Beneath the Stars (Falling Stars 4)

I loaded them in Royce’s rental.

God, he was going to be pissed. Angry and worried and pissed.

And I felt bad, but not bad enough to change my mind.

I rushed back upstairs and got the rest of my things and then darted back out.

Down the stairs and out into the slumbering night.

I had to refuse the urge to slow down because if I did, I’d have to give in to the call I could feel radiating from Rhys’ room.

The sudden torment I felt oozing from him.

As if he’d begun to toss in those terrible dreams.

Maybe…just maybe I could finally help him mend it.

His beautifully broken soul.

I fumbled to get my seat belt locked, and then I pushed the ignition and drove away from the house. Hands sweaty, skin slick, heart shuddering.

My nerves raced out of control.

I could do this.

It was no big deal.

I was just…anxious. There was no real danger. Kade would be coming with me. He wouldn’t allow anything to happen to me.

Resolved, I took the few turns through town and hit the main highway into Savannah.

Darkness filled the night.

The sky full of stars and silence.

With it came a slow foreboding.

That paranoia building.

But somehow…somehow, I knew the paranoia hadn’t been paranoia at all.

But rather a warning.

I guessed in all my staunch determination I hadn’t allowed myself to register what it was.

What that black omen had meant back at the house.

No time to process the wickedness that rode through the air.

No time to change course or turn around.

Because the headlights that had been way far back since I’d left Tybee came up so fast I didn’t have time to prepare myself.

No time to do anything about the fact that I’d been lured out with all that money. No time to accept that I’d been a fool, after all.

No safeguards.

No defense before I was rear-ended, slammed from out of nowhere.

Metal crunched in the same second I jolted forward, and the car swerved to the left, tires screeching as loud as the scream that ripped from my throat.

Struggling, I tried to correct it, jerking the steering wheel to the right.

But I did it too sharp, and I was going too fast, and the back tires began to skid.

Then it caught, and I flipped.

Thirty

Rhys

Seven Years Ago

Rhys saw her from the stage. She was loiterin’ off to the far side of the crowd where the strobing lights barely reached her shy, curious, stunning face.

For one wayward beat, his mangled, hollow heart thudded.

This girl with the golden blonde hair and curvy hips and jittering hands.

She looked out of place.

Nervous and excited and maybe the best thing he’d seen in a long, long time.

She looked up through the flashing lights. Green eyes bright and shining.

Snagging him from where he stood finishing out the last song on Carolina George’s set list where they played at a small bar in an even smaller town in Tennessee.

Rhys was all about having a good time. Giving over to the greed. It was the only reprieve he ever got from what he’d done.

But right then, he thought he might like what he saw in her eyes better.

Innocence.

Naivety.

Blamelessness.

Maybe having a little bit of it would take away some of his.

The blame.

The guilt that constricted so tight he couldn’t sleep at night.

His daddy ruined.

Rhys had been the one responsible for stamping out his father’s spirit beneath that tractor all those years ago. He might as well have finished him that day with all the livin’ that he’d done since.

Grief crested in a giant swell when he thought of it. What he’d put his parents through.

Turned out, he hadn’t been close to bein’ strong enough. Nothing but powerless to put a dent in his father’s depression.

His fault.

He knew it.

Owned it.

He scrounged up every last penny he earned to send to them. Trying to do his best to make a difference. To take care of them the way he’d promised, but it wasn’t enough.

Worst part?

He was the pathetic bastard who tried to run as far and as fast away from it as he could.

A coward who could barely face what he’d done. Staying away for longer and longer stints like it might eventually blot out the guilt and grief while the years only proved how much it’d grown.

Before he allowed himself to spiral, he sucked it down and pinned a booming smile on his face and climbed off the stage. He went saunterin’ her way.

She averted her gaze as he approached, her fidgeting getting greater, those eyes even more timid when she finally looked up at him.

“Hey, there, gorgeous. What are you doin’ out here by yourself?”

Shyness blazed from her body, and still, she said, “I guess I must have been lookin’ for you.”

“I shouldn’t be out here with you,” she whispered where they were hidden out behind the bar while the next band played. The energy emitted from the music seemed alive, thrashing around them, though theirs had been subdued a fraction by the brick walls that served as a barricade.