Chapter Six

 

A man shouldn’t wake up in a strange house without his trousers nor underwear, not with the mother of all hangovers squeezing his skull like an egg, and a cracked egg at that. Bloody or not, the tender bump on the back of his head didn’t bode well. He must’ve really been plowed last night, a rare event for a man of his stature in the drinking class.

Ash swung his feet to the floor, instantly dizzy but going to soldier on, buck-naked or not. What a bizarre place? Most of the walls to this room were a bright, blaring white that hurt his eyes, except the one opposite where he sat. Posters of all sizes filled that wall, most splashes of color he couldn’t make out because they were moving. Narrowing his gaze, he stretched his neck and leaned forward. Just a little. Just enough to see…

Aye. He recognized them now. Soccer posters, the lot of them, Boston’s winning-est women’s team. The Storm. Best of state. Best in the feckin’ world as far as he was concerned.

I’m in Colby’s room? How the bloody hell did I—?

A sharp rap hit the door, and he grabbed for the covers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Man, he looks good. His eyes were still full of sleep and the side of his face wrinkled from laying on it. Still all angles and corners from that stout Irish chin to his muscle-packed chest. Ash acquired that powerful build not from working out at some gym, but from hauling his own lumber at his workshop. The man did everything the hard way, even unloading his truck, a rust bucket of an Army surplus five-ton, when orders came in at the dock and he couldn’t wait for his distributors to deliver. Not that he needed a truck that size, but that was Ash. Always out to prove his was bigger.

“Ash,” Colby said to the naked man in her old room, the one with the flustered light in his eyes and the sheet pulled tight across his hips. A silver crucifix dangled at his neck, suspended from a silver chain.

For whatever reason, he’d doffed his boxers some time during the night, if those bare hipbones meant what Colby suspected they meant. Long, hairy legs with knees spread braced the big guy at the edge of what once was her bed. If he’d rested an elbow to his knee and cupped his chin, he could easily be mistaken for Rodin’s Thinker. Until he opened his big mouth.

“This your room?” he asked, his head cocked and a salacious twinkle glimmering in his eyes. “You brought me here? On purpose, Lass?”

Naturally, he was thinking with his other brain. “I couldn’t leave you on the street, could I?”

He had the nerve to wink, his index finger curled and beckoning her. “Come sit beside me then. We’ve got some catching up to be doin’.”

“No, Ash. We don’t.” She shook her head to reinforce her answer to his come-on. “I’m only back in town to take care of some family business, and you’re only here…” She rolled her eyes over her room, “…because I couldn’t leave you passed out on the street. Nothing more.”

“Ah, so now you’re quoting Edgar Allen Poe to me.” His brows arched in that devil-may-care-Tom-Selleck way. The man was no dummy, educated at some college in Dublin, if she remembered right. But he came with a lot of nerve. He patted the mattress again, his head canted, and his offer—inviting. “Come sit down, Lass. You’ve got what you’ve always wanted, me in your bed for the first time.”

The funny, over-confident clown hadn’t changed a bit since the last time she’d seen him. He almost made her smile at his boyish charm amidst that audacious dare. But that day was past. She crossed her arms over her chest and stayed at the door. “Are you seeing stars?” You should be.

“Only when I look at you.”

She’d worked hard to lose her Boston accent when she’d joined the Army. He still relied on that lyrical Irish brogue that used to get to her every time. It still worked. “I meant your hard head. It bounced on the sidewalk last night when you fell.”

“Oh, that.” Scowling, he reached to the back of his skull. Another wink and he skewered her with those rakish blue eyes. “What’d I do, heh? Fall for you again?”

Exactly. “Nope, sorry. You drank too much, and I just happened to be there when you keeled over. That’s all.”

A frown creased his brow in furrows that, just once, she’d like to trace with her fingertip. Maybe press a kiss there. She’d yet to tap the real Ash Callahan, the one beneath the jovial mask. For all his teasing charm, she knew there was a dark side to his drinking. But that brogue... Ah, it got to her every time.

“Must’ve been a good night if I do nah remember it.”

“You were knackered, Ash. Falling down drunk. It didn’t look like a good night to me.” Talk to me. For once, stop the comedy routine. The man had his devils just as she had hers. They’d just never gotten around to sharing.

Closing his eyes, he grunted at her, one of those what-would-you-know-about-it-little-girl? guy grunts. Ever the sexist. It was never that Ash hated women. He most definitely wasn’t a misogynist, one of those arrogant types who considered themselves above women in all ways. Quite the opposite. If anything, Ash loved women in general. But like some cretin from the stone ages, his little brain had the entire female gender plugged into specific roles, none of them involving brains or skill.

She could’ve knocked him on his pretentious ass that day at Nickerson Field, when, in the midst of congratulating her team’s win, he’d minimized her winning penalty kick with his next breath, bragging how they were ‘still nah as tough as my boys in green’, them being Ireland’s national football team.

Well, no shit. We’re not men, and we don’t want to be! Don’t you get it? There was, and would always be a difference between men and women. That didn’t make one gender better than the other. Colby respected the differences. She’d never aspired to be equal to any man. What woman in her right mind would? Men!

“If I was drinking, ’twas only because…”He shut his mouth and looked at the floor, his thick bicep blocking her view as his hand skated over his head. “Aw, bloody hell.”

He’d remembered. She almost wished he hadn’t.

Compassion for this rough and tumble man flared. There were times, she’d sensed that he was as lost in Boston—maybe the whole world—as she was. She couldn’t blame him for drinking his sorrows away last night. His place had burned down. That was why he’d been on the street. He was probably the last to leave Shenanigan Rose, his favorite drinking hole. They might’ve had to throw him out.

“I’m sorry about Callahan’s,” she offered sincerely.

“Aye, well…” He ran that same hand over his face with a grumbly sigh, thumbing the sleep out of his eye socket. “Guess I’ll be going.”

“Stay,” she said firmly. “You’re hurt and—”

“And I do nah need your pity.” That bark surprised her. He hadn’t lifted his gaze from the floor. His pride was hurt, so he’d lashed out at her. “Just tell me where you put my trousers, woman, and I’ll be gone from your life and your bed.”

That did it. Colby crossed the room to him, needing him to look at her. “That’ll be the day I kick you out of my house, Ash. Stay and eat breakfast with me. We can talk then.”

“Nah,” he shook his head, still avoiding eye contact. “Time for breakfast is past. I’ve got to talk to the bank and Kevin’s sending an investigator by. I’m too busy to—”

“Kevin Hayden? He’s fire chief now?” She knew he’d been in line for that promotion. Good for him.

“Aye.” Ash’s head bobbed, but he hadn’t look at her yet, and she needed him to. They couldn’t part like this, not again.

Colby reached out, her fingers nearly at his chin when he grabbed her hand and stopped her. “Don’t,” he bit out. “I’ve lost enough, woman. I do nah need to be reminded how much.”

She pulled her hand back. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

He waved her off with a dismissive grunt. “Just tell me where you put me shorts and trousers.”

“Your shorts were on you when I left, but your jeans were dirty. I tossed them in the washer. They’re drying now, so shut up and listen. You’re not going anywhere until you’ve had breakfast, and until I’m sure you’re physically sound.”

He met her gaze then, his blue eyes steel. “You were the one who undressed me then? What you going to do now, check to see if I’m man enough?”

Him being man enough was never their problem. “I could,” she declared, her chin up. Not that she would physically check him, but she cared enough not to let this big-mouthed Irishman take off running the minute he lifted his drunken head from the pillow. “As for your shorts…” She pointed to the boxers on the floor at his feet, flustered for all the wrong reasons that he was naked. “They’re right where you left them.”

He saw them then. “Aye. I remember now. I sleep better without them.” As if he’d read her mind, the big cat flipped a switch and purred, grinning. Flexing his elbows, he flattened his palms to the mattress behind him, nodding at the sheet barely covering his hips as if telling her with his eyes: You know you want it.

If that sheet slipped any farther…

She swallowed, embarrassed she’d gotten herself into another tight squeeze with this player. Ash Callahan was vexation and charm rolled into one sexy, man-package. She closed her eyes, not needing to gauge his reaction to her. She already knew. The covering over his—lap—had just tented, and she was on the verge of losing this battle of wills.

“What am I going to do with you?” she asked, her voice as breathy as a schoolgirl’s in the boy’s locker room after a winning homecoming game.

The heat of a heavy hand branded her thigh. His fingers clenched, shooting a lightning bolt straight to her overheated core. Her nostrils flared at his signature scent, the wild blue sea with a splash of sawdust, tobacco, and beer. A hint of clean sweat. Manly scents she hadn’t realized she’d craved until now. Ash was her meth and her poison, her good boy, bad boy, and her in-between boy. He was sin incarnate with his clothes on, but with them off?

Her pulse set to throbbing.

“If you’re smart, you’ll be kissing me again.” His voice grated dangerously low, the firm weight of his hand setting the skin under her jeans ablaze.

Her heart kicked it up a notch, way past cruise control at the invitation. Major Tom to ground control…

But how could this thing between them ever work? They were opposites in every way, in social standing, future plans, and aspirations. Ash was the dreamer and the romantic. He was the guy who put stars in the sky, and she the realist, the combat-honed sniper who shot them down like clay pigeons.

She’d lived the last few years by sheer grit and determination, her competitive streak and paranoia her wingmen every step of the military way she’d set her boots to. The rose-tinted glasses that ninety-nine percent of all Americans like her wore, were long gone, traded in for wide-open eyes afraid to fall asleep in the dark. She’d done things in war she wasn’t proud of, while he’d—what? Wiled his time away between pipe dreams, easy women, and bar tabs?

They hadn’t a prayer of making it between them. Her primary goal was dismantling Quaid Corporations and to be gone from Boston as soon as she could, not to settle for less. And marriage was definitely less. She’d opted out of it the day she’d put Boston in her rearview.

Then there was the dilemma with mother. Hell, she hadn’t even spoken with Bella yet. Yeah, this wasn’t the time for closure or whatever Ash thought he needed.

“No,” she meant to declare regular Army-style. Why it came out in a whisper, she didn’t know.