Page 25 of Ashes to Ashes

ChapterTen

Rae

We’d been holedup here more than a week, and I was beginning to feel like a prisoner. The house was hours from the airport in Portland, and the last sign of civilization on the way in, had been a small town, if that’s what you could call a gas station with a broken-down pump and one car out front.

If my stalker managed to track me down out here, and then make it past all the high-tech security we’d passed on that initial slow roll down the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it driveway, I wouldn’t stand a chance against him. Between our out-of-the-way location, the alarm system that looked like something out of a James Bond movie, and two giant German Shepherds named Blanche and Dorothy, I didn’t think even the U.S. Treasury had better protection than Idid.

So far, to pass the time, I’d refined three of my haphazard poems into some semblance of a song, and had come up with the melody and harmony for two others. I’d also explored every nook and cranny of this fortress, which included looking in every unlocked drawer and closet. And all that time, I continued to barely seeAsh.

Currently, I was sitting on the sofa while Dorothy, the more subdued of my two new canine friends, snoozed at my feet and Blanche, still in her puppy phase, was curled up next to me. She seemed unaware that she weighed over 60 pounds, and on her hind legs was taller than me. I was pretty sure she thought she was a Jack Russell terrier.

“She’s not supposed to be on the couch.”

Hearing Ash’s gruff voice after so many hours of silence startled me, but then I grew warm and happy at seeing him again.

“I tried telling her that but she seems unwilling to listen,” I answered, setting my pen and pad down next to me. I pushed against the dog to demonstrate my point. Blanche gave a low snort and burrowed in even closer to myside.

“Blanche, down!” Ash barked.

The pup raised her head, cocked her ears, and lumbered off the sofa. Dorothy stood as well, and then both dogs trotted to Ash’s side. Sitting on their hind quarters in unison, they looked up at him, waiting for direction from their alpha.

“Good girls.” He gingerly patted each of their heads before coming toward me. “What’s on your agenda today?” he asked, dropping into a chair on the other side of the coffee table, his muscled arms on display in a black t-shirt tight enough to make out the defined cut of hisabs.

Wearing jeans so old they were threadbare in the knees, Ash once again looked more like the man I’d met back in Boise than the stone cold ex-Special Forces soldier who’d walked into the conference room at McClintock Security. Except for the day I’d spied him coming from the gym, his naked torso flexing, Ash had been dressed in some version of his black-suited uniform. Even yesterday when he’d walked the perimeter of the property, he’d worn black slacks and a black button-down shirt that stretched taut over his muscles.

“Rae?”

I blinked, chasing away the mental picture I’d been forming of what it would feel like to run my hands over those muscles. “I’m sorry, what wasthat?”

“I asked what was on your agenda for theday.”

I laughed. “You’re kidding, right?” I gestured at the notebooks and crumpled paper spread out in front of me. “You’re looking atit.”

“Feel like getting in the studio for abit?”

I chewed my lip. While I’d love nothing more than to get behind the mic for a bit, the reality was none of my songs were ready. “I don’t think I’m quite thereyet.”

Ash leaned forward, picked up a scrunched up piece of paper, and flattened it out across his thigh. Normally I didn’t show my work to anyone until I was ready to go into the studio, but since he’d hear it all soon enough anyway, I kept myself from jumping up out of my seat and snatching the paper away. Still, this was new territory for me, and I watched in nervous anticipation as his eyes skated over my handwriting. When he finished reading, but didn’t say anything, I couldn’t stand the suspense.

“What do you think?”

“When did you write this?” he asked, his eyes meetingmine.

“Which one isit?”

Ash cleared his throat and started reading the lyrics aloud. My words—ones I’d written two nights after we’d slept together—hit me like a two-ton truck going full speed down the highway.

I don’t know your story

but I’ll never forget the look on yourface

when I told you I didn’t need to know yourname.

I told you I’d forget all aboutyou

but the truth is you’re unforgettable.

Hundreds of people

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