Falling Fast
Falling Fast # 1
By: Tina Wainscott
Releasing June 16, 2015
Loveswept
Falling Fast
Falling Fast Series
Fans of Jasinda Wilder and Colleen Hoover will adore this emotional new small-town romance—a smoldering tale of first love and long-awaited redemption from USA Today bestselling author Tina Wainscott.
Raleigh West works in an auto shop day and night, trying to put his broken past out of mind. It’s been seven years since the fiery crash that landed his teenage sweetheart in the hospital . . . and him in jail. In an instant, he lost everything: his passion for racing, his hope of escaping his father’s shameful legacy, and the only girl he ever loved. Raleigh hasn’t seen her since that awful night. Never got a chance to apologize. And never forgave himself, either.
When brave, beautiful Mia Wentworth returns to the Florida coast for the first time in what seems like forever, it’s not to see Raleigh. Even so, the moment she arrives she can feel his presence like a gust of wind that gives her goose bumps. Opening her heart to him again seems impossible. But staying away? That might be harder still. Lucky for them both, Mia’s never been the kind of woman to take the easy way out.
Today
was the memorial service. She leaned closer to the mirror under the
bright lights and applied a second coat of the thick makeup that
covered the mottled skin along her right temple and down her jawline.
There would be lots of people there, but she knew very few. Her
heartbeat tripped at the thought of one of them.
Raleigh.
She
splayed her hand over her collarbone to calm her skittering pulse,
the heel of her palm brushing against the scarred skin there. It
nearly covered the divot-shaped scar left from the port during her
cancer treatments. What would he think if he saw her like this, naked
in the glaring light? Scarred skin covering her shoulder and arm all
the way down to her hand. Down the side of her waist and hip. Her
breasts rose and fell with her breaths at the thought of standing
naked with him.
Or
was that at the memory of the times she had been naked with him?
Lying in his arms, their bodies plastered together. Moving in a
rhythm as old as time, even if it had been brand-new for her. She had
held on to those memories—the scents and sensations and soft
laughter and the times they’d looked into each other’s eyes and
the world had just stopped—during the pain and the surgeries and
the rehab after the crash. They’d been her escape. Her lifeline.
She
traced her finger along the scar across her stomach, now a soft,
shiny arc. Raleigh had asked about it once, tracing it as she was
doing now. She’d told him it was from a bicycle accident. She
hadn’t been able to tell him about the malignant tumor, the first
of many. Couldn’t face how his expression might change to pity.
But
you lied to him.
She
squeezed her eyes shut. Sheesh, she still hated herself for that. It
was only supposed to be a summer romance. A flirtation. It wasn’t
supposed to be . . . love.
“We
have to leave!” her mom called.
“Coming!”
Mia
quickly dressed in linen pants and a beige top with sleeves cut long
enough to cover the scars on her upper arms. She looked at the
exposed scar tissue from her elbow down. Showing some scar tissue
is nothing compared with what you’ve been through. You’ve faced
long-assed needles, surgeries, death!
Not
that her parents had ever discussed the mortality rate of alveolar
rhabdomyosarcoma with her at the age of eight or ten or twelve . . .
when she was first diagnosed and every time it had returned. But she
knew by their reactions, by overheard conversations, that it was
serious. Later, she’d found out that the survival rate was sixty to
eighty percent, though she had been closer to sixty, given her
circumstances.
With
a deep breath, Mia headed to the door of the room where she’d
always stayed during their visits. A room she hadn’t seen in seven
years. A few phone calls, cards, a shared Christmas in Colorado—the
extent of her connection with her grandmother since the crash.
She
stepped into the living area, where her parents stopped and looked at
her.
“You’re
wearing light colors,” her mother said in her disappointed tone of
voice.
“I
told you, Nancy wouldn’t want people wearing black to her memorial.
She said she always wore white or red to a memorial to celebrate
life, not mourn it.”
“That’s
just what people say when they talk about death. Besides, wearing
black is the proper thing to do.” Her mother crossed her arms over
her chest, waiting for Mia to dash into her room and change.
Her
father glanced at his Rolex. “We don’t have time.”
Though
Mia had her own car, she rode with her parents to the cemetery. Had
her grandmother planned to pass during early summer, when the days
were kissed by sunshine and light breezes? That would be just like
her, to think of others. She had left instructions that her
memorial—not a “funeral”—was to be held at the cemetery, not
in a church. She hadn’t stepped foot inside a church in twenty
years, as far as Mia knew.
“I
don’t understand why she liked this place so much,” her mother
said, looking around in disdain as they drove through the downtown
area, with the old brick buildings claiming to be historic. “Then
to insist on being buried here . . .”
Her
father kept his eye on the road, his mouth a tight line the way it
always was when she went on and on about his mother. “Mom wasn’t
a city girl. She told me the moment she arrived in town for vacation
she made up her mind that she wasn’t leaving.”
“Making
us come down here to see her every year,” her mother groused.
Her
father’s fingers gripped the wheel. “We haven’t been down in
seven years.”
Because
of Mia. At first, because she wasn’t in any condition to travel.
Then it was that Grandma was “consorting”—Mia’s mother’s
word—with the boy who had corrupted and disfigured their daughter.
At
the time, Mia had been at a low point, having suffered through yet
another surgery, with the prospect of continuing disfigurement.
Grandma had called to say hello, then announced that she was putting
Raleigh on the phone. Before he’d said more than a few words, Mia
had blurted out that she couldn’t talk and hung up. A torrent of
grief and regret poured from her, leaving her a sodden mess.
Through
so much of her hospital stay and the pain, thinking about Raleigh had
strengthened her. Hearing his voice, though, had knocked her
completely off balance. The heartbreak had been so unexpected, so
huge, that she hadn’t known how to process it. She had
coping skills for facing surgery, facing her death and the deaths of
the kids she got to know in the peds oncology ward. Counselors helped
her with all of that. She had nothing when it came to losing love.
Later,
she’d written a letter to Raleigh, sending it to her grandmother to
give to him. She’d never heard back. Not that she blamed him. It
was time to move on for both of them, she’d told herself.
Another
lie.
Would
he be at the memorial? Mia’s fingers involuntarily curled into her
linen pants as she imagined seeing him. Her breath stopped. She
needed to be prepared, just in case, so she let her mind conjure up a
scenario. Seeing him in the crowd, wide shoulders filling out his
shirt, face chiseled by the intervening years. Him striding close,
gathering her hands in his, saying how much he missed her in that
honey-rich voice. Her sinking against him, bracing his face in her
hands, kissing him—
Whoa!
Bad idea. Feelings from a long, long time ago. So no, amend that
scenario.
He’s
there, in oil-stained jeans, T-shirt tight over a beer belly, and a
pregnant girlfriend. No, wife. Make him a little more respectable.
But not totally. He ducks back to the car during the ceremony to
sneak another drink of beer, leaving the wife standing awkwardly by
herself.
Yeah,
better. Much safer.
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