I couldn’t stand it, the slouch in her shoulders, and the defeat in her voice. It ripped me to shreds seeing her broken like that, and I would have given anything to take her pain away.
Navie wiped at her tears with the back of her hand and sniffled, offering a weak smile that came nowhere near meeting her eyes. “Thank you for everything y’all did for me tonight, but I just want to go home.” We all stood motionless as she walked from the room, broken-hearted and full of sorrow.
I took a step to go after her when I felt a hand wrap around my arm, stopping me. “Don’t,” Carson spoke softly. “Let me go. I’ll take care of her.”
“I can’t just leave her like that.” I felt my own tears break loose as I thought about the pain on Navie’s beautiful face.
“I know, baby. But let me take care of her tonight. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay? Just let me handle this right now.”
I hated being so helpless, but I trusted that Carson knew how to handle it. He’d been doing it for years. “Okay,” I relented hesitantly. “But you’ll let me know if you need anything?”
“I will, Violet.” He placed a quick kiss on my lips and pulled away.
“I love you.”
“Love you, too, Cass. I’ll call you later.”
As he walked away from me, I heard Uncle Kal’s deep voice. “You need me to help you hunt that little shit down and kick his ass, you just give me the word, son.”
“Thanks.”
As he passed Kal, Milly grabbed hold of his arm. “You take care of that little girl now, but the moment she’s feeling up to it, you bring her right back here. You hear me? Bring her back to her family so we can help put her back together. That’s what family does.”
He placed a gentle kiss on Milly’s forehead before disappearing out the back door. I felt the crushing weight of Carson and Navie’s absence the moment the door closed. And I prayed I could find a way to make that sweet girl feel better.
I couldn’t sleep that night. I just kept seeing the despair on Navie’s face playing through my mind every time I closed my eyes. A little after one in the morning, I finally gave up the ghost on getting any sleep and climbed out of bed. I was antsy and discombobulated, so I did the only thing I could think to do. I slipped my feet into a pair of flip-flops and took off for Carson’s house. I didn’t know what I planned to do when I got there, I just had a feeling deep-seated in my gut that it was the place I needed to be.
I had no formulated plan as I walked quietly across the grass. I didn’t want to disturb whatever was going on inside that house. I just wanted to be close. I wanted to feel their presence and hope they felt mine, that it gave them some sense of comfort.
I stepped up onto the porch and took a seat on the swing. Restless energy coursed through me as I used my foot to push myself back and forth in a slow, lazy sway. I had no idea how long I sat in that spot, staring out into the night, lost in thoughts of my past, when the front door creaked open, breaking me from the dark musings inside my head.
“What are you doing out here?”
I turned my head at the sound of Carson’s gravelly voice. The sight of him wearing nothing but a pair of loose basketball shorts caused my breath to hitch. Even somewhat masked by the darkness of night, he was the most gorgeous sight I’d ever seen as he leaned against the doorway.
“I couldn’t sleep. I know you told me you’d call, but I just needed to know she was okay.”
Releasing a pent-up sigh, he ran his hands through his hair as he pushed away from the door and closed it. The swing rocked back and forth as he came to sit down next to me.
“She’s not okay,” he answered, breaking my heart even more than it already was. “But she will be. She’s tough; she had to be growing up. It’ll take a little time, but she’ll get over this just like all the other times.” Resting his elbows on his knees, he dropped his head into his hands. “I just feel so useless right now. I want to make it all better, but I don’t have a damn clue how to do that. I can’t stand seeing her like this. It kills me.”
“I’m so sorry,” I spoke softly as I stroked his back.
Carson shot up from the swing and began pacing. “I want to find that little prick and kick his ass,” he seethed.
Standing from my seat, I stepped into his path and wrapped my arms around him, trying to give him some sort of comfort. “Carson, stop. Getting yourself all worked up isn’t going to make the situation any better.”
“Who the hell does something like that, Cassidy?” he asked, gripping my wrists as he stared down into my eyes looking completely ravaged. “She’s such an amazing girl. Why can’t they see that? How can someone deliberately destroy a person’s self-worth like that?” Pulling from my embrace, he turned his back on me and grabbed hold of his hair. “Christ!” he shouted into the night air. It was like watching a balloon pop. He just deflated right there in front of me. Carson’s head lowered and his shoulders drooped as he whispered, “I don’t understand how people can be so…heartless.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered as tears filled my eyes, blurring my vision. “I’m so, so sorry.”
It wasn’t an apology for what was happening to Navie, but for my past and the horrible things I’d done. I’d been just like Meredith. I understood exactly what drove a person to be so cruel. The fact that I could relate to someone who’d caused so much pain to someone I loved left me feeling gutted, flayed open and completely exposed. I was no better than the girl Navie and Carson despised with every fiber of their being.
I knew right then and there I had to tell him the truth. I had to own up to what I’d done, even though I knew…I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I was going to lose him because of it. Sadness seeped into every pore, every bone in my body, and I let the tears run free, unchecked, as I began the process of mourning something I knew I was soon going to lose.
I stood there silently for several seconds, not bothering to wipe my damp cheeks until Carson turned around to face me. In a sudden move, he was standing directly in front of me, holding my face in the palms of his hands.
“I need you,” he breathed just before crushing his lips to mine, demanding entry in an intense and brutal kiss.
“Carson…” I tried to pull back from the kiss, knowing it was wrong. “Carson, we can’t,” I insisted weakly as his lips trailed down along my neck. He bit the sensitive skin near my collarbone and my knees nearly buckled.
Using his size against me, Carson backed me up until I hit the side of the house, effectively leaving me with no escape. “We can. I need you, Violet,” he spoke against my ear, causing goose bumps to break out across my flesh. “I need to feel you squeezing me as you come. I want to hear you scream my name.”
One of his hands slid down my body into my pajama shorts. His fingers whispered along my skin, and I felt my already-shaky resolve begin to crumble. “You’re upset right now. This isn’t right,” I panted, breathless from his ministrations.
Carson pulled back to look at me at the same time he began sliding my shorts and panties down my legs. The chilly air hit my exposed skin, sending a shiver up my spine. “To say I’ve had a shitty night would be the understatement of the century,” Carson said as he lifted me up, pinning me against the wall, leaving me no choice but to wrap my legs around his waist. “I’m tired of having one bad day after another. My entire life has been filled with nothing but bad days. Until I met you.”
He reached down toward the waistband of his shorts. With a shift of his hips, I felt the head of his erection pressing against me. I closed my eyes and dropped my head back against the house as he continued to speak.
“You’re one of the only bright spots in my life, Cassidy. You’re my Violet, and I need to lose myself in you so I can remember that the world isn’t a terrible place. You’re the only one who can do that for me. You make me forget all the bad I’ve been through.”
I had to stifle my cries with my hand as he buried himself inside me as far as he could go.
“Ever
y time,” he grunted as he began pumping in and out of me. “Jesus. Every time with you is better than the last.”
Carson let out a hiss as I clenched around him, already so close to flying over the precipice. It was too much—too intense, too soon.
“Carson,” I whimpered, fearing the building-up deep in my core at the same time I craved it.
“Tell me you love me,” he panted, resting his forehead against mine as he picked up the pace of his hips. “Say it.”
The wood paneling against the side of the house was abrading my skin, but I was too far gone to care. “I love you,” I all but shouted as I was pulled under the power of a release so strong, I thought I’d pass out. I barely heard the sound of Carson grunting my name over the blood rushing through my ears as he followed right after me.
“I love you, too, Cassidy,” he said quietly, reverently, once we’d both caught our breaths.
“Stay with me tonight,” Carson said after several minutes of silence.
“But I thought—”
He silenced me with a quick kiss. “I know what I told you earlier, but I want you to stay. I just need to keep your light for a little while longer.”
A knot of self-loathing formed in my gut. I wanted to sob, I wanted to rage at the unfairness of it all. Why was I allowed to meet such a wonderful man if I wouldn’t be able to keep him? Was it karma paying me back for all the years I’d tormented and bullied? The irony of it all wasn’t lost on me. Some higher power clearly had a sick sense of humor, because no other form of retribution could ever hurt as much as losing Carson was going to.
Too cowardly to deny myself as much time as possible with the man I loved, I nodded and let him carry me into the house, keeping me in his tight grasp until we made it to his bedroom.
I walked on autopilot into the bathroom to clean up then made my way back into the room to find Carson sitting on the bed with a troubled expression on his face. “I forgot a condom,” he said as he handed me back my shorts and panties that I’d forgotten outside. “I’m so sorry, baby. I swear I’m clean. I don’t want you to worry about that.”
“It’s okay.” I gave him a thin smile as I slid my feet into the legs of my clothes and pulled them on. “I’ve been on the pill since I had Willow. And I’m clean, too. You’re the first in…”
Carson stood from the bed and wrapped me in his arms. “How long had it been before me?”
Pulling a deep lungful of air, I answered, “Seth was the last guy I’d been with until I met you.”
His brows knit together. “Willow’s dad?”
I couldn’t meet his eyes. Focusing on a spot on his bare chest, I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Hey,” Carson placed the tips of his fingers under my chin and gently lifted my head. “Don’t hide from me, okay? There’s nothing you could say that would ever make me look at you any differently.”
I had to blink furiously against a fresh wave of tears that threatened to spill at his heartfelt words, because he couldn’t have been more wrong. He just didn’t know it yet.
“Are you ever going to tell me about him?”
I cleared my throat, momentarily breaking eye contact. “Yeah, I’ll tell you about him. But not tonight, okay? We’ve had way too much serious for one night.”
Concern flashed in his mossy eyes before being replaced by anger. “Did he hurt you?” he asked fiercely, his hold tightening around me.
“No! God, no. Nothing like that, I promise. I just don’t feel like bringing up the past right now. Is that okay?”
“Yeah, baby. That’s okay.”
Leading me to what I’d come to think of as my side of the bed, Carson pulled the covers down so I could lie down before tucking them back around me. I listened as he walked around to his side and climbed in, waiting patiently for the security I always felt when he held me in his arms. I always felt so cherished, so taken care of with him. With Carson’s heat pressing against my back, I lay in dark silence, feeling his chest rise and fall with each breath until it finally evened out into a steady rhythm, letting me know he was asleep. I tried my hardest to memorize how it felt to lie there with him. The feel of the sheets against my skin, the way his touch warmed me better than any blanket ever could. I wanted to remember every aspect of our time together so I could access those memories whenever I needed.
Then I let the tears fall. I cried for the man I loved, for the man I was sure to lose. I cried for the future I had foolishly thought I could earn.
I cried silently until there was nothing left.
Only then did I allow sleep to pull me under, hoping my dreams would be better than the reality I would soon be facing.
Two days had passed since the epic prom night fiasco, and while Navie had come out of her cocoon, her melancholy was still noticeable. Her once-bright smile no longer met her eyes. I was at a loss. I’d tried everything I could to pull her from her pensive mood, even enlisting the help of Willow, but nothing worked. Carson said to give her time and space, but backing away when someone I loved was hurting was almost impossible to do.
I needed a distraction in order to keep my mind off Navie. That was why I found myself sitting on the front porch with Aunt Milly, drinking a glass of iced tea while we watched Carson slay invisible dragons in the front yard while Bug chased him around with her own pretend sword made of foam and duct tape. Carson had the day off from ranch duties and hadn’t batted an eye when she insisted he play with her. Just watching the two of them interact twisted my heart with a mixture of happiness and sorrow. I could only hope that when things ended between the two of us, Carson would still be there for my little girl. When Willow loved, she loved with every single thing she had. I couldn’t stand the thought of my baby girl’s tiny heart being broken.
“You know,” Milly spoke, pulling me from my despairing thoughts. “He really is amazing with our little Doodle Bug, isn’t he?” I looked over to see her smiling lovingly at the pair of them just as Willow tackled Carson to the ground.
“He is,” I answered, doing a horrible job of hiding the sadness in my voice.
“What’s the matter, honey?” Milly asked, placing her hand over mine. “You look like someone just ran over your puppy.”
“It’s not going to last, Milly,” I answered quietly, not taking my eyes off the two people I loved more than anything as they played in the yard.
“Oh, child. I’ve seen the way that boy looks at you. There’s not a brittle bone in my old-as-dirt body that believes that’s true. I might be going blind in my old age, but I can still see unconditional love from a mile away.”
“You’re not old, Milly,” I said, turning to her with a smile.
“And you’re a liar.” She chuckled. “Don’t think I’m gonna let you change the subject on me, girly. Tell me what’s going on.”
“I still haven’t told him what I did to land myself in Texas four years ago.” I felt guilty even admitting that out loud. “After what happened the other night, you still think he’ll feel the same way once he learns I was even worse than the girl who picks on Navie?”
“Oh, Cassidy.” The scolding tone in Milly’s voice made me feel like a child being chastised. “You should know better than anyone that keeping secrets never leads to anything good. Why would you keep that from him?”
“Because I was afraid I’d lose him!” I cried.
“Sweetheart,” Milly started, leaning forward to take my hands in both of hers. “When it comes to matters of the heart, it’s not up to you to decide what you divulge and what you keep hidden away. Love doesn’t work like that. The only way to guarantee a long and lasting relationship is to lay all your cards on the table and let fate handle the rest. You need to learn to have faith in the person you give your heart to.
“True love doesn’t come with conditions or stipulations, honey. If that boy is the one you’re meant to be with then he’ll find a way to move past all the bad in order to get to the good. He’ll see that who you were then isn’t who you are now. Just like we
all do.”
“But what if he can’t see past it?” I sniffled.
“Then you pick yourself up, lick your wounds for just a bit, and move on until you find the one who’s meant for you. It’ll hurt like a son of a bitch for a while, but it won’t kill you, I can promise you that. It’s not your place to stack the deck in your favor. You need to be honest with him. He deserves that much.”
“I know. You’re right.”
I could tell she had more she wanted to say, but the conversation was cut short by the sound of car tires crunching across the gravel of the driveway.
“Now, who in the world could that be?”
I turned to see a shiny red Mercedes coming to a stop a few yards away from the house. My stomach dropped as icy dread filled my veins and wrapped around my heart like a fist and squeezing.
“Oh, no,” I breathed as the driver side door opened. Standing from my chair, I started for the steps, ready to head him off before he could talk to anyone else.
“Cass? You know who that is?” Milly asked, her voice laced with concern.
I turned and held my hand up, stopping her from following me. “Just…stay here, okay? I’ll handle this.”
From the corner of my eye, I could see that Carson and Bug had stopped goofing around, too busy staring at the flashy car that was so out of place on our quiet ranch. All I could do was pray they didn’t come over, or that I could get rid of Seth before they made it to us.
“What the hell are you doing here, Seth?” I seethed once I got close enough.
“Well, it’s wonderful to see you, too,” he replied casually, an unattractive sneer on his face.
Once I’d rounded the hood of the car to the driver’s side, I was able to take in the full effect of the man standing in front of me. He certainly had changed over the past four years. And judging by his paunchy belly and receding hairline he was already sporting at twenty-two, time hadn’t been all that kind to him. I couldn’t deny that I got some sort of satisfaction at seeing Seth’s good looks slowly circling the drain.
Shrinking Violet (Colors #2) Page 16