27. Ashford
TWENTY-SEVEN
Ashford
I’d agreed to give Emma a few days. Three at the most. It had been two.
I was miserable .
“You should go to bed. Get some sleep.” Grace walked into the kitchen in her pajamas. “Or at least turn a light on. Sitting here in the dark is creepy, and it can’t be making your mood any better.”
“You think a light is going to help my mood? It’ll just signal to the vultures outside that we’re up.”
It was the middle of the night, and I was sitting at my kitchen table doom-scrolling through social media. My phone had dozens of emails and voicemails from reporters seeking comments. I’d given up on deleting them.
The reporters had descended within hours of us returning home after our trip. We’d had to cancel classes. Chief Landry had increased his officers’ patrols down our block, but if the reporters and news vans stayed on the public sidewalks and street, there were limits to what he could do to keep them away.
Grace and Callum had been braving the paparazzi to bring us supplies, but Maisie and I were pretty much trapped here, and my little girl had no idea why these strangers were suddenly bothering us.
All she knew was that Emma wasn’t here, and she didn’t understand why.
As promised, Emma had texted once she arrived in Hartley. I’m with my family, and I’m safe. I’m sorry about that article . But I will try to make it right . I miss you so much, Ashford. You and Maisie both.
Which sounded very reasonable, if completely unsatisfying.
I wanted to put my fist through a wall, but I couldn’t act like an impulsive teenager. I was a father. Had to set an example. But it would’ve felt good. Better yet, I might put my fist through some reporter’s face. That article had lumped me in with my older brother. I had a violent family history .
Well, I could show them violence. Just give me an opportunity .
Grace opened the fridge and came back to the table with a takeout container and two forks. “Eat something.”
“Not hungry.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion, O’Neal.” She handed me a utensil and opened the lid. We both dug into cold leftover noodles.
“Have you spoken to Emma?” Grace asked.
“A little. On the phone. She won’t tell me where she is.”
“Because she knows you’d show up there.”
“Hell yes, I would.”
I’d tried to find out where exactly Emma was. Grace had dropped her off at a diner on Hartley’s Main Street, so that wasn’t much help. I didn’t know her Uncle Aiden’s last name. It wasn’t Jennings, because I’d looked for an Aiden Jennings, and there wasn’t one in Hartley.
If I’d known where Emma was, I would’ve followed her out there already. Screw being patient. Screw all these reporters. Screw three days.
I shoveled noodles into my mouth, barely tasting them.
Yesterday, I’d received a call from Emma’s lawyer friend in California. Jane Holt. I assumed that was what Emma meant by “making it right.” She was still trying to help me and Maisie, after everything.
Jane had offered to find me a lawyer in Colorado who had expertise in media relations and privacy laws. Not something I’d ever wanted to know about. But from what Jane had told me, we probably couldn’t get that article taken down. All the facts it had stated were technically true, even though it had drawn ridiculous implications.
Not like it mattered at this point, anyway. That article was out there. People were talking about us. Posting about us. Coming up with wild theories about Ayla’s lyrics and how they were about me and the awful things I’d supposedly done to Lori.
It was pure madness. I didn’t want my kid to have to deal with this. But the constant ache in my chest wasn’t really concern for Maisie. She was safe here surrounded by me, Grace, and Callum. Jane Holt had assured me there was very little Ayla could do in a court of law to take Maisie away from me.
I couldn’t sleep because Emma was out there, and she was hurting. I got the feeling she blamed herself for somehow making the situation worse, and it couldn’t be further from the truth.
I wanted to make it better. I wanted her with me.
“I think I’m in love with her.” My voice sounded like it was made of a thousand broken pieces. Missing her had me in a chokehold. I couldn’t breathe.
“Oh, Ashford.” Grace set her fork down and rested her hand on mine. “I already figured.”
I’d realized it that last night we were together. In the hotel. I’d almost told her. And again the next morning, when she woke up in my arms and I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. I wanted to tell her now, but I refused to do it over the phone.
“It snuck up on me,” I said to my sister. “Falling in love with her. I’d never felt anything like that.”
Being Maisie’s father was fulfilling, but loving Emma was a different kind of happiness. She’d stitched together the broody, rough-hewn parts of me into a whole person. A whole man.
All those evenings we’d had dinner together, laughing. Afternoons in the park with Stella. Reading Maisie stories at bedtime. Sharing things I’d never confessed to anyone.
Lingering kisses and hours spent in my bed, skin to skin. Burning up the sheets. Burning away all my resistance. I’d made her mine in every way. How had I ever thought I could let her go?
Emma had suggested she could come back and visit. It had been an opening, right? Maybe she wanted us to keep seeing each other after the summer ended. There had to be a way to make this work.
But why would Emma want to keep seeing me now that her private business had been splashed in front of the entire world, and it was because of me?
Grace rubbed my hand. “What can I get you? Some of that whiskey Callum brought?”
My brother was in my room right now, snoring. Grace had taken the couch. It probably would’ve made more sense for her to take Emma’s room, but Grace hadn’t suggested that, and neither had I. All Emma’s stuff was in there. Stella’s doggy bed and toys.
I’d been in there earlier, and that had not been a good idea. I’d been drowning in the scent of lavender-vanilla, and only Maisie calling for me had brought me back to the surface.
“I’m going to go downstairs and work out,” I said. “Maybe I can exhaust myself so I can sleep.”
“Let me know if you need anything else.”
“Just stay close if Maisie wakes up in the night.”
“Yeah, I’ve got it.”
“Thanks.”
I went down to the training room. Did pushups, sit-ups, and banged out pull-ups on the bar over the doorframe. The exercise helped some. Yet I still wasn’t tired.
Then someone knocked, and I realized it was the external door at the back of the building. Probably another vulture reporter.
Fury rushed back, setting my pulse racing. Seriously ? It was the middle of the night. My kid was sleeping. Did these people have no decency?
Don’t do anything stupid , I told myself. But I was already storming to the door. I felt just reckless enough to welcome a fight, no matter how idiotic that would be.
I yanked the door open.
But there was no reporter outside.
Ayla Maxwell stood on the concrete outside my back door. She had a baseball cap pulled over her platinum-blond hair, no trace of her signature dramatic makeup, but her heart-shaped face and green eyes were unmistakable. Same face and eyes that Lori and my daughter shared.
“Are you insane ?” I growled.
“It’s quite possible,” she muttered.
I grabbed her arm and pulled her inside, glancing around. But there wasn’t a single reporter or photographer in sight.
I closed the door quietly, thinking of my daughter asleep upstairs, and locked the bolt. “Haven’t you done enough to fuck up my life?”
“I’m so sorry about the article. That wasn’t me, I swear.”
“It was your fault, though.”
She couldn’t argue with that.
Under the harsh light of the hallway, dark circles ringed her eyes. Not unlike the ones I’d seen in my own mirror. Her lips were chapped, and her skin was sickly pale. A baggy T-shirt and a backpack swallowed her petite frame.
I refused to believe that Ayla felt worse than I did. But she wasn’t in good shape. That was for sure.
“How’d you even get here?”
“I snuck out of the rehab facility, bought a car with cash, and drove here. Parked a couple blocks away and walked to your building. I made sure nobody was around to see.”
“You drove here from New England? By yourself?”
“Didn’t have much choice.”
“Then why isn’t the news reporting that you disappeared again?”
“My people are probably keeping it quiet as long as they can. But I left my phone behind and I’ve avoided using credit cards so they don’t know where I am. I swear I would never wish to cause you or Maisie any harm. I just really, really need a friend. And I have nowhere else to go.”
I scrubbed my hands over my face. I didn’t need this.
My veins pulsed with all the anger and frustration I could unleash on this woman. But what good would that do? It wouldn’t bring Emma back home.
Except for magazine covers and screens, I hadn’t seen Ayla since she was a teenager. Yet right now, she seemed far more like Lori’s younger sister than a superstar.
If Lori were here, would she want me to turn her sister away?
“Do you like tea?” I asked.
“What? Tea ?”
“Yeah. Hot tea. The froo-froo, flowery kind. Do you like it?”
“Um, yes.” She eyed me warily. “Tea would pretty much be the best thing ever.”
I heaved a sigh. “Come on, then.”
Turning, I headed for the kitchenette, not waiting to see if she’d follow. Part of me hoped she’d think better of this and leave.
But she didn’t. Ayla followed me and stood in the doorway while I poured water into the kettle to heat. I grabbed the box of tea from the shelf.
“You don’t seem like the flowery tea type,” Ayla said.
“It’s Emma’s.”
“Oh. Is she here with Maisie?” Ayla’s voice lifted when she said my daughter’s name.
I gritted my teeth. “No, Emma left. Because of that article.”
“I really am sorry about that. I had no idea anyone knew Maisie was my niece until the story broke. Is Maisie okay?”
“She’s fine.”
“And Emma?”
“I wish she was here. But yeah, she’s safe.” I loosened up, just a little, at the concern I’d heard in Ayla’s voice.
When the water boiled, I poured some into a mug and pushed it across the counter.
“Do you have any cookies?”
“ Really ?”
“Come on, Ford! I’ve been driving for hours. I only stopped for gas and to pee. I’m hungry.”
Snorting a laugh, I found a sleeve of cookies in a drawer and handed them to her. Lori had used to call me Ford sometimes. Especially when she was annoyed with me.
We sat down at the tiny table against the wall. She dropped her backpack to the floor. Ayla shoved a cookie in her mouth, then dipped a second one into the tea.
“So what kind of rehab facility did you escape from? One of those cushy celebrity ones?”
“You think I could go anywhere else? Even there, paps were still hiding in bushes to take my picture. Pretty sure my own staff sold me out. I can’t trust anyone.” She ate her second cookie. Took a long sip of tea. Then Ayla sighed, eyes closing, and sank back against her chair. “I really was there for exhaustion. It wasn’t code for a drug addiction or anything like that.”
That was good, because I didn’t want anything drug-related near Maisie. I had no idea what kind of rock ’n’ roll lifestyle Ayla had been living.
“What happened?” I asked. “I heard you canceled your world tour.”
“You know how they say, be careful what you wish for?” She took another cookie from the sleeve. “I just got to the point that I couldn’t take the pressure anymore. The nonstop traveling. Not having anybody I could trust. It’s really hard doing this without family who will be there for you, no matter what. Who see you as a real person and not a commodity.”
“But I thought that’s what you wanted. You didn’t want anything to do with Lori back when she tried to get in touch.”
“I messed up with my big sister. But I apologized. We started talking again before she died.”
“I know. I saw her call log. You refused to tell me why she called you the night she died.”
“ No , I told you the truth. Her voicemail was garbled. Like the connection was bad. But we did talk other times. We had reconnected. We were friends.”
“Then why didn’t she tell me?”
“Ashford,” she said softly, “there’s a lot Lori didn’t tell you.”
I knew that. But still, it stung. That same old hurt.
“So you’re admitting you knew something was going on with Lori. Yet you didn’t tell the police about it after she died. If you didn’t want to talk to me, fine. But there was an investigation. There are still questions about what happened. And you’re the only one who might have any answers.”
“I never told you because I suspected you.”
“Are you kidding me? Why would you think I’d do anything to hurt Lori? She was my best friend.”
Ayla burst into tears.
Dammit.
I handed some napkins to her. She accepted them and wiped her face. Then I noticed the goosebumps on her skin. She was shaking, hugging one arm across her middle. I didn’t even know how long it had been since she’d slept. Maybe longer than it had been for me.
Leaving the kitchenette, I grabbed a plaid flannel I’d left in my office.
“Wear this.” I draped the flannel around her shoulders. “It gets cold down here at night.”
Ayla stuck her arms into the shirt and took a big gulp of tea. I went to get the kettle to fill up her mug.
Eventually, her sobs quieted. “Thanks. Sorry. I just miss my sister.”
“Yeah. Me too.” I sat across from her, wondering if we shouldn’t have this conversation tonight. But if we didn’t do it now, when would we? How did I know that Ayla wouldn’t disappear again?
“At Dad’s funeral, Lori got my number from my assistant.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“I called her back. We talked about Maisie a lot. About old times. About how it was when we lived in that house growing up. Our father was so cruel.”
“I remember.” I spoke without emotion, but it had seemed like she needed an acknowledgment. She nodded and took a breath.
“When I left home, I just wanted to put all of that behind me. I know it was wrong of me to cut off Lori along with our dad, but I was sixteen. I wanted my own life. After we reconnected, Lori and I worked through it. She forgave me. And then she started to open up. She always said you were a wonderful father. There was never any doubt about that. But she admitted she was really unhappy in your marriage.”
I looked down at my hands on the tabletop.
“Then Lori told me she’d met someone. A man. Someone who lived here in town.”
“Who?”
“She never told me his name. She only ever called him by his first initial. L. Same as hers. It started out great. She used to joke around, saying L and L like she thought it was the funniest thing. Lori told me she was falling in love, but her biggest concern was you . What you would think.”
“I was okay with her seeing other people. We made that clear to each other from the beginning.”
“But she was still anxious about how you would react. That’s why she wanted to keep it secret until she knew for sure if it was going to last. She didn’t want to change the life you guys had with Maisie unless this new guy was the one.”
“But something happened. A friend of mine said she walked in on Lori crying at the dentist’s office.”
“Yeah. Lori told L about me .” Ayla pushed the last of her tea away, like she couldn’t stomach any more of it.
“She told him your identity?”
“Yep. Once he knew, he told Lori to ask me for money. Supposedly so they could start a new life together.”
“Did she?”
Ayla shook her head. “No, but Lori told me about it. She was so upset. She said L got angry when she refused. I even said I’d give her the money, or a loan if she preferred, but she thought she’d made a mistake by trusting him. She actually said she was scared.” Ayla leaned forward, her green eyes going hard. “That was just a few days before she died.”
“Scared of what? Of L? Did she think he’d hurt her?”
“She didn’t say exactly. Believe me, I tried to get it out of her, but she said she’d figure it out on her own. When I heard about her death, I freaked out. Hired a private investigator to come to Silver Ridge. I refused to believe it was an accident. I had two suspects. This L person, and you.”
“Me? Why?”
“Because you were her husband. Everyone says it’s the boyfriend or husband who usually does the woman in. So it was L or you. I thought you could have found out about her secret affair, and you’d gotten angry that she wanted to leave you, and maybe that was why she was scared.”
“She never told me. Never.”
“I believe you. My investigator figured out you had an alibi. And he searched all over Hart County for someone who could be L, but couldn’t say for certain who the guy was.”
“The driver who hit Lori saw someone else on the highway that night. Said this other person could’ve pushed her.”
“I’ve read the police report. But my investigator came to the same conclusion the police did. Not enough evidence to suggest it was anything other than an accident. I had to accept that I would never know exactly how or why Lori died.”
“I still haven’t accepted it.” My mind worked, trying to untangle the mystery. “When did you plan on telling me all of this?”
“Would it have mattered if I did? It took a long time before I was convinced you had nothing to do with it. And by then, when I tried to get in touch with you, you wouldn’t answer. You had no interest in anything I had to say. Every number I called you from, you blocked it.”
Yeah, that was true.
What a damn mess.
I got up and went to lean against the counter. “How did those reporters find out about your connection to me and Maisie? They’ve been poking around here in Silver Ridge since the beginning of the summer.”
“I don’t know that either. But I had an assistant early this year who was stealing money from me. I told you I have trouble finding people I can trust. She sold at least one story about me to the tabloids. It was about me crying in my dressing room before a show.”
“Geez.”
Ayla gestured at her tear-streaked face, the corner of her mouth quirking in a rueful smile. “Not so hard to believe, is it?”
“What about this L guy, whoever he is? Could he have told the reporters, since he knows you’re Lori’s sister?”
“Maybe. But that would be dangerous. Because if he really had something to do with Lori’s death, why would he invite more attention? It’s far more likely that someone on my team gave some reporters a tip about my secret family members, and they did the rest. I wish you and your girlfriend never got dragged into this.”
My heart twinged painfully at the mention of Emma. “She’s not really my girlfriend yet. I’d like her to be, but that article publicized some really personal things about her, and I have no idea if she’ll want to keep seeing me.”
“I truly am sorry. I left messages with my publicist and my lawyers, asking them to do whatever they can to shut this story down. Especially if it could put Maisie in danger. I don’t care how much it costs. Whatever I have to do to protect her, I will. And I’ll help Emma too. However I can. But my team doesn’t know where I am at the moment, and I’d like it to stay that way. At least until I’ve had some time to rest. So I can think about what I want for my future, because how things are now isn’t working.”
My head ached. Two days’ worth of exhaustion had just crashed into me. After the revelations about Lori, this entirely new perspective on Ayla, and her offer to help… I’d had just about all my brain could process.
And I still missed Emma so badly.
“You can stay here a few days,” I said. “My brother and sister are already upstairs, so I guess you should take Emma’s room.”
“You sure?”
“Not really, but there’s no other beds. So unless you want to sleep down here on a training mat, it’s Emma’s room or nothing.”
“And Maisie? Can I finally meet her in the morning?”
“It’ll be hard not to. My apartment isn’t that big.”
She clasped her hands together, eyes shining. “Thank you. Thank you . I promise, Ashford. You won’t regret this.”
I really hoped not. Because I already had too many regrets at the moment.