10. Chapter Ten
Chapter Ten
Ash
A sh is tired, bone tired. After Raif left, she was on shift for another fourteen hours.
It’s been nice having another set of hands to help at the station.
With Sam being out and Aiden apparently flaking, they are shorthanded.
She doesn’t quite know what to think of Raif yet.
He’s quiet, calm, and collected. Different from her initial perception when she assumed he was an arrogant ass.
He hasn’t brought up the parking situation again, and she doesn’t know if she should.
She tends to overreact, assuming people are getting on her case and trying to push her around for being a woman, so she tends to push before they can push her.
That may not have been the best tactic with Raif.
She sees the way he looks at her, like she’s something.
She wants to tell him she’s not. That she’s no one.
But she has a feeling he’d keep looking at her that way no matter what.
He hasn’t hit on her or flirted with her.
Hasn’t tried to touch her or make friends in a way that makes her cringe.
And his haircut? He looks like he did it himself.
Just hacked off a few inches. It’s still long and shaggy, but within regulation.
The mustache is another story. His cheeks and jaw were clean-shaven, the lines around the mustache crisp and clean.
He took time with it. Very different from the almost feral-looking guy who parked his truck too close.
Still a little messy, but he clearly took her words to heart and cleaned up his face.
Ash spends the next day painting. It reminds her of her encounter with Raif at the hardware store, but also the fact that there are other things to be done around her house.
A leaky faucet for one. She’s been putting it off.
She can do a lot of things herself, but plumbing isn’t her strong suit, and she thinks it needs more than a tightening of a wrench.
Pushing it and all the other random household tasks to the back of her mind, she focuses on painting.
Up and down, up and down. It’s repetitive, calming.
She has the windows open, and there’s a cool breeze coming in.
It’s nice, serene, and calming. She can’t help but think of James, who’d like to paint with her.
He always liked repetitive things. Loading hay bales one by one, brushing down the horses after their time out of the stalls. He always said it was his meditation.
Her mind used to be too busy for it. Too go, go, go all the time.
But that was one thing he taught her, to be calm.
To appreciate the silence of nature and the world around her.
She remembers one time they made love in the hay loft, he stroked her sides and kissed her belly so softly, so reverently.
He said he wanted to draw her, and he did.
She lay on her side, made jokes, and tried to cover herself with his jacket.
But he pushed it aside, brushed off the loose pieces of hay from her hair, and told her she was beautiful.
After he drew her, she was amazed to see it.
She looked like herself but not. Like some strange mirror image.
He drew in the scar on her hip she got from falling off a horse, the lean muscles in her big thighs, the peak of her pebbled nipple.
It was her, clearly her, but it was also more, like seeing the parts of her she thought no one saw. That she never thought he would see.
He drew her many times after that, usually after sex when she was laid out, sated, and naked.
After he’d taken her apart one orgasm at a time.
He would tell her she was lovely, and she’d blush and laugh.
He’d smile that big cowboy smile of his and kiss her sweetly.
He loved her more than she thought it was possible for one person to love another, like she didn’t deserve it. Like no one deserved it.
She realizes she’s crying in her living room when she drops the brush.
Memories of James are strong in her mind.
Usually, she pushes them down, does something else to take her out of her mindset.
But she can’t help but collapse on the floor, bring her hands up to her face, and wail.
That’s what it is really, a wail of a broken woman.
She can’t bring herself to move, even when she can feel the stiffness in her legs from the way she has collapsed.
She wishes, not for the first time, that she had someone.
That someone was there to help her mourn.
She has her parents, and she has Sam. And all of them would probably comfort her as she cried, but none of them would comfort her the way she craves it.
For someone to hold her tenderly. Tell her it’s okay to not be okay.
That she is right in her feelings of loss and heartbreak.
That it won’t last forever. She doesn’t know how long she stays crumpled on the floor with a wall half-painted, but eventually she falls asleep, only knowing when she wakes several hours later to a dark room and a crick in her neck.
The next day finds her back at the station.
She knows she’s on a warpath due to her breakdown, but that doesn’t justify her behavior of snapping at Lucas and Ben in the kitchen when they’ve added peas to the stew, which she hates.
She knows she should apologize to Ben, that he’s only added the peas because he’s on a high-protein diet.
But she can’t bring herself to do it right then.
When Raif comes in, he seems to steer clear of her. She doesn’t know if the others said anything to him or if he can just sense it, but the most she gets from him is a nod. Thirty minutes later, Aiden strolls into the station and right up to her.
“You’re late,” she snaps at him. He only smirks, like what she’s saying is amusing, and it makes her angrier.
“Just had to finish up a conference call. Volunteer firefighting isn’t my only job, you know.
” He leans with one arm up against the equipment shelf, and when she tries to move past him, he pushes off the wall where he’s leaning to block her.
She grits her teeth and tries not to tell him to get the fuck out of her way.
“Where are you going, sweetheart?”
Sweetheart. The name does nothing but infuriate her. Ash shoves him hard in the chest, and he stumbles back.
“I am not your sweetheart. I am your fucking mentor. You will not hit on me. You will not block my path. You will show up on fucking time, or you will be out of here so fast the judge who required your community service will hear about it before you get home.”
She’s taking a guess at the community service bit, but when she sees his eyes widen in fear, she knows she’s hit it spot on.
He turns and walks towards the back, and she notices they have a crowd.
The Chief is standing there with his arms crossed, brows furrowed.
Lucas is poised like he’s going to have to intervene in a fight, and Raif is standing off to the side, clenching a wrench for the truck so hard his knuckles are white.
When Aiden has passed through the door into the back, Lucas moves to her, hand on her shoulder, asking her if she’s okay.
The Chief moves closer to her, a frown on his face.
But her eyes are locked on Raif, he’s breathing deeply, and his body is strung tight as a bow.
He looks furious, jaw clearly clenched tight.
“Everything okay? Do I need to have him escorted out of here?” The Chief brings her back to the present, and she shakes her head no.
“He’s just an ass, too cocky for his own good. I’m fine.”
“You let me know if you’re not. I’ll have his ass thrown out of here, no matter what.”
“Thanks, Chief.”
When the Chief and Lucas have moved back into their respective parts of the fire station, and Ash has gone back to cataloging their equipment on the clipboard, she hears a throat clear softly behind her.
She turns to see Raif, still holding onto the wrench.
His face is pinched like he’s in pain. He doesn’t say anything, but she can see the concern on his face, the concern for her.
“It’s...I’m...I’m okay,” she tells him. She can’t meet his eyes and instead looks at his chest, where she can see him breathing deeply.
There’s a tension between them, so thick she could cut it with a knife, and she wants to reach out and place a hand on his chest, to calm him. Show him she’s really okay.
“It was right of you to stand up to him the way you did. I know you can take care of yourself. But if you ever need to...if you ever need help…”
“Thanks.” She looks up at him now and sees his eyes are soft.
James was always clean-shaven. She has to pull her thoughts away from him.
She only knows him a little, and she can see that he’s attractive, she has eyes, for goodness' sake.
But he seems like an enigma, like a puzzle to figure out.
And maybe she might just want to figure him out.