If We Fall: A What If Novel Read online

  Oh my God.

  Everything inside me goes haywire, a thousand electrical currents crossing and sparking. He’s older, his strong features set in hard lines that make him look almost like a stranger, but even across the distance, one look at his thick-lashed eyes tells me the truth.

  This formidable man is Cole Danforth, my first love. My only love—back when I believed in things like love and wishes coming true.

  And long before he shattered my heart into a million pieces and ground them beneath the heel of his work boot.

  His eyes widen. For an instant, I wonder how he knows it’s me, but then I remember the interior car lights are on.

  I press a hand to my chest. My heart is a hammer pounding at my ribs. Though I’d known when I decided to return to Castille, I’d have to see him again one of these days, I hadn’t expected it to be so soon. Right now.

  He’s tall and imposing, broad in the shoulders, but the lines of his body are devoid of the warm approachability that was such an intrinsic part of the boy I once loved.

  His mouth shapes one word. “Josie.”

  My heart hitches. Heat blooms through me. I can almost feel his lips against my skin, the sound of my name in his hoarse, sexy groan.

  Oh no. For ten years, I’ve not only been unable to forget all the things he could do to me, I’ve thought about them in shocking, vivid detail. And there is no way in hell I can let him sense that, especially five seconds after seeing him again.

  “Cole.” His name comes out on a breath only I can hear. I can’t remember the last time I said his name aloud.

  Despite everything, it’s still the most delicious name I’ve ever spoken, one that tastes like everything good. Powdered sugar, ripe berries, ice cream. It’s the only name I’ve ever whispered with love, snapped in anger, cried out in lust. It’s the only name I ever wrote on a school folder, linked to mine with the eternal plus sign. Josie + Cole.

  He indicates I should roll down the window. My hand shaking, I press the button.

  Silence floods the space between us, borne on the salt-drenched fog that carries countless shared memories. He approaches slowly and bends to peer into the open window. My blood quickens, like his presence is the flare of a match and I’m the candle.

  “What are you doing here?” His tone is clipped, not a trace of surprise or pleasure.

  I swallow to ease my dry throat. “Hello to you too. Didn’t…didn’t you know I was coming back?”

  “No.”

  “I’m here until the middle of August,” I explain. “I’m going to paint a mural in Lantern Square.”

  “A mural?”

  “It’s a large painting done directly on a wall.”

  “I know what it is. Why are you painting one?”

  My shoulders tighten. Because I have to. Because it’s the tenth year of my parents’ deaths, and the mural should have been completed years ago.

  Six months after the fatal car crash, the Castille Historical Society had proposed the mural in honor of my parents. My mother had been a prominent local artist, and my father had served as the Historical Society president for over twenty years. He’d penned several books about the history of Castille, and both my parents were frequently involved with local fundraisers, charities, and festivals.

  My sister and I had both moved out of Castille by the time the Society brought the proposal to the city council. Then the town was hit with an economic downturn, and the proposal got lost in the shuffle. Maybe that had been a blessing in disguise. I’m not sure I could have come back so soon, if the project had gone through then.

  But now? I need to paint something new. Before the accident, my art had been populated by fairytale creatures and animals in magical settings inspired by storybooks. Lamp-lit forests, cobblestone streets, old libraries, lively taverns, toppling cottages. Barefoot girls with lighted candles had often made their way through the intricate landscapes in search of…something.

  In the decade since the accident, my art has grown increasingly dark, the weird, whimsical creatures and long-haired girls taken over by phobias and nightmares. I painted my most recent series, Distortion, in the midst of mind-numbing insomnia that brought horrific images to mind—ghastly, disfigured human and animal faces peering through chaotic darkness, skin peeling off, eyes vacant black holes.

  They scared the shit out of me. They’d also sold out three months ago at a gallery exhibition that had been my breaking point. I realized this manifestation of my torture, the gaping, sightless, skeletal faces, would continue to live on. Invading other people’s homes.

  Panic hit me so hard I’d been unable to breathe. Only when I came out of it did the knowledge click into place.

  I need to go back home. To do something for my parents and make peace with the past. To banish my demons instead of letting them scare me. I need an entirely new inspiration and focus for my art. Something big, expansive, positive, beautiful.

  Not that I could ever explain any of that to Cole.

  “I offered to paint a mural about the history of Castille,” I tell him. “Allegra King and the city council agreed it would be a great way to celebrate the town’s Bicentennial Festival in August, so they approved my proposal.”

  A muscle ticks in his clenched jaw. “And why are you sitting out here?”

  Good question. I’m not about to tell him I’m stuck in a running car with all the lights on because I’m too fucking scared to face the dark without my security flashlight.

  “I’m enjoying the view,” I say.

  “Josie.” The word snaps out of him, irritated and hard.

  What the fuck right does he have to be annoyed that I’m back? He’s the one who walked away from me. He’s the one who gave up on us. I’m the one who has the right to be pissed off.

  I can’t say any of that aloud, can’t dredge up the black, torturous quicksand in which we’d been mired. Not because I care about him, but because I don’t want to reopen my old wounds that will never fully heal.

  “I just got in from the train station.” I jerk my thumb toward the southern hill. “I’m staying at my mother’s cottage.”

  “Why aren’t you staying with your sister?”

  I flex my hands on the steering wheel, trying to ignore the pang in my heart. “I need the quiet and space to work, both on the mural and my other art. I was supposed to get in next week, but I left sooner than I’d expected. I just took the last train in from Boston. Vanessa hasn’t responded to my text yet.”

  Cole pushes back from the window. “So you want to get out of the car?”

  “No, actually, I’m good here.”

  He expels a breath of frustration. “Get out, Josie.”

  “Go away, Cole.”

  “You can’t just sit here alone.” He yanks open the car door. “It’s not safe.”

  Despite my rebellious urge not to obey, I do have to get out of the damned car at some point or I’ll end up sitting here for the rest of the night.

  I also don’t want him to know I’m on the verge of being a total hot mess. He’s the only one who’s ever seen me stripped bare, utterly defenseless, wrecked. I’ll never let him see me the slightest bit vulnerable again.

  I turn off the engine, grab my backpack, and get out of the car. Though he’s stepped away from me, his presence elicits a ripple of awareness. And unease.

  “Come on.” He jerks his chin toward the hill. “I’ll walk you up.”

  I’m not sure which would be worse—climbing the dark hill with Cole or without a flashlight. Not that I’m capable of doing either one.

  I make a show of looking at my watch. “I’m going over to the pier first. I need to pick up a few things.” Like a massive industrial-sized flashlight.

  “I’m heading back there too.”

  Great. Now I have to pretend like I’m not scared shitless, even with the dock lights providing some illumination.

  Gathering a breath, I start toward the pier. He falls into step beside me, matching his longer stride
to mine as if nothing has changed.

  I walk faster. I’d known when I decided to come back to Castille that memories would crash and roll through me like a tsunami. I wouldn’t be able to make sense of them—bittersweet, torturous, happy, unbearable—but I thought I’d have time to process them before seeing Cole again. Instead his proximity, the movement of his body that had once been so familiar to me, elicits a pain so sharp I feel it to my bones.

  “What are you doing out here at this time of night?” I ask.

  “There’s an event over at the Ivy. I was taking a walk. Needed a break.”

  I glance in the direction of the upscale restaurant located on its own pier at the north end of the cove. That explains Cole’s tailored suit.

  “What kind of event?”

  “Wedding reception.”

  “Yours?” I ask before I can stop myself.

  His mouth twists. “A colleague’s.”

  He offers no further information. Despite the chilly ocean air, embarrassment heats my face. Fishing much, Josie? Why? Because you want to know if Cole found happiness with someone else? So what if he did?

  My breath shortens. It would piss me off if he did. Though resentment is the only feeling I have left for him, it would make me sick to think he’d destroyed what we had only to find it again with another woman.

  While I, on the other hand, have deliberately sabotaged several relationships with perfectly nice men over the past decade because they didn’t give me what Cole and I had had. Yet another reason to resent both him and the ghost of us that has never stopped haunting me.

  I quicken my pace again, following the dock toward the bright pier lights. Music drifts on the ocean air, and happy screams from the carnival riders float toward the stars. It’s close to eleven, and the families have all headed home, leaving older and more boisterous revelers.

  As we step onto the wooden pier, the sensory overload—the smell of fried clams, the pinging from the arcade games, Elvis’s liquid tones, the flashing neon signs—sharpens the jagged break between my past and present.

  I divert into a souvenir shop cluttered with T-shirts, keychains, and tote bags. At the front counter, plastic bins hold toys and knickknacks.

  I grab a handheld flashlight with a camouflage design, weighing it in my hand. It’s not great, maybe 120 lumens max, but it’s likely the best I’ll find at a pier shop. I bring it to the register.

  “We have these with the Castille logo and lighthouse on the side.” The girl behind the counter indicates another basket of flashlights. “If you want one as a souvenir.”

  “No, that’s okay.” I dig into my backpack for my wallet. “I grew up here, actually.”

  “Yeah?” She rings up the flashlight. “Where do you live now?”

  “California. San Francisco.”

  “Oh, cool.” She takes my ten and hands me the flashlight and my change. “Welcome home.”

  Home.

  Home should be bright, colorful, happy. It’s not. But many of my memories are, which is what I need to focus on. For the first time in ten years, I have important reasons to be back in Castille—to both honor my parents and to be there for my sister during the last few months of her pregnancy. Not even Cole Danforth can divert me from my purpose.

  I thank the salesgirl and slip the flashlight into the side pocket of my backpack. Cole is looking at a shelf of books by local authors. On a shelf not blocked by his body, prominently displayed facing outward, are several books about Castille’s history by Benjamin Mays.

  An ache radiates through my jaw. Tears sting my eyes. I blink them away and shift my gaze to Cole. Now that I can see him more clearly in the light, the shock of his physicality hits me for the first time.

  He’s even taller than I remember, well over six feet, his black jacket stretching over his broad back and shoulders. His long legs, clad in dark, expensive-looking trousers, are planted solidly apart, like he’s securing the earth with his stance.

  As if sensing my gaze, he turns and starts toward me. My breath catches. All I can do is stare at him, his long-legged stride eating up the distance between us in both space and time. His dark brown hair is shorter, a neat businessman’s style, no longer streaked with gold from the sun. Beneath a tailored gray suit jacket, his white dress shirt stretches across a wide chest that looks as if it’s carved of granite.

  Good God. I’d watched him grow up, and when we started dating when I was nineteen years old, I’d considered him a man. He’d been in his last year of college, worked two jobs to support himself, and did all the adult things that I, just ending my freshman year, had yet to experience.

  But now he’s taken the word man to a whole new level. Even his features have changed, the angles now lined with a hardness that hadn’t been there before. His thick-lashed blue eyes are shuttered, his jaw covered with stubble, his beautiful mouth—his mouth that used to do such lovely, dirty things to my body—compressed.

  I edge toward the door, suddenly self-conscious in my old army jacket and torn jeans, my hair a rat’s nest falling to my shoulders. I’m not sure my system can withstand both seeing him again so unexpectedly and processing the sheer masculine beauty of what he’s become.

  He moves past me to grab the door handle. His scent fills my nose—expensive things like leather, bergamot, and sandalwood. A polar opposite to the way he used to smell. Back then, it was boat oil and salt water, underscored by the citrus notes of his shaving cream and the secret, delicious essence that belonged to him alone.

  I’m lying on our bed, our legs entangled, the sheets twisted around our bodies. The sweet smell of an orange fills the air. He turns the fruit over in his palm, peeling away the skin and separating it into sections with his long fingers. He holds a juicy slice out and slides it into my mouth, brushing his thumb against my lips…

  I block the image before it can go any further.

  This imposing, suited-up man is not the Cole I once knew and loved. He’s no longer the wary, suspicious boy I’d seen in the woods on the way to school. The troubled teenager who’d been the target of unpleasant gossip. The striking young man who’d been making his own way in college.

  His gaze slips to the ragged black backpack I’m holding. Something flashes in his eyes that I can’t quite define or grasp. Like a fleeting glimpse of sorrow.

  Then it’s gone so fast I’m not sure it was there at all.

  He pulls the shop door open for me.

  “Thank you.” I step back onto the pier.

  “You’re welcome.”

  The stiff formality between us grates on my nerves. The last time we saw each other, we’d both been crying so hard we could barely breathe. We were raw, flayed open, ripped apart. It’s difficult to believe this remote man was once the shattered boy who hauled me against his heaving chest and pressed his tear-streaked face into my hair before walking out of my life.

  I force the memory away, knowing it will never disappear. I’ve learned to control my memories when I’m awake, keep them at bay, but on the rare moments when sleep traps me, they burst to the surface like pockets of lava, hot and blistering. Those last few minutes with Cole are the most frequent, the final searing rip between before and after.

  How often does he think of that day? Of the time before?

  He steps onto the pier behind me. “What else do you need?”

  “Nothing.”

  He lifts an eyebrow. “You only needed a flashlight?”

  “Yes. Thanks for your help. I—”

  Jingling calliope music suddenly fills the air, the automated, happy sound of bells and a pipe organ. At the end of the pier, the Ocean Carousel starts to spin. A few laughing teenagers cling to the bobbing sharks and tropical fish. Lights flash and glow, illuminating the entire ride like a constellation.

  I picture Cole and me…eleven years ago, both of us astride that ridiculous grinning whale, his arm firm around my waist.

  I risk a glance at him. He’s standing a few feet away, his hands in his pockets
and his expression closed. Not a single emotion flickers in his eyes, as if he’s hardened on the inside as much as he has on the outside.

  “I need to go.” I start toward the beach again and turn on the flashlight.

  “I’ll walk you up to the cottage.”

  My back teeth come together. It used to be like that. Cole’s I statements were always exactly that—statements, not questions. He’d never say, “Can I walk you up?” or “Do you need me to go with you?” When he said he was doing something, that meant he was doing it.

  Apparently that hasn’t changed.

  “No.” I stop and face him. “I’m going alone.”

  He frowns. “It’s not safe.”

  You’re not safe.

  As scared as I am of the dark, I’m much more scared of being alone with Cole. Of being anywhere near him again.

  “You don’t get to protect me anymore.” I back away, both hands up like I’m trying to ward him off. “You lost that right when you...”

  …broke up with me? “Breaking up” doesn’t begin to convey what happened between us. The words don’t exist to describe our last encounter.

  His jaw tightens. “As a courtesy, I’ll walk you up to the cottage.”

  “I don’t need your courtesy or chivalry,” I snap. “I don’t need anything from you anymore.”

  I turn and flee, hurrying toward the beach. My breath burns my chest. I half-expect to hear his heavy footsteps behind me, but then the gloom of the harbor encloses me. My ears fill with the roar of dread.

  Somehow, I manage to get back to my car. I’ll get my suitcase and art portfolio tomorrow morning; the more I drag up the hill, the harder it will be. I have enough clothes in my backpack for the night.

  Impenetrable shadows cloak the path leading up to the cottage. The souvenir shop flashlight barely cuts a swathe through the blackness. My heart thunders. I glance back toward the pier. It’s too far away to see if Cole followed me to the docks.

  Not that I want him to. It’s either the dark of the hill or the dark of Cole Danforth. At least I have a flashlight to battle the hill. Aside from rage and pain, I have no weapons against Cole.

  I turn and plunge into the dark.