by Jennie Marts
“I told him I was still staying with Charlie, and that seemed to ease his mind enough to feel okay about staying another few weeks.”
What would he think if he knew she wasn’t actually staying with Charlie, but was instead spending her nights in his cabin, in his bed? Probably best not to get into that.
They pulled into the driveway of Tucked Away. A blue Volkswagen bug sat in front of the porch.
Emma stiffened next to him, proving that she hadn’t entirely gotten rid of her fear of new situations. “Do you recognize that car?”
Chapter Sixteen
“Oh, yeah I do,” Cash said, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “It belongs to my Aunt Patsy. I told you my mom was coming to the Fall Festival this weekend. I knew she was flying in today, but my aunt was picking her up. The way those two gab, I figured we wouldn’t see them until tomorrow.”
Emma’s eyes went wide with fear, and she clasped her hands together in her lap. “Oh great. I thought it was scary seeing Earl. Somehow the thought of meeting your mother terrifies me more than facing five Earls.”
He chuckled and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, drawing her to him and planting a quick kiss on her lips. “Don’t worry. My mom’s a sweetheart.” He felt her shoulders relax and couldn’t help teasing her a little more. “Now, my Aunt Patsy, she’s a terror.”
Opening the truck door, he slid out, narrowly missing the playful slap she aimed at him.
She climbed out behind him and smoothed her hair up toward her messy ponytail. “At least let me go get cleaned up and out of my uniform before I meet them.”
The screen door slammed and two women in their fifties clamored down the front porch stairs, their hands waving as they called out to Cash.
“Too late.” He offered her one of his most charming grins before turning to the women. Grabbing the petite brunette, he lifted her in his arms and swung her around in the air. “Hey, Mom.”
The woman clung to him, kissing his cheek as he set her back down on the ground. “Hey, baby boy. It’s so good to see you, son. You look great.”
His aunt was taller and of considerable more girth than her petite sister, and she held up her hands as Cash turned to hug her. “You lift me up like that, and you’ll throw your back out. I’m fine with a regular hug.”
He hugged his aunt to him, thinking that he wrestled heifers that weighed more than her, but wisely chose to keep that comparison to himself.
“You are as handsome as ever,” Patsy said, giving him a squeeze before letting him go and turning to Emma. “Now, this must be Emma. We’ve heard so much about you.” She pulled Emma into a hug, holding her against her ample chest.
“I’m pleased to meet you, ma’am,” Emma spoke, breathless as Patsy let her go.
Cash’s mother held out her hand and shook Emma’s. “Never mind my sister. She’s never met a stranger. I’m Kathleen, but you can call me Kitty.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Kitty.”
“It’s nice to meet you. It sounds like you might be the first woman to actually capture my son’s heart.”
“Wow, Mom. Less than two minutes in, and you’re already embarrassing me.” He chuckled, noting the way Emma’s cheeks pinked with color. “Let’s let Emma get out of her work clothes before you start drilling her on her favorite color and how many fillings she has.”
“You’re right,” Kitty said, checking the watch on her arm and winking at Emma. “I’ll give you thirty minutes, then the interrogation will begin. And I want to know all about you and how you managed to snag the elusive Cash Walker.”
“You staying for dinner, Mom?” he asked, trying to change the subject.
“I guess so. Charlie was a doll and invited us to stay. It sounds like we’re grilling burgers.”
He handed his mother the bag of groceries. “Will you give this to Charlie, and tell her we’ll be in in a few minutes?”
Kitty took the sack. “But, what about—”
“There’s ice cream in that bag, Mom. Better get it inside.”
Even his mom couldn’t argue with melting ice cream. “All right, we’ll see you both in a few minutes. You’re coming for supper, too, right, Emma?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t miss it,” Emma said as she hurried to catch up with Cash, who had already headed across the driveway.
They rounded the corner of the barn, and he stopped and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her into a tight hug. “Sorry about that. Be prepared for them to act like that all night.”
Emma grinned up at him. “It’s okay. They were cute. And you were right, I do like them.”
“I like you.” He leaned down and kissed her. A deep kiss full of heat and promise of more to come.
The kiss ended, and she looked up at him, a question in her eyes. “Was it true? What your mom said? Have I really captured your heart?”
If she only knew how true that statement was. “Darlin’, you’ve not only captured my heart, you’ve netted, bagged, and taken it for ransom.”
A broad smile lit up her face. “Good. And just so you know, I’m not giving it back.”
“You couldn’t if you tried.” He tipped his forehead down to rest against hers. “Because it belongs to you now.”
…
Forty-five minutes later, they made it back to Charlie’s for supper. Cash held her hand as they walked through the door, and Emma could feel the heat burning her cheeks, sure that they all knew what took them so long to return.
The kiss outside the barn had turned into more, and they’d barely made it into Cash’s cabin before she had her hands in his shirt and he was peeling off her dress. Shedding their clothes as they moved through the room, they only made it to the living room before falling onto the sofa and succumbing to their passion.
She’d taken a quick shower and refreshed her light eye makeup, but now—seeing Charlie in the kitchen, looking gorgeous with her blond hair and stylish clothes—she wished she would have taken more time and washed her hair. She’d brushed it out and pulled it back into the same ponytail she’d been wearing all day.
Sophie squealed and raced across the room to hug her as if she hadn’t seen her in a year, instead of just the day before. Snagging her from Cash, the girl pulled her over to the table to show her a funny meme that she’d just found on Facebook.
Thank goodness for Sophie. The teenager was oblivious, but Charlie gave her a knowing grin when she entered the kitchen and asked if there was anything she could do to help.
“I think I got it,” Charlie said. “I was wondering if you all had changed your minds about supper. You must have got into quite a discussion over at the cabin.”
She grinned at her friend, unfazed by her ribbing. Instead, her heart was full and happy that she had a friend to tease her. “Well, you know, we had a lot of things to talk about.”
Charlie lowered her voice and added a note of naughtiness. “It must have been a long talk.”
Emma giggled and swatted Charlie with a towel.
“What are you two girls giggling about in here?” Cash asked, sauntering into the kitchen and leaning against the counter.
He was so good-looking, he took her breath away.
She still couldn’t quite believe that he was with her, that he whispered sweet words of intimacy to her, and that she got to have “discussions” with him. Discussions that involved touching his hard muscled body and seeing him naked.
Charlie saved her. “Oh, nothing. Just a little girl talk.”
Emma hugged her arms around her stomach, so dang thrilled to be having “girl talk” and another woman to laugh with. It had been so long since she’d had a friend, a real friend, one that knew about Leroy and still cared about her.
And now she not only had Charlie, but a whole bushel of friends, Sophie and Cherry and the guys, people who actually liked her and invited her into their “family.”
“What’s going on in here?” Kitty asked, crossing to Cash and looping her hand through his arm. “Did I hea
r something about girl talk?”
Once again, Charlie came to the rescue. What was she going to do when it was just her, and she had to actually be the engineer of the conversation train?
“We were just talking about the Fall Festival this weekend and what we were gonna wear,” Charlie said, giving her a discreet wink.
“Well, it’s supposed to be warm,” Kitty said. “But bring a sweater just in case. You know how the weather can change in a second in Montana.”
Oh, she knew. Thoughts of the sudden thunderstorm and the picnic under the tree with Cash flashed through her mind, and she hoped her cheeks wouldn’t redden again and give her thoughts away.
Stupid blush.
“It’s nice that you could come back for it, Kitty,” Emma said. “I haven’t been to one in years.” Not since she married Leroy and moved to Great Falls.
After that her world pretty much became whatever grimy apartment they were renting at the time. She probably could have tried to come back more often, to spend time with her dad. But after a while, she couldn’t take the look on his face when she was with him, the knowing looks, the pity, the confusion at why she stayed. Especially after he’d tried to convince her to leave him so many times before.
“Oh, I love the Fall Festival,” Kitty answered, pulling her out of her dark musings. “It reminds me of the county fair, with the games and the music and the competitions. My sister enters her famous bread and wins every year. And one of her quilts almost always takes a blue ribbon.”
“You should enter one of your pecan pies, Emma,” Cash said. “You’ve gotten pretty good at them. That last one had a crust so flaky, it melted in my mouth.”
She tilted her head, trying to decipher if he was being serious about her entering the contest or if he was making some kind of inside joke pertaining to their sex life. Knowing Cash, it could be both. They did eat a lot of pie while naked.
“I’m being serious. You should enter. What could it hurt?” he said, and she realized he was being sincere.
What could it hurt? “Well, why not? I used to be in 4-H when I was a kid, and the other kids were always entering stuff, like cookies, or drawings, or pictures they’d taken. I was always too bashful to submit anything.”
“It sounds like it’s about time you did then,” Kitty said encouragingly, and Emma offered her a grateful smile.
“Yes, it is.”
“I’m entering a few things, too,” Sophie spoke up, obviously listening from the dining room table. “We can go down together with our entries on Friday.”
“It sounds like it’s settled then,” Cash said. “Let’s eat. I feel like I ran a marathon today. I’m starved.”
They spent the next few hours lingering over the table, finishing their meal but staying to visit.
Cash and Zack made the root beer floats, and a huge mess, at the table, arguing over whether the ice cream went into the glass first or the root beer, then setting up a competition and a wager to prove who was right.
Emma hadn’t laughed so hard in a long time. Cash’s mom and his Aunt Patsy were a hoot, entertaining them with funny stories of the adventures they’d been on in the past few years.
Kitty had never remarried. Instead, after Cash finished school, she’d left the cold harsh winters of Montana and moved down to Florida. She’d gotten a job as a secretary at a travel agency, then worked her way up to agent, becoming one of their best sales associates.
The job offered her discounted travel, and she and Patsy often took off exploring different parts of the world, exclaiming that “the world has never seen the likes of two Montana gals like us.”
They finally wound down close to ten o’clock. Emma and Cash waved good-bye as the two women drove off in the sporty little Volkswagen. Patsy gave a little toot of the horn as they sped down the driveway.
“That was fun,” Emma said.
“Yeah? My family wasn’t too much for you?” He wrapped his arm around her waist as they walked toward the cabin. “I know they can get a little rowdy. And they asked you a lot of questions.”
“They were perfect. I loved your mom. And it’s obvious how much she loves you.” She tilted her head up, gazing at the scruff of dark beard on his chin as he grinned down at her. And Miss Kitty wasn’t the only one.
Emma was in love with her son, too.
…
The afternoon sun shone brightly as they stepped onto the fairgrounds, a perfect Indian summer kind of day. The Fall Festival was in full swing around them, and Cash unloaded the extra table Cherry needed from the back of the truck.
She and her son, Sam, were running a booth sponsored by the diner and selling corn dogs and ice cream sodas, and she’d called earlier to ask them to bring one more table. They’d all committed to helping out for an hour at the booth, even his mom.
Kitty must have had the first shift, because she waved to him from Cherry’s booth as he and Emma walked up. He leaned down and she kissed his cheek, holding up her batter-speckled hands. “Hey there, honey. You ready for a corn dog? I’m getting pretty good at them.”
He glanced at Emma, who grinned and shrugged. “Sure, we’ll take two.” He pulled out the legs of the extra table and called over to Cherry, “Where do you want me to put this?”
“Now that’s a loaded question,” she said with a wink. She sashayed over, her hips swinging in snug pink capri pants. She wore a white blouse, the sleeves rolled up and the ends tied in a bow at her waist. Her red hair was pulled up into a loose knot, and she’d tied a pink scarf around her head. “It’s a dang good thing you’re on my good side today, or I might have a different answer for you,” she teased.
He grinned back. He couldn’t help it. Everything about today was shaping up to be a good day. And he had to admit, he was happy. Like down to his core, sunny rainbows and unicorns kind of happy.
And the woman who was making him this happy was giggling with his mother as she showed her how to dip hot dogs on a stick into a vat of batter.
Life could be funny sometimes. He didn’t think he was ever going to have this. This chance at happiness. At love.
And he did love Emma.
He hadn’t told her yet. Didn’t know exactly what he was waiting for either. It wasn’t like it was a big secret. He told her every night in the way he kissed her, the way he touched her, the way he caressed her skin.
But makin’ love and saying the words “I love you” were two wholly different things.
He would tell her. When it felt right.
Although it felt pretty right now. With the sun shining and the smell of caramel apples and popcorn in the air. With the sound of her laughter ringing in his ears.
But he couldn’t just pull her aside and whisper it in her ear.
A thing like that was big. It needed a moment. A special time when everything was right. Maybe some candles and soft music. Tonight. After the festival. He’d light a fire in the fireplace.
I’ll tell her tonight, he promised himself.
For now, he was just happy to be with her. To watch her as she kidded around with Cherry’s son and played with his dog, Rex, who was tied up under the table and taking advantage of any scraps that fell his way.
He bought them cups of fresh-squeezed lemonade from the next booth over, and they walked through the festival, checking everything out, as they ate their corn dogs.
It wasn’t a huge event by big-city standards, but it had plenty of food vendors, a petting zoo, and a fairway of a few carnival games.
The school had a booth set up where you could pay to toss a pie in the face of one of the administrators, and Cash recognized the principal as he sat at the table waiting for the next pie. He must be a popular victim, because a stack of empty pie plates sat next to him, and a dollop of whipped cream clung to his eyebrow.
Making their way to the exhibition hall, he could feel Emma tensing next to him. “What’s wrong?” he asked, as they tossed their empty cups and trash into a bin outside the doors.
She sm
iled—the shy smile that Cash loved. “I know it seems kind of dumb, but I’m nervous about the silly pie. I don’t know how I let you all talk me into entering a pie, of all things, into a competition.”
“I think your pie is amazing,” he said, sneaking a pinch at her butt and sending her into a fit of bashful giggles as they walked into the building.
Dropping his arm around her shoulders, he led her toward the baked goods and wished he had a camera to capture the look on her face when she saw the ribbon stuck to the front of her pie plate.
Her hands flew to her face and the wattage from her smile could have powered an entire city. She looked up at him, wonder in her eyes. “A blue ribbon? I earned a blue ribbon on my pie?”
She reached out and touched the ruffled ribbon. “Wait. I haven’t entered one of these before. A blue ribbon is still good, right?”
He chuckled. “Yes, a blue ribbon is still good. It means you took first place.”
“First place? How could that have happened?”
“I told you that you made good pie.”
“Me? I actually won?” She looked at the other two pies that were up against hers. “Okay, this one looks a little mushed and this one was made by a proud fifth grader named Tabitha, so it doesn’t appear that the competition was too stiff. But you know what? I don’t care. I still won. So suck it, Tabitha.”
A burst of laughter erupted from his chest. “You are a mean competitor.”
“I guess I am. Who would have thought it? It’s just that I’ve never won anything before.”
He picked up the ribbon and held it out to her. “Hold it up, and I’ll take your picture with your prize-winning pie,” he said, digging his phone out of his pocket.
Her hand flew to her hair. “Oh no, I look a mess.”
“You look beautiful. Now hold up the durn ribbon.”
She held the ribbon and stood by the pie, and he snapped the picture, capturing her proud smile.
“Now, let’s do one together,” she said. “Our first selfie.” She squeezed in front of him and smiled at the phone he held out at arm’s length in front of them. Tipping up her face, she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, and he tapped the phone again, capturing the kiss in the shot.