In Tune (Red Bird Trail Trilogy Book 3)

by Laramie Briscoe

  Cash sat on the couch, watching some show Remy loved on Netflix. Remy had gone to bed an hour ago, but Cash had been too lazy to turn it off. He glanced at the clock, wondering if he should call Harper. He’d expected her to be late, but he’d figured she’d be home by the time he got home from the Trail. A part of him wanted to make sure she was okay, but another part didn’t want to interrupt her individual session with Doc Jones.

  He had picked up the phone and was fixing to dial her when he heard her car pull into their driveway. He listened for that every day, always scared that this would be the day she realized she couldn’t take it anymore. He was beyond scared she would decide one day that he and Remy asked too much of her and she’d be another one of the people who had left them. Living through it once had been hard; he knew without a doubt he wouldn’t be able to live through it again.

  Harper coming through their front door was his most favorite part of the day.

  “Hey,” he called as she entered and threw her stuff on the catch-all by the door.

  Her head shot up, almost as if she were surprised that he was there. Maybe she hadn’t been expecting him to wait up on her. “Hey,” she said back.

  “How did it go?”

  He’d wondered if he asked the wrong question when she stopped what she was doing and stared at him. He began to seriously worry when the long moments turned into a minute.

  “Harper?”

  The sound she made tore at his heart, and he opened his arms and caught her, just as she threw herself at him.

  *

  Harper wasn’t sure what had broken apart inside her body. She wasn’t sure either what had caused it. She supposed it could have been the session she’d had with Doc Jones, it could have been the picture Cash made sitting in the muted light of the television, or it could have even been the way he’d softly said her name. What she did know, immediately, was that she wanted him. Harper was sick of them tiptoeing around each other trying to find the perfect balance, trying to figure out what was right. She’d tried to find “right” before, and it’d gotten her nowhere.

  In this moment, she said fuck it and threw “right” out the window. It was time to go with what felt good. It was time to go with what made her heart happy; screw her head. She threw herself at Cash, smiling against his strong chest when he caught her. As was normal, he didn’t wear a shirt with the sweatpants that rode low on his hips. Using it to her advantage, she pressed a soft kiss to his pectoral muscle, over where his nipple ring rested, right above his heart.

  “Please, Cash, I know we both want this. I know it might not be the right time, but if we wait for the right time, it’s never going to happen. I need you.” She fisted his sweatpants in her hands. “I’ve been through the ringer tonight. I need to know you care about me; I need to know this isn’t a means to an end with us. We have a future, right?”

  “Damn straight we have a future, Harper. Nothing is taking you away from me. Do you need me to prove that to you tonight?” he asked, his voice muffled as he buried his face in her hair.

  “Then show me. Show me I don’t have to worry you’re not going to be here when I wake up in the morning.”

  *

  Purposely, Cash slowed them down, digging his fingers in the hair at the back of her neck, massaging the tight muscles there, and tipping the weight of it onto the palms of his hands. Doing this exposed her neck, and he attacked slowly, dragging his lips down the curve of her neck, tilting his head to the left, and sinking his teeth into the smooth skin there. The best noise he’d ever heard in his life was the moan she let loose, and the best feeling he’d ever felt was the tightening of her fingers in his sweatpants, causing her nails to run along his abdomen.

  Taking one hand from her neck, he hooked it around her waist and arched her towards him, gathering her to his body so that they touched from head to toe. Lazily, he dragged his teeth along the pulse point of her neck over to the other side, lightly nipping on her ear before pulling his mouth off her skin.

  “C’mon,” he whispered, rubbing his nose against the outer shell of her ear, nuzzling her skin, letting his stubbly skin rub against her. “Let’s get out of the living room. If Remy gets up, we don’t need to give him a show.”

  He pulled completely away and wrapped her up in his arms before letting go and taking her hand, pulling her with him to the bedroom.

  *

  Harper watched Cash walk in front of her, wondering if she was thinking the same thing men thought when they witnessed woman with a sexy back. His shoulders were broad, but not overly so, and they moved down into a tapered waist; the dips at the bottom of his back were enough to make her drool. It never failed to impress her that she’d landed him.

  “Do you have any idea how gorgeous you are?” she asked as he pulled her into the bedroom, shut the door, and pressed her up against it.

  “If I’m one-fifth as gorgeous as you, then one day we’ll make amazingly beautiful children.”

  The words didn’t even scare her, which is what clued her into how far gone she was with this man. “Don’t make me wait, Cash,” she whispered when she saw him push his sweatpants down over his hips.

  “I’ll do me, you do you,” he told her, hopping on one foot towards the bed to pull the covers down.

  Harper wasn’t sure she’d ever gotten undressed so quickly, but in the blink of an eye, the two of them were falling against the warm sheets, and he was covering her body.

  “Don’t make me wait,” she begged, almost near tears. She wanted so badly to feel the connection she knew they had. The one thing that was hers and hers alone, that no one else could feel with him. That no one else could feel with her. No one could touch them if they stayed strong together.

  She could feel him lever off her body and take care of the protection before he joined her again and thrust deeply inside her body. Harper arched her back and neck, taking him as deeply as she could, grasping at his shoulders, scratching at his back, digging her heels into his ass. She wanted all of this, and she’d be damned if either of them held back.

  *

  Cash sighed. It was a contented sigh, one he hadn’t had in what felt like forever. “What got into you tonight? What made you decide—not that I’m complaining—that it had been long enough.”

  “Doc Jones wants me to go see my dad,” she whispered against his chest.

  He tightened his arm around her neck and pulled her closer. “You know if you need me to, I’ll be right there with you. In fact, I’m not sure I want you to go alone.”

  “I feel like I have to, Cash. This is about me and him.”

  Cash didn’t say anything else, just held her and ran his hand along her back, but he knew whenever the meeting happened, he wouldn’t be far away.

  ‡

  Chapter Fourteen

  When Doc Jones had told her she needed to confront her dad, Harper knew it would have to be soon; otherwise, she’d lose her nerve. Within two days of her meeting with Doc Jones, Travis Steele had provided her with her dad’s place of employment, and now she sat in front of the factory where he worked.

  It was funny, really, but his factory faced the Trail. She wondered if he’d ever seen Cash run; she wondered if he’d ever thought about betting on the man who’d stolen her heart.

  Travis had told her what time he got off, and she sat in her car, waiting. Part of her hoped maybe her dad wasn’t there that day; the other part of her hoped he would be the first one out. She knew, though, that she couldn’t chicken out on this. This was something she had to do, and she wouldn’t be able to move on until she did.

  The factory bell rang, and almost immediately she saw men and women making their way to their cars. Travis had also clued her in on what vehicle her dad now drove, so she had parked next to it. When she saw a man walking towards the vehicle, she knew it was him, even though she hadn’t seen him in years. He’d gotten heavier, and the years hadn’t been kind to his aging process, but she knew exactly who he was. When he got close enough,
she opened her door and yelled, “Clayton!”

  His head snapped up and recognition flared in his eyes. “Harper. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

  She’d wondered for years what she would say to him if given the chance. At different parts of her life, she’d even had scripts memorized. That all left her in this moment. She opened her mouth once, twice, three times, but nothing came out, and what did come out wasn’t what she expected at all.

  “You took me with you to rob a convenience store and ended up killing the clerk inside,” she whispered.

  She watched the emotions play across his face and watched as he turned to the truck, opened the door, and put his lunchbox on the bench seat. He reached into the console under the steering wheel and she almost hit the ground, wondering if he had a gun. Instead, he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

  “You want one?” he asked nonchalantly as he beat the hard box against the palm of his hand and then extracted one, lighting it and blowing the smoke away from her.

  “No.” She shook her head. “I don’t smoke.”

  To her it seemed like the stupidest thing in the world to say, but obviously to him, it was funny. His mouth kicked up on the side, and he let out a small chuckle.

  “Of course you don’t. You always were better than I deserved. You always were good and right, no matter what example I gave you.”

  She wasn’t sure how to respond to any of this, so she didn’t; she let him talk.

  “I didn’t go to that convenience store planning to rob it; you have to know that, Harper. The gas tank was on E, our fridge was bare, and I was out of money for the drug habit I’d picked up in the previous couple of months. I don’t even know if you knew that or not. I was trying very hard to hide it from you, but you were such a smart girl.”

  He had a seat inside the truck and slung his arm on the door, holding the cigarette between his middle and pointer finger.

  She hadn’t known that. The authorities had asked her if he’d had a drug problem, and she remembered telling them no—numerous times.

  “I went in there to get a pack of smokes.” His eyes traveled to the cigarette he held in his hand. “When the cashier opened the drawer, it was packed full; it must have been a long time since she’d done a drop. I had the gun because I’d gotten paranoid. I owed drug dealers money, and they had been threatening the both of us. Without even thinking about it, I pulled that gun and told her to give me the cash. She did, but then she struggled, and the gun went off.”

  “That still doesn’t answer why you used your own daughter as a shield.” She crossed her arms over her chest and leveled him with a glare.

  “All you were in that moment was opportunity. I’m ashamed to say, now, as a man clean for ten years, I can’t even tell you what in the world I was thinking back in those days.” He ran his hand over his hair. “I want you to know, I understand why you never came to see me, I understand why you don’t think I’ve changed, I get why you can’t have me be a part of your life. Fuck, I get why you won’t speak to Cara.”

  “I’ve never needed approval from you.” She lifted her head so that she could look into eyes that were very like her own. “But there is one thing that keeps me from moving on; it keeps coming up, no matter what I do. It’s this fear. This fear that I’m the one who sent you to jail, and you will want retribution. I live with that fear a lot,” she admitted, sounding like the scared kid she was.

  “Then stop it, because whether you believe it or not, you saved my fucking life by getting me caught. Do I think we’re ever going to have a relationship? No, and I’ve made my peace with that. I can tell you that I hope like hell you have everything you’ve always wanted because you deserve it.”

  Those words, spoken softly, hit a spot in her that she hadn’t realized was there. “Thank you.” It was the least she could do, thank him for giving her closure.

  “And I can guarantee you, if I thought for one second I could to do something to you, that boy parked back there glaring at me would tear me from limb to limb.”

  Harper turned her head back to where her dad was pointing and saw Cash leaning against his car. He waved a hand to her, and she waved back. “I’m okay,” she yelled.

  “I’ll stay here until you leave,” he yelled back, his eyes never leaving her dad.

  “Is this what you needed?” Clayton asked, finishing his cigarette and throwing it down on the ground.

  She thought about what he’d said. Did she believe him? In the end, she had no reason not to.

  “It was,” she told him, holding out her hand to him. She couldn’t hug him, wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to, but she did appreciate his time. It had taken a lot for him to talk to her if he’d felt the way she had about it.

  “Take care,” she told him as she turned to walk towards her car.

  “You too, Harper.”

  As she got in her car and drove away, Cash behind her in the rearview mirror, she breathed easy for the first time in a very long time.

  *

  “I wish you would have let me be there to hear what he had to say to you,” Cash told her later on that evening as they sat out on the back porch. They had blankets, and he took a drag off the occasional cigarette.

  She reached over and tapped his shoulder, indicating she wanted to take a hit of the tobacco. “It was something I had to do for myself,” she told him as she blew smoke away from him. “He was much scarier in my mind than he was in real life, but I wonder if that’s because he has so much time away from the man that he once was.”

  “I don’t know.” Cash shrugged. “I mean think about when we’re kids and we think there’s monsters under our beds. In our heads we make them up to be the scariest things in the world. Maybe your imagination had run away with you. I’m not saying you had no right to be scared—you lived through something traumatic, but while he spent time overcoming himself and being a better man, you were left to fester in the fear. It turned you into another person.”

  She thought hard about what he was saying. “You know, you could be right. It’s time for me to take that fear and turn it into something else. I won’t let it rule my life anymore.”

  Reaching over, he grabbed her hand, and they lapsed into a comfortable silence. It was in those silences that she knew they would be okay.

  ‡

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was the rarest of rare nights, both Cash and Harper were doing homework. Cash avoided it like the plague, but he knew that if he failed the semester, he’d never hear the end of it from Harper.

  “Remy,” he yelled from where he sat at the kitchen table. “How about you go ride your bike, dude. I can’t concentrate with that television on.”

  Remy looked like he wanted to argue, but Harper piped up. “If you go ride your bike for an hour, I’ll make cookies tonight.”

  “Deal.” Remy came over, shaking her on it.

  “What about me?” Cash asked, holding his hand out.

  “What about you?” Remy asked with a newfound attitude that Cash had to admit he thoroughly enjoyed and hated at the same time. “You wanted me to do something without giving me anything in return. You deserve no handshakes.”

  Harper chuckled as Remy made his way out of the apartment, and she glanced over at Cash. You have to admit, he’s right. You can’t always ask someone for something and give nothing in return.

  It hit him almost right in the chest that perhaps she was talking about their situation. “Do I not give you enough?” he asked, fear in his voice. “Is there something you want from me that you’re not getting?”

  “No.” She laughed. “At some point we need to have a discussion about the future, but I don’t expect us to be having it right now.”

  He closed his book, giving her his full attention. “Well, why not? Why shouldn’t we have it now?”

  “We need to study,” she reminded him.

  “Studying will be there in a few minutes. This is important,” he argued. “Where do you see y
ourself in the next few years?”

  She knew he was being serious about this, could tell by the way he looked at her and the tone of his voice. Knowing all of this, she knew without a doubt that if she didn’t answer, he wouldn’t let this go. Closing the book, she blew out a deep breath. “I see us together, with Remy, hopefully not in this apartment. I see myself graduated from school, hopefully working part-time for myself and part-time for someone else. I don’t think my business will be grown by then, but I hope like hell that I’m working on it. I want us to still be together. Maybe by that point we’re planning a wedding; maybe by that point we’ve realized that we enjoy what we have. I don’t know.”

  She waited a few minutes.

  “Well what do you see?”

  Cash wasn’t as quick to answer as she was, but it didn’t make it any less profound. “Much of what you said. I definitely see us out of this shoebox; I see me working for Heaven Hill full-time and doing stuff on the side. I don’t know that I’ll still be running the Trail. Maybe by that time I will have grown up enough to feel that my immortality is no longer guaranteed. I hope that we’re not struggling, but it’ll be okay if we are.” He reached out and grabbed her hand. “No matter where we are and what we’re doing, if I’m with you, I know things will be great, because we’ll make them that way.”

  Harper smiled widely at him. “I don’t know what it is about you and your uncanny ability to turn on the charm, but sometimes I wonder if you even realize you do it.”

  “Oh, baby, I know.” He leaned over and kissed her, slipping his tongue inside her mouth, lazily stroking against hers.

  “The most important thing,” she observed. “Is that we both see each other together in a few years. I think the jobs will take care of themselves. For me to do what I want to do, I’m going to need some experience—same with you, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t dream big.”

  “What would your big dream be?” he asked, kicking his legs out in front of him.

  “Owning my own bakery. Doing what I want to do, and nobody telling me how I have to do this or how I have to design that. I want the flexibility of being my own boss and the feeling of success I’ll get when I make it. It’s going to be hard though,” she cautioned him.