by Amy Patrick
“Well, we can’t worry about him right now,” Lad said. “We have to start working on a solution to this problem. This substance is too strong even for Elves—humans can’t handle it. They’ll keep using it until it kills them. We have to do something to stop the spread of the drug.”
“Maybe Nox can intervene?” I suggested. He was the Dark King, and though the Dark Council wasn’t loyal to him, many of his subjects were.
Lad shook his head. “I’ll speak to him immediately, but he’s in Japan right now. He took Vancia abroad again because of the threat of assassination—and he’s been making connections with the global tribes, ensuring their support. Hopefully together, they’ll be able to stand against Audun’s coup attempt.”
“If he can trust them,” I said. “Be sure he knows Falene, the ruler over Australia, is loyal to Audun. She’s his wife. And Culley’s mother. From what I hear, she’s very strong.”
“I will,” he said. “Let’s go to the palace and discuss what you’ve learned.”
I gave him all the information I had—the information from the news, and what Audun had said himself when he’d unashamedly claimed responsibility for the epidemic.
“He intends to take over not only the Dark Court but the world. I guess he thinks when he’s decimated the human population, the other Elves will either be so grateful they’ll give him their loyalty—or so afraid of him they won’t stand in his way,” I said. “I know how his mind works. Believe me—he’ll stop at nothing.”
“What I can’t believe is how bold he is, when he’s not even the rightful heir to the throne,” Lad said. “And you’re sure Culley is loyal to him?”
“I don’t know what else to think—Culley sent me away. He refused to come with me. He said he had to stay with his father. And he was out at nightclubs every night while we were in the city. I thought at first he was just keeping up his old habits, or that he was avoiding me for some reason. Now I think he was probably pushing the S.” The thought made me sadder than I could express. There was so much potential in Culley, but apparently his father’s influence was too strong.
“Well thank you for bringing us this information and putting yourself at risk to get it. I’m thankful you’re safe. I’m sure you want to rest from your journey now. What will you do next?”
“Whatever she wants, right Ava?” Ryann said. “You’re free now. Your life is your own to do anything you want with it.”
I nodded, smiling weakly. It was a nice sentiment but it wasn’t true. I couldn’t do anything I wanted. What I wanted was to stay in Deep River—to stay with Asher.
Obviously reading my emotions, Ryann patted my back. “You don’t have to leave him you know.” She glanced over at Lad, and from the way his brows lifted and the way his surprised gaze shifted to me, she must have told him about my attachment to the human guy.
“Have you told him the truth?” he asked.
“Asher? You mean about... us? No, of course not. I know the rules.”
Lad grinned. “The rules aren’t all they’re cracked up to be—not all of them anyway. Did you know Ryann’s grandmother fell in love with a human? She married him—left it all behind.”
I blinked several times, surprised. “No, well, yes I guess I knew there was a human there somewhere in the family tree. I never heard the story though.”
“There’s not that much to it,” she explained. “She met him in these woods and said that was it for her—she knew she had to be with him no matter what. She never told him the secret, and he never demanded to know about her past. They made it work—I wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t. She lost him young, but she says she has no regrets. Their love was worth it.”
Lad stepped close to Ryann and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her in tightly to his side. “I felt the same way. I would have walked away from my kingdom and never looked back, if that’s what it took. It wouldn’t have been easy, but I’d have done anything it took to be with her—because I love her.” He paused. “Do you love him, Ava?”
“Oh—I...” My face flamed, and my heart exploded in a frenzy of erratic beats. Which made me suspicious. Did I love him? I hadn’t allowed myself to go there. Every time I started thinking along those lines, I had shut down that path of thought and veered off in another direction. Because there was no point in it.
Asher was certainly deserving of love. In spite of his fear he wasn’t hero material, he’d come through for me over and over again. He was smart, and capable, and sweet, and funny, and loyal—and so good-looking I lost my breath just thinking about it. I’d never felt like this about anyone ever. When I thought about leaving town and never seeing him again, a jagged pain ripped through my chest.
I did love him.
Oh wow. And oh no. What was I supposed to do with that? I wasn’t even sure about the extent of his feelings for me—I thought they were pretty serious, but he hadn’t said the words.
Even if he did love me, too, my being with him could put him in danger. Suppose Audun wanted to hunt me down and bring me back? Culley had seen Asher. He knew he lived somewhere in Deep River. Asher said his farm was outside the town limits, but it couldn’t be too far out there. As clever and alluring as Culley was, it would take him about two minutes with one of Asher’s female classmates to get the location of his home. Could I protect Asher somehow? I’d never tried my glamour on Culley. But it was possible...
“You have to at least try, Ava. Tell him the truth,” Ryann urged. “Give him the choice. If he can’t handle it, you can always remove the memory.”
“I’m not sure that’s true. I did try... earlier tonight. To make him forget me.” I took a shuddering breath, remembering the experience. “It didn’t seem to work.”
Lad and Ryann exchanged astounded expressions. “That’s... strange,” Lad said. “It certainly worked on me. Have you ever had that happen before?”
“No. Well, I mean I’ve encountered people who seemed more resistant than others but it’s never failed completely. I’m not sure what went wrong.”
Ryann studied me thoughtfully for a few seconds. “Maybe you didn’t want it to work.”
“What? No. I was trying. I wanted to do what was best for him, and forgetting me is definitely in his best interests.”
“Well, I know I have to want to read someone’s emotions or to exert my Sway,” she said. “I have to mean it, to want to. And Lad’s leadership glamour didn’t present itself until he’d accepted he would be the Light King and actually wanted the job.”
“That’s true,” Lad said.
“Maybe a part of you didn’t want Asher to be able to forget you,” Ryann suggested.
“I don’t know.” But maybe she was right. The idea of erasing all the precious time we’d spent together had nearly killed me. I’d forced myself to say the words, but my heart hadn’t been in the act.
Though I’d used my glamour on him, Asher remembered everything. And I was glad he did. For the first time in a long time, there was a flicker of lightness in my chest. A funny feeling, it was something like... hope. Maybe there was a way to be with him. Maybe, like Ryann’s human grandfather, he’d accept that I could never tell him the full truth of my past. Maybe he’d be satisfied with part of me, since I couldn’t offer him all of me. It was worth a try.
Ryann’s sympathetic expression morphed into a smile. “What are you thinking?”
I smiled back at her. “I was wondering... is there any chance you have something I could borrow that would be appropriate for a Pecan Picking Party?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Family
True to his word, Asher pulled up to Ryann’s house right at noon the next day. Big Red was spotless and shining. Asher didn’t look so bad himself.
Wearing a crisp pinstriped blue button down and a pair of jeans with his ever-present boots, he looked ready to film a manly cologne commercial or praise the virtues of Chevy or Dodge in a way that would have men and women rushing to the dealerships to buy. His smile wa
s brilliant and tinged with male appreciation as he gave me an appraising once-over.
“Well look at you. Looks like you had a full night of beauty sleep and then some.”
He met me at the bottom of the porch steps and kissed my heated cheek then waved to Ryann’s mom who was visible in the kitchen window. Taking my hand, he led me to his truck and opened the door for me.
I fidgeted in my seat, breathing shallowly, as he walked around and got in his side. I’d rarely felt so nervous in my life. This was a big day. Asher started the truck and smiled over at me. “Did you sleep? Or did you two girls stay up and talk all night?”
I let out a nervous laugh. “We did talk a lot. And no... I didn’t really sleep that great,” I admitted.
“Me either.” He winked as he put the truck in gear. “I was missing my sleeping bag buddy.”
My face heated and grew several shades darker. Asher didn’t have sexual glamour, but he certainly had something that was working for me.
He wasn’t kidding when he said the farm was outside the town limits. We drove at least twenty minutes before turning down a gravel road marked by a huge dairy barn. Another mile or two until the farmhouse came into view. And by farmhouse, I mean a beautiful old home, painted white with a wraparound porch, set back from the road with a long tree-lined driveway leading up to it. Its windows sparkled in the midday sun like jewels. At the end of the drive stood a mailbox emblazoned with the name McCord.
“The family farm, huh?”
He shrugged, wearing a cheeky grin. “It’s a farm. And my family lives here. Don’t be too impressed. We have a lot of land, but we’re not rich by any stretch. Granddaddy bought the land a long time ago when it was literally dirt cheap. A place like this requires a lot of upkeep... and a lot of work—most of which is done by Granddaddy and me.”
We didn’t turn into the driveway, but passed it by, driving past a cornfield, several fields of row crops, and an orchard before he took a right onto a narrow gravel road.
“Are the pecan trees back here?”
Asher smiled. “No. Those giant trees you saw running up and down the length of the drive? Those are the pecan trees. There’s a grove back behind the house, too.”
“So what are we doing back here then?”
“We are going in the back gate. Don’t worry. We’ll still end up at the house. Granddaddy suggested it—he thought you might like to see the property.”
“Oh yes. That would be great.”
I sat up straighter in my seat and took in the view as we continued down the small lane that apparently bordered the McCord homestead. There were two ponds, lots and lots of rolling pastures and trees, and more cows than I could count.
I glanced over at him. “You’re a cowboy,” I said in amusement.
He slid a flirty glance in my direction. “That depends—do you like cowboys?”
I nodded. “I think I do.”
His smile widened. “Then, yes ma’am, I am.”
Reaching the end of the gravel lane, Asher stopped the truck. Right in front of us was a large metal gate connected to the barbed wire fence enclosing the entire property.
“Be right back,” he said and slid out of the truck, pulling a key from his pocket and unlocking the padlock that held its chain closure in place.
He pushed the heavy iron gate open and gestured for me to get behind the wheel and pull the truck forward. Feeling a little nervous to drive the huge machine, I did as he asked. Then he re-chained and locked the gate and got back into the truck.
“That seems very secure,” I commented.
“It keeps the cows in,” he said blandly. “Granddaddy has his way of doing things, and I don’t argue. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it, but he’s a bit eccentric.”
I smiled. “How eccentric?”
He laughed. “Well, for instance, when he bought this piece of land, he had a trench dug around the entire thing and had a cast iron pipe laid all the way around it.”
“A pipe? For irrigation?”
“Nope. He says it’s to protect against earthquakes. The New Madrid fault line is only sixty miles from here you know.”
“Oookay.” I laughed.
“Yep. And... well, you’ll see. He’s pretty superstitious, but he’s a great guy.”
“I know he is—he raised you, didn’t he?”
“He did that,” Asher agreed. “For better or worse.”
The innocent phrase got my nerves going all over again, thinking about the confessions I’d have to make if I were going to stay with Asher. Would he want me—for better or worse? That was, would he still want me with him once I told him the truth about myself and my family?
I hoped so. I couldn’t stay with him and continue to deceive him, especially if it might put him in danger. Someday someone might come looking for me, and he had to know what he might be dealing with. At the very least he’d understand if I suddenly disappeared someday and not think I’d abandoned him like his no-good father had. If I made the decision to commit to this, I’d never leave him voluntarily, but someone might come and take me against my will.
Asher reached across the seat and took my hand, and I squeezed his fingers tightly, schooling my face into a pleasant expression, though my heart and mind were all over the place. I wasn’t sure what to do. I wanted to be with him. But I might not be good for him.
And after I told him the truth, he might not want me anymore anyway. In spite of how “calm” and “accepting” Ryann said he was, there was a good chance Asher would not even believe me. No matter what happened, at least we had today. Come tonight, I’d need to decide one way or the other, but I didn’t want to think about that now.
The truck crested a hill, giving us a beautiful view of the house and fields below. Several cars were parked in the circular drive in front of the house now, and another was making its way up the long drive.
Asher put the truck in park but left it running. He shifted to face me. “I’ve always loved this spot. I used to think it would be the perfect place to build a house someday. Well, until I decided I wanted to leave this place. Now I’m thinking... well, I can see that old vision again.” He drew a picture in the air with his fingers. “The front door facing this way, overlooking the valley, a swing set and a pool in the back, a garden plot right over there.” He turned back to me. “I think I just needed to meet the right person to appreciate that old dream—someone who made me want to stay and helped me see the value of what I already have.”
Taking in what I thought was the meaning of his words, I swallowed hard, my heart racing. It was the perfect opening to speak up and be honest with him, to tell him I wanted all that, too. To tell him the truth. But I couldn’t speak. I was still too afraid. And the timing was terrible. The party was about to begin.
When I didn’t respond, Asher nodded. “Okay then. We should go. Everybody will be waiting for us. Just think about what I said.”
He shifted the truck into drive again and eased it down the hill toward the house, parking it in front of a three-car garage.
We hadn’t even made it to the house before I saw his grandfather approaching with a wide smile and a slight limp—it had to be him. The love and pride on his face as he looked at Asher erased any other possibility.
“So this is the city lass we’ve heard so much about,” he called out. Contrary to what I’d pictured, Asher’s granddaddy was not an old southern gentleman. His voice was not tinged with the slow and sweet Deep South accent. He sounded like he was right off a plane from Scotland.
I flared my eyelids at Asher as I whispered, “You never said he was Scottish.”
He grinned. “You never asked.”
Mr. McCord reached us and took my hands, holding them out to the side and looking me over. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a... California girl. Welcome darlin’ to our humble home.”
Asher laughed. “Are you flirting with my girl, Granddaddy?”
“Mebbe,” he said in his soft brogue, a twink
le in his eye. “Mebbe so. I hear you had quite an adventure on the way here, but you’re home now, and it’s the safest place for you both. Well, come on then to the house. Your mother’s got herself all worked up over meeting this young lady. Let’s go show her off.”
Together we went inside, stepping into a kitchen that was warm, fragrant, and bustling with people.
“Momma,” Asher called.
A woman turned away from the huge pot she was stirring. Her eyes landed first on Asher then shifted quickly to me. First they widened then crinkled in the same way her son’s always did when he smiled. She lay the spoon on a plate and moved toward us, holding out her arms.
“Oh my goodness. Ava. It’s so wonderful to meet you. Asher has told me good things, and I can see why. You’re even lovelier than he described.”
“That’s because she’s beyond description,” he said proudly.
I rolled my eyes. “Thank you both. It’s so nice to meet you Ms. McCord. Your home is so pretty.”
“Well thank you honey. At the moment it’s chock full. I don’t even know why I bothered to clean the whole house—every single person crams into the kitchen. And you just call me Jenna.” Lifting her voice to be heard over all the chatter, she said, “Let’s move outside everybody. It’s picking time!”
Turning back to me, she asked, “How was your trip from New York? You do so much traveling for such a young person. And Asher told me you’re going to be in a commercial!”
I answered her questions, and she chattered happily as we moved out to the back lawn where wooden picnic tables were set up under a grove of pecan trees. Atop the tables were aluminum tubs filled with ice and assorted beverages. Large buckets lined the patio, ready to be filled with a sweet, nutty harvest.
Granddaddy spoke up, getting the event started. “Most of you have been with us many times before. For those of you who are new pickers...” He swung a glance over at me and winked. “...it’s pretty simple. Fill your bucket and come back for another if you like. You keep what you pick up, try not to give yourself a bellyache along the way from eating nuts as you go, and save some room for chili and cornbread afterward. Let the picking begin!”