This had to be a dream.
This couldn’t be real.
Because Cayson Dixon was touching me.
Holding me close enough that my breasts were brushing against his chest with each uneven breath.
Eyes searching mine and skating across my face, lingering on my lips and where his skin touched mine.
But if it had been a dream, he would’ve kissed me by now.
I would’ve been able to move. I wouldn’t be standing there, statue still, silently begging him to do something while hating myself for needing and craving him this way.
He wouldn’t look as though he were desperately trying to talk himself out of what he was about to do.
But just as he started to lean in, his head slanted and his eyes shut as if he were in pain, and he took a step away.
My chest heaved with disappointment and loss.
With the rejection of that simple yet monumental act.
“I know you,” I’d managed to whisper when his hands dropped heavily to his sides. “I’ve seen you, Cayson. When you think no one’s looking. I’ve seen behind that mask.”
His tormented eyes snapped to mine and held.
After a lifetime of agonizing seconds, his head shifted, the movement neither a nod or a shake, but something in between.
“You don’t know me at all, Little Duck,” he’d said gruffly.
“What?” The word was a pained breath, and then I was hurrying to reach for him as he stalked past me. “Cayson!”
But he hadn’t slowed down, and as I rushed after him, Sawyer and Leighton had come into the house to see what had taken me so long.
Cayson left that night . . .
No one had known he was truly gone until a day later.
Of all the times I’d been wrecked by Cayson Dixon, that was the worst.
The news of his leaving had crushed me.
Obliterated me.
Wrenched tears from deep within my soul until I was sure I’d experienced the only true heartbreak I would ever know.
“The guy in our guest room is not the guy you’re describing,” Rae said with a hint of finality as she lifted her mug again and drew me back to the present.
“I know,” Sawyer said quickly, conceding. “I know. It’s just . . . unsettling, I guess.” Seconds passed, his knee bouncing so rapidly it sent little shockwaves through our chair and me. “And not knowing what he’ll do makes all of this hard. I wanna be there for him, I wanna help him with our family. But I don’t know if he’s gonna be here tomorrow or even an hour from now.”
That tightening in my throat turned into a jagged rock because Sawyer’s worries matched my own and made them more real.
I wanted Cayson away from me and my heart as much as I wanted to know that he was going to stay in Amber forever.
This boy was going to drive me insane long before he ever had the chance to leave.
Rae made a humming noise in the back of her throat that was both understanding and contemplative and made her sound so much like me.
It was only one of the many identical traits we shared, and every time she did it, I wondered how I hadn’t picked up on it long before she’d revealed that she was my sister. Abandoned by my mom—our mom—when Rae was three.
“Do you know what he’s going to do when this furlough ends?” she asked.
Sawyer’s bouncing knee abruptly went still.
He stayed silent for a while before saying, “He never actually answered.”
“Well, he’ll have to go back for his girlfriend,” Rae said a little too nonchalantly.
“I don’t think they’re together,” I said before I was able to stop myself.
Sawyer looked to me, a crease forming between his brows. “Yeah, they’re not,” he said slowly before turning his attention back to Rae. “I thought I told you that.”
Her brows lifted as she raised the mug to her lips to hide her grin. “Must have forgotten.”
My eyes narrowed, but before I could question what Sawyer clearly couldn’t see from his position, he turned on me to ask, “How’d you know that?”
I was so caught on the way Rae’s mischievous stare flashed to me as she continued to hide her smile that I answered without thinking. “He told me.”
I felt my stomach drop and my blood run hot when Rae’s stunned expression made me realize exactly what I’d said.
My tongue darted out to wet my lips and a nervous laugh crept up my throat. “I mean, sort of. Actually, he didn’t. He mentioned something about them but kept using the past tense, so I . . .” The rest of the words died, and my mouth went dry when I noticed Sawyer’s silent fury.
“When was this?” he demanded when I didn’t continue.
“L-last night.”
He shoved back, moving our large chair only a little, but kept his hands curled tightly around the edge of the table. “I told him,” he said in low warning. “I fucking told him not to go near her.”
“Sawyer, it wasn’t,” I began, but the explanation died in my throat when he turned his hardened stare on me again and leaned closer.
“What did he say to you? What did he do?”
I knew his anger was valid.
Knew his worries for me were too.
I had been Cayson’s biggest target for almost fifteen years, and Sawyer had been a witness to nearly all of it.
Always one step behind Cayson, unable to stop him, but there for the aftermath.
“It wasn’t like—there was a bag . . . stuff, so freaking humiliating. And the gas was gone—I didn’t know he was—he didn’t do—it was fine.”
His ice-blue eyes widened as he listened to me ramble incoherently.
When I ended on a heaving breath, he asked, “Did he bother you?”
“No.” My stare fell to the side, something like shame filling me when I admitted, “He helped me.”
He confused me.
He brought up a hundred memories I’ve wanted to forget.
He made me fall more in love with him . . .
And that right there was where my shame stemmed from.
What kind of person falls in love with the cause of their childhood insecurities and torment and cruelty? I could barely understand it, how was I supposed to expect anyone else to—especially Sawyer?
He was more than my best friend, he was a brother to me.
He’d been there through everything, just as I’d been there for him.
Cayson had been one of those everythings for us for numerous reasons. Sawyer would never understand . . . or approve.
“Regardless, he needs to leave you alone.” Sawyer stood and ruffled my hair before rounding the table and bending low to whisper to Rae.
When I stood to give them their privacy before Sawyer left, Rae’s hand shot out and gripped my own.
I looked to her in question, but she appeared wholly caught up in Sawyer as he pressed a kiss to her lips then leaned his forehead against hers.
So I awkwardly sat. With my hand in Rae’s. While she and her boyfriend whispered to each other and kissed.
Just another day . . .
I glanced out the window as I waited for them to finish, my stare darting around the sidewalk, both expectant and hesitant for the first time in so many years.
But Cayson wasn’t there.
I felt myself relax while my chest ached with sadness . . . until Rae spoke.
“So, what really happened last night?”
My head slowly turned to face Rae, my eyes going wide at the obvious disbelief in her tone.
“I’m sorry?”
Her mouth twisted into a wry smile as she released my hand and leaned forward so she could lower her voice, ensuring none of the other people around us could hear. “Even if I hadn’t been writing late, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep with the way Sawyer was literally pacing, waiting to see if his brother would come back.” One of her brows ticked up. “Cayson was gone for a really long time.”
“That isn’t my fault,” I said brea
thlessly, my stomach twisting nervously at the way she was looking at me.
As though she could see right through me and knew everything I’d spent a lifetime burying.
“Just asking what happened,” she said with a shrug that lacked the innocence she was going for. “After all, he more or less told you he’s single.”
“That wasn’t what—no. He didn’t. That wasn’t the conversation.”
“Still came up,” she challenged gently. “Interesting that it came up with you when he made your life hell.”
“He did,” I argued, not that it had been a question.
Her expression softened. Hazel eyes identical to my own searched mine. “I know he did, Em. And yet, he went to see you last night.”
“Just to give me what I’d left at y’alls place,” I interjected as she continued.
“He helped you last night.”
“That hadn’t exactly been part of his plan,” I added on a rushed breath.
“For some reason, his conversation with you went to his relationship and touched on the fact that they’re no longer together.”
“That—” I thought for a second, trying to remember how we had gotten there last night, then admitted, “may have been my fault.”
At that, Rae sat back with a little victorious grin as she took a sip of her coffee.
I just sat there trying to figure out where this interrogation had come from and what she was trying to get from it.
Her face fell as she watched me. “I don’t know about the old Cayson, but I can imagine. Trust me, I can. But the guy who showed up yesterday?” She glanced around and then leaned back in, her voice so low I almost couldn’t hear her when she said, “He wouldn’t walk away laughing.”
My head listed as I tried to figure out what it was she was saying. “I don’t . . . what?”
But before she had the chance to respond, I sat back, dread coursing through me as I remembered that night on the ranch.
“I didn’t realize until just before he left that I loved him—that I probably always had,” I’d told Rae months ago—before I’d ever known who she truly was. “And then he was gone. Again, not that it would have mattered.”
“You don’t know that,” she’d said.
A dejected laugh left me. “Oh, yes I do. You don’t know him.” Memories had risen to the surface before I could force them away. “The way he was? I can imagine him laughing as he walked away from me if he ever found out.”
“Oh God,” I said on a breath.
“Emberly,” she began gently, but I spoke over her.
“I never told you.” I looked around to make sure no one was near us, no one was listening. “I never said his name.”
Her brows drew together in something close to regret as she reached toward me, but kept her hand on the table. “I know, but it wasn’t all that hard to figure out,” she admitted softly. “I’d already known about his leaving, and you were watching Sawyer when you told me. And then with your reaction when he came in yesterday . . .”
“Jesus.”
“This could be what you’ve waited for. All this time keeping yourself from anyone because of him, and it could be so different than you’d pictured.”
“I’m fine. And I have Kip, if you’ve forgotten.”
She rolled her eyes. “The fact that you just tried to use Kip as anything is just sad. And I’m only saying that you don’t know what he would do.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “I strongly doubt he would do what you thought.”
“You don’t know what he did,” I said sharply. “He ruined so many years of my life, Rae. I won’t let him ruin any more.”
She nodded for nearly a minute as if she didn’t realize that she was, her face morphing into sadness. “I know he was mean and cruel—I know. But that was ten years ago. Give him the opportunity to have changed.”
I knew she was right.
Some part of me knew that.
Didn’t stop me from snapping back with, “If your aunts and uncles—or, hell, even your grandparents—came back acting like completely different people, would you trust that they had really changed? Would you forgive the way they treated you all those years? The way they abandoned you and made you feel like a burden?”
Rae’s expression fell into nothing.
Just nothing.
“No,” she whispered.
“You left there, what . . . twelve years ago? More than that now?” A harsh breath left me as I stood to go. “Exactly.”
But I hadn’t gotten more than a few steps away before my overwhelming sadness for the girl behind me eclipsed my need to defend myself. My heart.
Turning around, I stepped up to her and placed my hand on hers. “I’m sorry. It hurts to know what you went through,” I said softly. “And I know I can’t fully understand, just as you can’t understand this.”
“I know.” She curled her hand around mine and squeezed tight, then looked up at me. “I just saw how it was something you wanted and longed for, so when he showed up, I only thought about how this could be for you.”
“I appreciate it. Really. But for so many reasons, this can’t be something.”
After a moment, her head moved in a subtle nod, but she didn’t release her hold on me. “Answer one thing, and then I’ll drop it.”
My head tilted to the side in agreement, but I remained silent as I studied the way her eyes lit up and darted around the café before dropping to the table as she clearly thought of how to phrase something she’d been thinking on for a while.
Maybe even seen it play out a dozen different ways in that way she did with her overactive imagination.
Turned it into one of her novels.
“You’ve avoided dating anyone ever because of him,” she finally said, then met my stare. “You’ve kept Kip at a hook-up-only arm’s length for years because of him, even though Kip is sure you’re way past dating since he still thinks he’s marrying you.”
A curse escaped my lips on a hiss, and I glanced around instinctively, hating that I was making sure Cayson wasn’t around to hear what Rae had said.
Hating even more that the parts I was worried about him hearing weren’t about him at all, but someone else.
It wasn’t as though he would care.
And the rest of the town was already fully aware that Kip was trying to tie himself to me in a forever kind of way even though I’d repeatedly told him I wanted to keep things casual.
“You don’t even like Kip,” she continued on a whisper. “The whole him-never-here-and-living-hours-away is easy and convenient for you because you’ve been waiting for Cayson to—”
I jerked in her hold, my jaw clenched and stare darted wildly around.
That was something the town didn’t know.
Couldn’t know.
Rae cleared her throat, drawing my attention back in time to see her look my way again after having glanced casually over her shoulder.
“Waiting for him to come back,” she finished.
“Is there anything from that night you don’t remember?” I asked tightly.
“You know me,” she murmured with a slight shrug as she released my hand. “I hear these kinds of stories and obsess over them.”
I knew that.
I loved that about her.
But I hadn’t ever expected her to figure out the guy I was talking about.
With how much I’d wanted Cayson to come back to Amber, I’d never actually expected him to.
I glanced toward the doors when they opened, forcing myself to ignore the dip of disappointment when it wasn’t a certain Dixon. “What’s the question?”
“Now that he has come back, now that you’ve seen him, are you really going to be able to continue your when-it’s-convenient situation with Kip?”
“I don’t see why not.”
Her expression deadpanned at the blatant lie.
“I mean, honestly, when am I ever actually wanting to continue things with Kip? But like you said, it’s easy and conven
ient when he’s in town. Cay—” I bit my tongue and slowly inhaled, letting the smell of coffee soothe me. “This new situation doesn’t change things.”
“You’re lying,” she said softly.
I shrugged because I couldn’t deny it.
I started to take a step away but took one toward her instead to whisper, “I also told you he would’ve never been a good idea. You saw Sawyer this morning . . . and that was because I’d talked to Cayson.”
“It isn’t Sawyer’s decision what you do with your life.”
“I also didn’t know how much it would hurt to see him,” I admitted, looking away when her expression creased with empathy. “I didn’t know how much of that old hatred and pain would resurface. It’s like I see him and want to fall into him because he’s here. The next second, I want to rage and hit him for everything he did.”
“Em . . .”
“Rae, you don’t know what he did.” My stare shifted back to her. “He could never be a good idea.”
She opened her mouth, but I continued before she could disagree or comfort me or argue Cayson’s case.
“Who knows? Maybe his being here will be good for me. Maybe it will help me get over him.” I shrugged and gently touched her shoulder before stepping away. “Maybe I’ll even ditch Kip and start dating someone.” My eyes widened comically, but Rae just offered me a sad smile.
“There’s always Brady,” she said dryly.
“Jesus,” I hissed, looking around once again to see who might’ve overheard in our eavesdropping town before turning my gaze on her. “Sawyer has got to drop that. That is a hard no. Like, no way in hell.”
Her lips twitched in amusement. “He is super handsome and adores you, though.”
“Employee,” I reminded her unnecessarily.
He was a good guy and a great employee, but he was like a puppy.
Loyal, protective, and eager to a fault. In an instant, Brady could shift from guarding me to looking so wounded that I wanted to apologize for whatever I’d said. Neither of which I needed or wanted.
“Hey, he isn’t my vote,” Rae said, her amusement turning into a shameless grin at my blank expression.
“No votes. My personal life isn’t a poll and is no longer up . . . for . . .” My heart stalled before taking off at a thunderous pace I was sure the entire café could hear as I watched him walk past the storefront windows.
Whiskey (Brewed Book 2) Page 6