Southern Secrets by Natasha Madison
Chapter 9
Asher
I carrythe bag out with me, because no matter how much I want to go back, I’m not going to. I toss the bag in the back seat and get into the truck. The heat already starting to feel thick, I drive toward Casey’s headquarters, not surprised when I see Ethan’s car already there.
You would never know that in this white tin barn holds the most advanced computer technology in the world. Casey isn’t just a cowboy, he’s a computer tech.
Getting out of the truck, I pull open the door and come face-to-face with a white room with a desk. No one is behind it. I knock on the closed white metal door and the buzzing starts, I pull open the door and step inside what I call the “war” room.
The whole back wall is filled with five big screens side by side. Five desks are on each side of the room with full computers on them. The screens in front come to this big square table that sits in front of the big screens. There are screens built into the desk and it’s all touch screen. "Good morning," Ethan says, standing there wearing jeans and a shirt with a cup of coffee in his hand. "I see we went shopping for clothes that fit you." He tries to hide the laugh with his cup.
"Yeah.” I look down at the blue jeans and white shirt I picked up yesterday before going to the bar.
"You want coffee?" he asks, walking over to one of the desks and sitting down.
"No, I just had two cups with breakfast," I say and I want to kick myself when his eyebrows pinch together.
"I was at the diner this morning with my father and I didn’t see you there," he says, leaning back in his chair.
"Yeah, I stayed with Amelia. Helped her at the bar last night and she offered me her guest room." I make sure there is nothing in my tone that would make him suspicious even though there was nothing to be suspicious about. "Made breakfast to thank her."
"Did you give her coffee before you spoke to her?" he asks. "She is not a morning person. I remember once we were teasing her and she tried to stab my hand with her fork."
I laugh thinking about how cranky she was but not knowing that she needed coffee before I spoke to her. "She had coffee."
"Good.” He brings his cup of coffee to his mouth and takes a sip. "Got your text. My father and I rode out there this morning before I came here. One definitely looks like someone broke it. We looked around a bit, but we didn’t see anything strange."
"I’m going to run over there this afternoon and change the lights out," I say, and he nods.
"My father put in an order to put up cameras," Ethan says. "We just didn’t tell Amelia yet." I shake my head. The woman has to be the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met. But then again, she is the most interesting also. She is smart and kind and hardworking and fiercely independent. Everything about her intrigues me and I want to ask her so many questions. "He’s going to swing by today and break it to her."
"Or you do it during the day when she isn’t there and then see how long it takes for her to notice," I say, and he taps his coffee cup thinking about it.
"We could and then just blame it on my father." He gets up and grabs his phone. "She can’t hurt him."
"Okay, if you need me, call," I say, walking out of the room and getting into the truck.
I do everything I need to do for the barn before grabbing the ladder and making my way over to the bar. It’s almost four thirty when I pull up. I see her car parked there next to another one. Pulling up as close as I can to the door, I get out and unload the ladder and the lights. I place the ladder against the building and the door opens.
I look toward her and everything inside me stops. I haven’t seen her since this morning and she stands there with her blue jeans and white tank top. Her hair is braided on the side, her eyes a crystal blue. So blue you can drown in them and die happy. "Hey.” She smiles at me. "I was wondering who was out here."
"I’m going to change the lights." I point up toward the lights. My palms are getting sweaty as my heart beats faster and faster in my chest. "I was going to come out here earlier, but we had to round up a couple of cows that got loose and I had to help your grandfather."
"That’s okay," she says. "Tuesdays are usually quiet and we don’t have any games on today." She walks over to stand beside me. "How can I help?”
"You can go back inside," I say, grabbing the lights and walking toward the ladder.
"I can hand you the lights," she says, grabbing them out of my hands. "And I’ll forget you just said that the next time I pour you a drink." She smiles at me and I can tell it’s a fuck you smile.
I laugh. "Fine." Knowing even if I fight with her, she is just going to do what she wants to do. I climb the ladder, seeing up close that someone must have broken the light with a rock, "Can you go into the truck and get me a rag?”
"Oh, you need me?" she asks, looking up at me, her hand on her forehead blocking out the sun. "It’s a good thing I didn’t go inside." She turns on her boots and walks toward the truck, opening the back door and grabbing the T-shirt Quinn lent me.
"I said a rag," I say, and she tosses me the shirt.
"Are you going to actually wear that shirt again?" she asks me.
"No, but I was going to give it back to him,” I inform her, holding the shirt in my hand.
"Trust me, he doesn’t want it back," she says, putting one boot on the last step of the ladder. "No way he can ever wear that shirt. He’ll look like a skinny boy in it."
I look down at her. "You were checking me out?" I joke with her.
"Everyone and their mother was checking you out," she says. "Even the guys checked out your package."
"It wasn’t that bad," I say, and I know it was that bad because I had to pull the seam out of my balls at least ten times. I use the shirt to unscrew the light bulb. I’m about to go down when I feel her stepping on the second step stretching her hand up with the new light.
"Here, take this and give me the old one," she says. We exchange the bulbs and I screw in the new one.
I walk down the ladder and look at her. "You can’t just let someone do something for you." I don’t know if I’m so much as asking her as if I’m telling her.
"It’s not that I can’t let anyone do anything for me," she says, putting the broken light away. "If I can help, why wouldn’t I?" She grabs the new bulb as I move the ladder over to the other light. Going up and seeing that this one, too, has been busted, I take out my phone and take a picture of it before I take it out and replace it.
"You want to go inside and open the lights and see if they work?" I ask as some trucks arrive. The sound of gravel making me look toward the trucks.
I grab my phone and send the text to Jacob.
Me: Just changed the lights and they were both busted with rocks.
I press send and look up when I see a couple of guys from the barn. "Hey.” I nod to a couple of them.
"You coming to have a beer with us?” Elliot, one of the foremen, asks me. "My treat."
"Yeah, I’ll be right in," I say, putting the ladder in the back of my truck.
The phone pings in my pocket and I take it out to see it’s a text from Jacob.
Jacob: We are installing cameras tomorrow. She will just have to deal with it.
I shake my head and answer him back.
Me: Good luck with that.
I put my phone away and walk into the bar. I see that it’s quieter than it was yesterday. I spot Amelia in back of the bar as she is pouring a beer in a glass. Walking to the back I go to the bathroom and wash my hands.
"You should go and get a motel room,"my head tells me when I look at my reflection.
Drying my hands, I don’t look at myself in the mirror before I walk out. I join the guys at the bar and sit on the empty stool. "What can I get you?" Amelia asks when she comes to me.
"I don’t know. If I ask for a beer, will you put something inside it?" I ask, and she throws her head back and laughs. Her neck is bare, and I close my eyes and picture myself biting her and leaving my mark. My cock springs to action wanting in on the picture.
She doesn’t answer me. Instead, she walks down to the beer taps as she fills a glass for me. She puts a coaster down and places the beer on it. "There you go," she says and smiles. "It’s safe to drink." She turns and walks away, and I want to ask her to come back and talk to me.
Instead, I just take the beer and take a sip. The guys finish their beer and head out to their house. I am the only one at the bar. "It really is quiet on Tuesday," I say, and she nods her head, as she wipes down the bar where the guys left. I look over seeing that it’s almost nine o’clock and the bar is empty.
"Why do you do it?" I finally ask her the question I’ve been thinking about all day. My thumb is hitting the top of the wooden bar.
"Why do I do what?" she asks, looking at me.
"Work the two jobs." She looks at me.
"Well, for one, I have bills," she says. "And I’m paying my aunt monthly to own this."
"You bought the bar?" I ask, shocked when she nods her head. "Yeah."
"I knew you were independent and hard-working," I say, and she looks at me. "But I had no idea that you were working to buy the bar."
"Yeah," she says, and I know she is hiding something. I can feel it. "She wanted to just give me the bar," she says as Jill comes out of the sports section.
"Hey, it’s all done. Do you think I can clock out?" she asks Amelia, who nods her head.
"I’m going to close up, too." She looks at the clock on the wall. "See you Thursday," she says, and Jill turns to walk out of the place. I get off the stool and walk around the bar.
"What are you doing?" she asks, shocked.
"Well, it’ll go faster if we both do this," I say as I grab the dirty glasses.
"First breakfast and now this." She smirks at me. "You don’t have to keep doing this to stay with me." My eyebrows pinch together. "All you have to do is pick up after yourself." She turns around and walks toward the office, leaving me with my mouth hanging open.
