“Nowhere special, Hector. Why? You miss me?” She wraps her hands around the redheaded guy’s neck, virtually squealing with delight as he dangles her like a little kid, feet off of the ground. Sofie recognizes him as the guy she’d followed into the woods the night before.
“Always, baby girl. Always.” Hector pulls Lindsey into him, kissing her so long, slow and passionately that Sofie feels like she should avert her eyes. She smiles to herself, remembering how she had thought Lindsey and Ashton were together. Clearly, Lindsey had a man of her own, a man that seems to be more than crazy about her. Lindsey whispers something into Hector’s ear and nods towards Sofie, smiling shyly at her man.
“So, this is the famous Sofie,” Hector smiles at her winningly, holding out his hand for her to shake.
“Well, the Sofie part is right, not so sure about the famous part though.” She shakes the tall man’s hand, smiling gratefully for the kindness he’s showing her despite the suspicion that everyone else in the place seems to be viewing her with.
“Oh, I definitely am sure about that part.” Hector winks knowingly at Sofie.
“Back soon, lover.” Lindsey disengages herself reluctantly from his embrace and heads up the stairs, motioning for Sofie to follow. Before they go into the house, Lindsey turns around, gesturing towards the bonfire in the middle of the group. “Nothing to see here folks, not yet anyway.” She winks at them all before heading inside and the atmosphere immediately changes like she’s broken through the ice.
“I don’t know how you do that, but I’m glad you do.” Sofie breathes a sigh of relief as they get inside.
“Just think of it as one of my things.” Lindsey smiles at her secretively. “Ash, you hiding out in here?” She heads towards the family room like she’s been in his house a thousand times.
“You seem to have a lot of ‘things’, Linds,” Sofie nudges her new friend.
“You have no idea.” Ashton’s voice booms out from the window that he’s been looking out of.
“Hey buddy!” Lindsey throws her arms around her friend, as if she hasn’t even noticed that he’s locking her with a death stare.
“What are you doing here, Lindsey?” Ashton gently disengages her from him and holds her at arm’s length.
“I brought a friend. Figured it was a party, why not?” Lindsey looks up at him impishly.
Ashton shakes his head like he’s out of arguments. “You are impossible. We’ll talk later.” He nods towards the door, and Lindsey turns around and heads towards it without any discussion.
“I’ll be right outside.” She squeezes Sofie’s hand reassuringly, as she walks past her.
“And, Sofie, don’t forget to tell Ash about that worm of a boss of yours groping you in his car. Now play nice, kids.” She waves behind her and is out of the door before either of them can say anything else.
“Thanks, Lindsey. Way to keep a secret.” Sofie sighs deeply, as she looks towards the door that the traitor has just wafted through.
“Mind telling me what she was talking about?” Ashton’s voice is commanding, and there’s a hint of anger to it, something that Sofie hadn’t planned on hearing again anytime soon.
“Look, Lindsey thought it would be a good idea to bring me here. I didn’t want her to, so I’ll just get out of your hair.” She starts towards the door, but Ashton catches her arm, swinging her round to face him.
“Lindsey’s a force of nature. There’s no arguing with her, but if she brought you here it was for a reason.” Ashton looks at Sofie intensely, and she gets that feeling again, like he can see everything in her soul. His touch burns with the intensity of their connection. It makes it hard to think about anything else and, as if he feels it’s too, he lets go of her arms, letting them fall back by her side.
“She thinks that you can help me. God knows why.” Sofie raises her eyes to the roof, trying to concentrate on anything but how blue Ashton’s eyes are and how much it hurts her to be around him without falling into his arms.
“Probably because I can. Why don’t you try me?” Ashton lifts her chin so that she has to look at him. “We’re friends, aren’t we?” Sofie swallows her reply and only thinks silently that she tried to make it a habit not to sleep with her friends. Plus, Ashton is the last person that she wants to tell her story to. “You can trust me.” He looks at her with a sincerity that makes her feel like her heart is breaking all over again.
“Yeah? I’ve heard that before.” Sofie bites her lip, trying to keep from thinking about all the times she’s been let down, by her parents, by Tyler, even by Ashton.
He looks at her like he can see exactly what it is that she’s thinking, and he seems to make a decision. “Come with me.” He leads her towards the back door.
“What? Where are we going?” Sofie tries to pull away from him, but she knows that she doesn’t really want to.
“Somewhere else, somewhere that we can talk...alone.” Ashton nods towards the group of people out the front of his house.
“And what? Your house isn’t alone enough for you?” She looks around, like she’s expecting someone to jump out at her from one of the rooms.
“Not by a long shot. Will you come?” Ashton holds out his hand towards her, and she only hesitates for a moment before taking it. He leads her out into the back yard and then up a trail that snakes up the steep mountain.
“Don’t you have to tell someone that you’re leaving your own party?” Sofie turns in her seat, looking behind her.
“I’ve told Gus already.” Ashton seems to reply without thinking.
“You’ve told him? But you’ve been with me the whole time.” Sofie gives him a sidelong glance.
“Right, sorry, I meant that Gus will know. We’ve been friends for so long, he’ll figure it out.” Ashton shrugs, and his whole demeanor makes it clear that he doesn’t plan on answering any questions.
Sofie keeps her own counsel and says nothing. She has plenty of questions to ask, but the time will come for those and when it does, Ashton won’t be able to shut her out. She’ll find out what she wants to know, what she needs to know, one way or another.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
They’re silent on the walk up the trail path, but it’s more of a comfortable quiet than the one they had shared that morning. Sofie looks out of the window, watching the landscape change as they go higher and higher up the mountain.
“We’re here,” Ashton announces abruptly.
“Great, but where is here?” Sofie says the words under her breath, but Ashton responds as if she had spoken as clear as day.
“Here is somewhere that I think you should see, before you decide to go ahead and dig up the canyon.” Ashton marches off up the trail, without waiting to see if Sofie will follow behind.
“That’s not fair! It’s not my decision what happens to Spring Canyon. In fact, it’s pretty much out of my hands now. There’s so much oil under that rock there’s no way that Shale isn’t going to do everything it can to get to it.” Sofie pants lightly, as she runs up the trail behind Ashton who seems to jump from rock-to-rock like a mountain goat. “Besides with the boss coming down, I think the drilling is pretty much a foregone conclusion.” Sofie tries not to think if that’s what Luke thinks she is too; but, she stops thinking about anything when she sees where Ashton has led her. “It’s beautiful.”
They’re on a natural plateau on the mountain that looks out over the miles and miles of canyon and woods beyond. The sun is going down, and the whole sky has turned fiery, full of oranges and reds. The colors contrast the green of the woods and the shades of brown of the canyon. It really is magnificent.
“This is pretty much my favorite place in the whole world.” Ashton watches Sofie’s reaction to the view, and he seems pleased with how impressed she is.
“I don’t blame you. It’s amazing. Growing up around here must have been something else.” Sofie looks over at Ashton. As their eyes meet, she feels that familiar lurch in her chest, the one that lets her know how muc
h she wants him, how much she wants to reach out and touch him.
Ashton lays out the blanket he’d grabbed from the house before leaving and signals for her to sit down. He remains upright, like he’s not sure where to put himself.
“I think the blanket’s big enough for both of us.” Sofie gestures, as she crosses her legs on the ground.
“I’m fine.” His words are cold, and Sofie wonders if he really wants to be around her so little then why he’s brought her to this place, to his place. “Tell me what Lindsey was talking about.” It’s an order not a request, and Ashton looks at her expectantly.
“I’ve been through it once already this afternoon, so you’re going to get the summarized version, alright?” Sofie doesn’t wait for him to nod before she continues. “Luke, my boss, head of Shale, he’s the guy that you saw me with outside the motel this morning.” Ashton nods curtly and the expression on his face tells Sofie how little he clearly thinks of the man. “Well, anyway, he’s sort of had a...a thing for me, for a little while now.” Sofie cringes at her own words, feeling like a teenager.
Ashton remains unmoved. “A thing for you? You mean he wants to fuck you.” His voice is distant, but he’s not wrong.
“To put it bluntly, yes.” Sofie tries not to be bothered by Ashton’s seeming lack of interest in what she’s telling him. He’s not even facing her anymore, he’s looking out onto the canyon underneath. “So, anyway, he has a habit of following me home from work. He doesn’t do anything, but he’s there. I’ve seen him. He’s always dropped hints and done some inappropriate touching. But I’ve always been able to get away from him before. He wouldn’t risk doing anything in front of an audience, especially being the head of a global corporation and a family man.” Sofie shakes her head, as she thinks about his wife and kids, wondering if they have any idea what kind of a man Luke really is.
“Yeah, he sounds like a real upstanding guy.” Ashton keeps his face averted.
Sofie thinks that she detects something in his voice, something like irritation, and she wonders if she’s taking too long to tell the story. He doesn’t want your life story, Braun, she tells herself.
“So anyway, today is the first time he’s managed to get me alone and he tried to...he tried to...” Sofie can’t get the words out, she feels ashamed despite Lindsey saying it wasn’t her fault, she couldn’t quite get her head around that.
“What did he do, Sofie?” Ashton keeps his back turned, and his words come out through gritted teeth.
“He wanted to...he tried to...rape me.” Sofie says the words quietly, looking down at her hands, wishing that she hadn’t said the words out loud. She can’t stand to think of Ashton looking at her with pity or worse, with contempt.
“Goddamn it to hell.” Ashton whirls around quick as a flash and walks past her, bunching his fist and burying it in the rock face behind them, letting out a sound that’s deep and primal.
“What the crap are you doing?” Sofie jumps up and grabs his bloody hand. She goes into damage control mode, testing his bones and reflexes. “You’re lucky you didn’t break anything. Your hand must be as hard as your head!” She looks up into his eyes and sees the ghost of a smile pass his lips. “What was that for?”
“Finish the story.” Ashton doesn’t pull his hand away from hers and looks at her with an intensity that makes her blush.
She’s about to insist that they go straight to the nearest hospital to fix his hand, but the grim expression on Ashton’s face tells her that he has no intention of going anywhere. “I managed to persuade him that the back of a car wasn’t exactly the most romantic of locations, so he backed off.” She shrugs, as if there’s nothing more to what happened; but, he isn’t buying.
“So what’s the catch?” He hooks his finger under her chin so that she has to meet his eyes.
“He...threatened me. If I don’t sleep with him, then I lose my job, and he’ll make it his business that I don’t get another in the field. He’ll tell whatever lies he needs to tell, and I can’t afford to let that happen. Literally.” Sofie releases his hand, not wanting to go any further down this road with him. She knows where it’ll lead, and she’s already given him the opportunity to break her heart once, doing it twice would just seem plain stupid.
“A girl like you, went to a good school, expensive clothes, rich family, rich friends. You’d get by.” Ashton sounds almost dismissive, as if this weren’t a real problem, and that’s what sends Sofie over the edge.
She whirls around to face him, angry, angrier than she’s been in a long time, and then it all comes rushing out. “You don’t know anything about me. You made your mind up about who I am as soon as you saw me, and you didn’t want to get to know me. All you wanted was some ‘fun’ and that’s fine, but don’t presume that you know anything about my life or what I have to deal with.” She stops, chest heaving, realizing just how emotional she’s feeling.
Ashton waits for a few moments, looking at her like he’s just seen something he wasn’t expecting. “You’re right,” he admits eventually. “I don’t know what you’ve had to deal with, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to know.”
“We don’t need to hear each other’s sad stories.” She smiles up at him ruefully before she turns around and looks out onto the setting sun.
“I want to know you, and I want you to know me.” The tenderness in Ashton’s voice makes a shiver run down her spine, and she can feel the heat coming off of him as he advances towards her.
“What’s changed between this morning and tonight?” Sofie shakes her head, brushing her hair out of her eyes. “This morning you didn’t want anything to do with me.”
Before she’s even finished the sentence, Ashton grabs her shoulders and twists her round to face him. “Don’t ever think that. This morning I was trying to push you away, trying to keep you at a distance because I thought it was the right thing to do. But I can’t do it. Behaving that way with you, it made me sick to my stomach. I hated myself for it. But I thought it was the right thing to do, for me and for you.” Ashton looks at her with fire in his eyes, and Sofie feels her heart flutter at his words.
“Why would it be the right thing? How could pushing me away help anything?” Sofie shakes her head, not understanding what Ashton’s saying.
“I know you have a lot of questions, and I want to answer them for you. But right now, I just want to be with you. I can’t resist you, running girl. I’ve tried and I can’t. I don’t even want to. I’ve been going crazy all day thinking that I would never be able to touch you again. And now, knowing what that piece of crap did to you today and knowing that I wasn’t there to protect you, it makes me mad.” Ashton clenches his fist again, like a reflex action.
“So you hit the rock face?” Sofie looks at him dubiously from under her long lashes, and Ashton nods grimly. “You feel better now?”
“A little.” He smiles as he runs his fingers through her chestnut hair. “I want you to know that I won’t let him touch you, not ever again.” The anger flashing in his blue eyes gives way to tenderness.
Sofie feels herself pulled towards him, like opposite charges gravitating together. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” She looks sadly, dropping her eyes down. “I’ve had enough of those.”
“I don’t do that. I will never do that to you.” The sincerity in Ashton’s gorgeous face would be enough to make even the harshest skeptic a believer.
“Ashton,” Sofie’s lips are inches away from his, but there is something that she needs to say, “I want what’s best for this town and the people in it, and I don’t think that Shale is it. If you know anything that is going to help me to stop the drilling, then I need you to tell me.”
Ashton’s features soften, as if he’s let down the last of his barriers. “And I will. In the morning.” He closes the distance between them, leaning down to kiss her soft lips.
As soon as their mouths connect, Sofie feels like her whole body wakes up, as if it had been sleeping since sh
e was last with him. “How do you do that?” Her breath comes in short pants.
“What?” Ashton frowns at her, like he’s waiting for her to say something bad, and Sofie doesn’t think that she imagines it, but it seems as if he holds his breath.
“How do you make me feel like there’s nothing in the world that I want more, that I need more than to be with you, touching you, kissing you?” She looks up at him, her eyes hooded with lust.
Ashton breathes out in relief. “The same way that you do it to me. This is how it’s supposed to be.” He traces the line of her cheekbone with his thumb-pad, pulling her face to his and kissing her so deeply she can feel it in the tips of her toes. He sifts his hands through her hair, letting the silky curtain move through his fingers. “You smell amazing.” He nuzzles her neck, sending chills down her spine.
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