DON’T FALL
Rachel Schieffelbein
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author makes no claims to, but instead acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the word marks mentioned in this work of fiction.
Copyright © 2014 by Rachel Schieffelbein
DON’T FALL by Rachel Schieffelbein
All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America by Swoon Romance. Swoon Romance and its related logo are registered trademarks of Georgia McBride Media Group, LLC.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Published by Swoon Romance
Photography by Beth Mitchell www.bethmitchell.com.au
Cover design by: taylor.ink https://www.facebook.com/pages/taylorink/534464273251198
Cover copyright © 2014 by Swoon Romance
For my daughters, Elizabeth, Catherine, and Margaret.
May you continue to be as brave, as imaginative, and as loving as you are now.
Your mirth is medicine. Your satisfaction is my bed.
Your face is a Shakespeare sonnet,
Your enthusiasm is my best friend.
Your mirth is medicine.
Your mirth is medicine.
Defeat my plight with your delight.
And when you shine you shine the brightest,
and all I can give back is my best.
-Dan Conway, Don’t Catch Me
DON’T FALL
Rachel Schieffelbein
Chapter One
Zander
The nonfiction side of the library was my favorite, not because I liked to read nonfiction, but because it was beautiful and quiet. Just like Anya when I first met her.
I was sitting next to one of the big windows in the back, trying to escape the summer heat, when I heard a click. And then another. I spun around and caught a glimpse of her between the shelves. She tried to duck behind them and hide, but wasn’t quite fast enough. A blur of blond hair and a black camera. How could I not be curious?
I got up and walked around the dusty bookshelves to where she stood, her back pressed against the books, biting her bottom lip.
“I’m so sorry,” she said in a rush. Her left hand flew over her face, and her right one gripped her camera against her stomach. “I’m not a crazy stalker person or anything, I swear.” Slowly she dropped her left hand and looked at me.
Light blond hair fell loosely around her very pink face. Her eyes were so big and so blue, like a princess in a chick flick. “I’m a photographer,” she said. “I mean, an amateur photographer.” She fiddled with the strap of her camera and avoided eye contact. “It was just… the light… from the window.” Her words came out in small bursts. She looked through the books to the window where’d I’d been sitting.
The library was split into two parts, the new addition and the old original. The addition housed the fiction, the children’s section, the computers, and all the noise and distractions. The original structure held the nonfiction, an old couch, a table, and a few desks below the big, open windows.
“It just made a really neat photo.” Her cheeks went from pink to full out red.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. She was just so embarrassed, so cute. “Can I see the picture?”
She looked up at me then, surprise on her beautiful face. “Um, well, it’s not… I mean, it doesn’t necessarily look like much now. I’ll have to edit it some. That is, if you don’t mind?”
“Yeah, sure. I’m not going to make you delete it or anything.” I laughed again. It’s not like I was some celebrity whose pictures she could sell to a trashy magazine. Even if I was, I couldn’t imagine pictures at a library would sell for much anyway; not a lot of drama there.
I was curious to see them, though, to see what had made her want to take my picture. I wasn’t exactly Mr. Stunning. She’d said it was the light.
“You could, you know. Make me delete them. I should have asked your permission. It’s just that then the pictures wouldn’t have been candid anymore,” she said to the books, running her finger along their spines.
“I tell you what, how about we make a deal. I won’t make you delete them, but you have to come back here and show them to me once they’re edited.”
Her mouth opened, then closed, and her head moved from side to side. Just a little bit, though, more like a tremble than a shake. I felt bad. I’d clearly made her uncomfortable. I was about to tell her never mind, don’t worry about it, but then she nodded. Once.
“Okay.” One side of her mouth turned up in a sexy little half-smile. “I come to the library every Tuesday and Thursday.”
“Same time Thursday then.” I grinned, and her smile grew to match mine. “It’s Zander, by the way.” I held out my hand.
“Anya.” She gave me a firmer-than-expected shake, turned on her heels, and strolled away between the books, her light, yellow-flowered dress moving back and forth with the sway of her hips.
Anya
I wanted to turn around and steal one more look at him, but I knew he’d probably sat back down already. It was more fun to stride ahead, pretending he was watching me walk away. I gave a little extra swing to my step.
But as soon as I got out of the library, I practically ran home. I texted Mom the moment I got in the door, like I always do, to let her know I’d gotten home safely. Our town is about the size of a fish bowl, and yet it still took forever to convince her I could walk to the library on my own. Texting her when I leave, and when I reached my destination was part of our deal.
I sat in the window seat in my room, my back to the glass. I adjusted the contrast and the colors in his pictures to make them look just the way I wanted them to. When I finished, I could have moved on to the next photo, but clothes hanging from a line just weren’t nearly as interesting. So I stared at his portrait.
The light from the window lit up his face, which was lined in deep concentration. A book rested on the table in front of him, and he leaned down over it, one hand on the page, holding it open. The button-up shirt he wore was rolled up to reveal his lean forearms. Messy dark hair fell across his forehead. Between the bookshelves, it looked black, but with the light behind it, it was full of dark red highlights.
His eyes were different in the picture than they had been when he confronted me by the books, too. In the shot they’re serious, the scholar deep in thought. But when he stood in front of me, they were light, playful. Laughing at me. At how embarrassed I was. It was better than being yelled at, anyway.
I wished I could have taken a picture of him then, too. His dark brown eyes shining, his mouth curled up in a little smile. A smile just for me. At least, that’s how I would remember it. The truth was, I didn’t need a picture. It was ingrained in my memory.
And in a couple days I would get to see him again. My heart skipped a beat at the thought.
There was a small knock on my door before it swung open, and I quickly clicked to the next picture. My mother, the reason I’d put my back to the window and my face to the door in the first place, swept into my room.
“Hello, dear,” she said, walking to where I sat. “What are you up to?” She peeked over the top of my computer to look at the picture I was working on, her eyes narrowing as she considered it. Little kid clothes, a tiny skirt and three pairs of tights in different patterns and colors, hanging from a clothesline. I planned to change it to black and white, but hadn’t yet.
I’d been too busy daydreaming about a boy I didn’t even know.
“That looks…” She paused, rubbing her hand over her chin like she does when she’s struggling for something nice to say. “Cute.”
“It’s not done,” I explained, but she’d already turned to face the mirror on my dresser. She pulled at bobby pins, releasing her beautiful red hair from the bun it was caught up in, and I wished for the millionth time I had hair like hers. Vibrant red like the setting sun. If you looked closely you could see a few strands of gray, but you would never guess my mom was over fifty.
I watched her run her fingers through it, smoothing out the knots, and played with my pale braid. When I was young it had held a hint a red, but now was just boring blond.
“It was a long day. I’m sorry I’m late getting home.” Mom turned and looked at me, dark circles hanging under her eyes. “What do you want for dinner?”
Even when it was a late night, she insisted on making me dinner; we never ordered pizza or Chinese food. She always tried too hard to be the perfect mom. Sometimes pizza would have been nice.
“Whatever you want,” I said with a smile. She patted my cheek like I was still five years old and left me alone again.
I listened to her heels on the hardwood floors to make sure she wasn’t going to swing back in with another question or a suggestion for dinner, then pulled Zander’s pictures back up. I had taken several. Some were full-length shots, showing the curve of his back and the arch of his neck as he leaned over his book, but my favorite was the close up. I ran my hand over the screen, following the line of his jaw, and wondered what he was reading.
Maybe when I saw him on Thursday I’d ask. Or maybe I’d stand in front of him, tongue-tied, like a stupid teenage girl who has no experience being around beautiful men. That was far more likely. It’s what I was, after all. I wasn’t really used to being around anyone, much less guys with dark, sexy eyes that made my head spin.
I hadn’t had a lot of socializing. To say my mother was over-protective would be an understatement. Although, I understood why she didn’t have a lot of trust in the rest of the world.
I went to the library twice a week, walking or riding my bike and looking for cool shots along the way. That was pretty much the extent of my adventures, other than the ones I read about in my favorite books, curled under the covers in my room. Beyond pathetic, I know. So you can’t really blame me for having a wild imagination. Books and the inside of my head were basically the only places I could go for some excitement.
And I made up some pretty great excitement for me and Zander that afternoon in my head, staring at his photograph. I dreamed up a whole relationship, filled with passion, until my mother called me downstairs to eat.
Chapter Two
Zander
I tried to get to the library before her, but when I came in, she was already there. She sat at the table by the window, the one I was at when she took my picture. I slipped behind a bookshelf and spied for a minute, like she’d done to me. Okay, maybe she hadn’t been spying on me, but either way, I used it as an excuse to justify watching her.
I studied her profile. The curve of her nose, the pout of her lips. Braids wrapped around her head like a crown, a few loose strands floating against her cheek. She read with her elbows propped up on the desk holding a hardcover book with both hands. I stepped around the bookcase, trying to look casual.
“What are you reading?”
She jumped. I guess I hadn’t needed to worry about looking casual. She smiled in slow motion, her pink lips curling up to reveal slightly crooked white teeth. I had to rip my eyes away from her mouth.
“I was going to ask you that,” she said.
“What?” I must have looked totally baffled because a laugh slipped out of her curled up mouth.
“I meant on Tuesday. In the photograph,” she stood, lifting a picture off the table and handing it to me. “You look so absorbed. Was it a good book?”
“Yeah. I was reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
She tipped her head to one side and made a noise that sounded like “mmm,” drawing my eyes to her lips. “I love that play. People seem to either love Shakespeare or hate him.” She grinned. “I love him.”
“I do, too. I’m planning to major in English literature next year.”
“Really? I would love to do that. Or photography.” She scrunched up her nose and added, “Need to finish high school first, though. One year left.” She smiled, then looked back and forth between me and the picture in my hand. “So, what do you think of the portrait?” Her voice was barely more than a whisper. She wrapped one arm around her waist, and her other hand toyed with the collar of her shirt.
It was obvious she knew what she was doing as a photographer. The picture was pretty cool. It looked professional, not like just some snapshot. It suddenly hit me I had no idea how to compliment her work without sounding like an arrogant tool. It looks great! Of course it does I’m sooo good looking. I scrutinized the picture, nodding like an idiot until I remembered what she’d said about the light being what drew her to take it in the first place. I figured that was safe, even if I had no idea what exactly that meant.
“I like it. The lighting is very cool.”
A huge smile spread across her face, and I knew right then I’d do damn near anything to get her to smile at me like that again. “How long have you been doing this? It looks so professional.”
“A few years.” She shrugged, but her face was full of pride.
“I’d love to see more of what you’ve done.” The picture was cool, but the truth was I just wanted to see more of her.
Her pale cheeks turned pink, a good look for her, and she looked down at a folder on the desk. “I do have some more with me, actually.”
“Great, come show them to me.” I walked over to the nearby couch hoping she’d come sit next to me. I wanted to get her talking, to get to know her, and I didn’t think that would happen standing in a corner of the library. But maybe, if she’d come sit next to me…
And she did, at the opposite end of the couch. She handed me the folder full of pictures, some black and white, some color. The more questions I asked her about them, the closer she slid to me, pointing at different things in each shot, explaining where they were taken, and what drew her to them.
A bunch of the pictures were of the same place, an open yard lined with trees and filled with gardens, an old swing set in one corner. Each shot was a bit different. A slightly different angle, or a different season.
“Where is this?”
“That’s my backyard.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“Well, when I can’t get out, it’s one scene that’s always available. And it’s a fun challenge, to try and make each shot unique.”
“You’ve done a great job.” I said, and meant it. Some were better than others of course, but they were all different, showing the yard in a new way. A bunch of them were taken from above.
“Where were these taken?” I asked. She leaned closer and looked down at the pictures. She smelled like strawberries and flowers, and I wanted to lean into her neck and breathe her in. Her knee bumped against mine, and my palms started to sweat. I hoped her pictures wouldn’t slip out of my hands.
“Those I took from my bedroom window.”
I imagined her sitting at an open window, leaning out into the sunshine, camera in hand and the breeze blowing back her hair. So much more daring than she seemed there in the library. I wanted to get to know that side of her.
Anya
Talking with Zander came easily. His interest in my pictures seemed genuine, and I loved answering his questions, seeing the expression on his face as he looked through them. I’d never shown my photography to anyone other than my mother. She always found something to compliment about them, but she kind of had to. She was my mom.
When he asked to see me again I didn’t hesitate at all. I grinned and told him of course. It wasn’t until I left the library t
hat my nerves started to climb up my arms and tighten around my throat.
I couldn’t tell Mom; she’d never let me see him. Men made her nervous. Well, people in general made her nervous, but men in particular. And not just in regards to me. She hadn’t dated at all in the past fourteen years, or at least, not that I knew about.
I decided not to mention it. Not a lie really, just a lack of sharing. Only I knew that wasn’t really true. A lie of omission, that’s what she’d call it. But what could I do? If I told her, she wouldn’t want me to see him. And that was simply not an option.
I was already falling for Zander. It was my first real crush, not counting celebrities. He was mesmerizing. Perhaps not classically handsome. No Superman-perfect features, but stunning nonetheless. He had an extremely expressive face. His dark eyes always seemed to be filled with thought. And that mouth. It was hard to not stare at his mouth. His lips curled, pursed, or frowned as he looked through the pictures. I wanted to memorize each turn of expression and learn what they meant.
We agreed to meet at the library again, and I was thankful he didn’t seem to think it an odd place to meet. It was the only place I had permission to go, and if we met somewhere else, I really would have to outright lie. I’d never lied to my mom before, not about anything big anyway. I’d never really had reason to.
Of course, a meeting at the library was hardly a date. Mrs. Marsh, the librarian, was my mom’s best friend (slash only friend). If she saw us together, she’d be sure to say something. My mom knew Mrs. Marsh would keep an eye on me; it was the reason the library was an approved location.
Fortunately, her daughter, Shannon, worked Tuesdays and Thursdays, which is why I’d chosen those days to go to the library. Shannon was the closest thing I had to a real friend, and it was nice to have a few hours a week when I didn’t feel like I was under surveillance. Shannon certainly wouldn’t rat me out for having a non-date with Zander.
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