Fall in Love Book Bundle: Small Town Romance Box Set

by Grover Swank, Denise

  The next inhale from Emberly clearly expressed her horror and rage and stated that she was about to rip into whoever this girl was.

  I just made a humming sound in the back of my throat and said, “The way he keeps coming back to me though . . .” When the girl looked like she was about to explode from the implication, I glanced at my body, then back to her. “You don’t think I could be a model?”

  “Oh my God, I fucking love you,” Emberly said, her words hushed and filled with amusement.

  “She can’t be serious,” one of the girls whispered as the girl in front asked, “Is that a joke?”

  “If I was worried about my body, I wouldn’t let Sawyer worship it over and over again,” I said in way of answering, slowing on the last words and carefully emphasizing them.

  She sucked in a large breath as if she were building up to unleash every one of her thoughts on me, but I continued before she could.

  “High school was a long time ago. Mean-girling was trashy then, and it’s sad now.” Lowering my voice and leaning forward on the tailgate, I matched the girl’s hard stare. “Body-shaming anyone, especially another woman, is disgusting. Also, cows are adorable, so, thank you, for unintentionally complimenting me twice now.”

  Her head jerked back as she blinked rapidly. “You . . .” She scoffed. “You’re delusional.”

  I gave Emberly a sarcastic look, noting her immense enjoyment with this conversation, and then returned my focus to the girl once again. “Based on which part? The fact that cows are cute, that you keep complimenting me, or that Sawyer likes to fuck me?”

  I watched as all color drained from her face before it went red with anger.

  When seconds passed and she only continued to stare at me, breaths heaving from her nose, I met every one of their shocked or enraged stares and pointedly said, “Have a good night.”

  Nearly a minute passed before they left, and I finally released the breath that had been trapped in my lungs.

  “That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever witnessed,” Emberly said with a giddy clap.

  My head had already been shaking as she spoke. “Doesn’t feel like it when I got on her level.”

  “Hardly. Besides, they’ve needed to be put in their place pretty much their entire lives.” She turned so she was facing me and used her drink to point in the direction the girls had left. “Whenever anyone has tried that I’ve been around for, those three have just continued to gang up on the person until they’ve mentally beaten them down.”

  “I can’t stand people like that,” I mumbled under my breath. “I know Sawyer was sleeping with a lot of women, but it feels gross knowing it was with ones like that.”

  “Hailey wishes.” Emberly made a disgusted face. “She’s been trying to get Sawyer for as long as I can remember. And, yeah, he really”—her gaze snapped to me and softened with worry—“just wasn’t himself these last years, but he would never go near Hailey. She was super hateful to Leighton.”

  Jesus, everything came back to that girl.

  I twisted so I was matching her position and facing her, and cleared my throat as I tried to figure out how to broach the subject. “Leighton’s still talked about in town . . . often.”

  “It’s only because of you.” She gave a slight shake of her head. “She was talked about for quite a while after she died because it was so tragic and because of the way Sawyer changed and gave up his life after. But when you came into town and caught his attention, even when it wasn’t for the best reasons at first,” she added with a grin, “people started talking again because your presence really seemed to shake him. Bring him back.”

  I swallowed back the question I so badly wanted to know, because I was afraid if I asked it then, Emberly would stop the conversation. And I wasn’t ready for that because something she’d said had a new question forming.

  “What do you mean Sawyer gave up his life?”

  She gestured to the game as she took a drink.

  I looked between the game and Emberly a few times, my confusion growing with each pass between the two. “I don’t . . . I don’t understand.”

  “Sawyer played in high school.” Her eyebrows drew close as if she already knew she couldn’t explain the way she needed to. “He was good—extremely good. One of the best in the state.”

  My surprise immediately shifted back to confusion as my attention turned to the game. Not that Sawyer and I had known each other long or knew much about each other, but he knew what mattered about me.

  He knew more than anyone ever had.

  And he’d never even mentioned sports.

  “He started getting scouted for colleges junior year,” Emberly continued. “By senior year, even professional teams were talking to him, trying to get him to commit to their teams for when he was done with college. Said they’d put him through training camps along the way and stuff.”

  My gaze snapped to her and widened. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah,” she said on a breath. “He didn’t agree to it—mostly because his dad said not to. Told Sawyer to be smart, play college ball the way he’d planned and then hopefully get drafted the right way.”

  “He didn’t do either,” I assumed from her tone and what little I knew of Leighton.

  “Leighton died a few weeks after his dad, right after we graduated,” she answered. “He turned his back on the scholarship, college, football . . . everything, to stay and help with the ranch. And, also, because his world had imploded and I think helping everyone else—the way he still does around town—was his way of escaping the grief while being surrounded in it. If that makes sense.”

  I think I nodded, but my mind was running so fast, trying to digest all the information she’d given me, that I was struggling to catch up.

  “You were really close to her too, weren’t you?”

  Emberly’s head moved in a bouncing sort of nod, the corners of her mouth lifting in a fond smile. “Sawyer, Leighton, and I were inseparable from about the day we met.”

  “I’m sorry she’s gone.” The words were a murmur, but they rang with sincerity.

  It was clear she’d impacted this entire town so greatly, most specifically the people I’d found myself surrounded by since arriving, and I wished I could change that for them.

  Even Sawyer.

  Especially Sawyer.

  “Sawyer has said that she took herself from him.” I worried my lip and nearly talked myself out of it a dozen times before I asked, “What happened to her?”

  Emberly watched me for a while before looking away, seeming to weigh the outcome of telling me. “I don’t think Leighton ever saw how beautiful she was, even though she was gorgeous. Even though Sawyer . . . he didn’t just tell her, he showed her. You know?” She nodded in response to her own question, gaze finally shifting back to me when she said, “She only saw what people like Hailey wanted her to.”

  I had a feeling I knew, without needing her to explain, what those girls had wanted her to see.

  “They were relentless about her weight,” she continued softly. “I didn’t know until recently that Leighton had told Sawyer she didn’t belong beside him . . . because of the way she looked.” Emberly rolled her eyes, but the depth of frustrations and emotions swirling within them seemed to weigh her down.

  “That’s ridiculous,” I murmured. “I don’t have to know Leighton—or have to ever have seen her—to know that Sawyer would have instantly crushed those thoughts. For Christ’s sake, he’s constantly making sure I eat.”

  “He was too late,” she said with a weak shrug. “I told you. There are some things we’re never meant to get over. Eating . . . that’s why. Leighton starved herself to death.”

  The words hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest.

  It felt like I couldn’t take a deep enough breath.

  My stomach churned so fiercely, I was sure I was going to lose the contents of it.

  I’d had thoughts and suspicions, each one horrible and made me feel terrible for th
e people Leighton’s death had affected. But for her to starve herself to death? All because she felt like she wasn’t good enough for the boy who already loved her?

  My attention slowly shifted to the game, my stare finding Sawyer without trying. My chest wrenched as I watched him playfully shove one of his friends away, laughing as he did.

  “But when you came into town and caught his attention, people started talking again because your presence really seemed to shake him. Bring him back.”

  “You plan on leaving eventually, and with the way he looks at you, that’s something I don’t think Sawyer can survive . . . Your being here has the ability to destroy him . . . I want you to let him go before it’s too late for him.”

  I got it now.

  Emberly’s words and what Savannah had been begging of me the other day. I understood why they were all so wary of the new girl.

  Because Sawyer had been broken far worse than I’d ever realized, and I still had no intention of staying.

  Chapter 30

  Sawyer

  A long rumble of thunder stopped our makeshift team from planning our next play. Loud enough to be heard over the music and voices of the others at the party, but distant enough that we only spared glances in the direction it had come from before looking to the sky.

  “Was it supposed to storm tonight?” one of my friends asked.

  “I wish it would,” Gavin said as he lifted his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. “Humid as fuck out.”

  I nodded absentmindedly as I tried to gauge the wind. “Someone needs to douse the bonfire before we continue in case winds pick up.” As if on cue, they did. “Shit.”

  I rocked forward to head to the opposite side of the lake, where the bonfire was, but one of the other guys started jogging away. “I got it,” he called out. “My girl’s over there anyway.”

  “We’re still playing,” another yelled back. “Don’t be a dick like Saw and make us wait while you make out with her.”

  I smacked his shoulder and spread my arms when he looked back at me. “What the hell?” But the question came out with a hint of laughter, and the rest of the guys joined in, razzing me for not being able to stay away from Rae.

  After letting them get their jokes in for a minute, I nodded and spoke over them. “Okay, okay . . . y’all are just assholes who are mad you don’t have a girl like her waiting at the end of the field.”

  “I’m pretty sure most the girls here are waiting for you,” one of them said in a matter-of-fact tone that was laced with mock irritation. “You just had to be weird and choose the Emberly look-alike.”

  A sharp, stunned laugh forced from my lungs. “What?”

  “Yes!” Gavin said, snapping a couple times before pointing at me. “I told you Rae looked familiar. That’s exactly who she looks like.”

  “Emberly,” I said in confirmation, deadpan.

  “Yes,” Gavin repeated with a laugh as the rest of the guys added in their agreements.

  “No.”

  “Saw,” one of the guys said, then gestured behind me with a jerk of his chin. “Yeah, she does.”

  I twisted my body, but looked behind me on a delay, almost as if I was afraid of what I would see—as though they would be right.

  Just as they had been earlier, Rae and Emberly were sitting side by side on the tailgate of a truck, talking. Em was laughing about something.

  But I didn’t see it . . .

  It wasn’t just that Rae’s casual style made her seem like she actually belonged in this town whereas Emberly had another crazy shade of lipstick on and looked ready for a night in a city that most definitely wasn’t here, making them look like polar opposites. There was just . . . nothing.

  My head was shaking in confusion when I turned back to the guys, who were all looking at me expectantly.

  “Come on,” one of them said before Gavin loosed a frustrated laugh and added, “Fucking look at them, man.”

  “I did,” I argued. “I have.”

  “I don’t know how Faith and I didn’t put it together the other day,” Gavin continued, gesturing to the girls behind me, “because they could be sisters.”

  “Considering how I view Em, that’s disgusting.”

  “Which is why I said you were weird for choosing the Emberly look-alike,” my friend who had started this entire conversation said with a knowing look.

  “We’re done with this,” I said firmly. “The last thing I wanna think about when I’m with Rae is whether or not she looks like Emberly. Fucking Emberly.” A shudder rolled through me as I tried to force the thought from my mind, and I flung my hand out in the direction of the other team. “Let’s just play.”

  After a handful of mumbling agreements about the similarities in two of the most important girls in my life that I tried to ignore, and more distant rumbles of thunder, we set up for the next play just as the sky opened up.

  * * *

  We played until no one was able to hold onto the football or run more than a few feet without slipping. We’d lost track of the score long before, and I’d all but forgotten about the fucked-up conversation we’d had.

  It was hard to hold onto any kind of bad feelings when I was playing football. It’d always been that way.

  Everything drifted away, leaving me buzzing.

  But playing on my ranch, knowing Rae was there? It was a high I’d never be able to replicate, and I wanted it to last.

  I slapped Gavin’s hand as we walked from the makeshift field, letting the cool rain wash away the heat and the sweat as I went in search of the girl whose name was a constant thrum in my veins.

  “What we were talking about earlier . . . about the girls,” Gavin began, voice slightly hesitant. “Don’t let it bother you.”

  A harsh breath left me. “Yeah, okay.”

  “You don’t think they look alike, that’s all that matters.”

  “I also had, like, eight of you telling me they do.” I gave him a frustrated look before focusing on the group of people we were coming up on, all of them dancing in the rain to the music blasting from the nearest SUV, and hoping the one girl I wanted to find was somewhere in the mix.

  “Who cares?” He hit my chest to get me to look at him. “I doubt Savannah looks at you or Hunter and thinks of Beau, or vice versa, and y’all are actually brothers.”

  “Yeah . . . yeah, I guess you’re right.” I rubbed at my jaw, my stare shifting back to the group of people and immediately finding Rae.

  Pieces of her soaked hair were plastered to her face as she danced, the sight reminding me so much of the first time I’d seen her. Looking so damn free and like nothing could touch her.

  Mine.

  Gavin nudged me. “Well, go get her—fuck.” He ended on a groan when the sky lit up for the first time that night with a blinding strike.

  When another followed immediately after, thunder rumbling just seconds later, I echoed his curse.

  “Make sure everyone heads to their cars,” I said before jogging into the group, yelling for people to go to their cars if they hadn’t already started that way.

  As soon as I reached Rae, I slipped my hand into hers and felt my blood start pounding when she squeezed my hand in return, a secret smile threatening on her lips as she moved toward me.

  Winding our joined hands around her back to press her closer to me, I leaned down to speak into her ear so she would hear me over the music and storm when I said, “Let’s go.”

  “Anywhere.” Her response was immediate and soft and so damn raw that it slid through me, rooting me in place.

  Because I’d only been trying to get her out of the storm . . . but after that? I wanted to take her to my place. Hell, I wanted to take her anywhere, exactly as she’d said, so long as she was with me.

  I trailed my mouth across her jaw, tightening my grip on her hand and her back, and hissed another curse when the sky lit up around us, reminding me of why I’d been trying to take her away in the first place.

  “We need t
o get in the truck,” I said quickly.

  “Yeah, I’d rather not die tonight,” she said with a soft laugh, gesturing above us as more lightning continued to brighten the night sky. Less than a second passed before her face fell in a mixture of horror and regret. “Sawyer—”

  “I’d rather you not die at all,” I said before she could start apologizing, then pressed a soft kiss to her lips as I began pulling her in the direction of my truck.

  “Shit,” I hissed when the storm started raging harder than before—the winds gusting unexpectedly as the lightning and thunder fought for dominance.

  “Are we safe out here?” Rae yelled over the pounding rain.

  I didn’t answer.

  It wouldn’t be the first year it had stormed during our night on the ranch. We’d all just piled up in our vehicles until it passed. But this had come out of nowhere and was rapidly building. I hadn’t even known it was supposed to rain tonight.

  Halfway to the trucks, Gavin and Faith appeared beside us.

  “Where did this come from?” I yelled to Gavin as we continued.

  “Faith said there was supposed to be a storm in the early morning—but nothing like this, and not this early.” He jerked his chin at something behind me. “I don’t like that sky, man.”

  I patted the pockets of my shorts even though I knew my phone was in the truck, then asked Rae, “Do you have your phone?” before telling Gavin and Faith, “I don’t have my phone.”

  Gavin just gave me a look. “None of us do.”

  “Mine’s in my bag,” Rae said, her tone implying that she didn’t have either on her.

  Just as we were reaching the cars and beginning to go our separate ways, Emberly popped out between two of them, phone in hand. “There’s a warning—two rotations on a path toward us, one confirmed on the ground a couple towns over. Guy says ten or so minutes before it’s here.”

  “What does that mean?” Rae asked, cringing into my side when a crack of thunder split the air.