Asa

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I was drifting in my own thoughts. Thinking about Asa’s startling revelations that he was willing to go to jail to pay for past crimes, thinking about the way he tasted, the way he felt so hot and hard in my hand. I was thinking about the idea of going back to work without Dom at my back and how that was almost impossible to get my head around. I also couldn’t get my mind off the fact that all I wanted when I couldn’t sleep and the gym wasn’t enough was to go toe-to-toe with the southern bartender I couldn’t get out of my head. My crush was turning into an obsession.

I jolted a little when a tiny body landed in the chair next to me. Cora looked at my sprawled-out form and kicked her much shorter legs out in front of her with a grin. “Not even close.” There was still a foot beyond the toe of her combat boot and the opposite chair.

I rolled my head to the side so I could look at her as she settled in next to me. Cora was the unofficial guardian angel of this group. She was a petite powerhouse of a woman, and when I wasn’t sort of terrified of her, I really liked and respected her. Tonight she looked a little pale and she had obvious bags under her two different-colored eyes.

“How’s it going?” I figured if anyone would know it would be her.

“Fine. Rule’s actually handling all of it better than Rome did. Rome had the nurses and my OB-GYN scared to come near me. Rule’s taking it all in stride. As long as Shaw is cool, he seems cool, but the real contractions haven’t started yet. We might have to send in the reinforcements if he flips out like his brother did.”

I laughed. I had no doubt Rome was extra scary when he was stressed and freaking out. He looked like he could win a war all by himself with no weapons, just standing off to the side chatting with Asa.

“Well, that’s good. It’s nice you’re all here to support them. Ayden called Asa. She’s on her way already.”

Cora tilted her head back on the chair, put a hand over her tummy, and squeezed her eyes shut. She looked a little green all of a sudden and I sat up straighter. I was going to ask her if she was okay when she breathed deep and then turned her head to look at me as whatever was wrong with her apparently passed.

“She’s going to be devastated if that baby comes before she gets here. Moving to Austin with Jet was the best choice, but it’s hard on them with all of us still here.”

“She told Asa he had to be here just in case she couldn’t make it.”

Cora nodded and smiled at me. “He needs to be here regardless, and so do you.”

It was uncanny how she always seemed to see everything. “I’m here.” I said it begrudgingly.

“Yeah. But you had to think about it first. You belong here, Royal. Don’t doubt it.”

But I did—doubt it, that is. I just didn’t know how I fit. “Things just felt off and a little strained after I had to take Asa in. I wasn’t really sure how to handle that, and making friends has never been all that easy for me.”

Most girls didn’t like me or didn’t trust me and boys only wanted to pretend to be my friend in the hopes it would lead to more. Aside from my tight bond with my mom, my relationship with Dom and his sisters, and now Saint, I had lived a pretty solitary life.

“Shit happens. What happened with Asa wasn’t your fault and we all know that.” She gave me a very pointed look, her brown eye hard and her blue eye sharp. “Do you?”

I wanted to tell her everything felt like it was my fault. It felt like all I could do anymore was make mistake after mistake. I never got the chance, though, because panic crossed her pretty face and in a heartbeat she was up out of the chair and darting across the waiting room to where the bathrooms were located. Rome’s deep voice rumbled with a litany of swearwords as his mom scolded him, which he blatantly ignored as he followed his tiny fiancée into the ladies’ room. He ignored the nurse that called out to him as well, which had all the guys gathered around laughing.

I was pondering Cora’s words about fault when her now-vacant seat was filled with a much bigger, masculine body. Whenever I was within touching distance of him, all my senses seemed to go into overload. He draped one of his long arms across the back of my chair and looked at me out of the corner of his eye.

“You okay?” His voice was softer than usual and way too close to my ear. I gulped a little and nodded.

It was the fact he asked, the fact that I think he really cared whether I was okay or not, that overshadowed all the red flags he liked to wave in my face warning me away from him.

“Yeah. I’m glad I came up with you. It’s nice to see this.”

“See what?”

I waved a hand vaguely around the room indicating where Salem and Rowdy were cuddled together, where Nash had wrapped Saint up in his arms and was holding her, where Rome had disappeared after Cora, and even where the older Archers were sitting huddled together.

“Happiness. Togetherness. Unity. It was just me and my mom when I was growing up and she jumped from man to man always looking for something she couldn’t seem to find. It’s pretty cool to see couples that actually want to be together. Stability is kind of a foreign concept to me.”

He kicked his long legs up like mine were and adopted a similar pose. I shivered a little when his side pressed along my own. He grinned at me when he noticed my reaction.

“You can have all the stability you want when you stop looking for trouble.”

He was probably right, although trouble sounded like so much more fun right now, and what I wanted and what I needed were absolutely not the same thing.

I didn’t reply; instead I tried really hard not to move as I felt the tips of his fingers start to play with the end of my long ponytail where it hung over the back of the chair. I don’t think he was even aware that he was doing it. That is, until I glanced at him and noticed the golden glow shining out of his eyes. This was not a guy that ever did anything without being very aware of the effect it was having on the people around him. He wasn’t just trouble, he was potent and more dangerous than most of the stuff I saw on the streets every day.

At some point the monotony of waiting for endless hours long into the night, the quiet murmur of voices, the squeak of rubber shoes on the linoleum floor, all worked together to lull me to sleep. One minute I was thinking about how odd my night had turned out. About how when I felt my absolute worst there was this remarkable foundation of wonderful people to catch me. I wasn’t used to having any kind of safety net aside from Dom, and I had to admit it was really nice to have a soft landing instead of a brutal crash for once in my life.

But of course, like everything in my world lately, drifting off into a little catnap couldn’t just be easy and rejuvenating. As soon as the darkness descended, it was there. The day everything changed forever.

I heard the gunshots. Heard the cops that had been on the scene before us shouting. Heard the people in the neighborhood chattering next to the dilapidated building that had been converted into a monster meth lab. I heard the sirens. I heard my radio squawk that there were several officers down. It was a bad situation all around, but Dom and I were trained. It was our job to go into bad situations and make them better.

I heard Dom telling me we should go into the alley and I blindly agreed. I heard his boots rattle on the metal as he found a fire escape and started to climb up. I told him I was right behind him, we always had each other’s back. Dom barked at me to stay put, to cover him from the group. We had no idea how many shooters there were, had no idea if the building was clear or not, but again, we were trained and this was our job.

I had my gun out. I was watching, staring hard at the space above Dom’s head, making sure no one could get the drop on him. There were more shots fired, I had no idea if they were our guys or the bad guys, and I didn’t care as long as my partner was okay. I heard Dom make a noise as he reached the top of the fire escape. I could swear I heard every single snowflake that was falling that night as it hit the dirty ground around my booted feet.

I heard Dom call an all-clear, saw him move to go through a shattered window, and then I heard it … nothing more than a whisper. A faint sound of a can or some other piece of trash rolling on the asphalt. I moved my attention away from Dom for a split second, half of a heartbeat, not even a full blink, and then hell was unleashed.

A kid, a boy that was barely out of puberty, popped up over the edge of the roof, opened fire from his higher position, and hit Dom. He took two shots in the vest, one ripped through his arm. The force and surprise sent him stumbling backward until he hit the waist-high railing of the fire escape and started to tumble over it. One last bullet had caught him just right in the side, but it was the fall that did the most damage.

Then all I could hear was screaming, my own and Dom’s as he fell. I returned fire, caught the kid dead center in his chest. It didn’t matter. I thought Dom was dead and I couldn’t stop screaming.

I woke up with a jerk. I was covered in a light sheen of sweat and noticeably shaking. Luckily this time I wasn’t making any noise and no one seemed to notice my disheveled state, mostly because Ayden and Jet had arrived and everyone was gathered around saying hello. I watched as Asa pulled his strikingly beautiful little sister into a warm embrace.

And then it was like Shaw and the baby knew, like her and Rule’s baby boy had been waiting for just the right minute to make his grand entrance into the world. He seemed to know the exact moment that his whole family was there to meet him because it wasn’t until the entire gang was present that Reyer Remington Archer made his debut.

I had to say it was the best thing that had ever been waiting for me on the end of the nightmarish visions of that horrible night, and I would forever be grateful I was allowed to be part of it.

CHAPTER 5 (#ulink_078936c2-59b5-506a-91da-c271107ff2c7)

Asa (#ulink_078936c2-59b5-506a-91da-c271107ff2c7)

About two weeks after the night at the hospital, I walked into the Bar full of trepidation. Rome had called and asked me to come in an hour early because he wanted to talk to me about something. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out if I had screwed something up or done something wrong, but his grave tone was more serious than usual and it made my long-honed self-preservation instincts kick in. If he was going to can me, tell me to get lost, I told myself it was no big deal. I could hit the road, I could figure out something else to do, but the Bar had really sort of become the first place that felt like it was solid under my feet, and I didn’t want to admit that losing that scared the hell out of me. Not having this place really would set me adrift, and when I was adrift I got into trouble … lots of trouble.

Ayden and Jet had stayed for a week. My sister wanted to be there when Shaw took baby Ry home and got settled. The nickname was cute and Shaw loved it because she was a huge J. D, Salinger fan, plus knowing who the kid’s dad was, he was bound to have a little Holden Caulfield rebellion in him. It wasn’t enough time with my sister, and even though I could see she was happy, really happy with her choice to move in order to get more time with her man, I missed her and I could see that she was still worrying too much about me. I tried to tell her that I was fine. I tried to explain that if I was going to fuck up, it wouldn’t matter if she was here in Denver or in Austin, but that just made her tawny eyes spark at me in anger. I loved Ayden more than I ever knew I was capable of, but I wasn’t going to try and fool her into believing that I was never going to screw up again. All I could do was try. Try and be better, try and be honest, try staying on the right side of the law and not running when things got hard. Trying was just going to have to be enough. For Ayden and for me.

During the day the Bar was fairly quiet. There was a whole slew of retired veterans that liked to hang out and share old war stories. It never ceased to amaze me how many of them had to do with ex-wives and old lovers rather than any actual war. Rome typically opened the bar up and hung out until I got there in the early evening to run the night shift. He wanted to be home with his family during the evening and I couldn’t say I blamed him for that. Being a retired soldier himself, Rome had an easy way with the grizzled clientele and preferred to leave the more lively and rambunctious party crowd to me.

When I walked in the front doors, he wasn’t around, and Brite, the guy who had sold Rome the Bar in the first place, was standing in my usual spot behind the long wooden bar. Darcy, the Bar’s cook and Brite’s ex-wife, had her head poking out of the kitchen and the two of them appeared to be arguing in low voices.

I don’t think either of them copped to the fact that they might be exes but were still practically married. Wife number three was long gone, and Darcy wasn’t just his only child’s mother, but really the love of his life. I had asked Rome about it once and he just shrugged and told me that good women were complicated and hard to hold on to. I didn’t understand it until I walked into the liquor storeroom unannounced one day between shifts and found Darcy with her legs in the air and Brite’s giant form hovering over her in an unmistakable way. There might not be rings, but there was love and passion still there. Too bad their daughter was a grade-A pain in the ass.

Brite cut off whatever he was saying to Darcy, and she ducked back into the kitchen. His teeth flashed at me through the miles of beard that covered his face and he crossed his arms over his barrel-like chest. Brite had so much don’t-fuck-with-me pouring off of him it always surprised me how soft-spoken and insightful he really was. He looked like a Hell’s Angel not a savior, but he was. He had saved this bar. He had saved Rome. He had given all those vets a place to feel secure, and now he was trying his hardest to save his obviously wayward daughter even though she absolutely didn’t seem to appreciate the fact.

“How’s it going, son?” His voice rumbled like thunder over the Rockies.

I shrugged off my coat and ran my hands through my hair. “It’s going. You have any idea why Rome called me in early?”

He shook his head and lifted a bushy eyebrow at me. “How is Avett doing? Tell me the truth, Asa. Rome doesn’t want me to worry, says he can handle her, but I raised that girl. I know all the kinds of headaches she can be.”

I sighed under my breath. “Her attitude sucks. She doesn’t listen. She fights with Darcy. She hates it here, which is a shame because she’s one hell of a good cook.” She really was. When she wasn’t just throwing together the bar food the joint specialized in, when she made something for herself or was playing around, the girl was obviously talented. I told Darcy once that someone should tell Avett to go to culinary school, to which Darcy had sighed and looked like she was going to cry. Turned out Avett had just flunked out of regular college, so any kind of expensive specialty school clearly wasn’t in the cards. The girl was on a downward spiral. I could see it clear as day, mostly because it was a ride I was all too familiar with.

Brite swore under his breath and raised a hand to stroke his beard. “You feel comfortable firing her if she crosses a line?”

I dipped my chin down, thinking about the beer in her purse. “I will do what I have to in order to keep the Bar and Rome safe.”

He nodded grimly at me. “That’s what I wanted to hear. She’s driving Darce nuts. The girl is going to be the death of us both.”

I made a noise of agreement. “Rome in the office?”

Brite nodded and again flashed me a grin that had to fight through his facial hair. “You look nervous, son. Don’t be.”

I was annoyed that my typical mask of indifference and carelessness had slipped, so I struggled to put it back in place as I walked down the hallway where the restrooms, storage, and tiny back office were located. I knocked on the door before pushing it open and noticed Rome was on the phone when I walked in. I sat in one of the ratty chairs that was up against the wall while he continued to grunt and reply in one-word sentences to whomever he was talking to. There was paperwork on the desk, cases of alcohol were piled up on the floor, and Rome’s gym bag took up the space on the other available chair. His chair squeaked as he leaned back heavily in it, said, “I love you more,” meaning the person on the end of the call had to be Cora, and finally hung up and looked at me.

I wanted to grin at him, to play it all off like whatever was about to go down didn’t mean shit to me, but instead I felt my spine stiffen and my eyes narrow. “What’s up?” I didn’t really know what to do with the fact that this somehow mattered so much to me. The only things I had ever cared about before were materialistic and my sister; this was so foreign, and I hated how uneasy it made me. I wanted to squirm but I forced myself to stay still.

He rubbed his palms into his eyes and pressed down on the scar that bisected his eyebrow.

“Cora’s pregnant.”

I rolled my eyes and crossed my leg so that my ankle was resting on my knee. “You don’t say?” Sarcasm was as thick as Kentucky grass in my tone.

He blinked at me for a second and then blew out a breath. “What do you mean?”

I snorted. “I saw her at the hospital. I saw you at the hospital. If it was the flu or just a cold, you wouldn’t have been all over her like a mother hen, and I doubt Cora would’ve looked so happy.”

His blue eyes widened a fraction and then a grin split his stern expression. “Yeah. She just hit a little over two months. She wasn’t as sick with RJ, but she was a hell of a lot moodier.”

“I didn’t know you were trying to have another baby.”

His big shoulders rose and fell. “We weren’t. But we weren’t not trying either. I got a fiancée and a new baby all within a few months of each other and that makes a man start to think about what’s next.”

That made me laugh. I was genuinely happy for him. “Congratulations.”

“We wanted to wait until Rule and Shaw got to take Ry home and had a little while to bask in the new-baby awesomeness before we said anything. Rule as a daddy is a miracle that needs to be appreciated fully for a while, and I don’t think my mom can handle any more Archer good news without exploding. So you and Brite are the only ones that know for now.”

“Got it. Is that what this little powwow was about?” If so, all my muscles could unclench and the breath I was holding could finally escape my frozen lungs.

I gritted my teeth when he shook his head in the negative.

“No. I need to talk to you about the Bar.”

I didn’t want to give away the fact I was sort of falling apart on the inside, so I just stayed silent and waited for him to keep talking.

He just stared at me for a minute and then rocked back in the chair and put his hands behind his head.

“Brite sold me this bar for a hundred bucks. I thought he was crazy.” I agreed. “I didn’t get it at the time, but I do get it now. It wasn’t about the bar or about giving me something to do, it was about taking something beaten, something that had adapted and survived, and breathing new life into it. Did you know that even with the expense of adding Dixie and Avett to the payroll, we still turned a profit last year? And not just a few bucks; an actual, decent-sized profit.”

We were busier and busier and the crowd was getting more and more diverse. The live music helped and so did the fact that Rome’s friends and family were gorgeous and liked to hang out here. The Bar was hip now, so I really wasn’t surprised.

“That’s good news.”

“Yes, it is, and it has a shit ton to do with you, Asa. You work your ass off. You’re here more hours than is healthy. You take care of the staff. You take care of the customers, no matter who they might be, and goddamn, you’re good behind that bar. People fucking love you.”

That’s because I spent most of my life tricking people into thinking I was lovable when the opposite was true.

He dropped his arms and got to his feet and walked around the desk so he could perch on the corner closest to me. It was a small space and Rome was an intimidating guy, but there was a gleam in his gaze that was all about excitement and expectation.

“I want you to hire some more staff. I want Dixie to have help on the floor and I want you to hire a full-time day bartender that’s good with the military guys and a night guy to give you a break.”

“I don’t know that a break is the best thing for me. You know what they say about idle hands.”

I lifted both my eyebrows up at him as he scowled down at me from where he was most definitely looming.

“This bar gave both of us a crutch to lean on when we were trying to figure out what we were doing with our lives. It’s helped us both out by keeping us busy and given us something to focus on. You more so than me because I had my Half-Pint and the baby to worry about. I think it’s also offered me the insight into what happens next.” He looked at me to see if I was still with him and I was. I couldn’t disagree that the Bar was a safe haven when I was trying to leave behind a life and turn into something, someone, more respectable. “There are a lot of businesses that could use a little revitalization, a second chance, if you will. The gym I go to is falling apart. It needs some new equipment, some new blood, to bring it into this century. I like that the place feels like an old gym from the 1930s or something, but it needs some help. I want to invest in it.”

I blinked in surprise and just stared at him. He cocked the eyebrow with the scar in it at me and kept going.

“Nash has a buddy with a garage. He does killer restoration projects but is pretty small-time. I’ve seen his work and met the guy a few times. I think I want to funnel some cash into his enterprise as well.”

I hissed out a whistle between my teeth. “Man, you weren’t kidding about a decent profit, were you, Boss?”

Rome grunted at me. “I also want to help Nash and Rule out if they do decide to expand and open a third shop somewhere. What I don’t want to do is sit on my ass anymore and wait on whatever it is that’s going to happen next to find me. I’m buying a house. I’m having another kid, and when all that’s said and done I’m marrying the most perfect girl in the world.”

I didn’t really think “perfect” and “Cora” went together in the same sentence, but to him she was absolutely the perfect choice and there was something to be said for feeling that way about the mother of your kids.

“Those are all good plans, Rome, and I gotta say I’m a little shocked you decided that being an entrepreneur and investor was your calling, but I can get behind you wanting to help out struggling businesses. That’s pretty noble of you.”

He gave me a hard look. “Second chances matter. You and I both know that.”

“They do.” I worked hard every day to make sure my second chance wasn’t wasted. I owed myself and the people that loved me at least that much.

“I want you to consider being my business partner. You do a good job here—fuck, a great job. You’re way better with people than I’ll ever be and I think you’re the only other person that can understand why I want to invest in the businesses I do.”

Well, shit. That was unexpected.

I scooted forward on the chair a little and raised my hand to rub vigorously at the back of my neck. Old shame and bitter regret surged to the surface and I had to try really hard to fight it back down.

“I don’t have that kind of money floating around, big guy.”

He paid me a fair salary and my cost of living was practically nil, but when you died on an operating table and they brought you back to life, it cost a fortune. With no insurance, that meant every extra cent I had went back to paying the medical bills that were astronomical. Ayden and Jet had offered to help, but as soon I settled into my job at the Bar, I refused to let them. It was the first time in my life I was actually owning up to the consequences of my actions.

His mouth quirked and he pushed off the desk so that he was on his feet. “So give me a hundred bucks. It’ll be the best money you ever spent.”

I swore at him and got to my feet. I still had to look up at him, but he seemed less imposing now that I wasn’t sitting down.

“Look, I appreciate the offer and I would jump at the chance, but I can’t, and I can’t let you give me a free pass like that.”

He opened his mouth to argue with me but I cut him off by putting a hand on his massive shoulder and shaking my head.