by Pennza, Amy
Ashley had upended that—and in a lot more ways than just messing up his laundry.
His gaze landed on the duty belt he’d left on top of the dresser. Her soft cries as he’d spanked her echoed in his mind. Even after he’d berated her for being messy, she’d forgiven him in a heartbeat.
Another woman would have slapped his face and told him to go to hell.
Not Ashley. She’d welcomed him into her bed and her life. She’d seen his PTSD flare up more than once, and she accepted it. If anything, she seemed determined to wiggle her way inside the dark spots in his soul. He swallowed. Maybe that wasn’t a bunch of hippie crap, after all. Because no matter how much he tried to shut her out, she just kept hammering away at his walls.
And isn’t that what light did? It banished darkness. It got into all the cracks and blew them open.
He’d stood in darkness so long, the first glimpse of light had been painful, like stepping outside on a blazing hot day after hours inside a movie theater. Ashley was pure sunshine. Now that he’d felt her warmth, he couldn’t go back to the cold again.
Smith grabbed his phone from his back pocket and tapped Ashley’s number. His heart thumped against his chest as he waited for her to pick up.
A faint chime drifted from the hallway.
He frowned and followed the sound. Phone to his ear, he stopped in Ashley’s doorway. Her phone sat on the nightstand, the display lit up as his incoming call flashed over the screen.
She’d left it behind. His heart pounded harder. Even after he’d asked her about the phone, she’d left it.
He picked it up just as the call read missed. He stared at the screen. She’d set a photo of Deuce as her wallpaper. It didn’t mean anything that she’d left the phone at his place. She was tired. They were both exhausted.
Still, his heart continued to jump against his chest. As he gripped the phone, a text from Pia popped up. Ticket’s at counter. Flight leaves at 2 pm tmw. Pick u up when u get here. Luv u.
All the breath left his lungs. He would have dropped the phone if he hadn’t been holding it so tightly. She was going to leave. Ashley was going to leave without telling him. A dozen emotions flooded him at once. How dare she run away like this? Had the past week been an act? Jesus, had she just been using him? He shook his head. No way. There was no way she’d faked how she felt about him. About them. No actor was that good. So why leave now? Didn’t she know he loved her?
He froze. She didn’t know. Because he’d never told her.
He shoved both phones in his back pocket and headed for the stairs. Lacy could wait. Nothing was more important than marching next door and telling Ashley exactly how much he cared about her. She had to believe him.
As soon as the thought entered his head, he stopped, his hand on the stairway railing. He could tell her he loved her, but he couldn’t guarantee she’d believe it. And why would she? He certainly hadn’t done much to show it. He’d spent the first two weeks of her stay ignoring and avoiding her. Then he’d gone behind her back and confronted Lacy. He’d blown up at her over a basket of laundry. Tonight, he’d told her she didn’t have a career.
He squeezed the railing until his palm ached. God, could he have picked a better way to tear her down? Was that the kind of thing a man said to a woman he loved?
He could go pound on her door right now. He could stand under her window and declare his love to the whole neighborhood. He could tell her he loved her until he was blue in the face. But at the end of the day, all those things added up to nothing more than words. He’d be telling her.
What he needed was a way to show her.
He dug his phone from his pocket. It was nearly one in the morning. He took a deep breath and pulled up his brother’s cell. “Rise and shine, Juan,” he muttered. “I need you to help me save my ass.”
22
Ashley brushed her fingertips over the framed Serenity Prayer on her old bedroom wall. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change… According to her mother, Grandma Winnie had stitched it after Ashley’s alcoholic grandfather had abandoned her with two-year-old Cheryl.
On the whole, the Thompson women had rotten luck when it came to men.
Hand on the frame’s smooth glass, Ashley whispered, “Never get serious, never spend the night, and never say I love you.” Pia had rolled her eyes at Ashley’s rules for relationships. But they’d worked just fine until she’d broken all three at the same time.
She sighed and turned away from the picture. Technically, she’d never told Smith she loved him. But she’d thought it. She felt it, and that was enough. The heartbreak was the same.
As she had a little over a week ago, she glanced around the room one last time before hitting the lights and heading for the stairs. This time, though, she didn’t have to wrestle with her suitcase. She’d left everything at Smith’s for fear of alerting him to her plans. He might try to convince her to stay—and she just might be weak enough to let him.
Or he might not try to stop her at all. Her heart knew which one was worse.
She skipped the broken tread and turned toward the kitchen. As she walked past the grandfather clock, she stopped in her tracks.
Then she did a double take.
A man sat in her grandmother’s front parlor, and he looked enough like Smith to be almost identical. If it hadn’t been for the impeccable three-piece suit he wore, she might have believed he was Smith.
He stood and smiled. “Hello, Ashley.”
She realized her mouth was hanging open and snapped it shut. “How’d you get in here?” She didn’t bother asking who he was. He was obviously one of Smith’s brothers. And since the oldest Salvatierra brother was a Venezuelan drug lord, this could only be Juan. The lawyer.
He walked toward her, and her sense of unreality grew. He was so like Smith, yet so unalike with his expensive suit and clean-shaven jaw. Smith usually kept a bit of scruff there. At the thought, an ache shot across her heart.
Stop thinking about him.
He held up a key. “I know your hiding place.”
It took her a second to realize he’d answered her question. She snatched the key from his fingers. “Your brother tells me it’s a crime to enter a house that doesn’t belong to you.”
He grinned, his handsome face lit up with obvious delight. “This is better than I could have imagined.”
What was he talking about? She frowned, ready to give him a piece of her mind, when the back door squealed. A second later, Smith appeared in the doorway. His hair was wet, and he’d changed his clothes.
“Ashley.” His gaze found his brother, and he frowned. “I told you no earlier than ten.”
Juan shrugged. “I like to be early. Besides, I wanted to meet my future sister-in-law.”
Ashley jerked. “I’m not—”
“Juan’s just leaving,” Smith said, an edge in his voice. “Aren’t you, Juan?”
“Oh, I think I’d rather stay and watch how this unfolds.” He leaned toward Ashley and said in a stage whisper, “I predict a lot of groveling.”
“Juan.”
Juan laughed and held up his hands. “Claro.” He turned to Ashley and withdrew a long, skinny envelope from an inner pocket in his suit jacket. “This is a copy. I have to file the original with the county, but I’ll mail you the final paperwork next week.”
She took it. “A copy of what?”
For the first time, Juan’s expression became serious. Ashley suppressed a shiver. Like his brother, this was clearly not a man to cross. He nodded toward the envelope. “That’s the deed to the Murray store. Dean Lacy expresses his deep regret over his actions. He was more than happy to transfer full ownership to you once I pointed out how much the courts frown on parents with a sexual assault conviction having visitation with their children. I might have also mentioned something about Texas having the strictest animal cruelty law in the country. Mr. Lacy was eager to comply with my requests.”
She turned to Smith and found him staring
at her. “I don’t understand,” she said.
“I can explain,” he said.
Juan crossed the room and stood next to him. Side by side, the resemblance was uncanny. He patted Smith’s shoulder and murmured something in rapid Spanish. Smith frowned and answered in the same language. Before he left, Juan shot her another grin.
“It was a pleasure meeting you, Ashley. Felicidades.”
She waited for the kitchen door to slam and his footsteps to fade before holding up the envelope. “What’s this about? Why did he congratulate me?”
Smith looked toward the porch, where the driveway and his brother’s departing car were visible. “He’s enjoying this entirely too much,” he muttered.
“Enjoying what? Smith, what is this about?” The envelope wasn’t sealed. She opened the flap.
“Wait.” He came to her. His gaze searched hers, and his throat worked.
He’s nervous. The self-assured, commanding police chief was nervous.
“I saw Pia’s text,” he said. “You’re leaving.”
Surprise jolted her. “Why would she text—” Almost immediately, she realized what Pia had done. Ashley sighed. “She wanted you to see it. She knew I didn’t have my phone.”
A smiled played around his mouth. “Then I owe her one.”
“Smith—”
He grabbed her hands. His fingers folded around the envelope she still held. “I asked for Juan’s help because I didn’t know how else to show you.”
“Show me what?”
“How much I love you.” Before she could react, he rushed on. “The Murray store is yours. Dean signed it over. He’s leaving town, Ashley.”
She was still reeling from his confession. “Leaving? What—”
“I know you hate Prattsville, and he was part of the reason you hated it. Well, he’s gone. You can make the Murray store a workshop or a storefront. Whatever you want.” He looked around the parlor. “I’m giving you this place, too.”
“What?” She shook her head. “Smith, that’s not necessary.”
“Hell yes, it is.” He moved his hands to her upper arms. “I know the Murray place might hold bad memories for you after…” Anger flashed in his eyes, and he made a visible effort to rein it in. “…after Dean. If you want, we’ll turn this place into a store. Or we can fix it up and sell it. The choice is yours. And if you want to go back to Los Angeles, we’ll go there, too.”
She caught her breath. “You hate big cities. You’d be miserable there.”
“I’d be happy. I’d be happy anywhere you are.” He shrugged. “Deuce will have to get used to pooping on concrete, but we’ll make it work.”
She laughed. At the same moment, she realized she was crying. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “You’d move to L.A. for me?”
His gaze grew intense. “I’d move to the fucking moon for you.”
She threw her arms around his neck. He caught her and lifted her against him. “I love you,” he whispered in her ear. “Don’t leave me, Ashley. And if you have to leave, take me with you.”
“I’m not leaving,” she said. The parlor walls blurred through the sheen of tears obscuring her vision. She pulled back so she could see his face. “I don’t want to go back to L.A.”
“But your work. It’s the only place you can get acting jobs.”
She shook her head. “That’s not entirely true. The night we saw that play, it made me realize what I love about acting. And it’s not the money or the fame. It’s connecting with an audience. I can do that right here. Or at least in San Antonio.”
Happiness beamed from his eyes. “So it’s a long-distance relationship you’re proposing.”
“I think you can handle the commute.”
He stroked her cheek. “Yes, but I don’t know if you can. You have something of a lead foot, remember?”
“Officer, are you going to ticket me?”
He pulled her hips against his. “It’s chief. And I might have to do a strip search.”
“Sounds like abuse of power to me.”
“No,” he whispered. “You hold all the power when it comes to us, sweetheart.” He paused. “Marry me?”
Her heart grew so big she worried it might swell from her chest. “Yes,” she said. “Oh yes.”
He bent his head and gave her the gentlest, most reverent kiss.
She pulled back so she could catch her breath. “What did Juan say before he left? He spoke to you in Spanish.”
A smile entered his eyes. “He said ‘don’t fuck this up.’ He has to take care of some business involving Catalina, and he won’t be around for a few weeks.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Juan will handle it. The Salvatierra men are pretty good at managing difficult women.”
She punched his shoulder. “You—”
He laughed and kissed her again. When they broke apart at last, he rested his forehead against hers. “You still haven’t said it, you know.”
She drew back, confused. “Said what?”
His smile was tender. “I love you.”
Oh. In her mind, she tossed her rules out the window.
“I love you, Smith Salvatierra. I love you, I love you.”
* * *
About the Author
Amy Pennza has been a lawyer, a soldier, and a copywriter. Although she liked the first two well enough, she decided writing romance is the job she loves best. After years in Tornado Alley, she now makes her home in the Great Lakes region with her husband, kids, and two demanding animals.
Keep up with new releases, news, and giveaways by visiting amypennza.com
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