by Cate Cameron
“Boy trouble,” she told him with a glance up the stairs. Their fingers brushed as he handed the wine over, and he gave his own furtive look at the staircase before bending and kissing her gently.
“Seth?” he asked as he straightened. “What’d the little bastard do to her?”
“He likes Riva,” Cassidy said. “He wanted to go to the dance with Riva, not Em.” She grimaced, then took a gulp of her wine. A Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru probably deserved a little more savoring, but he wasn’t going to let himself be distracted by that.
“Shit. Did Riva know?”
Cassidy gave him an appraising look. “That was my first question, too.” She handed the wine glass back to him and reached down to pull off her shoes, then straightened and reclaimed the glass. “Sounds like she didn’t. Seth told Riva tonight at the dance, Riva freaked and told Em, Em ran to the diner and told me. Big drama.” She sniffed the air. “I’m planning to give Em a bit more time to calm down, and then I’ll talk to her again. I’ll remind her that it’s not Riva’s fault, or Seth’s fault, either. It sucks, but she can’t lose a friendship over it. That’s my plan. Sound okay?”
“Sounds great. I’m flattered you’re asking.”
Another sniff of the air. “What smells so incredible? Is that rosemary?”
“Uh, yeah. Chicken. It looks pretty good.” He trailed after her as she started toward the kitchen. “So this thing with Emily—it’s not a big deal?”
“It’s her first heartbreak, and she feels like her best friend betrayed her. It’s a big deal. But she needs some time on her own, I think, and if I’m just sitting around anyway, I may as well be eating delicious-smelling chicken, right?”
“I can’t argue with that.”
He pulled the chicken out of the oven, and they sorted through the side dishes, making up plates for themselves in companionable silence. He got to the table enough before her that he was able to pull her chair out, and was rewarded with a shy, rueful look. “Not quite the night we had planned, huh?” she said.
“There’s no rush,” he replied, ignoring his body’s screaming objections.
“Isn’t there?” She took another gulp of wine, then started hacking away at her chicken. “School’s out in two weeks. There’s nothing keeping you in town after that, right?”
Nothing keeping him in town. Well, no, there was nothing about the town itself that would hold his attention. But he didn’t think that was what she was saying, exactly.
Before he could clarify, she shook her head in an almost angry way. “Sorry. That’s nothing we need to talk about. So, yeah, Em’s a bit upset, but once she cools down, she’ll realize it wasn’t Riva’s fault. Penny was always big on feminine bonding, and I can remind Emily of that if I have to. Sisters before misters, and all that.”
“Sisters before misters,” he mused. “Literally, with you and me.” Then he froze, his forkful of roast carrots halfway to his mouth. “That does sound like Pippa’s philosophy. She was all about female bonding.”
“Sometimes, yeah.”
He set his fork down on his plate and picked up his wine glass instead. “I met her through a friend of mine,” he said. His brain was whirling, piecing things together as he spoke. “Alicia van Eldritch—she was a friend of Penny’s, too. They were pretty close for a while.”
“I think I might have heard the name,” Cassidy said with a shrug. Then she frowned at him. “Why are you thinking about that now?”
“Alicia and I ended up dating for quite a while, after Pippa left. Several years, off and on.”
Cassidy squinted at him, and he could see her following his line of thought. “You think Penny didn’t tell you about Emily because she was being loyal to Alicia? You think she would have kept that information from you just to protect Alicia’s relationship from an awkward surprise baby?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
Cassidy didn’t answer right away. Finally, she set down her knife and fork and said, “Shit.”
“That means yes?” he guessed.
“It’s just—it’s so typical. She’d get an idea in her head, and that’d be the end. She wouldn’t reconsider, wouldn’t see—she wouldn’t even notice—” Cassidy took a deep breath as if she realized she needed to steady herself, and when she started speaking again, her voice was quieter, but no less intense. “I didn’t go to school. I never left this town. A few years after Emily was born, I had the chance to spend a winter in Texas, working for Roddy Turner. He’s a trainer—a horse trainer, a total legend—and I couldn’t go. I’d spent all my school savings on the diner, and all the money from the diner went to supporting the family, and I couldn’t—” She broke off and drained her glass. “She was so busy being noble about Alicia van Eldritch that she forgot about her actual sister’s damn life.”
He had no idea what to say, and she was so lost in her own thoughts he wasn’t sure she would have heard him anyway. “And all along, she could have called you,” she whispered, and finally she looked at him. “It would have been so much easier if you were a monster, and she and I were being all heroic by keeping Emily away from you. But—” She broke off, staring at her empty wineglass, and he quickly refilled it. Another gulp, and she took a deep breath.
“I love Emily. I’m glad she’s in my life, and I would give anything—anything—to make her safe and happy. But to think that I didn’t have to give things up? That you didn’t have to lose all those years of Em’s life, all just because Penny had some insane sense of loyalty to some random woman—”
“I’m sorry,” he said gently.
“For what? For dating a woman who was friends with someone you used to sleep with?”
“I didn’t mean it as an apology. I’m just—sorry. I wish things had gone differently for you. I wish your sister had made a different decision, or at least changed her mind after Alicia and I broke up.”
For a moment he thought she wasn’t going to accept his sympathy. Her body was tense, as if she were about to stand up and stalk off. But then her shoulders dropped and she speared a chunk of potato with only a little more force than necessary. “This is not what I was hoping to be doing tonight,” she said, then stuffed the potato in her mouth.
Which reminded Will of his previous response, and her reaction to it. School would be out in two weeks, and he’d be leaving. That was what she thought. Hell, maybe it was what he thought, too. He certainly didn’t plan to live in upstate New York for the rest of his life. But that didn’t mean he was planning on having only two more weeks with Cassidy. “I think you should close the diner for a couple days and come to the city with Emily,” he said. “We can set up tours at some of the better schools, and you can both see what they have to offer. I think you’ll be impressed, but if you aren’t, we’ll try to figure something else out.”
She wouldn’t look at him. Maybe she’d figured out how easy it was for him to read her expressions and was deliberately keeping him from seeing what she thought. But she didn’t keep him waiting for long before she nodded. “Okay,” she said, and it sounded like she was agreeing to her own execution. “We should do that. What days will work best?”
“It’s not a trap. You’re not committing to anything. If you and Em don’t think the schools are a good fit, we can walk away. Okay?”
Another jerky nod. “Of course. You’ll tell me when we should go? The more notice the better, I guess, so I can put a sign up at the diner.”
She seemed calm, now, detached. As if Emily’s future education wasn’t something Cassidy was worried about, and the thought of leaving Lyonstown wasn’t a big deal. “I’ll get someone to set up appointments at the schools,” he said, and received another nod, this one smoother.
She still wouldn’t meet his eyes, though, and when she stood up, her movements were too quick. “I’m going to check on Em,” she said, turning and leaving too quickly for him to object even if he’d wanted to.
Will leaned back in his chair and looked at the food left
on Cassidy’s plate. Having a nice dinner had been his compromise plan for the evening, the activity he was willing to settle for if sex wasn’t going to happen. But apparently he wasn’t even going to get the dinner, not with any company.
He took a bite of chicken and then a sip of wine. It really was an excellent pairing. But somehow, that didn’t seem like much of an accomplishment, not when he was enjoying it alone.
Chapter Thirteen
Cassidy woke up at her usual time on Saturday and gave herself a few minutes to savor the pleasure of not having to roll right out of bed. If she closed the diner, and got a job somewhere else, a nine-to-five job in an office or something, she could sleep late every day. And she’d have time to ride Casey, too.
Which was the idea that had her staggering to her feet and searching for jeans. Even without closing the diner, she had a little bit of time right then, and she needed to use it. She snuck down the hall past Emily’s door, her boots in her hand, picked a bit of chicken out of the leftovers in the fridge to fill her stomach, and then headed out the front door.
“You running away to join the circus?” Will’s amused voice floated out from his office.
She peered around the doorway, resisting the impulse to feel as if she’d been caught in some misbehavior. “Why are you awake?”
“Why are you?” He pushed away from his desk and stretched as if he’d been sitting there for quite a while. “You don’t have to go to work yet, do you? Not on Saturday.”
“I want to ride Casey.” She frowned, suddenly self-conscious. “Is that okay? I mean, we’re not making that goat trade, so he’s still your horse.”
“Of course. And the goat trade’s going to happen. I’m just looking for ways to sweeten the pot.” He smiled as he approached.
It always took her a while to get used to his proximity. When she wasn’t around him, she could think clearly: she could label him as Emily’s father, or the meddling millionaire, or even the guy she was having a little fling with. But when she was with him, he was just Will. Sexy, infuriating, overpowering. His smile dissolved her common sense, his scent made her heart speed up, and his touch? His touch inflamed her and drove away all thought.
She wanted to step back, wanted to rush toward him. Instead, she stayed frozen between the extremes, and when he stood before her and raised a hand to cradle her jaw, she leaned into the contact and closed her eyes. “I missed you last night,” he whispered, and then he gently tilted her head, and their lips met and she melted.
It was difficult to stay upright when her muscles and maybe even her bones were turned to goo, but he held her to him, his body hard and warm against her softness. He kissed her like he had a right to, as if there were no complications, no conflicts, just the two of them, fitting together perfectly. His lips trailed down her neck, and she let her head fall back, exposing her throat. She was tired of being careful, tired of trying to protect herself. She wanted to be vulnerable, wanted to let him do the protecting.
His stubble rasped against her tender skin, and his lips kissed away the burn. “I want you,” he murmured into her skin. “We can make it work.”
And it was that lie that brought her back to reality. He wasn’t trying to deceive her, she didn’t think. He probably believed it, believed that there was some sort of future for them, for the millionaire and the waitress, a future that didn’t have her feeling like a servant or a charity case. But she knew better, and her knowledge gave her the strength to stand on her own and push him away. “I want to ride,” she half gasped.
His eyes were closed, and he swayed a little on his feet, as if there was a battle raging inside him and he had to concentrate on making sure the right side won. Finally he said, “There’s no chance you mean that in a dirty way, is there?”
The sound she made was somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “No. I want to go to the barn and exercise your horse.”
“If I really work at it, I can make that sound a bit dirty, too.” His eyes were open, now, and she didn’t want to look at him, so she turned away and headed for the door. But his voice stopped her before she got outside. “Can I come? Can I watch?”
“Are you going to make that sound dirty, too?”
“Too easy. I just want to see what you’re doing. I’m trying to understand why you like it—I know lots of people who own horses, but I’ve never really paid much attention to them.”
“You probably know people who ride English. Jumping and dressage and polo and whatever. Casey’s trained Western. Like a cowboy’s horse.”
“Well that’s way more interesting already. Cowboys are sexy, right?”
“Some of them,” she agreed carefully. “But, seriously, there is nothing sexy about to happen at the barn. And probably nothing all that interesting. He’s been off work for a while, so I’ll just be warming him up, seeing where he’s at—we’re not going to be putting on a show or anything.”
“That’s fine—I probably wouldn’t know what to look for if you were doing a show anyway. But, if he’s a cowboy horse—do we need cows? You’re not allowed to lasso my goat, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Damn it. He was too adorable, too sweet. “I’m not going to lasso your goat. But if you’re looking for phrases that could sound dirty…”
“I thought of that, too,” he said with a wicked grin. And somehow they were walking, and he grabbed a jacket as they headed out the door, and everything was back to being comfortable and easy. His fingers wrapped around hers, and she didn’t pull away.
“Casey’s a reining horse,” she said, trying to keep her mind on anything other than his long, lean body right next to hers. “It’s the Western version of dressage, kind of. There’s no lassoing involved.”
“So Eliza’s safe. Good. And it’s good you didn’t fight me when I said she was my goat. I’m glad you’re starting to accept that. The trade is real, my friend. This is business, and I always win in business.”
“Trading a scrub goat for a well-trained purebred horse is not business. It’s madness.”
“You just don’t see my larger strategy.”
“Oh, really. Okay, explain it to me.”
“No way. I’m not giving away trade secrets. You can just sit back and watch as your horse keeps eating his way through all the oats and my goat starts producing—but, no, I’ve said too much.”
“Producing milk? Have you ever actually tried goat’s milk? It’s not for everyone.”
“I can neither confirm nor deny that there will be milk involved in my plan. Or cheese. I can’t say anything about cheese.”
The walk to the barn wasn’t long enough. It wasn’t that Cassidy didn’t want to get down there and start working with Casey, because she absolutely did. But she also wanted to keep walking with Will, keep holding his hand and making up stupid nonsense about goats. She wanted to freeze the moment forever: the cool of the early morning air, the warmth of his hand, the glow of the sun coming over the horizon, and the indefinable, undeniable rightness of their connection, their bond.
But nothing lasted forever. They reached the barn, and he released her hand, and she tried to go on about the business of luring a groggy horse in from his pasture without feeling a sense of loss. The moment with Will was finite. She knew that and had always known that. And she knew she had to distract herself with other things in order to keep from crumbling at the loss.
…
Will set up the school visits for Friday of the next week, and, without argument, Cassidy posted a sign saying the diner would close after lunch on Thursday and not reopen until Saturday dinner. He was there when Mr. Emerson, the grumpy regular with the pickle fetish, complained, and he saw Cassidy politely but firmly explain that she had family commitments, and then offer to make him a delicious bag lunch he could enjoy on Friday. Maybe there were other disgruntled customers Will didn’t see, but Cassidy didn’t mention them, and after she shot down one cautious inquiry, he didn’t ask any more questions.
She was maybe a
bit subdued when he and Emily swung by the diner to pick her up Thursday afternoon, and he wasn’t sure if he should have argued with her decision to sit in the backseat, leaving Emily up front with him, but it still wasn’t a crisis. Cassidy sat quietly most of the way to the city while Emily peppered Will with an exhausting series of questions about where they’d be going, what they’d be seeing, and how he felt about every damn thing.
“So Broadway shows aren’t just for tourists?” was one of her inquiries. “The internet said they were, but I’m sure you’ve been to Broadway shows. Just because you live there it doesn’t mean you haven’t seen The Lion King. Right?”
He reassured her that while he hadn’t seen that particular show, he’d seen others, and she seemed happy for about ten seconds. Then she’d started in on shopping, and how expensive things were, and he was pretty sure he sensed Cassidy’s ears perking up in the backseat.
“It’s an expensive place to live,” he admitted. “But a lot of that is the real estate. I own my condo, so it’s not that expensive, month-to-month. It’s an investment, really. Other things? You can spend a lot of money on food and clothes if you want, but there are much less expensive options, too. There aren’t that many working class people who can afford to have an apartment right in Manhattan, but there are plenty who come in to work and buy lunch there without going broke.”
Emily nodded happily and went on with inquiries about different neighborhoods and where the schools she’d be visiting were, and Will gave her the information she wanted while sneaking looks at Cassidy via the rearview mirror. For once, he couldn’t read her emotions on her face, and he didn’t like it.
It wasn’t until they crossed over the George Washington Bridge that Emily stopped chattering, and as soon as she was quiet, Will wished she’d start talking again. Without her questions, the atmosphere of the car seemed oppressive, as if Cassidy’s mood, whatever it might be, was spreading.
“I didn’t make reservations anywhere for tonight,” he said, trying to sound light and chatty. “But we can order in pizza, if you want. Or go somewhere casual. And then tomorrow we’ll be blitzing the schools and probably just pick up lunch whenever we have a minute. I can also get us tickets to a show Friday night, or whatever else you want to do. Maybe shopping after we’re done at the schools? You guys can think about that, okay? Let me know what would be fun, and I’ll set it up.”