Something Worth Saving (5 page)

I hung out with Kasey’s wife Kari, too, but she was usually pretty busy.

“Damn, girl . . . seriously, do you just get hotter every day?” Shanna was still eyeing Brooke and her brown sweater, which was paired with skinny jeans and suede boots. If Shanna were a lesbian, she had already called dibs on Brooke. Most of us would. She was amazing-looking.

We laughed, leaning against the counter at the rear of the store, talking about our day and a little about kids. Brooke noticed my jeans — I never wore skinny jeans — and smiled, her hands over her mouth. “Sweetie, you look great!” She knew my fear about skinny jeans. I thought for sure pear-shaped women shouldn’t wear skinny jeans. “Any girl with an ass like yours should embrace it!”

Though I thought I needed to lose fifteen pounds, Brooke and Shanna both told me how good I looked. But that’s what friends are for, right? I was positive Brooke would tell me I looked great even if I had on sweatpants and unbrushed hair thrown up in a messy bun. She was that friend.

I guess that was what I needed, and it was just like Brooke to know. She knew what everyone needed. She knew birthdays and anniversaries, and never forgot a name.

“What’s Amelia want for her birthday?” Brooke and Logan’s only daughter was turning five on Sunday.

“Princess dress-up stuff.” Brooke showed us a picture on her phone of Logan and Amelia from last night. “She’s really into
Brave
.”

My hand rose to my mouth as I began to laugh. A few customers walked in, their enthusiasm for the shop buzzing in the far right corner near the display of our “Harvest Hallow” scent. “For her . . . or her daddy?” There was Logan, dressed up in the full attire, with even a long red wig.

Aside from Jace, I couldn’t think of a better father out there who put the needs of their kids before anything, aside from firefighting.

“I need to go get Amelia at school. So you guys will be there?” Brooke asked, slipping her phone inside her bag and taking two steps toward the door.

“Yep. Need me to bring anything?”

Brooke rattled off a few things, and asked me to bring the “worms in dirt” dish I usually made for birthday parties.

Growing up, I had never had close friends, aside from my sister. So when I met Brooke when Jace and I started dating, I instantly realized what I missed — having good friends who wouldn’t walk out on you and who held you to standards they never kept themselves.

Now I had Brooke. One of the best friends a girl could have.

Before Brooke left, she stopped at the door, smiling trying to hold back her laughter. “Nice video this morning, Aubrey.” And then she shook her hips.

Turning to Shanna with tight lips, I glared at her. “You told everyone, didn’t you?”

Shanna smiled. “Just the people who would find it entertaining.”

Leave it to Shanna. She was the gossip queen. Never tell her anything unless you wanted the world to know.

Jace sent a text around four and said he would be off at five; his shift was only eight hours today. That left me with enough time to pick up the kids and take them over to Jace’s parents’ house and make it back to our place before he got home.

“Do you care if I leave early?” I asked Shanna when I saw Jace’s name flash on the screen of my phone. She hollered an “okay” from the back room just as I picked up. “Hey, you still getting off at four?” Usually when he called it meant that there had been a change in plans. Happened all the time.

“Yeah. I will.” Something seemed off. His tone was lower than usual. “I have some very specific conditions when I get home.”

“Yeah, wh—”

He cut me off immediately. “Eh, no interrupting.”

I laughed, letting him continue.

His voice dropped, and a sexy rasping whisper drew out his racy request. “I want you wearing that black dress you have and your red bra. That’s it. No panties. And when I get there . . . you do whatever I want. No questions.”

“All right.” Sometimes a girl likes to be put in her place. It’s fun. It’s naughty, and I honestly believed that it could bring back what was missing.

Who was I to deny my firefighter?

Nothing more was said, and he hung up. Jace did this sort of thing often. He liked to be in control to a certain extent. Nothing dominating or anything, just . . . in charge from time to time.

I was guessing he was still fairly horny after being cut off earlier. Or maybe he saw we needed this. Maybe he could see the tension, too.

Just as I was grabbing my purse from under the counter and searching for my keys, I heard the chime.

“I’ll be right up,” Shanna said, peeking her head around the corner. “Give me just a minute.” She was in the middle of an order. I could smell the apple cinnamon scent rolling amid the shop.

“Okay. I got it.”

“Hey . . . Aubrey.”

When I turned around, I was met with a face I had hoped to forget.

Remember when I said I’d left Boise for a reason?

Ridley Harrison was that reason.

And he was standing there in front of me.

Jace once told me that when smoke fills a room, it banks down the walls to the floor. When that happens, there are layers of smoke at different temperatures, with the coolest being on the floor.

That’s where I was. On the floor.

Ladder 1 on scene now.

Command to dispatch, send Seattle PD. Suspicious vehicle in the area.

Aubrey

A
LL THROUGH
high school I dated one guy. Ridley Harrison. And, like I said before, I found out he wasn’t the pick of the litter. More like prick of the litter. He cheated on me for a few years before I actually found out.

I remember dates. You know this.

June 1, 2001. That was the day I caught Ridley in his car with a girl. I didn’t know her name. It wasn’t important. What was important was that I’d let a guy use me. I wasn’t any different from my mom back then. I’d always had a feeling about him, my subconscious telling me that I wasn’t too smart. I was right.

I met Ridley my sophomore year of high school. November 23, 1998. He was everything I was looking for at the time. An older guy by two years. An ass. Didn’t care what anyone thought, smoked, drank, had a tattoo, badass of sorts. He was rude, disrespectful, took shit from no one, and unfortunately that was the type of guy I was attracted to. And if you ever saw the dirtbags my mom brought home, you’d understand she wasn’t setting a good example.

Funnily enough, she thought Ridley was perfect.

I lost my virginity to him on September 4, 2000, in the back seat of his Lincoln. Worst experience ever.

It turned out, and I should have known, Ridley had never been dating just me the entire time we were together.

When I found him in his car, the same car he took my virginity in, taking another’s, I couldn’t stay because I thought for sure I’d end up just like my mother in the trailer park next to her while men walked in and out as they pleased, using her and us, for as long as they needed.

I left town not long after that.

It was hard for me to leave Lauren mostly. She was my baby sister. Someone I protected, as I was the only real and loyal person she had. For her, I wanted to make something of myself.

She was sixteen, and that meant I was leaving her in the care of our mother. But Lauren encouraged me to go, and I was glad she did. It was exactly what I needed. When she turned eighteen, she came back to Seattle, too, and lived with me. I couldn’t blame her for leaving Boise and our mother’s shit.

When I left Boise, I wanted to leave that life and Ridley Harrison behind me.

Never did I expect him to show up here and find me.

Standing near the door, he watched me curiously, as if trying to decide whether I was about to chuck something at him. And the thought did cross my mind.

“What are you doing here?”

Ridley didn’t say anything for the longest time. At least not until he stepped closer. Then his hands jetted out in front of him, a calming motion, I guess. “Just in town.”

“Here?”

Stupid question. Obviously he was here. I could feel my face getting red, and I hated it.

“I . . . ” He seemed unsure for a moment and then moved closer. Hearing Shanna in the background made him look over my shoulder, catching his words for a second. He swallowed and then continued. “I’m working on a friend’s fishing boat. I have been for six years now.”

I didn’t really care. I wanted to know why he was here.

“So?”

“Your mom told me you were here, so I looked you up.” His face was impassive. “Have you heard from her lately?”

Goddamn her. She never could keep her mouth shut, and it figured she’d tell the one person I never wanted to see again.

“No. I haven’t.” I snorted, adjusting my bag on my shoulder. “So you thought you’d see an old friend?” My eyes caught the street in front of the shop, the lights of the fire trucks as they pulled out on a call. “If I remember correctly, when I saw you last time I said I never wanted to see you again.”

He smiled, fucking
smiled
, and I watched him for a moment. He hadn’t changed much.

Tall, a few more tattoos on his arms. His hair was darker now but cut short and buzzed close on the sides, with facial hair that matched.

Dark brown eyes caught mine. “You left so soon I never got a chance to make it right. I’m sorry for that.”

No, you’re not.

“Ridley.” I was starting to get impatient, knowing that Shanna was going to come out at any minute, and I wanted him gone. “There was no making it right. We were over long before that.”

Ridley shrugged, his eyes casting down my body for a quick look. It made me feel as dirty as I felt when I found him in his car with that girl.

“I need to go. I have to get home.”

“To who?” Of course he’d ask that. His hand reached out and touched my elbow, firmly.

I glared, tearing my arm away. He had no right to touch me.

“My husband.” I blurted it out so fast I had no time to take it back. It just rolled right off my tongue, like me telling him I hated him eleven years ago.

Sometimes I think there are memories you hide within your own mind because they’re too much to deal with. This was one of them. I didn’t want to relive any time spent with Ridley, or in Boise.

“Married, huh?”

He knows I’m lying.

I only nodded. I wasn’t one to lie, but how could I really take it back right now? And what did it matter if I lied to my cheating ex?

“So, your” —a cautious smile tugged at his cheeks— “husband . . . he’s a firefighter, right?”

Well, my mom told him more than she needed to, didn’t she?

Always had. My safety didn’t matter to her.

“Yeah.” I was leery of anything Ridley was asking me right then, but even more so now. There was something that told me he knew very well I was lying about Jace being my husband.

“Aubrey . . . ” Shanna came around the corner carrying two fresh made candles with her, one in each hand. “ . . . I’ll be right there.”

“You need to go.”

I practically pushed him out, but before he left he said, “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

For some stupid reason I looked right into his eyes, and he caught my stare this time. There for a second I saw the guy I trusted back then, a boy who showed me there was more to this world than I’d ever understood before. I couldn’t say all my time with Ridley was bad, because it wasn’t. And I . . . well . . . I appreciated what I did learn from him. But I never saw that side often. It was easy to forget it.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m happy. He’s good to me.”

Just as I said that my heart flopped, thinking of everything, of Jace and the distance growing between us, the pressures and everything we didn’t say these days.

All that was beside the point right now. As far as Ridley was concerned, all he needed to know was that I was completely fine.

He gave me a tight nod and, thank God, walked toward the door without another question.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when Shanna came up behind me. Her head rested on my shoulder, and she gave me a sly grin as if she’d just caught me flirting. “Who’s that?”

Groaning, I walked toward the door myself. “Ex-boyfriend from Boise.”

“The fuckface who cheated on you?” Fixing an arrangement of candles that had been rearranged by an overactive toddler earlier, she followed close behind me.

“Yep.”

“Well” —she laughed and wrapped her arm around my shoulder, then turned the open sign off— “while I can see
why
you dated him, he looks douchey.”

“That’s not a word.” Digging through my bag, I had my keys in one hand and the other on the door.

“Sure it is. I made it one.” She winked seductively. “Now get out and get laid tonight so you’re nicer tomorrow.”

I was out of there.

During the drive to get the kids up the street, my hesitation got to me. And I was pissed suddenly at both my mom and at Ridley for even coming here.

Fishing boat, my ass. He wanted something.

Do I tell Jace about Ridley?

I should tell him. If I didn’t, and he found out, he would be pissed. Jace might be laid-back . . . to an extent. When it came to me or the kids, he wasn’t. And he had a beef with Ridley he never would reveal completely to me. Mostly from the way Ridley had treated me. He once said if he ever saw him, he would kill him.