Starcross Lovers

by Merry Farmer

  “Ginny!” Harry screamed, leaping after her. He grabbed the air where she’d been, but it was too late.

  More ground gave way under him, and he was thrown to his knees. The wind was knocked out of him as he sprawled on the new cliff-edge, still reaching for Ginny.

  Her screaming stopped, and for a moment, black fear overcame him as he assumed the worst. But as the sheered-away rock continued to crash and crumble as it fell to the valley below, the sodden, grey mass that was Ginny seemed to hang still.

  “Ginny!” Harry shouted again, wiping rain-soaked hair from his eyes. He blinked, eyes going wide at what he saw.

  Ginny had grabbed hold of the new, jagged edge of the rock wall several yards below. Her arm was hooked around a jutting stone, but her wet clothes and feet dangled at least a hundred feet above the rubble of the destroyed cliff. She’d grabbed hold of the rock that held her arm with her free hand, but there was nowhere for her feet to find purchase.

  “Harry!” She called up to him, hysterical with fear. “Help me! Help!”

  “Hold on,” Harry shouted to her. “Don’t move. The rock might not be stable. Don’t even breathe, just hold on!”

  “I can’t,” she cried up to him. “I can’t hold on.”

  Urgency pounded through Harry’s body. He couldn’t leave her, but he had to find help. She was too far out of his reach. He twisted, looking over his shoulder, praying that at least some of the people who had been so interested in their argument minutes before had seen the cliff crumble.

  He was in luck. Several men were running from different directions, Owen Llewellyn and Nick among them. But the man who was closest and sprinting the hardest was Adler.

  “We need a rope,” Harry shouted to him. “A long board, anything.”

  Nick and Owen heard him, skidding in the wet grass as they changed direction. They called to the other approaching men for rope.

  Adler kept running. He dropped to his knees before he reached Harry, sliding dangerously close to the new edge of the cliff. Harry’s heart jammed into his throat at the thought that the man’s added weight would destabilize the entire area, but the ground held firm.

  “Ginny!” Adler called over the cliff, eyes wide with fright. “Dear God, we have to save her.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do,” Harry growled.

  “Lower me down,” Adler insisted, struggling out of his wet jacket, though what good that would do, Harry had no idea. “Lower me down and I can reach her.”

  “It’s too dangerous,” Harry said. The cliff could break again.

  “Harry, help me!” Ginny called again. “I’m slipping.”

  “We can’t just let her fall,” Adler shouted. He rocked to one side, and more ground gave way.

  “Hold still,” Harry ordered him. “If you want to help, help without making it worse. Where’s the rope?”

  “Right here,” Nick said, reaching the edge of the cliff and lowering himself to his belly. He handed the end of the rope off to Harry. “I’ve got this end.”

  “I’ve got it too.” Adler scrambled back behind Nick, wrapping his wrist around the loose end of the rope. Owen and some of the other men approached their group cautiously, grabbing hold of the rope.

  “We’ve got you,” Harry called down to Ginny. “I’ve got you.”

  He worked to tie the rope around his waist. The rope itself was wet and chafed his hands as he raced against the clock to tie a knot that would hold his weight. It took too long. Everything was taking too long.

  “Harry!” Ginny cried out as something grumbled and cracked. “The rock is breaking.”

  “I’m coming!” He shouted in return.

  There wasn’t time to explain to the others what he planned to do. He had to trust that Nick and Owen knew him well enough to predict his moves. With the rope securely tied, he swung toward the ragged edge of the cliff and threw his legs over.

  He dropped a few inches before the rope snagged tight. It pinched his torso so tightly that he had trouble breathing. The pain against his ribs was intense, but he ignored it. “Lower!” he shouted.

  With frustrating slowness, his friends let the rope go, inch by inch. Harry tried to touch the side of the cliff as little as possible. More pieces of rock and dirt were breaking away from the cliff face as each second ticked by. He worked to position himself so that he would be able to reach Ginny as quickly as possible.

  “Lower, faster!” he called up to his friends.

  Ginny yelped as her flailing foot hit against something and another cascade of stones fell. Harry was so close he could see the whites of her eyes as she glanced between him and the plunge they would both take if anything went wrong.

  “Don’t look down,” he ordered her. “Look at me. I’ve got you.”

  At last, after what felt like an eternity, he was close enough to reach her.

  “Stop!” He called to his friends, and the rope stopped.

  He did the best he could to swing toward Ginny without hitting the unstable rock. The angle of her shoulder told him it was dislocated, but if she felt the pain, she didn’t let on. He wedged his shoulder under her good arm as best he could.

  “Let go,” he told her. “Grab hold of me.”

  “I…I don’t think I can. I can’t move,” she panted.

  “You can let go. I’ve got you, I promise.”

  Her face contorted with effort and pain as she pried her free hand off the rock and threw it around his neck.

  All at once, the jutting rock she’d been clinging to cracked and gave way. Ginny screamed, and her weight fell hard against him, dragging him down. The cold and wet had permeated Harry’s skin, but somehow he managed to grasp Ginny with his arms and legs. The sudden heat of her body enfolded by his sent a surge of victory through him, but they weren’t out of the woods yet.

  “Up!” he shouted.

  The cry was echoed above him, and the rope swooshed upward. The cliff rumbled, and a few more shards of rock fell away to their side, but by the time Harry and Ginny were pulled to the top, it was beginning to feel stable again.

  Several sets of arms reached down and grabbed them, hauling them up over the lip of the cliff and across the wet, cool grass. Harry kept his arms and legs tight around Ginny. The bumps and bruises of their ascent didn’t matter. He could feel her shaking in his arms, and until she stopped, he wouldn’t let her go.

  “I’ve got you,” he panted. “You’re safe. I’ll never let you go, Ginny. Never. I’m sorry.”

  Her fear had dissolved into weeping, and she buried her face against his shoulder. They were so intimately intertwined that if it hadn’t been for the dozen or so anxious men surrounding them, Harry would have kissed her as though they were in bed together. Instead, he had to settle for keeping her close in his embrace as they were lifted to their feet and half carried even farther away from the cliff, to one of the newly finished buildings.

  “Bring them in here,” he heard Lord Peter shout. “Fetch a doctor. Make sure the cliff is stable.”

  What happened next was a blur. The rain stopped abruptly as they were taken into one of the new buildings. Lucky, that building contained a stove, which radiated heat. The only way that Harry would have been willing to let Ginny go was with the knowledge that she would be taken someplace warm. All the same, she gasped and reached for him as her friend Millie arrived and tried to escort her to the stove.

  “It’s all right,” Harry said. “Go. I’m still right here.”

  “Harry,” she whispered, but went with Ginny all the same.

  “What happened? Is he all right?” Brian shouted as he burst into the room.

  Harry had never been so happy to see his brother in his life. When Brian spotted him and rushed over to make sure he was unharmed, he clapped his arms around him and hugged him in relief. Not just for rescuing Ginny without losing his own life in the process, but because for the first time he was confident that he would be able to right the wrongs that were his fault. Ginny loved him. Sh
e’d loved him all along. Nothing could stop him from making her his. Not even the colossal helping of humble pie he would have to eat.

  It wasn’t until after Dr. Fincher forced her shoulder back into place that Ginny realized how much pain she’d been in. She cried out, and the edges of her vision went black, but as soon as her joint was repaired and her arm wrapped in a sling and secured against her chest, everything that had been only fear and panic began to coalesce into sense. Which left her thinking about only one thing.

  “Harry. Where’s Harry?” she asked, attempting to stand from the stool where the doctor had treated her.

  “He’s with his brother,” Stephen answered, motioning for her to stay seated.

  “Stephen?” Ginny’s heart rose and fell in a matter of seconds. He had been right there with Harry, helping to rescue her. “Thank you,” she said, blinking away tears. “Thank you for helping to save me.”

  “It was my pleasure.” He clasped her free hand, bringing it to his lips to kiss.

  Ginny’s heart twisted in her chest. She gently pulled her hand away from him. “Oh, Stephen,” she said, lowering her head.

  “I know,” he whispered, taking a half step back. “You love him.”

  “I do,” she confessed, part of her wishing that things could have turned out differently. “You’re a good man, Stephen Adler. You’re just not the man for me.”

  “I was beginning to get that impression,” he said with an awkward smile.

  “You deserve a woman who will adore you for your goodness,” Ginny went on.

  “And you deserve to marry a man who loves you so much that he’d risk life and limb to save you.” He glanced over his shoulder to Harry as he said it.

  Harry looked up from where he was talking to his brother. His expression filled with surprise as he glanced from Stephen to Ginny. Ginny swallowed, ready to beat him with her one good hand if he got the wrong idea about her association with Stephen again. His expression dropped back to neutrality, though, and he left Brian to approach them.

  “I was just telling Ginny that she deserves a man who loves her beyond reason,” Stephen said. “And since I’m far too much of a reasonable man, I must take myself out of the running.” He laughed weakly at his joke, such that it was.

  “I told Stephen I couldn’t marry him,” Ginny confessed. “Because my heart belongs to someone else. It always has.”

  She stood, wincing at the pain in her shoulder. Harry rushed forward, resting his hands on her waist, both to steady her and, she suspected, because he wanted to hold her.

  “I’m sorry,” he repeated the words he had said to her after rescuing her. “I’m so sorry that I ever doubted you.”

  “We were both fools,” she said, looping her free arm around his waist. “If we had just been open with each other from the beginning—”

  “We could have saved ourselves this trouble,” he said, moving his hands to cradle her face. “But who knows what else could have happened? You wouldn’t have been given the position working for Lady Mariah.”

  “You never know,” she said, but in her heart, she knew Harry was right. Even now, part of her worried that she’d have to give up the position she loved to be with the man she loved even more. “Life is full of choices,” she said, leaning into Harry, in spite of the pain in her shoulder and in spite of the half dozen or so people watching them. “But it’s never too late to make the right one.”

  “I want you to know,” he said, gazing intently into her eyes. “In spite of a few moments of stupidity born out of disappointment in myself, I have never thought of you as anything less than a beautiful, honorable, good woman.”

  “Well, not that good,” she answered, sending him a mischievous grin.

  “I’m sorry,” he repeated. His words had the feeling of finality to them.

  “Harry Pond,” she sighed, reaching up to stroke his stubbly face with her free hand. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “Marry me,” he answered.

  The breath caught in Ginny’s lungs, even as her heart sped up, thumping against her chest.

  “Marry me, and remind me every day that I’m a foolish, block-headed idiot that needs managing at every turn.”

  “All right,” Ginny laughed, suddenly feeling lighter than air. “Only if you’ll keep me from being too good or taking myself too seriously.”

  “I think that can be arranged,” he said, his voice and his eyes filling with heat. He pulled her closer, but stopped when he realized they weren’t alone. Ginny blushed, but didn’t back out of his embrace.

  “Go ahead and kiss her,” Stephen said with a satisfied smile. “After everything that’s happened, you deserve it.”

  Ginny giggled, smiling up at Harry. She knew him so well, and at the same time it was as if a whole new man stood in front of her—one that loved her, was open to her, and would never let her down again.

  He leaned forward, holding her as carefully as he could, and kissed her as boldly as if they were alone. She sighed and lost herself in the kiss, knowing that, come what may, nothing would ever come between the two of them again.

  There’s more to come at Starcross Castle! Ginny and Harry may have found their happily ever after, but what about Poppy and Nick? She adores him…he fancies her…but what about Mavis? You can find out one week from now on February 9th in Starcross Dreams, available now.

  And coming April 6th, book two of The Silver Foxes of Westminster, August Sunrise. Remember Alexander Croydon from A Place to Belong? He’s ready to marry at last, and industrial heiress Marigold Bellowes is his ideal mate. But can he recover from the heartbreak and mistakes of his past, and is Marigold ready to accept James, Alex’s illegitimate son? When James becomes the target of Alex’s enemies, will it bring Marigold and Alex together or tear them apart?

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  Click here for a complete list of other works by Merry Farmer.

  About the Author

  I hope you have enjoyed Starcross Lovers. If you’d like to be the first to learn about when new books in the series come out and more, please sign up for my newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/cbaVMH And remember, Read it, Review it, Share it! For a complete list of works by Merry Farmer with links, please visit http://wp.me/P5ttjb-14F.

  Merry Farmer is an award-winning novelist who lives in suburban Philadelphia with her cats, Torpedo, her grumpy old man, and Justine, her hyperactive new baby. She has been writing since she was ten years old and realized one day that she didn't have to wait for the teacher to assign a creative writing project to write something. It was the best day of her life. She then went on to earn not one but two degrees in History so that she would always have something to write about. Her books have reached the Top 100 at Amazon, iBooks, and Barnes & Noble, and have been named finalists in the prestigious RONE and Rom Com Reader’s Crown awards.

  Acknowledgments

  I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my awesome beta-readers, Caroline Lee and Jolene Stewart, for their suggestions and advice. And double thanks to Julie Tague, for being a truly excellent editor and assistant!

  Click here for a complete list of other works by Merry Farmer.