A little over two hours later, the Tumbleweed Bar was busy and loud. But not too loud to drown out the sound of a chopper overhead.
The crowd suddenly hushed.
“Not a LifeFlight chopper. Just Ash coming to pay a visit.”
An old man sitting at the bar frowned. “Sounds like ’Nam,” he said, then took a sip of his beer.
They all knew the old cowboy had seen the fall of Saigon, but he rarely talked about it, and now Asher’s visit was bringing back unwelcome memories.
“Sorry about that,” Jacob said.
The old man shrugged. “Ancient history. Ain’t no never mind.”
A few minutes later, Asher came into the bar from the house and gave Jacob a hug.
“Want the keys to my truck?” Jacob asked.
“It’s just four blocks up the alley. I’ll walk,” Asher said, and then he was gone.
Chapter 3
Nora was sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, going through a box of childhood keepsakes she’d pulled out of her closet, knowing that she’d be better off if she chucked them all. She hadn’t seen them in years. She didn’t even know what was in there, which meant if she hadn’t missed them, they didn’t matter.
But as she was sorting, she pulled out a program from her junior prom, and when she opened it, found a dried flower from the corsage Asher had given her pressed between the pages. Before she knew it, tears were rolling down her face.
At the same moment, she heard footsteps on the porch, then a knock at the door. She grabbed the tail of her sweatshirt to wipe her eyes as she got up to answer, opened the door, and froze.
It was Asher, and she was struggling to find the boy she remembered in this man on her doorstep. Thick black hair with a slight tendency to curl. Black brows and lashes, and those clear blue eyes—at the moment, slightly wide with the same shock she was feeling.
She could see the evidence of a life in law enforcement in every facet of his face and body. Physically fit. Giving nothing away from his expression. Stoic to the point of stern. And then he started talking, and she couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know about your mother. I didn’t know about your dad. I lost you and thenwas afraid to go looking, because I didn’t want to see you with another man.”
She was trembling. Tears were rolling, and then the sobs came bubbling up, and she was in his arms. He toed the door shut behind him and just held her.
“It’s okay, darlin’, it’s okay. Cry it away. Cry it all away.” He was shocked by how light she was when he carried her to the sofa. Too thin. Too weary. So much loss. Too much grief. “I promised you so much and gave you nothing. I let work become my life, and ghosted the only woman I ever loved, and I have no excuse for how it happened. I didn’t quit loving you, Nora. I just lost you, and didn’t have the guts to go find who you’d become.”
Nora was hiccupping on a sob when she crawled out of his lap to grab a handful of tissues. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose, scooted to the far end of the sofa, and then sat staring at the ghost he was, until she calmed down enough to speak.
“You’ve done this before… Come back to me, I mean. Always in my dreams. Tell me I’m not dreaming,” she whispered.
The ache in his heart was physical. The devastation in her eyes was going to haunt him. “You’re not dreaming. Do you hate me?”
He watched the shock of his question spread across her face.
“No! My God, no, I don’t hate you. I have loved and lived with your ghost so long I don’t know how to handle the reality of your presence. But at the same time, the blame is not all yours to own. I didn’t go looking for you either, did I? And it was for the same reasons. I couldn’t bear the thought of you loving someone besides me. Your dad told me you were single, but that didn’t tell me anything other than you weren’t married. I was afraid to ask if you had someonespecial in your life, and if I didn’t ask, then I could pretend you still cared.”
This was more than he’d dare hope for, but he wanted more. He wanted her back in his life. “Nora. Darlin’. You have always been my true north. Are you willing to do us again? But not long distance? Would you be open to figuring out how we could do what we do and be together now?”
Her hands were clutched against her breasts to keep them from shaking. “Yes, a thousand times, yes.”
He opened his arms, and she crawled into his lap, straddled his legs, and wrapped her arms around his neck.
The kiss that became the promise, became an avalanche. Too many years of separation. Too much loss. Too much sacrifice for all the wrong reasons.
“I want to make love with you,” he said.
“Then do it. You know the way to my heart. You know the way to my bed.”
