True to You (A Love Happens Novel Book 3)

by Jodi Watters

  And instead of being happy for his best friend and business partner, instead of sharing in his nervous excitement during the rush to get him to the hospital, Ash felt only one sharp, stabbing, and shameful emotion.

  Envy.

  Two weeks had passed since Marshall’s funeral.

  Since he’d seen her beautiful face.

  Since he could look at his own in the mirror.

  He hadn’t been home since then either, but he knew she was there. Keeping her word and not running. Waiting for him, like he’d waited for her. A quick drive-by each night to see the lights on and her shadow in the window fed the wounded beast inside him.

  Smart enough to figure out his motivation behind the ugly ultimatum, though it had taken the week following Utah and a bottle of Wild Turkey to do so, Ash knew he was testing her. Seeing how far he could push before she’d retreat, or if she’d stick around, proving the past was really behind them and her love was strong enough to endure another hardship.

  The sound of keys unlocking the double doors to the suite surprised him. It was Sunday and the guys were off, leaving him to wallow in his misery alone. Tapping his keyboard, the screens on his desk went dark, and he leaned back in the chair, running a hand down his face.

  Familiar footsteps sounded in the hall before Sam poked his head into Ash’s office. “Hey. What, are you living here now? Jesus, you look like shit. Go home to your wife.”

  “Thanks. Shit’s the look I’m aiming for. The outside can match the inside. And you shouldn’t be here, either.”

  Ali had given birth with Sam by her side, twenty-one hours after her phone call. He’d been in the office minimally since.

  “Thought I’d show this little lady around,” he said, swinging the door open, a baby carrier in his other hand. “Annabelle, meet Uncle Ash. He might be grouchy and a little scary, but he’ll teach you everything you ever wanted to know about counterterrorism.” Lifting the alert newborn up, he grinned. “Ash, meet Annabelle. One of my two reasons for living.”

  Ash didn’t have a choice. He looked at the tiny girl, just shy of six days old, knowing it would hurt.

  And it did. It hurt like a motherfucker. He’d crash landed in a Blackhawk in Yemen, evading capture with a ruptured spleen and six broken ribs, and it hadn’t hurt this bad.

  Her entire head smaller than his hand, she was a scant little thing wrapped in a blanket with rainbows on it. And cute, too, though he had little to compare her to.

  “Christ, Sammy, are you sure she doesn’t need another week or so in the oven? There’s nothing to her.”

  Sam laughed. “Fully cooked, the pediatrician says. And seven pounds is a respectable weight. Eats like a pot-bellied pig.” Setting the carrier on the floor next to the desk, he pulled out a chair and sat, slouching. “Thought I’d give Ali and Pete a break for a few hours. Let them take a nap in silence. Even the dog is sleep deprived.”

  Looking down at the pint-sized person, Sam’s grin returned, and he shook his head in amazement, sheer joy written all over him.

  Ash reached into his bottom desk drawer, pulling out a brown paper sack stuffed in the back. The plain bag had no markings, but was worn soft from handling, both time and travel showing in the creased edges.

  He handed it to Sam.

  “What’s this?” Paper rustled as he opened it, peering inside.

  Ash’s head tilted toward the floor, but he didn’t look at the baby. “For your pork chop.”

  Staring at him in question, he pulled out a square of pink cashmere. “A baby blanket?”

  The handmade blanket was pure pashmina, woven by a craggy-faced woman in a village in Pokhara, Nepal. Fingers gnarled by a lifetime of weaving, she’d sold him the lightweight wrap at a street market just over four years ago. Lasting a lifetime, the high-quality wool could be handed down for generations. Speaking only Sherpa, the woman’s grandson translated, asking him about the purchase. When the boy relayed Ash’s answer, the old woman smiled, a road map of winkles grooving her face as she replied. “A gift for your baby daughter. That is good,” the boy repeated in broken English. “One day she gives to her own child. A gift passed down from her father.”

  Clenching his jaw, Ash organized the files on his desk alphabetically and lined up the ink pens by size and color, overcome by the memory.

  “Where’d you get this?” Sam questioned, knowing the fine piece of goods came from his time overseas. “Morocco?”

  “Nepal.”

  Confused, he glanced up. “You bought a pink cashmere baby wrap in Nepal? You haven’t been to Nepal since The Unit.”

  Spinning a paperclip in circles, Ash considered moving to the window ledge.

  “Do you think we deserve to be punished for what we did?”

  Sam hesitated. “You mean like the universe having a checks and balances system? Law of attraction, reap what you sow, kind of thing?” When Ash nodded, he shook his head. “No. We did what we had to, what we signed up for and were paid to do. Making the world a little less dangerous, one scumbag at a time. It’s what we still do.”

  At Ash’s pointed silence, Sam went for blunt. “You gotta forgive yourself, Ash. Absolution comes from within, not anywhere else.” He tapped his chest. “We’re all worthy of it. And we’re worthy of happiness, too. Even you.”

  He nodded, not completely convinced. History had taught him otherwise.

  “Thank you,” Sam added in a rough voice, folding the pashmina and sliding it back into the bag. “Ali will probably cry and want to hug you. It’s best not to fight her. And I’m still waiting to know why you bought such a thing so many years ago.”

  Mewling sounds came from the floor, but the newborn quieted when Sam tucked the rainbows tighter and set the carrier rocking. The tender, paternal gesture, from a former Army Ranger he’d raided Al-Qaeda and ISIS fighter camps with, validated his re-gift.

  A tiny, deeply loved girl would sleep under the treasured pashmina. Just not his girl.

  And with a lump in this throat, he finally told Sam who the other person in his marriage was. “I had a daughter once, too.”

  The stone was warm under Olivia’s fingertips, radiating the late day sun as she traced the etched letters with care. Running her index finger forward then back, she paused on the last word. Loved.

  Love. There was no room for hate in this little garden of Eden. No space for negative energy amongst colorful velvet blooms and paper-thin greenery. No dividing line between what the heart wanted and the pride protected.

  Sliding her hand across the smooth granite surface, she brushed away dried pink petals and curled leaves, careful not to swipe the crawling red lady bug with them, staring at the words. She knew deep in her weathered heart that she’d made the right choice. She’d opened the door to the future, releasing the only remaining item standing between her and happiness. Between her and Ash.

  Coleson Creek Winery.

  Her laugh was ironic, but joyous. Considering she had no job, no place to live, and a costly divorce on the horizon, you might think she’d have nothing to smile about.

  You’d be wrong.

  The chimes were quiet as Olivia sat on the bench surrounded by rose bushes, taking a deep, cleansing breath. The last two weeks had been a flurry of activity. She’d locked up a five-year extension on the distribution deal, laid out a game plan for the upcoming harvest and initiated the lucrative sale of a cash crop, and prepared a budget to meet their operational expenses for the next two quarters. All of it paving the way for a banner year of sales and potential record profits.

  Of course, this was pending the vineyard remain open. There’d been no news on that front, not so much as a peep from the new owner, so until then, it was business as usual.

  Either way, her work here was done.

  “You’re trespassing on private property, ma’am.” Her heart dropped at the rumble of his voice, then sprang to her throat. He glanced at his watch as he approached. “As of twelve minutes ago, anyway.”

  Her resig
nation was effective at five o’clock tonight. Exactly twelve minutes ago.

  “I need to see some identification. Pat you down and make sure you’re not hiding any contraband. I’ll need access to every nook and cranny, too,” he added, repeating the first words he’d ever said to her.

  Blowing her mind in the process.

  She ate up his imposing presence. The unapproachable man from the funeral was gone, in his place the Ash she knew. Worn jeans, work boots, and sex appeal oozing from his pores. A layer of stubble shadowed his face, the shaggy ends of his hair curling against his neck, overdue for a cut.

  It only made her knees weak, her pulse pound, and her hand itch to dive inside those jeans. She could live to be a hundred and never lose her lust for him. Or her love.

  “Wait, you look familiar to me.” Rubbing his bristled cheek, he assessed her. “Weren’t you and I joined together for eternity a few years back? If I recall, there were two geese going at it on the cake table.”

  “It was two swans kissing, and they were sculpted from ice.”

  He shrugged, hiding a smile. “Romanticize it all you want. Looked like bird porn to me.”

  “Why are you here, Ash?” She kept her guard up. It was highly likely he’d come to escort her off the premises.

  “Well, Liv,” he paused to glance at the headstone before crooking a brow at her. “If that bullshit e-mail you sent is to be believed, then I’m here to do your exit interview.”

  “No bullshit. Believe it.”

  “So, you’re quitting?”

  “Quitting my job, yes. To prioritize my life.”

  He grunted. “And your job isn’t a priority?”

  “No. It’s definitely not.” She smiled at his confusion. “Surprised me, too. Took me four years and a good therapist to figure that out, but here I am,” she quipped, spreading her arms wide, “unemployed and loving it.”

  “Why the sad face and teary eyes then? Because you’re so happy?”

  “Oh, these.” She dabbed at her wet eyes. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

  “Or this, right?” He indicated the marker a few feet away, his lack of reaction giving him away.

  “You’ve been here before.” Posing it as a question wasn’t necessary.

  “Many times.”

  “Color me the surprised one now.”

  A glint of sun reflected off the gray granite, and Ash leaned down, running his large hand over the stone much the way she had. His fingers didn’t linger on the last word, though. They lingered on her name.

  The small headstone was traditional, profiled with delicately carved angel’s wings, but the writing was purposely informal.

  It was a simple, but poignant statement for a little girl whose heart beat for only nine months, all while in her mommy’s tummy.

  The dormant chimes began to twinkle, a single ringing note then two, a soft melody though little breeze blew. Ash heard them, too, his mouth quirking in a fast smile. A devout believer might see the significance. A parent definitely did.

  Daddy was here.

  “Many times? But I’ve never seen you here.” And she spent a tremendous amount of time in this garden.

  “I didn’t want you to see me,” he said simply, standing. “I’ve been here during the day, but mostly I come at night.” He gestured toward the cropping of oak trees near the back of the property. “Park a few miles down and jog through the woods. Easy in and out.”

  It was a stunning development. His apparent disregard for their daughter’s remains after her birth had boosted the hate meter to epic levels.

  “How—”

  “How did I know? I’ve always known.” His eyes never left the stone. “I told Rosa this is where I thought she should be.”

  When she’d chosen burial over cremation, her mind still reeling, body still recovering, Rosa offered a gentle suggestion. “The rose garden, mija. It is a beautiful, peaceful place. It is her father’s heritage. It is where my mijo would want her.”

  Olivia never put two and two together until now.

  But paternal heritage or not, this property would soon belong to someone else. Someone who wasn’t a Coleson.

  Ash sat next to her, their shoulders brushing as he reached for her hand.

  “I needed to know her name. In case I never met her.” He threaded their fingers, as if the last two weeks hadn’t happened. Or the last four years. “Wasn’t sure I was gonna make it home alive.”

  What a lucky little girl Gracie Coleson would’ve been.

  Named by her daddy, in case he died before witnessing her birth. Her first tooth. First skinned knee. First everything. Instead, she’d died. And if you wanted to get real about it, Olivia died right along with her.

  “Sometimes I think it helped, that you’d named her,” Liv whispered. “It made her so much more real. Alive before she really was. Made her unforgettable.” Leaning her shoulder against his, she felt him absorb her lonely burden. “Sometimes I think it made it harder. Because it made her alive before she was. Made her unforgettable. Does that make any sense?”

  “It does,” he murmured, lost in thought, rubbing his thumb over her hand. “I’m not sure I’m handling this love thing between us all that well.”

  She choked out a laugh. “Me, either.”

  “I keep screwing it up on the regular. Soon my second chances will be gone. Hell,” he muttered, stretching out his long legs and sighing, “I’m a little concerned I’m already out.”

  “Me, too.” She stared at the same thing he was. The red lady bug ambling across their daughter’s gravestone. “But when it comes to us, I don’t think we’ll ever be out of chances.”

  “You think one day we might manage to get this right? You and me?”

  “I’m hoping so.”

  “Christ, Livvy, me too.” Letting go of her hand, he leaned forward, fingers raking through his hair. “I killed Beck. It was an accident.”

  Her head snapped back. “What? You—”

  “Shot him twice, right through the heart. Well, not really, but I might as well have.” He angled his head toward her. “Blanks.”

  “Son of a mother duck, Ash!” Clutching her chest, she fought the urge to club him as her pulse leveled off. “You scared the sugar out of me.”

  “Scared the shit out of me, too.” He eyed her. “Tell anybody I said that and I’ll deny it. Trust me, they’ll believe me.”

  “Don’t worry, your secret is safe,” she drawled, marking an X over her heart. “I’ll tell no one that you’re human.”

  “It made me realize something about myself. About you and me,” he continued, oblivious to her subsiding panic. “I’ve been so focused on winning the battle, I didn’t realize I was losing the war.”

  “Did you just compare our marriage to a war?”

  That question earned her a devastating smile. “It’s what I know best, darlin’. We don’t live in a peaches and cream world.”

  She tilted her head toward the stone. “Don’t I know it.”

  “You’ve been through so much shit, and I just keep shoveling more onto you. I should be strung up for that.” He brushed loose strands of hair away from her face. “Too late I realized winning the battle against Marshall meant losing you in the process. Twice.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m waving the white flag. I am definitely not bulletproof.”

  “The white flag is your resignation, isn’t it?”

  “Yep.”

  “Where are you gonna go from here?”

  “Remember that, prioritizing my life thing I mentioned? This is where that comes in.” She nudged his shoulder. “Only, there’s a potential flaw in my mission.”

  “Well, I’m your man, then. Lay it on me, and I’ll tell you where you need work. Missions are my thing.”

  He was her man, there was no doubt about that.

  “I’m gonna go home tonight, and I’m gonna wait for you to come home, too. If you do, then I’m gonna make you a dinner with meat, have a conversation abou
t our affinity for dramatic exits and how that needs to stop immediately or else, and then I’m gonna take you to bed where we won’t be doing much sleeping.”

  When he didn’t respond, she laid out the alternative.

  “The flaw is if you don’t come home. Plan B is to cry myself to sleep tonight, spray paint the walls with insulting but creative names for you and your anatomy tomorrow, then pack my bags and leave. Where I’ll go, I have no idea, but it won’t be in this time zone. Maybe back to Savannah.”

  He nodded slowly, not looking at her as he contemplated her plan. “Thought you had hope for us? That we’d always have more chances?”

  “I need you to be present, Ash. For all that hope and second chance stuff to work, you can’t hole up at Scorpio any longer, and I can’t hide at Coleson Creek. I did that for four years, and all it got me was miserable.” She smiled, but it didn’t feel happy. “Hence my resignation.”

  “So, you’re quitting to prove a point?”

  “No,” she said automatically, but stopped short. “Okay, maybe I am.”

  “You know that’s just gonna build resentment, right?” He stood, running a hand over his head, and she followed suit.

  “I do know that, which is why I never asked you to leave The Unit. I’m showing you how much I love you by doing this. How much I want to stay married to you, for real. I’m not mad you’re selling the vineyard. I don’t care. I’m choosing you.”

  Their love had flourished this summer without the noose of The Unit. It could soar for a lifetime without the weight of Coleson Creek.

  “I don’t want you to leave your job,” he replied, missing the point. “And you do care.”

  “You can sell the vineyard. You can burn it to the ground, if you want. It doesn’t hold my heart like you do. It doesn’t fill me up like you do. I spent years thinking it did, but I was wrong. I only stayed here, barely making it through those terrible days after she died, then the lonely years that followed, because of you. I was afraid to go anywhere else. If you decided you wanted me and I wasn’t here, you might not keep looking.” She searched his eyes, but they gave no hint to his thoughts. “I was waiting, too. I just didn’t know it.”