Prologue
Sadie ~ 1981
Everyone thought they knew the story of how Sadie Rose Ashby came to be. People knew me as the wife of Colm Ashby and daughter-in-law of Cillian Darragh Ashby. They knew me either as a young whore or a ruthless bitch. At least that was what they thought they knew about me and my life.
If anyone knew the actual details of my life, they would fear me even more. It wasn’t Colm or Cillian, or even The Crusaders who got me started on this path.
No, that title belongs to a piece of shit from the summer of 1981.
Before I became an Ashby, I was Sadie Rose Malone, a proper Catholic school girl who went to class, said her prayers and loved her parents dearly. I tried to do the right thing, be a good person, and follow the path laid out in The Good Book. I tried really hard, and one day, it all fell to pieces in the most spectacular fashion.
Owen Doyle was seventeen years old and the definition of cool, at least back then. He was gorgeous with broad shoulders and a slender body that young girls thought was so grownup. Back then, I wasn’t immune to the charms of the most popular boy in school. Owen Doyle had big blue bedroom eyes, and when he turned his attention my way, I was flattered.
I was flattered for the first—and last—time in my life. It was the only time pretty words made me blush like a schoolgirl, the only time I accepted anything or anyone at face value.
It was a Friday night, and my parents allowed me to go to the high school football game because it was a special game. St. Mary’s Catholic School played against our Lutheran rivals. To my extremely Catholic mother, that made it a special occasion worthy of me possibly spending time with boys. I couldn’t tell you one thing about the game because I didn’t give a damn about football. I just wanted to hang out with kids my own age away from the church.
“Hey, want to go somewhere quiet to hang out and talk?” Owen Doyle wanted to talk to me, invisible, prim, proper, Sadie Malone, and I nodded like an eager little puppy.
I turned to my best friend Emily with a wide-eyed grin. There was no question what my answer would be when I turned back to Owen.
“Yeah, sure, that would be cool.” My fingertips tingled at the idea of going somewhere with Owen. I followed him down the metal bleachers and around back where the cool kids hung out and smoked cigarettes and drank beer if they could snatch some from their parents or older siblings.
Only when we got back there we were alone.
I thought it was romantic. “So, uh, what do you want to talk about?”
Owen flashed a crooked smile that made my heart race as he leaned against the metal leg of the bleacher. “How pretty you are, Sadie.”
“Me?” I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and smiled like the naïve little girl I was. “I’m not,” I insisted because vanity was frowned upon in my house.
I wasn’t allowed to wear makeup or style my hair, and even the denim skirt I thought so stylish hit just below my knees.
“But you are.” Owen’s insistence, accompanied by the way he smiled at me and ran his index finger along my jaw, sucked me right in. “So pretty. I’ve been thinking about kissing you all night. All semester, really.”
His words shocked and thrilled me, but they also confused me. “But you never said anything.”
“Neither did you,” he shot back. “But here we are.”
His words were so smooth I couldn’t help but smile. “Here we are.”
Owen took a step closer so I could feel his breath fan across my face and sucked in a deep breath. He smelled like cinnamon and melon, an intoxicating blend of spicy and sweet.
“I need to taste your lips,” he growled a moment before his mouth crashed down over mine.
The sensation startled me at first, but the feel of his lips on mine was lovely. His tongue slid between my lips; a strange feeling that slowly started to feel good. My heart thudded against my chest, and my palms were sweaty against the leather arms of his letterman’s jacket, but I couldn’t bring myself to push him away.
I leaned into him, threw myself into the kiss because even though it was my first kiss, it was the most exciting, the hottest, the most thrilling kiss of my life.
Then one hand slid down my ass until he reached up under my skirt to my bare skin, and that hand slid up the inside of my leg until his fingers brushed over my cotton-covered pussy. I gasped in surprise, but it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling.