Chapter 3
Nora was sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, going through a box of childhood keepsakes she’d pulled out of her closet, knowing that she’d be better off if she chucked them all.
She hadn’t seen them in years. She didn’t even know what was in there, which meant if she hadn’t missed them, they didn’t matter.
But as she was sorting, she pulled out a program from her junior prom, and when she opened it, found a dried flower from the corsage Asher had given her pressed between the pages. Before she knew it, tears were rolling down her face.
At the same moment, she heard footsteps on the porch, then a knock at the door. She grabbed the tail of her sweatshirt to wipe her eyes as she got up to answer, opened the door, and froze.
It was Asher, and she was struggling to find the boy she remembered in this man on her doorstep. Thick black hair with a slight tendency to curl. Black brows and lashes, and those clear blue eyes—at the moment, slightly wide with the same shock she was feeling.
She could see the evidence of a life in law enforcement in every facet of his face and body. Physically fit. Giving nothing away from his expression. Stoic to the point of stern. And then he started talking, and she couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know about your mother. I didn’t know about your dad. I lost you and then was afraid to go looking, because I didn’t want to see you with another man.”
She was trembling. Tears were rolling, and then the sobs came bubbling up, and she was in his arms. He toed the door shut behind him and just held her.
“It’s okay, darlin’, it’s okay. Cry it away.
Cry it all away.” He was shocked by how light she was when he carried her to the sofa.
Too thin. Too weary. So much loss. Too much grief.
“I promised you so much and gave you nothing. I let work become my life, and ghosted the only woman I ever loved, and I have no excuse for how it happened. I didn’t quit loving you, Nora.
I just lost you, and didn’t have the guts to go find who you’d become. ”
Nora was hiccupping on a sob when she crawled out of his lap to grab a handful of tissues. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose, scooted to the far end of the sofa, and then sat staring at the ghost he was, until she calmed down enough to speak.
“You’ve done this before… Come back to me, I mean. Always in my dreams. Tell me I’m not dreaming,” she whispered.
The ache in his heart was physical. The devastation in her eyes was going to haunt him. “You’re not dreaming. Do you hate me?”
He watched the shock of his question spread across her face.
“No! My God, no, I don’t hate you. I have loved and lived with your ghost so long I don’t know how to handle the reality of your presence.
But at the same time, the blame is not all yours to own.
I didn’t go looking for you either, did I?
And it was for the same reasons. I couldn’t bear the thought of you loving someone besides me.
Your dad told me you were single, but that didn’t tell me anything other than you weren’t married.
I was afraid to ask if you had someone special in your life, and if I didn’t ask, then I could pretend you still cared. ”
This was more than he’d dare hope for, but he wanted more. He wanted her back in his life. “Nora. Darlin’. You have always been my true north. Are you willing to do us again? But not long distance? Would you be open to figuring out how we could do what we do and be together now?”
Her hands were clutched against her breasts to keep them from shaking. “Yes, a thousand times, yes.”
He opened his arms, and she crawled into his lap, straddled his legs, and wrapped her arms around his neck.
The kiss that became the promise, became an avalanche. Too many years of separation. Too much loss. Too much sacrifice for all the wrong reasons.
“I want to make love with you,” he said.
“Then do it. You know the way to my heart. You know the way to my bed.”
His eyes narrowed, and then he was on his feet, her legs still wrapped around his waist as he carried her down the hall. Too many years without her slayed any semblance of caution, any pretense of restraint.
They were out of their shoes and tearing off their clothes and then falling onto the bed in each other’s arms. Foreplay was the angst of fourteen years apart. He was hard and aching as he slid between her legs and closed his eyes, remembering this part of her that she’d given only to him.
Nora had made love with the boy he’d been, but never the man he’d become, and the only thing that went through her mind before she lost it was that there was no comparison.
Dominated by his size. Cherished in the ways he held her.
The words he whispered. The vow he made her. She was finally whole once more.
* * *
They lay sprawled upon the covers, wrapped in each other’s arms with hearts pounding and pulses racing—waiting for the last of sanity to return.
Nora’s hair was tangled in his fists—a last gesture of not wanting to let go.
“I love you still. You know that, don’t you?”
“No doubts, Ash. You know I do.”
“I can’t stay long. I have tonight and then I have to fly home tomorrow.”
She frowned. “I don’t know why, but I guess I thought you drove here.”
“I have a helicopter. I flew here,” he said.
“You own a chopper?”
He heard the surprise in her voice and grinned.
“I inherited a chopper. That’s two different things.
” He began to explain. “I signed up for flying lessons on my twenty-first birthday, then six years ago, the man who’d been my flight instructor and had become a good friend, died unexpectedly.
He had no family, and no heirs to inherit, but he’d left a will, dividing up his property as he saw fit, and that’s how I became the owner of a Bell Turbine 206B III helicopter.
It’s a beauty, and I have used it since for work, as well. ”
“I am impressed,” she said. “And with the land area of Texas being what it is, I would imagine it comes in very handy, as well.”
“That, too,” he said, and then hugged her. “I didn’t have much breakfast, and we seemed to have missed lunch as well. I’d just as soon let Pearl feed us at the Yellow Rose, if you are willing.”
“That would be wonderful. I haven’t had much of an appetite lately, but I am suddenly hungry for everything,” she said.
“We’ll have to drive your car. I walked here from the bar.”
She raised up on one elbow, tracing the shape of his mouth with the tip of her finger.
“Since you just drove me crazy, I am more than happy to reciprocate. Yes, we will take my car. Is Jacob expecting you to stay the night with him?” she asked.
“Only if you sent me packing,” he said.
“Well, that’s not happening. You know, we’ve never slept together. Ever.”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “But we made love all over Crossroads for years, so I’ll be looking forward to hearing you snore.”
She frowned. “I do not snore.”
“I wouldn’t care if you did. You are perfect in my eyes. Now grab your drawers, woman. There’s a burger waiting for us somewhere.”
By the time they got to the Rose, it felt like all those years apart had never happened.
And for the first time, Nora saw past the routine of her life, to the future she’d hoped for, and walking in together made a good many heads turn, which they tried to ignore.
Unfortunately, Asher had already set himself up for interrogation by arriving in a helicopter.
Nora watched and listened with delight as he talked his way through the answers without giving away anything of his personal business. She was witnessing yet another aspect of the man he’d become, and she liked it.
They turned in their orders, but it wasn’t until their food came to the table that they were finally left in peace. By the time they finished, they were the last ones in the dining room, and Pearl came out smiling.
“I will say, it’s a sight to see you two together again. Hope it sticks,” she said, and set a sack on their table. “Pie on the house, and drop one by for Jacob, will you? He likes my pie.”
“Thank you!” Nora said. “We’d love to. I know he’ll appreciate it.”
Pearl gave Asher a look and shook her head. “Flying around in a helicopter. You’re as flashy and dangerous as your daddy used to be,” she said, and flipped herself back to the kitchen.
Asher blinked. “Dad? Flashy and dangerous?”
Nora grinned. “Apparently, she knows something you don’t. Let’s go.”
They left the Yellow Rose with the pie and drove down the highway to the Tumbleweed.
“Unless you want to go in, I’ll deliver Dad’s pie,” Asher said. “You stay in where it’s warm.”
“I choose the warm, but give him my love.”
“Will do. I won’t be long, and since I’m not staying here, I need to get my overnight bag.” He took one of the little boxes out of the bag, then went inside.
Just watching him go made her shiver. It was amazing what time had done to the man. He was dynamite on two legs. She turned up the fan on the heater at her feet and leaned back to wait.
He came out carrying a duffel bag, tossed it in the back seat, and then got inside. Nora took them home.
They spent the rest of the afternoon talking about their lives apart and debating the different ways they could live the rest of it together. Finally, Nora ended it with the obvious solution.
“I already told you that my office is in my home, in the apartment where I live. It’s all online work alone, or Zoom meetings with corporate bigwigs in other nations.
Occasionally, I have to make a trip to Europe or Asia.
I’m as much of a liaison as a troubleshooter for the foreign branches, as well as the ones here in the states.
One of the big issues is always espionage.
Trying to duplicate or steal new technology.
I know how to trace the online stuff, and track the thieves trying to sell it online as well. ”
Asher was in awe.