Chapter 18
Aisling
Present day
I open the door to the cabin as quietly as possible, peeking out around the side of it as I tip-toe onto the dirt.
Not wanting to draw the attention of the two hulking hockey players who are currently sat in front of the unlit campfire, I spend twenty painstaking seconds carefully closing the door without hitting a squeak.
Just as I lift my sandal off the ground, without looking in my direction Tanner takes a huge bite into a breakfast muffin and says a gruff, “Mornin’, Aisling.”
My arms drop to my sides as I throw my head back. “Aw man.”
How did he sense me? Was he raised by wolves or something? He doesn’t even bother commenting on my little tantrum. Instead he takes another giant bite out of the muffin and uses his free hand to hold up a brown paper bag.
I wait, like, two seconds before I speed-walk over to where he and Caden are hunched on the logs, devouring breakfast muffins in total silence. When I’m barely a foot away from him Tanner glances up at me mid-chew and gives me a quick once-over before jerking his chin at me.
I ease the bag from his hand and he watches me peep inside of it, lips pursed to the side as I try to work out what the flavours are.
“Two strawberry. One blueberry,” he mumbles. Then he finishes off the muffin that he started about two seconds ago and adds, “But if you don’t want them, it’s fine. I’ll have ’em.”
I gasp and clutch the bag to my chest. “They’re mine.”
He breathes out a laugh, unsmiling, and slaps his palm down roughly on the space on the log beside him.
“Sit with me.”
Caden, who already has a good two feet of space between him and Tanner, quietly heaves his body off the log and moves over to the empty one on our right.
I give Tanner’s big boot a little kick with the toe of my sandal, nudging him to budge up a bit if I’m going to sit beside him.
He watches me impassively for a moment before moving his left quad about one millimetre away from where it originally was.
I pick a strawberry muffin out of the bag, give him a suspicious side-eye, and take a nibble.
He clears his throat as he watches me, shifting his hips agitatedly on the log, and then giving into his base male need to man-spread. A sound rumbles through his chest as he pushes his quad against my thigh.
“Got plans this morning?” he asks, eyes trailing down my outfit.
“All the guys are going hiking – scoping out a spot so that we can camp out in a couple weeks’ time.” I swallow and swish my hair. “I am obviously invited.”
He looks out at the lake, shoulders hunched forwards as he claps his fist into his palm.
I watch him for a beat, the big rise and fall of his shoulders as he wars with himself about whatever is on his mind.
“…Why?” I ask suspiciously.
He clears his throat and rolls his shoulders, psyching himself up.
“I, uh…” He grinds his fist into his palm a couple more times before finally sitting upright, releasing a warm wave of his testosterone. “There’s somewhere I wanna take you.”
I pause on the muffin mid-bite before narrowing my eyes on him. “Where?”
He glances over at Caden who is looking very pointedly at anywhere but Tanner. He picks up a rock and stares at it intensely.
Tanner looks back out over at the lake for a few beats, before shifting his thighs wider and meeting my gaze again.
“It’s… important to me. Maybe just… let’s drive there, and if you don’t want to, that’s fine but…” His sentence trails off as his beautiful irises search mine, glinting in the morning sunshine as the rays illuminate the shimmering lake. “Can I just drive you there, and you can see it for yourself? Please?”
“Now?” I ask, looking meaningfully back down at my unfinished muffins and back at him.
“Doesn’t have to be. Or you can eat in my car.” He rolls his shoulders as he watches me.
Call it morbid fascination but I really want to know where he wants to take me.
“…Fine,” I say, and he quickly shoves himself up to his feet, immediately helping me up with a hand around my elbow, then at the small of my back.
As he begins manoeuvring me with his palms on my hips I twist around and frown up at him.
“This isn’t because of… last night, right?” I ask, unsure if he’s thinking that we can just pick up where we left things in the cabin before I shoved him out of the window and then had a fever-dream kind of conversation with my equally tipsy brother.
Tanner’s cheeks burn crimson and he removes one of his hands so that he can scrub at the back of his neck.
“N-no,” he murmurs quietly, “although, last night was… I really…” He swipes his tongue over his lower lip, eyes staring unseeingly ahead as he opens up the passenger door for me.
I slip inside, watching him curiously, and as if this is something we do all the time he naturally dips beneath the door and teases the belt from its holder, handing it to me and waiting with his forearm on the roof as I buckle myself in.
When the belt is clicked into place he closes my door gently and rounds the hood, the car swaying under his weight as he heaves his body inside.
“You got ID on you?”
I blink at him, thrown by the question. “Uh, yeah?”
He grunts. “Good.”
After he doesn’t expand on the topic any further I just brush it off for now, although I give him another healthy dose of side-eye.
“So why do you drive a G-wagon?” I ask him as he confidently brings the car to life, his arm hooking around the back of my seat as he checks his back window. His giant biceps are right next to my face and I stare at them without blinking as his other hand lazily swirls the wheel into position.
“It’s an off-roader,” he replies, total focus on the road.
“So you always come to places like this?”
“Like Larch Peak?” he asks, before a smile flickers briefly across his mouth. “Aisling, I’m from Carter Ridge – aside from the town centre and the Carter U campus, the majority of Carter Ridge is off road.” He debates with himself for a moment before adding on, “And my parents had a summer house here in Larch Peak.”
My eyes flash to his in shock but I bite my tongue, because I think that it’s interesting that both of our families own properties here. I mean, that’s why I’m here right now in the first place. I’m not sure how much Tanner remembers about my family’s business or why I’m here but I decide to stow that information away for now.
I stare at his strong jaw. “Where is their summer house?”
He jerks his thumb in the direction of it. “Thata-way.”
I roll my eyes. “No, please. Spare me the details.”
His cheek tics up slightly as a smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth.
I work my way through both of my strawberry muffins, Tanner glancing down to watch me whenever we hit a red light.
Ten minutes later we’re pulling into a discreet parking lot. It doesn’t seem to have any obvious signage. There’s a small inconspicuous building right in front of it and a large expanse of rolling hillside at its rear.
Tanner pulls the car into park and then taps his thumbs agitatedly against the steering wheel, his large back muscles rigid as he stares out of the windshield.
After a moment, he un-straps his seatbelt and glances down at me. His eyes drop to the blueberry muffin sitting untouched in the rolled-down baggie.
He swipes his tongue over his lower lip and lifts his eyes back to mine.
“Don’t freak out,” he starts, unclipping my seatbelt and easing it into its holder.
“Why would you say ‘don’t freak out’ if we weren’t about to do something that would make me freak out?” I ask, brow creasing in concern as I fist my fingers into the brown paper.
“Look, we don’t have to do it. But I…” He looks away from me for a second as if to calm himself down. “I just want you safe, okay? I just want you to be as safe as possible, no matter what situation you find yourself in.”
I stare up at him, unsure where he’s going with this.
After a few beats he leans slightly closer so that he can see out of the passenger window and he points to something beside the door.
I have to squint to read the words but when I do–
“Tanner! What the hell?!” I squeal, whipping around to face him and practically whacking my forehead against his big chest. “You brought me to a shooting range ?” I ask, completely incredulous.
“Ash, baby, calm down–”
A shiver runs through me and not just because this gorgeous hockey-playing psychopath brought me to a shooting range .
“Okay, first of all, you have to stop calling me that,” I tell him, my breathing unsteady as I try not to freak out. We are literally in gun territory right now.
“What, calling you ‘baby’?” he asks, one arm hooked around the back of my headrest. He smells so good it’s crazy. “I thought that you liked–”
“I’m talking about when you call me Ash ,” I grit out. “And you called me it last night too, for the first time since–”
I shut myself up because we both know what I’m talking about. Last night Tanner called me Ash for the first time since our wild whirlwind hook up four years ago, when all we knew about each other was that we never wanted to not know each other again.
He had given me the nickname so naturally. It was as if we were meant to be.
I shake my head at myself, a little overwhelmed by the memory.
I may as well roll up my sleeve right now and show him that tiny love heart freckle that I’ve always got there.
When it comes to Tanner, why do I always wear my heart on my sleeve?
“Just don’t call me that,” I say breathlessly, swallowing hard as I flick my eyes back over to the shooting range sign.
“Fine,” Tanner relents. He kicks back in his seat with all of that hockey player swag. “Look, if you don’t want to do it, that’s fine, but after the incident last night I’d really like to teach you how to handle a gun. Also, are you gonna eat that muffin? Because if not–”
“Oh. My. God!” I smack my palms against his pecs. “You are literally insane. First of all, no way would a civilian without a registered gun licence be allowed to use a shooting range anyway? Like, you did not think this through.”
“Baby,” he drawls, all gruff and country, “it’s so cute hearing you talk about this shit as if you think you know something.”
When my jaw practically dislocates at the gall of the man he reaches his arm back around my headrest, towering over me as he leans closer.
“You’re in Larch Peak – mountain territory – where they’ve got wild things roaming in every patch of land. You don’t even need to be a citizen of the county to come to this range – all you need is to be over eighteen years old and in the possession of government issued identification. And also? When it comes to you, I think everything through. What the fuck do you think I did last night when I was lying on top of your sleeping bag in your goddamn lake house? All I could think about was what a close call it was at the bar and how it felt like my goddamn duty to make sure that you would never be scared in a situation like that again.”
“How on earth is it your duty? You’re not my boyfriend!”
“About time we changed that don’t you think?”
I groan and throw my head back against the seat. “You’re impossible ,” I whisper, gripping my hands into the top of the headrest.
He watches me in heated silence, tongue swiping over his lower lip as his eyes rake up my body. When his gaze lands back on mine there’s a dark flame flickering in his irises.
“Heard a rumour,” he begins, his big fist landing on both of mine at the top of the seat. He gently holds my wrists together in one firm squeeze.
I roll my eyes. He can be so broody.
“Yeah?” I ask.
“Heard you let Tristan give you a peck on the cheek.”
At first I’m a little surprised by the sudden subject change, not to mention the fact that I didn’t know Tanner knew about that.
I meet his gaze and whisper, “Who said it was on my cheek?”
His fierce eyes are the most penetrative that I’ve ever seen them. “You better be joking.”
“Or what? You gonna put me in the sin bin?” I ask tauntingly, and his hand involuntarily flexes tighter around my wrists.
He grunts and looks at our hands, stroking his thumb gently over my skin.
After a moment he exhales deeply and brings my hands down from the headrest, setting them in my lap. He encases both of his palms around my little fists.
I don’t say anything, but his touch is perfect.
“After what happened last night, I want to take some precautions.” He keeps his eyes down on my hands as he gently squeezes them. “I’m from a military family, Aisling, so I don’t take weapons like that lightly. But I know that, around parts like these, it’s not uncommon for a guy to be carrying something that maybe he shouldn’t be. But I also know that, if that’s the case, I want you to have the belief in yourself that you can handle that situation. If you understand the weapon, it can help dissipate a bit of the fear. Not that you’re scared,” he says quickly, his eyes sparkling with kindness as they flash up to meet mine, “but a deeper knowledge of it might be beneficial, especially if you’re planning on… you know, maybe staying around these parts for some time. I’m not sure what your next move is once you’ve finished the reno at the lake house but…”
Something warm and hopeful burns in his irises, something that I don’t fully understand because I’m more caught up in what he just said – about my potentially staying around these parts. I drop my eyes to our hands, my brow creased and sulky, because I wish I had the nerve to ask Tanner where he is planning on staying now that we’ve graduated.
But that’s none of my business.
I peek up at him from under my lashes and he gives our joined hands another squeeze.
“This wasn’t on my summer bucket list,” I mumble, and his expression softens.
“I know, baby, and we don’t have to stay for long. Just seeing you hold that thing the way you did last night…”
He glances away from me for a beat, large shoulders rising and falling as if the memory itself pisses him off.
“I want you to know what’s what, and then we can haul ass back to the lake. You’re not even gonna shoot it. We’re gonna see it, hold it, and then you’ll know that – if it’s in your hands – you’re in complete control.”
I purse my lips to the side, secretly loving the feel of Tanner’s big hands wrapped around mine.
Even though he doesn’t know it yet, he’s right – if I do want to live somewhere like Larch Peak then I should do everything in my power to familiarise myself with the ways of the place. Ones that I was never exposed to as a sheltered real estate heiress.
Tanner’s cheek tics up playfully, sensing my waning anger.
“I mean, it was either this or going into the woods and getting Caden to teach you.”
I stare up at him, horrified. “Please tell me that Caden does not have a handgun with him.”
Tanner’s mouth opens and then he pauses, no sound coming out.
“What the hell , Tanner!” I yelp.
“It’s not like that,” he says, his voice all deep and self-assured.
I mumble cocky big shot and he gives me a playful, “What’s that now?”
I turn my head away from him, and he drops both of his heavy forearms over my shoulders. I reluctantly glance up at him and see that his face is barely two inches away from mine.
“I want you safe,” he tells me, “and it’s better for you to be prepared than to wish that you were. I’m good with this stuff, baby. I’ll show you the ropes and then we never have to talk about it again, okay?”
I keep frowning up at him until he gently nudges his forehead against mine.
My heart squeezes at the contact, butterflies fluttering gently in my belly.
I nod my head and I feel his large body sigh with relief.
“Okay.”