Her fury made her want to shriek and jump on Ellis like a feral cat. “We were supposed to come up here because this was important to me, but you decided it was silly and I was being needy. I’m so over how you treated me.”
“And exactly how have I treated you? Who was with you when your brother died? Who got us our apartment?” Ellis gestured to her car. “What about the upgrade in wheels to a car that won’t fall apart on the highway?”
She fisted her hands, fury freely flowing through her. He took credit for everything. “Last I checked, my paycheck paid for those things, too.”
“Well, I’ll leave you two.” Cash stepped back into his pickup, his face carefully blank.
A lead weight sank through her insides. Oh shit. How did this look to him? “Cash, wait!”
He paused, his door almost closed.
From the pain in his eyes, she didn’t have much time. She jogged to his window as she said, “Ellis and I aren’t together anymore.”
“Are you sure about that?” Cash tore his gaze away from her to an irate Ellis planted in front of his car. Cash switched his glare to out the windshield, his eyes shimmering with hurt and anger. “Sounds like you have some things to work through. Good thing you haven’t checked out yet.” He yanked the door shut and drove off.
With Cash’s history, he had to be thinking all the wrong things. She rounded on Ellis. He held up a hand again. She wanted to smack him.
“That,” she stabbed her finger toward Cash’s taillights, “is a man who respects me and treats me like a damn adult. Something I’ve been missing for the last three years.”
Ellis’s hand dropped. “Have you— Have you slept with him?”
“News flash!” He flinched, giving her a small spark of satisfaction. “None of your business. I was single when I got here and I regret nothing of what I’ve done since I’ve been here.”
“Abigail…” Ellis sounded crestfallen. He swallowed and nodded. “I understand. Your brother’s death was hard on everyone and you’re still struggling. I…” A myriad of expressions ran across his face—pain, despair, determination. “You know what? It’s my fault, too, but this is just a bump in the road. I’ll try harder to understand now. Come on, let’s go inside and talk.”
She almost—almost—experienced a modicum of guilt over hurting him. But if he hadn’t been so wrapped up in knowing what was best for her, they could’ve had this talk years ago. “I’m going inside to pack. Then I’m checking out.” She wasn’t going to squat in a hotel room with her ex and expect Cash to hear her out.
She palmed her key card and stormed into the hotel. Ellis trotted behind her to keep up.
“I’ll help you carry your things, Abigail, and I can follow you back to Green Bay tonight.”
Ellis thought she was checking out to go home with him?
Rounding on him, she kept her voice down to keep from disturbing guests and making a scene. “You don’t understand. I’m not going anywhere with you. I’m checking out, then finding Cash to explain what just happened. You and I?” She waggled her finger between them. “We’re done.”
She resumed her mission. Four more doors until her room.
He was on her heels. “I understand perfectly. You’re angry with me and you don’t think clearly when you’re emotional.”
She fisted her hands but kept walking. The nerve of that man. It was always her, never him.
When she stopped in front of her room, he put a hand on the door. She turned her glare on him, but he kept talking. “I was wrong to stay behind and not come up here with you. I just…there was a thing at work, and being away for two weeks—my vacation time being used up for—”
Her irritation rose another notch. “And you blamed me instead of telling me how you really felt.”
“I didn’t see how important it was to you at the time.”
She unlocked her door and slammed into the room. Silently, she gathered her toiletries, the clothing that had been hanging on the back of the chair. Ellis watched her. He was probably logging all the ways she’d been messy, storing the info away for future insinuations about how she wasn’t as competent as he wanted her to be, or as her parents wanted.
“Who is he?” he said. His quiet, serious tone stalled her packing efforts.
If Ellis wanted to talk to her like an adult, she’d tell it to him straight. “Cash Walker. He’s the guy who was with Perry when he died.”
Ellis’s throat worked before he got his words out. “You found him and then…then you two…”
She hadn’t meant it to play out this way—not like this, with him thinking she was unfaithful, or so weak that she fell into the arms of the first man that walked by. And, well, that kind of had happened, but only because that man had been Cash. She would make a point about why she was with him.
“No, he found me actually, when I got to town. We talked and one thing led to another. Then I found out he was the one they called Reno and we talked some more. For once, Ellis, I feel like someone understands me.”
Ellis peered at her before his face screwed up. “You slept with him right after you met him?”
She growled in frustration. That was all he’d heard out of what she’d said.
“Yes,” she snapped, banging her suitcase lid closed and zipping it. “And he’s never held it over my head to get me to act like his puppet. I’m checking out, so if you’re staying, you’ll have to check into your own room. I have six more days of vacation. Don’t worry about my belongings. I’ll swing by and pack my stuff when I get home.” It’ll be like I was never there. How true was that? She hadn’t painted even one wall in the place. The decor was all Ellis and anything of hers had been tucked away nice and neat. Their place together had no personality, just like her ex.
She yanked her luggage to the floor and rolled it with her as she strode out of the room with her head held high. That had felt good.
***
Cash nursed his beer and mindlessly flipped through channels until he found something that didn’t remind him of Abbi or everything else in his life that made him feel like shit. It was impossible. He landed on the Hallmark channel and at the sight of the doe-eyed heroine gazing at her quirky love interest, he sped past. HGTV reminded him of Abbi’s paint job and how nervous and proud she’d been. Football only brought back his fledgling years chasing girls and the echo of Mom’s words in his head. He flipped to a music station and groaned when the lyrics about lost love registered. Why the fuck did he have cable in the first place?
He flipped the TV off and took another drink, barely tasting it. Looking around, he had to think hanging at the bar would’ve been better than sitting in his basement, down with a broken heart. He had thought the bar would’ve brought back memories of his first night conversing with Abbi. And then he might’ve gotten hit on and he had no interest in a quickie with someone who was, at the most, a casual friend.
He’d wanted to be alone with his heartache. Rubbing his chest, he grimaced. Was the beer giving him heartburn, or was this what if felt like getting betrayed? How had Mom done it? He and Abbi had grown close fast, but Mom had been married. Her hopes and dreams of a bright future had been dashed when Dad had dropped his zipper around the wrong chick.
And what the hell was wrong with Dad? How could he do that to someone he loved? Cash certainly couldn’t love Abbi this soon after meeting her—he couldn’t be that naive—but he had no wish to bed someone else.
But he and Abbi had only been together a week. A short week. Maybe Cash wasn’t cut out for a relationship after all. If he’d buckled this quickly after all these years and then had picked a cheating girlfriend on top of it, maybe he was better off not changing his routine.
He polished off his beer and sank back into the couch. The floor above him creaked.
Dammit, was one of his cousins here? They were his best friends, but he didn’t need anyone to witness the pathetic man he was turning out to be tonight.
“Cash?”
He almost dropped his beer.
That was the last voice he’d expected to hear.
What the hell was Abbi doing here? And what a shitty night to forget to lock the door.
The floor creaked again and he jumped up. She’d find him down here and he didn’t need her getting that far into the house.
Taking the stairs three at the time, he was upstairs in seconds. She stood in his living room; her suitcase sat by the front door. When she turned toward his footsteps and her expression lit up, his chest tightened. All he wanted to do was grab her in his arms and claim her as his own, but he had his pride—and she had a boyfriend.
“What are you doing here?”
She exhaled and her shoulders dropped. “I checked out. I’m not staying with Ellis.”
“Then get another room.”
She stared at him for a couple of heartbeats. “I can imagine what it must’ve looked like to you, but I was a single woman when we met.” She glanced around. “Can we discuss this?”
Yes, he wanted nothing more. “No.”
Folding her arms across her chest, she pinned him with a hard stare. “I was a single woman when we met. I didn’t tell you about him because I didn’t feel the need to dwell on my past. The only reason I still have anything to do with him is because I have to move out of our apartment when vacation’s over. Unless he’s packed up my shit and taken it to my parents, which will be a scene to witness unto itself because they think he hung the moon and stars and that I’d be a lost little puppy without him.”
Her voice was full of conviction, but Cash refused to buckle. She was single when they met, but she still lived with the guy? “Sounds like you two have some things to work out.”
“No. We don’t. He planned to come here with me, then backed out at the last minute. For some reason, thankfully, what he did finally tagged my last nerve. I couldn’t take how he treated me anymore. I couldn’t take how he and my parents ganged up on me and made me feel like a child over and over again. But after Perry died…” She crossed to the couch and sat down, her arm on the armrest, her forehead resting on her fist. “I didn’t want to burden my parents with worrying about me since they lost a son and I’m all they have left. They approve of Ellis and he kept me within the limits of their approval, and that was enough for me. But, Cash, I was so fucking miserable. The night we met—yes, only hours after I’d become a single woman—was the first time I felt like me in a long time. And even then I was determined not to go back to being that girl because I knew breaking up with Ellis would hurt my parents. They’ll be losing him, too. But I’m not going back to him.”
The fence Cash was frantically trying to construct around his heart weakened. She sounded sincere. “Then why is he here?”
Frustration filled her eyes. “He’s been trying to text and call. He acts like I threw a hissy fit and nothing more. That he just needs to talk some sense into me like always and I’ll come back and be a good girl. When I told him about us, he called it a ‘bump in the road.’ What an ass. But at least it made him admit that he might’ve played a role in our breakup.”
She seemed to wait for him to speak. She didn’t fidget or nervously look around the room, but Cash wasn’t a profiler or anything. His only reference point for this kind of situation was Mom crying and Dad stomping downstairs to sleep on the couch.
“What’d you tell him about us?” Why was that important? There was no them anymore. Was there?
“I was honest about how we met—I’m sure he’ll hold it against me. I said that I feel like myself around you and I like how you treat me.” Her small smile broke down even more of his figurative fences. Should’ve known the imaginary ones wouldn’t last forever, just like the ones lining his property.
Fatigue weighed him down. It wasn’t terribly late, but he’d been on an emotional rollercoaster for the last hour. He should kick her out but now that she was under his roof, he couldn’t. Because he wanted to believe her even though all his learned instincts encouraged him not to. “Fine. Take the guest room. I’m going to bed.” He pivoted to head down the hallway.
“Cash, I’m sorry. I had no idea he’d be so hard-headed about the breakup and I’m sorry it hurt you.”
He slowed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Could he believe her? And if he did, did that make it better?
Slightly. Even single for hours was better than not single.
He let out a long exhale and trudged to his room. It was too much to deal with tonight.
Chapter Fifteen
Cash woke up at his normal time, dressed quietly, and tiptoed out of his room. He felt like someone was going to jump out at him and yell “Coward!” They’d be right. He couldn’t deal with Abbi after the raw night he’d had. The only thing he wanted to do this morning was feed his cattle and ride Patsy Cline. A couple hours on his horse tended to clear things up.
He made it outside and went for the tractor. If the engine woke Abbi up, he hoped she’d just give him time and not come and find him. Last night, he’d thought her proximity and honest-sounding words were the reasons he’d waffled and caved, to keep her around and see where their relationship went. But a night of restless sleep hadn’t helped.
For years, he’d thought his number one fear was to be the cheating spouse his dad had been. Now, it was going through life miserable because he couldn’t walk away from a bad thing in pretty packaging.
Problem was, he wasn’t sure that was Abbi. He was afraid to believe her. Sure, his two minutes around Ellis hadn’t made him a fan, but Cash didn’t really know him, just had Abbi’s claims.
The man had seemed arrogant, though. Not in the superficial sense, but intellectually. The way he’d looked at Abbi as if he’d been calming a petulant child had made Cash’s blood simmer. He couldn’t picture Abbi putting up with that. Had Ellis been the guy Daniels had worried about her trading her sense of self for?
Cash shook his head. Daniels had wanted to give Abbi financial freedom and all he’d likely done was drive her deeper into Ellis’s control.
But depression probably didn’t make a soldier think clearly when already thousands of miles away from home.
He wrapped up the feeding and parked the tractor. He half expected Abbi to come rushing out, but she didn’t. He saddled Patsy Cline.
His horse nickered and turned into him. As he patted her neck and gave her a half hug, a smile pulled at his lips while he mentally defended his own actions. There was no shame in a man hugging his horse. She’d saved his sanity when he’d gotten out of the army. Cash had come home, reeling from his broken relationship with Dillon. He’d wanted to come back home so badly, for so many years, but had been dreading it just as much. And then Daniels.
The terror Cash had experienced when he’d lost his friend… He and Dillon had been through some shit before that with multiple deployments, but that had been the worst. Daniels had been the only one they’d lost. Dillon had blamed Cash because he’d known Cash was hiding something, but hadn’t known Cash suspected that what Daniels had done was intentional.
If Cash had been more aware of what the other man had been going through mentally, maybe he could’ve helped Daniels. Cash could’ve worked his way up the chain of command until someone listened to him. They could’ve made sure Daniels didn’t go on any missions until his mental health was cleared. And there’s the big what-if: What if he was wrong?
But he doubted it. Hindsight was crystal clear and full of regrets.
He rode Patsy Cline through the ditches at an easy pace. A couple of miles down the road, he spotted the gray outline of Dillon out for his morning run. He brought his horse to a trot to catch up. Dillon lifted his chin in acknowledgment. Cash steered her to the road and she kept up with Dillon, familiar with the routine. Sometimes Cash went for a run, too; sometimes he needed horse therapy instead.
“How far you going today?” Cash called.
“Five, just on my way back.” Dillon slowed slightly to keep his pace conversational. “I thought you’d be rushing back to hang out with Abbi.”
Cash dropped his gaze to his reins. “Yeah, about that.”
Dillon didn’t slow, but his gaze burned into him. “Did you fuck up or did she?”
The corner of Cash’s mouth lifted. Dillon hadn’t assumed it was all him and that said a lot about how far they both had come since they’d returned home. He explained what had happened. Dillon stayed quiet, keeping his easy pace. As the story poured out, some of the weight lifted from Cash’s shoulders. Maybe it was the bright autumn day that made the situation not as black and white.
Cash finished and the only sounds were Dillon’s steps and heavy breathing and Patsy Cline’s hooves grinding into the gravel road.
“I guess it comes down to if you believe her or not,” Dillon said. “Or if it matters.”
“It matters. How could it not?”
“Because of your parents.”
“Yep.”
They fell quiet again. The entry to their driveways came into view. His on the left, Dillon’s on the right. Dillon slowed to a walk and put his hands behind his head to cool down.
His cousin sighed and mopped his brow. “All I have to say is that I’ve never seen you like this. You took a chance on this girl, and I can’t believe it was for nothing.”
“To teach me a lesson about not taking chances on any more women.”
“I don’t mean to speak like some old wise bastard, but that’s kind of what relationships are. Taking chances. Trusting. If you can’t do that, then you either aren’t ready for a relationship or she’s not the right girl.”
Cash’s first instinct was to argue that Abbi was the right girl. He clamped his jaw shut and glared down the road. “I guess I can choose to believe her, and if it’s not meant to be, it’s not meant to be.”
“How are you going to determine that?”
Cash shrugged and swung Patsy Cline toward his driveway. “I guess if she leaves my ass or something.”
Dillon chuckled and then coughed from the exertion of his workout. “That’s one way to look at it. Just don’t expect to rush back in and be where you left off when what’s-his-name arrived. It’s not like starting over, but it kind of is.”
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