Daring to Fall

by Shannon Stults

  “That’s awesome. Guess you’re keeping yourself busy.”

  Harper leaned her hip against the kitchen counter. “You could say that.”

  “How’s that guy with the muscles and the sexy Southern accent?”

  “Hey, you made fun of my accent for months.”

  “That’s because you didn’t look like the next big Calvin Klein model. And I definitely mean big, am I right?”

  She sighed, ignoring him. “Cowboy’s fine.”

  “Cowboy,” he repeated with a deep, throaty voice. “What kind of name is Cowboy anyway?”

  “It’s a nickname from middle school.”

  “Well, I would save a horse and ride him any day.”

  “Oh, God! Could you not?” Harper begged, rolling her eyes even though he couldn’t see them.

  “Why? You getting jealous?”

  “Hardly,” she said between giggles. “You’re not really his type.”

  “Ah, but you are exactly his type. I give you less than a month before you’re back in his arms.”

  She shook her head. “Not going to happen. We’ve decided to try being friends.”

  “Really? And whose idea was this?”

  “His.”

  Aiden’s laughter about burst her eardrum.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “He’s obviously trying to win you back.”

  “No, he is not.”

  He laughed again. “I saw you two together. Trust me, he is not interested in just being your friend.”

  “Funny, he swore the same thing about you.”

  “You two talked about me?” She could practically hear him perk up in his seat. “What did he say?”

  “Don’t you have a boyfriend? I don’t imagine Lincoln would take too well to you lusting after another man.”

  “Please, one look at your Stetson stud and he’d kick me to the curb in a second.”

  “And they say love is blind.” Harper took a sip of her tea. “Things are finally getting better with Sadie. She even sounded kind of happy for me when I mentioned starting up the B&B.”

  “See, I told you things would get better. It’s like I’ve got a sixth sense when it comes to these things.”

  She giggled. “I don’t know why I ever doubted you.”

  Chapter Ten

  Harper paced in the living room just off the foyer. She checked her phone again. It was nearly midnight, and she still hadn’t heard a word from Sadie. No calls, no texts, no nothing. What if she was hurt somewhere? What if there’d been an accident and Sadie was alone on the side of the road for anybody to take advantage of? Or worse, what if she was lying unconscious somewhere?

  Keep it together, Harper. You are calm and in control. She was overreacting. Sadie was fine. She had nothing to worry about.

  She was about to pick up her phone again and check the closest hospital over in Dublin when the front door opened and Sadie appeared under the living room archway.

  Harper stopped pacing and stared at her sister, grateful to see her healthy and in one piece. Then the anger came flooding in.

  “Where have you been?” she started yelling before she could stop it. “I’ve been worried sick about you!”

  Sadie winced and shrugged off her jacket. “Sorry, my phone died.”

  “So you borrow someone else’s phone and call. And even then, you still don’t come home late!”

  “Whoa, chill out. I’m only an hour late,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Chill out?” She shoved her glasses up her nose. “Well, when you’re sitting at home one day worried that someone you love may be lying dead in a ditch somewhere on the side of the road you’ll realize just how long one hour is!”

  Harper’s hands were shaking, and she sniffed anxiously. “And why do you smell like smoke?” she asked. She took a step closer as she sniffed again. “Have you been smoking?”

  “Ew, gross! Of course not. Someone was smoking outside the club.”

  Harper glared at her little sister. “What club?”

  “The one over in Dublin. We all got bored at Patrick’s house, so we decided to go dancing since it’s all ages tonight. It’s not a big deal,” she said. She started to turn for the stairs just outside the living room, muttering under her breath, “Not that you’d know.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Sadie turned back to face her. “I mean, it’s not like you ever went out and did stuff like that.”

  “I did, too,” Harper cried as a memory from three summers ago came to mind. “I’ve even been to that club.”

  Her sister nodded patronizingly. “Sure you have. I’m just saying, just because you’re too scared to have a social life doesn’t mean I have to be.”

  “I was not scared,” she argued. “I had grades to maintain, Sadie, and med school to get into. None of that was going to happen if I was too busy living it up every night. There’s a difference between being scared and being focused.”

  “Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.”

  “You know what? That’s it!” Harper snapped. “It’s time to set some rules around here for once.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Harper pointed a finger at Sadie and was amazed when it stayed steady. “I’m tired of this attitude of yours and you thinking that you can go off wherever you like and stay out all hours of the night. You clearly have no respect for me and whether I know if you’re even alive or not!”

  “Grams didn’t care where I went or when I stayed out late, so why should you?”

  “Judging by the looks of this place and what the doctor said, I’m not sure Grams even knew who she was half the time. Let alone cared what you did. But I’m not Grams. So from now on, you are home by eleven every night. You do not go out with friends unless I know who they are and who their parents are, and only when you get permission from me before you go.”

  Sadie’s mouth fell open. “You can’t do that!”

  “Oh yeah? Try me, and we’ll see if walking to and from school for a few weeks changes your mind!” Harper’s voice echoed through the house, and then the two of them stood in silence, breathing rapidly and staring each other down.

  Finally, Sadie let out an ear-splitting scream, threw her hands up, and stormed out of the room before stomping loudly up the stairs. Seconds later a door slammed shut.

  Harper took a deep breath, her entire body shaking. She clenched her hands into fists, closed her eyes, and tried to count backward from ten. “Calm and controlled,” she murmured through tight lips.

  Only when she closed her eyes, all she could see was that patronizing look on Sadie’s face, which only made her angrier. If she only knew all the crazy stuff Harper had done.

  Things she’d done because of Cowboy.

  She opened her eyes, giving up on the counting method and instead marching into the kitchen. She crossed the dark hardwood floor, yanked open the freezer door, and fished out the full bottle of vodka Aiden had hidden in the bottom of the freezer.

  DAY 50

  Bright, neon lights flashed, lighting up the chaos of the dance club as Cowboy returned to the table with a beer and the girly, pink cocktail he’d ordered for Harper. It was no sweet tea, but she would just have to make an exception tonight.

  “I wouldn’t have thought this was your kind of scene,” she yelled over the blaring dance music.

  “It’s not.” He slid her drink with a tiny, blue, plastic elephant poised on the rim of the glass toward her slowly, and her face lit up with this cute little smile as she ran her finger over the little blue trunk. He took a sip of his beer. “Tonight is about you.”

  “Me?”

  “I want you to let loose, have a drink, and dance.”

  Harper blushed as she looked out over the figures bumping and grinding on the dance floor. “I don’t dance like that,” she yelled.

  “Tonight, you do. In fact, I dare you to say yes to the first guy who asks you to dance.”

  “What if no o
ne asks me?”

  Cowboy’s eyes ran over her slowly. “Trust me, they will.”

  He’d specifically told her to try to wear something hot. He hadn’t expected much from her in the way of clothes or makeup, but then she stepped out in that short, dark red dress that clung to her slender yet busty form like shrink wrap, and his lungs froze in his chest. His heart stopped, too, and he thought he was going to die right there on her front porch.

  But, oh, what a way to go.

  She’d worn her hair down, done her makeup so that her sky-blue eyes looked even more stunning than usual, if that was possible, and even ditched the glasses for a pair of contacts.

  He’d spent the entire thirty-minute drive reminding himself that he was her friend and, therefore, shouldn’t want to run his hands over every inch of her body. Still, it didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate the view from afar.

  His eyes were on her once again, and he felt a surge of heat spread from his chest downward. The only thing more unsettling than the painful attraction he felt each time he looked her over was the tiny curl at the corner of her mouth when she caught him. God, if she were anyone else, he would have ditched this club and dragged her back to his bed a long time ago.

  But she wasn’t anyone else. This was straight-laced, class valedictorian Harper Maddox. She deserved more than the one-night fling he could give her. Not to mention she was his friend, and a really good one, as it turned out. The last thing he wanted to do was screw that up, even for sex.

  What the hell was happening to him?

  Harper snatched up the martini glass from the table and downed the contents in two quick gulps.

  “Whoa, slow down there, Midge.”

  “If you expect me to dance like everyone else here, I’m going to need a whole lot more than that.”

  “Lucky for you, we’ve got the whole night ahead of us. You want another drink?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll be right back.” He headed into the small crowd in front of the bar, pretending not to notice several pairs of female eyes raking over his dark jeans and white dress shirt. He’d left his favorite cap at home, and his shaggy blond hair was still damp from his shower.

  He was used to the lusty, come-and-get-me looks that tended to follow him wherever he went. Hell, they were usually his favorite part of the day. Normally, he would have already scanned the crowd in search of his nightly entertainment. But, the last couple weeks, those predatory eyes just didn’t get his blood pumping the way they should.

  Cowboy leaned back against the bar as he waited for the bartender to fix the cocktail he’d ordered. Harper stood at their table, running her finger over the blue elephant on her glass. Her eyes met his, a gentle smile curling her lips, and dammit if that small smirk alone didn’t make his heart race. He tore his eyes away from hers and turned back to the bartender before he could do something really stupid.

  She was gone when he returned to the table with her drink. Assuming she went to find the ladies’ room, he brought his beer to his lips, picturing the adorable smile on her face as she toyed with that little plastic elephant in her drink. How was it he found that sexier than any of the other half-naked women around him?

  He picked up the elephant, turning it over and over in his hands, and shoved it in his pocket. He took another sip of beer and looked out over the spectacle that was the dance floor. Somewhere in the middle, a blonde in a tight red dress caught his attention, and he nearly choked on his drink.

  The slow sway of her hips didn’t match the fast tempo of the music, yet somehow she made it work, like she’d found her own hidden rhythm among the quick beats. She looked only slightly tense surrounded by the wild gyrating of the other dancers, but with each move of her hips, she gradually loosened up. Soon her eyes closed as she got lost in the music, and Cowboy’s breath caught in his throat at the sight.

  It was, without doubt, the sexiest damn thing he’d ever seen. Not just the way her body moved—though he fully believed that image alone would be keeping him up for many nights to come—but the way she trusted him, and herself, enough to step outside of her comfort zone. He didn’t think he’d ever been more proud of anyone in his life.

  A pair of hands settled on her hips, and Cowboy noticed her dance partner for the first time. He was several inches taller than her, with broad shoulders and short, black hair. Even from across the club, his bright white teeth stood out against his dark skin as he smiled down at her.

  Harper turned away from him, lifting her hands above her head, and continued swaying. Her dance partner seemed to take this as an invitation, and he came up close behind her and started grinding against her slowly.

  Cowboy’s stomach clenched, his jaw tight as his teeth ground together, and he struggled to keep himself rooted by their table. Who the hell did this guy think he was? They’d been dancing together all of two minutes, for God’s sake. And what right did that guy have to put those hands on his girl—

  Wait, no. He didn’t mean that.

  Before he could tell himself to get a grip, Harper’s blue eyes met his from across the room, soft and concerned. Was she worried about him? Hell, she wasn’t the only one at the moment. Her lips moved, and she turned to face the guy grinding behind her. He swiftly brought his hand up to the nape of her neck. And then his lips were on hers.

  Cowboy was halfway across the dance floor before he even fully registered what he was seeing, pushed forward by the blinding fury raging through his veins. He grabbed Harper’s arm and pulled her away. She stumbled as he led her from the crowded dance floor.

  “Cowboy?”

  “We’re leaving.”

  “What? But we just got here. I thought we were supposed to dance and have fun tonight.”

  “I think you’ve had enough fun.” There was no mistaking the brittle bite in his words, his harsh tone surprising even him.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  They rushed through the club’s exit and out into the warm night air. There was a line outside the club door and a parking lot packed with cars and trucks.

  “Cowboy, stop.”

  He didn’t, and she pulled herself from his grasp in the middle of the paved lot. “Why are you so angry?”

  “I told you to dance with a guy, Harper. Not to make out with a complete stranger in the middle of the dance floor!”

  She winced, and he would have beat himself up for scaring her if he wasn’t too busy scaring himself. “Why does that bother you?”

  “It doesn’t.” He knew it was a lie the second it came out. The fact that he wanted nothing more than to go back and pummel that guy was proof enough of that. He couldn’t make sense of it. He’d never lost control like that before, couldn’t remember a time he’d ever been so furious in his life.

  “You’re lying. I did your dare, and the deal is that you have to tell me the truth. Now tell me, why are you so mad?”

  “I’m not.” Was it because they were dancing together? He’d told her to. Because the guy kissed her when she was clearly not interested? Maybe. But when that kiss replayed in his head—no matter how badly he tried to push it away—he was pretty sure she’d kissed him back. And that small detail made his stomach churn even worse.

  “Lie!” she yelled this time. She stepped closer, glaring up at him as she pointed an accusing finger into his chest. “You’re the one who brought me here. You told me to dance and have fun. I did everything you told me to, and now you can’t even look at me. So tell me why you’re so upset!”

  “I don’t know!” he yelled back. He shook his head, air rushing in and out of his lungs. He ran his hands through his hair as he stared down at his feet, feeling lost. “I don’t know,” he repeated softly.

  Harper took another small step forward, any remnants of her anger gone. She was only inches from him. “Cowboy,” she whispered, raising her hand to his flushed cheek.

  He took a step back. “Don’t. Let’s just go, Harper.”

  Then he turned and stormed
away across the parking lot, leaving her behind in silence.

  Chapter Eleven

  Harper woke up to sunlight glaring in through her open bedroom window and the familiar roar of a lawn mower running outside. She didn’t know what time it was or even what day it was for a second. The only thing she was sure of was that she was going to kill whoever was choosing this moment to mow their lawn—if the splitting headache didn’t kill her first.

  Harper groaned as the sound drilling into her skull grew even louder. She threw the covers off and shivered when cool air hit the sweat-dampened skin left exposed by her tank top and sleep shorts. She blindly crossed the room, nearly tripping over the bottle of vodka still half-full beside her bed, and grabbed her favorite navy Georgia Tech sweatshirt from the closet. She threw it on, then grabbed her glasses off the nightstand. While her vision instantly cleared, the grating sound of the lawn mower outside continued to pound at her skull.

  The sun was high in the sky when Harper stepped out on the front porch and the thick, humid air filled her lungs.

  “What the heck do you think you’re doing?”

  Cowboy didn’t so much as glance up as he continued walking the mower across her overgrown green lawn in his light blue shirt, dark khakis, and work boots.

  “Hey!”

  Cowboy halted, looking around him until he saw Harper on the porch. He raised his hand and removed his earplugs. “What?”

  “Turn it off!” she yelled, ignoring the stabbing sensation it caused in her head.

  The mower went silent. Cowboy took off the sunglasses that covered his eyes and placed them over the bill of his black Georgia cap. “Were you saying something?”

  “I said, what the heck do you think you’re doing?”

  He gestured at the half-mowed lawn. “It’s called a friendly gesture.”

  “It’s going to be called attempted homicide if you don’t knock it off.”

  He chuckled as he walked toward her. “Still got that bite, I see.” Cowboy stopped just shy of the porch steps. “You feeling all right? You don’t look so good.”