Chapter 14 - Trekking Home
It was dark-ish. Far from pitch black, but on a mere suggestion of road with no lights, it was beyond spooky. Her phone battery was low but she switched on her flashlight app to make sure she stayed along the road. She knew it would take her into town, although she was unsure exactly how far it was. In the car she thought it had been about thirty minutes. She jumped at every rustling in the brush. She startled a bird and its sudden flight nearly caused her to have a stroke. This was not like her, she thought ruefully. She was usually the person who yelled at the stupid girl in scary movies who walked away from the group. In fact, she had to psych herself up to even watch scary movies. And now she was in one. Her bags were heavy, their wheels worthless on the stony path. She had her hiking boots on and she now understood why the clerk at the store had suggested she buy up a size. She was heartbroken, miserable and frightened. Why had she ever thought she could change her life? With each painful step she remonstrated herself. She should have just tried harder on a diet. She'd still have Stephen and that would be something. She'd still have her career. She'd still have the money she'd spent on this ridiculous trip. She heard skittering in the bushes. She frantically searched the brush looking for evil yellow eyes. A rabbit darted across the road.
A battered car slowed beside her. Her panic increased, which she would not have thought possible. Her choices included staying on the road and risking possible kidnapping torture and death at the hands of an Alaskan serial killer or diving into the woods to become bear food. She opted for a middle of the road approach, figuratively at least. She took a step back into the woods. The car stopped. She took another step back. Her ankle twisted and she fell, loudly breaking branches as she landed.
"Cass? Cass, it's Travis." He had gotten out of his car and was reaching down to help her up, she had apparently utterly failed at stealth mode. He helped her up and she leaned on him as they limped to his car. She was grateful for his offer of a ride. In Chicago, meeting someone once at a dinner would not automatically put someone in the "known to be safe acquaintance" category. Out here it seemed to. It did seem like a better idea than walking the miles in the dark to town, with feet that were already killing her, so she got into the car. She thought ruefully that the only thing that could make this day worse would be if the man wearing a "Slick Trench Mayor" windbreaker—seriously, did none of them see it—turned out to be the world's worst named serial killer. That would pretty much cap it. Given the state of her feet and her now completely dead phone, her options were somewhat limited. She let him stow her bags in the trunk and she climbed into the front seat.
Travis drove confidently through the rapidly increasing weak sunshine. He appeared rattled. It was nice the way the entire town cared about each other. "Try not to worry, "Jess said, putting a hand on his arm. She wanted to say more comforting things but couldn't because her feet were killing her. How she had thought she could make it to town in these clearly too small boots she might never know. She couldn't stand them even for the twenty-minute ride to the dock. There wasn't much room in the front of the small car. She unlaced one boot and would have been wriggling her toes in anticipation if it had been possible in the constraining, squeezing and all around horrible boots. She had to really yank to get it off of her foot. Still holding unto the boot her hand flew up and knocked everything off of the visor. CDs, a small clip on flashlight, and many, many ferry tickets rained down upon her. "Oh God, I am so sorry. I am such a klutz."
"Don't worry about it, just leave that stuff" Travis replied. Cass ignored the detritus for now and removed her other shoe. She wriggled her toes and rubbed the aching balls of her feet. Travis parked the car near the ticket booth. Cass was trying not to take it personally but all at once he appeared relieved to be done of her. She climbed out of the car and while he was pulling her bags out of the back, bent over to gather up all of the things she had knocked off of his visor.
"NO. You don't have to do…" Travis didn't finish his sentence because Cass had straightened up and was holding a large rubber stamp in the shape of a wolf's paw.
Chapter 15 - The Lupine Charade
All color drained from his face. "What did you do to Hugh?" Cass demanded angrily.
"I did nothing to Uncle Hugh. I have no idea what happened to him. I would never ever hurt him. I was trying to help the town." He buried his face in his hands.
"How was setting up fake wolf tracks going t help the town? You lunatic, he better be all right!"
"I was drawing tourists from the cruise ships. They loved taking pics of themselves where they thought wolves had been. I did it twice and it was going viral."
She believed him. "So you have no idea what happened to Hugh?"
"I think he found the tracks and knew they weren't quite right. Maybe he was going to go find someone to show them to—like your boyfriend. God forbid a bear or something got hold of him." His despair was evident, but before she addressed that Cass had to deal with the important issues.
"So not my boyfriend. Everybody thinks that there would be signs of a wild animal attack."
Travis nodded, he'd clearly been holding unto this thought as his only comfort. "What are you going to do?" he asked her.
"You need to tell the others what you did. We should both be out looking for Hugh." Cass found herself even willing to put on the flaming shoes of painful death if it would help find that sweet man.
She had sat down cross-legged on the sidewalk to stuff her feet back into her boots when a middle-aged woman came literally skipping down the dock. "They found him!" She threw her arms around Travis and literally danced him around the parking space. Cass was thrilled at the news but thankful that her sitting on the ground precluded her being danced around like a puppet.
Sana didn't wait for Travis to introduce them she practically sang the news in her joy, Hugh had been found, he was banged up but fine. He had hit his head on a branch and wandered off the path. He had never been very far away from his would be rescuers, but the darkness and overbrush had made locating him difficult slogging. Cass felt a groundswell of relief. Thank God, she thought and meant it for the first time in a very long time.
Travis finished piling her bags on the sidewalk. Cass stood, still in her stocking feet and hugged him with genuine affection. This trip had been soul changing. Travis had made a mistake and he would have to own up to it, but he would be forgiven. "I'm going to go find the Nelson boys, and explain things."
She patted his back, "It's going to be okay."
Sana prattled on, barely acknowledging the departure of Travis. She was so surprised to see Cass leaving, she said at approximately six thousand words a minute. She had assumed that Cass would stay and cater the Nelson wedding. Cass could scarcely manage a limp "huh?" before Sana plowed on. "Hazel told Bea that she thought this time Killian had thought it through and would definitely go through with it, so I figured you were here to help with the wedding."
Cass had a momentary flare of intense anger at the older women. They had always acted so kindly to her and all the while they had been hoping Killian would fall back in love with Libby. She did not have time to cry. The morning ferry was disembarking and would be reloading and leaving soon. She thanked Sana with what she hoped was more cheer than she felt. She dumped her luggage on the sidewalk and walked into the store/ferry office to get a cart, without even bothering to finish putting her boots on. She was in rural Alaska where going into a store in only your socks didn't even register on the "quirky" scale.
She needed to hurry, so she dashed around the corner and crashed into a familiar enormous set of shoulders.
Chapter 16 - Revelations
"Stephen what the hell are you doing here?"
"I realized how much I love you." Of all the things he might have said, that one she wasn't prepared for.
She turned abruptly around and immediately knocked the end cap of paper towels over. "I am so sorry," she gasped at the clerk and bent to help pick up the spinning paper t
owels. Unfortunately, the clerk bent at the same time and their foreheads collided. Cass was knocked unto her ass. An avalanche of Kleenex boxes fell unto her head. Despite the goose egg on her skull and the welts from little cardboard corners, Cass found herself laughing. It was ridiculous.
"Stephen go home. Where's Mimi?"
"I left her babe. For you."
"But I don't want you back."
"You know you do." Her lip was bleeding, probably the result of the Kleenex avalanche.
"Wait here." She went into the ladies room. She dabbed at the tiny cut. She paused to give herself time to think. But really there was no thinking to be done. Even with Killian out of the picture, even if she had to start her career and life over in Chicago, she would never again allow herself to be demeaned. She mattered. She may yearn for a man who was strong enough to stand up to her and warm her bottom, but dammit that man would have to be worthy of her. Stephen would never be good enough. She returned to the store. The pizza shop harpies were watching the scene unfold. Cass was shaking her head as he approached her with his perfectly defined arms opened wide.
" No, no, no, baby, don't deny it. Baby, I can't live without you."
"But I can live without you, just fine as it turns out. I don't love you anymore," she realized at that moment how utterly and entirely true that was. How had she ever thought she could settle for a poser worm like Stephen? And she added a final thought, "Your grubby paws can get the fuck off of my business too."
"It's our business."
"I know what happened to the numbers when you removed my material. I also know Mimi can't do my job—not even close. Luckily Jen isn't just my college roommate, she is my best friend and a kick ass lawyer. You humiliated me in front of our—no in front of MY friends. You had some score board in your pathetic head waiting for me to lose enough weight to earn the grand prize of being Mrs. Stephen…" She stopped in horror when she realized she had used jazz hands when she yelled "grand prize." The man had driven her to jazz hands. She continued, "Even worse than all that—you thought you could erase me from my own website when I couldn't conform to the ideal you thought mattered as much to everyone else as it did to you. That's it, that's what you did—you tried to ERASE me." She was shocked at the vehemence in her voice. I am not replaceable, she thought. No matter what, I am irreplaceable.
Stephen stood in front of her, shock registering in his handsome face. Laughter bubbled up into Cass's heart. "It never occurred to you that I would say no did it? Guess what?" She waved her hand dismissively in the direction of his buff and useless body. "You aren't wedding worthy."
She strode back down the ramp to get her bags loaded. She was sad that things hadn't worked out with Killian, but her heart was lifting. She would find a way to have a full and meaningful life. Somewhere there was a man who would value her, enjoy her intellect and humor and love her in the ways she needed to be loved by a man.
Shit! Her bags were gone. She looked around frantically; the sound of Killian slamming the jeep door caught her attention. How dare he take her stuff! She stormed towards him, which was less than intimidating given that she was gingerly stepping on her stockinged feet. "Hey, fuck you, Killian Nelson."
The look he shot her stopped her in her tracks.
"I don't know why you left. But you might have considered not hurting my mother's feelings. You can at least come back and say goodbye to her." His face froze as he saw Stephen over her shoulder. "Wait, is that the bodybuilder douchebag—are you going back to him?"
"Of course I am not, and yes it is. And I don't think you get to be all outraged when you have been spending the whole evening with your ex-fiancée who I had never even heard of."
"It's not like we have had time to learn each other's whole life story, I was going to tell you."
She was furious, they had been talking marriage and all the while he had known that he had an ex-fiancée who was much prettier than she was. Traitor. "So is that something you do? You go around proposing and then calling it off?"
"Come on," he took her hand and led her to a bench in the shade. She sat next to him and rubbed her feet.
"Libby was my first girlfriend. All through high school and then even after I went away to college. Only her. I never even thought through whether or not I wanted to marry her. It was just the next step. She was expecting it; our parents were expecting it. Hell, the whole town was expecting it. So I proposed. The morning after she said yes I realized that I had made a horrible, horrible mistake. I didn't want to marry her."
Cass was not convinced. Libby was exactly who any man would marry. Killian continued, "I just kept hoping that it was just nerves and that I'd eventually want to get married. I knew she'd be heartbroken. Her parents had always been great to me, they were my parents' best friends. The whole town would hate me." Cass was touched by the conviction of his next statement, "I was a pussy. I let her make wedding plans. I prayed every day that I'd wake up and feel differently. But I didn't. The day after the invitations got mailed I realized that I couldn't do it. I called it off."
"Why? She's beautiful." She had expected him to argue, but he didn't.
"Yes, she is. She is also nice and smart and we have everything in common. But she was not the one. I didn't want to marry her. I tried to make it right. She kept the ring, I paid her parents back everything they had spent. I stayed away until my Dad passed and my Mom needed my help. And then you happened. You are the one. You are MY one. It's you."
"See this is impossible, "she began. She was about to argue that he couldn't possibly be in love with her. She stopped. Of course he could be in love with her. She was kind, and smart and feisty and pretty. She smiled. "You are just saying that because I surrendered my ass to you on the open ocean."
Killian laughed, but not as long as she had thought he would. In all seriousness, he continued. "You are right. I am greedy. I want all of it. I want all of you. I want to go to bonfires with you wearing my sweatshirt because you are my girl. I want to fuck you harder than you've ever been fucked because you are my woman. I want to be willing to die to keep you safe because you are my princess. I want to work every day to be worthy of you because you are my queen. I want to feel your beautiful ass getting red under my hand when you do something stupid. I want to hold your hand when our children are born and I want the last touch I feel in this life to be yours. There. You got me, I'm a stubborn jerk."
She had no idea that you could swoon and remain standing. She looped her arm through his and walked back with him to the jeep. The sound of Stephen impressing the pizza girls with his biceps made them both laugh. Cass settled in and watched her man drive them back to the lodge, the sun was up. It was a new day.
Chapter 17 - Homecoming
The each grabbed a bag and walked up the steps of the lodge. "Ma, we're home."
Hazel bustled onto the porch where Cass had first seen her only two nights prior. A lot could happen in forty-eight hours. Hazel wrapped Cass into a warm embrace. "I was scared to death. Around here it's not like Chicago, you can't just go walking by yourself in the dark."
Killian kissed his mother's forehead. "Obviously she has never been to Chicago." He gestured for Cass to follow him back to his rooms.
"Wait? In here? I'll stay with you? Is it okay with Hazel? Maybe we should wait a little while before I actually live with you."
"Arguing with me right now is not a good idea, young lady. As it is, you aren't going to be sitting comfortably for a day or so—and that's if I start feeling merciful."
"For what?"
He cocked an eyebrow in her direction, and ticked off his thoughts on his fingers. "Where to start? One, for tearing out into the night when you thought a pack of man eating wolves was on the loose. Two, for climbing into a jeep with a guy who is probably insane..."
She interrupted him then, "I did not know he was insane. Wait you know about Travis and the wolf tracks?"
"Of course I do. My brother is talking to him right now. He's lucky that his stu
pid stunt didn't get Hugh killed. He always has been a bit of a moron. Now, back to important matters." He was up to three fingers now. "For assuming I was a liar who was going to break your heart and not giving me the chance to explain. For being ready to throw us away because you didn't believe I could be in love with you." Whole hand waving around now. "And let's not forget a certain 'Fuck you Killian Nelson'."
"I shouldn't have left like that."
"That's a start." He reached into a drawer and withdrew a wooden paddle.
Her heart leapt into her throat. "I really am sorry."
He sat down in the middle of the couch, and patted the spot next to him. "I don't doubt you are. You have earned a blistered bottom and sweetheart, it's happening." With the paddle tucked under his arm he crooked a finger at her. She briefly considered refusing. She was scared. A quick spanking with a spatula had left her crying. What on earth could this strong outdoorsman do to her bare flesh with that paddle? The internal struggle was intense, but brief. She wanted him, she wanted to be his. A red, hot bottom seemed a small price to pay. He offered her a small smile.
"You are enjoying this!" she accused.
"Hell, yeah. Spanking you for calling yourself ugly is something I feel I need to do. Defy me and I am allowed to enjoy it to the fullest." He reached out and squeezed her hand. "It's all right, princess. Let's get this over with."
Roasted (The Cass Chronicles Book 1) Page 7