He pulled out the eggs and the butter from the fridge—he’d gone through a disturbing amount of butter lately. He was reaching for the cocoa powder when the phone rang.
This time it was Cassie.
He couldn’t stop himself from grinning.
“Saturday,” she said. “You’ll be here around noon?”
“Mm-hmm.” He was picturing her lips. How kissable they were. What if they were dusted with cocoa powder…?
“Rachel’s going to be in town tomorrow for the first time since Halloween. So I’ll be at Jenna’s, probably getting drunk on bad sangria.”
“That’s one thing I haven’t received from you yet. A drunken phone call.”
A chuckle came over the line. “Does that bother you?”
“It would be amusing.”
“Hmm. I’ll consider it.”
“What are you wearing?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
His cock jerked to attention. “Really?”
“No, silly. I changed out of my work clothes into my pajamas. I can’t believe you asked what I was wearing.”
“Too cliché? I wanted a complete picture.”
“You wanted phone sex.”
She knew him so well.
“My expectations were not high. That, like drunk dialing, is something that has not happened yet.” He paused. “What are you like when you’re drunk? I haven’t gotten drunk in a long time, but when I was nineteen, I tried to marry my calculus textbook after an excessive number of tequila shots.”
She laughed. “I better be going.” She never stayed on the phone long. “Time to cook dinner. I’ll see you on Saturday.”
Damn.
He put down the phone and returned to Flourless Chocolate Cake Attempt No. 5.
…
Jenna threw open the door. “Cassie! You’re late! We already made the sangria. And since I foolishly left Rachel alone with it for a minute, it contains not just wine, but vodka, too.”
Five minutes later, they were in Jenna’s living room, each lounging on a chair with a glass of strong sangria in hand. There was a platter of crackers, vegetables, and cheese on the table, but no one had touched it yet.
“Theo put it together before he went to Lawson’s,” Jenna said. “Last time you girls were over, we finished two family-sized bags of potato chips, and he thought I should be eating more nutritious meals.”
“Damn you and your thoughtful husband.” Rachel turned to Cassie. “But you’re the one who needs to start talking.”
Jenna pouted. “Aww. You don’t care about my life? I found a drowned mouse in the toilet yesterday. You may have heard the scream from Ottawa.”
Rachel ignored her. “What’s going on with Blaine? I hear he comes to Georgeville every weekend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Cassie said. “I’m just giving him a chance to prove he’s reliable and not just a one-passionate-week-of-amazing-sex kind of guy.” She shrugged. “No big deal.”
“It is a big deal. You’re taking my advice for once. I can’t remember the last time that happened.”
“Halloween. I dressed as a sexy animal, remember?”
“Really? You dressed as a beaver.” Rachel took a sip of sangria. “Anyway, you look really happy about this man of yours. I know it’s not just our lovely company that’s making you glow. Jenna, pass me a mirror.”
“A mirror? You’re kidding, right?” Jenna muttered.
“Fine. I’ll show you what your face looks like right now.” Rachel gave Cassie such an exaggerated grin that she had to laugh.
Yes, it was going well with Blaine, even though she was trying to take things slow. She kept wanting to call him, but often, when she reached for the phone, she’d snatch her hand back. She only let herself make the call once or twice a week.
“Stop with the stupid faces,” Jenna said to Rachel. “You look like the Cheshire Cat.” She turned to Cassie. “What’s holding you back from actually calling him your boyfriend?”
“I need to be a hundred percent certain he won’t leave me again. And right now, I’m sitting at about eighty-three percent.”
“Eighty-three?” Rachel said. “You sure it’s not eight-six? Or seventy-nine?”
“Come on. I was just throwing out an approximate number.” Cassie choked on her sangria. Man, this stuff sure was strong. “Up from sixty-seven percent, so he’s doing well.”
Rachel and Jenna looked at each other.
“What?” Cassie said.
“Enough with the numbers,” Jenna said.
“You’re never going to be a hundred percent certain of anything,” Rachel said. “You’re waiting for the impossible. At some point, you just have to take the risk.”
“But if he breaks my heart again—”
“You’ll survive.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“People can be married for thirty years and suddenly get divorced. Shit happens. You can’t live life never taking any risks. It’s not realistic.”
Cassie frowned. “Are you saying I never take risks?”
Jenna put her sangria on the table and reached for her hand. “Cassie, I love you, but you do play it safe. That’s not always a bad thing, but this is different.” She leaned back and waved a dismissive hand. “Yeah, Rachel and I gave Blaine a hard time when he showed up at the Halloween party, but he’s already proven he’s changed, and you clearly love him.”
Cassie wasn’t going to protest and say she didn’t love Blaine. Because she did. She’d resisted it at first when he came back into her life, but she couldn’t deny it now.
Was her friend right? Did she always play it safe?
Well, no. She’d met a man on the internet for BDSM. That couldn’t be considered playing it safe.
But maybe with her heart… She thought back to Johnny and how he’d felt like a safe option for her. A nice guy who worked at the hardware store. How much safer could you get?
Maybe her friends were right.
Maybe she needed to take a leap of faith.
“I know what it is.” Rachel smacked her glass down on the table. “Your mother. She gave your father a second chance, and he blew it in spectacular fashion. You don’t want to be like her. You’re terrified of turning into your mother, just like I’m terrified of turning into mine. In a different way, obviously.”
Jenna looked at her. “Wow. College sure is turning you into a psychoanalyst. Who would have thought?”
“It’s true,” Cassie said quietly. “I am scared of being like her.”
“But things turned out okay for your mother,” Rachel said. “She married someone else a few years later, and she’s happy, right?”
“She’s fine. Except when she knocked on my door when I was having sex with Blaine against the door. That was far from fine.”
Cassie slapped her hand over her mouth. Crap, had she actually said that out loud?
Jenna and Rachel howled with laughter.
“Were you doing it from behind?” Rachel asked. “Or—”
“Shut up or I’ll dump this sangria all over you.”
“Hey,” Jenna said. “I’m not cleaning that shit up from the couch.”
“Don’t worry,” Cassie said. “I’ll drink it instead of dumping it on Rachel. Pity to waste good alcohol.” She had another sip.
Rachel was right. Giving Cassie’s father a second chance hadn’t ruined her mother’s life. And giving Blaine a second chance wouldn’t ruin Cassie’s life, either. She wouldn’t let it.
Plus there was an eighty-three percent chance that wouldn’t happen.
“How certain were you about moving to Ottawa with Cole?” she asked Rachel.
“Not a hundred percent, that’s for sure,” Rachel said. “It was a big move, one I’d been terrified of making for ages. Though it was easier with him.” She leaned forward. “Are you thinking of moving to Ottawa?”
“Not now.”
Perhaps in the future. Although she liked Georgeville, it would
n’t feel like a big sacrifice if she left town to be with Blaine. Where she lived wasn’t that important.
But before she considered moving for him, she should probably agree to be his girlfriend.
That thought didn’t seem so scary now.
She could handle a little risk for this man who made her feel like nobody else ever had.
Last Saturday, they’d gone for a walk around town and down the McNeil Trail. Even though it was the end of November and the bitter gusts of wind had chilled her to the bone, she hadn’t minded.
Because she was with him.
“Tomorrow,” she said, “I’ll call him my boyfriend.”
She pictured his face lighting up, those blue eyes that focused so intently on her sparkling with happiness.
“Good choice.” Rachel lifted her glass with a grin and clinked it against Cassie’s. “We need to celebrate. Jenna, where’s your secret stash of chips?”
…
Cassie woke up at seven the next morning, even though it wasn’t a work day. Despite all the sangria she’d had last night, her head wasn’t pounding…although she had a slight I’ve-been-drinking feeling.
She snuggled up under the blankets and tried to go back to sleep. But sleep wouldn’t come.
Blaine would be there in five hours.
Five hours.
That was far too long. She couldn’t wait until noon to see him. Couldn’t wait to tell him the truth.
I love you. I want to be with you. Only you.
She could call him, of course, but she didn’t want to tell him over the phone. She wanted to see his face. Wanted to touch him, too. Wanted to wrap her arms around him and press her face into the crook of his neck and feel his heat surrounding her.
She threw on a pair of jeans and a sweater, and then she packed a bag with a change of clothes and toiletries. She was on the road to Ottawa before seven thirty.
She didn’t call to tell him she was coming. She wanted it to be a surprise.
It was worth taking a risk for Blaine. She had no doubt of that now.
Chapter Twenty-Four
In a few minutes, Blaine would leave for Georgeville, as he had every Saturday for the past month. He’d woken up before eight and had been tempted to leave right away, but he’d told Cassie he would be there around noon.
He walked over to his bookshelf. In front of a row of novels, author names A through F, there was a photo of him and Cassie that he’d taken last weekend. Beside it was the old picture of him and his father in front of the Royal Tyrrell Museum.
I wish you could meet her. It seemed horribly wrong that his father would never get to know the woman who’d captured his heart.
Life was strange, and it didn’t always make sense, but somehow his had led him to Cassie, and for that, he was thankful.
He moved to the next shelf and picked up an ammonite. The one she’d sketched for him. He was just putting it back when there was a knock at the door.
He couldn’t help but remember the time Cassie’s mom had interrupted them while a tiny dog barked at their feet. That made him smile, even though someone was knocking on his door at nine thirty in the morning, and they were probably going to try to sell him window cleaning or a new roof.
He swung open the door, prepared to get the interruption over with as fast as possible.
But it wasn’t a salesman.
“Cassie,” he said, half in shock.
She was here. At his door.
And she was carrying a very large purse.
“Clean clothes for tomorrow,” she explained. “I don’t plan to spend a weekend in a beaver costume ever again.”
“Cassidy. You…”
“I came to you this time. For the rest of the weekend. ” She shut the door behind her and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I love you.”
Holy crap. Had he heard her right?
He was pretty sure he had. So he pulled her close and held her as tightly as he could.
Somewhere in his brain, there existed these things called words. Now would be a good time to string a few of them together. But he couldn’t do anything but kiss her for a long, long time, their lips melding together perfectly.
“I love you, too,” he finally managed to respond.
“I can’t think of anyone but you. I sure as hell haven’t been able to date anyone else in the past month. And I trust you. We can have those days when we do nothing but stay in bed and have sex, and those are great. But we have so much more than that, too. You were right, Blaine.”
“Mm,” he said. “I like hearing those words. I’m glad I won the bet after all.”
She gave him a playful shove. “I can’t walk away from you now. You proved to me that our relationship isn’t just about mindblowing sex, but the fact that the sex is so good with you…I do think that means something. So…I’ll be your girlfriend. There’s nothing I want more than you in my life.”
She started kissing her way up his neck, and when she reached his mouth, they shared a deep kiss that felt like a promise.
“The time we spent together,” he said, “both this year and last year—I always felt like I could be my weird, nerdy self with you. That you liked those parts of me. And the things we explored in bed together—I couldn’t do that with any other woman. For me, you’re unlike anyone else, and I want us to last forever.” He paused. “I bought you something. Let me get it.”
He ran upstairs to his bedroom feeling weightless with joy and took the promise ring out of his night table.
Cassie Monroe loved him.
She’d finally agreed to be with him, only him, so it felt like exactly the right time to do this.
He came back to the living room and held out the ring in the palm of his hand. “It’s a promise ring,” he said. “May I?”
She nodded, her eyes sparkling.
He turned her hand over in his, touching her soft skin, and slid the ring onto her finger. “If it makes you uncomfortable, you don’t have to wear it.”
“Of course I want to wear it. But I don’t need this to know you’re devoted to me—”
He smiled wide. “Devoted. That’s exactly what I am.”
“Still, I love it, and I love the idea of always wearing something you gave me.”
He took both of her hands in his. “Someday, we will have the dress and the picket fence, the two-and-a-half kids and a dog, too. But for now, it’s just the two of us. And that’s everything I want.”
He wasn’t going to lose Cassie. She was his.
And it filled him with joy.
…
Now that Cassie was with Blaine, really with him, she didn’t feel like she was risking her heart at all.
She looked at the ring, and then she looked into his eyes. And like the first time she’d caught sight of him at Tim Hortons more than a year ago, it nearly knocked her off her feet, that special connection that arced between them.
But he wasn’t a stranger anymore. She knew him, and she trusted him. They’d spent a whole weekend together a month ago, and they would spend this weekend together, too.
This time, she wouldn’t try to prove it was sex and nothing else. This time, she wouldn’t fantasize about breaking his heart the way he’d broken hers. This time, she wouldn’t fear that she was falling in love with him all over again.
Because she was in love with him. And there was nothing to be afraid of.
She rubbed her ring finger over his cheek, the metal pressing against his skin. “Just the two of us? Sounds good to me. I wonder what sort of trouble we could get up to…?”
She was about to drop to her knees when something on the kitchen island caught her eye. It was a large plastic container with a chocolate cake inside.
“Wow. Did you bake for me?”
“Sort of. I wasn’t going to bring it to you today, but—”
“No?” She went to the kitchen and pulled the lid off the container. “There’s three-quarters of a homemade chocolate cake in here, and you’re saying you n
ever intended to give me any of it?”
He looked semi-guilty. “I didn’t bring you the chocolate cakes I made the last three weeks, either.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Cakes? How many?”
“Um…this makes five.”
Okay, that was truly shocking.
Although the idea of him baking was kind of hot.
Very hot.
“Blaine, we need to talk about your duties and responsibilities as my official boyfriend. If you bake chocolate cake, I get some. Or any other flavor of cake. Or pie. Or cookies.”
“Okay. Got it.”
But she still didn’t understand. “Are you just making chocolate cakes and eating them by yourself?”
“Well, yes. I’ve been trying to find the perfect flourless chocolate cake recipe for you, but my research isn’t complete yet. This one’s the best so far, but it’s still not quite right. The butter-to-chocolate ratio, perhaps? I have high hopes for number six, though.”
She started laughing. Oh man. This guy. Life would always be interesting with him, no matter where they were. She didn’t know where life would take them—perhaps she would move to Ottawa in the next few months?—but the important thing was that they were together.
Cassie cut herself a thin slice of cake.
“Wow,” she said after she tasted it. “This is incredible.”
“But not quite as incredible as the cake we had at the restaurant, which was my goal. Your response to that cake was a little more…orgasmic.”
“Was it?”
“Mm-hmm. Fortunately, I have lots of non-chocolate cake ideas that are guaranteed to get the same response out of you.”
“Do you, now?”
“I do. I think you’ll like them very much.”
And with that, he swept her off her feet and carried her to bed.
They didn’t eat any more cake for a very long time.
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Seducing His True Love (Small Town Temptations) Page 15