Taut: The Ford Book

“Yes,” Ashleigh says.

“Ashleigh Li and Rutherford Aston, by the power invested in me by the State of California, I pronounce you married. Sign quickly.” She presents a marriage license and thrusts two pens into our hands.” We scribble our names as Mr. Li rushes across the room towards us. Evelyn looks up at me. “You know what to do.”

I do know what to do. My hands cup Ashleigh’s face and she comes up on her tiptoes, and I kiss her. On the lips. With no coercion or games or tricks.

Damian Li punches me in the side of the head and I go stumbling sideways, hot blood dripping out of my ear and down my neck. This should piss me off, but I won. And nothing can touch me right now. “It’s done, Li.” He’s seething with anger. Like that shit is about to drip out of his pores, that’s how pissed off he looks. “She’s mine now. And if you doubt my plans, let me spell it out for you. She’s not on any medication. No doctor examined her, did they, Ashleigh?”

She shakes her head now as she glares at her father.

“No doctor examined her and pronounced her unfit. Unless of course you’d like to count your fake credentials hanging on that wall back in your San Diego office.” I wait a beat but he keeps quiet. “She’s not mentally ill, Damian.”

“She is, Ford. She’s sick. And you think this is cute and romantic? Taking her away like this? It’s not, because she needs serious help.”

I shake my head. “No, you’re wrong. She’s not sick. She’s sad.” I look down to Ashleigh and take her hand. “You’re not sick, kitten. You’re sad. And that’s OK, because life shit on you. And you do need serious help. But not in the form of drugs and therapy, Ashleigh. You need time and permission to feel what it feels like to lose someone who meant the world to you, that’s all. And we’ve got our whole lives to get it right and be together. I’ll grow old with you, Ashleigh. We’ll do this together.”

Her lip starts to tremble and she swallows down the pain and nods her head in agreement.

“You’re brave, Ashleigh. And strong. And very, very sad. But it’s OK now. You can be sad about what you lost all you want, until you’re ready to let Tony go. Because I’m gonna take care of you and give you all the time you need. You’re not sick, Ash. You’re sad. You don’t need drugs, you need Kate. And me. You need us, your team. We’ll get through this, I promise. Just trust me.”

She grabs hold of my neck and then jumps up and wraps her legs around my waist, her head buried into my neck, just under my ear. “I have never trusted anyone more than you, Ford Aston. I swear to God, I’m yours.”

Chapter Forty-Five

I was right about Damian Li. For now at least. Ashleigh screamed and her sister came and cried over Kate. It was not pretty. At all. In fact it was a blubbering mess of female hormones and in the end Li and I had to break out a decanter of 1946 Macallan. I’m glad Ashleigh had no f**king idea how special that whiskey was, because I’d never live down offering her a few shots of ten-thousand-dollar 1939 when her father had a dusty decanter of the stuff that costs half a million dollars.

But I was right in the end. They do love her. Damian Li was doing his best to protect everyone involved.

He sucked ass at it, unlike the God-man that is me. I kicked the shit out of that day.

And now we’re in New Zealand. Evelyn and her girlfriend came along as far as Sydney. They’re staying on my dime until Evelyn is really convinced that Damian won’t come after her for performing the confidential marriage. Let’s just say that’s not anytime soon. They got jobs and an apartment. But Li seemed calm about it. I’m not too worried and I usually have a pretty good inkling whether people are holding secret grudges, and I didn’t get that vibe from him.

Kate pulls on my ear and shakes me out of my daydream. She’s getting so big. Five months now. Pretty soon she’ll be crawling. And in a few weeks we’ll go home and real life will catch up to us.

My professional team—as I like to call Spencer, Rook, and Ronin—are all eager for me and my domestic team to return home. We have a lot of loose ends to clean up this spring. We’ve pissed off quite a few very important people trying to dig ourselves out of our past mistakes. And this is it. These next few months will dictate the rest of our lives. And all of us are important, even Ashleigh and Kate. Because they’re what I live for these days. Not money, not jobs, not pets, not sex, not control.

Just them.

Ashleigh walks out of the ocean in front of me. She’s taken up open-water swimming to help her through her pain. I hate it. I dream about sharks eating her, I dream about enchanted seaweed wrapping around her ankle and pulling her under, I dream about Charlie horses, and stomach cramps, and swallowing too much seawater, and sunburn. Fuck, I worry about everything. And it sucks.

But it also feels awesome because it means I’m capable of feeling.

Love is a risk and I can live with it.

“Wow,” Ash says as she comes up to us on the beach, “that was my best time ever! Did you see me?”

“My eyes never left you, love. Never.” And I had a boat trailing her the entire time. Love might be a risk, but I’m all about risk-management.

She takes the towel I hand her and flops down in the sand. I sit next to her and place Kate in between my legs. Kate grabs the sand and immediately tries to eat it. Ashleigh freaks out, but I figure, it’s sand, right? She’ll figure out pretty quick sand is not yummy. It doesn’t take a genius.