Upper Hand (Cedar Tree Book 5) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Upper Hand (A Cedar Tree Novel, #5)

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY THIS AUTHOR

  COMING SOON

  UPPER HAND, a Cedar Tree Novel

  Copyright © 2015 Margreet Asselbergs as Freya Barker

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or by other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author or publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in used critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses as permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author, mentioning in the subject line:

  "Reproduction Request” at the address below:

  [email protected]

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, any event, occurrence, or incident is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created and thought up from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  ISBN: 978-0-9938883-9-7

  Cover Image: Reggie Deanching of R+M Photography

  Cover Model: Alfie Gabriel Gordillo

  Cover Design: RE&D - Margreet Asselbergs

  DEDICATION

  To my readers, who have so graciously embraced the characters in the Cedar Tree series. I strive to live up to your expectations and am awed by the incredible response I receive with the release of each new novel.

  You all make writing even more rewarding!

  xox

  PROLOGUE

  “Better wake up, you big ape. You’ve been tying up this bed long enough. I knew you’d be trouble the moment I laid eyes on you.”

  The last is said with a distinct tremor.

  I’m so tempted to let the darkness surrounding me suck me under, but each time I feel myself slipping, this voice keeps pulling me back to the surface. I don’t have to open my eyes to know who it is. That voice has stirred and grated on me equally over the past year. Deep and resonant most of the time, shrill some of the time, but there’ve been moments where it had some sweetness to it. It’s those times that stirred my soul; gave me the promise of a world of softness underneath the bristles. A promise that had all but disappeared, until now.

  Sure, her words are combative, but Beth’s emotions are only too clear in her voice. She cares. She doesn’t want to, that much is obvious, but she cares nonetheless. At least I think so. So far, I really haven’t been on my game when it comes to her, and yet with every rejection and slight, she has managed to worm herself deeper under my skin. Damn.

  -

  The first time I laid eyes on her, she had soot all over her face and her dark hair had mostly pulled free of her ponytail. A strong, capable woman, I could see that from the way she stood straight. Despite her softer curves and the hint of fatigue around her liquid brown eyes, I could see this was not a woman to cross. Not that I wanted to, quite the opposite in fact. Her defiant stance and pronounced hourglass figure shook me awake, body and mind. Immediately, I managed to piss her off.

  “Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” I remember wincing the moment those words flew from my mouth. From the look on her face, she wasn’t that impressed either.

  One of her eyebrows almost disappeared into her hairline, and her lush lips were pulled into an angry line. Sonofabitch. You’d think I’d learn after having already pissed off the owner of the place I was hired to do work on. The local diner in Cedar Tree was damaged in a recent fire, and I almost blew the job because of my runaway mouth.

  It was hammered into me, growing up in the Deep South, to treat women like delicate flowers. Well, there wasn’t anything ‘delicate’ about Beth, the woman standing across from me now, just as there’d been nothing flowery about Arlene, her boss and owner of the diner in question.

  In fact, there wasn’t a damn delicate flower to be found anywhere in or around Cedar Tree. I was making a name for myself pissing each and everyone of them off, at some point in time. The irony of it all was that my mom, although with the appearance of a true southern belle, had a spine of steel and a hand that was harder than my father’s had ever been. Always dressed in frilly dresses, giving the illusion of fragility, she ruled the household and us boys with an iron fist. She’d always been our pillar of strength until cancer took her. My father gave up after that and didn’t take long to follow her, and what remained of our family fell apart after that.

  -

  I tried to redeem myself. I tried hard with Beth, and although I’d struck up a friendship with Arlene and some of her friends, despite my shaky start, Beth never seemed to warm to me. She confused the hell out of me though. That foot, which has a tendency to stick itself in my mouth, got itchy whenever I was around her. There wasn’t a time that our interactions didn’t end up with Beth irritated or angry with me. Although recently, after I’d scheduled to meet a new client at the diner to discuss some work on her house, Beth had been more snippy than normal; almost as if she was jealous. After many months of trying to get in her good graces, I thought I’d found a crack in her armor. The next time I walked in the diner and saw her walking toward my booth, I figured it was time to push a little. So I got up and the minute she was within reach, I pulled her against me and was going to lay a kiss on her. I’d always been told that if you wanted something you had to be clear in your intentions. I figured nothing would get the message across better than a kiss. Right? Well, my lips had barely touched hers when she gave me an almighty shove to my chest and to my horror started crying. Not exactly the reaction I had hoped for.

  “You—you caveman! Why would you do that?”

  Before I could even form a response, she was running into the kitchen, tears running down her face. The kitchen where right at that moment half of Cedar Tree was assembled. Reckon that didn’t only not go over too well, but it didn’t go over too well in a very public way. I followed her, found her outside leaning against the dumpster, spouting some incoherent stuff about trying to kiss her when I was playing footsies with another. She could’ve spoken Greek and it probably would’ve made more sense to me. Seeming to make her only more upset, I left her and went back inside—eyes in the kitchen burning holes in my back.

  I tried a few more times, until she told me to leave her alone, and she ended up hiding in the bathroom.

  That’s when I’d decided this was a battle that was perhaps not worth fighting or winning. As much as women are an enigma to me; Beth was a complete alien. A beautiful, loving—at least to her friends—and hardworking woman I’d spent a year trying to get to know, but the woman was an impenetrable fort. I’m all about figh
ting to get in, but at some point it’d be nice to be invited. I’m getting too old for this song and dance. Having loved and lost before, I can say I’d gladly do the loving part, but the losing is not something I’d volunteer for again. Especially not before we even get to the loving.

  So with continued rejection bitter on my tongue, I started spending all of my energy on my contracts: the house renovations in Cortez and Naomi’s place in town.

  -

  It’s actually the last thing I remember, the old house behind the feed store. I think I was there, but the memory keeps going to black, like turning off the TV. A clear picture one minute and the next thing a blank screen. My head hurts, and momentarily forgetting about the woman in the room, my hand moves of its own accord toward my head. I haven’t opened my eyes yet, but the gasp I hear is clearly from her lips.

  “There you are. I gotta call a nurse.”

  Busted. For as much as I’ve started to embrace the dark, I know she’ll just hound me until I open my eyes.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “He moved his arm,” I reply excitedly to the nurse, who enters the room I’ve virtually lived in the last few weeks. “I thought there was something different about his breathing this morning, but that was all until he moved, just now.”

  “Mr. Mason?” She approaches the bed confidently, pulling a small flashlight from her pocket, as she carefully peels back one of his eyelids.

  -

  Before I got the news that he had been hurt badly and flown to Durango, I’d fought the feelings this man invoked in me tooth and nail. Successfully so, I thought, after having a few minor melt downs when my resistance was low but coming out swinging. He’d retreated to his corner, before stepping out of the ring completely in the last month. I ignored the pang of regret I felt every time he’d walk in the diner and would pointedly ignore me. So different from the entire time since we were first introduced.

  Oh, he’d put his foot in time and time again. It just seemed to be his way to say the wrong thing at the wrong moment, but it was obvious the guy was a complete loss when it came to talking with women. One sentence from his mouth was even more insulting than the next. Yet, he remained incapable of reigning in the politically incorrect verbiage flowing from his lips without benefit of a hefty filter. Almost endearingly clueless, which is what made—makes—him so dangerous.

  For all intents and purposes, Clint Mason was a decent man. A good man, who apparently never had the privilege of learning to communicate effectively with women. Real women that is. I’m sure some might be charmed by his redneck approach, but the apparent lack of respect for women was all in the eye of the beholder but not so much in his.

  The simple fact that he’d found himself a place in the group of friends that made up part of the regulars at Arlene’s—hell, even befriending Arlene after the major faux pas he made with her the first time they met—told me there was more under that southern veneer he was hiding behind.

  A dangerous man for me; unlike the smooth-talking losers I’d hooked my wagon to, from time to time, until finally giving up men altogether. Clint in all his stumbling communications, as far from smooth with the ladies as possible, has proven himself a good, honest, and protective friend to everyone but me. My doing entirely, I’ve simply not given him the chance.

  -

  So, while I was telling myself to be relieved not to have to deal with his undesired attentions any longer, and erasing that one moment where his lips were close enough to taste from my mind, I was literally shocked into motion when learning he was en route to the hospital in critical condition. Tearing off my apron as I was running to the kitchen for my purse, Seb, cook, part owner and husband to Arlene, tried to stop me. Nothing would’ve at that point though, not even the sizable, tattooed, and very willful Seb. Shaking him off like a bug, I beelined it through the back door and to my junker of a car parked beside the dumpster. Praying for at least half a tank as I cranked the sputtering engine, I breathed in relief when the gauge showed only a quarter gone.

  -

  Can’t remember exactly how I got here, ignoring messages and texts noisily coming in on my cell on the way, but I got here. Then I lied through my teeth so I could come in to see him. With the ‘family only’ rule in place for critical patients, I morphed myself into his fiancée. I almost snorted when I said it, from habit I guess, but the nurse at the desk swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. At least I think so, because I was lead to the Intensive Care Unit waiting room right away.

  -

  That’s where I’ve been the past few weeks, holding vigil by this man’s bed. Holding his cold hand, reveling at its size much like the man himself: big, bulky, and rough-looking. Cursing him for not waking up, for leaving us hanging.

  It’s not like I was only one trying, either. Every one of our friends have been here, talking, coaxing, and even pleading with him to wake up, but without results until now.

  I watch the nurse flick the flashlight into his eyes and he squints, his hand uncoordinated as it tries to swat at the light. A relief washes over me so strong, my entire body seems to deflate. It isn’t until the nurse talks to me that I realize the tears running down my face.

  “You okay, Beth? Would you like me to call someone for you?”

  Her gentle inquiry pulls me back in the moment, and I immediately dig my cell phone out of my purse.

  “I will. Th—thank you,” I mutter, dialing the one person who has been as anxiously awaiting Clint’s return as I have, while the nurse continues her preliminary examination of his reflexes and tries to coax him to speak.

  “He’s waking up,” is the only thing I need to say.

  “On my way,” the person on the other side answers before hanging up.

  -

  -

  With the arrival of the doctor, I’ve been ushered out of the room, while Clint is subjected to a more thorough examination. He hadn’t done much more than blink, so far. The nurse suggested I use the time to get something to eat, but I can’t bring myself to move from my spot right outside his door. I should probably give Dylan a call. I’ve been staying with my son and his family for a few weeks now. Walking in, dead on my feet, after another day spent watching over Clint and doing little more than rolling into bed and sleeping. Only in the mornings would I allow myself an hour or two to enjoy my two-year-old grandbaby, Max, before my daughter-in-law, Tammy, would take him to daycare and I’d head back to the hospital for another day of vigil.

  Frankly, I was glad to be out of the house, the tension between my son and his wife palpable. I’ve tried to talk to Dylan to find out what is wrong, but he isn’t talking. Neither is Tammy, for that matter, and although she’s never been my favorite person—a little too self-involved for my tastes—I hate seeing both of them struggle. They married so young, after dating only a few months and finding themselves pregnant. Dylan had just turned twenty-three and Tammy had still been in college. They struggled through his apprenticeship as a mechanic, where he made next to nothing, and more often than not, I’d had to help out when rent would come due at the beginning of the month. Once he was fully licensed though, his pay increased, Tammy got a part time job, and life had become a little easier for them, until now. I hate that as a mother and grandmother, I have no choice but to sit back and worry.

  I am lost in my thoughts and don’t hear anyone coming in until a hand falls on my shoulder.

  “Hey. How is he?” The deep southern rumble is so like his brother’s, I look up to find Jed’s eyes full of concern.

  “Not sure. The doc’s checking him over right now.”

  “Has he said anything? Can he talk?”

  They’d told us that even when he does wake up, he might not be the same man we remember. It’s possible he’ll have some lasting damage. My heart clenches at the thought of the big burly man, irritating as he might be, limited or changed in any way.

  “He hasn’t talked, has barely even opened his eyes. His arm just suddenly moved,” I tell him, as he sinks down
in the seat beside me.

  “He won’t be happy to see me, you know,” Jed says wistfully. It’s not the first time he’s said something like that.

  When Clint was first brought in, and I threw myself up as his ‘next of kin,’ I realized how little I knew about this man. Didn’t know of any family or even a past. I’d never given myself an opportunity to know him better. All I knew was that the name of his company, Mason Brothers, would indicate there’s more than one Mason. So I started digging and making some calls, finally locating Jed, Clint’s brother, with whom he apparently lost touch years ago. Some kind of estrangement that Jed stayed very vague about, short of saying Clint bought him out and had taken over the company by himself. He hadn’t hesitated though, when I explained who I was and why I called. Within half a day, Jed appeared at the hospital, and I never questioned who he was; the two so similar in build it was almost uncanny. My guess is Clint has probably five years or so on his brother age-wise, but other than that, the brothers favored the same genes quite obviously. Jed came in and immediately took over the running of Mason Brothers, no questions asked. He also never questioned my ruse with the hospital to be put on record as Clint’s fiancée, something I immediately confessed to. From what I could see, Jed Mason was a decent, hardworking man, just like his brother. Puzzling.

  “You don’t know that,” I suggest. “Surely, he’ll be grateful that you dropped everything to be here, making sure his business is taken care of.”

  A snort is my only answer and rather than pry, I sink back in the quiet of the small waiting room.

  -

  “Beth?”

  The nurse from earlier, I think her name is Kathy, sticks her head around the door when she spots Jed.

  “Oh good, Mr. Mason, you’re here too. Your brother seems to be waking up. Groggy still and not quite able to form words, but his eyes are open and his vitals are excellent. I’d normally say only one at a time, but I’m sure he would love to see some friendly faces. The doctor’s done with him, so feel free to come in.” She leaves with a smile.