Page 80 of Chasing Sparks

“That fast, huh?”

Ash nods, swigging his coffee. “It was immediate and powerful. She felt it too—or so she claimed. Everything in my life revolved around her—work, play, my present, my future. I wanted to marry her, but I didn’t have the cash for a ring, so I sold the bike my grandfather gave me.”

“Was he angry?”

Ash shakes his head, wincing as if the memory still stings. “He’d passed a year earlier. My dad and Braden wanted to kill me when they found out, but I didn’t care. I knew what I wanted—I wanted her.”

“Sounds like you were very devoted.”

“I was verystupid,” Ash bites out. His fingers drum a sharp, uneven rhythm on the table. “I bought this big-ass ring, dropped to one knee, and asked her to marry me. That’s when she told me the truth.”

Oh boy, this is not looking good.

“She was married. Want to know the icing on this shit cake? I sold my grandfather’s bike to her fucking husband. He didn’t know about the affair, either—at least not at that point.”

I release a slow exhale, buying myself a few seconds. “Holy shit, Ash. That’s beyond messed up. I’m so sorry she did that to you.”

“The worst part? I never saw it coming. My friends and family warned me about her, said she wasn’t what she seemed. But I was blind to everything. I saw what I wanted to see—that she was perfect.”

“No one is perfect.”

“She wasn’t even close,” he snaps, his fingers stilling as he presses his palms flat against the table.

“What happened after that?”

“I told her I never wanted to see her again and chucked the ring over the side of the mountain.”

I clap my hand over my mouth. “You didn’t.”

Ash nods, his expression pained. “I did. I went from dumb to dumber in thirty seconds flat. So, I had no girl, no bike, no ring, and no money. I had to go to my father and tell him what happened.”

“What did he do?”

“He hugged me and wrote me a check to buy a used truck to get me around. He saw how broken I was. But it got worse. Her husband was one of the head guys in a local MC.”

“Christ.”

“I figured I’d end up riddled with bullet holes. It was just a matter of time. Then one night, I saw him in a local bar where I was drowning my sorrows. I didn’t say a word. Just got up and left. Figured this was it, you know? I planned to pull over and let him take his pound of flesh, but a drunk driver got to him first. Ran him off the road.”

I jerk upright. How can this story get any worse? “That’s terrible.”

“Part of me wanted to leave him there, just like the drunk driver did. But I couldn’t do that. I got most of the plate and called the cops. Waited with the guy—he was barely lucid. Told him he’d be okay, and that I wasn’t going anywhere.”

“Did he survive?”

Ash nods, fiddling with his fork. “He spent six weeks in the hospital and a few more months learning to walk again. But Trace is a tough son of a bitch. He fought back. One day, he knocked on my door, and I thought he was there to finish the job. He wasn’t. He handed me the keys to my bike and said he hoped he never saw me again. Then he thanked me for saving him and left.”

I’m not sure what kind of tale I thought Ash would have, but this story is the stuff of nightmares. Only for Ash, it’s his waking reality.

“Whatever happened to Lucille?”

Ash clears his throat. “She disappeared for a while. Popped back up a couple of years later at a tattoo convention.”

“She’s a tattoo artist, too?”

Ash nods. “Yep, a damn good one. Too bad she’s a heartless monster.”

“A lot of talented artists are terrible people. Were you angry when you saw her?”

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