“What’s going on?”
“Just enjoying this. It’s been so long since I’ve been home for the fall I almost forgot how great it is.”
“Better than climbing the ruins of Machu Picchu or swimming with the pigs in Exuma?” Cooper was a professional travel blogger and had visited more countries than most people could ever imagine. He had turned his love of travel into a career by posting pictures and videos on his blog and social media quickly gaining a massive following after a monkey in Sri Lanka stole his camera and took pictures.
Cooper stared out to the acres of farm toward the corn maze at the far end and the signs shaped like pumpkins declaring all you can carry, and smiled. “Yeah, it is.”
“How much have you had to drink?” Mason asked.
“First one.” Cooper held the bottle up that was still half full. “All those places are great, but none of them are home.”
“Does that mean you’re ready to give it up?”
Cooper had always been looking for his next adventure. He had never been content staying in one place for too long. Mason was still surprised that he never took off after Matt and Shay’s wedding back in July. It was the longest stretch of time he’d been home since high school.
“I don’t know. I love the journey. The exploration of new cultures and learning the history and what makes these places so great, but as much as all these countries have to offer, there is one thing they never have—you guys. My family. Being home I realized how much I miss showing up at your place, sitting back and bullshitting. I’ve missed Mom’s cooking and Grandma’s nose butting into my business. Grandpa’s absurd projects and chilling with Dad out here and talking about nothing… just enjoying each other’s company.
“Now that Shay’s pregnant, I’m afraid of being that uncle who misses every birthday and every school play because he’s too busy in his own life. I want my niece or nephew to know me.”
“They’ll know you whether you’re here or travelling the world.”
“I want them to know me though not the guy in the pictures. Those pictures don’t tell the whole story. Everything looks great in a single snapshot. I have all these fans and none of them know the truth. They all want to be me, but they have no idea. You don’t see the fleabag hostels I stayed in. The toilets that were nothing more than holes in the ground with a bucket of water and a ladle sitting next to it.”
“Why not tell people, then?”
“Because nobody wants to see the truth.”
“They might not want to see it, but maybe they’ll want to read about it.”
“What like write a book? I couldn’t write a book. I don’t know the first thing about it.”
“I’m sure every writer at some point in time knew nothing about it, but they took the time to learn. I know you. When you set your mind to something there is no stopping you. Maybe it’ll go nowhere, but at least you’ll have something for our niece or nephew to read one day that tells them who exactly you are and all you’ve done.”
“It is pretty impressive. I mean seventy-four countries in seven years is no small feat. I could break it down by country. Give a list of must see places in each country. Talk about the culture, the food, the sights. I could incorporate my pictures and the ones I never posted.”
“You’re going to do it?”
“I think I am.”
“Good.”
Cooper had spent his entire adult life never settling down, always on the go, searching for the next big adventure. Maybe that next big adventure was right here at home surrounded by the one thing he never had in any of those other places—his family.
“For the past few months, I’ve been toying with the idea of taking a break, staying home for a while. I think you helped me make my decision.”
Mason held his glass up, and Cooper clicked his against it. “You’re welcome.”
“I was also thinking about building a tiny home.”
Mason arched his eyebrow in Cooper’s direction.
“Mom and Dad have all this property, half of which they don’t use. I never needed much. I can build it on wheels so I can travel the country with it if I want. I’ve been looking at designs, and I think we can do it.”
“We?”
“I did kind of help you get your brewery up and running.”
“And you’re turning in your payback card.”
“Damn straight.”
“Thought I’d at least have a couple years.”
“How about a couple weeks? I already placed an order for materials. Should arrive right after the Fall festival comes to a close.”
“Don’t really have a choice, do I?”
“Nope.”
“Okay, then.”
Cooper nodded toward the glass doors that led into the kitchen where Cassie stood with Shay, Hadley, and Kate. “She’s cute.”
“Stay away.”
Cooper held up his hands and smirked like he knew something that Mason didn’t. “Down boy. I was just making an observation.”
“I know you.” There was a reason Cooper was nicknamed Casanova in high school. He loved women and didn’t think twice about moving on from one to the next. Whenever women were involved he was like a starved man at a buffet. He would take all he could eat, maybe regret his indulgence before moving onto the next. He lived his life in a series of one-night stands, always gone before the sun went up.
“Then you should know I wouldn’t move in on your girl.”
“She’s not my girl.”
“Why is that?” he asked a strange curiosity in his voice.
“She’s my employee.”
“So?”
“I don’t mix business and pleasure.” Even he was having a hard time accepting that as an answer, but he wasn’t ready to talk to his brother yet about the complication that was Cassie. He wanted it to be more, but the power was in her hands. He gave her his word, and he planned on keeping it.
“We know. Trust me we all know. But what if your stupid rule stops you from finding something great? I mean look at her, dude.”
Mason looked back to the house, his eyes settling on Cassie. Every day she was coming out of her shell more and more. Today, talking with his sisters, she was smiling, and damn it if it wasn’t the prettiest thing he had ever seen. She turned, catching his eyes across the way. A slight blush spread through the delicate line of freckles across her nose.
Cooper smacked him on the back, and Mason quickly looked away. “Do yourself a favor and make your move before someone else does. Not everyone is your brother, and trust me when I say they would not hesitate, so you shouldn’t either.”
The problem was Mason surrendered that ability. He told Cassie he wasn’t going to make a move until she was ready, and she hadn’t brought it up since that day. Now he only hoped that she wouldn’t let fear keep them apart, and she would find a way to trust him before her trust went to someone else.
Chapter 12
Cassie loved Mason’s family. They were warm and welcoming and they made her feel like she was part of the family. Even Matt seemed to have lightened up, joking around and sharing stories of the past. He was in jeans and a flannel shirt, his wife sitting on his lap and Cassie wondered if it was him that had originally intimidated her or if it was his uniform.
She was so quick to judge people, like she did to that poor bartender at Calhoun’s. He reminded her of Dylan with his tattoos and leather vest, and she’d automatically grouped him in a category he didn’t deserve to be in. He was nothing but nice to her just as Matt had been ever since she walked into the door.
It was her trust issues that she was constantly battling with. She didn’t want to trust so easily, but maybe in doing so she was immediately shutting people out. She had spent enough time with Mason to know that she could trust him yet she couldn’t bring herself to fully believe it. As if she was waiting for him to mess up so she could congratulate herself on knowing he was too good to be true.
But as she sat back and watched him in
teract with his family, see the respect they had for each other, the love and devotion, she could no longer deny the fact that she did trust him and, more than that, she was falling for him. It scared the living daylights out of her.
The last time she’d fallen fast and hard, she’d became a victim, lost control of who she was, and put her life on the line. And for what? Dylan might have given her a place to live, but as time moved on, her home became her prison. She had been so blinded by the idea of having someone that she’d allowed him to own her and treat her like an object instead of a person.
Mason wasn’t Dylan. If she hadn’t been so blinded, she would have seen the signs way before that first hand to the cheek. She knew what to look for now, and her eyes were wide open. Mason didn’t possess any of those traits. He was good. He was someone she could see a future with. A happy future.
And maybe that’s what scared her most of all; if she learned anything in her life, it was that joy never lasted long.
Mason caught her eye across the room, and just like every time he looked at her, heat coursed through her veins. Electricity sparked inside of her, breathing new life into her. When she looked at him, she couldn’t help but want the fairytale. Hadn’t she been through enough? Didn’t she deserve a little happiness?
She liked to believe she did. She liked to believe that after years of not being wanted, losing the only woman who did want her, followed by years in a relationship with a man who only wanted to control her, she could finally truly be happy.
She gave Mason a smile, and his eyes darkened with what could only be described as lust. She never knew what it was like to be wanted in that way, and she was beginning to like it. Beginning to crave it. Wanting to know what that intense lust would be like if she allowed him to act on it.
He had surrendered his rights to make a move, giving her the power. While she appreciated his understanding and the fact that he was willing to relinquish control, it had been so long since she held the reins that she had no idea what to do.
She wanted him to kiss her. God, did she want that more than ever. Every night in bed she imagined his lips on her, wondering what they would feel like, how they would taste. Did he kiss hard and long, or soft, short, and sweet, or a combination of both? Would he be an attentive lover as he was with everything else, giving his all and settling for nothing but the best?
“It’s getting late,” Matt said, as Shay stood from his lap.
“It’s only eight o’clock,” Cooper said from where he sat on the floor with Lady snuggled up in his lap.
“I have to be up at four a.m.,” Shay said.
“Me too,” Hadley said. “I need to muck out the chicken coop first thing so I can be free to help at the pumpkin patch.”
“Some of us actually have a schedule we have to live by,” Matt added.
Cassie glanced to Cooper to see if Matt’s comment offended him, but it didn’t seem to affect him at all. He lounged back on his hands and smiled.
“I’d be jealous of me, too.”
Matt picked up a pillow from the couch and tossed it at Cooper’s head. It bounced off of him and landed softly on Lady, but the senior dog only nudged it away then went soundly back to sleep.
“Knock it off, you two,” Mrs. Hayes said, pushing up from her spot on the couch and walking over to Shay and Matt.
“Don’t mind him,” Shay said. “He’s just cranky because Terry talked him into teaching a self-defense class tomorrow at the high school.”
“I’ll be there,” Kate said,
“What?” Matt exclaimed.
“Terry came by my studio and you know how impossible it is to say no to that woman.”
“I think it’s a wonderful thing,” Mrs. Hayes said. “All of you girls should go.”
Cassie didn’t know the first thing about self-defense and maybe if she did she wouldn’t be so scared all the time. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to learn a few techniques just in case.
“If there’s an opening,” Cassie said. “I’d love to come.”
Kate took a final sip from her wine glass. “Terry said the more the merrier, so absolutely. Hadley, you in?”
“Why the hell not?”
“You know how to defend yourself,” Matt said.
A devilish smirk spread across Hadley’s face. “I’m going more for entertainment purposes.”
“Great,” Matt mumbled.
Mrs. Hayes gave Matt and Shay a kiss on the cheek then rested her hand on Shay’s stomach, a beaming smile forming on her face.
There was so much love in that smile, it made Cassie yearn for a family of her own. She missed Francine, but being around Mason’s family made her realize how big a hole was in her heart.
Just thinking about Francine, six feet under, her free-spirit no longer gracing the world with her presence made hot tears spring to her eyes. What she wouldn’t do to have her back. To think for a while she was too embarrassed to even think Francine was watching over her. Too ashamed for Francine to realize that the years that she helped pull Cassie out of the ruins that was her life, that it took Cassie no time to turn it all back to shambles. But she found comfort in the belief that Francine was with her and Cassie knew no matter how badly she messed up, Francine would always love her. She held onto that notion every day and it gave her drive to better herself and her situation.
And she was doing that, slowly, each step closer to redemption. Each success a brick being pulled from the rubble and rebuilding her life. Becoming the woman Francine knew she could be.
Mason came up beside her, his warmth like a comforting hug, wrapping around her and assuring her everything would be all right.
“You ready?” he asked, and she nodded, afraid if she spoke the emotion she was trying to suppress would push forward.
They said their goodbyes, and Cassie was shocked when most of the family pulled her in for a loving hug. Each time she pulled back she noticed Mason’s eyes on her, watching like he knew that physical contact could send her reeling. It had so many times before, but she was getting stronger each day, refusing to let the demons of her past take away the joys of her present. Hugs were friendly and meant to be signs of affection, not something to be feared because they could easily squeeze too tightly and take away her control.
“Have you thought about what we talked about?” Betty Hayes asked.
Cassie had been preparing for this question all day and was surprised Betty hadn’t brought it up sooner, but it was probably only because they’d never had a minute alone.
“If Mason is a good shot like his grandpa you’d only have to do it once.”
Cassie laughed and not just at Betty’s blunt words, but because Cassie knew damn well one time with Mason wouldn’t be enough.
“Mom, you’re not being inappropriate, are you?” Mason’s mother asked.
“Me? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Betty said with a wave of her hand, but turned back to Cassie and winked.
“Betty, where are the damn keys?” Harold Hayes called out to her. “I can’t find them.”
“Maybe because they’re in my hand.” Betty sighed. “That man would be lost without me.” She held the keys up for him to see.
“Well, why the hell do you have them?”
“You asked me to hold them.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you know damn well I wouldn’t lose them.”
Their back and forth was adorable. Their words held frustration and annoyance, but the look in their eyes held something entirely different. It was a look she imagined you’d get after being married for as many years as they had been. It was admiration and love, respect and appreciation. Betty was right, Harold probably would be lost without her, but she would probably be lost without him, too.
While Cassie admired their devotion to one another, it scared her. These two had been together for so long they had become a single unit. Their identity would always bear the other’s, and as someone who was trying to get he
r identity back after years of being silenced, the idea of becoming one with someone terrified her.
She didn’t know who she was anymore. How could she share a connection so deep and binding if her character wasn’t strong enough to stand out on its own like Betty? Yes, Harold was her other half, but her light was bright and obvious. Cassie’s light was dimmer than an aging bulb.
Mrs. Hayes pulled her into a warm embrace, and her thoughts floated away. “It was such a pleasure having you.”
“The pleasure was all mine, Mrs. Hayes. You have such a lovely home.”
“Please call me, Carol. And I do hope that we didn’t scare you too much, and you’ll come back again.”
“Scare me?”
“We can be a bit overwhelming.”
“A bit?” Mason asked, his eyebrow arching in that sexy way it did.
“Don’t get smart, and come give your mother a hug.”
Mason wrapped his arms around his mother and lovingly rested his head on top of hers. Cassie’s heart swelled at his tender affection. A man who loved his mother openly and wasn’t afraid to show it was a man who would never intentionally hurt a woman.
At some point in time, Cassie had started to trust Mason, but now seeing him with his family, stripped from any pretenses, she knew what her heart had been telling her all along. Mason Hayes was one the good guys.
“I know you’re busy with the brewery and the bike race, but try to find time to stop by the festival. I think Cassie would love it,” Mrs. Hayes said to Mason.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
They finished saying their goodbyes and got in his truck. She liked how he always waited for her to get in before closing her door and going around to the driver’s side. It was little things like that, silly as they were, that showed her who he was. None of his actions were forced or used to put on a show. With Mason there was no façade; he simply was who he was. He was someone she could see herself falling in love with and maybe she already was.
Which went against everything she was working toward—love was never part of the equation. It had never worked out the way she’d hoped. Her expectations were always so high, like a girl dreaming of fairytales, but she never got the fairytale. Love for her had always been a nightmare that she could never wake up from.
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