by T. S. Joyce
“Yeah.” Ashlyn swallowed hard. “Me, too.” Because being on the outside really sucked.
“Will you please stay until the grand opening of Winter’s Edge?” Blaire asked. “Please. I like having you here. I’ve missed you, and I really want you to see my life here so you don’t worry.”
Ashlyn smiled sadly and nodded. “Sure.”
Blaire squeezed her hand, and then she and Mila led the way outside, Ashlyn trailing behind, feeling like the dirt under the concrete, under the ice, under the layer of snow in Jack’s parking lot.
She waved to the girls, who piled in an old truck, and then made her way to her rental car, but stopped when she noticed the tires. Her smart car now sported chains on the tires, and one giant man dressed in a skin-tight black sweater was fastening the back one.
“Asher?”
He looked up with a wholly unsurprised look, then stood and dusted snow from his hands. Gesturing to the chains, he said in a gravelly voice, “Now you’re less likely to die.”
“Huh. Romantic.”
“I wasn’t trying for that. It was just…well, I needed you to be safer.”
“This is better than a boy buying me flowers.”
Asher frowned deeply. “Stop that.”
But she was having too much fun with his discomfort. “First you jizz on my back—”
“I said stop. I don’t want to do this.” With long, graceful strides, he made his way to a black Tundra pickup truck with black rims.
Ashlyn power-walked to keep up. “How did you get the chains on? I thought you had to back a car over them.”
“I lifted your car over them.”
She glared at the back of his head and waited for the punchline, but none came. “You lifted up my car?”
Asher tossed her an icy look over his shoulder and opened his door. “It weighs about three pounds, so it wasn’t that hard.”
Frustrating man, running again, but she wasn’t having it. She bolted for the driver’s side and scrambled into the seat before Asher could. When he stood staring at her with shock in his frosty eyes, she grinned ridiculously big and buckled up. “Get in, Striker. I’m driving.”
“Get out.”
“No! You get in.”
The soft, wild sound he made filled the air, but he cut it off fast.
“Growl all you want to. That just reminds me of your finger-fuck-and-run, and makes me horny.”
Asher ran his hand through his hair and looked furious as he glared at Jack’s. “You aren’t supposed to say no!”
“No,” she said primly, gripping the steering wheel. She arched her eyebrow at him. “Get. In.”
Asher slammed the door, and then muttered to himself as he stomped around the front of the truck. And then he yanked open the passenger side door, folded himself inside, buckled up, and rested his elbow on the window, biting his thumbnail.
“Where to?” she asked, highly amused by his mantrum.
“You wanted to drive!”
“Whoo, you’re letting me plan our first date.”
“It’s not a date.”
“Keys, boyfriend.”
Asher shook his head for a long time before he reached into his back pocket and slapped a pair of keys onto her palm. They were black with no keychain at all. Why was she not surprised?
“Want to see my keychain?”
“No.”
She pulled hers out. There were approximately two dozen brightly-colored keychains, bottle openers, and miniature stuffed animals on hers.
Asher looked disgusted. “How do you even find your keys on that thing.”
“I like searching. I get to see all this stuff that makes me happy every time I turn my car on or let myself into my apartment.”
“I didn’t mean to jizz on your back. I just meant to take care of you, but you smell good, and your hair is pretty, and you felt good against my dick.”
She smiled brightly. “Did you just call me beautiful?”
Asher turned up the radio, so she pitched her voice louder as she continued. “Because I think you’re beautiful, too! In that slightly psychotic, terrifying, he-might-or-might-not-be-a-serial-killer type of way. You have nice eyes. Well, actually, you have super-mean eyes, but they are a nice color. Do you like creamy peanut butter or crunchy?”
“What?” he asked, his voice tainted with irritation.
Ashlyn turned the steering wheel with one hand and turned down the rock music with the other. “Creamy or crunchy, and don’t be flippant about your answer, Striker. This could be a deal breaker for me.”
“Mother fucker.” Asher heaved a sigh. “Creamy.”
“Thank goodness.” Ashlyn wiped pretend sweat from her brow and grinned at him. “I thought we were done before we started there for a second.”
His lip almost, almost twitched into a smile. Good, she was on the right track with him.
“Ideal date?”
“Pass, Sparkles.”
“Whoa, a nickname? You must really like me. Fine, I will tell you mine. I want some hot cabana boy to feed me grapes and seduce me and spend all day in bed with me making me feel like a goddess. Age?”
Asher cracked his knuckles. “I don’t like talking about personal stuff.”
“Oh my gosh, stop being weird. How old are you?”
“Twenty-seven.”
She made a disappointed click sound behind her teeth. “I’m thirty. Probably way too old and mature for you. You’re making me feel like a cougar right now.”
Asher cleared his throat and carefully said, “Because you find me attractive?”
“Hot-as-fuck attractive. Yes. I mean, you probably work out like eight hours a day and are most likely super-conceited about your body, but you have tattoos and a beard and pretty eyes, and I dig blonds, apparently, so take my panties already, Striker.”
Asher snorted and looked out his window, hiding his face. She could see the curve of his cheek, though. He was smiling. “Perverted old lady.”
She scoffed and turned left onto the main drag in Rangeley. “I’m never letting you dry hump my back again.”
“Stop,” he said, but his voice wasn’t mad anymore. It was amused.
He’d arranged his face into a bored mask by the time he turned toward her again. He gestured to her one-handed turning of the wheel. “Where did you learn to drive a big truck?”
“I learned on an old Dodge Ram my grandpa gave me for my sixteenth birthday. He told me if I could learn to drive that old thing, I would be able to drive anything. It had ten tricks just to get it started.”
“What color?”
“Cream and red and rust. Lots of rust,” she said, casting him a quick grin. “There was a hole in the floorboard I would get my heel stuck in sometimes. My grandpa taught me how to drive it.” Ashlyn frowned as she considered telling him the deep, not-so-happy part of the story.
“Say it,” Asher said, as if he could read her hesitation.
Ashlyn inhaled deeply and parked the truck right in front of a coffee shop with a wood-burning stove out on the sprawling side-porch. “My grandpa passed away a year after he gave me the truck. I drove that thing into the ground until I couldn’t fix it any more. It was my favorite car ever because…”
“Because it was his.”
“Yeah.”
Asher pulled something out from under the neck of his shirt. It was a thin strip of leather, and on the end of the necklace was a carved wooden wolf.
Ashlyn turned off the truck and asked, “Can I touch it?”
After only a moment of hesitation, Asher dipped his chin once.
She held the wolf gently and rubbed her finger over the polished wood. “Was it your dad’s?”
Another dip of his chin.
She had to know, because this felt big. “Have you ever shown this to anyone?”
“No,” Asher said in that sexy, deep timbre of his. “Things were complicated with my father. My feelings about him…well, they’re complicated, too.”
Ashlyn,
tucked the necklace gently back into the neck of his shirt and rested her hand over the pendant there. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“Truth,” he said, his eyebrows lifting slightly in surprise. “You’re good at secrets then?”
“Secrets are kind of my forte.” She tossed him a saucy look, then pushed the door open and slid out of the jacked-up truck.
“What do you mean by that?” he asked, getting out of the truck as she made her way around the front.
“My dad liked to drink. He was loud and embarrassing on whiskey, and I learned real quick that keeping secrets and distancing myself from people at school made everything easier.” She slipped on the second stair, but Asher’s hand was instantly on her back, propping her up. She smiled her thanks and gripped the inside of his elbow without invitation.
Asher’s eyes went round, and he dipped his shocked gaze to where her pink mitten contrasted with his black sweater. There was a moment where he looked panicked—as though he would bolt right back to the truck and leave her here. But he didn’t pluck her off him. Instead, he helped her stay steady up the slippery steps and opened the door for her like a gentleman. Hmmm, she liked this man. Rough, quiet, and a little scary, but with manners.
Inside, it was warm, thanks to a fireplace on the far wall. The flames heated the small coffee shop. It looked like an old country store with rough wooden walls and a plethora of cartoon pig-themed gifts and cookware. The line was six deep, and Asher looked uncomfortable as hell standing in the crowded room. He sidled away from anyone who stepped too close, and once he made that strange sound in his throat when a man bumped her shoulder on accident as he exited the shop.
Clearly, Asher wasn’t a social butterfly, so to ease his tension, she leaned close and talked low. “I was an only child, and I had to keep my dad’s shortcomings secret so I could keep my family together. My parents were all I had, so I put up with a lot to protect that. Now you go.”
“Go where?” he asked, his gaze on her hand gripping his arm again.
“I mean your turn, you share something.”
“I already told you I like creamy peanut butter and my age. You’re pushing.”
“Holy hell balls, Asher, tell me something silly then. Tell me your favorite color.”
“Black.”
She gave him a dead-eyed look.
“Second favorite is dark gray, but so dark it’s almost black.”
The man was exhausting. “Favorite hobby?”
“Surveillance.”
She blinked slowly. “What does that even mean? Like stalking?”
“No.” He smiled for just an instant, and it was breathtaking. Just a flash of white teeth, and then his face settled into a passive expression again. “I work in surveillance. Cameras, audio, some investigative work.”
“Like a private investigator?”
His eyes narrowed to icy blue slits. “Kind of. No cheating spouses or thieving nannies, though. My clients are a little more…dangerous.”
“Oh,” she murmured. “Sounds terrifying. Well I work a super-dangerous job, too, Striker.”
“Oh, yeah? What do you do?” At least he looked more relaxed now, and they were almost to the front of the line.
“I work as a junior acquisitions editor for a pa-retty big publisher.”
“Sounds treacherous.”
“Oh, it is. Papercuts galore, and there’s this guy a couple floors below me who basically stalks me. He tried to kiss me in an elevator once.”
Asher’s lip lifted in a quick snarl before he smoothed his expression back into place again. That one look sent chills up her spine, though. It had transformed his face into something almost animal. “He tries to kiss you without you inviting him to?”
“Yep. Don’t worry about me, Young Buck. I keep a pocket knife in my purse.”
“Let me see it.”
She pulled out the tiny black knife she’d practiced flicking open for half an hour in the store before she got the hang of it. “Told you I was dangerous.”
“Mmmm,” Asher said, reaching into his back pocket. He pulled out a big knife, the handle black with white skulls. “Trade me.”
Holy shit! She was trying to be cool and have a poker face, but that was one big-ass blade. “Trade you for that? The skulls aren’t my style.”
Asher flicked the black blade open. It looked really sharp, and part of the blade was serrated. “Ignore the skulls. That little toothpick won’t keep you safe from anything or anyone. This one will. What is that asshole’s last name?” Asher asked, pushing the blade back into the handle.
“Um, no, PI. I’m not giving you his name. You just told me you stalk people for a living, and you pulled out a freaking machete. Being a murderer is kind of a deal breaker for me.”
“Fine. I won’t hunt him if you trade me knives.”
Irritating. “Fine,” she ground out. “It will probably take me three days to even learn how to open this without chopping my fingers—”
Asher gripped her hand, pushed her finger on a lever, and flicked her wrist. Out swung the blade, smooth-as-you-like. He showed her how to lock it back into the handle and then pocketed the small black one she’d given him in exchange. When Ashlyn looked up, the couple in front of them was staring like she and Asher had just turned to necromancers and raised a corpse.
“What?” Asher growled. Good with people, he was not.
“Are you fucking kidding?” the woman asked, her eyes flashing with anger. “You know the rules.” Her blue eyes slid to Ashlyn, then back to Asher. “You know what she is.”
The man she was with warned her, “Amanda.”
“Uh, what am I?” Ashlyn asked the rude skank.
“You’re not good enough,” she answered without a single second of hesitation. She leveled Asher with a disgusted look. “You fuckin’ Strikers. You just can’t stay away from them, can you?” She shook her head and huffed a breath. “You have no idea what’s coming for you.”
The woman bent suddenly, clutching her stomach, and the lights above them flickered. And then Ashlyn was feeling sick, too, nauseous like this morning. When the lights dimmed dangerously, like the bulbs would pop, the people around them started talking in panicked voices. Asher stared at Amanda with a dead expression in his eyes and a wicked smirk on his lips.
Ashlyn was going to retch, but she couldn’t seem to move to run to the bathroom. “Asher?” she asked helplessly.
Asher jerked his attention to her, and the lights came back full illumination. And just like that, the wave of sickness was gone.
“Let’s go,” the man said to Amanda, gripping her elbow and guiding her past them.
“I know what you are,” Amanda whispered furiously as they passed. She made the sign of the devil as fury roiled in her eyes.
Asher looked completely unoffended by that. In fact, he had no reaction other than to step forward, take their place in line, and order a black coffee for himself. And then he gestured Ashlyn to the counter and said, “What do you want, Sparkles? I’m sure it’ll be pink in color and taste like cotton candy.” There was an edge to his voice she didn’t understand. It was hard, and sharp as a razor.
Baffled by what had just happened, she clasped her shaking hands in front of her and ordered her peppermint, white chocolate mocha.
Asher didn’t say a word as they waited for their order, and he remained silent as they made their way outside and sat in a pair of rocking chairs by the warm wood-burning fireplace.
“Why were you upset about me ordering a pink drink?”
“Order what you like, it doesn’t matter to me.”
“Lie.”
“You can’t tell if someone’s lying.”
“But you can?”
Asher took a sip of his coffee and gave her a warning look. His eyes looked even lighter blue now.
“Aren’t you cold?” she asked, gesturing to his thin sweater. He wasn’t even wearing gloves.
“No.”
“When the lights flickered
inside—”
“No.”
“When Amanda said I wasn’t good enough—”
“No.”
Asher reminded her of Blaire with all the secrets. “This is exactly what I don’t need.”
“Agreed.”
“You don’t even know what I’m talking about! I’m losing my best friend, Asher. My best friend. She’s like my sister. I was lonely, and then Blaire came along, and I haven’t been lonely a day in my life since. Until she came here and didn’t come back home. Didn’t come back to me. And now she’s full of secrets. I was so upset when I was leaving Jack’s, feeling utterly rejected, and there you were. This beautiful distraction. And what have you done? You’ve made me feel the exact same way as Blaire did. I hate this place.”
“I hate it, too.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because my dad died, and I had to come back to spread his ashes.”
The candid way he dropped that information bomb drew her up short. “Your dad died? When?”
“A couple of months ago.”
“Have you spread his ashes?”
Asher huffed a humorless laugh. “Kind of.”
“Yet, you’re still here. In this place you claim to hate.”
“It’s not a claim, it’s a fact. I don’t belong here. Never did.”
“So what are you still doing in Rangeley?”
“Waiting, and seeing.”
God, he was impossible. “Waiting for what?” she gritted through her teeth.
He leveled her with a cool look. “Waiting to see if this town will go up in flames. Waiting to see if my brothers will need me. Waiting to see if Blaire or Mila will need me. My job isn’t finished here.”
She was so confused. “Your surveillance job?”
“No.”
Ashlyn sighed in frustration. She was being talked in circles and couldn’t seem to stop the ride. “Do you think I’m not good enough for you?”
“You’re plenty good enough for me, Ashlyn.” He canted his head, dragged his gaze down her body, then back up, and locked onto her eyes. “But you’re making me feel different, and it’s dangerous.”
“Dangerous how?”
Asher let of a soft growl. “I have seasoned and haunted my soul to perfection. I don’t need fixing. I need you to stop touching my artwork.”
