Page 118 of Forged in Deception

She was crying freely now. Asher swept her into his arms, pulling her close against his chest, warming her straight through.

“No,” he said firmly. “It’s not over until you’re dead in the ground, Karlin. You can turn to Him at this moment. You can start saying yes. Right here, and right now.”

CHAPTER

FORTY-NINE

ASHER

The second that Asher stepped through the lobby doors of the hospital, a gust of freezing wind pummeled him, sending him back a step.

Karlin didn’t even flinch.

“I won’t miss the worst wind in the United States,” he said, taking hold of her hand and gesturing toward where he’d parked his rental car. Another rush of air slid across the open expanse of the hospital parking lot, drowning out any hope of hearing Karlin’s reply.

He opened the passenger door for her, holding it tightly so it wouldn’t slam shut while she was getting in, and finally, he managed to make it into his own seat.

Turning the key in the ignition, he turned up the heat as high as it would go, deciding at that moment that he would never complain about San Antonio weather again.

Karlin picked up a small stack of old-school mixed CDs that he’d stuck into the center console. Now that the airline had actually returned his luggage, he had something decent to listen to at last.

“You brought all of these with you? Really? No YouTube or Spotify down south?” she teased.

“Nevermind the CDs,” he said, laughing as he yanked ‘Asher’s Top Ten’ from her grasp. “I want to talk about the other thing. The real thing.”

“What real thing?” she asked innocently, not quite meeting his eyes. “God? Faith?”

“No,” he said quickly, shaking his head. “I mean, yes, but–”

“Then what?”

The woman was maddening.

He leaned over until his face was inches away from hers, but this time, he wasn’t going to give her the escape route of a kiss. Instead, he took hold of her hands and waited for his eyes to meet hers.

“I want to talk aboutthis,” he said, his voice coming out in a hushed breath. “Us.”

He could tell by the blush rising in her cheeks that she enjoyed his touch, but that didn’t fully erase the worry he could see in her bright blue eyes.

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that,” she stammered. “You–you’ve helped me to see so much that I’ve been missing, and I’m so thankful to have met you. It was–it’s been a good time together.”

His stomach felt like it had just been filled with rocks. He’d heard words like this before, more than once.

“Hold on. That sounds like what girls say when they dump me. Are you dumping me?”

“I mean, you live all the way in San Antonio,” she said, fidgeting beneath the weight of his gaze. “You have a great family, and a whole life there, and I don’t know what’s going to come next for me. I know I’m going to be stuck here for the foreseeable future. There’s the trial for Senera, the trial for Dana…I have to try to keep helping John, somehow, whichmeans I need money, which means I need some kind of well-paying job–”

“All I’m hearing are reasons that you still needme, Karlin,” he said, cutting her off. “All of the ways that I can help you and be there for you. Did you really think I was going to help you tear everything in your life apart and then just leave you to deal with the aftermath alone?”

She said nothing for several long seconds.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

The look in her eyes was enough to shatter his heart.

But before he could wrap his arms around her and assure her he was absolutely not going anywhere, she spoke again.

“I guess I just can’t believe that you really want this to be something real. Something lasting. That you want me, when no one else in my life, aside from my brother, ever really has. And then when I think about the distance…I don’t know. It’s a lot.”

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