Chapter Twenty-two – Fall
Chapter Twenty-two
Parker
FALL
Performed by Clay Walker
FOUR YEARS AGO
HIM: Will left me with Theo for two minutes today, and the kid puked and shit through a diaper. My clothes are ruined, and my house reeks. Tell me again why you see babies in your future?
HER: Did he hold your pinky? Or smile up at you? Did you snuggle with him while he slept? Those times with Spencey were the best.
HER: Plus, I want the ranch to go to the next generation of Harringtons. I’d never require my kid to stay here, but I hope they’ll want it as much as I do.
HIM: I guess I can understand that. I’d like to pass my family’s SEAL legacy on, but it would be unfair to have a kid when they’d only see me a handful of days each year.
HER: You could be like all those old actors who have kids in their sixties. You’d be retired with your Bull Frog trophy already on a shelf by then.
HIM: I’ll still be in peak shape when they force me out the door, so it’s possible.
HER: It isn’t your career but your ego that’s going to kill you someday.
PRESENT DA Y
They hadn’t let me go with Fallon in the ambulance.
It was a protocol I hated but respected, and it had allowed me to check in on Theo.
Teddy had him holed up in the barn, out of sight, safe and sound.
My responsibility to him, to keeping Will’s son safe, tore through me, at odds with my desperate need to go after Fallon.
When Theo seemed to sense my torment, I tickled him and did my best to downplay what had happened before heading to my truck parked at Fallon’s with Lance jogging at my side. We made plans for the added security arriving later, the investigation, and the additional cameras I wanted set up.
I was calm and collected on the outside, but inside, I was a fucking mess. Thinking of Fallon. In my mind, seeing her on the ground. Seeing the ugly knot on her head. Seeing the fear and fury in her eyes.
I’d almost lost her. Fucking hell. I’d almost lost her.
I slammed my hand on the steering wheel.
The only damn good thing that had come from today was our earth-shattering kiss. I’d finally done what I should have years ago—I’d kissed her. Claimed her.
I didn’t regret it, but she’d been right. It had been a shitty-ass time for me to do so.
When my phone rang, my dad’s face on the screen, I almost rejected the call, the bitter taste of failure in my mouth.
“How is she?” he demanded.
“I’m just pulling into the hospital parking lot. She was awake, talking, and pissed when they took her in the ambulance.”
“So, normal Fallon,” Dad said, trying to lighten the mood, but it couldn’t hide his worry.
“This was a scare tactic, Dad. They could easily have hit someone. We were wide open.”
“Or they aren’t skilled with guns.”
Which brought us back to JJ and Ace. I was waiting to hear back from Wylee and the detective in San Diego to ensure the two men were right where they should be.
“Backup is arriving later today and more tomorrow,” he said. “For now, focus on Fallon.”
I couldn’t respond as his words brought back all the ways I really wanted to focus on her. The ways I should have been focusing on her for years now, ways Dad wouldn’t approve.
“Park?” Dad prompted.
“I almost lost her…” It was choked. Angry. Full of guilt.
Dad inhaled sharply. “We didn’t. She’s here. Now, we just need to do our damn job and catch this son of a bitch.”
Frustration bloomed that I did my best to keep a lid on. At myself. Our dads. The asshole coming for her. I shoved the truck door shut and strode toward the emergency room doors.
“I’ll call you later.”
“Park—”
“I gotta go.”
I hung up on him for the first time in my entire life.
When I found Fallon already stuffed into an ER cubicle, she wasn’t falling apart, but there was a haunted look in her eyes.
And it hit me how much this entire damn day must have brought back her worst moments.
I’d had guns aimed my way, been in the heat of battle, and the shots today had only panicked me because of Fallon.
Because of the innocent people being targeted.
But Fallon wasn’t a SEAL, and the last time she’d had a gun pointed at her, she’d witnessed someone die.
As the hours went by, while the doctors kept her for observation and waited for test results, she started to wilt.
It was more than exhaustion I read in the slope of her shoulders.
This was that damned weight of responsibility she was good at taking on.
This time for some asshole who’d come for her and the ranch.
What I wanted—no, needed—was to take her home, order an entire team to surround her house, and lock her away until we caught the bastard doing this. But she’d never let me. She’d hate it if I caged her, and I didn’t know what that meant for either of us once I finally got her home.
Every time my phone buzzed in my pocket, I cursed, having to leave her to take the damn call, having to return to the cold, hard facts while dealing with the sheriff, the security team, and my dad when all I wanted to do was pull her into my arms and insist that I’d make everything okay .
But could I? I hadn’t protected her again today. She’d been out in the open…
I shook my head as I returned to her room, for what felt like the hundredth time, in time to see Fallon being wheeled away for yet another scan. When she gave me her phone and asked me to handle her dad, it puzzled me for longer than it should have.
For as long as I’d known Fallon, she’d craved her father’s attention.
She hadn’t ever wanted him telling her what to do, but she’d wanted his love and affection—at least, the Fallon I’d known as a child had.
But then again, she hadn’t been that lost, abandoned teen in a long time.
Three years ago, I’d clung to the idea of her still being young in order to save myself from a fall I’d subconsciously known was coming.
But she was a grown woman, the owner of a ranch where she oversaw hundreds of employees, and she wouldn’t want her daddy rushing in to save her.
Not now. Now, it would only make her feel like she’d failed.
It was another thing Fallon and I had in common. The weight of our regrets hung on us, regardless of whether we were truly responsible for them or not.
Just as I started to return Rafe’s text, the phone vibrated with a call, his image filling the screen. I answered, cut him off when he demanded to talk to her, and gave him as much information as I could. She was stable. They were running tests.
“Damnit,” he’d demanded. “Why the hell did I have to hear about all of this from your dad today? The tractor accident, the cabin, and now this? Why didn’t she tell me herself?”
“The last thing Fallon wants is for you to come running back from Australia to take care of this.”
Rafe was quiet. “She’s always been too damn independent for her own good. But I promised her she wouldn’t ever face anything alone again, and I mean to keep that promise.”
“She’s not fucking alone.” The surety and fury in my tone must have told him more than I’d intended, because his response turned sharp.
“Neither of you are kids, Parker, but—”
“Stop before you say something both of us will regret. I won’t let Fallon be hurt again on my watch, Rafe. I’m not saying that out of some damn obligation to you or my dad. I’m saying that because she means more to me than any person on this planet. ”
That moment when I’d thought she’d been shot swam in front of me yet again.
The absolute desolation I’d felt. I never wanted to feel that way again.
If it meant breaking old promises I’d made as a clueless teenager, so be it.
I didn’t know what it meant for Fallon or me or our futures, but I wouldn’t let another day slip by without facing the truth, without facing the risks loving someone presented with courage and bravery—and Fallon.
“I see.” Rafe’s voice was deep, full of emotions. “That asshole JJ did a number on her, Parker.”
“I know.” What I didn’t say was that I’d done a number on her too. I’d added to her scars, and I hated myself for it. Rafe may have promised her he’d never let her face anything bad alone again, but right now, with the stench of antiseptic surrounding me, I vowed I’d never hurt her again.
“With Theo thrust upon you, your life has been tossed up in the air,” Rafe said.
I ran a hand over my head. I hadn’t even thought about Theo when I’d been thinking about Fallon.
My emotions and plans were all over the goddamn place.
Dad had said sometimes a grenade landed in your life, and it was only in the wreckage that you saw what it had brought you.
I understood that a bit better today than I had a month ago.
That Parker, the one who hadn’t had his life torn apart, would never have felt the love I had now for Theo, the pride I’d had in teaching him to ride his bike, or the pure joy of snuggling with him at night while we read books.
The old me would never have kissed Fallon and burned from the inside out with a passion and intensity that topped the exhilaration of a skydive in midnight skies.
When I finally responded, my voice was thick. “What I’m telling you about Fallon has nothing to do with Theo or the way my career is up in the air. What I feel for Fallon…”
Rafe’s sudden laughter cut me off, surprising the shit out of me.
“Damnit, I’ve lost another bet with my wife because of you,” he said over more chuckles.
“Excuse me?”
“She told me a decade ago I had to pull my head out of my ass and see what was happening right in front of my eyes with you and my daughter. ”
“Nothing has happened,” I quickly interjected. I didn’t want him to think I’d gone back on the promise I’d made when Fallon was fourteen. “We’ve been friends. That’s it.”
It was the truth. Nothing had happened that day she’d kissed me in the bar. Nothing had happened until one world-altering moment and a cataclysmic kiss of a lifetime had changed everything.