by Cassie Mae
Austin practically leapt from behind the steering wheel, the Porter’s Garage van door screeching when he closed it. Aaron idled behind his brother, pushing his hands into the pockets of his jeans as he looked up at the familiar bar. The Carsons had updated their lighting and painted the exterior, and there was a new OPEN and CLOSED sign hanging over the door. But everything else felt much the same as it had been before he’d left.
Austin received several enthusiastic greetings as he passed a group of happily trashed people. Most were either too drunk to notice that there was another brother nearby or too slow to recognize Aaron as he walked past. One of them actually called out, “Austin, man, didn’t you just go inside?” Aaron shook his head and laughed at the gravel under his feet.
Stepping through the front door sent a million memories through his head, the first being his last time at the bar. He’d passed out on top of one of the back pool tables and somehow made it home, but he still had no idea how that happened.
“The hell…?” came a thundering voice from the bar, one Aaron recognized immediately. A grin spread over his face as he turned to see the familiar, friendly face.
“Whoo!” the man hollered, slapping a thick hand against the lacquered bar top. The entire place quieted to listen in. “That there is Aaron Sheppard.”
Aaron felt a chuckle rise from his gut, and he weaved his way across the room to greet his old friend. “And that there is Sawyer McCain.”
Sawyer grinned from underneath a wiry red beard, shoving up from his stool. “Damn it, get over here and buy me a drink.”
Smelling strongly of Jack and bar nuts, he slapped a hug around Aaron. The guy had bulked up since last Aaron saw him, his middle rounder and his shoulders broader. Aaron hit his friend’s back twice before pulling back, grateful he was in for good company while he had to be out.
“That is you, right?” Sawyer said, nodding at Aaron’s unusually trimmed chin. “I’m not drunk enough to see double just yet.”
His gaze drifted over to Austin, who finally found his way through the chatty crowd to the bar. Aaron let out a laugh and ran a hand over his jaw.
“He wishes he looked as good as I do,” he joked, and Austin rolled his eyes and gestured for the bartender. “So how the hell are ya?”
Sawyer waved him off, slumping back onto the stool with a force that Aaron was surprised didn’t crack the wood. “You,” he said, pointing a finger. “You gotta tell me about L.A. Specifically the women in L.A.” He flipped a hand at Austin. “That one is no help.”
Austin held a shot glass out to Aaron. “Not my fault. I’ve never been to L.A.”
Sawyer rolled his eyes at the joke and snapped up his own glass. They all clinked and tossed them back, the burn in Aaron’s throat surprising him for a brief moment—it had been a while since he’d felt the sting of a stronger drink.
“Pool table,” Sawyer said, slamming the shot glass onto the bar top. “I could use twenty extra bucks.”
Aaron grinned, tilting his head. “All right.” Little did his friend know that Aaron’s game had improved over the years, and he wasn’t one to turn away from easy money.
They slid through the crowded place, Aaron finally feeling enough at ease to meet people’s eyes and give waves to familiar faces. Sawyer had a way of doing that; even the most tightly wound person would find themselves unraveling in his company. He was no doubt the surprise Austin had in store.
“How long you here for?” The question slurred off Sawyer’s half-drunk tongue, making Aaron hold back a laugh as he racked up the billiard balls.
“Indefinitely,” Austin answered for him, slapping Aaron mid-back. The particular response reminded him of the answer Chelsea had provided for Kennedy when they were introduced. He wondered if that, too, was just a joking yet hopeful answer Chelsea decided to fill in whenever the question was asked. Austin sure used it in his case.
“Right…” Sawyer said, his thick brow furrowing. “Because there is so much opportunity for a technical genius out here in BFE.”
Aaron bent over the table, the bright lights overhead already making him break out in a sweat. He set the cue up and broke, sending the fifteen ball into the corner pocket and the eleven in the side.
“Shit,” Sawyer hissed under his breath as Aaron straightened and moved around the table for his second turn. He felt a smug smile pull at the corner of his mouth as he bent and knocked the twelve into the corner. Austin sat on a nearby stool, knowing it would be a while for his turn. Aaron had schooled his brother many times on the table in their extra room.
After about an hour of playing time, Sawyer let out a husky breath and slapped another twenty on the felt. Aaron gladly picked it up and tucked it away with its brothers.
“I hope I’m not too drunk to forget about this next time,” Sawyer said, putting up his cue.
“I hope you are.” Aaron laughed as he shoved his wallet back into his pocket. It felt good to bet with a friend again…and to actually win money. Aaron was usually bested in sports-related activities, with Austin being the burlier, bulkier brother. He could hardly complain, however, since he was usually the one to beat anyone when it came to things of the mind.
Jared had been the one to point that out, and Aaron found himself thinking about it in the most random of times, like right then.
Sawyer slapped a hand on his shoulder, swaying and using Aaron to keep him steady. He pointed with his beer at the door. “You see that beauty who just walked in? I’m gonna go see if she’s ready to tame this beast.”
Aaron laughed, until his eyes fell on the group of women congregated around the entry. Sawyer must be beyond drunk, oblivious to the one person Aaron had hoped he wouldn’t run into while on his journey to self-discovery. A sober Sawyer would have directed Aaron’s attention to anywhere else.
She was distinctly older, but it complimented her. Her once-silky brown hair was now streaked with red and blond, hanging just above her waist. It was wavy and sprayed, so unlike what it had been—messy and pulled back ninety percent of the time. She was fuller around the waist, soft and exquisite, and the small of her back was exposed in a light orange flowing top. The smile set on her lips was wide, full, gorgeous—more genuine and real than Aaron had ever seen it.
His heart was crushed into dust, the mistakes he’d made and the friendship he’d lost all repeating on a loop in his mind. He took a step back, his thighs hitting the pool table before he ripped his gaze away. Sawyer had disappeared already, slogging his way to the group. Aaron’s eyes swiveled above, desperate for another exit. Remembering there was one near the restrooms, he made his way over, relieved when the back door didn’t send out an alarm as he pushed outside.
“Oh!”
The surprised squeak followed by a crash came behind the door, and Aaron whipped around, rushing to help the poor girl up.
“Sorry,” he said. “So…so sorry. You okay?” He reached out, clasping her around the elbow. The touch shot through his fingertips, making him drop his hold. He blinked as the dim light of the back parking lot fell over the woman’s face.
Kennedy looked up from the pile of crates she’d tumbled into, a soft chuckle escaping her lips and a pink hue sprouting up on her cheeks. “Serves me right for leaning against an exit.”
Aaron felt a small laugh bud up inside him, and his lip quirked as he tried—again—to help her to her feet. Her grip tightened around his forearm, heat spreading from her fingertips and seeping down to his nervous system. He swallowed back an expletive threatening on the tip of his tongue, knowing that she’d question his sanity if it were to escape him.
“Really?” he mused, attempting to keep his voice light and airy. As soon as she was upright, he dropped his hold and took a step back. “You’ll yell at me by accident, but when I actually deserve it, I get nothing?”
She lifted a brow in surprise, the dim light doing great things to the color of her eyes. “I’m too tired, I guess.”
Aaron chuckled at the response, knowing
he should continue on his way now that he was sure he hadn’t hurt her, but unable to resist the urge to talk with her.
For just a minute, he told himself. One minute will not risk anything.
“What are you doing out here?”
Kennedy lifted a single shoulder, her gaze falling to the gravel beneath their feet. She looked positively adorable. “Too many people,” she said, the tip of her shoe prodding the rocks.
“Not a fan of crowds?”
Her eyes lifted as she processed her answer. Aaron counted about twenty seconds on the clock of his allotted sixty. “I actually love crowds. I like social events, going out, getting out of my head….”
He raised a brow and they both chuckled at the irony of her wanting a reprieve from the noise just behind the wall they stood by.
“I didn’t count on how hard it’d be,” she admitted after a beat. “Being around so many people who knew him.”
The smile faded from Aaron’s lips, and he nodded, unsure if what he was thinking was what needed to be heard. Half his minute was gone already.
“Everyone here knew Jared.” He paused. Counted five more seconds. Opened his mouth and closed it while he contemplated what he really wanted to ask. It was almost as if he were fighting a devil on his shoulder who was begging him to jump into his wicked ways.
Offer to walk her home, it whispered into his ear, and Aaron argued with it until his minute was nearly over.
“Jared was loud,” Kennedy said, breaking him from his internal debate. “I bet everyone in the biggest town would know him. I should really get over it.”
That pulled at Aaron’s heart surprisingly hard. “You have every reason to want some space. Small towns…we just don’t know how to back off sometimes.”
She nodded. His sixty seconds ticked on by, yet still he stood with her, the devil now pleading in his ear.
“Well,” he said, letting out a long breath. He still wasn’t sure what his next words would be, if the devil would win, or his conscience. “Guess I’ll see ya around.”
Her doe eyes widened at the abrupt end to their conversation. He watched them ice over as he waved a stiff goodbye. Her arms crossed and pulled at the ruby red top she wore, and by then the devil was a bloodcurdling scream echoing around in his head.
But the memory of what he’d done to Jared flashed behind his eyes. A minute was all he’d given himself—and his minute was up.
Chapter 6
Kennedy
Kennedy rubbed her eyes and fell back on the soft plush of the blue and gold comforter, her laptop jostling as she moved. The battery was practically dead from the few hours she’d sat in front of it, and she’d told herself that she would take five minutes and stare at the ceiling before getting up to plug it in.
The manuscript couldn’t have come at a better time; Kennedy had been gazing out the window at the lake, debating whether to risk going out when the clouds above looked awfully gray. She woke up that morning with a sense of purpose—spread the ashes and take the next train out of there. But when the sun didn’t greet her, only ominous precipitation, she decided that it might not be the best day to be throwing someone’s ashes across a very angry-looking lake. However—and she laughed as the thought crossed her mind—Jared might actually enjoy that.
So when her phone had dinged with an email, and she’d seen one of her favorite authors’ names with an attachment, she couldn’t grab her laptop quickly enough. There she’d sat for the last few hours, drowning herself in the story and making notes along the way. The distraction had worked, up until the male lead entered, described in a way that made her picture a certain tech guru whom she was not eager to think about again.
She ran a hand over her forehead, hoping to massage away the impending screen headache she was sure to get. It was ridiculous, really, to be so irritated by someone she barely knew, but the exchange at the bar last night had her so tense she’d hardly slept. Aaron had a way of making her feel completely comfortable, and then he’d flip on a dime, abruptly freezing her out. She’d gone back through everything she’d said, every facial expression he made, and she could come up with no explanation for the sudden hostility he’d showed toward her.
A long huff escaped her nostrils, and she rolled her head to stare at the urn propped up against the pillow next to her. “No wonder you never mentioned him to me,” she told Jared with a laugh, but whatever humor she found in the statement fluttered away when she was met with nothing but silence—something she should be used to by now, but it still wrecked her heart.
She turned back to the ceiling, watching the fan blades rotate on the slowest setting. The soft breeze was welcome when the heat from the laptop burned her thighs as she worked, but it was starting to get chilly. Her gooey limbs ached as she pushed herself to a sitting position and let out a sigh. Silence was so foreign, and she thought that she’d enjoy it, but at the moment it was a little too much.
“I love you, but I’m mad at you,” she told the ashes. “Leaving me with no one to talk to. When I get up there, you are in trouble.”
Kennedy frowned in the silence that followed, got to her feet, and padded her way to her laptop bag. She dug out the cord, making more noise than was necessary just to break the thick and painful quiet around her, and then pushed it into the outlet. She sank back onto the bed, clicking the other end of the cord into her laptop. The lightning bolt that indicated the battery was charging flickered for only a second before it shut off and the bright red light in the battery symbol turned back on.
Kennedy’s brows pulled together as she wiggled the cord and checked the outlet on the wall. She quickly saved the open document and hopped up to see what was wrong with her charger. She’d just used it overnight, and she’d had a full battery this morning.
The air around her grew warm and sticky, and she looked up to the unmoving fan. A jolt of realization hit and a glance at the blank alarm clock on the nightstand confirmed it: The power was out.
“Well played,” she told Jared, shaking her head. Not that she truly believed he had anything to do with the power outage, but sometimes it felt better believing he was still around in some way to tease her.
She shuffled through her clothes that she still hadn’t pulled from her suitcase and found her worn zip-up hoodie. She threw it on over her tank top and zipped it halfway as she descended the staircase. Hopefully Chelsea, Daniel, and the two boys were back in from town, but judging by the lack of noise, she wouldn’t put money on it.
Still, Kennedy checked the main offices. “Chels?” she called out, and almost as if she’d heard her from miles away, Kennedy’s phone chimed in her hoodie pocket.
“Hello?”
“Oh good, you’re okay.” A sigh of relief fuzzed through the phone before Chelsea babbled on. “It’s crazy out here. There’s a power line blocking the main road—a giant tree that just fell on the Hendersons’ roof—and people are holing up in shop basements. I don’t know if we’ll get it back tonight. Are you and Aaron all right to hold the fort?”
Kennedy took a minute to process all the rushed information that had just been thrown at her. Wait…
“Aaron?”
“In here!” came a low, throaty voice just around the end of the hallway. She nearly dropped her phone from the goosebumps that jumped up on her skin.
“He should…still be there….” Chelsea said, her voice breaking up. “I…in…and then take…and you should…Don’t worry…back in…stay safe!”
The line dinged in her ear as Chelsea hung up on the other end. Kennedy took a deep breath, telling herself to calm the rushing beat of her heart. It wasn’t only the fact that she was alone in a strange place with a man who didn’t seem to like her all that much, but Kennedy wasn’t a big fan of thunder. Lightning. Darkness. Jared had been too much of a fan of that chaos and upheaval, and he thrived on being the one to hold Kennedy through it. And Kennedy, truth be told, loved him making storms bearable.
If he really was teasing her with the cur
rent weather, she had a few strong words for him when she got back up to her room.
A chink of glass followed by a grunted curse stole her attention, and she tentatively made her way around the corner.
Aaron’s top half was hidden by a large cabinet door that had swung open while he dug around inside. He wore a pair of nice-fitting jeans, two pens sticking from the pockets, and his red plaid overshirt hung open near his hip. Kennedy swallowed hard, shaking her head and scolding herself for still finding him attractive without even seeing his face.
“Need any help?” she said, her voice small and unsure as she tested the waters of his current mood. His head peeked out from behind the cabinet door, his eyes hidden behind a pair of glasses Kennedy had so far not seen him wear. Her breath was knocked clean from her lungs, and she nearly clutched the wall to keep upright.
He grinned and pushed the cabinet door flat against the wall so she too could look inside. “Looking for anything to use for light. Candles, matches, flashlights…something we can use for when it gets too dark.”
Kennedy glanced out the window, needing an excuse to keep her eyes off those very sexy, very distinguished-looking spectacles and the honey-colored irises behind them. It was starting to get late, and she really wasn’t thrilled at the idea of spending a dark night…in a storm…on the top floor…alone.
A spool of ribbon toppled out of the open cabinet and rolled across the floor, tapping Kennedy’s bare foot. Both of them bent to retrieve it, Kennedy stopping the moment her fingers brushed over Aaron’s knuckles. She thought by now she’d be used to the electrifying pulse that shot through her every time he happened to touch her skin, but it still made her suck in a breath and warmed her cheeks. Though she hadn’t noticed any change in his expression before, from the wide-eyed look on his face, she was sure Aaron felt it that time, too.