Page 10 of Two Hearts Reunited

“Anyway,” Ashley said. “There’s a little more to the story, but we can save that for another time.”

“Like the part about Ashley getting kidnapped,” Brian growled.

“What?”Eric snapped. “No one mentioned anything about that.”

“That’s because the guy that did it had information, so he’s being used even now as an informant. But he’s behind bars.”

Eric shook his head dazedly. “If Mom and Mr. Ashford were the ones that they suspected knew about their scheme, why did the rest of us have to move to Chicago?”

Brian heaved a sigh. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Eric, but that was my fault.”

Puzzled, Eric asked, “How so?”

“I came here that night after Ashley had moved away with her mom. We’d had words, and I went over to her house to apologize but she was gone. When I drove here to the house just to think about things, I walked down to the pier without realizing that the basement of this house was most likely a gathering place for several of the traffickers and possibly even some clients.” Brian inhaled an unsteady breath. “They saw me. I ran straight to the Inn and talked to Jake, and he sent protection over to our house so we could pack and get away. I went into the Army immediately because it was easier to hide in plain sight for a while.”

Stunned, Eric sat silent, looking down into the sweet innocent face of Arielle, still sleeping in his arms.

Finally, he spoke grimly. “I don’t know who I’m mad at most—you or Dad.”

Brian hung his head. “I’m sorry, Eric. It really was safer for everyone that way. The worst thing about it was that I went through tons of mug shots, but I could never identify any of the men, even though I got a pretty good look at all of them.”

“I had the advantage of overhearing my dad’s conversation with my mom the night before he left town, to supposedly run off with your mom,” Ashley admitted, looking sheepish. “I knew that it was planned, although I didn’t understand why it was happening.”

“We might have found a way to stay in touch if I hadn’t been such an ass,” Brian grumbled.

Ashley pursed her lips. “There’s no use dwelling on the past, Brian. And truthfully, the circumstances just made us stronger. And we still ended up together.”

Brian grinned.

“On those words of wisdom, I should get the baby tucked into bed upstairs,” Ashley said, standing to approach Eric, who gently held up the baby so she could easily scoop her into her arms. “I can’t believe how lucky we are that she sleeps so well.”

“I guess the two of us should be getting to bed, since I’ll have to get up early and plow,’ Brian said.

“Eric hasn’t even seen the apartment downstairs,” Ashley said, turning back to Eric as she headed from the living room toward the wide staircase inside the front entrance. “Feel free to help yourself to anything in the kitchen, including tonight’s leftovers. You’ll have a TV and internet access downstairs, so you can stay up as late as you’d like or sleep in. We don’t have any set time for breakfast since we’ve been working from home.”

“Thank you for everything, Ashley. Dinner was great,” Eric replied, smiling.

She snorted. “I don’t know about that, but we’ll see you in the morning. Night.”

“Night,” Eric responded, standing as Brian began turning down the lights before shutting off the electric fireplace. “Anything I can do?”

“Nah. I’m just glad you’re not mad anymore,” Brian answered, grinning.

Eric gave him a rueful smile. “Like you said, the past is the past.”

“Just follow me.”

As Eric followed Brian through the kitchen and down the staircase, he realized that Brian’s limp was a lot less pronounced. “You barely limp at all anymore.”

“It usually gets worse when I overdo it. Say I spend too much time shoveling or working outside in the summer,” he said, waving his hand around the huge space downstairs. “What do you think?”

“I love it,” Eric replied, his eyes going wide. The space was actually set up like a family room, with a sectional and big screen TV. There was even a small kitchen on the opposite side of the room. The bedroom area was sectioned off behind one side of the sectional with a panel that appeared to slide open so he could see the TV from the king-sized bed.

Brian led him to what appeared to be the beginning of a hallway with access to only one door on the left. “This is your rest room. We intentionally have the hallway closed off with an exterior door because on the other side is the room which has access to the tunnels I was telling you about. We think we have everything closed off but the tunnels are like a maze, so we decided to set up a security system to play it safe and install motion detectors in some strategic places inside the tunnels.”

Eric must have looked intrigued, so Brian held up a staying hand, grinning. “I know you love that kind of stuff, but I’ll tell you all about it and give you a tour some other time.”

When they walked back into the family room, Brian picked up a remote and turned on the TV. “Here you go. I remember how you always liked to fall asleep with noise.”

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