Chapter 19
19
Davis
This is officially the most time I’ve spent in one go with Aspen since Cash finally got over himself and told her how he felt last Christmas, and one thing is rapidly becoming clear.
I like her more than I like him.
I managed to keep my other buddies’ significant others at a distance far longer—Ellie excluded, of course, since we grew up together before she married Wyatt—but Aspen’s already wormed her way into a circle of trust.
Not the closest circle of trust.
Not even the circle as close as I’m refusing to acknowledge I’ve let Sloane into.
But definitely a closer circle, much sooner than the rest of them.
“Look, I get trust issues,” she’s saying to me as we weave our way around clumps of overgrown bushes to circle the dilapidated, condemned cabin on the acreage I moved to a month or so ago. We’ve spent all day trying to track a cell signal that pinged nearby using equipment I’ll forever deny I have. “But you can’t both have trust issues and also be frustrated when other people have trust issues. Okay. Okay. You can . But I’ll judge you for it.”
Cash nods. “I support judgment for hypocritical behavior. You know what I don’t get though? I don’t get why you’re suddenly obsessed with Thorny Rock’s treasure.”
He and Aspen are holding hands, more or less in matching flannel and boots now, since Aspen’s first outfit of the day wasn’t right for hiking in the woods all day.
They’re that couple. The couple who have to match to walk around in the woods, even if they might not have realized they were doing it.
And I still appreciate Aspen more than I appreciate Cash right now.
“Not sudden.” I pause at the sound of an engine. Can’t see the driveway leading to my camper, just the back of the camper and the electrical hookup, but that’s definitely a car.
And it’s going in the wrong direction.
Leaving.
Fuck .
I run the last several yards to the edge of the camper, then slow, cautiously peeking around it to see who came to visit while we weren’t here.
Sloane’s sitting on one of the logs around the fire pit, and she definitely wasn’t before.
She glances at me, then back at the road like she doesn’t want to look at me right now.
Uh-oh.
Is this because she doesn’t want to talk about last night?
Or did something happen in town today?
All’s been radio silent. Levi wouldn’t even pass on updates from Giselle beyond we’ll only hear something if there’s something worth hearing .
“Giselle’s going to check the perimeter,” Sloane says. “She said to tell you that if anything happens to me in the five minutes she’s making sure you didn’t fuck something up today, that you’ll wake up with worms in your bed every day for the rest of your natural life.”
She’s also wearing jeans, flannel, and boots, which means she must’ve changed since work. And gotten off early if she’s here as the sun’s setting.
I look back at my friends.
They flash me matching grins as they, too, look at the woman I wasn’t sure would come back.
The woman I’m disappointing by not being able to track down her ex-boyfriend.
Dixon’s cell signal went dead about two hours ago.
And no, I’m not telling how I’m tracking it.
“Did you dress her too?” I ask my friends.
It’s easier than asking why she doesn’t want to look at me.
And why that’s making my heart crash in my chest.
“Flannel’s in, my dude.” Cash slaps me on the back and walks past me, Aspen still attached to his hand, and heads to the fire pit. “You want me to get that started for you, Sloane?”
Irritation roars to life in my chest.
I can set the goddamn fire.
“Are you assuming a woman can’t start her own fire?” Aspen asks him.
He wiggles his brows at her. “Is that a euphemism?”
“No offense—okay, no, that’s wrong. All offense intended, you two are making me want to throw up in my mouth,” Sloane says.
Huh.
Gloves are off.
“Shitty day?” I ask her while I try to get my breathing under control.
Those pretty blue eyes hit me with a dead-eyed my house was broken into and I don’t feel safe anywhere, so what the fuck do you think? stare.
And that’s the best-case scenario of what that expression might mean.
I nod. “Just making sure you’re a normal human being. Cash. Get lost.”
“And leave you to wrestle the bears solo? No can do. I’ll wait until Giselle gets back.”
“What’s up with you and bears?” If he’s talked about them once today, he’s talked about them a dozen times.
He and Aspen grin at each other.
“They’re dangerous,” she answers for them.
“ They’re dangerous.” I point to the three beefy dudes who’ve been following us all day as we’ve hunted through the woods for Sloane’s ex-boyfriend.
Yep.
That’s who I’m tracking.
And yes, we all know it.
Aspen shushes me. “We pretend they don’t exist.”
Wanna know what really pissed me off today?
My friends put three security officers on me and just one on Sloane.
The best on Sloane, but still only one.
I could’ve guarded her myself.
And don’t tell me security was here for Cash and Aspen. We’re secluded. No one knows to look for them here. Even if they did, Cash usually only travels with one security person. Two when he’s in more crowded areas.
Not three.
Which means it’s possible they’re guarding me from myself.
My phone dings, and I glance down to see a confirmation that the locks have been set at the museum.
Final worker of the day has left the building.
And they left one particular light on inside.
A light shining right over a new map that’s been put out.
A fake map, naturally.
Haven’t been working on this, knowing Dixon was also looking for it, without putting some tricks of my own in motion.
And now the trap’s set if he’s around and wants more than what he did or didn’t find in Thorny Rock’s old coat.
Sloane’s phone dings too.
She pulls it out, looks at the screen, and heaves the heaviest sigh I’ve heard in weeks.
I look at Cash.
He ignores me and takes a seat on a log at the fire pit. “Someone bothering you?” he asks Sloane.
“Old friend,” she mutters.
Old friend.
Got a guess or two who that might be.
I drop next to her on the log she’s sitting on, take her phone from her hand, switch to the camera, lift it, and when she looks at it, I kiss her cheek and snap a photo.
Her hand lands on my thigh and squeezes as she sucks in a breath.
I check the photo.
And it pisses me off too.
Because I lifted a camera and she automatically smiled.
No chance she’s actually happy, but she performed for the camera like she is, and the damn picture looks perfect.
“Send it to him,” I murmur.
“I don’t know what’s going on here, exactly, but I know that’s not a picture you want to send to anyone to prove you’re in a solid relationship,” Aspen says. “Talk about posed and unnatural. You two are so not selling this engaged thing.”
Never mind.
Aspen’s not in the circle of trust anymore.
I glare at her.
“No, no, she’s right,” Cash says. “We don’t need details, but we can definitely help you take a better picture. Sloane. Give me your phone.”
“I—” she starts, then throws her hands up in the air. “Fine. Here. Have my phone.”
It dings as she’s handing it over to him, and I’m not fast enough to grab it before he looks at it.
I haven’t even seen what the dickwad is sending her, but Cash’s face says everything.
Whatever she just got, it wasn’t a nice message.
“Who’s Nigel?” my buddy says.
Her gaze shifts to the dead fire pit. “Old friend.”
“That’s not a message any old friend of mine would ever send.”
“Leave her alone,” I growl.
“‘Don’t be stupid this time?’” Cash says. “‘You know we’re inevitable. Tell me where you are so we can quit with the fucking games and go home.’”
Her phone dings again.
Aspen gasps as she peeks at it. “Oh, that’s low,” she whispers.
“‘Do you want your grandmother to die knowing that you’re sad and lonely and unfulfilled in your life? Or worse, that you abandoned all of your principles for cheap sex with a sheep-fucker? Do you really want to do that to her?’” Cash reads.
Sloane’s cheeks have gone bright red.
“I’ll make three phone calls and move the wedding to tomorrow,” I tell Sloane.
Aspen chokes.
Cash drops the phone, and it clatters to the ground.
Like they don’t know the whole story. I took ten minutes to read the five hundred text messages that kept going after I went to bed last night, and I know they know everything.
Overdramatic assholes.
“If you want to give him a massive middle finger and let someone fight in your corner for you on this one,” I add. “Not telling you what to do. I’m offering.”
She lifts her head and looks at me. “It’s not in Shipwreck, is it?” she murmurs.
She’s deflecting by asking about the treasure.
Can’t blame her.
But the question still catches me off guard, and it’s a struggle to both keep a straight face and also level with her. Which I owe her. “Never was.”
“Why is that important enough that Annika’s family doesn’t want her to know?”
And one more question I don’t want to answer.
She stares at me while I debate how much I’m willing to say.
“What’s happening here?” Aspen whispers to Cash.
“I don’t know, but if I can open this phone, I’d be happy to answer those text messages with a voice message explaining what happens to dudes who presume to know what a woman wants better than she knows it herself. I mean, assuming she doesn’t want to be with a dicknugget who calls her names and implies she’s miserable when I’ve never seen her anything but happy. And also engaged to one of my best buddies. Who would never order her around like that.”
Sloane’s lips wobble, and I can’t tell if she’s going to smile or cry.
Possibly both.
There’s a shine coming into her eyes too.
“Did you have to deal with that all day today?” she asks me.
“Yes.”
“Was it annoying?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” She holds a hand out and makes the give it back gesture to Cash as the phone dings one more time.
“How many messages has he sent you?” I ask.
“Just these four—five now. All in the last few minutes.”
“You see him today?”
“No.”
“Did he see you?”
She blinks once.
Then twice. “I…I don’t know.”
Unlikely, but I have to ask.
I showed Giselle a picture of him this morning before they left. If he was close enough to see Sloane, he would’ve been close enough for Giselle to spot him.
If Giselle spotted him, she would’ve taken care of him.
And that would’ve necessitated an update to Levi, who can be a dick sometimes, but he wouldn’t have been the kind of dick to not tell me about it today.
“Seriously, tell us where we’re headed, and we can have a half dozen of us teaching him a lesson before dawn,” Cash says.
Sloane doesn’t answer.
She’s staring at her phone.
At the text messages from Nigel.
And that’s when it all goes to hell.
It starts with her rolling her shoulders. Then with a mulish expression settling over her features.
She flips off her phone and snaps a selfie, and that’s the last thing she does before everything becomes a blur.
“ Noooo ,” Aspen gasps. She dives for Sloane, knocking her off the log and sending her phone flying. “Don’t send it!”
I’m instantly moving, shoving Aspen aside and reaching for Sloane.
There’s a flash, then another blur, and then Cash’s girlfriend is pinned on the ground. More blurs, and three beefy dudes try to pull Giselle off of Aspen, who’s arrived out of thin air to pin the pop star to the ground.
“Do not touch my client without permission,” Giselle says.
“Jesus, where did she even come from?” Cash says. “Did she teleport?”
“She was checking the perimeter.” Sloane’s eyes are wide too as she scurries out of my grasp.
I straighten and point to a few trees. “Property line’s right there on this side. She was close.”
“ You need a ring, ” Aspen shouts, still trapped under Giselle. “Don’t send a middle finger picture without a ring sparkling bright on your hand! ”
Giselle freezes.
Aspen and Cash’s security detail pause too.
Aspen slides out from beneath Giselle. “My god, you people overreact to everything. Who has a ring? It’s been what, four days since you got engaged? And how much money do you have, Davis? Enough to buy a freaking diamond ring, that’s for damn sure. Cash, light the campfire. Davis, do you have any wine? What about a flannel blanket? Sloane, what’s your favorite meal? If we’re doing this, we’re doing it right. You’re gonna look like the happiest woman on the happiest planet in the happiest universe to show that toadstool what you have without him. While you flip him off.”
“Nigel already believes we’re engaged,” Sloane says. “He knows we don’t have rings yet because it was so spontaneous.”
Aspen grins. “That’s why you need one now. A big, fat, juicy diamond that says there’s no price too high for Davis to pay for you. He went on a diamond ring hunt and look what he found. Nigel can’t give you that. Can he? Is he the kind of guy who can afford a five-carat diamond?”
“No.” Sloane wrinkles her nose. “Probably. Hopefully. Actually, I don’t even want to know how much he makes. It might make me sick. His grandfather did have one of the largest houses in town, and—you know what? I don’t want to think about that anymore.”
“Excellent. Let’s go get you a ring.”
Cash nudges the biggest of his three security guys. “She’s brilliant.”
“She’s giving me a heart attack,” the guy mutters back.
“More cardio,” Cash says. “That’ll help.”
And I’m over this. “Cash.”
My buddy looks at me. “Yeah?”
“Get fucking lost.”
Aspen finally sits up and gapes at me. “Did you just say a fuck word? Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say a fuck word.”
“I have,” Sloane mutters.
Cash nods. “Same. He uses it all the time. Just not around you. Giselle, you got this?”
She flips him off.
“Good. Davis, don’t do stupid shit alone when you have a dozen of us ready to jump in and have your back. Except this weekend. This weekend, we’re booked. Take a lot of pictures of the wedding. Pissed we’re missing it.”
“I can get laryngitis if we need to be here instead.” Aspen fakes a cough. “Oh no. The leaves. The dead leaves are giving me a tickle in my throat. Cough cough . How will I ever perform?”
Giselle looks at the other security team.
They grumble, then one of them quietly says something to Cash, who scowls too. “Fine,” he mutters.
“If you need a set for a fancy elopement wedding immediately, I know someone shooting a video in LA tomorrow,” Aspen says. “Say the word, and we’ll get you a plane and I’ll get you on set for a few photos too. Crap. Unless this guy is a huge fan of Keisha Kourtney? Would he recognize the set when the video comes out?”
“That dude won’t pay that much attention,” Cash says.
“And I want him to be there watching me get married,” Sloane adds. “It’s the only way he’ll believe it’s real.”
Giselle clears her throat and glares at my friends.
Cash rolls his eyes. “ Okay, okay, we’re going. Davis. Call. We’ll be here. Or we’ll send people who can be here. Tour’s almost over for the year. Can you wait to do the rest of your treasure hunting until we’re back? I’m with Beck. I always wanted to find a treasure.”
Aspen gives me a sympathetic smile. “All of the guys are coming even if you don’t call because they’re worried about you.”
“I’m aware.”
They finally shuffle into the black SUV they arrived in this morning, and then pull down my driveway.
Dusk is falling rapidly.
“Can your cat come outside?” I ask Sloane.
She sucks in a sharp breath through her nose, then nods.
“You want her?”
Another nod.
I head inside for the cat, and when I get back, Giselle’s lighting the campfire.
I sit on the log next to Sloane again and hand her the cat, who purrs so loudly that even the initial crackling of the fire can’t drown it out.
Can’t drown out the way Sloane’s posture changes the minute she’s stroking the cat either.
Maybe I should get a pet when this is over.
Stress relief.
Company.
All good things.
“I won’t stop you if you want to send that selfie flipping him off,” I tell her.
She shakes her head. “Not worth it. He won’t change, and he won’t take it as anything other than me rebelling against what he believes is best for me.”
“Completely serious. We can get married tomorrow.”
She looks at me. “They’ll hope we get divorced.”
“Shitty thing to hope.”
She rolls her eyes. “But they would. Even if it’s awful, they’d hope for it. I haven’t seen Grandma or my brother in person in a year and a half, Nigel even longer until this week, but they definitely know me better than I know myself, and obviously have only my best interest at heart.”
Sloane shouldn’t be sarcastic.
It makes her sound sad, and I don’t like it when she’s sad.
She deserves to be happy.
“They come visit you? Until now?”
“I moved away. It’s my job to go back.”
My breathing routine is getting a good workout since she first kissed me on Saturday. “They ever make you happy?”
She stares at the fire.
Giselle has functionally disappeared, but I suspect she’s still listening somewhere.
“They’re family,” Sloane finally says quietly. “My grandma took in both me and my brother and raised us, even though she clearly wasn’t excited about it. Nigel’s grandfather would stop by dressed up like Santa every Christmas and bring us presents that his congregation had donated for us. Grandma helped me fill out college scholarship applications. She helped Aiden figure out how to get into ROTC in college so he could become a pilot. She sacrificed a lot for us. She did her best. And now—now, it’s like I don’t fully know them anymore.”
I curl my fingers into a fist to keep from hugging her again.
Boundaries.
Have to remember boundaries.
“Felt that when my parents got divorced,” I say instead.
“Are they still around?”
“After the money mismanagement thing, I cut my father off. Still have my mom though. She had some rough years. The other moms in the neighborhood got her through it, and she’s pretty happy now.”
“Does she support you?”
“More than I deserve.”
“We all deserve support.”
Both of us fall silent while we stare at the fire.
Sloane strokes the cat.
I angle closer to her without realizing I’m doing it until our hips touch.
She doesn’t move away.
But she does speak again. “I made a decision this afternoon.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m finding the treasure on my own.”
I glance at her.
The sun is completely gone, so her face is illuminated by the fire.
But I don’t think the light would make any difference in what I see in her expression.
It’s pure, stubborn determination.
She’s been handed some shitty cards lately, and she’s making a plan to get through it.
Got a lot of respect for that.
“So if marrying you isn’t enough to convince you to be on my team…”
“I will forever be grateful that you…helped me fall asleep last night, but in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a big fan of men in general. Even less so men who keep secrets. You know the treasure isn’t in Shipwreck. You somehow know it’s real. You probably have a rough idea where it is. You might even know what it is. You clearly know it has secrets that could hurt people. And if you don’t trust me to let me in on those secrets, then I don’t know why I should trust you to tell you what I know.”
I swallow.
Swallow again.
Focus on taking slow, even breaths.
She rises. “Ball’s in your court, Davis. And if this means you bail on the fake fiancé thing…I’ll figure out how to deal with that too.”