But Cassidy’s focus was elsewhere.
Wade’s alive.
Cassidy had lost count of the number of times the words had shot through her mind. She knew they were true, but her heart and brain were having a hard time shaping them into something that made sense. So many choices in her adult life had been made on the basis of Wade being dead.
And it had all been one big joke.
All of her tears, hours in counseling, sleepless nights and days without eating as she grieved. Holding on to his memory, visiting his gravestone, pushing away any other men or even the thought of a relationship.
Every minute had been one big Gotcha! on her life.
It felt as if walls were closing in on her heart and a cord was wrapping its way around her chest, truncating her breaths, making her heart beat out a jagged distress call.
But who would hear her plea for help? Surely not God, who had listened to all her prayers and tears over Wade—God, who had known Wade was alive the whole time Cassidy was in misery. He had allowed her to suffer for no reason. For years.
How was that loving?
How was that the kind father who Pastor Ellis often said God was?
When Cassidy had hit rock bottom, the only thing that had kept her afloat had been her newfound faith in God. Losing Wade had been what had driven her to church.
So now—right or wrong—her faith in God felt like part of the joke being played on her too. Cassidy wanted to pray like she normally did during stressful times. She wanted to trust and be optimistic. She really did. But she held back.
She held her words and heart away from God for the first time in five years.
Blinking away angry tears, Cassidy focused back on Sheep. “You miss Piper, don’t you, buddy?”
Someone cleared their throat behind her. Without turning around, Cassidy knew it was Wade. She had expected him to track her down at some point. Rhett had interrupted their earlier conversation and there was so much more to say.
Not that Cassidy would ever be ready for any conversation with Wade.
“Where is Piper?” His voice was so hesitant, so soft and unconfident. So un-Wade-like.
Some part of Cassidy momentarily wished she was the type of person who could ignore him and walk away without a word. But her friends had dubbed her an eternal optimist—too compassionate for her own good—and they were probably correct.
Cassidy pivoted so she could see his profile. She had always loved his hair, how it seemed to do whatever it wanted and he still somehow looked photoshoot ready. Wade had shunned the cowboy hats both of his brothers often wore. For good reason—why hide a head of hair when it looked that great?
Enough of that.
She needed to focus on being upset with him for what he had put her through, and zeroing in on how attractive he was wouldn’t help her down that path.
The fading sun cast his features in shadows. She was glad. It made it easier not to meet his eyes and remember all there had once been between the two of them, what the man before her had once meant to her.
All that could never be.
One man’s lies had altered the entire course of her life and dashed all the childhood dreams she had carried for her future. Cassidy locked her jaw. If one good thing had come from the mess Wade had made, it was the iron lock shielding her heart. No man would ever wield such power over her heart and emotions ever again.
Cassidy ran her hand down the front of her tank top, smoothing out wrinkles that weren’t even there. “A friend from church came and picked her up.”
Wade turned his head and scrubbed his hand over his mouth. His fingers shook a little. “Because of me?”
“They had a sleepover planned already. We just bumped up the timeline a little.”
He dipped his head a bit, acknowledging what she had said. Then he shot out a long stream of breath. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but at some point we need to address what’s going to happen here. I want to meet her. Actually, formally meet her.”
“Sure, at some point.”
“Really?” Wade’s eyes widened.
While she would admit the thought of it made her more than a little uncomfortable, Cassidy would not stand in the way of the two of them meeting. Although meeting and spending time together were two very different things. Piper deserved to meet her dad—deserved to know the truth—and Wade would have to look into his child’s trusting wide brown eyes and explain to her why she was only just meeting him now.
Why everyone thought he had been dead.
She had talked to Piper about Wade ever since she was a baby. Your daddy would have loved you so much. I wish you could have met your daddy. And Piper had recognized who he was immediately from the many photos of him gracing the Jarrett family home. Not to mention the shelf of pictures Cassidy had in the bungalow where she and Piper lived on the property.
The shelf of pictures she would take down and put away the second she got through the door tonight. Correction: not put away—throw away.
It felt as if the day had been sixty hours long. Cassidy’s back was sore and her feet ached. She hooked an elbow on the fence for support. She didn’t want to talk to this man. Didn’t want to be around him right now, but what would be the point of avoiding the inevitable?
“But don’t get any ideas yet. I think I’m allowed a day or two to absorb what’s happened, if you don’t mind.” She summoned all her pain and tears and hurt and let them form a shield between her and him. Because it was necessary to protect herself from his hopeful expression and what it did to her heart.
She stood a little taller. “I’ve been functioning under the impression that you were dead for a long time. And between you and me, it’s a bit of a shock to process.” She kicked at a rock on the ground, sending it tumbling end over end until it came to a rest in the pebbled driveway. “Not that you care about any of that.”
“I care, Cassidy.” A muscle in his jaw popped. His hand came up a few inches as if he wanted to reach out and take her hand, but he hooked it on his shoulder instead. “You have no idea how much I care. I—”
“Well, if this is how you treat people when you supposedly care about them—” she whistled long and low “—I sure don’t begrudge your enemies.”
He shifted his weight one foot to the other. “I deserve that.”
“And more.”
“And more,” he agreed. “But I’d like the opportunity to actually talk to you about what happened.”
“Oh, you would, would you?” Cassidy could hardly recognize her voice for the bite in it. She couldn’t recall ever using such a tone with someone before.
“Cass.” A single syllable spoken so tenderly. But she wouldn’t let that change anything.
Wade had always known how to sweet-talk.
Kind, optimistic Cassidy had been easy to trick, to be the butt of his five-year joke. She wouldn’t give Wade the chance to make a fool out of her again.
Not ever again.
Something she had learned during the last few years was that being kind didn’t mean she had to hold her tongue all the time. One didn’t cancel out the other. Being kind did not have to equal being a doormat in relationships. A kind person could speak hard truths and that didn’t rob away their kindness.
And right about now, Wade was in need of some hard truth.
“Know what I would have liked?” Cassidy faced him fully. “The human decency of being dumped. Faking your death to get out of a relationship was a bit drastic, even for you.”
“I wasn’t— I didn’t—” He jammed his hand into his hair, wove his fingers into the strands and yanked. “I loved you, Cassidy. I loved you more than life.”
His words bounced off the shield she’d constructed from her pain and tears.
She lowered her voice and used a tone she often used when Piper was in trouble. “I think
you were young and at one point you might have thought you felt something, but it wasn’t love. It couldn’t have been.”
He opened his mouth, but she shook her head.
“What you did to me? That wasn’t loving, Wade. It was pretty much the extreme opposite.” She sighed, and if felt as if more than her lungs were deflating. “Love is more than stolen kisses and some whispered words. It is day in and day out dedication. It shows itself in someone’s actions.”
And when his actions were laid out on the table and added together, they would not equal love. She didn’t need to say it for him to understand.
He had used her and when he had decided she had no intrinsic value, he discarded her.
It was a truth he would never be able to erase. One she would remind herself of every time his gentle, searching gaze fell on her.
Wade gripped the fencing near where she stood and Cassidy wished he hadn’t. He smelled like salty ocean air and late-night walks and even now, even after everything, his proximity made her heart rate tick up. It had always been that way between them though—a strong physical pull to one another. Her younger self had confused attraction with love. Physical desire is all that had existed between them, not anything real, not anything lasting.
Not anything worth fighting for.
She realized that now.
No matter how handsome or charming Wade was, she wouldn’t allow herself to be drawn to him again.
“I will never be able to take back what I did. I may never get the opportunity to explain why I did it.” Close up now, his eyes blazed with intensity. “But when I say I loved you—believe me. What I felt for you was the realest, rightest thing I’ve ever felt. And it doesn’t matter if you doubt that—it’s my fault that you would—but disbelief doesn’t make something any less true.” He took a step back and ran his hand over his jawline. His fingers tripped along his throat.
She hugged her arms to her body. It had been hot all day but a sudden chill rolled down her back. “It certainly makes for a nice story. But I know what happened, Wade. You can’t rewrite it into something prettier than what it was.”
Wade barked out a single laugh that held no trace of humor. “You don’t believe me. You don’t want anything to do with me. Message received. I get it,” he said. He crossed his arms, mirroring her pose. “Will Piper be back tomorrow? Should we pick a time so I can meet her?”
Cassidy held up a hand. “I said this will happen on my time, when I’m ready. It definitely isn’t happening tomorrow.”
He frowned. “Then when?”
“When I decide it’s the right time. For now, I want to make sure you’re not going to meet her and then never have anything to do with her again.”
“I wouldn’t—” He worked his jaw back and forth, clearly biting back whatever he was about to say. “I’m not leaving. You know that, right?”
“We’ll see.”
Deep down, she hoped he would prove her wrong. For Piper’s sake, she hoped he’d stay.
Maybe for Cassidy’s sake too.
She firmly shoved that thought away.
Foolishness like that had only ever gotten her a broken heart.
Chapter Three
Cassidy lifted the stiff curtain and peeked out the window in her small office located on the side of the dining hall. From her vantage point, she spotted a lone figure near the row of growing camper cabins. It was past dinner, past quitting time, but he was still out there.
Had been all week.
For four of the last five days, he had worked from sunup to sundown, and the one he hadn’t worked like that he had been gone from the ranch. The first time he had put in a thirteen-hour workday she had thought he simply wanted to make a good impression on everyone. But then he had done it again and again. He worked with every ounce of his strength until he dragged himself to the Jarrett family home each night. Rhett had told her they were now five days ahead of schedule thanks to Wade’s dedicated efforts.
She let go of the curtain and watched it fall back into place.
It was the second time Wade had skipped dinner that week.
Without giving her actions much consideration, Cassidy left her office and headed toward the kitchen. Workers needed to eat. That’s all there was to it. It didn’t matter who he was. Their history didn’t factor into her actions.
She automatically snagged a plate from the cabinet, then headed into the walk-in fridge. Cassidy piled a large piece of fried chicken, brown sugar cowboy beans, buttermilk and chive whipped potatoes, and a few cornbread muffins onto the plate. At the last minute, she remembered Wade had always had a soft spot for seafood so she wedged a generous chunk of pan-seared snapper next to the chicken. She tossed everything into the warmer to heat while she gathered an insulated jug, a mug, silverware and napkins and set it all in a basket.
Back in the walk-in fridge, she fetched what remained of her homemade blackberry lemonade to pour into the insulated jug and two of the caramel brownies she had tucked away for later. She dashed back to her office and picked up a little note scribbled in uneven letters on pink paper. Cassidy’s eyes clouded over as she read the sweet words Piper had scrawled there for Wade. No doubt someone had helped her spell out everything, but the giant letters were from Piper’s heart. Cassidy prayed Wade wouldn’t break it. She ran her thumbs over the paper before tucking it into her back pocket.
When the plate of food was warm, she carefully wrapped it in foil and set it in the basket with some pot holders. Satisfied with the meal, she hauled up the basket and headed outside.
Cassidy was more than halfway down the hill when she started having second thoughts.
What would Wade make of her offering?
She clamped her fingers tighter around the basket’s handle. Wade was doing hard manual labor in the hot sun and was no doubt hungry. He would be of no use to the ranch if he passed out or got himself injured. She could set aside their personal baggage because a hard worker not eating didn’t sit well with Cassidy. She was the head chef, after all. It was basically her job to make sure everyone at Red Dog Ranch had the nourishment they needed in order to keep up their stamina.
There was zero reason for awkwardness.
She was simply doing her job.
Though she had never packed and carried out a basket to a lone worker before.
Nor noticed who had eaten and not eaten.
Or how many hours one of the ranch hands put in on any given day.
Cassidy straightened her shoulders. She had never noticed because no one else was reckless enough to skip meals. People tended to look forward to her cooking, so she had never had to entice someone to turn in for the day. That’s all this was. Her actions had nothing to do with whom she was bringing food to. It didn’t matter that it was Wade.
Maybe it mattered a little.
Cassidy adjusted the basket, moving it to rest against her other hip.
The back of Wade’s gray T-shirt was wet with sweat as he swung his hammer. His shirtsleeves were the snug kind that hugged his biceps. Wade was stronger than she remembered—much more filled out than the twenty-year-old lanky boy who had kissed her goodbye when he left for an ill-fated fishing trip. The years had chiseled his muscles and built his work ethic.
Cassidy stepped into his line of vision and he stilled. Set his hammer down on the platform.
“Everything okay?” His eyes searched hers. “You okay?”
They hadn’t spoken since their conversation by Sheep and Romeo’s enclosure. Cassidy had sent Piper to stay with some friends who had kids Piper’s age to play with, but the few times Piper had been on the property, Wade hadn’t tried to make contact with her behind Cassidy’s back. He had respectfully waited for Cassidy to make a move.
“How come you’re still out here?”
He propped a hand on the framing he had been working on. “There’s still w
ork to be done.”
“That’s what tomorrow’s for.”
He shrugged. “If there’s still light to work by, might as well keep at it.”
“Is this some twisted sort of penance? Because you know you don’t need to do that.”
He pressed off the framing and cocked his head. “Don’t I?”
The question was best left ignored. She didn’t need to get into deep conversations with him.
Cassidy lofted the basket. “I brought you food.”
He raised an eyebrow. The left one.
“A man’s gotta eat.” Suddenly self-conscious, she set the basket on the platform near where he was standing. “When you’re done, you can leave the dirty dishes right inside the dining hall and I’ll deal with them in the morning.” She started to turn away but Wade caught her arm in a light hold.
“Stay with me.” His voice was a soft caress.
She stared down at the hand on her arm. His work glove was rough against her skin.
He offered a hint of a smile. “It would be nice to have some company.”
If she stayed, she could bring everything back to the kitchen afterward and deal with any leftovers instead of letting them be ripe in the morning.
“Alright.” Cassidy slipped away from him and turned her attention on the basket. Setting things up, taking care of others, these were the things that calmed her. She found comfort in the simple action of laying out silverware and pouring drinks. She lifted the plate out and started to fill a cup with the lemonade.
Wade tugged off his work gloves. “You don’t have to serve me. That’s not what I meant.”
She motioned toward a relatively clean patch of plywood. “Sit. You’ve been on your feet for at least twelve hours today.” She started to hand him the plate but froze. A patchwork of black and purple blisters covered both of his hands. Some of his fingers had patches of skin that were completely ripped open. Blood had dried along his knuckles. “Oh, Wade. That has got to hurt.”
Wade fisted his hands and let them drop to his sides. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
She placed his food on the plywood, then turned and seized his wrist. She yanked his arm so she could see his hand but he kept his fingers fisted tightly.
His Unexpected Return--A Fresh-Start Family Romance Page 4