His fingers threaded together and squeezed. “I listened,” he said simply.
“Oh.” That explained a great deal about his life, right there. If he never allowed himself to become intimate, then no wonder all his relationships had crashed and burned. He would have been the ultimately unavailable man. The perfect date, but beyond reach of anything meaningful. Every woman who had even the slightest involvement with him wouldn’t have understood why he wasn’t there for them in spirit as well as physically. “You must get lonely a lot.”
He looked at her squarely. “Not lately,” he said. Then, as her breath caught, he grimaced. “Except for the last three months, that is.”
Charlee laughed. “A compliment, then a reminder of guilt. You really know how to boost a woman’s ego, Asher.”
“I thought we had agreed to forget that whole thing?” he demanded.
“We did,” Charlee agreed easily, but she knew that she would never forget, for that ugly night had brought her to this sweet moment. He was talking to her. Really talking. There were things he couldn’t speak of and she accepted that happily, as the cost of getting to know Asher better than she ever had.
The early sunset was threatening when Asher stirred and looked around. “Shouldn’t you be working?”
“I should,” Charlee agreed. “But I can catch up. I was ahead anyway. I worked late last night so I could take Grimmer to the park.”
“Are you enjoying yourself, Charlee? Here in this house?” he asked, with a touch of awkwardness.
“Are you asking if I’m happy?”
“Yes.”
“I’m happy.”
He nodded, then got to his feet and brushed the grit from the cinder blocks from his coat. “I should let you finish your work.”
Reluctantly, she stood. “When will you come by again?” she asked, and now she felt awkward. She made herself look him in the eyes. “I hope it won’t be another three months this time?”
“It should be,” he said flatly. “If you had the sense of a guinea pig, you’d tell me to go away and never come back.”
Charlee wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, with more than the cold. “Have you heard that saying people have, about the road not taken?”
He frowned. “Something about no regrets. Is that what you mean?”
“I spent most of my childhood expecting I would go to college and become a doctor or a scientist, or something grand like that. I had no idea how I was going to pay for it, but that wasn’t going to stop me. Instead, I’m here, apprenticing with Ylva. This is my road that by rights I shouldn’t have taken, but I did. So there’s no reason for me to regret or wonder what might have happened, because it is happening.”
“You have no idea where the road leads.” His tone was soft.
“And if I’d gone to college I could have been run over by a truck in my sophomore year. No one knows, Asher. Not even you.”
His eyes, that seemed so incredibly blue in the soft winter light, held her gaze for a moment. “You’re right,” he said slowly, like he was tasting the truth for its flavor and finding it unexpectedly interesting. “Yes, you are right.” He straightened up. “Come to dinner with me at the Ash Tree next week. Pierre would love to cook for you.”
“Like he really does any of the cooking.” She smiled. “It sounds lovely.”
“Tuesday night?”
“Tuesday,” she agreed.
Chapter Twenty-Four
After the apology, Asher never stopped talking. Charlee realized quickly that there was no one else in his life that he could speak with in quite the same frank way he spoke with Charlee. If Asher and Roar were typical brothers, Asher wouldn’t be able to tell Roar the things he shared with her. She didn’t know yet how it worked in his world, but clearly, talking over problems with friends wasn’t possible for Asher.
But now he told her everything that was trivial in his life. The big things like the structure of his world, the name of things and many people, anything that might reveal more of his life than what was in his heart and mind, he held back. Instead, Charlee applauded his little triumphs and success. She listened to the human drama of his days, dealing with the bank’s board, diners at the restaurant, staff in the kitchen, customers at the bank. Which pair of shoes Torger had chewed up this month. His search for the perfect sound system. His plans for the apartment, which never seemed to shift into first gear. And she commiserated while he complained and vented his frustrations. It was all small things he told her, but he was sharing and she couldn’t ask for more.
Of all the tales he told, the most precious to Charlee were stories from his childhood. He carefully omitted specific details that might tell her where and when he was raised, but slowly, Charlee drew a picture in her mind of his early years. He had lived on an estate that was mostly one big farm, with more farms around it. His father was a leader in the community. Asher described him as “a sort of country mayor”, which Charlee translated as being a sort of nobleman. The Norse equivalent of a baron, perhaps.
When she checked with Darwin, he had looked thoughtful. “He was probably an earl. They migrated the title to England when the Anglo-Saxons took over. There are still earls around today, but they’re pretty low on the totem pole. But in Scandinavia, they were the local power holders. Next step up was the king. There were plenty of those, too, once upon a time.”
Asher’s raising had been one of almost complete freedom, once the chores of the day were done. But the chores were heavy, gruelling work, the sort of work and responsibilities that would make kids of today scream abuse. Even though he and Roar had been children, they were expected to do their part in the running of the estate, while also keeping up with their education. “Such education as there was,” Asher added dryly. “Most people considered getting the crop harvested far more important that learning Latin conjugates, and that included my father. Most of my formal education I caught up with years later.”
But Asher clearly remembered his boyhood with fondness and with a deep regard for his parents. His mother died when he was young, barely sixteen, and his father had taken another wife quickly, but she figured little in Asher’s stories. “She was almost as young as me. I’m not sure if my father was marrying a wife or a nurse.”
“Both, perhaps? He must have been lonely,” Charlee said.
“Perhaps,” Asher agreed slowly. “She kept to herself most of the time. I never really did get to know her well.”
After the argument, Asher stopped abruptly appearing without warning. Instead, he would call her or text her and suggest they have dinner, or see a movie or play, or do more wonderfully different and interesting things. Even something as simple as walking Grimmer and Torger in Central Park was turned into an occasion. The two dogs learned to tolerate each other and after a while, even to like each other. But Torger had too much common sense and attitude, while Grimmer like to bound around like the puppy he no longer was, cheerfully causing chaos with his lead and his big feet and long legs. He apologized with damp nuzzles, which rarely helped, while Torger looked on with an expression that seemed to be both bored and condescending at once.
Asher helped Charlee straighten out Grimmer’s worst habits and he became obedient and a very useful working dog, to the point where she and anyone else in the house could walk alone at night, if Grimmer was by their side. If a stranger got too close that he didn’t like the smell of, he would stand in front of whomever he was guarding and growl warningly until the stranger moved on. When he was on duty, he was highly selective about whom he would allow near his protectee.
They celebrated their birthdays and both solstice and Christmas, and any other event that seemed like a worthy excuse. Then there was Darwin’s birthday and Ylva’s birthday, and every time Lucas was granted shore leave Darwin threw a party, from massive welcome-home events involving most of the neighborhood to the four of them sitting around his backyard with a beer each and a bonfire.
It was at one of those beer and bonfire ni
ghts that Asher and Lucas disappeared for nearly an hour. When they returned, Charlee sniffed the air and found no tension and no hostilities. And after that night, whenever Lucas was in town, he would phone and invite both Charlee and Asher out, but Charlee never found out what they had talked about that night.
* * * * *
Asher had gone along with Lucas’ suggestion they head down to the corner bodega more easily that Lucas had expected and they walked down the sidewalk, their strides matching. It was a mild April evening, but Lucas found it cold and damp after so long in Afghanistan and left his jacket on.
Asher was wearing a button-up shirt, with the sleeves rolled up. It was the closest Lucas had ever seen him come to laid back clothing. “Man, do you ever just chill out and wear a basic T-shirt?”
“Sometimes. But not when I’m with Charlee.” Asher glanced at him. “Is that why we’re talking, Lucas? You want to do the ‘what are your intentions’ thing?”
Just like that, they were in the middle of it. Lucas drew in a short breath that seemed to be overheated. “That and something else.”
Asher halted and turned to face him. “Should we find somewhere more amenable to conversation? I don’t like talking where I don’t know who could be listening.”
Fifteen minutes later they found themselves sitting on a bench in the same park where Sergio had taken them, all those years ago. Since then, a community league had raised money for renovations. The big bushes that had provided such great cover for the gang were all gone. The park had new turf, a whole new playground, and trees had been planted in one corner. It would take them a few more years to be useful shade-givers, but now with the moon high overhead and the swings empty, the bench was as private as they would be able to find anywhere outside.
Asher raised a brow, encouraging Lucas to speak his mind, but he couldn’t find the words. He rubbed his hands together, looking for a way to say it.
“Relax,” Asher told him. “Tell me when you’re ready. Is that recent?” He nodded toward Lucas’ forearm. His jacket sleeve had slid back, revealing the ugly, pink, raised weal that Lucas had spent all night hiding from them.
Lucas hissed his annoyance. “Yeah. I dropped my guard. Thought she was just a woman. Turns out she was the wife of one of the Taliban jerks we’d been chasing for a month.”
Asher’s mouth lifted at the corner. It wasn’t quite a smile. “So you’re still figuring out what to do in tight corners, then?”
Lucas sighed. Suddenly, the words were right there and gratefully, he spilled them. “It’s not what I thought it would be. You know? I thought, once I had it down, nothing would ever make me feel…” He swallowed. “Helpless,” he finished. “All this training, all these years, and I still got caught flat-footed and blinking, wondering what the fuck I’m supposed to do next.”
“What did you do next?” Asher asked.
“I didn’t kill her.”
“Good.” Asher fell silent, waiting.
“I knocked her out.” He curled his hand into a fist and watched the scar writhe on his flesh. “Right to the temple. She dropped like a bag of rocks. Then I threw her into the back of the Humvee, and we dropped her off at the local detention center for them to sort out. They probably interrogated her and let her loose. I didn’t ask.”
Asher straightened up. “Then you did know what to do. You figured it out.”
“Figured out what?” Lucas asked, honestly bewildered. “There’s no training, nothing covers the shit we face over there. How do you deal with the uncertainty? Not knowing who is really an enemy and which ones are the civilians? Who’s going to reach under their dishdasha and press the button on ten pounds of C4? Which of the hysterical women is carrying a PK machine gun under her burqa? It’s got so I can’t relax. Everything has the potential to blow up on me. How do you deal with that?”
Asher was quiet for a long time. “I think you’re dealing with it as best you can.”
“Was it like that for you?” Lucas asked.
Again, the long, contemplative silence. “War was a lot more personal when I was in it.”
It was the first time Asher had ever openly admitted he had been in the military—any military. Lucas blew out his breath. “You knew who the enemy was.”
“It was pretty clear who the enemy was. It was usually the guy trying to kill you, and the one after that and the one after that.”
“The Gulf War?” Lucas asked. “Somewhere in Europe? Serbia?” Except Asher had been right here in New York when the Bosnian War had been going on, so it would have had to have been a war or battle before they’d met, at least. Vietnam?
Fleetingly, Lucas wondered how old Asher really was. He always seemed just slightly older than Lucas, but he didn’t look any different from the last time Lucas had seen him.
Asher leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees, looking at the ground. “Fighting is much more impersonal now. It’s nebulous. With drones and long-range rockets and snipers that can reach out across half a mile and snuff out a life, all the killing is done at a distance.”
“SEALs aren’t at a distance,” Lucas pointed out.
“But you’re just a tiny cog in a big, sprawling machine. You get your orders to go in and take out a building, or find a general, or whatever your mission is today, but you don’t know how that fits in with the overall offensive, do you?”
Lucas shook his head. “It’s not a good idea to ask for that sort of information. You usually get told it’s above your pay-grade.”
Asher nodded. “So you’re cut off, with no idea why you’re doing what you’re doing. You just have to trust that someone, somewhere, has a reason for it and it really does advance the war.”
Lucas fell back against the bench. “Yep,” he said. “That’s about it.”
Asher looked over his shoulder at Lucas. He grimaced. “There’s not much chance anyone at all would feel like they know what they’re doing, or that they have much control, in that situation. Including me.”
Something loosened in his gut. Lucas let out a breath that was shaky. “You figure it out as you go along?”
“Sometimes, I barely work it out.” Asher straightened up. “I end up going with my gut far too often. It gets me into corners as tight as yours.” His finger lifted toward Lucas’ arm.
“But you do end up knowing what to do.”
Asher turned on the bench. “I fuck up all the time,” he said flatly. Lucas had the eerie feeling that Asher wasn’t just talking about tight situations, or war. “But there are some times, some situations, where everything just clicks into place. They call it being in flow, now. You’ve heard of it?”
“Not in connection with fighting.”
“It works with any skill, any action that you’re good at, that you’ve practiced over and over again. Fighting is in that category. For both of us.”
Lucas nodded. It made sense to him, put that way. “Is that what happened here? With Sergio?”
Asher didn’t answer.
“Charlee said there were things—subjects—that were off limits with you. Is that one of them?”
Asher looked back at the ground. “Is that what she said about me?”
“Man, she doesn’t say much at all, when it comes to you. ‘None of your freakin’ business’ is about the extent of it. Along with ‘stay away from touchy subjects’. And that wasn’t the language she used.”
Asher grinned. “You must have got her temper roused, to make her swear.”
“I’ve been trying to figure out how it is between you two for years. She won’t say.”
Asher dropped back into the same contemplative silence. Then he said softly, “Honestly, Lucas, I don’t know, either.”
It was the last thing Lucas expected him to say. “Fuck…!” he breathed, the retort pushed out of him.
“I know she’s part of my life, now,” Asher added. “There’s no going back on that one.”
“You tried, then.”
“I told you I’ve fucked up
more than once or twice.”
Lucas grinned. “She didn’t like it.”
“Mild understatement.” Asher paused again. “I do know one thing. You might take some comfort from it.” He sat up again and stretched out his feet, like he was relaxing, but Lucas knew when a man was sizing up the territory in a covert way, and Asher was doing it now.
“There’s no one here, man,” Lucas assured him. Keeping tabs on who was in the vicinity was just second nature now. “Not for half a block or more.”
“There’s sightlines, but the tree will cover me enough, I think.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out—
“Holy fuck,” Lucas breathed, for the sword was suddenly just there.
No one was that fast on the draw. Where had he been hiding it? The questions started coming faster and faster as Lucas took in the silvered blade, the workmanlike hilt and the rounded pommel. Was this what he had used on Sergio? Had Charlee seen it? He was almost certain she had. The sword stood point upwards, an extension of Asher’s hands, for he held it in both. He held it in a way that told Lucas he knew what he was doing with it.
Then he flipped it and rested it carefully, point down on the soil between his feet and looked at Lucas. “People who see this sword tend to disappear, Lucas. It’s the way of things. So once we’ve finished with this conversation, you should forget all about it.”
Lucas swallowed. The questions were still there. Who was he? Had the sword really just appeared? And if it did, what was it? Even in the depth of his confusion he rejected the word (magic) that floated up from his subconscious.
Asher hefted the sword, lifting it a fraction of an inch. “I’ve used this twice to protect Charlee. Both times, everything was clear. I was in flow. I knew exactly what I was doing. I’ve had times like that before, too. Do you know what the difference is between those time and all the others?”
Only later did Lucas wonder just how many ‘others’ there had been. He shook his head.
The Branded Rose Prophecy Page 37