Falling Fast (Falling Fast #1) Read online

  He wasn’t sure how long they stood there looking at each other, but she finally cleared her throat and pulled her hand back. “Business,” she confirmed. “We should probably…” She gestured vaguely toward the house.

  “Yeah. Do you have a notepad? We’ll take notes, prioritize.”

  She walked to the counter, where she’d already placed a yellow notepad and a pen. “You look very beachy,” she said, taking him in.

  He glanced down at the blue surfer shorts that hung halfway down his thighs and the white tank he’d thrown on. Because he wasn’t trying to impress her. “Beachy is all I’ve ever known.”

  She was still taking him in. “So different from my life in Minneapolis.”

  “We’re totally different, Mia.”

  “Once upon a time, that didn’t matter.”

  “But it should have.”

  She gave him a soft look, moving toward the back doors. “Let’s start with the exterior.”

  He followed her, watching the spray of hairs that had escaped her clip bounce with her movements. Her ass filled out the white shorts she wore, swaying nicely and completely natural. The blue cotton top billowed over a red tank top, revealing nothing but the slightest hint of cleavage. She’d filled in, changed, as she’d noted of him earlier. As she turned toward the house to study the eaves, he could see burn scars beneath the edge of her collar.

  Guilt strangled the air from his lungs. He had to stop himself from moving closer, pulling the fabric away to see how bad it was. How far up it went. What he’d done to her.

  “It looks like the siding was painted recently,” she said, jotting that down.

  “That was last year’s project.”

  She took in the octagonal deck with the newly stained boards. “Nice job here. You’re pretty handy with a hammer, too, it seems.”

  “Done a bit of work here and there.”

  The business tone softened. “Thank you for taking care of her.”

  “It did start out as me trying to atone.” He took her in. “Since I couldn’t do that with you. But she became the grandmother I never had.” Damn, his voice had cracked a little.

  Mia’s smile widened. “It seems she saw the same thing in you that I did.”

  Raleigh had to look away. He thought he’d outgrown the need for validation, for the way she made him feel valuable. But there was obviously something deep inside him that still craved it, just as it had once craved her. He focused on the house. “We didn’t get the gutters replaced.”

  She moved past him, studying the windows.

  “They’re hurricane-rated. Nancy said she had them replaced after Hurricane Arlene hit just west of here. She had a feeling, and, damn, was she right. That was just the beginning. We got nailed that year, one after another, including Katrina. I’d just moved into the trailer.”

  “That must have been terrifying. I hope you didn’t ride out the storms in the trailer.”

  “The guy who owned it invited me to hunker down at his place, so I had a backup plan. Luckily, I’m pretty far inland.”

  “I always watch the news when a hurricane is headed this way. My father gave up on trying to get Grandma to leave her home when one was coming.” She flicked a glance his way. “I worried about you, too.”

  Her words burrowed right into his chest. She’d thought about him. “Thank God it’s been quiet lately. I did get your grandma to agree to come inland when Karen was threatening to hit us a few years back.”

  “Funny how she listened to you and not to her son.”

  “I threatened to bodily carry her out if a hurricane was imminent. She knew I was serious, so she pretended it was her idea.”

  Mia laughed, a sweet sound that he wanted to hold on to. “Sounds like her.”

  They went around the outside and made notes about gaps and a few warped boards.

  She held the notepad against her chest and looked at the front of the house. “Do you think someone will buy it and then just tear it down?” Her bee-stung lower lip jutted out in a pout. “It’s such a cute place.”

  “You’re being sentimental.”

  “Maybe.” She glanced across the street, where one of those contemporary skinny houses was going up on one of the many vacant lots. “But Gram’s cottage is so…Old Florida. Authentic.”

  “The house isn’t in bad shape. It would make a great summer cottage. Even a vacation rental.”

  The prospect made her smile. “Yeah, it would.” She positioned the notepad to write again. “The window boxes need either replacing or removing. And the planting beds could use some help.”

  “Yeah, I couldn’t persuade her to get rid of those boxes. It’s hard to grow anything but native plants so close to the ocean. Even if you plant them in good soil, the salt in the air dries them out.”

  “I remember her droopy flowers. She sure tried.”

  He stared at the dried-up husks of once-flowering plants. “Sometimes people want the things they can’t have.” He worked really hard not to look at Mia, but he could feel her watching him. “Let’s go inside and inventory what needs to be fixed or, as Nancy used to say, spruced up.”

  Mia followed him in. “Yeah, she liked that expression.”

  “She would say things like ‘You know, we should spruce up the front steps.’ I wanted to tell her that they needed more than sprucing up; they needed to be torn out completely. But I’d just nod and agree. Then I tore them out.”

  She laughed softly. “Good for you. And for her.”

  Their gazes locked, and he swallowed and forced himself to move on. He called out a few of the things he’d been wanting to fix for years and that Nancy put off doing. Didn’t he have better things to do than fix a crooked bracket? she’d say. Or “spruce up” the paint on the walls?

  Mia paused by the fridge, where interspersed between the tourist magnets were pictures of her. Little-girl pictures that tugged at his heart. And there was one of her walking across the stage in cap and gown, her face still red and raw from the burns. That one tore at him, made him proud that she’d been brave enough to cross the stage. And agonized him that she had to struggle so much to get there.

  “Kitchen cabinets need a coat of paint,” he said. “We should regrout the tile on the floors and replace the Formica countertops. The appliances are fairly new. We replaced them three years ago when her fridge gave out and they didn’t have avocado anymore.”

  Mia wrinkled her nose as she wrote down what he’d said. “Ew! I can’t imagine how that color ever became popular.”

  He took the opportunity to study her hands. Nails weren’t painted, but they were neatly filed and shiny. A gold ring adorned her pointer finger, with a small diamond and a cluster of red stones in the shape of a flower. Even though she came from money, she’d never been flashy.

  He’d never seen that kind of money, her parents with their upscale rental cars, fine clothing, jewelry. Now it was more common, widows and neglected housewives sometimes bringing their cars in for maintenance, flashing their glitter and their too-white smiles, winking at him with fake eyelashes. Such capable hands. I have some maintenance things that need to be done. Maybe you could come out to my bungalow and screw in some lightbulbs for me?

  Not him.

  “Raleigh?”

  He blinked. “Yeah?”

  “Do I even want to know what you were thinking about? You had a sort of sneer…” She tried to emulate it, though it looked adorable on her.

  “I’m just getting hungry. Want to order a pizza?”

  “Sure.” A long whining sound filled the air. She giggled, slapping her hand over her stomach. “Guess I’m hungry, too.”

  Ah, that laugh again. She had laughed often during that summer, with every new experience. Well, not every one.

  They finished their walk-through minutes before the pizza-delivery guy arrived. Raleigh paid, and she gathered some plates and napkins and met him out on the back deck.

  “So, what is it about this furniture?” she asked, sittin
g down at the table. “I mean, it’s nice and all.” She ran her fingers down the synthetic wicker weave of her chair.

  “It’s just the chaise lounge, really.” He pointed to it with the corner of the piece of pizza draped over his fingers. “I’d never seen one like that before I came here. Outdoor furniture that looks like indoor furniture. You remember the folding beach chairs I had at the trailer? That’s all I ever knew. This one is wide enough to sprawl out on, and the cushion’s like a cloud. I’d sometimes crash for the night on it when I’d been working late on the deck.”

  “Do you still live in the trailer?”

  “I built a cabin where the trailer used to be.” You should come out and see it sometime. Thankfully, he held in the casual invitation. That’s how it had started, a casual invite to watch him race. “It’s just a simple two-bedroom, but it feels more like a home than the trailer.”

  “You are handy with a hammer.”

  “Pax helped. And I helped him with fixing up the place he bought.”

  She’d never talked about her home, but he imagined that it was big. Two or three stories, huge columns flanking the grand steps leading to massive front doors. And all he’d had to offer her back then was a trailer. She hadn’t seemed to mind, though, when they went there before or after the races. She never complained about the small bed, the low ceiling. When she’d been there, it might as well have been a palace, as far as he was concerned.

  “Now, what are you thinking about?” she asked, plucking a mushroom off her pizza and popping it into her mouth.

  “Memories,” he said, determined not to elaborate.

  She glanced around, sweeping the Gulf with her eyes. “I bet you have a lot of good ones.”

  “Yeah.” Had that come out too soft and mushy?

  She brushed a strand of hair that had fallen across her face. “I wish I’d come to visit her. I just wasn’t…couldn’t come back.”

  “Bad memories. I get it.”

  “Not all bad.” She gave him a sympathetic smile. Or maybe a consoling one—he wasn’t sure. “Actually, I don’t remember anything about the accident itself.”

  “That’s good. I do. Every second of it.” Sometimes he had nightmares. The crash of metal. Shattering glass. The flames. And Mia’s screams as they licked along her face and arm. She’d been frantically trying to open the door, but Cassidy’s car had pinned her door shut.

  “Tell me.”

  “No.”

  “You don’t think I can handle hearing it?”

  “I can’t handle telling it. Then I have to relive it. Be glad you don’t remember.”

  He was sure she was ready to object or deny that. But her eyes swept across his, seeing something that made her mouth drift closed again. She propped her feet up on the chair next to her. “You went to jail.”

  “Yep.”

  “What did they charge you with?”

  “Reckless driving that caused serious injuries, and unlawful racing. I was sentenced to sixteen months, but I got out after twelve for good behavior.”

  Now she was definitely giving him a sympathetic smile. “And now that’s on your record forever.”

  His smile was wooden. “I’m officially an ex-con. The ladies love it.” He hadn’t meant to even bring up women. Stupid.

  She tilted her head. “It only adds to that bad-boy mystique.”

  “Is that what I have? Had?”

  “At first, anyway. Then I got to know you.” She winked. “And I found out it was mostly a façade.”

  “Guess I’d better work on that, then. You know, making it real.”

  Were they flirting? No, he was pretty sure they weren’t. But, just in case, he wanted to deflect this path. “Nancy said you’d graduated from the University of Minnesota, and that you’re a nurse at a hospital.”

  “That’s not fair. You know all kinds of stuff about me, and I know nothing about your life.”

  “You never asked.”

  He didn’t mean it as a jab, but her eyes shadowed and her voice got quiet when she said, “I didn’t.”

  “You were angry at me. I understand.”

  “I wasn’t angry. The only person I blame is the jerk who caused the crash. What happened to him?”

  “Cassidy was charged with everything I was, as well as failure to yield right of way, or something like that. But because he was a minor at the time of the crash, even with the extra charge he served a few months less than I did.” He wouldn’t call it an accident, not when it came to Cassidy’s part in it.

  “Seems unfair. I think my father sued his family, but they kept all that from me. They settled out of court, and the money went for medical costs. I heard he lost his car. What happened to yours? You loved that Camaro.”

  “It was totaled. Insurance wouldn’t cover it because of the racing. But I deserved everything I got.”

  “Why do you believe that? You were as much a victim as I was.”

  “I didn’t seduce your grandma, but I did seduce you.” He stood, tossing his pizza crusts into the empty box and taking it inside.

  She stomped in behind him, dropping her plate noisily on the counter. “Why does everyone treat me as though I was a mindless, helpless girl lured into danger? As though I had no will of my own?”

  “Because you were seventeen. And, hell, Mia, you’d never even kissed a guy before. You were completely susceptible.”

  She slapped her hand over her eyes. “Did I tell you that?”

  “One time when you were falling asleep, you kinda mumbled it.”

  “Great.” She let her hand slide down her face. “But it wasn’t like you purposely set out to corrupt me. Right?”

  “No. Just the opposite. I kept telling myself to stay away from you. I didn’t mean to invite you to the race, and as soon as the words were out I wished I could take them back. I knew it was way beyond your scene. Your experience. But I saw something in you, too. And when you came around and told me you wanted to go I was…” He rubbed the back of his neck. Thrilled? Awed? Touched? He didn’t want to admit to any of those. “Happy,” he settled for. “I promised myself I’d keep you safe, that I wouldn’t touch you. You see how well that turned out.” He tucked the box sideways under his arm. “I’d better go.” Because he’d made that promise again. “Good night, Mia.”

  Raleigh stepped out into the balmy night air and sucked in the salty breeze. He had no willpower when it came to her. Even now, when he wasn’t a nineteen-year-old with a partially disconnected frontal lobe, as all teens supposedly had.

  He stuffed the box into the trash can and headed down the gravel road to his car. The moon washed over the white shells, making the road glow. When he reached the car, he leaned against the front and watched the shadowy waves rolling in. Here they were again. Him, the town drunk’s son trying to make something of himself. Her, so beautiful, here for a short time. Him, wanting her so bad…and knowing he could never be what she deserved.

  —

  Mia couldn’t help herself. She stood inside the window watching Raleigh walk away. He was still serving his sentence. Hating himself. Blaming himself for what had happened. Even for loving you.

  When he disappeared into the distance, she pushed away from the window. She released a sigh, though it did nothing to relieve the tension in her chest. Here she was again, falling hard and fast for the bad boy with the good heart. Yeah, maybe that mystique had drawn her that first day in the garage, a boy so different from any she’d ever encountered. But she had seen his heart, his tenderness.

  She saw it now.

  Play it safe, Mia. Don’t fall again. This is about closure, not getting involved with someone you’ve had such a tangled history with; someone your parents despise.

  She turned back to the cottage, so warm and cozy. Even though she’d been here for more than a week, she hadn’t done much in the way of packing things up. Her parents had gone through and taken anything of value, sentimental or otherwise. Her father, who’d been on the bank accounts, assigned the
m to her. She knew that he didn’t care about the money; it was the idea of her staying here, doing this on her own, that rankled. And, mostly, being near Raleigh.

  They’d been overprotective, just shy of coddling her. It had been a small step to move into the college dorms, even though she’d chosen a college that was only thirty minutes from home. Now she was moving farther away, but it was still Minneapolis.

  Way too wired to even think of relaxing, she tackled the closet in the main bedroom. Moving boxes filled the second bedroom, and she taped one up and set it in the corner. There were no walk-in closets here, no huge rooms. Even as a bored teenager, she had intrinsically appreciated the coziness and simplicity of Grandma’s house.

  She opened the bifold doors and took in all the clothing. Not pastels, polyester, “old lady” clothes, as Grandma had put it. She loved color—rich, deep, and bright. Mia carefully pulled clothes and dresses and such, folded them, and set them in the box. She would donate them to the thrift shop, as Grandma would have wanted.

  Stepping up on a stool, she cleared out the boxes of shoes and set the ones that contained business papers aside to sort. At around midnight, she pulled down the last one, labeled PICTURES. She sat on the bed and lifted the lid. On top of stacks of pictures lay an envelope with the words FOR MIA, PERSONAL written in large letters. Her heart stepped up as she tugged her finger beneath the seal. The stationery was delicate, with scalloped edges. She unfolded the page and read Nancy’s familiar writing:

  Dear Mia,

  If you’re reading this, I’m gone or on the way to being gone. Either way, know that I’m fine with going home. I have no regrets. I lived well. Loved. Felt gratitude at every sea breeze that wafted over my face and ruffled my hair. Every grain of sand lodged between my toes. You taught me that, a child, looking death in the eye and soaking in life as you did.

  I lied; I do have one regret. His name was James McConnelly, and I met him when I was sixteen. He rode a motorcycle, smoked, drank, the embodiment of the rebel without a cause…but with a chip on his shoulder. I fell madly in love with him, and, despite my parents’ restrictions, we managed to find time together. He showed me a side no one else saw. Not the cursing, smoking, mischief-maker but a boy who needed love, needed someone to see that he was worthy of love. And I did love him, oh, I did.