Freefall to Desire

In response, Brianne gyrated her pelvis against him and kissed the underside of his jaw.

Alex groaned in pleasure, and Brianne felt a surge of power. There was something completely thrilling about knowing that she could seduce a man like Alex.

He was tall, dark and handsome—and she was tired of trying to deny that there was something between them.

As she continued to kiss his jawline, creating what she knew was a path of wonderful sensations all the way to his ear, he gripped her behind and squeezed the flesh. When his finger slipped beneath the edge of her panties, a jolt of heat went straight to her center.

Suddenly, she was being eased onto her back, the sheets were being kicked aside and then Alex was on top of her. Every nerve ending in her body was on fire. Her breathing was ragged as he stared down at her. And she saw the obvious lust in his eyes.

But not just lust. There was something else there. Something tender. Surely she wasn’t imagining it.

“Make love to me,” she whispered.

Dear Reader,

After Island Fantasy, many of you asked me to write a story for Shayna’s sister, Brianne. I’m pleased to tell you that I have, and Freefall to Desire is the result.

If you’ve enjoyed reading my stories over the years, you’ll know that I often infuse elements of intrigue into my books. I love the heightened emotions of a romance combined with intrigue. Because when the world around the characters is falling apart and they’re most vulnerable, they’re often more likely to let go and seize love in an unguarded way. It’s spontaneous and raw and thrilling!

I knew before I set out to write Brianne’s story that I wanted there to be an unsolved mystery in the book. One that would force her to work closely with someone from her past and one that would give her a second chance at love. So when Brianne, who has guarded her heart since losing her fiancé, suddenly finds herself in love’s grip—especially when she least expects it—it is sweeter and more intense than anything she has ever experienced. Because this time, it’s real.

Please let me know how you enjoyed Brianne and Alex’s story by emailing me at kayla@kaylaperrin.com or by contacting me on Facebook or Twitter. Up next will be Selena’s story, a friend of Brianne’s you’ll meet briefly in this book. I plan to continue writing stories that feature friends and family of my characters, because I know how much you love them.

Until next time,

Kayla

About the Author

KAYLA PERRIN

has been writing since the age of thirteen and once entertained the idea of becoming a teacher. Instead she has become a USA TODAY and Essence bestselling author of dozens of mainstream and romance novels. She has been recognized for her talent, including twice winning Romance Writers of America’s Top Ten Favorite Books of the Year Award and the Career Achievement Award for multicultural romance from RT Book Reviews. Kayla lives with her daughter in Ontario, Canada. Visit Kayla at www.KaylaPerrin.com.

Freefall TO DESIRE

Kayla Perrin

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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This book is dedicated to Lady Sharon.

Talented fashion designer. Dedicated mother.

Great friend. I admire how you’re going after your dreams, making them a reality. And proving that it’s never too late. God bless you, my friend!

Prologue

Brianne Kenyon held her breath, her eyes locking with Alex Thorpe’s the moment he stepped into the lobby. For two long hours she had been waiting for his return, praying every second of that time for the best possible outcome. But one look at the defeated expression on his face and she knew that the news was not good.

She rose from the sofa where she and her sister, Shayna, had been sitting and waiting by the cozy fireplace—but nothing about their visit to British Columbia was cozy.

“Nothing?” she asked Alex as he reached her. “No sign of him?”

He ran a hand over his head, emitting a groan of frustration. “Brianne, I’m sorry.”

“But how can that be possible?” she asked. “There has to be something. Some sign of him on the mountain.”

“The Rockies are vast, Brianne,” Alex explained. “He could be anywhere.”

Brianne stared at Alex, willing him to say something that would give her hope. Not the spiel she’d heard from the Canadian authorities over the last five days.

“But,” he continued, then stopped.

“But what?” Brianne asked quickly. She felt her sister slip her arm around her waist, offering support. “There is something. What is it?”

“It… it’s not good.”

Brianne’s stomach sank. She felt nauseous. But she had to know. Good or bad. “Tell me.”

“The search team…they found something,” Alex explained slowly. “Carter’s jacket. It was torn…and … bloody.”

“It might not be Carter’s,” Brianne said without hesitation.

“It was. After I described to them what Carter was wearing that day, they were able to identify the jacket as his. And the moment they showed it to me, I confirmed it.” Alex paused. “It’s bad enough to be out there in this weather, but without a jacket?” His statement hung in the air, heavy and ominous.

Brianne’s brain tried to process the news. She couldn’t speak.

“What are you saying?” Shayna asked. “Do the authorities think that Carter—”

“They don’t want to jump to conclusions,” Alex interjected. “But at the very least, they figure Carter’s hurt. The blood could mean that he fell … or that he was attacked by an animal.”

“What kind of animal?” Shayna asked.

Brianne moved away from her sister then, stepping in the direction of the fire. But it did nothing to warm her. She felt cold from the inside out.

“A wolf,” Alex said. “Maybe a cougar.”

A cougar? God help her. Brianne’s knees buckled then, and she faltered. But strong arms wrapped around her waist before she could collapse onto the floor.

Alex held her up. “Brianne, are you okay?”

A wolf. Maybe a cougar… No, she wasn’t okay. “Brianne?”

Brianne broke down and cried. Cried at the reality that her fiancé was lost in the middle of the Rockies, left to fend for himself in horrendous conditions.

In six days he hadn’t turned up. Five days of searching had produced no sign of him—until now.

A wolf. Maybe a cougar…

“Damn, Brianne. I hate this.” Alex cradled her head against his chest. She gripped his arms, holding on to him as she rode through the turbulent emotional wave.

After about two minutes, she shook her head and eased backward. “No. I won’t believe that he’s anything other than okay. Carter is strong. You know how strong he is. He’s got to be fine.”

“Brianne—”

“Don’t tell me I’m wrong,” she snapped. One minute she’d been bawling, the next biting Alex’s head off. She wanted this all to end.

“Brianne, listen to me,” Alex said. “I know exactly how you’re feeling. But it’s worse than we want to think.”

“Everything will be fine when they find Carter,” Brianne said, refusing to give in to despair.

“They’re not going to find him,” Alex said.

“How can you say that?” She felt a spurt of anger. “Why are you giving up already?”

“Because they’re calling off the search,” Alex answered matter-of-factly.

Brianne’s body went rigid. She looked up at Alex in confusion. “How can they call off the search? Carter’s still lost!”

“I wish it wasn’t the case, Brianne. God knows I do. But they’ve searched for five full days, and the snow has continued to fall, covering any possible tracks. It was a fluke they found his jacket. After all this time out there, they think it’s really unlikely—”

“I don’t care what they think,” Brianne interrupted before Alex could say the words she didn’t want to hear. “They found his jacket, so they know he’s hurt. He’s got to be close by. It’s critical that they keep searching so they can find him now!”

“I agree with you,” Alex said.

“Then do something!” Brianne yelled, not meaning to, but unable to stop herself. People in the hotel lobby looked in her direction. She knew they were wondering what was going on, but she didn’t care. She would make as big a scene as necessary if it got her the results she wanted.

Alex raised his hands in a helpless gesture and then let them fall against his thighs. “What can I do?”

Brianne shook her head in disbelief. “He’s your best friend and you’re giving up on him.” She turned around and marched back to the sofa where she’d left her coat. “Fine. If the authorities are giving up the search, then I have to find Carter.”

“Brianne, you can’t go out there.”

Ignoring Alex, she shoved her arms into the ultrawarm parka she’d bought. “Someone has to!”

“Brianne,” Shayna said gently. “If the authorities can’t find Carter…”

“No, don’t say it. Please, Shayna. Don’t say it.”

And then she started for the door.

Alex reached her before she could step outside. “Don’t be foolish, Brianne. Carter wouldn’t want you to get lost, too.”

And as she met Alex’s gaze, saw the pain she was feeling shimmering in his eyes, she knew he was right.

There was nothing she could do.

Her knees giving way again, she reached out and gripped Alex’s forearms. Gripped them for dear life as emotion overwhelmed her.

This time when she cried, she couldn’t stop the tears. Because she had most likely lost the love of her life. The man she was supposed to marry next year.

And her life would never be the same.

Chapter 1

Three years later…

Brianne held the heavy silver picture frame with both hands, staring fondly at the photo of the smiling couple behind the glass.

Three years, she thought. Three years since you’ve been gone.

Brianne wore an ear-to-ear grin in the picture, more giggle than smile. She’d been giddy with happiness as she’d posed with Carter Smith, the man who’d stolen her heart at a point when she hadn’t expected to fall in love. She and Carter were standing against a palm tree, the picturesque stretch of sand and blue water in Hawaii behind them. Even if Brianne and Carter hadn’t been in Maui for a romantic vacation, she would have remembered exactly when the photo had been taken.

It had been taken the day Carter had proposed to her.

The helicopter ride Carter had booked for them turned into the most memorable moment of all when he’d surprised Brianne with an exquisite cushion-cut diamond engagement ring. Soaring over a volcano, Carter had asked Brianne to marry him, and she had enthusiastically said yes. Emotionally, she’d been higher than any cloud, expecting that nothing would happen to destroy the happiness she’d been feeling at the time. Brianne had been in love and looking forward to a wonderful life with the man of her dreams. At the time, she couldn’t imagine anything ever going wrong.

But things had gone wrong. Barely two months after they’d gotten engaged. All at once, everything had changed.

Brianne’s eyes misted as she regarded the photo of her and Carter in happier times. It was still hard to believe what had happened, much less accept it.

And yet, here she was, without Carter. Today was the three-year anniversary since that tragic, cold day in the Rocky Mountains.

Gone. In an instant. Carter Smith had simply vanished.

That was the hardest part to bear, the not knowing if he was alive or dead.

The authorities had been of a different opinion than Brianne. No, they hadn’t found Carter’s body, but they had found remnants of the torn and bloodied jacket he’d been wearing. Given that finding, coupled with the unexpected snowstorm, they’d surmised that Carter had lost his way on the mountain and that the unthinkable had happened. Months later, hikers had stumbled upon Carter’s backpack—which included his passport—approximately ten miles from the spot where they’d found his jacket. That had solidified the opinion that he had died.

Brianne could not deny that the snowstorm had likely led to Carter getting lost. But what she did not accept— could not accept—was that the man who had so enthusiastically loved the outdoors and could cope in almost any circumstance could have become a victim of nature. The authorities believed one of two possibilities: the first was that Carter had died during the snowstorm and his remains had been eaten by animals. The second possibility was even worse to imagine—that Carter had been attacked and killed by hungry wildlife while alive.

Brianne shuddered. She didn’t want to let her mind go there. Thinking that Carter had died was bad enough, but imagining that his body had been eaten… That part was too much to contemplate. And yet, she had nightmares about exactly that.

But despite the nightmares, Brianne had been able to cling to some hope. The hope that since there had been no body, maybe Carter was still alive.

Before Carter’s disappearance, Brianne had seen stories on the news about people who had been missing for years, only to turn up unexpectedly one day suffering from amnesia. After Carter’s disappearance, she had become addicted to such stories. Four months after Carter was gone, she broke down and bawled when she saw a story on the news about a man in Oregon who had survived some mishap in the wilderness and had resurfaced across the country a year later. Brianne believed fervently that this would be the news she would one day get regarding Carter.

Shayna didn’t believe Carter was alive. Nor did anyone else in her family. But how could Brianne allow herself to think that Carter was dead when it was just as possible that he was alive somewhere, not knowing who he was and therefore unable to get back to her?

Perhaps she was naive to hope. But she hadn’t wanted to give up. Now, however, on the three-year anniversary of Carter’s disappearance, she was wondering if she had simply been lying to herself the entire time.

Just because you wished something was true didn’t make it so.

After three years, Brianne needed some sort of closure, and that closure would not come by hanging on to the hope that Carter might return. As hard as it was going to be, she had to say a final goodbye to him.

If Carter had not returned yet, it was likely that he never would. Her sister, Shayna, had tried to encourage her to move on for her own sanity.

Brianne knew that Shayna was right. Moving on was truly the only way she would ever heal. Sometimes in life bad things happened. This was one of those times.

Brianne replaced the framed photo on her dresser and drew in a deep breath in an attempt to calm her frayed nerves. Perhaps a trip to the Rockies would help her get closure. She had felt helpless at the time when Carter was lost. The authorities had searched the mountains, as had Alex Thorpe—Carter’s best friend, who had accompanied him on the ill-fated hiking trip. Brianne had gone crazy with worry at a nearby hotel, waiting for word, unable to do anything to aid in the search. All she could do was pray.

There had been a memorial service organized by Carter’s family, held at the Rockies. But Brianne had stubbornly refused to attend and had instead returned home. One year later, in Buffalo, she had attended the memorial service marking the one-year anniversary of Carter’s disappearance. She had done so out of respect for Carter’s family rather than a desire to move on, but she had been angry at almost everyone in attendance—at all the people who had so quickly chosen to believe that their friend and family member was not coming back.

Before, Brianne had doggedly not wanted to give in to the belief that Carter was dead, as if just wishing him alive would influence reality.

Now she had to move on. And maybe the only way to do that was to go to the last place Carter had been seen alive. Have her own private memorial for Carter at the Rockies and bid him a final goodbye.

As she made her way downstairs to the kitchen, the idea felt right. Yes, she would plan a trip to British Columbia. It would be nice to go with Shayna, but her sister had just gotten married, and she and her new husband, Donovan, were still honeymooning in Jamaica. Brianne’s parents were also out of town, having decided to spend an extra week in Jamaica as well.

There was no reason Brianne couldn’t go to British Columbia alone. In fact, maybe that was best. A quiet time for reflection, to make peace with what had happened.

Brianne was a manager at Scented Suds, a store that sold a variety of luxury body soaps and lotions. As a manager, she was entitled to several weeks of vacation per year. But she had just returned from Jamaica two days ago and didn’t like the idea of requesting more time off without much notice. However, it was necessary. Alexis, the store’s assistant manager, would certainly be able to manage the store in her absence. Brianne would have to run the request by Marlene, the district manager. She didn’t doubt that Marlene—who knew firsthand the stress Brianne had gone through when Carter had disappeared—would allow her this additional time off.

Brianne got herself a low-fat granola bar and a bottle of water from the kitchen and then went back up to her room, where she booted up her laptop. The smart thing would be to check for flights and find out when it was most economically feasible to head to Canada. Then she could call Marlene with a definite time frame.

It would have been nice to be there today, the official anniversary. But the thought had come to Brianne too late. The truth was, it was a thought she hadn’t even considered. Perhaps it was seeing her sister and Donovan, so much in love on their wedding day, that was leading her to take that final step toward closure.

Three years had passed. It was time she made peace with the fact that Carter wasn’t coming back.

She was only twenty-seven. Far too young to accept that she would never get married. She couldn’t even imagine falling in love with someone else, but Brianne knew that time healed all wounds. One day, she would fall in love again.

While she couldn’t be at the Rockies today, Brianne had waited three years to get to the point where she finally felt like she could move on. She could wait a week or so more.

And for her, moving on meant more than accepting that Carter wasn’t coming back. It was letting go of the anger she felt toward Carter’s best friend, Alex. Alex had been with Carter that fateful day, and he had come out of the mountain alive. Her rational brain knew that Alex wasn’t responsible for what had happened to Carter, but he had never satisfactorily explained why he had gotten off the mountain and Carter had not.

Brianne had been looking for answers—something she’d made very clear to Alex on the few occasions that they’d spoken. Now, she was beginning to consider just how hard the whole ordeal must have been for Alex. To be the one who survived, while his friend had not. He had probably replayed the day’s events over and over in his head, wondering if there was one thing he could have done differently that would have changed the outcome. Brianne certainly had—and she hadn’t even been on the trip.

She wasn’t the only one who’d lost someone that cold November day. Alex Thorpe had lost a friend and business partner, and the guilt he felt because he hadn’t been able to save Carter had likely eaten at him over the years.

Brianne poised her fingers over the keyboard, ready to type. But then she thought she heard the doorbell.

Had she?

She paused, straining to listen. A few seconds later, she knew she had heard correctly when the doorbell sounded again.

She got up from the small desk in the corner of her room, wondering who might be here. It was early evening, just after six, but dark outside. She didn’t expect solicitors, nor a delivery person. Maybe it was her best friend, Kim, whom she’d spoken to earlier, coming to help get her mind off of the past.

Brianne hurried downstairs and then looked through the peephole as she always did before swinging the door open. But what she saw there made her reel backward.

Rather, who she saw there.

She was flabbergasted.

It may have been dark, but she knew her eyes were not deceiving her. Even if never in a million years did she expect to see him.

Indeed, two full years had passed since she’d laid eyes on him.

And yet, it made perfect sense that he was here. He, like she, had been forever affected by what had happened on this day three years ago.

The doorbell sounded again. Slowly, Brianne unlocked and opened the door. And there stood Alex Thorpe, on her small front porch, with a serious expression on his face.

And though Brianne had told herself only moments ago that she should hold no anger toward him, it flared again. As irrational as it was, Alex was a physical outlet for her pain and frustration. A person she could blame for something that had been out of everyone’s control.

“Brianne.” Alex spoke her name, as serious as the expression on his face.

Brianne said nothing. She didn’t know what to say. The last time she and Alex had spoken, two years ago exactly, he’d gotten her so angry she’d stormed off.

“It’s been a year, Brianne. There’s been no sign of him. No action in any of his bank accounts. And he was never documented crossing the border back into the States. Do you really expect Carter to walk back into your life? What are you hanging on to?”

And Brianne realized, in that instant, why she’d been so angry with Alex over the past couple of years. At first, she had thought it was because Alex had been Carter’s partner in crime—the guy Carter always went off with on his thrill-seeking adventures. From sky-diving to extreme skiing to base jumping off of buildings…to hiking mountains in bad weather. It had been easy to think that if Alex had refused to go with Carter, Carter might not have gotten lost on that mountain.

But it was more than that, and Brianne now knew why. Alex had been Carter’s best friend, and yet he had so easily given up on him. Like the others who wanted to declare him dead and move on, Alex had done the very same thing.

But as a best friend, she had expected him to want to do all in his power to find Carter. To travel to the ends of the earth, if that was necessary. To leave no stone unturned, as the saying went. Instead, on the one-year anniversary of Carter’s disappearance, Alex had told her that she was foolishly hanging on to hope.

“I’m holding on to our love!” Brianne had shouted at him outside the church, not meaning to yell. “And what exactly happened on the mountain? How did you and Carter get separated? How is it that you came off of the mountain alive, but he didn’t?”