Wild Angel

by Shari Copell

  “At the very beginning. The first time you ever saw him.”

  “It’s burnt into my brain with a laser. You know we were originally from Rochester, New York. Dad bought Iron City Sizing and Machining when I was a junior in high school, and of course, we had to move. The new school was awkward at first, but Willow came right up to me on my first day there and announced we were going to be best friends. And we were.”

  “Willow. I wish I had a Willow.”

  “Oh God, she was awesome. I loved her right away. She was funny and blunt. No nonsense. Told you just how it was. I might not have survived Asher the second time if it weren’t for Willow.”

  “Anyway, I’d been at school about a month when I first saw Asher. I was at my locker with a load of books in my arms. When I went to close the locker, everything shifted and fell to the floor.” She stared at the wall behind Nicks as she remembered how everyone had turned to look at her when the books went flying, but no one stopped to help.

  Well, almost no one.

  “It was such a cliché. Something you’d see in a stupid romance movie,” Chelsea said.

  “Tell me.” Nicks leaned forward. “There’s always that first time.”

  “I let the rest of the books fall to the floor because I was so pissed. I crouched down and began to gather them up, thinking I was going to get my ass handed to me when I got to chemistry. And then...”

  “Yeah? Then what?”

  “There was still a crowd in the hall, but no one paid any attention to me. And then, all of a sudden, the crowd parted and everything got silent. I thought the principal or some other ball-busting teacher was coming to give me hell. But it was Asher.”

  “The crowd parted for him?”

  “Yeah. It was the weirdest thing. They just got out of his way, a sea of people parting for Moses. I got caught by his eyes—he had beautiful eyes—and everything ground to a halt. No noise, no people around me, no nothing. Just him, gliding toward me in slow motion.” Even now, it was a heart-stopping, breath-stealing moment.

  “He was coming for you. You said so in the notebook.”

  “He’d had his eye on me for some time, I guess. When I dropped the books, it gave him an opportunity to stop and talk to me. He helped me pick them up then walked with me to my next class. I know I made him late.”

  “Don’t tell me he was shy about talking to you.”

  “Sounds crazy, right? But Asher was a blend of aggressive and cautious. Wild and subdued. He was either a balls-to-the-wall party animal or off somewhere by himself, hiding from everyone. There was no middle ground with that guy.”

  Nicks put her hand on the notebook. “He doesn’t sound like that here.”

  “He was different the second time. I hadn’t seen him in five years. He’d grown up quite a bit. I didn’t want to admit it though.”

  “He saved your life.”

  “Yeah. I’m glad he was there that night. It was almost lights out permanently for me that Saturday.”

  “So what happened after he carried your books for you?”

  “I can’t say I wasn’t warned about him. He’d broken the heart of nearly every girl in our high school. But I was the new girl, the one who didn’t know anything about him. Fresh game, as it were. I tried to ignore him for a while, but he finally mounted an all-out assault on me. The last straw was when he left a single red rose in my locker with a note attached to it.”

  “What did it say?” Nicks seemed to really enjoy hearing about Asher. The girl wasn’t mad, and that made it easier to share the story. The worst was yet to come though.

  “It said: Talk to me. Love, Asher.”

  “Same thing as the note he left under your windshield wiper.”

  “Of course. Mr. Comedian. Mr. Dry-Sense-of-Humor. It worked the first time. Why wouldn’t it work again? After all, he was Asher Pratt, Consummate Breaker of All Rules. I should’ve made him work harder the first time. I didn’t make that mistake the second.”

  “Good for you,” Nicks said.

  “No one had ever given me a rose before. I screwed up in thinking he really wanted to go out with me. Me. You know? Like I mattered to him. I was nothing but a challenge though. A problem to be solved. I hate myself to this day for it, but I lost my heart to him in record time. He totally and thoroughly snatched it from my chest and never gave it back. I knew I fell in love with him too fast, but when you’re sixteen...”

  “Why did you fall for him so fast? You said in the notebook he had something.”

  “He had something in spades. I still don’t know what it was. I needed to be around him all the time. I wrote that he was a drug for me. That’s what it felt like. An addiction.”

  “Bad news, Mom.”

  “I know that now. I think he had it in his mind to treat me like every other woman he’d ever run roughshod over. I don’t think he meant to fall in love with me. Friends told me later I’d lasted longer than anyone he’d ever dated. Almost three years.” She shook her head and sighed again. “And what a time we had.”

  “What happened? I know he cheated on you.”

  “Oh, it was more than cheating. He seemed to take perverse delight in picking up girls right in front of me. It became a game with us. How much can I hurt her and drive her away? How can I prove to this bastard I don’t care what he does? Maybe that’s why I stayed so long. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that a piece of me died whenever he disappeared with a groupie. I was better than him...stronger...by staying when the healthier solution would’ve been to leave. All I did was make myself miserable.”

  Nicks took Chelsea’s hand. “I’m sorry, Mom. Sorry he did that to you.”

  “No, don’t be sorry. It made me strong. You’d be surprised how much humiliation you can endure and still stay on your feet. The end of us was Brittany Willett. I was done after that.”

  “What happened?”

  “She pulled a knife on me in the restroom of O’Flaherty’s Irish Pub.” Nicks’s eyebrows nearly shot up to her hairline. Chelsea wondered about the reaction but continued. “She was drunk. Asher fed her a line of bullshit about being the only one for him. About wanting her more than he’d ever wanted anyone in his life. She spouted that crap to me all night, trying to pick a fight. She finally followed me into the bathroom and cornered me in a stall with a pocket knife. It wasn’t large, but it certainly would’ve sliced an artery open in my neck. Spence and Joe heard me screaming and rescued me.”

  Chelsea gritted her teeth as the memory gripped her. She’d stared into Brittany’s wild eyes, knowing this was the last straw with Asher. “I knew then we’d never be what I wanted. It was dangerous to be his girlfriend. Leaving him for good turned me inside out, but I had to do it. It was the only way I could stay sane. And apparently alive.”

  “Holy shit! Wait until I tell you what happened to me yesterday afternoon,” Nicks said. “But I want to hear more about you and Asher first.”

  “Not much more to tell. It’s all in that notebook.”

  “You wrote that he came back to you a second time.”

  “Yes. He did.” Chelsea took a moment to gather her thoughts. This was where the story took a weird turn. “He cheated like a rutting stallion, but we had something. I’ve never been able to put a name to it. We had a connection, a bond. I just think he felt secure with me. Two old souls who’d known each other in a previous life. It’s unfortunate that connection didn’t stop his douche-nozzle antics where other women were concerned.” She shook her head. “No one was more surprised than me when he started sniffing around again. ”

  Chelsea slumped back. “I don’t know. I guess I was weak. I let myself fall in love with him. I had never really fallen out of love with him. He was gone two months after I let him back in. That one hurt worse than the first, which is why I didn’t talk more about it in the journal. I couldn’t find a way to rationalize it. He just didn’t want me. It was like he wanted to back over me one more time with the bus he’d thrown me under.�
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  She twisted her hands in her lap. “I was so much stronger when he started that shit again at Tapestries. I wanted to rip his heart out when Willow told me he’d gotten a job there. It isn’t that I wasn’t grateful he’d taken me to the hospital. I was. But he acted like I was his long, lost love or something. I knew better than to let him make a fool of me again.”

  “I’m glad you were strong, Mom.”

  “It didn’t feel like strength. It felt like someone tied me to a pole and left me out in the middle of a hurricane.”

  “You’ve never said anything about Scott Dreyfus either.”

  “It wasn’t something you just bring up at the dinner table. ‘Oh, by the way, kids, when I was young I was held hostage overnight by a lunatic with a gun. He killed himself right in front of me.’ I had a lot of guilt about Scott for the longest time.”

  “And now?”

  “I felt horrible for Bob Dreyfus, but Scott was a hateful, miserable human being. I’m sorry he got fired, but he could’ve made different choices. He didn’t have to sexually harass the girls at Tapestries. And he didn’t have to break into my apartment with a gun. I didn’t put the gun in his mouth and pull the trigger. Those were all choices he made independent of me or anyone else. I can live with that.”

  Nicks nodded slowly. “And me. What about me.”

  “I’m really embarrassed to know you read that part. I went into detail a bit more than I should’ve. But I didn’t want to forget a single moment of our night together, because I knew it would never happen again.” Chelsea lowered her gaze. “I can’t say you came about at the most convenient time. And I won’t tell you I wasn’t shocked as hell to find out I was pregnant by Asher. But as much as I loved your father—Tage—in the back of my mind, I kept thinking finally that son-of-a-bitch had given me something he couldn’t take away from me. I loved you as soon as I knew about you.” She laughed as a tear ran down her cheek. “Well, once I got over the shock anyway.”

  “And Daddy?”

  “There is nothing I can say about your father that would do him justice. I have no words for the kind of love a man must feel to marry a woman who is carrying another man’s child. He didn’t have to do what he did for me...or you. I was ready to let him go. I’ve always felt as though he deserved better. But every time I talked like that he would shush me and tell me he got what he deserved. A beautiful wife carrying a sweet little passenger.

  “I know you feel like the oddball in this family, Nicks, but he loves you so much. You can’t say he ever treated you any differently. Tage loved you with every breath he took. That’s why he never wanted you to know he wasn’t your biological father. You were his daughter right from the start, and that was all there was to it. And then to agree to act as Asher’s executor... He did that for me, because he saw how much it meant to me. Your father is one-of-a-kind, and I am aware every day of my life how lucky I am to have him.”

  “Was Asher glad when he found out about me? Do you think he loved me?”

  “I think he was devastated when he found out about you. I didn’t write it in the notebook, mostly because I couldn’t deal with his reaction when I told him he was your father, but we talked about you a lot. Hopes and dreams for your future. He would be so proud that you play guitar. It was all he could talk about.” Chelsea stopped to compose herself. “He loved you, Nicks. Beyond a shadow of a doubt. And he loved me, but by then it was too late. I was married, and he was dying.”

  “Why did he do that? Why did he let himself die?”

  “If I knew, I would tell you. I didn’t ask him. He didn’t say. Not a day goes by that I don’t wonder why. We’ll never know. You’ll have to find a way to be okay with that, sweetheart.”

  “What about Daddy?”

  “Oh, he’s a hot-headed Swede, but it’ll blow over. I’ll get the kids and drop them off here then go to Tapestries and talk to him. I suppose he’ll unload the wine while he’s there, and I don’t want him hurting himself. Will you get everyone ready for bed?”

  “Do you mind if I go and talk to him instead? I’ll help him with the wine. I think I need to clue him in on what’s been happening here, even if it makes me sound crazy. He thinks you gave me the notebook.”

  Chelsea nodded. “Good idea. Maybe it’ll mean more coming from you.” She fixed her daughter with a curious look. “How did you get the notebook? And what happened before your father and I got home tonight? I’ve never seen you so white.”

  “Mom, I don’t know how to tell you this, but Asher is here, in this house.”

  “I know.”

  Nicks looked startled. “I’m having dreams about him. So are you.”

  “Yes. Only I don’t think they’re dreams.”

  “I found the notebook on my nightstand Sunday morning. Early. Right after Asher screamed my name in my ear.”

  Chelsea held her breath. She didn’t know much about the paranormal. How could a dead man move stuff around the house like that? She’d heard him say her name but had never seen him. The idea of the notebook floating down the hall while Nicks was asleep scared the shit out of her. Worse than that, it meant he’d been watching her and knew where she kept her Asher stuff.

  “I had the notebook hidden in a box in the back of my closet. And you can hear him talking out loud sometimes. Right?”

  “Yeah. That’s what happened before you and Daddy came home tonight. I heard him talk, just like I hear you now. He said to be careful and watch, but I don’t understand what he means.” Nicks looked perplexed. “I tried to get him to say more, to explain what he meant, but the lights flickered and the house got really cold. I got the feeling someone or something doesn’t want him talking to us. He got sucked out of the room or something. That’s why I turned all the lights on. I don’t think he was alone when he was here, and it freaked me the hell out. And now I sound like I’m nuts.”

  “No, you don’t. Not to me. He said something similar the night I woke everyone up shouting. ‘Help her’ and ‘watch her’. I didn’t understand him either, and I woke up before I could get answers. I get the feeling he was talking about you.”

  “Mom, what’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. But we’re going to watch and be careful like he wants us to, at least to the extent that we can, since we don’t have a clue what he’s talking about. I know Asher Pratt. He wouldn’t be working this hard to reach us if it weren’t important.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Tage clutched the steering wheel of the Avalanche as though it were the only thing keeping him from plummeting off a cliff. Furiously angry one minute, sick to his ever-lovin’ stomach the next, he wanted to get to Tapestries as fast as he could so he could have a beer. Or two. Or five.

  How could Chelsea do that? How could she do it? He knew she had reservations about keeping the truth of Nicks’s parentage from the girl, but he never thought she’d sink that low and kick him in the balls that way. To give it to her when they were gone—miles from home!— and deprive him of the opportunity to explain himself was such a dirty trick, it didn’t even register on the asshole meter.

  He’d known it was coming. Nicks was aware she was different. She went through phases where she asked a lot of questions then went silent for a while. They were usually able to give her answers that satisfied her, but the circuits in her head were making the connection anyway. She was a smart girl, capable of putting two and two together. He wanted to be able to give his side of the story to the daughter he loved so much when the light finally came on.

  “Goddamnit!” He pounded on the steering wheel with a closed fist. Chelsea had pulled the rug right out from under him where Nicks was concerned. All those years, so much love in his heart for all of them. And she’d gone and stuck a knife in his back.

  He wondered if she’d only married him because she was pregnant. And it didn’t hurt that he was already a millionaire when he met her.

  He knew she’d written the story of her and Asher. She’d spent several months
, pen in hand, putting it all down in a green notebook. She told him it was therapeutic. Helped her put things in perspective. He believed her. Her unexpected pregnancy and Asher’s death had thrown her into a tailspin for a while. A small sob escaped him. That’s what you get for trying to be supportive of the woman you loved more than life itself.

  Tage had never been demanding of Chelsea in their marriage, but he’d asked her to throw the notebook and that damned Rock’n Tapestries T-shirt away after she’d rediscovered it while cleaning out a closet, preparing to move to the house they lived in now. Nicks had been small then, and Chelsea had been pregnant with Reese. She’d disappeared with both child and notebook so she could revisit her love affair with a dead man without her husband breathing down her neck. He hadn’t asked where she’d gone. She hadn’t told him.

  She still loved him. She was good at hiding it, but she still loved Asher. How was he supposed to compete with the memory of her first love? He was simply Tage Sorenson, average male. He wasn’t a flashy musician sex-god guitarist. He’d thought his love and devotion to her happiness would be enough.

  It would never be enough. Asher was the one she’d wanted all these years. Tage was simply security for her.

  Tired of feeling sorry for himself, he steered the truck into the back parking lot of the bar, did a three-point turn, and backed up to the door. Unloading the wine would take his mind off the implosion of his marriage for a while, at least. Then he had all the time in the world to drink and reflect, and when he was drunk enough, to finally bunk down on the leather couch in his office.

  Tage nearly shit his pants when the back door of Tapestries swung open. It was the last thing he expected to see on a Sunday night. “What the hell are you doing here?” he snapped.

  Framed in the doorway like a Celtic witch stood Marybeth Catalino. Her gray hair was wild all over her head. Her Steeler’s sweatshirt and jeans were filthy. She looked as though she’d been mining coal.