Kristen Ashley - Raid

“Grams!” I snapped.

“This I gotta see,” Raiden drawled, and my eyes shot to him.

“Get ‘em, precious,” Grams ordered. “All of ‘em. The pink one too.”

I tore my eyes from an amused Raiden and looked at my grandmother.

“Grams, he’s a guy. He doesn’t care about afghans,” I told her.

“He cares about five hundred dollar ones. Any fool would wanna see a five hundred dollar afghan,” Grams shot back, then looked to Raiden. “All three of mine would cost that in one of those fancy shops Hanna ships them to, and let me tell you they’re worth every penny. I sit out here, dead of winter, one of Hanna’s afghans around me, snug as a bug. Like it’s August in Looseeanna, but without the humidity. I’m not joking.” Grams turned a proud smile to me. “That and her preserves, makes her livin’, and it’s a good one.” She looked back to Raiden. “Now tell me, how many folks can say they make a livin’ off knittin’, crotchetin’ and cookin’ fruit? Don’t answer. I’ll tell you. Not many. To pull that off, you gotta have sheer talent, like my Hanna.”

Again, her head turned my way.

“Well, you gonna get those afghans or what?”

I wanted to say, “Or what.”

Instead, I put my root beer down, hauled my behind out of the chair and went into the house.

Spot was on the pink afghan. He was not pleased with me moving him and therefore hissed and batted me with a paw.

“Don’t complain to me, buddy. It’s the old biddy who sent me on this errand,” I muttered.

Spot was not mollified and he shared this by hissing at me again while trying to sink his teeth into my wrist.

I escaped the Spot Attack, found the other two afghans and headed out.

“Look at those!” Grams cried like I just unveiled three masterpiece works of art. “Decadence in blanket form!”

I tossed them over the back of the chair I’d been sitting in and smoothed them out.

Truthfully, I was proud of my afghans, and Grams didn’t lie. They cost that much because the wool cost a fortune. It was the best of the best. And they were pretty; loose weave, tight weave, patterned. I was proud of them.

Even so, my eyes moved very slowly toward Raiden.

His eyes were aimed at the blankets, but he must have felt my gaze because they lifted to me.

“Gorgeous,” he said quietly, and he sounded like he meant it.

Warmth suffused my body.

“Thanks,” I replied just as quietly.

“Told you,” Grams stated. “Now you should try her preserves.”

Oh no.

I’d had enough.

“Actually, I have to get to work cleaning the house,” I said quickly.

“And I gotta get back into town,” Raiden said on the heels of my statement, and he did this while standing. He looked down at Grams. “You call Crane, Miss Mildred. Tell him you got a new lawn service. I’ll be here next Friday.”

“I’ll do that, child,” she replied then turned to me. “Walk our caller to his car, will you, chère?”

This just never ended.

Before I could do it or find an excuse not to, Raiden spoke.

“No need. Don’t have a car since I walked here. I can find my way, and I’m sure Hanna wants to finish up so she can sit back and enjoy her visit.”

He’d made it around me, but moved in to lean down and touch his lips to Gram’s creased, paper-thin cheek.

“Next Friday, Miss Mildred,” he murmured while lifting up. “Thanks for the tea.”

“Look forward to it, son.” Grams twinkled up at him. “And you’re more than welcome anytime.”

Raiden turned and looked down at me. “Later, Hanna.”

“‘Bye,” I mumbled.

His lips twitched, then his body moved and I watched him walk away.

It was a good show.

From where I stood I could see all the way to the front of the house, so I enjoyed the show until the front door closed on him.

“He’s the cat’s pajamas,” Grams declared, and I looked down at her to see she’d twisted so she was curled around her chair so she could watch the show, too.

“Time to clean toilets!” I declared brightly, purposely trying to break the mood.

I sallied forth into the house to do just that, avoiding Grams’s eyes, which I knew would hold rebuke.

Fifteen minutes later, I found something that cured thoughts of Raiden Miller, how beautiful he was and how much of an idiot I acted around him.

Cleaning toilets.

I could not do this every moment of my life, however.

Therefore, if he kept popping up, I was in trouble.

That evening…

“Seriously?” my best friend KC asked in my ear.

“Seriously,” I replied.

“Seriously?” she shrieked.

We were on the phone. I was lounging sideways on the swing on my front porch, a half-finished afghan on my lap, a glass of white wine on the table beside me.

I’d just told her about Raiden’s visit to Grams. I’d already told her days before about me bumping into him at the pet store.

Now she was freaking. Like me.

I had not, however, told her I’d gone to Rachelle’s a mortifying number of times to catch a glimpse of him.

That said, KC and I had been best friends since seventh grade, so she, along with me, had a crush on him while growing up. Somehow, both of us sharing this crush and both of us crushing huge did not destroy our relationship. It could happen to girls of that age, regardless of the fact that neither of us had even the remotest shot of that particular dream coming true.

This was how close we were.

I adored her.

She gave that back to me.

Now she was married, had a daughter and another one on the way.

I thought her husband Mark was a jackass, but no matter how close we were, I did not share this with KC. At least not openly.

She thought he walked on water.

My thoughts on this subject were that this mostly had to do with him being particularly talented in the bedroom, something which she shared, in detail, even if it meant I had to become really good at fighting my lip from curling in disgust. A feat I bested, and now I was a practiced hand, seeing as they had sex. A lot.

I didn’t want to think this of my bestie, but it could also have to do with him making a very decent living.

She said he was a lot sweeter when people weren’t around.

I hoped that was true.

Now she was freaking with me about Raiden, who I had not (outside of when I was cleaning toilets, vacuuming, dusting, doing laundry and changing sheets) been able to get out of my head.

So I was making an afghan that would eventually make me a silly huge amount of money, drinking wine and letting KC and my home work their magic.

I grew up in my house and bought it from my parents when they moved, thus I got a screaming sweet deal.

At my behest, they’d sold all the stuff inside before they moved so I could make it my own.

And that I did, going to every antique shop from Denver to Cheyenne to Albuquerque. I wallpapered. I painted. I refinished. I restored. And I made my childhood home all about me.

Countrified splendor with a healthy dose of quirk and a hint here and there of edge to knock off some of the pretty, cutesie and girlie.

It was fabulous.

Like my front porch with its white posts and railings, latticework at the edges of the posts where they met the porch roof, its swing and wicker furniture with mismatched cushions and pillows that said what my grandmother’s porch furniture said.

You’re welcome here, so sit back and stay awhile.

I lived there, and again, like my grandmother, when it was warm I was out on my porch in my swing, sitting back and staying awhile.

Like now.

“What do you think this means?” KC asked in my ear.

“I think it means Mrs. Miller told her son to check on Grams, and he’s a good guy so he’s going to mow her lawn,” I answered.

“It does not,” she returned and I smiled.

“It does, KC.”

“How about this scenario?” she began. “He got a load of you being cute and goofy and he’s into that, so he popped by your Grams on a day when every-freaking-body knows you go over there to get another fix of Hanna-Style Cute and Goofy.”

I burst out laughing, and after I did this for a bit, still laughing, I told her, “Seriously, I’m not his type.”

Silence then, “You know his type?’

I had also not shared that I saw him with the pretty, cool skank. That had been too painful to share, and further, I adored KC, and even though she was married that didn’t mean she couldn’t crush, and I didn’t want to pollute her fantasy either.

Now, however, was the time to share.

Forcing nonchalance, I answered, “Yeah. I saw him making out with someone a while back. Lots of hair. Lots of chest. Lots of tight clothes. Skinny-minnie and short.”

More silence then, “That’s damned disappointing.”

It was.

But whatever.

“Anyway, half of Willow troops to Grams’s and offers to help out. It was a Miller’s turn,” I told her.

“I prefer to think Raiden Ulysses Miller is into cute and goofy, not skinny, short, big-boobed and big-haired,” she retorted.

I preferred to think that, too.

Incidentally, like every girl who knew him way back then, KC thought of him with his middle name. That made a cool name doubly cool, and thus we frequently referred to him as such in spoken conversations.

Like now.

“Well yeah, but he isn’t and whatever,” I said. “Helping Grams out is just a cool thing for him to do. Now Grams can pocket Dad’s yard money and blow it on mah jongg.”

“She’s got an extra twenty bucks to bet, she’s going to own half the town. My Gram says she’s kills at mah jongg.”

I blinked at my wool. “She tells me she’s always losing.”

I could hear KC’s laughter in her next words, “She lies.”

I then heard a car approach and I looked from my wool to the drive.

I lived in a wooded area about a five-minute drive from town that looked half-Colorado, half-someplace else. This was because my Dad planted a bunch of trees all around, so we had conifers, we had aspen and we had everything else under the sun that would take in the arid climate. We also, which meant that now I also, owned an acre all around.

So with trees and land, my two-story, three bedroom, two and a half bath farmhouse was cozy, isolated and quiet.

Exactly the way I liked it.

Except for right then as I was sitting on a porch swing, having taken off my white going-into-town outfit. I’d put on a pair of red knit shorts that said “USC” in yellow across the butt (my brother’s alma mater) and a shelf-bra camisole that left little to the imagination. My face was clean of makeup. My hair was in a messy knot on top of my head. And my wits were partially washed away as I was well into my third glass of wine.

But I was going to need them.

And I was going to need them because a hunter green Jeep was approaching my house.

“Holy Moses, KC,” I whispered into the phone. “I’m watching a green Jeep drive up to my house.”

“No shit?” she whispered back.

She knew what this meant. Every girl in town, I figured, knew that Jeep.

“None at all.” I was still whispering.

“Ohmigod, is it him?” she asked.

The Jeep stopped close to my front walk.

I could see through the windshield.

This meant I stopped breathing, so I had to wheeze out my, “Yeah.”

“Holy fuck!” she shouted.

Raiden swung out of the Jeep.

My heart flipped over.

“I think I gotta go,” I told KC.

“You think?” she asked.

I didn’t answer.

I couldn’t.

Raiden Ulysses Miller and his big gorgeous body were walking up to my house.

“Report back the minute he leaves,” KC ordered.

“Righty ho,” I muttered the instant his boot hit the first step up to my porch.

I beeped the phone off and watched him climb the next four steps. Then I watched him saunter five paces to me where he stopped.

He did not speak.

I didn’t either.

His eyes moved from my hair to my feet to my hair again.

My eyes stayed glued to his eyes.

He turned his head around a bit and took in the porch.

I kept my head stationary and took in him.

Then his eyes came to mine. “Are you shittin’ me?”

I blinked.