Captivated: Emerson Falls, Book 3 (Emerson Falls Series)

by Harlow James

  “Let me at least walk you to your car,” I say as I catch up to her, following her to the white BMW she drives. She did say her family came from money, so this definitely makes sense from the little I know about her background. Yet, I can’t help but question how much of everything she’s told me about her is the truth.

  “I’ll text you when I’m headed your way tomorrow night.” Staring down into those deep blue eyes that look almost black in the night around us and blurry from the tears she’s fighting hard not to shed, I pray that whatever she has to tell me isn’t as bad as I imagine, because if I have to live a life without those eyes staring back at me, I’m going to fucking break.

  “Okay.” She turns to reach for her handle, but I can’t hold back any longer. Three days away from this woman has been too long, so I pull her towards me and smash our lips together, making me breathe her in like she’s the oxygen my lungs can’t live without. I cradle her head in my hands and glide my tongue along her lips, her mouth parting for me like the red fucking sea.

  Walking us back to her car, our bodies press against the cool metal as she reaches for me in return, encircling her arms around my neck, kissing me back and cementing the idea that what we have is too strong to give up on. My fear is telling me to run, my heart is telling me this is where I belong, my head is still analyzing everything that can go wrong in this situation. But while we kiss, I focus on how perfect she feels in my arms, the way her tongue moves against mine like we’ve been doing this for years, and how one day, I hope her secrets and my uncertainty won’t destroy us.

  As I slow down our heated kiss to something more meaningful, I feel the weight of her turmoil in my body, like she’s trying to give some of it to me through our touch. Maybe her reason for being here with a new name is not something she did in the slightest. Maybe she is running from something chasing her. It would help explain why she’s always looked over her shoulder and seemed on edge at certain points in our time together.

  So I fight like hell to take her turmoil from her, provide her a comfort in my kiss even though a difficult conversation is pending.

  “Cash. Please don’t shut me out, okay?” She pleads as tears run down her face when we part. “Once I tell you, I hope you’ll understand.”

  “I’m trying, sweetheart. But forgive me for having to wrap my head around this for the past few days. In my line of work, my mind instantly veers to the worst.”

  “I get it. I do. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She rises to her toes and plants one more smoldering kiss on my lips, and then gets inside her car and drives away, taking a piece of me with her.

  Sighing and running my fingers through my hair, I make my way back inside of the hospital to check on Birdie. The doctor comes in to speak to us all, telling us what to expect in terms of her recovery. Luckily her hip was just bruised, not fractured or broken, so other than the concussion, she should be fine in seven to ten days, but maybe a little longer because of her age. I mentally plan all the times I can be at the retirement center to care for her, but know that Samuel and their in-house nurse will be there when I can’t, offering me a little relief.

  By the time I leave the hospital, the sun is rising in the sky. Creamy orange and pink colors paint the scene as I drive home. I can barely keep my eyes open, so when my head hits the pillow, sleep finds me fast until a thought of Piper wakes up my subconscious, providing me with all sorts of explanations to what she has to tell me later this evening. By the time I actually decide not to fight my pillow anymore, I’ve barely had five hours of sleep, when I’m normally a seven-hour kind of guy. But I can’t block it out anymore.

  I shower, shave, and dress, preparing to arrive at her apartment around six o’clock. She asked me via text if I wanted to have dinner while we talked, but I honestly don’t know that I’ll have much of an appetite until I know what she has to say. I offered to bring something instead, but she declined and said she would make something, indicating she wanted to show me how much she appreciates me giving her the opportunity to explain everything to me.

  A few hours later, I arrive at her place, shutting the door to my truck with a shaky hand and walking to her apartment as if there are cement blocks tied to my boots, the heaviness of their smack on the ground crunching the ice beneath. It’s the middle of November, and winter is hitting our little town hard already, a heavy snow surprising us two days ago, making for icy roads and sidewalks, like the one Birdie slipped on yesterday, and a cold chill in the air that stings your skin. I wrap my peacoat around my body tightly as I trudge to her door and knock, my heart pounding just as hard as my fist.

  I’ve been trying to mentally prepare myself for what she has to say all day, reminding myself that I won’t know how to move forward if I don’t hear her out.

  But nothing could have helped me get ready for what happened in the next ten minutes.

  Chapter 25

  Cash

  “Hi.” Piper answers the door wearing a pink sweater and jeans, looking stunningly beautiful, just like I thought the first time I saw her—but her face can’t hide her nerves.

  “Hey.” I tuck myself inside of her door as she closes it behind me, grateful for the warmth of her apartment I just stepped into.

  “Come on in and take off your coat. I just pulled dinner out of the oven, a chicken and broccoli casserole that was one of my favorite dishes growing up. I had to call my mom for the recipe, but I promise you, you’ll love it.” She seems more cheerful than she was last night, but almost jumpy, like maybe she’s just putting on a façade for me since she knows she’s about to make my heart sink to my stomach.

  “Well, it smells good,” I say, shrugging out of my coat and hanging it on a hook by the door. I feel uncomfortable in my own skin right now, yet being near her in this apartment again does provide some comfort. I’ve missed her so much, even when I felt like punching something. I swear, I’m just volleying back and forth between those two emotions right now—love and anger.

  “Take a seat at the table. I just need to find my phone really quick. I’ve seemed to misplace it since earlier this afternoon.” Her head turns every direction around her apartment in search of the item.

  “Do you want me to call it?” I ask while retrieving my phone from my pocket, swiping across the screen to unlock it and bringing up her number.

  “Yes. That would be great.”

  We both listen for the sound of her ringtone, but hear nothing.

  “Oh! I know! I left it in my car after I went to the store. It’s probably in the cupholder. Stay right here and I’ll run out and grab it really quick,” she smiles, lunging for me to give me a chaste kiss, and then rushes out of the door leaving me all alone.

  I sit there in my chair for a moment, and then decide to survey her apartment, noticing the lack of personal touches here that I didn’t notice before, like pictures. Piper has not one picture on the walls or in a frame sitting on a piece of furniture. I know there’s not one in her bedroom either, and as I walk around the living room, it’s clear as day she hasn’t had one out here this entire time. For someone who moved across the country to start fresh, yet misses her parents more than anything, why wouldn’t she have a picture up to see them every day? Why couldn’t they come and visit, like I asked her, remembering how vague her response was. Maybe someday.

  “What the fuck was that?” My head pivots on my neck as the sound of a gunshot echoes outside of Piper’s apartment, muffled by the walls of the room I’m inside—but I would recognize that sound anywhere. Being a sheriff lends my ears to knowing what I’ve heard, and I definitely know that was a bullet leaving the barrel of a gun.

  I react on instinct, running for the door and bursting through the opening, frantically searching for the origin of the sound and the woman who owns me. The cold chill of the winter night hits my face as soon as I exit the building and twist my body around, searching for my blonde beauty. Ice crunches beneath my shoes as I step onto the sidewalk.

  “Piper? Piper!” I yel
l just as movement on the asphalt in the parking lot of her apartment complex draws my attention to the right, accompanied by furious footsteps moving away from her. I faintly make out a figure running from the scene as I hear the splash of feet on wet pavement, but then my eyes fixate on something else.

  Blood. And lots of it, so dark that it looks black from the night sky surrounding us and the dim street lamps lighting up the parking lot, but the red hits leftover snow and I know instantly something is wrong.

  “Fuck! Piper!” I race towards her as her body lies still, curled up on her side, her blonde hair falling over her face. As I reach her, I drop to my knees and brush her locks from her eyes while panic sets in. My heart beat is wild, my entire body shaking from the adrenaline running through my veins, and I don’t know where to touch her first.

  “Piper, baby… where are you hurt? What happened?” My hands are everywhere, yet I feel frozen, incapable of processing the image in front of me.

  This woman I never knew I wanted or needed in my life is lying on the asphalt, bleeding more than I know is alright, and I have no idea what to make of it.

  “Cash,” she croaks, coughing my name as blood trickles out of the corner of her mouth.

  “Shhhh, baby. Just breathe, hold on for me, Piper,” I whisper through a shaky breath, brushing her face as the hole in her stomach becomes more apparent from the headlights of a car approaching us. I shuffle her lightly to lay her head in my lap as I retrieve my phone from my pocket, my hands almost numb as my body vibrates from my rapid pulse. “Fuck! Come on!” Yelling as I desperately locate my phone is not making the process go any smoother.

  “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” The dispatcher comes through my cell that I dialed with shaky hands, the light from the screen highlighting Piper’s increasingly pale face.

  “Fuck! I need an ambulance! My girlfriend… she’s… she’s been shot! There’s blood everywhere! Please hurry!” I yell, just as the car approaching us stops and the driver vacates the vehicle.

  “Hey, is everything okay?” The man asks as he takes in Piper lying on the ground and the blood covering both of us at this point. “Oh, shit…”

  “What is the address?” The dispatcher continues, but I can’t speak, which is ironic seeing as I’m trained to act calmly and rationally in instances like these.

  But this isn’t some random person in a textbook scene that I walked up to.

  No.

  This is the woman that I have fallen in love with, and she’s dying in front of me.

  I’m frozen, lost in time even though flashing blue and red lights make themselves known in the distance and the man that drove up on us has taken my cell and filled in the details to the dispatcher for me.

  Because reality is setting in. Because Piper is bleeding profusely and I can’t do anything to save her. Because I have no idea how we got here, or why we’re here.

  This isn’t real. This can’t be happening.

  “Piper… baby. Listen to me,” I break out of my trance as moisture clouds my eyes and my voice begins to choke. “You have to hold on, okay? The ambulance is coming… you… you can’t leave me, baby.”

  Piper attempts to move, but I settle her once more in my lap, linking my arms around her so I can hold her closer to me, rocking her body back and forth against me and attempting to apply pressure to her stomach with my stomach.

  “Don’t move. Just hold on, babe… please!” My hands are trembling and I’m choking back tears, but I’ve never been so terrified in my life.

  “Mmmm…” she mumbles before growing colder in my arms and her eyes flutter shut.

  “No! Piper… stay awake! You can’t leave me! I… I love you!” I shout as I pull her up further into my chest, pressing her against the hardness of my body and kissing her cheek, but the clamminess of her skin tells me we’re running out of time.

  The first time I told her I love her may be the only time she ever hears it.

  “Cash,” she whispers, and then everything around me goes silent even though medical personnel and deputies arrive on scene around us.

  But the only noise I can hear is the pounding of my heart as the physical extension of it goes limp in my arms.

  Chapter 26

  Cash

  “Fuck! What is taking them so long?” My voice is booming in the waiting room of the ER, a place I was in just twenty-four hours ago. But this time it’s for the second woman I love fighting for her life.

  Don’t get me wrong, Birdie’s fall scared me, but nothing like what I’m feeling right now, peering down at the blood covering my sweater, and jeans—the blood that I’m sure they’re replenishing right now as she makes her way into surgery to save her life.

  “Sir, we’re going to need you to calm down,” a voice comes behind me, making me turn to give them a death glare. “Oh. You’re Piper’s man, aren’t you?” I’ve seen this lady before, but where I can’t place right now.

  “Yes. I just need to know what’s going on. Please, give me something.”

  Her shoulders fall and then she pulls me off to the side, away from other people waiting, and lowers her voice. “I shouldn’t even be telling you this since you’re not family, but she’s in surgery. She lost a lot of blood, but she’s stable right now. That’s all I know.” She steps back and gives me a sympathetic look. “She’s part of our family around here too, so we’re pulling for her. It sucks when one of your own is in the bed instead of helping on the side. But she’s strong and we will do everything we can, alright?”

  It’s not the best news, but it’s definitely not the worst. “Thank you.”

  The nurse walks away from me just as Luke comes barreling through the automatic doors. “Fuck man, you look like you were in a horror movie.” His eyes shift up and down my body, taking in the blood and my disheveled look.

  “Don’t come at me with jokes right now, fucker. Did you catch the guy? Please tell me you caught the mother fucker that shot her!”

  “Lower your voice, man.” Luke pulls me outside into the freezing cold around the side of the building, but my adrenaline is running so high, I’m sweating. “We caught him, alright? The guy who stopped to help you guys was able to give a description of the car that took off right after she was shot. A black sedan. The man was scary looking—bald head, beady eyes, black beard…”

  “Son of a bitch!” That guy that ran into her in the hospital that day—it had to be him.

  “What?”

  “I think we’ve seen that guy before. He’s been in town for a while. You said he was in a black sedan?”

  “Yeah. It was an Audi, clearly out of place in Emerson Falls.”

  “That’s exactly what I thought when I saw it across from her apartment a few weeks ago.”

  “So you’re saying you may know who this guy is?”

  I shake my head. “No, but I’ve been aware of his presence. Fuck! He must have been following her…”

  “Do you have any idea why?”

  “No, Luke! I fucking don’t! I was literally at her apartment for her to explain to me why she has two fucking names, and then she was fucking shot! I know nothing!” And then I crumble, sliding down the side of the building, hanging my head between my knees while my forearms rest on them, letting all the fucking stress and emotions I’ve been feeling extract themselves from my body in the form of tears.

  “Fuck, Cash. I’m sorry, man. I’m here, okay?” Luke pauses while I try to gather myself. “We’ve got the guy. I’m gonna head back to the station and I’ll let you know what we find out.” Luke rests his hand on my shoulder while my body convulses.

  “She has to be okay, man. She has to fucking be okay. I have so many goddamn questions still.” I pop my head up to see him, my face leaking many different fluids.

  “If she’s in surgery already, that’s a good sign,” he swallows hard. “Does she have family? Do you know how to get in contact with them?”

  Her phone. It was lying on the ground next to her when I found her the
re, and I grabbed it before they took her away. Reaching into my pocket, I retrieve it and then swipe to unlock it and scroll through her contacts, noticing only a handful of entries, but not one of them labeled Mom or Dad.

  “That’s weird. She doesn’t have any contacts in here for her parents, but I know I heard her talking on the phone to her mom in her apartment.”

  “I bet she was using a different phone then,” Luke replies. “It would make sense if she was hiding something from you. Why don’t you go to her apartment and see if you can find one?”

  “I can’t leave her.”

  “She’s in surgery and probably will be for a while. You have time. It should only take you about fifteen minutes to get there. Her parents need to know, Cash. The people she cares about need to know.” I can see Luke’s sorrow in his eyes, knowing damn well what it’s like to lose someone you care about and never getting to say goodbye.

  “Okay,” I say as I stand, wiping the moisture from my nose and eyes. “Keep me updated.”

  “I will.”

  We part ways as I rush to my truck, hop inside, and make it to Piper’s apartment in record time. Her door is still unlocked since I left in a hurry and never went back inside once she was hauled away.

  My mind wanders aimlessly, taking in her apartment I was in just less than an hour ago, hoping that everything wrong would be resolved with one conversation. And now, I’m in the middle of a shitstorm, full of secrets and a mystery I need to solve.

  I search frantically through every drawer, cupboard, and box I can find before I hit the jackpot in the back of her closet. Two unmarked phones lie side by side in a shoe box, taunting me with what they represent—her old life and the people she cared enough about to keep in contact with. I stare at them like if I touch them they may turn to dust, my entire body thrumming with nerves. But after a moment, I finally gain the courage to pick one up and dial the only number programmed inside labeled MOM.