Chapter Ten
Asher hadn’t seen Paisley in five days, sixteen hours, and thirty-two minutes, but he wouldn’t exactly say he was missing her.
In those days, he had managed to get his brother to agree to meeting with his therapist daily and to staying clean. He was on Asher’s version of house arrest—staying in the apartment attached to their father’s garage unless accompanied by Asher. He had to do chores around the property, and was forbidden from interacting with Izzy.
Asher had also been working overtime trying to make things okay with Izzy. Her tumultuous teen moods had settled on cantankerous. He tried to solve the problem by bringing home her favorite Chinese or Mexican foods every night, but even that had failed to bring a smile to her lips.
For three days in a row, she had refused to go to school. She never did finish the essay the principal had ordered, which had resulted in In-School Suspension before she dug her heels in about going in the mornings. The end of the year was approaching, and he was afraid they’d be dealing with a truant officer and summer school rather than the summer of fun he wanted for her.
He closed up shop early and swung by to pick Izzy up, dragging her off the couch with the promise of calling the cable company and signing up for the deluxe package if she’d just change out of those damned pajamas and go out into the world for a bit. If they casually encountered Paisley when they were in the vicinity of the lake, he wouldn’t complain.
“I don’t know why you’re making me go. I don’t even like swimming.”
He ignored her. Once they got there, she’d have fun.
“Are you even listening?”
When he raised an eyebrow in her direction to show that he was, in fact, listening, she responded by turning the radio all the way up and huffing as she banged her feet up onto the dashboard.
He allowed her to keep the music up, even though the thumping electronics they tried to pass off as music had his head throbbing.
Izzy sat moping on the edge of the beach near the tree line.
Why had he thought bringing her here would be a good idea?
He had thought teenagers liked having fun, but what the hell did he know?
After trying (and failing) to coax her out of the shade and into the water, Asher told her he was going for a walk and would come back in a bit.
His walk brought him straight—no detours—to Paisley and her ice cream shop.
He stood back, leaning against a tree, as he watched in admiration as Paisley directed a crew of three men. To their credit—or hers—they hopped to do her bidding and seemed to be busting their asses to meet her strict deadlines, which she reminded them about as he stood there with what he knew was a dopey grin.
A woman with a crying baby approached. Shouting to be heard over the screaming infant, she expressed her disappointment that her boyfriend or husband wasn’t off the job yet.
“You said you’d be home at six, and I can’t do this alone anymore!” Her voice trembled as she jostled the baby on her shoulder.
Paisley rushed over, reaching the woman before the baby’s father could. The young mom recoiled a bit, looking ashamed of her behavior.
“I’m so sorry. I asked them to work a little late today, but I promise to pay overtime. We’re under an extremely tight deadline.”
“I didn’t mean to sound so horrible,” the young mom cried. “I’m just so tired. And I don’t know how to make her stop crying. Not even the car ride here helped!”
“May I?” Paisley held her hands out toward the baby.
As soon as the baby snuggled into her arms, Paisley started rocking back and forth. The baby calmed within seconds.
“How—how did you do that?” the young mom asked, mesmerized.
Like a lullaby she made up on the spot, Paisley sang, not taking her eyes off the infant’s entranced gaze, “Babies can feel your tension. Mommy’s sometimes need breaks. Tell Colin to go into my trunk and take out the reclining lawn chair. You take it down to the beach and take a nap. The waves will relax you. No one will disturb you.”
“But the baby…”
“I’ll keep her here. She can learn how to boss men around.”
Asher’s heart lodged in his throat as he watched and listened, and though he knew he should step forward and help get the woman the chair, he didn’t want to let Paisley know he was watching quite yet.
As soon as Colin returned from walking his wife down to the beach with the chair, Paisley resumed giving directed orders to the small crew, baby in arms.
At one point, she held the baby up, shook the baby’s tiny fist toward the group, and in a baby voice, told them to put a little more muscle into what they were doing.
Asher couldn’t help it—he burst out laughing.
The woman had excellent hearing. She whipped around to catch him in the act of stalking her.
Her voice faltered just a bit as she gave one more set of instructions to her crew.
Then she strolled toward him.
From the look in her eyes, he could tell he was in trouble.
“You find something amusing?”
No, just adorable. But he’d keep that to himself.
“I was remembering a joke my niece told me earlier.”
“You know I’m very good at reading lies, right?”
“Okay, you caught me.” He threw his hands up in surrender.
“What are you doing here? Did you get the signed contract? I sent it through the realtor.”
“Yeah, yeah. Got it.” He rubbed the back of his neck. What was he doing there?
Her attitude toward him was all business. Didn’t he deserve some sort of familiarity considering every time they ended up together, they sparked some sort of chemical reaction in each other?
“If you have nothing to say, I have a lot of work to get back to.”
Not wanting her to walk away quite yet, he reached out a finger for the baby to grasp. The baby tightened her grip as she drooled onto her little duck bib.
“I brought my niece over to swim and figured I’d swing by to see if you needed a hand with anything.” Why did he speak in baby talk?
“Is she with her friends?”
He laughed. “No. She doesn’t do friendships.”
“What does that mean?”
He shrugged. “We’re kind of keep-to-ourselves people, I guess.”
“She’s a teenaged girl. They don’t generally keep to themselves unless something’s wrong.”
Alarm bells went off in his head. Was something wrong with Izzy?
“This is a new school for her. New crowd. I guess she had some girlfriends at her old place, but she hasn’t been too excited about meeting anyone new here.”
“So you left her alone? To swim?”
He pressed into his neck to ease the tension that was rapidly building at her line of questioning.
“No. I mean—she’s not swimming.”
“So what is she doing?”
“Geez, I didn’t come here for a cross-examination.”
A smile lifted her lips, igniting an instant spark in her eyes and in his groin.
“I’m just playing with you. Come here—I will gladly put you to work.”
Still holding the baby, she had him move some heavy equipment around, and he caught the way her face lit up and then turned pink when she focused on his flexing biceps. For good measure, and because he loved that shade on her, he flexed more intentionally from then on.
“It’s getting dark. Does your niece know to come here to look for you?”
“Shit.” He wiped his dusty hands off on his jeans and bolted outside.
“I don’t think the werewolves are out tonight, Asher. You could say goodbye before rushing off.”
The baby cooed in agreement.
He turned back toward her, his heart thudding as he remembered how he had left her after their business meeting the other day. He had never apologized when she stopped by to check on Izzy that night.
“About that…”<
br />
She waved a hand in the air.
“No biggie. Believe me, I had things to do and people to see, too. Besides, it’s not like we were trying to start a personal relationship or anything. I find the clean cut quite refreshing.”
He faltered. What was he supposed to say to that?
She filled in the silence. “Besides, you had already caved and rented to me.”
She had the nerve to punctuate her insulting statement with a wink. A wink! Was this how all city women were?
“Is that why you sent the copy of our agreement through the realtor?”
“I thought it was better that way.”
“Better for who?”
Paisley’s eyes shifted over his shoulder.
He followed her line of vision, saw two teenagers holding hands emerging from the woods, and turned back to Paisley to finish their discussion.
His mouth went dry when he realized the girl was wearing a flannel shirt…
“Isabel!”
He hadn’t meant to roar her name, but what the hell was she doing holding hands with a boy?
Izzy turned toward the boy, who looked suddenly skittish.
“Let go of my niece!” He stormed toward the boy—a boy much taller, much older than his niece, who was still a child. “You’d better run!”
Hands fisted, he ignored Paisley when she tried to call him back. Ignored Izzy as she demanded that he butt out. Ignored the boy as he held his hands out in front of him, trying to get away, but unable to shake Izzy’s hands off his arm.
Asher managed to gain some semblance of control as he approached. The boy, though tall, was a teenager, after all.
“How old are you?” he demanded, his teeth clenched and his eyes aching from the pressure building behind them.
“Seventeen, sir.”
“Seventeen.” Asher struggled to calm himself. “You know how old she is?”
“Yeah,” the boy nodded, chewing gum. “Sixteen.”
Asher turned his angry glare to his niece.
“Sixteen? Does she look sixteen to you?”
The boy made the mistake of looking to Isabel’s chest.
“Keep your eyes up here, young man! Isabel, tell this boy how old you are.”
She didn’t say a word. Just glared at him with eyes that could kill if they were properly loaded with the arrows he could tell she wished for.
“She’s thirteen. Thir. Teen. Not sixteen. Much too young for you.”
The boy’s face grew pale.
“Come on, Asher.” Paisley’s free hand slid over his clenched fist. “Look at him. He didn’t know.”
“Did you touch her?”
“God, Uncle Ash! That’s none of your business!”
“None of my business?” He turned his wrath on his niece. Was she too old for corporal punishment?
“Yeah. None of your business. I’m old enough to make my own decisions.”
“Well that decision had better be to let go of this young man’s arm before I do something to really embarrass you.”
“A little late for that!”
The boy managed to get his arm away, nodded to Asher while muttering a vague apology, then bolted toward the beach.
“I. Hate. You.”
Isabel, his sweet little Izzy who loved to ride the Ferris wheel with him at the fair, who begged for fried dough every time they smelled it, and whose favorite Saturday pastime was having Asher make her popcorn while they had a cartoon marathon, spat venom at him as he worked to calm himself down.
When was the last time they had had a cartoon marathon? He couldn’t remember. He thought maybe she was eight at the time.
“I wish you were dead!”
“You watch what you say, missy!”
“Okay, you two, let’s calm down here before you both say things you don’t mean.”
“Or what?” Izzy continued, ignoring Paisley’s intervention. “You’ll humiliate me?”
“You shouldn’t have been with that boy. In the woods, Izzy? Did you even know him? You were holding his hand, for crying out loud! You have no idea what could happen to a young girl in that situation.”
“What do you care? It was your stupid idea to make me come here. And you’re the one who took off and left me there alone.”
Like a punctured balloon, he felt the hot air leave him. He was flying around aimlessly in the air, but soon he’d land in an unwanted heap on the ground.
Hopefully no innocent creature would choke on him.
“I only left for a minute. You had no interest in talking to me.”
“Whatever. Can we leave now?”
Asher tried to smile at Paisley, but his humiliation ran too deep.
“Go,” she whispered. “And try to stay calm with her.”
He nodded. He had screwed up, and she had witnessed it.
Fantastic.
Izzy was silent for the entire ride home.
She slammed the door of her room. He stared at the wooden barrier, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do.
She jerked it open again, fire and tears in her eyes.
“You know what, Asher?”
She had never dropped the “Uncle” part of his name before.
“I really despise you. You’re worse than my dad.”
She slammed the door on his broken heart, then opened it up to stomp on the failing organ.
“I would rather live with him. Maybe you should go overdose now.”
Chapter Eleven
Paisley stood back and admired the work her team had managed to accomplish in such a short time. Not even two weeks of effort and she was ready to open.
Marketing wasn’t her strong suit, but Reed had picked up some skills through her new career running the cottage motel, which she had managed to turn into a high-end, family-friendly resort in no time at all. Business was always booming, thanks in part to the Healing Springs community rallying behind her, but mainly due to her surprisingly intuitive marketing strategies.
Though Paisley generally liked to do things on her own, she accepted Reed’s assistance.
She didn’t need this ice cream endeavor to be a raging success, but she couldn’t stand the thought of falling on her face, either.
She would make this place flourish in honor of her mother’s dream.
And quite frankly, she needed to keep busy. Without customers, she’d have too much time to think. And to worry. And to ruminate on what a mess she was making of her life. On what a mess cancer was making of her life.
Paisley walked around the small building, where she noticed that Asher’s brother hadn’t completed the landscaping he had promised to do.
She searched for the weed whacker, but came up empty.
Asher hadn’t asked her if she wanted the extra help—he had sent his brother over with an apology for his behavior the previous week and a new set of work gloves. Since Asher owned the property, Paisley wasn’t in a position to tell him that he couldn’t do the landscaping. She hadn’t thought to slip anything about that into the contract.
Beginner’s mistake.
Ricky had been friendly and helpful, for the most part. He was easily distracted and tended to wander off for a couple of hours at a time, but Paisley was busy and couldn’t afford to babysit him.
But opening day was tomorrow, and she couldn’t have a patch of high grass along the side of the building.
After an exhaustive search, she realized that Ricky probably took the weed whacker with him to return to Asher, not realizing that she had borrowed it from Reed.
She’d swing by Asher’s shop to ask him if he had seen it.
This was of critical importance. It was not an excuse to see Asher.
Asher was with a customer when she let herself into the shop, so she flipped through an uninteresting and outdated women’s magazine while she waited, pretending that she wasn’t hanging on every word he said.
His voice slid over her like her favorite time-softened cotton t-shirt. And like that shirt, t
he one that fit just right, she wanted to cuddle up with him.
Yes, she had longed for a comfortable, quiet relationship for a long time. A loving man who would support her in her endeavors. Maybe cook her some meals from time to time.
Asher wasn’t the man of her dreams. How could he be? Yes, he could get her buzzing. He excelled in the art of bringing her to orgasm, but that didn’t make him relationship material.
He was a mechanic. Had a complicated family situation. Hadn’t even finished high school.
She didn’t consider herself such a snob that she couldn’t date a mechanic, but how would he ever understand her need to work long, crazy hours? Her drive to pass up social engagements so she could work harder, filling in the void left by people who had actual lives outside of the law firm? Her inability to put family or loved ones ahead of work?
His eyes met hers as she studied him. She hadn’t realized that he caught her staring—she was too caught up in her musings. She wanted to blurt out that he was turning her on with his advanced knowledge of whatever engine component he was explaining to the customer, but he’d think her as crazy as she thought herself.
He may never fit in at a law firm, but he was an expert in his field, and that kind of intelligence was rather potent. And as huge a turn-on as his incredible shoulders.
He excused himself and hurried toward her. She admired how free he was with his emotions. When he was happy to see her, he let her know with his body language and his smile. When he was annoyed with her, he let her know that, too.
So different from the men in her field. Men she worked with were practically actors, and the ability to school their reactions was one of the things that made them most successful.
“Is your car okay?”
His concern made her stomach do strange things. How could he so easily make her feel like a preteen with her first crush?
“It’s fine—I’ll write you a great review. No, I’m here to see if you know where my weed whacker went. Ha—that was a funny sentence to speak out loud.”
She could see him try to smile, but something troubled him—she could see the clouds form in his eyes.
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