Falling Fast
Falling Fast # 1
Falling Fast # 1
By: Tina Wainscott
Releasing June 16, 2015
Loveswept
Fans of Jasinda
Wilder and Colleen Hoover will adore this emotional new small-town romance—a
smoldering tale of first love and long-awaited redemption from USA Today
bestselling author Tina Wainscott.
Raleigh West
works in an auto shop day and night, trying to put his broken past out of mind.
It’s been seven years since the fiery crash that landed his teenage sweetheart
in the hospital . . . and him in jail. In an instant, he lost everything: his
passion for racing, his hope of escaping his father’s shameful legacy, and the
only girl he ever loved. Raleigh hasn’t seen her since that awful night. Never
got a chance to apologize. And never forgave himself, either.
When brave,
beautiful Mia Wentworth returns to the Florida coast for the first time in what
seems like forever, it’s not to see Raleigh. Even so, the moment she arrives
she can feel his presence like a gust of wind that gives her goose bumps.
Opening her heart to him again seems impossible. But staying away? That might
be harder still. Lucky for them both, Mia’s never been the kind of woman to
take the easy way out.
Raleigh looked up,
and his eyes softened in a way she knew, and felt, right down to her bones. He
didn’t smile, but he stood, his body tensing as he took in her approach.
Friendly or hostile? He was no doubt trying to figure it out. She tried to
smile, to let him know that she wasn’t here to yell at him, but her face felt
frozen. Paralyzed. Hell, was she going to freeze up again?
She tried to utter
a greeting, but her dry throat prevented the words from emerging. She waved
instead.
Raleigh stepped out
from behind the stone, coming toward her. His eyes hungrily roamed over her,
skipping from her face down her body, then quickly back again. Not lustily but
as if sating a deep thirst. And there, beneath the question in his eyes, lay a
hint of a smile. Suddenly she was transported back to that first time she’d
gone into the garage just to see him. To ask him more about the races. He’d
looked both pleased and surprised.
“Mia,” he said, her
name loaded with more than she could interpret.
For a moment, she
forgot about the scars that would be visible in the bright sunlight. She forgot
to breathe. “Raleigh,” she said. She thought she was smiling, but it might look
more like a grimace. Gawd, get hold of yourself. You’re just here to let him know you don’t
hate him. “I—”
“Mia! We have to
go!” Her mother’s voice pounded harshly from behind her.
Mia turned,
spotting her mother duck-walking over in spiked heels that kept sinking into
the earth, hands fisted at her sides. She turned back to Raleigh. “I just
wanted to say . . . I don’t —”
“Mia,” her mother
ground out.
“Blame you,” Mia
managed, and quickly walked toward her mother, not wanting her anywhere near
Raleigh. He would probably think she was still that timid seventeen-year-old
who was afraid her parents would find out that she was sneaking out at night.
But she wanted to protect him from all the angry, imprudent things that would
gush from her mother’s mouth.
“What are you
doing?” she hissed as Mia hooked her arm through hers and spun her back toward
the casket.
“It’s called
closure, Mother. The last time we spoke, he’d called to see how I was doing,
and I hung up on him.”
“Well, he deserved
it,” she shot back, flicking a glance backward.
Mia fought not to
do the same. She didn’t want to see what expression he might have. Disgust.
Sympathy. Regret. Or, even worse, just dismissal. “No, he didn’t.”
“She was talking to
him,” her mother said when they reached her father. “She went to him.”
Mia met her
father’s curious and disconcerted expression. “I just wanted him to know I
wasn’t angry at him.” Though, dammit, she hadn’t gotten that part out.
“Why do you care
what he thinks?” her father asked in his low, emotionless voice.
“Or do you care?” her mother asked. “You’re not still—”
“Of course not.”
Even uttering the words in love was preposterous.
Mia couldn’t help herself, glancing toward Raleigh. He
was kneeling in front of the stone again, but his eyes were on her. “It was
just a summer romance. Teenage hormones.”
They seemed
gratified by that last declaration, even though it sounded hollow to her ears.
“We should go,” her father said, nodding toward the people now milling by the
limousine.
Once they reached
it, she shot one more look toward Raleigh. She wanted to believe her recent
declaration, but she felt exactly like that girl who had fallen fast and hard
for the boy who’d made her a woman.
USA Today bestselling author Tina Wainscott has
always loved the combination of romance and suspense, because nothing complements
falling in love better than being hunted down. The author of more than thirty
novels and novellas, Wainscott creates characters with baggage, past hurts, and
vulnerabilities. They go through hell, find love, and, at the end, find peace
in who they are and everything they’ve gone through. And isn’t that what
everyone wants?
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