Let It Burn

by Dee Ellis

  “Family cabin. Don’t want to exorcise my ghosts here.” Cage gave me a squeeze, another

  “I Love You” washing away my apprehension.

  “Right beside you to slaughter them with you, Sugar.” The arm I had hooked around his shoulders went tight, bringing me closer.

  “I know baby. I love you Cage.” I whispered it softly against his temple, just for his ears but I saw Sadie smirk and shoot her twin a look. Hated when they talked without words.

  Hours later, after much more bonding over football teams-Cage was a Bears fan of course and the boys rooted for The Steelers-beer and cars, the guys finally seemed to be accepting Cage. Which was better for them than for him; which they seemed to realize sometime yesterday. I had enough of everyone else making my life choices for me.

  Maisie had pulled me aside while we fixed dinner and insisted Cash felt like an asshole for attacking Cage. I knew he wasn’t a violent person, but it took little to set him off now so I didn’t doubt he felt bad. Soon after, grabbing more beers for them all, Cash stopped me as I discussed stew ingredients with the girls.

  “Hey, Cupcake,” The nickname my mama called was their favorite way to tease me, “can I....can I have a minute?” The girls’ eyes went wide and they gave tiny nods so I followed him from the kitchen out onto the back porch.

  It was a nice night out, warm here for late October but I could feel the crispness in the air. In days, maybe a week, the autumn hued trees would be almost bare and the winds would howl with the promise of winter. I loved winter here, but I was looking forward to Chicago for the holidays. I thought just maybe I’d get the girls to bring my brothers there to celebrate with us.

  Peering out into the rows of corn and wheat, I was happy. Happier than I can remember being in forever. I knew my future was Cage and I was scared and still a little hurt but I would heal and I would be scared right beside him. I wanted to share Thanksgiving with his sweet family. I wanted to put a tree up in the Cottage and make a stocking for Mr. Belvedere.

  “Cage loves you something scary, Cupcake. Sweet Jesus I thought I loved Maisie something stupid. I do believe that man in there,” He nodded his head backwards, both of us staring up into the sky, “Would burn the world down to get to you. Might even be happy to put the flames out afterwards, long as he got you. Spent all day grilling him, in between pretending to hunt, and trying to figure out his angle. Cage smiled and answered every single question without issue until I realized something. Cage doesn’t have an angle. Doesn’t want to win the girl or prove himself a man. Not really. Just loves you more than he knows what to do with so he fucks up. Don’t even think this might be the last time he fucks up, Cupcake. Let me tell you something though.” I smiled and slid closer to him when he hooked a beefy arm around my neck.

  “Listening, Cash-er-role.”

  Cash let out a deep laugh, hearty and rich like he used to and my arms hooked about his waist as tears filled my eyes. The nickname was my reply after Cupcake became a common thing in junior high. Very mature, I know.

  “Can’t keep running, Cupcake. Sometimes we get burnt and it fucking hurts. We survive though. Think I never hurt Maisie or Colton hurt Sadie? Think they never hurt us? Of course we hurt one another, even if we give everything not to. Even if it rips our hearts out to hurt one another. I hurt you. Colton hurt you. The girls’ lies hurt you. You still love us. Maybe even more because we need your love more then you need ours,” His words were flowing and I couldn’t stop him if I tried, but that didn’t feel right to me, “Tucker hurt you worst of all. Expecting what he expected. Didn’t even propose for the right reasons. I loved him but he was a coward for what he did to you.” It was the harshest thing I had ever heard Cash say about Tucker.

  “I loved him, Cash. I did. Just...not the right way. Not ever enough. Tucker...he...he never loved me enough either. Cage...I didn’t need pretty words or a ring on my finger to know. To feel it when I’m with him and even when I’m not. I love him enough to forgive just about anything. Just about,” I laughed with him, swiping my tears away with my thumbs, “Cage is my home now. In ways I didn’t know I needed, didn’t even know existed. I ran way to be nobody in a crowd so I could finally breathe. Cash saw me anyway; what I feel for him, that’s what lets me breathe.” Cash squeezed me to his side as we fell quiet, watching the stars shift over the cloudless sky. The storm had cleared and washed away the cloudiness, the doubts of yesterday.

  “Standing still is the hardest thing you will ever do. You want to run because that’s what we all did. What we knew. For someone like Maisie, I will root myself to the fucking ground. Cage is that for you; he is your home because he makes you want to stand still.” I nodded and hugged him tight, missing the talks we used to have out on this very porch, about the farm and our futures and nothing at all.

  “I love you Cash. I never meant to run away from you guys.” Another squeeze that lifted me off my feet.

  “Love you too, Cupcake. Yeah you did; but you needed to. You needed to find your roots. We got ours, Charli. Maisie for me. Sadie for Colton. This house, the cabin, the shop. The farm. All that makes us want to stand still.” We fell quiet for a long time before I remembered the stew and urged us back inside.

  “By the way,” Cash smirked as he picked up the beers he left on the island, “Cage might have the Dixon stamp of approval. Don’t mean I plan to let him know that yet.” Cash gave a swat at Maisie’s, who was beaming over the bubbling stew, backside and wiggled his dark brows.

  “Course not,” Maisie gave him her own swat back, “boy needs to think he has to earn his place. Charli’s worth a helluva lot more groveling.” I didn’t agree but I also knew Cage had already convinced himself of the same so, it would be wasted breath.

  Much later, after full bellies and more laughter, Sadie tipsy off of the four beers she sucked down, they left. Plans for the cabin had been made and we had a few days until then. Cage was tugging me backwards into the house from where we stood on the porch, watching the trucks crunch down the gravel drive. Once the door was locked, I was slammed against it, his mouth hot against mine as he shoved at my clothes.

  We made it to the thick wool carpet by the fireplace before he was driving inside me, making me scream his name. The fire was still roaring and I watched his beautiful body as his muscles flexed and bunched as he moved. Angling my hips in the air, his hands cupping my backside, he sunk into me hard but slow, never looking away.

  “Was certain I’d die if I didn’t get inside you,” He whispered with a sexy smirk, throwing his head back and growling, “Fuck I love you, Sugar. So much. Tell me.”

  “Mmm, I love you too baby. Let me watch you make love to me. You’re so fucking beautiful.” Really he was; the tattoos were sexy and made him seem dangerous, until my eyes fell on that one at his chest. My name at his chest softened the raw edges of him and I thought, maybe, I really did just that for him.

  Much, much later we fell asleep by the fireplace after we lost count of orgasms. Cage pulled a fluffy chenille blanket from the back of the couch down to cover us. Before we slept, he whispered to me about this house and the farm and the town I would be leaving behind. My whispered replies, promises that he made me want to stand still at last, soothed him finally.

  Cage promised to stand beside me this weekend while I told the truth, all of the truth at last, to my family. Eventually, I had to tell Tucker’s family too. I promised to work my ass off to get the shop running with the girls in charge of it, and then come home to him.

  “Abso-fuckin-lutely.” Cage whispered before we both fell asleep.

  I had no more pieces of me to hide, no more worry about if my pieces would fit with his. Even if they didn’t, he loved me and I loved him.

  1

  The week we had flown by with lots of visits to the shop, Cage tagging a long and smiling as I taught the girls everything I knew. Maisie and Sadie adored him and if I didn’t know how much they loved my brothers, I might be worried. Cage flirted shamelessly with all
the sweet old women who came by, wondering about the status of the shop.

  At first there had been some tension, questions I refused to answer. Then midway through the week, while taking a break from the muggy store where we had baked for hours, Cage yanked me close in the middle of the street. Dancing me around, he held me close and whispered how beautiful I was with cake flower all over my face and how sweet I smelled.

  Then he dipped me as he pressed a lush kiss to my mouth, tongue and teeth and his hand laced in my messy topknot. I giggled when he set me right before I was flooded with love for him. Widow Jenkins and half the rotary club were milling about town square, planning one function or another and saw it all.

  Widow Jenkins had sailed by the store a few times, frowning at Cage when he flirted, always asking questions. Our little dance was a display for them, to shut them all up. I held his handsome face in my hands, told him I loved him, and then kissed him like I meant it. Cage lifted me off my feet and threatened to fuck me at the gazebo in front of them if I kept it up.

  Which he did, later. Cage seemed intent on fucking me anywhere I might have been with anyone other than him before. Beneath the huge oak tree at the center of town square, where Tucker proposed. In that gazebo where I kissed another boy.

  On the hilltop overlooking our tiny town, most the lights out by then, where I had given away my innocence. In the shop after the girls had cut out one day, bending me over the front counter just in case anyone wanted a show.

  Cage was on a mission to make my memories of this town include him in some way. I didn’t tell him, but I kind of loved him more for it.

  Maisie thanked me at the end of one day, our last before the two and half days we would spend at the cabin. When I insisted I wanted the business running for my mom, she laughed gently. Then proceeded to tell me whatever heat Cage seemed to look at me with had somehow reignited the otherwise mostly warm flames between she and Cash.

  So the thank you was for a week full of surprising orgasms. Before I could admonish her for being pervy, Sadie piped up beside me, shocking me. Because Sadie was like her sister in almost every way, except her mouth.

  “Sweet Jesus she ain’t lying. My pussy might still be purring from Colton’s lunch time visit. My husband seems happiest on his knees lately, getting to know my kitty on a first name basis again. Pretty sure the three of us are getting fucked like teenagers again. Except Charli being as....I mean....” Wiping away tears of laughter because Sadie never spoke so crudely, I stopped, my jaw dropping.

  “Sadie!” Maisie threw a handful of cake flour at her, drawing a line at her neck.

  “Wait one god damn minute,” I roared, throwing my rolling pin with a clatter onto the work table, “tell me what you know!” Sadie bowed her head and let out a sigh, puffs of flower filling the air.

  “We don’t know anything,” Sadie leaned her elbows back on the counter, making her full bust jut out even more, “I know what I think I know.” Maisie threw more flour at her, laughing when it went down her top.

  “Which is...” I prodded, feeling the room spin just a little. Was this more lies? More secrets?

  “It's not like before,” Maisie slapped my backside gently, leaving a flour print on my leggings, “Charli you were the hottest girl in school, even when we were there,” I laughed and threw cookie dough at her as I made a face at her, “Ryder wanted you, lots of boys wanted you. Tucker loved you. No doubt. Tucker never seemed...to want you the way he should. When he proposed...I knew it was wrong. I knew you loved him because you had no choice. I... thought once he might be in love with Cash.” Maisie dipped her head, her hands playing with the cookie dough we were working with.

  “I think he was.” Tucker had never admitted as much, but he loved Cash far more than he had ever loved me.

  “He was? So....” Sadie sighed and slid closer to me, gripping me in a hug.

  “Tucker never said so, but I thought so too. You guys are right; he never wanted me the way he should have. We...I mean I think he tried, you know? We messed around but...he waited till after he proposed for sex. I knew it was wrong. I knew it was hard on us both because it wasn’t what either of us wanted. Just what we thought we should be doing. I think.... I think Tucker thought he could fix it somehow. When he thought he couldn’t anymore, he thought he could get away from Cash and maybe, take me with some day. He...I have a letter for Cash and Colton, from Tucker.” Maisie came to my other side and the twins stood flanking me, arms around my waist as I sighed heavily.

  Damn it felt good to get some of the truth out. It was not mine but I had protected it as if it was. I doubted Cash or Colton might take the truth quite the way the girls had. We spent the rest of the day talking about the amazing men we called ours.

  I didn’t even cringe when Sadie explained the night they had spent before Colton left for Afghanistan or all the ones when he came home for visits.

  Maisie pushed me too far when she launched into tales about the nights she had snuck into my parents’ place and, unbeknownst to my family, let Cash deflower her with all of us sleeping nearby. Gross.

  I listened though because I loved them and I loved how they loved my brothers, loved me and now, loved Cage.

  1

  Ghosts lose their power once you face them. Standing in the three room cabin, surrounded by the people I loved most in the world, I was ready to do some facing. Cage had spent the entire ride up here giving me a pep talk. I told him the girls already knew the truth about Tucker. Cage suspected Colton might too, but that he respected Tucker too much to talk about it before. Cash was the one I was worried about.

  I had spent many nights while they were overseas going over our relationship and questioning Tucker’s feelings for me. His devotion to my brothers, Cash especially, had always made me wonder if he was with me just out of obligation.

  Soon enough I thought otherwise; that he loved one of the Dixon’s enough that maybe the right one, by our town’s standards at least, could fix him somehow. Not that he needed fixed, which is what I told him on that last phone call. Didn’t mean that’s how Tucker saw it.

  Once the boys got us settled, I started lunch but I was a wreck and knew I had to get it out. Maisie and Sadie stopped me from cutting my fingers off as I chopped vegetables for a salad. Calling the boys into the kitchen, they sat them down and gave me the go ahead.

  For years I had wanted to say so much to them, about Mama and Daddy and basically all the people I knew abandoning me at once. Leaving me behind to deal with the aftermath of Mama’s death, take over the farm and help their wives start lives while I sat and waited for mine to begin.

  About Tucker knowing just what he was doing when he proposed in front of the entire town. I didn’t know where to start, so I started with the hardest truth.

  “Before...before we...this weekend is...I don’t know.” Cage crossed the room to stand in front of me, shielding me from them and making me focus on him.

  “I’m right here, Sugar. Let’s conquer your ghosts, baby.” I sighed, letting him center me for a moment before he stepped behind me, keeping a soothing hand at my back.

  “I... loved Tucker. I did. For half my life, even when I didn’t realize I had a choice not to. I thought it was enough for a while. Tucker did too. Tucker needed it more than I did, really. To believe it was enough. I... I knew it wasn’t right though. Tucker didn’t...he didn’t love me the way he should have. Not ever enough.” Cash frowned and looked around at the others before he spoke gently.

  “Tucker loved you more than anything. What do you mean, Cupcake?” Tears made my words thick so I took a deep breath and focused on the table they sat around. I couldn’t look them in the face and hurt them. Really, I didn’t think the truth would hurt; they loved Tucker no matter what. It was the lie that would hurt. My ghosts were all about the lies.

  “No, Cash. No he didn’t. Tucker loved me, yes. Tucker was never in love with me, he never could be. Tucker asked me to marry him knowing I wanted out of Sumner. So did he. Fo
r very different reasons. Tucker left me behind so he could find out what his truth was, and he found it. I’m so glad he got a chance to find it. Even for a little while. Before he died, he called me one last time. We...,” I took a shaky breath and Cage tugged me closer.

  “We knew then it was over. Tucker had found someone else and he knew he didn’t need me to fix him, he knew I couldn’t. I got this letter after he died. I hated him for a while because he expected me, after being whatever he needed without any choice really, to tell you, his family, everyone his truths in case he never got to.” Colton caught my eye and I could see the sadness in his eyes and I knew. He knew those truths.

  “I don’t.... Charli what are you saying?” Cash didn’t sound angry or frustrated, just confused and I let out a shaky breath.

  “Tucker never intended to come home to marry me. He might come home to take me away, but a wedding, the one I tried to plan with his sister and mama for over two years, was never going to happen. Soon after he got to boot camp, he fell in love. Really fell in love and he was fucking terrified of what you two would think. That is why he was ended up so far away from you two when you got shipped overseas. He thought.... if you two knew you would hate him.” Cash stood, crossing the room towards me, gently taking my shoulders in his hands.

  “He cheated on you? While you were here planning his fucking wedding, knowing he never intended to marry you? Of course I would have hated him.” I shook my head, peering up into his gray green eyes as I said it.

  “No, Cash; I mean yes but.... he...Tucker fell in love with his bunk mate. Noah Tate. Tucker told me his name on the last call. Told me all of you had been friends during boot camp but.... you two didn’t know the two of them had....” Cash went white and stepped away and for just a second, I thought he might strike me.