Falling into You

by Jackson, A. L.

  My head shook. Pride rising high. “Wow…y’all really did make it big.”

  Mel waved an indulgent hand in the air. “Um…so big…you don’t even know. I mean, they played live at the ACB Awards. You can’t get any bigger than that.”

  Emily blushed. “It’s not that big a deal.”

  “Huge deal,” Melanie said with her back to us as she arranged the dresses.

  “I think it’s a pretty big deal,” Maggie added in her shy way.

  “I do, too,” I agreed, smiling at my friend.

  Wistfully.

  Nostalgia hitting me full-on.

  The dreams they’d had. They were going to do whatever it took to chase them down. Reaching for the stars. The only difference was I’d somehow been fool enough to believe I was going to be there with them while they did it.

  Not that I was a starfucker.

  Wanting a claim to their fame.

  I’d just loved them all so much I couldn’t wait to see them achieve every single dream.

  “We’re truly blessed,” Emily said as she stared at me for a beat. “Grateful for how far we’ve come.”

  “I can’t wait to see how far you go.”

  Finally, I cleared my throat when the tension felt too thick. “Well, we’d better try these dresses on. We’ve got a weddin’ to plan.”

  “Good idea. In you go, sexy pants.” Melanie waved an emphatic hand to my dressing room. “God…these pictures are gonna be amazing. Like, your bridesmaids are legit the most gorgeous women in the world,” Melanie said, her attention shifting to Emily.

  Emily quirked a brow. “You are one of my bridesmaids.”

  “And?” she drew out.

  I laughed.

  Only Mel.

  We tried on the dresses, coming out each time we put on a new one to show it off.

  Mel gathered up the ones we liked and put the rest in a discard pile for Letty who was running around trying to meet her demands.

  After spending two hours with her steering this party, there was no question she was worth every cent of whatever they were paying her to manage the band.

  She had it in her blood.

  Quick wit and organization and no fear to tell it like it was.

  On my second to last dress I’d been given to model, I stepped out of the dressing room. It was a light-rose, clingy dress. It had a ridiculously deep neckline, the material expanding from the cinched straps and widening to cover your breasts, a fitted band that went all the way from beneath the bustline to the waist. The A-line skirt draped to the ground and had a high slit riding up the left leg to expose the thigh.

  Sexy and sleek.

  Cleavage for days.

  Mel’s eyes went wide the second she saw me. “Oh my god, that’s the one.” She pointed at me in glee.

  I turned to look in the mirror.

  God, it really was stunning.

  “Turn a circle.” Mel whirled a finger in the air.

  I obeyed. It wasn’t like I was about to argue with her.

  “That’s it.” She looked at Emily. “What do you think?”

  “It is so perfect. Beyond perfect. I think you all should wear this one. Forget the mismatched look.”

  Emily turned to Maggie. “What do you think?” she asked, hopefully, but with some kind of concern that I didn’t understand.

  “I think I would be honored to wear that dress in yours and my brother’s wedding.”

  Melanie squealed. Threw herself at Emily. Hugged her tight. “I can’t believe you’re actually gettin’ married. For real this time. And not to that fucknugget, Nile.”

  Emily scowled but let go of a barking laugh. “Wow. Thanks for bringing up my ex.”

  “Hey, just a friendly reminder that sometimes when you think your life is falling apart, it’s actually shaking you up and setting you on the right path to get you where you’re really supposed to go. I.E. Royce’s bed.”

  Emily smacked her arm. “God, Mel.”

  Mel laughed. “What? We all know that’s where you want to live. Pretty sure that baby in your belly is proof of that.”

  Maggie smiled a shy grin. “I can’t wait to be an aunt. I hope a ton of times. You just go on living there.”

  “Um, okay you two. I think Maggie is going to have to stop hanging around Mel.”

  Melanie swatted at her. “Not a chance. I love her. She’s mine,” she breezed as she carried the dress over to Letty. “We’re actually going to go with this dress for everyone. I’ve sent everyone’s sizes over to you via email. Except for Violet. She needs to be fitted. You’re sure you can get these expedited in time?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Great. Now…on to the dress.”

  Letty smiled wide. “The dress.”

  She pulled the garment bag from the hook where it waited. The name of one of those uber famous wedding dress designers embroidered down the side.

  “The dress,” Emily wheezed, biting down on her lip.

  Emily was ushered into one of the larger rooms with Letty to help her, and a few minutes later, she came out wearing the most gorgeous dress I’d ever seen.

  Mel was right—these pictures were going to be incredible.

  Emily stepped onto the round riser with mirrors angled all around it. The satiny white single-shoulder dress clung to every curve of her body. Fitted from top to bottom with a slit running up one side.

  Her baby bump was just beginning to show.

  She set her hand on the tiny swell, and I could see the tear slip from her eye.

  A joyous, awe-filled tear.

  I met her gaze through the mirror, mouthed, “You are so beautiful. I’m so happy for you.”

  She shifted just a fraction to look back at me. “Do you remember when we were doing this for you? How beautiful you were standing up here?”

  Her words struck me like an arrow. A stake that pierced all the way through. I’d been trying to forget. Not to make these memories about me, just like I’d been trying to do at the tree and failing miserably.

  I was pretty sure my face showed it.

  “Oh, Vi…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  I waved her off to stop her from continuing. “It’s fine.”

  She frowned.

  Just like my daddy, she didn’t believe me a bit.

  * * *

  An hour later, we were all under an umbrella in front of a cafe drinking iced lattes.

  “Why is shopping so exhausting?” Emily groaned as she slumped back in the chair and took a sip from her straw.

  “Uh…because you never have to do it. You have a personal shopper. Hello, remember me?” Mel gestured to herself.

  “Thank God.”

  “Um, yes, thank God. Could you imagine if I let you get on a stage left to your own devices? The band would’ve had to kick you a long time ago.”

  “Hey,” Emily whined with a smile.

  “What? You’d probably try to get up there without a lick of makeup and the pajamas you were wearing the night before.”

  “Call me a trendsetter.”

  “I would think slob would be more fittin’.” Melanie grinned.

  Emily laughed, then sighed, her mood shifting to serious as she glanced between each of us. “Thank you for doing this, for bein’ a part of my wedding. This is the most important day of my life, and I couldn’t imagine a single one of you not being there to share it with me.”

  That disquiet rumbled. The feeling I’d been fighting all day. The unease of standing up there in that same spot with Richard so near.

  I’d grown accustomed to it with the other weddings we hosted. Was able to block it out. Make it a part of the job on our land and nothing more. It wasn’t like the tree wasn’t sitting in that very spot day after day, anyway.

  But this…this was different.

  This was intimate.

  Important.

  My family that was no longer really my family, and I no longer knew how to fit.

  Maggie touched my knee where she
sat next to me. “Are you okay?”

  Empath.

  I was sure of it.

  I sent her a soft, shaky smile. “Of course.”

  She frowned, not biting the lie. “I know I don’t know you that well, and it isn’t my place, but…but what I said earlier about seeing your face when Daisy fell?”

  Unsure of what she was getting at, I managed a tight nod.

  “I saw your face the whole time we were at your farm. From the second we drove up until you were leaving to the E.R. The way you looked at him.”

  Undoubtedly, Emily had told her about mine and Richard’s history.

  I swallowed down the tears I could feel burning at the back of my throat. “Sometimes it’s hard looking into the past.”

  “It looked to me like you were looking at what should have been your future.”

  “That’s the same thing, isn’t it?” I asked her, confused and uneasy.

  Maggie shook her head. “No. Looking into your past, you might miss it, but you know it’s over. That’s not what your expression was saying, and it sure wasn’t what Richard’s was saying, either.”

  Wow.

  Okay.

  I was getting read by a nineteen-year-old. I guessed I really was transparent.

  Melanie laughed a quiet, wry sound. “You should have seen him on the way over there. Man looked like he was going to come out of his skin and the only thing that was gonna be left was his big bleeding heart and his poor, miserable, lonely dick.”

  “Melanie,” Emily scolded below her breath.

  “What? You know it’s the truth. That guy is always on edge, wound up like a kite, high and then low.”

  I frowned. “That doesn’t sound like him at all.”

  He was ferocity. Intensity. The beauty in his soul pouring from his heart and through his fingers.

  A shining light wherever he went.

  Mel leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table, sipping her drink and staring over at me. “A man changes when he gets his heart broken.”

  I scoffed. I couldn’t help it. “I think it was the other way around.”

  “Maybe he broke his own,” Mel hedged.

  Emily was nervously chewing her bottom lip, looking between us. Whatever she’d been trying to hold back came spewing out, “You two went on a date last night?”

  “Oh my god,” Melanie gushed and smacked her hand on the table. “I knew it. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.”

  “It was not a date,” I hissed low, holding it back like it was a secret and like the whole town wouldn’t know by then about the debacle that had unfolded in the middle of the restaurant.

  “He took you to dinner,” Emily argued, pushing, searching my face when she did.

  “He just wanted to talk.”

  “And that’s it? You just talked?” Emily’s brow pitched high in speculation.

  Redness raced. Blood sloshing at the reminder. At the thoughts that slammed me in prickly, lustful bits.

  I dropped my head a fraction to hide it.

  “Oh my god,” Emily whispered and edged forward. “Did you—”

  “God, no.”

  Except it was close.

  Oh god, had it been close. Me nearly fully giving in, wanting him so desperately that I felt like I might physically succumb.

  Death by celibacy.

  Mel angled down, trying to see my face. “Look at her, Emily. She is lyin’ through her teeth. What did you two get up to last night?”

  “Something I am sure to regret,” I admitted, wondering why I was trying to deny it in the first place.

  The evidence was written all over me.

  The testimony of my bleeding, mangled heart.

  Melanie slammed her hand down again. “I knew it. Finally, Richard got himself a little lovin’. Maybe he’ll stop being such a Mr. Crabby Pants. All that pent-up energy and a giant dick and no one to sink it into—now that is one volatile combination.”

  Her assertion was all kinds of solemn with a dash of amusement.

  My eyes widened, and Emily smacked her on the shoulder. “What in the world is wrong with you?”

  Mel shrugged. “I’m not going to apologize for telling the truth to my friend. Besides, stumbling in on Richard and Rhys in various states of undress while on tour is a hazard of my job.”

  Maggie giggled in embarrassment. Maybe a little interest, too.

  Cheeks pinking when she dropped her head to hide it.

  “That’s it, all your hotel key cards are gettin’ revoked,” Emily told Mel.

  But I was staring across at Mel, taken aback again by what she’d said. Trying not to believe it. For it not to matter.

  “Is it true?” It came rasping out without my full consent, words scraping my raw throat, cutting me open wide to reveal the pain that wouldn’t abate.

  And I didn’t mean the size of his dick. I was already well-acquainted with that.

  “That he’s been alone since you?” Melanie clarified.

  My nod was brittle.

  Mel’s lips pressed together, grim and sure. “I’m not with him every second of every day, Violet. But never in the last six years have I known him to even acknowledge another woman other than a polite hello, let alone sleep with one. It would shock the hell out of me to learn that he had. That’s the truth.”

  Maggie touched my knee again. “See. The future.”

  But I didn’t know how to have a dream of a future with a man when he had been the downfall of the past.

  Twenty-Five

  Violet

  Twilight hung across the skyline in swaths of pinks and lavenders and blues as I eased up the drive to our house sitting on the hill.

  I was still reeling. Reeling from last night and today and all the things that felt like they were catching up to me. The threat of destruction all around. Too many uncertainties to feel stable.

  Whole or sound.

  The world trembling underfoot.

  I parked my truck in front of the porch and killed the loud engine.

  Daisy came barreling out, her arms in the air and her goodness bursting from her tiny, innocent spirit, black hair flying around her precious face.

  My chest squeezed. My heart in a fist.

  This was the good.

  The right.

  The purpose of everything.

  I climbed out of the truck and caught her in my arms.

  “Mommy! I missed you. Did you have the best day tryin’ on all the dresses? Did you get one? I bet you are gonna be the prettiest, prettiest ever. Except for your prettiest picture. Now that is the real prettiest.”

  She’d always been a smidge obsessed with the mystery of my wedding picture. The unknown man who had stood by my side. The one who was supposed to remain there but had left me high and dry.

  I hadn’t had the heart to get rid of it.

  She’d only become more interested in it now that she had a name to the face.

  “It was a great day. And yep, we found the perfect dress to go along with Emily’s.”

  She grinned as she looked at me, her cheeks pink and her dark eyes dancing with unending joy.

  My heart.

  My heart.

  It panged.

  Shivered in the distress of uncertainty and clutched in those sparks of hope that were growing brighter with every second.

  “I am so, so excited to wear mine. Did you know it came in the mail today from the package man? Papa let me try it on. It’s sooo pretty with my new, new shoes, and my cast doesn’t even look a little bit bad in it.”

  She lifted her broken wing.

  I touched her chin. Devotion rode free on the waves of affection that pressed from my being. “You will be the prettiest little hostess in the whole world.”

  Daisy beamed. A ray of light. “Come on, you’ve gotsta see it. I bet Mr. Richard will think I’m so pretty.”

  Yeah.

  Obsessed.

  I understood the affliction.

  She dragged me inside and upstairs to
her room where she’d ripped apart the box, packaging strewn, her dress a crumpled mess on her bed. “Papa said I haves to be so careful not to get it dirty so I can’t play with it until the special day.”

  “That’s a great idea,” I told her as she was whipping off her shirt and fumbling into the fluffy pink dress that I had ordered online, my little whirlwind shrugging into the garment and struggling to get it on over her cast.

  “Let me help you,” I told her, situating it over the bulkiness of her arm and helping her to get it over her body.

  She slid her feet into those shoes that I worried were going to be worn out before the wedding day two weeks from now. She brushed the wild mane out of her face with two hands, grinning in the floor-length mirror hanging on the back of her door. She swayed from side-to-side. “See, Mommy! It’s so pretty. I loves it.” She squeezed her hands together in a grateful prayer.

  I edged up behind her, planted a kiss to the top of her head, fought the tumble of fear I felt.

  This unending worry that I was stumbling toward something I wouldn’t recover from.

  But I would fight for her.

  For the best thing for her.

  Whatever that was.

  “You are so beautiful. Inside and out. My sunshine,” I whispered.

  She grinned wider. “Take a picture and send it to Mr. Richard.”

  I cringed.

  She frowned. “You don’t like him?”

  She touched the handwriting on her cast, and my eyes were drawn to the inscription he’d left.

  Daisy, a precious, perfect flower. Never be afraid to explore, learn, and bloom. Grow with all the love because love is what you are.

  “No, sweetheart, I don’t dislike him. Things are just very complicated between us.”

  “But you love him?” she asked almost carefully. Hopefully.

  “I used to. A lot. But that was a long time ago.” My words were soft. Cautious. I wouldn’t lie to my child, but she sure didn’t need to hear the sordid details.

  “I think he loves you a lot a lot.”