Asher: Heroes at Heart

by Jordan, Maryann

  “That’s why you help out with the shelter now, isn’t it?”

  “Now that I’m in a position where I have some money, I wanted to try to make sure there were places where other kids could go with their parents and be safe.”

  A lump formed in her throat, but she swallowed it down. She had a feeling the story was going to continue in agony, and she wanted to be strong for him.

  “Mom finally hooked up with some guy who let us move in with him. I was back on a couch and tried to share her high hopes that this guy was going to be my dad. Tim. Fuckin’ Tim. He drank a lot, so did my mom. They’d get rip-roaring drunk and usually go at each other yelling and screaming. I wasn’t allowed to have any toys in the house because Tim didn’t want to trip over anything. In fact, I’m sure he would have been glad if I wasn’t there at all. Mom was always warning me not to do anything to bother Tim because she didn’t want to lose him. She’d say he was the best thing that ever happened to her." Shoving his hands in his pockets, Asher stared out the window for a moment before shaking his head slowly. “I used to want her to say so bad that I was the best thing that ever happened to her. But she never did.”

  Penny thought back to her own childhood and her mother who loved her dearly and told her all the time that she was special. Pushing those thoughts away, she centered her focus back on Asher who paced over to the kitchen counter, unable to stand still as he talked.

  “I barely remember the first time that Tim burned me. I screamed in pain, my mom jumped up, and Tim mumbled that he was sorry, as though it was an accident. There was nothing in the house like some kind of first-aid cream, so Mom just put some ice on it and told me not to cry because it would upset Tim. I don’t know if that was the first time he’d ever done anything like that, but it seemed to trigger something in him. I had just turned five years old, but I could see the change in his face, and I knew if I did anything he didn’t like, he’d use the chance to grab me and touch the end of his cigarette to my arm.”

  Her chest clenching, she breathed, “What about your mom?”

  “She knew. She didn’t do fuck about it, because she didn’t want to do anything to upset him. Kept telling me over and over how lucky we were to have a roof over our head and a bed to sleep in.” Snorting, he added, “Well, she had a bed to sleep in. I had the couch.”

  Penny’s eyes closed slowly as the horror slid over her.

  “I was a little kid, scrawny from never having enough to eat. Bony knees and elbows. Clothes that were cast-offs, never fitting right.”

  Chuckling as he ran his fingers through his hair, he added, “My hair always grew in every direction." His mirth ended as he continued, “Tim called me a lot of names, but for some reason, him calling me an ugly fuck was the one I always remembered. When it was time to start kindergarten, I remember Mom always made me wear long sleeves, not wanting anyone to ask about the scars on my arms."

  He stopped pacing and turned, looking at her from across the room. “I wanted school to be everything home wasn’t. I wanted to be liked, included, have friends, feel good about myself. I was nervous as hell, but I had a good kindergarten teacher who put me next to a little girl that was so sweet and seemed to be as nervous as me."

  Her breath caught in her lungs as she blinked, a tear sliding down her face as he continued. “I fell in love with you when I was five years old, and you were nice to me.”

  He stalked over to the sofa again, this time not settling on the far end. Instead, he sat on the coffee table directly in front of her, his long legs encasing hers as he reached out and held her hands in his. His voice like gravel, he said, “Please don’t cry for me, baby.”

  Wordlessly, they both leaned forward until their foreheads touched, eyes closed and hands still clasped. She knew he had more to tell, and she swallowed deeply several times, gaining control over herself. When she felt stronger, she leaned back slightly, saying, “You were the only person who was nice to me in school, too. I remember every time you tried to protect me from the taunts of others."

  “You looked at me like you thought I could hang the moon, and I thought you were beautiful.”

  Another tear slipped out, and she inwardly cursed at her inability to stay strong for him. He lifted a thumb and wiped it away before he continued.

  “Your friendship made all the difference in my life. The day I showed you my scars and you cried for me, something shifted inside of me. At six years old, I had no fuckin’ clue what it was. When I was with you, Tim’s abuse and my mom’s neglect fell away. All I knew was that I wanted to be with you forever."

  “And then everything was taken away,” she breathed, her voice so soft it was barely audible to herself.

  Asher nodded slowly, his head moving up and down as his eyes never left hers. “I was terrified for Tim to come home from work and find you there. I was terrified he might do something to you, so I just yelled for you to go. Go home. I had no idea that my words were going to set up a chain of events that altered our lives forever." Squeezing his eyes shut, agony settling deeply in the lines on his face, she remembered.

  She remembered jumping from the porch steps and running toward the street. She remembered being afraid of a man she had never met but had seen the evidence of his cruelty. She had barely gotten a few feet down the sidewalk when she turned to look behind her, seeing the pickup truck swerving in the road and then there was the squeal of tires. She could barely remember anything else that day. It was just as well. She truly had no desire to, and seeing the pain on Asher’s face right now, she knew his memories would never leave.

  “I ran to the sidewalk,” he admitted. “You were just lying there, crumpled like a ragdoll. There was blood, and you weren’t moving. Neighbors came running, and people were screaming. My mom came stumbling out of the house, screaming at me, blaming me for having you over, saying that it was my fault that Tim was going to get in trouble for killing you.”

  Eyes jerking open wide, she gasped. “Oh, my God! She blamed you? What a horrible bitch.”

  Nodding, his lips quirked slightly on one side as he agreed. “That pretty much describes her.”

  “What happened then? I don’t remember anything after I left your front porch and ran to the sidewalk.”

  “The fire truck came. An ambulance came. And the police showed up. I remember that they put you on a stretcher and the ambulance drove off with you, and that was the last I ever saw of you. I didn’t know what happened when someone died, but I couldn’t ask my mom. She was on the street arguing with the police, trying to keep them from arresting Tim for drunk driving. I ran inside the house and into my closet.”

  Her forehead crinkled as she tilted her head slightly to the side in question.

  “There was a closet that I used to hide in when Mom and Tim were fighting, or I was afraid that he might come looking for me. I stayed in that closet all night." Anguish flooded his features as he added, “I wanted to know where they were taking you. I didn’t have anybody I could ask. Mom was pissed as hell, didn’t have any money to bail him out of jail, telling me that if I wasn’t such a dumb, ugly fuck none of this would’ve happened. And it wasn’t much longer after that when a social worker who had witnessed one of Mom’s tirades came to the school to ask me if there was anything Tim or Mom had ever done to me. They took a look at my arms, and I was taken away."

  He had been clutching her hands tighter and tighter, but she did not mind the pain, wanting to give him everything he needed.

  “I’m so sorry, Penny. I felt so guilty…you were the only friend I had ever had, and I thought you were dead, and it was all my fault.”

  30

  Asher watched as Penny reared back, a look of incredulity on her face as her mouth dropped open. She looked as though she were about to protest, and he jumped in again, “I know sorry doesn’t change anything. Not the accident, not your pain, not the way your life turned out.” Unable to stay still, he let go of her hands and jumped up, pacing across the floor again, his body twitchi
ng with nerves.

  He wanted to avoid seeing pain and regret on her face but forced himself to whirl around and stare directly at her. “I thought I’d killed you, and to discover that you are alive shocked to me to my very core. But instead of being able to celebrate and tell you who I was, all I could think of was how much more I was still responsible for. All the pain, surgeries, agonizing rehab. Your stepdad handing you over to the state because he didn’t know how to deal with everything. And when you described the foster families you’d been with? I was already admiring you for your great strength, but then all I could think of was how I was responsible for all of your pain.”

  Dropping his chin to stare at his boots for a few seconds, he shook his head slowly. “I was such a chicken shit. So afraid to admit to you that you had been sitting on a park bench with the one person who had caused you so much pain when what I really wanted to do was grab you up and hold you tight and tell you that I was your Johnny.”

  “Asher,” she breathed, shaking her head. “You have nothing to be sorry for. None of this was your fault. It just happened.” She pushed herself up from the sofa and moved toward him, getting right into his line of vision. “I can’t believe you’ve felt guilty all this time.”

  Hands on his hips, he dropped his head back as though to stare at the ceiling but closed his eyes. He felt her small hands reach out to touch his arms and dropped his chin, staring at her face.

  “Please, honey, let the guilt go. If you hold onto that, it taints everything we shared as children.”

  Her words cut into him, slicing through some of the pain, and he tried to focus on what she just said, not wanting anything to take away from the moment they had shared that had been the only bright thing in his shady childhood.

  Her fingers clutched, her short nails digging into his forearms slightly, but he barely felt anything other than the warmth of her touch.

  “Asher, we were children,” her voice shook with emotion. “We didn’t do anything wrong. Neither of us. We were actually doing the one thing that was right and good in our lives, and that was just hanging out together. Don’t you see? You didn’t send me away into danger…just like always, you were trying to protect me.”

  A tear slid down her face, but she ignored it, and it dropped off her cheek, right onto his arm. His gaze left her face just long enough to look down at his arm, the teardrop sliding through the roses, right over one of his scars. His breath caught in his throat as a sob choked its way up from deep within.

  Moving as one, their arms slid around each other, clinging tightly, her tears continuing to wet his shirt and his dropping unheeded onto her hair. Neither said anything, and he lost track of how long they stood, clinging to each other, as the tightness in his chest began to loosen slowly.

  She finally pulled back slightly, and still saying nothing, led him toward the sofa where they both sat. They positioned themselves as before, facing each other, only this time there was no space between them. She remained quiet, as though she knew he had more to process.

  “When I landed on Miss Ethel’s doorstep, I was terrified. There were five other little boys looking at me, and I was so fuckin’ terrified.” He swallowed past the lump in his throat and continued. “She introduced them to me. Zander. Rafe. Cael. Jaxon. Jayden. And instead of looking at me with disdain or teasing me or calling me names, they all smiled as though meeting me was something good. They didn’t look at me as though I was trash.”

  Sucking in a ragged breath, he said, “I didn’t know at the time why I said what I did next, but looking back, I think I just so desperately wanted to be somebody besides ugly Johnny, the one that nobody wanted. They all had such cool names, and I suddenly wanted to be looked at differently. So, I blurted out my middle name. Asher." With a rueful snort, he added, “Miss Ethel looked at me a little funny, but then she rolled right on with it, and I became and have been Asher ever since then.”

  Their bodies twisted so that they were closely facing each other, her knee rested on his, her hand on his thigh. His left hand was propped up on the back of the sofa cushions, his fingers now drifting through the soft silk of her hair. "I landed easy,” he declared. “I knew that from the first moment I walked through her door and have known it every moment since then. My first six years were rough, but after that, I was raised with love, dignity, and with other brothers who never let anybody at school tease me at all. The first time somebody tried it, Zander punched him right in the face.” Chuckling, he shook his head and said, “I was sure we were going to get in trouble, but Miss Ethel just spoke to him quietly like she always did when one of us needed a word.”

  “I’m so glad for you,” she said, her eyes imploring as she held his gaze.

  “I need to know, Penny, if there’s any way you can forgive me.” His chest had felt so much lighter from all that he had shared with her, but he felt like everything came down to this final moment, this final question.

  She lifted her hand and cupped his jaw, her thumb smoothing over the rough stubble. He leaned his head into her warm palm, wanting to memorize every feeling of her touch.

  “Asher, honey, there is nothing for me to forgive. Certainly not when we were children. We were moved and shuffled about at the whims of the adults in our lives. When I think of my childhood, I think of a little boy named Johnny, who befriended me on the first day of kindergarten, capturing my heart all those years ago. And when I think of us now, I understand why you didn’t say anything."

  She moved closer, holding his gaze. “Now, knowing that you thought I was dead, and you having some misplaced guilt over that, of course, you wouldn’t have said anything. There was so much you had to process. So much you had to think about. I understand." With another sweep of her thumb over his jaw, she added, “But if you need me to say it, then I’ll give that to you. I forgive you."

  Another sob ripped from his chest as his hands slid to the back of her neck, and he pulled her forward, their lips meeting. Not soft. Not delicate. But a slamming, desperate kiss, filled with longing and aching, pain and forgiveness, giving and taking. Their tears mingled as their noses bumped, their heads moving back and forth, seeking the very essence of each other.

  He scooped her into his arms and stood, carrying her easily to the bedroom, their lips never separating. He loosened his hold just enough for them to undress each other, clothes landing on the floor wherever they were tossed. Moments later as he slid inside her welcoming warmth, he kept his upper body propped on his forearms, his gaze never leaving hers.

  “I love you, Penelope Belcher,” he said, his body now slowly rocking into hers, welcoming the feel of her breasts against his chest and her right leg wrapped around his waist. She smiled, and if it was possible for his heart to sing, it did.

  “And I love you, Johnny Asher Swain.”

  They came at the same time, hearts beating as one, their broken past now mended with a future together in front of them.

  Later, after the sun had set and the soft glow from the lamp illuminated them as they lay in bed, her finger traced the angel wings tattooed on his abdomen. He knew her question even before she asked. “I told you that was for someone that I had lost. It was for you. I wanted to have you with me always, so it was actually the first tattoo I ever got.”

  She bit her lip as she lifted her gaze to his and asked, “And now?”

  He grinned, tracing his finger along her delicate cheek. “Miss Ethel told me something interesting about your name,” he replied. “She said it means beautiful swan. So, I figure now, my tattoo is still all about you…the wings of a swan.”

  She met his smile and leaned down to kiss him once more. This one soft. Gentle. Not just the kiss of lovers but the kiss of two people in love.

  31

  Penny smiled as she looked at the text from Asher telling her that he would be picking her up from work soon to take her to lunch. A week had passed since their emotional reunion, and other than work, they had not spent a moment apart. Glancing at the time, she quick
ly finished the report she was working on before turning her computer off. Hearing voices coming from the front, she wondered if Asher had come in to pick her up instead of waiting on her outside.

  Grabbing her bag and her cane, she left her office and walked down the hall to the large reception area. There Asher was, looking as gorgeous as ever with his slight scruff, shirt pulled tight over his torso, leather jacket, and blue jean covered hips and legs that made her mouth water. Even his old work boots were sexy.

  Unfortunately, between her and Asher was Janie. She was not surprised that Janie would immediately seek out the attention of someone as gorgeous as Asher. Wishing she were closer so that she could either trip or hit Janie with her cane, she watched with interest as the young woman sidled up to him.

  “Hello,” Janie purred, moving forward to place her hand on Asher’s arm.

  If she was not so irritated, she would’ve found it comical that Asher’s eyes widened in shock at the sound of Janie’s voice and the way he stepped back away from her.

  “If you’re interested in real estate, you’ve certainly come to the right place,” Janie continued, her fingernails now digging into his leather jacket a little tighter as though hoping to keep him from backing further away from her. Ignoring the fact that there were actual real estate agents in the room, Janie pressed, “What can I do for you? Anything you need, I’m sure I can take care of.”

  Janie attempted a husky laugh, but Penny thought it sounded more like a frog croaking, and from the look on the faces of others in the room—including Asher—they thought the same. Deciding enough was enough, Penny moved forward into the room, smiling as Asher’s grin met hers.

  Untangling himself from Janie’s grasp, he beamed as he greeted, “Hey, babe.”