by Dahlia West
In truth, it wasn’t the snow that had killed Cassidy’s mother, but that’s what she told people.
Dakota refilled their shots and lifted her own. “To family,” she said.
“To family,” Cassidy repeated, but she only meant her mother. “And Barlow cocks.”
“And Barlow cocks.”
They drank again until they were too drunk to stand up.
Chapter Fifteen
‡
SAWYER LOOKED DOWN at Cassidy and Dakota and shook his head slowly. “They’re in here!” he called out.
Dakota stirred first and opened one eye. When she caught sight of Sawyer, she groaned.
Sawyer heard heavy bootfalls on the dirt behind him. “Looks like they finished off a bottle of Fireball,” he declared.
From behind him, Walker asked, “Are they naked?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s disappointing,” Walker replied as he came to stand beside Sawyer and looked down at the women.
Sawyer was so surprised by his older brother’s response that he barked out a laugh. Both women groaned and covered their ears. He took pity on Cassidy and hauled her up off the hay barn floor. He was still a little stiff from the cougar attack, but he managed to pull her to her feet anyway. “Come on, Princess,” he coaxed.
Cassidy made an unpleasant noise in her throat. She muttered something that sounded like vomit.
“Maybe you should go easy on the whiskey next time,” he advised and helped her toward the bunkhouse. When they made it inside, he said, “Take a shower. You’ll feel better.”
“Sleep,” she argued monosyllabically.
He smirked at her. “It’s a workday,” he reminded her. “Every day is a workday.”
“Sleep!”
“Cassidy, you have chores.”
She pushed him away and stumbled toward the bedroom, where she collapsed into a heap onto the mattress.
“You can’t lie there all day,” he said loudly.
She squeezed her eyes shut and waved him away.
Over the years Sawyer had argued with Court this way, and it had become one of his least favorite things to do. He was softened a little by the fact that the person sprawled in front of him was Cassidy, but not by much. He turned on his heel and headed out the front door. He stood on the porch and scowled, thinking honestly about getting a bucket of ice-cold water and throwing it on her.
He took a step forward but instead spotted a baby bull snake in the bushes that lined the front of the bunkhouse. He hunkered down to investigate and plucked it off the ground, pinching it gently behind its head so it couldn’t bite him. “Hello,” he said to it while raising it in the air. “Have I got a job for you.” He ducked back inside the bunkhouse and crept quietly to the bedroom door. Easing it open, he found Cassidy still asleep, twisted in the sheets. He lifted one corner carefully and slipped the baby snake underneath.
That ought to light a fire under her, he thought as he closed the door behind him and headed back outside. He would’ve liked to have stayed, stuck around until she found her unwelcome bunkmate, but he had work to do. He whistled into the warm summer breeze as he headed to the barn to saddle up one of Dakota’s spare mares.
Walker found him, already astride a still-pink Nero. “Ready to ride?” he asked.
“Sure thing,” Sawyer replied, swinging up into the saddle.
As they rode out to check the southern fence line, Sawyer’s older brother gave him a long sideways look. “What are you smiling about? It couldn’t have been good. She probably nearly puked on you while you were on top of her.”
Sawyer laughed. “I didn’t touch her.”
“Okay, so what, then? Because for the last three days you’ve been as cantankerous as a rutting stag that can’t find a mate.”
“Nothing,” Sawyer replied, savoring the morning.
“You didn’t dye her hair pink,” Walker mused.
“Nope.”
Walker leaned forward in his saddle. “If he falls, Nero, trample him.”
Sawyer flipped him off but didn’t mean it. He was in too good a mood. Riding the fence line was not the most exciting work, but at least he was out of camp rotation for a week and able to be with Cassidy at night. He was looking forward to her working out some of her anger about the snake on him when he saw her this evening.
Cassidy was fun when she was mad and even better when she finally gave in and submitted to him anyway. And Walker was right—he was a bundle of nerves, a walking erection from having been away from her for so many days, and he hoped she was spitting mad when he got home, but it was Cassidy who was going to get a tongue lashing.
From head to toe.
Slowly.
Very slowly.
He smiled to himself, thinking of all the things he was going to do to her when he saw her tonight. It was a pleasant daydream until Walker interrupted him.
“What is it with this girl?”
“I just like her.”
Walker rolled his eyes. “Okay, but surely once is enough, right? I mean I get that she got into some trouble, and no one can fault you for opening your door, but come on. What’s going to happen here with Cassidy Conroy? Honestly?”
“I don’t know,” replied Sawyer, “but I’m going to find out.”
“Girls like that expect money, Sawyer. And we don’t have any anymore.”
Sawyer scowled. “She doesn’t know that.”
“She’ll find out eventually, if she sticks around that long. I just don’t want to see you disappointed if it turns out she was just gold digging.”
“She’s not like that, Walker.” Sawyer saw his brother eyeing him closely. “Okay, she is like that, but—”
“But you can change her?” Walker snorted. “You’d have better luck getting rich again and buying her a pony.”
Sawyer looked away.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he replied.
“What? Oh God. You didn’t buy her a pony did you? Or a new Mercedes, or something equally stupid?”
“No.”
“So, what, then?”
“She can’t ride.”
Walker pulled Nero to a stop and stared at him. “She can’t…”
“Ride. She can’t ride.”
Walker blinked at him.
“Shut up,” Sawyer snapped.
“I’m not—”
“Shut up!”
“Look, I know I’m not exactly qualified to give you advice—”
“I didn’t ask for any!”
“But…Sawyer…could you have brought home a woman that you have less in common with? Damn.”
“There’s more to her than tiaras,” Sawyer insisted.
Walker frowned. “If there is, I don’t see it.”
“I don’t care if you don’t see it. I do. And don’t you dare run her off with your sharp tongue and your glares.”
“I don’t do that.”
“You do it to everyone!”
Walker considered this. “Okay, but I don’t single her out.”
“Well, don’t. Be nice to her,” Sawyer ordered.
Walker raised an eyebrow at him.
“Just avoid her,” Sawyer amended.
“Can do.”
“I mean it, Walker. She’s not what you think she is.”
“All right. All right. Jesus. Okay. Austin has the weather…and you have Cassidy Conroy.”
“That’s right.”
*
WHEN THEY CRESTED the last hill on their way back to the homestead, Sawyer recognized Mac Archer’s truck in their driveway but didn’t see Rowan’s car, which had Willow’s car seat. He frowned. “Why’s Mac here?”
Walker turned his head to follow Sawyer’s gaze. “Don’t know.”
Curious, they headed down the gentle slope until they got close enough to realize that the front door of the bunkhouse was sitting wide open. Sawyer hopped off Cash and sent him off into the pasture still tacked and jogged to the open door. Inside, he
found Gabe standing in the living room, deep frown lines etched the man’s face.
Mac Archer, of all people, was in Sawyer’s bedroom, down on his hands and knees on the hardwood floor, looking under the bed with a Maglite.
Sawyer laughed. “They called you?”
Mac turned and looked up at him from the floor. “Sofia did.”
From the living room, Gabe said, “I was at the Feed and Seed. He was here when I got here.”
“So where’s Cassidy?” Sawyer asked. “And how pissed is she?”
Oddly enough, neither man would answer.
“Where is she?” Sawyer pressed. He didn’t know Mr. Archer well enough to read the troubled expression on the man’s face, so he turned to Gabe. “She didn’t leave.” He glanced out the open door and reassured himself that her Mercedes was still parked out front. When he looked back, Gabe’s face was grave.
“There was a snake,” Gabe said slowly.
“Yeah, I know. I put it there when she wouldn’t get up this morning.”
Gabe’s eyes widened. From the other room, Mac gave a hard grunt.
“You put it there?” Gabe cried. His face darkened.
“Sure I did. What? What’s wrong? Where’s Cassidy?” Sawyer demanded.
The man shook his head but said nothing.
“Where the fuck is Cassidy?!” Sawyer growled.
“You’ve…you’ve been gone a long time, hermano.”
“A long time?” Sawyer scoffed. “I was gone for the day, that’s all. Same as you, same as usual. A full work day.”
Gabe shook his head. “Not that. I mean the rodeo. You’ve been on the road for a long time. A long time.”
Sawyer took a step toward the man he’d grown up with, the man he saw as one of his own brothers, but if Gabe didn’t start making sense, and fast, Sawyer was going to pop the Mexican in the mouth. “What are you talking about? What does my time in the rodeo have to do with anything, Gabriel?”
“When’s the last time you saw a rattler?” Gabe asked.
Sawyer shook his head. “No. No, that’s not possible. I live here!” he told them. “I grew up here! Same as all of you. And we all know what a rattlesnake looks like! Every one of us. That was a bull snake I put in her bed.”
Gabe paled. “Jesus, Sawyer,” he half-whispered. “You put it in the bed?”
No one spoke.
“I can’t believe this,” Sawyer muttered. “It was a bull snake!”
Gabe scuffed his boot in the dirt, and it looked like it was painful for him to speak. “Baby rattlers and bull snakes,” he said. “Hard to tell ’em apart when they’re young.”
Sawyer narrowed his eyes at the man. “There was no rattle, Gabe.”
Gabe’s teeth came down on his lower lip. “Might not have come in yet.”
Sawyer’s stomach dropped.
“You did say it was small, young.”
“It wasn’t that young!” Sawyer insisted.
“I’m not saying it was,” Gabe replied. “I didn’t see it. But a hard winter, late hatching season. Might not have even had its button yet. Mama said Dakota found her outside, trying to make it into the house.”
Sawyer shook his head. “No. No that’s not what happened.”
Gabe took off his hat, sliding it down over his thick, glossy hair and holding it in front of him.
“That isn’t what happened!” Sawyer insisted.
“Her hand was all swollen up, Mama said. Dakota took her to Star Valley.”
All the oxygen seemed to evaporate from the room in one horrifying instant.
“She called me crying,” Mac said softly from somewhere at the end of a long, dimming tunnel. “Sofia, I mean. She was hysterical. I could barely make it all out, but I heard snake and drove right over. I haven’t found it yet, but I’ll keep looking.”
Sawyer turned to him and saw the man’s watery eyes threatening to brim over with tears himself—Mac, who had two daughters, one Cassidy’s age.
“She called me, too,” said Gabe, “but Mac was closer. A baby prairie rattler would account for the swelling my mama saw.” Gabe grunted. “She won’t die. Might lose a couple of fingers. Not a huge deal, I suppose. For a woman. ’Course she ain’t gonna enter any more beauty pageants like that, not with a few stumps for fingers.”
Sawyer turned and sprinted for the truck.
It was a hard drive to the Star Valley Medical Center. Sawyer dialed Rowan’s phone every few seconds but couldn’t get an answer. He floored the accelerator, pushing it all the way to the floor, and said every prayer that he could remember from his childhood. Cassidy had come to him for help, to him, and he’d destroyed her life with one of his stupid fucking practical jokes. He barely had the truck in Park in the lot before he jumped out and ran toward the automatic doors. Inside, he looked around, desperate to find someone who could help him.
“Sawyer!”
He turned and saw Rowan at the front desk. She sprinted toward him, waving her arms.
“Where is she?!” he demanded.
“She’s down the hall. In the anesthesia room.”
“Which way?”
“You can’t go in there.”
“Rowan, I don’t give a flying fuck, where is the room?”
Rowan paled and took hold of his arm, leading him down a long hallway. When they got to the door, it opened suddenly, and Sawyer recognized Paul Renner as he came out.
“Is Cassidy in there?!” Sawyer asked him.
Paul took a step back, clearly startled. “Cassidy—”
“Conroy!” Sawyer snapped impatiently. “Is she in there?”
“Yes, but you can’t go in.”
“The fuck I can’t, get out of my way.”
“Sorry,” said Paul. “They’re about to take her into surgery, and it’s family only anyway in the private waiting rooms.”
Sawyer took a menacing step forward. “Cassidy Conroy is my family!” he bellowed, ready to say anything to get to her at this point. “And I’m going to see her before they take her away! Now move aside!”
Paul gaped at him, then Rowan, then finally moved out of his way.
Sawyer shoved the door open and spotted her on a gurney with a nurse standing over her. He rushed to where Cassidy lay and reached for her good hand. She looked pale, eyes barely open. The other hand, he saw, was wrapped heavily in gauze.
“Sawyer,” she whispered.
“Oh God, baby. Oh Jesus. I…I can’t.” He looked at her gauze-wrapped hand. Pus and blood were already seeping through the wrappings. “I am so sorry, Princess. Oh God.”
Her eyes fluttered then opened. “Well, you should be you stupid son of a bitch!” she shouted as she sat straight up on the gurney. She snatched off the makeshift cast and started hitting him over the head with it. “Who in their right mind puts a snake in someone’s bed?! A snake?! You’re a goddamn menace, Sawyer Barlow! With your pink horses and your snakes! I don’t even know what’s wrong with you! Your mama must’ve dropped you on your head when you were a baby.”
She launched herself off the gurney and slapped at his chest with her hands. Her two good, gloriously undamaged hands, and Sawyer breathed a massive sigh of relief even in the face of her onslaught.
“And thank God Rowan and Paul agreed that we should teach you a lesson before somebody really does get hurt!” she cried. She pushed at his chest until he stumbled back through the door and back out into the hallway.
Sawyer’s relief was palpable at this point. When she struck out at him again, he grabbed her, swung her sideways, and pressed her up against the corridor wall. His mouth came down hard on hers, aggressive, possessive. He parted her lips with his tongue, not giving a damn if she protested.
Someone sighed, but it wasn’t Cassidy. Sawyer finally pulled himself back to see a gaggle of nurses fanning themselves. Cassidy, for her part, cleared her throat. Her cheeks were stained pink, and her breath was a bit ragged. “Well,” she said. “I hope you learned a lesson.”
Sawyer st
arted to grin, but her cutting gaze made him press his lips together instead. He nodded solemnly. “Yes, ma’am.”
“No wild animals, Sawyer. No animals at all.”
He couldn’t stop one corner of his mouth from quirking up. “Except me.”
A nurse might have swooned, but he was too interested in Cassidy’s own response to check. She had to take a deep breath and pause, and he knew she couldn’t be that mad at him.
“Come home with me, Princess. I think I need to thoroughly look you over to make certain you’re okay.”
“I’m fine,” she snapped.
“A little game of doctor will make me feel better. Make us both feel better.”
Cassidy allowed herself to be led from the building after bidding Rowan and Paul good-bye and thanking them for their help.
Sawyer drove nearly as fast back to Snake River as he had to the medical center. This time he reached over the seat and grasped Cassidy’s hand in his, mostly to reassure himself that she was okay. He’d never forgive himself if she got hurt. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers.
Cassidy laughed. “What if I wasn’t pretty anymore? What if it really had been a rattler and I’d lost my nose?”
“I’d stay,” he said without even thinking.
She gave him a long, appraising look. “No, you wouldn’t.”
“Yes, I would.”
He thought she looked uncomfortable, suddenly unsure. She tried to pull her hand away, but he wouldn’t let her go.
“You mean that, don’t you?”
Sawyer nodded. “It’s a fact. I’d stay.”
Cassidy looked away, turning her gaze out the window instead.
Obviously, she wasn’t used to being anything more than a beauty queen.
Back at the ranch, they headed into the Big House, and Sofia gave everyone a sheepish look as an unharmed Cassidy walked through the door behind Sawyer. Dakota trailed them, having followed them home.
Gabe shot up out of his seat on the sofa and gaped at them. Then he seemed to put two and two together and shot daggers at his mother and his sister. “Mierda!” he cried. “What the hell?!”
“Language, Gabriel!” Sofia told him.
Gabriel stared at his mother. “Language? Language? You’re going to lecture me when the three of you had us all thinking that she could be dead?”
