Fall in Love Book Bundle: Small Town Romance Box Set

by Grover Swank, Denise

  “I don’t have enough chairs,” I whispered, my voice scratchy with emotion.

  He looked down at me like I had lost my mind. “You’re about to burst into tears because you don’t have enough chairs? That’s an easy enough fix, Farah. Or have you forgotten you’re loaded?”

  I let out a watery laugh and smacked him in his stomach. “It’s not that, you jerk. I’m not upset.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “All my life, I’ve only had two people, Jase. You and Bennett, that’s it. And that was always enough for me. I was lucky, having the two of you. But now . . . now I have this.” I waved my arm out. “Now I have so many people who mean something to me that I don’t have enough chairs for them all to sit in. So, yeah, I’m close to crying, but it’s only because I’m incredibly, stupidly happy.”

  His eyes flashed with emotion as he pulled in a large breath. He tugged me deeper into his side and leaned down to press a kiss on my head. “I’m thrilled to hear that, sweetheart. Over the goddamn moon.”

  “Only thing that could possibly make this day any better was if you told me you decided to move down here too.”

  Letting out a sigh, Jase straightened his head and scanned the crowd gathered in my kitchen. His tone held a hint of melancholy as he said, “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, little sis.”

  “About what?”

  “Happiness,” he answered. “After what happened to you . . .” His throat bobbed on a heavy swallow. “It’s a miracle you came back from that. Hell, you almost didn’t. I almost lost you, but you made it through, and you found the strength to go after your own happiness.” His gaze returned to mine, and it was swimming with a whole riot of emotions. “I’ve never told you this, but I envy your courage. If my little sister could come back from something like that and still find the strength to build this incredible life for herself . . . well, I don’t really have a reason not to go after my own happiness, now do I?”

  I held my breath for so long my lungs began to burn like fire. “Are you saying—?”

  “I’m not saying anything. At least not yet. But I will tell you, I’m going to start looking at the big picture. Who knows where that will lead me?”

  I hoped like hell it would lead him right to this perfect little town, but if it didn’t, as long as he was happy wherever he ended, I would be okay with that.

  But that didn’t mean I wasn’t above fighting dirty. “I think there’s a certain redhead that would like it very much if you decided to put down roots here.”

  I caught his gaze flash in Poppy’s direction before he returned it to me. “Don’t push your luck, sweet pea. I said I’d think about it, so let it go, yeah?”

  I blew out a breath, but let the subject drop. At least for the time being. “You know I love you, right?”

  “I do. And you have that right back from me, little sis.”

  With that heaviness out of the way, my brother and I sucked back more beer. And we did it surrounded by the loving embrace of incredible people.

  * * *

  It had been four days since I’d officially moved from the inn into the Victorian, and it was Jase’s last night in town.

  Darla had offered to give me the night off so I could spend it with him and Bennett before he flew back to Connecticut in the morning, but I’d already taken a handful of days off since they’d come into town, and the fewer days I worked meant the fewer tips I could “sneak” to Shane. The holidays were only a couple months away, and I was going to do everything in my power to make sure she had enough to give Brantley a great Christmas.

  So with that, Jase had chosen to hang at the bar with Bennett, Cannon, and the rest of the guys while I worked.

  Usually I would have had plenty of time to visit with them during breaks or when my section was quiet, but tonight, the bar was a madhouse.

  According to Shane, there was a big motorcycle rally that took place around Memphis every year, and during those four days, Bad Alibi was overrun.

  I was used to bikers by now, but these guys were even louder and wilder than the regulars I’d gotten to know, and several of them were already drunk out of their minds.

  “Jeez,” Shane grumbled as she joined me at the bar. “I swear, if tips weren’t so good, I’d put in for vacation this time every damn year.”

  I gave her a sympathetic grin and looked back out to the floor. “This is insane. I’ve never seen anything like it.” With such a huge crush of people, it was hard to make out any of the tables or chairs. To accommodate the larger crowd, the two other waitresses who worked the day shift were also on the floor with us, and there was a third bartender slinging drinks with Buck and Darla. Still, I felt like I’d been run off my feet, and I still had half my shift left to go. The later it got, the drunker they became, and I was counting down the minutes until Buck announced last call.

  “Yeah. Welcome to what I like to refer to as Hell Week. Sure, it’s only four days, but Hell Four Days didn’t have quite the same ring to it.”

  I gave her a tired laugh and bumped her shoulder with mine as Darla sat two pitchers of beer on the bar in front of me. Grabbing them up, I started for the pool tables.

  Cannon spotted me the second I hit the section, and as soon as I placed the pitchers on the table, he grabbed me by the belt loop and pulled me into his lap. “Hey, Hummingbird, how you doin’?”

  I turned back to him and smiled through my exhaustion. “Beat, but okay. Just ready for this night to end.”

  “Just a few more hours, then we can get outta here.”

  I let out a deep breath and sank into him, pressing my lips to his as I muttered, “Can’t wait.”

  I pushed off his lap and took a step to Jase, placing a smacking kiss on the top of his head before I started back to the floor.

  I was moving through my section when I felt a hand wrap around my forearm and pull me to a stop. “Hey there, sweetness. How about a dance, huh?”

  I looked down at the big, burly biker who had my arm in an uncomfortably tight grip. His pot belly hung over his jeans, his hair was at least a month past needing a cut, he reeked of booze, and his eyes were red and glassy, indicating he was already well past drunk and firmly into shitfaced.

  I did my best to smile through the swell of panic gripping my chest as I replied, “Sorry, but I can’t.” I gave my arm a subtle tug, but he didn’t take the hint and let go. “It’s really busy, but if you’d like another drink or something to eat—”

  “Don’t want somethin’ to fuckin’ eat,” he said, his words coming out slurred. “What I want is for the pretty waitress to dance with me.”

  I pulled harder on my arm which only made his grip tighten, taking it past uncomfortable and right into painful. My panic swelled bigger and began to take up the room my lungs needed to pull in oxygen. I felt my skin start to grow clammy but did my best to push the fear down. “And I said I can’t. Now please, let go of my arm.”

  “What, you think you’re too good to spend time with me?” the drunk biker hissed, gnashing his teeth. “You an uppity bitch or somethin’?”

  Darkness creeped in along the edges of my vision, and my heartrate kicked up. “Let. Go,” I repeated, struggling against the dizziness in my head as I gave my arm a hard yank.

  The biker jerked back, and I cried out at the sharp pain that caused in my shoulder. The instant he had me in his lap, his thick arms circled around me, pinning me in place. I began to struggle, fighting to get away from him, but his hold was unrelenting. “Let me go!” I shouted, thrashing wildly.

  “You won’t dance with me, then how ’bout a kiss?”

  His head started to lower, his face coming closer to mine. And all of a sudden, I was back in that dark parking lot.

  “Let me go!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, the words so loud and ravaged they felt like they were slicing my throat on the way up. “Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!”

  The sounds of the bar grew dim and muffled, like I’d suddenly been submerged u
nder water. I couldn’t breathe. God, I couldn’t breathe. I was going to suffocate to death.

  I fought and screamed and clawed until the steel bands holding me in place let go, and I fell to the ground.

  “What the fuck!” I heard shouted from feet away, and I thought the furious roar might have come from Cannon, but it was hard to be sure over the blood roaring through my ears.

  I heard what I thought was flesh hitting flesh, quickly followed by the sound of furniture breaking. I got the sense that pandemonium had broken out all around me, but I couldn’t move. All I could do was curl into a ball with my arms covering my head as I fought against my body’s refusal to pull in oxygen.

  I felt a pair of hands came down on me, and my brain screamed at me to run, but the panic attack had taken over completely. I was frozen in fear, unable to move. I couldn’t fight, all I could do was whimper as the hands grabbed hold of my arms and pulled me from the floor. A second later, I was wrapped in a familiar embrace.

  “Shh, I got you, girl,” Bennett said as he picked me up in his strong arms and began carrying me away. “It’s all right. You’re okay, my sweet Farah. I have you. You’re going to be okay.”

  Then his voice faded away.

  Chapter 26

  Cannon

  I paced the length of the hallway outside Farah’s bedroom door, feeling like I was about to come out of my skin.

  What had happened earlier was nothing short of pure chaos. I’d seen it just as it began, when that fucker grabbed Farah’s arm, but before I could push through the crowd to get to her, the shit hit the fan.

  I heard her scream and I swear to Christ, the blood in my veins turned to ice. The moment I cleared the circle and saw my woman curled up on the floor with her arms over her head like she was trying to protect herself, I lost it. All I saw was red.

  I acted without thought, throwing myself at the son of a bitch who’d put his hands on her. My fist connected with his face, followed by the gratifying sound of bones breaking. But that wasn’t enough.

  I was out for blood, and I couldn’t stop. That was the start of a full-on bar brawl, and everything that came after that was pure, unadulterated shit.

  By the time Holt and a few other deputies got there to break up the fight and get shit sorted, Bennett and Shane had already gotten Farah out of there.

  The bar was a goddamn wreck. The asshole who’d manhandled Farah had been hauled out in cuffs after several witnesses stated seeing him getting physical with her. And for our part in it, Jase, Dad, several of the guys, and myself had walked away riddled in bruises. The cut over my left eye had only stopped bleeding a few minutes ago, and my eye was swollen nearly shut.

  But I didn’t care about any of that. The only thing I cared about had been behind a closed bedroom door since I arrived at her house twenty minutes ago. A door that no one besides Poppy and Shane had been allowed to pass through.

  I continued to pace, my worry and my anger boiling to the surface, damn near about to bubble over. Cutting my eyes over to where Jase was sitting, I took him in, seeing the desolation carved into every inch of him. His back was pressed against the wall, his wrists dangling over his cocked knees, looking as destroyed as a man could possibly look.

  “I wanna know what the hell is goin’ on, and I wanna know right fuckin’ now,” I clipped, that haze of red still painting my vision.

  “Cannon”—he let out a sigh, pressing his head back against the wall—“it’s not my story to tell, brother. Please, give her time—”

  “Fuck time!” I barked.

  My father moved from his place where he’d been holding up the opposite wall, coming close and pressing his hand to my chest. “Calm, son. You two fightin’ now isn’t gonna do that girl in there a damn lick of good.”

  “Time for calm is long fuckin’ over,” I growled, throwing my arm out and pointing at the door. “You heard her. You fuckin’ heard her scream! Tell me you didn’t.”

  “I heard it, son,” Dad grunted.

  “Then you know.” I looked back at Jase. “My woman was lyin’ in a ball on the goddamn floor, nearly catatonic. So don’t tell me it’s not your fuckin’ place. For fuck’s sake, I can’t fight somethin’ if I don’t know what the hell it is!”

  Jase shot off the ground and came within an inch of me, his face laced with agony. “You can’t fight it at all!” he bellowed, losing hold on his control. “Christ! You think I haven’t tried? I’ve been going out of my goddamn mind for nearly a year! All I want to do is make it better for her, but this isn’t something either of us can fix for her!”

  “What the hell is going on up here?” At my mother’s stern voice, we all turned in time to see her climb the last step to the second level. Her face was mottled with red splotches, telling me she’d been crying, but her eyes were burning with an angry fire as she took Jase and me in. “That’s enough. Do you hear me?” she clipped. “The both of you, step back right now.”

  “Bev, honey,” my dad spoke in a soft, placating gesture. “What are you doin’ here?”

  “Shane called me. Told me what happened. Told me I was needed and why, so I’m here.”

  “Why would you need—” My father’s voice trailed off at the same time his face blanched white as flour. “Ah, fuck. No, baby. Not that.”

  I didn’t know what was going on, but whatever my dad had just realized, it was bad. My mouth opened, ready to ask what the hell was going on, when the bedroom door swung open.

  I whipped around as Farah stepped out into the hall with Shane and Poppy standing close behind her. Her whole face was unnaturally white, with the exception of the deep purple smudges beneath her eyes.

  Her gaze was glassy, like she’s just woken from a drug induced sleep, and when she saw my mom standing among the fray, her forehead pinched in confusion. “Bev? What are you doing here?”

  My mom moved to her, taking Farah’s face in her hands and giving her a tender smile. “You and I have some things to talk about, so we’re gonna go back in there and get comfortable. I’m gonna take care of you sweetheart. Then we’re gonna get you the help you need. Got it?”

  I knew the fight had been drained completely out of her when all Farah did was nod before turning and disappearing back inside her room.

  Shane and Poppy followed after her like they couldn’t stand the thought of not having her in their sights. And as hard as it was for me, I fought against my need to rush after her and pull her into my arms, and stayed rooted in place, all the while, feeling like my heart was being torn in half.

  Mom took a step toward the room, but before she entered, she turned back to us and looked right at Jase. “I’m gonna take care of your sister, honey. You can trust me on that. But while I’m doin’ that, you need to tell him everything.” Jase started to argue but went silent when Mom raised her hand. “The secrets end tonight. The truth was gonna come out one way or another. Only way that girl in there has any chance of healin’ is if everyone in her life has the tools they need to help her along the way.”

  With that, she stepped through the door, closing it firmly behind her.

  * * *

  Farah

  I sat with my back pressed against the headboard, running my fingers through Crash’s fur nervously as Bev moved to the side of the bed and sat down a foot away from me.

  I was just about to ask her what was going on when she spoke, beating me to the punch and saying something I never in a million years expected to hear.

  “When I was twenty, a man broke into my apartment in the middle of the night and raped me.” My lungs froze and my hand stopped moving. Sensing that his momma was having a moment, Crash hopped out of my lap and moved to the end of the bed to curl up and take a nap. “I’d grown up with him, gone to school with him, and we even went out on a few dates. It wasn’t a love connection, so I ended it. What I didn’t know was that he’d developed an unhealthy infatuation with me. I was a young woman, living on my own for the first time, and he made the decision to break in and
take something from me that wasn’t his to have.”

  “Oh my God,” I said, my chest rattling on a shaky inhale. “Bev, I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”

  “I appreciate that, sweetheart, but I didn’t tell you for sympathy. I told you because you need to know that I get it. I understand exactly what you’re struggling with, darlin’. Shane called me and told me what happened. She gave me the whole story, and before you get mad at her, you have to know that the only reason she confided in me was because she knew I could help.”

  “I-I . . .” A lump formed in my throat as another wave of tears filled my eyes. I glanced across the room at the small loveseat situated in front of the fireplace where Shane and Poppy were sitting. “I’m not mad,” I whispered, locking eyes with Shane so she’d know I meant it. She gave me a small, tremulous smile and nodded her head as a tear slid down her cheek.

  Bev reached out and placed her hand on mine, giving it a squeeze. “I’m glad to hear that. She’s a good friend, and at a time like this you need people like that in your corner, because you can’t do this on your own, sweetie. You can’t. I understand how hard it is to talk about it. I understand that the more people you tell, the harder it is to pretend it didn’t happen, but this isn’t something you can ignore. It won’t just go away with time. No matter how hard you try, no matter if you think you’re healed and have moved past it, if you keep this bottled up, it’s only a matter of time before something triggers it and causes an explosion.”

  I sniffled as I lifted a hand and swiped at the tears that had fallen from my eyes. “I-is that what happened with you?”

  She nodded. “I was so worried that everyone would look at me differently if they knew. I didn’t want to be the girl who was raped; I just wanted to be Bev, and I was scared that if people found out, I’d lose the rest of my identity. The man who attacked me had already taken so much already, and I was terrified of losing the rest of myself.”