by Cara McKenna
She cracked a smile at that. “I’m probably at a point in my life where I’d better learn to quit being such a dumbass.”
He shrugged. “I don’t think you are one, but yeah, now’s probably the time to steal a little control back from the world. Luck’s for people who don’t want to make choices. But there’s always a choice, no matter how trapped you feel.”
“Do you ever feel trapped?”
He had to think about that. What he felt now—tied to this town by the business and his commitment to Duncan, tied to his uncomfortable home life by his promise to Vince, tied to Abilene and the baby until the situation with her ex shook out . . . Trapped wasn’t quite it. Tethered, maybe, but he’d secured every single one of those knots himself.
“I don’t think I’ve felt trapped since I was about twenty,” he decided aloud. “Since I started looking around Fortuity, and realized I was on a track to wind up a nobody, in a no-place town, for the rest of my life. ’Til someday I woke up with a bad back from four decades’ working in the quarry, forced to retire and spend my days bitching with the other old-timers by the Benji’s jukebox. Sounds fucking cocky, but ever since I was a kid I thought I was too big for this place. Had more exciting shit due to me. I feel like an asshole saying it now.”
“You’re not a nobody here, anyhow. You’re a business owner. You’re going to preserve an important part of Fortuity’s past for when the casino changes everything.”
“Yeah, I hope so. But I also know my fifteen-year-old self would’ve been fucking horrified to hear I never made it out.”
“But you did. And like you said, it was choices that brought you back.”
“Yeah.” And now, at thirty-two, a little older and more sentimental, a little more vulnerable to guilt and regrets, Casey could admit that if he was doomed to lose his marbles in the next ten years, that time was better spent doing right by his mom, and building some kind of professional legacy that didn’t have him flirting with a place on the ATF’s dance card.
The fire was mellowing, crackling yellow flames turned quiet and orange, lapping lazily at the pink logs. Beside him, Abilene yawned, and in its wake her gaze went to his tattoo again.
“For what it’s worth, I feel real lucky to have met your brother, and you and Raina and Duncan.”
Again, that was choice, not chance—she’d gone to Vince for help. But it was a nice sentiment, so he didn’t contradict her. “And I feel lucky that I’m in a position to be of use to you.”
“That’s real sweet.”
He squeezed her around the shoulders, just for a second. “I know. Don’t tell anybody I said it.”
She laughed.
“You should get back to bed,” Casey said. “You’ll need whatever sleep you can get tonight.”
And as if on cue, the dreaded noise drifted down from above—a soft, single coo, promising full-blown wailing to follow inside a minute.
“Spoke too soon,” he said, just as Abilene got to her feet.
She paused to look back at him as she slipped her feet into blue flip flops, smiling shyly. “Thanks for the distraction.”
“Don’t know if I should say you’re welcome, or apologize for letting it get as far as it did.”
“Don’t apologize.”
He nodded.
She pursed her lips, then bent down and kissed his cheek softly. “’Night.”
“Sleep well,” he told her. “Eventually.”
She smiled a final time then headed for the stairs, holding up the legs of her pajama bottoms like a kid, to keep the hems off the floor.
Like a kid. So unlike the woman who’d just turned him inside out—and without ever crossing third base. He shoved the thought aside.
Get your head on straight. Tonight was a one-off. A slip of her good sense, probably a need to escape from whatever thoughts she had coursing through her mind regarding what might come once her ex was out.
A dangerous ex, Casey thought, and that child’s father. Sometimes he caught himself nearly getting attached to that baby, and had to pull himself up short. Just because I can change diapers now, and heat formula, and have puke stains on the shoulders of half my shirts, it doesn’t make me anything more than a babysitter to that kid.
The only thing he’d earned for sure was James Ware’s anger, should the man find out how close Casey had gotten with his ex and his daughter. He swallowed, collar feeling tight.
Just keep it to yourself. Hope maybe you get nicknamed Uncle Casey but beyond that, leave it the fuck alone. Quit feeling shit you have no right to feel.
Because sure, he’d gone straight in the past few months, but that didn’t change one important fact—at the end of the day, Casey was every bit the criminal Abilene’s arms-smuggler ex was.
The only difference is, I’ve been smart enough not to get caught.
And he’d better hope to hell that good, God-fearing girl never found out the truth about him.
Cara McKenna is the author of the Desert Dogs series, which includes Give It All and Lay It Down. Since she began writing in 2008, she has published more than thirty romances and erotic novels with a variety of publishers, sometimes under the pen name Meg Maguire. Her stories have been acclaimed for their smart, modern voice and defiance of convention. She is a 2015 RITA Award finalist, a 2014 Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award winner, and a 2010 Golden Heart finalist. She lives with her husband in the Pacific Northwest, though she’ll always be a Boston girl at heart. Cara loves hearing from readers!
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