Fleeting (Nash Brothers Book 1)

by Carrie Aarons

  “You really are so much like me it’s scary.” Grandma chuckles. “But I mean it, Presley. You’re a bright, talented woman. I have a feeling my son and his wife didn’t tell you that much while you were growing up. So, I’m telling you now. You can do whatever you set your mind to. That sounds like something you say to a little girl, but since you never heard, I’ll repeat it. You can do whatever you set your mind to. Yoga studio, working in the bookshop, or whatever else floats your boat. Just give it a real shot.”

  These words sting my eyes, tears threatening to fall. Maybe my grandmother is right. Sure, I’d grown up in a nice family. I did okay in school. I had friends and never wanted for much. But there is something to be said about being the average middle child sandwiched between two overachievers. My parents often overlooked me, and since my goals were different from those of my siblings, they wrote them off as frivolous.

  Scars left by neglect or disappointment can’t be seen, but they run so deep that sometimes I feel like a doll who’s been mended one time too many.

  Is that why I can’t seem to keep my feet planted in one place? Why I have to try new thing after new thing, just to find the path that will make me look the most desirable to them?

  “They provided for me, they were good to me. I love them.” I practically choke on the words.

  “Just because you love them doesn’t mean they aren’t flawed. It doesn’t mean they didn’t hurt you beyond measure.” Grandma nods. “Being a parent is difficult. Nurturing three minds at the same time is tough, and some shoe is bound to drop. But it doesn’t mean you can’t pick that shoe right up and run toward your dreams with it.”

  I giggle. “Enough metaphors, Grandma. I get it. Although, what kind of shoe was it? I’m hoping a really expensive pair of heels.”

  She scoops me up into a hug I didn’t volunteer for, but I relax against her. “I think it’s no shoes. I think you should do this yoga thing. Kill it, as the young folks say.”

  “It’s not just the studio or you selling your business. The one you’ve spent a lifetime building, might I add.” I look down at my hands.

  “Of course it’s not. Keaton Nash told you he loves you and you’re running like Cinderella turning back into a pumpkin.”

  My head shoots up, my mouth falling open in shock. “How did you know that?”

  “Child, didn’t I tell you you’re more like me than you ever could have imagined?” She chuckles. “It’s written all over your face. You love that boy back but are too damn scared of it to tell him. Or to stay put. You’re like a twitchy mouse ready to scurry away.”

  Finally defeated, and completely giving over to my feelings, my shoulders sag. “What if I screw it all up? What if he, and everyone in this town, realize that I don’t measure up to any of it.”

  Grandma gets up now and takes hold of my hands. “Presley, you might have been the kind of person I described just before, but you’re not her anymore. You are the type of woman who comes to help when her grandmother can’t take care of herself anymore. You are the type of woman who empowers other women through exercise and positive thinking. You are the type of woman who helps her boyfriend’s mother get her house ready for sale. Fawn Hill has changed you, my dear. Now don’t be a damn fool and ignore that fact. And don’t be a moron when it comes to Keaton Nash. Go tell that boy you love him. It’s my dying wish.”

  My laugh is garbled with unshed tears. “Oh, stop it, you old kook.”

  Deep down though, her words struck the doubt I’d let linger there for most of my life. She was the person who, for the first time ever, was helping me see just how worthy I was of everything that was coming to me. And I couldn’t leave her, not when I knew what she said was true.

  I also needed to finally be a fucking adult and pull on my big girl panties.

  You know, the ones Dr. Keaton Nash had pulled out of Grandma’s dog’s butt.

  Yeah, it was finally time to show him those, metaphorically, and tell him how I really felt.

  33

  Presley

  I ring his doorbell before my head can talk my heart out of it.

  We haven’t seen each other in nearly four days, and that’s the longest we’ve gone since the night he took me to the water tower. After Grandma smacked some sense into my head, I threw my clothes out of the duffel and onto the floor of my room. I could only adult so much at one time and folding and organizing would have to wait.

  Because tonight, I was going to tell the first man I’d ever said it to that I loved him.

  It takes a few minutes, but I hear the lock being turned and then the door swings inward, revealing Keaton.

  In nothing but basketball shorts. God, why did he have to be so freaking handsome? I was going to be insanely distracted during this if he didn’t put a shirt on.

  “Presley.” His eyes go wide, and the tone of his voice holds surprise.

  “Hey.” I smile sheepishly, holding up a hand.

  Keaton looks mildly confused and hasn’t said anything else … and I’m still standing on his front porch after half a minute.

  “Can I come in?” I’m suddenly so nervous, I feel like I might throw up.

  How does one say I love you to the first person they’ve ever told it to, in a romantic sense, and not feel like they’re jumping out of a plane?

  “Yeah, sure.” He steps aside, and when I move past him into the landing of his split level, I get a waft of the clean, soapy scent he always sports.

  Gosh, I’ve missed him. The feeling swamps me, and before I know what I’m doing, I wrap my arms around his waist and press my cheek to his bare chest.

  At first, Keaton goes still, and I know that I’ve hurt him. That makes my heart ache because I truly hadn’t considered it. While I was busy having a full-on meltdown over this man telling me he loves me, he’d been sitting in his house waiting for me. Or fearing that we were over. I’d left him in radio silence and he’d been his usual upstanding self and given me the space.

  “I’m sorry,” I apologize to his pec, and finally he relents, wrapping those long, lean arms around me.

  Against my hip, his phone starts to ring in his pocket. He reaches a hand down, finding it inside and silencing it.

  He moves away from me, his eyes a blazing, deep caramel, and I know he’s trying to find the words.

  Instead, he says, “Let’s have a drink.”

  Yeah, wine sounded like a good idea for this conversation. I nod and follow him up the stairs to the first level of his house. Once I crest the top stair, his phone starts to go off again.

  Keaton pulls it out of his pocket this time, stares at the screen, growls and clicks it off until he goes silent.

  “Why do my brothers call at the worst times?” He gives me a small smile.

  “Because they love you but are also the annoyance of your existence. At least that’s how I feel about my siblings.” I shrug.

  And now that I think about it, once I confess that I’m in love with him, I want to spend more time getting to know his brothers. I’ve only hung out with them on a couple of occasions, and those are the people closest to Keaton. I want to become a part of their group … and I want them to know how I feel about their brother. It’s just clicked as a very important thing I need to show them.

  “Keaton, I wanted to come over to say—”

  My sentence is cut off as his phone rings again.

  “Goddammit,” he bites out and looks at it once more, then up at me. “I’m sorry.”

  He clicks the button to answer it and lifts it to his ear, his tone pure annoyance. “What is it?”

  I wait as he listens to whoever is on the other end of the phone, his expression growing more grave by the second. He starts to nod and then bites his lip, and while he still has the phone pressed to his ear, he marches to his bedroom and appears back in front of me with a T-shirt covering his once bare chest.

  “I’ll meet you there in twenty.”

  He hangs up abruptly and looks at me; his mind somewhere
completely different. “That was Bowen. Fletcher is in serious trouble, I have to go.”

  “Let me come with you!” I call at his back, the thought popping out before I can think.

  “If you want to.” He doesn’t even turn around to look at me when he says it, and I try not to let that sting.

  He’s just worried about his brother. This has nothing to do with the fact that I didn’t say I love you back to him the other night. Or at least I can hope that it doesn’t.

  Keaton doesn’t speak the entire ride, and I don’t prod him. I can see the twitch of his jaw, the sharp set of his eyebrows, the way his knuckles turn white as he grips the wheel. My responsible, good man is speeding … something he never does. And it’s this … the body language he’s radiating across the truck, that has me panicking.

  This is going to be bad.

  I square my shoulders and take a deep breath, mentally preparing myself to be strong.

  We pull onto a dirt road that winds deep between trees on an unlit road. About half a mile down, the forest breaks to reveal a plot of land that contains a broken-down, beat-up shack of a house. The siding must have been white at some point in time, but now it’s filthy and moss and leaves grow between the panels. Half the shutters have fallen off, the front porch steps look like they’d cause a broken ankle if stepped on, and there are half-built cars littering the lot. Garbage is scattered around the grassless land, and mud puddles mark the earth like bullet holes.

  My heart rate spikes, because I know this isn’t the type of home where anything good happens. No … this is the site of something very bad, and I’m assuming, dangerous.

  “Stay in the car,” Keaton grits out, his troubled eyes flashing to make sure I’m buckled in.

  “Keaton, I don’t want you to go in there.” Some sixth sense has me wanting him to back down this driveway immediately.

  “I’ll be fine. Stay here. I mean it, Presley.”

  I nod, promising with my eyes that I’ll stay here. Keaton gets out just as another car pulls up, and I see Bowen meet him in the middle of the dark front yard. They talk quietly and then head up to the house. A flash of metal in Bowen’s hand tells me he’s holding a gun, and the organ trying to beat out of my chest suddenly jumps into my throat.

  They disappear inside, and I’m all too aware that I’m sitting out here alone.

  Fuck staying in the car. I know Keaton will be furious, but I’m not going to sit back while a person I love is put in danger. I’m done letting life happen to me.

  The first thing that hits me is the scent of the air. It’s filled with chemicals and almost smells sour. Yelling from inside has me pausing at the front door, my hands shaking as I work up the nerve to push it open.

  When I do, I’m hit with a cloud of invisible … something, and my nostrils flare. The house is more disgusting inside than it is on the outside, and there is no one in a room I’m guessing is supposed to be the living room that I walk into. Quietly, I walk farther in, pausing when I hear what sounds like stomping feet from somewhere within.

  Another two rooms passed through, and a voice catches my ear.

  “Well, what do we have here?”

  I turn to see a man, taller than Keaton but thinner than me, his two gold front teeth gleaming from a wicked, evil smile.

  “I’m just looking for my boyfriend and his brothers.” I try to stand my ground, but when he advances, my instincts have me stepping back.

  Alarm bells are sounding in my head when this man, dirt caked on his clothes and hands, smiles at my retreat.

  “Boyfriend, huh? Bet I can show you a better time than he does.”

  As he comes closer, I can see the red, enflamed blood vessels in his eyes, and the way his arms won’t stop twitching and moving. I step back again, not wanting him to invade my space any further, but he isn’t stopping. When my back hits the wall, I go to twist away and run down the hall, but his large hand captures my wrist.

  “Hey, baby, where you going so fast?” He leers at me.

  I bring my other hand up, prepared to hit him and run whichever way I can when someone else beats me to it.

  “Get your hands off of her!” Keaton growls, pushing the guy, whose state has him falling over and stumbling into a chair.

  “Keaton …” I start for him, wanting him to catch me in his arms, but he puts a hand up, holding me steady by the shoulder.

  “I can’t do this with you here.” His eyes are stone-cold, angry.

  I’ve disobeyed him and probably made this situation that much worse.

  “What the fuck, man?” The creep stands up, and another man I don’t recognize walks into the room.

  “Do we have a problem here?” This man is cleaner and doesn’t seem to be high like his cohort.

  “Just came for my brother.” Keaton’s face is void of expression.

  I see Bowen in the background, down the hall, dragging a half-conscious Fletcher by the upper arm.

  “Your brother owes me money. And I don’t need word of this place getting out. You understand that, right?”

  The tone of this man’s voice lets us all know that isn’t a question … it’s a threat. My blood is ice in my veins. What the hell has Fletcher gotten himself into?

  “How much does he owe you?” Keaton grits out between bared teeth.

  I’ve never seen the man I love so incensed. Keaton Nash is a level-headed, kind, amiable doctor. He shouldn’t be in a place like this, dealing with people like this. His loyalty to his brother has landed him here, and anyone in the room can feel the fury rolling off of him in waves.

  “Three grand.” The director of this … drug house—I don’t want to say meth because I know nothing about it—flicks his coat to the side.

  I see the flash of the gun at his belt, it’s unmistakable.

  Keaton calmly pulls out his wallet without taking his eyes off the man. “Here is five hundred dollars. You have my word that I’ll be back tomorrow with the rest. Now we’re taking my brother.”

  Bowen walks past us, Fletcher lolling all over him, as Keaton steps between me and the two strange men. I slip my hand into his, not because I want him to know I’m okay, but because I feel the wrath of what’s about to come down over us. These men might not harm us, but I know I just made some mistake. I can feel it. And when he leaves his hand limp instead of curling it around mine that fear is confirmed.

  “You better be back tomorrow, Nash. Don’t forget that this is a small town, a small county. I know where your mother lives, and I can find out where your pretty redhead here lives, too.”

  My lungs seize, the air I don’t let out burning from within them.

  Keaton pulls me toward the door. “You have my word.”

  34

  Keaton

  “I told you to stay in the car.”

  I breathe in and out of my nose, trying not to scream at Presley. I’m not even sure I could, with the exhaustion and adrenaline downshift flooding my bones.

  My car has long since been shut off, put in park in my driveway, but we haven’t gotten out. If we did, I’d have to invite her inside to have this conversation, and I don’t know what I want to do yet.

  Why had she shown up here tonight? What did she want to talk about before all hell had broken loose?

  My God … Fletcher was messed up with the drug dealers who apparently started a meth house just over the county line. How the hell had he gotten involved in that? I knew his drinking was getting out of control, but this?

  I look at the steering wheel of my car as if it will provide answers. I’m not sure if I want to punch it until my hands bleed, collapse my head in my hands and cry, or pray to my father, wherever he is, and ask what the plan is? What do I do? I’m not equipped to help my brother with something as big as getting clean from meth.

  And then there is Presley.

  Seeing that guy touch her, the gun on their leader’s belt and the place I’d taken her to? Having her there was more than I could bear. I’d needed to help my b
rother, to get him out of there, but I couldn’t breathe the moment she’d walked into that hell hole. All I wanted to do was abandon every thought of saving my family, of being the leader of the Nash boys, and carry her the fuck out. Over my shoulder like a caveman.

  I’m livid she didn’t follow my instructions to stay in the car.

  “I know, I’m so sorry. I thought … I wanted to help …”

  “Well, you didn’t help!” My voice is louder and filled with more rage than I wanted to let bleed into it. “You only identified yourself to them. Do you realize how reckless these guys can be? This isn’t New York, Presley. There aren’t cops keeping real tabs on these guys. They roam the surrounding areas praying on the weak and for the most part, going unchecked. And now they know your face.”

  She has the decency to drop her eyes in shame. “I couldn’t let anything happen to you.”

  And in her recklessness, she’d let everything happen to me. When that creep had put his hands on her, I’d seen my life flash before my eyes. I was in too deep, with a woman who had no regard for her well-being or the feelings I’d confessed to her. Feelings she hadn’t returned.

  “I think we should … take some time.” The words feel like sawdust in my mouth.

  “What … what are you saying?” Presley’s voice notches up an emotional octave.

  My right hand scrubs over my face. I haven’t been able to process anything that has happened in the last three hours, my brain is fried, my emotions are all over the place and I know I’m going to fuck this up but I don’t care.

  “I’ve dedicated a lot of time to you in the past couple of months. And I’ve really enjoyed it … but I have a life here. I have people I need to take care of. You … you make that complicated.”

  “So, you’re saying, that because of who I am, because of how I affect you, you want to end this? You’re telling me that you feel too deeply about me, and I’m reckless, and it’s dangerous because it makes you stray from your same-old routine? Well, excuse me for bringing a little spontaneity to your life. Excuse me for trying to better you as a person.”

  Her words sting.