Page 1 of Don’t Make Me Fall (Mountain Men of Cinnamon Creek #1)

Chapter One

Alanna

“Where the hell is Gabby?” I mutter to the group of women gathered in the airport departure terminal.

We haven’t checked our bags, and the clock is ticking.

As the maid of honor, I made certain everyone had the itinerary emailed, texted, and printed out to avoid any mishaps.

I want this trip to be perfect for Erin.

“I knew I should’ve fudged the show time for her. ”

“You ready to pay up?” Stormi, the bride-to-be’s sister, holds out her hand.

“You haven’t won the bet yet,” Devin, the bride-to-be’s book club bestie, argues. “She still has two minutes. Right Erin?”

When she doesn’t immediately answer, we all turn our heads.

Since we first told her about the bachelorette trip to Cancun we planned for her, she’s hardly been able to shut up about it.

I’m tempted to blame her unusual silence on the early morning and severe lack of coffee.

But it’s the blank look in her eyes that has alarm bells sounding in my head, warning me this is something much worse.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, keeping my voice low.

It’s not low enough, though. Stormi and Devin’s carefree expressions morph into concern just as Gabby rushes through the automatic doors, frantically searching for us. I wave my arm until she sees us.

“It’s over,” Erin says, her tone flat. Her vacant stare locks on nothing as she slowly sits on the bench behind her and lowers her phone face down in her lap.

“What’s over?” Stormi asks.

“I’m not late!” Gabby declares, running right at our group and slinging her arms over both Devin and Stormi’s shoulders. “The itinerary said—” Gabby stops mid-sentence, her gaze locked on Erin. “Oh fuck. Whose body do we need to hide?”

“The wedding’s off,” Erin says, letting out a soft sigh that matches her even tone. As though someone just informed her that they ran out of her preferred meal on the flight and she has to pick a different one. It’s…unsettling.

“What do you mean the wedding’s off?” I do my best to keep my words delicate, but panic worms its way into my chest, determined to make itself right at home. We need to get our bags checked in the next eleven minutes, or they may not let us on the flight. This was not part of the itinerary.

“You remember how Chad went to Vegas a few days early for a work conference?” Erin asks us, still staring at nothing.

A curve bends her lips into a smile, but it’s far from genuine.

It’s off somehow. I’m not the only one in the group concerned about this.

“And how everyone else was going to join him for his bachelor party tonight?”

“I have a shovel in my car,” Gabby insists, her tone so serious it’s a little scary.

“Are we rerouting to Vegas to hunt him down?” Devin asks, her tone both confused and slightly eager.

“Can we change our tickets last minute like that?” Stormi asks.

“I’ve heard the desert is a really good place to dump a body,” Gabby adds.

“Oh! We don’t even have to kill him,” Devin says. “We could let Mother Nature do her thing. If the cold desert nights don’t take him out—”

“Oh, I like the way you think,” Gabby says, her eyes twinkling with alarming excitement.

“Wait just a damn minute,” I say, effectively silencing the group who obviously watches too many true crime documentaries.

“No one is murdering anyone.” My declaration turns more than a few heads in the small but busy airport, but I ignore them and lower my voice.

“Not until we know what happened, anyway.”

“He cheated.” Erin lifts her shoulders once in the most nonchalant shrug I’ve ever witnessed.

“With a stripper?” Stormi guesses.

“No.” Erin holds up her phone to show us a picture. “With Gwen.”

Gwen, the fifth bridesmaid who agreed to meet us in Cancun because she had a family emergency.

Gwen, Erin and Stormi’s stepsister who’s been nothing but a pain in the ass during this entire wedding planning process.

Gwen, the bitch who obviously thought it would be okay to sneak over to Vegas and let the groom-to-be suck on her tit in a hot tub while she humped his brains out before meeting us for a bachelorette weekend in Cancun like nothing happened.

“What the actual fuck?” Stormi practically hisses when she sees the photo.

“So we’re dumping two bodies in the desert,” Gabby decides.

“Gwen won’t be there,” Erin points out. “She’s getting on a plane this morning, headed to Cancun.”

“That two-timing bitch plans to act like everything is normal? Oh no. She’s not getting away with this,” Gabby declares.

“Who sent you this?” Devin asks.

“My cousin Bryan,” Erin says with a sigh. One of the groomsmen. Or, well, ex-groomsmen now. “Apparently he went to Vegas a day early to surprise Chad.”

“He surprised him all right,” I mutter, mildly tempted by Gabby’s murderous plot idea.

“So, we split up,” Devin suggests. “Half of us go to Vegas to dump Chad in the desert—side note, do they have duct tape at the gift shop here?—and the others go to Cancun, get Gwen on a boat, chain a concrete block to Gwen’s ankle—”

“We’re not splitting up,” I say, hoping to take control back of the completely out-of-control situation. “And we’re not murdering anyone. None of us our cut out for prison.”

“I might be,” Gabby says with a shrug.

“Then what are we doing?” Stormi asks. “Are we still going to Cancun?”

Everyone looks at Erin expectantly. The ex-bride-to-be gently shakes her head no. “I’m sorry, everyone. I just…can’t. Gwen...”

Fuck.

Are we staying in Omaha?

No.

We can’t.

I can’t.

Not after what happened at work yesterday.

I need to get on a plane, and at this moment, I don’t even care where we go. I just need to get away. To clear my head. To forget about the man—my boss—who I’ve been pining after for almost two years announcing his engagement to Cindy in accounting.

I need a new life.

But right now, my best friend needs me more.

Maybe I can be there for her and still get the hell out of Dodge.

But how?

“I guess we should tell the check-in counter that we’re canceling our flights.

” The disappointment in Stormi’s tone is met with similar expressions from the group.

All except Erin. The woman who always wears her heart on her sleeve in the most outgoing way is wearing a deadpan look, and frankly, it’s scaring me a little bit.

“What if we went somewhere else?” I suggest, both desperate to get out of Omaha, but also desperate to get my best friend away from the nightmare that will no doubt follow when she tells everyone the wedding’s off.

She’ll get hit from all sides, and she doesn’t need that stress right now.

Really, it would be in everyone’s best interest if we still left town.

“What do you mean?” Devin asks.

“We all have the time off, right?” I point out.

They agree.

Good.

I can salvage this.

How can I salvage this?

Think, think, think.

Normally, I’m very good at figuring messes out like this on the spot, but my brain is a little foggy due to all the excessive crying I did last night.

“We’re already at the airport,” I say, retrieving my phone from my purse so I can assess our options when it comes to our current plane ticket situation. But before I can pull up the flight app, a text from my brother pings through.

Concerned that the brother who never texts me about anything has reached out, I quickly navigate to his message to ensure it’s not an emergency.

A photo appears on my screen with the caption: You should come visit sometime.

“Is something wrong?” Erin asks.

I slowly look up from the photo of a log cabin style lodge surrounded by autumn colors and the glow of a beautiful sunrise behind it and meet Erin’s gaze.

“How would you feel about Montana?”

“Montana?”

I turn the phone around to show the group of women the photo.

“Is that place real?” Stormi practically squeals. She’s always been more of a mountain girl than a beach girl. If I can just get everyone else on board—

“My brother runs it,” I explain, already looking up flight itineraries to Bozeman. “And he owes me a favor. So what do you say?”

“What about Gwen?” Erin asks.

“That backstabbing bitch can show up to Cancun to find out the room reservations and all pre-planned activities have been cancelled. She won’t be able to get a hold of any of us, because we’re all blocking her.”

The group agrees in earnest.

I kneel in front of Erin and place a hand on her knee. “I’m so sorry this is happening to you, Erin. We’re here for you—all of us. So what do you say? Do you want to escape to the mountains for a few days?”

“Before the shit storm that’s headed your way,” Devin adds.

“Where no one will find us,” Stormi adds.

“And if they do, I still have that shovel—”

“No, Gabby.”

“Suit yourself.”

“Everyone’s okay with this change of plans?” Erin, ever the one concerned about everyone else’s feelings before her own, asks. “I know it’s not the beach—"

“Maybe not,” Gabby says. “But I guess it’ll keep us out of prison.”

For the first time this morning, Erin lets out a soft, genuine laugh. “Okay. Let’s go to Montana!”