Stunner (Whiskey Dolls Book 3) Jessica

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 STUNNER
A WHISKEY DOLLS NOVEL

JESSICA PRINCE
 Copyright © 2022 by Jessica Prince
www.authorjessicaprince.com

Published by Jessica Prince Books LLC

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and
retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
 C O NT E NT S

Discover Other Books by Jessica

About Stunner
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Epilogue
Enjoy an Excerpt from Knockout
Discover Other Books by Jessica
About Jessica
D I S C OV E R OT H E R B O O K S B Y J E S S I C A

WHITECAP SERIES
Crossing the Line
My Perfect Enemy
WHISKEY DOLLS SERIES
Bombshell
Knockout
Stunner
HOPE VALLEY SERIES:
Out of My League
Come Back Home Again
The Best of Me
Wrong Side of the Tracks
Stay With Me
Out of the Darkness
The Second Time Around
Waiting for Forever
Love to Hate You
Playing for Keeps
When You Least Expect It
REDEMPTION SERIES
Bad Alibi
Crazy Beautiful
Bittersweet
Guilty Pleasure
Wallflower
Blurred Line
 THE PICKING UP THE PIECES SERIES:
Picking up the Pieces
Rising from the Ashes
Pushing the Boundaries
Worth the Wait
THE COLORS NOVELS:
Scattered Colors
Shrinking Violet
Love Hate Relationship
Wildflower
THE LOCKLAINE BOYS (a LOVE HATE RELATIONSHIP spinoff):
Fire & Ice
Opposites Attract
Almost Perfect
THE PEMBROOKE SERIES (a WILDFLOWER spinoff):
Sweet Sunshine
Coming Full Circle
A Broken Soul
CIVIL CORRUPTION SERIES
Corrupt
Defile
Consume
Ravage
GIRL TALK SERIES:
Seducing Lola
Tempting Sophia
Enticing Daphne
Charming Fiona
STANDALONE TITLES:
One Knight Stand
Chance Encounters
Nightmares from Within
DEADLY LOVE SERIES:
Destructive
Addictive
 ABOUT STUNNER

Never in a million years did I think I’d be jilted on my wedding day.

Around the time Asher Rose was supposed to say “I do”, she was bellied up to a bar full of bikers,
three sheets to the wind and feeling sorry for herself. The last person she expected to come to her
rescue was Owen Shields.
He was tattooed, broody, and her ex-fiancé’s best friend. The arrogant jerk who was supposed to be
the best man at her wedding was never supposed to be her knight in shining armor.
Falling for Owen was never part of the plan, but when the gorgeous town vet throws everything he
has her way, including his adorable dog and angelic niece, Asher is in for the fight of her life.
 1

ASHER

T he last place I expected to be on my wedding day was in some no-named roadside bar that
catered to a pretty rough and tumble crowd. And by pretty rough and tumble I meant half the
men in the bar looked like they picked their teeth with the sharpened bones of their victims
and the other half probably knew the best places to bury bodies so they’d never be found. By the
silence that greeted me upon arrival, I figured these hardcore biker types weren’t exactly used to
seeing a woman in full-blown bridal regalia swooshing through the door like something out of a
strange fairy tale, but I couldn’t find it in me to care.
Around the time I should have been walking down the aisle, I was bellying up to the long wooden
bar scarred with age and use—and probably more than a few barstools during full-on brawls—
struggling to heft myself up on a stool with the extra several pounds of lace, silk, and organza
weighing me down. It took some serious effort, but I finally managed to get myself centered on the
stool, my skirts puffed up around me like white clouds of cotton candy.
The tough, grizzled man standing behind the bar looked at me with mild curiosity and a whole
buttload of concern. His skin was weathered and tanned from years upon years in the sun. If I had to
guess—and if this dude was anything like his patrons—he favored his time on a motorcycle. The lines
around his eyes were deep with age, but also from smiling. I could see kindness in the old man’s pale,
glassy blue gaze. It ran deep, along with that concern, as he stopped in front of me and tucked a white
hand towel that had definitely seen better days into the waistband of his jeans. The man had a spare
tire around his gut, and then some, but there was no missing the fact that he was sturdy as hell too. He
was just as rough and tumble as the rest of the people in the joint, and I was sure he’d been part of a
fair amount of bar fights in his time.
“Afraid you might’ve taken a wrong turn or two on the way back to your castle, princess. This
ain’t the place for you.” At my look of confusion, he jerked his chin up. “Can’t say I’ve had many
women come in here wearing a crown before. Figured you gotta be a princess.”
Reaching up, I traced a finger along the headband of crystals and pearls tucked into my hair. It had
taken forever to find the perfect headpiece to go with my gown, but after several painstaking months,
I’d finally found it. It was so delicate and beautiful, and I remembered worrying I’d break it if I
wasn’t careful enough. But that was before. Now, well, now I really didn’t give a shit. I ripped it off
my head, disheveling the beautiful chignon the hair stylist had worked for an hour and a half to curl
and braid and tuck behind my left ear, and tossed it aside like a piece of garbage. “Not a princess,” I
said sullenly. “And if you serve booze here, in any form and the stronger the better, then this is most
definitely the place for me.”
Taking pity on me, he placed a shot glass on the bar in front of me and filled it with whiskey. I
didn’t hesitate to snatch it up and throw it back, wincing against the fire licking down my throat as I
slammed it back down and demanded, “Another,” on a cough.
He hesitated a beat before pouring again. “You know, I won’t be too happy if some white knight
comes charging in here on his horse, looking for you, and starts some shit in my bar.”
I shot and slammed, pointing to indicate I wanted yet another as I let out a derisive snort. “What’s
your name?”
“Name’s Judd, darlin’.”
“Well, Judd, I’m Asher, and you have nothing to fear. There is no white knight.” I used finger
quotes on those last two words, the action causing me to teeter on my stool. The liquor was hitting me
fast, given that I hadn’t had more than a handful of candied pecans the entire day. Judd’s big, hairy
arm shot out and fisted the lace at the front of my gown at my belly to keep me from toppling off my
seat. “Thanks for the save, man.”
“Not a problem.” He poured another shot.
“Like I was saying. No white knight. Hell, I don’t even have a stable boy on a lame, half blind
donkey.”
He crossed his arms over a burly, barrel chest. “I get the feeling this day didn’t go how you
planned.”
I threw my head back on a deep belly laugh, my head feeling nice and floaty now, my limbs
growing heavy. “You could say that again. I mean, what kind of man sneaks out of a bathroom window
just to get out of getting married, huh?”
Judd’s lips pulled into a thin line beneath his scraggly beard, his caterpillar eyebrows creeping
high on his forehead. “Ouch.”
I lifted the glass Judd had just put in front of me in salute. “Hell yeah, ouch.” I chased the straw
with my tongue, sucked back a healthy gulp, and let out a disgruntled, “Ugh! What the hell? That’s not
alcohol!”
“It’s water. You’re a tiny little thing, I don’t need you keeling over in the middle of my bar from
alcohol poisoning.”
Even in my rapidly deteriorating state, I could appreciate the sound logic, so I drank even more.
“Smart,” I declared just as my stomach let out a rumble loud enough to shake the ground. I winced in
embarrassment. “I don’t suppose this place serves food? With all the chaos of today, I didn’t get much
of a chance to eat.”
Judd gave me an endearing grin, chuckling as he wiped down a glass before stacking it on a shelf
behind him. “How’s a chili cheeseburger and fries sound?”
My belly let out another rumble. “It sounds like you just became my favorite person in the whole
wide world.”
His eyes did a scan of the dress puffing up around me. “That sure is a fancy dress you got on, and
that burger can be a bit messy. Hate for you to ruin something that had to have cost a pretty penny.”
It was then I knew the kindness I saw in him earlier was the real deal. I was a virtual stranger and
the furthest thing possible from his usual clientele. Yet there he was, concerned for the state of my
wedding gown when it came to hot chili and gooey melted cheese.
I looked at the clouds of silk and lace that surrounded me. It had taken me six months to find the
perfect gown for my big day, and the moment I set eyes on this one, it had been love at first sight. I
should have seen that as a glaring red flag: I’d been more excited about a stupid dress than I had been
about the idea of saying my vows to my fiancé.
The truth was, I wasn’t sitting in the middle of a dive bar after Jackson had taken off on me
because I was heartbroken . . . not even close, which was something I really wasn’t in the frame of
mind to contemplate just then. After he dove through that window and took off at a dead sprint—
according to the extortionately expensive wedding planner I’d hired who had seen the asshole
firsthand while on a smoke break—I hadn’t been devastated; I was pissed. First, because he’d thought
up an escape plan before I had, and second, because him taking off the way he did meant I was left to
tell our guests the wedding was off. The thought of standing in front of two hundred people—most of
whom his parents had browbeaten me into inviting—and telling them that the groom had gone AWOL
was downright humiliating.
I hadn’t been able to do it. Just thinking about it made my throat close up, so I left. I’d made the
excuse that I needed some air and just . . . kept walking. I didn’t have a particular direction or
destination in mind, just anywhere but that goddamn venue. I trudged along the side of the road in my
expensive dress and glittery stiletto sandals until I stumbled on this place.
I picked at the intricate pattern that had been embroidered into the lace on my skirt. “This was my
dream dress, you know.”
Judd’s eyes glinted with sympathy. “It’s a real pretty dress, darlin’.”
“It is,” I murmured, pulling harder until a thread snagged. I pulled and pulled until the pattern
grew distorted. Then a thought hit me. “Judd, do you have a pair of scissors?”
“Uh—”
“Don’t worry. I’m not planning on stabbing anyone with them.”
I knew that was exactly his concern when he hesitated for another beat before reaching
somewhere beneath the bar, producing a gigantic pair of scissors, and passing them over.
“You’re a lifesaver,” I informed him before hopping off the stool, teetering on my heels thanks to
the booze. I held my arms out wide to steady myself until the room stopped spinning.
“You good?” Judd asked, looking like he was close to hurtling his much older body over the bar
to help me.
“I’m perfect,” I chirped. Then I grabbed a big wad of material and started hacking away at it,
mangling a gown I’d spent a small fortune on. It was a long, arduous process, but by the time I was
done, I’d chopped the skirt off around my knees. I felt like I’d lost thirty pounds of fabric and pulled
in a full breath as the air conditioning blew across my sweaty legs. For as beautiful as it was, I
couldn’t remember a time I’d ever been more uncomfortable.
“Oh my God,” I said on a groan. “That’s so much better, you don’t even know. It was like a
Florida swamp under there.”
I climbed back up into my seat, much easier this time, and smacked the bar top. “Another drink.
And I’ll take that burger with extra chili and cheese. Oh! And two sides of fries, chili and cheese on
those as well.”
“Judd, you start catering to a new crowd without telling us?” a man farther down the bar asked as
Judd poured me another shot.
The dude was even harder and more grizzled than my new bartender friend. He looked like he
could have been an extra on Sons of Anarchy from his long, stringy slate-colored hair to the leather
vest wrapped around a gut the size of a beer keg, to the faded jeans and scuffed-up boots.
I lifted my newly filled shot glass in the guy’s direction. “Nothing to worry about. Judd here’s just
taking pity on me and letting me hide out after my groom pulled a runner before we could get to the
vows.”
The guy who looked like he was more hardened criminal than softy gave me a look similar to the
one Judd had given as he moved his substantial mass four stools down to take the one beside mine.
“Damn, little lady. Sorry to hear that, but I’m guessing a bastard who’d do something like that doesn’t
deserve a pretty thing like you. Next round’s on me.”
“Back off, Butch,” Judd said in a voice that made the tiny hairs on my arms stand on end. “She
don’t need the likes of you hitting on her, today of all days.”
The guy, Butch, held up his hands in surrender. “You kidding me, Judd? She’s gotta be the same
age as my own daughter. Hell, maybe even younger. That’s not what I’m doing.”
Judd’s steely-eyed stare remained on the old biker for a few beats, long enough for me to start to
grow anxious. Neither of them were in the prime of their lives, so to speak, but I had a feeling a fight
between those two would still be dangerous. Fortunately, that didn’t happen. “All right then, just see
that doesn’t change. And keep an eye out to make sure none of these other fuckers pulls anything. I
gotta go turn the burners back on and get her grub started.”
“You told me the kitchen was closed,” another much younger biker called out, this one from over
near the pool tables.
It was Butch who responded. “You get your ass left at the altar today, boy?”
“Well . . . no.”
“Didn’t think so, ’cause no one alive would marry your ugly ass. So, for you, the kitchen’s still
closed.”
The guy looked at me then. “Sorry about your troubles, ma’am.”
“It’s okay. And I’m happy to share some of my fries with you.” He smiled, and the first thought in
my mind was that Butch was wrong. This guy wasn’t ugly at all. Too bad I’d sworn off men for the
rest of my life, forever and ever, amen, because he might have been the perfect rebound.
 2

OWEN

I n a town as small as Grapevine, Virginia, it hadn’t taken all that long to track down a
wayward bride. People in small towns loved to talk, especially when you asked the right
questions, and they were more than happy to talk all about the woman they had seen
wandering the streets in a ridiculously puffy wedding dress when I asked. It wasn’t exactly something
you saw every day.
That’s why I was standing in front of a rundown roadside bar the likes of which you’d expect to
walk in and see Patrick Swayze beating the shit out of someone before pitching the guy’s limp body
through a plate glass window. There were so many bikes out front, two rows deep and ran the entire
width of the ramshackle building, and so help me God, if Asher Rose had gotten her ass in trouble by
coming here, I was going to tan the goddamn thing red. After I got her out of said trouble, of course.
This was all Jackson Newman’s fault, and the next time I saw him, I was going to break that
asshole’s nose to match the busted lip and black eye I’d given him earlier.
When he’d come to me last year and asked if I’d be his best man, I wanted to say no. Everything
in my body rebelled against carrying that title. The thought of standing up at that altar and watching
Asher walk down the aisle to another man had tied my gut in knots. But I owed Jackson a debt that
could never be repaid, so there hadn’t been much choice.
I could still remember the night we’d both met the vivacious, loud, quick-witted brunette with
perfect clarity, and without fail, every time I dredged the memory up my mood went down the toilet.
Maybe it was confidence, or more likely vanity, that made Jackson so bold when it came to the
opposite sex, but it wasn’t a trait the two of us shared. Having spent most of my most formative years
as the gawky nerd who was into comics and video games, my self-confidence hadn’t been honed into
a weapon like my friend’s had. Even after coming into my own later in the game—growing into my
nose and ears, getting over the hormonal acne, and filling out so my legs and arms weren’t so damn
gangly—it was difficult to change my mindset.
I’d been the geek my entire life, so although I’d packed on muscle, in my head, I was still that
loser who’d been picked on from kindergarten all the way into the middle of my junior year of high
school.
Then there was Jackson, and I would have been lying if I said our friendship hadn’t taken most of
our classmates by surprise. Hell, even I didn’t understand it most of the time. Our mothers had been
best friends since diapers, so that played a big role in it. When they entered adulthood, Jackson’s
mother married for money, wanting more than the life she’d been born into, while mine was content
with her lot in life and married for love. My folks were still happily married to this day, while
Jackson’s had divorced—bitterly—back when we were in middle school. Even though there was a
combined total of five marriages between them, giving them both more than enough victims to spread
their animosity over, they were each other’s favorite target and got off on pushing buttons simply for
the sake of it.
Despite the fork in the road that had split our moms onto two different paths, their friendship
remained rock solid. Given that we’d grown up together just like they had, it was only natural that
Jackson and I had developed a similar sort of bond.
Sure, there were more than a handful of annoyances that came with being his friend. Given the
silver spoon he’d grown up sucking on, he was spoiled and a self-centered shithead from time to
time. The jackass had come out of the womb good-looking, never experiencing any of the
embarrassments that came with puberty and such, and the prick knew it, letting it get to his head and
inflate it even more.
There were times—more frequent as we got older—I wondered how he was able to fit his ego
through the door, it was so damn big. But that bond from childhood was still there, a past and familial
connection that tangled us up, making it damn near impossible to cut ties. As we got older, he seemed
to get worse and worse, making hanging with him more of a chore than something to look forward to.
I felt like an asshole for thinking it, but the main reason I’d held on the past year and half was so I
wouldn’t lose my connection to Asher completely. As painful as it was to see them together, I’d
convinced myself it was better than nothing at all.
As I got older, I’d eventually gotten over my hang-ups and had no problem landing a date
whenever I wanted. I was just a bit slower when it came to making my move. Where Jackson dove in
head first, I liked to take my time and feel out a situation, see if an opening formed naturally instead of
sledgehammering my way in like he did.
That had been my biggest regret, because it gave Jackson more than enough time to swoop in that
night and win Asher over before I’d even devised a plan of action. Admitting to him that I’d wanted
her, that I’d seen her first, wouldn’t have done a damn bit of good either. He would have turned it into
a competition that probably would have damaged an already-floundering friendship beyond repair.
As with everything else in his life, when Jackson decided he wanted something, he went after it
with the single-minded focus and determination of a Great White that had just scented blood in the
water.
That had been the case with Asher. I’d fucked up by saying I didn’t see them as a match not long
after they started dating, mostly because it was true, but also because I was a whole hell of a lot more
than a little bitter she was with him and not me. Unfortunately, he took my words as a personal
challenge. For months, his sole focus had been winning her and keeping her. Then—just like with
everything else he “won”—once he had her locked down, he started to grow bored.
I had to give him credit, it had taken longer than most of his other relationships, the honeymoon
phase lasting for six months, a record for him, before finally wearing off. Only, he didn’t react how he
normally would. Usually, he gave the chick some lame excuse, the cliched “it’s not you, it’s me”
bullshit, and sent them on their way, practically forgetting them the moment the door hit them on the
ass on the way out. But that hadn’t been the case with Asher, for whatever reason. I wasn’t sure why
the hell he thought proposing would solve that problem, but he refused to see reason, convinced that
putting a ring on her finger would get them back to that place where everything seemed bright and
shiny.
Being his friend, as hard as that was becoming, but also the man who owed him my life, I’d had
no choice but to say yes when he’d asked me to stand beside him as his best man, no matter how much
it killed to think of them spending the rest of their lives together. The fact of the matter was, even if
she never developed feelings for me, Asher deserved so much better than Jackson.
The longer the two of them were together, the better I got to know her, and the differences between
the two of them were night and day, like pieces to two totally different puzzles. She was ambitious
and funny. She worked her ass off and had the biggest heart of anyone I knew. She was into comics
and action movies. Then there was the small fact she was drop-dead gorgeous, a real-life stunner. I’d
lost my breath when I saw her across that bar. When she smiled, it had nearly knocked me on my ass.
The only time in my life that had ever happened was like a goddamn lightning strike, at the end of
which, she ended up with someone else. Talk about a cruel joke from a higher power.
I didn’t understand what Asher saw in a man whose main ambition in life was to do the bare
minimum in order to get by, counting on his charm to give him what he thought he deserved. Jackson
had absolutely no drive. While I’d wanted to be a veterinarian since I was five-years old, Jackson
hadn’t known what the hell he wanted to do with his life, so he’d taken a job at his father’s company
right out of college because it had been expected of him, and even there, he phoned it in. I lost track of
the number of nights I laid awake in bed, wondering why in the hell she’d say yes to marrying him,
and I still hadn’t come up with an answer.
A year had passed with Jackson’s ring on Asher’s finger when the wedding day had finally
arrived. I was resigned to see this through to the very end, even though it tore me apart. Then, not
even a handful of hours ago, he’d informed me that he’d made a huge mistake.
No fucking shit, I’d thought to myself. I would have backed his play if he’d decided to handle the
situation the right way. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of Asher getting hurt, but I knew, given time, she
would look back on this day and realize it was all for the best. Maybe not tomorrow, but eventually,
and I was a patient man. Well, patient enough. But that wasn’t what he wanted to do. He’d wanted to
take the coward’s way out and make a run for it. As much as I didn’t want him to marry her, no
fucking way was I letting it go down like that.
He hadn’t taken it too well when I blocked the doorway and told him to grow some balls and
handle his shit like a man. That fell back to always expecting to get what he wanted. When words
didn’t work, he tried everything from evasion to forcing me out of the way. Sadly for him, I was
bigger, a hell of a lot stronger, and didn’t give a shit about fucking up my paraffin manicure, whatever
the hell that was.
In my defense, the first punch I landed was strictly in self-defense, the second reactionary, and as
far as I was concerned, it was his own damn fault for messing with someone who hit a lot harder than
he did. I couldn’t say I regretted it though. The son of a bitch deserved those blows and a whole lot
more, especially after sneaking out the goddamn window of the bathroom when he was supposed to
have been cleaning his busted lip. Next time I saw him I was going to pound him into the ground for
what he’d done to Asher.
But that was something I’d have to worry about later. For now, I had bigger, more important things
to deal with, such as making sure Asher hadn’t gotten herself into trouble with a bunch of outlaw
bikers.
Everything in the bar ground to a halt the moment I threw the door open and stepped inside. I’d
been wrong before, this crowd wasn’t just rough, it was downright dangerous, and in the middle of it
all, in her puffy white dress, was Asher, sitting at the bar and stuffing a burger the size of my face into
her mouth.
I took a single step in her direction, and a wall of leather and denim suddenly shot up in front of
me, separating me from my target. What the fuck?
I looked at the guy in the middle. If I had to guess, I would have put him somewhere in his sixties,
I just wasn’t sure where on that line he fell. He was average height, about three inches shorter than I
was, and a hell of a lot softer than I was, but I was willing to bet he had serious power hidden behind
all that cushioning. My gut told me he was the ringleader of this band of felons. “You mind stepping
aside?”
“Turn around and walk the hell out the way you came. Your kind’s not welcome here, son.”
Any other time, I would have been more than happy to oblige. I wasn’t all that fond of getting my
ass handed to me, as it was. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option, and my already dark mood was
growing even blacker with each passing second they blocked me from Asher.
Stepping closer to the leader of the crew, I lowered my voice and clenched my hands into fists,
the ache from punching Jackson earlier returning to my knuckles. I could more than hold my own in an
evenly matched fight. This wouldn’t be that, not by a long shot, but I’d be damned if I wouldn’t cause
some of these assholes serious pain before this crowd finally took me down. “You don’t know me, so
I’ll fill you in on something. Right at this very moment, you’re standing between me and my
destination. I’m not the kind of man who’s fond of that. You’ve got five seconds to get out of my way
and let me get to Asher, or I’ll go right through you.”
He smiled in a way that would have made my balls shrivel to the size of raisins if I wasn’t
already so pissed off. I was kind of itching for a fight, and this dude was as good a stand-in for
Jackson as anyone.
“That so, asshole?”
“Goddamn right it is.”
A younger guy standing beside the leader spoke up then. “Funny how this prick thinks we’re gonna
let him anywhere near Princess after the shit he pulled on her today.”
My eyebrows dipped, the skin between them puckering with my intensely confused frown.
“Excuse me?”
“You got a set of balls on you, motherfucker,” the ringleader pointed out. “Tracking her down here
and showing your face after leaving her high and dry the way you did.”
“That wasn’t him.” The words came from the direction of the bar before I could speak up to
defend myself. The defensive line in front of me split in several places as everyone turned to look at
Asher. “I appreciate you looking out, Butch,” she continued in a slurred voice, “but he’s not my ex-
asshole. He’s just a regular asshole.”
Well, ouch. Not that I didn’t deserve it. I hadn’t exactly been an adult about the whole her-dating-
my-friend situation, and I tended to be a little cold and short-tempered whenever she came around.
Okay, very cold and short-tempered. Jealousy wasn’t a good look on me, and I was shit at handling it
like a mature adult, so sue me.
“How many fucking guys in tuxes you got following you today, dollface?” the younger of my
intimidators asked.
“Supposed to be none,” she answered before shoving that burger back in her face. “He’s my ex-
asshole’s best friend.” Her words were muffled by the food packed into her puffed out cheeks. “He
was supposed to be the best man today. You can let him through, Dagger.”
I arched a brow and moved to Asher, taking the stool beside her. I was sure the two of us made
quite a pair, sitting side by side in a freaking biker bar, her in a wedding gown and me in a tux, sans
bow tie and jacket. “Dagger? Really?”
“I’ll have you know, he’s a very sweet man.” She finished on a hiccup, swaying slightly on her
stool while I looked over my shoulder at Dagger, thinking the man was anything but sweet, and that
he most likely got his nickname because that was his preferred weapon of choice when it came to
committing homicide.
And Jesus, but of course she’d hit up a bar no law-abiding citizen would dare set foot in and
somehow manage to wrap all the criminals inside around her little finger. That was just Asher.
She stuffed another bite of burger into her mouth as she eyed me speculatively. Something that
resembled chili glopped out from under the bun and plopped down on the plate below, a plate that
was also piled high with fries covered in chili and cheese. She dropped the burger back onto the
plate, never once shifting her scowl from me as she reached down and used the tattered material of
her dress as a napkin. From the stains all over it, that hadn’t been the first time either.
“Jesus, Ash. What the hell happened to your dress?”
“I made it more functional,” she said, lifting a shot glass full of amber liquid to her lips and
throwing it back like a college kid during a frat party. “Now what the hell are you doing here,
Owen?” She lifted a finger before I had a chance to answer. “Let me guess, you’re doing Jackson’s
dirty work for him, like always. Don’t you ever get sick of it?”
Oh, she had no clue, but I didn’t bother telling her as much. “I’m not here because of him. I came
to your suite earlier to tell you what had happened. Sloane said you’d already heard and had
disappeared after claiming you needed some air. She was panicked, so I started looking for you.”
She narrowed her eyes, closing one of them, probably to keep her vision from doubling. “How’d
you even find me?”
I plucked at her chili and cheese smeared skirt. “Not as hard as you’d think. You stuck out like a
sore thumb in this thing.”
She popped a cheesy fry into her mouth and used the expensive gown as a napkin again, wiping
her mouth this time. “Okay, fine. But why you? Why didn’t one of my friends come looking?”
“Because I offered.”
She swayed forward, her breath downright flammable. If I were to ring her out, I’d probably get a
gallon of whiskey. Her eyes narrowed so much, for a moment I thought they were closed and that
she’d fallen asleep on the stool. Then she spoke. “But why?” she repeated with unnecessary
emphasis. “You hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“Yuh huh.” She jabbed a finger toward my face accusingly, but given her inebriated state, was off
by a few inches. “You’re always mean, and you told Jackson you didn’t think we were a good match,”
she said with near-perfect recall given the whiskey steaming from her pores. “And when we got
engaged, you told him you thought it was a mistake.”
That fucker, I seethed silently. I didn’t know why I was surprised though. Telling Asher I’d said
shit like that was absolutely something he’d do. As far as Jackson was concerned, life was one big
competition, and the fucker wasn’t happy if he didn’t think he was in the lead at any given moment.
“You never liked me. Not from day one. It’s so obvious.”
“I like you plenty, Asher.” Too damn much, I reminded myself silently. A whole hell of a lot more
than I had any business liking the woman who’d been with my friend for a year and a half, who
intended on spending the rest of her life with him.
“It’s getting late,” I coaxed in a gentle voice. “Why don’t you let me give you a ride?”
She let out a loud hiccup. “But I can’t leave. Ruger’s going to teach me how to play pool.” She
ended that statement on another hiccup, tottering on her stool as she flung her arm back toward the
pool tables.
“You made friends with a guy named Ruger—” I cut myself off with a shake of my head. “You
know what? Forget I even asked because of course you did.” That was just who she was. Asher
couldn’t walk into a room without walking back out with at least three new friends. There was this
magnetism to her that pulled people into her orbit. I knew from experience. “He can teach you when
you’re sober,” I said, all the while thinking it would be over my bloated, rotting corpse that she’d set
foot in this bar again, but that was an argument for another day.
“Okay.” It surprised me how easily she let me guide her off the stool. She called good-byes to a
group of men over at the pool table, getting the same in return. “I’ll be back next month for that poker
tournament, Butch. Just you wait. I’m going to wipe the floor with you.”
The old man whose grin had my balls drawing back up into my belly earlier gave Asher an
affectionate smile that softened his haggard face somewhat. “I’m counting on it, little lady.”
Jesus Christ.
“And Judd,” she continued, looking at the grizzled old bartender. “That was the best burger I’ve
ever had. How much do I owe you?”
He held up a hand that was roughly the size of a Christmas ham. “On the house, darlin’.”
“That’s so nice,” she muttered as she began listing to the side. I grabbed her by the arm to keep
her on her feet as she turned to me and whisper-yelled, “He’s so nice! They all are. They’re my new
favorite people.”
I began moving her toward the exit. “Uh-huh. Sure.”
“I drank a lot.”
“I know. I can smell it on you. Let’s keep you away from all open flames, yeah?”
She let out a little giggle and another hiccup as she teetered through the gravel parking lot on her
pencil-thin heels. “That was funny.” She poked me in the ribs. “You’re funny. Who would’ve
guessed?”
Not me, I thought. “Let’s get you home.”
She pulled up short, forcing me to stop with her or risk her falling flat on her face. “I can’t go
home,” she said, her jovial mood suddenly gone as she sniffled. The glassiness in her eyes didn’t
have anything to do with the booze, and I felt my throat get tight. “I don’t have a home. That’s
Jackson’s home, and I never ever want to see him as long as I live. I can’t go back there.”
“Okay. It’s okay,” I started quickly, desperate to stop the tears before they could fully start. I
wasn’t too proud to admit that I didn’t handle women crying very well. It was the sole reason my
sister got her way every goddamn time we argued about something when we were younger, or, hell,
even to this day. “You don’t have to go back there. I promise.”
She sniffled again, using her skirt to mop up the few tears that had managed to leak out. “Really?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay, good.” She looked up at me with big doe eyes the color of warm amber, ringed with a
band of goldish green. “Owen?”
“Yeah, sweetheart?”
“I’m gonna be sick.”
And she sure as hell did. Right on my shoes.
 3

ASHER

I was jolted into consciousness by something hot, wet, and slimy sliding up the center of my
face from the bottom of my chin all the way up to my hairline. My eyelids popped open in
shock, my vision blurry with sleep and gunked-up mascara that was trying to mold my bottom
and top lashes together. I sucked in a gasp, ready to let out a shriek of terror at the hairy monster in
front of me when its tongue popped back out and raked across my face again, inadvertently Frenching
me and leaving a trail of slime in its wake.
“Oh, God. That’s so gross!” I flailed my arms, trying to push the creature back, but it seemed like
my movement only hyped it up more. “Back, monster. Jeez.”
Just then, it let out a bark that sounded downright giddy.
I blinked until my vision cleared, finally bringing the hairy beast into clear view. Sure enough, it
was a dog, and not just any dog. As much as I didn’t like Owen Shields, only because the jerk didn’t
like me, I’d been in love with his dog from the first moment I laid eyes on those big floppy ears and
that lion’s mane of fiery gold fur. There had been times during my relationship with Jackson that I’d
contemplated dognapping. I even tried talking him into stealing the pup for me, but he shot that idea
down with a laugh, saying offhandedly how he’d never allow pets in his house, despite knowing how
much I wanted a dog. I told myself that if Owen was even a smidge as cold toward the rambunctious
puppy as he was toward me, he’d be a terrible dog owner. Only I’d seen them together too many times
and knew that for a bald-faced lie. The icy bastard worshipped that damn dog.
“Gus? What the hell are you doing here?” At my acknowledgement of him, his excitement went
into hyperdrive, and he started licking wherever he could reach. “Gross, stop! What has your daddy
been feeding you, huh? Roadkill? God, your breath is foul.”
“Bet he’d say the same to you. You know, if he could talk.”
I let out a yelp that made my brain rattle in my skull and my stomach rumble unpleasantly, like a
liter of Coke that had been shaken up and placed out in the blistering sun, just waiting to explode.
Lying back on the mattress, I closed my eyes and threw an arm over my face to block out the light.
“Oh, that’s not good. Nope. Oh, shit.”
“You all right?”
“Not even close.” I took several deep breaths, counting to three on each inhale and exhale until
the Circ Du Sole performance happening in my stomach finally settled. It wasn’t easy, now that my
hangover was beating through the grogginess and confusion. I could practically smell the whiskey
seeping through my skin, making the nausea even worse. “Owen? What’s going on? Why are you
here?” Not that I was all that sure where here was. From the brief glimpse I got, the only thing I
recognized about my surroundings was Gus.
 “I’ll give you a second to try and piece last night together . . . princess.”
That name was the trigger needed to make everything from the past several hours come spilling
back. Being jilted at the altar. Taking off so I didn’t have to face the humiliation of being jilted at the
altar. Finding a roadside bar that catered heavily toward biker. Eating the best burger in the whole
world. Owen tracking me down. And whiskey, all the whiskey. Not the good stuff, either, but the melt-
the-lining-of-your-stomach-and-esophagus whiskey. Oh, the regret.
My stomach roiled again.
“Don’t you throw up on my sheets now,” Owen warned, his tone holding no sympathy whatsoever.
I didn’t have it in me just then to care about the fact I was in his bed. “I’m not going to, you ass.”
At least I didn’t think I would. Once I was sure, I lowered my arm and sat up slowly, carefully,
skewering him with my most killing look that was interrupted when Gus jumped up into my lap and
attacked my face again.
“Gus, off the bed,” Owen said in a tone just stern enough to make the overeager hairball obey
instantly. His tongue retracted back into his mouth, and he leaped down to sit right at the side of the
bed, only inches from me, his tail swishing across the floor like a happy little broom, his body
trembling with an abundance of energy. “How much of last night do you remember?”
Letting out a slow exhale, I reached up to massage my temples to counteract the power drill
whirring at full speed inside my brainpan. “Most of it . . . I think. But everything after shot three, or
maybe it was shot four, is a bit hazy.” I peeled my eyelids open, taking him in fully for the first time.
He was the picture of casualness, in a plain white cotton tee and gray sweats. His shoulder was
propped against the doorjamb, his bare feet crossed at the ankles. The tattoos that started at his wrists
—the ones you’d never expect to see on your friendly neighborhood veterinarian—and covered his
arms all the way up beneath his shirt sleeves were on full display, and like usual, the sight of them
made my breath hitch and my blood race fast enough to heat my veins beneath my skin.
Jackson wouldn’t have been caught dead with a tattoo. He had been clean-cut and polished, even
when he wasn’t at work. His idea of casual attire was to trade his suit and tie for a polo and chinos.
The man even wore house shoes instead of walking around barefoot. I caught him curling his lip up
more than once when I’d come home from working a shift at Whiskey Dolls and change into a pair or
sweats, throwing my hair up in a messy bun. When what he’d tried to play off as casual teasing hadn’t
guilted me into throwing out some of my more threadbare lounge clothes, he’d resorted to buying me
new ones as replacements, making passive-aggressive comments and feigning hurt when I stuck with
the tried and true instead of the expensive and uncomfortable athleisure-wear he’d given me as a
“gift”.
Jackson kept his sandy hair neatly trimmed and perfectly coiffed, and his jaw free of stubble,
while Owen’s dark hair was usually untidy from dragging his fingers through it, and he sported a
near-constant five-o’clock shadow, like he couldn’t be bothered to shave more than every other day,
if that. The two men were night and day in pretty much every single way you could imagine.
“The details of how I ended up here”—I gave the room a cursory glance, noticing the décor was
more rustic, leaning more toward comfortable than showy, like the bedroom I’d shared with Jackson
— “wherever here is, are a little hazy.”
“Well, here would be my place.”
That certainly piqued my curiosity, and before I could stop myself, I gave the space another
perusal, taking more of it in the second time around. I knew Owen lived in an apartment above his
veterinary clinic, but I’d never been inside. From what Jackson had told me, the place was barely
livable, a crackerjack box from what he’d described. Granted, I could only see one single room from
where I lay, but as I looked around, I didn’t see any of the negative things he had said about the place.
To hear Jackson tell it, Owen had been living two steps up from a hovel, this bedroom was not that.
In fact, it was downright comfy.
Sure, it was only about half the size of my old room that I’d shared with my now-ex, but I’d
always thought the four-thousand-square-foot two-story was too damn big anyway. And thanks to the
interior designer Jackson’s mother had hired, it had lacked all warmth and was a personality-less
showplace, while Owen’s bedroom alone was full of quaint, old-fashioned charm. The walls were
paneled in a warm honey-toned wood, giving it a cabin vibe that matched perfectly with the soft
flannel sheets on the bed and the distressed brown leather chair in the corner. The bed and dresser
were made of solid wood and masculine in design, the latter of which had loose change and crumpled
receipts scattered along the top.
It could have used some tidying, that was certain. The chair and floor were littered with the deep
hunter green scrubs Owen wore to work every day, several pairs of tennis shoes, and dirty socks that
had been turned inside out as he stripped them off. However, given his bachelor status, it could have
been a lot worse. It wasn’t so much dirty as messy. The only reason Jackson hadn’t lived in a pigsty
was because he paid a woman to come and clean up after him once a week, and when she wasn’t
there I was, constantly picking up the messes he couldn’t be bothered with after making them. Even
with the clutter, Owen’s place felt cozy and comfortable, something I’d never felt in the house I was
expected to share with my husband.
“Your place,” I murmured, thinking this was the kind of space you curled up in on a stormy day
with a good, thick book.
“I can give you the how of it all over breakfast and coffee.”
He had me at coffee. That one word held far too much appeal to be ignored, even in my current
state, which felt about two steps from death’s door. I threw the covers back and climbed out of bed.
The cool blast of the air conditioner caused goosebumps to break out across my legs. My very bare
legs.
“Um, I take it the shirt’s yours too?” I asked as I plucked at the hem of the cotton tee I was
wearing, the material super soft from a thousand washes, the once-black now a faded gray. It was
baggy and fell to just above mid-thigh, covering my most intimate parts, but other than my panties, it
was all I was wearing.
I wasn’t shy about showing a bit of skin, just the opposite, in fact. My job as a Whiskey Doll, a
performer at the most renowned burlesque club in the state of Virginia, required performing in tiny
little costumes night after night. It was second nature to me. It wasn’t the fact that he could see my legs
just then that gave me pause, but the fact that I couldn’t remember changing myself.
I lifted my gaze to his, my eyebrows inching closer to my hairline. “And I take it I didn’t change
myself last night?”
“I was going to leave you in your underwear. But then I saw them and, well, they didn’t exactly
look comfortable.” His expression gave nothing away, however I flushed beet red at the knowledge
he’d seen the plunging, frilly corset and garters I’d worn beneath my gown as a surprise to Jackson
for the end of the night. “And I didn’t think that destroyed dress would feel any better.”
“Destroy—” I cut myself off, squeezing my eyes closed. “So I didn’t dream that?”
There was no mistaking the humor in his voice as he answered. “Afraid not.”
“Is it as bad as I’m picturing right now?”
There was a brief pause. “Hate to break it to you, but I don’t think there’s a seamstress in the
world good enough to undo the damage you did with those scissors.”
 With a pained groan, I covered my face with my hands. At his words, I recalled hacking away at
my dress, desperate to remove some of the weight and allow air to flow beneath.
“I did the best I could to wash out the stains, but chili’s a bitch to get out of anything, especially
silk.”
I dropped my hands, my eyes shooting to his as my heart hammered against my breastbone. “You
washed my dress?”
He shrugged like it was nothing, but I caught the faint pink that tinged his cheeks beneath that
appealing scruff before he turned his head to look out the bedroom window. “Wasn’t a big deal. I had
to wash my pants and shoes too. Figured I’d kill a third bird with that same stone while I was at it.”
“Why did you—Ah, hell.” And the hits just kept coming. “I puked on you.”
That humor came back in force. “In your defense, you did give me warning. Only one second, but
still. Come on. Coffee will make you feel a hell of a lot better.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. Between the hangover, the utter humiliation, and the ball of rage that
was still sitting like a lead weight in my belly, I was pretty sure things were going to suck something
fierce for the next long while. All I could hope was to sustain a closed-head injury that would keep
me in a coma for the next few weeks, maybe a couple months. Nothing serious, just long enough that
by the time I came out of it this whole mess would have blown over and been nothing more than a bad
dream.
“Would you mind if I used the restroom first? Clean up a little bit?”
“Not at all.” He pointed to an opened door just behind me. “Bathroom’s through there. Take your
time.”
I offered him a wan smile before stepping inside and closing the door between us with a quiet
snick. The bathroom wasn’t exactly small, but it wasn’t huge either. Just the right size, I thought to
myself, remembering back on that story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears from my childhood. Big
enough for a double vanity, but not a tub and separate shower. However, that cozy cabin vibe was
carried into the space with the cherry cabinets, brass fixtures, and the antique cast iron clawfoot tub
along the back wall. It was the perfect tub for soaking, lying back in bubbles up to your neck, candles
flickering around you, a glass of wine in hand. In fact, I could see myself doing just that.
But the little picture I’d conjured up in my head was interrupted by the sight of my mangled,
tattered wedding gown hanging from the oval shower curtain rod that had been bolted into the ceiling
above the tub. Reaching up, I stroked the material, feeling the dampness as visions of me using the
silk as a napkin as I scarfed down the best burger I could remember ever eating danced in my aching
head. Sure enough, the stains—while never coming out—had been scrubbed into a faded, unsavory-
looking orange color. As I stared at the splotches that reminded me of vomit, I felt something tug and
tighten in my chest, something warm and unexpected, staggering. He’d really washed it. While I lay
passed out in his bed . . . after puking on him, Owen had been in here, trying to salvage my gown. It
didn’t make any damn sense. It wasn’t jiving with the man I’d known—or thought I had—the past year
and a half.
Pulling in a cleansing breath, I turned from the dress, shoving that warmth in my chest to the back
of my mind, and faced the mirror, letting out a squeak of terror at my reflection in the glass.
To say I looked a mess would have been offensive to messes everywhere. I looked like roadkill
that had been plowed over a billion times, left to bake in the hot summer sun, then came back to life.
The artful chignon I’d paid a hairdresser a small fortune for yesterday now looked like something
rats had made their home in. The fake lashes I’d worn for the big day to give my eyes more drama,
were now stuck to my forehead and cheek. The makeup that had been caked on so my skin would look
flawless and dewy, my eyes big and shiny, had smudged and shifted and melted, now resembling
some sort of failed experiment where fire had been used to melt a whole box of crayons into a
puddle. I looked like the thing you put out on the front porch every Halloween to scare the little kids
coming up to ask for candy.
And Owen Shields had seen me just . . . like . . . this. The man all my friends referred to as
criminally sexy. The man who was so good-looking, I’d witnessed the smartest women go plain
stupid in his presence. I might not have liked the man, but I wasn’t blind, damn it. I couldn’t say I
didn’t see the appeal. And he’d officially seen me at my worst.
Just freaking perfect.
I did the best I could with what I could find, given that Owen Shields obviously wasn’t as big into
skincare products as I was. A bit of soap would do in a pinch, but I’d have to give my poor face a
deep treatment mask when I got home.
That thought gave me pause. Home.
As I scrubbed my face, I thanked my lucky stars that the condo I’d put on the market after moving
in with Jackson only a couple weeks before the wedding hadn’t sold yet. Sure, my realtor would be
pissed when I told her I was backing out, but she’d just have to get over it.
I raked my fingers through my hair, snagging on a few of the bobby pins I hadn’t managed to find
the first go-round, then squirted a bit of toothpaste on my finger and scoured my teeth as I made out a
list in my head of what I had to do to put my life back to rights. It struck me then that I wasn’t even
thinking about Jackson walking out on me or the wedding that didn’t happen. I wasn’t grieving the end
of a relationship like most people would have been, curled up in a ball and crying my eyes out over a
lost love. I was planning my next move, most specifically how I was going to get all my stuff from his
house without having to see his stupid face.
I spit and rinsed, washing my hands before giving myself a good, hard look in the mirror. “As if
you didn’t know you were making a mistake the moment you said yes,” I said to my reflection. That
didn’t mean I wasn’t still pissed. I absolutely was, and I had every intention of holding to that anger
for a good long while. Just because I wasn’t upset that the marriage didn’t happen didn’t mean that
asshole didn’t owe me the respect of ending our relationship civilly.
Just thinking about that jackass and his perfectly threaded eyebrows and capped teeth made the
pounding in my head that much worse, so I decided that was enough for the time being, at least until
I’d had my coffee.
 4

ASHER

I t was ridiculous, considering it was my job to perform on a stage in front of hundreds of

people four nights a week in tiny little costumes, but as I pulled the bathroom door open and
started out, I felt more exposed than ever, dressed only in Owen’s T-shirt. However, I didn’t
have a lot of options. It was either this or the soggy wedding gown that looked like it had been
through a bloodied wood chipper. I could have barricaded myself in the bathroom, I guess, but the
call for caffeine was too great to stay locked up behind closed doors.
I took in the rest of Owen’s apartment as I followed that glorious scent of freshly brewing coffee
toward the kitchen. The space was open and airy, longer than it was wide, running the whole length of
the clinic below from the looks of it.
The master bedroom was at one end of the apartment. Next was the living room with a brown
leather couch that looked butter-soft and faced a huge flatscreen TV mounted on the wall above a
stone fireplace. Past that was a round kitchen table with four chairs in a small dining nook. A small
yet functional kitchen was separated from the living and eating areas by a long, wide concrete
countertop—a bold, masculine choice that worked surprisingly well, especially since, in place of
upper cabinets, wooden shelves held simple yet classic white dishes, and lower cabinets matched the
wood around the rest of his apartment.
Windows stretched across the north-facing wall, letting in sunlight and breathtaking views of the
forest and mountains beyond our town’s picturesque downtown. Beyond that was a guest bathroom
and, from what I could see as I strained to peek without being obvious, another room—bedroom most
likely—that had been converted into a home office. The whole place had the same feel as the master
bedroom, warm and inviting, the kind of place you wanted to stay a while.
The wooden floorboard creaked beneath my foot as I took a step, alerting Owen and his dog to my
approach.
“Perfect timing,” Owen announced as Gus came trotting out of the kitchen to meet me, bumping his
snout against my hand in a demand to be petted. “Take a seat and I’ll get you a cup of coffee.” He
pointed the spatula in his hand to one of the two barstools at the counter instead of the table. “How do
you take it?”
“By IV if that’s an option.”
He chuckled and the warmth I’d felt earlier came back, throwing me off balance.
“Sorry. Can’t make that happen, but I have a fresh pot brewed.” He turned to face me, pouring a
mug and placing it, along with a canister of sugar and carton of milk, in front of me. “Hey, noticeable
improvement,” he said, circling his finger in front of my face.
I smacked his hand away with a glare. “Yeah, you could have told me I looked like something that
had been coughed up by a wild animal then run over by a garbage truck.” Reaching up, I patted at my
hair to make sure I’d smoothed out the tangles as best I could with my fingers.
He blinked. “Wow. That’s some picture you drew there.” He pointed at my coffee. “Drink that
while I finish our breakfast.”
I hefted myself onto the stool, staring on in silent bewilderment while doctoring my coffee with
two scoops of sugar and a healthy splash of milk as Owen pulled four pieces of perfectly golden toast
out of the toaster and began to spread butter on them. He dropped two of them onto the plate beside
two sunny side up eggs before sliding the plate across the counter in front of me. “Eat. The eggs and
toast will help beat back that hangover. Trust me.”
I forced my eyes up from the plate, back to him. “You cooked? For me?”
He looked at me, his eyes the kind of green that reminded me of new leaves in the springtime.
Vibrant. I’d always thought he had the most beautiful eyes. “Well, for me too. A person has to eat,” he
noted before biting off the corner of his toast. “Just don’t expect culinary perfection, or you’ll be
sorely disappointed.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. Eight times out of ten, I couldn’t crack eggs into a frying pan without
breaking the yolks and turning them into a scrambled mess, but his looked perfect, and I bet he nailed
it on the first try. However, that wasn’t what had me stunned just then.
“No, I know. It’s just . . .” I was at a loss for words, something that didn’t happen all that often.
Usually I had no problem talking, but this guy had thrown me for a serious loop this morning. More
than once. He’d taken care of me, scrubbed my wedding dress, made me breakfast, all, apparently,
after I’d hurled on him. My recollection was still grainy, like an overly pixilated photograph, but I
could have sworn I remembered him saying he’d volunteered to track me down after I’d gone AWOL,
that he’d been, well, sweet. It didn’t line up with the picture I’d always had of him. The one he’d
given me by the way he acted whenever I was around.
“Is this pity?” I blurted, surprising both of us with my unexpected question.
He lifted a solitary brow, using facial muscles I’d never mastered. “What?”
“You’re being nice to me. You can’t stand me, but you’re being nice to me, so I can only assume
it’s because you pity me, and I don’t like it.”
He crunched off another bite of toast, chewing slowly as he regarded me, casual and unhurried.
He remained so damn calm I felt like I was coming out of my skin. We watched each other in
complete silence as the seconds ticked by, the only sound Gus’s panting. Finally he spoke, and his
words were just as maddening as the silence. “I don’t recall ever saying I couldn’t stand you.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You didn’t have to. You haven’t exactly been supportive of my relationship
with Jackson.”
He popped the last bite of toast into his mouth as he studied me in that infuriatingly blasé way.
“What did you want me to do, throw you a parade?”
Momentarily forgetting the pounding headache, I started to roll my eyes and had to abandon the
motion halfway through when my stomach revolted at the sharp spike of pain that lanced through my
eyeballs. “Don’t be glib, you know that’s not what I meant. I would have settled for you simply being
nice to me.” I pointed an accusing finger at his stupidly handsome face. “And Jackson told me you
tried talking him out of proposing. You said it was a mistake, that we weren’t a good fit.”
I’d expected denial, or maybe contrition at the least, but I should have known better. Those types
of emotions weren’t in Owen Shields’s wheelhouse. “First of all, telling you that was a dick move,
there was nothing to be gained by you knowing I’d said that, and he knew it. Second, that had nothing
to do with whether I like you or not. I was simply stating a fact.” He held up a hand to stop me when I
opened my mouth to argue. “You know I’m right,” he said with certainty. “Most women who’d been
dumped at the altar would be curled up in a ball, sobbing their eyes out from a broken heart. That’s
not what you were feeling yesterday.”
Indignation churned in my belly, not to be mistaken for the mild nausea I was still feeling thanks to
the hangover from hell. “Don’t tell me what I feel. You don’t have the first clue. You don’t know me.”
“I know you better than you think.” He leaned forward, the certainty making that green in his eyes
spark, causing my breath to go shallow and my heart to race. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you weren’t
starting to feel suffocated at the end there. Tell me you weren’t starting to realize you and Jackson had
serious compatibility issues.”
“I don’t—that’s not—” I pursed my lips and blew out a long, frustrated raspberry, throwing my
arms up in defeat. “Okay, you may have a point. So what? That doesn’t mean you haven’t spent the
past year and a half being cold and insufferable.” He watched me over the rim of his coffee cup as he
drank, and that was when I noticed the angry red scrapes and faint bruising around his knuckles. I
sucked in a worried gasp. “What did you do to your hand?” My eyes went big as realization dawned.
“Please tell me you didn’t pick a fight with one of those bikers from last night.”
He arched a single brow. “You mean your self-appointed bodyguards?” I couldn’t help but smile
at that while he set his mug down and looked to his hand, clenching and flexing his fingers as if testing
them. “No. Don’t worry. It wasn’t one of your new bestest buddies.”
“Then who?”
He did another clench and flex as he sipped more coffee. “This would be courtesy of your
fiancé’s face.”
“Ex-fiancé. And seriously?”
“Yep.”
“But . . . why?”
He tilted his chin toward the plate I’d yet to touch. “I’ll tell you all about it”—that single brow
went up again as he stressed—“while you eat.”
Eager for the story, and honestly for the eggs, because they smelled surprisingly good, I cut into
the sunny yellow yolk and forked up a bite, chewing slowly to make sure my stomach would handle it
before swallowing it down with a gulp of coffee. I bit off a huge chunk of toast, suddenly ravenous
now that I knew I could keep food down, and ordered, “Spill, Shields,” through packed cheeks.
“It happened when he told me he was bailing.” He paused, allowing me time to wince at that
information and a few more seconds to let it roll through me before inevitably letting it go. “We got
into it when he said he was just going to take off. I said he needed to sac up and talk to you first. He
didn’t like that much. Ended up punching him in the face.”
My mouth dropped open so fast it was a wonder I didn’t crack my chin on the countertop. “You
punched him?”
“He was being a dick.”
“So, you punched him,” I repeated as a statement that time. Wow, I thought. Owen Shields was full
of surprises. This was just another in a rapidly growing list of kind things he’d done for me in the past
twelve hours. “Thank you. I mean, in a perfect world, it would have been me clocking him for being
such a cowardly piece of shit, but if I couldn’t get the chance, I’m glad someone did. Thank you.”
His lips pulled into a thin, tight wince. “Don’t thank me just yet. Eat more.”
I finished off one egg and started on the second as I asked, “Why not?”
“Because the slippery bastard snuck out the bathroom window after telling me he was going to
clean up the split lip I gave him. If I’d kept my cool, he wouldn’t have had the chance.”
 Sucking back more coffee, I was thankful the caffeine was starting to dull the throbbing bassline in
my head. “Don’t blame yourself about that.” With a sigh I admitted, “That wedding wasn’t going to
happen no matter what.” I pursed my lips in exasperation at his arched look. “You were right, okay?
No, I’m not heartbroken over a lost love. To tell you the truth, if he hadn’t behaved like a spineless
toad, all I would have felt was relief. It was how everything played out that didn’t sit well with me.”
“Of course not. At the very least, the asshole should have sent you flowers.”
I let out a surprised bubble of laughter. “Exactly. Sorry I couldn’t meet you at the altar. Hope
these roses cheer you up.”
“Sounds reasonable to me,” Owen conceded.

“I was pissed and embarrassed that the guy I was supposed to pledge myself to had so little respect
for me, the bastard jumped out a window. That’s why I took off and got shitfaced.”
The smirk on his lips just then did things to my insides, things it shouldn’t, seeing as I’d just been
jilted by his best friend after a year-and-a-half-long relationship.
“Glad to hear it.”
My chin jerked back. “You’re glad to hear I wasn’t in love with your best friend?”
He shrugged in a noncommittal way but didn’t say anything more.
“Anyway,” I continued, hoping I didn’t look as flustered as I suddenly felt, “Thank you for
punching him out for me.”
“No need to thank me. The asshole deserved a lot more than a busted lip and black eye. You can
consider it penance for being, what did you say? Cold and insufferable?”
I dipped the corner of my second piece of toast into the runny yolk of my last egg and bit down,
chewing slowly as my brain churned, trying to wrap around the fact that Owen had done something
that extreme on my behalf. To punch his best friend in the face for not doing right by me shed a whole
new light on the man I thought I knew. It was disconcerting, and too damn much to wrap my head
around after the train wreck I’d experienced the past several hours.
As we continued to eat in silence, my attention drifted over Owen’s broad shoulder to the photos
he had stuck to his refrigerator. I hadn’t noticed them when I first sat down, but now that I had, I found
myself fascinated by them. There were selfie photos of Owen and Gus, human and dog faces mushed
together. Others had him with an older man and woman I could only assume were his parents. There
were several of him with a beautiful dark-haired woman, and even more with a little girl who had the
same gemstone green eyes as he had, the same tanned skin and deep brown hair. There were so many
photos, you couldn’t see the surface of the fridge, and in every single one of them, Owen was smiling,
big and brilliant and happy. It was a smile I’d never seen in person, one I wasn’t even sure he was
capable of.
“Is that your family?” I asked, pointing the speared edge of my toast at the fridge.
“Mostly, yeah. There are some of friends on there, but the majority are of the Shields clan.”
Pushing off the stool, I rounded the counter and entered the kitchen, eager for a closer look at a
side of Owen I’d never seen before, one I hadn’t known existed. My attention was drawn to the little
girl in particular. There were so many pictures of her, more than any other person, and it looked like
they spanned her entire life so far, from infancy to what looked to be about six, her big smile missing
a front tooth.
Without thinking, I reached out and slid one of the pictures from beneath its magnet. In it, Owen
was holding her up, propped on his hip, and she was dressed in a miniature graduation cap and gown
in royal blue.
“She looks exactly like you,” I said, holding the picture up and looking over my shoulder to
Owen. “Nearly spitting image.”
He moved closer, the grin taking over his face just then not nearly as big as the one in the photo,
but it still packed a hell of a punch. He took the rectangular piece of paper from my hand and looked
down at it, fondness swimming in his expression. “My niece, Hazel.” The way he said her name, the
love and adoration ringing clear in his words . . . I would have been lying if I said it didn’t make him
even hotter.
That grin of his blooming into a full-blown smile that made my insides hum. “She’s my little
buddy. Got me wrapped around her little finger, and she and my sister both know it and use it to their
advantage as often as possible.”
I turned to face him, resting my hips against the lip of the counter behind me as I crossed my arms
over my chest to hide the fact my nipples had pebbled in reaction to him, another surprise. “That’s
actually really sweet.”
He looked back up at me, arching that smug brow again as he moved to the fridge and stuck the
photo back under its magnet. “You don’t have to sound so surprised.”
It was my turn to shrug as I bit back my smile. “Cold and insufferable, remember?”
“Fair enough.” He leaned to the side, grabbed my coffee mug from the bar where I’d been sitting,
and passed it to me before propping himself against the counter across from me and drinking from his
own mug.
We stood there, staring at each other as we sipped our coffee. I wasn’t sure if he felt it too, but I
could have sworn that the air between us has grown thick and humid, making my blood tingle. That
tingle felt oddly like a warning, telling me we were too close, that the emotions running through me
were inappropriate given our circumstances.
I was saved from having to overthink every thought and feeling churning inside me by the familiar
ring of a cellphone. The sound gave me a jolt. “Is that mine?”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry.” The spell was effectively broken when Owen exited the kitchen and moved
into the living room, picking up the beaded white clutch I’d been carrying the day before that
contained my cell, ID, a bank card, and a bit of cash. “I meant to give this to you when you woke up,
but it slipped my mind. Don’t know how since the damn thing’s been going off all morning.”
My stomach sank as I took the clutch from his extended hand and twisted the front clasp. The
ringing stopped just as I pulled the phone out, and sure enough, Owen had been right. There were
more than forty missed calls from my mom, my maid of honor and best friend, Sloane, and the rest of
my crew from Whiskey Dolls. Then there were the texts, countless texts, mostly from the same
people, spanning from worried to supportive. Just a brief scan showed messages reading: Everything
is going to work out, I promise. Just as soon as Mercury is out of retrograde; that came from my
mom, the spiritualist, to: I’ve been talking to the girls and we think we figured out the perfect place
to hide Jackson’s body, from Sloane.
But out of the fifty or so texts, only one came from the man I was supposed to have walked down
the aisle to the day before. One.
Jackson: I’ll stay gone for a few days so you have time to pack your stuff and move out. I’m
sorry.
The son of a bitch. I’d have wished him dead, but I didn’t want him getting off that easy, so I
silently wished he’d catch a raging case of gonorrhea and shingles at the same time.
“Thank God for small favors, I guess,” I grumbled to myself as I shoved the phone back into my
purse. I’d get back to Mom and the girls later, once I knew what the hell I was going to do.
“That Jackson?”
I lifted my gaze to find Owen watching me intently, his eyes laser focused on me and sparking.
“No. It was my mom.” I waved the phone in my hand. “All I got from him was a text at 10:00 last
night telling me he’d be gone for a while so I could get my shit and get out of his house.”
Owen’s brows shot up, his nostrils flaring in a way that reminded me of a bull about to charge.
“That prick actually said that?”
“Well, not in those exact words, but that was the gist of it.” I waved it off. “You know what? It’s
fine. Totally fine. It’s not like I wanted to see him again anyway.” I let out a bitter laugh. “I wasn’t
exactly thrilled to be living there anyway. It wasn’t a house, it was a showroom, and God forbid it
should actually look or feel lived in.”
The corner of Owen’s mouth hooked up. “Guess you dodged a bullet then.”
“Several.” I sighed before finishing my coffee and moving to the sink to rinse out my mug. “And
as much as I’d like to keep my head buried in the sand a while longer, I should probably get back to
real life.”
Owen sucked back the last of his coffee and deposited the mug in the sink beside mine. “All right
then, just let me grab you a pair of shorts for the trip back to the real world.” His eyes dragged down
the front of my body, lingering on my legs for a few seconds, and I could have sworn I saw the green
darken just a bit before he blinked them back to normal. “They’ll be baggy as hell, but you can roll
them up at the waist so they stay put. Then I’ll give you a ride to wherever you need to go.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that. You’ve done enough already, Owen. I don’t know how I could
possibly pay you back.”
His gaze met mine, the green locking me into place so I couldn’t have looked away if I tried. It
was penetrating, seductive, encompassing. “I’m not Asher.”
My brows shot up to kiss my hairline. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, not every nice deed is done with the expectation of being paid back. If I’m doing
something for you, it’s because I want to, not because I want something in return.”
Well, I thought as I pulled in a deep, cleansing breath, apparently, I’ve read Owen Shields wrong
this whole damn time.
 5

OWEN

T he front door to my sister’s house flew open as soon as I turned into the driveway, my niece
shooting out like a little bolt of lightning at the sight of my familiar red and white ’81 Chevy
Blazer. It was the same truck I’d been driving since I was sixteen and my father had passed it
down to me.
She danced around the front yard, spinning and attempting a cartwheel before falling on her butt as
I shifted into park and killed the engine. “Uncle Owen! Uncle Owen!” Hazel shouted loud enough for
the whole block to hear. “Momma! Uncle Owen’s here!”
My sister came out of the house at a much slower, more relaxed pace as I rounded the hood,
holding my palm out to Gus at the edge of the grass so he’d know to stay put as I crouched down low.
“Hey there, my Hazel girl. Come give me some sugar.” She didn’t have to be told twice. She ran at
me as fast as her little legs would carry her, launching herself into the air before she was close
enough. Lucky for her, I lunged forward in time to catch her and climb to my feet, spinning her in a
circle fast enough to make her squeal with delight.
Taking my cheeks in her hands, she smooshed them together and announced, “I’ve missed you,
Uncle Owen!” before giving me a loud, smacking kiss.
I hugged her close, my chest swelling like it did every time I inhaled the fresh scent of her little
girl shampoo. “I’ve missed you too, baby girl.” I placed her on her feet and bent to her level, holding
out my fist. “Pound it out, munchkin.”
She gave me a little fist bump and hopped in place. “Can I play with Gus now? Pretty please?”
Thrown over for my dog, I thought with amusement. Typical.
Gus stood right where I left him, where the driveway met grass, his tail wagging so fast his whole
back end was moving, energy pouring off of him in waves as he desperately waited for my command
to release him so he could get to Hazel. “All right, boy. You can go. Be gentle.”
He shot past me like a bullet leaving a gun, a blur of golden fur racing through the grass to get to
his favorite human on the planet. He jumped in circles before collapsing on the ground and rolling
onto his back in submission so Hazel could hug and crawl all over him. I made my way up the front
porch steps, keeping a watchful eye on my niece and dog as I joined my sister at the porch railing.
“God, you’d think she never sees you and Gus with how she acts every time you come to visit.”
I pulled my little sister into a sideways hug so we were facing the yard as Hazel laughed gleefully
while Gus licked all over her face. “Not my fault I’m her favorite human on the planet. Maybe if you
weren’t so mean—”
My insult was cut off with a grunt when Hardin stabbed her elbow into my ribs. “I’m not mean.
You just spoil her rotten.”
 I dropped my arm and moved to one of the two rockers facing out toward the street. “Sure do,” I
said without an ounce of remorse as Hardin took the chair beside me. “And I don’t regret it for a
second.”
“It’s good at least one of the men in her life does,” my sister said, the sullen tone putting me on
high alert.
“I’m guessing Keith missed his scheduled visitation this week?” I tried to keep my voice neutral,
to make sure the animosity I felt toward my sister’s ex and the father of her kiddo didn’t drip from my
words.
She let out a sigh that carried the weight of the world. “This week, and the one before that, and the
one before that.”
It took everything in me not to hunt that worthless piece of shit down and punch his teeth out.
“What was his excuse this time?”
“Same as always. He had a gig.”
“Asshole always has a gig,” I muttered under my breath, but loud enough for her to hear.
Hardin’s snort was full of derision as she gave her head a disgusted shake. “Tell me about it. But
this one last night was supposed to be his big break,” she said sarcastically, using finger quotes on the
last two words. “Some record exec or something was supposed to be there. It was their chance to
make it big. Same shit he always spouts. And like always, nothing came from it.”
“Because he’s got no damn talent,” I lamented, speaking the truth everyone but her ex knew. “He’s
past thirty, for Christ’s sake. When’s he going to give up the fantasy of being a fucking rockstar and
grow the hell up?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” She twisted in her chair, directing her attention to me. “But I
don’t want to talk about my loser ex.” Her green eyes were only slightly less vivid than mine thanks to
our mother’s brown eyes. “I’d much rather discuss what happened yesterday. Or more to the point,
what didn’t happen.”
“Ah, Christ,” I grunted, dropping my head against the back of the rocker. “Let me guess, Mom?”
Hardin let out an excited yelp and reached over to smack my arm. “Of course, Mom. But even if I
hadn’t heard it from her, I’m sure I would have heard it somewhere. The fact the bride and the groom
of what was supposed to be this year’s biggest wedding disappeared before the vows could be said?”
She waggled her eyebrows salaciously. “It’s all anyone can talk about.”
“Well, they can talk about it all they want. I’ve got nothing to say about it.”
“Bullshit!” She smacked me in the arm again.
“Ow, Jesus! What is your deal with the hitting today? Knock it off or I’m telling Mom.”
“Oh, stop being such a baby. And don’t sit here and try to play it off like it wasn’t a big deal,” she
said, pointing an accusing finger in my face. “The fact that wedding didn’t happen is a huge deal. I
know all about those deep, dark, secret feelings you harbor for the woman, remember?” Oh, I
remembered all right. It was one of my greatest regrets. I’d had too damn much to drink one night and
spilled my guts to my little sister, telling her how I really felt about Asher Rose.
“Mom also told me you were the one who went out searching for her when it became obvious
she’d taken off.” Her brows climbed so high they nearly kissed her hairline. “So where’d you end up
finding her?”
I gave her an arched look. “Who says I did?”
She made a face that screamed, don’t be an idiot, because I’m certainly not. “Oh, come on. The
woman you’ve been harboring secret feelings for for the better part of a year and a half bails on the
wedding ceremony you’ve been dreading for months now? I know you, big brother, and I know you
wouldn’t stop looking until you found her, so spill it. Where’d you find the runaway bride?”
“Some roadside bar a few blocks from the highway. Next to a gas station that looked like it’s been
abandoned for decades.”
Hardin’s eyes went wide. “Wait. I know what place you’re talking about. I’ve seen it. Isn’t it like,
scary rough in there?”
I shook my head in amazement as I remembered the scene I’d stumbled on the evening before and
how she’d had those hardened criminal types wrapped around her dainty little finger. How they went
to the wall to protect her after only knowing her a couple of short hours.
“Yes,” I answered flatly. “But you should have seen it, Hard. The second I walked in that place, I
worried about being stabbed to death, but there she was, in her goddamn puffy dress, drunk off her ass
and chowing down on a burger while all these certified badasses hovered around her like some kind
of protective wall. She shouldn’t have fit there, but somehow, she did. She’s got this power. It’s like
she can’t help but make friends everywhere she goes. It would be scary as hell if it wasn’t so
astonishing. The only reason I walked out of there without any broken bones or missing teeth is those
guys didn’t want to upset her.”
“Careful,” she said teasingly. “You almost sound impressed.”
“I am. Because that was impressive as hell.”
“And what happened after you found her?”
I let out a sigh, knowing exactly what she was asking. “I took her back to my place.” I held up a
hand to stop her excitement in its tracks. “And before you get any ridiculous thoughts in your head,
nothing happened. She was passed out before I even got the car parked outside my apartment. Only
reason I took her there in the first place was because she didn’t want to go back to Jackson’s house.”
“Can’t blame her on that one,” Harding muttered. “God, what an asshole.”
I clenched my bruised fisted, feeling the sting in the pull of my scabbed knuckles. “Anyway, it’s
over now. Jackson told her he’d stay gone for a few days, so I took her back to his place this morning.
My part’s done.”
“Are you kidding me? Your part has barely started. Now’s your chance, big brother,” she said
excitedly. “You can finally make your move.”
My chin jerked back into my neck. “Have you lost your mind? I can’t make a move. She was
engaged to my best friend, for Christ’s sake.”
Hardin blew out a loud raspberry and rolled her eyes dramatically. “Please. You know as well as
I do, Jackson Newman’s a self-important, spoiled ass. Always has been. I never understood your
loyalty to him.”
She wouldn’t, especially since only Jackson and I knew what went down. But still, she wasn’t
wrong. “It’s not about loyalty.” At least not anymore, I added silently.
“Look me in the eye and tell me your friendship with that man is the same as it was when you guys
were kids. And convince me, Owen.” She waited a few seconds before nodding proudly when I
didn’t say a word. “That’s what I thought. You keep calling that asshole your best friend, but if you
really stop to think about it, you two haven’t been tight in a really long time. I don’t know what’s
keeping you bound together, but maybe it’s time to cut that cord, huh?”
If only it were that easy, I thought. But that wasn’t something I felt like getting into at the moment,
so I shifted gears. “It doesn’t matter anyway. The woman was just left at the altar not even twenty-
four hours ago. Making a move would be in poor taste.”
My sister hummed pensively. “Maybe you have a point.” Before I could get a word in, she
snapped her fingers. “So, you’ll just go a different route. Problem solved.”
 I widened my eyes. “Oh, wow, it’s that easy?” I asked sarcastically.
She made a snide face and stuck out her tongue. “Don’t be snarky. You can’t pull it off. Leave the
snark to me.”
Because she was a pro when it came to snark, that was for damn sure. “What’s this other route I
should so easily take?” I asked, surprised I’d pulled off casual and unconcerned while my heart began
to hammer staccato against my ribs at my sister’s suggestion. I didn’t have any business feeling hope,
but damn if I could stop it.
“Be there.”
I remained quiet, waiting for her to finish, but she said nothing else. “That’s it? That’s your whole
plan? Be there? What the hell does that even mean?”
She let out a huff like she was dealing with the dumbest kid in class. “It means exactly that,
genius. You’re going to be there. You’re going to be her friend, Owen. The best damn friend she’s
ever had.”
I had a feeling that was going to be easier said than done, given my history of acting like a
jackass, but Hardin was on a roll, so the best thing I could do was let her keep going until she wore
herself out.
“For starters, she’s probably going to need help moving out of Jackson’s place, right? Well,
you’ve got that nice, big SUV that can hold a whole lot of stuff.”
“I . . . hadn’t thought of that.”
“Of course you hadn’t. Lucky for you, you have a sister who’s smart as hell. From here on out,
you’re her go-to guy. Anything from leaky faucets to flat tires, you’re going to be there, until it’s
second nature for her to call you when she needs help with something. On the off chance that’s not
quite enough, you’ve got an adorable little niece and a lovable, fluffy dog you can use to soften her
up. You become that man for her, and in time, making a move will be the natural progression to your
relationship.” She clapped her hands together in a motion like she was dusting them off. “Easy
peasy.”
Be there, I thought, facing forward to watch my niece and dog wrestle around on the grass. I
wasn’t sure if I was losing my mind or what, but I couldn’t help but think that my sister’s hair brained
idea might actually work.
 6

ASHER

I wasn’t sure how long I stood in the entryway after Owen dropped me off, staring at the empty
spot in the driveway where his big Blazer was for the short time it had taken him to come in
and do a scan of the house to make sure Jackson had kept his word and stayed away. But once
he was gone, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to move. A twisting, clenching pang that started as I’d
watched him back out and drive away continued to echo in my chest for a long time afterward.
I blamed it on my hangover and the stress and emotional upheaval of the past several hours. Being
jilted, then drunk as hell, then hungover, wreaked havoc on a woman’s sanity. My poor brain
definitely wasn’t firing on all cylinders. That had to be the reason why, after a shockingly enjoyable
morning, I found myself missing a man I hardly knew, and up until very recently hadn’t liked, rather
than the man I was supposed to have married, for Christ’s sake.
After too many minutes, I finally shook myself out of the stupor and forced my legs to carry me up
the stairs. I stood at the threshold of the room Jackson and I shared, the thought of all that had to be
done in order for me to move on so overwhelming, I felt like cinderblocks were pressing down on my
shoulders.
It can wait, I told myself, as I dumped my purse on the bed and dropped my tattered wedding
dress on the floor. It could all wait for now.
I stripped off the clothes I’d borrowed from Owen and headed for the master bath, the only room
in the whole damn house I liked. It might not have had a cool as hell clawfoot tub like Owen’s
bathroom, but it did have a massive shower with a rainfall shower head and six body jets.
I stood in the center of the big, tiled shower, letting the water beat at me from all sides and steam
up the tile walls and glass door. I stood there until my fingertips turned pruney and the water started to
cool, a feat since Jackson had an oversized water heater put in to prevent that very thing from
happening. But he wasn’t here, and I was going to use all the hot water if I damn well wanted to!
I stood there until I felt the last of my hangover—and the shame that accompanied knowing I’d
puked on another human being—circle the drain and swirl down. Only then did I scrub myself clean. I
went through the more detailed, time-consuming beauty routine that I usually only did once a month,
treating my tangled, crispy-from-hairspray locks to a deep conditioning mask and exfoliating the hell
out of my face as an apology to my skin for sleeping in a pound of makeup and then using a harsh hand
soap on it earlier that morning.
When I finally stepped out of the shower and into the fogged-up bathroom, I slathered my face in a
brightening repair mask. I rubbed my favorite juniper-scented lotion on every inch of my body,
leaving me smelling fresh and crisp, like a bright spring day in the mountains.
I worked a comb through my hair gently before hitting it with leave-in conditioner, then twisted it
up into a damp bun to blow dry later. I’d only had one cup of coffee at Owen’s, and while it had
worked a small miracle in helping me feel somewhat normal again, I needed another boost of caffeine
to get me through the day.
Feeling a little less Walking Dead-ish, I wrapped one of Jackson’s long, unfathomably plush
towels around my body and moved back into the bedroom, heading for the dresser when I caught sight
of the clothes I’d discarded earlier. Owen’s clothes. The tee and basketball shorts that smelled like
him. I didn’t give it a moment’s thought as I dropped the towel on the floor right where I stood and
moved to the dresser for a pair of panties. Then I lifted Owen’s shirt to my nose and gave it a good,
long sniff before putting it on. It smelled like a combination of a rich musky forest and fresh clean
soap. The basketball shorts were next, rolled up at the waist over and over until they stayed up on my
hips, then I headed for the kitchen, for one of the only things in the house, besides the shower, that I
was going to miss dearly.
Jackson’s state of the art, expensive-as-shit espresso machine made some of the best cappuccinos
and lattes I’d ever tasted in my life. If I thought for a second that I could get away with it, I’d have
packed up that machine and taken it with me.
I headed down the stairs as I made lists in my head of everything I needed to pack, how many
boxes I’d need, how many trips it would take to get everything from here to my condo, silently starting
to stress out all over again. When I hit the landing I let out a frightful shriek and stumbled backward,
pinwheeling my arms in an attempt to catch myself before inevitably landing flat on my ass.
“Well now, that was an unnecessary reaction, don’t you think?”
“Jesus, Mom!” I yelped, my heart currently trying to beat its way out of my chest as I pushed
myself to standing and rubbed my aching tailbone. That was definitely going to leave a bruise. “Of
course it wasn’t an unnecessary reaction to you breaking and entering. You scared the hell out of me.”
“I didn’t break and enter. The front door was unlocked. I opened and entered.”
My tailbone throbbed something fierce. “You could have at least called out to announce yourself.
Now my poor ass it going to be black and blue when I go back to work,” I said with a pout.
“Oh, my poor baby.” She walked up to me, her face awash with sympathy as she cupped my
cheek. Then she took a step back and waved the bundle of burning sage she was holding in my face
and down the front of me.
I coughed at the fragrant smoke billowing from the lit end. “For the love of God, will you stop
smudging me? You’re going to set off the smoke detectors.” I waved away the smoke and snatched the
bundle from her, stomping over to the sink and dropping it in before turning on the water. I whipped
back around to face her and crossed my arms over my chest. “What are you doing here?”
Before she could answer, another voice rang out. “Oh, thank God you’re alive!” At that
declaration, I shifted my focus in time to see Sloane move into the kitchen, two bottles of wine tucked
under each of her arms. “We’ve been worried sick!”
I pursed my lips and scrunched them to the side. “Yeah? That why you went down to the basement
to raid Jackson’s wine collection before coming up to look for me?”
She shrugged, not the slightest bit repentant. “Priorities, babe. You’ll be thanking me when we’re
curled up on the couch, Netflixing and drinking a fine vintage.” My stomach lurched at the thought of
more alcohol as she continued. “And a few missing bottles of wine is the least that jerkoff deserves
for what he did to you.”
I chewed on the corner of my bottom lip in thought. “Hmm. You might have a point.”
She nodded resolutely. “Damn straight I do. And I think you should hit up that asshole’s really
expensive collection before we get the hell out of here. I’m talking the stuff you don’t find on the
shelves at your local grocery store.”
Maybe I would, but that wasn’t as high on my list of priorities as getting another cup of coffee. I
stroked the top of the espresso maker lovingly. “Oh, my sweets. I think I’ll miss you the most,” I
cooed, feeling a little misty before making myself a heavenly latte.
“Ooh, that thing looks snazzy,” my mom said, sidling up beside me. “Wouldn’t mind a fancy coffee
myself. Do your dear old mom a favor and make one for me too, would you?” She pulled another
bundle of sage from her massive purse that contained everything from ten tubes of lip balm that were
probably covered in fuzz to expired fruit snacks for God knows why to tampons that she hadn’t
needed since she hit menopause a decade and a half earlier. Along with it came the deck of tarot
cards she never left home without. “I’m just going to do a quick reading to make sure everything’s
good, then I’m going to work on your aura.”
“Mom, my aura’s fine,” I insisted as I moved my mug from beneath the machine and started
another for her. “And there’s no need for a reading. I can tell you myself that everything is good. Or at
least it will be just as soon as I’m out of this damn house.”
“Well, here.” She riffled through that purse again, setting the worthless junk inside to rattling as
she fished for what she was looking for. “At least take these,” she said as she passed me a couple
crystals. “The banded agate will help with anxiety and stress, and the malachite is the heart chakra
stone. It’ll help get rid of that yucky emotional sludge and restore emotional balance.” She dropped
them into my palm and curled my fingers around the cool, smooth stones, giving my hand a pat.
Arguing with my mom was pointless. As far as she was concerned, there wasn’t anything one of
her pretty little rocks couldn’t cure. She was a product of growing up on a commune that leaned
heavily toward hippie, for sure. All about spirituality and tapping into the earth’s vibrations and
communing with the universe and nature. She was so passionate about it, she even owned her own
shop, The Modern Bohemian, where she sold everything from crystals to essential oils to special
teas, and so much more. She gave card and palm readings a couple times a week, and once a month
held workshops in the back of the shop where she helped people balance their chakras and cleared
their energies, stuff like that.
To say she and my nerdy, bookish, accountant father were an odd match would be putting it mildly.
Growing up, my mom’s behavior had caused no small amount of embarrassment for me until I
realized the opinions of the other kids at school, the little shitheads who made fun of me because they
thought my mother was weird, weren’t worth a damn. My mom was actually cool as hell, even if she
was constantly stinking our house up with sage and incense and giving me tacky jewelry made with
big, gaudy crystals and gemstones.
“Thank you,” I told her, curling my hand around the crystals and stuffing them into the pocket of
my shorts. “I appreciate it, Mom.” And I did, honestly, even though I’d probably end up putting them
in a drawer with all the others I’d accumulated over the years, thanks to her ‘generosity’.
“Of course, sugar plum.” She planted her hands on her curvy hips and shifted personalities with a
simple narrowing of her eyes. It was a look I was all too familiar with, one she’d used on me
countless times growing up. A look that said the sweet, mellow hippie was gone, and the beat-your-
ass-if-you-deserve-it momma was in the house. “Now how about you tell me where the hell you’ve
been for the past damn day, huh? We’ve been going out of our ever-loving minds. I’ve been scrying
like a mad woman, tearing up my damn maps looking for you. It took everything in my power to keep
your daddy from going to the cops. Only reason he didn’t was because he believed me when I told
him I could still feel your life force.”
That was another one of my mom’s quirks. She was convinced that since she carried me for all
those months, growing me in her womb until I was ready to come into the world, that she could feel
my life force wherever I was.
“So start talking, missy. Where on the Goddess’s green earth have you been?”
Well, this was going to be awkward. “I’ve been . . .”
“Personally, now that I know she’s okay, I’m more interested in knowing whose clothes she’s
wearing.” My gaze shot to hers. She arched a knowing brow, her lips quivering with a smirk she was
doing a terrible job hiding. “Could it be a certain strong, silent, dark and handsome, tattooed
veterinarian?”
“Wait. What?” My mom’s attention bounced between Sloane and me like she was watching the
world’s most interesting tennis match. “Owen? Are you talking about that nice, big slice of man beef,
Owen Shields?”
Oh, for the love of— “It’s not like that.”
Sloane’s eyes bulged. “It’s not? Because the man practically sprinted out of the venue when I told
him you’d taken off? Thought the man’s ass was on fire, which would have been a damn shame,
because that’s one fine ass.”
My mouth opened in bewilderment. He said he’d volunteered to find me, but I didn’t know he’d
been so . . . determined about it. “He did that?” The question came out with a lot more awe than I’d
intended.
At the tone of my voice, Sloane gave up fighting back her hilarity and let her shit-eating grin
come, full force, her expression full of smug amusement. She set the wine bottles on the kitchen island
and crossed her arms. “Yeah, he did. So I ask again, who’s clothes are you wearing, dollface?”
I rolled my eyes, throwing my hands up in exasperation before letting them slap back down at my
sides. “They’re Owen’s, okay? They’re Owen’s clothes.”
My mom sucked in a gasp before her face split into a beaming smile. “Asher, oh, that’s
scandalous.” She clasped her hands together, mischief and humor in her eyes. “Good for you, my dear
girl.”
I held up my first finger. “Okay, first of all, it’s not what you think.” My middle finger came up
beside the first one. “Second, you really shouldn’t be so excited about your daughter hooking up ever,
but especially the day she got left at the altar, and with a man who wasn’t the jilter.”
She waved me off and took a sip from the coffee cup I’d just handed her. “Pfft. You’re young,
beautiful, and in the prime of your life. That son of a bitch bolted. That means you’re free to bed
whoever you want, sugarplum.”
I clenched my eyes shut and shook my head as I held my hands up to stop my mother from talking.
“No. You know what? I’m done with this conversation. Nothing happened between Owen and me. He
found me at a bar, three sheets to the wind. He took me back to his place and put me to bed after I
hurled all over him, then I woke up this morning with the hangover from hell. He made me breakfast
and dropped me off back here, and that’s it.”
“He made you breakfast?” Mom and Sloane asked at the same time, eyebrows shooting upward.
“He was already making breakfast for himself anyway. Everybody’s gotta eat,” I mumbled,
repeating Owen’s words from earlier, hoping I sounded a hell of a lot more casual than I felt. “Now,
if you two don’t mind, I have to start packing, so unless you plan to help out, it’s time to go.”
“Of course we’re going to help out,” Sloane said like it was a forgone conclusion, and that was
just one of the many reasons she was my best friend.
Mom lifted her index finger in the air and spoke, “But first, we need to rid you of the bad ju-ju
you’re carrying around so you don’t take it with you into your next home.”
 My brows furrowed in confusion. “What are you talking about? What bad ju-ju?”
“Don’t you worry yourself about that. I’ll take care of it. I just need your wedding dress, a can of
gasoline, and a box of matches.”
 7

OWEN

B e there, I thought, repeating my sister’s advice in my head as I guided my Blazer through the
winding streets of Asher’s neighborhood. That was exactly what I was going to do, I was
going to be there.
The grin that had been tugging at my lips the whole drive from Hardin’s house back to Asher’s
quickly disappeared the moment I turned onto her street. My stomach sank at the sight of the big red
fire truck sitting right in front of her house.
Neighbors had come out to gawk, milling along the sidewalks and curbs to get a better look. I
drove up as close as I could before slamming my truck into park and throwing the door open. I
scanned the growing crowd and spotted a buddy of mine who worked for the Grapevine Fire
Department.
“Ford,” I called as I jogged up, waving an arm to get his attention. I’d known Ford Grimes since
he moved to Grapevine a handful of years ago to take a job with our local fire department. I met him
for the first time when he brought his dog in with a nasty snakebite. Ford had grown up a city boy, so
our small town had been a bit of a culture shock. He—and his dog—eventually adjusted, we became
pretty tight, and now we met up once a week to let off some steam by shooting pool over a couple
beers.
“Hey, man. What’s up?” he asked far too casually given the situation.
“What the hell happened?” I asked, my heart in my throat, making the words come out in a croak.
Reading my tone, the easygoing friend disappeared, replaced quickly by the professional. “You
know the woman who lives here?”
“I do. Is she okay? Is she hurt?”
Ford held his hands up in a placating gesture. “She’s all right. Everyone is.”
A chill ran through my veins like I’d just been slapped in the face by a blistering gust of ice-cold
air. “Everyone? Is there a guy here?”
“Guy? No. It was three women as far as I know. Apparently, they were having themselves a little
revenge bonfire in the backyard, and things got out of control. But it’s all good.”
My chin jerked back in confusion. “Revenge bonfire?” I asked just as another voice sounded from
a few yards away.
“I’m so sorry. We didn’t mean for this to get so out of hand.”
It felt like an anvil being lifted off my chest at the sight of Asher, and without a backward glance, I
started for her. “Asher.”
Her head jerked, twisting away from the cop she was talking to and toward me. “Owen?” she
squeaked, her eyes rounding in shock. “W-what are you—how did you—”
 Before she could get her question out, another voice spoke up. “It really wasn’t that big of a deal,
officer. It was just a teeny little fireball. We’re all fine, there’s no need for all the fuss.”
“Mom,” Asher hissed. “Just stop talking, will you?”
The woman I knew as Gloria Rose, Asher’s mother, pushed herself to the front of the little group,
standing off with the officer at least a foot and a half taller than her petite self. She was dressed in a
brightly colored skirt that flowed all the way to the ground and a T-shirt that read: I’m the Woman
Your Mom Warned You About. It was a look that was very on brand for the eccentric, lively woman.
She whipped around on her daughter, and it wasn’t hard to see where Asher got most of her looks.
The dark hair and goldish-green eyes came from her mother, only Gloria’s hair was now smattered
with streaks of gray she had no problem letting run free. Asher’s only trait I could see possibly
coming from her father was her height and build. Though she and her mom looked alike, Asher stood
several inches taller and rocked curves that were far more pronounced. “Well it’s true! And that
pissant neighbor of yours wouldn’t have nearly gotten his eyebrows blown clean off if he hadn’t been
sticking his nose where it didn’t belong.”
I shook my head, hoping it would help make sense of what I was hearing. “Someone mind telling
me what the hell happened?” I looked back at Asher, one brow arched. “I only left you a few hours
ago, and you’ve already nearly burned the house down?”
“Oh, Owen!” Gloria’s entire demeanor changed the moment she laid eyes on me, a smile
wreathed her face and her eyes brightened considerably. “It’s so good to see you, sweetie.” She came
to a stop in front of me and lifted her hand to pat my cheek affectionately just like she did every time
she came into the clinic with her demon spawn of a cat, Lou, short for Lucifer, because the thing was
pure evil.
“Ms. Rose. It’s good to see you too.”
“I’ve told you, dear, just call me Gloria.”
“Gloria,” I corrected.
“So . . .” She crossed her arms over her chest and smiled slyly. “What brings you by?”
“Mom, stop it,” Asher hissed, elbowing her mother out of the way, literally. Looking frazzled, she
wiped the back of her hand at the thin beading of sweat at the base of her hairline, smudging
something that looked a lot like soot across her forehead. “Owen, hey. Hello.”
Christ, she was cute when she was flustered. “Hey,” I replied, one corner of my mouth curving up
slightly in a smirk as I let my eyes travel down the front of her. From her smooth, dewy skin and
tamed hair, it was obvious she’d showered the day before off her, but she was still dressed in the tee
and shorts I’d loaned her, meaning she’d put them back on once she’d cleaned up. For reasons solely
male and possessive as hell, I really fucking liked that. “Nice duds.”
Her eyes shot down to take in the clothes she was wearing, and she quickly crossed her arms over
her ample chest, like that would do her any good. “Uh, what—” She stopped to clear her throat as she
fidgeted from foot to foot. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to help you move your shit out of here.” I looked from her to the house, my brow
furrowing. “Didn’t expect to see so many first responders when I pulled up.”
“I really appreciate that, but we don’t—”
Her friend Sloane shouldered her out of the way, extending her hand for me to shake. I’d met the
woman a few times when Jackson and Asher had hosted a backyard barbecue or game night, and
she’d always struck me as a firecracker. “Isn’t that sweet of you, coming to help move our girl. We’ll
for sure take your help, just as soon as we deal with this little . . . um, hiccup.”
I arched a single brow, trying my hardest not to show the amusement I was feeling just then.
“Hiccup? I heard something about a fireball and scorched eyebrows.” My gaze danced between the
three women. “Someone want to tell me what’s going on?”
“It was a cleansing ceremony,” Gloria noted.
At my bewildered expression, Asher let out a heavy sigh and threw her arms up in the air. “We
took my wedding dress out in the backyard and set it on fire.” She cast an accusatory look at the other
women standing near her. “And it would have been fine if these two had listened to me when I said
the material was already extremely flammable and we didn’t need five gallons of gasoline.”
Gloria shrugged like she didn’t have a care in the world. “It’s what the ceremony called for. I
don’t make the rules.”
A single thought worked through my head just then: What the hell have I gotten myself into?

Asher

“What about this? Yours or his?”

At Sloane’s question, I turned from my task of packing up the kitchen—which, subsequently was
all mine since Jackson didn’t know shit about cooking and couldn’t be bothered—to see she was
holding up a gaudy bookend. It was a ceramic eyesore in the shape of a pair of breasts, complete with
erect nipples, and I hated it.
“His,” I answered with a disgusted curl of my lips. “Do you really think I’d own something that
ugly?”
With an evil smile, she spread her hands wide and let the “piece of art”, as Jackson had called it,
fall through her fingers onto the floor. “Oops. It slipped.”
We’d only been packing for an hour, and already I’d lost count of the number of Jackson’s things
that had met a gruesome end thanks to my friend’s butter fingers.
A deep, warm chuckle pulled my attention to Owen who had been by my side since the police and
fire departments let us back into the house—with orders to stay away from all open flames, of course
—and left.
“Sorry,” I mumbled as I wrapped my another piece of the pretty teal dish ware I’d gotten for a
steal at a yard sale in a sheet of bubble wrap before tucking it into one of the many boxes Owen had
provided, along with tape and said bubble wrap and anything else a person could possibly need in
order to move. “I’d say she’s not always like this, but that would be a lie.”
“Nothing to apologize for. She’s just looking out for her friend.”
The wrap in my hand crinkled loudly, several of the bubbles popping when I balled my fist and
propped it on my hip. “Yeah. About that, why are you helping me right now when Jackson’s the one
you’re friends with?”
“My friendship with Jackson is . . . complicated,” he said as he went back to packing the wooden
utensils with intense determination, giving the impression he was doing it to avoid eye contact.
“You mean because you guys grew up together?”
“Yeah. Something like that.”
“Something like that?” I asked, my lips quirking up in a teasing grin as I waited for more. That
smirk fell when it became obvious that was all I’d be getting out of him. “That’s all you have to say?”
“Didn’t realize more was required,” he said plainly as he boxed up my toaster and pointed at the
espresso machine. “What about this? Staying or going?”
I let out a pained sigh as I looked longingly at the piece of machinery. “Staying, unfortunately.”
“Why do you look like someone just held you down and made you watch as they kicked an entire
litter of puppies?”
“Because it kind of feels that way,” I answered as I rubbed my chest right over my heart. “That’s
Jackson’s, but I love it like it’s my very own.”
He let out a sound between a huff and a snort before unplugging it from the wall and placing it in a
box all of its own, surrounded with bubble paper to keep my Precious safe. “Jackson gives you any
shit, let me know. I’ll take the blame, tell him I broke it or something while helping you pack.”
My mouth fell open, a sputtering, bewildered noise bubbling from my throat before I could find
words. “You—you’d really do that for me?”
He shrugged like it was nothing. “Yeah, sure,” he answered casually. Meanwhile, it was just
another piece to the puzzle of him I hadn’t known existed, and it made my head spin and my belly
flutter like it was home to a whole horde of hyper butterflies.
“Thank you,” I said softly, emotion clogging my throat at such a simple yet unbelievably kind
gesture.
I was so focused on my task, keeping my head lowered so he wouldn’t be able to see the myriad
of emotions flitting across my face, that I didn’t realize he’d moved in even closer until he spoke and
the minty, heated breath that trailed after his words danced across the sensitive skin at my neck.
“You smell good.”
My head whipped around so fast, the loose hair that had fallen out of my clip slapped me in my
face. “Sorry?”
“I was just saying you smell nice. A pretty big improvement from earlier this morning,” he said
with a waggle of his eyebrows, earning himself a backhanded smack to the chest.
“Not cool, dude. A gentleman would pretend last night never happened so I could scrub it from
my memory completely.”
“I’m not a gentleman.” The low husk his voice took on at that statement, the way the words came
out gritty, made my nipples pebble beneath my—his—shirt. Owen leaned in even closer and sniffed
the crook of my neck unabashedly. “What is that scent? I smell it every time you’re around, but I can’t
place it.” He sniffed again, his face nearly pressed into my neck then, and a tremble worked its way
through my entire body.
“Uh . . . I—it’s juniper berry. Or that’s what the fragrance is called at least. Don’t know if it
actually has juniper in it or not. I just like the lotion,” I rambled as heat infused my cheeks.
The hum he let out rattled low in his chest as his eyes stared down at my neck. “I like it.” Those
sea green eyes traveled up to lock onto mine, and it felt like he could see inside me. “A lot. Always
have.”
Well damn.
I swallowed thickly, unsure what the hell to say in response, not that I could form words just then.
Fortunately, Owen let it drop and we got back to packing. Despite the hot, swirling tension thickening
the air between us, the silence felt oddly companionable as we worked side by side to get the kitchen
packed up. Then something shimmery caught my attention from the corner of my eye.
“Uh, Owen?”
“Yeah?”
“Is that . . . glitter polish on your fingernails?”
He lifted his hand from inside the box he was packing and spread his fingers wide before giving
them a wiggle, the overhead light catching on the polish on his nails and making them sparkle. “Sure
is,” he stated simply, no shame whatsoever. “Swung by my sister’s place earlier and got conned into
letting my niece play salon.” He brought his hand closer to his face for a better inspection. “She’s
getting pretty damn good, yeah?”
He stuck his hand out so I could get a closer look, and there was no denying I swooned a little in
that moment. What woman wouldn’t when a sexy, tattooed, rugged man was showing off the nails his
little niece painted with pride?
I did my damnedest to push down the heat swelling low in my belly when I inhaled his subtle
fragrance of forest and clean cotton. “Absolutely,” I agreed with a chuckle. “I think your niece might
be a savant. That’s adult-level skill right there.”
“Damn straight.” The man actually preened at that, and, son of a bitch, I felt a tightness in my core
I had absolutely no business feeling.
My mom came waltzing into the kitchen just then, interrupting whatever the hell I was feeling
before I had a chance to let it overwhelm me. I let out a sigh that was part relief, part disappointment
that our moment—or whatever you’d call it—was over.
“Good news, sweetie pie.” She lifted her cellphone in the air above her head and gave it a shake.
“Just got off the phone with your dad. He’s swinging by with a couple pizzas for a late lunch.”
“Mom, that’s really not necessary. This shouldn’t take too much longer, and I’m sure Dad has
better things to do.” Like sit in his eye-sore of a recliner my mom hated and read one of the gazillion
novels he’d collected over the years until he passed out and started snoring so loud my mother would
have to kick his footrest to jostle him awake. It was a regular weekend tradition in the Rose
household.
“Don’t be silly, he was more than glad to provide sustenance when I told him how hard we were
working.” She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and knotted her fingers together. “And I might
have let it slip about the little arson thing, so now he wants to keep an eye on us to make sure nothing
more happens.”
Of course.
 8

ASHER

I sat behind the counter of my mother’s shop, The Modern Bohemian, with my elbow propped
on the glass display case that also fronted as the checkout counter and my chin in my hand,
staring out the big front windows at the people passing by on the sidewalk.
“Not that I don’t love having you here, sugar pop, but would you mind not looking so melancholy?
You’re bringing the whole vibe in the place down.”
My back shot straight. “I don’t look melancholy,” I defended with a frown. The look on my mom’s
face said she wasn’t buying it.
“I’m not,” I insisted with a sniff, my ire rising at having been called out, because the truth was,
she was right, not that I’d ever admit that to her. God, I’d never live that down. But I was feeling a bit
melancholy and had been for the past three days. Specifically, since I last saw Owen. And wasn’t that
as pathetic as hell?
As though she were reading my thoughts, a knowing smile tugged at my mother’s face as she used
a box cutter to open a new shipment of scarves and beaded bracelets she’d just gotten in. “That Owen
Shields, what a gentleman, right? And quite the looker, if I do say so myself.”
I rolled my eyes dramatically. “Mom, will you knock it off?” I whined like a child. However, in
my defense, she’d managed to bring up Owen and his superior looks at least once a day for the past
three days, even going so far as randomly texting me the day before while I was at my yoga class.
“There’s nothing going on between us, so feel free to stop randomly bringing him up at any time.”
Just as she’d done every time I’d protested, she pasted on innocent doe eyes and shrugged.
“What? I wasn’t insinuating anything. Just stating facts.”
“Sure you were,” I deadpanned.
After the world’s most awkward pizza party with him, my say-it-like-it-is best friend, and my
parents, we’d finally managed to finish packing up the rest of my belongings—and one stolen
espresso machine. Despite my claim that he’d already done too much, Owen had insisted on helping
cart my stuff across town to my condo and unload everything before finally saying he had to get home
to Gus. The offer for him to get his dog and bring him back so I could treat him to takeout as a thank-
you had been on the very tip of my tongue before I’d come to my senses and realized what a huge
mistake that would have been. It had taken biting the inside of my cheek to keep from spitting those
words out.
I had no business, truthfully. It wasn’t like we were friends . . . right? I mean, he was just being
nice because he felt sorry for me after what Jackson had done.
At least that was what I’d spent the past three days telling myself to keep from doing something
completely irrational and seeking the man out.
 It was on that thought that I let out a sigh and resumed my earlier position.
My mom let out a huff and rolled her eyes as dramatically as I had seconds ago. I might not have
inherited her hippie vibe, but there were definitely pieces of her personality thoroughly engrained in
me. “Well if you insist on sitting here where everyone can see you, can you at least try and look
welcoming so you don’t run off all my customers?”
“You know, you could show a little more appreciation,” I called after her as she started for the
back room. “I didn’t have to come in here to help you out.”
My mom let out a laugh like tinkling bells. “Oh please. Don’t pretend like you’re doing me any
favors. You came in here because you’re still on vacation from work and you’ve been bored out of
your mind.”
“Hey!” I cried in offense. “I’ll have you know this was supposed to be my honeymoon. I could be
doing a million other things right now, but I thought I’d be a good daughter and give you a hand.”
There was no way in hell I’d admit she was right, even though she probably already knew that I
was, in fact, hunkered down in her shop because I’d nearly bored myself stupid on daytime television
at home. I mean, there were only so many times I could hear, “You are not the father,” before my
braincells started dying. I had trouble functioning when I didn’t have something to do. I could have cut
my time off short and gone back to work, but I still caught a few whispers and sidelong looks when I
ventured out of my condo and into daylight a couple times the past few days. I hadn’t been able to
bring myself to go back to the club yet. I figured a few more days, and my drama would die down
enough for me to show my face.
Mom shot me a finger wave over her shoulder without looking back at me. “Uh-huh, sure thing,
sugar pie. Do me a favor and paste on a smile so you can handle the next customer.”
“There’s no—” My protest was cut off, my mouth dropping open at the serene sound emitted by
the chimes above the door dancing through the air as it was pushed open. If I actually believed in
things like psychic powers, I would have sworn my mother had them. Sometimes her timing was just
uncanny. It went hand and hand with her annoying habit of being able to read my mind at the most
inopportune times, such as when I was thinking about a certain tattooed broodster I had no business
thinking about.
I wiped the shock off my face and did exactly as she’d said, pinning on my most welcoming grin
as I turned to face the customer who’d just come through the door. The striking woman heading in my
direction looked familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on exactly how I knew her.
“Hello. Welcome to The Modern Bohemian.”
“Hi,” she said with a smile just as bright as mine as she stopped in front of the counter across
from me. “You’re Asher, right?”
My chin jerked back in surprise, my head canting to the side as I tried even harder to place where
I’d seen this woman. “Yeah, I am. Sorry, do we know each other? I’m not sure—”
“Oh, no.” She let out a smoky, throaty laugh. “I’m sorry. I bet that sounded kind of creepy. I’m
Hardin Shields, Owen’s sister.”
A ding, ding, ding went off in my head.
She was even more gorgeous in real life than she’d been in the photos stuck to Owen’s fridge.
The green of her eyes wasn’t quite as bright as her brother’s, but where Owen’s looked like
leaves or freshly cut grass in the heart of springtime, hers were flecked with gold and russet, making
them look like cat’s eyes, unique and just as beautiful as she was. She wasn’t as tall as Owen but
stood about two inches taller than my five seven, drawing even more attention in her direction, and
making it so I had to tip my head back slightly to look up at her, thanks to the stylish ankle boots with
a chunky heel she was wearing.
“Yes!” I cried, snapping my finger as recognition dawned. “Of course. I saw your picture on
Owen’s fridge the other morning when he was making me breakfast.” I knew how that sounded the
instant that last word passed my lips. “Wait, no, I didn’t mean it like that, like I slept over there or
something. I mean, I did, but I’d gotten pretty drunk the night before.” My eyes rounded so wide I
feared my eyeballs would fall right out of my skull. I waved my hands in front of me frantically,
praying she didn’t get the wrong idea. “But it wasn’t a drunken hookup.” For the love of God, why
couldn’t I stop making this interaction worse?
She decided to take mercy on me just then and interrupted my bout of word vomit. “I know, don’t
worry. Owen told me what went down.”
“Oh, okay, good. Wait . . . he did?” I did my best to ignore the fizzy sensation in my belly at the
knowledge that Owen had been talking about me to his sister, but it was as though a bottle of
champagne had been shaken up and the cork had popped.
“Yeah.” Sympathy washed over her delicately feminine features. “I’m really sorry about
everything that went down last weekend.” She leaned in close and lowered her voice like she was
about to share a secret, even though we were currently the only two people in the front of the shop.
“Although, if you ask me, that silver-spoon sucking asshole did you a favor.”
A bewildered snort bubbled up my throat, followed closely by a belly laugh so deep it made the
muscles in my stomach ache and tremble.
“Sorry if that was a bit too forward for our first meeting,” she said once I’d gotten a handle on my
laughter. However, her grin didn’t look the least bit repentant. She knew she spoke the truth and
wasn’t afraid of how anyone took it.
“Not at all. I love the honesty, actually. And it just so happens, your opinion matches that of
everyone else’s, mine included.”
She pretended wiping a sweaty brow with a dramatic, “Phew. Good to know I read the room
correctly. That could have gone bad really fast.”
I liked this woman almost immediately. She reminded me so much of the other girls at Whiskey
Dolls, the women I was closest with. She was unapologetically her, and there was something
refreshing about it. With Jackson and his family, it had taken much longer to see the real people
beneath the façades they wore like armor, and even then, I’d still been snowed.
Then there was Hardin’s brother. As it turned out, he wasn’t who I thought he was either. Sure,
that just so happened to be in a good way, but still.
“No worries. We’re all good here.” I extended my arm across the counter. “It’s nice to put a name
and voice to the picture on a fridge.”
She shook my offered hand heartily. “Nice to meet you too. And just for the record, what you do
with my big brother is your business. You want to have a non-drunk sleepover in which he makes you
breakfast again, go for it. You couldn’t get much better than Owen.”
I suddenly felt the insane urge to duck my head, like I was guilty of something more than secretly
lusting after her brother, but I could have sworn there was an underlying meaning to what she’d just
said. I felt my cheeks heat and was sure they’d bloomed tomato red. “Oh, um, that’s . . .” She stood
silent, one eyebrow arched in a look, as though she was daring me, to do what, I didn’t have the first
damn clue, but my gut was telling me the woman knew something I hadn’t been made privy to.
“Oh! Hardin, darlin’. I’m so glad you’re here.” My shoulders slumped in relief at my mother’s
interruption. I was off the hook, at least for the time being. “I was just about to call you. That
peppermint essential oil you’ve been waiting for finally came in this morning.”
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“Yes, sir.” He went back to his hut, delighted.
Escape. Escape. Even the illusion of escape for a few hours, it must
be at least that, for if the 469 Trench Mortar Battery were in the same
Division, the same Corps even, he would have heard of them. They
must be at least a day’s journey away, and he would be able to get
away from the blasting and withering boredom for at least that.
Colonel Birchin, a regular, who had been on various Staff
appointments since the very early days, had no conception how
personnel changed and units shifted, and unless he (Dormer) were
very much mistaken, it would be a jolly old hunt. So much the better.
He would have his mind off the War for a bit.
The reply came from Corps that, according to the order of battle, 469
Trench Mortar Battery was not in existence, but try Trench Mortar
School at Bertezeele. It was all one to Dormer. He might simply be
exchanging one cold hut for another, he might travel by rail and lorry
instead of on horse or foot. But at any rate it would be a different hut
that he was cold in and a different mode of conveyance that jolted
him, and that was something, one must not be too particular in war-
time. So he jumped on a lorry that took him into Doullens and at
Doullens he took train and went through Abbeville and the endless
dumps and camps by the sea, up to Étaples, where the dumps and
camps, the enormous reinforcement depôts and mile-long hospitals
stretched beside the line almost into Boulogne, where was a little
pocket, as it were, of French civilian life, going on undisturbed amid
the general swamping of French by English, on that coast, and of
civilian life by military. Here he got a meal and changed and went off
again up the hill, past Marquise, and down a long hill to Calais, in the
dark, and then on, in the flat, where the country smelled different
from the Somme, and where the people spoke differently and the
names of the stations sounded English, and where there were
French and Belgian police on the platforms.
He slept and woke at St. Omer, and slept again and woke to find all
the lights out and a general scurry and scatteration, with the drone of
aeroplanes and the continual pop-popping of anti-aircraft fire. Then
came the shrieking whirr and sharp crash of the first bomb, with its
echo of tinkling glass, barking of dogs, and rumour of frightened
humanity.
Like most people accustomed to the line, Dormer regarded the
bombing of back billets as a spectacle rather than as one of the
serious parts of warfare, and got out to stroll about the platform with
officers going up as reinforcements. They exchanged cigarettes and
news and hardly stopped to laugh at the horrified whisper of the
R.T.O., “Don’t light matches here!” It was soon over, like all bombing.
If you were hit you were hit, but if you weren’t hit in the first minute or
two, you wouldn’t be, because no plane could stay circling up there
for very long, and the bomber was always more frightened than you
were. Then the train moved on, and Dormer could feel on each side
of him again the real camp life of units just behind the line, mule
standings, gun parks, and tents and huts of infantry, and services. It
was midnight before he got out at Bailleul. He had left the camp on
the Arras road in the morning, had made a great loop on the map
and reached a railhead as near the line as he had been twenty-four
hours before. He stumbled up the stony street to the Officers’ Rest
House, drank some cocoa out of a mug and fell asleep, his head on
his valise.
In the morning he got a lift out to Bertezeele, and found the Trench
Mortar School. He reflected that it would really be more correct to
say that he took a lift to the Trench Mortar School, and incidentally
touched the village of Bertezeele. For the fact was that the English
population of the parish exceeded the French native one. Men of all
sorts and conditions from every unit known to the Army List (and a
good many that had never graced the pages of that swollen
periodical) were drawn into this new device for improved killing.
Dormer himself, one of those who, since the elementary home camp
training of 1915, had been in or just behind the trenches, wondered
at the complicated ramifications with which the War was running.
Apparently those curious little brass instruments, the bane of his life
as an infantry platoon commander, which used to come up behind
his line and there, while totally ineffective in the vital matter of
beating the Germans, were just sufficiently annoying to make those
methodical enemies take great pains to rob him of his food and sleep
for many ensuing days, were all done away with.
Stokes, whoever he was, but he was certainly a genius, had effected
a revolution. Owing to him, neat tubes, like enlarged pencil-guards,
with a nail inside the blind end, upon which the cap-end of the
cartridge automatically fell, were being used, as a hosier might say,
in all sizes from youths’ to large men’s. Stokes was branded with
genius, because his invention combined the two essentials—
simplicity with certainty. He had brought the blunderbuss up to date.
What else were these short-range, muzzle-loading, old-iron
scattering devices? Just blunderbusses. History was not merely
repeating itself. As the War went on it was moving backwards. Tin
helmets of the days of Cromwell, bludgeons such as Cœur de Lion
used upon Saladin, and for mere modernity, grenades like the
original British Grenadiers of the song. He had never had any head
for poetry, but he could remember some of the stuff Kavanagh had
sung in the dug-out. Not tow-row-row. That was the chorus. Ah! he
remembered.
“Our leaders march with fusees,
And we with hand-grenades,
We throw them from the glacis
About the enemy’s ears.
With a tow-row-row,” etc.
Well, now we didn’t. If we had grenades we carried them in aprons,
like a market woman, with a skirt full of apples. And if we had a
blunderbuss, like the guard of the coach in the “Pickwick Papers,” we
kept it, and all the ironmongery that belonged to it, on a hand-barrow,
and pushed it in front of us like fish-hawkers on a Saturday night.
What a War! Kavanagh was quite right of course. There was neither
decency nor dignity left in it. Wouldn’t do to admit that though! And
putting on his very best “Good-mornin’-Sah-I-have-been-sent-by-
Divisional-Head-quarters” expression, he asked his way to the
“office” as they were beginning to call the orderly room in most
detachments, and inquired for 469 Battery. Yes. They were to be
seen. Orderly room, as a Corps formation, was distant and slightly
patronizing, but the information was correct. He could see the Officer
commanding the battery. Certainly he could, as soon as morning
practice was over. That would do. He made himself as
inconspicuous as possible until he saw the various parties being
“fallen in” on the range, and heard the uncanny ear-tickling silence
that succeeded the ceaseless pop-pop of practice and then drifted
casually into the wooden-chair-and-table furnished ante-room, where
the month-old English magazines gave one a tremulous home-
sickness, and men who had been mildly occupied all the morning
were drinking all the vermouth or whisky they could, in the fear of
being bored to the point of mutiny in the afternoon.
There was, of course, the usual springtime curiosity as to what the
year might bring forth, for every one always hoped against hope that
the next offensive would really be the last. An orderly wandering
among the tables appeared to be looking for him, and he found
himself summoned before the Officer commanding the School.
Although his appointment was new, Colonel Burgess was of the
oldest type of soldier, the sort who tell the other fellows how to do it.
The particular sort of war in which he found himself suited him
exactly. He had the true Indian view of life, drill, breakfast, less drill,
lunch, siesta, sport, dinner, cards. So he ruled the mess cook with a
rod of iron, took disciplinary action if the stones that lined the path
leading to the door of the ante-room and office were not properly
white, and left the technical side of the business to Sergeant-
instructors who, having recently escaped from the trenches, were
really keen on it.
He received Dormer with that mixture of flattery due to anyone from
Divisional Head-quarters and suspicion naturally aroused as to what
he (Dormer) might be after. He was annoyed that he had not heard
of Dormer’s arrival, and hastened to add:
“Not a very full parade this morning, units come and go, y’know. We
can never be quite sure what we are going to get! What did you think
of our show?”
Dormer realized that the old gentleman was under the impression he
was being spied on:
“I really didn’t notice, sir. I have been sent to see the Officer
commanding 469 Trench Mortar Battery. Matter of discipline arising
out of a claim for compensation.”
“Oh, ah! Yes indeed. Certainly. See him now. Sergeant Innes!”
The efficient Scotch Sergeant to be found in all such places
appeared from the outer office.
“Have we anyone here from 469 T.M.B.?”
The officer required was duly produced, and the Colonel retired to
the Mess, leaving them together. Dormer sized up this fellow with
whom he was thus brought into momentary contact. This became by
necessity almost a fine art, during years of war. Dormer was fairly
proficient. The fellow opposite to him was of the same sort as
himself. Probably in insurance or stockbroking, not quite the
examination look of the Civil Service, not the dead certainty of
banking. He had obviously enlisted, been gradually squeezed up to
the point of a Commission, had had his months in the line and had
taken to Trench Mortars because they offered the feeling of really
doing something, together with slightly improved conditions (hand-
carts could be made to hold more food, drink and blankets than mere
packs) and was getting along as well as he could. He heard what
Dormer wanted and his face cleared.
“Why, that’s last April. I couldn’t tell you anything about that. I was in
Egypt!”
“You don’t know of any officer in your unit who could give some
information about the occurrence?”
“No. There’s only young Sands, beside myself. He couldn’t have
been there.”
“Some N.C.O. then?”
“Heavens, man, where d’you think we’ve been? All the N.C.O.’s are
new since I was with the crowd!”
“But surely there must be some record of men who were with your
unit?”
“Well, of course, the pay rolls go back to Base somewhere. But I
suppose you can pick the name and number up from the conduct
sheet.”
“You see, I don’t know the man’s name. His number was given as
6494.”
“That’s a joke, of course. It’s the number that the cooks sing out,
when we hold the last Sick Parade, before going up the line.”
“Of course it is. You’re right. I ought to have remembered that, but
I’ve been away from my regiment for some time.” Dormer pondered
a moment, relieved. Then the thought of going back to the Q. office
with nothing settled, and the queries of the French Mission and the
whole beastly affair hanging over his head, drove him on again. He
made his air a little heavier, more Divisional, less friendly.
“Well, I’m afraid this won’t do, you know. This matter has got to be
cleared up. It will be very awkward if I have to go back and inform
Head-quarters that you can’t furnish any information. In fact, they will
probably think it’s a case of not wanting to know, and make a regular
Court of Inquiry of it.”
He watched the face of the other, and saw in a moment how well he
had calculated. The fellow was frightened. A mere unit commander,
and a small unit at that! To such a one, of course, Divisional Head-
quarters were something pretty near omniscient, certainly
omnipotent. Dormer watched the fellow shift in the chair without a
qualm. Let some one else be worried too. He himself had had worry
enough. The face before him darkened, smirked deferentially, and
then brightened.
“Oh, there was old Chirnside. He might know.”
“Who was he?”
“Chirnside? He was a sort of a quarter bloke. It was before we were
properly formed, and he used to look after all our stores and orderly
room business. He had been with the battery since its formation. We
were just anybody, got together anyhow, chiefly from the infantry, you
remember?”
Dormer saw the other glance at his shoulder straps and just refrain
from calling him sir, poor wretch. He took down the information and
thanked his friend. Chirnside had apparently gone to some stunt
Corps, to do something about equipment. That was all right. He
wouldn’t be killed.
Having got thus far, Dormer felt that he had done a good deal, and
went to take his leave of Colonel Burgess. But he soon found that he
was not to be allowed to get away like that. He was bidden to stay to
lunch. There was no train from Bailleul until the evening and he was
willing enough. The lunch was good. Food remained one of the
things in which one could take an interest. He did so. After lunch the
Colonel took him for a walk over the golf course. This was the
margin of land around the range, on which no cultivation was
allowed, and from which civilians were rigidly excluded, for safety’s
sake. At least during range practice, which took place every day
more or less, in the morning. After that, of course, they could be
without difficulty excluded for the remainder of the day for a different,
if not for so laudable a purpose.
The Colonel was a fine example of those qualities which have made
an island Empire what it is. Having spent most of his life from sixteen
years old at Sandhurst, then in India or Egypt, and finally at
Eastbourne, he knew better than most men how to impose those
institutions which he and his sort considered the only ones that made
civilization possible, in the most unlikely places and upon the most
disinclined of people. Dormer had seen it being done before, but
marvelled more and more. Just as the Colonel, backed of course by
a sufficient number of his like, and the right sort of faithful underling,
had introduced tennis into India, duck-shooting into Egypt, and
exclusiveness into Eastbourne, against every condition of climate or
geographical position, native religion or custom, so now he had
introduced golf into Flanders, and that in the height of a European
War.
At the topmost point of the golf course, the Colonel stopped, and
began to point out the beauties of the spot to Dormer. They were
standing on one of those low gravelly hills that separate the valley of
the Yser from that of the Lys. Northward, beyond Poperinghe, was a
yet lower and greener ridge that shelved away out of sight toward
Dunkirk. East lay Ypres, in an endless rumour of war. Southward, the
Spanish towers of Bailleul showed where the road wound towards
Lille, by Armentières. Westward, Cassel rose above those hillocks
and plains, among the most fertile in the world. But the Colonel was
most concerned with a big square old farmhouse, that lay amid its
barns and meadows, at a crook in the Bailleul road.
The Colonel’s eyes took on a brighter blue and his moustache puffed
out like fine white smoke.
“I had a lot of trouble with that fellow.” He pointed to the farm.
“Wanted to come and cultivate the range. I had to get an interpreter
to see him. Said he could grow—er—vegetables in between the
shell-holes. At last we had to order afternoon practice to keep him
off. Then he wanted this part of the land. Had to move the guns up
and make some new bunkers. Four rounds makes a bunker, y’know.
Come and have tea?”
It was very nice weather for walking, dry and clear. The Mess had
seemed tolerable at lunch, but Dormer had not been long at tea
before he recollected what he seldom forgot for more than an hour or
so, that it was not tea, one of the fixed occasions of his safe and
comfortable life. It was a meal taken under all the exigencies of a
campaign—chlorinated water, condensed milk, army chair, boots and
puttees on one, and on this particular afternoon a temperature below
zero, in an army hut.
The Colonel, of course, occupied the place of warmth next the stove.
The remainder of the Mess got as near to it as they could. The result
was, that when the Colonel began to question him as to the object of
his visit, and how he had progressed towards attaining it, everybody
necessarily heard the whole of the conversation. He now realized
that he was telling the tale for the fourth time. He had told it to
Kavanagh, then to Colonel Birchin. Now he had told it to the Officer
commanding 469 T.M.B. and finally here he was going over it again.
He resented it as a mere nuisance, but was far from seeing at that
moment the true implication of what he was doing. The matter was
not a State secret. It was an ordinary piece of routine discipline,
slightly swollen by its reactions in the French Mission, and by the
enormous size and length of the War.
If he had refused to say why he was there the Colonel would
certainly have put him down as having been sent by the Division, or
some one even higher, to spy on the activities of the School. He
didn’t want to be labelled as that, so told what he knew glibly
enough. The Colonel waxed very voluble over it, gave good advice
that was no earthly use, and dwelt at length on various aspects of
the case. The French were grasping and difficult and superstitious,
but on the other hand, drivers were a rough lot and must be kept in
check. They were always doing damage. The fellow was quite right
of course to look after his mules. The animals were in a shocking
state, etc., etc., but quite wrong, of course, to damage civilian
property, tradition of the British Army, since Wellington all the other
way, the French naturally expected proper treatment, etc., etc.
Dormer had heard it all before, from Colonel Birchin, Major
Stevenage and others, with exactly the same well-meant
condescension, and the same grotesque ineffectiveness. This old
Colonel, like all his sort, couldn’t solve the difficulty nor shut the
French up, nor appease G.H.Q.
Presently, the old man went off to the orderly room to sign the day’s
correspondence, the Mess thinned and Dormer dozed discreetly, he
had had a poor night and was desperately sleepy. Some one came
to wake him up and offered him a wash, and he was glad to move,
stiff with cold, and only anxious to pass the time until he could get
the midnight train from Bailleul. They were very hospitable, made
much of him at dinner, and he ate and drank all he could get, being
ravenous and hoping to sleep through the discomforts of the long
train journey in the dark. He was getting fairly cheerful by the time
the Colonel left the hut, and only became conscious, in the intervals
of a learned and interesting discussion of the relative theories of
wire-cutting, that a “rag” was in progress at the other end of the
room.
A gunner officer, a young and happy boy who was still in the stage of
thinking the War the greatest fun out, was holding a mock Court of
Inquiry. Gradually, the “rag” got the better of the argument and
Dormer found himself being addressed as “Gentlemen of the jury.” A
target frame was brought in by some one to act as a witness-box,
but the gunner genius who presided, soon had it erected into a sort
of Punch and Judy Proscenium. Then only did it dawn on Dormer
that the play was not Punch and Judy. It was the Mayor of
Hondebecq being derided by the troops, with a Scotch officer in a kilt
impersonating Madeleine Vanderlynden, and receiving with the
greatest equanimity, various suggestions that ranged from the feebly
funny to the strongly obscene. O.C. 469 T.M.B. found a willing
column formed behind him which he had to lead round the table, an
infantryman brought a wastepaper basket to make the Mayor’s top
hat, and in the midst of other improvisations, Dormer discovered the
gunner standing in front of him with a mock salute.
“Do you mind coming out of the Jury and taking your proper part?”
It was cheek, of course, but Dormer was not wearing red tabs, and
beside, what was the use of standing on one’s dignity. He asked:
“What part do I play?”
“You’re Jack Ketch. You come on in the fourth Act, and land Nobby
one on the nob!”
“I see. What are you?”
“Me? I’m the Devil. Watch me devilling,” and with a long map-roller
he caught the players in turn resounding cracks upon their several
heads.
They turned on him with common consent, and in the resulting
struggle, the table broke and subsided with the whole company in an
ignominious mass. The dust rose between the grey canvas-covered
walls and the tin suspension lamp rocked like that of a ship at sea.
Everybody picked themselves up, slightly sobered, and began to
discuss how to get the damage repaired before the Colonel saw it in
the morning.
O.C. 469 T.M.B. stood at Dormer’s elbow:
“We’ve just got time to catch your train.”
“Come on.” Dormer had no intention of being marooned in this place
another day. Outside a cycle and side-car stood panting. Dormer did
wonder as they whizzed down the rutted road how long such a
vehicle had been upon the strength of a Trench Mortar School, but
after all, could you blame fellows? They were existing under War
conditions, what more could one ask?

He woke to the slow jolting of the train as it slowed up in smoky

twilight at Boulogne. He bought some food, and sitting with it in his
hands and his thermos between his knees, he watched the grey
Picard day strengthen over those endless camps and hospitals,
dumps and training grounds.
He was retracing his steps of the day before, but he was a step
farther on. As he looked at the hundreds of thousands of khaki-clad
figures, he realized something of what he had to do. With no name
or number he had to find one of them, who could be proved to have
been at a certain place a year ago. He didn’t want to, but if he didn’t,
would he ever get rid of the business?
The “rag” of the previous evening stuck in his head. How true it was.
The man who did the thing was “Nobby” with the number 6494 that
was beginning to be folk-lore. Of course he was. He was any or
every soldier. Madeleine Vanderlynden was the heroine. O.C. 469
T.M.B. was the hero. The Mayor of Hondebecq was the comic relief,
and he, Dormer, was the villain. He was indeed Jack Ketch, the
spoiler of the fun, the impotent figure-head of detested “Justice,” or
“Law and Order.” And finally, as in all properly conducted Punch and
Judy shows, the Devil came and took the lot. What had Dendrecourt
said: “The Devil had taken the whole generation.” Well, it was all in
the play. And when he realized this, as he slid on from Étaples down
to Abbeville, he began to feel it was not he who was pursuing some
unknown soldier in all that nation-in-arms that had grown from the
British Expeditionary Force, but the Army—no, the War—that was
pursuing him.
When he got out at Doullens, and scrounged a lift from a passing
car, he found himself looking at the driver, at the endless transport
on either side of the road, at the sentry on guard over the parked
heavies in the yard of the jam factory, at the military policeman at the
cross-roads. One or other of all these hundreds of thousands knew
all about the beastly business that was engaging more and more of
his mind. One or other of them could point to the man who was
wanted.
He found himself furtively examining their faces, prepared for covert
ridicule and suspicion, open ignorance or stupidity. He had, by now,
travelled a long way from the first feelings he had about the affair,
when he had thought of the perpetrator of the damage at
Vanderlynden’s as a poor devil to be screened if possible. He
wouldn’t screen him now. This was the effect of the new possibility
that had arisen. He, Dormer, did not intend to be ridiculous.
On reaching the Head-quarters of the Division, he found the War in
full progress. That is to say, every one was standing about, waiting to
do something. Dormer had long discovered that this was war.
Enlisting as he had done at the outbreak of hostilities, with no actual
experience of what such a set of conditions could possibly be like, he
had then assumed that he was in for a brief and bitter period of
physical discomfort and danger, culminating quite possibly in death,
but quite certainly in a decisive victory for the Allies within a few
months. He had graduated in long pedestrian progress of Home
Training, always expecting it to cease one fine morning. It did. He
and others were ordered to France. With incredible slowness and
difficulty they found the battalion to which they were posted. Now for
it, he had thought, and soon found himself involved in a routine,
dirtier and more dangerous, but as unmistakably a routine as that in
which he had been involved at home.
He actually distinguished himself at it, by his thoroughness and care,
and came to be the person to whom jobs were given! Thus had he
eventually, after a twelvemonth, found another false end to the
endless waiting. He was sent to help the Q. office of Divisional Staff.
He had felt himself to be of considerable importance, a person who
really was winning the War. But in a few weeks he was as disabused
as ever. It was only the same thing. Clerking in uniform, with no
definite hours, a few privileges of food and housing, but no nearer
sight of the end of it. The Somme had found him bitterly
disillusioned. And yet even now, after being two days away from the
Head-quarters where his lot was cast, he was dumbfounded afresh
to find everything going on just as he had left it.
They were all waiting now for orders to go into a back area and be
trained. For, as sure as the snowdrop appeared, there sprang up in
the hearts of men a pathetic eternal hopefulness. Perhaps nothing
more than a vernal effusion, yet there it was, and as Dormer
reported to Colonel Birchin, in came the messenger they had all
been expecting, ordering them, not forward into the line, but
backward to Authun, for training. It was some time before he could
get attention, and when he did, it seemed both to him and to the
Colonel that the affair had lessened in importance.
“You’ve asked 3rd Eccleton to give you the posting of this
Chirnside?”
“Yessir!”
“Very well. That’s all you can do for the moment. Now I want you to
see that everything is cleared up in the three Infantry Brigade camps,
and don’t let us have the sort of chits afterwards that we got at
Lumbres, etc.”
So the Vanderlynden affair receded into the background, and
Dormer found before his eyes once more that everlasting mud-
coloured procession, men, men, limbers, cookers, men, lorries,
guns, limbers, men.
He looked at it this time with different eyes. His Division was one-
fiftieth part of the British Army in France. It took over a day to get on
the move, it occupied miles of road, absorbed train-loads of supplies,
and would take two days to go thirty miles. The whole affair was so
huge, that the individual man was reduced and reduced in
importance until he went clean out of sight. This fellow he was
pursuing, or Chirnside, or anyone who could have given any useful
information about the Vanderlynden claim, might be in any one of
those cigarette-smoking, slow-moving columns, on any of those
springless vehicles, or beside any of those mules.
He gazed at the faces of the men as they streamed past him, every
county badge on their caps, every dialect known to England on their
lips, probably the best natured and easiest to manage of any of the
dozen or so national armies engaged in the War. He was realizing
deeply the difficulty of discovering that particular “Nobby” who had
broken the front of the shrine at Vanderlynden’s. It was just the thing
any of them would do. How many times had he noticed their curious
tenderness for uncouth animals, stray dogs or cats, even moles or
hedgehogs, and above all the brazen, malevolent army mule. He
was no fancier of any sort of beast, and the mule as used in France
he had long realized to have two virtues and two only—cheapness
and durability. You couldn’t kill them, but if you did, it was easy to get
more. He had been, for a long while now, a harassed officer, busy
shifting quantities of war material, human, animal, or inanimate, from
one place to another, and had come to regard mules as so much
movable war stores. Added to the fact that he was no fancier, this
had prevented him from feeling any affection for the motive power of
first-line transport. But he was conscious enough that it was not so
with the men—the “other ranks” as they were denominated in all
those innumerable parade states and nominal rolls with which he
spent his days in dealing.
No, what the fellow had done was what most drivers would do. That
queer feeling about animals was the primary cause of the whole
affair. Then, balancing it, was the natural carelessness about such
an object as a shrine—this same brown-clothed nation that defiled
before him, he knew them well. As a churchwarden, he knew that not
ten per cent of them went inside a place of worship more than three
or four times in the whole of their lives. Baptism for some, marriage
for a good proportion, an occasional assistance at the first or last rite
of some relative, finally, the cemetery chapel, that was the extent of
their church-going.
A small number, chiefly from the North or from Ireland, might be
Catholics, but also from the north of Ireland was an equal number of
violent anti-Catholics, and it was to this latter section that he judged
the perpetrator of the outrage to belong. No, they would see nothing,
or at best something to despise, in that little memorial altar, hardly
more than an enlarged tombstone, in the corner of a Flemish
pasture. It was strange if not detestable, it was foreign; they never
saw their own gravestones, seldom those of any relative. He
sympathized with them in that ultra-English sentimentality, that
cannot bear to admit frankly the frail briefness of human life. And so
the thing had happened, any of them might have done it, most of
them would do it, under similar circumstances.
The tail of the last column wound out of B camp, the N.C.O. he took
with him on these occasions was reporting all clear, and might he
hand over to the advance party of the incoming Division. Dormer
gave him exact orders as to what to hand over and obtain a
signature for, and where to find him next, for he did not believe in
allowing an N.C.O. any scope for imagination, if by any possibility
such a faculty might have survived in him.
The weather had broken, and he jogged along in the mud to C camp
and found it already vacated, but no advance party ready to take
over, and resigned himself to the usual wait. He waited and he
waited. Of course, he wasn’t absolutely forced to do so. He might
have left his N.C.O. and party to hand over. He might have cleared
them off and left the incoming Division to shift for itself. That had
been done many a time in his experience. How often, as a platoon
commander, had he marched and marched, glancing over his
shoulder at tired men only too ready to drop out, marched and
marched until at length by map square and horse sense, and general
oh-let’s-get-in-here-and-keep-any-one-else-out, he had found such a
camp, a few tents subsiding in the mud, a desolate hut or two,
abandoned and unswept, places which disgusted him more than any
mere trench or dug-out, because they were places that people had
lived in and left unclean.
He had never experienced such a thing before he came into the
army. His nice middle-class upbringing had never allowed him to
suspect that such places existed. And now that he was Captain
Dormer, attached H.Q. Nth Division, he endeavoured to see that they
did not. So he hung about intending to see the thing done properly.
He got no encouragement. He knew that when he got back to the
Division Colonel Birchin would simply find him something else to do,
and the fact that no complaints followed them, and that the incoming
Division had a better time than they would otherwise have had,
would be swallowed up in the hasty expedience of the War. Still, he
did it, because he liked to feel that the job was being properly done.
To this he had been brought up, and he was not going to change in
war-time.
As he hung about the empty hut, he had plenty of time for reflection.
His feet were cold. When would he get leave? What a nuisance if
these d——d people who were relieving him didn’t turn up until it
was dark. The February day was waning. Ah, here they were. He
roused himself from the despondent quiescence of a moment ago,
into a crisp authoritative person from Divisional Head-quarters.
Never was a camp handed over more promptly. He let his N.C.O.
and men rattle off in the limber they had provided themselves with.
He waited for a car. There was bound to be no difficulty in getting a
lift into Doullens, and if he did not find one immediately there, he
would soon get a railway voucher. As he stood in the gathering dusk
his ruminations went on. If it were not for the War, he would be going
home to tea, real proper tea, no chlorine in the water, milk out of a
cow, not out of a tin, tea-cakes, some small savoury if he fancied it,
his sister with whom he lived believing in the doctrine. “Feed the
beast!” After that, he would have the choice of the Choral Society or
generally some lecture or other. At times there was something on at
the local theatre, at others he had Vestry or Trust meetings to attend.
Such employments made a fitting termination to a day which he had
always felt to be well filled at a good, safe, and continuous job, that
would go on until he reached a certain age, when it culminated in a
pension, a job that was worth doing, that he could do, and that the
public appreciated.
Instead of all this, here he was, standing beside a desolate Picard
highway, hoping that he might find his allotted hut in time to wash in
a canvas bucket, eat at a trestle table and finally, having taken as
much whisky as would wash down the food, and help him to become
superior to his immediate circumstances, to play bridge with those
other people whom he was polite to, because he had to be, but
towards whom he felt no great inclination, and whom he would drop
without a sigh the moment he was demobbed.
Ah! Here was the sort of car. He stepped into the road and held up
his hand. The car stopped with a crunch and a splutter. They were
going as far as Bernaville. That would suit him well. He jammed into
the back seat between two other people, mackintoshed and goggled,
and the car got under way again. Then he made the usual remarks
and answered the usual inquiries, taking care to admit nothing, and
to let his Divisional weight be felt. Finally he got down at a place
where he could get a lorry lift to H.Q.
His servant had laid out some clean clothes in the Armstrong hut.
For that he was thankful.

The Division now proceeded to train for the coming offensive.

“Cultivators” had been warned off a large tract of land, which was
partly devoted to “Schools,” at which were taught various superlative
methods of slaughter, partly to full-dress manœuvres over country
which resembled in physical features the portion of the German line
to be attacked. The natural result was that if any area larger than a
tennis court was left vacant, the “cultivators” rushed back and began
to cultivate it. Hence arose disputes between the peasants and the
troops, and the General commanding the 556 Brigade had his bridle
seized by an infuriated female who wanted to know, in English, why
he couldn’t keep off her beans.
The matter was reported to G. office of Divisional Head-quarters,
who told the A.P.M., who told the French Liaison Officer, who told an
Interpreter, who told the “cultivators” to keep off the ground
altogether, whether it were in use or not. In revenge for which
conduct the “cultivators” fetched the nearest gendarme, and had the
Interpreter arrested as a spy, and tilled the land so that the C.R.A.
Corps couldn’t find the dummy trenches he was supposed to have
been bombarding, because they had all been filled up and planted.
So that he reported the matter to Corps, who sat heavily on
Divisional Head-quarters, G. office, for not keeping the ground clear.
The A.P.M. and French Mission having been tried and failed, Q.
office had the brilliant idea of “lending” Dormer to G., upon the well-
tried army principle that a man does a job, not because he is fit, but
because he is not required elsewhere.
So Dormer patrolled the manœuvre area, mounted on the horses of
senior officers, who were too busy to ride them. He did not object. It
kept him from thinking. He was, by now, well acquainted with
manœuvre areas, from near Dunkirk to below Amiens. It was the
same old tale. First the various schools. The Bombing Instructor
began with a short speech:
“It is now generally admitted that the hand-grenade is the weapon
with which you are going to win this War!”
The following day in the bayonet-fighting pitch, the instructor in that
arm began:
“This is the most historic weapon in the hands of the British Army. It
still remains the decisive factor on the field!”
And the day following, on the range, the Musketry expert informed
the squad:
“Statistics show that the largest proportion of the casualties inflicted
on the enemy are bullet wounds.”
Dormer was not unkind enough to interrupt. He did not blame those
instructors. Having, by desperately hard work, obtained their
positions, they were naturally anxious to keep them. But his new
insight and preoccupation, born of the Vanderlynden affair, made him
study the faces of the listening squads intently. No psychologist, he
could make nothing of them. Blank, utterly bored in the main, here
and there he caught sight of one horrified, or one peculiarly
vindictive. The main impression he received was of the sheer
number of those passive listening faces, compared with the fewness
of the N.C.O.’s and instructors. So long as they were quiescent, all
very well. But if that dormant mass came to life, some day, if that
immense immobility once moved, got under way, where would it
stop?
It was the same with the full-dress manœuvres. Dormer had never
been taken up with the honour and glory of war. He was going
through with this soldiering, which had been rather thrust upon him,
for the plain reason that he wanted to get to the end of it. He
considered that he had contracted to defeat the Germans just as, if
he had been an iron firm, he might have contracted to make girders,
or if he had been the Post Office, he would have contracted to
deliver letters. And now that he watched the final processes of the
job, he became more than ever aware that the goods would not be
up to sample. How could they be? Here were men being taught to
attack, with the principal condition of attack wanting. The principal
condition of an attack was that the other fellow hit you back as hard
as he could. Here there was no one hitting you back. He wondered if
all these silent and extraordinarily docile human beings in the ranks
would see that some day. He looked keenly at their faces. Mask,
mask; mule-like stupidity, too simple to need a mask; mask and
mask again; one with blank horror written on it, one with a devilish
lurking cunning, as if there might be something to be made out of all
this some day; then more masks.
He wondered, but he did not wonder too unhappily. He was
beginning to feel very well. Away from the line, the hours were more
regular, the food somewhat better, the horse exercise did him good.
There was another reason which Dormer, no reader of poetry, failed
altogether to appreciate. Spring had come. Furtive and slow, the
Spring of the shores of the grey North Sea came stealing across
those hard-featured downs and rich valleys. Tree and bush,
blackened and wind-bitten, were suddenly visited with a slender
effusion of green, almost transparent, looking stiff and ill-assorted, as
though Nature were experimenting.
Along all those ways where men marched to slaughter, the magic
footsteps preceded them, as though they had been engaged in some
beneficent work, or some joyful festival. To Dormer the moment was
poignant but for other reasons. It was the moment when the
culminating point of the Football Season marked the impending truce
in that game. He did not play cricket. It was too expensive and too
slow. In summer he sailed a small boat on his native waters. Instead,
he was going to be involved in another offensive.
The Division left the manœuvre area and went up through Arras. Of
course, the weather broke on the very eve of the “show.” That had
become almost a matter of routine, like the shelling, the stupendous
activities of railways and aeroplanes, the everlasting telephoning.
Again Dormer saw going past him endlessly, that stream of men and
mules, mules and men, sandwiched in between every conceivable
vehicle, from tanks to stretchers. When, after what communiqués
described as “continued progress” and “considerable artillery
activity,” it had to be admitted that this offensive, like all other
offensives, had come to a dead stop, Dormer was not astonished.
For one thing, he knew, what no communiqué told, what had stopped
it. The Germans? No, capable and determined as they were. The
thing which stopped it was Mud. Nothing else. The shell-fire had
been so perfect, that the equally perfect and necessarily complicated
preparations for going a few hundred yards farther, could not be
made. The first advance was miles. The next hundreds of yards. The
next a hundred yards.
Then the Bosche got some back. Then everything had to be moved
up to make quite certain of advancing miles again. And it couldn’t be
done. There was no longer sufficient firm ground to bear the tons of
iron that alone could help frail humanity to surmount such efforts.
For another thing, he could not be astonished. For weeks he worked
eighteen hours a day, ate what he could, slept when he couldn’t help
it. Astonishment was no longer in him. But one bit of his mind
remained, untrammelled by the great machine of which he formed an
insignificant part. It was a bit of subconsciousness that was always
listening for something, just as, under long-range, heavy-calibre
bombardment, one listened and listened for the next shell. But the
particular detached bit of Dormer was listening and listening for
something else. Watching and watching, too, all those faces under
tin helmets, and just above gas-mask wallets, all so alike under
those conditions that it seemed as difficult to pick out one man from
another as one mule from another. Listening for one man to say “I