Falling Fast (Falling Fast #1) by Tina Wainscott Read Free Book Online Page A

acres of woods, scared that she’d see him for the poor, nothing boy he was. But she’d run through the tall grass in the field nearby, her arms outstretched. He’d chased after her, catching her around the waist and spinning her in his arms. She’d looked down at him, her hands on his cheeks, and he’d let her slide down his body until their mouths connected.
    This patch of scrub pines and grasses had been a paradise to her. No roar of traffic. No light pollution. Only the spray of diamonds against a coal-black sky and a chorus of crickets.
    He leaned against the side of his car.
Dammit, forget that. Forget all that. You’re going to make the list of work to be done, along with the people you trust to do it, and hand it to her.
He wanted to give her closure. But there was a part of him that wanted something completely different. It wanted an opening.

Chapter 4
    Her parents had pulled the “everything you put us through” card, effectively shutting up Mia’s protests about their deception. Of course, they’d only been trying to protect her, as they’d always done, blah-blah-blah.
    She stood on the back deck, seeing the faint lines of foam where the waves rolled up onto the shore. In the dark, with hardly any moonlight, that was the only evidence of the ocean, apart from the sounds. The beach seemed to disappear into inky darkness, punctuated by one lone light bobbing on the horizon.
    Thank God her parents didn’t want to stay here. They had gotten a room at the nicest hotel in town, much nicer than the surviving motels on “the strip,” as the kids called the main road that ran parallel to the Gulf. The road still bore the pastel-colored shacks with shells and the open-air restaurants that boasted fried shrimp and rum runners. All of that was where the dredging’s effects hadn’t reached. North of that, where the sand had been pumped in, sat a line of name-brand hotels and high-rise condos.
    Nancy’s cottage was just south of those, and had benefited a little from the downwash of that sand. Sand that Mother Nature was inexorably pulling back into the Gulf of Mexico. Mia could see the smattering of lights and was doubly grateful that her parents were there and not here. They thought she was odd to want to stay here alone, with ghosts from the past.
    Maybe Mia hoped Raleigh would stop by, especially now that she knew that was his car she’d seen the night they arrived. She’d watched him walk to his car after he left the attorney’s office, his fingers at his temples. While her father pressed Shatke to draw up the papers for Raleigh to sign over his inheritance to her, Mia had slipped out to get a drink of water and gone right to the front window.
    Raleigh had looked shocked at the meeting, clearly not expecting Nancy to leave him half of the house. Or say the things she’d said about him. But why, why would he offer to sign over that much money? Mia didn’t understand. That money could change his life. Was he still trying to atone for the accident?
    Mia turned back to the house, fully lit inside, warm and welcoming. “Well, Grandma, you wanted me to get closure. That’s what I’m going to do. Because my parents stole my letter to Raleigh. It galls me. No, forget that. It pisses me off. All these years I thought he was too hurt or angry to respond. I’ve been beating myself up for hanging up.”
    She was in the rental car forty minutes later, having applied makeup, brushed her wind-tossed hair, and tried on a dozen outfits…pretty much everything she’d brought.
    All chosen with seeing Raleigh in mind, her conscience taunted.
    No point in denying it. Mia had the roof down, the convertible a counterpoint to the grief and guilt with which she’d been wrestling. Her heart started hammering even before she spotted the garage. The inside lights were on. A midnight-blue classic muscle car was parked out front. Just like the old days.
    Except this was nothing like the old days. So much had happened since