it, I could still hear her concern. “Are you sure? I know it can’t be easy for you.”

  I released a blustery sigh of indifference. “We host weddings here all the time. How could I refuse my best friend?”

  By being sane and reasonable, that was how. But I guessed I wasn’t either of those things.

  I was a glutton.

  A masochist.

  Begging for the heartache.

  Emily started to ramble, “You don’t know what this means to me, Vi. I wanted to get married in my hometown, and there isn’t a more gorgeous setting than Wallflowers. I mean, I tried to find someplace else, but it was clear they couldn’t pull it together on such short notice. Besides, nothing else compares to Wallflowers. Not even close. It’s going to be perfection,” she gushed. “The first time I saw it, I fell in love. I can’t imagine a better place to confess my love and my forever than under that tree.”

  Cut. Cut. Cut.

  I didn’t think she had the first clue that she was slaying me.

  “It’ll be perfect. We’ll make sure of it,” I promised.

  “Are you sure we can pull it together? I know three weeks is short notice, and I’m sorry for that. But under the circumstances…” she trailed off.

  “We can make it work. I promise.”

  Even from the distance, I could feel the gratefulness in her demeanor. “You are truly the best. I…” She hesitated, then murmured again, “I know how hard this has to be for you. I’m asking so much, and I know I don’t have the right.”

  “Don’t say that. You do have the right. I love you like a sister.”

  I guessed the hardest part of it was that I’d lost both my sisters at the same time. Not that Emily hadn’t tried to keep in touch. That she hadn’t reached out. But there’d been too much strain at that time. Too much pain.

  Everything was raw and aching. The wounds fresh and ripe.

  With the way thinkin’ about Richard felt right then, I wondered just how well those wounds had healed.

  “I love you, too. Forever. Nothing can change that,” she said.

  Emotion warbled through the silence that hung in the air, and finally, I cleared my throat, pasted on a smile, and prayed she could sense it from across the miles. “Okay, so I think we’d better plan a meeting. Tomorrow or Thursday? If we’re going to pull this off, we’re going to have to work fast. Do you have a caterer in mind?”

  She giggled. “Oh, I have all kinds of things in mind.”

  My smile turned genuine.

  Because this was what I was born to do.

  To watch beauty blossom.

  To foster and cultivate it.

  And a wedding was the ultimate harvest.

  “All right then. Let’s do this.”

  Two days later, I was out in my workshop pruning flowers for a bouquet.

  Watching the clock, not sure if I wanted time to speed away or to stand still. If it was the anticipation that was wrecking me or the actual meeting that might kill me dead.

  My office and workspace sat at the bottom of the hill from the house, the acres of flowers growing out from behind the old structure that I’d restored.

  It had been a broken-down barn that had been turned into a rustic haven where I let my fingers go to work. Where I pruned and pieced and fashioned someone’s sentiment into an expression.

  Love.

  Sympathy.

  Mourning.

  Congratulations and well wishes.

  The truth was every flower had a story to tell. A wish to impart.

  I found so much joy in being a part of it that I almost got lost in my work until the sound of tires crunching on the driveway and the low hum of an engine dragged me from the peace.

  Heart lurching, I pulled the gloves from my hands, set them on the workbench, and took a couple steeling breaths before I gathered up my unwieldy emotions, bottled them for later, and slipped out the double wooden doors.

  A black Suburban came to a s
top in front of the house.

  Squinting against the rays of the late afternoon sun, I peered into the distance at the people who climbed out of the extra-long SUV, trying to ignore the raging beat of my heart.

  Telling myself it didn’t matter.

  That I could handle this, no matter who showed.

  I was a big girl and I’d long since moved on.

  Right?

  Right.

  I almost gave myself a little pat on the back for bein’ so mature.

  From the front passenger seat, Emily hopped out first.

  Goodness, the excitement that blazed from her, so much that it was tweaking a grin at the corner of my mouth.

  Melanie climbed out from the rear-passenger behind her, and I felt a buzz of my own excitement after not seeing her for so long.

  But it was who followed her out that sent my lurching heart leaping in a shout of joy.

  Mabel.

  Emily’s mother.

  Richard’s mother.

  My spirit panged and danced and thrilled.

  A song of old affection that raced across the field.

  Emily’s fiancé rounded the front of the Suburban and took her hand, and Melanie lifted the seat so another girl who I didn’t recognize could climb out of the very back.

  Relief blustered through me when I realized I’d dodged a bullet for a moment more.

  Richard wasn’t with them.

  They all started down the path, making their way in my direction.

  Then that balloon of hope I’d been feeling busted, spitting and sputtering out when I saw the shape of a tall figure show at the rear of the Suburban from where he’d come around from the opposite side.

  Hovering and hesitating.

  His hands stuffed in his pockets.

  Wearing a tight tee that showed off his arms covered in intricate ink. Jeans just as snug. Hair whipping like mad around his rugged face.

  The man hard and rough and raw. Like the sweet country boy I’d known had been scraped away by the things that he’d seen. By the years that had passed. By the fame and the money and the glory now tacked to his name.

  A dichotomy where his aura danced in between.

  It didn’t matter that he was two football fields away.

  I could feel the intensity of his stare.