Page 112 of Outside The Wire

“And not when Asher showed up and beat the shit out of him,” Noelle chimed in.

I glanced at Asher, wondering if the mention of that day would make him lose it, but he seemed to be holding it together pretty well. “Well, thankfully, he didn’t get Brown Betty.”

“Excuse me, what?” Wyatt asked.

I raised an eyebrow at him. “What?”

“Did you name your vehicle Brown Betty?”

“Yes. Do you have a problem with that?”

“Other than the fact that it’s extremely weird?”

“It’s not weird. I had a teapot named Brown Betty. When I saw her, it fit.”

“Okay,” he laughed, looking around the table at everyone else. “But a teapot is a teapot. Your SUV is not. You can’t name your vehicle Brown Betty.”

“Well, that’s her name, so poo on you.”

“Oh, poo on me,” he snorted. “Asher, are you gonna let your woman talk to me like that?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know if I can stop her. She has a mind of her own. You can take the girl out of the outlaw, but you can’t take the outlaw out of the girl.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” I retorted, laughing at his nonsensical joke.

He wrapped his arm around my neck and pulled me in closer, pressing a kiss to my lips.

“Here they go again. All that PDA and Hallmark shit.”

I giggled against his lips, happier than I’d been since the day I was attacked. Everything was going perfectly. I slid my fingers over the scruff of his jaw and kissed him again. “I love you, Asher.”

“I love you, too, ba?—”

He pulled back and went still. All the color leached from his face as he shoved his chair back and stood suddenly, nearly falling over as he stumbled back a step.

“Ash?” I was about to get up and go to him when I felt a hand on my arm, holding me steady. I turned to see Wyatt holding me, but his eyes weren’t on me. They were on somebody behind me. Slowly, I turned and saw a very pretty woman with olive-toned skin and dark hair standing right behind me.

But she wasn’t looking at me. She was smiling at Asher. “Hello, Ash.”

My heart beat wildly in my chest as my gaze swung back to the man I loved, who just moments ago was kissing me. Now, he looked like he was about to pass out.

And then one name slipped from his lips. A name I never thought I would hear because she wasn’t supposed to be alive. He told me—and from the looks of it, he wasn’t lying to me. He was truly shocked. What the hell was going on?

“Jade.”

27

ASHER

The world spunaround me as I stared at my dead wife. My dead, but very alive wife. I was just kissing Holly, happy as I’d ever been. We were about to order drinks. The waitress was about to come to the table and take our order. And then she showed up. I caught a glimpse of someone standing behind Holly and had to look, had to make sure there was no threat.

I just hadn’t expected it to be my dead wife.

How the hell was this even possible? I had seen her crash. I held her in my arms after she flew through the windshield after crashing into a tree. Her body was limp and gone. The doctor said she was dead. I held a fucking funeral for her. We buried her.

I gripped the booth behind me as the world spun around me. My heart was beating entirely too fast and I closed my eyes, hoping it would slow down and give me just a fucking minute to think and get my head on straight. But that wasn’t happening and my breaths were coming entirely too fast. I was about to pass out.

I peeled my eyes open and the room swayed before me. Shit. I closed my eyes again, thinking maybe the next time I opened them, she would be gone. I counted to ten and opened one eye.She was still there, and this time, everyone in the restaurant was staring at me.

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