Falling Fast (Falling Fast #1) - Tina Wainscott Page 0,15

he didn’t want a long fight with Mia’s parents. Just as he’d accepted a plea deal on the reckless-driving charges so she wouldn’t have to testify, he would back down to keep her from being in the middle of this snarl. He finally looked at her. “I’ll go over, assess what needs to be done, and give you contact information for contractors who can do the work. I’m glad to help in any way that I can.”

He left, hearing utter silence in the room behind him. He would not let her parents think he’d conned Nancy out of anything, or, even more disgusting, seduced her for it. He found a smile as he stepped outside. She had known her son would stoop that low.

His smile continued as he thought about the letter Mia had sent. What had it said? How might things be different if he’d received it? That sure stole his smile. They might have gotten closure a long time ago. Maybe they’d even be friends.

When he returned to the shop, Peter asked, “So? Did she leave you the stash of cash in her mattress?”

Raleigh managed a smile. “Just the deck furniture.” He changed into his coveralls and went back to work on the SUV at his station. How long would he be here in this space? Wearing the PETE’S GARAGE logo on his uniform? The import mechanic on the other side of town had offered him a job if this place closed, but he couldn’t let Raleigh work on his own cars after hours. Liability or some such shit. Tweaking high-performance cars was his high nowadays. What he really wanted to focus on, and on his own terms. He wasn’t giving that up.

Mia flashed into his mind. She’d been his high once. And, dammit, he still felt it whenever he saw her. Memories flickered through his mind like a commercial for a movie. Her squealing in delight when he flew down the abandoned strip of highway, the wind whipping through the open windows. The first time he’d taken her to the Airstream travel trailer parked in the middle of five acres of woods, scared that she’d see him for the poor, nothing boy he was. But she’d run through the tall grass in the field nearby, her arms outstretched. He’d chased after her, catching her around the waist and spinning her in his arms. She’d looked down at him, her hands on his cheeks, and he’d let her slide down his body until their mouths connected.

This patch of scrub pines and grasses had been a paradise to her. No roar of traffic. No light pollution. Only the spray of diamonds against a coal-black sky and a chorus of crickets.

He leaned against the side of his car. Dammit, forget that. Forget all that. You’re going to make the list of work to be done, along with the people you trust to do it, and hand it to her. He wanted to give her closure. But there was a part of him that wanted something completely different. It wanted an opening.

Chapter 4

Her parents had pulled the “everything you put us through” card, effectively shutting up Mia’s protests about their deception. Of course, they’d only been trying to protect her, as they’d always done, blah-blah-blah.

She stood on the back deck, seeing the faint lines of foam where the waves rolled up onto the shore. In the dark, with hardly any moonlight, that was the only evidence of the ocean, apart from the sounds. The beach seemed to disappear into inky darkness, punctuated by one lone light bobbing on the horizon.

Thank God her parents didn’t want to stay here. They had gotten a room at the nicest hotel in town, much nicer than the surviving motels on “the strip,” as the kids called the main road that ran parallel to the Gulf. The road still bore the pastel-colored shacks with shells and the open-air restaurants that boasted fried shrimp and rum runners. All of that was where the dredging’s effects hadn’t reached. North of that, where the sand had been pumped in, sat a line of name-brand hotels and high-rise condos.

Nancy’s cottage was just south of those, and had benefited a little from the downwash of that sand. Sand that Mother Nature was inexorably pulling back into the Gulf of Mexico. Mia could see the smattering of lights and was doubly grateful that her parents were there and not here. They thought she was odd to want to stay here alone, with