Falling into You: A Falling Stars Stand-Alone Romance

by A. L. Jackson

  Except sayin’ it felt like a lie. The confessions he had left me with. The way he’d touched me. The way he’d looked at me in the very way that Daisy was talking about.

  Like I was the stars in his sky.

  Endless.

  The light at the end of his forever that he had promised to me.

  “I know so.” It wasn’t even an argument.

  I shifted her around and knelt in front of her, pushing back the disaster of hair from her face, trying to frame it into words that she might understand. “I think he used to love me that way. Maybe it just makes him sad when he looks at me and remembers what that was like.”

  “No, Mommy. I see it. Amor, amor, amor.” She sang it like a love song the way my daddy would.

  My heart clutched. “You are the amor.” I barely managed to get it out around the emotion that warbled in my throat.

  “We all got amor,” she told me, resolute. Her voice dropped to a secretive whisper when she said, “Mr. Richard, too.”

  I pressed a kiss to her forehead because I couldn’t answer it or respond to it. There were too many questions that swirled and toiled and dug up the dirt on the grave that had been our marriage.

  Ripping me to shreds.

  Eddies of distrust and surges of the need to believe. The hope I’d always sworn I would cling to but was terrified I’d only be a fool to trust in now.

  Terrified of letting myself go. Of giving in. Because if I lost him again…

  My chest nearly caved at the thought.

  I tipped up her chin, my sweet child looking up at me with all the faith in the world. Trusting me to give her the right answers when I couldn’t seem to come up with a proper answer for a single one.

  “Every person deserves to be loved, Daisy. Every single one.”

  But no one deserved to be destroyed the way he’d destroyed me.

  “And sometimes people are so, so sad, and they need to be loved an extra little bit.”

  God.

  This child.

  I touched her nose with mine. A soft caress. “Sometimes I think your heart is too big.”

  She stared at me, our eyes connected, our souls one when we were together.

  This child that hadn’t grown of my body but was one-hundred-percent mine.

  “I just need it to grow big enough to be as big as yours, Mommy…then I’ll be perfect.”

  I choked over the emotion lodged in my throat. “You are perfect.”

  Before I fell apart right there, I gathered myself and pushed to standing. “Okay, let’s get that dress off so we can keep it clean for the ceremony.”

  “Picture first.” There she was, right back to that.

  She actually propped her hands on her hips.

  How she went from the sweetest little thing in the world to cheeky in a second flat, I’d never know.

  Exasperation blew between my lips. “Fine, sassy pants.”

  I pulled my phone from my pocket and snapped a picture of her grinning like mad. Nothing but dimples and adorableness.

  “Send it.”

  I widened my eyes at her in feigned annoyance.

  She giggled.

  I tapped into my text thread with Emily and attached the picture with my message.

  Me: Daisy wanted to say thank you for the shoes and let you know she’s ready to help with the wedding. If you could forward to your mom and Richard to say thank you, that would be great. Don’t worry, we’ll actually make sure her hair is brushed for the ceremony.

  I capped it with a winky face.

  There. That was painless. The right thing to do. Richard would get his thanks, but it wouldn’t come directly from me, not that I had his number, anyway.

  “Now scoot and get that dress off.”

  “Okay, Mommy.”

  She changed back into her regular clothes and then at the first intonation of my daddy singing in the kitchen, she went racing downstairs to help him with dinner.

  Soft sorrow filled my smile when she disappeared, this overwhelming mix of love and grief and dread.

  I fought it.

  But I could feel myself coming up to a ledge.

  A steep cliff that was eroding.

  This trembling sense that everything was gonna shift and change.

  I followed her out of her room only to pop my head into my mama’s. She was asleep, dragging in deep, uneven breaths. I eased in as silent as I could, pressed a lingering kiss to her cheek, and brushed back the sticky, damp hair clinging to her forehead.

  That grief tried to become a stronghold. To fully take me over.

  I forced it down and left as quietly as I’d come, heading downstairs. My phone buzzed in my pocket.

  Emily: Oh my god, she is sooooooo adorbs! Tell her I can’t wait for her to help. Give her kisses from Auntie Emily. <3 <3

  My guts twisted. God, I’d gotten too close too fast. Danger lurking all around. My heart at risk. It’d already been battered so desperately I didn’t know if I could handle it all again. Getting wound up in their lives. I was already achin’ thinking about them leaving again after the wedding.

  I was letting pieces of myself go when I knew full well I shouldn’t. Richard was already chiseling out more of the broken pieces that were barely being held together as it was. The problem was, they’d always belonged to him, anyway.

  From the second I’d seen him.

  The man my downfall.

  My dark night sky.

  A million glittering stars that I could never reach far enough to touch.

  The hell I’d never imagined I’d be sentenced to.

  I walked into the kitchen to Daisy standing on her stool next to my daddy, washing the potatoes for dinner.

  “You got a message, Daisy.”

  Her eyes lit in excitement. “From Mr. Richard?”

  Daddy grumbled his disapproval.

  “Nope. From Emily. She said the dress is perfect, and she can’t wait for you to help with the wedding.”

  “Yay!” she sang.

  I kissed her cheek. “I need to head out to the workshop and get a few things in order for deliveries in the mornin’. Shoot me a text when dinner is ready?”

  This I addressed to my daddy who was watching me with concern and all his fatherly love. “You work too hard.”

  A soft giggle rippled out. “What are you talkin’ about? I took the whole day off. If I keep it up, you’re going to have to find someone more worthy to fill your shoes.”

  He tipped up my chin in a show of affection. “You’ve overfilled my shoes. Look at the land.”

  He gestured out the kitchen window that overlooked the abundantly colored fields.

  Pride pressed at my ribs. “I had a good teacher.”

  His smile was adoring. “And I had the best student.”

  “The best!” Daisy shouted her agreement.

  On light laughter, I kissed them both again before I headed out the back door and down the porch steps to where the world was darkening, the solar lights lining the path flickering to life, illuminating the trail in a glittering haze.

  My phone buzzed again, and I clicked into the message.

  It was from a number that wasn’t in my contacts. It didn’t take a whole lot to decipher who it was from.

  Richard: Beautiful. Like her mother.

  I knew he wasn’t referring to my sister, and somehow that hurt, too. That he would assert it. That he was doing this to me.

  Me: She is beautiful. Innocent. Vulnerable.

  I sent my warning.

  My phone buzzed back a second later, more texts following right behind.

  Richard: I’d never hurt her. Just like I never wanted to hurt you. Last night was…

  Richard: It was magic, Violet. Fucking magic. I almost forgot how perfect we are together, and the only reason I tried to put it out of my mind was for my own sanity, dyin’ from missing you.

  Richard: But like you said—I’m insane. Insane with my love for you. My need for you.

  My stomach cl
imbed to my chest, that energy flapping with the butterflies that spread their wings in my belly. I tapped out a response while I begged my foolish heart to build up a resistance.

  Me: Last night was a mistake.

  Richard: No. It might have scared you, but you and I both know it wasn’t a mistake. We never were. It was all the other decisions surrounding it that were wrong.

  Tears blurred my eyes.

  Me: I need to go.

  I couldn’t handle it, the man feeding me lines so sweet they were going to decimate my logic and leave me massacred in the end.

  I wasn’t expecting another message, but my phone buzzed again.

  Richard: And I need you to stay. Need to keep close. Please, just be safe.

  What the hell was he trying to say?

  Unable to handle it, I shoved my phone into my pocket and continued to wind down the long path. When I made it to the workshop, I entered the code to open the door, propped it open, flicked on the lights, and powered up the old MacBook I kept in there on my desk so I could verify the orders that needed to go out tomorrow.

  The sounds of the night surrounded me, the peace of this place, and I got lost in my work. I focused on the minute details to ensure each order was perfect. Nothing forgotten. It might not seem like a whole lot to some people, but this job was so important to me.

  The fact that flowers brought joy.

  They expressed grief.

  They showed love.

  A message given in each one.

  So engrossed in it, I jumped when my phone started to ring on the desk beside me.

  Those nerves doubled when I saw the caller ID.

  The private investigator.

  Heart jolting in fear, I rushed to grab it with trembling hands, answering, “Hello, this is Violet Marin.”

  It was the worst feeling being desperate for news and, at the same time, praying there wouldn’t be any.

  Guilt flooded my being.

  Wave after wave.

  How selfish did that make me? What kind of person would make a wish so wicked?

  “Hello, Violet. This is David Jacobs.”

  “Mr. Jacobs. Have you found something?”

  “Possibly. We tracked her to California. Do you recognize the name Martin Jennings?”

  My pulse chugged like I was trying to wake from a bad dream, my mind sifting through the memories and faces.

  It landed on one night in Hollywood.

  My sister’s birthday years before. She and I had flown out there for the weekend because Carolina George had been in talks with a record label.

  Mylton Records.

  A disturbance curled through my belly.

  A face flashed through my mind.

  Slicked back blond hair and a smarmy smile on his arrogant face.

  Martin Jennings had been the Mylton Records exec that had taken us out to a fancy dinner. The one who’d been sent to schmooze and flatter and fawn over the band. Show them a good time. Convince them signing on that dotted line was going to catapult them to stardom.

  After the few things I’d heard about that company, it was clear falling for it would have been a bad call.

  “Yes. I met him once…years ago,” I forced out.

  “I found her in a picture with him dating back to close to six years ago. She was pregnant in the image.”

  My stomach twisted in confusion. She’d only met him that one time.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m going to forward it to you for verification.”

  “Okay. Could she be with him?” My words hitched in my throat. The plea right there. The walls beginning to spin.

  Closing me in.

  “Unfortunately, or fortunately, however you want to look at it, no. Five years ago, he was sentenced to life in prison in connection with the death of a man named Mark Kennedy. Mark was the original drummer of the band, Sunder.”

  What?

  Fear slugged through my veins, and my stomach completely bottomed out.

  Terror whipping up a storm.

  Trying to connect the dots.

  We’d only been in Los Angeles for two days. My mind raced back to that time. How it had gone down. Parts of it were still a gutting blur in my mind.

  Lily had only come home for a couple days after, and then she’d been gone.

  I’d thought she was spreading her wings.

  Finding herself.

  Nine months later, she’d been abandoning that precious baby girl at my doorstep.

  I’d been so overwrought with despair and the new life I’d been given, adjusting, trying to make sense, that I’d never put the dates together.

  “And you haven’t found anything since? No pictures? No word?” The words left me on sheer desperation. “Someone has to know something. Someone has to have seen her.”

  He blew out a sigh. “I don’t have anything solid at the moment, but I think we’re getting close.”

  There was something he wasn’t telling me. I could feel it.

  Unsettled waves lapped high.

  “Do you think she’s alive?” It rasped from the depths of me. Hope and apprehension and all the things I didn’t know how to process.

  “I can’t tell you that, Ms. Marin. I don’t want to speculate. The only thing I know is I believe I’ve picked up on a trail that I might be able to follow. Be patient. This is probably going to take a little time.”

  Time.

  Always time.

  My heart reached for the house where my mama rested. Where the cancer ate away at her body while her soul continued to glimmer with hope.

  And I knew…I knew we were running out of time.

  “Okay. But please…do your best to find her. We need to find her soon.”

  “I will.”

  Hands trembling like mad, I ended the call, set my phone on the desk, and dropped my face into my hands.

  The urge to cry was overwhelming.

  Guts twisted.

  So much hope.

  So much horror.

  The thought of reclaiming one of the most important people to me and losing another was so hard to bear.

  The truth that sometimes to gain a piece of your heart, you had to let another go.

  I had no idea how much time passed like that. Lost to the worry. Minutes or an hour.

  When I froze.

  Dread lifted the fine hairs at the nape of my neck.

  Prickles a flashfire.

  Awareness that pushed nausea up my throat and sent my pulse slugging in fear.

  The crunch of a footstep.

  But it was the evil that I could feel invading the space that made me want to throw up.

  I started to whirl around but couldn’t before those footsteps stampeded and something was pulled over my head.

  Darkness took me hostage.

  Disorienting.

  Suffocating.

  It was a bag that was cinched down tight.

  A scream ripped up my throat, and panic flooded my system. Rushing and gripping and beating my heart into mayhem.

  What was happening? Oh god. What was happening?

  I flailed, trying to rip the bag from my face.

  Two arms locked around me from behind and dragged me from the stool, my legs knocking it over as I was yanked into the air.

  The sound of the metal clattering against the concrete floor was deafening.

  Reverberating through the chaos.

  “What do you want? Don’t touch me. Who are you?” I shrieked as I kicked and clawed and thrashed, but my arms were pinned to my sides.

  Overpowered.

  Unable to break free.

  In the flash of a second, I was flying, thrown to the ground. I crashed against the hard floor.

  Pain splintered up my shoulder, and a wail tore from my throat.

  Terror rushed, surged, and clouded my thoughts.

  “Help,” I moaned and choked, dazed, completely caught off guard and turned around and clueless to what was happening.

  Darkne
ss blinding.

  Unable to see my attacker.

  Unable to anticipate what was coming next.

  I made it to my hands and knees, and I started to crawl across the floor, hands feeling around to try to make an escape.

  There was no bracing myself for the blow.

  No preparing myself for the searing agony when I was kicked in the stomach from out of nowhere.

  A haggard cry screamed from my throat, and I curled into a ball on my side in the staggering agony.

  I gasped, writhed, tried to get back onto my hands and knees.

  To find a way out.

  But there was no escape.

  No fighting someone who wasn’t fightin’ fair.

  A vicious voice growled at my ear, “You shouldn’t go diggin’ up graves. You never know when you might fall in.”

  That was the only thing I heard before a fist landed on my cheek.

  So hard it shot me straight into a dark, bottomless abyss.

  Twenty-Six

  Richard

  I sped through the night with the accelerator pushed all the way to the floorboards. Vision a haze of red.

  Fury and fear.

  Sickness clawing at my insides. Eatin’ me alive.

  I skidded into the parking lot of the hospital where I’d been with Violet and Daisy only a few nights before. But tonight, it was completely different.

  Ominous and dark. A foreboding that sagged and shivered in the night.

  I flew into a parking spot, and I was out of my truck in a blip of time that hardly existed and still seemed to go on forever, sprinting into the emergency room entrance. First thing I saw was her father pacing in the waiting room.

  His attention snapped up when he felt me coming like an earthquake.

  That’s what I felt like. Pummeling the earth with my fists until I shook down whoever was stupid enough to hurt her. Hunt down the motherfucker. Skin him alive. Stand for this girl who I should have been standing for all along.

  “Where is she? Is she okay? What happened?” I blurted the second I got to him.