Her mouth dropped open and he could see that she’d thought he was going to defend himself. It felt good to leave Blake speechless. He was getting the impression that it rarely happened.
Taking the W, he turned and walked up the path. When he reached the door, he noticed that Blake was beside him. Apparently, they’d skipped the second round of pleading and bargaining and jumped right to acceptance. He opened the door and she walked in with him.
The first thing he noticed when they walked in was signs for the Wells Simms wedding. It didn’t surprise him at all that people got married here. The grounds that he’d seen so far were everything anyone would ever want in a mountain retreat. Huge pine trees, lush greenery, and paths that led to the promise of a waterfall. Not just any waterfall, the falls that the town was named after.
He’d gotten married by a justice of the peace after Jenna found out she was pregnant. It was less romantic and more practical since she needed to be covered by his medical insurance. He’d never even asked her to marry him. She’d just said that it made sense and he’d agreed.
There was an attractive blonde sitting behind the counter who smiled when they walked in. When she stood he saw that she wasn’t alone, she was very pregnant. “Hi, I’m Amanda, welcome to Mountain Ridge.”
“Hi, I’m Asher Ford and this is my daughter Blake,” he said just as the phone started ringing.
“Oh right! Hi, we spoke on the phone last week.” She smiled and grabbed a clipboard with paperwork. He’d called to reserve Blake’s spot at the camp and the woman, who apparently was Amanda, had asked him to stop by when they got into town. “If you can just fill this out, then Blake, you’ll be all set.”
Blake smiled at Amanda but as soon as the blonde went to the other end of the counter and picked up the phone his daughter’s head spun toward him, and through gritted teeth she seethed, “You knew about this for a week and you didn’t tell me?”
Figuring it had been a rhetorical question, Asher moved to the seating area to fill out the paperwork. When he got to the section that Blake’s allergies needed to be listed, he paused. He knew that she was allergic to some citrus fruits, she used to get rashes when she had oranges. “Do you have any allergies other than citrus?”
She crossed her arms and stared at him in challenge and he knew that he would not be getting any answers out of her.
Figuring it would be futile to try, he scanned the other documents making a mental note of the information that he needed, pulled out his phone and texted the questions to Jenna. Did he feel like an ass for not having this vital information about his daughter? Yes. But it was what it was.
All I can do is move forward, he said to himself.
Asher was waiting for a response text when he heard Amanda finishing up her phone call. “Oh no, I’m so sorry. Of course, go take care of your mom. Don’t worry about us, we’ll figure something out.”
Amanda had just hung up the phone when the door flung open and Asher saw a blur of red hair charging toward the front desk.
“Hey Viv!” Amanda greeted her brightly. “Everything will be set for the four o’clock ceremony. Noah and Justin are finishing up setting the chairs—”
“Change of plans.” The redhead slapped her hands on the counter. “There’s not going to be a ceremony.”
Amanda’s eyes widened. “There’s not?”
“Nope. That lying, cheating, piece of shit, asshole skipped town on my sister! And when I get my hands on him, I’m going to cut his balls off with a rusty, dull butter knife and then after he bleeds out, for hours, right before he takes his last breath, I’ll stab him in the empty space where his heart should be and kill him!”
“Umm…” Amanda’s eyes shot to where Blake and Asher were seated.
She looked horrified and he wasn’t sure if it was because this woman had just professed that she wanted to kill someone in front of him because she knew he was in law enforcement, or if her expression was due to the colorful language that she’d used to do so in front of his kid.
Either way, Asher wasn’t bothered by it. Blake had been a huge fan of horror movies from the time she was eight and a babysitter had let her watch Nightmare onElm Street, so he knew that she wasn’t shocked or shaken by the woman’s descriptive, and creative torture/kill fantasy. And that’s all it was. He knew killers, and this redhead wasn’t one. She was upset, and it sounded rightfully so, on her sister’s behalf.
“Viv—” Amanda started to say before she was cut off by more ranting.
“No!” The feisty redhead lifted her hand. “No Viv. In fact, you can just call me Lizzo because I am one hundred percent that bitch and I will cut him.”
Beside him Blake made a noise that sounded like a laugh she was trying to hold in.
The redhead spun around and it was clear from her expression that she’d had no idea Asher and Blake were sitting there.
“Vivien, this is Asher Ford and his daughter Blake,” Amanda smiled from ear to ear as she made introductions. “Asher is a detective from New York that is going to be working with Eric at the police station. Vivien and her sister Audrey own the best coffee shop in town, Brewed Awakenings.”
Brewed Awakenings.
A sense of déjà vu washed over him. That name sounded so familiar to him, but he couldn’t place where he’d heard it before. It must’ve been when he was looking up information on the town. That was the only explanation that made sense, but he knew that wasn’t the case because it was that the name sounded familiar, as if he’d heard someone say it before.
A wide smile spread across Vivien’s face, not seeming to be bothered at all by the fact that Asher wore a badge and she’d just made a verbal threat of homicide in front of a teenager. “Nice to meet you. Welcome to Hope Falls.”
Under her breath, Blake whispered in awe, “I love her.”
And when he heard that, he knew that this move might have been a mistake. A huge mistake.