Chapter 23
I ’d waited.
Partly because I knew just how angry my dad was with the entire situation—knew what kind of cutting remarks he’d been making—and it was all I could do to make myself wait outside the office where I was unable to hear any part of their conversation. Partly because...well, Asher .
“I looked for you every time I set foot in that shop until, suddenly, you were standing right in front of me. In my apartment.”
I hadn’t been able to get his unexpected words out of my head. I couldn’t make them fit with the words he’d unintentionally left on my voicemail nearly a week ago. But even if Asher wasn’t the kind of person who was—sometimes offensively—honest, I would’ve heard the truth in his voice then. Just as I’d heard the deeper meaning.
He’d been right. It did complicate things. But I was fairly sure I’d been waiting to hear something to that effect since long before I’d started working for him.
So, I’d waited. For as long as I’d been able to, anyway.
But after a quick trip to help my sister carry baskets back to their designated spot for the next round of pickers, I hurried back, only to find my dad waiting on the porch of the office. Arms folded and head dipping when he noticed me as if he’d expected me.
The strain on my lungs intensified and my body seemed to protest each step as I continued toward him. All that earlier eagerness was fully overwhelmed by my anxiety because the times I’d seen my dad since moving out hadn’t gone well.
I’d tried talking to him about his cancer—he’d echoed my mom’s blame for not being able to rest.
I’d tried telling him Jackson and I were done—he’d told me that wasn’t an option.
I’d tried explaining how great Wren would be at running this place—he’d looked at me as if I’d lost my mind before reminding me of my place.
“Are they still here?” I asked as I made it to where he stood, my stare drifting to the front office door before snapping back to my dad at his unexpected response.
“Shoulda told you and Wren.”
“What?”
His head bobbed a few times before he cleared his throat and looked out over the fields. “I shouldn’t have tried keeping what was happening to me from you girls. That wasn’t—that wasn’t fair.”
I stared at him as shock wove through me.
I wasn’t sure my dad had ever come so close to an apology in my entire life, and I couldn’t imagine what Asher had said to make him say this now.
“Thank you,” I whispered, my hand pressing against the ache in my chest. “Dad, I’m so sorry this is happening.”
He gave a sharp jerk of his head, quickly dismissing my words as he took a step away. But at the next step that brought him off the porch, he lifted a hand, loosely pointing at me for a few seconds before his eyes met mine.
“No man puts their hands on you, Lainey Ray. You hear me?”
Horror swept through me because I knew from the look of pain and shame in my dad’s eyes that he wasn’t making assumptions about Asher’s intimidating personality. Asher had told him about Jackson.
“Dad, I?—”
“No man,” he said definitively.
“I know, but...” My head shook quickly, fiercely. “Dad, this isn’t Jackson,” I began, feeling like an idiot for ever defending him. “The guy on the other end of the phone these past years, the one I’ve seen during school breaks, the one I came home to...that isn’t Jackson. And I think I know why.”
My dad twisted fully to face me, looking angrier than he had when he’d walked up on Asher and me. “There is no excuse, Lainey. Not for what he did. Not ever.”
“I know,” I hurried to assure him. “I know, but I don’t think any of you realize that Jackson’s just as trapped as I am.”
He scoffed, his hands lifting into the air before falling to slap at his thighs. “Lainey...”
“Dad, he loves the farm and the ranch. He wants the businesses to merge—he wants all of it. But he knows it only happens if we’re together, and I don’t think Jackson loves me. I’m pretty sure he’s in love with someone else—I think he’s been in love with her for a long time, and he’s just been forcing himself to stay with me because he has to.”
“That isn’t—no,” my dad said, head shaking. “That boy has always been in love with you.”
“He was,” I said with a subdued laugh. “And I think he’s trying to convince himself he still can be, just like I was trying to convince myself of the same. But I think this increasingly angry guy I’ve been witnessing is a product of y’all trapping him into a life he wants but isn’t fully happy in. I think he’s breaking under it, and he’s lashing out at me. I’m not excusing what he did,” I added, making sure my dad understood that. “But I also don’t think Jackson even realized that he was hurting me or is the kind of person to do that.”
I stood painfully still as I waited for my dad’s response. Fingers interwoven and pressed against my uneasy stomach. Lungs desperately begging for air. Body so tightly wound, I thought it might shatter when I tried moving again.
After all, I’d more or less told him what happened with Jackson was because of him.
But after a minute passed in tense silence, my dad subtly dipped his chin and muttered, “You’re still needed here, Lainey,” as he turned to leave. “Farm can’t go on without you.”
My entire being seemed to sag once he was gone. Sinking to the porch, I tried to contain the excitement and adrenaline coursing through me as I drew in shaky breaths.
I hadn’t had that calm or respectful of a conversation with my dad since I’d first told him I wanted to go to college, and I wasn’t sure he’d ever let me be that honest with him. And even though I hadn’t won all the battles, if his parting words were any indication, that had been a turning point. I was sure of it.
And I had Asher to thank for all of it.
That afternoon, the elevator opened on the twenty-ninth floor to ear-piercing screams.
“I’m here,” I called out since I wasn’t sure the elevator’s ding could be heard over Kaia’s cries. Hurrying into the large space, I looked for wherever they might be, already pulling my purse off my shoulder as I did.
“Nothing,” Asher suddenly said from above me, making my head snap up to see him and Kaia on the landing that led to his room. But in less than a second, I forgot all about the crying baby in his arms because Asher was standing there in only a pair of black, tactical pants. “Nothing has helped.”
I struggled to clear the sudden knot it my throat, but my voice still came out low and strained when I said, “Got it.”
“I have to get ready,” he said pointedly.
“That’s why I’m here,” I managed to say at a reasonable volume.
He gave me a look that clearly shouted he didn’t know why I was still standing where I was instead of coming to get her, and I felt my stomach flip at just the thought of setting foot on the stairs.
“I, uh . . . I don’t think I should go up there.”
Asher’s head slanted and one side of his face twitched in obvious discomfort when Kaia leaned back and let out an impressively loud shriek of a scream. Pinching the bridge of his nose with his free hand, he seemed to take a calming breath before giving me a pleading look. “I should be leaving right now. Lainey, please.”
I wanted to remind him I’d been forbidden from ever going anywhere other than Kaia’s room and the common areas of the apartment—his room especially. I wanted to ask for him to put a shirt on because, oh my gosh , that at-home gym was absolutely working for him, and he was already entirely too distracting to look at when fully clothed. I wanted to know how anyone could look that controlled and devastatingly handsome when holding a screaming baby because I was sure I looked like an exhausted mess after even the easiest days with Kaia.
But I found myself fumbling out a “R-right, coming,” as I hurried to dump my purse and the blueberries we’d picked at the breakfast bar before starting for the two-story windows, where the nearly hidden set of stairs began. My heart hammered much harder than it should’ve when I took that first step.
“She started up right before we got back,” he said as I hurried up the stairs, his voice sounding farther and farther away. “Hasn’t stopped. Refused to eat lunch.”
“Uh,” I whispered when I reached the landing, only to find it empty of them as Asher continued, pulling my attention to the glass-enclosed room beside me.
“I’ve tried toys and reading to her. I’ve tried just holding her,” he said as I hesitantly stepped inside, desperately trying to keep my eyes on my feet and failing.
My gaze skipped over his bedroom that was—unsurprisingly—like the rest of his apartment: staggeringly dark despite the wall of windows. Terribly immaculate and bare. Cold in that unlived in way.
By the time I landed on where he stood beside his large bed, he was pulling a black shirt over the under shirt he’d already slipped on. Kaia was sitting on the bed near him. Face red and streaked with tears as she screamed with all her might.
“I even tried making those faces you make at her,” he admitted as he tried getting a sock from her tight grasp. “I need that,” he informed her, his voice softening as he gently pried open each finger.
As soon as the sock was taken from her, Kaia sucked in a stuttered breath and somehow reached a new pitch that had a headache forming within seconds.
I slipped up beside Asher and swept her into my arms. “Hi, pretty girl,” I whispered to her as I turned to leave the room. “Why so sad?”
“It’s me,” Asher said just as I reached the doorway. “Right?”
I turned at the defeated words, sure I heard him wrong. “What?”
He let out a breathless huff and glanced at me from over his shoulder before reaching for his boots. “She isn’t like this with you. And you said it...I’m hostile. Angry. You said she can feel that.”
“Asher, that isn’t?—”
“Look at her, Lainey,” he ground out and turned to face where I stood with his still-screaming niece. “She’s different with you. One day with me, and she?—”
“And me,” I said over him. “She was with me too.”
“But I was angry,” he maintained. “I was—” He mumbled a curse and dragged his hands over his head. “I was irrationally angry after meeting your boyfriend and dad. And then this.”
If he hadn’t already shocked me earlier that morning, I was sure that statement would’ve left me speechless, frantically trying to figure out what all it could mean. As it was, my heart just gave a little hiccup as I filed away yet another thing I wanted to dissect later before I argued, “She could be crying over anything.”
His head shook, the movements small but harsh as he bent to jerkily lace up the tactical boots. “Maybe her social worker’s right.”
My chest ached at the shame and defeat in his voice. “Asher, you don’t believe that.”
He didn’t respond until he’d grabbed the small duffle bag beside the bed and was stalking past me. “I don’t know what I think anymore.”
I faltered a little before hurrying after him all while Kaia’s screams held steady and my headache grew.
“Asher, this isn’t the first time she’s had a crying fit that lasted hours,” I tried reminding him. “Y’all made it through those, and you’ll make it through this one and the next.”
His head moved in nearly indiscernible shakes as he quickly crossed the expansive apartment. “I wanted to talk to you,” he said instead. “There’s...so much we need to go over—starting with where you’ve been staying the past week.” He shot me a look that was equal parts accusation and worry.
“A hotel a couple blocks away,” I admitted and felt something inside me shrink at the frustration that stole across his face.
But he just gave a firm nod, then pulled his phone out of his pocket, “I have to go,” he mumbled as he checked the screen, “but we’ll talk when I get back.” Those dark eyes lifted to mine as he pocketed his phone. “About this morning, about why you’re living in a hotel , and about the person coming up the elevator.”
My attention snapped that way before shifting back to Asher as he continued.
“I’ll tell you everything later, Lainey, I swear. But right now, I need to know if you’ll be okay with one of my guys being in here tonight.”
“Wait, what?” I asked, nearly choking over the question and—embarrassingly—almost reaching the same pitch as Kaia.
“I don’t have time to get into it right now, but I can’t leave y’all alone.”
“What do you mean?”
“Lainey,” he nearly begged. “Trust me.”
I grit my teeth because he already knew I did, but this wasn’t an I don’t trust you with my niece kind of talk. This was a coffee shop kind of talk.
“Jack Ryan?” I finally asked.
Asher’s eyes rolled and the corner of his mouth twitched. “Yeah. Jack Ryan.” He erased the space between us and sent my pulse into an absolutely frenzy when he cradled the side of my neck in his large hand. Pressing his thumb against my jaw, he tipped my head back as if this was normal for us—as if I wasn’t holding a screaming baby. “Everything,” he repeated meaningfully. “I’ll explain everything later. But I have to go. Tell me if you’ll be okay.”
I wasn’t sure how to talk when I could barely form a coherent thought. But I somehow managed to ask, “Who’s coming?”
“Rush. You’ve met him,” he reminded me. “He’s my best friend. I trust him with my life, and he’s the only one I trust with yours.”
Something about that claim should’ve worried me; should’ve let me know I was in danger. But I was too busy trying not to swoon over this confusing, frustrating man to focus on that right then.
“’Kay.”
“He’ll stay out of your way,” he assured me. “Just do what you would normally do, and I’ll be back when we’re done.”
Uncertainty and shame dulled his eyes when he glanced at Kaia. With a gentle sweep of his thumb across my jaw, he released me and reached out to brush Kaia’s back, only to let his hand fall as he turned for the foyer just as the elevator arrived.
I stood there on unsteady legs, watching as he spoke with Cameron Rush in the time it took them to switch places on the elevator. By the time the doors had shut, the giant Viking was standing just beside it in a position that was too relaxed to be true.
“Miss Pearson,” he said in greeting.
“Will you be there all evening?” I asked as I rubbed soothing circles against Kaia’s back. “ Right there?” At the dip of his head, those earlier warning bells I’d let slide started blaring.
Or maybe that was just Kaia.
“Are you gonna tell me what’s going on?”
“No, ma’am,” he said with a finality that was reminiscent of Asher, but Cameron was much nicer in his delivery.
I nodded absentmindedly as I wondered what could’ve happened for Asher to suddenly demand someone be here with us now . And as Kaia smacked her hands against my chest in frustration, I wondered if this threat—or whatever it was—was the real reason behind Asher second-guessing if he was the right fit for his niece.
“It’s her naptime,” I said distractedly. “I’m gonna try to put her down.”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me,” Cameron told me, but I was already turning. My thoughts pulling in a dozen different directions because this day had been full of so many unexpected twists and turns, and I had a feeling it was only just beginning.