Page 2 of An Adventure For Aster

He rolled his eyes. “Why am I not surprised? I’ll at least stock up while I’m here.”

“That’s your choice,” Daphne said.

“I’ll be back in twenty minutes if I can use your car?”

She grabbed the keys that were on the counter. “It’s your car, not mine.”

He’d left it here for her. It’s not like it was a new car, but it was free for his sister and he never thought of it as his at this point.

He drove to the store and parked. It wasn’t that busy at this time on a Tuesday. Barely four and he’d get in and out quickly.

When he was walking around he noticed some young girl on her phone the whole time. She appeared out of place to him. Too fancy for the likes of this area with her diamond bracelet and earrings that stood out more than they should. Her long blonde hair was perfectly styled, her nails professionally done with designs on them as her fingers typed into the phone.

She didn’t seem to know where things were either as if the grocery store was foreign to her.

She’d passed him a few times, almost zigzagging while her face was buried in the screen.

The third time he’d seen her he noticed the same guy watching her too. Older, dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt, a hat on his head and pulled down low so his face was shielded.

He felt tingles up his spine and had to tell himself to shut his brain off and not be looking for enemies lurking in corners but rather ground beef for dinner.

By the time he checked out with a few bags of things, the girl had five items and was being rung up next to him.

He was putting his cart in the stall and grabbing his two bags when a black van came speeding toward the front door just as the girl was walking out not paying attention.

The man that had been following behind rushed the girl to shove her into the van, but Aster was close enough to jump in and start fighting the guy off as the girl was screaming and kicking and putting up one hell of a struggle to not be taken.

He yanked her out of the way and shoved her to the ground, then threw punch after punch as he was yelling, “Run!” to her. She wasn’t moving, and before he knew it, the guy he’d been fighting off pulled out a gun and all he felt was a burning pain in his chest.

Then he hit the pavement and blacked out.

1

A DREAM COME TRUE

Six Months Later

“Is this the excitement you signed up for volunteering?” Carter asked Aster at the volunteer fire department on the first of October in Stonington, Connecticut.

“It beats some of the things I’ve done in my life,” he said.

He never thought he’d move to the East Coast, least of all the small tourist town of Mystic.

But when life changed so drastically for him six months ago, his military career had sadly ended.

For a man who figured he’d be serving in the Army until the day he died or retired, managing construction and maintenance for a company that produced floral products was...a dream come true.

Not many knew his love for flowers. Something simple, sweet, delicate, and clean. Fresh.

It felt like he didn’t have a lot of those things in his life.

But when his old commander, Zane Wolfe, heard about what happened to him, Zane reached out and all but begged him to come work for his construction company. Then Aster got hired by Zane’s wife, Lily, who was trying to take the load off of Zane since they had a third child coming.

He never looked back even though he had a few million in the bank for his heroic efforts and a lot of attention on him to boot. Something he never wanted in life.

Maybe that was why he left as soon as he could. He hated all the chatter and noise around him.

Not just from those in his hometown but also from his parents who wouldn’t shut up about it to everyone they knew. Like they were the ones that’d done what he had, rather than birthed him and pretty much let him raise himself.

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