by Cat Porter
Freefall
Cat Porter ©2021
Wildflower Ink, LLC
Editor
Jennifer Roberts-Hall
Content Editor
Christina Trevaskis
Cover Designer
Najla Qamber
Qamber Designs & Media
Visit my website at www.catporter.eu
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in critical articles or a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, nicknames, logos, and symbols of motorcycle clubs and rock bands are not to be mistaken for real motorcycle clubs and rock bands. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products and locales referenced in this work of fiction. The use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Also by Cat Porter
- Lock & Key MC Romance Series -
Lock & Key
Random & Rare
Iron & Bone
Blood & Rust
Fury
Lock & Key Christmas
Lock & Key - The Complete Series Boxed Set
Boxed Set of books 1-4
- Lock & Key’s Legends of Meager Series -
Blast to the past of the Lock & Key series
The Dust and the Roar
The Fire and the Roar
The Year of Everything
- The Wind & the Roar Trilogy -
Friends-to-Lovers Rockstar Romance
Freefall
Whirlwind
Whisperwind
Dagger in the Sea
Mediterranean Romantic Suspense Adventure
Wolfsgate
Historical Romance
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Books by Cat Porter
About the Author
1
“What the hell are we doing here?” Derek tapped out a dull beat on the table. “I didn’t know it was open mic night. I hate open mic nights.”
I knew it was open mic night, which was why I’d insisted that we come here tonight to Pete’s Tavern, our local watering hole, a classic old bar in our small town in the Black Hills.
“I like open mic nights.” I also liked pushing Derek’s buttons. “There are a lot of talented people out there, and this is their opportunity to perform, to be seen and heard—”
“There are a lot of jerks out there.” Scowling, Derek scanned the crowded bar, his other hand joining in on the tedious rhythm, if you could call it a “rhythm.”
I drained the last of my whiskey sour. He didn’t get it. He never would. I pushed my empty glass to the center of the table. “I need another drink.”
“Why do I have to go?” Derek’s gaze lingered at the table of sexily clad biker girls across from us.
“It’s packed in here, and there’s no sign of a waitress. More importantly, everyone here knows me and, therefore, knows I’m underage.” I never had problems at local bars when I was with my older brother’s friends. Derek, Meg and Joe, Tracy and Gil were all twenty-three, but why push it? I had another month to go until my twenty-first birthday.
“Come on, here’s some money.” I shoved a ten-dollar bill his way.
He took it and tapped Joe on the arm. Joe disengaged from Meg’s mouth and went with him to the bar.
Members of the local motorcycle club, the One-Eyed Jacks, were here with their old ladies, and a couple of bikers from other clubs with their much younger girlfriends who Derek had been checking out. I recognized Finger, the club president from Nebraska, who’d been dating a local woman, Lenore, one of my mom’s good friends.
I swallowed hard at the sight of him. He defined the term “fearsome outlaw.” Brutality and danger had been chronicled all over him—literally. The middle fingers of both his hands were missing, in addition to deep scars on his face that must have been horrible gashes made by a knife once upon a time.
Combined with his height, muscularity, tattoos, and gritty handsomeness, he made for one ominous, scary, and pretty damned intriguing figure. To me, he was the personification of that forbidden, darker “other side” of life.
This morning, Finger had shown up at Mom’s coffee house, and electricity had charged in the air, a sudden tense hush gripping the morning crowd. Bikers came through Meager all the time, but that man was different. That man commanded respect and awe and hadn’t even said a word yet.
It had reminded me of when my horse and I had gotten stuck in a sudden storm on Grandpa’s ranch years ago. We were in a wide-open field and a massive lightning storm suddenly ripped through the sky. My breath cut, my heart stopped, my flesh prickled coldly. Trapped. A flash of cold fear. Ominous unpredictability.
“Here.” Derek plonked a fresh whiskey sour on the table in front of me, and Joe set down a pitcher, beer sloshing over the rim.
“Thanks.” I sucked down a huge swallow of my cold drink. “Hmm. I don’t want to lose the nice buzz I have going on.”
Derek’s hand gripped my thigh under the table, his beer breath fanning the side of my face. “I’m looking forward to getting my buzz off later tonight.”
Oh yeah, baby. You’re the man.
Derek and I had been fooling around for several years now. He was my brother, Five’s, best friend. Once I’d gotten into high school, Five had made it clear on several embarrassing occasions that his friends had to stay away from his sister, and me from them. They’d readily agreed, of course, and I’d made it clear that I thought that edict was bullshit.
I’ve always detested being told what to do by my brother.
One by one, I’d fooled around with all of Five’s friends, and I’d saved Derek for last.
The hottest of the bunch, he was Five’s closest bud. With him, I’d had sex for the first time. He’d been so impressed, mostly with himself. Even though it didn’t matter anymore, an air of that forbidden still lingered between us, which turned us both on. Derek often talked about it when we’d go at it which only put a grin on my face as I’d come.
Big grin. Big win.
In between Derek’s girlfriends, of which there were many, or whenever he wanted to cheat, which was pretty often, I made myself available, depending on my mood. I would never be a sure thing for him—for any of them.
A waitress brought a tray of shots to our table, and everyone swooped in. Derek pushed back his baseball cap and raised a full shot glass. “Are you having yours?”
“No, I’m good. You have it.”
He grinned and tossed back the shots one after the other.
“Ladies and gentlemen, tonight we’ve got a special guest with us,” Malcom, the bar owner’s voice boomed through the speakers. “Please welcome to Pete’s, Beck Lanier. His mom lives right here in Meager.” I put my drink down, my back shot up straight. Beck was here, tonight? “You may know his dad, Eric Lanier of one of our all time favorite bands, Cruel Fate.” Malcom hooted and the crowd applauded and cheered for the South Dakota rock band made good from over twenty years ago. “Beck’s band, Freefal
l is on tour right now with The Heave. And tonight, Beck’s gonna play for us!”
“Wait, what?” I sputtered.
The previously limp crowd came to life, whooping and applauding more loudly and sharply than they had all night. Beck was here, and he was going to sing? Here? At freaking Pete’s?
“Who is this guy?” Derek asked Joe.
Joe shrugged. “I don’t fuckin’ know.”
“Oh, my God! Oh my God!” Meg sat up tall in her seat, straining to take in the stage. “He’s in that band, Freefall! You know the song—“the world is tilting, flipping…”
“Oh, yeah, yeah,” said Derek.
“I like that song.” Joe slunk back in his chair and took Meg with him in his lap.
The blood rushed through my veins. Beck was Lenore’s son from her first marriage to Eric Lanier, a rock singer in a South Dakota band that had made it pretty big back in the day. After high school, Beck had formed a group, and they were signed by a record company pretty much straight out of the gate. I knew these things because I’d read everything I could get my hands on about Freefall since the band had released their first album last year.
I kind of knew Beck. Our moms had introduced us five or six years ago, when Lenore had first moved to Meager and Beck had come from L.A. to visit her.
Over the years of visiting his mom, Beck had become close friends with Wes, one of my good friends here in town. Beck and I had shared a series of quick hellos, brief smiles, hey-what’s-up-how-you-doings. Although we’d never really spoken at length or hung out, we knew each other—knew of each other.
Freefall’s first album had made all the critics’ and fans’ top lists for the year. This year, they’d been on their first big tour as the opening act for The Heave, a top ten band, on The Heave’s monster world tour, which was still on. My best friend, Sara and I had tried to get tickets to the show in Seattle but it had been impossible.
Now here he was in Meager on his own, about to sing in our townie bar. He must be here visiting his mom, but why was he singing at a Pete’s open mic night with all the amateurs and ambitious hopefuls?
Beck got up on the small stage and settled onto a stool, adjusting the microphone stand. My pulse did a double take. He was more outrageously attractive than the last time I’d seen him. Taller, more muscly in a lean kind of way, his hair longer and unruly, in the sexiest kind of way. I swallowed down more whiskey sour, an icy wash flooding my burning throat.
Beck was the lead guitarist, sometimes piano player, and main songwriter for his group, but he wasn’t the lead singer in Freefall. He often sang backup for the lead singer or sang along with him, but never sang solo.
I drained my glass, crunched on the ice. This is a moment.
The lights dimmed, the lone spotlight settling on Beck, who was warming up a guitar, the muscles in his long arms flexing and working in his cut-off T-shirt. He stopped and raised his head, and in the bright light, his eyes shone impossibly blue-green, just like his mom’s. His boyishly innocent face now serious, he leaned into the microphone. “This is for you, Mom.”
Kill. Me. Now.
With his velvet pronouncement, the whole bar fell into complete silence. There was never such a silence in Pete’s.
Clear notes filled the room as Beck played an intricate web of chords, making that wooden instrument in his hands sing. His wavy, longish, dark-blond hair fell in his eyes as his body moved with the music he was making. He leaned into the mic again, and I held my breath. On the edge of my seat. On the ledge.
His voice washed over me like a warm, perfumed bath. There was a purity, a clarity, an ease to his tone. Simple yet so rich. His emotion built with every verse. I closed my eyes. He could be singing just to me. He was.
The steady tempo grew dramatic. It built—built as he drove into faster rhythms with a punch of verses, a jolt of chords. Rough breathiness showed through on his higher notes, yet all with that velvet ease. His voice had a unique sensuality.
The blood simmered in my veins. There was something so magnetic and charismatic about his onstage presence even though he was only twenty-two and had been performing for only a few years. He had IT.
My heart ticked with a new beat. I soaked it all in. I didn’t want to miss a second. I wanted to remember it always. I wouldn’t have torn myself away even if a tornado came blowing inside Pete’s this very second.
My fingers closed over my phone, and I brought up my camera. I got Beck into frame, took a rapid succession of photos. I hit video.
He sang about a powerful storm. About the terrible, fantastic noise of a waterfall that dared him, kept him moving forward. How he wanted more.
Was his mother the storm? The waterfall?
Yes, she was.
He danced in her wind, sang in her roar.
He held Lenore’s gaze, who moved to the music in Finger’s embrace, captivated by her son’s tribute. She had inspired these beautiful, powerful lyrics. This moving song was a ballad filled with intense emotion that he let breathe in the air like a freshly opened bottle of fine wine. The flavor became more intense. Mesmerizing to my nose, exhilarating to my tongue.
“He’s good, huh?” Derek’s arm moved around my chair, his body suddenly close to mine. The urge to swat him away like a fly came over me. I shut the video. I’d forgotten about him and his friends. I’d forgotten about everything else. My body stiffened, leaning away from his, and I took more pics.
“There she goes again,” Derek muttered.
“Shh.”
Beck’s voice soared, laying bare the final verse, and something pinched my heart, twisting it. Mangling it. The grip I had on my phone only tightened. I clung on for dear life. The way he pulled notes out of that guitar was striking. Playing that instrument was instinctive for him, intuitive.
His final chords hung in the air, vibrating in my soul, dissipating in the bar. All that emotion pulled through us all. Beck’s eyes closed, his hands stilled, his lips pursed. He’d finished. I took more pics, I had to capture this.
His eyes blinked open as if he had summoned himself out of a trance. A moment of self-consciousness must have swept over him because his gaze snapped away from the audience and went back to the guitar in his hands.
The crowd erupted into a roar, clapping wildly, whistling. Everyone was on their feet. I was, with my fingers to my lips, sending sharp, loud whistles through the air. Meg was next to me, hopping up and down, whooping and clapping, hair flying.
Lenore ran to the stage, face flushed. Beck put the guitar down and leaned over and hugged his mother, lifting her up on the small stage with him. The two of them speaking to each other, rocking back and forth in each other’s tight embrace. My heart beat wildly, uncontrollably. I grinned from ear to ear. My vision got watery, and I sniffed in air to will the tears away. Why did this make me sad? Sad but so full of joy?
I was so unhappy, that’s why.
What Beck just did was everything that was right, true, honest. Inspiring. My chest tightened, My cheeks stung. What had I accomplished so far? Still gripping at ripped seams. Still stirring my bubbling cauldron of anger and grief and so many other dark, bitter poisons.
Beck was being true to himself, expressing that truth from his heart out to the world through his work. That was brave, so bold. And, I imagined, so incredibly satisfying.
A dream.
Lenore dove off the stage back into Finger’s arms. Beck shook hands with Malcolm who thumped him on the back. People jostled to take photos of the two of them with their phones, flashes of light bursting.
“Let’s get outta here, huh?” Derek’s voice cut through the air. My jaw tightened. Everything that was pathetic and stubborn about me was in that lazy drawl of Derek’s I had once found appealing. His hand went to my back, and my body shrank at his touch. Everything that was fake, dull, and meaningless about me and Derek was in that touch. A scream thundered up my throat, but I choked it to a halt. I was good at exerting willpower over myself, but that dam would break soo
n if—
My Grandma Holly had once told me about Oprah Winfrey’s idea of the “positive no.” How important it was for a woman to understand this, to use it. Now, for the first time, it clicked. I completely understood what she meant. Finally. Absolute clarity.
My chin lifted. “No.”
“Huh?” Derek’s head tilted, that are-you-shitting-me-what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about look crawling across his face. He didn’t like being told no. Ever. And he certainly wasn’t used to being told no by a girl.
“I need to go.” I got up from the table.
“What? What the—”
Where was I going?
Didn’t know.
Didn’t matter.
Just away.
2
I pushed through the crowd.
“Hey!” Derek’s voice got strangled in the noise of the throng as I slid through the mass of people. My heart beat faster, louder. A grin perked over my lips.
Positive fucking no had slayed the paper dragon.
Fresh air, I needed fresh air.
The melodic notes of a piano rose over the now softer, pleased din of the crowd. Laughter and clinking glass muted as I made it down the back hallway to one of the emergency exit doors—I knew the alarm didn’t work. A cousin of mine bartended here for years, and I knew this place inside and out.
I shoved at the heavy door, and it opened wide. Cold air washed over me, and I gulped it in, keeping my grip tight on the door’s metal handlebar. It would lock me out if I didn’t. I took in another gulp and stepped back inside, closing the door carefully. My body slumped back against the wall with only the wan, red-lit “EXIT” sign above the door for company.
