Falling Hard

by Tina Wainscott

  Falling Hard is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Loveswept eBook Original

  Copyright © 2015 by Tina Wainscott, Inc.

  Excerpt from Falling Free by Tina Wainscott copyright © 2015 by Tina Wainscott, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book Falling Free by Tina Wainscott. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

  eBook ISBN 9781101966907

  Cover design: Caroline Teagle

  Cover image: © Peopleimages.com/Getty

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  By Tina Wainscott

  About the Author

  The Editor’s Corner

  Excerpt from Falling Free

  Prologue

  SEVEN YEARS AGO

  Casey,

  I know, I’ve been a terrible friend, not emailing in two weeks! I’ve been busy helping my dad do some redecorating at his B&B, and, as it turns out, I’m pretty good at it. Yeah, I still hate this town. No clubs or tall buildings or city buzz. No noise! I cannot sleep at night without horns honking and the hum of traffic. There are only crickets and the soft and steady wash of the waves from across the street. I’m happy to spend time with my dad and all, but he’s way stricter than my mom.

  Finally something really interesting happened! It’s good AND bad. I met this girl named Emily, who’s totally not as cool as you, but I guess she’s okay. I can tell she’s part of the popular crowd, a crowd I’ve never fit into and don’t want to. But there’s no one else like me here, no Misfits Posse. You know how in NYC we try to look, you know, “experienced”? Yeah, it’s not like that here. But she did tell me about these races the kids do for fun. My dad used to race, but I don’t think he’d be cool with me being out at midnight when even watching is apparently against the law. But I deserve some FUN. So I sneak out, Emily picks me up, and we go.

  It’s crazy, all these cars parked alongside this abandoned strip of highway, the rumble as two racers get into position, their brake lights bright in the night. I’m kinda into it, though. Then Emily runs off to gossip, so I’m standing there alone feeling awkward.

  My gaze goes across the street to this guy, like a frickin’ magnet. He’s wearing camo cargo pants that ride low on his hips. But he’s not skinny, just lean and muscular. I can see those muscles because he’s shirtless, contorting himself to reach something beneath the open hood of his car. His dark blond hair’s all windblown, and he has an oil smudge on his arm. Totally not my type, right? I mean, I don’t think I’ve even seen this type before. Like a beach-boy redneck. But I felt this ZOOM in my chest. And then, as though he senses me totally gawking at him, he looks right at me! It would have been embarrassing, except we have this eye-lock-OMG moment, and then he SMILES. Lord God Almighty, that smile rocks my soul. And propels me to walk over.

  Guess what I say? “Nice ride.” I’m running my fingers along the roof of his car, but I’m not looking at the car…duh. Which kinda sounded bad, right? I did mean the car, but I couldn’t stop looking at him. He must have thought I was a slut. He gets this spark in his eyes, gorgeous green, BTW, but not in an “I want to screw you” way. Like he’s enjoying the attention. And I realize I kinda did mean it that way: HE looks like a nice ride. He says, “Maybe I could take you for a spin sometime.” “Maybe,” I say, hearing it come out husky and flirty. Oh, God, I am a slut! But can I be a slut and a virgin at the same time????

  His smile is even more intriguing up close, and it’s REAL, easy, and so is his laugh. Oh, and he has DIMPLES! And his name is Pax, short for Paxton. I ask him about his car, and he’s so into it, it was cute, talking about engine stuff I have NO idea about.

  Pax is nothing like Cam or Billy Dee. He doesn’t have an aloof air, a nose ring, or any kind of piercing or tattoo. But I sense a restlessness in him that speaks to my rebel soul as he talks about the high of going fast and flying free. Of letting go of all life’s constraints to simply experience the moment.

  He lets me sit in the driver’s seat and places my hands on the leather steering wheel. His face is really close, and he smells like clean sweat and deodorant, and I want to lean across those two inches and kiss him. Our eyes lock again, and I’m pretty sure he wants to do the same. We are held in this moment of suspension, and my heart’s racing faster than that car can go, I bet. His fingers are still wrapped over mine on the wheel. I’ve never kissed a guy within minutes of meeting him. Or even hours. But I want to kiss him bad. He looks a little surprised by the chemistry, too, and he says, “Damn, d’ya feel that?” in the cutest southern accent.

  I start to nod. Then someone yells his name, and he jerks back so fast that he hits his head on the roof of the car. It’s his turn to race. When I get out, Emily’s waving at me. As I watch Pax’s Corvette pull into position next to another car, she’s all, like, “Girl, what was going on in that car? Like, everybody could see you just about making out with him.” And I was, like, “We weren’t making out. He was just letting me sit in his car. Doesn’t he do that with all the girls?” And she was, like, “No, he never lets anyone sit in his precious driver’s seat. Don’t get involved with HIM. He’s always in trouble. He even stole his dad’s cop car. Plus he’s a junior, and a senior doesn’t date a junior.”

  A part of me doesn’t care, the part that responds to him so frickin’ strong. I didn’t want to make out just because I’m bored or high, like I did with Cam or Billy Dee. I was high, all right…on Pax. But another part wants to make this second chance work. I overheard my parents talking about sending me to a boarding school if I can’t straighten up. I mean, we put ourselves into some seriously F’d-up sitches, if you think about it. Sneaking into nightclubs, getting into cars with men we didn’t know. Drinking, smoking a little pot. It felt fun and rebellious at the time, but, looking back, it was kinda stupid.

  I’m still thinking about Pax, but I didn’t go to the races the following weekend. And good thing—there was a terrible accident involving a couple who were parked next to Pax the week before. The girl was burned really bad. Her boyfriend was arrested for illegal racing. It made my decision. I’m playing it safe. No bad boy for me. In fact, I’m going to tone down my look, fit in. And I’m going to find a nice, wholesome boyfriend.

  Chapter 1

  “Well, Harley, that was damned romantic, wasn’t it?” Paxton Sullivan glanced over at his pit-bull mix sitting in the passenger seat of his truck. Even though it had come out a bit cynical, Pax was smiling. He’d just helped his best friend orchestrate a sweet proposal. And damn if he hadn’t felt a well of emotion at Raleigh’s happiness when Mia said yes.

  Harley tilted hi
s head and made a whining sound.

  “I’m not jealous. Hell, I’m happy for Raleigh. Thrilled. Over the moon.” Pax settled back in the seat, his hand draped over the steering wheel. “After what the two of them went through, they deserve it. ’Sides, I don’t have time for a relationship.”

  In fact, he had to head back to his business partner’s B&B and check on the progress of that mess. Never mind that he was about to drop from exhaustion.

  Watching Raleigh’s contentment as he pulled Mia into his arms, the way their bodies fit together so perfectly, well, it did prick at something deep inside Pax. Maybe it was time to head up to Panama City Beach and hit some bars, do some cuddling of his own. If only he had time.

  As he traveled along the dark highway toward the north end of Chambliss, where the B&B was located, he spotted a car pulled off the road. Judging by the car’s sideways tilt, a flat tire seemed the likely problem.

  “Well, well, well,” he murmured as he closed in, seeing a fine rear end facing him as a woman rummaged in her trunk. Suddenly he wasn’t all that tired. “Looks like we have a damsel in distress,” he said to Harley as he slowed and pulled up several yards behind the woman. Out of habit he reached over to turn on his flashing lights as he pulled off the road and had to stop himself. Not in uniform, not in a patrol car. Thank God.

  When Harley made to jump out behind him, Pax pushed him back. “Stay here, buddy. You and roads don’t mix well.” He scrubbed the dog’s head, sending sand all over. “Yeah, you just hang here and make a beach outta my truck, why don’t ya?”

  Pax grabbed road flares from the toolbox behind the cab, lit them, and set them along the edge of the road. He knew how fast cars could go on this stretch of highway this time of night.

  The shoulder needed a mow, with the grass growing right up to the woman’s calves beneath her knee-length skirt. She grunted as she struggled with the flat piece that covered the spare. His gaze inevitably drifted higher, where the cotton skirt stretched across her ass with her movements.

  Damsel, dude. Don’t be staring.

  As he approached, his boots crunching on the loose asphalt, she turned, using the owner’s manual to shield her face from the glare of his headlights.

  “Need some help, ma’am?” He stepped around to the side so she wouldn’t be staring into the light. When she lowered the book, he took an involuntary stumble back.

  Gemma Thornton.

  She recognized him, too, by the way her eyes flared and her cheeks flushed bright pink. “Oh, I…I can manage, thanks. Though I’m sure you mentally rescinded that offer the moment you saw it was me.” She turned back to the tire and started tugging again.

  He should leave. This girl—no, a woman now—had wreaked havoc on him and his family. It had been bad enough when, after their soul-searing first meeting, he discovered that his brother, Blake, had swept right in on Gemma. No doubt Emily had introduced her to the “right” crowd, Blake being a prime member. Gemma had looked flummoxed and embarrassed enough upon discovering that he and Pax were brothers to convince him that she hadn’t known. But the way her eyes followed him at school—well, he’d told himself that was his wounded ego’s imagination.

  Except he’d run into Blake and Gemma at the Flying Pepperoni, and Blake had invited him to join them. It had been a little torture, watching them side by side, Blake leaning over and giving her a quick, sloppy kiss.

  Throughout dinner, her gaze had been on Pax, laughing at his jokes, leaning toward him across the table. All subconscious, he was sure. He’d wolfed down two slices and headed to the pinball machine in the back room. A few minutes later, Blake’s cronies poured in, and suddenly Gemma was standing nearby watching him play. She’d said it was too noisy over there, too crowded.

  He’d wanted to ask her what the hell she was doing with Blake. Wanted to lean across those couple of feet separating them and kiss her proper, guaranteeing that her attention would not be wandering. But dating her had become taboo from the moment Blake claimed her. That was a bro-code no-no.

  As if all that wasn’t bad enough, a couple of months later Gemma went to the police and accused Blake of date-raping her. There had been plenty of speculation. Maybe she’d had drunk sex and regretted it. Maybe she’d hoped to change Blake’s mind about breaking it off with her, then got revenge when offering her body didn’t work.

  Having seen no cold-bitch edge in her, Pax had never assigned a dark motive to her accusation. He suspected emotional instability. After all, she’d supposedly gotten into trouble while living with her mother, the reason she’d been shipped down to Florida.

  The charges had eventually been dropped for lack of evidence, thank God, but his family had gone through hell for a year. As he watched her continue to struggle with the cover over the spare, he told himself that he should walk back to his car. He shouldn’t care that Gemma Thornton was stranded. Instead, he angled in next to her and loosened the lever that released the panel. Their shoulders brushed, and hell if he didn’t feel…something. Jeez, was he sixteen again? He quickly stepped back.

  “I didn’t see that,” she said, brushing her short, dark blond hair from her face. Obviously a nervous gesture, since it was too short to be in her way. No more of that fluffy, platinum-blond Marilyn Monroe hair. “Thanks.” She turned back to the trunk, dismissing him. Or perhaps assuming he would leave.

  He took another step back but paused. “Have you seen your dad yet?”

  That made her face him again. “You know about the accident?” She rolled her eyes. “Dumb question. In this small town where gossip reigns, I suppose you do. I came down as soon as I heard.”

  “I went to see him earlier. He’s going to be all right.”

  Relief saturated her expression, along with gratitude. “When I talked to someone at the hospital, I heard ‘ICU’ and a list of broken stuff, and I…well, short-circuited. I found a last-minute flight into Atlanta and I’ve been driving for the last five and a half hours.” Then her forehead wrinkled. “Wait. You went to see my dad in the hospital?”

  So she wasn’t aware of the speedway, then, or at least of who was refurbishing it with him. “Your dad and I are partners in a business venture.”

  “Oh. Well, I’m glad you visited him.” She looked tired and worried, chewing on her lower lip. It touched something in him, but he clamped it down. “Thanks for letting me know.”

  She turned back to the spare. He didn’t want to feel anything but derision for her. At the least, apathy. Yet there he was, opening his truck’s tool chest and pulling out the jack and his tools. As he made his way back to her car, she was entirely focused on hefting the tire from its hidey-hole in a none-too-graceful manner. Especially considering that she was wearing pumps and a skirt that now had black rubber scuzz all over the front. The unwieldy tire slipped from her grasp and rolled down into the swale.

  “No, no, no,” she called as she chased after it.

  The tire won, reaching the water-filled ditch several seconds before she did and sinking beneath the reedy surface. She let out a cry and slapped her hand over her forehead. Even in the shadows, he could see the black imprint it left behind.

  He stepped down and retrieved the tire, shaking off the water as he made his way back to the car.

  She picked her way up the incline behind him. “Thank you. Look, you don’t have to—”

  He set the tire flat on the ground and grabbed a lug wrench. “Were you going to step into that potentially alligator-infested water?”

  She glanced dubiously at the murky swale. “I would have, but I’ll be honest; I’m grateful as hell that you did it. I meant you don’t have to help me now.”

  “I’m doing it for your father,” he muttered as he retrieved the tools he’d dropped on his way to grab the tire. In truth, he would never leave a woman alone on the side of a dark road, even if she was more than capable. From the looks of the manual balanced on the trunk lid, he was guessing she wasn’t well versed in the art of changing tires.

&nbs
p; She pulled a flimsy-assed jack from the trunk and set it on the ground.

  “You call that a jack?” He set his bigger jack down next to it and inserted the handle into the hole. Then he nudged a chock block behind the front tire on the driver’s side.

  “You’re really going to do this?” she asked.

  He headed around to the passenger side and set another block. “I’m really going to do this.”

  “Because you’re my dad’s business partner. Which is rather…ironic, considering.”

  He came back around and scooped up his lug wrench. “I have no quarrel with Wade.”

  “And the unspoken part of that is like I do with you.”

  “I didn’t say it, but if you want to press, yes, I do. You nearly destroyed my family. But I don’t blame him for standing behind you. That’s what family does.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest, plumping up the large boobs she’d had even back in high school. “Like you did with Blake.”

  She was going there, was she? Well, he’d go there, too. He gritted his teeth as he jerked down on the handle, trying to loosen a tight lug nut. “Because he was innocent.”

  “He was guilty.”

  The nut finally came loose, and so did the conflict that had lived inside him all these years. “You were the only one who ever made an accusation like that.”

  “Then I was the only one who had the guts to do it.”

  She wanted a fight. Clearly she’d been holding on to her own conflict for a while, too. He realized he’d been hoping that she regretted what she’d done, that maturity had made her see the error of her ways. It angered him that she still stubbornly held on to her erroneous view.

  He jammed the wrench over the next nut as he met her gaze. “Why don’t you just admit that you were both too drunk to exercise good judgment? Alcohol, and your hurt feelings over him dumping you, made it seem like something more than it was. Maybe looking back, you can see how you might have been wrong. It’ll be between the two of us.” He needed to hear her confession. Needed to clear the ugliness of that accusation from his psyche.