Ashley Ridge (Haunted Hearts Series Book 3)

by Denise Moncrief

  When Ashley had gone a few feet, she became more confident in her ability to travel the tunnel, find the stairs, and get away. With a renewed burst of adrenaline, she moved faster up the tunnel and banged her head on a protruding rock. Pain stabbed through her already aching head. She pressed her hand to forehead. Nothing liquid, so probably no bleeding, but she was going to have a nice bruise. Maybe even a bump.

  With even more determination, she began again and kept going until she tripped and fell onto the bottom tread of the stairs. The pain in her knees hurt like crap, but she smiled to herself. She was doing it. She was rescuing herself. She didn’t need Gray or Josh or anyone else to come get her.

  It took awhile, climbing steadily but very carefully upward, before she made it to a flat area that she believed was the top of the stairs. She relaxed a bit and flexed her cramped fingers. How long had she been clenching her fists? She’d bet there were little half moon grooves in the palm of her hand from where her fingernails had dug into her flesh.

  Ashley laughed when she first glimpsed a small sliver of light glowing beneath the door to freedom. Relief bubbled up inside her. She pressed her hands against the wood and shoved, but the door met resistance. She pushed harder. The door only budged a few centimeters, if that much. She banged on the wood. Pressing her hands on either side of the narrow landing to balance and keep from falling backward down the stairs, she managed to slide into a squat so that she could study the slit of light at the bottom of the door. Tightly wedged underneath was the tip end of the crowbar.

  She fell back on her butt and tilted toward the stairs, caught herself before she tumbled, and propped her hands on the sludgy floor behind her. Panic hit her full force again. Her knees began to shake. Sweat popped out on her forehead. A sharp pain cramped her side.

  Her mind swirled at the implications of the tool wedged under the door. Had the crowbar fallen and wedged beneath the door…or had someone stuck it there to trap her underground?

  Only two people in the whole wide world knew about her insane fear of being buried alive. Terrance and Josh. Becoming trapped underground was nearly as horrifying.

  ****

  When Josh finally listened to the voicemail Ashley had left, he drove the accelerator of his truck into the floorboard, pushing the vehicle to its limits. It jolted and increased in speed until Josh was flying down the highway unmindful of such silly things as speed limits.

  Ashley’s urgent message had sent stabs of panic through him. Baxter Road? Yeah, it was south on Highway 65 near the tail end of Ashley Ridge. If he remembered right, the dirt road twisted and curved up a mountain. Not a very tall mountain, but a formation of earth and rock that formed part of the cliffs along Ashley Creek.

  He chewed on thoughts of Ashley and Terrance Phelps… No, he couldn’t think of them together without wanting to shoot the guy. What kind of man took advantage of a vulnerable heart like Ashley’s? Obvious answer? Terrance Phelps wasn’t a man. He was a predator.

  His stomach spasmed when he thought about the kind of trouble Ashley might have gotten into. Phelps could have beaten her, or cut her and left her to bleed out. Locked her up in the cabin and forgot to take her phone from her. Dr. Jerk would do something like that. Abuse a woman and not care who found out about it. A narcissist. That’s what Phelps was. Josh was certain the man was a certified sociopath.

  He rocked in his seat, willing the truck to go faster. The vehicle wasn’t eating up the road fast enough.

  Ashley had asked for his help. Not Gray’s. Ashley needed him…Josh.

  He dug his phone out of his pants pocket and risked his life scrolling through his contacts looking for her cellphone number. When he found it, he hit dial and waited for the call to connect. It seemed to take a horribly long time before his phone dialed the number. The call went straight to voice mail. Not good. Not good at all. He tossed the cell onto the seat of his truck and pounded his fist on the steering wheel.

  He passed the county line, having missed the intersection for Baxter Road, and had to turn around and go back. The road was hardly more than a dirt track, easy to miss in the dark gloom of a stormy night. When his wheels crossed a cattle guard and churned mud-soaked dirt, he grabbed his bottom lip with his top teeth and jammed the gear into second, hoping to get a bit more traction on the slippery uphill slope. The truck moved forward.

  Looking toward the upper elevations of Ashley Ridge, he spotted a bit of clear sky through the trees. Finally, the storm was blowing over. Still, driving the dirt road in the aftermath of the deluge would take all of his driving skills. The truck slid, as if to punctuate his thought.

  Ashley sounded terrified in the message she had left. The abrupt way it ended made a lump of fear lodge in his throat. What if she was badly hurt?

  At that moment, he could have murdered Terrance Phelps and not felt a bit of guilt over it. Then finally, the sheriff could accuse him of a murder he’d actually committed. He chuckled at the grim thought, but then turned off his amusement with a huff.

  The trip up the mountain shouldn’t have taken him so long. The more minutes passed, the more worried he became that something awful had already happened to her. He passed a cabin with its door wide open on his way up the mountain. The cabin was no more than a hideous-looking shack, ill maintained, squat, and without any charm. When he finally spotted her Jeep parked about a quarter of a mile up the road from the ugly little cabin, his whole being filled with relief. For some reason, he knew, he just knew that she had parked uphill from the cabin and walked back down. Why? Well, he’d have to ask her about that when he saw her.

  He turned around and pulled to a stop in front of the creepy little shack, shoved the gear into park, and twisted the key while scanning the area. He pushed open the door of his truck and stepped out onto the rain-soaked grass. Something felt off and just a little dangerous, a vibe in the atmosphere that jangled his already taut nerves. Josh reached under the front seat of his truck, pulled out his Glock, and stuck it in the waistband of his jeans. It wasn’t standard issue. Halsey wouldn’t allow him to carry a service weapon, so he had purchased the piece after Jared Crenshaw took his anger out on Josh the first time.

  Once he’d exited his truck and covered the few yards to the front door, he nudged it open with the barrel end of the gun, peeked around the doorframe, and determined the cabin was unoccupied.

  The muffled sounds of someone cursing came from inside an interior room. He raised his eyebrows when he spotted a crowbar wedged underneath the door.

  “Ashley?”

  “I’m in here.” Her strained voice barely permeated the wood barrier of the door.

  He knew how claustrophobic she was. Her fear of tight places was what caused her to have her first panic attack when they were in the eleventh grade.

  He yanked the crowbar out, tossed the tool aside, and pulled open the door. Ashley stumbled into him, and he caught her before she fell.

  “Ash, are you okay? What happened?”

  She trembled, first one hard convulsion and then a series of smaller shudders. “I thought I was going to die in there.” She wrapped her arms around him and dug her fingers into his back.

  He wiggled a little to get her to ease up. “Hey, hey. Take it easy with the claws.”

  “Sorry. I’m just so glad to see you.”

  She loosened her grip, but just a little.

  “How long have you been trapped?”

  She leaned her forehead on his shoulder and gasped in huge intakes of air before she spoke, almost like she’d been under water. “I don’t know. I lost track of time. It was so dark and I lost the flashlight. I couldn’t get the door open. I panicked…” She lifted her head and glanced at the crowbar where he had tossed it. “Did someone stick it under the door on purpose to trap me or could it have accidentally slipped and wedged under the door?”

  He gently pushed her head back on his shoulder and rested his chin on the top of her head. “That was no accident.”

  “He’s suppo
sed to be out of town with Cissy.”

  Josh didn’t believe it. Phelps had lied to her. “Well, who else would come up here and mess with you like that? I want you to get in my truck and lock the doors. I’m gonna wait for him. When that son-of-a-bitch comes back, I’m going to beat the—”

  “Shhh.”

  Josh pressed his lips together and leaned back to look at her. Fear had erupted in her hazel eyes. He listened, hard, but heard nothing but the far off splash and gurgle of running water.

  He stroked her back and whispered in her ear. “It was nothing. Let’s get out of here.”

  Josh disengaged from her embrace and grabbed her hand. Her eyes darted everywhere. If Terrance Phelps was hanging around watching them, he was keeping himself very well hidden. That was okay with Josh. Let the coward hide. It was better for Phelps if Josh didn’t see his pretty boy face. If Josh had gotten his hands on the jerk, he would have altered the man’s good looks permanently.

  When they were settled into his truck and he had started the engine, he reached over and grabbed her hand before he shoved the gear into drive.

  “Ashley?”

  When she turned her face toward him, tears were barreling down her dirt-smeared cheeks. His heart ached for her. He could only imagine how much terror she had endured.

  “What?”

  He wiped the tears from their dirt-encrusted tracks with his thumbs. “Why did you call me instead of Gray?”

  Her eyes seemed to search his, her gaze boring deep into his heart. She remained silent so long he thought she wouldn’t answer.

  Finally, she spoke. “I never even thought of calling Gray.”

  He nodded, a huge lump swelling in his throat. Had they finally turned some sort of corner in their busted relationship?

  “I’ll take you to your Jeep. Can you drive back to town?”

  She shook once, as if the cold had settled into the marrow of her bones. “Yeah.”

  He dropped his hand from her face and then grabbed the steering wheel to keep from touching her again, looked straight ahead through the windshield to keep from studying her face for answers that might not be there.

  “I’m going to follow you to your place. When we get there, you’re going to tell me everything, and I mean everything. I can’t help you if I don’t know all of it.” He glanced her way to get her reaction to his demands.

  Her mouth worked awhile as if she wanted to argue. “Okay. I think it’s time.”

  A stab of pain pierced his heart. Josh had the feeling the time for telling was way overdue.

  “Josh?”

  “Hmm?”

  She cleared her throat and shifted in her seat, tugged at her seatbelt. “I can’t be alone tonight.”

  He struggled to keep his voice even. “I know.”

  “Can I stay with you for awhile? I’m really afraid…”

  “I would invite you to stay with me, but my place smells like a distillery right now.”

  “But I thought you quit—”

  He laughed. She’d attempted to hit him with the same old complaint. The woman was a bit of a nag.

  “How soon she forgets.”

  She snorted, an obvious attempt to join in his effort at light-hearted banter. “I have a really good memory, and you know it. What do you think I’ve forgotten?”

  She did indeed remember a lot. Some things he wished she’d forget.

  “The last time we talked, I had just thrown a full bottle of Jack Daniels up against my bedroom wall.”

  He smiled at the noise of disgust she made.

  “The smell in my house nauseates me. Actually, I was considering…kind of hoping…”

  “You’re right. I had forgotten about that.” She paused and her pause seemed significant.

  He held his breath.

  Her voice squeaked a little when she continued, but grew stronger and bolder the further into her suggestion she got. “You could come stay with me, but I don’t want to stay in my house. I want to go somewhere that Terrance can’t find me.”

  He righted the truck when it slid sideways at a bend in the road. Her Jeep was just ahead, so he had to say what he wanted to say before she left his vehicle, just in case by some freak accident of destiny or karma or divine providence he never got another chance.

  “I know I have no right to ask you this, but…stay with me, Ashley. Let’s try to fix this. It’s been too long since we’ve been together, and I’m just not myself without you.”

  Josh dared to glance her way. His declaration of intent seemed to surprise her, maybe shock her a little.

  “Josh, I don’t…okay.”

  “Okay? Really?”

  She nodded.

  “I want to make it up to you.” He wasn’t quite sure what it was, but he was more than willing to fix it.

  “I don’t know what I did to piss you off, but please give me a chance to make it right.”

  He drove past her Jeep until he came to the end of the road, turned around, and pulled in behind her.

  She sighed. “Josh, I’m not sure it can be made right, but I’m willing to start over.”

  He laughed. He had failed to impress her the first time they met. Stole her cookie off her cafeteria tray when they were in first grade. That had been a difficult infraction for him to overcome. The girl loved her cookies.

  “I’m not sure I want to start all over from the beginning.”

  They’d learned too much about each other over the years to start over.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The fierceness of the storm had given way to a slow, drenching rain. Josh traced rivulets of water as it flowed down the outside of Gray’s bedroom window. He listened to the steady splat splat of water hitting tile in the adjoining bathroom. The first thing Ashley had wanted to do when she got to Gray’s place was take a long, hot shower.

  After a while, the flow of water ceased. He kept his eyes focused on the scene outside Gray’s house, not quite ready to face Ashley when she emerged from the bath. He had followed her to her house and made arrangements to borrow Gray’s place while she packed a bag. Typical woman. It had taken her much longer to pack than it had taken him.

  When they stopped by his place, he’d thrown a pair of jeans, two t-shirts, a pair of socks, some underwear, and his toothbrush into a duffle bag and called it done. Of course, she had been waiting in his truck, and he had hurried due to the noxious odor of sour alcohol that had overtaken his house. He’d left the air conditioning off because at that time of the year the temperature fluctuated so much between freezing and boiling that he’d set the system to off. The heat had baked the bourbon into the wall and the humidity had set it until the pungent smell wasn’t going away any time soon.

  Ashley startled him out of his musings.

  “Are you sure it’s okay for us to borrow Gray’s house like this?”

  He steeled himself for his first look at her since the promise that had altered everything. For the first time in a long time, Josh had some hope that his life would change for the better. He turned slowly to face her. Although she looked tired and just a bit ragged from her experience at Phelps’s cabin—whatever that had been—she hadn’t told him any details yet—she looked gorgeous with her hair piled up on top of her head in one of those little towel thingys women wear when their hair is wet. She had on an oversized robe that surely belonged to Gray, but Josh couldn’t imagine Gray wearing that particular robe.

  After a long moment of absorbing her appearance, he forced an even reply despite the earthquake-like affect she was having on his heart. “I asked him while you were packing. He said it was okay.”

  She smiled. “Well, as long as we have permission. I wouldn’t want to get arrested for breaking and entering a cop’s house.”

  The glow in her eyes warmed him from the inside out.

  “Sheriff’s deputies aren’t generally referred to as cops.”

  “That is a technicality. He might still have us arrested for breaking into his house. With or without
his permission. He has a perverse sense of humor like that.”

  He returned her smile. “I think we’re safe.” He waited a beat. “And who knew the guy had a sense of humor? I didn’t.”

  She removed the towel thingy and shook her wet hair out. “I could use a hot cup of coffee. You want me to make us some?”

  “You know your way around his kitchen?” Crap! Did that sound jealous?

  She blinked. “No, I’ve never been here before. What are you suggesting? I know you thought that Gray and I—”

  “I’m sorry, Ash. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  She bit her lip before speaking. “I guess it’s gonna be hard for us for awhile, you know, figuring out what to say and what not to say.”

  It hadn’t been that long ago he’d accused her of being in love with Gray. He knew better now. He smiled, glad that she was willing to allow the tense moment to pass. “Yeah, I could use some coffee.”

  He followed her into the kitchen where she set about finding the coffee and the filters and fussed over the operation of an unfamiliar coffee maker. When it was finally dripping, she pulled out a chair and dropped into it. Weariness radiated from her in waves. She pushed her fingers through her hair and pulled at the wet tangles. Josh thought that one move might have been the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.

  She glanced up at him and caught him watching. Her face displayed a range of emotions, from hope to anxiety and everything in between.

  The moment for true confessions had arrived. “I know you probably don’t want to talk about it, but I need to know how all this started.”

  The first step in establishing trust between them was to trust.

  “I know,” she whispered.

  Maybe she feared revealing the truth as much as he did.

  He sat across from her as the coffee dripped and the smell began to waft throughout the kitchen.

  “So start at the beginning. What did I do to lose your trust?”

  Maybe after she was through telling him what he’d done, he could tell her how she’d broken his heart. A risky move on his part, because he was well aware she could crush it again.