The Asset

by Anna del Mar

  “I told you I’d watch your back and I meant it.”

  “But Ash—”

  “If all the intelligence suggests that an attack is coming, then it’s coming.” he said. “I’d rather fight on my own terms and turf, than when it suits the other guy best.”

  “You can’t do this.”

  “What?”

  “Fight my battles, come to my defense.”

  He rolled his eyes. “So now you’ve graduated from being my caretaker to acting as my personal shrink, and you’re drawing all kinds of conclusions, including the one that infers that I’m somehow craving fights.”

  “If it fits...”

  “Then you don’t know squat about me,” he said. “You’re also blind as a bat.”

  “You have to stop coming to my aid,” I said. “It’s dangerous. I don’t want your apples.”

  “Apples?”

  “Great-grandfather’s skittish mare?”

  “Ah, that old story.” He had the grace to look chastened. “I thought Jordan would get it.”

  “He got it all right,” I said. “But you don’t. I want you to stop trying to help me. It’ll kill you.”

  “And that matters to you? Whether I live or die?”

  “Of course,” I said. “A lot.”

  “Lia Stuart.” He smiled. “That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  He kissed me again, a hard kiss that had glorious music playing in my ears. I swear. I couldn’t reason when he kissed me. I couldn’t even stand on my own two feet without swaying like a drunk.

  He wrenched his lips from mine. “Christ, kissing you is like an ambush to my body.”

  “Lobotomy,” I muttered, almost incoherent with want. “Electroshock.”

  He smiled. “We’d better stop. I can’t be held responsible for my actions otherwise. Come along.”

  “Where are we going?”

  He squeezed my hand. “Try to roll with the punches. Okay?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Ash, Neil and I walked out of alleyway and around to the parking lot where the truck was parked. The sheriff, Mario and Barb and Gary Woods were having a smoke outside the bar. I tried to shake off Ash’s hold but he clung to my hand as we approached the little group.

  “Phew.” Barb waved her hand in front of her nose. “What’s that smell? Something’s stinking up this joint tonight.”

  Ash ignored Barb’s remarks and walked right up to the sheriff. “You might want to have a look at the dumpster behind the building,” he said. “I took care of some trash that might be of interest to you.”

  “Dang it, boy.” The sheriff dropped his cigarette on the ground and squashed it with his boot. “You didn’t do anything silly, did you, son?”

  “Only what had to be done to protect my girl.”

  His girl?

  The eyes of everyone in the group turned to me. Barb gawked. I’d tried to prevent this very thing from happening, but Ash had disregarded all my warnings. How was I supposed to keep him safe when he did stuff like this?

  “Gary,” Ash said, “I’ve known you for a long time. You’re a decent man. I haven’t decided yet what to do about the lease, but I can’t do business with you if your foreman’s out of control.”

  “Excuse me?” Gary said.

  “You heard me. Charlie Nowak has been harassing Lia. Today, he tried to trap her in the dumpster. I judge a man by the quality of his friends, and Charlie is rotten piece of shit.” Ash turned to Mario. “I’m going to take Lia home now.”

  “By all means,” Mario said. “You okay, hon?”

  I nodded, because I couldn’t speak. The night had rattled me in all kinds of violent ways, but my brain was stuck on two words. His girl. I’d never been anybody’s girlfriend. People had died just for being my friends.

  We drove out of town with our windows cracked open to dispel the smell clinging to us. Neil found the stink fascinating. From his perch on the backseat, he kept trying to bury his nose in my hair.

  The darkness hurled a dusting of fine snow at us. The truck’s headlights illuminated thin flakes swirling in the wind like silver. Ash concentrated on the driving. My heart and my brain waged a fierce battle. It hurt like hell, but the brain won at the expense of the heart.

  “We need to clarify some things,” I said.

  He glanced at me. “I was afraid of that.”

  “Tonight you called me your girl in front of all those people.”

  “Yes.”

  “It was a dangerous thing to do,” I said. “And it’s not true.”

  His knuckles whitened about the wheel. “Here we go again.”

  “I mean it,” I said. “I appreciate your help. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t showed up. But you don’t have to tell everyone and their mothers that I’m your girlfriend in order to protect me. Now we have to do something drastic to dispel that very dangerous myth.”

  “Lia,” he said in that stubborn tone of his. “You are my girlfriend.”

  “I’m not.”

  “But you are,” he insisted. “You told Gunny Watkins. It was your idea in the first place.”

  “I’m your caretaker. Remember? I’m not your real girlfriend. I’m your pretend girlfriend.”

  “Maybe at the beginning,” he said. “But you don’t like pretending and neither do I. I might be a tad literal sometimes, but here’s how it goes. I promised you I’ve got your back and I do. You said you were my girlfriend and, as it turned out, you are.”

  “Ash, please,” I said. “You can’t even flirt with the notion. I can’t love anybody.”

  “I know.” Resignation tainted his voice. “Because people suffer when they love you, people die. I admit it, it’s pretty damn grim.”

  “Don’t you dare make light of the danger.”

  “I’m not minimizing the danger. I believe you. But right this minute, you’ve got another problem.”

  “What is it?”

  His eyes burrowed into my head. “You like me.”

  “I don’t.”

  “I don’t mean to be cocky, but you have feelings for me. You take care of me, but you also care for me.”

  “How would you know that?”

  “I’ve got ears to hear and eyes to see,” he said. “I’m not a total fool. The things you do for me? You care for me. I think you may even love me. I’m not letting go of that. For the life of me, I can’t figure out how I got so lucky, but hell, I can’t complain.”

  I willed my mouth to close. “It’s not true. It’s not possible. It’s not safe.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “You. Love. Me.”

  “Don’t say it, Ash, please. He’ll come. You’ll die.”

  “Who, Lia? Tell me: who will come?”

  The memory hit me, Red’s chilling grin as he squeezed the trigger and killed a stranger right before my eyes. “Did you see the way the motherfucker looked at you?” Red had asked me as the man bled out in the alleyway. “No respect.”

  “Ash, you have to leave now.” I panicked. “Or maybe I’ll leave. Yes, that may be the safest course of action. He’ll never have any reason to come here if I take off.”

  He stared at me as if I’d grown horns. “I’m talking about love here and you’re talking about bolting?”

  “Stop it, Ash.”

  “Then help me out, please. I’m dating a girl who keeps her go bag packed.”

  “You’re not dating me and I’m not your girlfriend,” I snapped. “Don’t you understand?”

  He shrugged. “You love me and there’s nothing you can say or do that’ll change that. So I think we should just accept that and move on.”

  I threw my hands up in the air. I’d squared off with Mount Everest and it wa
sn’t about to move. “You’re crazy, you know that? You drive the right kind of truck, because your skull is thick as a ram’s. You’re reckless.”

  “And you look pretty when you’re mad, even if at this moment you’re also very stinky.”

  He turned the truck onto a snow-dusted gravel road. I realized I hadn’t been paying attention to our route or to the fact that the snow had ceased falling and the night had cleared.

  “Where are we?” I said. “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.” He parked before a rusted gate topped by a sign that said Trespassers Will Be Shot.

  “What are you doing?” I said when he opened the door. “I don’t want to be shot.”

  He hopped down from the truck, limped over to the gate and, after fiddling with the lock, opened it and motioned for me to drive the truck through.

  “What now?” I said to Neil as I slid over to the driver’s seat. “Your owner is the most maddening human on the planet.”

  Neil grumbled in what I interpreted as complete agreement.

  Ash closed the gate behind us and climbed on the seat next to me. I drove the truck for a while, edging potholes as big as moon craters and mounting rock beds that tested the Ram’s clearing. We passed an abandoned rock quarry and the remains of an old mine.

  “What’s all this?” I said. “The road to the end of the world?”

  “Almost there,” he said.

  At last, the headlights illuminated the end of the abysmal road, where an old cabin stood like a relic of a time gone by. The rocky slopes of a spectacular mountain rose behind the cabin, framed by the brilliance of a million stars.

  “Wow.” I turned off the ignition and took in the extraordinary sight. “What’s this place?”

  “Welcome to Heaven.” Ash too stared at the sky. “This was our family’s original homestead. We’ve been using it as a hunting cabin for generations.”

  “Is this part of your lands?”

  “The best part, if you ask me,” he said. “Come on.”

  We stopped by the rustic cabin but only briefly. It was one room, with an old heating stove and a pair of bunk beds at one end. I was surprised because even though it was obviously very old, it was clean and provisioned. The cabin had no electricity or running water, which probably explained why Ash had chosen not to live there when he returned to Copperhill. He lit a miner’s lamp and, after grabbing a bag from an old cabinet, motioned for me to follow him.

  The night was clear but cold. The stars lit our path, along with the lamp. Neil led the way down a deer track that ran along a tumbling creek. The song of water on stone enlivened the narrowing canyon and appeased my frazzled nerves. The track dead-ended at the base of the mountain. Neil, Ash and the light disappeared into what looked like a crack in the mountain.

  I peered into the fissure suspiciously. A cave? Not another dark, confined place. I couldn’t handle any more of that tonight.

  Ash reappeared briefly, holding up the lamp and grinning like a toddler with a secret. “Come on.”

  “But—”

  “I promise, you’re going to like it,” he said, before disappearing again.

  I stepped into the crack with trepidation. My steps crunched on a bed of gravel and sand. I took a deep breath and scurried across a short, natural tunnel to emerge at the other side, where I came to a dead stop and gawked.

  I stood in a hanging valley perched between high peaks that rose dark and silent all around me. The valley opened up to what would have been an expansive view of the range during the day. In the darkness, it looked like a roiling sea, frozen beneath the stars. A tumbling creek crossed the vale and dropped over the edge. Neil stood like Simba on top of a boulder at the crook of the valley, framed by a cloud of steam.

  I edged my way around the boulders and entered yet another world, where three hot springs bubbled and steamed to the side of the creek where they formed deep pools. The air filled my lungs with the bland scent of rock and minerals. The miner’s lamp burned at the edge of the middle pool, casting a magical glow on the frothy water.

  Ash stood waist deep in the center of the spring. Steam wafted from his upper body. He looked like some divine creature fashioned from granite, a spawn of rock and water, nature’s exquisite work of art. The scars made elegant patterns on his body, like mineral veins on marble. The pool hissed and gurgled around him, warbling the same jubilant notes that played in my heart. Water dripped from his head and torso, worshipped his body and celebrated his existence, claiming him as surely as I longed to claim him. The current foamed and fizzled against his skin, an intimate caress that had me dripping too.

  “That pool over there is too hot,” he said. “That one over there is not hot enough for a night like this one. But this one, this one’s perfect.”

  It was perfect, but only because he was in it.

  “What are you waiting for?” Ash said. “Come in.”

  Two sets of old arguments seesawed in my mind. Not in the plan. Very tempting. Not smart. But I stank. It was a great reason to justify my impulse. I’d have to take off my clothes. The mere thought had my stomach churning and my face burning.

  “I won’t look.” Ash turned his back to me. “I promise.”

  The disconnect between my brain and body widened. The sight of his broad shoulders and back didn’t help. Then my brain kicked in. Don’t do it. Bad idea. Run, run now. I turned around to go back to the cabin, but instead, I found myself shedding my clothes with astonishing swiftness. In my head, a fresh new voice cheered me on, urging me to seize the moment, to live beyond survival, to live for the sake of living.

  The spring welcomed my body with a delicious embrace. I immersed myself in the hot pool until the water closed above my head. I held my breath and stayed underwater for as long as I could. The tiny scrapes I’d inflicted on my scalp stung at first. Then the sting went away, replaced by an increasing sense of full-body healing. My muscles relaxed. The knot in my stomach loosened up. The cold fused into my bones melted along with the fear. I looked up. Beyond the layers of flowing water, the galaxy smiled down on me.

  When I finally came up for breath, the air that poured in cleared my lungs and refreshed my senses. The stink of the dumpster was gone for good. Where I stood, the water covered me comfortably all the way to my armpits. Across the spring, Ash sat on a rocky ledge, staring at me with a look that curled my toes.

  “Nice?” he said.

  “More like magical.”

  His smile rivaled the sky. “Want to come over?”

  “I... I don’t know.” I gulped loudly. “Yes and no?”

  “Okay,” he said. “I get that.”

  It was only a flicker in his stare, but I was like a satellite tuned exclusively to his channel. Despite his best efforts to conceal it, a look of resignation dulled his eyes. So many questions. Should I? Could I? I was tired of fighting myself, eroded from resisting my impulses. I knew what he wanted—no—what he needed. I needed it too. Could I do it for him? Could I do it for myself?

  I traced the spring’s swirling whirlpools with my hands. “I’m really scared.”

  “Because you think someone will try to hurt me if he thinks we’re together?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve been to war,” he said. “I’ve volunteered to go on missions with piss-poor odds for success. This is my life too. Don’t I get to pick the risks I take? Don’t I get a choice?”

  “You’ve been away for a long time,” I said. “You were hurt. You were in the hospital for a while. Have you considered that maybe this isn’t a choice on your part?”

  “Ah.” His lips pressed into a tight, white line. “Let me get this straight: my personal shrink thinks I’m drawn to her out of necessity or reaction rather than choice.”

  “Admit it,” I said. “Given our situation, it could be.
”

  “Christ, Lia.” He shook his head. “You’re so smart and yet you can be so clueless. It’s like you’re tone-deaf or something. You never know how people really feel about you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Jordan,” he said. “The guys at the bar. Me. We’re all into you, and you don’t even notice.”

  “That’s not true.” Why would anyone in their right mind want me? “But here’s something that’s true: you’re healing quickly. Anytime now, Gunny Watkins will grant you a full medical release. You’ll be able to meet new people, go places—”

  “And where would you have me go?”

  “Wherever you like,” I said. “You’ll be healthy and free.”

  “What about you?”

  “I can never be free.”

  “Hear me out,” he said. “And try not to be mad at me.”

  “Mad at you?”

  “Gunny Watkins gave me the medical release when she called that day in the truck a while back.”

  My mouth fell open. “What?”

  “She said the doctors were very pleased with my progress. The evaluations all agreed that I’d met the major milestones, physically and psychologically. She said I should be able to manage my own recovery.”

  I’d been out of a job for a while and didn’t even know it. He’d gotten his coveted medical release. Days ago. The sand shifted beneath my feet. I wasn’t sure where I stood.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He shrugged. “Why do you think?”

  “I don’t know.” I reeled. “You never wanted a caretaker—I mean, caregiver. You should’ve been delirious with joy on hearing the news.”

  “You’re right. I never wanted a caretaker, that is, until I met you.” The look in his eyes softened. “I didn’t tell you about it because I didn’t want you to bolt the moment you learned I’d been released from your care.”

  I tried to wrap my mind around that. “I... I don’t understand.”