A Safe Place To Fall (The Fall Book 1) (17 page)

Lana smacked the steering wheel out of
anger. Who did they think they were, messing with her life this way?

Screw them both!

Seeing a line of traffic crossing the
road at a red light up ahead she tapped on her brakes to slow down.
The pedal went to the floor and she was still going as fast as she
was before hitting the brakes.

No brakes.

As the cars got closer she shot up a
prayer, to whoever could be listening, and braced for impact. Even
with the seat belt on her body slammed into the steering wheel. The
windshield shattered upon impact; glass came down around her head as
it slammed into the dashboard.

A moan escaped her lips as another
vehicle plowed into her car from behind. Blood trickled down from a
cut on her forehead. Some of the glass was poking through her
clothes and laying in her hair.

In a daze, Lana slowly sat up and looked
around. The front of the car was smashed in to the point she could
barely see over the hood. Sirens wailed in the distance over the
shouts of the witnesses.

Lana groaned.
Drew
was going to kill her,
was her
last thought before the darkness returned.

*******************************************

Drew raced to the hospital to get to Lana
as soon as he heard about the accident. For now, he would over-look
the fact that she had been speeding. He needed to be sure she was
safe. The nurse said she had lost consciousness due to a concussion.

When he finally found her room she was
sitting up in the bed. His heart stopped at the sight of all the
bruises. A bandage covered a cut above her left eye.

He was never letting her out of his
sight again.

“
Hey,” he said, moving to sit
on the edge of the bed. “How are you doing?”

“
My head hurts,” she
complained.

“
You hit pretty hard,” he
told her.

Lana grimaced. “I'm so sorry. I
tried to stop but the brakes wouldn't work. I had no brakes at all.”

The wheels in Drew's head immediately
started turning, and he didn't like the direction they traveled in.
If what he was thinking was reality the rules of the game had
changed.

“
I wanna go home,” she
whined, taking his hand into hers.

“
We have to wait for the doctor to
come in,” he informed her. “If he says you can go we'll
be out of here faster than you can say it.”

His phone vibrated in his pocket.
Pulling it out he saw it was his dad. On the way to the hospital, he
had asked his dad to get him all the information he possibly could on
the wreck. Something was not right.

Excusing himself, he stepped out into the
hall to answer the phone. “What's up?”

“
I had our mechanic check out
Lana's car,” the older man informed him. “The brake
lines were cut.”

Anger chilled his veins. Lana could've
been killed. If she had been going any faster she and the person she
hit would not have survived. The other person was in critical
condition as it was.

“
Are you guys finally going to do
something about this bullshit?” he asked angrily. “He
could have killed her tonight!”

“
I know,” his father
admitted. “I've been trying like hell all evening to get Shawn
in for questioning, but he hasn't been found yet.”

“
Damn it,” Drew all but
shouted into the phone. “I just want her to be safe, Dad.”

“
I'm working on enough evidence to
get a restraining order against this Shawn,” his dad informed
him. “Without finger prints, and the messages being traced
back to a burner phone, it has proven to be difficult. You're just
lucky the phone company keeps a record of that kind of thing.”

“
This is on a whole different
level,” he said. “As soon as she's out of my sight he
tries something else.”

“
Do you know what I would do if
this were happening to Charlene?”

Charlene was the new wife his dad married
as soon as the ink was dry on his parents' divorce papers. Drew
tried to hate the new wife but she refused to allow it to happen.
That, however, did not mean he had to get along with his dad.

Up until Lana's car had been keyed it had
been six months since he had spoken to his dad. He could have
forgiven his dad if he had just told his mom he wanted a divorce.
Unfortunately, it had not gone down that way. No matter how hard he
tried he couldn't overlook the fact that his mother had walked in on
his dad in bed with the other woman.

“
I would take her away,” his
dad went on. “Take Lana up to the cabin for a few days. Maybe
by then, I'll be able to get enough on this jackass.”

The cabin.

Drew hadn't been up there in five years
since his parent's marriage fell apart. Once upon a time his family
had been close. Every vacation and a few weekends had been spent at
that cabin. Adam had tried to get him to go up there for a fishing
trip the past summer, but he had refused.

The last thing he wanted to do was take
Lana to the cabin. The place had become tainted the moment his dad
had allowed Charlene to step inside the door, but it was secluded.
The only way Shawn would be able to get to her up there was if he
followed her. If it meant Lana would be safe, he would pack her up
and go there.

“
You still have a key?” asked
his dad.

He nodded and immediately realized his
dad couldn't see him. “Yeah, I've got the key.”

“
Take her there,” his dad
demanded, “and don't come back until I've gotten the
restraining order, or he's behind bars.”

Drew looked around the doorway at Lana
dozing in the bed. How would she handle going away for a while?
They would both have to miss classes and work. Working for his
mother's company allowed him some flexibility. Something told him
the coffee shop wouldn't prove to be as flexible.

“
I'll keep you updated,” his
dad said.

Drew pressed end on the screen of his
phone. His dad wasn't known for saying goodbye. He couldn't even
remember the last time his dad had told him that he loved him.
Sometimes he thought the cold heart was a consequence of being a cop.

He took a calming breath before walking
back into the hospital room.

*********************************************

The doctor released Lana into the care of
Drew with a promise that he would wake her up every hour--standard
protocol for concussions. She fully expected to go straight to the
apartment, instead there were two overnight bags and food in the seat
of his truck.

“
What's all of this?” she
asked, eyeing the pile through the window.

“
I had Chris bring some stuff
over,” he informed her, as he transferred the luggage to the
the tool box in the bed of the truck. “We're going away for a
while.”

She climbed into the front seat shutting
the door behind her. “We can't just take off. I have school
and work.”

“
We can, and we are,” he told
her, climbing behind the steering wheel. “I made all of the
arrangements while you were asleep. Your boss could only give you a
week off but that should be enough time to get the restraining
order.”

Getting out of the hospital parking lot
proved to be a slow process. The nighttime traffic in Morgantown was
bumper to bumper. Maybe she could get him to see how bad this idea
was before they got out of town.

“
We can't go away for a week,”
she told him. “I can't afford to be off work or miss classes
for that long.”

He passed the turn off to their apartment
building. “I cleared it with all of our professors. Under the
circumstances they were willing to allow us to submit our work
online.”

“
Where exactly are we going?”

“
My dad owns a small cabin in
Doddridge County,” he informed her, speeding up to beat a red
light. “This was all his idea. He wants you out of sight
until he can get you a restraining order against Shawn, and I agree
with him.” Drew glanced over at her. “Yeah, I know, hell
has probably frozen over.”

Lana relaxed back against the truck seat.
His dad wanting him to take her into hiding only confirmed her
fears. Shawn had cut her brake lines. He wanted her dead now.

“
How exactly are we going to email
our work if we are in the middle of the woods?” She was
curious.

He flashed her a smile. “Hotspot,
honey, we have perfect cell service up on the hill.”

There was no arguing with him; he had all
of the answers. It looked as if she was going to have a small
vacation.

“
Don't worry there's running water,
electric and TV.”

That was a relief. She had not even
thought about living conditions at the cabin. There was no way she
would be cool with using an out house.

When they made it as far as Clarksburg,
Drew pulled into the parking lot of McDonald's. While she ran to the
restroom he ordered their food and drinks. Lana used the time to try
to calm her nerves.

They had been sleeping in the same bed
for a couple of weeks now. There was no need to be nervous. Things
would stay the same between them. Drew did not expect her to have
sex with him. He understood why she could not go that far.

But he wants it
,
her thoughts screamed inside her head.

As she washed her hands she examined
herself in the mirror and grimaced. No wonder people had been
staring as they left the hospital and when they walked in here.
Along with the bandage above her eye, she sported a black eye.
Probably from where she hit her head on the edge of the dashboard.
Seat belt rash marred the skin from her neck down diagonally on her
chest, which was also bruised.

Why was she even worried about Drew
trying to get her pants off anytime in the near future? There was no
way he could possibly be attracted to her as long as she looked like
this. She looked hideous!

Once they were back on the road Lana tore
into her Big Mac, fries, and the sweet tea. McDonald's had the best
sweet tea.

“
It won't take too much longer,”
Drew promised, after swallowing a drink of his soda.

Chapter
18

The cabin was up some back road, if you
could call it that, on top of a hill. They were surrounded by trees.
Crickets and the occasional coyote were the only sounds to be heard.
He had brought her to the middle of nowhere.

Lana shivered and wrapped her arms around
her middle. November had brought in cooler weather,even if it was
warm for the time of the year. Not having a jacket on was not
helping her cause.

She eyed the structure from her position
by the truck. It looked like it had to be at least a couple hundred
years old. Surprisingly enough every piece of wood looked sturdy.
There was no signs of rot or termites. A closer look revealed that
the boards had not been nailed together. Instead someone had taken
the time to chink the wood so that the boards would kind of connect
together.

She ran her hands up the banister as she
ascended the steps admiring the beauty. The history these walls
contained was probably remarkable. Had it housed moonshiners while
they worked vigorously on their supply for the season? Or, survived
the Civil War?

“
My Dad had this relocated when I
was in second grade,” Drew informed her. “He wanted a
retreat for the family. I haven't been up here in years.”

Lana followed him in through the door.
There was no real need to lock the place up because you had to unlock
a gate just to get to the place.

She sighed at the beauty. In the center
of the living room ceiling hung an antler light fixture with globes
that were designed to look as if they contained candles instead of
light bulbs. Looking around, she saw that all of the furniture was
set in the era the cabin had been built. If it weren't for the flat
screen hanging on the wall she could have convinced herself that they
had traveled back in time.

The kitchen was small, but had all of the
modern conveniences minus the dishwasher. A small kitchen table sat
by the window. The view from the window would be amazing in the
fall. She could picture all of the colorful leaves if she closed her
eyes. At this time of year the trees were already bare allowing an
unobstructed view across the valley below.

Drew led the way to the one room in the
place that could cause her heart rate to speed up. The bedroom. In
the center of the room sat a queen sized mattress on a wooden frame.
For heat, it had an old-school fire place. Stretched out on the
floor in front of that was a bear-skinned rug.

Her breath caught in her chest as her
mind traveled to a dirty place for a minute. Visions of her laying
beneath him completely bared with him braced above her on his arms
held her attention. His muscles would be tight with strength as he
moved them both to completion.