Cinder To Ash (Tainted Hearts Book 3)

by Summer, AJ

  “Oh, um, we’re just friends,” I stammer, immediately feeling bad when the words leave my lips.

  “Oh my. I’ve only got the one bed,” she says, her hand flying to her mouth.

  “That’s fine Aunt S. I’ll sleep on the couch in the TV room if that’s what Mia wants.” Lewis gives me a look out of the corner of his eye and I almost laugh. I don’t have a problem with sharing the bed, but now I fear I’ve made this awkward with the whole friend declaration.

  “Come on Sarah, leave the kids to settle. These old bones have to get up early in the morning,” Will says, ushering his wife away.

  “Goodnight,” Sarah calls before shuffling off down the hall. I check my watch and it’s almost midnight.

  “Up you go,” Lewis says, pushing me up the first narrow step, it that looks more like an oversized ladder than stairs. The old wooden beams creak under my feet. When I step up onto the last step I take a second to absorb everything around me. The room isn’t big, but it looks homey. The bed takes up almost half of the space. It’s huge and sturdy looking, with black wrought iron roses making up the headboard, complete with copper balls on both ends. Half of the left wall is made up of a glass window and I imagine you can see the field and the train tracks from there in the daylight. There’s an old dressing table with a door to the right of it which I hope leads to a bathroom. I feel dusty after our little Huckleberry Finn adventure. The bed creaks behind me and I look back to find Lewis sitting on it. He toes his shoes off and lays back, settling his hands behind his head. It looks so soft and comfy, I’m not sure I’ll get up if I go sit down to test it. I am exhausted. Lewis moves again and I narrow my eyes at the groaning sounds the old bed makes under his weight. He laughs and moves around some more.

  “So much for your friends notion,” he jokes, wiggling his ass around on top of the sheets. The sounds coming from the bed sound naughty enough to make me cringe.

  “Stop that!” I hiss, taking a threatening step towards him. I’m not sure what I plan on doing, but if I have to throw his ass off the bed to get him to stop, I’ll sure try. What will the old couple think of me if he keeps this up?

  “Calm down, their room is on the other side of the house. There’s no way they can hear us.” He winks at me and then does this absurd looking thing by wiggling his eyebrows.

  I leave him and his silly ideas on the bed and open the door I hope is a bathroom. I don’t have enough energy to take a shower and I’m really just hoping for a basin to wash my face. The glorious old tub greeting my eyes almost makes me change my mind, almost. Running water will probably wake up the old couple and I don’t want to make a nuisance of myself. Yeah, right, I’m just too tired to take a bath.

  When I go back into the room to get my bag Lewis is still lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling. His eyes meet mine when I grab my bag, and I just know a smart ass chirp is coming. “Whatever it is, the answer is no.” He raises his eyebrows but doesn't say anything else. “I only brought a shirt to sleep in. I obviously didn’t think we’d be sharing a bed. Do you have an extra pair of boxers in there?” I point to his bag.

  “Help yourself.”

  I dig through his bag finding a black pair and pull them out. “This one fine?” He shrugs and pulls my bag closer. “Hey!” I try to grab my bag back but he’s too fast and has most of my belongings dumped on the bed before I’ve even moved a muscle.

  Holding up my black boy short, he spins them around on his finger. “Why don’t you sleep in these?” He moves a few more items out of the way until he finds a thin strap white top. “And this? Problem solved. And it’s much safer than risking me without boxers. I only brought one change of clothes and I plan on wearing those after my bath.” He gives me a very devious looking smirk. Oh shit. Looking at the two t-shirts I can see inside his bag I pull both out and hold one in each hand. Wearing one of those will definitely cover more than the top he chose.

  “Which one were you planning on sleeping in?” Him without a shirt is much safer than him without boxers.

  “The white one.” Throwing his black boxers at him I point at my stuff all over the bed, “Clean that up.” I scoop my little toiletry bag and towel off the bed, drape his white shirt over my shoulder and head for the bathroom.

  “You’re going to need these,” Lewis calls from behind me. When I turn around, my black boy shorts hit me in the chest.

  Oh yeah. “Thanks,” I mumble before my cheeks can turn red again.

  I lock the bathroom door and arrange my stuff on the wooden cabinet next to the bath. When I turn on the hot water the old pipes shake inside the wall and I bite my cheek, hoping I don’t wake up Will and Sarah. I just thought if it was okay for Lewis to bath this time of the night I might as well do it too. Checking the lock one more time, because with Lewis you really just never know, I start taking off my dirty clothes. I even discover a smidge of dust under my eye when I look in the mirror. I wipe it away with my finger and smile at myself. Man I’m dirty. When was the last time I had so much fun? I honestly can’t remember. I close the taps and step into the bath. A delicious shiver runs through my body as I sink deeper into the water. I lay back and look at the ceiling, wondering if it’s going to taunt me tonight. A yawn escapes and I really hope not, because I’m beat. I need sleep and I have a feeling we’ll be up early in the morning.

  The warm water feels heavenly and my eyes are already drooping. Not wanting to risk falling asleep in the bath, and knowing Lewis also wants to bath, I wash all physical traces of our little adventure away quickly and get out. I dry off in the bathroom and lather up with my favorite lotion. The same lotion Jase so often used to rub out my tired shoulders after a long day at the parlor. Rubbing my palm against my heart I try to ease the pain I feel every time I think of him. Was I really that easy to leave behind? Is he even thinking about me? It’s then that I realize I didn’t think of Jase as much today. I’ve been so busy that the usual grim reminder didn’t play on its usual loop. Does that mean that it doesn’t hurt like hell now? No way, it’s too soon for that to go away.

  I get dressed in my tiny boy shorts and Lewis’s shirt and retie my hair, before picking up all my stuff and putting it in my bag. I unlock the door and step out into the bedroom. All our stuff has been put back into the bags standing neatly next to the bed. Lewis is busy on his phone, with the dim cellular light shining on his face.

  “All yours,” I say when he doesn’t acknowledge me. His eyebrows shoot up and he smirks at me. One sexy dimple coming right up. Jeez.

  “Really?” he says, moving across the bed and over to me. Shit!

  “I meant the bathroom Lewis, behave yourself,” I say with a straight face while folding my arms over my chest.

  Lewis lets his eyes travel down my legs before quickly looking up and giving me that naughty grin again. I smack him on the shoulder and push him out of my way so I can get into bed and under the covers. I pull the blanket up under my chin and glare at him but as usual he thinks I’m so damn funny that he just laughs at me. Well maybe I wasn’t as serious as I tried to be. I know Lewis likes to play around with me and in the last three weeks he’s been a really great friend, silly inappropriate jokes and all. We’ve had our awkward moments where we seem to get too caught up in the moment, but so far both of us seem to know where we stand. I’m still pretty damn in love with Jase. That boy has my heart and soul. It might make me pathetic for still hoping he’ll come back, but until I get my closure and him telling me it’s over, I really don’t see my heart moving on anytime soon.

  I’m not sure when the tears started flowing, but by the time Lewis steps out of the bathroom, looking fresh and rubbing a towel over his hair, I’m wiping the salty taste of despair from my lips. I wipe at my face again, angry that I’m still crying for Jase when he hasn’t once sent me a simple text. Lewis moves the towel from his face and cocks his head to side. His messy hair standing up all over makes him look so badass that the gentle expression on his face doesn’t seem to fit. My eyes travel his
naturally firm chest, down to his narrow hips until I reach his boxers. A dangerous thought swirls in my mind, nothing good can come from it, but I just want to get Jase out of my head. And maybe Lewis can do that for me.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Lewis growls. My eyes fly up to his, meeting midnight orbs shining with anger and want. He wants me. Right now my friend will let this moment of insanity happen. I know he will.

  “Make me forget.” My voice quivers at the end and more tears pool in my eyes.

  “Never.” Lewis is on the bed next to me and crushing me into his body in a heartbeat. My sob, loud and angry, is the only response I have. He lets me cry and when it all dies down and my body is still hiccupping after the grief has been expelled, he moves my hair out of my face and dries my tears with his thumbs. “If he comes back, you’ll take him.” It’s not a question, just like my answer is set in stone. I nod my head. Yes. Because I will. He’s burnt my heart to ash, but he hasn’t killed my feelings for him. So yes, always. “Then don’t do something stupid that you’ll regret. And don’t ever do it with me.” He kisses me gently on the head before settling it onto his shoulder. Pulling the blankets up around us, he cuddles me close and holds me even tighter.

  I’ve been staring at the wall for some time now. With each exhale Lewis breathes soft, warm air down my back. There’s no nightmares or angry ghosts of the past keeping him awake. Just peace when he sleeps. I know what he did earlier was the right thing for us. Our friendship wouldn’t survive something like that. I’ll go back to Jase and where will that leave him? I don’t think my friend is in love with me, but I do believe he loves me as much as I love him. It’s just not the same kind of love I share with Jase. When Jase walks into a room, my whole body lights up. My soul instantly recognizes his and everything else goes quiet. Even now when we’re not together I can feel the comfort of Lewis, the adventure, the adrenaline of something new, but deep down in my very being there’s a piece missing. And that piece is Jase. What does it say about my love for him, that I just let him leave me? Knowing how deep his pride runs, I still let him go? Where did I fight for him? With that thought and the pinkish glow of dawn rising outside the window, I know that I’m going to find my boy and I going to show him that it doesn’t make him less of a man when he needs someone to help him. After that, I’m going to kick his ass for leaving me behind. Because people whose souls are connected, fight their demons together. I grab hold of Lewis’s arm around my waist and close my eyes. Hoping now that I have this new game plan in the works that sleep will come easier. Because:

  Cursed are those still awake to see three am with a head full of ghosts and a heart full of tears.

  Blessed are those still awake to see five am, with burning eyes they’ll witness dawn and the scatter of their fears.

  “Mia? Babe, wake up.”

  “No,” I grumble, swatting at the annoying sound so close to my ear. His deep, throaty chuckle sends delicious tingles down my spine and I burrow deeper into my pillow.

  “Come on, Aunt S. is making that bread I told you about and since I’ve already told her how excited you were to try it, she’s waiting.”

  “Urgh, I never said that,” I grumble some more.

  “I know. I did. Get up.”

  With his last words he pulls the blankets down my body. The cold air hits the exposed skin of my belly where my shirt has ridden up during the night. It might also have been Lewis’s hands. Once, during the night, I woke up and his hand was under my shirt very close to my breast. Speaking of the devil, he’s gone stone quiet. Peeking open what feels like a sand-filled eye, I find him hovering over me with fire in his eyes. Darn this weird sexual tension between us. If I thought it could just be fixed with a simple talk I was definitely mistaken.

  “Hey,” I say groggily. His eyes move slowly from my exposed belly, up my t-shirt covered chest until he meets my eyes. There’s a war brewing in those midnight blues and I’m in deep shit if I don’t get out of this bed right now. Why does the sexual tension keep building between us? I pull my shirt down and sit up. Trying to fix my hair under his fiery gaze I almost snap my hair tie in half. “So we’re baking bread, yeah?” I say, trying to break this pulsing atmosphere around us. I’d say he’s about five seconds away from either jumping me or throwing me out the window just to get me away from him. His hands clench and he pushes them roughly into his jeans. Old jeans, frayed at the pockets and torn at the knees. Shit, he wears those jeans well.

  He clears his throat and takes a step back, pulling my jeans down from where they are hanging half off the cupboard. “You are baking bread. I get to clean out the well filtration system.” His face pulls into a grimace and I laugh. Grabbing my jeans from him, I pull them on and excuse myself to use the bathroom.

  I brush my teeth and wash my face as quick as I can. When I get back out, Lewis has my Converse and socks laid out on the bed.

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem,” he says, his sounds short, almost angry. I look back at him. Now it just feels awkward. He’s acting too weird. “I brought you coffee.” And he’s avoiding eye contact. What’s up with him now? He’s never acted this way before.

  “You know we could just make out?” I joke, trying to break the tension.

  “Yeah, we could. But once you’ve tasted this awesomeness, you’ll never be happy with anything else,” he quips back with that devious little dimple. I believe him, but it won’t work on me. I’ve already tasted awesome and it belonged to a lost boy with meadow green eyes. I smile at Lewis and use his own trademarked wink on him. At least he’s not acting like Mr. Moody anymore.

  When we get downstairs, the dough for the bread is already placed in a big cast iron pot. I greet Sarah and she gives me a one-armed hug.

  “Take this outside for me Lewis.” What does she need it outside for? Lewis picks up the big black pot and waits for her to lead the way. She holds the door open for us and Lewis shoos me ahead. Grabbing the door from her, I wait for them to go first, because I have no idea what we are doing.

  There’s a fire burning in a hole in the ground and next to it, is another hole filled with coals. Lewis places the pot in the hole with the coals and grabs two more coals from the hole beside him. Those two he places carefully over the lid of the pot. Huh? They’re baking bread outside? Lewis joins me in my staring game, probably waiting for me to say something, but I won’t because I’ve never seen anything like this before.

  “It’ll take about forty minutes before it’s done. And we’ll have to change the top coals about half way through.”

  “Ok,” I respond, not really sure what else to say. I reach over to take the long nose tongs from his hand. He hands them over on a smile. Gah, like I won’t be able to handle a few smoking coals.

  “You want to walk with me? You don’t have to watch it the whole time,” he says on a soft smile.

  “You go on, make sure he doesn’t fall into the well. Lewis, you take this with you,” Sarah says, handing him a flask. He takes it from her and we walk in the direction of what looks like an old shed.

  It sounds like Will is already hard at work from all the hammering coming from inside. Lewis stops inside the door and looks around for the source of the sound before turning left and disappearing behind a wooden panel.

  “Ah, thanks. I thought I was going to die of thirst before you came out here. Your friend wake up okay?”

  I shift nervously with the mention of friend. That would be me. “She never wakes up okay,” Lewis replies. I clear my throat and he laughs.

  “Morning Mia,” Will calls from behind the panel and I peek my head around.

  “Good morning.” Will’s wife beater is already soaked with exertion from his battle with whatever farm implement it is, and it’s not even seven am yet.

  “Where’s the wrench?” Lewis asks from a table filled with all sorts of tools. I walk over to help him look for it. He straps a tool belt, already filled with screw drivers and other tools, around his waist. Now that�
�s something you don’t see every day.

  “Here. I’d do it, but these old hands are too big to fit into those tiny machines they make nowadays.”

  “No problem.” Lewis takes the wrench and slides it into the belt. His hands aren’t much smaller though, so maybe Will just likes having Lewis help out. I give Will a quick wave before following Lewis out of the shed and over to the well.

  It’s not what I expected. When he said well, I thought it would be one of those pits with rocks around it that you lower a bucket into. No, this isn’t even an open hole. It’s a square wall built with bricks with a metal window the size of a shoe box on the side. Lewis unlocks the bolt on the little window and reveals something that looks like a bomb inside. Complete with red and green lights. He pushes a button and the red light comes on. He opens the little cabinet to the side of the brick box and pulls out a new filter. It looks just like the filters we use on the sinks at home just bigger.

  “Huh” I say out loud.

  “Not what you expected?” He raises an eyebrow at me.

  “No, when you said well, I thought you meant a real well, you know with a bucket on a rope.”

  “Welcome to the twenty-first century. This is actually more like a bore hole. Will gets their drinking water pumped straight from here. See, it comes through this pipe, moves through the filter and gets directed to the house. From there it’s filtered again,” Lewis explains while detaching and putting on the new filter to a pump system next to the shoe sized window. He presses the green button on the panel and the swishing sound starts up again. There was never even a remote chance of him falling into anything, never mind a well. “Let’s go put some more coals on that bread.”

  Oh shit, the one thing I’m supposed to do and I forget about it! I walk ahead of him quickly, even faster when I see Sarah already standing over the hole in the ground. I brush the coals away from the lid and reach into the fire to get a coal. The first one slips from the tongs, but the second time I try I manage to grab it just fine. I place it neatly on the lid and repeat the process with the second one.