by Andrian, V.
I give him a wry smile. “Kinda figured that out myself.”
He frowns. “I can carry you if you’re in a hurry. We’ll go slower but—”
“No. I’m not. I mean… I don’t want you to carry me. And being a few more days out here won’t change anything. My friends will be worried sick for sure but I think they’ll be more worried if I don’t make it back because I’ll get eaten by a pack of wolves for going to slow.”
He nods once and then looks back at my ankle with the same frown.
“I’m sorry you have to withstand my ass for a few more days.”
He looks up at me and sighs. “Cassandra, I…” He shakes his head. “I liked the company, okay? It was nice after so long to have someone to talk to.”
I purse my lips. “Well, you weren’t exactly talking these past days.”
He chuckles. “Yeah, well… I still am a little rusty.”
“You can call me Cassie, you know.”
“What?”
“I know my name is big and silly so…”
He looks at me thoughtfully. “I like Cassandra. It suits you more. Unless you don’t like hearing it?”
Oh, I like hearing it from him. Anyone else other than clients I would have slapped but not him. And that’s seriously messed up. “No, I don’t mind.”
He nods.
“What do you mean it suits me more?”
He shrugs. “Cassandra is more serious than Cassie. More complicated. More… I don’t know. When I say the name Cassie I’m picturing a little girl with pigtails and riding a pony, not a woman who would fly across the country to find someone. No offense.”
“None taken,” I laugh. “But you got it all wrong. I’m not usually doing this. I mean, I would if I was asked to but this is my first case that doesn’t involve taking pictures of drug deals or cheating spouses.”
He winces dramatically. “That sounds…”
“Boring?” I offer. “Disturbing? Annoying? Take your pick.”
He chuckles. “I think I’ll let you do that.”
I smile and study him for a long moment. His jawline is visible now, as is his chin and they are both as perfect as in his picture but it’s not those features that have my attention. His eyes are sparkling with mirth and it’s the best look on him. Or second best after seeing him jack off but I’m not even going to go there. It gives him an air of mischief I feel very privileged to come across.
“What do you miss the most?”
And I ruined it. His smile drops and he turns his head to the side. Oh, fuck me! Why do I let my mouth take control and ruin every fucking moment?
He gets off the bed but, to my surprise, he doesn’t leave. Instead he slides down on the floor, propping his back to the side-wood and his arms on his bent knees.
“I don’t know,” he says in a low whisper. “Not that I don’t miss anything. I just don’t know what to put first. Football, cold beer, pizza. People. Conversations. Cole and Victoria. I think those two are at the top. Waffles.”
“Oh my God, yes! With warm chocolate and vanilla ice cream on top.”
He laughs and leans his head back on the mattress. His hair brush the side of my calf. “You know what I miss the most? Potatoes. Baked, fried, mashed, I don’t care.”
“Seriously?” I laugh. “I would have expected you to say sex.” I immediately freeze. Fuck me!
I’m caught off guard when he chuckles. “Yeah, sex is definitely at the top.”
I let out a quiet breath in relief and try to turn on my side. “Then why aren’t you going back? Why not come back with me? I don’t mean back to DC necessarily. I can tell your brother that you don’t want to be disturbed. That you don’t want to be found and you can start your life again somewhere else. Hell, you don’t even have to leave Alaska. Just… Have you ever thought about it?”
“All the time,” he says in a soft exhale.
“Then why not?” I know I shouldn’t push him but I can’t help but ask.
He stays silent for a long moment and I think he’s not going to answer. I turn on my back again and stare at the ceiling in sadness. How I wish he would tell me. Not for my curiosity but for him. He needs to vent whatever he’s feeling.
“You really want to know?”
My heart starts beating faster. “I can’t even express how much I do.”
He sighs. “Because the man I used to call a father destroyed me and threatened to do the same to my brother.”
Chapter Eight
“Your father did what?”
I can’t put my mind around it. I knew that Chandler Sawyers had been a hateful person and had treated Damon very badly but to have destroyed him? How? There were no records of anything – financial or otherwise – showing something like that.
He sighs again. “Chandler Sawyers had always been a cruel son of a bitch with me. I’m not saying it in exaggeration or to sound querulous. I’m just stating a truth. He would yell at me ever since I can remember and treat me like shit. My mother would always tell him to stop, to be nicer but he never was. Later I found out why.
”You see, I wasn’t their biological son. They told me when I was seven and it all made sense. Chandler and Hope couldn’t have children for years. When the doctor finally told them they couldn’t conceive, it nearly broke Hope. She is an amazing person and she deserved to be a mother. Chandler obviously felt the same because he was ready to do just about anything to give her a baby.
”I don’t exactly know the reason but they couldn’t adopt or they would have to wait a long time. But Chandler Sawyers was a man who would take whatever he wanted whenever he wanted it. If the system didn’t give him a child immediately, he would do it himself.
”I don’t know how it got to Chandler’s ears but there was a woman working for him that got pregnant by mistake. To make a long story short, she didn’t want the baby and Chandler offered her a large amount of money to keep her from having an abortion. Instead, she was going to give birth to the baby and give it to him. Illegally. No papers, no waiting, no laws involved whatsoever except if it meant breaking them.
”She accepted and eight months later she had me.”
”Two years and a miracle after that, Hope – who by the way never knew about the terms under which I was “adopted” – had Cole. And, even though I was too young to remember, I bet you anything that it was that exact moment Chandler Sawyers started to hate me. You see, I was capable of ruining him if his secret ever came out. Before Cole, he would have never regretted taking me. But now he was a criminal who had bought a child.
”So he treated me like one. I grew up hearing him saying over and over again that I was a mistake and, if he could, he would turn back time to the moment he chose to “adopt” me. My only consolation was that Hope was always like a real mother to me and she never treated me otherwise. She loved both Cole and me equally.
”When I finally was twenty one and was given full access to my trust fund – something Chandler couldn’t change thanks to my beloved Hope – Chandler started saying that I should leave. I was free now. I should get my money and get out of dodge. Only I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to leave my mother or my brother. I wanted to have them in my life even if it meant I had to tolerate Chandler as well.
”He wouldn’t have any of that. He blocked all my accounts with the rouse I was using them for illegal activities. He told my mother and Cole that too. Cole didn’t believe him for a second but my mother was heartbroken. She wouldn’t talk to me and would cry whenever I tried explaining. And if that wasn’t enough, he went far enough to pay my girlfriend to sleep with someone else and break my heart.
”And do you know what that did to me? Nothing. I didn’t care about the bitch and it only showed how shallow she was to do what she did. All I cared about was convince my mother that I wasn’t who he was telling her and, of course, stay out of prison. Yes, he actually told the DEA about me being a notorious drug lord and they were following me 24/7.
”I was already at
the edge of my limits when he delivered the final stroke. He found me one day and told me that what I was going through would be nothing compared to what he was going to do to Cole. If I didn’t make myself scarce, he would destroy Cole’s life the same way he was doing with mine. And he was going to make it seem like I was the one to blame so Cole would hate me too. He said he didn’t want to hurt his son but he would do it to get rid of me.
”I had no choice but to believe him, Cassandra. I didn’t want to risk Cole’s happiness. The kid was doing so well. He was finishing his business degree. He was going to marry Victoria. He was building the life he had always dreamed of. If I didn’t do what Chandler was telling me to, Cole was going to lose everything. How could I do that to the only brother I ever knew?
”So I told him I’d do it. I asked for a couple of months to get everything in order and enough money to disappear. He gave me that because he was too eager to make me disappear.” He finally sighs and drops his head back on the mattress. “The rest you can imagine. I bought the plane, found a place far enough to keep everyone and everything away, learned everything I could about surviving out here on my own and left. It wasn’t a coincidence I left on Cole’s birthday either. I knew my brother would be too busy with Victoria and his friends and it would give me time to leave without him finding out.”
That is… I don’t have words. Literally. Abhorrent would be too small a word. Inhuman wouldn’t be enough either. I feel hot tears of anger and disgust towards a man I’ve never met roll down my cheeks. So much hatred and for what? All the time Chandler Sawyers had spent trying to send Damon away could have been used to cover up his crime. A little bribing here and there and voila. But no. No, he had wanted Damon destroyed because he had been too much of a coward to admit his mistake.
I squeeze my eyes shut. “God, I never thought I could hate a person but this…” I push up on my elbows to a sitting position and look at Damon. “But you don’t have to stay away anymore, Damon. He’s gone. Chandler Sawyers died two years ago from cardiac arrest.”
He sighs and closes his eyes. “It doesn’t make a difference. I don’t want to go back anymore. I’m going to sound bitter but I don’t trust people anymore. The man who should have loved me like a father hated me. My mother believed everyone else’s words but mine. I even blame Cole because he was so fucking oblivious that at times it was beyond maddening. The people I called my family disappointed me. That was the reason I gave up everything. The reason I gave up who they had told me I should be only to destroy me later. And the reason I never want to go back.”
Now the tears fall for a whole different reason. For him. Because I know what he means. “This is what you meant when you insisted you’re not Damon Sawyers. Not only that you left that life behind.”
“I left everything behind. Most of all my name because I never was Damon Sawyers. I was born a mistake, raised a crime and kicked out like trash.”
Oh, my heart. I think it just broke in half and is weeping for him. I have a crush on Damon Sawyers but this man – my caveman – I could fall in love with. So broken and yet so strong. So closed off and yet so open.
I switch my weight to my one elbow and run my fingers through his hair, tugging lightly until he’s looking at me. “I don’t know about that but I know you’re not no one, Damon. And yes, I’m using that name for the sake of conversation but also because you are him. Whatever happened in your life, you were given that name with love and you grew up the man you are today as Damon. You may choose to leave the last name aside but keep the name.” I give him a small smile. “The name reminds me of you. It suits you.” And then, because I can’t fucking help myself, I lean down and kiss his cheek lightly.
His eyes hold a million swirling emotions I can’t discern. They are holding me captive, boring into my soul and leaving me wide open for him to do as he pleases. In this moment, I feel like I’m his. I feel like he owns me, just by that look.
He stands and I follow his movements as he turns around and leans over. His hands cup my face and he tilts my head further back without any resistance from me. Like I said, he owns me. “And you, Cassandra are nothing like any of them. Nothing like any person I’ve ever met in my life. And I’m going to be a fucking asshole and tell you I’m glad you ended up here. That I got to meet you and see the world through your eyes. See myself through them.” His lips descend on my forehead and linger there in a sweet kiss. “Thank you.”
“Even though I’ll be commandeering your bed for a few more days and you will have to carry me up to the spring again at some point?”
He laughs and slides his hands in my hair. There is a shift in his eyes, something that makes me want to squirm and burn. He tugs lightly just like I did before and I feel my entire body melting for him. “Maybe even because of that.” He lays another kiss on my forehead and leads me back on the pillow carefully. “Get some rest and I’ll make us something to eat.”
And I’m left on my own again, dripping wet for this gorgeous broken, caveman who I was never supposed to start falling for.
“Tell me about you,” he says as we’re eating. Yes, we’re actually having dinner together for the first time in the ten days I’ve been here. And while there is only one chair, I’m very comfortable sitting on the bed.
I shrug and swallow my bite. “There isn’t much to tell. Born and raised in DC by my mom. My dad left before I was even born and her parents cast her out. She had me and when I was old enough to live on my own, she left too.”
“Fuck,” he mumbles.
I shrug again. “I’m over it thanks to my two best friends, Layla and Dean. I met them in college and the first day that went by without seeing them ever since, was the day I came to Alaska. They are my real family. They’re married now and they’re having a baby in a few weeks.” I smile at the memory. “They have agreed to keep the gender of the baby a mystery until she gives birth. Layla thinks it’s a girl and I tease her by saying it’s a boy. It’s a never ending battle.”
“What does Dean think?” he asks in amusement and my smile grows.
“Dean thinks that we’re crazy and is making lewd comments to gross me out and turn Layla on. They are so in love it’s like they’ve jumped right out of a fairy tale!”
“And you?”
“Me? No. I haven’t even had time to go on a date in the last eighteen months let alone fall in love.”
“That busy, huh?”
I nod. “Thankfully. Managed to pay back my student loans and have started saving. Jeremy though – that’s my assistant – says I can’t start saving already because I’ll end up an old maid. I need to start spending in order to get out there and find me a husband with a gay best friend for him.”
He looks at me pointedly. “If he’s your assistant and thinks you have time to go out then one of you is wrong about the availability of time.”
I snort. “Yeah, well last time I dated, the guy thought women should all be stay-at-home-moms. I left the restaurant the moment he told me he wanted to have plenty of babies as long as they were all boys and maybe just one or two of them girls.”
“So he basically wanted a breeding wife that would be his slave.”
“Pretty much. After that I made sure I wouldn’t have time on my schedule for him to ask me on a second date and it kind of stuck with me.”
He nods thoughtfully. “What did you study at college?”
I smile. “English lit.”
“Wanted to be a teacher?”
I shake my head. “A writer. I wanted to write fantasy YA books and fairy tales for younger children. I needed money though to pay up my loans so I got a license for a PI and started the office I have today.”
“But why PI? I mean from a writer to a detective?”
“It was a joke between me and Layla, that I had a good gut feeling and I should use it to investigate crimes. It gave me the idea.”
“How old are you?”
I narrow my eyes in mock anger. “You never ask a lady her age!”
I smile when I see him frown. “Twenty five.”
His frown turns into surprise but he nods.
“Why that face? Am I younger or older than what you expected?”
“Older. And I think maybe too young to be a PI. Can’t it be dangerous?”
I nod. “It can. But so can other jobs. And I’ve taken physical defense classes to protect myself if I have to. Though I’m pretty sure that bear would have kicked my ass if I had tried to jujitsu my way out of there.”
He laughs heartily and it’s beautiful. Deep and rich and so wonderful. It’s the first time he’s doing that with me. “I think I can actually picture you trying to go into a fight with him.”
My mind conjures up an image of him fighting the bear. He would have good chances if he’s strong enough to carry me through the forest without breaking a sweat. Which reminds me… I look down at my meat suspiciously.
“What is this? What are we eating?”
He laughs again. “Now you ask?”
“Now you’re here to ask. You always run away as if I’ll bite if you stay and eat with me.” I immediately regret saying that. After what I saw him doing today… is it possible he wasn’t around because he was doing that?
He actually looks sheepish when he answers. “Yeah, well, I think we can agree my social skills need honing.”
“Okay, I forgive you. As long as you tell me what it is we’re eating. Please tell me it’s not that bear!”
Now he laughs loudly. “You think I’d kill the bear? Or that I’d be able to? No, it’s caribou.”
I scrunch up my nose. “What’s that?”
He looks so amused when he shakes his head. “It’s a kind of reindeer.”
I open my eyes in mock horror. “You’re killing Rudolph?”
“More like Rudolph’s cousin.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “But how? I’ve never seen you carry around anything other than that axe.”
“I have a bow hidden in some trees a little further away. I don’t want to bring it here in case it has left over blood on it, to avoid attracting wild animals.”