She kissed his chest, then his gorgeous abs, then—
“Cassie! What the hell?”
She shot away from Rhett, clutching the covers to her exposed breasts.
Her sister stood in the doorway, covering her eyes with her forearm and wearing a look of disgust.
“Jenny, damn it! You could have called!”
“I didn’t know I’d be coming until just this morning. We need to talk.” Jenny lowered her arm for a second, then grunted and covered her face again. “Nips, Cassie, really. Can you just cover up already? Maybe put on a shirt or something? And, you, I think you should go now,” she said, presumably to Rhett.
Well, Cassie wasn’t going to stand for that. Cassie pulled Rhett to her and gave him a deep kiss. He seemed too shocked to resist, or maybe he just enjoyed kissing her too much to care who stood watching. She kept her fingers threaded in Rhett’s soft hair before turning back to Jenny and resuming their fight.
“How dare you? First you want to take my ranch, then you want to scare off my boyfriend. He was invited. You were not.” Not technically true, but she was on a roll now. “You just showed up unannounced. And now you should leave the way you came. Bye, Jenn.”
The sisters studied each other in stony silence for the few seconds it took Rhett to wake up enough to interject.
“Look, I have to get ready for the big game anyway. I’ll be back the moment it’s over. Is that okay, Cass?”
Cassie nodded, a bit miffed that Rhett wouldn’t stay to defend her against Jenny, but this was her battle to fight—not his.
“Could you maybe give me a moment?” he asked Jenny. His voice held a sexy hoarseness that made Cassie melt. God, even when all her energy converged to hate on Jenny, she still felt incredibly turned on by Rhett. He really could distract her from anything. That got him major points—as if he needed any more. He’d already pretty much checked every box on Cass’s theoretical what-I-want-in-a-man list.
Jenny turned away, easing the door closed behind her. “I’ll be in the kitchen. Come down when you have some clothes on your body, Cass.”
“Are you going to be okay?” Rhett asked when the door had clicked shut, leaving the two of them alone.
“I can handle Jenny. I’d just prefer not to. I hate following up such an amazing night with such a terrible wake up call.”
“You can take her if it comes down to it.” He winked. “But if you need anything, just call, okay?”
She felt heat rise to her cheeks. She’d just spent the night—naked—with a man whose number she didn’t even have yet. “Umm, I don’t think I have your…”
“They don’t let us bring our cells down to the field anyway. Coach has a weird superstition about electromagnetic waves or something like that affecting our heads.” He laughed and pulled his shirt over his head. “You can call the stadium though. Ask for me, and I’ll come running.”
Cassie sighed and fell back in bed. “You said you’ll be back tonight. Is that a promise?”
“Do you want it to be?”
She shot him a sarcastic smile. “Uh duh. I’d like to finish what we started last night.”
“Mmm, is that a promise?” He leaned down and gave her another kiss. When he pulled away, he must have noticed the worry that still wracked her mind.
“You can handle your sister.” He locked his eyes on hers. “Don’t let her intimidate you. I’m sure whatever it is, you can find a way to sort things out. You’ve got this.”
She forced a smile. It really was sweet that he wanted to help so badly. “Thanks for the pep talk.”
“Hey, it works in football. Why not family crises?”
She smacked him on the butt. “Get outta here.”
Once Rhett had departed, Cassie took a moment to gather herself, then slipped into a pair of chaste flannel pajamas and joined her sister downstairs.
Jenny sat at the table, stirring honey into a cup of herbal tea. “I know you think I’m the devil,” she said without looking up.
“You’re not clever enough to be the devil, but you have been making my life pretty miserable lately.”
Cassie grabbed a yogurt from the fridge and sat down. She’d wanted to share breakfast with Rhett, to make them yummy Tex Mex omelets and prove she could cook too, but here she was sitting with the person she currently liked least in the world, waiting to find out what was so damned important that Jenny had to ruin her morning straight out of the gate.
Her sister sighed. “You haven’t exactly made mine a walk in the park either, you know. I’ve been so mad at you, wondering how you could be so selfish about this, but then—”
Cassie couldn’t let that slide by. “Me? Selfish? Really, Jenny? So you did come over here to yell at me. I’m doing everything I can, and you don’t even—”
Instead of opening her mouth to argue, Jenny’s mouth pressed into a tight line. Next thing Cassie knew her sister broke out into sobs right there in her kitchen.
As pissed as she was about all this, Cassie still loved her sister and hated to see her cry…especially when pregnant.
Instinctively, she rushed to Jenny’s side and rubbed her shoulder. “I’m sorry. You know I’m cranky when I haven’t gotten enough sleep.”
Jenny quirked an eyebrow, but didn’t address the reference to Cassie’s gentleman caller. Instead she said, “Will you let me say what I came here to say?”
“Go ahead.” Cassie returned to her side of the table and dug in to her yogurt again. At least she had something to help keep her mouth busy so she couldn’t yell at Jenny every time she made another stinging remark. Crying or not, Jenny had always known how to dish it out—and Cassie almost always found herself on the receiving end.
“So I’ve been super mad at you, wondering why you’ve been so oblivious to my problems, but then I realized that’s because I haven’t told you. Jeff has too much pride to say anything and I didn’t want the kids to worry, so this morning when he took them out to the parade, I said I was having a bout of morning sickness and snuck over here so we could talk.”
Suddenly all of Cassie’s anger melted away. Now she was filled with only concern for her poor sister and… Oh, God.
“Jenny, is the baby okay?”
“Of course, the baby’s okay, but Jeff and I aren’t.”
Cassie swallowed a mouthful of yogurt, doing her best not to choke on it. Such was the shock of this revelation.
Jenny and Jeff weren’t okay? How was this even happening, and how come Cassie hadn’t noticed without having to be told?
Jenny and Jeff had always been the picture perfect couple, so in love that they couldn’t stop popping out one child after the next. They were the model husband and wife with the model family, in the model suburb, living the model lives that everyone aspired to. How could they possibly be having problems?
“We’ve been unhappy for a while, Cass. Things have always been tight financially because of our large family, but we’ve also always made it work. I coupon, he packs his lunch, we have all these little tricks for stretching our dollars. But a few weeks ago, Jeff was laid off.”
“Oh no, Jenny! I’m so sorry!”
“He’s been having trouble finding another job, and I can’t work like this.” She motioned to her ever-expanding belly. “He’s around all the time, and we just bicker. Not in front of the children, mind you, but pretty much all the rest of the time. I’m starting to wonder if we ever really had anything in common besides the kids. I want to work things out, but it’s so hard. Jeff is in so much pain, and I know he doesn’t see how he’s hurting my feelings left and right, but I can’t not see it, you know?”
Cass squeezed her sister’s hands. Her life had taken a very different course from Jenny’s, and she didn’t really know what to say to help. Instead of trying to come up with the right words, Cass just nodded and waited for her sister to say more.
“I don’t want to leave him, but I can’t live like this. I thought maybe if we could sell Saddleback, we’d have enough o
f a buffer to make it until he finds a new job. I know you think selling the ranch is destroying our family, but it could actually save it, Cass. I hate having to hurt you like this. You don’t deserve it, but neither do my kids. I’d give anything for them, Auntie C, and I know you would too. That’s why I figured I’d come here and ask for your help instead of trying to force you into something you don’t understand like I have been. If there were any other way…”
Cassie choked back the tears that were beginning to form behind her eyes. She needed to be strong for her sister—there was no way Jenny could carry the weight of all these problems on her own. But maybe they could carry them together, just as they’d done when they lost their parents too soon. Just as they’d done when Jenny’s first pregnancy had ended in a miscarriage. Just as they would do now, do always. She both loved and hated her sister more than any other person in the whole world—that would never change.
Cassie took a deep breath, her last lungful of air before she officially decided to stop fighting for their legacy and start fighting for their progeny.
“You don’t have to ask, Jenny. I’ll sell the ranch. End of discussion.”
Jenny started to weep again, but still managed to make it out of her chair and over to wrap Cassie in a tight hug.
“But, without the ranch, what will you do?” she asked pulling away.
Cassie thought about that for a minute, knowing she needed a good, believable answer to help assuage her sister’s guilt. “Maybe I could go back to college, become a vet like Judy. I’ve always had a way with animals, you know, and just yesterday I delivered Maybel’s calf. It was amazing!”
“Really?” Jenny sniffed. “You’re sure?”
“Positive.” She needed to be strong, needed to be sure, even if she wasn’t. She did love her animals, and even if she had to say goodbye to poor Maybel and her new calf Babybel Cheese, along with Susie Ann and all the others, perhaps she could still find a way to help other animals, to keep doing what she loved—if not where she loved to do it.
“Okay then… Cassie?”
“Yeah?”
“Do me a favor?”
“Anything.”
“Tell me all about that beautiful man I found in your bed this morning.”
Chapter 9
Rhett arrived at the stadium in a daze. As much as he normally looked forward to his games, he just wanted to hurry up and get it over with so he could return to Cassie’s bed. Dutifully, and because his contract left him no other choice, he suited up and joined the team for pregame workout, running on auto-pilot from the countless other times he’d played. Luckily, his body knew what do do, because his mind couldn’t be torn away from the angel he’d left waiting for him.
Maybe if his team hadn’t won the coin toss, he wouldn’t have had so much time to think about Cassie. Their opponents fought hard for every inch and the defensive line was only slowly being pushed back. But the longer that other team’s offense was on the field, the more Rhett’s mind wandered. He started thinking about not just the night, but the day he’d spent with Cassie. The memory of birthing that calf with her, her joy at holding that newborn animal, still played in his head.
A sudden cheer snapped Rhett’s attention back to the game. The Bombers’ defense had stopped their rivals just shy of field goal range. Now it was the offense’s turn.
Rhett trotted out onto the field with the offense and got ready. The ball was snapped, and the two lines smashed together with the sounds of helmets crashing together like cannon fire on a distant battlefield. The crowd roared and Rhett went back behind the quarterback, ready for the hand off. There was the pump pass fake, and Rhett raced past the Bombers QB, deftly taking the pigskin and tucking it into the crook of his arm. He scanned the line for an opening and was surprised to see quite a few. The offensive line had opened up the defense, and the QB’s fake must've worked. Rhett smiled to himself as his legs began churning, tearing up the yards to the end zone.
He began thinking back to the time he’d run beside Cassie as she gracefully maneuvered Susie Ann from astride the saddle. Now that was a run.
He should’ve seen the defender. He should’ve expected them to be farther downfield where the receivers were. Instead, he felt something like a horse kicking him and everything went black.
Time passed, but for the life of him, Rhett didn’t know how much.
His eyes fluttered opened, and he turned to his side—why does it hurt so much?—expecting to see his country angel sleeping beside him. Instead he was met with an off-white plastic rail and a clunky hospital machine.
What’s going on? Where’s Cassie? Where am I?
He tried to sit up, but the intense pain that tore through his lower body kept him down.
A chipper nurse scurried into the room. “Oh, Mr. Alexander, you’re up! How ya feeling, hun?” she asked while adjusting his IV—an IV he’d only just now noticed.
Parched, he had to struggle to get the words out. “Wh—what happened?”
“Oh, dear.” The nurse clucked her tongue. “You took quite the hit. Were out for a few days too. Your memory will come back to you. Give it time.”
“Cassie?” he managed.
“What, dear?”
“Has a woman named C-Cassie come to see me?”
“Oh, I don’t think so. We’ve kept security very tight to make sure you’re safe, darlin’. Only close friends and family and people sent by the team. Absolutely no press.”
Shit. This was not what he wanted to hear. He needed to speak to Cassie. Now. “Where’s my phone?”
“You just woke up. Take a few minutes for the swelling to—”
“No, I need my phone. Where is it?”
She clucked her tongue and wagged her finger at Rhett as if he were a child, and not a grown ass man. “First the doctor, then I’ll return your phone.”
He sighed and sank back into the tiny hospital bed. He could barely manage to sit up, let alone get out of bed or defy the doctor’s orders and rush out of the room in search for Cassie.
So that left waiting, and waiting felt like forever.
He didn’t even know how long he’d been out or what had happened since he took that hit. The last thing he remembered was waking up beside Cassie in her bed, but now he was here in the hospital after suffering a brief coma for God knows how many days. He wished he could get some answers. He wished he could get in touch with Cassie somehow, but by the time he finally got his phone back he realized that he’d never actually gotten her number. Damn, now there was a mistake he’d paid for again and again.
Well, if he couldn’t call her, he’d drive out and see her. Only why did his legs hurt so bad? The doctor said no more football this season and possibly ever, that if he were going to get better he’d have to give it his all. No more football, huh. He’d expected such news to hit him far harder than any defensive lineman ever could, but no. Apparently he’d found something that meant far more to him than football ever had.
And in that moment he didn’t give a damn about getting better, only getting to Cassie.
Where was she?
“Please? Please let me in,” Cassie begged the burly security guards stationed outside of First Memorial Hospital.
“Sorry, Miss. No press, no fans. Otherwise how do you expect Mr. Alexander to get better in time for our next big game?” He took a zippo lighter out of his pocket and began to play with the flame, shutting it on and off repeatedly, watching the fire dance then collapse rather than looking at Cassie’s angry face.
“But you don’t understand,” she argued. “I’m his girlfriend. At least I think I am.”
At this, he shoved the lighter back into his pocket and finally looked at her. His expression, though, was not friendly.
“Ha! You and a dozen other broads. Move along.”
Three days had passed—three!—and on each of them Cassie had tried to get into the hospital to see Rhett. And each time she had been turned away with laughs and insults. She didn’t even
know whether he was okay, whether he was asking for her, or—let’s face it, he had gotten hit pretty hard—whether he remembered her.
Oh, she remembered him though, couldn’t get the thought of his accident out of her mind. That whole afternoon kept replaying on a terrible loop she couldn’t shut off.
Cassie had asked Jenny to stay for the afternoon and watch the game with her. It had felt good to go back to their normal ways, even though the dread of losing the ranch weighed heavily on her heart. The end had come—there was no getting around that. But at least now Cassie could step aside with grace rather than doing everything and having it still not being enough. At least now she knew some good would come from its end.
She’d only hoped Jenny would be okay, that her sister was right about what it would take to heal her marriage.
They needed to keep things light, happy. That morning had taken a lot out of them both. “Hey, Jenn. What weird pregnancy cravings are you having today? I’ll whip some snacks up for the game.”
A huge, guilty smile lit across her sister’s face. “Actually some good old fashioned nachos would really hit the spot. Can you add some pickles to them too?”
“I’ll put them on the side and promise not to throw up while I watch you eat them. Deal?”
They shook on it, the way they always had growing up. It felt so nice to return to that familiarity with Jenny. She’d really missed having her sister around lately.
“Oh, look, the game’s starting.” Cassie popped open a beer and thrust a bottled water into her sister’s lap.
“There’s Rhett. He can sure fill out those tight little pants. Look at that package!” Jenny whistled like a wolf in some old cartoon, and Cassie could practically see the drool hanging from her mouth.
“Jenny!”
“What? This ring means I can’t touch. It doesn’t mean I can’t look!”
“You haven’t changed a bit since we were kids. Horn dog.”
They broke apart in a fit of giggles, and Cassie swelled with pride. Rhett did look pretty incredible in his uniform, and somehow this sexy man had chosen her, Cassie Brown, rancher cowgirl nobody. The thought made her giddy as if she were the class nerd who’d landed the most popular boy in school as her homecoming date.
A Cowboy Kind of Love Page 7
