Ashley Ridge (Haunted Hearts Series Book 3)

by Denise Moncrief

  “You left me alone with Jeremy Haskins at the Hot Spot.”

  A tough start to the conversation they’d been avoiding for years. His mouth suddenly went dry and his throat tightened. He closed his eyes and licked his lips.

  “The night he died.”

  “No, the night he raped me.”

  His heart shattered and his eyes popped open. “Oh my God, Ash. I had no idea…”

  She lowered her eyes and seemed way too absorbed in her fingernails.

  “I’ve never told anyone.”

  “Not even Phelps?”

  Her neck colored pinkish red. “Well, no one except him.”

  Regret coupled with despair nearly killed his hope. It was worse than he’d feared.

  “I would have never gone to the Hot Spot that night if I’d known you were going to ditch me.” She paused. “But I realize now…it’s not your fault he did that to me. That was his decision, not yours.”

  The truth hit him right between the eyes. “You should have never been alone with him.”

  “I never intended to be alone with him. I don’t even know how that happened. Maybe I went willingly. Maybe he put something in my drink. Maybe I just drank too much that night to care. I don’t know. But some things once they’re done can’t be undone. Once Jeremy had raped me, he couldn’t unrape me. Once I had killed him, I couldn’t bring him back to life. No matter how much I wanted to.”

  “So then…if that isn’t the night he died, why were you with him again? You should have stayed away from him.”

  A single tear rolled down her cheek.

  “So what happened the night he died?”

  She pressed a hand against her forehead.

  “It was awful.”

  ****

  Ashley glanced over her shoulder to see if Gray would follow her out of the Hot Spot and interfere with her plan. He hadn’t understood why she broke up with Josh, and really it wasn’t any of his business. She just couldn’t be with Josh after what Jeremy had done to her.

  Besides, what she’d found out the day before had changed everything.

  When it didn’t appear Gray was going to do as he threatened, she searched the lot for Jeremy Haskins. She spotted him talking to Bernadette, a tall, extroverted blonde that had managed to get most of the guys’ attention when she was still in the eighth grade.

  Ashley marched up to them and drilled Jeremy with a mean glare. “We need to talk.”

  It had been over a month since it happened and she had avoided him. He seemed surprised she was speaking to him. He turned his attention toward her as if the other girl no longer existed.

  Bernadette barked her complaint and wrapped her long claws around Jeremy’s upper arm. “Leave him alone, Ashley. He’s with me.”

  He shook Bernadette hand off. Jeremy’s sneer spread across his too handsome features. “I said you’d be back for more of Jeremy.” He pumped his hips, and Ashley nearly gagged up her supper. Nearly lost her nerve.

  “I just want to talk.” She turned toward Bernadette. “Please, it’s important.”

  Jeremy took a step toward her. “What could be more important than us getting together again?”

  His twisted grin made Ashley want to slap the smirk clean off his face. She clenched her fists to keep from assaulting him in public.

  From the corner of her eye, Ashley could see Bernadette turning fifty shades of red. She turned her attention to the other woman. “Look, Bernie…”

  “Hey!”The woman didn’t like her name shortened. Never had.

  “I’ll let you have him back when I’m done with him.”

  Jeremy hooted. “Now, you’re talking. My night just got a lot better.”

  Ashley could smell the beer on him. No doubt, someone had bumped him or he’d gotten sloppy. Or some woman had splashed her contempt for his cheesy pick-up lines all over him. There was probably just as much on his shirt as there was in his gut.

  None of them were actually legal yet, but they all knew the ID check at the Hot Spot was non-existent. Everybody in Fairview knew everybody else. There was no need for carding anyone. She and Josh had been hitting the bar since they graduated high school. Around Fairview, that was considered the acceptable drinking age. No one argued. No one fought it. Just outside the city limits, the Sheriff’s Department turned a blind eye to what went on in their jurisdiction.

  It was the summer between her second and third year of college. Ashley planned on leaving again in a few weeks for Fayetteville and never coming back to Fairview. She needed to settle this problem with Jeremy before she left town forever.“Can we go somewhere and talk?”

  Ashley was hoping to steer Jeremy toward the far end of the lot where few cars were parked. All she wanted was a little privacy to tell him what he needed to know. He would probably refuse to help her, and then she could leave town with a clear conscience. The pig didn’t deserve her consideration, but her baby did, so she swallowed her pride and proceeded with the confrontation.

  “I got a better idea. Let’s take a little drive out to Ashley Ridge.”

  She began to tremble and forced herself to stop.“I’d rather stay here.”

  “Hey, you want me? You gotta play by my rules.”

  Just as she was about to refuse, she spotted Gray leave the bar. If he saw her talking to Jeremy, he’d get between them. Gray was Josh’s best friend and as such, he would be the protector of his best friend’s girlfriend’s reputation, even if Ashley had insisted she and Josh were no longer together.

  Too many rumors were already floating around town about how she had cheated on Josh with Jeremy. If only the town knew the truth. She couldn’t remember the event, so she couldn’t be sure if it was consensual or not, but the way she’d felt the next morning, violated and abused, there was no doubt in her mind that she’d been the victim of date rape.

  She slipped her arm through Jeremy’s. “Okay, let’s go.”

  Once they were in his car, he reached over and grabbed her hand. Not in a romantic way. The gesture was demanding and possessive. She tugged, but his grip was tight.

  “So I wanted to tell you—”

  “I know what you want, baby. You don’t have to tell me. It was so good last time you want it again.”

  His leer drove a wedge of fear into her heart. She had known better than to get into his car and agree to be alone with him.

  They were almost to Ashley Ridge when she tried again.

  “I really need to tell you something, Jeremy.”

  “Are you gonna wanna talk all night? I don’t like a lot of blah blah blah from a woman.”

  She chewed her bottom lip before blurting her news. “I’m pregnant.”

  He hit the brakes hard and the car skidded to a halt on the side of the road.

  “Are you freaking for real? There is no way you’re gonna accuse me of being your baby daddy.”

  “I’m not sure who the father is.” She’d let the truth tumble from her mouth. A serious mistake.

  “That’s about right for a slut like you.”

  Her mouth flew open. She wasn’t a slut. “All I want is for you to do the right thing and take one of those tests to see if you’re my baby’s father. If you’re not, then no one has to know what you did to me.”

  He sputtered and tried to speak a couple of times before he managed to say the most idiotic thing she’d ever heard.

  “You wanted to do it with me. If you got yourself pregnant, that’s your problem. Girls are supposed to take care of that. That’s not a guy’s problem. I’m not going to take a test. I’m not going to be your baby’s daddy.”

  The magnitude of her mistake sank into her soul. She should have known how he’d react, and once again, she was alone with him.

  He just kept going with his stupidity. “Do you think because I’m rich, you can get a little cash to help you get rid of it?”

  “I don’t want to get rid of my baby. I want to keep her…him…whatever. But if you’re the baby’s father, don’t you want t
o help me—”

  “Oh, no, no, no. I’m not going to help you raise your bastard child.”

  She punched him in the face and clawed at the door handle.

  “Bitch!”

  He grabbed for her, but she was already out the door. She hit the ground running, refused to look back to see how close he was to her. Her eyes searched for a makeshift weapon, anything heavy enough that she could bust his head open, take his keys, and highjack his ride.

  Just as she spotted a board on the side of the road, he wrapped his fingers around her upper arm and swung her to face him. He grabbed her chin in his hands and forced his mouth on hers. A steel-muscled arm circled her and pulled her to him. The evidence of his intention pressed against her thigh. She wanted to scream. She wanted to hurl. She wanted to kill him.

  She tried to get her hands between them, but he was stronger than she was. When she made just a bit of space, she raised her arm and scratched until she met soft flesh. He yelled, a cry of pain mixed with a good amount of fury.

  His violence turned manic. Before she could breathe again, he had grabbed the front of her shirt and popped all the buttons. She pounded him with her fist, and he belted her in the mouth. “You wanna a piece of me? Huh? I’ll give you a piece of me, but it ain’t gonna be like you want it. I ain’t no one’s baby daddy.”

  The rumble of a truck engine penetrated her terror, the crunch of heavy feet on gravel.

  “Help me!” she screamed into the bright headlights of another vehicle.

  Jeremy shoved her to the ground. The cold steel of a knife blade pressed against her throat. She tried to knee him where it counted, but she couldn’t angle her leg right.

  Fingers curved over Jeremy’s shoulder. Gray’s face appeared above them. “Get off her, you sick son-of-a-bitch.”

  Jeremy rolled backwards and the knife went skittering across gravel. Gray pulled Jeremy from the ground into a standing position and punched him in the face and then the stomach. Blow after blow. Jeremy must have been taken by surprise because he didn’t fight back at first. His wind rasped out of his mouth with the last blow to his stomach.

  “Run, Ashley. Take my truck.” He tossed her the keys. “Get out of here.”

  Jeremy’s hateful voice echoed through the dark. “Run, little girl.”

  She pushed her bruised body toward the truck. Every muscle screamed for rest. A spot on the underside of her chin stung. Had Jeremy nicked her with the knife? She glanced down and saw a splatter of blood on her white bra.

  She cranked the engine of Gray’s Ford F150, but she had no intention of leaving Gray behind. Jeremy was giving as much as he was taking. Gray stumbled and Jeremy attempted to take advantage of Gray’s imbalance. His swing missed and Gray dropped Jeremy with a punch to his jaw.

  She rolled down the window and yelled, “Come on, Gray. Leave him. Let’s get out of here.”

  She shoved the gear into drive, but the headlights of Jeremy’s car blinded her. The passenger door creaked open. She didn’t bother to glance Gray’s direction. When the door slammed shut she let off the brake. The truck had such a powerful engine that it lurched forward.

  A hard thud. The crunch of cracking bones. An ear-piercing scream. When she glanced at the passenger seat, Gray wasn’t in the truck.

  She shoved the gear into reverse and backed up a few feet, got out of the truck, and rushed to the spot where Jeremy lay. Gray was already next to him, with one knee on the ground.

  Jeremy’s hate-filled eyes stared up at her. Her heart stopped. She’d never seen so much viciousness in a stare.

  “You’d better run now, Ashley, because when my old man catches you…”

  Ashley stared into Josh’s eyes. Concern etched the corners of his mouth. “I didn’t mean to kill him. It was an accident.” She chewed her thumbnail, a habit she had gotten out of when she was in middle school. Now, it was back. “I still have nightmares…”

  “Ashley…” Josh sucked down a ragged breath. “What did you mean when you told him you didn’t know who the father was?”

  Her heart faltered. This was the moment she had dreaded for years. “I couldn’t be sure. I thought it was probably his, but it might have been yours.”

  ****

  There was no air left in Josh’s lungs. The room seemed devoid of oxygen. Finally, he managed one question. “Did you…get rid of the baby?”

  She shook her head, a response that was barely there. “I couldn’t. Not if there was any chance it was yours.”

  He pushed his chair back from the table and stood on shaky legs. A well of restless energy had surged within him.

  Her words tumbled from her lips. “I know when this finally hits you, you’re going to hate me.”

  “I’m not going to hate you,” he rasped. “I need a breath of fresh air.”

  He crossed the few steps to the sliding glass doors and walked out into the moonlit backyard. The overcast sky of the early evening had given way to a partially cloudy night. A few stars peeked between clouds. Josh drew in a deep breath, trying to clear his lungs of stale air.

  The door slid closed behind him. Ashley stood a few feet away. He knew she did. He could feel the heat of her presence. Everything in him longed to turn around and comfort her for all she’d been through, but at the moment, he was having a hard time processing it all. A stab of pain pierced his heart, and he struggled to catch his next breath.

  “I’m sorry, Josh. I know I should have told you all this years ago—”

  “You should have told me when it happened.” He tried so hard not to sound angry, but the words came out harsh anyhow.

  She made an irritated noise. “I’m trying to be fair here, Josh, but you seem to forget I wouldn’t have been in that situation if you hadn’t left me alone in the Hot Spot that night so that Jeremy Haskins could make me his next victim.”

  “I don’t think this is all my fault.”

  A lot of it was, but not nearly all of it.

  “I never said it was. All I’m asking is for you to try to understand the horrible predicament I was in.”

  “Oh yeah, I get it,” he ground out.

  “What do you get, Josh? Because I don’t think you get anything at all.”

  “Do you know why I left you at the Hot Spot that night? Because Jeremy told me the two of you… And I was stupid enough to believe him. You remember how jealous I was of any guy that made a move on you.” He slammed his fist into the trunk of the nearest tree and then slung his hand back and forth when the pain erupted.

  “Yeah, I remember that. That was flattering at first, but you know, it got tired after awhile.”

  He pressed his lips together to keep from saying the hard things he wanted to say. “None of this would have happened if you had stayed away from him like I told you to.”

  “If you had stopped for one moment to listen to me, you would have heard what I was saying. Jeremy wouldn’t leave me alone, and I needed you to make him stop. Instead you accused me of cheating on you. How do you think that made me feel?”

  All of their angry words crowded around them, pestering them like a dog that had treed a squirrel. He was flat out tired of being mad.

  His anger took a sudden dive south. Pooled in the bottom of his gut. She was right. He hadn’t been there for her when she needed him.

  “Like I didn’t trust you.” By the time he came to that conclusion, they were both breathing hard.

  “So if you didn’t want to get rid of the child, what happened to it?”

  She gulped down a sob. “I miscarried a month later.”

  He rubbed his eyes and wished he could have a do-over. Relive the last ten years since they graduated from high school.

  “Josh, please turn around and look at me. Then, you will see how much it hurts me that it hurts you.”

  When he finally turned to face her, she rushed into his arms. He wasn’t sure how or when he’d opened them to her. His limbs seemed to have a mind of their own, because he was numb. Too much had happened the
last few days. Too much had happened the last ten years. He was tired to the bone.

  He pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her as she sobbed into his shoulder.

  “I’ve wanted to tell you for so long…”

  “Why didn’t you?” he whispered into her hair, choking back his own sorrow.

  “I thought you’d hate me. When the shock wears off, you will. I know you will.”

  He sighed and it seemed the emotion sifted up from the furthest reaches of the empty place where his heart should have been, a heart that had been missing for so long. She’d taken it from him, and he had never been able to get it back. His mind went back to the car ride from the Jepson place and the gut-wrenching conversation Ashley probably wasn’t even aware he’d overheard.

  “Just like Gray told you, I could never hate you. If you won’t believe me, believe him. He knows how I feel about you.”

  She pushed back and wiped her eyes. “You heard that?”

  He smiled and swiped at a stray tear with his thumb. “Every word.”

  “Really? You heard everything we said, and you didn’t say anything?”

  He didn’t get why she was so testy about it. “No. I didn’t think there was anything I could add to that conversation.”

  “You jerk. You should’ve let us know you were awake.”

  “I wasn’t that awake. I kind of drifted in and out, but I remember how nice it was to lay my head in your lap.”

  She popped him on the shoulder. Then she pummeled him on his sore ribs. He grabbed her wrists and held them tight.

  “Ashley, stop. You’re killing me.”

  All of her pent up anger seemed to dissipate at once. His had already begun to trickle away from him, leaving only the leftover hurt. For so long, the anger had covered the hurt, but when the pain of the past lay open, raw and exposed, it was almost too much to bear.

  But he would bear it, if it meant their relationship could heal.

  “I’ve been so angry with you for so long. How can I just turn it off? You hurt me, Josh. When you walked away that night, you nearly killed me. What Jeremy did to me was nothing compared to you walking away.”