Wanting Forever (A Nelson Island Novel) (5 page)

“That was impressive.” He leaned against the barn door, taking in her flushed skin. Her long, dark hair was pulled into a ponytail high on her head, with tendrils of loose strands hovering around her face. Her turquoise V-neck tank hugged her curves, and her battered leather boots had seen better days.

A small smile pulled at her lips. “You think so, Waters? Just a little breaking-in.”

Sam chuckled. “A little breaking-in? I saw that horse make grown men cry this week. It could’ve turned on you.”

She laughed and reached for a water bottle sitting on a barrel. She brought the plastic to her lips and sipped, keeping her clear blue eyes trained on Sam.

“You think that’s the first horse I’ve worked with? I’ve been breaking horses for years, Sam. I didn’t need any help with this one. The guys did all the hard stuff earlier in the week, anyway.”

“So.” Sam ticked a list on his fingers. “She…is a genius at school. She manhandles her drunk boyfriend. She changes her own tires. She breaks wild horses. Is there anything else I need to know about you before I say or do something that might have you kicking my ass?”

Aston sized him up, allowing her gaze to travel from his legs, up his bare stomach and chest, and finally looking way up to meet his stare. The corners of her mouth twitched upward as she tried to fight a smile. She lost the battle, and a huge grin broke out on her face.

A grin that nearly stole his breath. Seeing her smile like this was rare, and he wanted to pluck it from her lips and place it into his pocket for safekeeping.

She should smile like that more often. She should smile like that every damn day.

“You have absolutely nothing to worry about, Waters.”

He tried not to stare as she walked away.

Tried, but failed.

He placed Ever’s most recent letter in the desk drawer. His feelings about the letter were jumbled. He still got the aching in his heart whenever he read a letter from her. But the daily living without her was getting easier. He was getting used to not waking up panicked if she wasn’t in his room with him. On those mornings, he’d ride his bike as fast as he could over to the house she shared with her father and check to make sure she was still breathing. Her father would be passed out on the couch, and Sam would creep back to her room, having to encounter whatever new horror would present itself to him that morning in the form of a bruise, cut, or broken bone.

Their childhood together was horrible. And apart from Hunter, they were all the other had.

Sam had stumbled onto this life of hard work, yes, but also comfort and relaxation. When he stepped into the little tack house he occupied, he would breathe deep and sigh, because he was alone and he was safe. It was strange and exhilarating.

Guilt enveloped him. Guilt, for liking life without Ever here to enjoy it with him. But she’d be here eventually. He’d promised her that.

He stepped out of the tack house front door and locked it behind him, whistling as he strode toward the main house.

Today marked a week and four days after the night out at Sunny’s. Despite the drama with Princeton that night, he’d felt at home among the group. He and Blaze had talked football, and he’d taken a shot with him and Tate. He never took shots, so it was a new experience. In Duck Creek, on the brief occasion he’d been at a bar, he’d refused to lose control in case he had to face Ever’s dad when they arrived back home. So the freedom to drink with friends had been nice. Tamara was adorable and so easy to talk to, and he’d admired the easy and carefree love Ashley and Finn shared. He and Ever had the love part down, but easy and carefree? Never.

And then there was Aston. He had known love. True, deep, devotional love. He’d been devoted to Ever since before he knew what
devoted
meant. So the farce of a relationship she was sharing with that tool, Princeton, was baffling to Sam. And it drove hot, angry fire through his veins, too, because even though he had only known Aston for a little over a week, he felt he already saw her much more clearly than Princeton did. The way she and Princeton had greeted each other when he’d found her crying by the state highway the night of her welcome-home dinner had been a joke. They hadn’t kissed or even hugged. Hell, he’d expect a girl who’d been separated from the man she loved to go running straight into his arms the moment she saw him. And he’d expect a man who’d been apart from the girl he loved to scoop her up in his arms and never let go. That was what a girl like Aston deserved, and she clearly wasn’t getting it from Princeton.

Sure, he knew she was tough. He saw straight through her hard exterior to the little girl underneath who had never found the kind of love she wanted to believe existed in the world. And he bristled, acknowledging that Princeton didn’t see that in her.

She deserved better.

Sam was mulling all of this over in his brain as he approached the main house for his first day working as Mr. Hopewell’s business assistant at home. Mr. Hopewell had asked him to meet him in his home office first thing this morning so he could further explain the tasks Sam would be expected to complete.

Sam stopped short as he cleared the tree line beside the driveway. He noted a sheriff’s cruiser parked directly in front of the steps leading to the front door. His heart banged inside his chest as he stared at the vehicle.

What the hell?
Why was the sheriff here? Could they have put it together? Had he been careless going out last week, meeting all of those people? Princeton had indicated he suspected Sam had something to hide. What if he’d done some digging and discovered what the Duck Creek sheriff thought he’d done?

The front door creaked open and Sam ducked back behind the line of trees for cover. He peered out as the sheriff himself came walking out of the house with Mr. Hopewell. Sam couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he watched as they shook hands and the sheriff climbed into his car. He drove slowly around the driveway and down the road leading off the Hopewell estate.

Mr. Hopewell looked in Sam’s direction. “You can come on out now, Sam. He’s gone.”

Sam’s pulse stuttered before it began beating more quickly than ever. He stepped out from the cover of the tree line and headed toward Gregory Hopewell. He felt his face redden as he approached, and Mr. Hopewell’s grim expression did nothing to slow the rapid pattering of his heart.

“I think we have some things to discuss, don’t we?” Mr. Hopewell turned and strode up the front steps. Sam stood frozen down below, watching his mentor walk away.

Gregory turned around at the top and indicated that Sam follow. “Aren’t you coming? It is the day I asked you to meet me here, is it not?”

Sam took a deep breath, let it out, and followed.

As the office doors closed behind them, Mr. Hopewell took a seat at his impressive mahogany desk and gestured toward the chair situated in front of him. Sam sat.

“Sam, that sheriff wasn’t here for you. I spotted you out of the corner of my eye the second we emerged from the house, and the fact that you hid confirmed some of the suspicions I already had.”

Sam set his jaw in preparation for fight-or-flight. If Mr. Hopewell had suspicions about him, then why had he invited Sam here? Why was he allowing him to work on his property? And now in his office?

“Get comfortable, Sam. Let me tell you a little story.”

“I’ve got to ask you, Aston. Point blank, okay? What’s going on with you and Sam?”

Aston curved her slender hand to shade her eyes from the sun. She craned her neck forward so that she could zero in on Ashley’s face. Then, deciding the angle she received wasn’t good enough, she sat all the way up in her lounge chair and stared at her friend.

“What the hell are you talking about, Ash?”

Ashley lifted her sunglasses so Aston could see her face. She wore a solemn expression, but the corners of her mouth twitched as she evaluated Aston’s hostile posture.

“I mean exactly what I asked. What’s going on? You two most definitely had some fireworks sparking the other night.”

“Sam has a girlfriend back home. And I’m with Princeton. So there’s zero action going on between us.”

“I’m not saying you two have done anything. And hell, Aston, maybe you don’t even realize it. But there’s something about you and Sam. I’ve never seen it with you and Princeton. When we were sitting around the table at Sunny’s, you kept turning toward him when he talked, even if he wasn’t talking to you. And every time you got up to go to the bar, his eyes followed you across the room. I swear I could feel the electricity coming off the two of you in currents. It was weird, Aston. And kind of amazing.”

Ashley sat back in her chair and replaced her sunglasses, as if that was all that needed to be said on the subject. She knew Aston well enough to know that she’d have to have this conversation a few more times before Aston was ready to admit anything.

Aston’s back was ramrod straight in the luxe chair, her legs stretched out straight in front of her, her apple-red painted toes curled into the soft fabric of the seat. She crossed her arms rigidly against her chest as she stared at Ashley.

“I really wish you’d stop watching us so closely, Ash. It’s creepy. And Sam is just a guy here for the summer, working for my father. That’s all. Don’t read more into it. You can be so dramatic sometimes.”

Ashley let out a bark of a laugh without bothering to look at her friend. “Okay, A. I’ll humor you. But can you just admit one thing?”

“Admit what?” Aston sighed, her body slowly releasing its tension as she relaxed back into the lounger.

“Admit you think he’s hot.”

Aston closed her eyes briefly, glad they were hidden behind her aviators. “He’s hot, I guess. I mean if you like the whole big-muscled, six-foot-four thing. And the deep brown eyes that see right through you. And he does have all of that country-boy charm that he uses like a weapon when he wants to.”

“Right.” Ashley laughed. “All of that’s true. But you haven’t been looking at him or anything, right A?”

“Right,” Aston agreed, turning onto her stomach so the sun’s rays could warm her back.

“I love Princeton like a brother, Aston. We all grew up together; I don’t even have a choice at this point. But I don’t know how long you’re going to pretend he’s forever for you. You don’t feel the same way about him that I do about Finn.”

Aston rolled her eyes. “Not everyone is going to find what you two have, Ash. If I didn’t know the two of you, I wouldn’t even think it existed. But I sure as hell haven’t seen it anywhere else. So I have no illusions about the fact that Princeton is probably as good as it’s going to get for me.”

Ashley made a mental note right there to talk to Finn, ask him to get Sam alone. She wasn’t willing to watch her best friend settle. Aston deserved better than that.

“Well, Ashley White! I didn’t know you were here! Come on over here and give me a hug!”

Lillian Hopewell glided onto the patio smocked in a turquoise cover-up and donning her own pair of aviators. She held her arms open, and Ashley rose from her chair to greet her.

“Mrs. Hopewell, hey. It’s good to see you!” Ashley hugged the woman warmly.

She and Aston had spent so much time together here over the years; she knew all of the drama that had happened between Aston and her mother. In spite of all of it, she still loved the woman like a second mother.

“Oh, please, call me Lillian now. We’re all adults here these days, aren’t we?”

Aston remained frozen on her lounger, never bothering to acknowledge her mother’s arrival.

“What are we doing today, girls?” Lillian asked, settling comfortably onto her own lounger with a fruity drink in one hand.

“Oh, we’re just discussing Aston’s crazy attraction to Sam Waters.” She glanced sideways at Aston.

“Ashley!” Aston gasped, finally sitting up.

“Oh, Aston, don’t get shy. I am your mother, for God’s sakes. I hadn’t noticed an attraction, Ashley. Is it true, Aston?”

“You wouldn’t have noticed, would you?” Aston grumbled. “You were probably thinking of him as eye candy for yourself.”

The silence hung heavy in the sweet summer air. Ashley cleared her throat.

Lillian forced a smile. “Actually, no. I’m starting to think of Sam like a son. He’s absolutely darling, and there would be nothing wrong with you feeling an attraction toward him. Why not?”

“Um, because I don’t cheat, Mom. I have a boyfriend.”

Lillian chose to ignore Aston’s rudeness and waved her hand dismissively. “Aston, you and Princeton are the only ones who think you and Princeton are going to make it much longer. You two are about as hot for each other as your grandparents. When you finally realize it, it’ll be the best decision you’ll ever make.”

Aston rose, adjusting her halter-top bikini as she did so. Without another word, she strode into the house, slamming the door behind her. The windowpanes rattled in her absence.

“Well, that went well,” murmured Lillian.

“It’s going to take time,” Ashley said sympathetically, patting Lillian’s hand.

“It’s been years, Ashley. She knows it was the biggest mistake of my life. Is she going to hold it against me forever?”

Ashley blew out a breath. “Aston’s one of the most pigheaded people I know. But she also loves harder than anyone else. You’re her mother. She was hurt when it all came out. But she’ll come around eventually.”

Lillian nodded tightly. She pursed her lips until they were white. “Thank you, Ashley. At least one of my children still loves me.”

“They both do,” Ashley responded as she stood. She raised both arms above her head and arched luxuriously in the sunlight. She threw one last smile at Lillian as she went inside in search of her friend.