here - Aubrey Leatherwood

If You Asked Me To
Playing With Fire
Copyright, 2010 © Aubrey Leatherwood
This e-Book is a work of fiction. While references may be made to actual places or events, the names,
characters, incidents, and locations within are from the author's imagination and are not a resemblance to
actual living or dead persons, businesses, or events. Any similarity is coincidental.
Aspen Mountain Press
18121-C E. Hampden Ave, Ste 221
Aurora CO 80013
www.AspenMountainPress.com
First published by Aspen Mountain Press, November, 2010
www.AspenMountainPress.com
This e-Book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal
and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction fines
and/or imprisonment. The e-Book cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this e-Book can
be shared or reproduced without the express permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-60168-281-9
Published in the United States of America
2

Maybe this was grief, not fear…
Aubrey Leatherwood
Chapter 1
Shelley put her arms around her knees and rocked. The cell phone in her hand
grew hot and moist from how tightly she clutched it. Absentmindedly, she pressed
buttons. It lit up then she counted the seconds until the screen grew dim.
Over and over again.
Felt like hours.
In her mind, she kept seeing her mother’s face. The image varied between
narrow-eyed, pursed-lip disapproval and distance built on both natural and chemically
enhanced apathy. She’d never liked Shelley. Not once had her face held a warm smile
or even begrudging approval for her daughter. Shelley didn’t kid herself. It was
possible it had never held love either.
But she had been someone and she had been there.
Then this morning, at ten a.m. precisely, Donna Francis died in her favorite blue
morning dress sitting in a dingy aluminum lawn chair wedged into broken pavement
behind the house. Her silver-streaked hair had been perfect as always despite the grimy
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If You Asked Me To
housecoat covering a wasting body. An unfinished fourth glass of gin tilted in her hand.
Even in death, she hadn’t spilled a drop.
Now, Shelley had no one.
Though she had spent every year since she was fifteen years old working toward
this day, Shelley had not been prepared when it came. Insurance was an illusion.
not fear.
Alone.
Maybe this was grief and not fear.
Shelley had always known she would be alone one day. Maybe this was grief…
Maybe this was fear…and not…longing.
Not sure what time it was, not sure of anything more than darkness and
mosquitoes, she pressed a button on her phone again. Then another. Then another. At
the end, her thumb hovered over the send key.
Slowly she shook her head from side to side, her mind answering “no” to the
question burning through her gut and her heart.
Her legs shook as they ached, and Shelley released them, letting them slide to the
floor. She wondered if she would cry this time, but a familiar dry burn pricked her eyes.
No tears.
She should hang up.
* * * *
He answered the phone like this: “What, Shell?” The words were gruff and
crackled across the phone lines.
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Aubrey Leatherwood
“Hey Raymond.” Normality permeated her voice. Shelley infused it with balance
and clean modulation. He would never know that anything was wrong. Of course he
wouldn’t.
For so long, when Ray said he loved her, Shelley knew he didn’t. He couldn’t if,
after all their time together, he still couldn’t read her. He had never been able to tell
when her voice or expression lied, which meant he didn’t know her. And if he didn’t
know her, then what he loved was nothing more than a daydream.
The thought reminded her of the enormity of this emotion, whatever it was, that
had driven her to call him, to put herself through this. Why had she done it? Didn’t she
realize he wouldn’t know anything was wrong, that she would have to tell him? And
that was something she couldn’t do, had never been able to do.
fire.
“What…Shelley?” His words ground like dry, flinty gears. Angry, smoldering
His fire ignited her own temper. If only he knew, he wouldn’t be so cruel to me. If
only he knew… Brash as ever, heated as ever, she attacked. “That’s all you have to say?
You haven’t talked to me in all this time and all you can say is, ‘What, Shelley’?”
heard.
“I’m hanging up.”
“Don’t.” Desperation crackled in her voice then softened it. She wasn’t sure if he
Maybe he didn’t. Maybe that’s why he hung up the phone.
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If You Asked Me To
Chapter 2
Ray picked up the phone again, but he dialed Jessica’s number to douse the fire
of old wounds.
“Hello?” The voice was high-pitched and vibrant.
“Jessica.”
“Oh my God, Ray, you sound like death warmed over! Are you okay? Are you
coming down with something?”
“I’m fine, Jess.”
“You sure?” she asked but did not give him time to answer. “I’m so glad you
called. Linc and I were just talking about you.”
Ray squeezed his eyes shut. He’d missed her. At least he thought he missed her.
In fact, run-ins with Shelley or even the ghost of Shelley, which haunted him from time
to time, reminded him how much he missed Jessica…or thought he missed her.
He mumbled something.
Having mastered the skill of sending warmth and sunshine through the phone
long ago, Jessica sent him a smile he truly felt. “So tell me, what’s up with you?”
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“Not much, not much.”
“Still smoking two packs a day?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
Ray smiled, and it hurt.
Aubrey Leatherwood
Ray heard Jessica swallow on the other end as she prepared to dig in. Her
emotions were right there, on her sleeve as always. She never hid them from him or
anyone and he had loved her for it…just not enough. Never enough. “So have you
spoken with…Shelley?”
Just hearing the name sent a small shudder through him. Shelley Miller. More
guarded than an Afghani prison camp. Hard, damn near impossible to read. Sometimes
Ray wondered if she felt anything at all beyond the physical, no matter that logic and
history told him she did. He’d caught glimpses of it those few times he’d seen her
vulnerable. And he had loved her in those still and raw moments. No, not just in those
moments.
Every day without her, still, was slow suffocation. That phone call had been a fist
around his windpipe.
“Either she called you or…you called her,” Jessica commented. Ray searched for
a trace of bitterness in her voice, but did not hear one. Softer, she said, “You’re only like
this when you talk to her.”
Ray was silent.
“So you called her.”
7

He let out a pained grunt.
“No, she called you.”
He nodded as if she could see him.
“What did she say?”
“Not much.”
“What happened?”
“I hung up on her.”
“Okay.”
If You Asked Me To
“I don’t know what she wanted.” When Jess didn’t respond, he rushed to
apologize. “I know it’s wrong to call you. I shouldn’t talk to you of all people about
this.” But Jess wouldn’t complain. She would listen. She would be soft and make him
feel better and his chest would swell up like Superman by the time they got off the
phone. The potency of feeling like a hero had compelled him to propose marriage to her
what seemed like a lifetime ago.
“You’ve never told me the whole story.” Jessica used subtle prompts with the
skill of a mother.
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“You called off our wedding for ‘nothing to tell’?”
Were it anyone else but Jessica, definitely if it were Shelley, anger and sarcasm
would have barbed that comment. And maybe it did, just in a much more muted
manner than he could perceive. But, Jessica didn’t hate him. He knew that for sure.
Within six months of their unrealized wedding date, she’d gotten a better man, gotten
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Aubrey Leatherwood
married, and now she was about to deliver her firstborn, a boy. Plus, she still remained
oddly loyal and supportive to Raymond. She had become his friend, a relationship he’d
once thought was impossible between a man and a woman.
Jessica had been there—amazingly though he did not deserve it—when he’d
gotten his heart broken.
“Where did you meet her?”
“You don’t want to know this.”
“You’re right.” At Ray’s startled cough, she added, “But I need to. A woman
needs to know.”
“Black Horse Downs and Resort. That’s where we met.”
“You met her while you were playing poker?” Her voice had gone up an octave.
“You said you never got hung up on the cute drink girls in their little outfits.”
“No, it wasn’t like that.”
“Your dealer? No, couldn’t be your dealer or a cocktail waitress. Had to—“
“She was playing.”
“Oh!”
Her surprise stung. Ray knew she was about to remind him once more of the
man he used to be.
“It’s just that you used to hate it when women sat down to play. You said the
cards always ran bad and they never knew what they were doing. They were pathetic
with the flirting and trying to change the game. You said—“
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If You Asked Me To
“Yeah, I know.” Hell, he said a lot of things. Ray licked his lips wondering how
Shelley had ever decided to say yes to a confirmed asshole…no…Jessica. Shelley had
never said yes to him.
“So you met her at the Black H— Wait, wait, wait. You met her that same
weekend you were gone for two days straight, came back looking like hell warmed over
in the same clothes. The money weekend? Tell me you didn’t meet her the same
weekend when you— Oh, Raymond. Tell me you didn’t just meet her and—”
It was the first time in a long time he had heard her voice falter. He never should
have started this. “It wasn’t like that, Jessica. It was that weekend, yes, but I didn’t sleep
with her. And I didn’t loan her any money. What I told you was true. I played poker
nearly every minute of that weekend.”
“And came home less ‘ten thousand dollars’.”
“Right.” His lips were tight, but he forced the word out. He could hear the air
quotes around the words “ten thousand dollars”. Okay, so maybe Jess was willing to let
a little of that resentment show.
After a pause, she asked an unexpected question. “What does she look like?”
“Huh?”
“Is she prettier than me?”
A more ridiculous question Ray had never heard. “You’re beautiful, Jess. Always
have been, and I’ve seen your mama, I’m sure you always will be.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Would a man answer that question?”
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Aubrey Leatherwood
“Sure he would if only one of the women was present, like now. He would tell the
woman he was talking to that she was prettier.”
Maybe, but he couldn’t do that. It would feel…wrong somehow. “You would
have to know her.”
He imagined a furrow in Jessica's brow. “I would have to know her to
understand why you aren’t saying she’s either prettier or less pretty than I am.”
There was no way to answer that. Ray wasn’t completely sure what she had said.
“I thought I needed to know, but now I’m not so sure I can do this.”
“I understand.”
“I’ll have to talk to you later.”
He nodded as if she could see him.
* * * *
He didn’t feel better after talking to her this time. The words left unspoken
between him and Jessica had served to worsen the ache in his chest. Plus…
There was something in Shelley’s voice. Something…wrong.
He pulled out his cell phone and checked his call log. There was her number.
He’d long since taken her name out of his phone, but what did that matter when he
knew her number by heart. He ran his thumb across the screen as if it was a soft bottom
lip.
He knew something was wrong, but he wasn’t going to ask. And he wasn’t going
to call her back only to pretend like nothing was wrong and sit there on the phone with
her saying nothing. He wasn’t going to meet at the hotel with her saying nothing. He
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If You Asked Me To
wasn’t going to let her use him for comfort still saying nothing. If something was indeed
wrong, she would never tell and she would expect him to deal with her silence. Well, he
wasn’t going to do it this time.
to.
Ray cursed. He didn’t care. He didn’t care. He was going to let this go. He had
The sun hadn’t been down for long. It was the perfect time to tend to the grass in
the backyard. Maybe a couple of projects outside using his hands would help.
Two hours later, he sat, legs crossed at the ankles, swirling a brandy on the rocks
with one hand as a ribbon of smoke rose from the cigarette between his fingertips. The
sky grew an even darker purple as the sun retreated.
He thought of her.
Shelley.
For the first time in a long time, he let himself remember the night he met Shelley
Miller and he had become—for what good it did him—a better man.
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Aubrey Leatherwood
Chapter 3
Two Years Before
Walking into a poker room, no matter where it was or what the clientele, felt like
walking into athletic tryouts. Ray played baseball and ran track for years in high school
and college. Every time he’d walked onto a tryout field his stomach stopped
cooperating and his heart made itself known with a furious rhythm. Testosterone
mounted as men prepared to face off. Each sensation—the scent, the taste, the feel of
anticipation and competition—amplified.
On that day, the feeling compounded a thousand times as Raymond sat down to
a high stakes table for the first time. Finally, after a year, his real estate and contracting
business had netted its first profit from an independent property flip—one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars for eight weeks of work after expenses. Ray still had trouble
conceiving how much money that was. After paying his team, he had looked at his
bank balance over and over again, wondering what he was going to do with the money
that wasn’t set aside for investing in a new property.
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If You Asked Me To
After Jess suggested that he do something he’d always wanted to do, Ray found
his way to the casino. No more one- or two-dollar tables with hundred-dollar buy-ins.
For once, just one time in his life, Ray was going to the big game. With his blood
rushing, he took ten grand out of the bank one Friday and stared at it overnight. The
following morning, he headed to the horse-track-cum-casino, Black Horse Downs. Jess
didn’t really care for gambling, so she’d bid him goodbye that Saturday morning with a
sweet kiss before she took her share of their earnings and taken a trip to the spa with
her girlfriends. How women could lay around all day getting honey and sea salt rubbed
on them, he’d never know.
Immediately after arriving at the Downs, he went to the cashier’s desk to
exchange his money for chips. The cashier, a slim man with dark, craggy skin and pop-
eyes, educated him on opening a line of credit rather than carrying a giant stack of cash
into the casino. Feeling the tiniest shimmer of self-consciousness for not knowing the
protocol, Ray filed that bit of information away and with his heart beating so hard it
seemed like it was smashing its way up his throat and out of his mouth, he went into
the frosted glass double doors leading to the high stakes poker room.
A very short lady with freckles, slanted eyes, and a sunny smile directed him to a
table where six players were already seated. Nodding at the dealer, a man with a very
young face despite the fact he was balding, Ray sat down and gave a loose glance at the
competition. There were three old codgers sitting at the table. Two of them had fading
tattoos on their arms: one with a watery blue anchor, the other with spurs and crossing
six shooters. A kid in a dark blue hoody sat to the dealer’s left. A middle-aged guy with
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Aubrey Leatherwood
the smell of deodorizing body spray and corporate America all over him sat to the
dealer’s right, beside…an…incredible-looking woman. For the time being, Ray tried to
ignore her.
He didn’t like women at the poker table. They always threw off the game by
either talking too much or slowing up play because they didn’t know what the hell they
were doing. The only thing worse was when they started the damn flirting and
giggling. It had been enough to make him change tables once or twice. That couldn’t
happen this time, not in a high stakes game, and he wasn’t going to let this one thing
get in the way of the experience.
But damn, one look had told him that she was pretty. Really pretty.
Coolly, after he had stacked his chips on the dark plum felt of the table—the first
time he’d sat at a table that wasn’t green—Raymond allowed himself a subtle glance at
her.
Her hair was black and shiny as wet tar falling straight past her shoulders. A
wayward lock, tucked behind her ear, came forward to frame her face and rest against
one outstanding breast. She had huge, black eyes with long, black lashes that kept
calling his gaze back to her. And he liked her lips. They were full but not so much that
he questioned their authenticity. Just pretty, kissable lips with a berry-tinted sheen that
looked delectable. Stunning.
Just another reason for Raymond to dislike females at a table. And this being his
first time at the big show only worsened that feeling. She might be hot, but he wasn’t
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If You Asked Me To
going to allow himself to get lost in a nice pair of tits and some sexy eyes… And nice
lips. And…
He folded the first couple of hands. He was still a little scared of the twenty-five
dollar antes, hundred fifty and three hundred dollar blinds. Besides, Ray preferred to
assess the play of the people at the table first. Right off he found himself surprised.
Traditional roles had been flopped on their head at this table. The young guy was
playing like a nit. Despite a big stack of chips, he was extremely reluctant to participate
in hands. One of the older fellows, however, turned out to be a table bully, throwing
chips in just to buy pots, which was working more than anyone liked. And she…her…
the female at the other end of the table, well he had no read on her at all.
For one thing, she wasn’t talking. For another, she wasn’t flipping her hair or
flashing smiles at the men at the table. When she was heads up in a pot, more often than
not, her eyes were cast down, staring at her chips as she stayed perfectly still, trying to
betray nothing. What was worse, her play varied from one hand to the next. She was
loose. She was tight. She was inconsistent. Dangerous in a poker player. So hard to read.
Ray couldn’t stop studying her, even if he tried to do it on the sneak. Her stack
was impressive, definitely bigger than his, not quite as big as the kid’s but ten times
more than Mr. Office Guy next to her.
She noticed him staring. Black eyes met Ray’s, and she raised her head in a
greeting. The move had been slight, tight to her body, probably not noticed by anyone
else at the table…and…it seemed sarcastic. It was hard for him to put a finger on it, but
without a smile, it felt like Black Eyes had caught him staring and found it amusing.
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Aubrey Leatherwood
Ray didn’t like that. So, the very next hand found him heads up with her, mano à
mano. Now, he had a perfectly legitimate reason to look at her. He could study her
without embarrassment.
Her eyebrows were thick. Not like a wolfman’s but they were full and acted like
two broad, expressive strokes over those black eyes. He’d seen her scrunch them
together in thought or pretense of thought and seen them raised as she contemplated
questionable play. At that moment, they were level, telling him nothing. He had no clue
what she had in her hand and he only had a middle pair. Two sevens weren’t
frequently big winners, but he bet anyway and found her taking down the pot in this
first scrimmage with two pair, her pocket pair of eights combined with two threes on
the board.
She didn’t gloat when she won. She didn’t even look at him. Instead, she tipped
the dealer and asked for a cocktail waitress. Their server was tall and slim with pale,
nearly translucent skin, which contrasted with the tiny black outfit she wore. Several
pairs of eyes drank in the classic beauty, but Ray watched Black Eyes instead. She licked
her lips in what looked like a nervous gesture, placed her order, then started toying
with her chips in one hand.
Ray ordered a beer despite the fact that most everyone else ordered coffee, sodas,
or juice. Mr. Office Guy raised his own empty cocktail glass as a salute to him. When
Ray nodded back, the fellow introduced himself as Bill.
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If You Asked Me To
“Hell, I coulda guessed that,” Ray tossed out. The rest of the table got a chuckle
and before long, everyone had loosened up a little and Black Eyes finally had a name—
Shelley.
After two or three hours, the table got a lot more talkative and Ray discovered
that Shelley also had a foul mouth and an intensely perverse charm. She could talk any
man at the table into calling a hand just by hinting that he might be a bitch if he didn’t.
Ray didn’t like women who cursed or acted less than ladylike. At least, he’d never been
attracted to one before. Not once. Jessica had grace instilled in her from birth and had
worked as a consultant at the state level in a national pageant, when she worked at all.
And yet, here he was, unnervingly fascinated with the exotic beauty. He was a bit
surprised that no one else seemed to notice it, including the woman in question. Still no
use of wiles, still no flirting, unless one called crude taunting and spilling coffee flirting.
There was a rush to help her, though, when she spilled her drink. She pushed
back from the table and it seemed that napkins exploded from thin air. A burly pit boss
came over and was helping to dry both the table and the woman. Ray felt his jaw clench
when he noticed the pit boss going for her cleavage. Shelley stopped him there,
however, and took over. The dealer replaced the deck of cards and they went right back
to playing. But she wasn’t the same after that happened. She went back to being just as
silent and disengaged as she had been when Ray first arrived.
He didn’t like it. She’d shut herself off. Just like that. So he decided to get her out
of it. She’d been getting into everyone’s headspace while they played that day. So, she
should expect someone to turn the tables.
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“So Shelley, Miss Black Eyes, what do you do for a living, then?”
“I make money.” She said it without looking up at him.
“Baby, we all make money,” Raymond responded.
“Not the way I do.” She put her nose up in the air and flashed him a half-smile.
“And I’m not your baby.”
Raymond gave her something that felt like either a grin or a sneer. He wasn’t
sure which. Then he shook his head, trying to clear it. If he didn’t pay attention—
“Heads up play.”
The dealer caught his eye and Ray realized that he was, yet again, caught up in a
pot with this woman. This time, he didn’t even know what his cards were. He’d just
called it down even though the rest of the table had folded to her massive raise.
Three high hearts came out. Raymond sighed as he pushed up the corner of his
cards: seven, three, off-suit. Club, spade. No matter what she had, he was certain he
couldn’t win in a face-off. He’d either have to fold his cards or he would have to bet and
bet high enough for her to think he had something really good.
Pride wouldn’t let him fold. Maybe nobody else at the table realized he’d lost his
train of thought, but he did, and he had a sneaky suspicion that she did as well.
He bet.
She smiled and smoothly called his bet.
The turn, or fourth card, showed an ace of hearts. Raymond’s chest throbbed.
Four hearts and one card missing for a straight flush. He was screwed.
But he bet.
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And she called.
If You Asked Me To
Two of hearts came on the river, the last and final card. All hearts on the board
and if she had one, then Ray’s hand was dead. If he bet, she would call. If he folded,
he’d look like every kind of idiot. So he checked. He wanted her to bet so he could fold
his cards without showing them and save a little face. With a wide grin, that’s just what
she did. And Ray folded.
But then she showed her cards. People rarely showed their cards at the poker
table. They usually either did it to inspire trust or to really piss someone off by showing
a bluff. Which is what she did: five, six, off-suit, spade and club.
Had Ray had the balls to stay in, he would have chopped the pot with her. Better
to split the win than look like the biggest of fools.
The cowboy to the right of him chuckled just a bit.
The woman didn’t even have the decency to look at him. She just tucked her
head and with the dealer’s assistance awkwardly raked in one of the largest pots of the
night so far, a pot funded mostly by Ray.
Ray looked down to see only a couple hundred of his ten grand left. He chewed
the inside of his jaw and noticed that even after more than eight hours and several
dealer changes, only three of the other original players remained. Bill had lost his stack
twice and gone. When the kid with the hoody realized he’d be getting no more free pots
with Bill gone, he left as well. They’d been replaced by a couple more guys, but Ray
paid them little attention. A sly look told him that the woman’s stack had more than
tripled in size since he sat down, so much so that he didn’t have to worry about being
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distracted by the modest peak of breasts out of the top of her blouse. He wanted
whichever part of that stack which had originally belonged to him back.
Ray excused himself from the table then went to find the cashier’s window,
where he was amazed at just how fast one could open up a line of credit to their entire
life. He popped outside for a quick fortifying cigarette.
Back at the table, he noticed Shelley seemed to be settling in as well. She’d taken
a break when he had. He’d found it oddly reassuring that she timed her breaks with his.
It moved him to look at her and smile, and—amazingly—she returned the favor and it
seemed just as genuine as a bud opening up for the sun. He didn’t know how it had
happened, but like he heard about crack or heroine, that first taste of her true, sweet
smile made him crave to see it again.
In just a few hours with this woman, he’d lost ten thousand dollars and become
clinically insane.
He looked at his watch and was shocked to realize that it was past midnight.
“Time for bed, pretty boy?” his nemesis asked.
“Mind your business, down there at the end of the table. Dealer, can you tell seat
eight to keep it down?”
Her giggle was unexpected and just a little unsettling. Ray felt a warm tingle on
his skin. “I’m just sayin’ maybe you should get out now that you’ve recovered a little bit
of your stack back off these guys.” She shrugged her shoulder charmingly at the other
three guys left the table. Then she threw in some chips but no cards had been dealt and
she wasn’t in the blind. She was betting just to be betting.
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If You Asked Me To
Maybe the three or four beers he’d had caused Ray to be a little more rude than
usual. “So I see you can be persuaded to straddle.”
The dealer gave him a dirty look. The pit boss off to the side gave him a dirtier
look than the dealer. The guy really looked like he wanted to kick Ray’s ass. Who was
she? Somebody’s wife? She didn’t have on a ring. She wasn’t acting attached. But maybe
that explained the minimal flirting. Ray just didn’t know.
He shifted in his seat. He hadn’t gone to the bathroom in a while and all of a
sudden, he found he had to piss like a racehorse and have another square, that’s what
his crew called a cigarette. He looked over at Shelley, who didn’t look particularly
comfortable either, after probably ten cups of decaffeinated coffee. At one point, the pit
boss even came over to ask her if she needed a break. Who did that? Really, who the
hell was this woman? She wasn’t with a dealer or the pit boss because they all seemed
to treat her like a little sister. But who was she with, and why the hell had she only
gotten up and taken a break after he left the table? Why did she always beat him back?
He shifted in his seat again.
“Time to drain the lizard?” she asked with a smirk.
“Are you checking, betting or folding?” he responded.
“Ooh, someone sounds agitated.” She chuckled. But, later after he glimpsed a
tiny little grimace, she prodded again, “Not everybody has the stamina I do, Raymond.
Feel free to take a break. I’ll be here to rake in your chips when you get back.”
Fuck if she would! This was just going to have to be a standoff. Her subtle hints
just made him dig in his heels, determined to wait her out. He went to a happy place in
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his head, where he was victorious and gloating while he watched her sashay away. And
he hadn’t seen her stand, but he knew for certain that she was a woman with a sexy
strut. Ray found that he couldn’t wait to see it.
Finally, she sat out a hand. Her face told the story, either she was in a great deal
of pain, or her bladder was talking to her. Ray wanted to crow like a rooster. Finally, he
would get relief from trying to figure out how he could go in his beer bottle under the
table without being detected.
He forgot the asinine preening as soon as he took a good look at her face. The
urge to smooth away the frown pinching her lips and the furrow lining her brow was
strong as he watched. Something wasn’t right. And she wasn’t looking at him. With an
awkward, jerky motion, her gaze still firmly planted downward, she pushed back from
the table. She bit down on her lower lip and Raymond began to worry. This beautiful,
strong woman who had been cocky as all get-out moments before, had gone soft and
worried and damned if it didn’t look like she wanted to cry. He couldn’t stop watching
her. He threw his cards in just to avoid the action of the hand.
She bent a little, reaching for something under the table.
The dealer cast her a quick glance but continued to work. That little glance
intrigued Raymond even more—what was going on? When the pit boss came to stand
near the table, Raymond had a flash of the ceaseless winner being carted off for
cheating. But when she shot the guy a glare, he backed off.
Two wide metal hoops appeared at each of her sides. She slipped her arm into
them, then wrapped her hands around the handle on each. In a less-than-fluid moment,
23

If You Asked Me To
she rose up on the crutches and eased away from her seat and the table. With a gait that
combined unsteady movements on the balls of her feet with much of her weight being
supported by her arms, she made her way toward the bathroom.
“Hey!” The dealer clapped his hands hard in front of Raymond’s face. “Don’t you
fuckin’ look at her like that.”
The pit boss came over, but not to chastise the dealer. Instead he joined the
dealer and said, “Shelley is a fixture in this place and if she sees you looking at her like
that and her feelings get hurt, you’re going to wake up in the hospital.” The pit boss
seemed to swell as his stance changed, demonstrating that he was itching to make good
on the threat.
The old cowboy, the last of the original players remaining besides Ray and
Shelley, leaned in close, and whispered, “Muscular dystrophy.”
“Bert!” the pit boss yelled.
But Bert was back to looking at his cards.
Raymond didn’t even know what that was. Muscular dystrophy, multiple
sclerosis, cerebral palsy…they were all filed in the same place in his brain. But what he
saw pained him. She wasn’t a short woman, but her upper body was stooped as she
managed the crutches. And while her lower body seemed proportionate—her hips
fleshy and rounded—Raymond could see the massive effort it took to get her legs to
propel her forward, to support her, to…
24

Aubrey Leatherwood
Suddenly, he felt tears start in his eyes, his nose start to burn, and his throat
thicken. How could someone like her…someone with such a light and such bravado
and so pretty and…
“Are you crying, man?” Bert asked. He sounded appalled. “Shit, get it together
before she comes back. You can’t let her see you like that. She’s already taken you for a
quarter.”
And so, the single most humiliating moment of his life was born. Just like that,
he had…broken…down. He hadn’t been crying but obviously the strong ache he’d felt
when he saw her had registered on his face. He ran a hand over his flushed skin. Ray
needed a drink. Another one.
The most recent cocktail waitress arrived at his side as soon as he raised his head
looking for her. “Same thing?” she asked.
“I can’t do another beer. Get me a bourbon and Coke.” Then, Raymond rose to
take himself off to the bathroom. After taking a leak and dousing his face with water, he
sniffed under his arms. Almost twenty-four hours at it so far. His body felt like it was
breaking down and the fact that he hadn’t a smoke in hours was damn near miraculous.
What the hell did she feel like? How had she made it so long? Muscular dystrophy. Now
he felt like a pussy and an asshole at once. Before he even mentally made the joke that
thought conjured up, he shored himself up and headed back to the table.
He could swear she looked at him like she hadn’t expected him to come back.
Her body language didn’t change much more than an almost imperceptible relaxing of
her shoulders. He had an impulse to tell her that his chips had still been on the table,
25

If You Asked Me To
she didn’t have to worry. Then he realized how crazy that sounded. He didn’t even
know her, hadn’t even had a private moment with her, and here he was, wanting to
reach out. And she was… What the hell was the right word? He didn’t think it was
politically correct to say handicapped anymore but what? Disabled?
Something dawned on him. Shelley had hidden her crutches. She’d delayed this
revelation as long as humanly possible, and she’d done it because of him. Every other
man that had been at the table, every dealer, every pit boss, they had all known. She’d
only timed her breaks with his, no one else’s. Sitting there, watching her with her eyes
down again, pretending like he wasn’t there, fiddling with her chips, he realized—she
liked him. She liked the way he looked at her and talked to her. She’d liked him enough
to be scared of spoiling it.
But now that he knew, she assumed he wouldn’t want to talk to her anymore. He
could tell from her posture. One shoulder higher than the other, arms pulled closer to
the body, and those eyes, those beautiful eyes fixed on the table. It wasn’t such a hard
read. Either that or he was beginning to get to know her. She assumed that—
“All in.” Her words were deadpan. Her eyebrows were level again and she was
staring him in the eye.
No one called. The action was on Ray. The last time he’d been in this position,
she’d had him dead to rights but not by much. She’d also successfully bluffed him a few
times with that same look.
A metallic clink interrupted his thoughts. Shelley looked down and flushed with
embarrassment. She’d accidentally kicked her crutches.
26

Aubrey Leatherwood
Ray folded before he realized that he’d actually been committed to that pot, more
than half of his money was in there. So far he’d lost nearly fifty thousand dollars and
every time he took a moment to think about that, the cardiac arrest started. He’d
already squandered all the profit as well as part of what he had set aside for his next
property. All because he’d gotten wrapped up in this high stakes game with her.
He’d figure out a way to get it back. He’d figure out something. The money he
had left was still more money than he’d had when he’d purchased that first property.
He could just do it again, work just as hard. Still, gambling this money away the way he
had was going to make him sick to his stomach when he stopped to think about it.
Shelley was raking in chips and ignoring him again. For the first time, he
understood the awkward movements she used when reaching over the table. Her
bottom half didn’t seem as if it always cooperated with her.
“Can you color me up as best you can, Harley? I’m going to get out of here.”
It took a few minutes to register with Ray, but when he realized she was leaving,
his whole body reacted and he felt like begging her to stay. Then he promptly felt like
an idiot. He flipped open his cell phone. He’d missed two calls and a text from Jessica.
The text came after the calls and just said:
“Hv a gud time. Gon to bed. Cya 2mar.”
Ray felt like pure shit. He hadn’t thought about her once since he entered the
casino. The text had only come in about a half hour before. Odds were he still had time
to call her.
“I’ve got it!”
27

If You Asked Me To
Shelley’s aggravated voice broke into his thoughts. He watched as she worked to
get her crutches on while taking a stack of six trays of chips with her. It was impossible.
Ray folded his cards, nodded at the table, then grabbed his chips and stuck them
in his pockets. He didn’t have so many that he needed a tray. He rounded the table and
while the pit boss stood impotent as a eunuch while Shelley struggled, Ray held his
hands out.
with you.”
“Give me the chips. I’m not going to steal them.”
“I can get them myself, thank you.” Her tone was not pleasant.
“I’m not saying you can’t. I’m saying I’m done playing, and I’d like to walk out
Big, black eyes narrowed as she scrutinized him. Still, it must have been the right
thing to say, because where she hadn’t allowed the pit boss to help, she let Ray stack her
chip trays—filled with hundred, five hundred, thousand, and five thousand dollar chips
—and carry them beside her as she fixed her crutches in place. She turned back to say
goodbye to the dealer and started off ahead of Ray.
“You didn’t have to do this,” she told him when they were away from the table.
The pit boss and a casino guard followed a discreet distance behind them.
“I know.”
“I’m just saying…you didn’t.”
“If you’re so mad about it, why did you let me?”
“I didn’t want to argue.”
28

Aubrey Leatherwood
“We don’t know each other well enough to argue,” he commented. Where had
that come from?
Luckily, her response was a small smile that looked a tad like a smirk. They
walked in silence, Ray measuring his steps so that his pace matched hers.
“I’m surprised they didn’t just take your chips at the table and bring you back a
receipt or something.”
“They would have. I didn’t feel like sitting there waiting while I watched you—
guys, you guys play.” She caught herself smoothly, but not quite smoothly enough.
Ray heard the hesitation, but he didn’t call her on it. Instead, he just slid the trays
up on the counter at the cage and stepped back while Shelley conducted her business.
One hundred eighty-nine thousand dollars. Ray nearly choked. Sure, he didn’t
know how much she bought in with, but that woman had made a killing in less than
twenty-four hours. It took everything he had to keep his face from expressing how
impressed he was by the sum. Up to that day, he’d been happy to walk out with a
hundred and eighty-nine dollars.
Shelley didn’t receive any money back. Instead, she ambled over to him with a
rhythmic aluminum clink.
“You can go now.”
Ray looked into her eyes. Despite her disease, they were still mesmerizing. He
mentally kicked himself. What did her disease have to do with how pretty her eyes
were? She started away, but with little effort, Ray was at her side again. He couldn’t let
her go.
29

ago.”
If You Asked Me To
Chapter 4
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” she asked, her nose wrinkled.
Ray checked his watch.
“You keep looking at that thing. You’d think it would have sent you home hours
“You’d think.” Ray tapped the face of his watch. “Doesn’t always work though.
Now that,” he motioned to a jewelry display behind security glass as they exited the
casino and entered the foyers where high-end shops lined the walls, “that’s a watch.”
Surprisingly, she stopped to shuffle nearer the glass. She leaned in and studied
the cobalt blue watch detailed with sparkling diamonds. “That’s nice.”
Ray leaned in next to her, still not sure what the hell he was doing. “I like the one
behind it, too.”
“It’s nice, but it’s not really stylish. You know, platinum band, silver face, boring.
I like the first one you picked better.”
30

Aubrey Leatherwood
“Yeah, but I bet you that’s more money than…” He didn’t know what to say. He
would sound like a man who worried about money, but he’d spent twenty-four hours
trying to represent a man who didn’t. What would she think if she…
“What do you do for a living?”
Ray paused.
“You asked me what I do. What do you do?”
“I work in real estate.”
“Selling real estate?”
“Actually, no. Or rather, not just selling. I’ve been a contractor for years, I have a
couple people who work with me that sell, and well, I just bought, renovated, and sold
my first property.”
“Wow. Congratulations.” Her smile and her response were so unexpected with
their sincerity. Ray felt it on his skin like warm summer rain.
Still…
“You want to celebrate with me?” It was impulsive and stupid. He knew that.
Her smile faded. “Look, what do you want? Your fifty thousand dollars back?”
She turned too fast with those words and down she went. Ray was there before
she hit the ground. Her body filled his arms and he held onto her until she was steady.
Curious eyes turned on them, and she looked like she was going to die. Her expression
tortured Ray to see it.
“I feel like I’m about to drop, too,” he murmured, wanting to put her at ease.
31

If You Asked Me To
She looked like she wanted to smile seconds before her expression turned stony
again. “I do this all the time. I walk around by myself all the time. I don’t need your
help.”
“But you still need to eat, right?”
“Huh?”
“Let me buy you a snack in the snack bar.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know you.”
“I’m not asking you to leave the casino and hop in a white van with no windows
with me, just to go grab a bite.”
“Do you have a white van with no windows?”
Ray nearly choked. The truth certainly had the potential to get him in trouble.
“Actually, I do. I mainly drive my truck, but the van’s convenient for transporting
things in the rain.”
“You work when it rains?”
“If I can.”
Shelley agreed to eat with him after telling him she was going to have the casino
check him out and record his information. Ray wasn’t insulted until he had to give up
his license temporarily to a fellow who had been trailing them without notice. Still, he
escorted her to the casino’s burger joint and sat across from her while she ate and
talked. He wondered more than once what the hell he was doing.
32

Aubrey Leatherwood
It turned out she really did make money for a living. Shelley was a senior
currency analyst. She traded money to make money. When he accused her of being a
gambler all around, she only laughed and agreed with him. Ray also discovered that
part of the reason she loved her job was because she could work from anywhere with
an IP connection and she could keep whatever crazy hours she wanted.
Ray tried to prolong their meal as long as he could, because he knew as soon as
she was done, she was going to fly, and he wasn’t ready for that. Before they parted
ways, he just wanted…
Hell, he didn’t know what he wanted.
“Do you want to go for a walk?”
“I’m sorry?” It was the last thing he’d expected her to request. If her lowered
eyes and soft smile meant anything, she’d been surprised at the impulse herself.
“A walk? I’ve built up my stamina quite a bit but when I’m sitting for such a
long time…I just… It’s important that…”
table.
“I could go for some exercise.” Ray took out a twenty and dropped it on the
Shelley stared at the money on the table. “You don’t have to.”
“Done already.”
“You do realize I just took you for three stacks if you count rebuys, right?”
“I let you win.” Ray laughed, but he noticed that she didn’t. He could have
kicked himself for saying that. “I didn’t mean that Shelley, but I’m still not going to let
you pay. That’s not how my folks raised me.”
33

If You Asked Me To
She skated past his comment. “We’re not on a date.” She steadied her crutches
then started away.
Ray felt his face get warm, but he followed her away from the diner anyway.
As he walked beside her, he put his hands in his pockets. Better that than for him
to absentmindedly offer her his arm. She was not comfortable enough with him not to
be self-conscious about her illness.
Shelley led him into the main hallway of the casino, then through the lobby to
the guest elevators. Whereas other guests flashed their badges, Shelley didn’t flash
anything and the guard smiled at her and called her by name.
“Where exactly are we going for a walk?”
“I’m not taking you to my suite if that’s what you think. There’s a pool and a
track on the roof.”
And so there was. Ray spent the next hour getting to know her as they walked
slowly, softly together. Then he spent another hour lounging in a beach chair as she
lounged next to him and expounded ad nauseum on foreign exchange rates. He only
followed about half of it, but he liked her excitement as she spoke. He liked her voice.
He just liked being with her. Except for those tense moments when she mistook his
interest or concern for pity. Hard words always followed. Not quite venomous, but
abrasive, distancing. Except for those, he absolutely loved being with her.
“It’s eight in the morning,” Shelley observed when one of the hotel staff
members came out to roll the cover back from the pool.
“Yeah.”
34

“I need to sleep.”
“Me, too.”
“Can’t sleep for long though.”
“Why not?”
“I’m in a tourney at noon.”
Aubrey Leatherwood
“You’re going to play poker all day again today?”
“Yeah, it’s how I relax.”
“What’s the buy-in?”
“Oh it’s cheap, two fifty, but there’ll be at least a hundred entrants, so final table,
a few thousand dollars. Easy.”
“Sounds like fun.” This from a man whose highest buy-in at a tournament cost
sixty dollars with a fifteen-dollar add-ons. But hell, he’d lost more money that day than
he’d ever lost before, so…
“You should play in it.”
“Nah, I live two hours away. I can’t drive home and be back in time, and I know
I won’t make it to noon.”
“Yeah, where do you live?”
“New Bakersfield. What about you?”
“The same, when I’m not here that is.”
“How often are you here?”
“About a week out of the month.”
“That sounds expensive as hell.”
35

If You Asked Me To
“Not so bad. But I try to make it back at the tables whenever I’m here anyway.”
“Hell, you made enough to live here for a couple of years tonight.”
“Yeah.” She grinned. “I did, didn’t I?”
“Do you always do that well?”
She rolled her head toward him. “No. You caught me at a once-a-year thing.
Normally, I’m at the five, ten tables.”
“Me too.”
“Yeah.” She winked at him. “But I do pretty well at those tables, too.”
“Everybody seems to know you.”
She picked up one of the crutches lying on the lounge chair next to her. “Hard to
miss me with these.”
you are.”
“That’s not the only reason you’re hard to miss. You have to know how pretty
She lay the crutch down beside her again and stared at the sky for a long
moment. “I hate hearing that.”
“You hate hearing that you’re pretty?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
“It’s hard to explain. You couldn’t know what it’s like for a woman to hear every
day of her life how pretty her face is as if there’s nothing else to commend, nothing else
to want or to—to—”
To love. That’s what she didn’t say.
36

gravely.
Aubrey Leatherwood
“Then I’ll be the first to tell you, you’re ugly as all outdoors,” Ray told her
She snorted.
“U-G-L-Y, you ain’t got no alibi—”
“Shut up!” she interrupted, but she was laughing. Ray liked her laugh.
He nestled deeper into his chair. “Maybe I should just sleep right here until the
tournament. It’s comfy.”
“Listen, Ray, I don’t know you from Adam, which is why you can’t stay in my
room even after Roger’s background check.”
“Roger?”
Her eyes lit up when she smiled. “Yes, Roger. I know he doesn’t look like a
Roger but don’t say anything about it. He’s sensitive. Anyway. If you want to take a
nap, I’m sure I can get you a room.”
let it go.
“Really?”
“Sure,” she said and started to rise.
Ray rushed to her side but she refused his help. He was a little hurt by that, but
As they walked back to the elevator, Shelley said, “We’ll see if they can find you
some clothes or something, too.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. You stink.”
“You stink,” he returned.
37

If You Asked Me To
* * * *
They met at eleven. After buying spots in the tournament, they went back to the
snack bar for a light bite.
“How’d you sleep?” Shelley asked looking fresh as a daisy in a yellow blouse
and loose jeans.
“Great,” Ray returned though he felt like hell. He hadn’t really slept. Instead, he
lay in the dark thinking alternately about how he was going to come up with fifty grand
or at the very least hide the loss from Jess and the guys and Shelley. What the hell was
he doing? He’d asked himself that a thousand times in the past twenty-four hours, but
hadn’t come up with an answer yet. At first, maybe he’d been attracted to her before he
knew about the disease. After, he’d wanted to help her. He’d wanted to make sure she
avoided embarrassment. Then…then, he just hadn’t wanted to leave her. Even lying
down, he wondered if she were sleeping or if she was up thinking, too.
They ate quickly with easy conversation interspersed with moments of
comfortable silence then rejoined the tournament, where they barely had time to talk to
each other, because in the tournament they were assigned to different tables. On breaks,
he found her, usually still in her seat, and he talked to her even as overprotective
dealers gave him the evil eye. He got put out of the tournament at just over four hours
of play and walked away having placed high enough to recover his buy-in and he
walked over to her table. She was the chip leader. She wasn’t going anywhere anytime
soon.
38

Aubrey Leatherwood
She smiled up at him, but went right back to concentrating on her play. Ray had
to tamp down the wish that she would get put out soon so she could keep him
company.
After playing nickel slots for another hour, Ray went back to find that she was
still doing well. He was proud of her, sure, but he really needed to get home, get some
real sleep, get a shower, and figure out what he was going to do about the money.
He needed to remember that he had a fiancée. A fiancée who didn’t curse and he
didn’t curse in front of. A beautiful woman fit for magazines. Smart, soft. Perfect.
Perfectly dull. Imperfect. Nothing like Shelley. He had to remember that he had a
fiancée who was a partner in his business and much more savvy about the practical
parts of the business—like finances—than he was.
What the hell was he doing? He’d already created a bad situation, staying there
would only make it worse. He needed to get away from Black Horse Downs and he
needed to get away from Shelley Miller.
When he found Shelley the last time, he informed her that he was going home.
She’d paused long enough to look up at him with a pained expression. But, she didn’t
leave the table.
Impulsively, before he left, Ray slid her his business card and told her something
ridiculous about calling him if she ever needed home repair.
39

If You Asked Me To
Chapter 5
Of course, a week later, he still had Shelley on the brain.
He didn’t know where to find her or even what to think of his time with her, but
he couldn’t get her out of his head. Normally, he would take that to mean he was
interested in a woman. But that couldn’t be the case this time, could it? Regardless,
odds were in favor of him having just a little bit of a hard-on for her.
Luckily, Ray didn’t have to wonder about it for long. Shelly made contact with
him by way of a dark blue box a little bigger than a grapefruit delivered to the office the
following Wednesday. Inside, he found a business card. One side was white with
raised, glossy black lettering: Shelley A. Miller, Sr. Financial Analyst. The other side had
his bank name as well as his routing and account number and a dollar amount equal to
nearly what he’d lost that weekend minus a couple thousand dollars written on it.
Raymond ran a hand over his face. Ten thousand dollars. That’s what he told
Jessica he’d lost that weekend. Ten thousand dollars out of the hundred and fifty he’d
had left after paying all the debts and bonuses associated with his flip. In truth, he’d lost
40

Aubrey Leatherwood
more than fifty thousand and he was pretty sure he was just days away from a full-on
heart attack or stroke.
But it didn’t come.
Under the card, he found the Breitling watch that had given him wet dreams for
the past six months. For a minute he could only stare at it, marveling at the fine piece of
machinery. He went to take it out. But…
Shelley had bought him a watch with his own money. Had it been Jessica, he
wouldn’t have cared. She bought him presents with his own money all the time. But
this was not some benign boyfriend/girlfriend thing. This was both a welcome thing
and a stinging slap in the face. He hadn’t given her the money. She’d won it off him.
And giving it back just made it seem like charity or like she wanted to rub in that she
had so much money she didn’t need his.
Raymond ground his teeth together, but there was no way he could reject the
money. Not without thinking of something fast.
And why? Why did she do it? She’d won the money in a fair hand so…
Raymond flipped the card over and looked for her phone number.
He waited until he was home alone late Thursday evening to call her.
“Hello.” Her voice sent a thrill through him.
“Hello Shelley, this is—”
“Raymond,” she interrupted. “Yes, I recognize your voice. I suppose you got
your present.”
“Yes, that’s why I’m calling you.”
41

If You Asked Me To
“No need to thank me. It was your money to start with and—”
“I wasn’t calling to thank you,” he interrupted.
“You weren’t?”
He wasn’t? Raymond couldn’t remember for the life of him why he was calling
her other than this insidious drive to hear her voice again, to maybe see her one more
time to see if she had really been as he remembered her. Hearing her again, though,
reminded him of who she was. She wouldn’t want a thank-you.
“No. I was calling you for two reasons. One, I’d like to know how you got my
bank account number.”
there.”
“Roger,” she answered as if it weren’t completely illegal.
“I see.”
“What’s number two? What’s the second reason you called if not to thank me?”
“Well, I figured if you put your card in the box, you wanted to see me again.”
“The card was handy.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Oh grow up.”
“So, you want to see me?”
“Well, I’ll be playing tonight.”
“Have you left yet? Do you want to drive together?”
“Ah no.” The hesitation in her voice rankled. “I’m in the car now. Halfway
“Gotcha.”
42

“So…yeah.”
Aubrey Leatherwood
“Yeah, well, I’ll be there maybe around seven thirty.”
“Cool, which tables do you want to play?”
“Five, ten.” Ray had learned his lesson about high stakes tables.
“All right, well…see you there.”
* * * *
Ray wasn’t delusional enough to think that curiosity alone drove him to taking
off for the Black Horse Downs just as soon as he’d taken a shower and packed a
backpack, but curiosity was there. He’d never felt this kind of a draw to a woman
before in his life and he didn’t understand it. She certainly had the prettiest face he’d ev
— No, he wouldn’t even complete that thought, but she wasn’t the most ladylike
woman he’d ever met. She was a bit aggressive for his taste, save for those few
vulnerable moments she’d been forced to display. But what made it completely
confusing was that his nature was to be a gentleman, and she wasn’t interested. She
didn’t want him helping her and had been everything from mean to embarrassed when
he tried. And still, he wanted to see her again.
When he arrived at the casino this time, he found her table and waved at her. She
waved back, a nonchalant flip of her hand. Maybe she was in a hand, he didn’t know,
but she seemed uninterested. As he stood in the live action line to sign up, he noticed
Roger, the pit boss/body guard, walk up. He told the woman taking the names behind
the counter to put him on table 7-2, then he motioned for Ray to come forward and led
him to the table. He sat him down right next to Shelley, who didn’t say a word.
43

If You Asked Me To
Ray took a deep breath. He was at the table because of her, for sure, but she
hadn’t acknowledged him. Playing cards and waiting her out seemed like a good
strategy.
It was an idiotic strategy. Even though she was right there beside him and she’d
arranged for him to be at her table, and they’d swapped fifty thousand dollars between
them a couple of times—something that could be said of Ray and any other person he’d
ever encountered—she was treating him like a stranger. It drove Ray crazy and his
meager stack of two hundred dollars started to dwindle quickly.
“You don’t have to buy every flop,” she said to him in a hushed tone. “I didn’t
give your money back for you to lose the whole stack all over again.”
Ray knew what she meant. He didn’t have to stay in as many hands as he had. It
was a costly endeavor and so far it hadn’t worked for him. Her advice annoyed him,
and he said through clenched teeth, “Let me play my game.”
She gave a small shrug then threw in her hand. When she shifted and twisted in
her seat, maybe to get more comfortable, the scent of her perfume enticed him. She
smelled sweet, but not too sweet, like natural flowers. Ray found himself looking down
at her, not quite sure what to make of this situation. Maybe she was being aloof so she
could concentrate on play. Good reason, but Ray still didn’t like it.
After an hour with no words passed between them, he modified his play. He
didn’t stay in any hands unless he knew for certain Shelley was going to be in it with
him. And he started making outrageous bets to push out other players. When they were
heads up, he went all in. Each time he left the decision up to Shelley to either take him
44

Aubrey Leatherwood
out of the game or not. She folded to him more often than not. The one time she did stay
in, she doubled his stack.
“Why don’t you two get a room so the rest of us can play poker,” grumbled a
dark-skinned guy in a jersey at the other end of the table.
Ray shot him a look. So did Shelley. But shortly after the incident, she announced
that she was ready to leave the table. Maybe it was because she was ready, maybe it
was because the table was annoyed, or maybe it was to get away from Ray. The pit boss
came over to count her chips and give her cash back.
“Ahem,” Ray cleared his throat. “I’m standing up, too.”
Roger raised an eyebrow then glanced from him to Shelley and back again, but
he came around to Ray’s elbow and counted his chips as well. The sweet-smelling
woman beside him didn’t leave the table. Instead, she waited for him. When he pushed
away from the table, so did she. His instincts kicked in; he bent to help her with her
crutches and her bag, but in a very quiet voice she told him she could handle it. He took
a step back and put his hands in his pockets, looking anywhere but at her as she
struggled to get everything together. She’d been much more coordinated the last time,
even with chips, so he wondered. But he wouldn’t ask.
“What do you want to do?” She sounded matter-of-fact as they made their way
slowly down the carpeted aisle separating the poker tables from the wall of floor-to-
ceiling windows allowing players an unfettered view of the horse races.
“I don’t know.”
“What time is it?”
45

“A little after ten.”
If You Asked Me To
“Well, I have an email to send. I’m going to my room for a minute. After, we can
figure out a late dinner?”
“Yeah.” Ray shifted the bag slung over his shoulder. “Do you have an outlet
where I can let my laptop charge?”
“Yeah, sure. You can come with me while I send a couple emails.”
“You said one email.”
She smirked, but in ten minutes, Ray found himself in her first floor suite. There
was living room with a sofa, two chairs, a desk, and a tv, a kitchenette and separate
room with two pristine queen beds. Shelley sat at a desk and laid her crutches against
the wall. Her laptop was already on.
“You can turn on the television if you like,” she offered.
Fairly certain that she was going to be a minute or two, Ray did just that. There
was nothing on, really, so he flipped open his own laptop eventually and started to surf
the Internet. One of Jess’ few complaints about him was his innate ability to waste hours
upon hours just that way. So he wasn’t surprised when he heard Shelley’s voice and an
hour had passed.
“Don’t get mad, but I started on this little project and I thought I could get it
done but I need a little bit longer on it and—”
Ray prepared to tell her that it was fine and that he’d see her some other time.
“I was wondering if you’d rather order in? Room service here is great. They can
make anything and kill it.”
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Aubrey Leatherwood
“Yeah.” Ray stood and stretched. He walked over to lean against the wall near
the desk. “That sounds good.”
“Are you sure you’re not bored?” She looked up at him and he desperately tried
not to get lost in those eyes and think about how damn pretty she was.
“No. Not at all.”
Her face was still tilted up to him. The muted light of the desk lamp gave her a
soft glow that enhanced her femininity and drew him nearer. Ray took a step then
another. He was standing over her. She tilted her head back farther and the silken sheet
of her hair rippled further down her back. Without a thought in his head, his fingers
reached out to slip through the strands. He cupped the back of her head and leaned
down. A worried furrow appeared between her brows and her eyes focused on his lips.
Ray hesitated, but then her eyes fluttered closed. He pressed his lips to hers, and when
he felt her soft velvety flesh yield to him, he pushed further slipping his tongue into her
welcome warmth. Tentatively, hers came out to touch him back. Then with a moan, her
hand came up to touch the side of his face as she returned his.
From something as simple as a kiss, Ray knew he was falling. What the hell is
happening to me? he thought. He lowered himself to his knees, needing to feel more of
her against his body. She swiveled in her chair so that they faced each other and her
knees bracketed his torso. Her hands massaged his head, his neck and back, until
slowly, she pulled back and watched him carefully, still frowning.
“What do you like on your pizza?”
* * * *
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If You Asked Me To
They ate and watched a movie on pay-per-view. Shelley sat next to him on the
sofa and even let him pull her close as they watched. When the movie was done, she
went back to her desk. Hardly a word said between them, and yet it hadn’t been
unpleasant. In fact, it had been the most comfortable time Ray’d had with another
person in a long time. All except that moment when they kissed. That had caused him a
discomfort that he could only ignore for so long, but even that was as it should have
been.
Ray pulled his laptop back up and figured he might as well work on the
numbers from work, and time passed again with them in silence. Aware of each other,
but quiet.
He got up to get a beer out of the bucket from room service, when she raised her
head and asked, “You’re done?”
“No…I just can’t take the numbers anymore.”
“I understand that,” she agreed.
“No you don’t.” Ray chuckled. “You’ve been looking at just as many numbers
for hours and you haven’t even sighed hard one time.”
She gave him a guarded smile. Tight-lipped. There was something on her mind.
“What is it?”
“Why are you here?”
“Do you want me to leave?”
“No…no I don’t. I…uh like you being here it’s just…”
“Just?”
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Aubrey Leatherwood
“I have a disease that doesn’t always have handsome men falling at my feet. It’s
degenerative. I won’t get better in my life, only worse. I may not be able to have
children because my body may not be strong enough to support them. People stare at
me and they stare at people with me. Definitely you walking next to me makes them
curious. I don’t like it. You probably don’t like it. But this is…this…is the way it is.”
Nothing short of frightening, her little speech did make him question. What was
he doing? He was falling, that’s what. He would have to be careful when he responded.
One thing he’d learned about her was that she was sensitive about her condition. Who
wouldn’t be? But if he didn’t say the right thing, she would disconnect and this would
be the end of this odyssey.
great at it.”
“Will you look at something for me? I suck at balancing books and I bet you’re
“I’ll take a look,” she said with a sigh. The sigh seemed to permeate the room, as
if it let out its own air and pressure.
Ray brought his laptop over and put it on the desk while he leaned against the
wall having a beer and watching her. When the beer was gone, he yawned and rubbed
his eyes.
“You’re dead on your feet,” Shelley remarked. There was no empathy in her
voice or solicitation. It was just an observation.
“I’m fine.”
“So are your numbers. You did good. Market’s open for another couple of hours
in Japan. I’m going to be up for a while to see how it finishes.”
49

“Do you do this every night?”
If You Asked Me To
“No. Sometimes I play poker.” She raised one eyebrow then she tilted her head
toward the archway at the far end of the suite. “There are two beds in there. Go lay
down. Seriously, you probably shouldn’t drive if you’re sleepy anyway.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” She went back to typing and staring at her computer screen.
Ray stopped behind her for a moment. “Who’s Noland?”
“He thinks he’s my boss.”
Ray watched her type in the little instant message window. A very low chime
played and a response showed up. “Does he always flirt with you?”
“He’s not flirting with me.” The response was quick and toneless and
indecipherable.
Ray was trying to think of the best way to press the issue when he let out a yawn.
“Go lay down, Raymond. The far bed.”
Ray nodded though she hadn’t looked up once then he went into the room
without turning the light on and made his way to the bed. He barely remembered
taking his shoes off.
Raymond didn't leave Friday night either. That morning, he’d gotten up and
prepared to leave but for some reason, he found himself asking Shelley if she wanted to
get some coffee. She offered to make some in the room, but he wanted to get out of the
room. Ray always needed to get out in the mornings. But she didn’t want to go. He
could tell, especially after what she’d said the night before. Like at the poker table, she
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Aubrey Leatherwood
kept making suggestions of things they could do in the room and even resorted to
saying she needed to work. Rather than tell him she didn’t and why, she toughed it out
and held her head high and her crutches thumped beside him.
People gave them second glances, but for the most part that was all there was.
No one was mean or rude, really, just curious. It didn’t bother him, but if the fact that
her jaw was clenched the entire time was an indicator, it did bother her.
Ray didn’t really know what to do. He didn’t want to play poker anymore after
having set a limit and deciding to stick with it, but he didn’t want to go back to the
room no matter how much he liked spending time with her, because he was an active
man. But she wasn’t comfortable walking around the shops.
“You want to take a drive?”
“It’s beautiful out, I’d love to.”
“My truck’s in the west parking lot.”
“My convertible’s in valet.” She winked at him.
It only took five minutes for the silver convertible to arrive. Ray immediately
started to reach for her arm as she worked with her crutches.
“I can do it!” she snapped.
Raymond shuffled back and away from her. He averted his eyes, starting to
chafe a little at not being able to help her when it was so easy for him to take her
crutches and toss them in the back or hold her bag for her. But, he told himself that
accepting help must be difficult for her, and tried to suck it up. Then he busied himself
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If You Asked Me To
with studying the hand controls that had been added to the steering column. The car
could be driven without the foot pedals at all.
When they walked back into the hotel, hours later, Ray asked the valet to take
the keys and hide them.
“You can’t drive for shit,” he told her.
She laughed out loud and she laughed hard. Ray had learned that day that he
had the capacity to make her laugh at just about anything. It was a really good feeling.
“Want to order a movie and have some drinks?” he asked standing back as she
unlocked the door to the room and pushed her way in. Stupid thing to get irritated
when you couldn’t hold the door open for a lady.
“Sounds good,” she returned and she flashed a smile at him that erased every
damn negative thought he’d had.
into him.
After closing the door, he reached for her and kissed her hard, until she melted
“I’ve wanted to do that all day,” he said stepping away from her. She looked
stunned and perhaps ready for another one. Finally, she could fight with sexual
frustration for a little while.
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Chapter 6
“You don’t want to marry me, do you?” Jessica asked three Tuesdays and two
more visits with Shelley later while she sat on his back porch sipping lemonade and
flipping through a thick book filled with wallpaper samples.
Raymond cut his finger on a lawnmower blade when he heard the question.
“What are you talking about, woman?”
“You don’t want to get married.”
Maybe he should have argued but he had already taken too long to answer, and
the truth was…well…
stupid.”
“What makes you think I don’t want to get married?”
Jessica stood and came to stand against the porch railing. “I know you think I’m
“What!”
“Maybe not stupid, Ray, but you definitely put me in the same basket you put
females in general.”
“Since when did you get all girl power?”
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If You Asked Me To
Jessica nibbled her bottom lip and shook her head slowly. She opened her mouth
to say something then stopped. She started again. “Did you forget that I’m on the
company account?”
Ray swallowed, but the lump remained in his throat.
“Daddy didn’t give that money to you. He gave it to me so I could invest in this
business with you. Equal partners. He thinks I’m smart enough for that.”
“I didn’t call you stupid, Jess.” His voice was low and choked. “And I know
you’re a partner in this business.”
mower.
“I waited for you to tell me what happened to the money.”
Ray couldn’t look at her anymore and his hands started to move over the broken
“But, you didn’t. Not a word for more than two weeks.”
“Jess, the money’s back isn’t it?”
“But you didn’t put it back.”
He rubbed his hands on his jeans and wiped sweat from his forehead. He
squinted at the sky. The sun was still bright though it hung low on the horizon.
Surprised that his heart wasn’t racing, Ray took a deep breath and waited. Impossible
not to know what was coming next.
“Who’s Shelley Miller?”
“Shelley’s a friend of mine and an investor.”
“Funny you’ve never mentioned her before.”
“I-I didn’t think—”
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Aubrey Leatherwood
“You loaned some woman fifty thousand dollars? Fifty thousand of our money.
And you took it out at the casino?”
“The money’s back,” was all he could think to say.
“What if she didn’t give it back?”
“The money’s back.”
“Can’t you say something else, Ray? Anything else?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Lots of things! You c-could start by telling me that this woman really is an
investor and nothing else. You could tell me why you thought it was okay to take our
m-money and just give it to someone. You could tell me why.”
But he couldn’t. There was no way he could say that he had lost the money
gambling and by the grace of Shelley Miller got it back.
Into the silence, she said, “I can’t marry you. I still believe in the company. But I
can’t marry you.”
“And you don’t trust me.”
“How could I?”
“So what do you want to do?”
“Listen, Ray. My faith in you running this business has earned me as much
money as people who work full-time for a living. That being said, I want the account to
be changed so we can only make cash withdrawals jointly.”
“Done.”
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If You Asked Me To
“And I want you to take this back.” She handed him her engagement ring. She
wasn’t crying, but her hand shook.
Ray studied the delicate band and diamond in his hand. “So this is it?”
“Yeah, Ray, this is it.”
“Seems pretty damn easy for you,” Ray said finally feeling emotion stealing over
him from her words. Maybe he had been distant, but he had proposed to her and he
was committed to her, and he hadn’t slept with Shelley.
leaves.
“Easier and easier when you call me Shelley as you reach for me in your sleep.”
Ray’s jaw dropped.
Jess turned on her heel and headed back into the house.
Ray followed. “It’s not what you think, Jessica.”
“From what I hear, it never is.”
“You don’t understand. I don’t even know her.”
“I see how that would make me feel better.” Her voice was dry like winter
He touched her softly on the shoulder, on the cheek, reached down to hold her
hand. “What I’m saying is that Shelley is nobody.”
“Better and better.” She let out an uncharacteristic snort. The she relented,
shaking her head slowly. “She’s not, Ray, and every time you try to convince me, I
know that a little more. Besides, it doesn’t matter. You’re a good man. I still believe that,
but I’d be a fool to go through with this wedding now.”
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Aubrey Leatherwood
Ray tried to think of an explanation she would believe. The truth was obviously
not going to work. She’d never believe that Shelley was no one, that Ray didn’t even
know how to see her again other than by lurking around the horse track like a stalker.
Shame filled him when he contemplated doing just that. He came up with nothing to
refute Jessica’s conclusion.
The breakup took everyone by surprise. As far as the outside world knew, Ray
and Jessica never even argued. And if truth be told, they hadn’t much. Their
relationship had been comfortable, nice. They could easily have grown old together—
and grown bored with each other and had an affair here or there on the way to their
dotage. Because of their Barbie and Ken mystique, Ray received a lot of unwanted
attention on the subject. It was miserable at work, too, because most of the employees
had been friends of the couple and they couldn’t figure it out.
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If You Asked Me To
Chapter 7
She would never admit it, but Ray could tell Shelley liked to cuddle with him.
After a couple of weeks, she’d stopped working on her laptop at the desk and instead
rested it on her thighs as she propped herself against him and they watched movies.
Ray would stroke her hair and rub her shoulders, and sometimes, some very special
moments, he would kiss the tip of her nose and her cheeks, and for dessert, her lips
which were becoming more and more pliable with every contact.
He’d wanted more, so much more, his appetite whetted from the adolescent
contact, however she still wasn’t sure about him. But Ray wasn’t a fool, resisting had
become more chore than instinct for her.
One Saturday night in her room, she slipped her hand beneath his shirt causing
the muscles in his abdomen to spasm. Then she’d nibbled his neck and moaned when
he weighed her breast in one hand and stroked the peak with his thumb.
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Aubrey Leatherwood
Yet she had resisted. And Ray had taken a cold shower with every intent to go to
bed frustrated. The far bed. She showered shortly after he did then fell into her bed, the
near bed. And the urge to beat the hell out of his pillow was strong.
Silent in her sleep, Shelley seemed at first like she was still awake. When he
whispered softly to her, though, she didn’t respond. He considered nearing her bed but
figured that if she could get proper leverage she would punch him in the eye for
stalking her in the night. God, he hadn’t really had the nerve to approach her physically
again after that kiss and so the night had ended platonically, she in one bed, he in
another with plans to play in a tournament the next morning.
And she had gone right to sleep. Ray wasn’t so lucky. He found himself checking
on her through the night. He just needed to see that she was there, that she was okay.
Sometime after four, he went to the bathroom. When he padded back into the
bedroom, he found that she had turned. He crept closer to her trying to tell if she was
up or not.
She rolled over and her eyes, black quarters in the night, fluttered open. She
smiled, or at least he thought she smiled and raised her blanket. Ray slid in beside her
without question. With an incomprehensible mutter, she reached for him. Ray slipped
his arms around her and his chest beneath her head so that her silken hair slid across
his skin. Her body was small and warm and soft next to his.
He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head and she slid against him with a purr.
She was wearing some satiny top, but the shape of her breasts and her hard nipples
were clear against his chest. Skin to skin, he wanted it to be skin to skin. He slipped his
59

If You Asked Me To
hand under the edge of the night shirt. The tips of his fingers grazed the softest skin
he’d ever felt. A trail up over her hips, down into her waist, up higher to graze the
outside of her breasts. He pressed his hips back, almost off the bed, trying to hold off
the inevitable confrontation of his arousal.
In the dark, her face was pressed into his chest, but Ray wanted to see it, wanted
to be able to watch her. For just a moment he didn’t know. Could he continue to hold
her this way without taking the plunge? She rubbed her cheek against his chest and
whispered something. He couldn’t hear her, but he took it as encouragement and eased
into the center of the bed turning fully on his back. He dragged her over him biting
down on his lips when her legs, also clad in the silky pajamas, parted over his.
She raised her head looking down at him in the dark. Ray stroked her hair back
from her face.
“Kiss?”
“Kiss,” she responded with a brilliant smile and pressed her lips to his. But her
smile was short-lived.
“What's wrong?”
“Nothing,” she responded. “I d-don’t do this sort of thing all the time.”
Had it been another woman, a woman without this disease, he wouldn’t have
believed it. Had it been a woman with just these mesmerizing, twinkling black eyes,
strong cheekbones, and generous lips he wouldn’t have believed it. But he believed it
and he knew what it meant. She wasn’t going to pull away from him. She wasn’t going
to get scared and tell him to fuck off. She was going to trust him in this.
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Aubrey Leatherwood
For a moment, he looked up at her, studying her. Then he gently rolled her over
onto her back and undressed her. He wished the room wasn’t so dark, that he could see
her body better, but there was time for that. He wanted her so badly it hurt and he had
to wonder why this woman in particular was able to push him so far.
Raymond tried telling himself horrible things to see if anything would stop him
from pressing forward. He thought of what his buddies in high school would have said
about her. He thought things like “It’s probably catching” and “If you have kids with
her, your kids will be retarded.” And he chuckled at himself when he realized how
ridiculous his thoughts had become. And he stared into her black eyes and his breath
caught and he realized right then that he loved her. Whether it made sense or not. He
loved her so much it was frightening. So much that it made his heart hammer in his
chest and his body wilt into hers. He needed a moment.
After a few seconds, he felt her shifting beneath him. Raymond raised up on his
forearms, trapping her shoulders between them and asked her, “Where are you going?”
She didn’t look at him, and he knew what that meant. He knew that something
was wrong. “What’s wrong?”
“You don’t…I mean we don’t.” Her voice was even but the way she measured
her words was wrong, too. She rushed forward, “We don’t have to do this.”
God help him, he laughed again.
For the first time, he knew exactly what was in her head, he knew exactly how
she felt, and he knew exactly what the right thing to do was. Laughing, however, was
not it.
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If You Asked Me To
Shock popped her mouth open. Raymond took that opportunity to kiss her
stupid. And she warmed to him reflexively, as if her brain and body weren’t wired and
her body hadn’t gotten the message that she was a bit ticked off yet.
Then he pulled back. “You know how you had me all in on that eighteen
thousand dollar pot and I was so smug when I turned up the bottom end of that
straight right up until you turned up the top end, which I didn’t think you had because
that ass dealer exposed a seven, which put the odds way the hell in my favor?”
right now.”
She nodded with a sly elation stealing across her face.
“Remember how you felt? Well, imagine that times a million. That’s how I feel
She didn’t say anything, but that elation continued to grow then it faded. She
didn’t trust it. One way to show her.
“Shelley, I want you more than I’ve ever wanted another woman and that’s
strange for me, but it’s true. It’s strange not because of your…your…”
“My disease.”
“Right. It’s strange because you are everything I’ve ever said I didn’t want in a
woman and everything I’m not sure I believe existed in a woman. You don’t seem to
need my money. You certainly think you’re smarter than me. You play poker. You lie
like a damn rug. You curse like a sailor, and you are beautiful. I can tell you don’t
believe it, but you should. You are so damn beautiful.”
“My face is pretty.”
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Aubrey Leatherwood
“Your face is like an angel’s, but so are these.” He slid down her body and placed
a heated kiss on the tip of each of her breasts.
“They’re not real.”
“What?” His head poked up and his eyes captured hers.
“Well they are real, but they’re not. They are permanently perfect and gorgeous
and firm because I had a breast reduction. My boobs used to be two cups larger, but I
really couldn’t handle their additional weight, especially with my spinal curva—
Ahyyyeee!”
There had never been a sexier sound to come out of a woman. Raymond had
taken that moment to slide two fingers into her slick heat while he used his thumb to
stoke the flames of her pleasure.
“You like that, huh?” he asked before bending to suckle the peak of one perfect
breast. She arched her back and gripped the back of his neck. He bit down softly and
she squealed. “That’ll teach you that trying to turn me off is pointless.”
He couldn’t tell if she coughed, snorted or laughed but assumed the sound was a
good one. He slid up against her and lifted one of her thighs just slightly. Then guided
himself to her entrance and pushed inside. Hot, moist heaven sent a thrill through his
body and it made him pump once, twice, again, and again.
“You feel so good inside. You’re hot and you’re wet and...” His words trailed off
because there was no other choice. He was inside her and the pleasure from it made
him incoherent. She stroked his back, his head. She kissed his chest and his neck. She
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If You Asked Me To
braced herself when he couldn’t hold back anymore, one hand pressing against the
headboard, the other wrapped around his neck.
“So beautiful,” he whispered before flexing into her over and over again faster
and faster listening to her whimpers of pleasure and praying to God that he didn’t
come before she did. Not until she went rigid all over and her nails dug holes in the
back of his neck did he let his own body erupt and erupt until he shuddered over her
and pulled out.
In the dark as they lay side by side breathing evenly and lost in their own
thoughts, she said, “When I realized I had it, I thought it was because my mother drank
when she was pregnant.”
Not what he expected to be her first words after this moment they’d shared, but
if she was willing to open up to him, Ray didn’t mind. “Why would you think that?”
“Because she did.” Shelley worked to turn toward him.
He helped her by pulling her close. She let him.
“But I found out soon enough it was the joke of heredity. I didn’t know the rest
of her family. For some reason she would never tell me, when she was sixteen she left
home and never looked back. It was just us and every now and then a friend of hers
would show up. Men, women, friends. And she would party and she would drink.”
“Who took care of you? I mean…”
“I didn’t start feeling the effects of my LGMD until I was in my teens. By that
time, I was used to taking care of myself.”
“And when you were an adult?”
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Aubrey Leatherwood
“When I was an adult, I went to local college, got a degree, and got a job working
remotely as a trader. That was…what? Six or seven years ago.”
“And your mother?”
“And my mother nothing. I don’t ever remember her working. By the time I got a
job, I realized that what she was getting from the government was shit. So, I stayed and
now I take care of the bills and she…she drinks.”
dry laugh.
“You mean you still live with her?” He felt like an ass when he heard her bitter,
“Yeah, in the house I grew up in.”
“You never thought of moving out. I mean, you could probably afford to get a
place and take care of her if—”
“No, I didn’t move out.” End of discussion.
After convincing himself silently to let the conversation go, he started to doze off.
He caught himself once or twice and yawned, then, that last moment when his eyes
shut and a light snore started, she chose to slip her hand down his belly and start to
stroke him. Torn between his absolute hatred of being awakened out of his sleep and
the way his body had gone rock-hard, Shelley won out and he buried himself deep into
her body again before finally, they both dropped off to sleep.
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If You Asked Me To
Chapter 8
When he woke up at eleven that morning, he was alone. Not just alone for the
moment. He looked around the hotel room and every sign of her was gone. For a split
second he thought he had dreamed the night they shared, but a quick glance in the
trash and his body’s reaction to the very thought of her proved it had been as real as
real could get.
He reached for his cell phone and his jeans. After retrieving her number from his
pocket he punched it in.
She didn’t answer.
He didn’t leave a message. Instead, he got up, showered and got dressed. When
he left the room, a domestic waited to clean the room. She smiled sweetly at him, but
there seemed to be the slightest humor in that expression.
He wondered if he needed to check out or do something even though he hadn’t
reserved the room. He went to the concierge and was assured that Ms. Miller had taken
care of everything. Maybe he was completely imagining it, but even that guy seemed to
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be smirking at him. The walk to his truck felt like the ultimate walk of shame and he
didn’t even know why.
Ray called her on and off for a week. No answer. Chalking it up to an affair he
would always remember, Ray threw himself back into his work. It didn’t work, because
the following weekend, he went back to Black Horse looking for her. Roger seemed
more than ecstatic to tell Ray she wasn’t there. Ray spent some time having cigarettes,
drinking, and wondering how many security guys would come out of the woodwork to
kick his ass if he planted his fist in Roger’s face.
She called on Monday and he was thrilled. They talked every day until that
Friday when he met her at the Downs and they spent another weekend together as if
nothing happened, even though in the back of his mind, he wondered if she would be
gone Sunday morning.
She wasn’t and it was worse.
“I don’t think we should see each other anymore,” she told him in a well-
modulated voice, both minimal and impersonal.
“I’m sorry?”
“Listen, Ray, I really like you but—”
“You more than fuckin’ like me,” he interrupted. He was surprised by his own
harsh tone, but would not take it back.
“I—I—”
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If You Asked Me To
“You like your boss, Noland, but have you been to bed with him? You like
Roger, but have you been to bed with him?” It was a gamble. If she said she had, he
didn’t know what the hell was going to happen.
She ducked her head. “Why would you even bring up those guys? I’m just
saying that this can’t happen again. It shouldn’t have happened when it did.”
What the hell?
“Why?”
She lowered her eyes.
“Why?”
“Listen, Ray, I know you’re all chivalrous and everything, and I know it pisses
you off when I won’t let you help me.”
“It doesn’t piss me off—”
“Ok, it annoys the hell out of you. I can tell you need to take care of…things.”
His throat went dry.
“I can’t be one of those things in your life you need to take care of.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Raymond, don’t make this harder than it is.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Please.”
“I…don’t…understand.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to tell me why you’re doing this.”
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“Then you should listen to me. I’m telling you.”
“That’s bullshit!”
She flinched. Apparently, his voice had come out much louder than expected.
“Ray, I…”
“Shelley, you know what’s happening between us. Don’t tell me you don’t feel
what I feel. Don’t put up this wall. Don’t do it.”
work.
She turned away from him and went to her desk and damn if she didn’t start to
Dismissed.
Just like that, Ray was dismissed.
That night, he went home and got drunk and missed work for two days.
On Wednesday, he decided to get his shit together and forget the two months
he’d let Shelley Miller upend his life. He wasn’t going to try to get back with Jessica, but
he wasn’t going to wallow in the pain either. He couldn’t do that. He needed to do
something, to build something with his hands, to work all day until he was too tired to
spend the night thinking about her and the abrupt way she ended their crazy, intense
romance.
It happened many more times. She came out of nowhere, called him, chatted
with him like no time had passed. Charmed him with ranting and raving about politics
and markets, neither of which Raymond ever followed. She’d ask him to dinner at the
resort or to a movie on pay-per-view in her room or, if he seemed resistant, she cajoled
him into joining her at the poker table. After that first weekend, Ray had kept his word
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to himself that he was only going to play with money he could afford to lose and only
after he had completed a major project.
Just like the first experience with her and the second, time seemed to get
swallowed whole in her presence. Ray was almost embarrassed at how much he loved
spending time with her…especially when she didn’t seem to return the feeling.
By that last time, he could recognize the signs. Her smiles came less freely. A line
would crease her brow. And what was worse, the last day, she’d barely speak. Then, as
day turned to night, she would turn to him and kiss him. She would slip her hands
beneath his shirt and splay them on his chest. Her fingertips would pass lightly over his
nipples and he would rake his shirt up, while she found the button and zipper on the
front of his pants. He’d lift up so she could slip his pants down on his hips, but she
wouldn’t try to take them off, instead she’d take him in her silky hands and he would
let her guide him forward until she took him in her hot wet mouth. He would squeeze
his eyes shut even as he squeezed his butt and thighs as he struggled not to push
forward into her, struggled not to come this way.
And she would let him set her away and undress her. Then he would lift her and
settle her on top of him. They both knew she didn’t have the strength in her legs to take
control in this position for long, but Ray had discovered just how deep he could get
inside of her pliant flesh when he held her like this, and he knew she liked the friction,
so he bent his knees and planted his feet, and anchored her tightly in place while he
drove up and into her, over and over again while he watched her convulse from
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pleasure, her silken hair stuck to her sweat-soaked skin teasing, taut nipples. Ray
wondered sometimes if he didn’t just come from watching her.
And the next day, she would either be there or not. Either way, she was done
with him. Ready to talk about how incompatible they were. Again.
Ray managed to convince himself after the fourth or fifth time that she didn’t
mean it because every time they got back together, she stayed longer, and their time
together went beyond gambling. A weekend at the Downs, a week at Ray’s home in
which Shelley made herself at home, another weekend at the Downs. Whether she
chose to admit it or not, her fight against their bond was futile. For him it was irritating
as all hell, but he had faith that what he felt was real and that like it or not, she felt the
same thing.
That’s what prompted him, after about ten months of back and forth with her
and after she’d spent nearly a month with him in his house, to throw the possibility of
marriage out over a box of chicken fried rice.
“Are you kidding?” she shrieked.
Compared to Jessica’s reaction when he asked her to marry him, this one was…
unexpected. At first he was in shock and then a hot liquid started to infuse his face,
anger took over. “Why the hell would I kid about something like this?”
“I couldn’t possibly marry you.”
“Couldn’t possibly? Why not?”
“Ray, we hardly know each other. We don’t get along—”
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“We get along just fine when you’re not either pissed at me for trying to help you
with something or breaking up with me because you freak out whenever you realize
just how attached to me you really are.”
“That’s not true!”
“It is, and you know it. I know you now, Shelley, whether you like it or not, I
know you. I know you don’t trust anyone and that you don’t want to rely on anyone, but
you have to give in someday. Even with your disease.”
“I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Even with your disease, it may be a mild form, but you’ve told me a thousand
times that it’s degenerative. What are you going to do if God forbid one day you can’t
get around like you can today? What are you going to do if something happens to your
mother, who’s barely any help as it is, and you’re alone?”
leave.
“Fuck you, Ray.” Awkwardly, she started to collect her things, getting ready to
Not for the first time, Ray thought that all he had to do was take her purse away,
her keys away, her crutches away, and make her stay there and deal with the situation.
Physically, she couldn’t stop him. But the thought of what that would do to her made
him sick to his stomach even as he watched her leaving him.
His only gesture was to touch her hand once. And when she looked up at him
with flat, emotionless eyes, he said to her, “This is it. I can’t go through this with you
again. Don’t come back, Shelley. Don’t call me. Just don’t. You won’t even have to
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worry about seeing me at the Downs. I swear I’ll never step foot in the place again. This
is it.”
For just a second, he thought she was going to stop.
She didn’t.
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Chapter 9
Present
With her eyes finally dry, Shelley ambled into the house thinking about Ray
Costas. She had wanted him from the minute he sat down at her high stakes table.
Handsome and self-assured, certainly, but he was also unapologetically masculine. He
looked like a man who worked with his hands and loved doing so. His build was broad
and, though he was average height, the lean muscle packed on his limbs and torso
made him seem much larger. When he spoke, his voice was deep and commanding
even when he said completely foolish things. Sexy as hell, manly as hell, but not
intimidating.
Sure enough, after playing poker for ten years, Shelley knew how to mask her
trepidation, but she hadn’t had to. It didn’t hurt that she could tell right off that he
wasn’t used to those kinds of stakes. And when he started to flirt with her, good lord, it
took the strength of Job not to let her blush show. She tried to focus on her cards but
he’d slip in something sly and quick and she’d find herself getting warm just from so
little. Granted, Shelley could not afford to let that feeling go too far. He didn’t know
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about her disability right off. Things almost always changed when a man realized the
face didn’t match the body.
Hardened by more experiences than she cared to remember where men got
interested then got uninterested, she felt prepared. But she had been prepared for some
other man, not for Ray. She wasn’t prepared for him.
Her stomach had plummeted and she’d felt nauseous when she realized that a)
she had to go to the bathroom, b) she needed to exercise her legs, and c) her new
nemesis was determined to wait her out. Holding out as long as she could, when finally
she couldn’t take it anymore, she couldn’t even look him in the eye. By the time she
made it to the bathroom and back, she had decided to leave the table. Even if she’d
taken him for a significant amount of money, he’d definitely thrown her off her game.
So she didn’t engage him, just decided to leave the table with what little dignity she’d
had left.
But he hadn’t gone away, and he’d so skillfully sidestepped any confrontation
about her illness that she’d just fallen for him a little more. So she’d talked to him, she’d
gotten to know him. She’d spent the whole night spending time with him. And it was
so lovely, it scared her shitless. True to her nature, she decided then and there not to
entertain foolish ideas about the man. For all she knew, he could have been interested in
her for the money she’d lifted from him. Without certainty, Shelley had to just forget
him.
But she hadn’t.
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Instead, she’d passed that freakin’ watch a thousand times and thought about
him each one. Then she figured if she gave him back his money and she gave him the
watch, it would give her some closure to the situation. Maybe she couldn’t get it out of
her mind because he was nice and didn’t seem like a fellow who could stand to lose as
much money as he had.
She dropped her card in the package. Why did she do that? And why did he call
right away? And why had she invited him to the Downs? Was it because he had
shrugged off her MD and still seemed interested, even if it was for her money or out of
some sick curiosity. Shelley didn’t know. But, when he showed up, she’d felt light, light
and warm. And the time they spent together had been easy, not really romantic, just
comfortable. Until he kissed her and reminded her that it had been years since she’d
been with a man and she wanted him so badly there was an actual, painful ache
between her legs.
Thinking about it made her sigh. Ray was an excellent lover and sometimes an
excellent gentleman and she wouldn’t mind having a man like that to call her own. But,
Shelley was no fool. It couldn’t last. True enough, she’d figured out that Ray wasn’t
after her for her money. His parents had instilled in him a sense of honor and chivalry
that was almost unheard of anymore. He only strayed through a random curse here and
there but beyond that… He was a man who worked and earned his money and felt like
that entitled him to a nice life with a wife and probably kids someday. Shelley hadn’t
asked him about other women in his life when she met him, but she wasn’t naїve. There
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had to be one, maybe more than one. Someone soft and longing and pretty with
completely functioning legs.
She didn’t get it.
He didn’t want her money, but what did he want? She was neither dense or
fucked up in the head enough not to know that he enjoyed sex with her. Even when she
became shy and worried that there was something unattractive about her body or
something she couldn’t do, he showed her that she was beautiful to him and that she
could do just about anything…and he made her come.
Damn.
He made her come.
She would never tell him, but in her whole life she’d never felt like she did when
he made love to her. When she was a kid, she didn’t know what the hell she was doing
and neither did her boyfriend. When she got older, she was too self-conscious about her
body and her disease to get close enough to a man for sex. There’d been two, Noland,
her boss, and years ago Roger, the pit boss. But after one encounter apiece, she’d ended
those relationships, convinced that they had not enjoyed their time with her.
Ray enjoyed his time with her. That man was neither gentle nor worried. He was
an adventure, a hard-bodied fuckin’ adventure, with…with love mixed in. Once he
started telling her he loved her, he didn’t stop. Every day they were together. When
they broke up, she missed the sound of it, and when they got back together, she reveled
in it, though she never said it back.
Jesus.
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Her mother was dead, and here her thoughts were being sucked up by Ray,
Her cell phone rang. The ringtone was a trumpet’s flourish. Idiotic that she still
had such a happy and heraldic tone associated with him. For just a second, she thought
about not answering. It would work. He wouldn’t leave a message and he wouldn’t call
her back. He would chalk it up to her playing games with him then make himself forget
all about it.
“You have to ask me.”
“Ray…what? I—”
“You called me because you wanted to see me. I don’t know what’s up, but we
both know you did. Normally, I’d just muscle my way over. I would take care of
everything for you and let us pretend like I didn’t. I’m not going to do that this time.
You have to tell me you want to see me.”
An ache started in her chest and she doubled over clutching the phone.
Physically, she couldn’t give him what he wanted. She opened her mouth, worked her
throat, and nothing came out. She couldn’t say it. Desperately, her body and soul
pleaded for her to say it, but she couldn’t.
“You just don’t understand do you? If you asked me to, I would do anything—”
He sighed. “Give me your address.”
Amazing, after almost two years, he’d never been to her home and had no idea
what it was like. Panic caused a flutter in her chest even as it conflicted with relief.
“Ray, I—”
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“You called me, Shelley. Give me your address.”
God help her, the information tumbled right out of her mouth along with
descriptions of the county roads he’d have to take to the rural place of her birth.
And he hung up. He didn’t say he was coming, but Shelley knew he would. Ray
was like that. He did what he was supposed to do, when he was supposed to do it, and
he didn’t resent it. If she wasn’t scared shitless of the idea, she’d definitely like to meet
his parents one day. She’d met them in passing once when she and Ray had gone out to
dinner. They’d been nice, upstanding citizens. Neither one seemed to be harboring an
alcohol addiction or a penchant for violence.
Thirty minutes later, she heard his truck rumble up the gravel-paved drive. It
sighed when he cut it off and before long she heard him knock. Shelley always turned
the knob at his house first when she showed up. Usually, it was open for her when he
knew she was coming. She never knocked and was a little unsettled that Ray felt he
needed to do so even if this was his first time coming to her home.
Self-consciousness made her rub her hand across her face.
There was trash in the yard, all the way to the edge of the property where the
woods started. The drive was little more than some loosely herded rocks. The gutters
were rusted and falling crooked from the structure. The wood porch had loose boards.
One of the windows flanking the front door was boarded up with plywood, a leftover
from her mother trying to get into the house one night, forgetting her key, and knocking
out part of the glass when her key proved to be too much trouble. In the living room,
the discolored popcorn ceiling had started to peel and flake. It was a disgrace.
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Ray didn’t look around when he came in. Maybe he already assessed the place
for the shithole it was and moved on.
He closed the door behind him. “How do you feel?”
“I don’t know.” She clapped a hand over her eyes. “That’s ridiculous, isn’t it? It’s
not what I was supposed to say.”
“When’s the last time you said what you were supposed to say?”
A joke, but no laughter between them.
“How do you feel?”
Those words again. They banged on her chest trying to get in, trying to make her
answer something other than “numb” or “I don’t know.”
“I don’t care,” she lied.
“Of course not,” he responded. Then he walked close and she smelled his mild
cologne. Then she felt his heat; in reaction, her breath sputtered as it left her body. He
picked her up and sat down with her curled in his lap like a baby. And Shelley grieved
for a mother she’d never known she loved.
* * * *
“You can’t stay here,” Ray told her as they lay on the sofa together the next
morning. He had held her all night until she slept, and come back when she awoke.
Shelley didn’t know where he’d slept only that he hadn’t left her.
She pushed away from him and sat up. Her face felt puffy and irritated from
wiping tears. Not for the first time that night, she wondered why she didn’t feel any
shame, any worry. He’d seen her cry and it hadn’t been the end of the world. He’d seen
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her conflict regarding her mother’s death, and he’d listened and she’d felt…no shame.
She’d had more of a response to his perusal of her ramshackle house. “This house is
paid for. My doctor and hospital are near.”
“This house is falling apart and it’s not outfitted for…”
“For what?”
“For…you know.”
“For me? The house isn’t outfitted for me? Well you know what, Raymond, I’ve
lived here on and off my whole entire life and somehow I’ve managed.”
“You won’t manage forever,” he said softly.
Shelley sucked in a sharp breath.
“I didn’t want to say that,” Raymond told her. “But I had to. You have to be
realistic, Shelley.”
“I’ve spent my whole life being realistic.”
“I’m not talking about your whole life. I’m talking about right now. The railing
on the stairs is rickety. You don’t have an adequate bar in either of the bathrooms. Even
the driveway and the stairs up to the porch are all busted up. This is an excellent plot of
land. The foundation is sound from what I can tell, but the place is not safe the way it is.
Not for you, not for anyone.”
it fixed?”
“I’m going to have it fixed.”
“Really? You’ve been in this house your whole life and now you’re going to have
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She licked her lips and he read her like a first grade primer. “You didn’t want to
do anything to this place while she was alive, did you?”
Shelley’s throat didn’t work.
“Not because you didn’t want it to be nice, but because you didn’t trust what she
would do. She never knew how much money you had, did she?”
Shelley felt tears starting in her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall, she had
years of practice preventing that. The time to grieve was over.
“My mother was a drunk.”
“A drunk who still helped you every day she lived as best she could. You can’t
fault her forever for not being smart enough or strong enough or brave enough or even
moral enough. She was there.”
“You don’t have to remind me of that.” Maybe the time to grieve was not over.
“She’s the only one who has ever been there for me!”
Those last words poisoned the air between them and Shelley desperately wanted
to take them back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…I mean you don’t count.”
He could have been smiling. His cheeks were taut. His pristine white teeth were
bared. But he wasn’t. “Shelley, I tell myself all the time that I can’t do this with you
again.”
“You don’t have to. If you’ll recall I didn’t ask you to be here.”
“Yeah, well I’m here. And I’m not leaving until you say something sensible.”
“You can’t tell me what to do, Ray.”
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“I shouldn’t have to. You should make some sense. Let me and my boys work on
the house for you. You can stay with me for the time being until—”
“Christ, is that what this is about? You just want someone to need you!”
“So the fuck what? You need me.”
Her mouth popped open and she hissed the sound of a backward H.
“I want you to leave and forget this house, Raymond. Forget me. I’ll be fi—”
“Fine.”
She felt her eyes widen and her mouth loll open. A heart attack seemed to be
creeping up on her and pure panic made her arms shake as she gripped the handles on
her crutches.
“I said I couldn’t do this with you anymore. If this had been six months ago, a
year ago, I would have just ignored your faulty logic and taken care of it anyway. You
had me so worried that if I did the slightest thing to piss you off you were going to
leave. But, I know you now. If you want to leave, you’re going to leave. There’s nothing
I can do about it. I’m used to it now. So I’ll go. That’s fine. And I won’t be back until
you ask me to. You’ve never asked for my support or my help or my heart, and this
time, you have to.”
The man actually straightened up the house before he left.
Shelley had her mother cremated the following day and had the briefest of
encounters with the two or three friends that cared to show up. Then she got one of the
infrequent migraines that plagued her. Pain sapped her body of strength and heart of
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will. She vomited until only liquid came and wanted someone to get her water and hold
her head in their lap as they wiped her face with a cool, wet towel.
Grief, fear, longing. Maybe it was all of them. Maybe it was more.
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Chapter 10
Sitting on the one stable chair at the kitchen table, Shelley hugged her arms to
her body. She’d done it, and here he was standing her in kitchen telling her all the
things he planned to do in her house.
She’d called one contractor, just one, and hadn’t been able to articulate
everything she wanted over the phone. When he came out and physically met her, she
saw dollar signs in his eyes. Maybe it was unfair, maybe he was a good guy, but Shelley
knew she would never be able to trust a stranger to work on this home.
So she sent Ray an email asking if she could employ his company for renovations
on her house. It was professional and sent via his company’s website. It was indirect
and cowardly, but he came. He was there, like always since she’d met him.
“How long is it going to take?”
“Until the house is up to code.”
“Huh?”
“I think three months will suffice. We don’t need everybody on the Elk Grove
property, so we can split the team, which is something we were wanting to do anyway
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as the company grew. We actually can make this place habitable and safe in less time, if
you think you might want to sell. It changes the project plan and you’ll be able to make
money out of it.”
“What about you?”
He shrugged a shoulder. “Doesn’t really matter if I make money off of it.”
“I don’t need your charity.”
“Fuck charity.”
“You always say you don’t curse in front of women and yet you have never
proved that to be true.”
“Only you, babe. Only you can bring it out of me. Listen, you’ll pay me and
you’ll pay me full price to get this done for you. You don’t know dick about
construction, Shell. I’m your best bet not to get screwed by some guy out there who
wants to take advantage of you.”
She already knew that, so a different approach was necessary. She raised her
chin. “Then what?”
“Then, Shelley, I’m probably still not leaving. If you haven’t figured that out by
now, then you’re not as bright as I thought you were.”
meant.
“What does that mean?” Perhaps another stupid question. She knew what it
“It means, sweetheart, that we have unfinished business. Emailing me at the
company site isn’t enough.” He slammed his body against hers and wedged her against
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the wall. Her crutches were lifted off the ground and she had no choice but to rely on
his support of her body.
She hadn’t seen that one coming.
A hand came up to caress one of her breasts through her shirt. The touch was
surprisingly gentle, as were the lips that nibbled her bottom lip before he devoured her
with his kiss.
“Get off me, you jackass.” It was the only thing she could think of to say when he
let go of her. She needed some distance between them or she was going to make a fool
of herself.
Ray grinned at her. “Honey, every time you call me a jackass, it’s a tell. It means
you’d like me to put you on your back and spread your knees and—”
“Ray!”
He let her go, but not before he made sure she was steady on her feet. Even that
made her want to sigh like a love-struck fool.
“Me and the boys have another house to finish, but we’ll be here a week from
Monday to start on this place. I’ll send you an itemized invoice Tuesday or
Wednesday.”
“Before you even start?”
“Yep. Don’t worry. If I go over, I’ll eat the cost. It’ll be nothing in comparison to
losing fifty thousand dollars at a poker table. Who says you can’t put a price on falling
in love?”
“What if you come in under?”
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He shook his head looking at her. “Shut up, Shell.”
Before he left, he kissed her silly again and said he would call. When she said he
didn’t have to, he told her to shut up again.
* * * *
“I don’t like it when you tell me to shut up,” Shelley informed him three weeks
later after a similar interchange.
“Then I won’t do it again.”
“Huh?”
“Ever,” he said earnestly as he pounded some wood buttons into drill holes on
the ramp he was outfitting for one side of the porch. Sweat had his clothes sticking to
his body and him wiping his eyes with a dirty rag every five minutes.
Shelley didn’t say anything.
“King!” one of his crew called from across the front of the yard, where they were
tending to the tree line.
Ray called back that he would be there in a minute.
“King,” Shelley snorted. Not for the first time she needed to make her derision
known about what his predominantly Latin staff chose to call him.
“Don’t hate.” He grinned at her.
Shelley rolled her eyes.
He added, “I don’t like it when you ask me if you can give me more money
because you feel like what you’re paying me isn’t sufficient.”
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“But I’m not stupid. I did some research on the Internet and I know the materials
alone are more expensive than what I’m paying.”
“You were supposed to say, ‘Then I won’t say it again. Ever.’”
Shelley let out a huff and did not say what she was supposed to say. That had
him laying his hammer down and removing the filthy gloves he wore. “Let’s do the
math then, shall we? Knock off thirty percent of whatever you’ve got down for
materials because I get a deal from my great uncle. Then knock off my pay. You’re
paying for my crew but not for me.”
“Why?”
“Is it okay if I call you an idiot?”
“Hell no.”
“Then I cannot answer your question for fear of you getting really, really
irritated with me.”
“I’m already irritated with you.”
“Lately, you’re always irritated with me.”
“Then why the hell are you here? Why do you stay?”
“Because I know you’re not really irritated with me.”
Shelley growled. Then she turned around as best she could and stormed back
into the house.
Ray followed. “Hey, Shell, listen, we’re going to be doing demo in the house this
week to get the wiring done and we’re also going to tackle the plumbing. You can’t stay
here. There won’t be full electricity or running water for a while.”
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“That’s fine. I’ll go to the Downs. I need to get out of the house anyway.”
“You’re not going to the Downs.”
“No, it’s no problem they’ll—”
“I know they will take care of you. I’ve seen it more than once, but there’s no
reason for it. You don’t have to run up a bill. You’re already paying us so—”
“I can afford it.”
“Just because you can afford it doesn’t mean you ought to.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“You should come stay with me.”
She wanted that, but damn she didn’t want to want that. “Come on, Ray. I can’t
stay with you.”
“Yes, you can. No strings. You know my place. You’re comfortable there. It’s
free. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t—”
“You’re there.”
“And?”
on things?”
“And, we’re not together. It didn’t occur to you that that might put a little strain
“Shit, I’m feeling strained right now.”
Shelley cocked her head and scowled at him. “I’m serious. I don’t want to stay
with you and have it be weird. We’re not together and—”
“I get it.”
“So?”
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“So, you should come stay at the house and you’ll barely see me. Besides, if I
need to ask you about something we’re doing to the place, you won’t have to drive two
hours back to weigh in.”
“What century do you live in, Ray? Take a picture. Email it to me.”
“You know what? I’m not going to keep arguing with you about this.”
“Good.”
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If You Asked Me To
Chapter 11
The first night at Ray’s house, quite honestly, felt like any other night at Ray’s
house. The place was spotless and smelled like a botanical garden. Shiny bamboo floors,
neutral colors with splashes of dark red and immaculately groomed plants everywhere
made the place both a showcase and a place a woman felt comfortable curling her bare
feet under her on the couch, even when she thought the uncooperative extremities tense
and unattractive.
Open spaces made the place easy to navigate. The lack of area rugs was a
godsend. And, the smell of Ray and a nearly constant smoking grill were more
seductive than any other purported aphrodisiac.
The place felt like Ray. It felt like home. And for once, Shelley admitted to herself
that both of those facts frightened her. Yet, she was there, and it hadn’t taken much
persuasion on his part. Debating it had felt like going through the motions while she
prepared herself for the inevitable.
the sofa.
“I put away your things in the bedroom,” he told her when he sat beside her on
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“I could have done that.”
Aubrey Leatherwood
Ray ignored her comment and reached for the remote.
“Wait, what bedroom?”
“The master.”
“You don’t have to give up your bedroom.”
“I don’t plan on it.”
Shelley sighed heavily, not wanting to fight but preparing for it anyway. Before
she could propel herself to say a word, he held up his palm. “I’m not trying to sleep
with you, but I like my bed. You know the futon in the office is uncomfortable, and I’d
rather you not sleep in here because of the windows.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing, Ray. You didn’t want any window coverings
in here, with all this glass, and now you’re scared to let me sleep in here. You sleep in
here all the time.”
Ray ignored her question and asked her if she was ready for bed. When she said
she was, he followed her to the bedroom. Shelley raised her eyebrow.
“You can go into the bathroom and change into your pjs if you like.”
Even though it seemed silly, Shelley did just that. She came out and slid into the
king size bed. She chose the side nearest the door even though she knew that was the
side Ray favored. He could have the far side.
“Are you going to bed?” she asked.
“I’m coming to bed. You can have your side. I’ll take mine.” He took off his
clothes and tossed them into a hamper in the corner before turning out the lights.
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Naked as a jaybird, he turned off the lights, turned on the television, and slipped into
bed beside her.
“You want to watch the news?” He propped himself up on pillows against the
headboard and flipped through channels.
Shelley loved the news. A ridiculous thing to be addicted to, current events, but
she followed politics and international news like a fiend.
“No,” she answered just to throw him off.
“Fine,” he responded smoothly then switched the set off leaving them in the
dark, alone, and him naked not a foot from her.
“OK, I change my mind. I want the news. I want the news.”
* * * *
“Ray!” Though the voice was loud enough to reach the back of the house from
the front, it was still soft and feminine and pretty, if a voice could be such.
All of a sudden, the heat outside grew to be too much for Shelley. She’d been
working out on the back porch all morning like she had for the past three days at Ray’s
place. The voice called again, this time closer like the woman was coming around the
side of the house. Shelley had an impulse to run in the house and hide, but she didn’t
have that kind of speed. Instead, she would opt to stand, take this challenge head-on.
Besides, living in Ray’s house, it was bound to happen sometime. She’d dreaded the
thought, but she knew eventually she would meet his partner/ex-fiancée.
Shelley reached for the crutches behind her and one fell from its position against
the wall. She cursed then scrambled to reach over and get it without sliding out of the
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chair, but she couldn’t lean far because of the deep seat and high arms. And she
couldn’t rise without the crutches for much the same reason. Whoever conceived of an
Adirondack chair had been raised in the bowels of hell, she was sure.
Then the unthinkable happened, she tipped the chair over…which is how the
pretty pink pastry with an angel’s voice found her.
Pregnant as all get-out, Jessica rushed to her side and tried to squat as best she
could and to help Shelley up. Unfortunately, she wasn’t particularly strong and both
her strength and coordination were being ruined by the stress of the situation. Also
unfortunately, Ray chose that moment to come out the back of the house. He nudged
Jessica out of the way gently then reached down and lifted Shelley with one strong arm
while he righted the chair.
She slapped at his hand as he tried to right the wrap she’d had over her legs, the
stupid hat she was wearing, and her laptop. When she caught herself, she fretted over
doing that in front of Jessica and considered that it might have been better for her to just
stay on the ground and blend into the polished wood.
“Ahh, Jessica Curlew, this is Shelley Miller. Shelley, Jessica.”
Shelley didn’t think “nice to meet you” was particularly appropriate under the
circumstances, but she didn’t know what else to say.
Jessica said it back.
“Can I get you something, Jess?”
“No, actually I just came to drop these permits off.”
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“Okay, come into the office. Let’s look at them real quick. Shelley, you want
some more tea or something?”
Shelley shook her head and tried not to watch the man she loved disappear into
the house with his ex-fiancée, even if she was super pregnant.
“What happened to her?”
* * * *
She hadn’t attacked. She hadn’t been rude. There hadn’t been the slightest bit of
malice in her voice. But the hair rose on his arms, and his stance became slack. His
hands loosely fisted at his sides. Through grinding teeth, he growled, “What do you
mean?”
offend.”
She had the grace to blush. It was a pretty, self-conscious thing. “I didn’t mean to
“So what did you mean?” His voice held aggression that he shouldn’t have felt.
It was natural for her to have the question. It was natural for her to be curious. But there
was more.
“I guess I just didn’t expect her. She’s pretty, Ray, really pretty. So exotic. But the
boys wouldn’t say a word about her and I got curious. I just didn’t…expect…”
“She has something called Limb-Girdle Muscular Dystrophy. It’s actually a mild
form of the disease.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“So…”
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this job?”
“So?”
“She’s staying here?”
“Yep.”
Aubrey Leatherwood
“Is she going back to the house or do we get to sell it and make some money off
“We went over this, Jessica. I’m not touching any of your money with this
remodel. Most of the crew is on the Elk Grove project, I—”
“Oh, I know that. They just seem to think if we can flip that property we could
all make a mint.”
“I’m sure we could. But, it’s up to her.”
Jessica nodded. Then she crossed her arms over her chest. “So this is the woman
you’re in love with.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Earlier I thought you were going to punch me.”
Ray coughed. “You’re exaggerating.”
“I’m not!”
“I would never hit a woman.”
“Some primal part of you wanted to, though. I can tell. It’s a good thing.”
“Is it?”
“You’re protective of her.”
“I was protective of you, too.”
“This is different. The way you look at her is different.”
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her?”
“That’s insane.”
If You Asked Me To
“Are you forgetting how many times you’ve called me late at night to talk about
Ray cringed. “I never should have done that.”
Jess raised one shoulder. “I’m glad we’ve been able to stay friends. I’m glad
you’re my business partner, too. Truth be told, I’m glad you broke up with me. Linc
looks at me like you look at her. And we have a baby on the way. You never even
decided if you wanted a baby.”
about tea.”
Ray still didn’t know.
“You know how else I know? You’re not a gentleman with her, Ray.”
“What are you talking about? You saw me help her up. You saw me ask her
“You didn’t ask her the way you would ask me. You didn’t help her the way you
would help me.”
was over.”
“I will never understand you women.”
“Listen, Ray. You didn’t linger over her. You just helped and boom the moment
He mulled that over. His parents had raised him to be a gentleman. He opened
doors, he picked up the tab, he…didn’t do any of those things if he thought Shelley
didn’t want him to.
Had he really loved Jessica before? Yes. He had, and he still did. But not as his
lover, not as the woman he needed to spend the rest of his life with.
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“Don’t worry. She loves you, too.”
Aubrey Leatherwood
Ray shook his head. “I don’t know about that.”
“She moved in with you, didn’t she?”
“So?”
“You’re so easy. I don’t know how you manage at poker, because you wear your
heart on your sleeve more than I do. It’s easy to tell how you feel, but I know you have
trouble with her. I’m just telling you, she’s allowing you to fix her mother’s house, to be
in the place she grew up, while she’s living with you and letting you take care of her—
when you’ve told me more times than I can count how strong-minded she is and
unwilling to accept help—I just know that she does love you. No matter what she says,
that woman loves you.”
going to be.”
“She’ll never admit it.”
“Be like you were with me. Tell her what she’s going to do. Tell her how it’s
“Oh no.” Ray raised his hands, palms out. “You don’t know what you’re asking.
I can’t tell that woman anything. She’ll drag herself out of here by one finger if she has
to.”
“Oh Raymond, you can be so thick sometimes. If you’ve ever listened to
anything I’ve said, listen to this. Be the man you were when you met her and you didn’t
know about her condition and she started to fall for you.”
“I don’t know.”
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“Do it, Ray, you’ll be fine.” She gave him a half hug then went down the walk to
her car. Ray waved her off then went back into the house with a new purpose.
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Chapter 12
That night, Shelley and Ray went to bed early. They were going earlier and
earlier each night. Shelley knew it was probably her fault. In bed each night, with only
air separating them, it was the only time when she really allowed closeness between
them. The earlier they went to bed, the earlier that closeness started.
“Aren’t you going to ask what she said?” Ray asked.
“After she watched me bust my ass while I was sitting down? No, thank you.”
In response, Ray leaned over and quickly kissed her temple. “Jessica is a really
good person. She did ask about your condition but not out of malice.”
“But she was shocked as hell that this is what you chose over her, right.”
“Who.”
“Huh?”
“You said that ‘this’ is what I chose, like you’re an it or an object rather than a
person. You are a ‘who’, Shell. You are who I chose over her.”
“I still don’t know why. We weren’t even serious—”
“You weren’t serious.”
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“She’s gorgeous, you know. Perfect.”
If You Asked Me To
It was easy to know what she meant. “Maybe she was. When I met you, she
wasn’t perfect anymore. You were perfect.”
“Yeah, right. You broke up with me. And you wouldn’t see me for almost a year.
You’d take my calls, but you wouldn’t see me.”
“After you dumped me more times than I can count. You didn’t give me a
choice, Shell. I couldn’t let you break my heart again.”
“So what did you do then?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m just saying…”
“Oh…I’ve learned this. You want to know about other women.”
Her eyes lowered and she licked her lips.
“See, that’s one of the things I learned from Jessica after we stopped dating and I
actually started to listen to her. A woman doesn’t want to know, but she needs to
know.”
“It’s true.”
“I’ve been with two women.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“Good.” Shelley shrugged. “If you’d said none, I wouldn’t have believed you. If
you’d said one, I’d be jealous as hell because I would think she was special to you. If
you’d said three I’d start to worry.”
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“So two is okay?”
Aubrey Leatherwood
“Ask me how many men I’ve been with since you.”
“Shit, better not be any.” His response had been pure reflex.
“So, no,” she said, just as reflexively. “Two is not okay.”
“But those were short-lived, Shelley. More physical than anything. When I told
you I loved you that first night, I meant it. I’ve never stopped loving you.”
“Did either one of them have a disability?” The question came from nowhere.
“No,” he responded.
“Good.”
“Why does it matter?”
“That ensures you’re not a handi-fetishist.”
Ray barked a laugh. “Not that I’m aware of. But I do love you, Shelley. Please tell
me you know that.”
be pushed.
her side.
Not, “tell me you love me, too.” He still wouldn’t push her if she didn’t want to
“You know what I hate about you?” She turned her back to him and curled on
“Which thing?”
“I hate that you never seem to know when something’s wrong with me. When
I’m sad, you don’t even pay attention. I always think that if you really loved me, you
would know.”
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“I always know when something is wrong with you, Shelley. Always. What I
don’t know is whether you feel like talking about something or not. I don’t know if I try
to approach you head-on, ask you what’s wrong, if you’re just going to run again. You
always run, Shell.”
She blinked and blinked again, then she felt Ray’s hand on her shoulders
drawing her back against his body.
“I knew when you called me that something was wrong. It’s why I called you
back. It’s why I came. When your voice goes flat and your eyes stop shining and those
pretty lips of yours press together, I know something’s wrong. I know when you’re on
your feet too long and you try to think of silly ways to get me to sit with you. I know
when your migraines are starting and you try to hide it from me. Shelley, I know you. I
love you.”
“Ray?”
“Yeah, babe?”
“I want to make love to you.”
“Now that’s what I’m talking about. It's about ti—”
“But not tonight. When we’re together again, I want to make it right.”
“Shelley, it’s always right. With you it’s always right. Maybe I love you because
you’re so damn good in bed.”
“That’s ridiculous. You’re only saying I’m good in bed because you can treat me
like a rag doll and do whatever you want to me.”
“Thank you, Jesus.”
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He tried, and Shelley nearly gave in, but she couldn’t. When she gave herself to
him again, she needed to make him know what she felt, even if she was never able to
say it in words, she needed him to know.
“Tomorrow,” she whispered to him.
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next night.
If You Asked Me To
Chapter 13
“You know, that Jessica is very pretty,” Shelley remarked after a light dinner the
“Not as pretty as you.”
“Maybe not her face,” Shelley responded.
When Ray looked at her, he probably expected that blank face that hid self-
doubt. She was sure, instead he saw a smug satisfaction. She might not admit it to him,
but she already believed he was hers.
He raised an eyebrow and glanced at the long blue box that looked like it could
hold a rolled-up poster sitting on the coffee table.
“I didn’t have time to talk to you earlier. I bought something.” She started to
stand and he helped her.
“You want me to get your crutches?”
“Um…no,” she told him. “No, just help me to the bedroom.”
There went another raised eyebrow.
He handed her the box then swept her up in his arms.
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about it?”
Aubrey Leatherwood
“If I tell you how much I’ve always wanted to do this, are you going to be a bitch
Her eyes widened in shock. “I can’t believe you said that.”
“You tell my mother or my father I said something like that to you and you get
no more sex.”
“What?”
“I figured it out. It’s the only thing that’ll keep you in line.” In the bedroom, he
settled her in the center and sat on the edge with the box in hand.
ask.”
“You weren’t giving me any anyway.”
“Gee, I didn’t know you were disgruntled about that. You all you had to do was
Shelley poked him with one end of the box.
“So, what’s in the box? Is it a present for me?”
“It’s for the both of us.”
Raymond opened it.
“You know I go to physical therapy to combat contraction of my muscles,
ligaments, everything. I’m more flexible than many with my disease, but I just thought
it would be nice to try because it will combine my upper body strength with—”
Shelley had not had much experience with naked men in her life but she was
certain Ray could have won an award for how fast he disrobed.
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And here she’d thought she would have to explain what the three-foot-long bar
with soft leather cuffs on each end was for. But in less than ten minutes, she was naked,
too, and Raymond was affixing a cuff to each of her ankles.
“Hold it,” he commanded. She lifted her knees to bring the bar within reach.
Looping her arms beneath her hips, she wrapped her hands around the inside of the bar
and pulled it until her legs folded under her body and her thighs formed a vee exposing
her sex for his view. Her arms were wedged beneath her pushing her chest into an
extreme arch. Maybe she should have been just the tiniest bit abashed, but she wasn’t.
She wanted him inside her…immediately.
But that was not to be. Ray slipped down her body and his lips licked the inside
of her lips and moistened the tight center of nerves. He suckled a little and a gurgle of
pleasure escaped her lips. When his tongue delved inside of her, the intense pleasure
started to flow in warm ripples from her core outward. His tongue was replaced by a
slender finger that dipped in her moisture again and again, slowly, maddeningly. She
squeezed the bar harder and her hips rocked up to meet him.
She could feel him smiling at her body’s greed before he flicked his tongue
against her clitoris again and slid another finger inside her, stretching her. She’d told
him once that she didn’t really care for oral sex. Thank heavens he had ignored her,
because his languid pace and the way he coaxed pleasure from her produced pure
ecstasy. Her legs started to tremble as the well-worked tension built within her.
The shaking in her legs became convulsions as she battled against her body
while battling for the sweetest of orgasms.
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On the verge of frustrated tears, she rasped in desperation, “I can’t hold it as long
as I thought. But I need… God, I need.”
But she didn’t get.
Ray dropped his head on her belly. And waited a beat, two. When finally he
looked up at her, Shelley mustered the strength to look at him, to let him see her worry,
her insecurity.
“Do you trust me?” he asked her.
A little flutter started; it made her hips twitch and she melted like an idiot. She
reached for him. Her hips rolled again.
Then he grinned like an idiot but he didn’t come to her. “Do you trust me?”
“You know I trust you.” The electricity in her body sparked impatience.
He leaned over and reached into his nightstand.
Curiosity prompted her to prop herself up on her elbows as she tried to see what
he was doing. First, she watched as he stroked a condom onto his shaft. Then he turned
to her and said, “Give me your hand.” She did. “Tell me when it’s tight enough.”
Shelley watched as he attached her wrist to the bar just beside her ankle with a
cool, white zip tie.
Her breasts started to tingle.
So in tune to her body, or hell maybe because he’d seen her back arch slightly,
Ray lifted one hand to cup her breast then tweak her nipple. So startling and delicious,
the sensation caused Shelley’s free hand to flutter down to delve into her own slick
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heat. But that was short-lived as Ray grabbed her wrist firmly then brought it down to
fasten that one against the bar.
“Damn,” he hissed as he looked down at her.
“What, baby?” she purred. Shelley indulged herself for just a second. For one
instant, she reveled in the fact that he was staring at her thus and she didn’t feel self-
conscious. She felt like a siren. For once, she knew and trusted completely that he was
looking at her as woman not a disease. He wanted her and in that moment she held all
of the sexual power a woman could ever hold over a man even as her hands and feet
were tied.
“I don’t know which way I want you first.”
He spit on his fingers and then put them between her legs again where he
massaged her until her knees fell open wider, her arms were anchored almost beneath
her body, and her chest arched upward.
“Oh yeah,” He sucked air between his teeth. “Just like this.” His body covered
hers and he slipped inside of her slick, welcoming center.
Shelley tried to contain herself, she really did, but feeling him inside her again,
filling her up, was delicious. Her body writhed beneath him, seeking a release
heightened by the knowledge that her body was bound and subject to his every whim.
He pulled out and she growled, but he rolled onto his back and took her with
him. “You love it like this,” he whispered slipping into her again though her arms were
fixed behind her back. Shelley ground her hips into his, the friction driving her crazy as
he grabbed her hips and countered every one of her movements.
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Shelley closed her eyes and bounced on top of him reaching for it, feeling it
coming, straining, lost in the moment as her every sense sought—
When she felt him pulling out again she started to sob. “I’m so close,” she
begged. “Please, I’m so close. You have to, please Ray, please.”
“Me too, baby.”
The he turned her over and she felt his warm breath against her ear. “Tell me if
this hurts.” Suddenly, she felt tension pulling her ankles up. Her hips rocked upward
even though she still lay on her belly. Her knees were nudged wide.
She felt his chest, the sparse hairs, slide against the skin of her thighs, her butt
and her back. Ray had slid in under the bar, so that the bar rested on his lower back,
and Shelley’s hands and feet bracketed his hips. But, he didn’t rest there. Instead, he
slipped his arms under the bar to lift it higher. Shelley’s hips rolled higher until they
were off the bed all together.
He slammed into her and her shoulders, neck and head pushed deep into the
bed. He did it again and the tingling sensation radiating through her made her want to
cry. He pounded into her again and she gasped for air. He didn’t again and she let out a
sob. Her body was so hot and electrified and she couldn’t get enough of him, even the
anticipation of his own release seduced her. She knew they would both come this time.
She’d been preparing herself for it. But the pleasure from it made her whimper and her
insides clench.
“Let me hear it,” he ground out over her before he thrust hard inside of her.
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Shelley didn’t have a choice. He ripped a yelp from her with that stroke and had
delivered another, just as hard, before she recovered.
She panted and moaned and she couldn’t stop and she felt a little like she had to
pee, and then… Her growl was deep and gruff as it exited her throat. “Fuck,” she
groaned as she felt his tense body begin to shake and she could feel his orgasm pulsing
inside her then slipping out mingled with her own juices. “Fuck.”
“Jesus Christ, Shelley. That was better than the Breitling.”
Between heavy breaths, she smirked at him, until he reached into his drawer and
pulled out a box cutter. By the time he freed her from the bar and the ties, Shelley was
drifting off to sleep.
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Chapter 14
“You don’t know what it was like in that house,” she told him while he tangled
his fingers with hers.
“Tell me, baby. Tell me.”
Shelley didn’t know why she always felt the need to open up to him after sex.
Before, she’d been scared that he would think she was weird, but she was finally
coming to accept him for who and what he was and he chose not to hold back. “I don’t
know what to tell you other than it was horrible. I spent every minute of every day on
eggshells when I was a kid.”
hit me, too.”
“She hit you?” The question was blunt but said with hesitation, quiet strength.
“Yeah she hit me. Of course she hit me. Hell, when I was in school my boyfriend
“If I ever run into him, he will die.”
Shelley didn’t laugh. Those words weren’t said in humor. She swallowed, but
she went on. “It didn’t happen for long. He left me. When I started falling down, he left
me. And when my diagnosis came in, my mother stopped hitting me, too. When I
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realized that—I mean she didn’t do it every day—it was the most horrible day of my
life.”
When he saw that she wasn’t going to go on, he ran his fingers through her hair
and prompted her in just more than a whisper, “Why? Why was that a horrible day,
sweetheart?”
“’Cause I knew, Ray. Before she didn’t love me, but at least she thought
something could become of me. She hit me because she thought that was the way to
make me behave, to make me do things. It was her way to both punish and encourage.
When she stopped, it was because she gave up. I was shit like she was shit and there
was nothing else she could do.”
Shelley could tell he didn’t know what to say. She could tell that he was
searching. His eyes said that he was searching for the perfect thing. He wanted, so
desperately, to make that hurt better, but he couldn’t. There was nothing he could say
to make that pain even a shade better.
She turned away from him.
“If you’re shit, then what the hell am I, Shelley? You’re smarter, funnier, prettier,
stronger, and I’m ashamed to say, you got more money than I do. It’s only a little
consolation that you’ll never be a better poker player than I am.”
Shelley let out a noise that sounded like part cough and part bark. She knew it
was ugly, but that laugh was magnificent. It was gorgeous. She felt euphoria. The pain
wasn’t gone, but he had done it. Raymond had made her laugh when normally thinking
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about those times could throw her into depression for weeks, even months at a stretch
sometimes.
Then he leaned over and kissed her, and for the first time since she was very
small, Shelley let the tears she guarded heavily drop from her eyes in front of another
breathing, living human being.
This time, he didn’t really know what to do, so he hugged her hard, and that
made her want to laugh. Shelley felt like she’d just climbed Everest and she knew, she
just knew he felt the same.
“Raymond, I…I…”
She turned toward him with a sweet half-smile gracing her lips. Her eyes
devoured his features and he could tell she wanted to kiss him again. And she did. It
was a gentle thing, barely a nuzzle, but it made him grin with warmth.
the sentence.
“Raymond…I…” She watched him intently, but for the life of her couldn’t finish
“You what?”
“I’ve decided to let you sell the house.”
“That’s not what you were going to say, Shelley!” he snarled.
So quickly, she’d done it again. Again.
She just stood there. Blinking. Slowly. She didn’t even cross her arms. Not a
fidget, nothing to show that she was in the least disturbed. She was even looking him in
the eyes. But, finally, Raymond knew. He didn’t know because of some tell or
something she did on the surface. Maybe he would never know that way. But he would
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know because he knew her. She had crawled inside of him and what she felt, he felt. He
knew because of the undeniable connection and love that flowed between them.
“Say it.”
“Say what?”
“I’ve said it more times than I can count. You’ve never said it.”
Shelley started to shake her head.
“Please baby,” he murmured as he neared her.
The change in his tone seemed to startle her. He liked her startled. He started to
stalk forward, eyes flashing between hers and her lips.
“You love me, Shelley,” he insisted as he moved closer.
“Raymond, stop.”
“No.” Finally, his body was pressed flush against hers and the heat from it was
making her knees buckle.
“Say it for me.”
Her mouth popped open, but no words came out.
“You do.”
Lips started to move. A slow shake of her head commenced.
“Don’t deny it. You may not have asked me to come here, but you called me,
Shelley. You called me. And I knew when I heard your voice. I knew it was time. Say it
for me, baby.”
Then he kissed her.
“Do you? Do you love me?”
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“Yes.”
“And do you want me?”
“Oh yes.”
“And do you need me?”
Aubrey Leatherwood
She stumbled. She faltered. She would have been a different person had she not.
But she answered him, “Yes. Yes. I need you.”
“Then that’s eno—”
“And I love you.” She said it fast and true while she had the chance.
“All in?”
She grinned and threw her arms around his neck as he lifted her. “All in.”
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If You Asked Me To
Thank you for your purchase of If You Asked Me To by Aubrey Leatherwood.
Please stop by Aspen Mountain Press and take a look at our selection of contemporary
romances.
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