“What’re you doing?” Cassidy hissed, trying to squirm free. But Darla was a lot stronger than her petite frame would have you believe.
“Ask Levi to introduce me to Mateo. Please,” she begged while the people behind them gave them dirty looks.
“Please,” Jessa echoed. “Let’s get it over with so I can go home. Lance and I like to go to bed early on Friday nights.”
“Right,” Darla muttered, rolling her eyes. “Maybe I wouldn’t be so hard up if I didn’t have to listen to you talk about the great sex you’re always having.”
Cassidy heaved out a long-suffering sigh. “Listen you two, I’m not cutting in line—”
“Hi, Cassidy!” Theo Mullins stepped out of the crowd right in front of them. Her seven-year-old neighbor, with his dark skin and round, somber eyes, was probably the most adorable little boy she’d ever seen. Of course, he hated when she told him how cute he was, especially in front of a crowd, so she kept it to herself.
“Hey, Theo,” she said, ruffling his hair while she glanced around. “Is your mom here?”
“No. I rode my bike.” A proud smile made him seem so much older. “And I brought my cowboy hat so I could get it signed by Raines’s Renegades!”
“Wow,” Cassidy said with an awed expression. At least coming here hadn’t been a total waste of time. Now she could keep an eye on Theo and bring him home after the party. His mom worked as the building superintendent at the elementary school, but to make ends meet, she also cleaned houses and businesses around town whenever she could get extra work, which meant the kids were on their own a lot.
Darla leaned over. “I love the cowboy hat,” she told Theo. “Did you know Cassidy is friends with Raines’s Renegades?”
The little boy gawked up at her. “Really?”
The woman nodded emphatically. “She was just about to introduce us to all of them. I bet you could come with us.”
Cassidy shot her a look. Leave it to Darla to use a seven-year-old to further her agenda.
“Can I come with you?” Theo asked, and then looked down like he was embarrassed.
“Of course you can.” Cassidy tucked the sweetie under her arm. “Come on. I’m sure Levi will be happy to talk with you for a while.” He owed her big-time anyway.
Leading Darla and Theo to the table, she skirted past the barrier that had been constructed with bar stools and snuck up behind Levi before tapping him on the shoulder.
He turned. “Hey, Cass.” The sudden affection in his eyes brought a tingling warmth to her face. “Hey.” She cleared her throat and focused on Theo. “I have a friend who’d like to meet you.”
The boy had backed up to hide behind her, but Levi saw him. He turned back to the line. “We’re gonna take a five-minute break,” he called out. “Feel free to order some food and drinks while you wait.”
“Wow,” Darla muttered next to her. “He literally just dropped everything for you.”
Cassidy shrugged her off. It didn’t mean anything. He was only trying to charm her the way he charmed everyone else. Levi happened to hate it when someone didn’t like him. He always had. Which meant he would be working extra hard to be nice.
Cassidy took a hold of the boy’s hand. “Levi, this is Theo. He’s my neighbor.”
“Nice to meet you, Theo.” Levi stooped to a knee. “What grade are you in?”
“Second.” Shyness bowed the boy’s head, once again tempting Cassidy to pinch his cheek.
“He’s one of the smartest kids in his class too,” she bragged. “He’s in advanced reading and math.”
Levi widened his eyes as though impressed. “That true?”
Theo shrugged.
“Well, if Cass says it, it has to be true.” The man gazed up at her with an intimate smile, as though they shared some juicy secret.
Her face flushed almost immediately. Why did he keep looking at her like that? Like there was something between them?
Theo seemed incapable of words. He simply stared at one of his cowboy idols and nodded.
“So you like cowboys, huh?” Levi asked, standing to his full height again.
The boy nodded. “I wanna be a bull rider just like you.”
“Yeah?” Cassidy had expected the admission to be met with Levi’s typical arrogance, but instead he almost looked surprised. “Well, maybe I could show you a few tricks sometime.”
“Really?” Theo asked in wonder.
“Like when?” Cassidy demanded. She wasn’t about to let him make Theo some promise he didn’t intend to keep. He had a knack for doing that, and the boy had experienced enough disappointment from his own absentee father.
“Uh. Well…” Levi’s gaze darted around as though he was searching for an escape.
Yeah, that’s what she thought.
“I’ve tossed around the idea of doing a clinic,” he finally said. “A day where we teach kids all the important stuff they’d need to know to compete in a rodeo someday. Would you be interested in something like that?”
“Yeah!” Theo shouted, but then his face sobered. “Wait. How much would it cost?”
Levi glanced at Cassidy as though he didn’t know what to say. She gave him nothing. Not a nod, not a quirk of her lips. He had to figure this one out on his own.
“Maybe it’d be free…”
Maybe?
The boy gasped. “Free? Then I could do it for sure!”
“Perfect.” Relief seemed to loosen Levi’s jaw. “Hey, you want to meet my friends? Mateo, Ty, and Charity,” he called, “get over here.”
While he introduced Theo to the others, Cassidy hung back and watched, intent on keeping a healthy distance from Levi. Sure, he might be sexy and charming and funny, but he was a bull rider, and she wanted nothing to do with the sport. She also wanted nothing to do with how the sight of him kneeling next to Theo made her heart all soft and gooey…
She glanced at her watch. In fact, she really should be going.
“Why’s your face all flushed?” Jessa asked, coming up beside her. She was munching on a handmade truffle from Darla’s chocolate shop.
“It’s not flushed.” Cassidy touched her fingers to her cheek. She may have been a little warm…
“Hmm. Must be the lighting.” Her friend licked the chocolate off her fingers. “Levi’s good with Theo, huh?”
“I guess.” She wasn’t about to let her friend in on the secret that the man suddenly had her heart beating a little faster. “But I swear, if he lets that kid down, I’ll do much worse to him than a three-ton bull could do.”
Jessa laughed. “I don’t doubt that at all.” Her friend looked around. “Darla sure seems busy.” She’d managed to hook both Mateo and Ty, chatting with them in that flirty way Cassidy had always envied. She didn’t have time to flirt.
“Wait until they find out she makes her own chocolate,” she muttered. That always seemed to be a huge plus in scoring Darla a date.
“Speaking of chocolate, I need water.” Her friend grimaced. “I may have overdone it.”
“Been there.” In fact, seeing as how she didn’t drink much alcohol, Cassidy hit up Darla’s confectionery, the Chocolate Therapist, at least once a week. Everyone had their coping mechanism…
“You want anything?” Jessa asked, stepping away.
“No thanks.” She refocused on Theo. Ty Forrester was now teaching Theo how to lasso a rope.
“That kid’s pretty awesome.” Levi headed over to where she stood.
Cassidy tried to swallow but it was more like a gulp. Was her face still red? “Uh. Yeah. He’s a great kid.”
“Raised by a single mom, I take it.” Being raised by a single parent obviously made a difference to Levi.
“Yeah. She’s great too,” she said quickly. “Just really busy trying to keep things afloat.” Even though Cassidy didn’t have kids, she could relate to the woman. Seemed it was all she could do some days just to hold everything together.
“Well, I hope I can do it then.” Levi glanced over at Th
eo, his eyes narrowed with concern. “The rodeo camp, I mean.”
She snapped her head to gape at him. “You hope?”
“Yeah. I hope it works out.”
Anger flared, resurrecting her past bitterness. “You’d better do more than hope. You’d better make it happen. He’s counting on it now. And you don’t always keep your word.”
The man flinched as though the comment had cut him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She stared into his eyes, letting him see it. All of it. Her disappointment with him. It wasn’t his fault Cash had died. She knew that. She’d never blamed Levi a day in her life. But Cash had been his best friend. And Levi had completely written off her family. Her mom had loved him like a son, and he never even came around to check on her.
Suddenly the weight of everything—all these years she’d been trying to carry so many heavy burdens on her own—threatened to crush her. “You know what?” she managed. “Forget it. Do whatever you want. If you can’t make it happen, I’m sure he’ll get over it. Just like I did.”
* * *
Levi didn’t know how he’d done it. After Cass had walked out on him, he’d somehow managed to go back to signing autographs and posing for pictures and slapping high fives with the little kids who came through the line. All he’d really wanted to do was go after her.
He might’ve too, if he’d had any clue what to say.
He sank into a chair at a nearby table. For the most part, the party had ended. A few stragglers still hung around chatting at the bar. Mateo, Charity, and Ty were over shooting pool and having another drink, which gave him the perfect opportunity to finally sit and wallow in guilt.
His earlier conversation with Cass replayed yet again. She’d told him she was over her disappointment with him, but that wasn’t true. She wasn’t over it. And she had every right to be mad as hell. That was the problem though. She wasn’t mad. She was hurt. Still. After six years. And it killed him that he’d caused her pain. He’d rather have her scream in his face than get all bleary-eyed and walk out like that.
“You look like you could use a drink.” His father sat down across from him. Luis moved a little slower these days, with the combination of arthritis and Parkinson’s weakening his body. But all things considered, the man looked pretty good. His thick white hair and neatly trimmed mustache still made him look like a distinguished cowboy. Levi only hoped he’d age as gracefully.
He looked around, expecting to see the woman his father would refer to only as his “friend.” “Where’s Evie?” Lately, Levi would’ve called her Luis’s constant companion. It had become a rare occasion to see his dad without her somewhere nearby. The other night, he’d caught them holding hands as they’d walked the pasture on the ranch.
“I took her home an hour ago,” his father said, face coloring the way it always did when someone brought up Evie. “She had a project she wanted to finish tonight.”
Evie happened to be a talented stained-glass artist. She sold many of her goods in the shops around Topaz Falls. She was also one of the kindest, most interesting people Levi had ever met. It was easy to see what his dad saw in her. “You know, if Evie wanted to spend the night at your house once in a while, I’m sure I could bunk up with Lance and Jessa. Or even take the other suite at the Hidden Gem.” Though Levi wasn’t sure he wanted to be that close to his friends. He could find a way to give his father space though. Luis had already mentioned that Evie had a roommate who complained about everything.
He expected his father to mumble a gruff response like he always did when he was embarrassed, but instead he looked thoughtful. “You wouldn’t mind?”
“Oh. Uh, no. I mean, I’ve been thinking it’s time for me to get my own place anyway.” When he’d first come back to town after his dad started having health issues, he hadn’t figured he’d stay long. But now things were definitely looking more permanent. “I mean, now that I’m planning to make this my home base, I guess I could always call a realtor and see what’s out there.”
“Or you could build a house on the ranch.” An eagerness lit his father’s eyes.
A smile pulled at Levi’s lips. He knew how much it meant to Luis to have them all back together after being estranged from him and Lucas for so many years. “Yeah. I could look into that.” In the meantime though, he’d better pack up his things, because his father was ready for a new roommate.
A pang of envy riffled through him. It seemed everyone else was moving on with their lives. His father was moving forward with Evie. Lance was moving forward with his booming business. Lucas and Naomi were about to have a baby. He’d never thought he wanted any of those things. So why did it feel like he was stuck?
Across from him, his father yawned, trying to hide it behind his gnarled, age-spotted hand.
“You didn’t have to come back after you took Evie home.” Usually, at this time of night, his father was settling in and getting ready to go to bed. On a normal night, the party would just be getting started for Levi, but tonight he might turn in early himself.
“I wanted to come back,” his father insisted stubbornly. He probably took exception to the fact that Levi had suggested he was tired. “It sure was something watching all those people come here to see you. I’m proud of you, son. You’ve accomplished a lot this year.”
“Thanks.” The word sounded as hollow as he’d felt since he’d seen those tears in Cass’s eyes. “But I’m not sure it matters much.”
“’Course it matters,” Luis insisted. “You righted your wrongs. That’s more than a lot of men could say.”
He’d righted a wrong. He’d worked his ass off to earn his way back into the town’s good graces, while he’d gone on completely ignoring Cassidy. Why’d it take him so damn long to figure out she was the only one who really mattered?
“I haven’t righted all of my wrongs.” He searched his dad’s face. His skin was lined from years of sun exposure, but his eyes still had a youthful spark. “Why didn’t you ever tell me how much Cassidy and Lulu were struggling?” Not that it was his father’s responsibility, but if he would’ve nagged him about it, maybe he wouldn’t have stayed away so long.
Luis didn’t seem to take offense at the question. He simply shrugged. “I didn’t see much of ’em. They both kept to themselves after the funeral.” He hesitated. “And I didn’t hear from you much either. Didn’t want to cause more issues between us by making you feel bad.”
Levi accepted that with a nod. Sitting across from his father now, it was easy to imagine they hadn’t had any issues between them back then, but that’d be a lie. In his late teen years, he hadn’t appreciated his father, and after he left, he’d rarely talked to him. “It’s not your fault.” He sighed. “I should’ve checked in with her. I should’ve kept in better touch with you.” The responsibility rested solely on his shoulders. Unfortunately, he’d been too young and selfish to take it on.
His father didn’t disagree, but his lips folded in that proud dad expression again. The one Levi didn’t deserve. “You were finding your way, son. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
Yeah, and while he was out building a name for himself, Cassidy was stuck in Topaz Falls caring for her mother, putting herself through school, and working full time. “I don’t think she’ll forgive me.” He hadn’t thought about it, about how it must’ve felt like she’d lost a brother and a friend. At the funeral, he’d had to hold her up. She couldn’t even walk down the aisle at the church. He’d held her while she cried, every tear adding another weight on his regrets. One week later, he’d gotten word of the opening at Gunner Raines’s ranch, and he’d left without saying goodbye.
“Have you asked her to forgive you?” his dad asked pointedly.
“No. I guess I haven’t.” He’d almost been afraid to talk to her since he’d been back. He could hop on the back of a three-ton bull, grinning and showboating for the cameras, but he couldn’t find the words to tell a woman how much he thought of her.
“I would st
art there.” His father pulled himself out of the chair. “And don’t wait, son. Take it from me, you want something bad enough, you gotta go after it.” He clapped Levi’s shoulder with surprising strength. “It might take time, but she’ll never forgive you if you don’t ask.”
Chapter Three
Hey, girl. You okay?” Molly peered in the passenger’s side window, frowning as if she already knew the answer.
Cassidy debated about telling a lie, but her coworker was a good head taller than her and had the stocky build of an ultimate fighter. She’d even competed in some competitions. Molly also happened to be strikingly gorgeous, with sleek black hair she wore in a twist and powerful hazel eyes. Her looks completely threw off her opponents in the ring, and almost everyone underestimated her. She hadn’t lost a match in two years.
Yeah, Cassidy wouldn’t have a chance against the woman. So instead of risking an interrogation, she went for the optimistic truth. “I’ll be fine.” She always had to be fine. She was the sane one, the strong one, the one who always kept it together.
It couldn’t matter that she’d gotten sick to her stomach the second they’d backed the ambulance into Levi’s new arena. It couldn’t matter that sorrow had broken open in her chest when she’d seen the Cash Greer Memorial Arena sign hanging from the roof’s wide steel beams. God knew she had plenty of practice pretending she was okay. Now if she could just force herself to climb out of the ambulance…
“You want me to beat Levi up for you?” Molly asked, flexing her forearms.
The woman always knew how to make her smile. “Maybe. I’ll let you know.”
“Seems like he could’ve asked for someone else today, considering what happened to your brother.” Her coworker’s scowl might’ve been enough to frighten one of Levi’s bucking bulls. “That man must be ten cents short of a dime.”
“Mmm-hmmm,” she murmured, busying herself with reorganizing the contents of the glove compartment. She didn’t want to talk about Levi. Didn’t want to think about the emotions he’d triggered in her last night. God, she couldn’t believe she’d almost cried in front of him. She didn’t cry in front of anyone. Not since Cash’s funeral. She always put on a smile and did what needed to be done. And that’s what she’d do today too.
Renegade Cowboy Page 3
