Cassidy

by Irish Winters

  She all but climbed into his arms, sobbing. “You’re here! Oh, Daddy, you’re... you’re finally here.”

  Cassidy stayed behind the sheers, her heart stuck in her throat. He looked so good, so much in love with his daughter. As much as Cassidy wanted to run to him, she couldn’t. She turned away, wiping her eyes at the all-too-tender scene.

  Jude had his daughter in his hands, and the look on his handsome face was akin to torture. He’d suffered greatly to get to this point, and Cassidy knew she shouldn’t be there. Not now. This was a private time between him and his daughter. They had a lot to talk about and a lot of catching up to do.

  With the dream of Rourke still fresh in her mind, this was the happiest, hardest thing Cassidy had ever seen. Jude didn’t need her, and she surely didn’t need to be standing there watching him and his only child like an—outsider.

  She slipped into her sandals and tucked her pistol into her waistband. Blousing her shirt to conceal her weapon, she made her getaway down the deck steps and beneath the guardian pine. Barely a hint of sunrise glimmered on the eastern horizon. Palming her cell phone, she called a cab and scheduled a pickup in front of the grocery store, just a few blocks away. It was within walking distance. Her mission was done. She could be gone in no time.

  Pushing her conflicted emotions away, she focused on the fact that Jude and his daughter were finally together and safe. That was all that mattered. Yeah, she’d promised herself that she’d tell him how she felt, but this wasn’t the right time. He needed alone time with Judith and the privacy to get their lives back together. Cassidy Dancer was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and—

  The tears hit like a torrential hurricane. Rourke was gone, damn it! Jude and Judith were behind her. They had each other. A dark street lined with palm trees and pines lay ahead, and she was alone once more. The odd duck. The odd man out. Fifth wheel. It didn’t matter. Not really. Judith isn’t my daughter. Miss Fluffy isn’t my cat. I don’t play piano, and I have a life at the other end of the world, and... and...

  A vine came out of nowhere, and she tripped and fell.

  It did matter. And she knew it.

  “Cassidy!” Jude called in the dark behind her, but crouched on her hands and knees like she was, it was easy to stay out of sight.

  “Cassidy!” he called again, but he couldn’t see her. She was the best ghost on The TEAM, next to Alex. She knew how to stay low, how to be invisible. How to run away.

  “Cassidy! I’m home! Where are you?” The anguish in his voice made her wonder if she’d acted hastily. But it was too late. She’d made her decision. She couldn’t go back, and she didn’t belong. Not really. It was better this way. Her romantic feelings were based on nothing but the adrenaline rush of a damned hard op. She had to get away to get her head straight.

  He must’ve gone inside. She hurried to her rendezvous with the cab. With knees scraped and bloody, she arrived at the grocery store and the adjoining self-service gas station. A single car sat next to the pump, its owner’s back to her as he watched the ticker mark off gallons and dollars.

  She looked around for a bench or somewhere she could sit to take better stock of her minor injuries. Of course, there was nothing nearby. The cab hadn’t showed yet. The tourist was nearly done pumping gas, and all the freaking birds in paradise were chirping their heads off. She made do with the only seat available and had barely lowered herself to the concrete curb when the car behind her started up. Good. Now she’d have complete privacy to inspect her damaged kneecaps.

  Wiping her face with the back of her hand, she pushed both legs straight in front of her. Her knees weren’t too badly scraped, but they stung, and they were bloodied. A Band-Aid would help cover them up. She didn’t need to attract more attention.

  “Cassidy? What the hell are you doing out here?”

  She looked up and straight into her boss’s concerned face. Alex? Before she knew it, he’d parked and sat beside her. All her sins had come back to visit.

  “Didn’t you see Jude?” he asked, placing a firm hand on her shoulder. “I just dropped him off. We’ve been flying all night.”

  She couldn’t think fast enough. The early sun streaming over the beautiful Florida horizon made her blink. A lot. She couldn’t stop the knot in her throat that had turned into a golf-ball-sized lump of liquid emotion, either.

  “He wanted to call, but decided to surprise you and his daughter by just showing up.” Alex couldn’t have looked more kind, and that was Cassidy’s undoing. Jude had flown all night, and she’d run out on him. Why? She honestly didn’t know anymore. It had seemed like her only choice when she’d made it, but now?

  Her non-existent relationship with Rourke tugged her in one direction. She owed him something, didn’t she? Time, maybe? Respect for what they never really had? But her feelings for Jude tugged her in the opposite direction. They’d been through so much together. She was that kite again, flying too high and battling too many opposing winds to ever be grounded to the earth.

  Alex wrapped one arm around her shoulders, bringing her into his side. “It’s okay,” he said quietly, as the first sob hiccupped out of her. “It’s okay. We’ll figure this out together.” And there they sat like a couple of bumps on the log while she fell apart.

  At last he pulled her up off the curb and seated her in the passenger seat of his rental, her legs dangling out the side. Dampening a couple of wet paper towels intended to clean car windows, he dabbed at her scraped knees while she dried her tears with another towel. She hadn’t said a word, and didn’t know if she could. She should’ve been happy seeing Jude, and she was, but it only made her more aware how much he had that she didn’t. He finally had Judith. She was what he really needed. The heartbreak of not having him or that pretty girl in her life anymore just plain sucked.

  Alex looked up from his crouching position at her knees. “Are you going to be okay?”

  She nodded without speaking, unsure why she’d turned into such an emotional mess. Of course it all had to do with Rourke and the way he’d died. One minute he was there. The next, gone. Just like Jude. A sob hiccupped out of her before she could catch it.

  Alex’s cell phone vibrated on his belt holster. Glancing at the caller ID, he handed it to her, but Cassidy waved it off. No sense taking a phone call when she couldn’t speak.

  He answered it. “Stewart.” Pursing his lips and nodding, he said, “Yes. She’s with me.” His gentle blue eyes only made her cry worse. “We’re at your local IGA.” He stilled as he listened. “You bet. We’ll be here.”

  Cassidy shook her head the second he holstered his phone. “I can’t,” she said hoarsely. “I want to go. Please. Let’s just go.”

  Alex took a less than comfortable position at her feet, sitting on the asphalt parking lot with his arms on his knees as he faced her. “Do you know the only thing in my life I truly regret?” he asked quietly.

  His question caught her by surprise. She didn’t really need a thought-provoking question. Cassidy glanced fearfully down the road she’d just come from. Jude was on his way with Judith in tow, and she didn’t want to deal with the confrontation of another kind man. All she wanted to do was run away.

  Alex didn’t wait for an answer. “You’d think it might be one of the targets I’ve eliminated over the years, but it’s not. Not even my first wife’s or my oldest daughter’s deaths. Those were accidents. They were damned tough, but I’ve come to grips with them. No. The thing I still regret is the time I told Kelsey to get the hell away from me.”

  Cassidy stopped her frantic thoughts. Kelsey? Alex’s wife was without a doubt the sweetest woman Cassidy had ever met. How could he have said such a mean thing to her?

  “I hurt her, and I did it intentionally.” His piercing gaze shot a laser straight to Cassidy’s soul. “Do you want to know why?”

  She shook her head and gulped, but he told her anyway. “Because I was scared, Cassidy, just like you are right now.”

  Alex? Scared?
No way. Me, yes. Him, no.

  “Yes. I was scared that a woman as sweet and perfect as my Kelsey could really love a man like me. I’d just suffered my first heart attack. I was half beat to death, and I pretty much hated how bleak my future looked. I didn’t deserve her then, and I don’t deserve her now.” He interlocked his fingers between his knees. “You’re a lot like me, Cassidy.”

  Okay, that didn’t help. There was no way she was as tough as this ex-Marine, successful businessman, and probably the hardest man she’d ever met. He’d praised her once for being as good a ghost as him, but to be a lot like him was more than she could handle. Cassidy buried her face in her hands, worn out from grief and hope and the world. There weren’t enough paper towels on the planet to stop the deluge.

  “You’re scared of getting too close to someone and getting hurt. It’s okay to be scared, honey,” he reassured her again.

  “That’s what Tucker said, but I don’t know what to do.” There. She’d said it. “God, Alex, Rourke waited until the last damned minute to tell me he loved me, and now he’s gone, and I... and I... What if something happens to Jude? Huh? I can’t do this again. I just can’t lose someone else who I... who I...”

  “Who you care about.” He finished for her, but he’d used the wrong word.

  Love. This was about love, and that unfamiliar depth of that emotion scared the hell out of her. Covet ops she could handle. Training and taking orders she understood. Hell, she excelled at kicking ass, but something as fragile and heartrending as love? Something as tender as sharing her body and soul with a man? With Jude? Relying on him to actually want to spend time with her?

  Yeah, no. She’d learned long ago how to use her tough girl persona to scare boys and men away. She just hadn’t expected to be ambushed by some nerdy-looking guy in Coke-bottle glasses who made her feel like a woman instead of one of the guys.

  The cab rolled into the parking lot, and Cassidy stood to leave. She pulled her pistol out of her waistband. “Keep this for me? I can’t fly with it.”

  “Where’s your ID? Your gear bag? Your permit to carry? How will you pay for the cab?”

  She tapped her forehead. “Don’t worry about me. I keep my credit card number in my head for times like this one. I’ll be okay.”

  Alex stood with her and accepted her weapon, but his eyes were filled with worry and something else. Fear? Sadness? She couldn’t pin it down. Deciphering men never was her strong point, not unless they were on the soccer field or in the boxing ring. “Are you sure this is what you want to do?”

  “Yes.” She’d started down this road, and now she was going to finish it. Vacation was over. It was past time to get back to work.

  Alex tried one last time. “Just because the only tool in your tool box is a hammer doesn’t make everything a nail.”

  She honestly didn’t understand what that meant. She had no hammer, just her hard head and sheer stubborn determination. Cassidy turned away, her mind made up.

  The cab driver scurried around the car and opened the door for her. “Any bags, ma’am?”

  “No,” she whispered past the lump in her throat. Turning to Alex, she gave him a small wave, and took her place in the back seat.

  He pulled out his wallet and shoved a few bills into the cabbie’s hand. “Please give her the change.”

  “Will do,” the driver said before he shut the door and turned to Cassidy. “Where to?”

  “Jacksonville airport,” she said softly. “Please hurry.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She waved one more time while the cab pulled away, but Alex didn’t acknowledge her goodbye. The pain of leaving him standing there alone, his arms crossed over his chest, jolted her, hard. Fighting more tears, she steeled her emotions and faced forward. The airport lay ahead. Beyond that, Seattle, and another assignment that would make this one a thing of the past.

  Just another sad memory.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “You’re out here quite a lot lately, young lady.”

  Cassidy looked up from her custom made, bolt-action sniper rifle into the inquisitive face of Range Safety Officer Nathan Dunn. An older man with a neatly trimmed and graying moustache, he rarely came out to chat with the gun owners who utilized his shooting range east of Seattle. Today must have been an exception.

  His gentle tap on her shoulder had surprised her. With her safety protection earphones on, she’d been in her own sad little world. Other agents opted for the kind of earmuffs they could hook up to their iPhones and music. She chose silence. It couldn’t remind her of anyone.

  “Just practicing,” she answered, readjusted her earphones and aimed another shot. Sharpening long-range skills meant a deadeye and a steady hand, neither of which she’d had since she’d returned home from Florida.

  This place smacked of Rourke, the reason she was there. Her plan for recovery was simple. One by one, she was cleaning house, replacing old memories with new. The quicker she got him out of her head, the better. Then she could work on forgetting Florida.

  Aim. Steady now. Short, shallow breaths. Three of them. Wait. Hold.

  She held her breath longer this time, hoping to finally kill the target she’d meant to destroy all morning. Somehow her shot groupings all went to the left. She didn’t know why. Her nitron sights were dead on. Not wanting to switch to her scope yet, she’d adjusted for windage and elevation. Then readjusted. The groupings still sucked. Persevering meant she needed another cardboard target.

  She turned to Nathan, hoping he had nothing more to say. But he did. His lips were moving. She removed her ear protection again.

  “I notice you’re not hitting your usual marks lately. Do you need some help zeroing your rifle?” His earphones rested at his neck.

  “No,” she answered quickly, but then decided maybe it was time for someone else to have a go at her weapon. “On second thought...” She handed it over. “Go for it. Maybe there is something wrong that I’m not seeing.”

  He took it without a word, replaced his earphones while she did the same, braced the butt stock to his shoulder, took careful aim, and—blam. Right on. Dead center. Like the expert he was, he emptied the magazine where he meant it to go. The center circle filled with holes placed perfectly next to Cassidy’s too-far-to-the-left grouping. Handing her rifle back, Nathan had that same quizzical look on his face.

  Great. It’s not the gun. It really is me.

  “Fires real smooth,” he said, peeling his earphones off. “It’s a good day for practice, too. No wind.”

  She nodded. His message was clear. If the weather and weapon were perfect, she must be the problem. Well, duh. She huffed in aggravation, not needing it spelled out like he’d just done in his very circumspect way.

  “You need more ammo?” he asked, and she wondered what he was really asking. Why can’t you hit the broad side of a barn, girl? What’s the matter with you? How much ammo’s it going to take?

  “No, Nathan,” she answered patiently. Once her earphones were back in place, Cassidy raised the rifle to her shoulder. If he could do it, so could she. Blowing out a deep breath with measured slowness, she steadied her heartbeat.

  The crosshairs connected in her scope, dead center just like before. I’ve done this a million times. No sweat.

  Rourke’s patient words came back to her. Find your happy place, Butch. Plant your mind. Block the world. It’s all about focus. You can do it. Practice. Practice. Practice!

  And that was the problem. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t get him out of her head. He’d always believed in her, but all the practice in the world wouldn’t help her now. She had no happy place, either, not with her mind planted a couple thousand miles away in a state with palm trees instead of pines, alligators instead of harbor seals. As far as blocking out the world? God. She’d tried.

  Instead of firing and missing yet one more time, Cassidy laid the rifle on the counter. She sent her bangs flying with a deep huff. That custom made weapon was the best on t
he market. It wasn’t the problem.

  “You’ve been out here every day for the last week. Maybe you need a vacation,” Nathan offered.

  “No,” she stated adamantly. “I don’t. Thanks anyway.”

  “Just saying. Sometimes it helps to stop trying so hard.” He turned toward his guns and ammo shop. “You’re a good customer, Cassidy. If there’s anything I can do for you, let me know.”

  “Thanks. I will.”

  “I’m sure you’re just having a bad day. It happens.” He waved a hand over his head and left her alone.

  She zipped her rifle into its carrying case and collected her gear. Yeah, like seven bad days in a row. That was all this mental block was. One damned bad day after another, and they weren’t about to get any better.

  Cassidy loaded her rifle and gear bag into her trusty Subaru and headed back to work. What she really needed was a remote operation to another country, maybe South America. Agent Freeman always seemed to be coming from or leaving for Columbia or Brazil. She decided to check with Murphy to see what international ops were available. Anywhere else had to be better than stateside.

  As the lush, evergreen Washington landscape flew by, her thoughts naturally turned to Rourke. This was his country, where he’d been born, and where she’d first met him. They’d spent a lot of time working together, either at the range or running endurance laps at a local community college track.

  Rourke was a collegiate track and field runner who’d bulked up in the Army. He knew the ranger creed by heart, and repeated it so often that Cassidy knew it by heart, too. Somehow she’d incorporated the ‘move faster and fight harder, though I be the lone survivor’ ideal as her own. Only her plan to replace old memories wasn’t working. Rourke was still there. And she that lone survivor.

  His last words still ate at her. All of her if-onlys chanted in continual rounds that wouldn’t cease. If only I’d kissed him. If only he’d told me that he loved me sooner. If only I’d been there when he’d first taken that hit. If only I’d listened better. Maybe he’d tried to tell me how he felt sooner.