Vote Then Read: Volume I

by Carly Phillips

  “Oh, wow.” I guess I hadn’t realized the full scope of what she’d meant.

  We pulled into a parking spot in front of an enormous, three-story old Victorian home.

  I hopped down from the truck, following behind Ash as he walked inside.

  “Hey, Addy,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “I have some goods for you.”

  I was taken aback when the woman who turned to greet us looked almost exactly like Eve but slightly older.

  “Taylor, this is Addison, Eve’s sister,” Ash introduced me.

  Wearing all black, contrasting her sister’s colorful wardrobe, Addison was a bit taller than Eve with the same face skin and same eyes. The most noticeable difference though – the most noticeable thing period – was Addison’s long bright blue hair.

  “Hey, call me Addy,” she greeted me warmly and wrapped me in a hug.

  “Nice to meet you,” I squeaked. “You look so much like your sister.”

  Addy smirked. “Hard to believe my twin is actually our brother, Zeke, huh?” she joked. “So, Eve told me Ash had someone staying with him. I asked if it was someone or a saint.”

  “Christ,” Ash grumbled.

  The blue-haired woman laughed and patted him on the back. “And I think I have my answer.”

  “I don’t know about that, I mean I did make him sleep on the couch.” I laughed. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

  I stood for a few minutes while the serious deal of muffins exchanging hands was transacted. While Eve was bright and bubbly, Addy had a humorous sarcastic edge to what seemed like an intense personality. (If the blue hair hadn’t given that away.) I watched their conversation, waiting for the moment when I’d find out just what Ash had come here for.

  “Zeke is in the back.”

  When she turned, her jacket dipped, and I saw her back was completely covered in tattoos. I was curious as to what they were - and then I realized what they were meant to hide.

  Scars.

  My sharp inhale was barely audible. Scars crisscrossed her back from wounds that must have been painfully deep judging from the way they healed, puckered and shiny.

  “Tay.” Ash’s voice jolted me back to reality and I quickly tore my gaze away before she realized I was staring. “This is Zeke, the brother. Zeke, this is Taylor.”

  “Nice to meet you,” the third good-looking sibling greeted me with less enthusiasm than his sister. I barely returned the pleasantry before his attention was back on Ash.

  “Don’t mind Groucho,” Addy’s muted voice drew my attention. “We had a small disagreement earlier. He’s still not over it. Men.” She huffed.

  I laughed, feeling guilty because I really wanted to hear what Ash and her brother were talking about.

  “So, you and Ash…”

  I shook my head. “No! I mean… we’re just friends. He’s just… helping me out right now.” I glanced down at my stomach.

  Like her scars, the distinct bump was something that didn’t go unnoticed.

  She nodded but her expression said that I wasn’t convincing enough. “When are you due?”

  “The end of January.” My winter baby.

  “Congratulations.”

  I murmured my thanks, glancing back as Zeke handed Ash a stack of papers.

  “He’s great,” she continued, looking at Ash. “I was just giving him a hard time earlier, but he’s done a lot for this place since he’s moved here.”

  “He has?” I tried not to sound as desperate as I was.

  She nodded. “He met Cam and me at Roasters not long after he got here; we stopped in to see Evie and grab a cup of Joe. He made shit coffee back then, by the way.” I laughed with her. “A week later, he showed up here with a woman from his… ahh… church group who needed more support, I guess you could say.”

  I didn’t bother to interrupt and tell her that I knew about his AA meetings; I wanted her to keep talking.

  “A few weeks after that, he shows back up again wondering why we don’t have a kitchen. We just moved into this place at the middle of last year; it used to be our grandmother’s house. By the time we renovated and brought everything up to code, we didn’t have the funds yet to update the kitchen.” She sighed as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Next thing I know, we’ve got Madison Construction rolling through here with appliances and all sorts of goods, turning the back room into a full-fledged kitchen for us and the girls to use.”

  “Wow.”

  “Honestly, that’s not even the most impressive part. At least to me. Ash came several times a week for the next month and taught my girls how to cook healthy meals for themselves,” she revealed with a tone that told me not only how grateful she was to Ash, but just how much she cared about each of the women in her charge.

  “And that was after working at Roasters,” she went on to inform me “And when he was done here, he’d leave to go work on his own place. I swear, I don’t think he’s slept since he bought that property,” she said wryly while I listened in shock.

  “I… I didn’t know.” My hands went to my stomach. I hated that I didn’t know. I could see why he didn’t want to tell me about being an alcoholic, but why try to hide this?

  “Fear.”

  “Excuse me?” My head jerked to hers.

  “That’s why you didn’t know,” she began with a sad smile and, with a stare that drove right into my soul.

  “I see people living in fear every day - hell, I used to be one of them; that’s why I opened Blooms,” she admitted honestly. “And it’s not just fear of acknowledging the bad; that fear is easy to spot. But more often than not, it’s fear of accepting the good that holds us back. That’s the fear that hides in plain sight. The only thing scarier than what you’ve been through is that the good you’ve found won’t last.”

  I stood mute, acknowledging that very fear inside myself.

  “Sorry.” Her face broke into a gentle smile. “I do most of our counseling here, so I tend to get too deep and personal with people in normal situations. I just… I know what I see. And I don’t like to see fear.”

  The Lord has not given me the spirit of fear but of peace, love, and a sound mind.

  Out of nowhere, the scripture from Isaiah hit me. I was afraid. In varying quantities, there was a lot in my future that worried me. But with Ash… first I was afraid that I didn’t know him, really, or what he was doing here.

  That wasn’t wrong.

  But now that I knew the truth, I was afraid of losing the good. It kept me paralyzed and my secret locked behind my lips.

  Loyalty - misguided or otherwise - had always been Ash’s forte. I didn’t want to be one more responsibility he felt he had to take. I didn’t want to be one more, however admirable or honorable, chip in the collection he’d been growing to buy his forgiveness or barter for his redemption.

  I wanted desperately what we had now. Well, more than what we had now – more of what I saw coming, what I could almost reach out and touch.

  I wanted him to want me. Just me. Not because of the baby.

  And I wanted him to want it, too.

  Ash

  “Thanks for letting me come along,” Taylor said, turning to face me as I held the passenger door open. My body tightened as I smelled sweet muffins, fresh coffee, and pure woman. She was so close - too close. Desire ripped through me.

  I felt a twinge of guilt for making her feel like I didn’t want her with me. I did. I just didn’t want to be that fucking guy who carted her all over town just to show her all the great stuff I was doing - the ‘hey, look at me, look at how I’ve changed and how I’m now God’s gift to Carmel.’

  I did what I did because I needed to, not because I needed to show it to everyone else.

  “Yeah, sorry. Just told Zeke I pick these up before the weekend.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about Blooms? Or what you did for them?” she asked with a soft voice.

  I cleared my throat to hide a groan.

  “Did f
or them? I mean it’s not like they aren’t going to be helping me at the restaurant…”

  “W-what do you mean, helping at the restaurant?”

  My eyes darted to her for a minute. Shit. Addy must not have told her everything. But now I had to.

  “I’m hiring them. That’s what I stopped today to pick up - resumes from some of the women. Or lists of skills that they have.”

  Some of them held similar jobs in the past. Some had resumes. And then there were some that ended up in bad situations early in life. It didn’t matter to me whether they knew it all or knew nothing;

  “Like as waitresses?”

  “And hostesses. Some might help in the kitchen, too.” I sighed heavily. “Many of them don’t have college degrees. On top of that, with histories of drug and physical abuse, most of the resorts and wineries around here won’t hire them and even the ones that will, a lot of the girls are still hesitant and anxious around strangers.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I watched understanding dawn on Taylor’s face.

  “They want to contribute. They want jobs. But Roasters can only take so many, so when I decided to open the restaurant, I told them I was going to hire my staff exclusively from there and the church’s AA group,” I explained steadily as I turned onto the drive down to the house.

  “Because the restaurant is about a new beginning…” she offered quietly.

  I nodded. “But not just mine,” I clarified. “I want to do for others what Larry did for me; I want the restaurant to be a safe place to start again.” When I saw her try to quickly wipe a tear from her cheek without me seeing, I warned roughly, “Don’t, Pixie. It’s not that big of a deal. I’m not doing the heavy lifting like they do over at Blooms. I’m not helping them rebuild from scratch. It’s just a job.”

  “Don’t tell me don’t,” she demanded, staring at her hands in her lap. “You won’t make this less than what it is, Ash. Don’t try to make yourself less than who you are.”

  I grunted, turning off the car. “I’m not. I’m human - just like everybody else. I do both good and bad things and there’s no use crying over either.”

  As soon as the shower turned off, my body vibrated with awareness that it was only a matter of time before Taylor was within touching range again. Of all the things I’d tried to keep to myself since she got here, my hands were the hardest.

  I stared at my phone, waiting for Eli to get back to me and hoping Tay would come out to say goodnight and head back to bed. Hoping our usual routine of dinner, an episode of Vikings, a second if she decided to shower in the morning, and then bed, wouldn’t be broken.

  I shouldn’t have kissed her. Never should have crossed that fucking line.

  She came here for a safe space and I couldn’t control my dick long enough to not take advantage of her. I didn’t even know how long she planned on staying - not that I would ever ask and risk her thinking that she wasn’t welcome, but the truth was I didn’t think I’d survive until the baby came.

  Maybe I could stay in the restaurant once it opened. Or back with Larry.

  It was only a few weeks out. The deck needed to be finished. Everything needed to be painted. I was planning on ordering the furniture this weekend. Inspections. And then open.

  At least Addy and Zeke had been a huge help training the girls from Blooms so they’d be ready to go for opening day.

  My phone buzzed with a message from Eli.

  ELI

  Couldn’t find much on Blackman Brews. Just opened not that long ago. A few stands in the resorts around here. Having Dex look into it.

  ASH

  Who owns it?

  ELI

  Xander Blackman. Looks like a tool.

  ASH

  Something is going on. If you saw the guy… Talks like he’s in charge but acts like he’s still answering to someone else. And the way he talked, whoever it is wants Roasters for more than fucking coffee.

  ELI

  Dex will figure it out. He’s with Ace on a case in Frisco; he’ll be back next week. But I already told him about the situation. Let me know if you see Blackman again.

  Dex Covington was the tech end of Covington Security. Background checks. A/V surveillance. Wiretaps. Phone taps. Internet records. There was nothing he couldn’t dig up. His older brother, Ace, was the boots-on-the-ground muscle of the firm. They’d both been in the military. Ace was a navy SEAL and Dex worked in a position he couldn’t really talk about, which we naturally all assumed meant he’d been some sort of spy.

  They’d opened up their private investigation and security firm just outside of Carmel when they’d left the service.

  If you were a local with a problem, you didn’t go to the police - you went to Covington. Being right on Big Sur and on the coast, the police were too busy dealing with tourists and their issues to have time to deal with the actual residents of Carmel Cove.

  There was one more Covington brother – the youngest – Bennett. He was probably the one I had the most in common with, since he’d gone to school to be a chef. Unfortunately, he’d just purchased the Carmel Pub, so in addition to being busy with my own restaurant, I didn’t get in there to see him for obvious reasons.

  Their father, George Covington, had been the plumber for Carmel since, well… since plumbing was probably installed in the town as far as I could tell. He was as close of a fixture in Carmel as you could get before becoming Larry.

  Regardless, we had no proof of anything unlawful except that motherfucker who berated and seemed to have no reservations about assaulting an old man to get what he wanted. My fist tightened around the phone. I had a bad feeling about Blackman and Dex was the only man I knew and trusted to get to the bottom of it.

  “Everything okay?”

  My eyes darted up to see Taylor standing there wrapped in only her towel.

  I groaned. God, couldn’t she at least have put the flannel back on? The towel was too fucking easy.

  I clicked off my phone, setting it on the counter. “Yeah, you okay?”

  She nodded, stepping even closer toward me. Barefoot and pregnant - the thought wasn’t lost on me. Although this was never how I imagined it happening for me - not in a million fucking years. Then again, now that it was, I wouldn’t imagine it with anyone else. I couldn’t.

  “Sorry for crying earlier. I feel like I’m always crying,” she said with an adorable laugh.

  Groaning, I pushed back from the counter, trying to gain a little more space between us.

  “Don’t apologize, Taylor. It’s fine,” I said gruffly.

  “I just want you to know.” Her breath shook and I didn’t miss the brief quiver of her lower lip as she spoke again. “That I’ve been around people… lots of them… who only help people for how it makes them look to their fellow churchgoers.”

  I let out a hiss when somehow, she made it close enough to reach out and put her hand on my chest, and I was powerless to stop her.

  Who knew that the strongest force in the whole damn world was the softness of a woman’s touch?

  I was hard and aching and just wanting to hold her and love her and fuck her so fucking badly, I was going to lose my mind.

  “I know exactly what that kind of person looks like - they look like my parents; they look like the people I grew up with and was told to admire; they look like the community I left behind - a community that would not only turn a blessing into a mistake. But just like that’s not God, and that’s not love, you, Ash, are not that person.” Her eyes looked into mine like green lanterns of truth. “You are doing something that will do the exact opposite, something that will turn mistakes into blessings. You should be proud of something like that… of what you are doing… of who you are.”

  My jaw tightened. I shouldn’t be proud of something that ultimately resulted from the mistakes I made. But then Taylor showed up, chased here by the same judgment she’d been raised on, and yet didn’t judge me at all.

  If I were ever to believe that God was giving me a sign -
was showing me the true meaning of grace, this… she… would be it.

  “I don’t want to be proud of it if it’s going to make you cry again,” I rasped softly, my face drifting closer to her like I was the sea and she was my shore.

  At least that got a small laugh from her. “That’s not what’s going to make me cry.”

  “Oh?” I grinned, but just for a second until I realized there was something that would. I dragged in an unsteady breath, my thumb brushing across her cheek, as I asked, “Then what’s going to make you cry?”

  I watched it happen - the pink that rose into her cheeks, the way her mouth parted slightly but didn’t take in any air, and her eyes… green, gilded cages well-fortified to hold back her desire, now let it free to burn in the brightest, wildfire flame.

  Her lips brushed over my thumb as she spoke. “If you don’t kiss me again.”

  Fuck.

  It wasn’t her words that rang in my ear, it was the sound of the gauntlet being thrown.

  And my restraint being broken.

  I tried to find reasons - any reason - to convince myself that this was a mistake, that I was taking advantage. But as my lips drifted down to hers, I realized nothing about this could ever be wrong.

  “Taylor…”

  And I could punish myself later as long as it meant I could have her now.

  15

  Taylor

  I wanted him to kiss me.

  The thought had been chained to my mind like the most dangerous kind of felon, cinched and shackled tight, bound by locks with no keys. Yet, like a heavenly Houdini, it escaped from my mouth as though its chains were nothing more than costume jewelry.

  And maybe my restraint against him had always just been for show.

  But when his cool blue eyes looked at me like I was the key to his salvation, my fear evaporated and the only thing left to my body was its desire for him.