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All the love, sadness, and fear suddenly vanished, replaced by cold, hard rage. “No.” She shoved him, and he took a step back. “No! You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to make yourself feel better before you go. I’ll never forgive you for leaving me, Asher. Never!”
His shoulders were high and tight, tension radiating off him. The rain beat against them, the drops of water dripping off his baseball hat. His chest rose and fell with his heavy breaths. For a single second she thought he was going to gather in his arms, kiss her, and tell her he’d stay.
He didn’t. Instead he said, “Some sins should never be forgiven.”
Without another word, Asher got into his truck. Time slowed for Remy as the headlights faded away, the icy rain hammering down, and then the dark night enveloped her.
Chapter 1
Present Day
“Today we are gathered here to celebrate Damon Lane and Remy Brennan as they proclaim their love and commitment to the world.”
Asher Sullivan wasn’t sitting in the church in his hometown of Stoney Creek to celebrate. He was in the fifth pew back from where the only woman he ever loved stood, ready to marry someone else. She wore a strapless gown, fitting her five-foot-five frame to pure perfection. Her long, blond, wavy hair flowed down her back, and every time he looked into her big light green eyes, she took his breath away. She’d been with him since she was a freshman, and even back then, she’d been beautiful. Only now she was breathtaking and no longer his.
The bastard standing next to her, about to become her husband, Asher could do without. Especially considering Remy had no idea she was about to marry a con man. Or that this impending marriage was a sham to get Remy’s half-million-dollar inheritance that her beloved nana left for Remy when she passed away. Remy’s sweet grandmother who raised her from six years old had stipulated in her last will and testament that Remy would only gain her inheritance once she married.
Asher thrust a hand through his sandy-colored hair, ready to crawl out of his skin. There was no doubt the sweat trailing his spine showed through his white button-up. A pair of handcuffs poked his thigh through the pocket of his dark gray slacks, all but teasing him with anticipation to wrap them around Damon’s lowlife wrists. But Asher couldn’t act, not until the chief of police sent word that they’d received the arrest warrant.
“We are gathered to rejoice, with and for them, in the new life they now undertake together,” the minister called out in a smooth, nearly rhythmic voice.
Asher snorted. “What a load of shit.”
Heads turned and a few glares came Asher’s way, telling him he wasn’t as quiet as he’d hoped. Remy was meant to marry him, until Asher’s life fell apart when his mother committed suicide. Everything changed after that. Asher changed after that. At one point in his life, his mother was the mother everyone loved. She was cool and funny and had done everything right for Asher. That’s what made her death so hard. She deserved a good life, but what she got handed was a life married to an abusive alcoholic. Too many times, Asher wished he could go back to that day she downed a bottle of pills when his father left. Asher would have shown her she wasn’t as small and worthless as his bastard father made her feel. And he’d always regret that the only time he punched his father was the day of the funeral, telling him to never come back.
From that day on, Asher decided to never let love control him like it had controlled his mother. Love made people foolish. It made people forget the things they wanted out of life. And Asher couldn’t have given Remy what she wanted. She deserved the life his mother didn’t have. The life Asher had no idea how to give her. He’d left to give Remy the chance to find the life she deserved, and to salvage any strength that he had left in the darkest moment of his life. Only that’s not what happened.
Ten years later, he felt more lost than ever. That’s why he’d come back to Stoney Creek five years ago. He needed his hometown roots. His friends. The life he knew. Except that, for the first four years he was back, Remy barely acknowledged his existence. Of course, he understood. He’d heard while in Washington that she’d gone into a deep depression after her nana passed away soon after Asher left. Something Asher hadn’t learned until much later. She’d dropped out of college and had ended up working as a bartender. She hadn’t dated anyone. She’d given up completely on all the dreams she’d once had about opening her own New Age shop. And Asher knew that most of that was his fault. He’d set the crumbling of her life into motion the day he left her.
After he’d come home, he’d taken it slow, never pushing, giving her the time she needed to forgive him. They might never have a relationship again, but he wanted her as a friend. No, needed her as a friend. It was a selfish want, but nothing made sense without Remy in his life. It took her a year to stop avoiding places he went. It took another two years for her to have a conversation with him. When she finally seemed herself around him, she’d begun dating. And this past year, when things were good between them, Asher watched Remy fall in love with someone else.
At first, he was happy for her. Until he met the bastard and knew Damon wasn’t who he said he was. A full investigation revealed the truth about the con man. As much as Asher didn’t want to hurt Remy, he would protect her. Always.
“You need to calm down,” Boone Knight said in a clipped voice, breaking into Asher’s thoughts. Boone was a powerhouse of a guy with neat dark hair who was usually quick to smile. But right now, Boone turned his head and set his hard blue eyes on Asher. “You’re drawing attention.”
On Asher’s other side was Rhett West. His features had always been hard, and Rhett carried heaviness and darkness with him. The man was lethal, both in the military and out of it. They were both Asher’s closest childhood friends and fellow detectives. “Where is the goddamn arrest warrant?” Asher bit off.
“Remy will never forgive you if you act before having it,” Rhett shot back quietly.
Asher restrained the curses sitting on his lips and glanced back at his phone, his leg bouncing a mile a minute. Rhett wasn’t wrong. Asher had broken Remy’s heart once. He couldn’t act rashly. His instincts had gotten him through the police academy, then hired at the FBI, and now back in Stoney Creek working alongside his buddies as a detective. Those same instincts were what had him investigating Damon Lane. It only took days to realize something was wrong, but it took weeks to gather enough evidence against Lane to go to the prosecutor.
And Asher knew Remy needed that proof too.
One call. That’s what they waited for. The month-long investigation had finally delivered Damon Lane’s real name, Kyle Fanning. And Remy wasn’
t his first victim either, she was his fourth. Three previous marriages, and Fanning went by all different names.
The minister continued, “The relationship you enter into today must be grounded in the strength of your love and the power of your faith in each other.”
Asher held his tongue this time. For the briefest of glances, Remy turned her head, her gaze connecting with his. And held. Asher felt the intensity in the air between them. That had never faded, no many how many years had gone by since he last touched her. But Asher understood why she wanted to get married. For as long as he knew Remy, she had dreamed of her wedding. She told him every single detail. From the ceremony being at night under the stars, with torches lighting up the grounds. She’d shown him the exact wedding dress she wanted. He noted that this ceremony was in a church and her dress was not the one she’d dreamed of wearing. But he knew why she did this. She wanted to open up a New Age shop she’d call Black Cat’s Cauldron, and her inheritance would help make that happen. Remy believed in magic. She believed teas could bring positive energy. That herbs could heal. That burning incenses could chase away evil.
He ground his teeth and glanced down at the black screen of his phone, waiting for the damn text message to stop this wedding. Asher hunted criminals—that was his job. Most crimes he solved dealt with theft, domestic violence, and, only recently, murder. The first one to happen in town in years. But right now this crime was personal.
He came here to save Remy, but he knew he’d be stopping this wedding today. And that would devastate her. But when the time came, he’d object with or without the evidence. He just really hoped, for his life and well-being, that he had the arrest warrant and the photograph of Kyle Fanning’s last wedding.
A flash on his phone caught his attention.
Get him.
