If Tomorrow Never Comes (Harper Falls Book 2) (3 page)

Like every other morning since she had arrived in Venice, Dani would rush to get the early risers at breakfast—though there were never very many of those—then rush to catch the brunch crowd. There were premiers and gala events. For a small town girl, it was all very exciting and a bit overwhelming. But Dani didn't let herself be pushed around by the other photographers. It was a shove or be shoved business, and she had never been a pushover for anyone. Being slender and nimble hadn't hurt, either. She could slip in between bulkier bodies with little difficulty. Give her a sliver of light and before you knew it, Dani was at the front of the crowd.

She was just about to make her move when she noticed a strikingly good-looking man in his late twenties giving a local boy a hard time. From where she stood it had been impossible to tell what the argument was about, but she couldn’t have cared less. She saw a man who outweighed the boy by at least a hundred pounds. She saw that man grab the boy and shake him hard enough to rattle the boy's teeth and potentially pull his arm out of its socket. And then? Dani saw red.

Leaving her spot, Dani swooped in like an avenging angel—at least that's how Bobby would later describe her. A slender five foot seven inches tall young woman, flowing white gold hair and flashing emerald eyes, she'd had one goal in mind—rescue the underdog.

It hadn't taken much of an effort on her part. The bully had been so startled by her shout, not to mention the surprise of having one hundred and twenty pounds of outraged female bearing down on him that he let the boy go immediately. The boy scampered off without a backward glance. Unfortunately, the man's friends had found the situation highly entertaining, and their laughter didn't help his already bruised ego. Before Dani had known what was happening, he had snatched her camera and thrown it into the canal.

If Dani had had her way, the idiot would have soon followed. However, a chuckling man, who bore a striking resemblance to Santa Clause, stopped her just before she sent the bully crashing backward. Dani was so outraged at losing a very expensive piece of equipment, one that she was still paying for, that she rounded on Santa, ready to give him the tongue lashing of a lifetime.

Robert Plank knew how to defuse any situation. Years of running a multi-billion dollar corporation had given him amazing people skills. Before Dani knew what was happening, she was having dinner on her first yacht and Bobby had replaced her camera with an even better model. Her protests had fallen on deaf ears. It had been a member of his party who was responsible for her loss; it was up to him to make restitution. He won the argument. In fact, Dani could count on one hand the number of times she ever talked him out of something when his mind was made up. At times, it was extremely frustrating, but she had grown up with Tyler Jones as one of her best friends—Dani was used to stubborn.

She was never sure just how it had happened, but from that moment on she had been in Bobby's inner circle. To be honest, it was a pretty amazing place to be. Semi-retired, he spent most of his time traveling and acquiring acolytes. Oh, he knew their devotion would have evaporated quickly if he hadn't supplied them with such a lavish lifestyle, but rather than be offended, he'd found them amusing—his own personal court jesters.

His relationship with Dani was different. She didn't want anything. After he had replaced her camera, she refused all his gifts. She didn't want to be flown to Paris or receive expensive jewelry. She liked Bobby for himself and that was something new for him.

Bobby
did
insist on helping her with her investments. Or rather her non-investments. He had been horrified when he'd found out that all she did with her money was put in the bank. From that moment on Bobby had become her personal financial advisor. They had started out small. Dani wasn't comfortable going all in. With that in mind, Bobby had helped her grow a middle of the road bank account into a very healthy investment portfolio.

She still visited him several times a year, and Bobby had come to Harper Falls last Christmas to spend a few days. He and her father had hit it off immediately, and her mother had made him promise to come back any time he wanted. He was expected in the fall for the town's centennial celebration.

Dani sighed. That time with Bobby had been a godsend. Even though a year had passed, she had still been heartsick over Alex Fleming, and Bobby had given her a much-needed boost to her spirits. That was the time she really began to move on. Before she had been living her life constantly expecting Alex to come back. It hadn't mattered that there had been no promises made or broken. She had known that when he went, the likelihood of her ever seeing him again was minuscule. But the heart wants what the heart wants, and hers had still wanted Alex.

Five years should have been enough time. One glance at a man she had only known for two laugh—and sex—filled weeks should not have sent her into such a tailspin. But it had been the unexpectedness of it all. Why now? Why here? Was it Lila? They obviously knew one and other.

A knock at the door pulled Dani from her dark thoughts. Glancing at the clock she saw that it was just after midnight. Not exactly the time for visitors to drop by unannounced.

She walked across the room and glanced through the peephole. With a resigned shrug, she opened the door and stood aside.

"Come on in, I've been expecting you."

DANI POURED THREE glasses of wine.

She had known that Tyler and Rose would show up eventually though deep down she'd hoped for a reprieve—at least until later in the morning. It was late, or early, depending on how you looked at it. She felt raw. These two women were her best friends; their presence was always welcome. But right now all she wanted to do was crawl into bed and try to forget yesterday had ever happened. One look at their determined faces and Dani knew that wasn't happening.

"You know I love you both, but why aren't you off doing wonderfully dirty things with your men?"

Rose pushed her dark brown hair back from her face. It was a good face. Strong, with even features. She had a beauty that had taken her a while to grow into, but she had long ago left behind the skinny nine-year-old who had come to Harper Falls scared, and unsure. At twenty-seven, Rose O'Brian took a back seat to no one. She was strong, confident and glowed as only a woman in love could.

"Jack can stand to go a few hours without. Lord knows, he's gone longer."

All three women laughed when Rose referenced the celibacy bet that had brought Jack Winston and her together. As strange as the whole thing had been, it had actually given them the chance to get to know each other. Instead of jumping into bed for a one-night stand, the bet had made them take it slow. They'd certainly had their share of bumpy moments—including a stabbing. In the end, Jack had given Rose his heart, and to her surprise, Rose had given hers right back—though it had taken a lot of persuasion from Jack.

"And you?"

Tyler merely shrugged. Her ever-changing gray eyes held a bit of regret. "We are only at the dating stage. Kyle is fun and interesting, but I doubt it will go any further. Besides, he's in love with a woman in Seattle. He just needs to suck it up and tell her how he feels."

Tyler's eyes grew wide when she realized she had just opened herself up to questions about her own unresolved feelings for Drew Harper. Not wanting to open that kettle of fish, Tyler rushed on to the reason she and Rose were there.

"What happened this afternoon?

"Nothing. I had a headache and wanted to get away from the crowd and heat."

"You want to try?" Tyler asked Rose.

Shaking her head, Dani sat back and waited for the next wave of questions. She knew how it worked. How many times in the past few months had she and Tyler double-teamed Rose trying to get her to admit there was something more between her and Jack than just sex? Now her friends were coming at her with the same strategy. And it was an effective one. Dani knew she could evade, stall, and even fight back until they left her alone. She also knew that it would just be delaying the inevitable.

"I saw Alex at the picnic."

"Right," Rose said with a nod. "Jack's old friend from high school."

Dani watched as Tyler and Rose exchanged confused looks.

"
Alex
." She emphasized the name and then waited for her friends to process it.

"Oh, my God," Rose exclaimed a few seconds later.

Not far behind, Tyler cried out, "Dani, honey. Not
the
Alex?"

The
Alex. Dani laid her head back and closed her eyes. Though she'd had years to get over him, there was no more denying the truth. She was still hung up on Alex Fleming.

PORTUGAL—FIVE YEARS EARLIER

For the first time in her twenty-two years on Mother Earth, Dani Wilde was free. Free of her loving but sometimes overprotective family, free of small-town expectations, and free to be as crazy and carefree as she wanted.

Being a newly minted college graduate helped. She no longer had to worry about class loads and finals. She had a job. A grown-up, deadlines to meet, weekly paycheck job. To celebrate she was going to get a haircut.

Not exactly earth shattering. Women got their hair cut all the time. But for Dani it was a momentous occasion. She couldn't remember a time when her hair hadn't been long. Her mother had been so thrilled that her daughter had inherited the famous Olafson golden-white hair. It didn't often happen, but a bit of her Scandanavian ancestors DNA had managed to slip through, and the maternal side of her family had found it a cause for over the top celebration. Pictures were exchanged, hours were spent on the phone. If her father hadn't put his foot down, an entire website would have been devoted to her golden locks.

Dani had always been grateful that she'd been too young to remember the early hoopla. It was bad enough that everyone had practically held their breath to see if her hair would darken as she got older. Finally on her tenth birthday, when Grandma Ava had officially declared her hair to be the real deal, Dani had been able to get away from the constant attention. She had wanted to scream that it was only hair. The fact that it made her look like something out of a fairy tale was not a plus. Not as far as Dani was concerned.

She had fought hard to overcome her false image of a delicate flower. Women envied her curling locks and men wanted to wrap her in cotton and protect her. They also wanted to fuck her. Most of them loved the idea of her being too fragile to do anything but lift a cup of tea. That, and spread her legs. Sometimes participation wasn't even necessary. She only had to lie there and let the big, strong man have his way.

One time a guy had spent five minutes arranging her hair over the pillows, making sure all her tresses lay just so.

Dani had been so appalled that she had let him, fascinated in spite of herself. He'd seemed so normal. Five dates and he'd done nothing more than compliment her on how beautiful she was. Flattering. Nothing weird. How could she have known that the guy had a full on hair fetish? When he'd finally gotten everything just right, he'd rushed to get his camera and Dani had rushed out the door.

Determined to make a change, Dani found a beauty shop the moment she got to Lisbon. It didn't matter that no one in the shop spoke English or that Dani's Portuguese consisted of ten or twelve basic words. When she walked out two hours later, she was unrecognizable.

Gone were the waving white gold locks. In their place was a severe, short cut dyed an unrelenting black. The woman in charge of her transformation had been close to tears during the entire process, but Dani had loved every minute. She'd never understood why people worried so much about their hair. If she wanted to, she could always let it grow—and bring back her original color. But for now she was free of her fairy princess image. When Dani looked in the mirror, she was no longer a delicate flower but a kick- ass woman. It was exactly what she had needed to start this new chapter in her life.

The first thing she did to help herself embrace the new Dani was take a picture and send it off to Tyler and Rose. She also made them promise not to show it to any of her family. Dani might be a fully grown, independent woman, but she had enough little girl in her to worry about what her mother's reaction was going to be. Better to break it to her gradually. Or better yet, not tell her at all.

Setting aside her excitement over her new look, Dani got down to the business that had brought her here in the first place. She thought her job was going to be a great way to get her feet wet in her chosen profession. She had been hired by an online travel magazine to capture the
unknown
Portugal. They wanted her to skip all the usual touristy spots and concentrate on where people
her
age liked to hang out. What did they do during the heat filled June days? Where were the trendy places they partied at during the sultry nights?

Dani knew she would never find the answers staying at the generic travel lodge she'd been booked into, so she used the internet—and a few recommendations from friends who were seasoned travelers, to find a funkier, younger hotel. After she had checked in, Dani set out on foot, camera ready, to explore the city.

It hadn't taken much time to connect with a couple of women her own age who were willing to show her where Lisbon's
hip kids
hung out. Dani had always found it easy to make friends, so it wasn't long before they were laughing and talking as if they'd known each other for years. Soon, they were inviting her to join them that night at a club just off the main downtown strip. Very hot and very exclusive,
Acesso,
which translated to access in English, was the perfect place for her to start her assignment. If she had a little fun along the way? Well, that was a bonus that she was more than happy to take advantage of.

Dani might have been in a foreign country, but she knew clubs like
Acesso
pretty much had the same dress code no matter where in the world they were located. Deciding that nothing she had matched her new hair, Dani spent the afternoon shopping. Her budget didn't allow for anything too extravagant so she asked her new friends for some suggestions. Happy to oblige, they steered her to the Portuguese equivalent of an American thrift store. Not only did she find exactly what she was looking for, but she was able to get some great photos for her article. She had a bounce in her step when she set out later that night. So far, her new life was going better than she could have dreamed. But she wasn't going to go crazy.