12. Ashford
TWELVE
Ashford
“Daddy, something’s wrong.”
“Hmm?” I sat up fast, though I was still half asleep. My heart rate instantly revved into overdrive. “What? What is it?”
“It’s Emma.”
I blinked, remembering what had happened last night. Finding Emma near tears in that dilapidated apartment. Seeing her cry. I had been physically incapable of leaving her there. Only a monster would’ve done that.
And then, once she was in my home, I’d almost kissed her.
What kind of an asshole was I, tempted to make a move on a vulnerable young woman who needed my help? Exactly that kind of asshole, apparently. Hi, everyone. It’s me .
I got up, put on a T-shirt and sweatpants over my shorts, then followed Maisie to the guest room. The door was closed, and canine whimpers came from inside.
“See?” Maisie said. “Stella’s upset.”
I knocked gently. The whimpers increased, and there was a muffled groan that sounded far more human. “Emma? You okay?” I opened the door a crack. The room was dark.
Before I could stop her, Maisie squeezed past me and inside. She went to the pile of blankets on the futon where I assumed Emma was bundled up. Stella followed at her heels.
“Emma? Are you in there?” Maisie lifted the top of the quilt.
“ Mais ,” I warned, taking a careful step forward. Then I heard Emma answer in a strained voice.
“Not feeling so hot, Maisie-doodle. I have a migraine.”
Shit. “I’ll be right back,” I said. “Hold on.”
I went to the bathroom to wet a washcloth with cold water. When I returned, Maisie was sitting on the futon beside Emma. After hesitating a moment longer, I crossed the small room. Emma blinked up at me, hair spread over her pillow and her blankets pulled up to her chin. She looked too pale in the daylight bleeding through the blinds of her window.
“Thought you could use this.” I held out the cold washcloth. With a grateful sigh, she took it and draped it over her forehead.
“Thanks.”
“Are you nauseous?” I asked.
“Yeah. Trying to lie still.”
“We have saltines.”
“I can get them.” Maisie jumped up and ran for the kitchen. I hovered there, contemplating what else I could do.
“How’d you know about the cold compress?” Emma asked. “Do you get migraines?”
“Lori used to. When she was stressed.”
“That’s a trigger for me too. Also crying. Did plenty of that yesterday.”
“Need to cancel your music classes this morning?”
She grimaced. “Ugh, yeah.”
“Don’t worry about it. I can handle it. You use that sign-up app, right?”
Emma unlocked her phone, and I navigated to the app to send a cancelation message to everyone who’d registered. By then, Maisie had returned with a small plate of saltine crackers, and also a glass of orange juice that was precariously full.
“Thank you both. I just need a little quiet and dark and rest. I’ll probably be doing better this afternoon.”
“Don’t worry about going anywhere until you’re well.”
Maisie tugged at my shirt. “Daddy, shouldn’t we stay with Emma today?”
I was feeling the same thing. But there wasn’t much we could do for Emma except let her rest. I’d been through this same thing with Lori.
Maisie had day camp this morning. I had a training session with Elias.
Emma bit the corner of a saltine. “I promise I’m fine. Please don’t cancel your plans because of me. That’ll make me feel even worse.”
That settled it. “Come on, Mais. Let’s get ready. Stella will be here with her. We’ll be back this afternoon.” I steered her out of the room. Maisie pouted as she got dressed and sat down for breakfast.
Just before we left, I brought Emma a cup of hot tea. She was asleep, so I left the mug on the table by the bed.
“We shouldn’t have left her,” Maisie said with a dramatic frown, little arms crossed in the backseat on our way to camp drop-off. Yep, she was mad at me.
“Sometimes grown-ups have to take care of themselves.”
“But you helped Emma when you brought her to live with us. ’Cause her partment was leaking. That was taking care of her, wasn’t it?”
“I was trying to. Yeah.”
“Then why won’t you take care of her now?”
Geez. My kid was only six, but she had an advanced degree in guilt-tripping. “It’s just different. Okay?”
She stuck out her lower lip and glared at the window.
After drop-off, I headed to the gym to meet Elias for training. He was already warming up on the treadmill when I walked up. “What’s with you?” he asked. “Would’ve thought you’d be smiling.”
“Why?”
Elias grinned smugly. “Callum told me about your pretty new roommate. How’s that going?”
Seriously, the small-town gossip network was bad enough. But my siblings took it to another level. “Emma’s not feeling well today. Maisie’s upset that we left her at the apartment.”
“Oh. Damn.” Elias hit stop on the machine and stepped off. “Do you need to take off? We’re doing the same routine as last time, right? I can run through it myself.”
“No, you paid for me to whip your ass into shape. Let’s hit the weights. Squat rack first.”
Since the moment Emma had shown up in Silver Ridge, I had been trying to keep her at arm’s length. But there was another part of me that wanted to pull her closer. A very stupid part of me.
I had to draw the line somewhere before I did something I couldn’t undo.
Yet an hour and a half later, after returning my truck to its usual parking space, I found myself a few blocks away on Main Street picking up supplies. Laden with bags, I trudged back to the Big Blue Monster. That name had already stuck. Those windows really did look like eyes. How had I never noticed it?
I tried to be quiet as I went upstairs and unpacked my purchases in the kitchen. No sounds came from the guest room. But when I tiptoed over to check, her door was open.
Emma leaned against the pillows with her eyes closed. Her hair was damp like she’d taken a shower. She smelled like lavender and vanilla. I hadn’t been able to name the flower before, but now her shampoo and body wash were in my bathroom.
Stella snoozed beside her. I didn’t want to disturb them. I was about to sneak away when Emma opened her eyes.
“Hi. You’re back.”
“Finished my morning session.” I leaned into the door frame. “Dixie is going to pick up Maisie from camp and entertain her for a few hours. I told her you’re not feeling well. Dixie said she hopes you feel better soon.” Actually, Dixie had asked me to give Emma a get-well hug for her. I figured that was a bad idea. “I grabbed some things from the market. For whenever you’re hungry.”
“You didn’t have to do all that.”
But I did , I thought. Couldn’t help myself. “No big deal. How’s your pain?”
“Not great. But not the worst. The nausea has mostly passed.”
“Do you feel like having soup? I have chicken noodle or tomato.”
“Tomato sounds good. Thank you.”
A few minutes later, I carried a tray with two bowls of soup and more saltines into the guest room. “Mind if I eat in here with you? I’d sit at the kitchen table, but seems weird for us to eat in two separate rooms.”
“I don’t mind at all. Stella, down please. Good girl.”
I clenched my teeth. Hearing her say those last two words just made me imagine myself saying them. In a very different kind of situation.
The only place for me to sit was on the bed. Which didn’t help. I placed the tray over Emma’s lap, then carefully sat on top of the blankets next to her so I wouldn’t jostle the soup.
“Didn’t know you could have such a delicate touch,” she said.
“Me? I’m like a panther when I want to be. Pure stealth.”
Emma snickered and dipped her spoon into the soup.
The lights were low, and we ate in companionable silence. Once Stella figured out there was food, she tried joining us, but Emma snapped her fingers and told the dog to stay down. “It’s not your turn, Stella. You just have to wait.”
I smiled at their interaction. Usually, the pets-as-children thing annoyed me. But not when Emma did it. “How long do your migraines usually last?”
“The worst of the pain and nausea might be a day. Then I’m really exhausted after. I hate missing things because I’m sick.”
“How often do they come?”
“Depends. Once every month or two.”
“That sucks.”
For some reason, my statement made her smile. “It does. But it’s really nice to have roommates to bring me soup and crackers. And hot tea.”
My phone rang at full volume. I cringed, grabbing it out of my pocket and switching it to silent. Thankfully it wasn’t Dixie. It wasn’t a number I had any intention of answering.
“That’s a Los Angeles area code,” Emma said.
Damn. So she’d seen my screen.
“Oh, is it? I wouldn’t know,” I lied. “Must be a wrong number. Hey, I bought ice cream. I’ll go get it.”
Shameless change of subject. But I wanted to head off any more questions.
In the kitchen, I scrolled to my recent calls and blocked that number. When the heck is she finally going to give up ? I wondered.
Then I pushed the subject out of my mind. Because it seemed like the answer was never . And that scared me more than I would ever admit.
“Which flavor?” I brandished the two options, one bowl of each.
I’d bought two kinds of ice cream at the market. Mint chocolate chip, which Lori had always liked when she had a migraine. And chocolate. Since Emma had a chocolate shake yesterday, I’d figured that was a safe bet.
Emma bit her lip, looking from one to the other. “Can we share? Unless you don’t want my germs. Migraines aren’t contagious,” she joked.
“I think I can take the risk.” I scooted back into my spot beside her. I’d also brought a paper bag with me, tucked beneath my arm, but that was for later. I set the bag on the floor and handed Emma the bowl of chocolate. “Here you go.”
We traded bowls halfway through. My gaze followed as she licked ice cream from her spoon while I did the same to mine.
The lower half of my body responded, cock firming up against my inner thigh.
Calm down , I told myself. The poor woman was sick. But apparently I had a weakness when it came to Emma Jennings. In all kinds of ways.
Stella jumped up on the bed, and this time, Emma didn’t bother scolding her. The dog watched us forlornly until I gave up and said, “Here,” holding my bowl out.
Stella made short work of licking the bowl clean.
“She’ll love you forever now,” Emma said. “Won’t be able to get rid of her.”
“Yeah, yeah. I got tired of the puppy eyes.” Hopeless. I was hopeless. “I picked up something else while I was out.”
Setting the dish on the nightstand, I leaned down to grab the brown paper bag I’d left beside the bed. Stella pushed in between us, so I had to reach over to hand Emma the bag.
“What is it?”
“It’s nothing really. Just saw it in the window at Silver Linings when I was walking by.”
She opened the bag. “Oh my gosh. Ashford. This is… I don’t believe it.”
“If you don’t like it, I can exchange it. Or return it.”
Emma pulled out the new journal. It had a white leather cover with stars and shiny gold on the edges of the pages.
I hadn’t exactly seen it in the window. I’d had to hunt around, and Piper had suggested this one.
“You like it?”
“I can’t believe it,” she said again. Her fingertips traced the soft cover, and I couldn’t help imagining those fingers on my skin instead.
Nope. So not appropriate .
I shrugged. “It’s not exactly like your other one. But I figured this could fill in. Seemed like the journaling thing was important to you.”
“I love it so much. Thank you.” She hugged it to her chest. “You’re a very sweet man, Ashford, even if you spend a lot of energy pretending you’re not.”
Cue the discomfort. “Eh. I don’t know. Just don’t get used to it.”
Emma settled against the pillows. “Do you need to go?”
“Not yet.” I hadn’t looked at the clock for a while. Checking now, I was glad to see we had another hour.
“Would you tell me more about you and Maisie? It will distract me from the pain.” She batted her eyelashes.
I laughed. “And you say my daughter knows how to play me. You’re much more dangerous.”
“I am a musician. Playing things is my speciality.”
When she put it like that, how could I deny her? Even if the story was pretty depressing.
I stretched out my legs and started talking.
I told her about my mom having a stroke when I was thirteen. How my siblings and I had taken care of each other, since our dad hadn’t been interested. I didn’t talk about myself like this. Pretty much ever. But something about Emma made it easy.
Stella lazed half on my lap, half on Emma’s. I let myself sink into the pillows, and while I was talking, our arms ended up touching. Emma’s head found its way to my shoulder.
I told her how I’d met Lori on base. Her father had been a colonel. An overbearing tyrant of a man, especially to his wife and daughters. He’d never gotten violent with them. That would’ve risked losing face and being disciplined by his superiors. But he’d berated his family every chance he got until his wife and then Lori’s sister left. Lori was the only one who stayed.
“We were close friends for a long time. Kept in touch through every relocation. Then after I came back from my last deployment, Lori showed up on my doorstep. I guess we both needed something good. Maisie showed up nine months later.”
“Sounds like it was meant to be.”
I smiled, my gaze tracing patterns on the ceiling. “I’ve never described it that way. But it does feel like Maisie was meant to come into our lives. She’s what we both needed.”
Emma shifted against my side. “I should tell you. I already heard a little about Lori from Dixie and Piper. They said she was a great mom.”
“She was. I miss her like crazy.” But I felt like I should make things clear to Emma. I just didn’t want her to misunderstand. “Lori and I weren’t together, though. Our marriage wasn’t romantic. This was her room, actually.”
She paused, glancing around at the darkened space. “You don’t mind me being here?”
“Not at all. It’s been three years.”
“But emotions don’t keep time that way.”
I sighed, my eyes drifting closed. “I guess not. Most people expect me to be over her death. Especially because we weren’t in love.”
“It’s okay if you’re not over it.”
Callum, Elias, and Judson kept urging me to date. Same with Piper. They all meant well. I knew that. But for me, it wasn’t about my needs. Or even my heartbreak. I didn’t have a broken heart, not in the traditional sense. I was angry . Furious that I’d lost my best friend. That my daughter didn’t have her mom. That Maisie had to count on me for everything, and what if I wasn’t good enough?
“I just wish I knew why ,” I admitted. “Why Lori died.”
“I read a news article about the investigation. I googled you, and it came up.”
I chuckled. “You cyber-stalked me, Jennings?”
“I feel guilty. That’s why I’m confessing.”
“I forgive you.” I opened my eyes and turned my head. Emma was looking at me. Blue, blue eyes. So fucking pretty.
There was a lot I would forgive her.
“What did this article say?” I asked.
“That she was hit by a car on the highway. She ran into the road. But Piper said it was definitely an accident.”
I hesitated.
“It was, right?” Emma asked.
“The elderly woman who hit her couldn’t stop in time. Lori had parked at a nearby trailhead, and she walked the trail through the meadow there. It was summer then, so it was probably full of wildflowers. Like it is now.”
I pictured how those fields of flowers had looked a couple of weeks ago. The day I had met Emma.
“She stopped at an old abandoned cabin,” I said.
“I think I saw it from the road.”
“It’s on the trail. She dropped her phone nearby. After that, why she was there after dark and ran onto the road, nobody can say. But the elderly woman who was driving the car claimed she saw two people by the highway. Someone else was with Lori. And the driver said… She said this other person pushed Lori into the road.”
“Oh my God. Did the police find any evidence to support that?”
“No. Nothing. The driver’s glasses prescription was out of date, and it was dark out. The police thought she was either confused or saw a double image. But I don’t know. I still have Lori’s phone, and I’ve gone over what’s on it a hundred times with no luck. If there were incriminating messages, she must’ve deleted them. I knew she was keeping secrets from me.”
“What do you mean?”
“A feeling I had. I was going to ask her about it. Didn’t get the chance. I wish I could force it all to make sense, but I can’t.”
“I’m sorry,” Emma said again.
“Me too.”
I looked down at her big blue eyes. And suddenly, I was leaning in. My nose brushed the side of hers. I wanted desperately to kiss her. Press her down to the bed. Take comfort in her, and let her take comfort from me. Take anything she wanted.
The hell is wrong with me?
She was sick, and I was thinking about stripping her naked.
“Close your eyes,” I whispered. “Get some rest. I’ll be here.”
Emma took a deep breath, exhaled, and put her head back on my shoulder.
The alarm on my phone blared. I rubbed my face, and Emma stirred beside me. We’d fallen asleep.
“You need to go?” Emma asked.
“I do.” Didn’t want to, though. I’d been comfortable. Couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken a nap. “Dixie’s going to bring Maisie over before the kids’ jiu-jitsu class. I need to get things ready. You need anything?”
“Could you take Stella out for me?”
“Of course. Anything else?”
“Not right now. The ice cream helped. And the sleep.” But when she sat up, her mouth twisted like she was still hurting. “Maybe Dixie could come up while she’s here. I need to ask her about her friend’s spare room. See if it’s still free.”
“You’re settled in here. Why not stick around?”
“You agreed to give me a place to stay for a night. Maybe two. I know you’d rather have your space.”
I ran my fingers through my hair. “This could work out for the both of us. You’ll have an easy commute to work. And you could help me out by watching Maisie sometimes.”
“You really wouldn’t mind? Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.” Did I know what I was doing? Not a clue. All I knew was that I wanted Emma close. I would know she was safe, and it would make Maisie happy.
“At least let me pay rent.”
“We’ll work it out. Later. When you’re feeling better.”
“Okay.” She seemed lighter already. More like herself. “Thank you, Ashford. Really. I don’t think I’ve expressed how grateful I am for everything you’ve done for me. I didn’t even think you liked me.”
“Hard to dislike someone who’s good to my kid.”
But it was more than that. Despite my denials and excuses, it wasn’t just Maisie who was getting attached.
Basically, I was screwed.
I’d already almost kissed her twice. How much longer could I resist?