Page 72 of Property of Bob

Of course not.

Piney and Post moved toward the other side of the RV. Pearl pulled Shay with her.

Prime stayed exactly where he was next to Shay.

Ashland pointed at him. “Especially you.”

“I’m supervising.”

“Go supervise over there with your ol’ lady.” Prime grinned and finally moved with Shay on his heels.

I looked back at Ashland. “You cannot refer to me as your ‘shit.’”

“You know what I meant.”

“No, I really don’t.”

He rubbed his hand over his beard. “You came here for me.”

He kept saying it like it meant something bigger than the simple fact that I’d driven here. Maybe it did. I didn’t know.

“You came here because you needed help,” he continued. “I’m the one you’re gonna talk to. I’m the one who’s gonna tell you what’s happening here. And whatever’s going on with your old boss, we’re gonna handle that too.”

“We?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re in a wheelchair.”

He stared at me.

I immediately regretted saying it.

Not because it wasn’t true, but because something hard flashed in his eyes. Frustration with himself.

I softened my voice. “Ash.”

“I know where the fuck I am, but I’m not going to be in this wheelchair for long. I just need to work on getting my strength back. Lying in that damn bed did nothing for me.”

“It helped you heal. You needed to rest,” I said softly.

“I know,” he grunted. “But I am done resting. Now it’s time to get strong and help you.”

I looked at him. Really looked at him.

The scar. The tired eyes. The stubborn set of his jaw. The hands gripping the arms of the wheelchair like he would rather break them off than admit he was exhausted. And underneath all of it, he was still Ashland.

Still the guy who had stepped into the hallway twenty years ago because he saw something wrong and couldn’t ignore it. Still the person I had thought of when everything got too strange for me to handle alone.

I nodded toward the RV. “So this is what you expected when they told you I rolled onto Skull Island?”

His eyes moved to the crooked RV and then back to me. “Actually, yes. Clint said you became a hippie.”

I laughed softly. “That sounds about right. I wanted to see the world, and I did it.”

He leaned back a little more, then his mouth curved. “Is this what you expected when you rolled onto Skull Island?” he countered.

I looked around. The broken RV. The haunted house in the distance. Bikers pretending not to watch us. Ashland Moore sitting in front of me twenty years after the last time I’d seen him. I wrinkled my nose. “In a sort of a way. You were about the only thing I could picture. Clint told me you grew a crazy beard.” A smile spread across my lips. “He was not lying.”