Page 87 of Falling in Fate (Hope Falls: Brewed Awakenings 1)

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Asher wipedhis bleary eyes as he pulled into his driveway and shut off the engine of his SUV. The past few days had gone by in a blur. He’d been working another case in a coordinated effort with the sheriff’s department that had called for overtime and so he’d been pulling back-to-back eighteen-hour shifts. He’d barely been home to shower and grab a few hours of sleep. His work schedule hadn’t just been exhausting, it had also prevented him from having a conversation that desperately needed to happen.

Jenna had been in town for nearly three weeks now and he still had no idea when she was leaving. Instead of heading right inside, he sat in his SUV with his hands at two and ten on the steering wheel. He’d promised himself, and Ava that he’d have the talk he’d been putting off with Jenna tonight.

Ava hadn’t been pressuring him about it, but after Jenna approached Ava the week before at the book club, Asher knew it was time to find out when this living arrangement was going to be coming to an end.

According to Ava, Jenna had been friendly and hadn’t said or done anything inappropriate. The opposite actually. She’d told Ava how much Blake liked her and that their daughter only had amazing things to say about her.

Which was fine on the surface, but Jenna had a way of marking her territory that was more subtle than most. She was highly intelligent, which had to be where Blake got it from, and sometimes she used her intellectual powers for evil and not good. She could manipulate people and situations without anyone knowing that she was the puppet master.

It had always been a trait that had impressed Asher, but not when it was turned against someone he cared about. Someone he loved. Which was why he needed to ask her when she was planning on ending her California vacation and going back to Massachusetts.

He got out of the SUV and when he opened the front door, he found Jenna curled up on the couch working on her computer.

“Hey.” She smiled at him. “How was your day, Dear?”

“Good, where’s Blake?” he closed the door behind him.

“When I picked her up from camp today she barely made it to her bed before she passed out.”

“Is she sick?”

“Yep.” Jenna nodded with a solemn expression on her face. “She has a bad case of teenageritis.”

He knew that she thought she was being funny, but he was actually concerned.

When she saw that was the case, she rolled her eyes. “No. She’s not sick. When I went to bed at eleven last night she was on the phone. And when I woke up at six this morning she was on the phone.” The guest room that Jenna was staying in was upstairs next to Blake’s room and the walls were pretty thin. “So, she either got up an hour earlier than she normally does to talk to someone, orrr…” Jenna drew out the preposition while making a circular motion with her hand, indicating she wanted Asher to finish the sentence.

“Or she never went to bed.”

“Ding, ding, ding.” She pointed at him. “Nothin’ gets by you, Detective Dad,”

“Was she on the phone with Noah?” he asked even though he already knew the answer.

“I mean, I could only hear her side of the conversation so this won’t stand up in court, but yes Officer Fuddy Duddy, I would say your deduction skills are right on the money.”

Jenna had always given him a hard time. It was one of the first things that attracted him to her. After her mile long legs. Most of the girls during freshman year were giggly around him, but Jenna wasn’t. She didn’t get all shy when he talked to her, she busted his balls. Which he liked.

Almost two decades later, that same quality wore thin at times. Times like now when he had to have a discussion with her that he’d been avoiding.

Jenna turned her attention back to her computer, probably assuming their chat was over, but it wasn’t.

“So how long are you planning on staying?” he asked, getting straight to the point.

Jenna looked up at him, took her glasses off, and shut her laptop. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”

The way she responded told him that this was going to be a much bigger conversation than he’d been expecting. He lowered onto the large leather tufted ottoman across from her and leaned forward resting his elbows on his knees.

She set her computer to the side, pulled her legs up so they were tucked beneath her, and took a deep breath before saying, “I’m not going back to Boston.”

“You’re not?” Asher questioned.

“No.”

“What about James?”

“James is fucking Bree.”

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