by SJ McCoy
She could have told him right then and there that she did.
Now she was home with an afternoon stretching ahead of her and unsure what to do with it. She wandered into her office and turned on her laptop. She had an email from Summer.
Why aren’t you answering texts??? I love the pictures! I want the place! How soon can I come? Call me!!!!
She dug out her phone. She had three new texts, but no notification that they’d come in. They were all from Summer in response to the pictures of Beau’s rental house. She loved it. Cassidy dialed her number.
“Cassidy Lane! Get me that house!” Summer’s voice was quiet, but still full of laughter.
“Hey, chica. I’ll get right on it. Sorry I only just got your messages. Isn’t it awesome? And it’s just a short and beautiful walk along the river from where I am. I can’t wait to have you here.”
“I can’t wait to be there! I want to come now. Do you have the guy’s number? I want to find out how soon I can move in. I’m going nuts here.”
“Well then get your ass on a plane and come! If there’s any problem you can stay with me until it’s available.”
“I can?” Summer’s voice sounded scratchy now.
“You can. And I bet you’re not supposed to be talking are you?”
“What was I supposed to do when you wouldn’t answer my messages?” Summer laughed, but she sounded really hoarse.
It worried Cassidy to hear her like that. “Listen. Just hang up, and we can text each other. You get a flight booked and I’ll try to get hold of Beau.”
“Perfect. Bye.” Her voice was barely a whisper now. She was worse off than Cassidy had realized.
She dialed Beau’s number and got no reply. She paced her office, looking out the window. It was going to be so cool to have Summer here. She wanted to get it all organized right now. She picked her phone back up. Carter might know what was going on with the house. And she had a feeling he’d be pleased to hear that Summer was on her way. She dialed him.
“This is Carter.”
“Hi Carter. It’s Cassidy.”
“Oh, hi. Is everything okay?”
She smiled to herself. He was always making sure that everyone was okay. “Yes, great, thanks. I just talked to Summer, and she wants Beau’s house. I can’t get hold of him though. Do you know when it’s available or how much he wants or anything?” The line was so quiet she thought she might have lost him. “Carter?”
“Yeah, sorry. She’s really coming?”
Cassidy laughed. “She’s really coming. And soon. I’ve told her she can come stay with me until the house is available.”
“Oh. I. Um.”
The poor guy! She had to hope he’d relax when he actually met Summer, or it could be really awkward—for all of them.
“Sorry. I did talk to him about it yesterday. He said it’s ready as soon as he finds a renter. I told him you might have someone. I didn’t tell him who it was though.”
“Thanks, Carter. Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“Not for another few days. He decided to stay on. But I’ll get hold of him and put him in touch with you.”
“Great. I told Summer to go ahead and book a flight. She sounds eager to get here, so I’m sure it will be in the next couple of days.”
“Do you want me to hold off on the landscaping while she’s with you?”
“No! I want you to meet her. She won’t be very talkative because she has to rest her voice, but she’s a lot of fun. You’ll love her.”
“I’m sure. I just don’t want to intrude.”
“Will you quit with that? You’re both my friends. It’s not an intrusion, okay?”
“Okay. I’m going to try to get hold of Beau. I’ll let you know what he says.”
“Thanks, Carter. Bye.”
After she hung up, she wandered around the house. She was pleased at the ways her life was changing. Her first few months here in Montana had been very quiet. She’d set up the gallery, done a lot of painting, and mostly hibernated through the winter. Things had started to change the day she met Shane. He’d come into the gallery asking whether she worked with local artists. He’d flirted with her shamelessly and it had really pissed her off. Yes, he was a good-looking guy—really good-looking, but it had made her mad that he would flirt with her while trying to find work for his girlfriend. Of course, it had turned out that it wasn’t a girlfriend, but Gina that he’d be trying to help. Gina had gotten in touch of her own accord and the two of them were now working together, creating a new line of art, mixing her paintings with Gina’s photography. And since she’d been working with Gina her social life had expanded, too, or better said, she had one now. Again, Shane was an integral part of that, seeing as he was Gina’s best friend, and Carter’s brother. Now Summer was going to be here, too. It just kept getting better and better! Whenever she’d talked to her dad over the winter, he’d told her he was worried that she was hiding and hibernating. Last time they’d talked he’d said it sounded as though she was coming back to life with the spring. He was right, too.
He phone buzzed in her hand. A text from Shane.
Sorry. Not going to make it tonight. Rain check?
She made a face. Why should she feel disappointed? She should hardly expect anything else from him. He’d probably had a more convenient offer from one of his ranch guests. She could buy some of that apple moonshine stuff for herself anyway.
Sure.
Was all she typed in reply. She sure as hell wasn’t going to ask him when. If he wanted another round, he’d have to work for it.
~ ~ ~
It was late by the time Shane made it back to his cabin. He was tired and hungry, and he needed a shower. More than any of that he was pissed that he’d had to miss out on going to see Cassidy tonight. He knew from her one word reply that he might not get another chance. Maybe he should have called her and explained. He shrugged. He hadn’t had the time. He’d been running like crazy ever since they got back to the ranch at lunchtime.
Brandon had texted him to say that the minibus full of guests had broken down in the park. While at the same time they’d had a complete mix-up with bookings and a group of twelve guests had arrived to check in—one week early! After he’d dealt with those issues, one of the hands had found a mare down in the bottom pasture with her hoof caught in a gopher hole. That had taken the rest of the afternoon to take care of. She was lucky; he’d once seen a horse break a leg so badly in a gopher hole that he’d had to be euthanized. The vet had assured Shane that this girl would make a full recovery, but she’d be lame and off the roster for a while. That had left him reworking guest to horse assignments for a good hour, too.
He pushed open the door to the cabin ready to take a hot shower, find some food, and maybe watch a movie. If Cassidy’s reply had been anything more than a curt, Sure, he would have called her, hoping to still go see her. But he was too beat to handle one of her put downs or rejections tonight.
He sat on the bench in the hallway and pulled his boots off.
“How’s it going?”
“Chance! I didn’t see your truck. Man am I glad to see you back.”
Chance smiled and ran a hand through his unruly black hair. “I left the truck at the shop. It needs an oil change and a good look over after that trip.”
“How was it? How did April do?”
Chance nodded. “She’s settling in just fine. I think she’s going to do great. I swear she relaxed more with every mile farther away we got from this place. Even the kid. He was a little wimp about being in the truck at first, but by the time we made it to the lake he’d come out of himself. I even let him sit in my lap and have a drive down the backroads before I left.”
Shane smiled. Chance might come across as tough and unyielding, but he had a heart of gold underneath it all. “You’re not such a badass really, are you? Saving damsels in distress, helping little kids come out of their shell. Hell, next thing we know you’ll be falling in love and living happil
y ever after.”
Chance’s smile was gone in an instant; his eyes narrowed and lips pressed into a thin line. “Not much chance of that.”
Shit! Shane could have kicked himself. What had he been thinking? “Sorry, dude. I wasn’t thinking.”
Chance shook his head. “Nah, it’s okay. I guess I’m even more testy than usual on that subject. Just being back at the lake, you know?”
Shane nodded. He knew what had happened in Summer Lake before Chance had come to Montana. “Does it still hurt as bad?” he asked.
Chance heaved a big sigh. “I think I made some kind of peace with it this time. Chloe’s sister is back there. I always thought she blamed me. Turns out she always thought I blamed her. We were able to talk things through. It did us both some good.” He stared out the window for a long moment, then looked back at Shane. “I dunno. I think talking to Renee helped me realize a lot of things. I gave her shit for not getting on with her life—for clinging to Chloe’s memory.”
Shane raised an eyebrow, not wanting to voice his thoughts.
Chance gave him a rueful smile. “I know. I give her shit for doing the very thing I’ve been doing. It’s so much easier to see it when it’s someone else doing it.”
Shane nodded and grasped his shoulder. “I’m not going to claim to understand how you feel. All I know is I’d love to see you living life to the fullest. You deserve it. And I don’t think you have to let go of Chloe’s memory to do that.”
Chance stared at him, but didn’t say anything. His eyes shone with what Shane couldn’t quite believe were tears. He stood abruptly. “When did you get so smart? Anyway, I’ve got the grill going out back. Want me to throw on a burger for you?”
“Please. I’m just going to jump in the shower. I’ll be right out.”
A little while later the two of them sat out back. The burgers and the beers were gone. Chance held up his bottle. “Want another?”
“Yeah. Let’s take it inside, shall we?”
They settled in the living room. “It’s weird with Mason gone,” Chance said.
“It’s been even weirder for me with both of you gone.”
“I’m surprised you even noticed,” said Chance with a laugh. “In fact, what are you doing here tonight? I thought you’d be out at Chico or up in town with some chick or other.”
Shane made a face.
“What does that look mean?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t been going out as much.”
“How come?”
“Cassidy.”
Chance shook his head. “Is she still giving you the cold shoulder? When are you going to do something about it?”
Shane laughed. “No. As a matter of fact, I thought I was getting somewhere with her.”
Chance raised an eyebrow.
“Well, yeah. I got there.”
“And let me guess, it isn’t enough?”
Shane nodded. “You know me. Once I’ve slept with ‘em it’s on to the next.”
Chance shook his head. “Not with Cassidy. That was obvious from the get-go. She’s got your head turned right around and I can see why.”
“Why?” It was the question Shane kept asking himself. Why did he want more from her? He didn’t even know what he wanted. But he wanted more than to just sleep with her and move on.
“She’s hot, she’s funny, she’s talented, she’s confident. She’s got it going on and she knows it. And the kicker for you is that she’s not falling at your feet like most women do.”
“Do you think that’s it?” Shane wondered himself. Was it simply that she was the only woman he was really interested in who’d ever knocked him back repeatedly?
Chance shook his head. “I don’t. Sorry. It’d be easy if she were just a challenge. It’s more than that though. She’s gotten to you in a big way. That much was obvious at your mom’s birthday party.”
Shane cringed a little remembering what a fool he’d made of himself the first few times he’d tried to hit on Cassidy. She’d put him down in no uncertain terms. “But what am I supposed to do about it? I don’t know what it means to want anything more than a good time with a woman, and she insists that there’s nothing more than that in the cards for us anyway.” After today he wasn’t sure she’d even be open to that.
Chance’s brows drew together in a puzzled look. “What’s her reasoning for that? She doesn’t strike me as a chick who just wants a booty call when it suits her.”
Shane hated the thought of being her booty call! “I don’t know. She’s got this weird hang-up that big guys have big egos and that she’s too much of a challenge. She reckons at some point she’ll piss me off by being too strong and we’ll end up hating each other.”
“She’s definitely smart, then.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Chance laughed. “It wasn’t aimed at you. You’re the exception, not the rule. You’re just a big puppy dog. But haven’t you noticed that big guys do tend to be that way? They’re the life of the party while they’re the center of attention, but when they’re challenged—especially if they’re outsmarted by a woman—they get mean. They blame other people for their own shortcomings.”
Shane shook his head. “Seems as though everyone has something to teach me about how people work. Cassidy, Carter, now you. I like to think everyone is just straight forward, what you see is what you get.”
Chance laughed. “That’s because it’s how you are. You’re as straightforward as they come. But not everyone else is. Once you learn that the hard way, you tend to look out for it down the line. Sounds like that’s what Cassidy’s got going on.”
Shane sighed. “So where does that leave me? What am I supposed to do?”
“Whatever you want to do. As I see it, you have two choices. You can either give up and move on, or you can put the effort in to prove her wrong. Show her who you really are and…” he trailed off.
“And what?”
Chance shrugged. “And hope that she’s not right. Hope that when she does piss you off that it isn’t so much of a blow to your ego that you blame her.”
Shane considered that. “I just don’t see how that could be. I really don’t.”
“You’ll never know till you get there.” He laughed. “I’d say your first challenge is going to be getting to the stage where you have the opportunity to find out. Last I saw she was pretty damn good at slapping you down. You’re going to have to up your game.”
“I know. I know. Anyways. Enough of all this. Do you want a watch a movie?”
Chance smiled. “That was my plan for the evening before you showed up.”
Chapter Thirteen
Cassidy checked her watch and then looked a Gina. “You’re sure you don’t mind holding down the fort?”
“Not at all. I was planning on spending the afternoon here anyway. If anyone comes in I can take care of them. Don’t worry about it. Get going.”
Cassidy grabbed her purse. “Thanks. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“You don’t need to rush. I’ve told you, I’ll close up if you want.”
“No, I’ll just take Summer to my place and then come back in.”
Gina shrugged. “If you want, but you don’t need to. I’m perfectly capable of closing up the gallery. I thought it’d be nice for you to spend the afternoon with Summer.”
Cassidy thought about it. It would. They had a lot of catching up to do.
Gina laughed. “Just get going or you’re going to be late. Call me if you decide to stay home.”
“Thanks. See you later.”
As she waited at the stoplight to turn onto I-90, she noticed a big, red Tundra waiting to come the other way. Was it…? Yep. Shane blew her a kiss as the light changed and he passed her. She had to laugh. He didn’t give up. She took the on ramp and pointed the Beetle toward Bozeman and the airport. That was the first time she’d seen Shane since she’d left the ranch on Sunday. He’d left her a voicemail on Monday to say he’d come pick his truck u
p after work. She texted him back to tell him she wouldn’t be around but would leave the keys in the glovebox. She’d sat on the floor in the hallway and watched on the screen as a big black pickup came up the driveway. Shane had got out and spoken to the driver—it might have been Chance. The black truck had left and Shane had wandered around looking up at the house before getting in the Tundra and driving away. She’d felt like a fool after he’d gone. Why hadn’t she just invited him in? She sighed. Because she didn’t need another man-mess, that was why. And the time she’d spent with him this weekend had made her realize that she and Shane could make a bigger mess than any she’d known before. She could fall for him way too easily and end up getting hurt.
She put her foot down, urging the Beetle to make it to the top of the big hill. She’d do better to leave well enough alone. She needed to put Shane out of her mind. She had Summer arriving, she and Gina had a lot of work to do at the gallery, and she had Carter hard at work getting her property into shape. She didn’t have time to get entangled with Shane anyway. She needed to stop thinking about what she’d do if they were out together with the others—as she knew they would be. She needed to stop scheming up ways she could get him to come home with her. She needed to stop thinking about him at all, and go back to the way they’d been before. That had been fun in its own way—Shane giving her all his come ons, her giving him all her put downs. She needed to be satisfied with that.
She did manage to put him out of her mind as she drove over the pass toward Bozeman. That took all her attention. She loved her Beetle, but it wasn’t the best vehicle to have out here. She kept thinking about getting an SUV of some kind, but she didn’t know what. She was clueless about cars. Hell, she’d bought the Beetle because it had a flower vase in the dash and daisy rims on the wheels! They didn’t bring her much comfort when the wind was blowing as hard as it was today though. They hadn’t done much for her through the winter either when she’d really needed four-wheel drive. She felt a little better as she got closer to Bozeman. She and her car felt less out of place in Boze Angeles as the locals called it. She took the exit for the airport. She could not wait to see Summer. Everything had come together perfectly. Carter had managed to get hold of Beau. He was going to meet them at the house tomorrow, and, as long as it suited Summer, she’d sign a month-to-month lease. Summer hadn’t been able to find a flight with less than three changes, so Autumn had fixed her up with a jet charter. She should be landing at two o’clock. Checking her watch, Cassidy realized that she would only just make it.