Page 33 of A Secret In The Garden

Oh. My. God. I had a fucking gun in my hands. Me, Eliza Arnold. In a Whole Foods somewhere were the grotesque remains of my mother spontaneously combusting.

Jasper moved his hand over mine, to position them correctly, before moving his tall, muscular body close behind me.

Wine, fish, and guns, and all in one night—what an odd thing for freedom to look like.

“You told me not to bring my doves or pigeons to dinner, and here you are shooting them,” I teased softly.

I could feel his smile as his chest brushed against my back. His powerful arms wrapped around either side of me, adjusting the shotgun into the correct position.

I should have felt terrified at being the sudden focus of Jasper Blackwood’s attention. How many more ghosts needed to come out of the walls for me to get the fucking hint to stay away from him?

Apparently, more than one.

My eyes fluttered shut at the feel of his body against mine. It was protective, safe, and consuming with the tang of danger attached to it.

“There’s a decent kickback, so be prepared for the recoil to hit your shoulder harder than you expect, okay? Are you comfortable?” His low, throaty words brushed against the shell of my ear.

“I’m good,” I somehow mumbled. I could hardly focus on the weapon in my hands when the one at my back was pressed so firmly against my rear end and felt so delicious. I was a mess.

“Look through here, okay? See that mid-bead? Line all of these up. That’s it,” he said with a voice deep and rough like cracked velvet. Goose bumps galloped across the slope of my exposed neck, which he had to have seen, given his proximity.

My eyes widened slightly in alarm when his strong hand slowly skimmed down the length of my side to pull my right leg back a few inches, adjusting my stance. He moved the gun back up to the correct position from where it had dropped with my distracted, slackened arms.

“Lift your elbow, just like this. That’s it,” he cooed. “When you see the orange in the sky, line up and pull this trigger. When you’re ready, shout ‘pull’ or step on the pedal to trigger the disc.”

Adrenaline pushed through my veins, drowning me in a feeling I’d never experienced before. For a second, a whisper of fear came over me; I thought about how upset my mother would have been at my defiance—she would have been furious.

I stepped on the pedal and saw the little orange dot sail across the sky. My finger trembled as I pulled the trigger and missed by several yards.

Jasper was by my side repositioning me before I could hand him the gun back.

“Try again,” he encouraged.

On my fifth try, I hit the little flying dot, and it satisfyingly exploded high in the blue-and-red evening sky.

“That’s it!” he sang out with a contagious smile. He safely took the gun from me and picked me up, twirling me in a little spin before setting me back down.

“What about the contract?” John, who I had totally forgotten about, interrupted angrily with his arms crossed. “You made a deal with JV Plastics.”

Jasper took my place with the gun and, as I moved back, replaced his smile with a cold look at John before quickly firing off a few more rounds, expertly hitting each and every clay pigeon as they sailed through the sky at various heights and speeds.

“Unfortunately, you never signed the contract at dinner. You were too distracted.” His angled jaw shifted as he ground his teeth together. “I don’t like doing business with distracted men, John, and as for the contract, you’ve been watching your distraction, and I’m about to blow it into about a thousand pieces above the talus,” he said as he pulled an orange disc from his pocket and tossed it at John. White paper was taped around the top of it.

“You cannot be serious; you’re ruining this deal over her?” the man said, throwing the disc hard at the manicured grass and casting a look at me that made me want to shrivel up and disappear.

Jasper’s face turned sinister as he watched. With the shotgun in his hands, he stepped into John until he was towering over him.

“You know how this goes. You don’t step into my home and try to fuck me or my things over. I wouldn’t test me; you should really already know that by now, Johnathan.” Jasper smirked and looked out over the edge, where his property ended and nothingness began. “Watch your step when you leave. It’s a very, very steep fall.” His brown eyes were little more than unblinking slits as he watched the nervous man take a hard step away from him and the steep drop.

I took a few steps back myself, still unable to look that low to see the ledge. John pulled out his cell phone and held it up with a malicious grin before turning and walking off quickly. One of the security guards was waiting for him a few paces away.

“Are you all right?” Jasper asked, suddenly appearing in front of me as I watched the other men disappear around the side of the manor.

“Yeah, my stomach’s still a bit queasy, though. I don’t think I’ve ever had this much excitement,” I said with a laugh.

“Sit with me,” he said, motioning to a concrete bench that overlooked the drop.

“Sure, but not there. I’m deathly afraid of heights, and I can’t get that close to the edge. I’m having a hard enough time not looking over there as it is, and I think the wine is wearing off.”