Asher blew on his hands. Even though the heat was cranked, it was still damn cold inside. He’d take a look at it when they got to Granite Falls. See if he could get the damn thing up before they left to go back.
“My mom is going to be shocked when we show up early,” Olivia said, brushing the hair from her face.
“Why?”
“Because I’m usually late.”
“Then I must be a good influence.”
She gave a little smile. “Let’s just hope she sees it that way.”
Neither of them spoke for a few moments, both lost in their thoughts.
They’d made love in the shower this morning, then again on the bed. When he jokingly told her their sex slave arrangement had long ago expired, she replied that it was too late. She was hopelessly addicted to him and would require sex on a daily basis, if not more. She’d said this as she was straddling him, her expression serious and focused. He wasn’t about to argue because (1) he felt the same about her, and (2) she was a pain in the ass if she didn’t get her way. Gripping his cock like she owned it, she’d guided him to her center and slid gloriously down his length.
Asher shifted in the passenger seat and took a deep breath. It was time to tell her about Jenny.
“Olivia, there’s something you need to know.”
She glanced over at him. “Okay, I’m listening.”
“I…met this girl,” he began slowly, “on my first trip through the portal. She was dancing at a small club up north where I’d stopped for something to eat and drink after the mission was complete. I’d never seen anyone dance like that. Or heard that kind of music before. As I watched her, the sound seemed to be coming straight through the walls and into my skin. I kept looking for the musicians, thinking they were in another room, but of course, I never found them.”
Olivia laughed. “That must’ve been strange.”
“We got together that night and every time I came back through the portal. She wanted me to move to Las Vegas with her. She’d had a dance audition and got a callback. If that didn’t work out, she said there would be other opportunities. I had no choice but to tell her who I was and why I couldn’t go.”
“And how did she react to that news?”
“She knew all along that I wasn’t from the area, but she had no idea I was from Cascadia. It was shortly afterward that she found out she was pregnant.”
Olivia inhaled sharply. “Oh, Ash,” she said softly.
“The thought of being a father both terrified and thrilled me, as I’m sure it does all men when they learn that their seed has helped to create a new life.” A dull throbbing began to hammer at the back of his eyeballs, but he continued. “She wasn’t sure how she was going to be able to keep working. I told her I’d take care of her. One of my suggestions was for us to move to the other side of the portal. At least temporarily.”
“And what did she say?”
“Though she was scared, she was willing to consider it, but we never got that chance. The wind had been blowing in from Elliott Bay that night, cold and wet. The Montlake Bridge was up and everyone was waiting in their vehicles for it to close. What we’d thought was a routine bridge closure to allow a sailboat to pass turned out to be an army roadblock. Using spotlights and a megaphone, we were ordered out of our cars and told that a Cascadian assassin was among us. People panicked and started running. Jenny screamed at me and gave me a hard shove, saying either “go turn yourself in” or “don’t turn yourself in.” But before I could do anything or ask what she said, another shot rang out and…she was dead.”
At some point, Olivia had pulled the car to the side of the road and grasped his hand. Her touch now was cool and comforting.
He told her how the rest of the night passed in a blur—running through back alleys, hiding out in the University district, falling down a steep embankment—until he woke up deep in a forest far away from the city, covered in dirt, dried sweat, and tears.
“If the army hadn’t been following me, Jenny and the baby would still be alive.” Guilt rushed over him again. He was stupid to have stayed with Jenny and not go back to Cascadia alone. It would’ve been more honorable to make sure they had lived, than to have stayed just to let the baby know him as the father.
Olivia reached over the console and wrapped her arms around him. “I’m so sorry, Ash. So very sorry.”
Immense sadness engulfed him. He hadn’t allowed himself to dig this deep emotionally in a long time, because when he did, the horror of what he’d caused was almost unbearable.
Olivia rubbed his back and stroked his head. “Shhhh, baby, it’s not your fault.” She kept saying the words over and over, the sound vibrating comfortingly against the side of his face. And when he tried to protest, she simply hushed him again, never letting go of him.
He wiped at his eyes a few minutes later. “So you see why I worry about being with you? Who I am and what I do is dangerous not only for me, but for those around me that I care about. I couldn’t bear it if the same thing happened to you.”
“What about the guys here at Reckless? You care about them, don’t you?”
“That’s different.” He sat back in his seat and noticed that the headache was gone. “You healed me, didn’t you?”
She shrugged. “I can’t stand to see you hurting, so I did what I could. Now, back to the guys at Reckless.”
“Aren’t you the least bit tired?” He remembered how she’d healed his portal sickness, then followed it up with a marathon roll in the sack. “You healed me this morning and again just now.”
“Normally it does take a lot out of me when I use my Talent, but I’ve noticed that doesn’t seem to be the case when I use it on you.”
He thought back to the night they’d first met. She’d been exhausted after healing Monique and he’d assumed the same was true when she healed him, too.
A devilish glint flashed in her eyes. She reached over and cupped his crotch, giving a little squeeze. “Not only are we extremely sexually compatible, but it looks like my Talent is compatible with you as well.”
Rickert had mentioned how the Fates may have brought them together. Maybe there was something to it after all.
His cock swelled against his fly, eager to have her touch him. “What you do to me, lass, shouldn’t be legal.”
She flashed him a grin. “Oh really?”
A few minutes later, they were back on the highway with Asher driving and Olivia touching up her makeup in the visor mirror.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” she said.
“What question?”
“Why the guys at Reckless are any different from me. I’m sure you care about them, too.”
“I’m not at liberty to tell you their various stories, but they’re all hiding out from the army for one reason or another. It’s practically an employment requirement to work at Reckless. Plus, they’re capable of taking care of themselves.”
“What? And you think I’m not running from the army? Ash, I’ve been staying under their radar for years. Probably longer than many of those guys at Reckless. And if you haven’t noticed by now, I’m pretty good at it.”
“That night at your apartment was too close for comfort. You call that nothing?”
“We got away from them, didn’t we?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, but you’re…you. And they’re…them.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He could tell he was losing this argument, but he wasn’t willing to give in completely. “Many of them have combat training. Former military. They’re bad-ass dudes.”
“So you’re saying if I can prove to you I’m capable of protecting myself, you’ll consider dating me?”
He laughed. “Aren’t we a little past the courting phase?”
“You tell me.”
“Considering that I’m crazy, madly in love with you, I would think so.” The words slipped from his mouth as if he’d been saying them to her for years. H
e did love her. With every essence of who he was and what he wanted to become.
She gasped, her eyes sparkling with emotion. Then she twirled her strawberry lip gloss in her fingers. He could tell she was cooking up something. “If I show you how capable I am, will you change your mind?”
A possible solution had been brewing in his head for a while now. If she truly loved him as much as he hoped she did, maybe she’d consider moving to the other side of the portal. It hadn’t been his home in years, but with her, it could be. Plus, she’d be further removed from the army than she’d be anywhere else.
“Maybe,” he said, noncommittally. He wanted to see where she was going with this. “But how are you going to prove that?”
“By kicking your ass.”
He almost veered off the road.
“You think you can beat me in a fight?” he asked, steering the car back into the lane. “I’m an Iron Guild warrior, lass. Only the most skilled fighters are chosen as pledges during the Warrior Games, then we go through rigorous training after that.”
She seemed unfazed. “So if I get you to submit, you’ll change your mind?”
He waited an appropriate length of time before answering to make her think he was mulling it over. “If you can beat me, yes.”
When he turned down Granite Avenue, she shifted in her seat. She’d been quiet ever since they left the highway. “So much of our world must seem strange to you.”
He shrugged. “It’s no stranger than my world would be to you.”
“I’d like that.”
He glanced in her direction. “Like what?”
“To visit Cascadia one day.”
He thought about Olivia in Cascadia, riding on the back of a horse with him. “We don’t have any of the conveniences you have here.”
“So?”
“No running water. No electricity. No purple Dodge Chargers with dream catchers hanging off the rear view mirror.”
She laughed. “I know that. Still, I would love to go one day. And if what you suspect happened to my mother is true, that means I may have relatives there. Aunts. Uncles. Cousins. Even grandparents, if the soldiers didn’t kill them when they came through the portal all those years ago.”
Olivia reached back and patted Conry as they pulled up outside a quaint blue house. “You stay here for a minute. I need to lock up Mom’s cats first.”
A well-maintained rose bed lined one side of the driveway, and rather than a lawn in the front yard like the rest of the homes on the block, hers was filled with meandering pathways and plants. He’d wager there were a lot of herbs among the flowers, given the herbal oils she made for Olivia.
A vague sense of unease settled over him as he exited the car. He must be more nervous about meeting her mother than he’d thought. What would she think of him? Would she accept him and who he was or would she assume he was a barbarian like many here believed, and unworthy of her daughter?
In the weeks apart from Olivia, he had learned one very important thing—that he was crazy in love with her. No one else in either world could compare to her.
Distance has a way of clarifying what you can’t see when something is right in front of you. He’d been antsy and on edge the whole time he’d been gone. A depressing gray cloud hovered over him in Cascadia, but this time it wasn’t because of his family. It was because he’d been a world away from Olivia. He’d found it harder than normal to concentrate. He couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t get her out of his head. But now that they were together, things just felt…right. He might not have recognized it before he left, but he sure as hell did now.
Olivia had accepted him unconditionally, with all his faults and imperfections. The fact that she respected and believed in him caused all sorts of things to shift deep inside him. Long-held beliefs. Doubts. Fears. Insecurities. Maybe she was right. Maybe he wasn’t as stupid as he thought he was, his stepfather be damned. Maybe he did just learn things differently.
Different was good, she’d said. Who wanted to be ordinary when you could be extraordinary? He wasn’t sure he’d ever think of himself as extraordinary, but he sure as hell loved that she thought he was.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Olivia stood at the foot of the driveway and looked up at her mother’s house. Asher joined her, holding the bouquet of fresh flowers they’d bought at a farmer’s stand on the Mountain Loop Highway.
“That’s weird,” she said, frowning.
“What is?”
“She usually leaves the garage door open when she knows I’m coming. I can’t remember the last time I used the front door.” She grabbed his hand and they walked up the driveway past her mother’s prize rose bushes.
“You did say that you’re usually late,” he said. “Maybe she hasn’t opened it yet because she thinks you won’t be here for a while.”
Asher held the screen door open. She grabbed the handle. It was locked. What was going on?
“Are you sure she’s expecting us tonight?” he asked. “Maybe she thinks we’re coming tomorrow and she’s gone.”
“No, I specifically told her we were coming tonight,” Olivia said adamantly. “We just talked this morning. It’s not like her to forget. She’s always harping on me that I don’t call or visit enough. When she found out we were coming, I’m sure she spent all day in the kitchen cooking.”
She reached for the doorbell, but Asher stopped her.
“Let’s…uh, walk around back. Maybe she’s not even home.”
Her eyes widened. “Do you think something could’ve happened to her?”
“I’m not saying that. I just think it’s best not to announce to anyone inside that someone’s at the door. Just in case. I’d rather be safe than sorry.”
“You’re right.” She strode to the garage, looked in the window, and her body went numb. “The car’s there. She’s got to be here.”
Pulling out a long blade, he made a quick survey of their surroundings.
“Tell me the layout of the house,” he whispered. She gave him a quick rundown. He thrust the keys into her hand. “Go wait in the car. If you see anything suspicious, I want you to get the fuck out of here.”
“Ash, my mom’s in there. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Olivia, go.”
“No. She’s…she’s all I’ve got. When they came for my brother and things began to turn ugly, my mother wouldn’t let me get involved. At first she sent me to my room, away from what was going on. And then later, she kept me inside and refused to let me see if I could help my father.”
“They’d have fucking taken you, too.” He huffed out a breath, then nodded curtly, as if he understood how she must’ve felt. “Stay behind me and do exactly as I say. If I tell you to hit the ground, I expect that by the time I turn around, you’ll be down there already. This is Rule Number One for real.”
They crept to the backyard, taking care not to make any noise when they passed the recycling bins full of cans and bottles.
Please let this turn out to be nothing. Please let her be fine.
All the windows were dark except for the kitchen. The table was set for three and a few pans were on the stove. He tried the slider. It slid open easily.
Silently, they stepped into the kitchen. The water in one of the pots was boiling but hadn’t gone dry yet. Whatever had drawn her mother away hadn’t been very long ago.
A faint sound came from the door to the basement. Footsteps. Someone was coming up the stairs.
Asher pushed her against the wall and drew out another knife. From here, neither of them could see the basement door, but they could hear when it opened.
More footsteps. A flash of yellow. Then a cough. It sounded like her mom.
“Just one person?” Olivia mouthed to Asher.
He nodded.
She peered around the corner. Her mother was at the stove, hunched over one of the pots. She breathed a huge sigh of relief. She was okay. She motioned for Ash to put his weapons away. It was better if they didn’t
have to tell her mother that they’d come into the house with weapons drawn. She already was going to have a lot of explaining to do when she told her mother that Asher was from Cascadia.
“Hello?” she called in a singsong voice.
Her mother jerked her head up and took a half step backward. But instead of rushing forward to give her a big hug, she stayed were she was. She touched a finger to her lips once then quickly dropped it. “So good to see you, Jennifer. You’re here early. I wasn’t expecting you so soon. Was Ben able to come?”
Jennifer? Ben?
“Um…uh…”
Asher must’ve caught on to what was going on faster than she did because he was already backing toward the door. He put a hand up, indicating they were to stay here. Then he jerked his chin toward the front.
The car. They were to make a run for it as soon as they could. Okay.
He made a swirly motion with his finger. Keep talking. Then he slipped out the sliding glass door and into the backyard.
Olivia had to think fast. “He’s…uh… He couldn’t make it. Had to work.”
Her mother shifted a few pots around the stove. “He works too much. This is Saturday, for God’s sake.”
“Mother,” she mouthed silently. “What. Is. Going. On? Is someone downstairs?”
Her mother opened her eyes wider, indicating yes, then went back to stirring the pots again.
They continued this line of fake small talk until they heard the sound of breaking glass. Was that their cue to go? She grabbed her mother’s hand and they ran for the front door. The house wasn’t large, but tonight it felt as big as a mansion. Either that, or they were running in slow motion. But before they could even get out of the kitchen and through the dining room, the door to the basement opened and a man with a horribly scarred face stepped out.
The Fixer. The one who was after Asher.
Olivia shoved her mother behind her and backed away. She cast a glance toward the backyard, but Asher wasn’t there. She’d keep this guy occupied as long as it took for Asher to formulate a plan.
“Mrs. Crawford, you’re actually quite convincing,” the Fixer said to her mother. “For a moment there, I really did believe you that you were expecting a friend for dinner and that this wasn’t your daughter. I would’ve come up sooner, had I known. Although I’ve had my hands full.”
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