Southern Secrets by Natasha Madison
Chapter 1
Asher
"Admit it."I turn around to see Amelia on her horse trotting toward me. Her blond hair bounces up and down as she trots over.
“Admit what?” I ask. I ignore the pull in my stomach when I turn and see her smiling. And not the fake smile she usually gives people. This smile lights up her whole face, making her eyes squint even more. I’ve been around for the past six months, and it’s a smile I’ve tried to see on her face every day. I get off the horse and take him by the reins. The sun shines high in the sky with not a cloud in sight.
“You should be better than me.” I wait for her to get beside me. “You’ve been riding for your whole life.” I chuckle. “I’ve been riding for six months.” Before coming to this town, all I knew how to do was odd jobs here and there. Usually bussing tables or working in the kitchen, now what started out as mucking stalls turned into me making sure all the barns had everything they needed to run.
“Don’t make excuses,” she says as she walks beside me, both of us holding on to the reins of our horses as they walk leisurely beside us. “You said you would smoke me and you didn’t.” She repeats the words I stupidly said last week when she beat me. “Just say it.” She has to be the most competitive person that I know. She can never lose and if she does she just comes back even harder.
We walk into the barn side by side. I place the horse in his stall while I watch Amelia make her way over with her horse to her stall. I watch her for a second longer than I should before turning my head and going to get water.
“So are you going to say it?”
Looking over my shoulder, I find Amelia leaning against the barn stall, dressed in her blue jeans, plaid shirt, and cowboy boots. She arrived with her blond hair loose, but once she saddled her horse, she piled it on top of her head. “What do you want me to say, Amelia?” I fold my arms over my chest. Ever since I came into town, she’s always ready to spar with me. We play this cat and mouse game, unsure of how the other one feels.
“Just say I’m better than you.” She smirks at me, and when I glare at her, she claps her hands together and lets out a howling laugh. I want to march over to her and kiss the ever-loving shit out of her, but instead, I remind myself of what a bad fucking idea that is.
"I’d rather eat crow." I force myself to turn instead of staring at her and watching her laugh. I shake my head as I mouth, "Eat crow? What the fuck?" It shows I’ve been here longer than any other place if I’m starting to repeat phrases like that.
"Come on," she says softly. "It’s time to eat." I look over at her. "You always get grouchy when you go two hours without eating."
"I do not." I glare at her. Why do I let her get under my skin? It’s her turn to fold her arms over her chest. We spend most mornings together and then half of the afternoon on the phone, so it’s no wonder she knows things about me.
"When was the last time you ate?" she asks, and I walk right past her. The sound of her chuckling makes my skin heat.
She jogs to catch up to me. "You usually have a snack at around ten." She keeps up with my long strides.
I stop. "You watching me?" I tilt my head to the side. "That is kind of stalkerish, don’t you think?" I tease, and I want to reach up and curl the strand of hair that has fallen out of her tied hair.
She opens her mouth and closes it again. "Don’t flatter yourself, Asher," she huffs out, turning to stomp away.
As I watch her walk away, Reed and his best friend, Christopher, come up behind me. "She smoked you good," Reed says, dressed in Levi’s and a plaid shirt with his worn cowboy boots. He’s the only one who wears a cowboy hat every Sunday. Reed slaps me on the shoulder, laughing as he walks past me to the food.
Looking around, I’m blown away at how big this barbecue is. Every Sunday, the same people come, yet there are always new faces. I put my head down and walk over to the food table. "Hey." I look up when I hear Ethan walking toward me. "You look like someone stole your dog."
I shake my head as we walk to the table of food. "Just thinking about the things I have to do tonight."
"You know you can take Sunday off," he says. "There is nothing you do on Sunday that can’t wait until Monday morning."
"I know," I say. "But I have nothing else to do." I stop talking when we get in line for the food. Ethan’s wife, Emily, is talking to Chelsea, Ethan and Reed’s sister, and her boyfriend, Mayson. Ethan and Mayson were in the military together, and a couple of months ago, he showed up with a gunshot wound and fighting for his life. This family’s close bond is what everyone wishes for.
“One of these days," Ethan says, "we are going to get here before everyone and be the first in line." We all laugh, and Emily just shakes her head, knowing full well we’ll never be first in line. There are just too many people in line, and usually, we let the older generation eat first.
"One can hope," Emily says. I listen half-heartedly as I feel Amelia get in line next to me.
She pushes my shoulder, and I look at her sideways. I’m about to tell her she’s a pain in my ass when all of our phones go off. I take my phone out and see the code for fire from the alarm company.
I look up into the sky and see the black smoke off in the distance. "One of the barns is on fire!" I don’t know who says it, but I’m running to my truck when I hear it.
Ethan is right beside me as we jump into my truck. I never park in the driveway, opting to park in the road so I can just leave. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," he says as I pull out, the sound of the tires screeching behind me. My heart beats so fast in my chest all I can do is hear the echo. My stomach sinks as I get closer and closer, yet the smoke that fills the sky makes me feel farther and farther away.
"Which barn?" I ask and then look over when he doesn’t answer.
"Your house," he says, and I swallow the lump in my throat. I look at the road as I try to remember if I turned off the coffee maker this morning. I unplugged it as soon as I was done. My head spins as I try to retrace my every step that I took today.
"I double-check everything when I leave," I say. When I came to town six months ago, I bumped into Ethan at the diner. He said his family farm was always hiring and told me to swing by the day after. I was staying at the town motel and was about to head back out of town when I got the job. At first, it was just as a ranch hand, doing odd jobs here and there. Nothing big at the time. But they liked how I worked, so they gave me a company truck and asked me to take over as ranch supervisor, putting me in charge of making sure the ranch had everything they needed to operate. Ethan and Casey both trained me, and it didn’t hurt that it came with an apartment in one of the barns.
"Firemen are four minutes out," Ethan says, and my eyes follow the black smoke in the sky. Instead of getting closer and closer to me, they are getting thicker and thicker in the sky.
"We just had the hay delivered," I say. "It’s stocked up full." I try to calm my heart as I make my way to the barn. Every single second feels like an hour.
When I turn off the road onto the gravel driveway, I hear the rocks hitting the truck with how fast I’m going. I look behind me and see the dust coming up, but I also see five trucks following us and hear the sound of the sirens off in the distance.
"Maybe we can contain it," I say. Only when we get closer, the sight of the thick smoke makes my stomach sink. My eyes find the barn, and I don’t need anyone to tell me that there is no way anything can be salvaged. I stop the truck on the side and get out, not bothering to close my door. I look over and see the red fire truck racing down the driveway. It stops, and the eight firemen jump out of their truck while another truck stops beside them.
It feels like I’m in a movie, and this isn’t real. The heat from the fire sinks into my skin, and the closer and closer we get, the more my eyes feel the burn.
The red barn is engulfed in flames. The orange and yellow flames come out of the top two windows that were my bedroom. The sound of crackling fills the quiet air as all the men at the barbecue stand to the side, watching the barn go up in flames.
The sound of shattering glass fills the air. Two firemen stand on top of the fire truck, their hoses spraying water toward the roof. Six other firemen beside the blaze try to contain it. The heat from the fire hits my skin, but nothing could make me move from this spot.
I watch in shock from the sidelines with everyone else as the firemen do their best to contain it. I hear yelling going on around them, but I can’t move. I hear car doors slamming, and I know more people are arriving, but I can’t look away.
My eyes fixate on the flames coming out of the window, the doors, and the sides of the walls. Yellow, orange, and red mix, making everything in front of me look hazy. How can this be happening? How the fuck am I going to recover from this? I put my hands on my head now as my eyes sting from the flames.
The sound of crackling starts, and all I can do is watch in horror as the roof suddenly vanishes. My hand flies to my mouth as everything I own goes up in flames.
