Page 16 of Before We Fell

I told Riley the story, feeling her smile against my chest, until her breath evened out and her weight went heavy in my arms.

Gently, I laid her down and re-adjusted the covers.

It was four o’clock in the morning, but there was no way I was falling back asleep. Not that morning. Not with the memory of Amanda burning into my brain.

Instead, I headed to the kitchen, made myself a pot of coffee and pulled up my laptop. I hadn’t quit my job at the law firm in St. Louis, just taken an extended leave of absence. I was currently helping the firm on a few cases and I’d been right earlier. When my phone rang, it was the current defense attorney needing help. So I dug into my files, researched, did what I could to find what he’d been missing.

And when I was done, I shut my laptop and went to the back patio.

The sun was just starting to rise, the heat already thickening the air.

If I didn’t get a head start on the new four-season porch I was building, I’d be sweating my balls off later in the day. No time like the present to get to work.

Six

Lauren

Bang.Bang. Bang.

Whirrrzzzzzz.

“Damn it!” I groaned, awakened by the noises coming through the tree line.

That stupid man and that stupid house and that stupid idiot!

Grabbing my pillow next to me, I slammed it to my face and screamed into it.

The dream had been oh so beautifully good and the idiot next door ruined it.

“For fox sake,” I muttered, tossing my pillow off of me and rolling to the side. I grabbed my phone, squinting and saw it was barely after seven. “So freaking early.”

On a Saturday. Didn’t this man know the meaning of an appropriate work hour?

My teeth gritted together, and I inhaled deeply and closed my eyes again. Maybe he’d stop.

Whirrrrrzzzzz.

“Of course that wouldn’t happen.” I threw off my covers and stomped to my closet. Flipping through my clothes, I yanked off a shirt and grabbed a pair of shorts. I got dressed, tugging on my clothes like a fire was nipping at my heels and hurried to the bathroom.

This had to stop.

I yanked a brush through my hair and then threw it up into a clip, hurrying through the rest of my morning routine.

This incessant pounding had to end or my sleep and school year was going to go to hell in a handbasket before it even began. And it hadn’t been the easiest of first weeks back.

Not with Mr. Jerkface being completely unhelpful the other day. I still couldn’t believe he was so outright rude to me when all I wanted was to help Riley.

Heck, we were on the same damn side except somehow he’d drawn a line, pitting us completely against each other.

Thinking of Noah only fueled my frustration and anger and before I knew it, I was flinging open my sliding glass door and huffing my way through my back yard. The yard wasn’t large, a typical small-town square lot but one of the reasons I’d bought it was because I was at the end of a street so I didn’t have many neighbors. Also because the patch of thick trees at the back made for a gorgeous view in the fall when the leaves changed colors.

Based on the noise growing louder, I knew I was stomping off in the right direction. The trees were overgrown and where there’d once been a path that led to the park on this street, it was now filled with branches. They stung, whipping across my ankles and calves as I pushed through the foliage and more than one smacked me in the face.

By the time I made it through the tree line, I had scratches down my arms, my legs, and I was still digging leaves out of my hair as I made my way to the man bent over a saw bench near what looked like was going to be a four-season porch when he was done.

“Hello!” I called, but my shout was futile.

Sawdust flew in the air as the man pushed a long piece of wood through the saw. And from behind, I could tell he had heavy duty headphones covering his ears.

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