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“So, did you already go?”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure it’s a great idea after all.”
“Nonsense, you didn’t come this far and search for so long to give up now.”
I rested my head back against the hut. “Maybe I did.”
“Are you scared, is that it?” she challenged, maybe hoping that her barb would cause me to prove her wrong.
I simply nodded. “Yeah, I am. I really fucking am. I don’t know what will happen when I see him. Will I be able to shake his hand, or will I hit him?”
She let out a long sigh. “I don’t know, let’s go and see. Do what feels right in the moment. If that’s hitting him, you can do that. You came all this way. You need to do this.”
Yes, you’re right. But the fear remained. The feeling of standing at the precipice of huge change wasn’t a comfortable one.
Then Winter held out her hand to me. Her elegant fingers looked sculpted from marble in the early morning light.
“Come on,” she said softly, offering me her hand casually like it didn’t mean the fucking world to me. “I’ll go with you.”
Winter
A woman answered the door. Asher turned around five times on the way up the front path. Finally, I dragged him behind me and rang the bell before he could change his mind.
The woman was older and beautiful, with a waist-length gray braid over one shoulder.
“Good morning. Can I help you?”
“Good morning. We were hoping to have a word with Mr. Hale. Mr. Brett Hale?” I gave her a polite smile.
The woman hesitated for a moment. “Can I ask what this is concerning?”
“It’s concerning the woman and children he abandoned twenty years ago,” Asher interrupted, his tension snapping between us.
The woman looked at Asher, really looked at him, and touched a hand to her lips in shock. She knew exactly what Asher was talking about.
She pushed the door open. “Come in, please. I’ll get Brett.”
We went into the house. It was lovely and warm. The couple was clearly very into their horses. We sat in their small sitting room and waited. Asher crossed his arms over his impressive chest, his anger coming off him in waves.
I put my hand on his knee. “Relax. You look like you’re about to vibrate off the chair or punch someone.”
He shook his head. “Can’t.”
I thought of that night at my parents’ when he’d taken me to the powder room and relaxed me.
“Really? Should we find a bathroom for a quick blow job? Isn’t oral your tried-and-true method for relaxing someone?”
He glanced at me, surprised, his spell of tension broken. His mouth quirked up at the corner. “If I ever turn down an offer like that from you, Ice Queen, check me for a pulse. I’m probably already dead.”
He held his hand out to me, and I took it, rubbing a circle on the back. “This is enough, for now. Just…stay here with me.”
“I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
He smiled at me, and it was lighter somehow. My heart fluttered. Damn it. How could I deny this feeling that only seemed to grow when I was around Asher? The warmth, the feeling of acceptance — home. The worst thing about it was that I was pretty sure I was alone in that feeling. I was the one with the barren life. I was the one who never let anyone in. I was the one desperate to find someone I could trust.
A door opening broke me from my reverie, and we both glanced up.
A man came through the door, the woman from earlier trailing behind him. There was no doubting that he was Asher and Eve’s father. He was tall and built like his son. He had his children’s dark hair, though his skin wasn’t as bronzed, and his strong jaw and soulful eyes were unmistakable.
