by Laura Wright
“Everything okay?”
Sheridan startled and looked up from her phone. Holy buckets of ice water, she thought as she took in the sight before her. Standing beside the couch, looking like something off the pages of People magazine or one of those other celebrity rag mags, was a freshly showered James Cavanaugh. His hair was still wet, darker looking and finger combed. His eyes appeared impossibly blue and—heart, don’t fail me now—genuinely concerned about the way she had been staring at her phone. But it was the clothing he had on that had her mouth drying up quicker than a rain puddle in the desert. It was nothing fancy, just jeans and a white T-shirt. But it was how that T-shirt fit over his powerful chest, and how a few damp patches where the towel had missed made that T-shirt slightly see-through.
Licking her lips in case there was actual drool present, she put away her phone. “It’s just Mr. Palmer. He’s trying to get out of meeting with me.”
“Why’s that?”
Telling James about her suspicions felt unwise and premature. And something she should discuss with Deacon first. She attempted to be vague. “It’s not uncommon for people to see what they can get away with when it comes to money. They push, and I’m required to push back.”
That answer didn’t seem to appease him. “I can have a word with him.”
“Absolutely not,” she said firmly. “This is my job.”
“Just saying, if you need backup . . .”
“I appreciate that, but no, thank you.”
“All right.” His eyes moved over her face. “But it’s a standing offer.”
Her skin warmed and tightened under his gaze, and she replied with the dumbest question in the world. “How was your shower?”
To his credit, James didn’t laugh or ask her to leave and never come back. Instead, he smiled. “Wet.”
Her eyes widened and every inch of flesh below her navel erupted into flames.
“And hot,” he continued, his tone even.
Her lips parted to accommodate her quicker breaths.
“And if I say it was also a little lonely, will that make you think less of me?” he asked, brow lifted.
“Not at all,” she said weakly. Think less? Was he kidding? That was a thinking MORE kind of question if ever she’d heard one. “But isn’t that the very nature of a shower?” she returned. “To wash yourself . . . alone?” Was she actually saying these words? Out loud?
“Not if you’re doing it right,” he said with a roguish grin.
Sheridan’s heart stuttered. Why had she come here again? To stare at his chest? No. Gaze into his eyes? No. Request a nonlonely shower of her own? Absolutely not!
“Can I get you something to drink?” he asked her. “Water? Beer?”
“I’ll take a beer.” In fact, if it would tame her mood, maybe she’d have a few.
He headed for the kitchen. “Never would’ve pegged you for a beer-drinking girl,” he called back.
“I am very versatile, Mr. Cavanaugh.”
“I’m starting to learn that, Miss O’Neil.” When he returned, he handed her a bottle, then dropped down on the leather couch opposite. “So, tell me your plan.”
Hmmm, let’s see. Drink my beer and try not to keep imagining you naked in the river, or the shower, or . . . here and now . . .
“For the rehearsal dinner,” he continued, his eyes sparkling with amusement.
Kind of like he could read her mind. Or her expression.
“Right.” She took a healthy swallow, then eased back against the couch cushions. “I was thinking outside, under the moonlight, a few long wooden tables covered in flowers or greenery. A feast, family-style. Maybe a jazz quartet or something fun playing a ways off. Wine and beer,” she lifted her bottle, “Lemonade and laughs. Elegant country.”
“That’s a lot of thinking for such a short amount of time,” he said. “I like it.”
A quick grin touched her lips. “Really?”
He nodded. “And where are you imagining these tables set up? Or the music playing? Redemption?”
The grin slipped. This was the part she was dreading, though she really wanted to put it on the table for discussion because she believed it would mean something to both Deacon and Mac. “I was actually thinking it could be here, at the Triple C.”
James’s easy mood changed in a heartbeat. A storm moved across his expression, and his lips hardened. “Absolutely not.”
Nine
James hadn’t meant to shut the idea down so quickly and so ruthlessly, but instinct was like that. It jumped to your defense before your rational mind got there. He leaned forward and tried to be as diplomatic as possible. “Thing is, I don’t know if Deacon would be okay with it.”
She nodded, and didn’t look nearly as affronted as he thought she might be. In fact, it was almost as if she’d expected this response. “I’ll ask him. When he returns.”
“Let me save you the trouble, Sheridan. I know my brother.” And he’d feel the same way as I would.
“I think it could be a good thing for everyone,” she suggested.
“Do you?”
Once again, his tone was bordering on harsh, but it didn’t seem to faze her. Clearly, she knew more than he realized about her boss’s past. And for a second, James wondered if she knew anything about his. Just the thought made his flesh crawl.
“It just seems like this place has taken too much control away from those who used to live here—and hell, maybe the ones who still do.” She took a sip of her beer and shrugged. “Maybe it’s time to take that control back.”
“Not sure how that’s possible. Or if anyone even wants to try.” He appreciated her sentiment. He knew it came from the heart. But even so, it didn’t make the idea any more attractive. “No wedding celebration should be held in the steely and constricting arms of pain.”
She paused, regarded him with curious eyes. “That’s not Shakespeare.”
“No, Ms. O’Neil. That’s me.” He pointed the neck of his beer bottle Sheridan’s way. “Let’s come up with an alternative. Maybe something on the way out of town.” He inhaled deeply. “Now that would hold some good memories for Deacon.” He snorted. “For all of us.”
Sheridan didn’t say anything at first. Sipping her beer, she studied him. Then finally, she asked, “How old were you?”
“When?”
“When you left River Black?”
Ah, Christ. Were they really going here? “I dunno,” he said. He took a healthy swallow. “Eighteen, maybe.”
Her brows drifted upward. “That’s young.”
“Trust me, I was plenty grown,” he assured her.
“And did you know you wanted to work with horses?”
“No. That didn’t come until later.”
“So, what did you do?”
“Went to college.” Leaving the C, River Black, his father behind—even his brothers—and walking into the university, he’d been like a kid in a candy store. Hungry, excited, ready to try just about anything. “After testing the waters a bit, I landed on English literature.”
That brought about a stunned expression. Cowboy from a small ranching town in Texas going off to school to read and critique poetry and fiction and the lot. It was always a surprise to people.
“You have a degree in English literature?” she asked.
His jaw went tense. “No.” He stood up and headed for the kitchen. “I didn’t finish,” he called back as he rummaged in the fridge. “I left before my senior year.”
When he returned with two more beers, she asked him the inevitable question, “Why’s that?”
He placed one down on the coffee table in front of her. “I realized it wasn’t the place for someone like me.”
“That’s an odd thing to say. Someone like you? What does that mean? A country boy? An animal lover?”
James inhaled sharply. He’d reached that point when answers became an invitation to judge or resent or worse, pity. And he didn’t want any of that from Sheridan. He didn’t want her to know about the girlfriend who’d gone out one night without him and been attacked. Just like he didn’t want her to know the depth of his guilt about not going to the bathroom when his little sister had asked him to. It was somehow okay that he knew his track record for failing the women in his life. But for her to know . . .
“Were the other students jerks?” she pressed. “Or was the school too big and you were used to something smaller?”
“You ask a lot of questions,” James ground out.
She shrugged. “Is that wrong?”
“Maybe.” Definitely.
“Just trying to get to know you. Remember?” She smiled gently.
“Not sure I see the point in that,” he said sharply.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re going back to Dallas, and I’m going somewhere else, right?”
She instantly recoiled, but managed to say, “That’s the plan.”
“All right then.” He shrugged casually, but inside he was all firecrackers just lit and ready to explode. He felt defensive and exposed, and he just wanted to drop the whole goddamn thing and get back to wedding nonsense and party planning. He brought his beer up to his mouth and drained the second bottle. “I say we just make it easy on ourselves, and book the Bull’s Eye. This wedding is about Deacon and Mac, not some quest to drive out the demons from our past. Because trust me when I say that’s never going to happen. And even if it could, it’s not your place to try.”
He knew he sounded fierce, but he didn’t realize just how fierce until the haze cleared and he saw her face. Her expression. Though she tried to hide it well, she looked hurt. No. It was more than hurt. She looked wounded. And he was responsible.
With grace, she set her half-empty beer down on the table, then stood. “Thanks for the drink.”
“Sheridan?”
She was already headed for the door. “Good night, James.”
James cursed. He was such an ass. But she’d pushed him too far. What was he supposed to do? Spill his guts? Tell her all that had happened? Tell her no matter what he was feeling for her, she deserved something more, something better? Tell her how she would never truly be safe with him? That he was cursed. And deserved to be.
And then what?
She’d walk away from you just like she was doing now.
Fuck.
He was up and rounding the couch. “Where you going, Sheridan?”
“I have a lot of work to do,” she said, reaching for the door handle. “And honestly, when someone reacts like that to a person, it’s usually a sign they don’t want the person around.”
Shit, if she only knew. How badly he wanted her around. How desperately he’d wanted to press her back to the couch and kiss her breathless, kiss her until she stopped asking question after question about a past that was too painful to discuss.
The door was halfway open by the time he got there. He didn’t try to block her way. “Don’t go. Please.”
She didn’t look at him, but her jaw was tight with tension.
“Sheridan?”
“Why stay?” she asked, her eyes pinned to the door.
“Because . . . damn . . .” He shook his head. Yeah, asshole? Why should she even consider staying here with you? After the way you talked to her. Unless you’re gonna be honest. About the past, and how you feel about her.
She headed out the door and onto the porch.
Why couldn’t he say it? What the hell was wrong with him that he could be so easily cruel, but he couldn’t be even remotely vulnerable?
“You should stay,” he said, coming to stand in the doorway. “Because you make the air around me easier to breathe.”
At the bottom of the stairs, she stopped.
“You should stay because you make me smile and laugh.” He released a breath. “And I haven’t done much of either for more years than I care to count. You should stay because I actually do want you to know me despite how hard I keep trying to stop that from happening. You should stay because I want to know you too. Want to make you smile. And then, of course, there’s the thing about not wanting to take showers alone when you’re around.”
For a moment, James wondered if he’d crossed the line with that last bit. But then she turned around, and though her expression wasn’t by any means light, it was open.
She exhaled heavily, then shook her head. “You said I was going back to Dallas and you were going somewhere—”
“I know. And I was an ass for saying it.”
“But it’s true. For both of us, it’s true.”
He broke from the doorway, headed across the porch and down the steps. When he reached her, he gently took her by the shoulders. When her eyes found his, he said, “Tell me what you want, Sheridan.”
Pain and fear crossed her expression. “I don’t know. I’ve lived for one thing most of my life. To protect myself against just this sort of situation.”
“What situation is that?”
“Liking someone.” She smiled softly, sadly. “Liking someone so much you can see losing yourself in them. Liking someone so much you want to lose yourself in them. Does that make sense?”
“Yes.” Perfect, problematic, worrisome sense. “‘The wheel is come full circle.‘ “
The tension in her body eased somewhat and she gave him a small smile. “King Lear.”
He nodded.
“You love the tragedies, Mr. Cavanaugh.”
He shrugged. “I suppose because I am one, Miss O’Neil.”
She reached up and touched his face. “‘Having nothing, nothing can he lose.’”
Her words made his gut ache and twist. Not because she knew her Shakespeare and that tied him in knots in a whole other way, but because they made absolute and tragic sense to him.
“I’m going to go,” she said, though she didn’t move away from him.
“Can I take you?”
She shook her head. “Thank you. But I got a ride.”
“Mac?”
She laughed. “Me.”
He wanted to talk her out of it, then talk her into letting him drive her over to Redemption. But he didn’t want to push her any more tonight. He had to respect her space and her choices.
When she finally broke from him, he watched her walk away into the coming sunset. Across the field and up toward the main house. He watched her until he couldn’t see her anymore.
• • •
Another night of detective work. That was the best thing. No. That was the only thing that was going to keep her mind occupied and off James—off everything he’d said and she’d said back at the bunkhouse.
After she’d locked every door and window and turned all the downstairs lights to blazing (there you go, James) she’d texted Caleb Palmer, replying to his message with one of her own. Another request to meet in the morning to discuss finances. She hadn’t given him any more information than that because she’d wanted him to show up. He’d written back that he’d come by around ten. So that gave her a full night to gather evidence, make sure she had everything prepared to confront him about the discrepancies in billing and materials.
Tucking her chair deeper into the desk, she took a sip of her smoothie and hit the keyboard of her laptop, pulling up the receipts for lumber, stone, bathroom fixtures, and molding. She’d thought about contacting Deacon first, but knew that he’d put her in charge for a reason. He believed she could handle things, and she wasn’t about to prove him wrong.
She was just hitting PRINT when her cell rang. She pressed the speaker button. “Hello?”
“Are you working?” Mac’s voice boomed into the quiet space. “You have your work voice on.”
“I have a work
voice?” Sheridan asked, smiling in spite of herself. “Is it intimidating?”
“Hello,” Mac said in her most professional tone. “This is Sheridan O’Neil, and if you don’t do your job properly, you will all be fired.”
Sheridan snorted, grabbing paperwork from the printer’s feeder. “I think you’re confusing me with Donald Trump.”
“Maybe. You two are so similar.”
“Except I have a better comb-over.”
Mac laughed. “Come on. Want to meet for a late dinner at Marabelle’s? My treat. And it’s lemon-meringue-pie night.”
She stared at the phone. Boy, times had changed. Going out during work hours, or even after, had never held much appeal for her. Of course, that was before she had a—dare she say it—friend.
“I would love to,” she said genuinely. “But I have to work. I have a meeting with the contractor in the morning and I need to prepare.”
“Mr. Palmer?” Mac asked. “Everything okay?”
“Absolutely.” She didn’t want Mac to worry about the property with all she had on her plate. In fact, if Sheridan could manage it, she was hoping Mac wouldn’t need to know anything about it. She’d make up some reason about the man not working out.
“All right,” Mac said, disappointed. “Another time.”
“Save me a piece of pie?”
Mac laughed. “I’ll do my best. But I’ve seen hands scratched and fingers removed for trying to save a piece of that pie. You know Palmer’s daughter Natalie makes it.”
“The head baker from Hot Buns?” Sheridan asked, surprised.
“The very same. She pretty much supplies every business in town with their required sweets.”
Interesting. Truth was Sheridan didn’t know all that much about Mr. Palmer. And maybe with what she believed he was doing, she didn’t really want to.
Speaking of which, she really needed to get back to work. She switched on her mock professional tone. “I must hang up now, Ms. Byrd, or resort to mass firings. Granted, there’s no one here except me. But if I am forced to fire myself—I will.”
