Settling Ashes: A New Adult/College Romance (The Ashes Series Book 2)

by Gardin, Diana

  I let my head fall into my hands and stayed in front of the computer for awhile, just rolling in the pain of it all. I loved this man. Loved him so fiercely that I had finally begun to recover. The fire that stole my family left behind so much damage I feared I’d never move forward again, not really. But I’d stopped lapsing back into the night of the tragedy, reliving the past in my head over and over again. I’d stopped having nightmares of my parents and my brother struggling for their last breaths, their faces streaked with sooty black marks. All of that had dwindled, and it was because of Clay.

  I guessed, despite how he’d hurt me, that I’d always be grateful to him for saving me that way. He saved me from myself and the trauma that wrote my future for me. He’d changed that future into something I could walk freely into again without fear.

  But I also hated him for elaborately re-breaking my heart all over again in the process. He’d put the pieces back together with every touch of his strong hands and kiss of his soft lips, and then he’d picked up a chisel and a hammer and whacked my chest so hard I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to breathe again.

  The front door opened and I poked my head out of Beau’s bedroom, surprise making my jaw go slack in the process.

  “Beau?” I asked.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” he called from the living room.

  I pushed back from the desk and padded down the hallway in my pajamas.

  “What are you doing home?” I asked, glancing at the clock on the microwave in the kitchen. It read eleven-fifteen.

  “You didn’t answer the house phone,” he said, walking over to me.

  He was wearing his work boots and a pair of worn jeans. His work shirt was unbuttoned at the top and his hat sat askew on his head. Underneath, several pieces of his straw-colored hair grazed his forehead. I used to reach out and brush those stray locks away, back when we were together. I’d always loved his thick, wavy hair.

  “I’m sorry,” I answered. “I’m okay, Beau. You didn’t have to come running home. Go back to work.”

  He studied me for a minute, and then closed the distance between us. “You’re not okay. What’s wrong?”

  I sighed. “I just found out something that shocked me, that’s all. I’ll be fine. Go on back to work.”

  Beau took off his hat and smoothed a hand through his hair, doing nothing to tame its wildness. “I’m not going anywhere Paige. I already told them I was out for the rest of the shift. So you can tell me what happened, or I’ll just sit here all day and bug you about it. Your choice.”

  “Beau,” I said, irritated. “You can’t keep adjusting your life for me. I don’t want to be a burden on you.”

  “You could never be a burden on me, and it pisses me off that you can even think that. You are my life now, Paige. Why can’t you see it?” His soft voice dropped an octave as he reached out to cup my face in one calloused hand.

  My intake of breath alerted him to the utter surprise his words evoked.

  “Now tell me what happened,” he coaxed gently. “So I can help.”

  “You can’t help,” I said, stepping around him to go and sit on the couch. I tucked my legs underneath me and stared out of the large sliding glass doors. The day looked especially cold, the stark tree branches waving at me against the blank white canvas of sky.

  “It’s going to snow,” I remarked.

  “Stop stalling, sweetheart. Tell me.”

  “Okay, fine,” I sighed. “This morning I was online, reading some articles.”

  “Aw, Paige! I told you about that. It always upsets you, and it doesn’t help or change anything.”

  “I know, I know. Just hear me out, okay? This one was from Ohio. You know, where Clay is from? So the headline said something about how the governor’s son has been accused of murder at the U of R.”

  Silence cloaked the room as Beau eyed me dully. Then he whistled low out of the side of his mouth, and scrubbed his handsome face with his hands.

  “The guy’s daddy is the frigging governor? How could he not have told you that before?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered, shaking my head. “That’s what I was wondering. I got the idea that he wasn’t that fond of his family, except for his sisters. His mom and dad had issues or something. But now I see that they weren’t the kind of issues you and I know anything about, were they?”

  “Damn,” Beau said, leaving the wall where he’d been leaning and coming over to sit next to me on the couch. He grabbed my hand and squeezed it.

  “I’m sorry, Paige,” he said softly. “The hits just keep on coming, don’t they?”

  I nodded. “At least it means that if Clay is innocent of this, he can afford the best lawyers out there. They’ll be able to get him off, won’t they?”

  “Should be able to,” Beau answered. “Rich boys don’t usually have to answer for much, Paige. I think he’ll be just fine.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?” I wrinkled my nose, confused.

  “Why do you hope he’ll be okay? Why do you still love him after everything he did to you?”

  “Because I can’t just turn off my heart, Beau,” I said. “Clay was there to pick up the pieces after the hardest thing I will ever experience. That doesn’t just go away. As much as I want it to.”

  His face fell when I mentioned my past, and I felt wretched. “I’m sorry, Clay. You know it wasn’t your fault you couldn’t be there for me. I wouldn’t let you in. I let you go.”

  “I should have tried harder to stay,” he muttered. “The truth is, I was scared as hell. I’d never known anyone who died, and you’d just lost your whole damn family in a matter of hours. I had no idea how to help you, and it terrified me. I should have been more of a man then, and stepped up. I didn’t, and I’ll never forgive myself.”

  Giving in to habit, I reached out and stroked his hair the way I used to, and he closed his eyes briefly at my touch.

  “Forgive yourself,” I said, my voice barely rising above a whisper. “You are an amazing, caring, wonderful man. Forgive yourself already.”

  He opened his eyes and stared into mine. “Maybe I will. As soon as I manage to prove to you that I’m the guy you need right now, not him.”

  I smiled at him sadly. “I wish it were that simple.”

  He nodded, just as sad, and I cleared my throat. “I have an assignment to work on but do you want to do something tonight? It’s Friday. Maybe we could get out of here and get our minds off of things.”

  “Yeah?” The corners of his mouth turned up in a genuine smile. “That’s a great idea, Paige. You haven’t wanted to go out since you got here.”

  “Well, I think I’m ready. What should we do?”

  “Let’s start off easy. Dinner and a movie?”

  I smiled teasingly at him and exaggerated my accent. “Why, Beau Reynolds, that sounds suspiciously like a date.”

  He grinned widely. “You said it, I didn’t.”

  I suddenly leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “It’s a date. I’m going to lock myself in the bedroom to get this work done. See you at dinnertime.”

  I walked back into the bedroom, feeling his eyes on me as I went.

  Clay

  My mind never left Paige. I was always wondering where she was, what she was doing. If she was okay, and who she was talking to. Because she wasn’t talking to me, and she wasn’t talking to Gillian, but she had to be talking to someone. When she left, she didn’t take her car. So someone had to have helped her, and it drove me crazy knowing that there was someone out there somewhere who knew something and I couldn’t get my hands on them to find out what they knew.

  But in addition to that, I was attending regular meetings with my lawyer about my case. The police were pretty much done investigating. There was DNA plus fingerprint evidence that pinned me in Hannah’s house the night before she died. I explained that I was there because Hannah and I had agreed to meet to talk about the best way to end our previous relation
ship. Then she had drugged me and called Paige from my phone in order to get her to catch us naked in bed together.

  I’d left out the part about Paige. I didn’t want her mixed up in this any more than she already was. She’d been through enough.

  I sat down on the couch in my lawyer’s hotel room. We couldn’t meet at my apartment anymore, because reporters were staking the place out. Because a month had gone by since Hannah’s murder, the reporter situation was a lot better. But Rutherford was a small college town, and there wasn’t a lot of other big news to take the spotlight away from me. So a few reporters still lurked outside my place, pestering me every time I left or arrived at my apartment, asking me how I felt now that I’d committed my first murder.

  It took everything I had not to grab one of their microphones and shove it down their throats. But, since that would cement my image as a killer, I restrained myself.

  Dechlan Shepherd leaned across the table, eyeing me seriously. “You’ve got to give me some idea here, Clay, of why Hannah would have drugged you that night. Just telling the police she was crazy isn’t going to cut it. We have no evidence of her having mental issues.”

  Declan was a tall, thin man who was always dressed in a suit, and always looked like he’d recently stepped off the cover of Lawyer’s Are Us magazine. It was just so obvious that was what he did, anyone could have guessed his profession from one conversation with him. Even though he took on very high-profile cases for politicians and their families, he never looked stressed. His tan face was very relaxed, his dark hair peppered with silver streaks always glossy.

  “Yeah, but her parents sent her to rehab last year for alcohol use,” I pointed out. “That should prove the girl had issues.”

  “That proves that she had issues controlling her urge to drink,” Dechlan argued. “It doesn’t prove she was psychotic enough to drug you for no apparent reason.”

  I sighed. Dechlan was my father’s personal attorney, and he received a very large retainer to do a very through job of representing our family. He knew me well, and he knew that there was something I wasn’t telling him.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Dechlan” I snapped. “Just keep digging until you find something. How is your investigator coming along? Has she found anything that might incriminate someone else for Hannah’s murder? Because, I’m telling you, it wasn’t me. I might have fucked up a few times growing up, but I’d never kill someone. As much as I hated Hannah Davis, I didn’t end her life. But someone did, and there’s got to be evidence out there to support that.”

  “There is evidence,” Dechlan said. His tone was so nonchalant, he could have been telling me that it was raining outside.

  “What?” I sat up straighter. This was the first time I’d heard him say there was other evidence in this case.

  “It’s been recently discovered that there was a woman in the house with you two that night. Not Hannah. Another woman.”

  I sucked in a breath, my blood freezing in my veins. They had evidence that Paige was there that night? Shit, shit, shit.

  Dechlan watched my reaction carefully. “And Hannah didn’t have a roommate, so do you have any idea whose hair they might have found in the house, Clay?”

  Oh, God. I was going to be sick. “No.”

  “Okay. Well the police are looking into it, but there’s no DNA on record that matches the hair. And they aren’t giving it much thought, because they already think they’ve got their man.”

  I sighed in relief.

  “Clay,” Dechlan said, angry now. His salt-and-pepper hair nearly quivered as he glared at me. “You’re protecting someone, dammit. I can’t do my job if you don’t tell me everything!”

  I remained mute, staring him down across the table.

  Dechlan slammed his fist down on the wood and then scrubbed his face with both hands.

  “You can do your job just fine,” I answered. “Find out who killed Hannah. It wasn’t me. That’s all I can tell you.”

  I got up, leaving the meeting as cold fear gathered in my chest.

  They didn’t suspect that Paige had been there that night; she wasn’t even on their radar. But that could change in a second if they talked to the right person, or somehow figured out who that hair belonged to.

  I would do everything I could to keep them from dragging the girl I loved into this mess. I was going to have to figure out who killed Hannah myself.

  Three

  Paige

  I gazed up at the movie posters, wondering whether I’d skipped out on a month of my life or a year of it. It seemed like the latter. I didn’t recognize any of these movie titles.

  “Um, what’s ‘The Catacomb King’ about?” I asked Beau tentatively.

  The large, glossy poster depicting the image from the movie was extremely intimidating; all fiery explosions and large hulking action heroes.

  “You haven’t seen the million commercials advertising it on TV?” Beau asked incredulously.

  “No.”

  I let my eyes wander, realizing I hadn’t noticed commercials for any of the displayed movies on TV. I was too embarrassed to say as much to Beau.

  He read it on my face. “Shit, Paige. I should have forced you to leave the apartment before now. We’re going to see the new Ben Affleck. His flicks are always good.”

  I nodded, partly because I was confident in his choice, and partly because I didn’t want to admit I couldn’t care less what we watched. “Sounds good to me.”

  Beau purchased our tickets. When I protested that I should pay for my own, he gave me a long, stern look. I relented and let him pay for my ticket.

  “Popcorn, extra butter, and two large cherry Cokes,” he told the bored-looking girl behind the snack counter.

  “You remember what I like at the movies,” I said, nudging him in the arm.

  “I always hoped I’d be able to take you again one day. There isn’t much about you I forgot, Paige.”

  I smiled at him. “That’s…sweet and intimidating. I doubt the new me lives up to the old one, Beau.”

  He kissed my cheek. “That’s impossible. Any you is out-of-this-world irresistible.”

  I had stopped listening about ten seconds before he finished his sentence, staring disbelievingly at the thin, blonde, impeccably dressed girl in the next line.

  “Oh, no,” I whispered. “Please, God, tell me this isn’t happening.”

  Beau was immediately on alert, his eyes darting around as he tried to follow my gaze. “Paige? What’s wrong?”

  The blond was staring right back at me, and it was too late to bolt, or hide, or do any of the other things flashing through my mind.

  “Paige?” she asked. Her eyes had widened when she noticed me, and she quickly handed the popcorn in her hands to the girl standing beside her.

  “Paige,” she said louder. “Everyone’s been worried sick about you! Where the hell have you been?”

  “I, uh—“ I stuttered.

  “Does Gillian know you’re here?” she said shrilly. “Does Clay?”

  Beau stepped up beside me.

  “Hello,” he said, extending a hand. “I’m Paige’s friend, Beau. You are?”

  She stared at Beau’s hand. “I’m Kelly. A friend of Gillian and Paige’s from U of R.”

  Kelly turned back to me with narrowed eyes. “So what’s the deal, Paige?”

  “Listen, Kelly,” I began, biting my lip. I grabbed her hands and squeezed. “I know this looks…weird. But I need you to do me a favor. You can’t tell anyone you saw me here. I’m going back to Rutherford soon, I just…I needed a break from it all for a while. You know?”

  She nodded slowly, looking between Beau and me. “You needed a break. From Clay? Because of everything that’s going on with him?”

  “Sure,” I answered, nodding vigorously. “Because of everything.”

  “Isn’t Gillian your best friend, though? Why not at least let her know that you’re okay?”

  “I did,” I answered firmly. “Gilli
an knows me. She knows I’m okay.”

  This time, Kelly shook her head. “I don’t think so, Paige. She’s a wreck. And so is Clay. They’ve been doing everything they can to find you. They’ve even gone to the campus offices to find out if you dropped your classes.”

  I sighed, bringing a hand up to my head to rub my temple. “I just needed a break,” I whispered.

  “Look, Kelly,” Beau said. “She’s having a tough time, okay? She doesn’t owe anybody any explanations. Especially not the asshole that hurt her.”

  Kelly’s eyes widened. We weren’t that close. I’m sure she didn’t know anything about what happened between Clay and I other than what had circulated through the rumor mill in Rutherford.

  “Please, Kelly?” I pleaded softly. “Give me a couple more weeks of privacy. Then I’ll come back home. I promise. Okay?”

  The anxiety ate a hole through my clenched stomach as she contemplated. She was weighting her loyalty to Gillian with the sadness and desperation she read on my face.

  “Alright,” she said, finally. “I don’t like it though, Paige. You need to come home. If they find out I was keeping this from them…”

  She trailed off, and I knew perfectly well what Gillian would do if she found out such a thing.

  Beau tensed beside me, and I placed a hand on his arm to calm him.

  “I will come home,” I promised Kelly. “Very soon.”

  “Okay,” she said reluctantly. “Then I won’t say anything. For now.”

  “Thank you,” I rushed forward to hug her. “Thank you so much. Just forget you ever saw me, okay? I owe you.”

  “No, you don’t,” she said stiffly, placing her hands on my shoulders to push me back to arm’s length. “You’re going to owe Gillian when you get back.”

  A pang of guilt pricked my conscience as she turned away and headed into the theater with her friend.

  “She’s right,” I wailed, turning to Beau. “I have to go back. This has got to be killing Gillian. And Clay.”

  He thumped the popcorn down on the end of the counter and turned to me, pressing both hands to my cheeks. Then he smoothed my hair back and tucked both sides behind my ears.