by Dahlia West
When her headlights shone on Devil’s Rock, a huge, solitary jut of yellowed canyon rock that rose up out of the hills, she slowed, did a U-turn, and finally headed home with a little less wind in her sails. It was well after two a.m. now, and Dad and Karen would be asleep. Palmer would be off doing whatever it was Palmer did on Friday nights. Cassidy didn’t know or care what that was.
She pulled into the driveway and killed her car’s engine. She doubted she could sleep, but if she managed to pull it off, she hoped she dreamed about Sawyer Barlow and his infuriating smirk.
She shut the driver’s side door and turned to head in the house. A shadow crossed her path, too large to be one of the dogs. She yelped, then Palmer’s lithe form came into view of the security light mounted over the garage. She sighed in relief that it wasn’t a bear or something. “Jesus,” she snapped. “What are you doing out here lurking around?”
“Gates McCann called me,” he replied, letting the declaration sit between them.
Cassidy was certain it was somehow an insult, but she couldn’t see how. She barely knew Gates. He was one of Palmer’s friends from high school. “So?”
“So he said you left the Spur with Sawyer Barlow and didn’t come back. Says you spent all night flirting with him and showing your ass.”
She bristled but bit her tongue, knowing no good would come of arguing. She glanced up at the house to see that it was dark. That was a good sign. At least Palmer hadn’t told Dad yet. She shrugged. “Walker wasn’t interested,” she said flippantly and tried to move around her older brother.
Palmer moved to block her. “Maybe you didn’t try hard enough.”
She scowled at him. “I did. He blew me off.”
“Maybe you should’ve offered to blow him…and not his brother.”
“Look,” Cassidy snapped. “What do you care? Really? You got to go college. You got a degree. You’ll have a life I never will. Isn’t that enough?”
Palmer sneered at her. “What would be the point of sending you? No one gives a damn what’s between your ears, Cassidy.”
Without thinking, she reached out and slapped him. Palmer’s eyes flashed, and his jaw tightened, and Cassidy knew, instinctively, that she’d made a mistake. She tried to move out of his reach, but his hand shot out in response, quicker than a rattler but with less warning. His closed fist connected with her cheekbone and sent her reeling backward. She stumbled into her car and pressed her palms against the glass of the driver’s-side window to keep herself from falling to the ground.
She heard his boots on the gravel and pivoted to search for an escape route but didn’t find one before his fist came down again, striking her in the same spot. This time Cassidy slumped to the driveway.
As she lay sprawled on the ground, Palmer stood over her, his frame casting a long shadow in the moonlight. “You think they share?!” he shouted. “You think Walker Barlow’s gonna want you now that you’ve slutted it up with his brother? Just because they pass Rowan Archer back and forth doesn’t mean they’ll do the same with you, Cassidy. You might’ve ruined your chance.” He drew back his boot and kicked her in the stomach.
As the impact brought tears to her eyes, all the breath went out of her lungs.
“But if they did, Dad’d send you to fuck and suck every single one of them. You can be sure about that. And you’d probably like it, you fucking whore. But no, you had to go and screw this up. You had one job to do, but you blew it. You spread your legs for the wrong brother.”
He sent another kick hurtling toward her, but Cassidy rolled as much as she could before the steel-toe connected. The blow landed on her hip, sending another starburst of pain through her body. The heels of her hands dug into the crushed stone, sending jolts of pain through her arms as she tried to get back up.
“Sawyer Barlow ain’t shit!” Palmer cried. “He’s never been shit, and he’s never going to be shit. He can’t inherit, Cassidy, you dumb bitch! So what good does it do for you to fuck him?”
He kicked her again, this time in the thigh as she tried to crawl away, scratching at the ground with her fingers and the heels of her shoes.
“You can’t do a damn thing right,” Palmer growled. “Here we are, Dad and I, working our asses off day in and day out, and every time he sends you to do something, you fuck it up. Every time.”
Cassidy made it to the porch steps, body aching, fingernails cracking and bleeding, and crawled up the steps. Just before she got a hand on the knob, it turned suddenly and the door swung open. A pair of bare feet came into Cassidy’s tear-blurred vision.
Cassidy looked up to see her father, whom they apparently roused from his sleep. He stood in the doorway of the house, fuming.
“Daddy!” she pleaded.
“What the hell is this?” their father demanded.
Palmer’s heavy boots thudded on the wooden steps, and Cassidy shrank from him. He came to a stop just a few feet away and glared down at her, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “She fucked Sawyer Barlow tonight.”
Dad hesitated, looking from Palmer to Cassidy and back. “Sawyer Barlow?”
Palmer spit on the ground, right next to Cassidy, so that it splattered on one of her hands. “And she screwed us in the bargain,” he declared.
Cassidy, lying on the wooden porch floor and looking up at them both, watched in horror as her father merely grunted his disapproval, turned, and walked back into the house.
As the screen door banged shut, Palmer laughed. His hand shot out again, making Cassidy flinch and skitter away. He pulled the punch though, not bothering to actually hit her, the way he used to do when their mother was still alive and anywhere within shouting distance.
There was no one here, now, apparently, to give him hell for it, or for tormenting her. Cassidy would’ve thought it was strange that he didn’t just go ahead and do it, except that at this point in their lives, she’d come to realize that half of Palmer’s fun was making her wait for it, dread it with all of her being.
All those knowing looks across the dining room table as they were growing up, those looks that said Later, Cassidy knew them well. And she hated them.
Palmer hadn’t hit her like this before, though. Not ever. He’d never beaten her. Over the years, he’d pushed her, pulled her hair, and twisted her arm hard enough to break it. He’d never hit her in the face, though, because of the pageants, because Mom would’ve killed him. She should never have hit him first, but then he’d been away at college for four years and she’d avoided ever being alone with him in the year since he’d returned. She’d forgotten the worst of it, how awful he could be. She was paying for the lapse in memory now.
“You’re useless,” he told her. “Absolutely fucking useless.”
He took another step forward, and this time Cassidy didn’t hesitate. She mustered all her strength and shoved herself up off the porch floor, having the presence of mind, at least, to grab at her purse strap as she did. She hurtled away from Palmer, and the house, back down the steps at breakneck speed.
She didn’t hear the sound of him following her, no sound of hard soles crunching the gravel in pursuit. All she heard was her own footsteps and her own frantic breathing as she dashed toward her car. She made it, throwing herself against the driver’s-side door and fumbling for the start button as she slid into the seat. The engine roared to life, and Cassidy spun out of the driveway, tires spraying gravel in every direction as she headed for the highway.
After that, though…nothing.
Cassidy drove toward town, checking for headlights in her rearview mirror but thankfully seeing none. As she neared the city limits she lifted her foot off the accelerator, realizing suddenly that she had nowhere to go. She pulled into the lot of the Shop’N’Save, which had long since been closed for the night. Taking out her phone, she scrolled through her list of contacts and realized for the first time that it was shockingly short.
She had no real friends, not close ones, anyway. Certainly, no one she’d tell about
this. She glanced into the rearview and startled herself as she caught sight of her own reflection. A large bruise on the left side of her face had already formed, and the swelling looked terrible. No amount of makeup would cover it, not that she had anything in her purse except lipstick and mascara and some cover up. Not that she had very much of anything with her at all.
There was enough in her wallet for a room at the Dusty Rose, but Cassidy shuddered at the thought of dirty sheets and moldy bath towels. A hotel in Jackson or even Pinedale would be better, but both were a fair drive, and she didn’t think she could make it that far this late at night. As she leaned back in the driver’s seat and closed her eyes, Cassidy suddenly pictured Sawyer Barlow’s face and knew, beyond a doubt, that was where she wanted to be.
She reversed out of the lot and headed across town, away from her home, away from The Rose, and away from any other option that seemed like even a remote possibility. She turned north and out of town, following the highway. She had a fairly good idea of where the Snake River Ranch was located, though she’d never been there. She assumed like most ranches, there would be a wooden arch indicating the place. After fifteen minutes of driving down a rural stretch of road, she found it.
The place itself wasn’t that different from her own. There was a large house, several barns, a one-story longhouse that she would have assumed housed their hired hands, but she recognized Sawyer’s truck parked out in front of it, rather than at the house.
She pulled up next to it and killed her Mercedes’s engine. For some reason her heart was hammering away in her chest as she got out, unsteady on her feet due to the pain in her hip. When she reached the door, she paused, unsure what she was doing here, what she would say, and whether or not Sawyer Barlow would even care.
She took a deep breath, knocked on the door, and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
The building was dark, but so was the large house off to the right and the smaller one next to that. Cassidy chewed her lower lip and realized that this had been a huge mistake. She never should have come here. What would she say anyway? What could she tell them? The truth wasn’t an option. They’d send her packing the second they heard it, and who could blame them, really? They had every right to send her away. And now, standing here in the dark, gazing at an unopened door, Cassidy became convinced that they would.
She turned to head back to her car. As she took a step back toward her Mercedes, she heard the door open behind her.
Chapter Seven
‡
SAWYER RECOGNIZED CASSIDY’S frame even in the dark. He leaned against the doorframe, shirtless, in his sleep shorts, and grinned. “Well, look what the cat dragged in. You miss me already, Princess? Why don’t you come inside and tell me just how much?”
She stood still, facing away, not turning back.
He pushed off the frame and stepped to her. “Oh, come on, now. You don’t get to be shy, Princess. Not after tonight. And besides, shy doesn’t suit you.” He reached out and took hold of her upper arm.
She gasped and flinched away.
He frowned. He knew he hadn’t hurt her. He knew he’d been gentle. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
She tried to move away, toward her car that he saw was parked next to his truck.
He reached for her again, for her hand this time, and she cried out, startling him. “Jesus!” he hissed and darted forward, moving around her and cutting off her avenue of escape. “Cassidy, what the hell?”
He lifted her hand and saw deep scratches in her palm. Even in the moonlight he could tell they were bloody. When he looked up into her face, his heart stopped entirely. Her left eye was dark and swollen. “Oh my God, Cassidy, what happened?”
She sniffed and shook her head.
“Cassidy, talk to me. You have to tell me what happened. Did this happen at the bar? Did someone hurt you after I left?”
“No,” she said quietly and tried to turn away.
He took hold of her shoulders, not letting her get away. “Don’t walk away from me,” he growled. “Talk to me.”
“I…I had an accident,” she replied.
He blinked at her. “An accident?” He glanced over his shoulder but didn’t see any damage to her car’s windshield. When he turned back, she was shaking. Sawyer wrapped one arm around her and guided her inside the bunkhouse, flipping the light on in the living room as they entered. She had quite a pronounced limp on her right side and leaned on him for support.
He set her down on the couch and knelt in front of her. In the light, she looked much worse. Hair stringy with flecks of gravel in it, hands—both of them—scratched. “Hold still,” he ordered. “Stay right there.”
He hurried into the kitchen, dampened a few paper towels, and brought them back. Cleaning her up was tricky. Every touch, every movement seemed to hurt her. “Why’d you come here?” he asked but realized that he was grateful she had.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I just…I was just driving…and then I was here. I couldn’t think where else to go.”
He lifted the hair out of her face to inspect her eye. “Does your head hurt?” he asked.
“Everything hurts.”
“Cassidy—”
She waved him away with a battered hand and leaned back into the cushioned seat. “I just need to sleep.”
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t,” he warned her. “You might have a concussion.” And he wanted answers. But they’d have to wait.
He grabbed his phone off the kitchen counter and dialed quickly. On the third ring, a sleep-bewildered Seth picked up. “I need to talk to Rowan,” Sawyer demanded.
It took a second for Seth to respond. “Rowan?” he asked.
“Just put her on the phone.”
“I can’t,” Seth replied. “She’s at work. She’s on the night shift.”
Rowan was an ER nurse at Star Valley Medical Center, and though Sawyer was reluctant to take Cassidy there—not even certain she’d agree to go—he felt as though he had to do something. “I’ll go there,” he decided out loud and started to disconnect the call.
“Wait a minute,” Seth’s voice rang out. “What do you need Rowan for? Who’s hurt? What happened?”
Sawyer didn’t answer.
“What happened?!” Seth demanded.
A good question, thought Sawyer. Whatever it was, he didn’t think for one second it was a car accident. But explaining it to Seth would be airing Cassidy’s business, and judging by the way she’d struggled to sit up and was pleading with him with her eyes, or her one good eye at this point, she didn’t want word getting out.
“Nothing,” Sawyer told his brother. “Everything’s fine. Just a scuffle,” he declared, looking right at her and making it very clear that he wasn’t fooled by her story. “I’ll handle it.”
Seth groaned. “This isn’t the rodeo,” he said. “You can’t down a few beers and start tussling with people at The Spur.”
“Yeah, I know,” Sawyer replied, wondering if that was what had actually happened. Had Cassidy gone back inside? Had too good a time and gotten mixed up with some cowboy she couldn’t wrangle? For a lot of reasons, he hoped to hell not.
He hung up the phone and set it on the counter then snatched up a pair of fairly clean jeans off the back of one of the kitchen chairs. “I’m going to take you to the hospital,” he announced.
“No!”
Sawyer narrowed his eyes at her. “This isn’t up for debate. You’ve been knocked around in the head and…I don’t know what to do about that.” Other than kill the guy responsible. Sawyer had never seen a woman who’d been hit, not in his life. Not even Court, in his worst drunken binge, would’ve stooped so low. If Dad was alive, he’d already be loading his shotgun.
“Come on,” he urged, standing in front of her now. He held out his hand and waited for her to take it. It was hell not being able to touch her, not knowing what would hurt her. He fought off thoughts and images of other ways she might have been
hurt. They’d deal with that if they had to, but he wasn’t about to hurt her again—in any way.
He’d made that promise earlier tonight, and he was going to keep it. He’d keep her business as quiet as possible, and he wouldn’t put his hands on her any more than he had to, but she was going to talk about this. Maybe not now. But soon. Because Sawyer was determined to take care of this, take care of her.
“Take my hand, Princess,” he insisted quietly. “That’s all you have to do.”
Chapter Eight
‡
CASSIDY HESITATED, HER thoughts bouncing around inside her throbbing skull. She just wanted to curl up beside Sawyer, close her eyes, and wake up in the morning to find out this had all been a simple nightmare, that she’d gone home with him from The Spur and spent an amazing night together and that was that. But she couldn’t shut out reality, much as she would like to. And the look on Sawyer’s face told her he wasn’t going to be swayed on this.
Reluctantly, she put her hand in his, and he helped her up from the couch. In truth she was surprised he lived in a bunkhouse instead of the family home, but then again she was glad that they were the only ones here. Having to see Walker or anyone else would be humiliating. It was bad enough he was taking her to the hospital. She was bound to see people she knew, including Rowan Archer. Silently, she allowed Sawyer to lead her out to his truck and just hoped the whole ordeal would be over as quickly as possible.
Sawyer could’ve grilled her in the cab on the way to the medical center, but he stayed silent, just watching the road intently. She was grateful for it because she didn’t know what on Earth she could tell him. She was torn between needing him and wanting to keep him at arm’s length so that he never found out the truth about her. Sawyer had always seemed to see her too clearly, and that was terrifying, but somehow a comfort, as well.
