by Dahlia West
“No,” she snapped, finally regaining a bit of her senses. “Get out.”
“Cassidy, get up. Get off the bed, take off your clothes, and lie down.”
She hauled herself up of the bed but shook her head. It only made the whole room spin more, with him in it, a sick Tilt-a-Whirl, a ride she couldn’t seem to get off. “Fine!” she yelled. “If you won’t leave, I will!”
“No, you’re going to take off those clothes and get in bed with me!” he demanded.
Cassidy scoffed at him. “So you can screw me like a buckle bunny you picked up at the rodeo?”
“I never did that!”
“Never? Not once?”
He shook his head. “Not like you mean. Not…not like Court. I had some women, and you had some men. But I don’t want anyone else anymore, Cassidy, and I know you don’t, either. Because I get it now, okay? I get why Court spends all his time at the Folly now. Because when there’s no one to come home to, there’s no reason to come home! Now get undressed!”
She wanted to argue, wanted to throw him out on his ass. But she was too drunk, and too tired, and too close to crying. She’d go outside, but after that she had nowhere to go.
She never seemed to have anywhere to go.
Slowly, she unbuttoned her ruined blouse and peeled it off her shoulders. She managed to kick off her boots and wriggle out of her skirt before she nearly collapsed, too far from the bed.
For all his shouting, Sawyer took her arm gently and lowered her. With the world spinning and his words bouncing around in her head, she closed her eyes and tried to breathe steadily. She felt the mattress dip, felt his body slide in beside hers. He gathered her in his arms and placed the damp cloth over her forehead.
She was grateful for that, even if she couldn’t bring herself to tell him. She wasn’t alone tonight, and maybe that was all that mattered.
She let out a sigh, more exhaustion than relief. “I can’t be with you,” she whispered, closing her eyes tightly. Just looking at him hurt. “I can’t do it. I’ll die. I’ll die when you leave again.”
“Just sleep, Princess,” she heard him say from somewhere far, far away. “Just sleep. I’m not leaving now.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
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SAWYER WIPED HER forehead carefully with the cloth as he watched her sleep. He hadn’t understood at all why Cassidy had resisted his attempt to get back together. In truth, it had been a little ego shattering when she hadn’t just jumped back into his arms when he and Walker had tracked her down to The Rose and invited her back home. But now, lying here in the dark with her, he finally got it, got her, all of her.
Cassidy Conroy may have looked to all the world like she was a calm, cool, collected Ice Queen, and deep down he’d always suspected that she’d had a core-melting fire in her. What he hadn’t known was that she was absolutely terrified—of life, of love, of everything. In Cassidy’s world, a broken heart was a fatal wound. He realized now that she must’ve come as close to giving away her heart to him as she’d ever had before, with anyone. And having been once rejected, she was too afraid to try again.
Her father’s rejection of her mother must’ve been brutal for it to end the way it had. And Cassidy, young and powerless, could do nothing to stop her own mother’s destruction, nor could Cassidy shield herself from her father’s indifference toward her own future happiness.
She’d told him so much about herself, about her hopes for college, which had been dashed, about her struggle to piece together an identity for herself based on reflections in an obviously broken mirror. She’d given him as much as she could, he realized, as much as possible without destroying what they had together. Her situation had been an impossible one. Unable to please anyone, she pleased no one, not even herself.
And even on her own, she couldn’t be happy as a checkout girl at the Feed and Seed. She was too intelligent for that, too keen to have a sense of real purpose in her life. Cassidy’s star was too bright for Star Valley. She couldn’t be happy as a rancher’s mere trophy wife. And Sawyer, apparently unlike anyone else in her life, actually cared whether not she was happy.
The only thing he had to do now was somehow convince Cassidy that he’d do anything and everything to make her happy, that he wasn’t going to leave, that he was in it for the long haul. She had to believe, she had to have faith, but he understood why she was coming up short on that. Life hadn’t exactly dealt her an easy hand.
It was hard to be Cassidy Conroy’s future when she wouldn’t let go of the past.
Chapter Forty
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CASSIDY PRETENDED TO be asleep until Sawyer finally had to leave in the morning. It was probably a shitty thing to do, but she was utterly humiliated after the night before. She’d lost all control of herself and had a meltdown so spectacular that she fully expected men to show up in hazmat suits with Geiger counters.
She’d gone nuclear. In front of Sawyer. She hadn’t known what to say to him about it this morning, so it seemed easier to just ignore him until the problem—until he—went away. And he had. Which made her feel worse than ever.
Nothing in her life made sense anymore. She wanted him to go; she wanted him to stay. She was wearing cheap, farm store clothes and layaway boots and could no longer plaster even a tiny smile on her face as she walked through the doors of the Feed and Seed. What she really had was a pounding headache and no tequila to take the edge off it. She began to see how easy it was to go down this road. Drink a little, wake up sick, drink some more to feel better. She no longer blamed her mother for it. Cassidy herself had every intention of stopping by the Spur after work again.
At the end of her shift, she slipped into the bar unseen by Ian and made her way toward the back to stay out of his view. She didn’t want to think too hard about why she was here or who she was hoping to see, but she settled at a small empty table. A rode-hard cowboy in a ten-gallon hat sidled up next to her with a crooked grin. She forced herself to smile back and ended up with a shot of tequila and a beer in front of her before she even really had to ask.
She sat with her back to the door so that Ian wouldn’t recognize her and saw people complaining about the table that was currently out of commission. She would pay that back. She wouldn’t let Sawyer do it. She’d have to wait for her next paycheck, though, because rent was due at The Rose for the week.
Cassidy finished her beer and stood up. He wasn’t coming, and that was that. She smiled at the cowboy, who rose, as well. “I’m going to go to the bathroom,” she told him and had every intention of squeezing her skinny ass out the window in the second stall. She left him standing there with a stupid smile on his face and turned down the hallway to the restrooms.
A hand grabbed her arm, and Cassidy balled her own into a fist, ready to strike out at Palmer this time, ready to make him pay for all the misery he’d caused her. Her small hand shot out but was caught almost instantly. Cassidy found herself looking up at Sawyer rather than her asshole brother. She slipped, and his other arm wrapped around her waist.
“Are you drunk?” he asked but didn’t wait for an answer. He hauled her up onto her feet and turned with her to head back down the hall, toward the bar.
She gave him no argument as he herded her through the tables toward the front door.
The cowboy who’d bought her a round, though, did have an argument, and it was that he’d paid for her drinks and thus somehow purchased Cassidy in the transaction.
“You can’t have her,” the man snarled. “She’s leaving with me.”
Sawyer paused and moved his arm from behind Cassidy’s waist to her front, pushing her back and behind him a bit. “You want to get laid?” he growled at the cowboy. “No problem. I can lay you out here, or I can lay you out in the parking lot, your choice. But you’re not putting your hands on her. Not now, not ever. So step the fuck back before I get pissed off.”
It was obvious, even through Cassidy’s alcoholic haze, that the cowboy was assessing his odds and
saw that they weren’t good. The man stepped back, and Sawyer dragged her past, out the door quickly and into the cool summer night.
“Why do you keep doing this?” he growled as he stormed across the lot with her in tow.
Cassidy couldn’t think of an answer, so she didn’t give him one. When he turned, presumably to let her know the question was indeed not rhetorical, she kissed him instead. Hard. And he tasted just like she remembered, salty and spicy. She shuddered at the memory of them in bed together but then realized she didn’t have to. She had him here, she had him now. If she could get back even a little of what they’d had, that would be enough.
Because Sawyer’s touch wasn’t a lie. Sawyer’s mouth wasn’t a lie. Sawyer’s rock-hard erection in his jeans had never been a lie.
She shoved him against the door of his truck, and he let her pin him there. Her hands passed over every steely hard inch of him, his biceps, his chest, down his flat washboard stomach to the buckle of his belt. He grabbed her hands, though, when she got that far.
“Let’s get in the back,” she whispered into his mouth, trying to reach for his zipper anyway. “Like before. Like the first time.”
“You’re drunk.”
“I don’t care.”
Sawyer hesitated then pushed her away. For a moment Cassidy thought she’d been rejected. Again. But instead he turned and grasped the handle of the truck’s rear door. It swung open, and the dome light illuminated the black leather backseat. “Get in,” he ordered.
Cassidy took a step forward but stumbled a little.
Sawyer caught her arm to keep her from tumbling into the gravel but let go of her as soon as she regained her balance.
She paused, hand on the door.
“If you can’t get in yourself, Cassidy, you’re too drunk to fuck,” he growled.
Cassidy swallowed hard, gripped the door, and pulled herself into the back. Her foot slipped on the running board, and she landed on her belly on the first try, but she righted herself and slid the rest of the way in.
Sawyer climbed in after her, slamming the door hard. The whole truck shook with the force of it. She reached for his belt buckle, but he pushed her away.
“Get your panties off,” he snapped as he worked on his own fly.
Cassidy steeled her resolve and reminded herself that this was what she wanted, a quick, hard fuck in the backseat, a reminder of…well…not better times, but different, less painful, at least. She nodded and hiked up her skirt, pulling down her underwear until she could kick them off. She lay back against the leather grain, and Sawyer loomed over her, stiff cock jutting out against her own belly.
“Wait,” she gasped. “Shouldn’t you…?” She struggled to catch her breath. “Condom?”
“I don’t have to cum in you,” he told her. “I’ll pull out.”
Cassidy bit down on her lip, the physical pain warring with the emotional wounding of his words, not quite blocking it out, not even close. He leaned over her, holding her open with his fingers, cock in hand. She could feel the head pressing against her, but he didn’t penetrate her. “What are you doing?” she asked, tugging at his hips. She wasn’t strong enough to get him to move.
“Is this what you want?”
She peered up at him. “Yes,” she replied and grabbed his arm instead.
Still Sawyer didn’t move. “What about what I want?”
She stared at him. “What about what you want? You’re here, right? You’re hard. Right? I know exactly what you want, what men want. Fuck me.”
“What men want,” he repeated. “So I’m like all the rest?”
“Yes,” she snapped. “Yes.” Because she wanted it to be true. Fucking didn’t hurt. Fucking didn’t feel like anything but fucking. “Fuck me, Sawyer. Now.” She grasped at his hips, trying to force him inside.
“Tell me you love me, Cassidy.”
She froze for a moment then shook her head. “Stop it,” she replied, pulling at his torso this time, trying to find leverage.
“Tell me.”
She shook her head, and hot tears spilled down her cheeks. The cab was dark, though. Surely he couldn’t see. “You’re ruining it,” she hissed. “Just fuck me.”
“Tell me,” he insisted.
“Stop it. Stop saying that.” She clawed frantically at his back. “Just f—!”
“Tell me.”
“You’re ruining it!” Cassidy shouted back. She shoved him away, tugging at the hem of her skirt, sobbing in short, wretched gasps. Sawyer hadn’t ruined anything, though. This disaster was all hers. “I ruined it. I ruined it. I ruined everything!”
Sawyer righted his pants quickly and tried to slide his arms around her.
Something inside Cassidy rebelled against being comforted, though, especially by him. She fought against him while blindly reaching for the door handle. She shouldn’t have tried to turn him into something he wasn’t. And this, whatever this was between them, it was frozen, unchanging, unchanged. It couldn’t be more than it was, and apparently, it couldn’t be less.
She threw herself against the door, and it opened, but Sawyer caught her around the waist and hauled her back inside the cab.
“Damn it, Cassidy,” he growled. “I’ve got a reata in the truck bed.”
She stilled instantly.
“I will tie you up, Cassidy. I will bring you home with me that way, if you force me to. You don’t know how close I am right now to doing just that.”
“What are you doing?” she demanded. “It was just supposed to be a fuck in the backseat! It didn’t have to mean anything!”
Sawyer shook his head slowly. “Cassidy, you’re too drunk to stand. Do you really think I’m going to rape you in the back of my truck? Do you think I’m that man? Or that I’m going to let you leave so someone else can do it?”
“I don’t want anyone else!” she shot back then bit down on her tongue because she hadn’t meant to admit that.
Sawyer glared at her. “No, but you’ll fuck someone else.” He moved forward, causing her to scurry backward until her back pressed up against the locked door. He brought up his hand, and she flinched. God damn it, she flinched, and she did not want to do that because that wasn’t fair to him, but she couldn’t stop herself.
He put his hand against her exposed skin, over her heart, and she gasped as forcefully as if he’d actually struck her. “You’ll fuck someone else,” he said, though he wasn’t accusing. He didn’t sound angry. He sounded sad, more than sad. Sawyer sounded as ripped apart as she was. “You’ll do it to try to get me out of here. But it won’t work, Cassidy. And you know why. Stop fighting me, Princess. Can you see me through your tears? Can you see how much I love you? You know you love me.”
“We don’t work!” she sobbed, embarrassed that he’d seen. “We don’t make sense!”
“We do work, Cassidy. Everything about us works…when we trust it.”
He reached up and cupped her face, and she managed to remain still, proud of herself for it, too.
“I’ll never hit you,” he said.
“I know. I do know that.”
He nodded. “So you can trust that. What else can you trust?”
She didn’t answer.
“Cassidy,” he said softly. “What else can you trust?”
“That you won’t lie to me.”
He never had and, she believed, he never would.
“And you won’t lie to me, either,” he told her. “I trust that.”
“Sawyer—”
“I forgive you, Cassidy. And if you’ll forgive me, we can go home.”
She froze and blinked at him through her tears.
“I am so sorry I hurt you,” he said. “I swore over and over that I wouldn’t, but I still did. I didn’t trust you. I didn’t give you the benefit of the doubt when I should have. You made mistakes, but you were trying, and that should’ve been enough for me. But I was hurt. And my pride was wounded. I let the pain blind me. So did you.”
He wiped the tea
rs on her cheeks with a whisper of his fingertips. “I see you, Princess. I swear I do. There’s still a lot I don’t know about you, a lot we don’t know about each other. I want to spend every second of every day figuring you out, even if I never quite do. Because you are not a simple girl, Cassidy Conroy. Not by a country mile. You’re not stupid or vain or shallow or conniving. You’re a lot of things, Cassidy. You’re a million stars in the sky.”
Cassidy could barely breathe, barely think beyond this single moment. She wasn’t simple, but maybe this was. He loved her. And she loved him. And maybe…
“Kiss me,” she whispered. “Kiss me…that way.”
It wasn’t his mouth but his thumb that brushed over her lips first. Then he leaned in. Cassidy closed her tear-stung eyes. Sawyer’s lips barely touched hers, just a mingle of breath, really, the promise of more.
It wasn’t sexual. But it could be.
It wasn’t passionate. But it could be.
It was creation itself, a big bang, a million stars exploding to create something that wasn’t there before.
A new start.
Cassidy slipped her hands over his chest and trailed her fingertips down to his jeans again. She wasn’t frantic this time or demanding, but Sawyer caught her hands gently.
“Not here,” he whispered.
“The Rose,” she replied, not wanting to wait another minute.
Sawyer pulled away just an inch and shook his head. “My Princess is worth more than a tumble in a filthy motel room.”
“Say it again,” she urged.
“My Princess,” Sawyer repeated. “My Princess.”
Cassidy sighed and sagged against him—melted, really. “Take me home, Sawyer,” she breathed.
Chapter Forty-One
‡
SAWYER LAID CASSIDY in his bed—their bed—and slid his hands down her bare legs to her feet. Cassidy started to get up, but he shook his head and pushed her back down onto the mattress. “Lie still,” he ordered.
She hesitated then rested her head on the pillow with a quiet sigh.
