The Asset

by Anna del Mar

  Steady. I took a deep breath. Cope.

  With the rose gone, I sat down on my chair and struggled to regain my balance. It became easier when Ash came back to the table and filled my senses with his presence. He anchored me to the here and now. Plus, he was nice to look at.

  Maybe it was because I hadn’t eaten out in a long time, but the pizza was out of this world. Ash downed several slices at an impressive pace. I nibbled my way through half my slice and kept at it. Wearing his service vest, Neil lay quietly under the white-and-red checkered tablecloth as Ash and I enjoyed our lunch.

  “So what’s with the costume?” he said, adding a fresh slice to my plate.

  “Costume?” I set aside the slice. My appetite vanished, knowing what was coming.

  “The Cold War theme—coat, hat, dark glasses indoors, that sort of thing. You don’t wear those in town.”

  “Oh.” I fished the mushroom pieces from the slice. “I’m just cold.”

  “Right,” he said. “Are you going to eat those?”

  “Mushrooms, ugh.” I crossed my eyes and stuck out my tongue.

  “What a face.” He laughed. “May I?”

  “Sure.”

  He reached over and stabbed the mushrooms with his fork. “I bet the movie-star look explains your aversion to security cameras too.”

  Not again. “Ash, I—”

  “I remember: no questions.” He wolfed down the mushrooms. “I’m not brain-dead. But you do have to admit that nobody in their right mind would go through all of the trouble you’ve gone through unless they were really afraid. You may not always be forthcoming about the truth, but you don’t lie either. In the last few weeks, I’ve learned quite a few things about you.”

  I didn’t want to go down this path, but curiosity got the best of me. “Like what?”

  “Well, let’s see.” He wiped his mouth with the napkin and set it aside. “You love those animals of yours more than you love yourself. You don’t mind that they’re sick, lame or old. No one wants them, but you do. You’re hardworking, diligent, punctual and organized. You can’t cook. In fact, you’re a pyromaniac’s dream date, but you’re honest to a fault and you’re fair. Do I have it right?”

  “I can too cook.” I faked about half of my outrage. “Okay, only in the microwave, but that’s something.”

  “You had no cable or internet service until I arrived,” he said. “You don’t appear on any of the social media sites. You carry the oldest prepaid cell in the history of civilization. You don’t use credit cards, or banks, only cash. Your carbon footprint is almost nonexistent.”

  He’d been paying attention. A fringe of unease prickled my sensitive hackles. I wrung the napkin in my hand. “I’m frugal,” I said. “So what?”

  “You’re educated,” he said. “I can tell by the way you speak, the paperbacks on your shelves and the way you look at the world. If you had free access to the job market, you’d be running something for sure.”

  “Something like what?”

  “A company, a program, a classroom, a country,” he said. “The bar is work, but it isn’t your calling.”

  Now my hackles were definitively up and sharp as quills.

  “My job at the bar pays the bills,” I said. “How about we talk about you instead of me?”

  “Sure.” He flashed me the lopsided smirk that said he was on to me. “When we’re finished talking about you. The thing is, I don’t think you like working at Mario’s.”

  “I like Mario’s,” I said. “Your grandma got me that job.”

  “I bet he pays you under the table.”

  I glared.

  “I know, none of my business.” He eyed the slice on my plate. “Are you going to eat that?”

  I pushed the plate over to him.

  “Being at the bar drains you.” He sprinkled a mind-boggling amount of parmesan cheese on the slice. “I can see it when you come home.”

  “I get tired, that’s all.”

  “I think there’s more to it than that.” He tore into the pizza.

  My stomach squeezed. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  He wolfed down a mouthful before he spoke. “You don’t like men.”

  Now my stomach hurt. “I like men fine.”

  “Jordan said you wanted to rent out the room to a female and you don’t have a boyfriend.”

  “So what?”

  “A girl like you, working at a bar, would probably attract lots of men.”

  “Maybe I have a boyfriend and you just don’t know about it.”

  “Well?” He set down the crust on his plate and wiped his mouth. “Do you?”

  Not in this lifetime. “Can you stop asking all these questions?”

  He smirked again. “See what I mean?”

  “I told you I like men fine, maybe not all of them, maybe not all the time, but—”

  “That’s it.” His eyes lit up. “There’s an asshole giving you trouble at work.”

  Was he a mind reader? A drop of sweat ran down my back. I stretched my turtleneck to allow some circulation in there. I had to stop this conversation. It had already gone too far out-of-bounds.

  “Those bruises,” he said. “The ones I spotted on your ass the other day when you were wearing those khaki shorts and bent over to clean the fireplace? Are they the work of the creep at the bar?”

  I opened my mouth and closed it. “Ashton Hunter, have you been staring at my butt?”

  “It’s nice to look at,” he said, “when it’s not covered in bruises.”

  I reached across the table and smacked him on the arm. “You pervert.”

  “No, ma’am, I’m just a guy grateful to have two working eyes. If you bend over and show me your assets, you can’t expect me to look away.”

  My mind spun, engaged in a dangerous game of Russian roulette. I didn’t know if the bullet that would destroy me was the one marked “secretly delighted,” or the one marked “don’t even think about it.”

  “We’re done talking about me,” I said. “Turnabout is fair play. What should we address first? Your absent girlfriend?”

  “Ouch,” he said. “You’re going for blood today. Not everybody is cut out to hang out at a hospital or to look after sick people, you know.”

  “So you’re not mad at her?”

  “She knew what she wanted and it wasn’t me. Besides, it wasn’t going to last anyway. We were for fun, not for life.”

  “You knew that?” I drew on my soda. “You understood the difference?”

  He nodded. “The mission was the most important thing in my life. In between missions, it was just R & R.”

  “Wow,” I said. “That shrink you saw today is a magician.”

  He grinned. “Maybe you ought to talk to her.”

  “She’d have to be a miracle worker to set me straight,” I said, “and even then, I’d still be weird and eccentric.”

  “Weird and eccentric is cool,” Ash said. “I could dig weird and eccentric.”

  The butterflies in my stomach were off like racing greyhounds and I had little hope to cram them back into the starting gate. And then I remembered a dead man hanging from a gate, a puddle of blood growing at his feet. Just because he’d talked to me.

  “What’s the matter?” Ash said. “Did I say something wrong? You’ve got the look.”

  “What look?”

  “The one that says you’re about to bolt.”

  “No, no.” I pushed the horrible image out of my mind. “I’m fine, fine and amazed at your grand understanding of all things deep.”

  “If you really have to know,” he said. “I’d rather forget my ex.”

  I waved my hand in the air. “Erased, moving on.”

  He laughed and I smiled li
ke a fool.

  “My turn again,” I said. “Inasmuch as I have a lot of respect for the Marines, I’m pretty sure you’re more than your average major.”

  “Is that so?”

  “You’re not just a foulmouthed, empty-headed hunk either.”

  His split eyebrow rose. “You think I’m a hunk?”

  “You strive to hide it behind that cranky charade, but I’m not fooled. You’re also well educated. Your grandmother told me you went to grad school and you’ve been sending me to buy The Wall Street Journal for you every day.”

  “So?” he said. “A guy can’t be interested in the economy?”

  “Gunny Watkins said that you were a highly trained asset and a big-ticket investment.” I plucked the straw out of my drink and, splashing soda all over the table, pointed it in his direction. “You’re a Krav Maga expert. Your powers of observation are impressive. I think you’re some sort of special operations kind of guy. Am I right?”

  “How about we make a deal?” He stared at me for a little too long. “I tell you a bit about myself and you tell me about your troubles.”

  I twisted on the straw until it broke. “I just...can’t.”

  A whimper echoed from under the table. Neil’s face popped up by my side. Ash’s eyes shifted from the dog to the crumpled straw in my hands to my face.

  “Something—or someone,” he said in an exacting tone, “has frightened the hell out of you. There’s the shotgun and the fact that you jump ten feet high every time someone comes to the door. You dress like that when you go out of town and you train like a soldier. You’re not on the wanted or missing lists—”

  I gasped. “You looked?”

  “If you haven’t noticed,” he said, “I’m a thorough kind of a guy.”

  “More like scary.”

  “The fact that you’re not on the lists tells me that whoever you fear doesn’t want anyone else to know they’re looking for you.”

  Out. I needed out. I looked over my shoulder and fought an urge to run for the door. Neil laid his paw on my lap and licked my hand.

  “You’ve got no knickknacks.” He kept going like a bulldozer without brakes. “You’ve got no references to your past anywhere in the cottage, no pictures, no mementos, nothing. You never talk about the past. You own very little, your work clothes and the bare essentials. A quick look at your keychain redefines the meaning of self-defense. And then, of course, there’s the go bag. Very thorough. Well conceived.”

  My lungs deflated like punctured balloons. “Go bag?”

  “It couldn’t be anything other than an escape bag,” Ash said. “A backup prepaid cell, a hundred bucks, two wigs, a few sets of high-quality fake IDs. Those are impressive, by the way. Want to tell me where and how you got them?”

  God almighty.

  Neil thrust his big head between my hands and tried to lick my face.

  “Stop it, boy, she should be able to handle truth every once in a while.” Ash pulled on the leash before aiming his stare back on me. “I must congratulate you on the disguise concept. It’d be hard for anyone to think of you as a boy, never mind a hipster type. It could work.”

  My fingers clawed under the table. My nails sank into my thighs. I knew he’d gone through the kitchen cabinets. I suspected he’d looked elsewhere, as well. But my go bag? My jaw ached from clenching it. Who the hell did he think he was?

  “You have no idea what you’re meddling in.”

  “My point exactly,” he said. “Care to enlighten me?”

  I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to accuse him of interfering with my plans and endangering my life and—oh, by the way—his, since he was living with me. Mine wasn’t a great life, it might even be a poor excuse for a life, but it was the best life I’d known, and it was my life, something I’d never take for granted.

  “See?” He shook his head. “You leave me to figure out things all on my own. How else will I be able to minimize risk factors and establish factual operational parameters?”

  “Listen to yourself.” I squeezed my temples and kept my voice down. “Are you even speaking English? What are you talking about?”

  “I can’t ask questions and you won’t tell me who you fear or why,” he fired back. “What other option did you leave me?”

  “You want options?” I said. “How about leaving my stuff alone and minding your own business?”

  “I tried.” He had the gall to look chastened. “Would you believe me if I said I tried?”

  “No.” I pushed my chair back and, bracing my hands and leaning forward, faced Ash across the table. “I’ve tried to warn you. But you’re choosing not to listen. Let me be clear. People die when they associate with me, people suffer. You got that?”

  I pushed away from the table and, sidestepping Neil, stormed out of the restaurant. The German shepherd barked and tried to follow me.

  “I know, boy.” Ash’s voice trailed after me. “She’s upset.”

  I shoved the door out of my way and made it onto the sidewalk. Steady. Breathe. Cope. My stomach ached, my teeth hurt from grinding and fury colored the world with a red haze. But my bluster was for naught. Ash had the keys to the truck and I didn’t have any other way home. Even though he eventually followed me, I had to wait for him to pay the bill.

  I paced around the truck in the parking lot. My life must seem absurd to him. Had the situation been reversed, I would have been curious too. But the monster that stalked me had an IQ in the genius range, the looks, charm and sensibilities of a global tycoon, and the soul of a cold-blooded killer. The combination made him lethal to me, dangerous to his enemies and immune to justice, especially considering his multibillion-dollar cash flow. Nobody, not even his fiercest and most able opponents, had ever managed to best him, which is why my only alternative was to run like hell whenever I sensed he was getting near. He’d killed men for just looking at me. I might be furious with Ash at the moment, but I didn’t want anything bad to happen to him.

  When he finally came out of the restaurant with Neil on the leash, he opened the door of the truck for me, before limping around and taking his place in the driver’s seat. I flashed him a glare before I buckled my seat belt, crossed my arms and fixed my gaze out the window. Neil jumped in the backseat and settled, caramel eyes shifting between us.

  “I’m sorry,” Ash said, driving out of the parking lot. “I didn’t mean to make you mad.”

  “Just let it be.”

  “How about we establish some new communication parameters?”

  I frowned. “Do you always speak like that or is it just me?”

  “We can agree that certain parts of our lives are classified,” he explained, braking at a red light. “You set your terms. I set mine. But beyond that, we can talk about the rest.”

  “Why would we do that?”

  “Because we’re two human beings living together?” he said. “Because we’re friends? Because we’re both trying to get better?”

  “I’m not sick,” I said. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

  He flashed me a glance. “Are you sure about that?”

  I met his eyes. “What are you saying?”

  “That anybody who lives through a traumatic experience can suffer from PTSD.”

  The anxiety. The fear. The nightmares. The fact that my world wobbled on the hinge of my nerves like a fragile crystal globe liable to shatter at any time. Was he right?

  “You know, Lia,” he offered as the light turned green and he pressed his foot to the accelerator. “We can’t operate out of fear. We must operate out of our strengths. We all have to make an effort to get better.”

  Easier said than done. “You think?”

  “Hell, that’s what the shrink told me today, which reminds me, do you mind if I stop by the grocery store?”

 
“You want to go to the grocery store?” I eyed him in disbelief. “The big giant one, here in town?”

  “I don’t want to go,” he said. “But I need to do it. Besides, I live with a woman who feeds exclusively on air and sugary cereals. Remember?”

  Once again, I didn’t want to sabotage his efforts to get better, or mine, maybe, if I accepted everything he said. I took a deep breath. “Okay.”

  He pulled into the parking lot, parked the truck and turned off the ignition, but he didn’t get out. He stared at the store, at the neon sign flashing above the door and at all those people, streaming in and out. Neil rested his chin on Ash’s shoulder. My stomach tightened into a knot. In my own way, I knew how Ash felt.

  “Sorry if I pressed you too hard.” Ash’s fingers wrapped around the wheel. “Sometimes, when I’m fixed on something, I can be such a jerk. Now I feel like I owe you some answers.”

  “You don’t owe me anything.”

  “You were right,” he said. “In addition to being a marine, I am—was—” His Adam’s apple bounced on his throat. “Hell, I don’t know what I am anymore—I guess I’m in limbo. But before I got wounded, I was a navy SEAL.”

  The words came out of his mouth softly, reverently. I got a glimpse of his anguish. It erased any traces of residual anger in me and reset me into my caregiver role. He didn’t know if he could be the person he was before again. He didn’t know if he could exist as someone else either. If anyone in the universe understood his predicament, it was me.

  “Did your grandmother know?” I asked.

  “Yes, but we decided it would be better if we didn’t tell anyone else.”

  “Do you think you’ll go back?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know if they’ll want me now, lame and all...”

  I hesitated. “You don’t have to stand the pain, you know.”