by Sosie Frost
Tabby whined for a snack, so I braved the crowds with Mellie, letting Cassi go sit with the baby on a viciously guarded table, patrolled by a rash of mothers on the lookout for a place to park it.
And I thought the kids were malicious trying to get their grubby hands on the balloon animals. The mothers practically flung their babies at the picnic tables to reserve a spot for their families. Purses swung. Cell phones cracked. Coffee cups splattered.
Butterpond might have been small—every family knew each other, no news went ungossiped, no family unjudged—but all was fair in war and playgrounds.
I returned with a snail-turtle-frog for Tabby. Mellie spun in circles on the grass with a cat that looked suspiciously like a rabbit. And I poked Cassi with my personal favorite.
She stared at the shaft and two orbs with a gasp. “What the hell is that?”
I grinned. “Supposed to be an elephant. See the trunk?”
“That’s vulgar.”
“Pretty impressive, huh?”
Cassi rocked Tabby and kept her delighted with a stash of grapes. “Oh, you wish.”
“Like looking in a mirror, Sassy.”
“I doubt that.”
“You never thought to check.”
She baited me with a quick smile. “Oh, I thought. I thought about it a lot.”
“Did you?”
“My brothers thought about it too.”
I frowned. “That’s…not as flattering.”
“They just worried about me and…” She poked the balloon. “Your elephant.”
“Why? Nothing to worry about. I would have shown you a good time.”
“Glad I didn’t,” she said.
“I’m not.”
She arched an eyebrow. “And if I had…there you were…running off to chop down trees and be all reclusive.”
“True.” I grinned. “But you did think about it.”
“Is that all that matters?”
“If you’re not stroking anything else, at least give the ego a tug.”
“And that is why I didn’t.” She tossed a grape at my head. “You were my first crush. My first kiss. I thought you’d be more. You meant a lot to me.”
“And if I said you still meant that much to me?” I asked. “And it would have meant just as much five years ago?”
“Good to know.”
Tabby attempted to eat her frog. She gnawed on the balloon, made a face, and tried to spit out the bad taste. Cassi popped a teething ring into her mouth before she fussed.
She was a natural at this. So why didn’t she have a kid of her own? Butterpond’s usual pastime was breeding. Some even raced to get started—fourteen, fifteen years old. Most popped one out as soon as they had a high school diploma.
But Cassi was different.
“What’d you do after I left?” I asked.
She gave me a sidelong glance. “If you’re expecting a sob story about how I wailed, gnashed my teeth, and tried to set myself on fire aboard a Viking burial ship, you’re only partially right.”
“Once you got off the pyre, what did you do?”
“Went to college. Came home. Took care of my dad.”
“Not what I mean.” I gave her a shrug. “Who…did you see?”
“Everyone I looked at.”
“Very funny.”
“Well, you gotta be joking too,” she said. “I’m not answering that.”
“Why not?” I pretended the jealousy wasn’t searing my heart to ash. “You’re a beautiful girl. Someone must have snatched you up in college.”
“I studied in college like a proper student, not like any of the girls who you ever chased.”
“Only ever chased you, Sassy.”
“Yeah, the others threw themselves at you.”
“And I stopped catching when I realized I had a shot with you.” Easiest decision I’d ever made. “So come on. You can tell me.”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
She bit her lip. “Because it’s none of your business.”
“Oh.” I got it now. “You’re embarrassed.”
“Am not.”
The edge slipped into my voice. “You hooked up with one of the Barlow boys, didn’t you? The only guy who’d be worse for you than me.”
“I did not hook up with a Barlow boy.” She poked my chest. “And I’d always thought you’d be good for me. For my first time.”
That I liked to hear. “Yeah?”
“I’ve always wanted you to be my first.”
“I’m flattered.”
“You should be.”
She paused. Stared at me. Eyebrows rising.
Holy shit.
My heart dropped to my balls. Everything hardened, and it didn’t help the situation.
“Don’t tell me that you waited for me, Cas.”
“You broke my heart.”
“Jesus Christ. You didn’t…” I edged my words around the baby. “You mean you haven’t…”
“I’d like to say that you frightened me off of men.” She didn’t look ashamed. Instead, she seemed rather at peace with such a revelation. “But I think it was the opposite. No one compared to you.”
My heart would have stopped if the blood weren’t all draining to my cock. I rubbed my face, exhaling a dozen silent profanities so I didn’t corrupt both girls sitting before me.
“Shit, Cas.”
I needed to stop imagining her. Pure. Innocent. Untouched. Begging for me. In my bed, in my arms, in my life.
What the hell was I doing? This wasn’t right.
I wasn’t a good man, but indulging that?
Then I would be a monster.
“You know what I want,” I said. “But I am not good enough for you.”
“I didn’t say hop on.” Cassi laughed. “You asked. I answered.”
“But there’s so much you don’t know. So much that happened. It’s a good thing we never…”
“Why?” Her voice never wavered, but she stared at me as if trying to understand a day, a life, a decision I couldn’t explain. “Why not? What are you hiding that’s so bad?”
“You heard the story.”
“Not from you,” she said. “I never heard it from you. Only Tidus. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
A dangerous question that I sure as hell wasn’t answering. I swung my legs from under the table and watched Mellie destroy a bush leaf by plucked leaf.
“You already know everything,” I said. “I was smoking in the barn. Wasn’t paying attention. The cigarette must have caught on the hay—everything was so dry that year. It went up. I tried to put the fire out. Couldn’t. Tidus ran in and got me out of the barn before I died. He saved me.” I didn’t look at her, though I kept my voice firm. “I was careless.”
“And that’s all that happened? That’s why you ran?”
“Isn’t that reason enough? I was no good back then. Pissing around. Drinking. Drugs. What else was there for a fuckup like me to do? I got into trouble, I got Tidus into trouble, and I was good at it. You didn’t need me chasing you.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
It was. “Your family lost so much in that fire. It wasn’t right to stay. I had to get away. Better myself. Try to be…something. If not a good man than just…someone sober who could control himself.”
“Did it work?” she asked.
“I don’t live in the woods because I’m ashamed of myself,” I said. “I stay away from town and people and civilization because that’s the only way I trust myself. When I was logging, I had to stay clean. Out there, I had to be smart so I wouldn’t freeze, starve, or get hurt. So I did it. And I recovered. And I’ve stayed clean.” I looked away. “Never wanted to come back to Butterpond, especially after the last time.”
“When was that?”
Not a time I wanted her to remember. “I came for your mom’s funeral.”
The pause of grief. It only lasted a breath. “I didn’t know you were there.”
&
nbsp; “I didn’t want you to know.” I hated every minute of this confession. “I came home for a couple weeks and immediately fucked it up again. Got into trouble. Got into drugs. And I knew that wasn’t what I wanted for myself. That’s when I realized I couldn’t be a part of this.” I waved a hand over the wholesome park. “I had to stay away. By myself. Isolated. And it worked. I’ve been clean for four years.”
“That’s good.”
“I got some money. Had a good job until…” I nodded to the kids. “But I have enough to get by. I finally found a place in the world, even if it’s outside of it.”
“And you like it?”
I’d spent the better part of an hour last night begging the project manager to keep my position open. “Yeah. I’m good at it. Responsible. If only you had met me now. We might’ve had a chance.”
Cassi snorted. “Are you kidding? If I didn’t know who you were, I would have assumed that you were a crazy hermit living off in the mountains. Someone who’d kidnap me and whisk me away to do terrible things in that cabin.”
“I still might. You never know.”
Cassi shuffled closer. “I guess I’ll have to take my chances.”
“With the kidnapping…” I brushed her hand. “Or with me?”
She didn’t look at me, but she smiled. A beautiful, hopeful smile.
“Like I said, Remington Marshall…” Her words were a velvet promise. “No one compares to you.”
11
Remington
The promise of a free bathroom with complimentary bubble bath was the key to a woman’s heart.
Better than chocolate, wine, or sex.
Well, maybe not sex.
All it took for Cassi to pack her bags and move her gorgeous ass into my cabin was a fight between Tidus and Quint. One busted showerhead and five hundred dollars’ worth of water damage to the downstairs bathroom, and she was mine. I had a tub, some bubble bath, and a pledge to give her all the time she wanted to soak without interruptions.
Once the kids went to bed and Cassi’s bags rested in the corner of my bedroom, I banished myself to the couch like a gentleman. But the thought of her naked, sudsy, and hot in the tub? Not my most wholesome of fantasies.
The image would torment me the rest of my life. What the hell was I thinking? Move in with us. Be a live-in nanny. Torture me every night until I’ve got calluses on my hand because I can’t stop thinking about you.
I was a monumental idiot.
Cassi screamed from the bathtub. A clatter, crash, and problematic splash followed.
But I was a useful idiot.
I hopped the couch and rushed to the door, busting inside as heroically as a bastard could get while hoping to save his lady and catch a glimpse of her goods.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Get the axe!”
Cassi wove herself into the shower curtain. She sunk deeper into the bubbles of the tub, armed only with a rubber ducky and toilet scrub brush. Two shampoo bottles scattered across the bathroom. Only one had the decency to not splinter against the ceiling and explode lavender scented soap over the room. A wadded washcloth slid down the wall like a half-assed spitball, and enough bath salts crumbled over my floors to get most of Butterpond high as a kite.
“What the hell are you doing?” My house was a disaster. “No fucking wonder your brothers didn’t want to share a bathroom with you!”
Cassi’s bubbles thrashed under her kicking feet, but she cautiously floated them back in place to regain her modesty. Her words sputtered under the water line.
“Spider!”
Oh Christ. “You really don’t belong in the woods.”
“Get it before it eats the kids!”
I mourned the tube of toothpaste floating in the toilet. “It’s just a spider.”
I regretted my words when the hairy beast scurried across the bathroom floor, hesitating near a fallen toothbrush as if it wished it arm itself. Easily the size of my hand, the little bastard practically snickered as I stepped away.
“It’s huge,” Cassi said.
“Everything is bigger in these woods.”
“Well, kill it! If that thing bites you, I’m not sucking the venom out.”
“That’s snakes, Sassy.”
“If there’s a snake in this bathroom, Lord have mercy on you, Remington Marshall.”
I wadded up a couple squares of toilet paper, checked the spider once more, and realized I needed heavier artillery for that bad boy. Paper towels maybe. Quilted and four-ply. Hell, maybe the mop. I had big feet, but my boots would have only stunned the beast.
“Oh, God.” Cassi reached for me, realized it put her within another foot of the spider, and retreated under the water. “Do it quick. Don’t let it get angry.”
Fucker needed a chair and a whip. “He’s already angry, Cas. Think you pissed him off when you doused him with shaving cream.”
“Be careful!”
My shoe rose up.
And Mellie’s scream echoed through the house.
“No!” The little girl sprinted inside the bathroom and attached herself to my leg. “Don’t!”
Cassi nearly launched from the tub to move the child away. I didn’t blame her. Mellie was the right size for a midnight snack. I should have probably checked on Tabby too, just to make sure she wasn’t cocooned in the corner of her room.
“It’s a spider, Mellie,” Cassi said.
“Mommy says they eat bad bugs.”
“That is a bad bug, kiddo!”
“Uncle Rem!”
Damn it. I dropped the shoe.
What the hell was Emma doing with her kids? The only time she was ever a mother to the girls was to ally them with every creepy crawlie that lived in the basement. Then again, they probably didn’t have a choice. I saw the state of their house. A couple spiders would have made it more hospitable.
Mellie burst into tears. I sighed.
“Hold on.”
I grabbed one of the Dixie cups on the side of the sink. No way. Bastard needed a soup bowl. Fuck it. I’d make him fit. What was losing a leg or two when he had six other hairy haunches?
Even I fought a shiver as I crashed the cup over the fat thing. I slipped Cassi’s handheld mirror under the rim and captured the thrashing arachnid.
“You realize there’s creepier things living in barns?” I said.
Cassi covered her eyes. “I never looked in the barn.”
“Mice. Rats. Spiders. Snakes.”
“Don’t tell me.”
I grinned. “You should be thanking us for torching it.”
“What?”
I paused. So did she. Her bubbles went still.
Damn it. “Bad joke, I know.”
“No…” She frowned, her eyebrows furrowed. “You said us.”
“What?”
“You said, thank us for torching it.”
“Did I?” Shit. “I meant me. And you can thank me any way you like, Sassy.”
I nodded to Mellie. She tugged on my arm, uncomfortably close to the crawling captive scurrying around the cup.
“Is he okay?” Mellie asked.
“Better than you’ll be if you don’t get in bed.”
I escorted both to the front door, thought better of letting the beast that near the house, and released him at the tree line with a diligent Mellie waving at him from the driveway.
“Bye, Spider!”
I pointed at her and gave chase, earning a quick giggle as she darted into the cabin. A quick scoop in my arms, a toss into her bed, and a begrudgingly read a story about a hungry caterpillar—what was it with this kid and bugs?—and Mellie was out.
I returned to the bathroom with a cautious knock. Cassi struggled to align the few bubbles still in her tub to cover all the good parts I’d only ever dreamed about. I grinned.
“How’s your bath?”
Cassi raised an eyebrow. “Crowded.”
“The spider is gone. Girls are asleep. Now I gotta take care of you. How’s
the water?”
She shrugged. “Cool.”
“Allow me…”
Cassi rolled her eyes, but I carefully adjusted the faucet, trickling in a new wave of warmth to the water. Beneath the bubbles, her sculpted legs twisted. Dark. Tempting. Just begging to be spread.
A goddamned virgin.
Waiting for me.
And I’d blown it.
We had to make up for five years of sinful, delicious excitement, and I wasn’t missing a single moment anymore.
Another hit of bubble bath made her smile. She welcomed the bubbles over her skin.
“You know, after all that hard work with the spider…” I said.
She shook her head. “No more talk of spiders, please.”
“I need to warm up after those shivers too.”
I reached for my shirt.
“You wouldn’t,” Cassi said.
It landed in a heap on the floor.
“Oh my God.” Cassi gasped. “You aren’t really…”
I unbuckled my belt. The pants kicked off. She hid her eyes.
“You’re gonna get me dirtier,” she groaned.
I stepped into the tub behind her. “That’s the plan.”
She scooted forward, sloshing the bubbles over the edge. “You’re getting everything wet!”
“Get used to it, Sassy.”
I grabbed her by the waist and hauled her onto my lap, letting my legs stretch out as she nestled against on my chest, in my lap, in my arms.
I hardened to the point of pain. She could feel it, but hell, wasn’t like it’d surprise her. She knew what I’d wanted—what I’d felt for her.
“Better?” I asked.
She cautiously used an arm to block any unsanctioned peeping. “Well…I’m not as cold now.”
“Believe me, you’re gonna get hot.”
“Why do I get the feeling you’re trying to seduce me?”
“No way.” I lied. “You were adamant. Can’t take this any further. Broken hearts and promises and five years of lost opportunities. I missed the chance to seduce you.”
She cuddled closer, watching as my fingers traced a soft line over her shoulders. “So you’re just naked and in the tub with me…platonically?”
