No Falling Allowed (No Kissing Allowed) (9 page)

I felt his stare long before he spoke, like he was trying to see through my words and into their deeper meaning, into my soul. Finally, I glanced up, wishing with all my heart I wouldn’t find those deep blue eyes staring back at me. It was that night all over again, him seeing and reading so much more than I wanted to share. So much more than anyone else had ever seen. I thought maybe he would apologize again, and I found myself eager to hear it. But instead he said, “Right. Nothing more.”

Chapter Twelve

Noah

I couldn’t keep my eyes off her.

Like some addict with the next bottle in sight, I kept glancing at her, taking in some new feature I hadn’t noticed that night. The way her hair shone like even the sun wanted to touch it. The way her skin held no imperfections, not even the tiniest of freckles. The way her shoulders would slump, only for her to jerk them back into place, as though her emotions craved control but her brain refused to allow it. I wondered if I’d had as much impact on her as she’d had on me.

That night I’d been living in a fantasy world, where there was no responsibility, no worries. And then those texts about Jonah had sent me spiraling back to Earth. Who knew why I hadn’t left a note or said a quick good-bye. I wasn’t thinking, was stupid and senseless—as always when it came to Jonah. But now she was here…

I smiled as I took the wide steps up to the red front door of Southern Soul B&B, the only place in town to stay the night other than someone’s extra bedroom or the fancy Marriott they’d built just across the Cricket Creek line.

“What are you grinning at?” Grace barked, her glare matching her tone. “There’s nothing to grin at here.”

“Oh, I disagree.” I let my gaze slip down her sleeveless top to her flowing skirt to the gold sandals on her feet, before flipping back up to meet that pretty glare of hers again. “There’s plenty to grin at.”

Her eyes narrowed, and my smirk could have lit the whole damn town. I knew I shouldn’t mess with her, but hell, she stood right there, hands on her hips, looking so adorably mad, and all I wanted to do was pull her to me and see if she still tasted like cinnamon and spice.

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

“To me or to you?”

She stormed past me and into the B&B, where everyone working around the front desk all but stopped cold to stare, including seventeen-year-old Marty, who never failed to show his maturity level.

“Good God you’re hot.”

Here we go…
I sighed. “Marty Long, meet Grace…um?”

She gritted her teeth, and I had to bite back a laugh. It reminded me of our first meeting at the Met, her all high and mighty, me as careless as ever. It was a clash of personalities, and yet, when our eyes finally locked that night, the air had swept from my lungs and I was seconds from begging her to give me a chance.

“Soaring. Grace Soaring. I believe I have a room.”

Ms. Penny arrived then to save us all from Marty’s drooling. Not that I could blame the kid. Seventeen-year-old boys wore their hormones like capes, and Grace had to be the hottest girl to step foot in Cricket Creek. I struggled to keep from drooling, too.

Still, Penny, forever a mother, hit her son on the back of the head. “Stop staring and go bus those tables.” She motioned to the dining room off the main entrance, and Marty reluctantly headed to finish up his work. Penny then turned her charms on Grace. “So nice to have you, honey. I read all about you in Newsweek a few months ago.”

Grace stiffened, and I tried to remember if she’d mentioned anything that’d tell me why they’d chosen her, of all people, to write about. Sure, her place had been fancy even by New York City standards, but I figured working at the Met must pay a ton. Obviously, this was something else.

“Newsweek?” I asked, but Grace refused to look at me.

“May I check in, please?” she asked Penny, who looked momentarily taken aback by Grace’s formal nature, before nodding and going to work at her computer.

“Here you go, honey. Second floor, room two B. Dinner at seven if you’re interested, breakfast from eight to ten. You let me know if you need anything at all, okay? Your bags should already be there.”

Grace reached for her key. “My bags?”

“Yes, Annalise had them brought over when y’all arrived.”

“Oh, okay.”

“I can walk you to your room if you need help?” I asked, hoping for a little more of her time, the urge to beg creeping back up.

“Yeah, I don’t think so. I’ve had my fill of lies for one day, thanks.” Then she turned and started up the steps before I could say another word.

As soon as she was out of earshot, Penny leaned in closer. “You know who she is, don’t you?”

I forced myself to look away from Grace and over to Penny. “Um…Grace Soaring?”

Penny shook me off. “Not her name, silly. Who she is.”

“Yeah, I’m not following.”

“That’s Grace
Soaring
, as in Soaring Industries. As in the mega company.”

I shook my head. I knew a shit-ton about everything related to running a bar, how to scour the lake for the best fish, hell, even how to clean a deer, but Soaring Industries or anything else to do with the business world? Count me out.

“She’s the only daughter of the owner and CEO, Rick Soaring.”

“So.”

“So, that girl who just walked up those steps isn’t just rich. Her father is a billionaire. As in
Bill
ionaire.”

I tried to shrug it off, but it was a struggle. So Grace’s father had money. Clearly, she was working and not just living off her family’s wealth. I could appreciate that. But I did wonder why she was Lindy’s wedding planner when she worked at the Met. “So? Obviously she’s doing her own thing or she wouldn’t be here.”

“Yeah, until she joins the family business. Though she’s worth millions already.”

“Already?”

“Boy, aren’t you listening? That girl is a multi-millionaire, and she’s not even twenty-five.”

I glanced back at the stairs, Grace’s legs now the only thing I could see. Damn. Millions. I couldn’t fathom that kind of money. Mom and Dad had taken out a small life insurance policy that helped with the bills and supplied all we needed, but I would never in my lifetime come anywhere close to the word million, and Grace had millions, plural, in her back pocket.

Suddenly, I felt like an idiot for joking with her before, for thinking she gave two-shits about me or our time together.

“Yeah, that’s right.” Penny pointed at me. “I ain’t your mama, but if I were, I’d tell you to take those roaming Noah Hunter eyes of yours elsewhere. She’s in town for two days, and then she’s going back to that high-profile life of hers.”

“Right.” I tapped the wooden desk, its worn sides suddenly noticeable, the creak in the old hardwoods louder as I adjusted my feet.

Penny leaned one way, then the other, then rose onto her toes. “Where are the takeout orders?”

I shut my eyes tight. “Damn it, sorry, Ms. Penny. I forgot them at the bar. I’ll run back.”

She
tsked
. “Better get that head of yours on straight before you lose your mind to a girl who’s just going to leave.”

“Right.” I peered over at the stairs again, our night together feeling that much farther away. Maybe it was a dream.

“Noah.”

“Hmm?”

“The takeout.”

“Right.”

And then I walked back out of the B&B, at a loss as to how I ever thought a girl like Grace Soaring would give a second thought to a guy like me.

Chapter Thirteen

Grace

I woke with renewed energy, eager to start my day and kick ass as the best wedding planner in the world.

It had taken a surprisingly small amount of time to fall asleep thanks to a hot bath and a determination to keep my mind off unwanted things—or rather, people. I’d spent my entire life ignoring my true emotions, and I would harness that ability here and walk out of this place with my head super high and my face as still as a painting. I could do this. No problem. How much could one night affect a person anyway?

I reached for the nightstand and clicked on the lamp, and my eyes immediately landed on a slew of pamphlets and menus for shops and restaurants in town. A menu for Hunter’s Place was on top. Great. Utterly fantastic.

Yanking it off the table like it’d screwed me over instead of Noah, I studied the logo. There was no mention of the owner, but I assumed Noah’s parents ran the bar while he helped out or worked there. I’d guessed right when I first met him—he was just a bartender with no ambition, which made it a little easier to push aside those unanswered questions nagging at me. I didn’t date guys like Noah Hunter. My parents would have a heart attack. No, those rules that I’d abided by my entire life regarding the kind of guy I could date would serve me well here.

Still, I was curious, so I opened up the menu to see what they had to offer, and of course, they served fried food and calories and little else. But then, what did I expect?

I had just prepared to put it away when I caught a note at the bottom—
Serving local, organic, and farm-fresh foods
.

Well, that was unexpected. Either Noah’s parents, or whoever the owner was, supported local farms or were health conscious enough to choose to serve only organic foods. Either way that earned a point on my respect card. Still, that had nothing to do with Noah, who by all accounts was just a bartender. A
bartender
. I tried to push the word into my subconscious so that hint of longing in me would turn to disdain. It wasn’t working.

Frustrated, I tossed the menu back to the nightstand and peered around the room. There was a faint, lemony smell in the air. It was adorable, in a shabby chic kind of way, and I found myself drawn to the intentionally aged furnishings, the pale blue and gray color choices.

The bed’s headboard was white with worn, dark edges, the center a bookshelf stacked with classics like
Wuthering Heights
and
Pride and Prejudice
. The singular dresser across from it was more of an armoire with the TV fixed inside the top and four drawers below it for personal belongings. A small navy blue desk and a white chair with the same distressed edges as the bed sat in front of the window to my right. The walls had been painted a pale gray, and beyond a singular painting over the bed of a woman walking in a field of flowers, her hands outstretched to glide through them, nothing hung on the walls. It was simple and yet peaceful, exactly how a room at a bed and breakfast should feel.

With one long stretch, I popped out of bed, anxious for some coffee and a to-do list, when I walked over to the window, pushed aside the sheer white curtain panel, and realized with horror that from this vantage point, directly across from my room, stood none other than Hunter’s Place.

My eyes narrowed in on the building like they had the menu moments before. But then I caught a red Jeep coming down the gravel drive, and I knew even before he opened his car door that it was Noah. The Jeep parked around the side, then the door swung open, and a jean-clad leg stepped out. My breath stilled in my lungs, full of anticipation, and then he was there, dressed in another T-shirt, and I found myself straining to see what was on it—until he turned around and I ducked down like an idiot.

“Come on, Grace. Pull yourself together.” And now I was talking to myself.

Still, my current uneasy state wouldn’t allow me to stand back up, so I kneeled and peeked across the windowsill to find him still staring in this direction. Tingles broke across my skin, spreading out from my neck and down my back. I wondered if he was searching for me, but then that was stupid. Why would he be? He agreed that our night together had meant nothing. But then, so had I. And of all the lies I’d told myself and others over the years to save face, that single lie might have been the greatest of them all.

Turning, he went through a side door, and I stood back up, not realizing until then that my pulse was racing. He hadn’t touched me, hadn’t even spoken to me, and yet a single look sent my heart into a flurry. How in the world would I survive the next two days?

Slumping against the bed, I reached for my phone to check my email, only to discover a slew of one-line texts from Cameron, like she was too frustrated to type out an entire message.

You’re not going to believe this.

She dropped me!

Weeks before my wedding!

Who does that?!

Please call me!!!

I clicked the last text, chose call, then waited for Cameron to answer. It took half a ring. “Thank God!”

“Hey, what happened?”

“She dropped me!”

I stood up and went to work making my bed so I could sit on it without it driving me crazy, something I no doubt picked up from my OCD mother. “Who?”

“Kathy, my wedding planner? She said she couldn’t work in such a hostile environment. Am I hostile?”

“No, not at all.”
But your mother might be.

“I didn’t think so. I think it’s because she just picked up some celebrity wedding and she wants to put all her attention there. Why help plan some small Alabama wedding when you can work for a celebrity? And now I have no one, and the wedding is like a week away, and what if nothing is really booked and we have to postpone and—”

“Okay, deep breath. You aren’t postponing.”

I could hear her voice shaking, and I wished I was with her so I could reach for her hand, reassure her the way she’d reassured me after I lost my job at the Met. “But I can’t find a new wedding planner on this short of notice.”

“Sure you can. Me. I’ll talk to Annalise, get some of her input, and then we’ll help you pull this together.”

“Oh my God, are you serious?”

“Absolutely.”

She sniffled, and I knew these were happy tears. “You’re the best friend in the world, you know that?”

I smiled. “Just don’t tell Lauren that.”

She laughed, and I knew the scare was over. “Right, we’ll make that our little secret.” She giggled again, likely picturing Lauren’s reaction to her comment, then stopped abruptly. “But wait, you’re supposed to be in the wedding. You can’t coordinate it
and
be in it.”

“So I won’t be in it.”

“Grace…”

“It’s fine. I can step in for pictures, but otherwise, I’ll be behind the scenes making sure everything goes flawlessly for you.”

“I can’t let you do that.”

I swallowed and walked back to the window, watching as the
Open
sign popped on at Hunter’s Place. “You can and you will. This is your day. And I’ll still be there. Let me do this for you.”

“I love you, you know that?”

“I love you, too. Just send me a list of your vendors, and I’ll double-check that everything is booked, okay?”

“Okay.”

Silence found us as relief settled over my friend, and I walked over to the desk, opened the long center drawer, and peered inside, curiosity forever my greatest sin.

“Okay, now that my freak-out is over, tell me about being in Cricket Creek. Is that really the town’s name?”

I laughed. “Shockingly, yes.”

“I mean, I know the South has weird town names, but that’s a new one. I wonder if there’s tons of crickets there or something.”

“God, I hope not.”

Silence again, and then, “Have you seen Hunter yet?”

Instantly, a part of me regretted telling her about Noah, but I had been so angry and nervous when I realized that I might see him again that I knew I needed to get the whole thing off my chest. Even Lauren was quiet when I told them the messed up story of my one-night stand and my new job and how the two had mixed, because apparently fate had a wicked sense of humor.

I closed my eyes, and all the emotions I’d tried to bury since I first saw him bubbled up, my defenses falling away inside the safety of a conversation with my friend. “Oh, I’ve seen him. The wedding is being held in a gazebo behind his family’s bar.”

“Whoa, wait, did you just say the wedding is at a
bar
?”

“No, behind it, on the lake. Apparently, there’s a dock and a gazebo back there. That’s where the groom proposed.”

“Aw, that’s kind of romantic.”

I edged back to the window and peered beyond Hunter’s Place to the gazebo in question. It really was pretty. “It is.”

“Well, what did he say when you saw him?”

I recounted everything to her, complete with my epic fall and him walking me to the bed and breakfast, only to say the night of all nights for me had meant nothing to him.

“Did he say it first? Or did he just agree with you that it meant nothing?”

I replayed the conversation in my mind. “I think I said it first.”

She huffed. “You’re so stupid! He just said it to save face. He totally wants you. Why else would he walk you to the bed and breakfast?”

“Um, first, thanks. And second, I don’t think so. He would have said something. He walked me because he felt bad for leaving like he did, nothing more.”

“Did he act like he wanted to say something? Was there a connection?”

I thought of this morning, his eyes trained in this direction, mine unable to look away. “I wish there wasn’t.”

“So you felt something?”

“Ugh, yes, but don’t you think that’ll go away? I mean, surely there’s some medication I can take to make me not feel this way, right? Like a hate drug or something?”

Silence.

“Are you there?”

“Yes.”

“You went quiet.”

“Yes.”

“What’s with all the yesing?”

“I’ve just never heard you talk about a guy like this. Are you sure you want to ignore it?”

Noah stepped outside again and sat on the front steps, his head turned to the right, before pivoting back toward the bed and breakfast. Then he slowly stood and took a step forward, and I knew he could see me now, too.

“What choice do I have? He said he didn’t want me.”

“That’s not what he said, and I’m pretty sure that agreement was really just code for ‘I love you and want to take you back to my house so I can do naughty things to you.’”

I smiled despite myself and turned away from the window and Noah’s magnetic pull. “New romance novel?”

“That obvious, huh?”

We laughed together and then said good-bye.

Time to face the day. Hopefully without embarrassing myself in front of Annalise. Or worse…running into Noah again.

…

“You are a rock star. A smart, driven, amazing woman, and you are going to kick some serious ass.” I stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, smiled wide, then relaxed it a little to a more natural grin. “There, perfect. Now go rock this wedding stuff.”

“Ahem.”

I jumped and spun around, my heart in my throat as I took in the petite older woman before me.

“I’m sorry to scare you, honey. I’m the maid and your neighbor to the right is complaining about the music.”

“Oops.” I reached for my iPod and clicked it off, ending Lorde mid-song. “Sorry about that. In New York I don’t have neighbors close enough to hear my music and…” I trailed off at the flicker of resentment in her eyes.

“Well, honey, you aren’t
in
New York any longer, now are you? And we prefer to keep things peaceful around here, else you are free to take your Yank—”

“Wilma!” Another woman rushed into my room, the door wide open for any and all to enter. Clearly, a locked door meant nothing in Cricket Creek.

The woman shot Wilma a look that said she could leave, then she threaded her fingers together and plastered on a bright smile. Wilma grumbled the entire way out the door, glared at me one last time, then disappeared out of sight. “I’m sorry about that. Unfortunately, some people in the Creek still aren’t too fond of Northerners.” She placed a finger on her lips in thought. “Come to think on it, most of the South takes issue with the North, now don’t they?”

“Sure…I guess so.” I ran a hand over my skirt to smooth it for no other reason than to have something to do.

“Oh! I’m Penny, owner of the B&B. I’m not sure if we were formally introduced yesterday, but I hope you enjoyed your stay last night.” Her eyes did this slant thing that said I’d better say yes and thank you or I may have another encounter with Wilma tomorrow morning.

“Yes, I slept very well, thank you. The room is very…” I glanced around at the space. “Charming.”

She stared at me, and I thought I might be under the most intense scrutiny of my life. But then she relaxed and waved a hand. “I’m sure it’s nothing compared to some of the places you’ve stayed, but we like it. It’s home, you know?”

No, I didn’t, but I knew better than to suggest as much. “Of course. It’s really special. I’ll be sure to suggest it to my folks if they’re ever in this area.”

And that did it. Her face lit like I’d promised her the world. “That would be amazing. Absolutely amazing. I’ll just let you get back to whatever you were doing. We have homemade breakfast downstairs waiting for you. I believe Annalise and Mary Beth are already there.”

“Wait, what? I thought we were meeting at nine?” I leaned around Penny to take a peek at the clock beside the bed. Eight-thirty. I released a breath. They must have arrived early.

“Heavens, child, that’s not a real clock. It’s for decoration.”

Oh no.

“Did you say
decoration
?” Why weren’t my lungs working?

“You know, for looks. Fake?”

Okay, stay calm. This was no big deal.

“So what time is it then?”

Penny peered down at her watch. “Nine-twenty.”

“Holy shit!”

Penny gasped as I raced around her, grabbed my new Tory Burch sandals, hopped as I fixed one, then the other into place, and reached for my cell, which I’d stupidly left on the bed after my call with Cameron. Sure enough, it was now officially nine twenty-one, and I was officially getting fired.