Before We Fell Read online

  Before We Fell

  Stacey Lynn

  Before We Fell

  Love In The Heartland #4

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  Stacey Lynn

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  Copyright © 2019 Stacey Lynn

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  Content Editing: My Brother’s Editor

  Proofreading: Virginia Tesi Carey

  Cover Design: Shanoff Designs

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  Before We Fell is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used fictitiously or are a product of the author’s imagination.

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  All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reprinted, reproduced, or transmitted in any form without written permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review passages only.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Thank You

  Other Books by Stacey Lynn

  Prologue

  Noah

  * * *

  The irritating buzz of a mosquito swarmed my ear. I opened my eyes to swat it away and closed my eyes again. Curling away from the relentless sound, I rolled right into a warm, soft figure in my bed.

  “Shit,” I groaned, pushing myself to my back and opening my eyes.

  She wasn’t supposed to stay. What we had was simple. She came over. She came in a more pleasurable way. I came. And then she left.

  Peyton Hudson sleeping next to me, curled to her side and hugging my pillow was not the arrangement.

  I wiped a hand down my face and sat up, only to realize that mosquito buzzing in my ear wasn’t a bug, but my phone. My screen lit up again and I grabbed it, cursing as I saw the number for the concierge desk, along with the time.

  Two o’clock in the morning? I’d been asleep for less than two hours.

  “Hello?” I asked, already shoving off the bed and reaching for my discarded jeans. Nothing good would come from a phone call at this hour.

  “Mr. Wilkes, this is Patrick Morrison at the front desk, sir.”

  “What is it?” I stood at the window, zipping my jeans. The view of St. Louis with its arches in the distance was the main reason why I bought this condo after winning an incredibly lucrative court case early in my career.

  “There are two police officers here, demanding to see you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, sir. They said it’s urgent.”

  Did I have to tell everyone how to do their job? “Then send them up, Patrick.”

  I disconnected and tossed the phone to the bed where it made a soft thunk. Shit. I still had to get rid of Peyton. For tonight and forever if this was where she thought we were headed.

  I wasn’t opposed to relationships. They were always a possibility in the back of my mind, in that someday when I’m done making millions, sort of way. But that’s not what Peyton and I had, and it wasn’t something I wanted, not with her, anyway.

  I grabbed my shirt off the floor and tugged it on before heading to the other side of the bed.

  I lived on the twenty-eighth floor, but it wouldn’t take long for officers to get here.

  “Hey.” I shook her shoulder gently but hard enough to wake her. As her eyes fluttered open and her lips lifted into a grin, I scowled. “You need to get up and go. Now.”

  “What? Oh…did I fall asleep?” Peyton was beautiful. As one of the best prosecuting attorneys in St. Louis, she and I often found ourselves on opposite sides of the aisle during trials. It was her fire and her passion for her job which equaled mine that initially made my dick hard. Her large boobs, curvy hips, thighs that showed how often she went to her kickboxing class didn’t hurt, either. Her pale brown eyes went from sleepy to happy in a blink and I stood back.

  “You need to go. I got shit to do. So get moving. I’ll be in the kitchen.”

  With coffee going because if cops were showing up at my door, it meant very bad things for someone at my office or my clients.

  I filled my machine with fresh water and turned it on, already sliding into defense mode and by the time I slipped a pod into my coffee maker, three firm knocks hit my door. As my long strides ate up the space to the front door, Peyton met me at the hallway.

  “Who’s here?” she asked. Her handbag was in one hand, red and spiked high heels dangled in her other. Strawberry blonde hair, thick and wavy only a few minutes ago in my bed was now patted neatly into place.

  “Cops. I’ll call you later.”

  “Cops?” Her brows arched and her head whipped toward the door as another knock hit it. This time less patient and louder. “What for?”

  “I don’t know. Like I said, I’ll call you later.” I wouldn’t end it now without giving her the time to throw the tantrum I figured would come. Arguing with Peyton made my dick hard inside and outside the courtroom, and it wasn’t just there where we differed. It was pretty much every single thing we believed. I always figured it was what made the sex so damn hot between us. Our explosive tempers couldn’t help but overflow into shirt-ripping, mind-blowing orgasms.

  I opened the door and two of St. Louis’s finest stood in front of me, grave expressions on the faces of two men I recognized and had worked with before.

  Awkward. Cops gossiped more than my younger sister and her girlfriends ever could.

  Based on the glances they quickly slid her way then back to me, they knew both of us as well.

  “Officers Marsh and Richmond. What can I do for you?”

  “Have a few minutes?” Alex Marsh asked. “We need to talk.”

  “I’ll just go,” Peyton whispered. Her face had paled, and all surprise was gone from her, but that didn’t stop her from brushing her hand across my lower back as she moved. “Talk to you later, Noah.”

  I grunted an acknowledgment, stepping back with the door so she could leave and the officers walked in.

  As it closed behind them, they followed me to the kitchen where I grabbed a mug and looked at both of them over my shoulder. “Need coffee? It’s late.” Or early. Whatever.

  “No, listen, Mr. Wilkes—”

  “Noah,” I corrected. These guys were my age and my prestige might have demanded respect, but I never gave a shit.

  “Noah,” Officer Dan Richmond said, and his voice had gone weird. Thick. A bit strangled. My now filled mug stilled halfway to my mouth. “We need you to come to the hospital with us. Something happened.”

  “With Joker?”

  He was my most current, infamous client, and was being held for not only solicitation but beating the shit out of the hooker he’d hired. That he had a gram of coke on him at the time didn’t help. Nor that he was one of the best running backs in professional football. But he was the only
thing I could think of.

  “No.” Dan stepped forward. He was my age. Had a wife and two young kids. And he looked terrified. “Listen, Noah. It’s Riley.”

  Every warm, pulsing spot inside my body turned to ice and froze. “What’s Riley?”

  Adam Marsh stepped up and quietly said, “Maybe we should sit.”

  The hell I was. I stepped back. My ass hit my marble counter, and I set down my coffee. “What the fuck is going on?”

  They glanced at each other. Like neither wanted to talk. And if Riley was at the hospital and they were here…the palm of my hand pressed against my chest. “Where’s Amanda? Jake?”

  Adam lowered his head and raised it like he was regretting ever stepping foot in my home. “Riley’s in shock, Noah, unhurt, but scared. From what we’ve been able to gather, Amanda and Jake took her to see The Lion King tonight. And well, shit man…I hate to say this…but…”

  “They didn’t make it,” Dan said, swooping in and stepping toward me.

  “What the fuck do you mean, they didn’t make it?”

  This wasn’t happening. Wave after wave rushed through my brain. I was the best defense attorney in St. Louis, hated by almost every single man who wore blue, and the fact these two guys were standing there, looking like they wanted to hug me made no sense.

  “What are you trying to say?” I asked, gasping for breath. Riley. Unhurt. Didn’t make it. This was not happening.

  “Shot. Both of them. Purse and wallet gone.”

  Shot? Oh, Jesus.

  “Riley—”

  “We’re here to take you to her.”

  I heard nothing else but a whooshing in my ears. And I barely remembered grabbing my wallet, sliding my feet into a pair of flip-flops despite the fact it was February, following them to their cruiser. Getting to the hospital.

  But it was seeing Riley, my sweet little niece, all hair and huge blue eyes rimmed red and not their usual sparkle that slammed everything into place.

  I ran to her as soon as I saw her, curled in a blue blanket, looking so damn tiny on the hospital bed in the emergency room and as she saw me, great big fat tears fell down her cheeks.

  “Uncle Noah!” she sobbed as I grabbed her. My legs, done trying to be strong, collapsed once I got my arms around her and I fell to the floor, Riley in my lap. “Uncle Noah,” she cried again.

  I shoved her face into the crook of my neck. My splayed fingers and palm larger than the back of her head held her tight to me. I pressed my face into her hair. “I’m so sorry, Riley. So, so, so damn sorry.”

  My sister and her husband were dead.

  What in the hell would happen to Riley now?

  One

  Lauren

  * * *

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  “Ugh!” I flung my comforter off of me. The blue down cover flew through the air and I jumped out of bed. Why I stomped to my window and shoved back my curtains was anyone’s guess. It wasn’t like my new neighbor could see my glare or hear my frustrated and angry growl through the thick thatch of trees separating our yards. It took a special kind of jerk to start construction or whatever he was doing at six in the morning. All the hammering waking me up over the last week was driving me bonkers.

  “When will this end?” I muttered to myself and snagged my phone from its charger cord on my nightstand.

  Six o’clock in the morning a week before school started. The last week of the summer I had to sleep in and pretend I was still on vacation. Whoever it was that moved in so recently was seriously messing with my planned activities of sleep, sleep, and more sleep. He banged on the house all day long and if it wasn’t a hammer, it was a saw. If it wasn’t one of those, it was a drill or the sound of large trucks dropping off supplies.

  And it happened all.freaking.day.long.

  Thank God I was back to school in a few days. A classroom of twenty-two eight-year-olds was more pleasant to my ears. Which was the only reason I hadn’t gone over to meet my new neighbor and ask him to keep it down until a more decent hour. Only two more days and I’d be at the school, getting my room ready, handling orientations for new families and then at the end of the week, I’d be welcoming all my students for their first day of school.

  When I was a child, I was always giddy over the new year. It always filled me with hope that things would be different. That my family would be different. I cradled my new pencils and markers and crayons and notebooks with love, squeezing them and wishing beyond reason that each new school year would bring something excitingly different to my life.

  That never quite happened, not with my family, but the love of learning and school was too far ingrained in me that by the time I went to college, I knew exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up. Now, I had just enough years of teaching under my belt that I wasn’t nervous, I wasn’t jittery, trying to find my place in a new school and classroom with veteran teachers who could be quite intimidating, but it was the excitement keeping me up late at night.

  Oh, the learning that’d take place. The laughs we’d share. The children I’d hug when they fell and scraped their knees or forgot their snack, or their mom couldn’t make it to that field trip after all. Being a teacher was more than teaching arithmetic and proper grammar and reading. It was loving. And by this point in time during the summer, I was aching to love the little kids I hadn’t yet met.

  It was that excitement that helped me brush off my obnoxious neighbor as I moved to the bathroom. Once the water was running in the shower, I scanned my email, starred the messages I’d check once I got to my classroom before setting down my phone and stepping into the warm spray.

  Heaven. I sighed as I ran my hands through my hair, shampooed and conditioned it. I’d had a cut a few weeks ago and even though I chopped several inches, my hair still hung past my breasts. During the school year, I took pride in my appearance. We might have had a casual dress code where I could wear jeans or leggings and dresses, but I always went to school looking as best I could. For me, that meant waking up at an ungodly hour so I could dry and straighten or curl my hair into long, fluffy waves.

  That morning, I dried off quickly and wrapped it up into a bun, tugging down just a few strands at my temples before I went to my closet and pulled on some yoga capris with a gray tank.

  I’d come back home before heading back up to the school later for pre-year conferences. It was one of my favorite things about this district. We spent three days speaking with parents and the kids, reviewing last year’s scores and progress and doing quick little tests to see what the kids had retained over the summer. It not only helped us know where students were before the first day, it also gave us teachers a chance to get to know the students and parents in a one-on-one environment.

  Grabbing my phone on the way out, I moved through my small one-level home straight to the kitchen where I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and double checked to ensure everything was in its place.

  My friends teased me for being too OCD, but I didn’t mind. My home life had been unruly and unmanageable, everything always a disaster and somehow, I took that control I needed to always ensure at least my bedroom was neat and tidy. That followed me into adulthood and might have driven my college roommates a wee bit nuts.

  I didn’t mind other people’s messes, but my home was my sanctuary. It was quiet and peaceful, and keeping it clean helped me feel the same when I woke in the morning or came home after a long day and everything was in its place.

  My bedroom was right off the kitchen and small eating area, so I quickly wiped down the table and counters before moving to the living room. I’d dusted and cleaned everything over the weekend, and then last night, fell asleep on the couch to a Hallmark Channel romance before waking up and shuffling off to my bedroom.

  The movie was corny as heck, but I loved them.

  Once I ensured the house was clean and picked up, I swiped my keys off the hook just inside my garage door, tugged my purse off another, and headed out.

  I had suppl
ies to buy.

  Students to prepare for.

  A knock rapped on my doorframe and a friendly voice called out, “Hey, you’re still here?”

  Brooke, another third-grade teacher, and one of my closest acquaintances at work stepped into my room.

  I gave her a quick wave.

  “Here, let me help,” she said, hurrying to where I was stretched on a chair, standing on tiptoe, and holding a banner well above my head. She pulled another chair over to the wall and grabbed the hanging banner, pushing it high and straight across the top of the smart board screen.

  I pulled the tape dispenser out of my mouth and ripped off a piece with my teeth. “Thank you,” I said, smacking the taped banner to the wall. “That’s a bit easier with help.”

  She grinned down at me and held out her hand. “Give me a piece and I’ll get this side.” When she was done, she stepped off the chair and both of us stood back, surveying the alphabetic banner.

  “You always have the coolest room decor,” Brooke said, grinning at my walls.

  It wasn’t a secret that I made most of my own decor. I even had my own online business on the side, selling my creations to other teachers. I spent hours every day during the summer coming up with new and inspired ideas for elementary students and teachers to keep learning fun and creative.