Chapter Five – Diamond
Chapter Five
Fallon
DIAMOND
Performed by Martina McBride and Keith Urban
TWO AND A HALF YEARS AGO
HIM: This has gone on long enough. Stop ghosting me.
HER: …
HIM: Ducky, I’m serious. This is bullshit.
Moonbeams fractured along the waves crashing onto the sand while a warm breeze whipped around me.
The stars were barely visible with the nearby city lights bleeding into the sky, and I suddenly ached for the dark canvas I’d see standing at the lake in Rivers.
I missed the ranch. I rarely let myself acknowledge it these days, devoting myself wholly to the world I’d built in San Diego.
College was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I’d promised my dad I’d explore it to its fullest. But there were days when I felt like I’d lost a piece of myself to make it happen.
More in the months since Parker and I had stopped texting.
Well, since I’d refused to message him.
Licking my wounds after that stupid night at the bar by refusing to talk to him had become an ugly reflex. One I was sure hurt me more than it hurt Parker.
The simple truth was I missed him even more than I missed the ranch.
Even more than I missed Maisey. Only Parker and my childhood best friend understood all the nuances of my complicated life.
Only they saw the real Fallon. For the millionth time since we graduated from high school four years ago, I wished Maisey had come to San Diego with me rather than attending a university up north.
Behind me, someone bumped up the volume of the music at the bonfire, shattering the serenity of the night. JJ’s laugh boomed through the air. It was loud, addicting, and charming. He had a way of luring people to him and making them feel like they were the absolute center of his attention.
We’d been together for almost a year before we’d broken up, supposedly because I wouldn’t sleep with him. But we’d both known that hadn’t been the real reason. The real reason had been the way I’d looked at Parker whenever he hung out with us at the beach.
After the breakup, JJ and I had made it through the first part of our senior year as just friends, hanging out with the same crowd, surfing whenever we got a chance. But the longer I’d gone without seeing Parker, the more JJ had attempted to turn our friendship back into a relationship.
Just this month, with mid-terms behind us and after we’d started an internship at the veterinary clinic together, I’d finally agreed to start dating him again.
I’d thought it was what I’d wanted.
No, damnit. It was what I wanted.
I wanted a regular relationship. A regular guy. I wanted that JJ focus to be one-hundred-percent on me again. I desperately wanted to be the center of someone’s world.
JJ would make me his every day, whereas Parker only looked my way between deployments.
Hadn’t Parker made it clear that he’d never say yes to me?
And while it still burned all these months later, it shouldn’t.
I’d had years to adjust to the fact he would never look at me the way I looked at him.
Lines to Taylor Swift’s “Foolish One” swarmed through me.
I had been foolish. I shook my head to try to clear it of thoughts of Parker.
How could he still consume so much of my time?
As I watched the dark waves topped with sugary foam, I wished I could be on them. At least there I felt in control, just as I did when I rode my horse, Daisy. But it would be stupid to surf at night, and regardless, it was impossible as JJ had forgotten my board when he’d packed the truck today.
Had it been on purpose ?
I shook my head. Of course not. There was no reason for him to keep me from surfing.
I turned, dragging my feet in the cool sand as I moved farther down the beach away from the party crowd and the celebratory mood.
The bonfire noise had all but disappeared when my phone buzzed in the front pocket of my equestrian team sweatshirt.
It had been buzzing off and on all day. Parker had returned from a mission.
The relief I felt knowing he was home safe conflicted with the tension that came from his messages—the demands that I break my silence.
He was right. I had let it go on long enough.
It was stupid to be embarrassed by one night. I’d been drunk. That would have been excuse enough if I’d simply passed it off that way the next day. Instead, I’d held on to the humiliation and ended up making it a bigger deal than it should have been. I winced just thinking about it.
I’d never gone this long without texting Parker since I’d gotten my first phone as a tween. But maybe it had been a good thing. Maybe putting this distance between us had finally allowed me to accept that Parker and I would never be more than friends. It had allowed me to truly let JJ into my life.
Angry voices jerked my gaze toward the public restrooms a few feet away. A woman’s sharp cry of pain caused alarm to travel up my spine and sent me jogging up the beach toward them.
As I approached, the eerie orange glow of lights on the brick building revealed Ace Turner.
He was not my favorite person on a good day, but tonight, with the dim lighting turning his hair black and his eyes into bottomless pools, the creepy-crawly feeling he gave me occasionally rocketed up to real fear.
My stomach lurched in ugly twists as I watched him shove his wife into the wall with a hand to her neck. The elfin brunette had two personalities—a vivacious surfer, challenging anyone around her to keep up on the waves, and a jealous harpy who resented anyone who dared talk to Ace.
Ever since I’d taken my first surf lesson with Ace, I’d tried to avoid them. But tonight, the terror on her face had me quickening my pace, hoping I could do something to calm things down or at least get her away from him .
“Fucking bitch. What did you do with it?” He shook her, slamming her head into the brick with a resounding crack. She let out another pained yelp.
“Sold it,” she choked out.
“Fuck! Where’s the money, Celia?” he snarled.
She scrabbled at his hands, trying to pull them away from her throat.
My heart hammered against my rib cage.
What the hell should I do? What could I do?
Ace was twice my size and full of muscles, testosterone, and often the drugs he handed out like they were candy.
I had no weapon on me. My backpack and the pepper spray Parker’s dad had ensured I carried were at the bonfire.
I was in a bikini covered in shorts and a sweatshirt. I didn’t even have shoes on.
A dark, heavy weight settled in my stomach as I sprinted the rest of the way to them.
All I knew was I had to do something, anything.
I couldn’t just stand there while Ace strangled her.
I’d seen enough violence in my life. I’d witnessed a cold-blooded murder firsthand and carried those dark memories with me.
I’d be damned if I’d watch as someone else died without trying to prevent it.
Ace and Celia were so focused on each other that they didn’t see me coming. I used every ounce of muscle I’d earned from years of working on the ranch and smashed my fist into Ace’s shoulder.
Surprised, he staggered to the side with a grunt before spinning to face me. I didn’t give him time to regroup, kicking him in the groin. Even barefoot, it packed a punch that had him bellowing in agony and hunching over.
I grabbed Celia by the arm and hauled her into the women’s restroom.
I slammed the heavy metal door shut, slid the bolt lock into place, and then whirled around to see what else I could use to block the door.
Other than a rubber garbage can, everything else in the public restroom was screwed to the walls and floors.
Celia backed up into the row of sinks as Ace pounded his fist on the door.
“Celia. Get the fuck out here.”
She gasped for air, rubbing at her neck .
“You know what’s coming for both of us if you don’t give me that money!” he screamed.
She started toward the door, and I blocked her path. “Don’t. He can’t get to you in here.”
“It’s. My. Fault.” Each word seemed to cost her. He’d done a hell of a lot of damage before I’d gotten to her. It wasn’t just the bruising on her throat. She had a nasty one on her cheek, and blood was dripping from her swollen nose.
The blood combined with the fear rippling through me triggered unwanted memories that threatened to haul me into the abyss of my past. Dark moments at my stepmom’s bar when danger had found us, when Sadie had defended me by placing herself in harm’s way.
Her strength and our attackers turning on each other were what had saved us.
But I still smelled the metallic scent in my nightmares.
My pulse turned erratic, sweat dripped down my back, and my lungs tightened.
The bathroom door rattled. Ace snarled in fury.
Spots drifted across my vision.
With a shaky hand, I pulled my phone from my pocket, opened my favorites, and hit the call button before registering that Celia was moving toward the exit. I blocked her path once again as Ace screamed her name.
“’Bout damn time, Ducky.” Relief at hearing Parker’s deep voice nearly brought me to tears. I didn’t have time to register the well of emotions I heard in his words. I didn’t have time for anything but the raw truth.
“I need help.”
“Open this fucking door!” Ace roared.
“What the hell is going on?” Parker demanded, instantly on alert. Instantly concerned. “Where are you?”
“The public restrooms at the Laguna Heights National Park,” I said as the door shook and the hinges rattled. “Parker… The door… I don’t know how long it will hold.”
“Goddamnit. I’m ten minutes out. Ten fucking minutes.”
Metal crashed against metal as Ace hammered something into the frame so hard the brick wall actually shook. Celia shoved past me, and I grabbed her arm, pulling her back as my body trembled. “You go out there, and he’s going to kill you.”
What the hell had I gotten myself into?