A Safe Place To Fall (The Fall Book 1) (13 page)

He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook
her gently. “Lana, slow down. What the hell is going on?”

Was it possible? “He didn’t
tell you?”

He studied her face clearly confused.
“What are you talking about?”

She closed her eyes, sighing. “The
messages, the keyed door. I thought when he told me to call you if I
had problems while he was gone that he had told you.”

Chris released her and backed away. “Are
you saying someone is stalking you?”

Wrapping her arms tight around herself
she nodded. “I had to get out of the house.”

“
I’m calling Drew,” he
said, reaching for his cell phone.

“
No!” she shouted, reaching
to take his phone. “You can’t call him. If you call him
he'll come home. His grandma needs him right now.”

“
And he’ll kill me if I don’t
call him,” Chris replied.

“
I’ll tell him as soon as he
gets home,” she promised. “It’s just roses,
nothing I can’t handle.”

He raised his brow. “So you
normally run around the gym in your towel when you get flowers?”

Lana blushed. “He took my
clothes.”

“
You have to report this,” he
told her, going over to a closet. A minute later he turned back
around and handed her a pair of sweatpants and a huge t-shirt. “Put
these on.”

She accepted the clothing and headed to
the door he pointed to. Reporting it meant that she would have to
call Drew’s dad. God this was so embarrassing. His dad would
hate her.

Two hours later Chris walked her into her
apartment. Ricky was gone of course. In the end Chris did a check
of the apartment, room by room, to make sure nobody was there. Had
he not just seen her in a towel, she would have been embarrassed when
he spotted the thong laying on her bed.

“
Are you sure you’re going to
be okay here by yourself?” He seemed almost reluctant to leave
her alone.

Lana gathered courage she didn't feel and
nodded. “I’m just going to watch some TV. and then go to
bed.”

“
Call me if you need anything,”
he said, backing to the door. “I wish you would've said
something sooner. Hell, I could have been walking you to your car
when you were there by yourself.”

“
It’s not something I like to
talk about,” she told him. “I just want to be normal.”

“
Normal is overrated.”

Then he was gone.

“
I found this outside our door,”
Ricky said, tossing a big envelope on the table in front of her.

Lana groaned.
Please
don’t let this be another surprise
.
With trepidation she tore it opened. Inside were pictures.

Oh God!

The pictures were of her and Drew. In
one, they were leaving the gym and Drew was behind her looking at her
ass. That had been the night he had gone and gotten her tacos.

The second one showed them dancing.
Drew’s hands had drifted down to her ass. The sexual tension
could be seen even in the picture. Shawn had been at Lux watching
them.

In the last one they were at his family
farm in another embrace. He had just shown her how to shoot a
firearm.

A lump formed in Lana’s throat.
Shawn had been in all of those places. He had been so close to her.
How could she have not seen him? Then she remembered the night at
the mall.

Chapter
13

Drew tossed the pictures back onto his
coffee table. “Why didn’t you call me?”

Lana swallowed. He was angry; she had
known he would be. “We called your dad.”

“
Maybe you misunderstood,” he
growled, pacing in front of the TV. “I told you to first call
Chris, get him to you and call my dad. Then you call me!”

“
You said Chris was closer,”
she defended herself. “And you never said to call you if
something happened.”

“
It was implied, dammit.” He
stopped and stared at her. “He was within feet of you both
times! You didn’t see the need to call me?”

Her shrug was lame.

He chugged what was left of his beer and
threw the bottle in the direction of the kitchen. “I should
never have left.”

“
You needed to go,” she
argued.

“
I’m going to kick Chris’
ass,” he threatened. He was back to pacing.

“
He wanted to call,” she
admitted, “but I wouldn’t let him.”

“
YOU WHAT?” he yelled,
causing her to jump.

She had never seen him this angry before.
Not angry at her anyway.

“
I just wanted you to spend time
with your grandma,” she whispered. He intimidated her when he
was like this.

“
You told me that you would stay
home,” he bit out.

“
I couldn’t take it anymore,”
she cried out. “Ricky took off. I was alone anyway!”

“
Is it impossible for him to stay
home for two days?” he ground out. “I only needed a
couple of days!”

“
I don’t need a babysitter,”
Lana fired back. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care
of myself!”

“
You’re doing a hell of a job
at it,” he spat out. “You led him right back to your
house!”

Her eyes widened with tears. “You
know what,” she said calmly, getting up. A calm she did not
feel. “I didn’t ask for you to get involved. You got
involved all on your own.”

“
What was I supposed to do?”
he asked, coming to a stop by the window and looking down onto the
street. “Just let you face this on your own?”

It felt as if a fist had tightened around
her heart. With each squeeze her heart cracked a little more. Was
that the real reason he was with her? Did he have some twisted need
to be a hero?

How easily she had been fooled. She had
let herself believe it was possible for someone to look past her
damage and care about her. When was she going to learn that nothing
good would ever happen to her? She could be so stupid!

The pressure on her chest was making it
hard to breath. The truth hurt too damn much. She needed to get out
of here before she made a complete fool out of herself.

“
Don’t worry,” she
said, turning to head for the door before he could see the tears.
“I’m not your problem anymore.”

“
Damn it! Honey!”

The door slammed cutting off his words.

Ricky was in his chair when she ran
through the door. All of the tears she had been fighting came
busting loose on a sob. His arms waited to offer brotherly comfort.
Comfort that she had not felt from her own brothers in a while. She
curled up on his lap, drowning his shirt in her tears.

For the longest time neither one of them
said a word. He just sat there holding her close, rubbing her back,
and letting her cry her broken heart out.

When it seemed as if she ran out of
tears, Lana pulled away from his lap. “I’m sorry.”

Ricky eyed her. “Wanna tell me
what that was all about?”

She worked at breathing slowly, through
the pain. “I broke up with Drew.”

“
Why did you go and do a stupid
thing like that?”

Lana curled up on her spot on the couch.
“He was getting too clingy.”

“
He’s doing the only thing he
knows to keep you safe,” Ricky told her.

“
I don’t need protection,”
she said.

“
Bullshit,” he argued. “You
have a freak following you around.”

“
I can handle that,” she
asked in a whisper.

“
No, you can't. Now stop trying to
find a reason to push Drew away. What happened before you came here
sucked but not all guys are like that guy.”

Oh God! He had known this whole time.
Why hadn’t he said anything?

“
How did you know?”

“
You talk in your sleep,” he
said. “I didn’t know there was more to things until
those pictures showed up.”

She hugged her knees. “I thought
he would stop at the messages. I didn’t want to worry you over
nothing.”

“
This is not nothing, Lana.”
Ricky sat up. “You can’t push Drew away right now. You
need him in your corner.”

“
He doesn’t want to be in my
corner,” she cried. “He sees me as a problem.”

Before he could respond someone started
pounding on the door.

“
Lana,” Drew shouted, through
the closed door. “Let me in!” More pounding. “Let
me in! Come on, honey, I know you’re in there.”

Lana shook her head. “I can’t
talk to him. Don’t make me talk to him.”

“
Oh, you’re talking to him.”
Ricky got up and walked to the door.

Drew shoved passed Ricky as soon as the
door was opened. “Where is she?”

Lana closed her eyes. He was still
angry. Probably even more so since she had stormed out on him. Why
couldn’t he just give her space?

If she kept quiet maybe he would not see
her sitting there. She could just blend in with her surroundings.
The couch was black. She was wearing black. It could totally work.
Yes, she knew she was being a total coward at the moment.

Drew came around the couch, sat down on
the coffee table, and eyed her. He seemed to be gathering his words
carefully. “You’re not a problem.”

She started to interject but he put a
finger over her lips to stop her words.

“
What I mean is your problems are
my problems,” he told her tracing her lips with his finger.
“I’ll admit our relationship hasn't gotten an easy start,
but we work. It’s all of this other crazy shit... when I think
about how close he got to you while I was gone.” His hand had
made its' way to the back of her head and under her hair. “I
should have been here.”

“
But you shouldn’t have to
deal with this,” she told him. “You didn’t sign up
for this.”

He took hold of her hand with his free
hand and pulled her onto his lap. “Neither did you.”

She took a calming breath, wiping the
tears from her eyes. These days her world was so crazy she did not
know what was up and what was down. It would have served her right
if he had brushed his hands of her. He came after her. That had to
count for something, right?

“
I’m here because I want to
be,” he told her, holding her close. “Don’t ever
think that you have to deal with anything on your own.”

Lana tensed against him as the weight of
her situation finally sunk in. Drew was right. Shawn was out there,
watching, and waiting to pounce. Taking off by herself was stupid.
Her enemy seemed to know her every move. How long had he been
watching before he reached out to her?

“
Is it ever going to be normal
again?” she asked, almost hating to hear his response.

“
We’ll catch him,” Drew
promised, playing with a strand of her hair. “He will mess up,
and when he does I will be there.”

“
What do I do until then,”
she asked pulling away from him, pacing around the floor and tidying
up the place. “Stay locked up in my apartment?”

“
Of course not,” he replied.
“Just no more sneaking off. He won’t make a move if
you’re not alone.”

“
I wasn’t alone at the gym,”
she pointed out.

“
Chris had no idea you were even
there,” he reminded her.

“
He’s taking my life away,”
she complained, folding her throw.

Drew walked over and wrapped his arms
around her pulling her back against his body. “I want to kill
him for making you go through all of this.”

She sighed allowing her head to fall back
against his shoulder. His arms felt like home to her. What would
she have done if he had not come after her?

“
So, are we good?” he asked,
dropping a kiss on her temple.

Closing her eyes she cherished the simple
touch. “Don’t leave me.”

He paused in the process of kissing a
path down her cheek heading for her neck. “Not in a million
years.”

Sighing in contentment, she whispered.
“I meant stay here tonight.”

He groaned into her neck. “I have
to play a show tonight. Why don’t you and Ricky come along?”

She opened an eye not believing what she
heard. “I thought you couldn’t stand him?”

“
True,” he admitted, breath
warm on her shoulder. “But Chris has to work tonight and there
is no way I’m leaving you here without protection.”

“
What if Ricky stays here with me?”

“
No,” Drew refused. “He
likes to take off too much. If you guys are with me I will at least
be close.”

The last thing Lana wanted was to be
alone tonight. Even as she told Drew Ricky would stay here with her,
she knew that the chances that he would were slim.

“
It’s a small mom and pop
bar,” he informed her. “You’ll be safe.”