Chapter 7
7
Asher
“Morning, Oscar.” I reached down and attached a leash to his collar. “Big day for you.”
At least one of us was going to be sedated today. I had to get over the mystery of the missing raven-haired woman. It had been two weeks since the explosion at the mall. Two weeks of me driving way out of the way to pass by the Four Seasons Florist shop.
The first entire week, the store had been closed which made me wonder if she needed an entire week to recover. My internet searches—well, they left me with even more questions. Yesterday, finally, there had been some life in the shop, but the guy behind the counter had no clue who Sienna was. She most certainly didn’t work there. Then again, he said he was only dropping off an order of supplies for the owner, whose name was Candace.
I swore Four Seasons was the name on the booth that day. Maybe she was just a random person at the event and ducked into that booth looking for a safe place to shelter in. Either way, she was gone.
I crouched down to Oscar’s level. His tongue licked my face. “You may not want to be kissing me once you figure out where you’re going.” I tugged his leash. “Time to go, boy. Sorry you have to go through this.”
Oscar trotted next to me, oblivious to his fate. When he saw we were headed for my truck, he stopped and pulled back, sensing this wasn’t a walk around the block anymore.
“Stop forcing him to get in that rolling turd,” Tori yelled from inside the bay. She was standing beside the ladder truck, wearing a pair of shorts that showed off the visible scar running down her leg.
The day we rolled up on the multi-vehicle accident was one of the toughest days I’d encountered as a firefighter. I thought Hawk was going to lose his shit when he recognized his woman’s sister trapped inside one of the cars. Skye’s little sister was only sixteen, but she is his family, and nothing prepares you for the day you have to extricate someone you’re close to. Even with therapy, she still moves with a limp.
“We all told you to buy the silver truck.” Tori shook her head. “Everyone likes silver. No one wants to ride in something that looks like a damn turd moving down the road, not even the dog.”
I placed my hands on my hips and cursed the ground for not opening up. Jesus Christ, it’s too early in the morning for this shit.
When I finally looked back at her, she was laughing. She loved busting my balls any chance she got. “What are you doing here?”
Tori wobbled her way down to me. “Helping Hawk and my sister drop off the beef for the family cookout. Where’s the furball going?”
“To the vet.” I opened the truck door and tapped my hand on the floorboard. “Up, Oscar.” The dog jumped right in. “The jokes about my truck are getting old. It’s called Caribou , not shit brown .”
Oscar didn’t care what color my truck was. The black leather interior was pristine. He claimed his spot in the passenger seat, all sprawled out with his head on the center console.
Tori took hold of my passenger door. “Want company? Hawk said you were taking the fleabag to get neutered. I got nothing better to do and if I stick around here, they’ll have me peeling potatoes in the kitchen. I’d much rather bust your balls while he gets his cut off.”
“You’re a menace, kid. You know that? I’m only dropping him off and then I’m coming right back here.”
Tori shrugged. “Whatever.”
“If Hawk and your sister say it’s okay, you can go with me. But are you sure you want to ride in the turd? God forbid someone sees you.”
Tori yelled over her shoulder to Hawk, who was standing under the opened bay door watching the two of us interact. “I’m taking the dog with Hayes. You got any issues with that?” she asked in a tone that dared Hawk to tell her no.
“You good with that, Hayes?” he yelled back.
Like I had a choice in the matter. Hawk waved us off, probably glad to pass watching Tori off on someone else. Tori was beaming; the brat knew she had her sister’s man wrapped around her finger too.
“Looks like the fleabag took my seat.” Tori scrunched her nose and scowled at Oscar. “Guess I’m riding in the back.”
I lifted her up a bit, helping her reach the running board so she didn’t have to put too much weight on her leg as she climbed into the back.
“You do know I’m not an invalid anymore,” Tori grumbled. She got herself situated and put on her seatbelt.
I got behind the wheel and caught Tori’s smiling face in my mirror.
“Can you run a few red lights?” she teased. “I don’t want to have to duck when we stop. I’ll die if anyone I know sees me back here in the turd.”
True to form, at every stop light, Tori hunched down, hiding from the cars that surrounded us. “Will you knock that off? There’s nothing wrong with this truck.”
“You’re overly sensitive about this.” She hmm’d. “I wonder. You know what they say about men with lifted trucks. What are you overcompensating for?” She wiggled her pinky finger at me.
“I am not having this conversation with you, Tori. You may talk your shit to Hawk and the other guys, but I’m not taking the bait.” I glanced at her and then back at the road. “You’re a menace.”
“Aw, big, bad Asher thinks I’m too young to talk about penis sizes.” She giggled.
“Stop it. I don’t want to hear the word penis come out of your mouth again. Christ, kid.”
“Penis. Penis. Penis.” Tori continued her taunts, making me regret the last fifteen miles of road. I’ve never been so happy to see the parking lot of the veterinarian’s office before.
I parked the truck close to the entrance so she didn’t have to walk too far. Maybe the vet would keep Tori for a few hours? At this rate, the kid needed to be spayed before she became even more of a nuisance.
Tori opened her door and slid herself out. Then she opened Oscar’s door and gave his leash a tug. Oscar was having none of it. He scrambled backwards, firm in his decision to stay put. “What the hell? It’s like he knows where he’s at and what’s going to happen.”
“He was here last week for his bloodwork. I'm sure he recognizes the building and remembers what he went through. He’s not going to just leap out and be like, ‘I’m ready for you to subject me to more pain.’”
I watched the tug-and-pull exchange between the two of them before I nudged her aside. I reached over and scooped Oscar into my arms. “Sorry, boy, there’s no getting out of this one.”
I opened the door to the clinic and let Tori walk in before me. An elderly man sitting to the right, holding a cat carrier on his lap, looked up at her before his eyes narrowed in on the scar on her leg. He attempted to smile, but I saw the pity in his eyes. “Good morning. Got a sick dog, do you?” he asked her.
“Nah, he isn’t sick. He’s here to get his nuts cut off.” Tori laughed.
This kid was beyond embarrassing. I gave her a nudge. “Knock it off. Behave yourself.”
The older gentleman clutched the carrier tighter to his chest, unsure of what to make of Tori’s crude response. That made two of us.
There was no one at the front desk, so Tori tapped the bell. “Be right there,” a sweet voice called from the back room.
I knelt down to pet Oscar, who was shaking uncontrollably, when I heard Tori tell the woman behind the desk that she was dropping Oscar off.
“No, it’s Nashville Fire Station 47.” Tori was once again messing with my day going smoothly. I quickly stood to speak up since Oscar was my responsibility today, but I froze. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
It was her—the woman with raven-black hair and mesmerizing eyes. The jolt of seeing her again, of spending days trying to find her only to see her appear like magic in front of me, rocked me back on my heels. I knew the minute she recognized me because her eyes widened.
“Sienna?” My chest bumped the counter. I had a sudden urge to leap over it. “What are you doing here?”
Sienna looked just as spooked as that first day I’d found her huddled in that booth, but now a shy smile full of shock replaced her fear. It was still odd. Distant. Most women I approach either fully engage or give those clear signals that they aren’t interested. Sienna was an anomaly, and if I was reading her correctly, she was at least curious. She wasn’t going to slip through my fingers that easily today without me knowing who she was. “Do you remember me?”
Her eyes roamed over my face before narrowing, and then she bit at her bottom lip, rolling it between her teeth. Fuck, that was sexy. “Yeah. Hey.”
“You work here?”
It was a stupid question, considering she was wearing a purple scrub top with County Line Pet Hospital on it. She nodded at me.
“I’ve been thinking about you.” Truthfully, it had been more like every five minutes, but I couldn’t admit that out loud. “It looks like you’re doing okay.”
Sienna rolled back in the chair and stood. “I am, thanks,” she said with a sweet smile. “Thanks for, you know.”
“Yeah, of course. Are you doing okay?”
She wrapped some hair over her ear. “Yeah. It was a bit traumatic. I appreciate what you did.”
“Yeah, no problem.”
She kept side-eying Tori. Did she think Tori was my kid? I knew I should have left her back at the station. She was sixteen now, so she was in that weird stage between looking like a kid and blooming into a woman, but no fucking way would I go there with a kid, for fuck’s sake. I was thirty-seven; so, was Sienna questioning who Tori was to me?
“I don’t think I got a chance to introduce myself. I’m Asher. Asher Hayes.” I held out my hand.
Sienna squinted at me, looking a bit startled; her eyes flipping from my hand to my face. Did she know me?
“Asher… Hayes ?” My name whispered out of her.
My chest clenched at her response; my mind spinning as some of the color seemed to drain from her face. That feeling I’d been trying to figure out came back in a hot rush. “Yeah. Do I know you? I feel like we’ve met before.”
“No,” she said quickly, vehemently denying my question. “Let me get a technician for you.” Her voice quivered a little when she spoke, avoiding looking at me. “I’ll get the… the file things.”
Her reaction was a bit too… something was off. Way off. No woman had ever given me that kind of response.
Why is she so spooked again? She couldn’t avoid me fast enough by the way she was rushing about, flipping papers over on the desk like she was looking for something important. “I’ll get someone for you two. Um, I mean Oliver, to come get Oliver?”
“Oscar,” Tori corrected her, turning her head my way and narrowing her brows before mouthing what the fuck.
“Yeah. Oscar. The dog,” Sienna repeated as she stepped farther away from the desk. “Someone. I mean, I’ll get someone.” At that, she quickly disappeared around the corner out of sight.
“That was weird.” Tori crooked her head in the direction Sienna fled to.
It was weird. But the ache I’d been feeling from that moment I’d found her on the ground had now exploded into a million new questions.
“You could have gone with a better pickup line than, ‘have we met before.’ You really have no game.” Tori rolled her eyes.
Tori was annoying as fuck, but the kid was right. Seeing Sienna again hadn’t gone anywhere even close to how I thought it might.
Tori leaned to pet Oscar. “Maybe she’s someone you hooked up with? Banged her brains out and then left, and she’s too embarrassed to admit it.”
“I’d remember that.”
“Not if you were drunk.”
“I’m never too drunk to remember someone I’ve hooked—met before. I am not having this conversation with you.”
“I can’t help it. Oscar isn’t the only dog standing here.” Tori grinned.
This girl was giving me a headache. I didn’t know how Skye and Hawk dealt with it. The guys got a kick out of Tori’s sarcasm, but sometimes her comments were inappropriate.
Instead of seeing Sienna again, a guy in green scrubs came around the corner. He reached out for the leash in my hand. “You’re all set. I’ll take Oscar from here. We’ll call you when he’s done and then you can come any time after three to pick him up. Do you have any questions?”
I only had one, but asking another guy about Sienna wasn’t happening. She obviously wanted nothing to do with me. That was clear as day. “No,” I answered.
Oscar started to walk with the guy, glancing back to see if I was coming. But when he realized I wasn’t moving, he stopped dead in his tracks and pulled back on his leash, pleading with me not to break the bro-code and send him off to get snipped.
It killed me to see him struggle like that. I wanted to rescue him from this fate and take him back to the safety of the truck. But that wouldn’t be in his best interest. His humping was getting out of control. All that testosterone not getting a release. Man, I could relate. You could only fight the law of attraction so much, which is why my skin felt like it was on fire, waiting for just one more glimpse of Sienna.
I wait a few moments, hoping that she would return to the front desk, but she didn’t. Tori stood at the front door, holding it open, waiting. I knew I should go, but my legs weren’t cooperating.
I glanced back one last time before stepping out it and closing the door behind me. That’s twice she’d gotten away from me . Her response made my head spin. She knew me. I didn’t know how, but it was clear to me.
I was going to find out.