“Marry an old man for his money?” he asks.

“Sure. But I was screwing his brains out when he died, so he didn’t mind much.”

His smile never wavers. “I want to take you out.”

“We discussed this already,” I say, my traitorous gaze dipping back to the bulge of his biceps. Lord have mercy. “I don’t do dates.”

“So we’ll call it something else,” he says. “Try not to get hung up on semantics.”

“And what if I say no?”

Asher’s smirk should piss me off. This is a man who gets what he wants, and it’s written all over his face.

I sigh. “Fine, but only if you have a signed note from your wife that says it’s okay if you play with others.”

“It’s one night. What? Are you afraid you can’t resist me?”

Damn. That’s a challenge. “Dinner,” I say, punching my key fob to unlock my doors. “But none of this macho, He-Man, I-drive-the-lady crap. I have free will and I like to keep my vehicle at my disposal. You might be hot, and I might be joining you for a meal, but you don’t own me.”

“Are you done?”

I try to stop the smile that’s coming, but I can’t resist. I don’t meet many men willing to call me on my bullshit. “Yeah.”

“Do you like Cajun food, loud atmosphere, a good beer list?”

I look him up and down again—a visual journey that is worth it every time. “Goddamn, Asher. You keep going and I might just think you had my number. Cajun Jack’s?”

“I’ll see you there.” He heads toward his Jeep. When he turns back to slide his eyes over my body, I have to tell myself that the heat rushing through me is only a product of the scorching May afternoon sun.

***

“You’re staring at me,” I protest between bites of crawfish etouffee.

Asher lifts a shoulder. “Just watching in case you get foodgasmic again.”

I hum as I swallow a particularly decadent bite. “I’m close. You like to watch, huh?”

His pupils dilate and his jaw goes a little slack as his gaze drops to my mouth. Just like that, we’re not talking about food anymore. Maybe we never were.

I take a sip of my beer to cool off the heat his eyes send through me. Asher isn’t drinking. He didn’t explain and I didn’t ask, but I’m curious. He doesn’t strike me as a straight-edger. Hell, he’s a former rocker. Maybe he prefers something with a little more punch than beer.

Jack’s is slow tonight, and it will be until classes start up at Sinclair in the fall. New Hope is a tiny little town of contrasts—a bizarre mix of yuppie affluence and rural simplicity. The businesses within a two-block radius of campus cater to the private school students—a gourmet coffee shop, an Aveda hair salon, a sushi bar. Outside of those two blocks, residents are served with gas stations that advertise “Live Bait” on their marquees and greasy spoon restaurants where the closest thing to fresh sushi is the fried catfish—locally caught, cleaned, battered, and fried.

“So did you grow up in New Hope?”

“You want to know why I hate dating?” I counter. He frowns and I hold up a hand before he can protest. “I hate dating because dating protocol requires I keep it positive, that I feed you some bullshit about how my childhood was wholesome and awesome blah-blah-bullshit-blah.”

He folds his arms on the table and leans forward. “It’s a date, Maggie. Not a job interview.” When I just stare in response, he says, “My childhood was shitty. I was poor. My dad was a drunk. He put his hands on my mom, and then, when I was old enough by whatever fucked-up standards he had, he put them on me.”

“I…” What do you say? “I’m sorry.”

He shrugs. “I’m grown now. I have more money than I know what to do with, Mom’s all right, and the son of a bitch is dead. Life’s not so bad after all.”

I let out a breath. Something about Asher compels me to open up. Something about the way his blue eyes take me in. It’s like he sees something good when he looks at me, and I want to throw my ugliness in his face to prove him wrong.

I take a long draw from my beer. “I grew up in New Hope,” I say in answer to his question. “And I stayed here for college at Sinclair. I probably should have gone away but there’s a good art program here.” And Will, I thought, remembering how Will’s decision to come home for graduate school had solidified mine to do undergrad at Sinclair.

“So you’re a brain,” he says.

I laugh. “In my family, you don’t have a choice. Good grades, good behavior, good fashion sense. It’s all expected.” I realize I’ve said more than I want to, so I wave it away. “Not that I was ever any good at any of those. Not anything other than painting, actually.”

“When do you graduate?”

“Well, I dropped out last year, so that all depends on whether or not they’ll take me back.”

He exhales sharply. “Fuck, what a relief.”

“What?”

“Well”—he starts ticking off reasons on his fingers—“you’re gorgeous and sexy and smart. It’s intimidating until you throw in the college dropout stuff. I was ready to find a new date.”

“I’m intimidating? You’re the freaking rock star at the table.”

Some of the humor drains from his face, but he keeps his smile in place. “You know about that, huh?”

“My sisters told me. You could have mentioned you’re in a band.”

“I was in a band.” He wipes his hands on his napkin and shrugs. “Past tense.”

With a dreamy sigh, I prop my chin on my fists. “Who knew that one day I’d be on a date with the lead singer from a famous boy band?”

He scowls. “Infinite Gray was not a boy band.”

“Were there any girls in the band?”

“No.”

“That makes you a boy band.”

“It made us an all-male rock group.”

I bite back my smile. He’s so cute when he’s irritated. “Right, like ’N Sync.”

He winces. “Not like ’N Sync. Jesus, watch where you hurl those things. Words hurt, Maggie.”

I giggle.

He glowers. “You need a musical intervention.”

I perk up. “Ooh! Are you going to make me a playlist?”

“Maybe.”

I laugh again, but this time a little snort pops out, making me laugh harder.

He narrows his eyes. “You’re playing me, aren’t you?”

“Sorry. I couldn’t resist.”

“So you don’t need that playlist?”

“Says who? No boy has ever made a playlist especially for me before. Please?”

“Not even in high school?”

That takes some of the wind out of my sails. “I wasn’t that kind of girl.”

He studies me for a minute and just when I think he’s going to dig, he drops it. “Okay. It’s your turn. Ask me anything.”

I study him for a moment. The ice-blue eyes that keep dropping to my mouth. The stubble I can still feel against my neck. When I finally speak, it’s to ask, “What do you have against a perfectly good shower?”

He releases a burst of laughter. “If I’d let you have your way with me, you wouldn’t be sitting here with me tonight.”

“Oh, you think I would have moved on to another rock star in my long line of rock stars?”

He shrugs.

“You know how much you can hurt a girl’s ego by turning her down when she’s stripped in front of you?” I put my hand to my chest. “I’ll probably be in counseling for months to repair the damage.”

“Somehow I think you can handle it.”

“Games,” I mutter. “Emotionally speaking, I’m going to be the man in this relationship, aren’t I?”

“You certainly aren’t like any woman I’ve ever met before.”

“Thank God,” I say, but my cheeks warm because I know he means it as a compliment. I try damn hard not to care what people think about me, but with Asher, I care. And that worries me.

He pays the bill and we walk out into the dusky evening. When he takes my hand, I don’t pull away.

“How do you feel about weddings?” I hear myself ask.

“Proposing already?” He cuts his eyes to me. “I don’t know. Seems like we’re moving a little fast.”

I bite back my smile. “I need an escort.”

“To a wedding?”

“To my sister Krystal’s wedding. I mean, if you’re still in town or whatever. I’m not asking that you make a special trip.”

He quirks a brow. “I thought she already got married.”

“She wants a do-over. But don’t worry, she promises it’s going to be fah-bu-lous.”

He’s silent. Can you blame him? He didn’t want to sleep with me, and I think this is a more appealing proposition?

“Sure,” he finally says. “I’d be happy to accompany you.”

“Really? Because there’s a pretty good chance the twins might maul you at the reception.”

He chuckles and cuts his eyes to me. “I can handle a couple of fan girls. Anyway, I know you wouldn’t ask me if you didn’t feel like you needed to have a date. I’ve never said no to a woman in need.”

“Humph,” I snort. “My experience says otherwise.”

A block away, a pickup screeches forward at the traffic light, and a guy in a ball cap sticks his head and chest out the window and points at me. “Loooose!” he calls out into the night, drawing out the word. “Loooos-eeee!”

The word, once a sharp knife, is now the sawing of a dull blade against my calloused heart. The truck screeches down the road, and hatred clogs my throat and blocks any response.

“Lucy?” Asher asks. “Isn’t that your dog’s name?”

Suddenly, I’m overwhelmed by my own naiveté. I really thought I could come back to this godforsaken hole-in-the-earth town and live a normal life? New Hope will never offer me normal. If I live and die in New Hope, I imagine they’ll carve my tombstone with the word loose.

I swallow down my anger and shake my head. “Loose,” I explain. “As in loose woman. Promiscuous. Slut.”

Asher’s breath draws in with a raspy hiss and his nostrils flare. Those blue eyes burn as he looks after the offender. He’s long gone now, and I’m glad because the look in Asher’s eyes says what he’d like to do to them. It should scare me, given his reputation, but instead it helps the insult roll off my back.

I can handle the nastiness now. But I wish I could send Asher back in time to be indignant on behalf of my fifteen-year-old self. She wasn’t so hardened.

“Can you tell me a name?” he asks, his voice low and deadly steady.

“They’re just stupid townies from my high school.” I press my hand to his arm. “It doesn’t matter.”

He doesn’t call me on my lie, but we both know it does matter. What had he said in there? Words hurt.

He takes my hand and walks me to my car, toying with my fingers.

“Assholes notwithstanding,” I whisper, “I had a good time.”

“Me too.” He rubs the inside of my palm. Soft. Gentle. This man may look rough with his tattoos and piercings, but there is nothing rough about the way he treats me. And, where the violence that flashed in his eyes didn’t scare me, this gentleness does.

“Listen,” I say. “About the other morning, I just—”

He cuts me off with his mouth. He touches his lips to mine, and I feel frozen for a moment—I am the statue I once trained myself to be. But his mouth is soft and slow and patient. I melt into him, curl my fingers into his chest, slide my tongue against his.

It’s the kind of kiss I dreamed about as a girl and never got.

When he pulls away, he traces his thumb over my bottom lip.

“Come home with me?” I ask, breathless from his kiss, his touch.

“You’re so damn sweet.”

That gets me right in the solar plexus. Men call me hot. Men call me sexy. Men don’t call me sweet.

“For a woman who claims to be an open book, you hide so much.” He runs his thumb down the side of my neck, over the hollow in my collarbone. “Next time you strip for me, you’re taking off more than your clothes.”

I step back. “Goodnight, Asher.” I climb in my car and drive away—from him and from this aching inside my chest that feels a whole lot like falling.

Chapter Five

William

Maggie Thompson is wandering around my art gallery, lips parted, eyes wide. At first, I think I’m imagining it. After all, this place was her dream too. We were going to get married and open New Hope’s first art gallery. We’d sell her paintings and my photography. We’d feature Sinclair faculty and students. We’d sell art that people wanted to put in their homes. We’d get a liquor license and serve wine and champagne for clients to sip as they studied the selections and made their choice. And tucked into a corner of the back office we’d keep a bassinet.

My stomach lurches and my breath leaves me in a rush. My gut aches where the memory sucker punched me.

I must have made a noise because Maggie lifts her head and stares at me, mouth in a perfect, surprised circle. And I want to kiss it. Fucking scum of the earth addict, I can hardly think of anything but tasting her.

My fingers curl around the loft railing, and I force them to relax, force myself to walk down the stairs and greet her.