Chapter 31
CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE
“All right, Sweetie,” Lark said with a sigh. She had just reached the front porch of the house, and she set the little dog on her feet. “Let’s go see what Cash is doing.” She expected the cowboy to be awake, though she’d arrived hours earlier than she’d told him she’d be there.
Lark had spent the last two days working nonstop, going through her apartment, gathering all of her belongings, getting all of her clothes back, and packing everything she owned.
Though her SUV was one of the smaller ones, she’d managed to get everything inside, with the help of Sylvie and Caleb and another roommate, Ella.
Now she just needed to get it all unloaded and unpacked, and that fact had her heart quaking. She knew Cash needed to be out at Cousins Creek later that day, and in her mind, they could get her car unloaded, she could work on unpacking, and then go with him.
Of course, Lark knew she needed to be a little bit flexible, especially since Cash believed she was showing up with a couple of suitcases and a medium-rare steak from his favorite steakhouse in Jackson Hole.
Sweetie perched on the stoop, waiting for Lark to open the door, which she finally did. “All right, go find him,” she cooed at her Yorkie. Sweetie went scampering into the house, and Lark followed her with only her purse on her arm.
“Howdy, Sweetie,” she heard Cash say from further inside. “What are you doing here already?” She made it down the hall and into the kitchen to find Cash had picked up her little dog and was rubbing her with his big hands.
Sweetie panted and nipped his fingers in pure bliss, and Lark knew the feeling. Their eyes met. “You’re early,” he said, at the same time she said, “I’m early.”
That made him smile. He advanced toward her easily, hooking her with one of his arms while still holding Sweetie in the other.
“Horses alive, it is good to see you.” His voice carried relief and passion in equal measure, and Lark tilted her head back to receive his kiss. And oh, he could kiss her.
Her emotions existed on the precipice of a tall mountain, and Cash pulled away. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head and put a smile on her face. “Now that I’m here with you, absolutely nothing.”
He blinked at her, a wisp of surprise in those dark eyes. “Do you need help bringing stuff in?”
“Oh, I need help bringing stuff in,” she said.
He stepped back and put Sweetie on the ground. “Well, let’s do it.” He started toward the front door without shoes, and Lark reached out and grabbed his hand. “Cash.”
He turned back to her, taking her other hand in his. “I think you’ve gotten prettier,” he said. “Maybe it’s just how much I’ve missed you.”
Lark looked up, pure happiness moving through her. She loved the way Cash could articulate his thoughts and feelings, and she wished she could do the same.
“I think you’re going to need shoes,” she said. “And maybe a jacket. It’s really cold out there today.”
“Yeah, but I got the snow cleared yesterday,” he said. “And it’s not supposed to storm again until Tuesday.”
She looked up at him, wishing he could simply see inside her mind and realize he needed to put shoes on. “Cash, baby.” She reached up and ran her fingertips around the collar of his T-shirt. “You’re going to take more than one trip, and I really think you need shoes and a jacket.”
“How much stuff did you bring?” he asked. She looked up and found the cute confusion between his eyes.
“Everything I own,” she said seriously. “Because I’m not going back to Idaho.”
The breath fell out of Cash’s mouth in a soft grunt.
Lark’s pulse raced and the words piled on top of one another to get out of her mouth now. “I just decided on Wednesday,” she said. “I’ve spent the last couple of days scouring the apartment and doing my cleaning assignments, canceling my classes, and applying for a tuition refund.”
“Can—can you even do that?” She had never heard Cash stutter before, and that was how she knew she’d truly surprised him.
“Yeah, of course,” she said. “It’s just some paperwork.
I made sure the Agricultural Sciences Department knew where to send my last check, and well, me and my roommates packed up everything I owned last night, and all I had to do this morning was strip my bed and wipe down the bathroom before I left. ”
She swallowed and wished he would wipe that stunned look from his face. “And now I’m home,” she said. “And I’m not going back.”
Cash released her hands and turned. “I’ll get my shoes.”
His voice held no emotion, and Lark hated that more than anything.
Cash had always been a man who lived life right on the edge, with the volume turned all the way up, and to hear him speak in such a monotone and watch him turn his back on her and walk away did not instill a lot of confidence in Lark’s heart.
“I thought he’d be happy,” she whispered to herself, her eyes dropping to where Sweetie had laid down on the edge of the carpet. “And I still have to tell Momma and Daddy,” she said to the little dog.
She glanced down the hallway, didn’t see Cash, and decided she could get started alone.
Lark hated being alone, and she thought she was returning to a place where she wouldn’t have to be.
The front door creaked as she went outside, and she left it open an inch so she wouldn’t have to twist the knob to get back in.
She’d raised the back of her SUV and reached inside for the first box when Cash joined her—properly shod and jacketed.
“All right, load me up,” Cash said, and he definitely possessed more pep now.
She looked over to him. “I probably should have told you.”
“I’m just surprised.” He reached for the box in her hands and took it. “And now I have to find somewhere else to live. So yeah, maybe a little heads-up would’ve been nice.”
“Why do you have to find somewhere else to live?”
“Lark, come on.” He turned and started back up the sidewalk. “You’re my girlfriend. I can’t live with you, not when it’s a permanent thing.” He started up the steps, too far away for Lark to talk to without yelling.
“It’s not permanent,” she said aloud to herself as she picked up a box and followed him.
“You want all this in your room?” he yelled before Lark had even made it into the house.
“Yes!” she yelled back, and she went past the formal living room and down the hall and around the corner. Cash met her, took the box, spun on his heel, and marched into her bedroom. Irritation flared through her, and she stomped after him.
“I thought you’d be happy about this,” she said, filling the doorway and folding her arms. “Now we don’t have to do a long-distance relationship.”
Cash dropped the box on the floor near her bed. “I am happy about this.” He turned toward her and glared.
“Yeah, it really seems like it,” Lark said.
Cash practically smoked as his jaw jumped and his eyes burned with that dangerous fire that Lark really wanted to singe her.
“I’m just trying to do the right thing,” he said, and he stuck his hands in his pockets in the most adorable way ever.
“And living with you, Lark, doesn’t feel like the right thing. ”
“We’re not living together,” she said. “I’m not sharing the master bedroom with you. We’re not sleeping together, and we’re not buying groceries together, and planning meals together.”
“You being twenty feet down the hall is almost worse,” he said, an undercurrent in his voice that she did not understand.
“I don’t get it,” she said. “You were going to stay here for the whole month while I was here.”
“That was you staying in your family home for the holidays,” he said. “While I’m here, house-sitting. And if you talk to my daddy, he thinks that’s weird. He thinks I should come home while you’re here.”
“Aren’t you home?” Lark asked. She took a step into the bedroom, her desperation almost a palpable taste on her tongue.
“I mean, I know this is my parents’ house, but that’s not what I mean.
” She gestured between the two of them. “Me and you. This is home. At least I want it to be. And maybe you don’t.
Maybe I have read all of the texts wrong, and everything that you’ve ever said, and the way you kissed me five minutes ago.
” She gestured helplessly toward down the hall, where said kiss had just happened.
“You’re not wrong,” Cash said, and he again sounded very upset by that. “I just think it would be nice—”
“I hate it when you say that,” Lark interrupted. He took a step toward her, but it was much more menacing than her pace toward him.
“I think it’s necessary,” he said, amending himself.
“That we spend time together in a more traditional way. Not while you’re on vacation, and I’m trying to impress you.
Not while you’re staying down the hall while you’re home from college, while I’m trying to make sure your brothers know that I’d be a good husband for you.
“But, you know, everyday life where I have to go to work and balance that with a relationship with you, where I get to see more of your quirks and you get to see mine. Because honestly, Lark, I think you’re falling for a vacation-version of me, and our lives are not going to be spent on vacation.”
She swallowed, wishing what he said wasn’t true, but hearing the ring of rightness in her heart.
He moved forward now in a much more passive way and drew her into his chest. “You feel very much like home to me,” he whispered. “And I would gladly spend all my days holding you, and kissing you, and telling you how beautiful you are. Honest, I would, but there’s more to life than that.”
Lark nodded against his chest and wound her arms tight around him. “I don’t want you to leave,” she whispered.
“I can’t stay here, Songbird.” His breath wafted across the side of her neck, and his lips followed soon after.
“I want to—really badly. But I’ve put myself in a dangerous situation like this before and barely escaped.
” He pulled back and looked at her. “Do you understand what I’m saying?
You’re just too tempting, and it’s not right. ”
Lark nodded. “You don’t have to leave today.”
“Oh, I can’t leave today,” Cash said. “I’ve made modifications to the house that I have to fix before I go.”
“Modifications?” Lark asked.
“You’ve seen the master bedroom. I have to re-hang drapes and get out new bedding. I’ve also added several pieces of workout equipment in the gym downstairs.”
“I don’t want you to go at all,” Lark said.
“Believe me when I say I’m really happy to hear you say that.
” A smile curved his mouth, and it seemed like he had more to say, but an alarm went off on his phone, the distant sound of it echoing down the hall from the kitchen.
He took her hand and stepped past her. “Come on, sweetheart, that’s my alarm to get ready to get out to the ranch. ”
“Oh, okay,” Lark said. “I’m sure I can get all my stuff in.”
“I’ll help you,” Cash said. “I’m just meeting with a cabinet maker, and that was my alarm to get up off the couch and get ready. I’ve still got about twenty minutes.” He reached the island in the kitchen, swept his phone off of it, and silenced the alarm.
He turned back to face her. “Let’s get you unloaded, and you can unpack while I’m gone.
” Lark nodded and followed him back out the front door.
She felt like they had more to say to one another, but she let the job of unloading her car consume her.
Since she was just a college student with not much furniture to her name, and Cash had impressive muscles, she found herself closing the hatchback on her SUV only ten minutes later.
Cash took the last couple of laundry baskets in through the front door, and Lark sighed up to the piercingly clear and deadly cold blue sky.
“Well, that could have gone better, Lord,” she said, a hint of disgust in her tone. “But he sure does like me, right?”
All of the things Cash had said about her being too tempting, and how glad he was to see her definitely added up to him liking her, and liking her a lot. An idea struck her, and she went back into the house and hurried into her bedroom.
She’d driven here wearing a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt and thick, furry winter boots that would keep her feet warm. But if she was going to explore Cash’s renovation with him, she’d definitely need a hat and gloves.
“And a scarf,” she muttered, digging through the bottom laundry basket where she’d put her winter gear. She found everything and dashed out into the kitchen just in time to see Cash putting his wallet in his back pocket. He looked over to her, his gaze dropping to the hat and gloves in her hands.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked with a smile.
Lark reached up and pulled her hat onto her head. “I’m coming with you,” she said as she strode toward him. “And I won’t entertain any arguments about it.”
Cash chuckled. “I’m not arguing.”
“I’ve waited two weeks to see you, and I’m not going to let you drive away and leave me here to unpack by myself.”
“Lark.” He took her face in one palm, and that stilled the world for her. “I said I wasn’t arguing.”
Tears filled her eyes, and Cash ran one thumb down the ridge of her nose and across her bottom lip. She loved it when he touched her like that, and she whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“I know you are, honey,” he said, that cowboy twang in his voice twice as thick since he’d gone to Vegas and surrounded himself with rodeo cowboys. “And you can make it up to me,” he added with a grin. “When we get back home.”