TWELVE
Fallon—Ten Years Ago
I pulled the top notebook off a stack of old battered ones and opened it to the last page I’d been working on.
A song.
I’d been tossing the words around in my head for weeks now, my mind obsessing over this single arrangement of notes on my guitar until it finally seemed to be coming together.
I’d been playing around with songwriting since I could remember, a way to express shit I couldn’t otherwise articulate. But being with Augusta Belle had kept me so busy I’d hardly had a minute to write anymore.
We spent at least an hour or two together every day, and there were a lot of nights I found myself walking her home, creeping past her passed-out parents and warming myself next to her all night.
I felt like an old dog compared to all the beauty that surrounded her, but I’d grown not to care.
Augusta Belle didn’t care about any of that, so why should it bother me if I was holed up in a mobile home on the rougher side of town while she perched like a princess at the top of the ridge?
“Gave my heart to you, was all I had left to lose…” I wrote down a few notes in the lined margin before a familiar tap, tap, tap against my bedroom window jerked me from my thoughts.
“Fallon!”
I dropped my guitar on the floor and threw the window open without a second thought.
“‘S’wrong?” I wrapped my arms around Augusta Belle’s waist once she’d cleared the single-paned window. “I don’t ever lock it, and if you’re bold enough to face Chuck Gentry, you probably coulda waltzed through the front door.”
“I’m sorry for waking you.” Her voice was small, caged inside the emotion in her throat.
“Babe.” I hugged her into my chest, instantly alert. “What the fuck happened?”
“They’re fighting. It’s so bad, I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t even hear myself think anymore. I screamed down the stairs at them.” She swallowed, eyes brimming over. “I was about to stomp down the stairs and leave right out the front door, but before I could, Mama stomped up the stairs and…” She shook her head, fighting anger and pain. “Mama opened the door and started screaming about me bein’ at fault for all their fightin’, and then she…” Augusta Belle wiped at her temple, and for the first time, I noticed fresh blood pooling at her hairline.
“Christ, why didn’t you say something?” I launched off the bed to retrieve a cool washcloth before she clutched at my T-shirt, her tiny, red-tipped nails glistening in the dim light of the moon.
“Don’t leave yet.”
Her words slivered my heart in two before I pulled the shirt over my shoulders and balled it up, dabbing it gently at her head to locate and contain the wound.
“Do you think you need stitches?” I asked soberly.
She shook her head, both hands clutching at my forearms then, soft tremors beginning to overtake her body. “Just hold me for a minute.”
I swallowed, for the first time feelin’ an anger so violent I wanted to drive my truck right up the road and lay into them for hurting their daughter the way they did.
Dimming the light she radiated naturally.
“Worried about you, Augusta Belle. If you’d let me—”
“I’m okay, Fallon. This isn’t the first time she’s hit me. It’s just the first time in a long time.”
My eyelids sank closed with the knowledge that something like this had been happening to her right under my nose and I hadn’t done anything to stop it.
“You feel dizzy or anything?” I asked, still concerned.
“No.” She tucked herself deeper into my body.
I frowned, wishing like hell I could steal her away from that house, from those narcissistic assholes that didn’t deserve the special daughter they’d been blessed with. “Wish I could snatch you out of that place.”
Her angelic lips turned up at the corners. “I don’t need a white knight, Fallon.” Her fingers threaded through mine and settled across my bare chest. “This princess saves herself.”
I placed a kiss on the dips of her knuckles. “Think of me as the horse you’re riding in on, then.”
She burst into a soft laugh before stifling it. I pulled another blanket over us, digging deeper into the thin old mattress with the almost see-through sheets.
“Some days I don’t know if I’ll make it to eighteen alive.”
I winced inwardly, thinking not for the first time that she was still the saddest girl I’d ever met.
“You know, I was going to do it that day. I was plannin’ it.” Her lips brushed against my chest. “You already saved me once.”
Augusta Belle’s words destroyed me.
Her touch more devastating when our hearts were shredded raw.
“Save me again,” she breathed, her fingertips trailing up my torso before dusting along the stubble at my jaw.
And in that moment, I knew.
I knew there would be no going back for Augusta Belle and me.
“Augusta…” I husked, pleading. For what, I wasn’t sure.
“I love you.” She peppered kisses along my jaw, sliding her small body on top of mine, all ten fingers lacing together.
I swallowed, feeling like a caged man just given the keys to paradise.
“Love you more, Augusta Belle. But I don’t think—”
“Sick of all that thinkin’ you’re always doin’, Fallon Gentry.” She brushed her lips against mine and the faint taste of whiskey zapped my senses.
Shit, she’d been drinking. Not like her at all.
“Baby, I want to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m so much better now that I’m in your bed.” She pushed the sweater over her head, letting it land in a heap on the old linoleum floor before she was pressed to me again. “Only you can make me feel better.”
An audible groan escaped my lips as I thought about all the reasons I shouldn’t have Augusta Belle in my bed right now.
The second thing that snapped through my brain was that I probably shouldn’t have let things with her get this far to begin with. She was a certain sorta girl, and I really wasn’t the type of guy who came from the sorta family that was accepted by people who lived up on the ridge.
“Augusta…” I groaned when her hand began to dance between her thighs, brushing her knuckles against the cotton of my shorts as soft little mewls pranced past her lips. “You’re gonna be the death of me.”
“I wouldn’t have survived without you.” She hummed, teeth catching my earlobe just as her hips came down against mine and I realized she was naked. Not a stitch of clothing between her and the cotton of my shorts.
Every bone in my body ached as the thought of really having her made itself real for the first time.
I hadn’t let myself go there before.
I didn’t think I’d be able to control myself then.
She stroked her heated core against my cock, teeth whispering at the shell of my ear before her hands cupped my cheeks and she pressed a soft kiss to my lips. “I don’t want anything between us.”
I nodded, blinking once as my palms trailed up her bare torso, the silky flesh of her breasts warm against my rough palms.
She moaned, stroking harder against me before her fingertips were pushing at my waistband.
Something kicked over inside my brain then, a firestorm of need cascading through me that hurtled us both off the cliff.
In the next instant, she was in my arms and I was pushing her against a wall of my tiny room, my hands shoving down my waistband and finding her hot, warm core radiating against my shaft.
She sucked in a breath of air and moaned, and my jaw clenched down so hard I thought I’d crumble my teeth as I held myself just outside her entrance, hovering, breathing, searing every inch of her to my memory.
“Augusta, I don’t have a condom.”
Her fingertips worked against the nape of my neck.
“I don’t care.” She arched, the hot seam of her core scalding my flesh. She pressed her lips and her hips rapidly against mine, lining herself up at precisely the right angle to ease the tip of me just inside her body.
I sucked in a ragged breath, one palm clutching at her thigh as every single moment that didn’t include her before this one ceased to exist.
My world tipped, upended itself, and was righted again, spinning at a new rhythm, one that matched her succinctly.
I clamped down my eyelids, burying myself in the wild halo of waves that drowned me in her.
I wouldn’t survive this.
I knew it.
I couldn’t put my finger on it, but if I thought kinda sorta saving her on the Whiskey River Bridge that summer day was one meaningful blip in a slow succession of mindless days, then this moment…this was all of it.
Everything good and right in my world culminating right here, in her and me.
Augusta Belle’s warm mouth met mine, our tongues igniting in raw desire, our bodies creating chemistry as we connected on a deeper level for the first time.
“I’ve been waiting my whole life for this.” She gulped in a breath of air.
Her words whispering down my neck sent violent pulsations echoing through every nerve.
Buried in her body, everything was heightened, we were so connected.
“I’ve been waiting all of my life for you.”
She clung to me, our bodies swaying together before I pulled her onto the bed, caging her between my arms and tasting every morsel of her sweet existence, losing myself and finding the very best part of me all at once.
There would definitely be no coming back from Augusta Belle Branson. My life from this moment onward could only get sweeter as long as she was in it.
* * *
I woke Augusta Belle in the early morning hours of August fourth. The predawn light just grazing her flushed cheeks as she stirred to life, eyes still drunk with sleep and pleasure. She looked like a woman now, something about her way more grown-up, something that made me proud to call her mine.
I stroked the soft bow of her bottom lip when she finally breathed a quiet good morning. “I never want to leave your arms.”
I pulled her to a seated position, bare body clinging to my chest as I worked her shirt over her head and down her arms. “Someday, Augusta Belle. Not today, but soon.”
She sighed, stretching each leg out and allowing me to pull the discarded denim up her thighs. “Someday we’ll roam the open road like gypsies. You can sing music, and I’ll be your dedicated groupie.” Her cherub cheeks and innocence were sweet enough to make my jaded heart crack.
“We’ll get on that just as soon as you graduate high school.” I plopped a chaste kiss on her nose once I’d bundled her up sufficiently.
“That’s too long.” She scrunched her nose, eyes watering at the edges.
“It’ll be over before you know it.” I locked our fingers. “In the meantime, I’ll keep writing music, you’ll keep swimming and breaking records.” I pulled the ancient door open and pushed a finger to my lips. “Old man’s probably passed out on the couch, but he’s a light sleeper some nights.”
Two front teeth punctured her bottom lip, and she nodded, eyes trained on me.
I smiled, pulling her a little closer to me and mouthing the words “I love you.”
She used sign language to repeat my sentiment, then I pulled her quietly down the hallway and out into the cool morning air.
Our footsteps sped up as the morning light bathed the far-off horizon in a warm glow, dew burning off the tall grass and wetting my sneakers with every step.
We rounded the bend and angled up the steep hill to the top of the ridge.
We’d definitely gotten a late start this morning. She was usually safely tucked in bed by this time of morning, her parents none the wiser that she’d spent the night out. I paused as we reached the first giant hemlock that flanked her driveway.
Her eyes finally locked with mine, and I whispered a kiss across her cheek.
“I may have kinda sorta saved you the first day we met, but…” I breathed another kiss along her temple. “You’ve been saving me every day since then.”
One lonely tear dampened the cotton at my throat, making my own eyes burn with something too strong for either of us to swallow.
“I wish I didn’t have to go back there,” she finally squeaked.
I pulled away, squinting away my own tears from the warm dawn light and focusing on the soft skin at her throat. “Where’s your necklace?”
Her hand moved to her throat on instinct, searching for the little golden cameo she’d been wearing every moment since I’d given it to her. “It’s in my room somewhere. I took it off a few nights ago for a shower and just misplaced it.” A frown slid across her face.
“Well, as soon as you find it, put it back on.” I pushed a lip between my teeth. “I’d save you again if I could, Augusta Belle.” I meant it, every word.
She nodded, trying to control more tears, I could tell.
My eyes glanced up to the still, silent windows of the house at 101 River Ridge Drive.
A bright golden ray cracked through the dappled leaves and kissed the soft waves of her hair.
Her hands finally broke from my grip, and she backed away, moving into the bright sunlight before throwing me an air kiss and a reluctant half smile and then turning to run away with my heart.
I watched her sprint all the way up the driveway before darting around the side of the house where I knew she’d scramble up the old trellis and onto her roof, before sneaking back in through her window and getting ready for her day as if she’d never been gone.
I lingered for a few minutes longer, waiting for what, I wasn’t sure, before I turned and headed back the way I’d come. I retraced my steps back down the ridge and home to my tiny single bed and the worn old quilt that’d kept me warm since I was a kid. Except this time, it smelled like Augusta Belle.
My footsteps sped up as I rounded the last corner and darted across the small yard and through the front door of my home.
“Up early this morning, son.” Dad’s whiskey-clogged voice rang in my ears.
“Went for a jog. It’s gonna be a beautiful day.” I clapped the old man on the back, glad to see he was at least up and off the couch, a rarity this time of day.
Nerve pain usually kept his body so buckled and bent he could hardly make it off the couch. That’d been part of the reason I’d moved to Chickasaw Ridge. To help him. The other because my mama had found herself doing another ninety-day stint in rehab, and I just couldn’t make the bills on our small rental alone.
“Sure is a beautiful day, son. Sure is.” He took a long drink of water as he stood at the kitchen sink that overlooked the field and ridge beyond. One of his hands clutched at the chipped countertop, hip twisted to one side as he favored some painful ache.
“Don’t forget to take your vitamins this morning. ’Kay, dad?”
He nodded once, an indulgent grin spreading his thin lips.
“I’m gonna hop in the shower then take the Jeep into town. I have a friend I think might be able to fix that radiator for cheap…” My words hung heavy in the air when I noticed something else had caught the old man’s attention, and he was shuffling back to his semi-permanent placement on the couch.
I shook my head, vowing to stop by the VFW on my way into town and see if any of the old guys would be willing to come out and visit my dad a few times a week. I also wanted to ask if any of them had a lead on some construction jobs. The few gigs I was getting in town weren’t near enough to pay for dinner, much less anything else.
It was hard for me to keep regular hours when I was helping my dad so much of the day, but my sister had promised to start stopping after work a few days a week to check on him if I found regular work.
If I was going to make a life with Augusta, I’d have to start lining up my cards early.
I had less than a year to make sure my dad could and would be good on his own in this place if I had any chance of getting Augusta Belle out of hers. I didn’t have much saved, but between what I did have and a full-time job, plus singing for tips on weekends, I figured I could afford to keep a roof over our heads while she went to college. I’d already decided wherever she wanted to go, I was game. From LA to New York, and anywhere in between.
I was stepping out of the shower not much later when the idling of a car engine caught my attention.
I cracked the old crank window in the bathroom, wincing when the rusted hinges protested, before a flaming orange ball of light crossed my vision.
The sound of shattering glass splintered my senses a moment later, a little dark car spinning off around the corner and up the hill.
Adrenaline pummeled my body as I pulled on my dirty clothes and launched out the door and down the hallway.
Fire engulfed the kitchen, a bottle with a heavy white rag still rocking on the linoleum floor as pieces of the faded flower tile melted around it.
My muscles tensed as I saw my father cast sideways on a couch that was already quickly becoming swallowed in flames.
I breathed into my T-shirt and tried to remember where Dad kept the fire extinguisher.
I gnashed down on my teeth, realizing I didn’t have time for that before I launched across the living room and pulled the heavy weight of my father through the front door.
I heaved in fresh lungfuls of air as his face turned a worrisome ashen color.
I looked back up at the house, seeing flames lick out the window now, realizing I could either start CPR on my father, or run back into that trailer and hope to find my phone in my bedroom to call the fire department.
I didn’t have time for both.
I looked up at the sky, eyes watering from the smoke now cascading out of every window of our trailer.
If I thought I knew devastation before, it was dim in comparison to what was about to come next.
The darkest days of my life, creeping by one agonizing instant at a time as we tried to recover, as I tried to rebuild. Just when everything was fallin’ apart.