Asa (Marked Men #6) (17 page)

I was taking her back to Rule and Shaw’s, where she and Jet were staying, and she was going on and on about how cute the new baby was. I asked her if she thought a little one was in the future for her and Jet, which made her laugh. She told me Jet was all about having kids, but considering our upbringing and our less than stellar example of parenting our mom had left us with, she was less eager to bring a new life into the world. She told me that they had agreed to table the discussion until she was finished with school, but I knew my sister and had seen her with Jet. They would be wonderful parents and I bet he’d convince her to have his baby long before she had a degree in her hand.

I was at a stoplight when my phone rang and Royal’s pretty face popped up on the screen. It didn’t bode well for me being able to keep any kind of safety zone between us when I felt my pulse kick and my heart trip just at the sight of her name on my cell.

I swiped a finger across the screen and put the phone up to my ear. “What’s up, Red?” Without very much effort I could still taste her and scotch all hot and earthy on the tip of my tongue, and it made me shift in the driver’s seat while my sister looked at me questioningly out of the corner of her eye.

“What time do you have to work tonight?” It really did something to my insides that she always sounded so happy to talk to me. The fact that I mattered to her was not lost on me. I recognized all of the simple ways she liked to show me.

“I’m supposed to go in around five,” I told her, and she sighed and got quiet on the other end of the line. “Royal, if you need me for something, just ask.”

I heard Ayden snicker next to me and I turned to glare at her.

“My mom asked me to come over to her place for dinner and I know we aren’t really the meet-the-parents kind of couple or anything, but I was really hoping you could come with me. I love her, but she can be exhausting, and she’s been in an unpleasant funk lately. I think she would really enjoy meeting you, not to mention you’re pretty fun to stare at, even when you have clothes on.”

I chuckled. I had met plenty of parents back in the day, but I was usually putting on a show or so deep in a con that it was never actually me that they were getting to know. It was sort of freeing and kind of thrilling to have Royal ask me to spend time with her mother, considering she knew every single one of my faults and failings. Royal had made no secret of the fact she and her mother were extremely tight, so the thought that I actually needed a parent to legitimately like me if I wanted to keep this girl in my life floated around in my head and made my nerves sing.

“I’ll call the new guy and see if he can hang out for a little bit longer until I get there. It shouldn’t be a problem … and you know I love it when you owe me one, Red.”

She laughed and the warm sound sent bolts of real, honest-to-God happiness shooting throughout my body. She heated me up faster than the best scotch I had ever tasted.

“Paying up is one of my favorite things to do, Asa. I’ll come pick you up at your place when I get off of work, if that’s okay.”

I groaned and told her, “You and those handcuffs. One of these days I’m gonna make good on my threat to use them.”

She laughed again. “I can’t wait. I’ll see you later.”

When I hung up the phone Ayden turned herself completely sideways in her seat and was staring at me like she had never seen me before.

“What?” I knew I sounded surly but I wasn’t ready to have her pick apart my complicated relationship with Royal. It wasn’t like I understood it well enough to offer up an explanation anyways.

“You’re in neck-deep with the cop, aren’t you? Since when do you agree to meet the parents?”

I was in way past my neck. “Pretty much in all the way over my head at this point, and I meet the parents when it matters.”

“Are you scared?” I remembered how hard and fast she had run from Jet when he decided she was the only one for him.

“I’m scared for her. I screw up everything that matters to me, but I’ve been nothing but honest with her and she’s still here. She keeps telling me I’m a risk worth taking.” Which meant I had to make a good impression on her mom, even if it meant dipping into my old bag of tricks. “Royal and her mom are really tight. It was just the two of them growing up, so the mom’s seal of approval would be nice.”

Ayden nodded. “You
are
a risk worth taking … and so is she. If you stop worrying about what
might
happen between the two of you and focus on what
is
happening, you’d be able to see it clear as day. I think you love her but you’re so caught up in the then and so worried about the when that you can’t even see the now.”

“I don’t have a clue how to love someone else, Ayd.”

She reached out and thumped me on the side of the head, which made me scowl as I pulled to a stop in front of the familiar house on Capitol Hill.

“Stop making excuses. You’re too smart for that, Asa. You love me, you love Mom even though she doesn’t deserve it, and I think, finally, after way too long, you are starting to love yourself a little bit. You can love Royal if you allow yourself to.”

Her eyes brightened as the front door to the house opened and a tall guy with messy dark hair and really tight, black jeans came out on the front steps. Jet Keller and all his rock-and-roll ways was not who I would have ever pictured being my sister’s soul mate, but it was there on every feature of her expressive face. He was it for her and always would be. I saw a smile tug at her mouth as she put a hand on the door before she turned back to look at me.

“Allow yourself to love someone fully, Asa. It’s what will finally set you free from the past. There’s no room for anything else, no space for all that regret and recrimination when you’re filled up with that kind of love. I know you said you woke up from that coma for me, but you haven’t been living, and I think Royal might be the one to finally give you a reason to start.”

She climbed out of the car and Jet started to come down the stairs toward her like the fifteen feet separating them was just too much to bear. I called Ayden’s name and she bent down to poke her head back inside the car.

“I miss you. I just want you to know that.”

She winked at me and I saw hands covered in heavy silver rings slide around her waist from behind.

“I miss you, too, but I think I’ll worry about you less after this trip.”

Jet bent down and told me hello, then hauled my sister out of the way and kissed her like he hadn’t seen her in weeks instead of hours. If that was what living looked like, I really had been doing it wrong for the last couple of years, and Ayden was right.

I wasn’t really sure what had possessed me to ask Asa to meet my mother. I don’t know if it was the need I had to get him to see that this thing working between us was important, more important than anything he was trying to hold on to before, or if I was pulling one of his tricks and trying to see if he could handle my temperamental parent. Either way I knew I had ulterior motives for asking him to go with me, and considering he was smarter than anyone I had ever met, I knew he had to know that as well.

Even so, when I knocked on his apartment door right after work, still dressed in my uniform, he just leered at me and told me never in a million years did he ever think he would find a badge sexy. Then he kissed me hard enough to knock my hat off the top of my head and reminded me again that my handcuffs had more than one use. I just rolled my eyes and followed him to the 4Runner. One of these days I was going to surprise him and let him make good on all the wicked promises I saw in his amber gaze when he teased me about that particular tool of my trade.

On the way to my mom’s place in Littleton I gave him a brief rundown of what to expect. I told him how she liked to jump from spouse to spouse. I gave him the glossed-over version of my own origins, which had him lifting a questioning eyebrow in my direction. All I could do was shrug and tell him I had never had a relationship with my father and never wanted one. My mom had worked her ass off to be more than enough for me and I never felt lacking in the parental love and support department. The guy that had contributed the other half of my DNA already had another family when he started fooling around with my mom, so it wasn’t like I was missing out on any kind of stellar role model. Asa just snorted and told me that a philanderer was far better than a career convict when it came to father figures, and I had to admit I agreed.

“Mom’s been on a bit of an emotional roller coaster lately. She’s never liked to be alone, and ever since I went to work full-time, she’s been even more prone to looking for love in all the wrong places. I really worry about her, and sometimes I think she’s going to cross the line and I won’t be able to look the other way. Her men and the way she is with them has always been the one sore spot in our relationship. But nothing I say about it seems to sink in. It would break my heart if a man ever really drove a wedge between us.” I gave him an arch look. “So don’t flirt back if she starts to lay it on pretty thick. Sometimes I think she actually loses her mind around good-looking men.”

He grinned at me and I felt my heart flip over in my chest. Just the fact that he had agreed to go with me meant so much and I doubted he even realized it.

“Stop worrying. If there’s one thing you don’t have to worry about, it’s me being able to handle your mom.”

“Handling her isn’t what I’m worried about; tolerating her is.” My mom was my favorite person in the world, but if she made googly eyes at Asa while I was in the room, I very well might flip out. I had never been the jealous or possessive type before him, but now I was in so deep, so far down in the depths with him, that I wouldn’t hesitate to stake my claim even if I logically knew there was no way my mom would ever want to hurt me or upset me like that on purpose.

Asa reached out a hand and put it on the back of my neck, where he could give it a squeeze. It made a shiver race up along my spine. I wanted to pull the SUV over and climb in his lap. To be honest I always wanted to climb all over him, but the fact that he was trying to reassure me, that he was willing to go through the motions of meeting my mom just to make me happy, made me feel even more amorous toward him.

“Moms are a piece of cake. The dads used to take more work, but then again I wouldn’t want my daughter anywhere near a guy like me either.” His tone was full of self-deprecating humor and I wanted to purr as his fingers stroked along the curve of my neck.

“It’s hard to picture you doing the sit-down-and-meet-the-parents thing.” It was hard to see him as anything other than this complicated and difficult man that had become the center of everything to me.

“I did whatever I had to do to get me what I wanted, including meeting the parents.” There was no humor in his voice now.

I turned to look at him as I pulled in front of the town house and cocked my head to the side as I told him, “And yet here you are doing it for me.”

He just stared at me for a long moment and then a tiny grin tugged at his mouth. He bent forward and pressed his lips lightly against my own. “Here I am.”

I knew what he was saying to me. Not just was he here to meet my mom for me, he was here with me in this moment. Not because he necessarily wanted to be, not because he was going to gain anything from it, but simply because I had asked him to be and he was making a concentrated effort to be present, for me. There was no question about it any longer, I had handed my heart over to the southern charmer with a criminal past. Probably not the smartest move I had ever made, but I couldn’t regret it. Not when he was looking at me with that warm shimmer in his eyes and that knowing smirk on his too-pretty face.

We walked up to the front door and he put his hand on my lower back. I had ditched my hat in the car and pulled my hair out of the coiled-up bun that held it up and out of the way while I was on duty. I actually groaned out loud when Asa raked his fingers through the long locks and rubbed his fingers across my scalp. I gave the door an obligatory knock before walking in and hollering out a hello to my mom. She yelled back that she was in the kitchen, and I headed off in that direction only to be drawn up short when Asa paused at the hallway wall to look at the various pictures that decorated the flat surface. They were all of me, several of me and Dom and his sisters, and a bunch of me and Mom. His eyes seemed glued to the images and all his good humor and gentle handling from moments ago disappeared behind a hard veneer that dulled the typical molten sheen in his gaze. His jaw clenched so hard that I actually heard his teeth grind together and his arm felt like steel when I reached out to touch him.

“Are you okay?”

He jerked like I had electrocuted him, and when he looked down at me it was like he was looking at a stranger. I saw his Adam’s apple bob up and down and his hands curled into fists at his sides. His head shook slowly from side to side and he took a step away from me, so that I was no longer touching him. I was baffled by his sudden change in demeanor, so I gave a forced little laugh and asked him, “Did seeing me with braces and knobby knees really scare you that much?”

I was happy in almost every single picture on that wall. It was my life before him laid out in snapshot after snapshot, and I wondered if the reality of coming with me to meet my mom, the seriousness of letting him into every single part of my life, was finally sinking in. He looked like he was struggling for words when I heard shuffling as my mom came around the corner, undoubtedly wondering what was taking us so long. She had a glass of wine in her hand and a welcoming smile on her face as she chirped, “Did you get lost?” I saw her eyes get big and her mouth drop open in a little O of surprise when her gaze locked on Asa. I thought she was probably just stunned by how ridiculously good-looking he was until the wineglass slipped from her fingers and sent red liquid splattering all over her fancy Berber carpet. My mom could be flaky but she typically was as graceful as an old Hollywood starlet.

“Mom!” I yelled at her, and took a step forward as she fluttered a hand in front of her face and jerked her gaze away from Asa to the mess she had just made. She laughed a bit hysterically then turned to run to the kitchen, only to return a moment later with a towel and a bottle of floor cleaner. There was a high flush on her face and I noticed she wouldn’t look up at me, which was totally out of character for her.

“I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” She got on her hands and knees and I frowned at her and then back at Asa, who looked like he had been carved out of stone. I had never seen him look so hard and so remote. Not even the night I arrested him for something he didn’t do.

“Mom, this is Asa Cross. Asa, this is my mom, Roslyn Hastings.” My mom looked up from her position and then immediately looked back down to the floor.

“Um … It’s nice to meet you, Asa.” She sounded cold and not at all welcoming.

Asa opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again. He lifted a hand to his face and rubbed it across his jaw like he was trying really hard to think of something to say. I scowled at him and crossed my arms over my chest. I was two seconds away from stamping my foot in irritation in a full-on fit.

“What is wrong with you?” I mean I knew my mom was dramatic and that she hadn’t made the best first impression, but the stone-man impression seemed a little extreme, especially when he had just assured me he could handle her with very little effort.

Then it was like a switch flipped. Suddenly his stony and hard expression fell away and the harmless good ol’ boy underneath was revealed. An easy grin pulled at his mouth and he dipped his chin in a polite nod.

“Nice to meet you, ma’am.” I had never heard his drawl so thick or so purposeful. It made goose bumps rise up on my skin and chills race along my spine. He had slipped into a role. Asa was playing a character all of a sudden and it made my stomach hurt to watch the change happen so seamlessly right in front of my eyes. Especially since he was doing it to someone that was so important to me. Something was seriously wrong and I had no idea what it was.

I helped my mom to her feet and was puzzled as to why she was shaking. She gave me a hug and hastily ushered me off to the kitchen with Asa trailing behind us. She started rattling off a hundred questions at me about work, Dom, everything under the sun besides me and Asa, which I thought was superweird. Even if she had enough tact not to openly ogle him in front of me, there was no way she wouldn’t at least give him an appreciative once-over. All women did. It was part of the magnetism he exuded so effortlessly. If you were born with a vagina, you were going to check Asa out when you got the opportunity. It was just a fact.

I kept looking back and forth between the two of them, but he was staring at me like he was trying to work out something important to say, and that made me really nervous. I don’t know what had happened when we walked in that front door, but I felt like I had entered an alternate dimension.

My mom had us help take dinner to the table, and when we sat down it didn’t escape my notice that Asa sat at the very end of the table, as far away from both me and my mother as he could get. It also didn’t skip my attention that he didn’t touch anything on his plate as my mom chattered on and on about nothing and everything at an alarming speed. She was acting more erratic than I could ever remember seeing her. I set my fork down with a clatter on my plate and narrowed my eyes at her.

“Mom.” She closed her mouth with a snap and blinked at me like an owl. “This is the first guy I’ve brought home to meet you in years and you’ve spent the last twenty minutes talking about your dry cleaners and a stain in your blouse. Don’t you want to know how we met or anything about Asa? You’re being very rude.”

She balked at me and turned wide eyes to Asa and then looked back at me with a bright red stain on her cheeks.

“Oh … I’m so sorry. I promise, I usually have better manners than this.” Asa grunted as I reached out a foot to kick him under the table. A smile instantly flashed across his face and he shrugged.

“Don’t worry about it, ma’am. I appreciate you making dinner for us.”

My mom gave a high-pitched laugh and raised a hand to fiddle with her necklace. “So obviously you’re from the South. Where would that be?”

“Kentucky.” He kept the smile on his face but there was no pleasantness in his voice at all.

“Oh, I bet it’s pretty there.”

“Not the part I’m from.”

I jumped in before it could get any more awkward. “Asa bartends at the bar I told you I was hanging out at.”

“A bartender. That sounds like a fun job,” she said a little too brightly.

“It has its moments.” Asa’s deadpan response was the last straw. The tension was as thick as a blanket and so heavy I felt like I couldn’t breathe through it anymore.

I pushed away from the table and rose to my feet with my hands on the edge. I swung my head back and forth between the two of them and asked, “What on earth is going on here?” I needed answers as to why he was acting so strange, needed them, like, yesterday.

Asa pushed his chair back.

I turned pleading eyes in his direction as he climbed to his feet. “Asa?” His name came out on a whisper as he made his way over to me. “What exactly am I missing here?”

He put his hand beneath the heavy fall of my hair on the back of my neck and bent down so that he could kiss me on the forehead. It felt like a good-bye, and when I looked up into his face I could see that the affable mask he had been wearing for dinner was gone and the granite stranger was back. All the questions I had about his odd behavior suddenly disappeared under sharp waves of pain as I saw what he was about to do laid out clearly in the depths of his dulled gaze.

“I can’t do this, Royal.” He brushed his lips along the ridge of my cheek and I saw the light go from dim to completely extinguished in his eyes. “No games, no lying, no more. I told you this was going to self-destruct even if I didn’t want it to.”

“What are you talking about?” I was so lost, so confused, and I could tell if he walked away from me right now he was doing it for good. “Can’t do what anymore?” I didn’t know if pressing him to meet my mom had been too much. Maybe it was too far in the realm of serious relationship for him to handle, but I was willing to grab his hand and run out of the town house with him if it would stop him from doing what he was about to do.

I went to grab his arm but he shook me off and headed out of the room toward the front door. I chased after him, angry and baffled beyond belief.

“Asa, what are you doing? Where are you going?” I mean we were in Littleton and I was the one that had driven.