Page 37 of Pieces of Ash

Jock calls to the man from the barn door, and that’s when I see a reddish-brown hound escape from behind Jock, rushing across the driveway toward me.

A dog!

I feel my face split into a grin. Ilovedogs. With the exception of Mosier’s attack animals, I havealwaysloved dogs, but Tig never let me have one.There’s a dog here? Oh, god, please let this work out.

I squat down, holding out my hand to the animal as she approaches. She sniffs my hands before letting me pet her behind her pendulous, curtain-like, velvet-soft ears. “Hello, baby. You’re so beautiful, you sweet, sweet girl.”

“He’smale,” spits a voice over my head.

I look up, rising slowly, unable to look away from the man yelling at me.

Eyes.

Bright green and heavily lashed, they widen in surprise, staring into mine for a long and life-changing moment before they narrow with anger, sliding away from me and back to Jock.

I don’t hear anything as his voice lowers to a point of fury, likely telling Jock all the reasons I am unwanted here. Usually, it would sting a little to watch someone reject me summarily on first meeting, but I am so mesmerized by his face, by his body,by his rugged and innate beauty, I can barely breathe, let alone force my ears to function in any sort of meaningful way.

He is tall. Taller than me, six two or six three, with a clearly defined, muscled body under a gray T-shirt and beat-up jeans slung low on his hips. He wears boots that, in the sunlight, appear to be flecked with a million pieces of diamond dust—they twinkle every time he moves them. With his hands on his hips, the cords of sinew in his forearms pop just enough to create a map of trails that lead to his wrists and hands. The backs of his hands, like his boots, are dusted with diamonds, and when he raises one to reinforce one of the many reasons I absolutely may not stay here, it catches the sunlight and sparkles.

As I stare at his hand, I realize it’s quiet—really quiet—and the silence startles me back to reality.

I look at Gus, who darts a quick and disappointed glance at Julian.

“Happy now?”

I slide my eyes—slowly, bracing myself for impact all the while—to Julian, watching him flinch, his jaw tight and his pink lips pursed as he regards me.

“I’m nottryingto offend you,” he huffs.

“I’m…not offended,” I answer, my voice lower than usual. I’m being honest. I’m not offended. I haven’t heard a single word he’s said.

“Of course she’s fucking offended,” says Jock, the expletive almost comical when delivered in his British accent.

But Gus knows better, and the expression on his face proves it. He knows that I am accustomed to being rejected, and it doesn’t bother me in the way it would shock and distress another woman.

“She has nowhere else to go,” he says quietly.

“And this ismyproperty,” Jock adds with quiet steel, his gentility back in check. “You only rent the ground floor of thehouse and the barn. I can rent the upper level to whomever I choose.”

“So you’re going to force me to have this…this…thisgirlstay here.”

Butthisdoes offend me, in fact, because I’ve been waiting to be a woman for a long time, and at eighteen, I’m allowed to wear the title.

“I’m an adult,” I hear myself say.

“Barely,” he shoots back, his eyes changing color to a dark and angry evergreen.

“I’ll stay out of your way. I’m good at that.”

He yanks his gaze away from me, gesturing to a dilapidated, outhouse-looking structure in a field, about a hundred yards away from where we’re standing. “Fine. The cottage is all hers.”

“The…cottage?” I grimace, wondering how many species of mouse I’ll be sharing the “cottage” with.

“It’s not habitable,” argues Jock.

“I’ll fix it up.”

“No deal,” says Jock. “She stays in the house.”