Текст книги "From Ashes"

Автор книги: Molly McAdams

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“Sorry, Gage, she didn’t want to talk to you when we got here.”

“Is she sick, Ty?”

Tyler started. “What? No, she’s not sick. Why would you—oh. No. She’s not.”

Part of me was relieved, but now that I knew that wasn’t it, I felt sick knowing what must’ve happened. “That why you never wanted to leave her?” I asked quietly.

“Yeah, that’s why.”

“Boyfriend?”

He shook his head.

“Parents?” I gritted my teeth hard when he nodded.

“Hold on a sec.” Tyler walked quickly to the other side of the apartment, and I heard his door open and shut twice before he came back to my room, closing the door. “I wanted to make sure she was sleeping; she doesn’t want you to know. But since you saw it, I have to tell you—I need to tell someone.” He dropped his head into his hands and took a deep breath as his body started shuddering. “I haven’t told anyone in eleven years. Do you know what it’s been like, knowing what’s happening and not being able to say anything?”

“Eleven years?!” I hissed, and made myself lean back against the wall so I wouldn’t go after him. “This has been going on for eleven fucking years and you didn’t tell anyone? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“She made me promise I wouldn’t! She was terrified they would take her away.”

“Did you not see that? Her entire back was black and blue!”

Tyler hung his head again. “That’s not the worst it’s ever been. She’d come over with concussions; a few times I made her agree to stitches. Swear to God, that girl is tougher than most men I know, because without any pain medication she’d let Dad sew her up right there in the kitchen. Then there were times she couldn’t even get off the floor. When she was young, sometimes she’d lie there for hours before she could move; when we got older and got her a phone, she’d have to text me and I’d come get her.”

I tried to swallow the throw-up that was rising in my throat. “It got that bad and you never said a word. What would you have done if they killed her one of those times, Ty?”

A sob came from where he sat hunched in on himself. “I hate myself for letting her go through that. But every time I tried to confront them, she’d flip out and make me leave, and when I would, that night or the next day would be one of those days where they’d beat her so hard she wouldn’t be able to pick herself up.”

“That isn’t an excuse, you could have taken her away from them. Uncle Jim could have done something!”

“Look, Gage, you can’t make me feel any worse than I already do! I’m the one who had to clean the blood off her, I’m the one who had to bandage her up even during the dozens of times when she should have gotten stitches. I had to buy a mini freezer for my room so I could have ice for when she came over!” He pulled his phone out of his pocket, tapped the screen a few times, and stifled another sob as he handed it over to me.

“What is this?” Whatever these fresh bruises were, they definitely weren’t done by hands. The small rectangles looked familiar, but I couldn’t place what I thought they were.

“Golf club. I didn’t even know about this last time. She just told me about it on the way back here, and I took the pictures before I came in here. She said it happened yesterday morning before I came and packed her bags.”

“Are there more pictures?”

He raised his head for a second to nod. “Ever since I got my first phone I’ve taken pictures every time she came over, and I always transfer them to my new phones so I’ll have them. They’re all backed up too. She wouldn’t let me say anything, but I wanted to have photos in case . . .” His voice trailed off. There wasn’t a need for him to finish that sentence anyway; I got the message.

Flipping through some of his pictures, I couldn’t believe this was the same sweet Cassi I’d just met a few hours ago. Bruises of all shapes, sizes, and colors covered her body and it was killing me to look at them, but I couldn’t stop. You could see all the ones that were fading slowly get covered up by new ones, and other pictures showed her back, arms, and face covered in blood. What killed me was that whenever her face was in the picture, she wore the same expression I’d just seen outside. No emotion, dead eyes, and absolutely no tears.

“What would they do to her?”

“You don’t want to know.”

Like hell I didn’t. I was already planning on going to California with my twelve-gauge. “What. Would. They. Do.”

He was quiet for so long I didn’t think he was going to answer. “When it first started, it was usually just hitting and kicking. The older she got, the more it turned into whatever they had in their hands or could grab quickly. Once that started, she only came over if it was other objects. She lived for the days when it was only hands.”

“So what I saw tonight, you said it isn’t the worst?”

“Not even close.”

“What was?”

Tyler sighed and looked up at me, tears streaming down his face. “I don’t know, there were a few that really stood out, but I couldn’t name one that was the worst.”

I just kept glaring at him; he needed a beatin’ just for letting this go on for so long. She was seventeen or eighteen now, so she had been six or seven when this all started. And he’d known the entire time.

“A couple years ago, the cops showed up one night—”

“I thought you said she wouldn’t let you call?”

“I didn’t.” He sighed and ran his hands through his hair a few times. “The old lady that lived in between us heard her screaming one night, called the cops.”

I shoved off the wall and flung my arms out. “You had a perfect opportunity and you still didn’t do anything? They didn’t do anything?!”

“Gage, I didn’t even know the cops were called until she texted me hours after they’d left!”

“What happened?” I demanded, and forced myself back against the wall.

“Cassi opened the door, her mom and stepdad right behind her. None of her bruises were visible then and they all denied the screaming, including Cass.”

Seriously? What the fuck?

“When the cops left, her mom took off her high heels, used the pointy heel part to hit her head repeatedly. There was so much blood when I got there, Gage, and she couldn’t lay her head on even a pillow for almost a week after that. Another time her stepdad threw a glass of alcohol at her, she ducked, and it shattered against a wall. Since she didn’t get hit by it, he grabbed her by the throat, dragged her to where it was, and just kept slicing her forehead, arms, stomach, and back with one of the pieces. She wore a scarf every day ’til the finger marks were gone. That’s why she wears her hair with those things, what are they called? Bangs. She got those scars when she was ten and the one on her head isn’t very noticeable anymore, but she still tries to hide it. She tries to hide all of them, but some she can’t unless she wants to wear jeans and long sleeves in the summer.”

I stood there in shock, trying to make the connection between this girl he was telling me about and the girl I’d just met. Even with seeing the pictures it wasn’t clicking for me; I couldn’t imagine someone touching her, or her being so willing to let it continue. “You’re a poor excuse for a man, Tyler.” I opened my door and stood next to it, arms crossed over my chest.

He looked like he crumpled in on himself. “You think I don’t know that?”

I couldn’t say anything else to him. As soon as he was out of my room I slammed the door and fell to my bed. I wanted to make him stay in my room and go to her myself. Hold her and tell her I’d never let anyone else hurt her again. But for whatever reason she wanted him, and we didn’t know each other so it would be even creepier than my trying to be close enough to hear her talk tonight.

My whole body shook as I thought about anyone laying a hand on her, let alone sharp objects. Sweet Cassi, she deserved parents and a man who cherished her. Not ones who beat her and a boy who sat back and let it happen. I swallowed back vomit for the third time since I found out what happened and forced myself to stay in my bed.

I closed my eyes and tried to steady my breathing, focusing on her face and honey-colored eyes instead of what I saw on her back and the images that Tyler’s phone had seared into my brain. I thought about running my hands through that long, dark hair. Pressing my mouth to her neck, her cheeks, and finally those lips that were full and inviting. Tyler doesn’t deserve her. Not at all. I thought about taking her in my arms and taking her to the ranch so I could keep her safe for the rest of her life. But she’d already been living a life she didn’t choose, so I wouldn’t choose for her either; I would wait for her to leave him and come to me.

Chapter Two

C ASSIDY

WE HADN’T BEEN in Austin for more than six hours before someone saw the bruises. And not just anyone, Tyler’s cousin, our new roommate, and the guy who wouldn’t leave my every waking thought. I told Tyler not to tell him—let him make his own assumptions—but of course Tyler didn’t listen and told him way more than he should have. I couldn’t blame him though; I’d made him keep a secret no kid should have to. I know he thought I was sleeping, but even if I had been, Gage yelling at Tyler, or Tyler coming back into our room to hold me and tell me how sorry he was while he cried, would have woken me up. I’d learned long ago that if I cried, I got hit harder until I finally stopped, so I’d become a master at turning off my emotions. But I knew if I had opened my eyes to watch him cry, it definitely would have broken through that wall and I would have been crying right there with him. So I lay there completely still, emotions turned off and eyes shut, while Tyler cried himself to sleep.

Once Tyler got in the shower the next morning, I slipped into the kitchen to start some coffee. We’d spent so many nights without sleeping over the years, we’d both started drinking it early on, and I was glad that now he didn’t have to sneak an extra cup for me since his parents hadn’t exactly known that I stayed the night all those years.

I shut the door quietly and turned to tiptoe across the hardwood floors when I saw Gage, and my heart instantly picked up its pace. He was dressed only in jersey shorts and shoes, his body still glistening with sweat. God, he looked amazing, and my breath caught at how perfect his body and face were. I’d barely caught a glimpse of him without his shirt on last night before Tyler had caught me staring, and now I couldn’t make my eyes look away.

“Morning.”

My eyes finally snapped up to meet his. In the light and this close, I could see the gold flecks scattered throughout the green of his eyes. They were the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen. “Good morning, Gage.”

“How, uh—how are you today?”

I sighed and walked over to the coffeepot. “I know he talked to you, I could hear you guys last night. I don’t want you to be awkward around me now because of what you know.”

“Cassi, those things should have never happened to you. He should have told someone.”

I turned to find him right in front of me again. “I made him promise he wouldn’t.”

“Well he shouldn’t have listened to you.”

“You don’t get it, Gage. You weren’t there. I couldn’t let him.”

His eyes narrowed. “No, I wasn’t there. But if I had been, something would have been done the first time it ever happened. Why didn’t you say anything the night the cops showed?”

I shook my head; there was no point in trying to make him understand.

Gage put a hand on each side of my face and leaned closer. I swear I thought he was about to kiss me, like last night, and it didn’t matter that I hardly knew him; I wanted him to. “You didn’t deserve that, Cassi, you know that, right?”

“I do.”

Before I could realize what he was doing, he brushed my swoop bangs back and traced his thumb over a scar from Jeff’s glass. My body instantly stiffened and Gage’s eyes turned dark as he looked at it. He slowly tore his gaze from the scar to my eyes and spoke softly. “Didn’t deserve any of that.”

I took a step back and turned to look at the almost-full pot of coffee.

He reached around me and brought down two mugs before pouring coffee in each one. “I’m sorry if you like cream,” he drawled, “I don’t have any here.”

“That’s fine.” I breathed a quiet sigh of relief as I walked over to the fridge and grabbed the milk. “I’ll go to the store later and get some.”

When I was done pouring it in, he put the cap on for me and put it back in the fridge. Walking back over to me, he put a finger under my chin and tilted my head up so I was looking at him. “How often did it happen, Cassi?”

My breaths started coming quicker. What was it about him that made me want to fall into his arms and not ever leave? It took his repeating his question for me to come out of my daydream. I was up against the counter, so I couldn’t step back, but I moved my head away from his hand and stared past his shoulder into the living room.

He guessed when he saw I wasn’t going to answer. “Every day?”

I still didn’t respond; if it was a weekend, it happened at least twice a day. But that was something even Tyler didn’t know. My body started involuntarily shaking and I hated that I was showing any sign of weakness in front of him.

“Never again, Cassi,” he whispered while he studied my face.

My eyes flew back to meet his and my throat tightened. He sounded like he was in pain just talking about it and I had no idea why. But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me want his arms wrapped around me. I cleared my throat and forced myself to continue to meet his gaze. “Cassidy.”

“What?”

“My name is Cassidy.”

“Oh.” He looked a little sheepish. “My apologies, I didn’t realize.”

“No. Um, Tyler doesn’t like it. He calls me Cassi. I just wanted to tell you my real name.” Really I just wanted to hear it in his gravelly voice.

He smiled softly as he studied me for a minute and took a sip of his black coffee. “I like Cassidy, it fits.”

Oh damn . . . yep. I was right in wanting to hear him say that. My arms were covered in goose bumps and I even shivered. Yeah—his voice was that sexy.

When I didn’t say anything he walked around to the table and held out a chair, waiting for me to sit in it. We sat in silence for a while before I finally looked up at him again.

“This might be rude, but can I ask you something?”

One side of his mouth lifted up in a smile. “I think I already cornered the market on rude questions this morning, so go ahead.”

And cue the freaking dimples! I got so lost staring at them I forgot to ask my question and his smirk went to a full-blown Gage smile. At this rate I’d need to start wearing a sleeping mask and earplugs around him in order to not make myself look like an idiot. Though I’d look ridiculous either way. “Well, um, Tyler said you live on a ranch?”

“I do.”

“I was kind of thinking you’d look more like a cowboy . . .”

Gage’s laugh bounced back off the walls, and I felt my body relax just listening to it. “And how exactly were you expecting me to look?”

“You know, boots, hat, big belt buckle, super-tight bright blue jeans,” I replied, a little embarrassed.

“Well I definitely have the boots, and the hats, but I don’t think my sisters or Mama would ever let me dress like Dad.”

“Oh.”

“My dad even has the big mustache, looks like Sam Elliott.”

It took me a second to figure out who that was, and then I laughed. “Seriously?”

“Swear, they could be twins.”

“I’d love to see that. So where was your hat last night?”

He shrugged. “I leave all that at the ranch.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t wear them as a fashion statement, and I definitely don’t have any kind of work that would require them here in hippie town.”

“Hippie town?” I deadpanned.

“Just wait until we go out anywhere. You’ll see.”

I nodded. “What kind of work? What kind of ranch do you have?”

“Cattle ranch, and whatever needs to be done that day. Taking care of the animals, moving the cattle to different parts of the ranch, fixing fences, branding . . .” He drifted off. “Just depends.”

“How many cows do you have?”

“About sixteen.”

Okay, I understand I don’t know a thing about ranches, but I figured you’d need more than sixteen cows to make it a cattle ranch. “You have sixteen cows?”

He huffed a laugh and smiled wide at me. “Hundred. Sixteen hundred.”

“Dear Lord, that’s a lot of cows.”

He shrugged. “We’ll be getting more soon, we have the land.”

“How many acres is the ranch?”

“Twenty.”

“Hundred?”

“Thousand.”

“Twenty thousand acres?!” My jaw dropped. Why on earth would anyone need or want that much land?

“Yes, ma’am.” He spun his mug around on the table.

“ ‘Ma’am’? Really?”

One of his eyebrows raised. “What?”

“I’m not some grandma—I’m younger than you.”

Gage rolled his eyes. “I didn’t mean you’re old, it’s respectful.” When he looked at my expression he shook his head and chuckled. “Yankees.”

“Uh, get a clue, cowboy . . . I’m not from the North.”

“You’re not from the South either. Yankee.” He smirked, and if I thought that was going to melt me, when he added a wink I knew I was done for.

“Are you going on about Yankees again, bro?” Tyler asked, walking into the kitchen.

Gage just shrugged and his green eyes met mine from under those dark brows again. “She didn’t like that I called her ‘ma’am.’ ”

“Get used to it, Cassi, we may be in the city, but it’s different here.”

I grumbled to myself and Gage laughed.

“So what are you guys talking about?” Tyler sat in the seat on my other side.

“Their huge ranch with too many cows,” I answered.

“She’s right about that, there are way too many cows there,” Tyler said between sips of his coffee.

“You’d like it.” Gage looked at me with an odd expression.

“Hell no, she wouldn’t! Cassi doesn’t like getting dirty, and she hates bugs. Your ranch would be the worst place for her.”

Gage flicked a quick glare at his cousin, then looked back to me. “We have horses.”

I gasped. “You do? I’ve never been on a horse!”

“Eight Arabians. I’ll teach you to ride when you come to visit.” He sat back in his chair and folded his arms, smirking at Tyler like he’d just won something.

Tyler and I both got quiet. My dad told me he was going to let me start taking riding lessons for my sixth birthday and buy me a horse for my seventh. Obviously those things never happened. Not that we didn’t have the money, but my mom wouldn’t even cook for me; no way she would let me do those things. It didn’t help that even though I still loved horses, whenever I saw them I couldn’t stop thinking about my dad.

“Did I say something wrong?” Gage looked confused but kept his eyes on Tyler.

“No,” I said with a soft smile. “I’d like that.”

After a few awkward minutes, Gage stood up and put his mug in the dishwasher before walking toward his room, “Well, I’m gonna take a shower. If there’s anything y’all wanna do today, let me know.”

Tyler scooted my chair closer to him. “You okay, Cassi? Is it because of your dad?”

“No, it’s fine. I mean, I was thinking about him. But I just can’t believe he’s been gone for almost twelve years. I feel like I should be over it, I was so young when it happened, but I don’t think I was ever allowed to grieve, and that’s why it’s still hard. I’m not looking forward to this birthday. I always thought when I got away from Mom and Jeff, I would finally enjoy my birthdays again, but I’m looking forward to it less than ever. I think we need to give me a new birthday, Ty.” I huffed a light laugh. “No one wants a birthday on the anniversary of their father’s death.”

He pulled me onto his lap and held me loosely so he wouldn’t hurt my back. “He was a great dad; you aren’t supposed to get over him, Cassi, you’ll always miss him. And no new birthdays, you’re keeping the one you have and I’ll make sure they get better and better every year.”

I let him hold me for a few minutes before speaking again. “Thanks, Ty, I love you.”

“Love you too, Cassi.”

G AGE

OH MY GOD, her dad died on her birthday? What else has happened to this girl? Okay, I’ll admit I left the bathroom door cracked for a few minutes before shutting it and starting my shower. But the way they’d both got so quiet there at the end, I knew I’d said something I shouldn’t have, and I figured Tyler would bring it up as soon as I was gone. I knew she’d be hooked as soon as I mentioned the horses, and she was; I just didn’t know telling her I’d teach her to ride would take them back down memory lane to her dad, who was obviously nothing like her mom or stepdad.

Sitting there talking to her before Tyler had come in was the best morning I think I’d ever had, and it didn’t even last ten minutes. She smiled so much it made my heart swell each time, and God, that laugh. I was right; it sounded just like freakin’ angels. I wanted to die every time she’d start to relax into the chair. Her eyes would go wide for a split second and she’d sit right back up like she’d forgotten about the bruises on her back for a minute. I didn’t have to ask her to know she was in pain; there was no way she could have been comfortable with what I’d seen last night. But even with that, her smile never faltered, and that may have killed me even more. She should have been depressed or crying or something. What kind of person goes through that kind of life, as recent as two days ago, and still finds reasons to smile?

When I walked out of the bathroom, she was still curled up on Tyler’s lap and I blew out a frustrated sigh. I needed to get over her soon, or living there with them was going to be a challenge.

“Hey, Gage?” Tyler called before I could shut my door.

“What?”

“You up to showing us around the city today?”

No. I want to show Cassidy the city, I want you to go the hell back to California. “Sure.”

I shut the door behind me and had just finished getting my jeans on when Tyler walked in.

“You okay, man? We don’t have to go out today, I was just asking. Or Cassi and I could go by ourselves. It’s not a big deal either way, I just figured since you knew the area . . .”

I never asked Cassidy why Tyler didn’t like her name. It was so perfect for her, and why would he even tell her he didn’t like it? Seriously, how were we related? “No, it’s fine, I just have a lot on my mind. I’ll be ready in a minute, we can go whenever.”

“All right, well I’m sure she wants to shower. So it’ll probably be a while,” he called as he walked back out of my room.

I grabbed a shirt and headed out to the living room. Tyler wasn’t there, but Cassidy was sitting at the kitchen table, staring intently at her hands. “You okay, Cassidy?”

She jumped and looked up at me, her brows pulled together in confusion and hurt. She didn’t say anything, just studied my face for a minute, before blowing out a deep sigh and standing up to walk toward their room.

“I’m sorry for reminding you about your dad. I didn’t know.” I still didn’t know. What did horses have to do with her dad?

Cassidy stopped walking and looked over her shoulder at me for a second, then continued to the door.

I stood there staring at the door, feeling like an ass, even after Tyler walked out of the room and started hooking a gaming system to the TV. Did telling Cassidy I’d teach her to ride really hurt her so much that the girl who asked why I didn’t dress like a cowboy just disappeared? Everything in me screamed to go to her and talk to her, but the shower started, so I turned back to the living room. I told Tyler I’d watch him play and flopped onto the couch. I tried not to picture Cassidy in the shower while I listened to the water running, but that was damn hard, so I focused as much of my attention as I could on Tyler shooting people and tried not to think about her and the hard-on I was trying to cover with a pillow.

When Cassidy came out less than an hour later, her hair was wild and slightly wavy, and she had less makeup on than last night too. She looked beautiful. Without all that dark stuff around her eyes and stuff on her face, her honey-colored eyes looked even brighter and you could see a splatter of very light freckles on her nose. Not saying she hadn’t looked gorgeous last night, because she did. She took my breath away. But I preferred this almost completely natural look. She was wearing green Chucks, jeans with the bottoms rolled up to her calves, and a worn black Boston concert shirt. Boston. This girl is perfect.

“Ty, I’m ready.”

She still had yet to look at me since she walked in the room, and though I wanted her to, I was enjoying being able to take her in. I noticed her bottom lip was a little too full for her top lip, and her nose couldn’t have been more perfect if she’d chosen it herself. Her eyes flitted over to me quickly, then right back to Tyler; her cheeks got red and I couldn’t help but grin. There’s no way she doesn’t feel this too. She started biting her bottom lip, and again I thought about what it would feel like to kiss those lips. I’d never wanted to kiss a girl this damn bad.

“Tyler!” She tapped his leg with her foot and he looked at her, then back at the screen.

“What’s up?”

“I’m ready, are we going or not?”

“Yeah, just let me finish this match and we can go. Like eight minutes.”

I had already sat up when she entered the room so she could sit on the couch with me, and she was eyeing it now, but instead turned and went into the bedroom. She stayed in there while Tyler played two more matches and didn’t come out until he went to get her.

I took them all over Austin that afternoon, and while she was polite and would respond whenever I asked her a question, she wouldn’t hold a conversation with me and made sure she was always by Tyler’s side, farthest away from me. Maybe I was wrong about her feeling whatever this connection was, because she definitely didn’t seem like she was having a hard time not touching me. It was all I could do to not grab her hand and keep her by my side.

When we were on the way back, she asked if we could stop by the grocery store, and we let her take over the shopping after her third eye-roll at our food choices.

“Don’t worry,” Tyler whispered as she compared packages of ground beef, “she’s been cooking for herself since she was six; she’s better than my mom.”

I hadn’t been worried, and now that added just one more thing I wished I could have protected her from. Because my dad and I worked from sunup to sundown most days, I was only ever in the kitchen to help with dishes. I thanked Mom and my sisters daily for making the food, but I couldn’t imagine having to do it on my own when I was just a little kid. I’d have to thank them again.

Other than letting us carry the groceries in for her, she wouldn’t let us help put them away and immediately started on cooking dinner for the three of us. I lay down on the couch just watching her move around the kitchen while Tyler played his game again. At one point it looked like she started dancing for a few seconds before she stopped herself, and God, if that wasn’t the cutest thing I’d ever seen. When Ty was fully engrossed in the game, I got up and wandered into the kitchen, stepping right up behind her.

“Do you need help with anything?”

Her body tensed for a moment, and once it relaxed she turned her head up to look at me. “No, I’m fine. Thanks though.”

“Could I help anyway?”

She continued to watch me with that same hurt and confused look from that morning. “Yeah, sure. You can make the salad.” She grabbed a few things out of the fridge and brought them over to me before grabbing a couple more items that she’d bought at the store out of a bowl on the counter. “Dice these, and—wait, do you even like avocados?”

“I’ll eat anything, darlin’.”

Her mouth tilted up at the corners and her cheeks got red; I smiled to myself and made a mental note to call her that more often. “Well, if you don’t like them, I can just put them in my bowl.”

I grabbed the avocado from her and looked at it, a little confused. “Like I said, I’ll eat anything. But how do you cut this thing?”

She laughed lightly and took it from my hand, sliding the cucumber and tomato in front of me. “Dice these first, then I’ll show you how to cut the avocado.” She handed me a knife and turned back to the stove.

I was flat-out awful at dicing those vegetables, but being in the kitchen with her had me smiling the entire time, and whatever she was cooking smelled damn good. “I think I did it right.”

“There’s really no way to mess up dicing veggies for a salad.” She turned and looked. “You did it just fine. Haven’t you ever diced something before?” I shook my head and she grinned at me. “Really? Well you did great. Let me show you how to do these.”

She grabbed both avocados and handed me one of them before picking up her own knife. I’m not gonna lie, I purposefully kept messing up getting the seed out so that she finally had to reach over and grab my hands to show me what to do. I heard her intake of breath as soon as our hands touched, and I had to look away so she wouldn’t see how wide I was smiling.

Hell. Yeah.

She finished showing me how to cut up the avocado and had me grab bowls and plates while she finished up whatever was on the stove. Every time I looked at it, she’d turn me away and say I wasn’t allowed to see her secrets. I didn’t know what was going on all day, but she was now acting just like she had that morning. Every smile and every touch had me falling for her that much more.

I touched her arm so she’d look up at me and I almost forgot what I was gonna ask as soon as her eyes met mine. “Uh, did I upset you this morning? I swear I didn’t mean to. I had no idea about your dad.”

She looked down, then back to the stove. “I didn’t expect you to know about him. And what were you thinking upset me?”

“When I told you I’d teach you how to ride.”

Cassidy huffed and shook her head once. “No, Gage, that didn’t upset me. I would really like to learn how to ride, if you ever want to show me.”

Did she think I would offer if I didn’t want to? And would it be bad if I asked what those two things had to do with each other? “Of course I will. I mean, I heard what Tyler said, but I do think you’d like the ranch. I can’t wait to take you there.” Ah, too much. Too much.

“Sounds great.” She picked up a spoon, then set it right back down and put both her hands on the counter before looking back at me. Her mouth opened and her eyebrows pulled together, then she looked into the living room at Tyler and back at me. “Dinner is about ready,” she said softly, “would you mind putting the salad on the table?”