Shane crowded behind her. Even if she wanted to escape, it was too late now. She was committed to seeing this harebrained idea through to the end.
Chapter Seven
The trailer was more cramped than that first day, Shane has settled in, but Bria’s things were also everywhere. A doll on the table. Her overnight bag in the corner by the closet. Sneakers on the rug in front of the kitchen sink.
Signs of Shane abounded, as well. He obviously wasn’t the best housekeeper. Neither was he the worst. A canvas laundry bag hung from the bathroom door knob, a shirt sleeve poking out. A towel lay crumpled on the floor beneath the laundry bag. Through the doorway to the sleeping area, Cassidy saw the haphazardly made bed.
He must have read her thoughts for he apologized. “Excuse the mess. No time to clean up today.”
Cassidy found herself smiling. “I have a six-year-old boy. I’ve seen much worse than this. Trust me.”
“I do. Trust you.”
He studied her intently, and a familiar, warm sensation bloomed in her middle. She didn’t resist it.
“Funny,” she said. “I was thinking the same thing myself. That maybe I could trust you.”
“Maybe?” Humor tinged his tone.
“It isn’t easy. I’ve been hurt in the past.”
“By Hoyt?”
She shook her head. “Not hurt so much as other things.”
“Such as?” Shane removed his vest and cowboy hat, hung both on a peg, then selected two coffee mugs dangling from hooks beneath the cupboard. Filling them with water from the tap, he added instant coffee and heated the mugs in the tiny microwave.
“He disappointed me,” she said. “Angered me. But, in hindsight, I think the relationship was already circling the drain. I was probably looking for an excuse to end things.”
“What happened?”
“Hoyt never told you?”
“I’m interested in your version.”
“He liked to party a lot. It was after the Down Home Days Rodeo. He’d won three events and was celebrating with his buddies. I wanted to go back to the hotel room and told him I’d catch a ride with a friend. He insisted on driving me, but I knew he’d been drinking. I wouldn’t go with him and accused him of not caring.”
“That wasn’t like him.”
“I agree. But like I said, we were all but broken up.” She shrugged. “He knew I was raised by an alcoholic father and had a low tolerance for any kind of dangerous behavior. He could have been testing me. Or picking a fight.”
“I’m sorry, Cassidy.” Shane moved Bria’s doll from the table and set down the coffee mugs. He reached into the narrow pantry. “You take creamer and sugar?”
“If you have it.” She sat, laying her clipboard and radio on the seat beside her.
Shane slid in across from her, his manner unhurried. Apparently, he was going to let her tell the rest of the story at her pace.
“I didn’t know I was pregnant when we broke up.”
“Why didn’t you tell him when you found out?”
She stirred creamer and sugar into her coffee. “I thought if he cared so little for me that he’d willingly put me in danger, how would he be with our child? I realize now I was scared. My life was completely turned upside down. I had no clue what I was going to do. I didn’t want to marry Hoyt and worried he might insist on it. I wanted less to come home, single and pregnant. My mother had sacrificed everything for me, and I was at the peak of my rodeo career. A shoo-in for state champion. I’d have to give that up in order to raise my baby. Something I knew nothing about.”
“Things seemed to have worked out for the best.”
“They have. Benjie’s a happy, well-adjusted kid.”
“Then why haven’t you told Hoyt?”
She sipped at her mug, letting the warm coffee soothe her frazzled nerves.
“I almost did.” Strange, but telling Shane her story wasn’t nearly as difficult as she’d anticipated. In fact, it was surprisingly easy. “I went to Topeka to see him when I was eight months pregnant. I changed my mind at the last minute, and came immediately home.”
“Why?”
“I learned he was engaged. Another barrel racer told me.” She met Shane’s gaze across the table. “I didn’t want to be responsible for ruining his marriage.”
“What makes you think you would have?”
“Seriously?” She almost laughed. “You think Cheryl would have been okay with a pregnant ex-girlfriend showing up on their doorstep? And besides, she’d already lost a husband. I couldn’t be the cause of her losing a second. She didn’t deserve that.”
“Hoyt’s Benjie’s father,” Shane said. “He has a responsibility. He also has a right.”
Cassidy could sense the conversation going in a direction she didn’t want. “Doesn’t change the fact it would have been an unexpected blow. One impossible to rebound from.”
“If Cheryl called off the wedding because Hoyt fathered a child before he met her, then maybe she wasn’t the wife for him.”
“I disagree. That’s a lot to deal with, literally two weeks before your wedding.”
“Okay. Let’s agree to disagree. For the moment,” he added without anger or rancor. “That still doesn’t explain why you haven’t told Hoyt since then.”
She took a deep breath, then admitted, “Lack of nerve.”
“Because of your brother and your fear Benjie will leave like he did?”
“That’s not the only reason.”
Shane waited, again giving her the chance to explain in her own time.
“I didn’t want to be responsible for breaking up a second marriage,” she confessed.
“Second?” He looked at her with interest. “You have another old boyfriend?”
“No.” Cassidy hesitated. Twenty-five years later, and it still pained her to think about it. “My parents’ marriage.”
“The way I heard it, your dad’s drinking caused their divorce.”
“It did.”
“I don’t understand. How are you responsible for his drinking?”
“I’m not. I’m responsible for my mother not sticking by him and not giving him the chance to get sober.”
“I’m still confused. You were just a kid.”
She drained her coffee, hoping the caffeine would bolster her courage and enable her to finish revealing this very difficult part of her past.
“One night, my dad picked me up from a friend’s house. He’d come straight from the bar and had no business driving. Mom would never have let him if she’d known about it. I didn’t want to go with him, but neither did I want to make a scene in front of my friend. On the way home, he misjudged the distance, or wasn’t paying attention, and plowed the truck into the well house.”
“Were you hurt?”
“No, neither of us was. But it scared the hell out of me and afterward I had a meltdown.”
“It’s understandable.”
“I demanded my mom send him away. Threw fits when she tried to reason with me. A couple weeks later, she did just that. Dad packed his bags and moved to Kingman.”
“You didn’t break up their marriage. It was already on the rocks.”
“What if I hadn’t insisted?” Difficult as it was for her, Cassidy met Shane’s gaze head-on. “Everything, and I mean everything, would be different. Liberty would have known our father her entire life and not grown up confused and hurt, believing herself unlovable. Ryder wouldn’t have left, breaking my mom’s heart. My parents might still be married and not spent years being apart and miserable.”
“Or your mom would have divorced him anyway.”
“Ryder begged her not to. It was as if she chose which one of her children she loved more. I don’t think he forgave me until recently.”
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“Cassidy, don’t take this wrong, because it’s a sad story and I can see you and your family are still coping with the fallout, but what does it have to do with Hoyt and you?”
She bit back a sob, refusing to let Shane see her cry. “I couldn’t take the chance of causing him and Cheryl the same kind of misery I did my parents. Neither could I have lived with the guilt. I already have enough of that.”
The confession left her oddly empty. And relieved. At the touch of Shane’s hand covering hers, she looked down. His fingers, though calloused, were warm and comforting. She didn’t resist. A moment later, she turned her hand over to clasp his.
It should have been surreal, her sitting here holding Shane’s hand. Instead, it felt natural. As if they’d been holding hands all their lives.
In retrospect, her rushing to his side and his kissing her cheek when Wasabi went on a rampage had also been natural. She hadn’t stopped to think, and she didn’t now. She just savored the moment.
“Your mother made her choice,” he said. “She sent your father away because she wanted him gone.”
“I think she was on the fence, and I pushed her over onto the side of divorce. They love each other to this day. He came back to Reckless for Liberty, but also to marry Mom again, which makes me feel guiltier.”
“Is that what she wants, too?”
“Not at first. He’s made a lot of progress lately convincing her otherwise.”
“You’re not to blame, Cassidy. She and your dad were adults. He could have chosen to get help with his addiction sooner than he did. She could have arranged an intervention. Gotten him into rehab. Leaving was hardly his only option.”
“But what if I hadn’t insisted she send Dad away? Everything might have turned out differently.”
“Or your dad wouldn’t have gotten sober when he did, and the next time he crashed the truck he might’ve wound up in the hospital.”
She withdrew her hand from his. “That’s a pessimistic outlook.”
“I don’t like to play the what-if game. I did it a lot after finding out about Bria and drove myself crazy with anger and regrets. None of us can change the past. The best we can do is move forward.”
His cavalier attitude rankled Cassidy, but the more she considered his words, the more she saw the logic behind them.
“I have been driving myself crazy.”
“You don’t know what Hoyt and Cheryl would have done. Called off the wedding, postponed it, gone through with it. Just like you don’t know what they’ll do now when you tell them about Benjie. But after six years of solid marriage, I can’t see her walking out on him.”
She noticed he used the word when, not if.
“They’re trying for a child,” she said. “Cheryl could resent me and Benjie because Hoyt and I accomplished what the two of them haven’t.”
“Haven’t yet. They’ve just recently started seeing a specialist.”
“What if she takes out her resentment on Benjie?”
“You’re doing it again. Playing what-if.”
Cassidy’s shoulders sagged. “I can’t help myself.”
“First off, Cheryl’s not a resentful person. She’s as nice as they come. Secondly, Hoyt isn’t the same person you knew six years ago. He’s grown up a lot. We both have.”
She definitely agreed with the second part. Shane was nothing like the wild young man she’d gone out with. Never in million years would she have imagined herself revealing her deepest, darkest secret to him.
“I’m seeing an attorney next week,” she abruptly blurted. “About custody of Benjie.”
“Good.”
“You’re not mad?”
“Why would I be? It’s a smart move on your part. Your first priority is Benjie.”
He probably felt that way because of Bria. “I’ll call Hoyt. After I’ve figured things out with the attorney.”
Shane nodded. “Fair enough.”
“You’ll still wait? Not say anything to him until I do?”
“Of course. I could also be with you when you make the call.” He took her hand again and squeezed. “If you want. For moral support.”
Cassidy opened her mouth to say no, though that wasn’t what came out. “All right.”
She half expected him to gloat. Flash her an I-was-right-all-along smile. Instead, he caressed the back of her hand with his thumb, sending tiny arrows of heat along the length of her arm. Heavens, she was susceptible to him.
“What you’re doing takes a lot of courage. If Hoyt doesn’t realize that, I’ll make sure he does.”
“Thanks.” She checked the clock on the microwave. “I’d better get going. Mom and Liberty are probably wondering where I am.”
“Me, too. Don’t want your dad to fire me for being late before my first rodeo.”
They stood simultaneously. Shane grabbed his vest and hat and waited for her to enter the cramped space between the table and the door.
Hand on the knob, she hesitated.
“Something wrong?” he asked from behind her.
“I just want to thank you.”
“Anytime. We’re friends, Cassidy.”
Friends. An interesting description, considering the sparks flaring between them since his first day at the arena and their brief, but romantic, past. She pivoted—and confronted the broad expanse of Shane’s chest mere inches from her.
“Oops.”
She should have moved. Turned back around and hurried outside. She didn’t. It was as if finding him so close rendered her immobile. He didn’t appear in a hurry to move, either.
Seconds ticked by. She struggled to slow her rapid breathing.
Lord have mercy, he smelled incredible. Masculine but not overpowering. She remembered thinking the same thing that first day in the trailer.
What might it be like to rise on her tiptoes and press her lips to his? She had half a mind to find out. Fortunately, she resisted the impulse.
“See you later,” she said, and reached again for the door.
She didn’t get far. Shane’s arm snaked around her waist, stopping her. The next instant, he pulled her snug against him and lowered his head. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened in shock. He was going to kiss her!
I can’t let him was her first thought. I can’t not let him was her second. Suddenly she didn’t want to go the rest of her life regretting this missed opportunity.
* * *
CASSIDY BECKETT. IN HIS EMBRACE. And she wasn’t resisting. Shane almost didn’t believe it.
He increased his hold on her, assuring himself this was completely real and not his imagination. Were he honest with himself, he’d admit to thinking of exactly this for weeks. He was human, after all, and a man, and he intended to take every advantage of this unexpected windfall.
He lowered his head and, burying his face in her neck, inhaled deeply. “You smell great.”
She laughed nervously.
“That’s funny?” He nuzzled the sensitive spot beneath her ear.
“Kind of. I happen to think the same thing about you.” She angled her head to give him greater access to her silky skin. “That you smell great.”
Did she now? He licked the same spot he’d been nuzzling, then sucked gently. Clinging to him, she gave a soft shudder. Shane was immediately hooked, on her and her incredible responsiveness.
He inhaled again, then withdrew to look at her, convinced he would never smell anything as wonderful again in his life, hold anyone as desirable. “You don’t know how hard I’ve had to work at resisting you.”
The laughter left her eyes. “I beg to differ,” she said somberly. “I do know.”
He had truly never wanted a woman more than he did in that moment. Didn’t think he’d ever want another woman again after Cassidy.
It wasn’t just his lust talking, either. She appealed to him on every level, emotionally, spiritually and physically.
How had he not realized this before? Granted, they’d dated a short time and never gone much beyond kissing, but still...
Without pausing to ponder the importance of these new feelings for her, he dipped his head and captured her mouth with his. She gasped in surprise. He groaned, low. The combination of lips and tongues and hands roaming bodies was electric. And it only got better.
Cassidy arched against him, sending a spear of desire slicing though him. She was soft where a woman should be soft, firm everywhere else. Temptation in its purest form.
Good thing they’d waited before. At nineteen, he wouldn’t have been ready for this. For her.
Convinced he might lose control, he fought to hold back. It proved impossible. Just as it would be impossible to ever forget her.
He couldn’t get enough. Pressing his palm into the small of her back, he waited, not certain he could stop there. At the touch of her fingers sliding into the hair at the base of his neck, his thinly held control threatened to snap.
Deepening the kiss, he explored every delicious corner of her mouth. She might be letting him take the lead, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t a willing participant with an arsenal of moves designed to drive a man over the edge.
And it was working. Perfectly. Shane lost all track of time and place. Hell, he could barely remember his name. There was nothing and no one but Cassidy and him, wrapped together in this small trailer at the very center of the universe.
If not for the chug-chug of the tractor driving practically beneath the trailer’s window, they might have gone on kissing indefinitely. Cassidy stiffened and pulled away.
“Sorry.” He wasn’t, but he felt obliged to apologize. “I got a little carried away.”
“You weren’t acting alone.”
Thank goodness. “It was some kiss.” Kisses, as in many, each and every one seared in Shane’s memory.
She brushed a lock of disheveled hair from her face, the gesture self-conscious, yet incredibly sexy. When she lifted her face, she wore a tentative smile.
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