When the Stars Fall (Lost Stars Book 1) Read online

  When the Stars Fall

  Emery Rose

  Copyright © 2020 Emery Rose

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any names or characters, businesses or places, events or incidents, are fictitious or have been used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover Design: Lori Jackson at Lori Jackson Designs

  Photographer: Michelle Lancaster

  Editors: Jennifer Mirabelli (Content Edits); Ellie McLove, My Brother’s Editor

  Created with Vellum

  Dedication

  For Jennifer Mirabelli.

  This book wouldn’t be what it is without you. Thank you times a million. xoxo

  Playlist

  “Lost” – Dermot Kennedy

  “Shiver And Shake” – Ryan Adams

  “Howlin’ For You” – The Black Keys

  “Losing My Religion” – REM

  “Love Runs Out” – One Republic

  “Already Gone” – Sleeping At Last

  “The Ending” – Wafia, FINNEAS

  “All My Friends” – Dermot Kennedy

  “I’m A Liar” – Amy Shark

  “Wild Horses” – Alicia Keys, Adam Levine

  “Lost Stars” – Adam Levine

  “When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.”

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Part II

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Part III

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  NOVELS BY EMERY ROSE

  Prologue

  Lila

  I clawed at his hands, my eyes wide. He was choking me with his bare hands, cutting off the air to my windpipe.

  Was this how it was going to end?

  Was I going to die at the hands of the man I loved?

  But this wasn’t him. This was a man I didn’t recognize. His blue eyes were wild and unfocused like he was somewhere else. I gasped for breath, tears streaming down my face.

  I saw the moment when it registered with him that I was on the bedroom floor in a chokehold, his hands wrapped around my neck, making it impossible for me to breathe. He released me and sat back on his heels, tugging at the ends of his hair. I tried to breathe through the pain, my hand reaching up to rub my bruised neck.

  “Lila,” he said, his voice raw. The moon was so bright tonight I could see the pain etched on his face. “Fuck. Lila. I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”

  He gathered me up from the bedroom floor, pulled me into his lap and held me in his arms, his forehead pressed against mine. His tears mingled with my own.

  How had we gotten to this place?

  “Talk to me,” I pleaded for the hundredth time since he’d returned home a year ago. Naively, I had believed that when he came home, we could resume our regularly scheduled life. I’d been wrong. So fucking wrong. Even though I was trembling on the inside, I fought through it. I had to ask. “Tell me what happened to you,” I pleaded again. “Please, Jude, I’m begging you.”

  He buried his face in the crook of my neck and said nothing. It hurt that he couldn’t talk to me about anything when we used to confide in each other. Now, I was walking on eggshells. Constantly on the lookout for his triggers. Dirt roads. The Fourth of July fireworks. A rustling in the tall grass behind the barn. He saw danger in places where it didn’t exist.

  And tonight, all I’d done was wrap my arms around him while he was asleep. I’d done it on instinct, reaching for him in the middle of the night like I’d done so many times before.

  Nights were the worst. The circles under his eyes were testament to his lack of sleep.

  “I love you,” he said, the words ripped from his throat like they were painful. “I love you so fucking much.”

  “I love you more. I… Jude…” I clung to him.

  Don’t go.

  Don’t leave me.

  But I knew that he was already gone. I’d lost him somewhere on the other side of the world. “We need to find someone who can help you.”

  He didn’t say anything. He’d been seeing a therapist but it wasn’t helping. He was convinced that no one could help him. He was giving up. I could see the defeat in his eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” he said over and over. He kept saying it like that would make everything okay. But I knew that nothing would ever be okay again.

  Jude McCallister was the strongest man I’d ever known. He’d survived three deployments to Afghanistan. Five years of active duty in the US Marine Corps. He’d been shot in the head and he had survived. I kept his helmet in my closet. A huge hole had ripped through the material, but the Kevlar had stopped the bullet and had saved his life. My photo was taped inside that helmet and he said he’d carried me with him everywhere he went.

  I used to think our love was strong enough to survive anything. Even a combat zone.

  I was wrong.

  What I hadn’t counted on was the injuries that left no scars. The broken parts that no doctor was able to fix. He’d brought that hell home with him, and I had no idea how to help him. But I would keep trying.

  I couldn’t lose Jude.

  He was supposed to be my forever and my always.

  Jude

  I sat on the edge of the mattress and I watched her sleeping. She looked so peaceful. So fucking beautiful, her wavy brown hair all messy and disheveled, her long lashes resting in the hollows beneath her eyes. Those green eyes, the same shade of green as the grass in the meadow. My gaze lowered to the purple marks on her neck that I’d put there two days ago. She used makeup to cover them, but they were still there, clear as fucking day for everyone to see. No amount of makeup could hide the truth.

  I had done this to her.

  I had inflicted pain on the person I claimed to love above all others.

  A few months ago I’d almost broken her wrist in the midst of a night terror. I hated myself for the hell I’d put her through. The shouting, the unfounded accusations, the drinking and the times I couldn’t bear to be touched. This wasn’t what she’d signed up for. Love shouldn’t have to
hurt this much. She’d tried to convince me otherwise, but she was blind to the truth. And I’d be damned if I would continue dragging her down with me. Lila was tough and she was strong, but her love for me made her weak. She had stayed by my side, through thick and thin, when she should have left my ass.

  Hell, she should have left my ass the day I went off to boot camp at the ripe old age of eighteen. Back then I’d had it all figured out. So cocky. So confident that I was strong-minded enough to handle anything. That was only six years ago, but it felt like another lifetime.

  Now, she was scared of me. Scared for me. Afraid to leave me alone. Afraid I wouldn’t make it to my twenty-fifth birthday.

  Look what you’ve done to her, asshole. Can you really expect her to love you for better or worse?

  She deserved so much better than a psycho who had almost choked her to death. The list of shit I’d done to her—to my entire family—was long and unforgivable. Not just the past year since I’d been home, but the years she’d spent waiting and worrying about me while I was off fighting a war she’d begged me to stay out of. Lila would claim that she hadn’t made any sacrifices to be with me, but it was bullshit and we both knew it.

  I stood up and set the note on the bedside table then walked out of the bedroom before I could change my mind. I hoped she would understand that I was doing this because I loved her. It was time to set her free. I couldn’t be the man she needed. That man was gone.

  The sun was starting to rise as I drove away. I left my home. I left Texas. I left my family. And I left the love of my life. If I could have crawled out of my own skin, and out of my head, I would have left them behind too.

  I cranked up the volume on a classic rock song—“Carry On Wayward Son”—and I drove.

  Lifting the bottle of whiskey to my lips, I took a long swig.

  “You fucked up, McCallister.” I turned my head to look at my buddy Reese Madigan, sitting in the passenger seat of my Silverado. He rubbed his hand over his buzzed cut, his other hand tapping out the beat to the music. Reese loved this song. Used to belt it out at the top of his lungs just to piss everyone off. Dude had the worst singing voice. Couldn’t carry a tune to save his life. “You should have known.”

  “He was just a boy,” I argued. “We played football with him. Gave him candy. How could I have known?”

  “You telling me you didn’t see the cell phone? You saw it but you hesitated, didn’t you?”

  I wiped the sweat off my forehead with the back of my arm. My heart was hammering against my ribcage, fear and dread crawling up my spine.

  I checked the passenger seat again. Reese was gone. Because Reese was fucking dead. I was talking to dead men now.

  I took another swig of whiskey. And I kept driving.

  She’d be better off without me. My girl was a fighter, and she was resilient. I didn’t believe in much of anything anymore, but I still believed in her.

  Part I

  Chapter One

  Lila

  “Why do I have to wear a stupid dress?” I grumbled as my mom brushed the snarls out of my hair. I scowled at my reflection in the mirror. The sundress was yellow with white embroidered flowers. Flowers. Barf.

  “Because the McCallisters invited us over for a barbecue.”

  The McCallisters lived right up the road from our new house, so I guess that made them our neighbors. Yesterday, Kate McCallister stopped by to welcome us to the neighborhood and it turned out that she and Mom had known each other in college. Small world, they’d said, laughing and hugging like long lost friends.

  “I can’t see why it should matter what I wear.”

  “Stop being a grouch,” Mom teased, dividing my hair into three sections so she could braid it. She was smiling. Had been since Derek agreed to leave Houston and move to Cypress Springs, a small town in the Texas Hill Country. Mom was a nurse and would be starting her new job next week. Derek was an electrician and since he was self-employed, it didn’t matter where we lived, he could work anywhere.

  “Two of the boys are the same age as you,” she said. “Maybe you can be friends.”

  “I doubt it. Not when they see me in this dress. I look stupid.”

  “You look pretty.” She tugged at the end of the French braid she’d just put in my hair. My eyes met hers in the mirror. They were the same shade of green as mine and we both had dark brown wavy hair. Everyone said I was the spitting image of her.

  I stopped and thought about what she’d said. “Wait a minute. How could they both be my age?” My eyes widened. “Are they twins?”

  “No. They’re cousins.”

  “Oh.” My shoulders sagged in disappointment. Twins sounded like a lot more fun. They could fool people by pretending to be each other.

  “Well, don’t you look pretty as a picture?” Derek said with a smile.

  I forced a smile even though I was still annoyed about having to wear a dress.

  “Derek gets to wear jeans and a T-shirt.” I scowled at the sunflowers on my flip-flops as we headed out the front door. I’d rather be wearing my Converse high tops. “How’s that fair?”

  “Life ain’t fair, sweetheart,” he said with a chuckle. “You’ll learn that soon enough.”

  Wasn’t the first time I’d heard that but I decided to stop complaining about it. Wouldn’t change anything. This was our new home and my mom insisted that I was going to love it here. She made it sound like one great big adventure. But she wasn’t the one who had to leave her best friend behind. I spun the purple friendship bracelet on my wrist around and around, wondering what Darcy was doing right now. Probably swimming in the pool at our apartment complex. I sighed longingly, thinking about the summer we’d planned during countless sleepovers. The summer that had been ruined when my mom announced we were moving.

  Derek wrapped his tattooed arm around my mom’s shoulders and kissed the top of her head as the three of us walked up the road to the McCallister’s with me huffing along beside them. For seven whole years, it was just me and Mom, and that was just the way I liked it. Until she married Derek two years ago.

  Now that she had him, I felt like the third wheel.

  Life ain’t fair, sweetheart.

  Ain’t that the truth.

  The McCallisters lived in a big stone farmhouse with a wraparound porch on a couple acres of land. We ate on the back porch overlooking a field and a barn with rolling hills in the distance that Patrick McCallister said belonged to a ranch. He was a general contractor and owned a construction company. Judging by the size of their house and all the land, I got the feeling they were a lot richer than us. Within five minutes, the adults were laughing and talking like old friends while I was stuck at the kids’ table with the boys. All four of them.

  Over burgers, corn on the cob, and potato salad, I learned quite a few things about the McCallister boys.

  Number one: Jude McCallister was the most annoying boy in the world. A show-off and a know-it-all, he acted like he was the boss of us.

  Number two: Jude’s cousin Brody had the worst manners of any boy I’d ever met. He chewed with his mouth open and ate his food so fast you’d think it was the first meal he’d had in years. When Jude reached for another ear of corn, Brody stabbed his hand with a fork.

  Number three: Brody had just moved in with the family last month and hadn’t even met his cousins before that. I didn’t know the full story because when I asked where his mom was, Brody said, “It’s none of your damn business.”

  Which had shocked me into silence. A nine-year-old wasn’t supposed to cuss and I told him so.

  “I’m not nine,” he said around a mouthful of food. “I was ten on April tenth.”

  “And I’ll be ten on August twentieth,” Jude said. “When’s your birthday?”

  “May fifth,” I said reluctantly. I’d just turned nine, which meant they were both older than me. Jude, the know-it-all, was quick to do the math.

  “You’re nine months younger than me and thirteen months younger than Br
ody.”

  Like that made them so superior. It didn’t. They were both going into fourth grade, just like me.

  Gideon was six and all he wanted to do was go inside and watch movies, but his parents said he wasn’t allowed. So he was sulking. Jesse, the baby of the family, was four and all kinds of adorable. He was cute and funny and had us laughing at the goofy things he said.

  Now we’d all finished eating—except for Brody who was on his third helping of strawberry shortcake—and the adults told us to go off and play. Brody wanted to ride the horses but we weren’t allowed to do that without adult supervision so we had to come up with our own fun. Which was how we’d ended up in the field behind the house playing football.

  “You won’t be able to catch it,” Jude the know-it-all said.

  “Brody just caught it. I can too.” I eyed Brody. He was a lot smaller than Jude and kind of scrawny. He had knobby knees and sharp elbows and dark blond hair. Even though he had the same last name, Brody didn’t look like the rest of the blue-eyed, brown-haired McCallister boys.

  Jude shook his head. “Brody’s tough. He’s used to catching a football. You’re a girl. In a dress,” he scoffed, tossing the ball high into the air and catching it in his hands.