5. Tess
The wishing pool is tucked away in the mountains above Starlight Ridge, up where the breeze whistles over the rocks and shakes the pine needles from their branches. It’s a local superstition: if you need some extra luck in your life, if there’s a wish you’re hoping and dreaming will come true, you hike on up to the wishing pool and flick a penny into its waters.
For extra credit, if you really want to go the extra mile, you can slip into the pool yourself and bathe beneath the wide-open skies. It’s cold enough to make your teeth chatter, but after a long, sweaty hike up the trail, that’s half the appeal. Besides, who doesn’t want a little extra luck?
“Makes sense to me,” Ash says when I lay it all out for him, explaining our destination as we hike up between the trees. “Why go all that way and not dunk under? ‘Specially if it means extra luck.”
“Exactly.”
My muscles are burning already, arms swinging by my sides. Every breath that puffs out of me is extra loud. Need to keep reminding myself to slow down, that we’ve got a pregnant lady not far behind us who can’t go charging up a mountainside at top pace, but something about walking beside this man is making me antsy.
Because Ash is as big and broad and masculine as I remember, with thick brown hair and chestnut eyes that crinkle at the corners. Not to mention that square jaw. It seemed impossible, once I left Rowan and Evie’s cabin after breakfast, that I wasn’t exaggerating him in my mind.
But nope. My brother’s best friend really does loom beside me on this trail, brushing slender tree branches out of our path with a hand the size of a baseball mitt. No wonder there are silent fireworks going off inside my body. Every time Ash speaks, it’s so deep and rumbly that my toes curl in my sneakers.
“You two go on ahead,” Evie calls when we stop to wait for her and Rowan for the dozenth time. They’re further back down the trail, her red hair glinting in the evening light as it filters between the trees, but she’s grinning as she waves us on. “We’ll catch up. Rowan will keep me company—won’t you?”
Rowan says something to her that I can’t make out, but that makes Evie cackle with delighted laughter. She whacks her husband’s arm with the back of her hand.
“Let’s go,” Ash says, amused. He holds another branch out of my path, waving me forward like a gentleman. When I smile up at him, a flush creeps up his neck, and that jittery feeling inside me amps up even more.
Want to sprint all the way to the mountain peak, then tear off my clothes and scream up at the pink-tinged sky. Or wrestle a passing grizzly bear. Or jump down a waterfall. Or, you know, move a single inch closer to the man next to me.
All of those things are adrenaline sports.
“It’s beautiful here.” Ash is carrying the conversation like a champ, since I’m a) breathing too hard, and b) completely tongue-tied around him. “I can see why you never moved away.”
I hum, noncommittal, and step over a mossy log. Toadstools sprout from one end like weird hair.
“You don’t feel the same?” Ash nudges.
Again, I shrug, lost for words.
How can I tell this man, this stranger who I feel so bizarrely connected to, that I’m here because I had no plans of my own?
I grew up in Starlight Ridge, then I stuck around to be close to Rowan. End of story.
It’s not like I made any conscious decision to stay. Not like it ever really occurred to me to go, either. Do I like it here? I don’t even know.
I like swimming in the lake on warm summer mornings. I like the birds and butterflies that flit through the trees. Like working busy shifts at Flint’s with Jana behind the bar, and getting coffee on lazy Sunday afternoons before walking to the small town library to flip through the books.
I like clearing my head with long mountain walks. Like the crisp crunch of snow beneath my boots in the winter.
And I like Saturday morning breakfast with Rowan and Evie on their deck more than anything.
“Huh. I guess I do love it here,” I finally say out loud, and I sound surprised to my own ears. My shoulders loosen up a little as I walk, and my steps get lighter, sneakers scuffing over a dry carpet of pine needles. Even though I never considered leaving, it feels good to choose the place where I live. “I always told myself I was staying for Rowan, but there’s a lot of other nice stuff here too.”
Ash swipes his forehead with his arm, but he looks pleased as he squints up the trail ahead of us. “Good.”
My lips press together, and there’s a swooping feeling in my lower belly.
Holy hell. Why does this man’s approval feel like a drug?
“We’re nearly there,” I say, stumbling over my words. “The pool’s just around that rock face.”
The sky is stained pink when we reach the wishing pool, a small waterfall drumming into the surface and misting the air. It smells like wet rock and moss, and thousands of pennies glint from the bottom of the pool. All around us, trees reach toward the cloudless sky, rustling in the breeze.
“It’s not deep.” I kick my sneakers off, then peel off both socks. Before I walked out to meet everyone near the trail, I changed my outfit about a million times before settling back on exactly what I wore this morning. Baggy red t-shirt, denim shorts, and green bikini underneath. Ash didn’t seem to hate it earlier, did he? If anything, he struggled to look away. “But it is freaking freezing.”
“I’ve been warned.” He kicks off his heavy boots before tugging his gray t-shirt over his head. If he hears me suck in a sharp breath, Ash doesn’t react.
But I can’t help it. While my brother’s best friend undresses, while his military buddy strips, I stand there at the wishing pool’s edge and stare like a loon. My mouth is dry and my heart thumps hard, and oh god, oh god, oh god.
Ash is perfect.
Built thick and sturdy, with slabs of muscle and dark chest hair. You’d need ropes and a harness and one of those little chalk bags to climb this man.
“You’re not getting in?” Ash pauses with his hands on his belt. Jolted back to action, I whip my own t-shirt over my head, squeezing my eyes shut in the brief privacy of red fabric. Be cool, you weirdo.
“I am! No, I am. Sorry.”
Bared to the mountain air with nothing but a few triangles of fabric covering me, I shiver as I sit on the wishing pool’s edge and slide in. Pennies glitter from the rocky bottom, some of them blackened with age or furred with algae.
The cold is a shock to the system—like being zinged with electricity. I let out a tiny squeak, folding my arms over my suddenly hard nipples.
Ash slides into the pool beside me, his bulk sending water sloshing against the rocky edge, and okay, I’ll admit it: I peek.
He’s wearing black boxers, the shadow warping beneath the surface.
Noted.
“Didn’t bring any swimmers with me,” Ash mutters, like he knows exactly where my mind has gone, and I blush so hot I’m surprised steam doesn’t curl off this freezing pool. When I glance up at him, he crooks an embarrassed smile, and maybe that’s why I speak without thinking.
“You didn’t need to wear anything.”
Ash’s eyebrows bounce up.
“I mean—people skinny dip up here all the time,” I rush to clarify. “Not me, obviously.” A wave at my bikini top. “But some people. Um, where are Rowan and Evie?” Because I desperately need backup in this conversation. Already, I’ve opened my mouth and shoved my whole foot inside.
“They’ll be a while yet.” Ash pushes away from the edge, wading toward the center of the wishing pool. The water laps at his chest, and pennies float away from his feet, disturbed like underwater confetti. His skin is tan all over, freckled in places, and there are silvery scars and pockmarks on his back.
He turns to me, sending ripples across the pool to tickle against my body. For a long moment, I gaze at my brother’s best friend. Dumbstruck.
All my life, I’ve waited to feel like this. To feel drawn to someone, pulled toward them like an iron filing toward a magnet. And now it’s finally happening, but I’m being so clumsy and lame.
Can’t think of what to say.
Can’t stop myself from staring.
Can’t do anything except meet Ash’s gaze, and plead with him silently to make this all better. And maybe it’s all in my head, but I swear understanding flits behind those chestnut eyes.
“We forgot our pennies,” he says, nodding at our piles of abandoned clothes.
I push off the edge, bobbing forward. “No wishes for us.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Ash cups my elbow when I reach him, steadying me in the water, and it’s like my brain blows a fuse. He touches me, therefore I go nearer. No logic, no reason—pure instinct.
I need to get close.
Ash groans when I flatten my body against his. Two huge hands grip my hips under the water and squeeze me there, and his bare skin is slippery and wet. My palms coast easily up his chest, his shoulders, his neck, and all the while I’m watching my own hands, stunned at my boldness.
I’m touching Ash—pawing at him shamelessly.
And he’s letting it happen.
Holy shit.
My brother’s best friend; the man I heard so many stories about over the years, painting a vivid picture in my head before I ever laid eyes on him. He’s here, and he’s growling, yanking me so close that I can feel the harried thump of his heart. He ducks his head to nuzzle my neck, his hot breath all shivery against my chilled skin, and when my hips press forward—he’s hard.
Ash’s cock is long and thick and undeniable. Harder than granite, and straining against his sodden black boxers to reach me.
My insides clench on nothing, and I’m one big needy ache.
He wants me too. Wants this too. Triumph and relief swell inside me, warm and sweet and golden, and I rock up on my toes, ready to kiss the crap out of this man. Never had any practice before, but I’m ready to learn on the job.
But: “We can’t do this,” Ash says, his voice low and rough. His stubbly chin rasps against my cheek, and he nuzzles my jaw again even as he says it. His heart thuds against mine, strong and persistent.
I turn to stone in his arms.
“Rowan,” he says, reminding me, and god, I’m so ashamed in this moment. The chill that sweeps over me is colder than the pool. Because wasn’t I just thinking that Ash is my brother’s best friend? Don’t I care what this will do to my sibling? My only family?
God. I’m a bug.
Everyone knows that your brother’s best friend is off limits. It’s a basic rule. That would be true even if Rowan hadn’t had such a rough time before he met Evie, struggling with PTSD.
And now he’s finally back on track, getting ready to welcome his first child, and I’m really gonna throw him off kilter? Am I truly that selfish?
My limbs are clumsy, but I thrash to move back. Despite his words, Ash clings on for a split second, brushing the faintest kiss against my neck before grudgingly letting me go. And knowing that he wants me too, knowing that we could have had something here if we were two different people—that stings like a bitch.
But it’s nowhere near as bad as my self loathing right now.
“I shouldn’t have done that.” My teeth are chattering—more from shock than the cold.
Ash’s mouth turns down, and he looks so freaking sorry. Like he’d do anything, give anything, to make things different. His hands twitch underwater, like they want to reach for me.
It doesn’t help.
“Nothing happened, Tess.” His words are low, urgent, just for my ears. “We didn’t—nothing happened. Don’t kick yourself over this.”
Too late.
Because I started this. I swam over, and I touched him, and I pressed our bodies together. Yes, Ash groaned and clutched me close and ran his lips over my neck, but I’m the one who set things in motion. Me.
“We’re here!” Evie calls, her voice happy but winded as she rounds the rock face with my brother. She’s clutching the crook of Rowan’s elbow, leaning most of her weight against his side as he gazes down at her, love-struck. “Fuck me, this path is steep when you’re pregnant. Have you guys made your wishes?”
“Uh-huh,” I force out, plastering on a fake smile.
Doesn’t matter that it’s a lie. A couple of pennies can’t fix this mess.