Caught Up

by Rya Stone

“Honey, what’s—”

  “Not now, Kyle.”

  She grabbed her phone from her desk. Turning, she bumped into Farrah. “The Peterson paperwork is signed and ready to be picked up at their attorney’s office,” she said.

  “Thanks.” At least there was that. Which didn’t include an override.

  A smile skated the secretary’s lips. “Run into Reid again?”

  “How is that your business?” Kyle inquired from his desk.

  Cassie studied Farrah’s corn-silk hair, magazine-worthy makeup, and super-toned arms. She wore an almost sheer blouse with capped sleeves atop a pair of gray trousers, tight at the hips and butt, flared at the bottom. Sex-kitten secretary, all the way. And totally Reid’s type.

  “If you’re interested, go for it. You don’t have anything to worry about from me.”

  “That’s the damn truth,” Kyle muttered.

  Cassie cut her eyes at him and headed for the parking lot. Leaning against her car, she scrolled through her contacts, searching for the number she’d added after receiving Jase’s midnight text late last week.

  Jase: Don’t leave town tomorrow.

  And a few seconds later…

  Jase: Please.

  She hadn’t heard from him since.

  Just as it had all weekend, his phone rang a few times before going to voicemail. “Jase, it’s Cassie. My boss pulled me off your tract this morning, so you don’t have to worry about me going out to your property again or, um, taking any detours. A guy named Jim is taking over. I’m sure you and you brother will just be thrilled to hear from him. So…I guess that’s it. See you around?”

  She hit end.

  She’d do what she could with Mrs. Neely to help wrap up the project, land a lesser override, and Jase would become a sexy, mysterious memory. She could deal with the edge of danger then, alone, in a motel in a different county. Yeah, Jason Lucas would be food for fantasy for months to come. Hell, years to come. Not that it didn’t hurt more than a little. It did. She’d never been so attracted to a man yet so terrified of that same attraction. The man himself was a contradiction, too. He took kisses but held open doors. He whispered filthy things but touched her with reverence. He started fights and broke them up and barked commands and looked like a sullied god doing it. Cassie looked down at her phone, trying to forget the feel of his mouth on her—

  No. There were too many things he didn’t want to talk about, too many questions he didn’t want to answer, and the turn of events let him off the hook. It’s for the best. As if trying to convince herself, she repeated the mantra all the way back to the office.

  With a heavy heart, she turned to the title notes on the Neely tract. Two hours later, the office door banged open, and Kyle’s jaw went slack. She turned to see Jase stalking toward her desk, and no wonder Kyle had gone all Stunned Smurf. Jase looked almost exactly as he had the first time she’d seen him: work boots, coveralls tied at the waist, tattoo-revealing black tank, and dog tags hanging between covered, but impressive-looking, pecs. And those blue eyes…

  Furious.

  She stood, swallowing, and her throat constricted around her wildly beating heart.

  Jase walked right up to her desk and bent his head to hers, that dark hair falling into his face. “See you around?”

  He smelled of drilling mud and sweat and underneath that, the same spicy scent he’d left on her skin that night in her motel room. “How did you find—”

  “Big sign out front.” He shifted his gaze, noting the nameplate on the desk adjacent hers. “You’re Kyle.”

  She turned to see Kyle nodding slowly. Jase tilted his head back in that silent greeting thing men do and Kyle returned the gesture. That simple. No questions, no snickering, not even a sarcastic, “Nice outfit, dude.”

  “Where’s your boss?”

  Her eyes must have flickered to the hall, or maybe bosses were just commonly located down halls. Either way, Jase began striding toward Marshall’s office before she could form a response.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus.” That was Kyle, of course, his gaze glued to Jase’s broad back.

  “Who is that?” Farrah hissed, emerging from behind her desk. Yeah, Jase had that kind of pull. Well, and Farrah was…Farrah.

  “Jason Lucas,” came his voice from down the hall.

  Farrah’s head whipped to Cassie. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah.” She fell heavily into her chair. Deep in her gut, she’d known she hadn’t heard the last from him. But an office visit? That was about the last thing she’d expected.

  “Cassie works my tract. I don’t talk to anyone else.”

  Farrah’s jaw approached on-the-floor territory, and Kyle’s eyebrows shot up, disappearing into his hairline.

  “I’ll handle my brother.”

  She couldn’t hear anything Marshall said, but Jase’s responses made it kind of obvious—to Cassie and the entire office. Everything had stopped. Everything except the eyes darting between the hallway and her. Nice. She was definitely working in her motel for the rest of the week, maybe the rest of the month.

  Kyle shifted in his seat, and as if Cassie needed more confirmation of Jase’s return, a wall of warmth bent over her back. He planted both hands on her desk, pinning her tight. “Tonight,” he whispered into her ear. “My place. Grilled shrimp.”

  Her eyes locked on Kyle’s and stayed there, even when she felt Jase’s chin skim across the top of her head. His breath hit her other ear. “Wear the jeans.”

  Jase pushed away from her desk just as the office landline began ringing.

  Kyle’s head swiveled to follow Jase out the door. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he whispered.

  “Tell you what?”

  Kyle’s amused expression told her the innocence card wasn’t going to work. “That the man has it bad for you?”

  He did. She couldn’t deny it, even though he continued to deny her the thing she needed the most. Her own feelings were certainly written all over her face, and she shook her hair into her face to hide her flaming cheeks, about to protest when Kyle cleared his throat. “Are you going to get the phone, Farrah?”

  Marshall’s voice rang out down the hall. “I’m sure you heard the man, Cass.”

  She nodded without turning around. “Neely?” she asked.

  “Need you on that, too.”

  Effing score. She nodded again, trying to hide her satisfaction. She couldn’t wait to tell her mother about Neely.

  “Farrah, phone!” Marshall growled.

  Farrah ran to her desk, and the office commenced activity.

  Kyle leaned over his desk. “You gonna be okay tonight?”

  She wasn’t too sure about that. She was sure that Jason Lucas wasn’t done with her. Even if he hadn’t barged into Marshall’s office demanding what he had, he wouldn’t have been done with her. She’d have been crazy to have thought otherwise.

  “Yeah,” she smiled up at Kyle. “Yeah, I’m going to be okay.”

  And she was certifiably insane to think that was a true statement.

  …

  She wore the jeans.

  And despite both the heated looks and the flirty banter they’d shared over dinner, she now regretted her decision.

  “Jase, I can’t,” she said as he dragged her towards his leather couch. “I can’t sit down. The shrimp were amazing, but they don’t feel so amazing against my waistband.”

  He chuckled and glanced over his shoulder. “What do you need?” he asked, tilting his chin. “You need to lie down?”

  “No,” she groaned. “I need out of these jeans.”

  Jase’s eyes took on a lusty sheen, and Cassie realized her mistake. “That came out wrong. I mean—”

  Still holding tight to her hand, he pulled her into the gooseneck part of the camper via the short stairs wedged between the sink and pantry. They passed a small bathroom before he ducked his head and led her into his bedroom.

  What have I done now? She’d spent a fair amount of time thinking about the inevi
tability of ending up in Jase’s bed, and while she wasn’t opposed to the idea—far from it—it wasn’t going to happen right now. It couldn’t, not with her head full of questions and her belly full of shrimp.

  He dropped her hand and rounded a small bed that still ate up most of the room.

  “This is a tempting offer,” she chuckled, trying to play it cool, “but I’m seriously worried about my performance right now.”

  He ignored her and slid open a mirrored door, revealing a closet full of neatly hung coveralls, jeans, and shirts. He ripped a T-shirt from a hanger and tossed it onto the bed. “Put that on.”

  “Um…it’s not my shirt that’s making me uncomfortable.”

  “Take them both off and just wear the T-shirt. It’s big enough to cover you.”

  She lifted the shirt from the bed. Navy blue, it sported a pocket on the front and Black Drum’s logo across the back. When she saw a derrick rising from the waves under the company’s name, she realized what she should have from the get-go. Black Drum Drilling wasn’t named for a drum that was black. It was named for the fish.

  “I’m not taking my pants off,” she said.

  Jase rounded the bed. “You want me to do it for you?” He grabbed the tab in the center of her waistband and flicked his wrist, unbuttoning her jeans.

  “Okay!”

  “Okay,” he said, winking before he ducked through the door.

  She hastily executed the gym class locker room move with her shirt then slipped off her jeans. Heart pounding, she folded her jeans and top then set them on the bed. Then she caught her reflection in the wall of mirrors opposite where she stood. The shirt was huge. So was her grin. He wanted her wearing his shirt. She wanted to wear it. It was adolescent how giddy she felt swathed in Jase’s soft, worn T-shirt. And the hint of his cologne—that scent she couldn’t quite place—wrapped her even tighter in the fantasy she was building, the one where they “went steady” for a hot second and no one got hurt.

  She found him on the couch, sitting in a pool of lamplight. He reached out a hand and hauled her sideways into his lap. “Talk to me.”

  “I don’t even know where to start,” she admitted, smoothing his shirt over her knees.

  Jase wrapped an arm around her waist, and his hand came to rest on her hip. “Start with how you mentioned to dickhead the other night that you have an English degree. How do you go from that to the oil field?”

  “Land work wasn’t exactly my childhood dream.”

  “And what was that?”

  She bit the inside of her bottom lip, and Jase threatened a tickle by running his hand up her ribs. “Out with it.”

  “I wanted to be a writer,” she blurted.

  “What kind of writer?”

  “A novelist.” Why was she sharing about this? There were way more important things swirling though her mind, namely her mother’s dilemma.

  At least he appeared interested. Maybe he wouldn’t think her too ridiculous, and maybe if she shared something with him, he’d reciprocate. “Fantasy,” she began. “Like J.R.R. Tolkien and George R.R. Martin. Only my middle initials aren’t R.R. Truth be told”—she lowered her voice and narrowed her eyes—“I only have one middle name, ergo, only one middle initial. So, you know, I had to give it up.”

  An amused grin split his lips. “You had to give up writing about elves and dragons and shit because you only have one middle initial?”

  “Yeah, that’s why I had to give up writing about elves and dragons and shit.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that, babe.”

  “Well, whatever. It’s stupid, I know.”

  “It’s not stupid. You went so far as to get an English degree. Tell me why.”

  “Well, that’s…that’s going to sound even more stupid.”

  “Try me.”

  She took a deep breath. He’s going to owe me for this. “My father’s gone, too. He left when I was twelve.”

  Jase drew her fingers to his lips for a quick kiss.

  “I don’t know why, and I haven’t heard from him since. It was rough.” She looked down as Jase entwined their hands. “It got rougher after my mother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Anyway, I…I used stories to deal with it. Books. And music. Some of the best stories ever told have been told through music.” She glanced at Jase to make sure she hadn’t lost him. “I, um… I discovered Zeppelin the same summer I discovered Tolkien. It blew my mind when I realized some of the greatest literature of the twentieth century inspired some of its greatest music. It seemed important, profound even. That’s why I got the English degree.”

  “So why aren’t you on the bestseller list?”

  She snorted. “Never gonna happen, not in a million years.”

  “Why?”

  “I told you, I don’t have the right initials.”

  “Would you stop it with that? Why’re you working the oil field when you have a mind like this?”

  “Very few writers ever get published. Just because you can string words together doesn’t mean you’re any good at it. And all the time it takes you to realize that, you’re living in your parents’ basement, or worse, consuming way too much caffeine because you’re working a job you don’t care about and staying up all night to write.”

  “And what makes you think you’re not any good at it? That going through all that wouldn’t be worth it?”

  “I, um…I had a few short stories rejected after college.”

  “And?”

  “And then I started doing land work. The money was good, so I kept doing it. Now I…I don’t know…now I’m here, trying to earn enough to move my mom into a better assisted living facility.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Twin Freaking Pines. Sounds like a horror movie, doesn’t it?” she asked, trying to bring some levity to the conversation.

  “I think that was Twin Peaks,” Jase said, in all seriousness. “But I get your drift. How is she doing, health-wise?”

  She stared at him, not sure how to respond. Most men didn’t want to discuss how disconcerting lack of facial expression could be while they had a half-naked woman sitting on their lap.

  “Hey.” He shook her a little. “I’m not trying to pry. And if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. I’m just…” His voice trailed off.

  “What?” she whispered.

  “I want to know.”

  “Why?”

  He looked at her like he couldn’t comprehend why she’d ask such a question. “Because I want to understand where she’s at with the disease. And I want to know where you’re at with it. You just told me you’re flying solo, that there’s no one else. That’s a huge burden. And one you shouldn’t have to shoulder alone.”

  Cassie swallowed and looked to the ceiling in an attempt to hold back the tears pricking her eyes. Discussing her mother’s symptoms was something she did on a regular basis. She discussed them with her mother, with nurses, doctors, even Kyle. But Reid had never asked. Anytime she mentioned her mother, he’d quickly changed the subject. The same went for the few unremarkable dates she’d had since that disaster of a relationship. But this…

  “I…I’m just kind of surprised you care.”

  A furrow appeared between Jase’s brows. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  Yeah. Decent men existed. Too bad this one was only temporary.

  She sucked in a steadying breath and dove straight in. She spared him nothing: the initial diagnosis, the compromised balance, the first bad fall, the trip to pick out a wheelchair two years ago—which one should not have to do at the age of fifty-two—the heart-wrenching move to Twin Pines, and, finally, her mother’s recent shower incident.

  “I’m not going to lie,” he said when she finally finished. “That sucks.”

  She gave him a half smile. “Yeah, it does.”

  “Is that why you quit writing?”

  “Pretty much.” Cassie settled her head on his chest, embarrassed she’d shared so much that she normally kept locked away
. She was more than a little conflicted, too. Sure, he’d asked, but then she’d unloaded a gunnysack of grief on a guy she barely knew. That wasn’t fling stuff. They should be between the sheets right now, not discussing broken families and shattered dreams. And the way Jase stroked her back and kissed her hair pulled at her battered heartstrings.

  “I guess I’m a little preoccupied at the moment,” she admitted.

  “So you just let your dream go?”

  She closed her eyes and listened to Jase’s heartbeat for a few seconds. “Yeah, I let go.” Fantasies you could harness, exploit. Dreams were soul-crushing. And yet…“I’ve only recently noticed how empty it feels not to dream.” His arm curled tight around her shoulder, and it encouraged Cassie to say what she did next. “Maybe dreams are part of what fills us up, and maybe once my mom’s in a better place I’ll take some time off, explore that a little. The override should—”

  “A royalty cut?” he asked. “On my wells?”

  She screwed her eyes shut and drew her lips in, covering her teeth.

  “Cassie.”

  She cracked an eyelid. “If you’d sign the damn lease so we can drill some wells then, yes, I’ll earn an override, but it’s not…it won’t come out of your end. It comes out of my broker’s end.”

  “I know that,” he said. “Is that why you haven’t mentioned it? Thought I’d be mad?”

  “A lot of people don’t understand and I didn’t want you to think this…what we’re doing…has anything to do with the override.” Her coworkers probably thought she was a whore at this point, but she found that she cared a hell of a lot more about what Jase thought.

  “Is that what you’re going to use to move your mom to a better facility?”

  She nodded.

  “Your boss kicked you off my tract this morning.” His voice was edged with anger. “He took that away from you.”

  “You gave it back.” She straightened and twisted, shifting her leg so she could straddle him. “Not that I completely understand your motive, Mr. I’m Not Signing a Lease.”

  Jase curled a hand around her throat and pulled her face to his. He stared at her for a long moment before his hand dropped away to trail down the center of her chest. His eyes were the color of a crisp, cloudless autumn sky. Looking into those eyes, she felt the beauty of a day like that. Determined to lose herself in it, she began exploring the contours of his chest with her fingers. “Now you,” she whispered. “What’s a rancher’s son doing on a rig?”