Golden Trail
Kristen Ashley
Published by Kristen Ashley
Copyright 2011 Kristen Ashley
Discover other titles by Kristen Ashley:
Rock Chick Series:
Rock Chick
Rock Chick Rescue
Rock Chick Redemption
Rock Chick Renegade
Rock Chick Revenge
The ‘Burg Series:
For You
At Peace
The Colorado Mountain Series:
The Gamble
Sweet Dreams
Other Titles by Kristen Ashley:
Lacybourne Manor
Penmort Castle
Sommersgate House
Three Wishes
www.kristenashley.net
Kindle Edition, License Notes
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Prologue
Fluid
Layne opened his eyes and saw dim light in an unfamiliar room.
Groggy, he sensed movement and turned his head to the left.
Rocky was sitting there. Her head bowed, dark hair with fashionable (but fake) streaks of blonde pulled back in a ponytail but that heavy fall at the front that wouldn’t fasten back, as usual, covered one eye.
What the fuck?
His eyes moved beyond her to the walls then they kept scanning and he saw the monitors, the drips and cords.
He was in a hospital bed.
Shit, I’ve been shot.
He closed his eyes, feeling heavy fatigue and not much else. It wasn’t like he just woke up. It was like he hadn’t slept for a year.
When he heard rustling, he forced his eyes open again and saw Rocky move, adjusting in her chair, putting an elbow to the arm, her jaw in her palm, her fingers curling around her cheek. Her head was up now and her face was flawlessly made up, also as usual. Perfection. He hated it. When they were living together years ago she would put on makeup to go to class, to go out dancing, to go get a meal but it was light. If she wasn’t going anywhere, or nowhere special, she didn’t bother. He preferred it that way.
Her eyes skimmed over him and shot back, fastening on his.
“Layne?” she asked, her voice quiet.
“The boys,” Layne said, his voice scratchy and hoarse.
She stood, the movement liquid, the way she always moved, full body or just lifting a finger to point at something.
Fluid.
Her chair was so close, standing brought her right next to the bed.
“They were here with Gabrielle. Dad took them home,” she whispered, looked to his chest, her eyes lifting again to his, “How are you feeling?”
“They okay?” He was still talking about his sons.
“You’re okay,” she told him. “It’ll take awhile but the doctors say you’ll be fine so… they’re okay.”
The exhaustion was nearly overwhelming and the last person on earth, outside of Gabby, who he’d want in his hospital room or anywhere near him, was Raquel Merrick Astley. He’d rather go to sleep and wake up when she was gone but he struggled against the sleep that wanted to take him because he had to know.
“What do the docs say?”
“You’ll be fine. They hit you in the thigh, gut, shoulder,” she answered. “The gut was the bad one but they stitched you up.”
He took three. Now he remembered, he took three. He felt each one.
He wanted to ask if it was her husband that worked on him.
He didn’t ask that, instead he asked, “How long am I gonna be in here?”
“Awhile,” she evaded.
“What’s awhile?” he pressed.
“Not too long. At most, two weeks.”
Fuck, he didn’t have any insurance. Fuck.
Instead he asked, “Where’s Merry?”
“At the Station, he’s coming later,” Rocky answered.
His eyes closed because he couldn’t keep them open anymore but he forced them back open.
“He safe?” Layne knew he could ask her that. Rocky and Merry were close, Merry told Rocky everything, she did the same with her brother. They looked out for each other; they kept each other’s secrets. She’d know.
“Yes, far as he can tell, you kept him clean.”
Thank God, Layne thought and his eyes closed again.
Then he asked, “What’re you doin’ here?”
“Shh, Layne, just rest,” she whispered.
He forced his eyes open and to focus on her. “What’re you doin’ here?” he repeated, now his voice sounded scratchy, hoarse and as tired as he felt.
He watched her face change, her eyelids descended to half-mast, her mouth got soft.
Layne stared.
Fuck, he remembered that look. She used to look at him like that a lot, always it came unexpected no matter how often she did it. While they were watching TV, across the room at a party, but mostly across a table from him – any table: at her Dad’s, at a restaurant, at their apartment, he’d feel her looking at him and catch her eyes, see that look on her face and know his life was beautiful. He hadn’t seen that look in eighteen years.
She leaned in, lifting a hand and placing it gently against his cheek.
“Rest, Layne,” she repeated quietly.
His eyes slid closed and he wanted to tell her to get the fuck out. He wanted to tell her to go to hell. He didn’t want her near his sons, near him. They lived in the same town again but that was as close as he wanted to get. Her brother had been a family member, who, after Layne came back, turned into an old acquaintance then a loose colleague and, finally, a friend. Her father the same, without the loose colleague part. But a year back in town and she hadn’t re-entered his life and he took pains to keep it that way.
As these thoughts drifted through the weariness, he felt her hand slide down his cheek to his neck.
Then, fuck him, he could fucking swear he felt that heavy, soft fall of hair slide along his cheek, his temple and he smelled her perfume, expensive, elusive then he felt her lips brush his.
Jesus.
By the time he forced his eyes back open, her lips were gone, her hand was gone but the scent of her perfume remained. With effort he turned his head to the side and saw the door close behind her.
Then his eyelids closed and sleep took him.
Chapter One
Dreams
She rolled him then her mouth was on him, her tongue, her hair trailing down his chest, she nipped his side with her teeth, sexy, hot, Christ, she’d devour him if she could.
He hauled her up and rolled her back, his lips taking hers, his tongue shafting into her mouth. He fucking loved the way she let him kiss her, let him take, did nothing but give. It was contradictory to the way she fucked him, a tussle, a battle for supremacy.
Not, of course, when he made love to her, that was different.
But now, they were fucking.
Both her hands slid down his back to his ass, fingers curling in, he could feel her nails, all the while she arched her back, pressing into him. She wanted it, he knew it and his cock was so fucking hard, aching, if he didn’t give it to her soon, he’d come on her belly.
His hand moved down her body, between her legs, down the inside of one thigh, pushing it open and his hips moved between.
Her mouth broke from his, lips sliding across his cheek to his ear.
“Yes, Layne, come inside,” Rocky rasped.
* * * * *
Layne’s eyes opened.
He was on his stomach, in his bed and his cock was rock hard. Aching.
He rolled to his back.
“Christ,” he muttered into the darkened room.
He lifted his palms to his forehead and pressed in.
Every night, every night for six weeks since he saw her in his hospital room, he had these dreams. Always sex, hot sex, wild sex and not what they had eighteen years ago. These weren’t memories. She wasn’t twenty and he wasn’t twenty-four. They’d had hot, wild sex back then, the best, the fucking best he ever had, by a mile. But, in the dreams, she was who she is now and the same with him. And the sex was better.
Far better.
Out of this fucking world.
He stared at the ceiling, concentrating on bringing his body under control.
Layne didn’t understand these dreams. He hadn’t even seen her since that night. He’d seen her brother Merry and father Dave dozens of times but not Raquel. He hadn’t talked to or asked Merry or Dave about Rocky’s visit either. After days slid into weeks and she didn’t show, he’d actually tried to convince himself he’d been hallucinating, especially after seeing that look, smelling her perfume so close, feeling the touch of her hand, her hair, her lips.
But he knew he wasn’t hallucinating.
He rolled out of bed and got up, walked to the bathroom, took a piss, washed his hands, splashed water on his face then brushed his teeth as he stared at his torso in the mirror.
The wounds were fading, still red, the violence of a bullet tearing though flesh still visible. Three inches down from the middle of his right shoulder and another at his upper gut. His pajama bottoms hid the wound to his right thigh. They joined the stab wound he got in his right side in San Antonio and the deep graze wounds from the shrapnel he took to the left hip and side of his thigh after that car bomb went off in LA.
He bent his neck and spit, rinsed and wiped his mouth with a towel he took from and threw back to the counter before he raised his head and looked into his eyes in the mirror.
“I need a new fuckin’ job,” he told himself.
Then his head cocked and he listened.
Nothing.
He walked into the room, his eyes at the drawn curtains, seeing weak light coming around the sides, through the slit in the middle. His eyes went to his alarm clock.
Six thirty.
He listened again.
“Fuck,” he bit out and strode fast from his room, a huge master suite that had a bedroom that held his king-size bed, a low dresser and another narrower, higher dresser on which he’d put a flat-screen TV. If he wanted, he could put a chair and couch in there, which he didn’t, so there was tons of empty space making the room seem cavernous. This led to a master bath that had a double sink, a huge mirror in front of it, acres of counter space between the sinks, cabinets underneath separated by a space where the woman of the house, if there was one, which there wasn’t, could put a bench and have a dressing table. Behind the sinks a room with the toilet, giving privacy – to the left, if you were facing it. Across from that, a shower stall big enough to fit two. In between and up two carpeted steps, a huge, oval sunken tub. Beyond the bathroom was an enormous walk-in closet nearly as big as the bedroom.
Layne threw open one of the double doors that led out to the large open area at the top of the stairs that held his weight bench, weights, a treadmill, a wall filled with in-built shelves, cabinets and a desk unit under the wide window where his computer was, a beat up swivel chair in front of it.
He walked through the room and to one of the doors at the opposite side of the stairs. He knocked loud, twice. His hand went to the handle, he pressed down and pushed in, swinging his torso into the dark room, he saw his youngest son Tripp dead asleep in bed.
“Tripp, up, shower,” he ordered, his voice loud.
Tripp’s body moved, rolled. “Wha?”
“Up, boy, shower. You’re late. You gotta get to school,” Layne told his son.
“Right,” Tripp mumbled and rolled back to his stomach.
“Now, Tripp,” Layne demanded, pushed the door all the way open and walked down the hall to the next door.
He knocked, twice again, and then opened the door. There was movement immediately but this was Jasper’s dog, Blondie, a way-too-friendly yellow lab. She jumped from Jasper’s bed and moseyed to the door, her body swaying with the force of her wagging tail. His son, however, didn’t move.
Blondie skirted him and then stopped, her body close, she wanted out.
The room smelled like teenage boy and dog. Not a great combination.
“Jasper, get up. Time to get ready for school,” Layne called, again loud.
Jasper didn’t move.
“Jas, get up,” Layne said louder.
Jasper’s body moved, only slightly, but he didn’t make a sound.
“You’re up, showered and downstairs in fifteen minutes. Get me?” Layne informed him, pushed open the door and flipped on the bright overhead light as added incentive.
Tripp was a big fan of the snooze button but Tripp would get up. Tripp would do what he was told.
Jasper would not. Jasper was not a big fan of getting up. He was even less a fan of school. And he was even less a fan of his old man and especially his old man telling him to do something. He was supposed to set his alarm and wake his brother if Tripp wasn’t up. He never did because he never set his alarm and when Layne started doing it, Jasper turned it off just to get under Layne’s skin. This was their every day dance when his boys were with him and it never failed to piss Layne off.
Layne turned from the door and walked down the stairs, Blondie so close to his side she nearly tripped him.
She was shaking with excitement, this was her favorite part of the day. She got to go outside, which she loved, then she got to come inside to food and all her boys together at the same time, something she didn’t get very often, or, not as often as she liked.
Gabby hated dogs but she bought Blondie for Jasper two weeks before Layne moved home. She did this to be a bitch because she was a bitch and because she hated Layne more than she hated dogs. Three weeks later, when he was home and they’d established the joint custody schedule, she declared that Blondie was to stay at Layne’s no matter what.
So Tanner Layne was home for the first time in twelve years and he had an active, excitable, yellow lab puppy on his hands as well as two sons who barely knew him and one who could barely stand the sight of him and Rocky breathing the same airspace, albeit ten miles away, that was still too damned close.
His life, never great, or it hadn’t been great for eighteen years, had turned to complete shit.
He walked through the vast open space that was the kitchen and the living room to the sliding glass door that led to the backyard. He bent, yanked the steel pole out of the rails, straightened and unlatched the door. He reached out an arm, pulled down the door to the security panel, punched in the code, slapped the door back up and then slid the sliding glass door open for Blondie to go outside. She didn’t hesitate, she raced right through.
Layne slid the door closed, flipped the switch to the kitchen lights, turned and surveyed the bottom floor of his house.
For twelve years, he’d had nothing but apartments and condos. Sometimes his apartments were small, even studios. Sometimes they were large or townhomes. Some were shit, some were palaces. All of them were crash pads.
Now, to his right was the kitchen. In the far corner, countertops and cabinets at a right angle around the door to the big pantry and utility room that led to the garage. A huge triangular island with the points cut off was in the middle of the kitchen, stools in front of it on the outside. An enormous space for a dining room table by the big window, a space Layne hadn’t filled. He ate standing up or sitting in front of the TV. His boys ate at the stools, in their rooms, on the fly or sitting in front of the TV.
To his left, the living room, enormous console of cabin
ets and shelves into which he’d fit an equally enormous, big screen TV. Two reclining chairs at either end of a big deep seated couch, enough tables around where you could set your beer or bag of chips so you didn’t have to reach very far to get to it. There was a low wall and a column beyond which there was nothing but open space. Dead space. He’d never figured out what to do with it. If it didn’t store food, have a couch and TV, a weight bench or a bed, he had no use for it. So, like the dining area, it was empty.
There was a toilet and sink under the stairs, the rest of the downstairs was taken up by a two car garage that jutted out at the front of the house.
Layne stared at it, his gaze moving right, left, then right again.
How the fuck he ended up in a three bedroom house in a development with other three and four bedroom houses, all painted one of four colors, each one one of limited floorplans and with an HOA that made the Nazi party look like a bunch of pansies so pretty much the whole fucking development looked the same, he didn’t know. Hell, when he’d first moved there, more than once on his way home he’d gotten lost in the acres of houses that all looked the same and he had a highly tuned sense of direction.
Well, he thought, at least the fucker’s paid for.
He walked into the kitchen, straight to the coffeepot. He pulled out the filter, the grounds from yesterday in it, used and soggy. He dumped them in the open trash can that was so overflowing, he had to shove the trash down first so the grounds wouldn’t drip out.
It was Jasper’s week to take out the trash so of course the trash hadn’t been taken out.
He went back to the coffeepot, grabbed the glass carafe and yanked it out, going to the sink. It, too, was overflowing.
Layne sifted through the schedule in his mind. Last night, it was Tripp’s turn to cook, Jasper’s turn to do the dishes. Therefore, the dishes weren’t done.
Layne sighed as he rinsed out the filter and the carafe and heard the shower go on upstairs. Then he filled the carafe with water, went back to the pot and made coffee. He’d just flipped the switch when the doorbell went.
His eyes went to the clock on the microwave over the stove. Six thirty-six. Who was at his door as six thirty-six?