Follow You Down, page 1
FOLLOW YOU DOWN
RIPLEY PROSERPINA
Copyright © 2024 by Ripley Proserpina
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Foreword
1. Susanna
2. Troy
3. Susanna
4. Susanna
5. Troy
6. Susanna
7. Troy
8. Henry
9. Susanna
10. Henry
11. Susanna
12. Troy
13. Susanna
14. Luke
15. Susanna
16. Luke
17. Susanna
18. Susanna
19. Reiner
20. Susanna
21. Henry
22. Susanna
23. Luke
24. Susanna
25. Luke
26. Susanna
27. Susanna
28. Henry
29. Luke
30. Troy
31. Susanna
32. Henry
33. Susanna
34. Reiner
35. Troy
36. Susanna
37. Luke
38. Susanna
39. Reiner
40. Susanna
41. Henry
42. Susanna
43. Reiner
44. Susanna
45. Troy
46. Susanna
47. Luke
48. Susanna
49. Henry
50. Susanna
51. Henry
52. Susanna
53. Troy
54. Reiner
55. Susanna
56. Troy
57. Reiner
58. Susanna
59. Susanna
60. Troy
61. Susanna
62. Reiner
63. Susanna
64. Troy
65. Susanna
66. Luke
67. Susanna
68. Susanna
69. Troy
70. Susanna
71. Luke
72. Susanna
73. Reiner
74. Henry
75. Susanna
76. Susanna
77. Susanna
78. Susanna
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Ripley Proserpina
Dedicated to the love of my life—
Foreword
Can you hear me calling
Out your name?
You know that I'm falling
And I don't know what to say
I'll speak a little louder
I'll even shout
You know that I'm proud
And I can't get the words out
-Fleetwood Mac
1
Susanna
I knew better than to ask, but I did. "How was school?"
Ice.
Chills ran over my skin when I met Nathan's eyes.
Right.
I moved the boy across the country to a place that neither of us recognized, despite it being the town where I grew up. My Subaru squealed as I pulled away from the middle school. The fan belt needed replacing, but with all the expenses of the move, it had to wait. So Nate would have to put up with my car announcing his arrival and departure from Blue Hollow Middle School every day.
He slid lower in the seat, hand covering the side of his face until the low brick building was in the rearview mirror. Only then did he sit up a little taller.
I wanted to ask more questions: were people nice? Did you meet a friend? Did you find out about football try-outs?
For the millionth time, I regretted the decisions I'd made that landed us here. But I had a boy to think about, one who was on the cusp of being a young man, and nothing was more important than keeping him safe. Not the work I loved, or my beautiful studio. Not the good money I made. None of it mattered when it was on me to protect him and give him a future.
So here we were, in a town I never thought I'd set foot in again.
"I signed up for football."
Tightening my hands on the wheel to not appear overly excited, I asked, "Yeah? When does practice start?"
"It's try-outs, Susie," he said with the weight of a thousand pounds of frustration because I was such an idiot. "I probably won't even make it."
I snorted. "Yeah, right, Nate." He was five feet, eight inches, and only fourteen. He was still growing and from the way he ate, I bet he was six feet by Christmas. People thought he was older all the time until they caught sight of his baby face. Those dimples, bright blue eyes, and smooth tan skin gave away his youth, even if his frame hinted at his future.
Barely restraining a sigh, I stopped at the red light and leaned over the steering wheel. This town had changed so much since I drove away twenty years ago and never looked back.
Today, Blue Hollow, Colorado was a vacation destination, but when I was growing up, it was a bedroom community with one pizza place and a gas station. The ski area and new hotel created a need for things like coffee shops, boutiques, restaurants, and second homes. My grandparents house—the place I moved across the country for—was only affordable because Dad left it to me when he died. I already had four offers from a local real estate agent, and an impending sense of doom that my taxes were going to be as much as a mortgage.
I wasn't selling, though. Safety couldn't be bought, and I wasn't spending my life chasing after it when I knew it was right here.
The light turned green and I moved forward.
"Susie!" Nate cried, as from the corner of my eyes I caught flashing lights. Slamming on the brakes so hard we rocked forward, I barely missed the police cruiser sailing through the intersection.
"Shit." Next to me, Nate rubbed his chest where I'd slapped my hand against it.
Another car, this one with lights and sirens but otherwise unmarked, passed in front of me, but instead of continuing on as the last one had, it pulled off to the side of the road and stopped.
"Shit." I repeated.
"Are we in trouble?" Nate asked, sounding nervous.
"You aren't," I replied, and gave him a smile I hoped didn't look pathetic. From his frown, I missed the mark.
Cars were going around us, so I stayed where I was, hitting the button for my hazard lights as I waited.
As the officer walked closer, I swallowed hard. The man was huge, and getting bigger as his giant stride ate up the distance between us. His hair was cut close to his head, and the way the muscles of his shoulders and back seemed to test the seams of his shirt reminded me of the wrestlers Nate used to like—The Rock, or that guy who waved his hand in front of his face.
"You're in trouble," Nate whispered, and I had to agree with him. The expression on the guy's face made my stomach drop and my armpits sweat.
Harsh lines bracketed his mouth, but he had creases next to his eyes that made me think he did smile from time to time, even if he definitely wasn't smiling at me.
I rolled down my window, an apology ready on my lips.
"License and registration." The words were a growl. He held a hand out—a huge hand. Huge hands for a huge man.
"Right." I glanced down at the pocket of the door, the place where I kept my registration and insurance.
It wasn't there.
Double shit.
I remembered taking them out when I rented the trailer to haul our stuff from Boston, but for the life of me, I didn't know where I put them. I was usually organized. So organized.
"I need to reach in back for my purse," I said, hoping against hope that they were there.
He grunted his affirmation and leaned down, looking across the seat to Nate. "You okay?" he asked, his voice a little softer.
"Yeah," Nate answered, then said, "Yes, sir."
I turned in my seat, reaching for the bag I always, always put on the floor behind my seat because you never drove in the city with your purse on the front seat.
It wasn't there.
Shutting my eyes for just a second, I plastered a smile on my lips and faced the officer. "I'm so sorry. I don't have anything. We just moved here. It must be at home. I can get it and bring it to the station tomorrow. I—"
That hand flipped, held out to stop me. I caught the black band around his ring finger before he said, "You didn't check the intersection, or you thought you could beat a marked car with lights flashing, through it. You nearly took yourself, my officer, and your kid out in one stupid move."
A lump formed in my throat. He was right. I brought us here to be safe, and in the first week, what had I done?
"I'm sorry."
He shook his head, gripped the door frame and stood. "Pull over there." He walked away, holding a hand up to stop traffic as he directed me to the side of the road.
"Are you going to get arrested?" Nate asked.
Jesus. Was I? I didn't think so, but they could impound my car. We lived five miles outside of town, it wasn't like we could walk home. I promised Nate he wouldn't have to take the bus to school. Now I was going to have to go back on my word. I did a quick calculation of my bank account and winced. In the time it took me to pull over, I'd done the math and the solution for two plus two was fucked.
We sat in silence, waiting for the officer. Nate leaned agains
My heart pounded. I wasn't good at this—being in charge of another person besides myself—but I was trying. Sitting up a little straighter, I made myself keep my shoulders back and meet the eyes of any rubberneckers who drove by.
I even waved at one old lady who craned her neck and nearly sideswiped the officer.
"Susie!" Oh, the mortification that one teenage boy could infuse into my name.
Another fifteen minutes passed before the officer got out of his car and approached mine. He had a piece of paper in his hand, which would inevitably be a ticket. But I could handle a ticket.
"Please just be a ticket, please just be a ticket," I prayed under my breath.
I rolled my window down, put the fake smile back on my face, and met the man's stare.
"Susanna Arroyo."
I nodded. "Yes."
He leaned down and down, folded nearly in half in order to see into the car. "You graduated a couple of years after me."
Glancing up, I studied him, but for the life of me, I didn't recognize him. Not surprising given how I kept my gaze on the ground for most of my high school career.
"Troy Lancaster."
Troy Lancaster. Troy Lancaster.
"You remember me?" he asked. He blinked slowly, light colored lashes catching the afternoon sun. Slowly, so slowly, the face from twenty years ago morphed into this one. I could see it now, the resemblance. If I would remember anyone from high school, it was him, his girlfriend, Merit, and his three best friends. They'd been the center of all the gossip and the envy of everyone in Blue Hollow.
"Yes," I answered. "How's—" I stopped myself from asking how his girlfriend was, then was hit by a memory of Troy and Merit in the cafeteria. They drew every eye and I bet I sketched Merit a million times like the envious little stalker I was. If anyone stayed together, it would have been them. "How's Merit?"
His frown only grew deeper and he thrust the paper in his hand at me. "Bring your registration and license to the station as soon as possible. I'm letting you off with a warning, but you need to pay attention better. You're a mother for god's sake, be careful."
"She's not my mother," Nate added unhelpfully.
Side-eyeing him, I mouthed, "Really?" to which he merely shrugged.
Sliding my gaze back to Troy Lancaster, Officer Troy Lancaster, I said, "I'll be careful."
He opened his mouth, glanced between us, decided it wasn't worth whatever it was he was going to say, and backed away. "Drive safe."
"I will." But I waited for him to drive away first before pulling into traffic and heading out of town.
Nate didn't say a word to me. When we got home, he went inside, kicked off his shoes, and trudged upstairs.
Watching him, I sighed. His bedroom door closed with a soft click, but I could hear him pad across the floor to his bed. I contemplated following him up, going into my own room and going right to bed, but I didn't. Instead, I went into my office, and got back to work.
2
Troy
My hands shook as I finished typing the details of my traffic stop on Susanna Arroyo. I clenched my fingers into fists and blew out a breath. The blue Subaru sat behind me.
Susie Arroyo.
That was a name I hadn't heard for years, let alone thought about. Susanna was younger than me, more on the periphery of my high school experience than front and center. Everything in my life was about Merit, especially back then.
She hadn't recognized me. That surprised me. Everyone knew me. They knew about my friends and Merit.
I blew out another breath. I couldn't sit here having a panic attack when I had work to do.
When I pulled into traffic, Susanna pulled out as well, keeping a healthy distance between us.
God. That had been so close.
Too fucking close.
I planned on ripping the officer a new one when I saw him. He should have had sirens on if he was planning on blowing through red lights at fifty miles an hour on the way to a call.
An inch farther into traffic, a second too fast, and Susanna and her…not-son… would have been dead.
There was no avoiding it. They would have been dead.
The call wasn't worth killing a civilian over. We had a hit on a warrant, and yeah, that was important, but not for a kid's life. Or a mother.
Or not-mother.
The blood had drained from Susanna's face when I called her stupid. She looked immediately at the kid sitting next to her, and I knew what she was thinking. Whatever he was to her, she loved him. That much was clear.
I was an asshole.
But then again, if being an asshole meant she was more careful, than I could live with that. It was better than the alternative, because believe me, no one wanted to live with what I had to.
3
Susanna
I had a hard time getting to sleep.
It was my fault. The run-in with Troy Lancaster. The near-accident with Nate. All of the changes. A house that was familiar, but not at all what I was used to.
It was an insomnia soup.
The wind blew, creaking the tall Ponderosa pines around the house. The house was built back in the forties by my grandfather, and the last time it had been updated was in the eighties.
This room was my childhood bedroom. Nate had squinted at me when I pointed to the master bedroom as his, but didn't argue. I couldn't take my parent's room. I was thirty-eight years old, and it would always be theirs. I was just playing at grown-up, despite the fourteen year-old boy the state of Massachusetts had somehow decided was better off with me than anyone else in this world.
Finally, I gave up on sleep, pushed the covers back and crept out of my room and downstairs.
Most of our things were still in boxes, because there was no place to put our stuff. My parents' books were still on the built-in shelves. Their pictures on the walls—including the one of me with little ovals with each of my school photos. In the moonlight, with the wind and the creaks and the drip of the faucet, it was like a dream. Real and not real.
I might as well make use of the time.
Emptying the box of our stuff made room for my parents'. Soon, the room looked worse than it had earlier in the day, but the collection of my father's Tom Clancys and my mom's Danielle Steeles were packed away.
I pulled pictures off the wall that had been there for years, and left behind an outline of where the sun had bleached the paint.
Guilt filled my chest as I stacked the pictures, or tucked them into boxes. My mom had died right after I graduated college, and Dad only a year ago, but the number of times I'd been home could be counted on one hand. And there was no reason for that, except that I was too busy with my own life to come home. I flew Dad to me for holidays, rather than fly into Denver and drive four hours to Blue Hollow.
He was proud of me, and he loved going to Boston breweries and Pats games. I thought I was doing the right thing, but now that I was home, swiping away a layer of dust covering the shelves before I put my own books on it, I had to wonder.
What was it like for Dad to be here all alone for so long? It was his childhood home, too, but that didn't make it less lonely. Surrounded by all this evidence of the happy family I'd been part of made me wonder why I'd ever left to begin with.
What did I have to do that was so important I let twenty years pass between graduation and coming home for real?
I picked up a faded picture of me, Dad, and my mom, taken on what had to be my fourth or fifth birthday and studied it. The same picnic table was out back. Nate sat there yesterday, then came in complaining because a nail ripped the seat of his jeans.
This was a house that had been lived in. Nate deserved to have a life like the one I had growing up—worry-free except for making the football team, or getting his homework done. I wanted to give him that.
"She's not my mother." His quick answer had cut deeper than I needed to let it. He was right. I wasn't his mom, but I was the closest thing he'd had for most of his life.
I took one of the framed photos from my apartment and placed it on a shelf. Baby Nate's face smiled out at me, all dimpled and shining, the top of his head covered in bubbles. I smiled into his smiling face, tracing the curve of his fat little neck with my finger.
