She started back to her truck. The dust she’d stirred up had settled, and yet her throat felt as if she’d been caught in a dust storm. With her mouth open.
Jarrod Monahan had been her hero from the moment she’d arrived at her aunt’s house as a ten-year-old kid, knowing her life was falling apart around her. But when the older, most handsome boy she’d ever seen had tended to her scraped knees, she knew she’d idolize him forever. She’d trusted him.
Which was a big deal, since she’d learned never to trust anyone other than her aunt Roxie. Not even her parents. Especially not her parents, who had been the worst, always making her think that this time their home life would settle down. This time it would be good. This time the new spouse would stick. But it had never happened, and she’d find herself back at Aunt Roxie’s and next door to Jarrod.
But then that fateful, hateful Fourth of July she’d let her heart believe . . .
She took a deep breath and let it ease out slowly as she tried to be unaffected.
Jarrod was still as single and as devastatingly good-looking as ever, and he was still next door.
But she had changed.
She was no longer that child, or that kid. Not that young woman she’d been the last time she’d been with him—
“You sure you’re okay?” he called.
“Yes,” she said tersely, looking back at him. “I have a lot to do. I just panicked and raced over here, taking a chance that you would be here and could help. I appreciate everything you’re doing. With the crop duster,” she clarified, and then felt like a ninny.
“Anytime.” He tucked his right thumb into his belt loop, looking at ease.
At ease—ha! She climbed into her truck and slammed the door. Fighting not to take a peek at him, she yanked the gear shifter into reverse, then pressed the gas pedal. The truck shot back like a bullet, and she very nearly took out a fence post before she stomped on the brake. Heat suffused her cheeks as she swallowed hard and turned the wheel, jerkily starting the truck down the drive and straight back to her place.
She was a little shocked at how helpful Jarrod had been. She would have thought that, as a rancher, he’d have been more closed-minded about the whole crop-dusting issue. But then, what did she know about ranchers? Other than the handful of times she’d spent at her aunt’s place, she really hadn’t given much thought to what a rancher would or wouldn’t do.
And in her rush to get out of the suburbs and start her new life, she hadn’t given the ranch next door a lot of thought . . . or the cowboy who lived there. In all honesty, thinking about men of any sort wasn’t even on her radar. So what was with her pulse every time he looked at her?
Jarrod might be good-looking, and helpful, but Cassidy was here for no one but herself.
And she’d make this work with a smile on her face, even if it took gritting that smile out on the days she felt like crying.
There had been a lot of those days in the last few years leading up to the failure of her marriage. Days that had reminded her so much of each and every breakup she’d lived through with her parents. And each time with Jack she’d vowed to make it work. But infidelity left a gaping hole in the other partner’s soul, and Cassidy was concreting that hole up and never, ever going to have to worry about living through another breakup.
She was making her own happily-ever-after, and it was going to be solitary, independent, and joyful, just like Aunt Roxie’s.
5
“Sing it, Glen!” Cassidy paused at the ancient radio sitting on the workbench in the corner of the barn. She turned up the volume so Glen Campbell’s smooth voice radiated louder from the radio that was permanently dialed into the “oldies” country station. Cassidy had been glad the barn had electricity and that the oldies station was still going strong after all these years. She sang along with the singer whose music she knew mostly because Aunt Roxie had always listened to this station over the years. Old country wasn’t Cassidy’s favorite, but today she was feeling nostalgic as she worked in the barn.
She stared at the stack of tires in another corner. She’d been lugging stuff out of the barn since seven this morning. Two long hours ago. She winced at a jab in her lower back letting her know she had a long day ahead of her. But she was determined that before night came along this disaster was going to have room in it for the supplies she needed for her strawberry business.
And if she had some luck, she’d find some cool things hidden among the junk she could use in her strawberry business, maybe some things Aunt Roxie had used that could be salvaged. She’d started making two separate piles, one with the interesting stuff that she didn’t know exactly what to do with, like the old mantel she knew was beautiful beneath what looked like infinite layers of paint. The other pile was the completely unusable and unexplainable items. The tower of old tires went into that category. They assuredly did not count as cool stuff. Unexplainable, yes, but not cool.
“Like a rhinestone cowboy . . . da dum dum,” she sang louder. She laughed at herself as she dug out an old baby bassinet, then reached for more, singing stronger as she tugged harder on the mishmash of tangled junk piled on top of each other.
Singing along as if Aunt Roxie were right there with her, giving her strength. Roxie had spirit, and when Cassidy had come to Strawberry Hill, beat down and feeling uncertain and torn by the chaos in her life, Aunt Roxie had built her up. She needed that now.
“Mornin’. How’s it going?”
Cassidy screamed and swung around, her heart in her throat. Jarrod stood there in a sunbeam looking like . . . looking amazing. “Holy smokes, you scared the life out of me. Would you stop doing that, please?” She scowled at him and tried to ignore the voice in her head that was asking why he had to go and age so stinkin’ well.
He chuckled, which only made him better looking. “I’m sorry. But I can almost hear Glen singing at my house. And you were pretty into the song too. I thought for a minute there you were going to break into a dance.”
Her mouth fell open. How embarrassing. Her cheeks burned with the knowledge that he’d been standing there long enough to see her with her guard down.
She closed her mouth and cleared her throat. “I’m cleaning out the barn.” Like the man couldn’t see what she was doing. “It’s a wreck in here.” Again, self-explanatory. “It’s going to be the death of me if I’m not careful,” she added cheerfully, pushing for positive with the exaggeration.
There was laughter in his eyes. “That bad, huh?”
“Worse.”
He chuckled again, laughing at her, she was quite certain.
“Let me take a look. Maybe I can help you.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that.”
“It’s not a problem.”
“No, really—”
Ignoring her protest, he stepped inside the barn. “Roxie kept everything if I’m remembering correctly. And she was always going to some auction or roadside sale—” Halting, he let out a low whistle. “Whoa. Wow.”
Shaking her head, she stalked over and switched off the radio. “I guess if you insist. You are remembering right. It’s awful, though there is some cool stuff in here too. But I can’t figure out what the tires are for.”
Cassidy walked past him and reached for a tire, intent on doing something other than standing there wondering why he’d dropped by—and if she was going to have to contend with this kind of distraction and interruption all the time . . . Of course, yesterday she’d been the one who’d dropped by on him. What an embarrassing experience that had been.
Trying not to think about how she must have looked nearly running down his fence in her haste to drive off, she grabbed the tire and yanked it to a standing position. Immediately she knew she’d made a mistake as the familiar but unwanted sound of a rattlesnake filled the air—
Jarrod saw the snake the moment Cassidy pulled the tire away. Reacting instinctively, he yanked her into his arms, spun away, and didn’t stop moving until they were out of the barn. She was
smashed against his chest, hyperventilating.
“Snake, snake,” she gasped, shaking against him, yanking first one foot and then the other off the ground while looking down. He scooped her up higher as he studied the area to make sure the snake hadn’t followed them.
“I hate snakes,” she growled, now shivering uncontrollably. “If I’d have been Eve I’d have run from that snake and never looked back.”
He laughed. “No joke.”
“I’m not joking. It-it almost got me.” She gasped again as a new wave of fear showed on her face. “I saw it strike with its big ugly head. I think I’m going to have a heart attack thinking about it.”
He could tell she wasn’t going to stop shaking anytime soon. “It’s okay. You’re fine now,” he reassured her, clasping her more securely against him. His own heart was pounding like a ticking bomb, and her being all snug and close was not helping the situation.
If he were honest, and he always tried to be, even with himself, Jarrod had to admit he wasn’t exactly hating the snake at that moment. Cassidy’s hair teased him as it brushed his cheek. He fought not to lean in closer. She smelled faintly of something sweet despite the film of dust on her. “Come on now, breathe,” he soothed as her heart pounded erratically against his own. She turned her head, and his throat went dirt dry when his lips very nearly ended up against her soft cheek.
His hands tightened on her. “I promise, you’re fine,” he managed, his voice gravelly even to his own ears. He didn’t move as her panic-filled eyes sought his. That panic yanked his thoughts from where they’d gone and back to her fear.
Her fear cut him to the core.
She’d looked strong and ready to take on the world yesterday when she’d barreled out of her truck, eyes on fire. But the sight of a snake had terrified her. Her trembling body told him just how much.
For safety’s sake—his own—he set her on her feet and took her face in his hands. “Look at me. Come on, look at me. You’re fine.”
She focused on him and blinked hard. Then nodded. “Okay. So did it go a-away?”
“Probably not, but I’m going to go back in there and find it and any friends and family it might have hanging out with it.”
“Thank you,” she said, her face white as milk. Her gaze dropped to his lips, then yanked back to his eyes. The panic in her eyes shifted to something else, and her look set his heart hammering again. Her brow wrinkled, her eyes darkened, and she backed away from him.
“Sorry. I’m not usually such a wimp. It’s just that snakes are so awful, and-and that one nearly took a bite out of me. Thank you. Thank. You.”
He melted at the gratitude. He quirked a grin, fighting for a foothold to maintain some distance. “Glad I was here.”
She took a deep breath, and he could tell she was fighting for calm. He wondered if she was still thinking of the snake or if, like him, her thoughts were on whatever had just passed between them.
“I think . . . I’m not sure I can get myself to go back in there. And I have to get that place cleaned out so all my supplies have a place to go. And so I can see what’s good and what’s bad.”
“I’ll get you in there. I’ll go in with you.”
She stomped her foot. “Ugh, I feel like a fool. I got all dressed for this and never once thought about a snake. How crazy is that? I didn’t think about the crop dusting and I didn’t think about snakes—”
“Hey, whoa. You were caught up in the excitement of doing something you were looking forward to. Of course you didn’t think about a stinkin’ rattlesnake. It’s not as if we see one every day. As much as I’m in the pastures I see only one or two most years. They don’t like us as much as we don’t like them.”
“But it was here. And if you hadn’t been here, I’d be in there now, snake bit and not sure what to do about it. I’d probably be a screaming mass of pitiful—”
“Hey, stop,” he snapped. He needed to break her out of this. “It didn’t happen. I’m glad I’m here. And you have my cell number to call if you ever need me to come kill a snake or anything. So you’re okay. Give yourself a break. Yesterday you were warrior woman over that crop duster.” He laughed. “If you’d have glared at the snake like you were glaring at me, then he’d have coiled up and died on the spot.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you serious? Did I look at you like that?”
He laughed. “Like Annie Oakley or something.”
“Oh.”
He grinned, glad to have distracted her. “Now, come on. Let’s get rid of your snake buddy. Do you have a hoe or a shovel around here anywhere?”
She pointed toward the barn. “There, against the wall.”
“Great. Now stand back and let me do this.”
“Are you sure? You might get bit—”
“I’ve dealt with all kinds of snakes in the pasture. I’ve got this.”
She didn’t look completely convinced as she rammed a hand into her hair and paused with it on top of her head, studying him doubtfully. That bruised his pride a little, he had to admit.
Finally she nodded. “Okay then. Go on in. Just be careful.”
Jarrod looked at her, her translucent skin, flaming hair, and oh-so-expressive eyes—not to mention the all-too-memorable feel of her body pressed against his, their hearts pounding in unison—
Careful. He was feeling reckless at this moment, and it had been a long, long time since he’d let his self-control down long enough to feel this way.
He yanked his gaze from hers and strode toward the tools. Right now, in the barn hunting for a snake was the safest place for him.
6
Cassie’s heart was still pounding and she wasn’t sure if it was from the snake or the startling feel of Jarrod Monahan’s arms around her. Knees a bit wobbly, she watched him stride toward the tools as she fought to right the craziness swirling around inside of her.
He took the shovel into his hands, and his expression was ruggedly intent as he moved toward the barn door.
Move, sister!
She needed the Annie Oakley part of her to show up. Honestly, if she was going to be independent, she needed to get over this fear and go after that stinkin’ snake too.
Springing forward, she jumped behind Jarrod, ramming him in the backside in her haste. “Sorry,” she gasped, cringing as he stopped dead in his tracks and glared at her over his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“I-I’m helping you. It’s my snake, after all. And, well, I don’t like the idea of that awful thing getting the better of me.”
“Cassidy, it’s okay. I won’t think any less of you. Now, go on back out there and let me take care of this.”
“No. I’m coming. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror tonight if I let you do this without at least coming with you.” She scooted closer—not that she could get any closer, but she tried. “Go.” She waved her hand for him to go.
His jaw tightened and she thought he would protest again. Instead, he let out a heavy breath and shrugged. “Watch yourself,” he demanded. “And stay right behind me. Rattlesnake bites are not fun. And they can kill you or at least mess you up really bad. This is not a matter to toy with.”
“I am not stupid. I know that,” she huffed. “I might be scared, but there is a reason for that.”
“Right.” He turned back and moved toward the tires. With the shovel, he poked around the first layers, then one by one yanked the tires out of the way. As he moved them, Cassidy forced herself to grab them and roll them out of the barn to a pile outside. It didn’t take long for Jarrod to make it to the row closest to the wall. She got braver with each passing moment and moved to stand behind him.
“Stay behind me!”
She jumped back. “Fine. I’m here.” She placed a hand on his hip and peered around him as he went to move the last tire. Her mouth went dry and she prepared to run.
But there was nothing there. Just a hole in the wall. No snake.
Her stomach felt queasy l
ooking at that hole. “Do you think it will come back?”
“I’m going to close the hole, but even if it does get back in here, if you put your stuff in order, you’ll be better able to see it. It’ll have fewer dark spaces to hide. Tires are really easy for them to coil up in.”
“Okay. So I can handle that. Thank you.” It was time to take charge again. To be a woman and not a mouse. She followed him back outside.
He looked around at the piles of stuff. “This is going to take awhile.”
“And there could be more snakes too.”
“I hate to agree, but it’s true.”
She’d been trying not to focus on that niggling bit of knowledge hanging out in the back of her mind. She took a deep breath. “Well, okay. Thank you for your help. I know you have things to do, so it was great of you to stop by, but you need to go do your thing now.” She swallowed hard and fought to look brave.
It was a big fat lie, though.
“My thing?” Jarrod grinned at the awful face Cassidy was making as she tried to put up what he suspected was supposed to be a brave face. Nope. Not exactly the look she was probably hoping for.
“I’ve got bulls to tend to and move around and heifers to move around, but my men can do that. Today I’m going to do what Pops and my mom taught me to do all my life, and that’s to be a good neighbor. I’m going to fix that hole in your barn.”
“Are you sure? I don’t feel right—”
“I’ll go if you want me to,” he said.
“Oh, no. I mean, if you really want to, that would be fine. But I’m helping.”
“Good. Then we better get busy.” Not waiting for her to suddenly change her mind, he strode past her in search of wood.
A little while later, the hole was boarded up. Cassidy had worked right along beside him. Really close beside him. He could tell she was scared but fought hard to hide it and overcome it. She was determined, he’d give her that.
They kept on clearing out things after that, working in silence, something she seemed to need before she slowly relaxed again. The fight that had welled up inside of her seemed to ease away as she lifted and carried pile after pile of junky pieces from the old barn.
Kissed by a Cowboy Page 5