by Ali Olson
Freckles wiggled in Cassie’s arms, trying to get close enough to Brock to give him another thorough licking.
After signing enough documents to make her question if she was adopting a dog or a child, Cassie paid for a final vet check and vaccinations and was told she’d be able to pick up Freckles the next day.
Finally, Cassie and Brock left the animal shelter. Cassie wondered what time it was, and if she should go pick up Zach and Carter right away. She wasn’t sure if she wanted more time with Brock alone or to have her young chaperones back as soon as possible.
If she was being honest, she was a little nervous. Now that things between them had finally gotten physical—really physical—she knew it would be hard to give it all up in only one short week. It almost seemed easier and smarter to stop it now, before she completely fell for him.
Cassie knew she wouldn’t stop their relationship, though, regardless of how smart it might be. She’d enjoy every second of it, whatever it did to her once he’d left.
As soon as they buckled in, Brock asked, “So, how are you going to get free long enough to pick up Freckles tomorrow?”
“I spoke with Jack Stuart this morning, actually, and planned on Zach and Carter going over to his ranch for a half-day horse camp. Your brothers are going to have their equipment over to cut and bale the hay,” she explained.
She didn’t say that she’d only decided to send the boys to camp after her date with Brock in order to give them another opportunity to be alone. Judging by the sly look on his face, he seemed to guess as much.
“Jose and Diego will want us to stay out of the way while that’s going on,” he said, not explaining where they could be or what they could do while the machinery operated in the yard.
He didn’t need to.
“So, are we heading straight to my house to pick up Zach and Carter?” Brock asked.
Cassie wanted to say no, but their morning trip had lasted well into the afternoon, in no small part to her black negligee. “Yeah,” she said, trying not to sound deflated.
It was silly, of course, to want Brock again so soon. It had just been a few hours since they’d been together in her bed, creating memories she was sure would last her many lonely nights.
Still, she couldn’t help but desire him even more, now that she knew what she’d been missing. It wasn’t just that he was good in bed—though that certainly seemed to be the case—it was the two of them together that made it spectacular. Just as they worked well together when painting a room or making repairs, they worked well together in all physical aspects, apparently.
If only their lives harmonized, too, she thought with a silent sigh. Unfortunately, their lives were halves of two very different jigsaw puzzles, and trying to shove them together would be an impossible task.
How had she gotten on that topic again? Cassie had found herself going over the same well-worn tracks of thinking again and again, and it was getting wearisome; they had a week left together, end of story.
“Don’t tell Pop you’re taking Zach and Carter to the Stuarts’ for horse camp,” Brock said, breaking into her thoughts.
Cassie was confused for a second before realizing what he meant. Brock’s adopted father ran his own horse camp. “Whoops. I completely forgot. Is that a problem?”
“No, probably not, but it’s best not to bring it up. We’ve been telling him for a while now that he should hire more help, that the camp is too much for him. He’s a little sensitive about it. Thinks we’re calling him old.”
Cassie agreed not to say anything, then looked out the window to see her home as they passed. For one wild moment, she considered telling Brock to stop and turn in. Another half hour together before they picked up the boys couldn’t hurt, could it?
They continued on and parked in front of his parents’ without her saying anything, though. As they climbed out of Brock’s truck, Cassie felt a twinge of regret. Not only for deciding to collect the boys immediately, but also because Brock’s truck would no longer be parked in front of her house. It was silly, she knew, but she liked having it there. It was a reminder that he would be coming back.
Before she could dive down that hole any further, her sons ran out the door. She braced herself for a high-speed hug, but the boys veered from her and went straight to Brock.
* * *
“DID YOU REALLY ride a bull when you were twelve years old?” Carter asked.
Brock looked up at his ma, Jose and Diego, who were all standing in the doorway. “What have you been telling them?” he asked.
“Only the truth,” Diego answered. “They asked what you were like when you were a kid, so we told them.”
Brock wondered if anything had been mentioned about his parents’ death—he could easily imagine Jose saying something without really thinking about it—but there was no way to ask at the moment. Not with Zach and Carter right there.
“We should go,” Cassie said, breaking into the moment.
Brock automatically turned to go with her before he realized he should probably stay home. His whole family rarely got together, and everyone would be leaving in a couple days. Plus, it might seem suspicious to everyone if he left, and he didn’t need any more of that going on. “I’ll come by tomorrow morning for...”
Brock trailed off, not able to say where the boys were going nor bring up the errand he’d run with Cassie. Cassie nodded. “We’ll be leaving a little before nine. Just come in whenever. The door will be unlocked.”
Brock wondered if she was giving him a coded message, telling him to sneak over that night after Zach and Carter were asleep.
No, she couldn’t mean that, could she? She had surprised him that morning with that sexy black outfit.
Then again, Cassie had made it plenty clear that her kids came first, and that might include keeping their distance from each other when the boys were nearby, even if they were asleep.
Brock didn’t know, which meant he wouldn’t be going over there tonight, much as he might want to. It was best to err on the side of caution, to avoid stepping on her toes and ruining the whole thing. Even if it wouldn’t last beyond a few more days, he didn’t want to do anything to spoil it for either of them.
Finally, when Cassie and her boys had disappeared into their house, Brock turned back to his family. They all acted as if they hadn’t been watching him, but they were doing a bad job of it. A little reluctantly, he followed them into the house.
Chapter Twelve
Cassie tucked Zach and Carter into bed that night with excitement pooling in her belly, even though she knew the chances that Brock would come over were slim. She couldn’t be sure that he’d understood what she meant when she said the door would be unlocked, or that even if he did, he’d be able or willing to sneak out of his parents’ house.
All of it made her feel like a teenager trying to arrange an illicit tryst, and she loved it. The entire afternoon, even when she was on the phone making appointments for two more new patients, she could hardly focus on anything but to wish for night to come faster.
Cassie had never been one for this sort of behavior as a teen, and she didn’t even start dating until she was in college. Even then it was all fairly rational and well-behaved. This time, she didn’t want to be well-behaved. If she was going to have this once-in-a-lifetime kind of connection for a limited time, by God, she wanted to get as much out of it as she could.
Cassie turned out Zach and Carter’s light and closed the door. She went and checked once more that the front door was unlocked, though she’d already made sure at least five times, and then she went to her room.
After sifting through her pajama options carefully, Cassie settled on a long-ish shirt—no pants—and climbed into bed with a book. She tried to read, but it was nearly impossible. What if she ended up sitting there pretending to read and he never showed up?
What if he did?
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Cassie was almost starting to regret this situation for herself when she heard a very quiet click. Her heart stopped in anticipation.
Maybe it was one of the boys getting up to go to the bathroom.
Still, she set down her book and waited eagerly.
Brock appeared in the doorway, cowboy hat on his head and boots in his hand, looking a little unsure. “If you don’t want me to be here—”
Before he could finish the sentence, she had jumped out of bed and closed the distance between them. In short order, the door was closed and the light was off, and the butterflies in Cassie’s stomach changed to molten ecstasy.
When Cassie awoke, it was still dark, but she could hear small noises coming from a few feet away. She picked up her phone and looked at it blearily. It was just past four in the morning. Brock knelt beside her and brushed her hair out of her face. “Hey,” he whispered softly.
She pressed her cheek against his hand like a cat and smiled, even though he wouldn’t be able to see it in the dark. “I didn’t want to wake you, but I should get back before anybody gets up. You still have a couple more hours before you need to be up, though.”
She wanted him to stay. What if he just stayed? For the next day and the night after that and the night after that—
No, that wouldn’t work, of course.
So Cassie just nodded, enjoyed one last kiss that she could feel all the way to her toes and then said goodbye.
After he was gone, her bed felt unpleasantly empty, and Cassie wondered if this romance was such a good idea after all. Just as with every time that thought had come up before, she knew she would take every second with Brock McNeal she could get.
Even if it was only for another seven days.
* * *
BROCK WALKED INTO Cassie’s house the next morning after checking to see that the door was still unlocked. Though it felt a little odd, it was nice, too, and the memories of the night before flooded through him pleasantly. He pushed them away, though, because today would be about Zach and Carter, not him and Cassie.
The living room was empty, so he went to the kitchen in search of the home’s occupants. Nobody was there, either, but it also felt cool and inviting, and he lingered there for a moment, enjoying the atmosphere of a quiet country home. His tiny apartment in Dallas lacked any feeling of home—though a good deal of that probably had to do with how little he was there. Being out on the rodeo circuit for months at a time kept him from ever feeling really settled. Heck, he’d probably slept in his truck more times than he’d slept in his own bed.
But there was more to it than that. This wasn’t just a kitchen in anybody’s house. This was Cassie’s kitchen, which already showed signs of her personality despite the boxes still sitting in the corner. A blue spoon rest with painted daisies all over it sat beside the stove, and an oven mitt that looked like a dinosaur’s mouth, complete with cloth teeth, hung on the wall. He could imagine her attacking Carter with it before pulling something out of the oven.
He felt a sudden twinge of wistfulness and walked out of the kitchen toward the hallway. He needed to find Cassie, so he started walking toward her bedroom. Just the thought of being alone in there with her again sent adrenaline through his veins, but he knew the boys were somewhere close by, and that fantasy was going to need to wait.
As he walked down the hall, he stopped when he heard murmuring through the open doorway of the twins’ room. Glancing inside, he saw Cassie, Zach and Carter on the floor, driving toy cars around on a rug covered in street designs, each one occasionally screeching to a halt or flipping over in dramatic car crashes. Cassie looked beautiful, the lack of sleep from the night before undetectable. It even seemed like her smile was brighter than usual, and there was a glitter in her eye that he liked to think was his doing.
Or maybe she was just enjoying playing with her sons, he thought when he saw her car fly into the air as she laughed. That sound rolled through him as only her laugh could. He watched the little family, not wanting to spoil the moment.
Then Carter saw him and ran over with a car in his hand. “Here,” he told Brock, handing him the tiny car. “You can use the red one.”
“Momma said we could play cars until it was time to go because we got ready early,” Zach said.
Brock understood he was expected to play cars with them, though it was a strange thing, to drive tiny cars along tiny streets. Still, he dutifully knelt down on the floor and started running the car along one of the streets, feeling a little foolish.
“This isn’t really your thing, is it?” Cassie asked him under her breath.
No good answer came to him, so he simply replied, “I usually drive a truck, myself.”
“Here’s a truck!” Zach said, dropping a small silver truck in front of Brock.
Brock picked up the truck and studied it. “This is actually pretty similar to mine,” he commented.
“Yeah,” Zach said. “I got it with Aunt Emma. She said we could have one car each, but I picked a truck instead because it looks like yours.”
Brock stared at the young boy for a few seconds, astonished. These two kids constantly surprised him.
“There you go,” Cassie said, her voice soft. “Now you have a truck to drive that’s just like yours.”
Brock could only nod, and for several seconds, the only sounds were the explosions the boys created as they slammed vehicles together.
“Where is your truck going?” Carter asked Brock as he drove along the street. “To the rodeo to ride bulls?”
He sounded so excited about the prospect of bull riding that Brock’s mind whirred quickly. There was no way he was going to encourage Carter’s newfound obsession with riding bulls. “Nope,” he told Carter. “My truck is going to the carnival to ride the Ferris wheel and eat cotton candy. Maybe while he’s there he’ll play one of the games and try to win your momma a stuffed animal.”
Carter’s car pulled up alongside Brock’s. “Me, too! I want to go to the carnival, too!”
“We like carnivals, don’t we?” Cassie asked her sons, who both nodded.
“Well, you missed the spring fair, which is big and not too far away. But the Halloween carnival will be here before you know it.”
“Will you take us?” Zach asked, looking straight at Brock.
“I...” he started, but he didn’t know what to say.
He was leaving town soon, but he could come back for the Halloween carnival. Brock could just imagine Zach and Carter picking out pumpkins and screaming at the top of their lungs as they all whirled around on the teacups.
Or would it just be better to make a clean break and avoid all three of them as much as possible? His heart and his brain had two very different answers.
And none of that addressed the fact that Cassie might not even want him around after these few days were over. Once she was done with her training wheels, she might be ready for something more permanent with somebody else.
Cassie looked Zach in the eye, her face serious. “Remember what we talked about? How Brock needs to go back to work and won’t be around anymore?”
Zach looked glum, but he nodded. Brock couldn’t feel worse if he tried.
* * *
CASSIE LOOKED AT the man and two boys. They were all still moving their vehicles around, but none of them seemed very happy at the prospect of Brock moving on.
He didn’t contradict her, though, so it was clear that was still the plan. Seven more days together, and then he’d be off for the rodeo.
“We should get going,” Cassie said as she stood, pushing away her unpleasant thoughts. “It’s time for horse camp!”
Zach and Carter jumped up, their good moods restored at the thought of horses. “Will we get to ride one?” Carter asked eagerly.
“I don’t know. What do you think, Brock?” she asked, trying to turn his mood around, too.
Brock seemed to think carefully about the question, the way people often did around very young children. It was clear he was catching on quick. “I’m not sure how the Stuarts run their camp, but I’m guessing you’ll meet the horses first, pet them, learn about them, and after all that you might ride them. But only if you feel ready for it.”
Cassie could tell his last sentence was directed toward Zach, who seemed a little nervous at the prospect of hopping onto a horse’s back. For all his agreement with Carter’s talk about bull riding, Zach would need a bit of time before he was ready to ride any large animal.
Soon they were all settled into Cassie’s SUV and on their way to the Stuart Ranch. While the boys discussed camp noisily in the back, Brock sat quietly in the passenger seat. Cassie redirected her thoughts away from the cowboy beside her and onto the tasks for the day. Buy bedding, toys and food for Freckles; then get him from the shelter. By the time he was settled at home, it would likely be time to pick up the boys.
She tried not to feel too disappointed about that. She’d had more amazing times in Brock’s arms than most people got in their entire lives, so could she really complain if they had no opportunity to be alone that day?
Cassie knew the answer to that. Of course she could complain, as long as she was the only one to hear it.
When she pulled onto the dirt driveway of the Stuart Ranch, Zach and Carter climbed out. They shouted their goodbyes and thundered toward the small group of young children surrounding Grandma Stuart. Cassie waved to their retreating backs and put her car in reverse.
“I wish we had time to say hi to Rosalind and Diamond,” Cassie said, “but we have too much to do to get the dog settled before camp is over.”
Cassie hoped Brock wouldn’t say anything about the boys being sad he was leaving. Frankly, she was, too, and she didn’t want to talk about it. Better to enjoy the little time they had.
“I think they’re going to be over the moon about Freckles,” Brock said.
Cassie was relieved, and they talked about the silly dog the entire way to the pet shop. As they walked through the giant store, Cassie and Brock laughed and argued good-naturedly as they chose the perfect bedding, food and collar for little Freckles. “This pup is going to be pretty spoiled for a ranch dog, I imagine,” Brock commented as they dropped a half-dozen toys into their already full cart.
