20. Christian
CHRISTIAN
“ Y ou’ve been avoiding me.”
“Jesus! Fuck!” Coffee sloshed across the countertop as the ceramic mug fell out of Cassandra’s hand. She slumped against the kitchen cabinets and pressed her hand to her chest like she was trying to stave off a heart attack. “I thought you were gone.”
“So, you admit that you were avoiding me,” I said as I closed the front door behind me, stealing a moment to take her in.
She was still in her pajamas—a pair of long, silky pants and a tight, long-sleeved shirt that clung to every delicious inch of her chest.
“No,” she said defensively. “I’ve been busy.”
“You live in my house.”
“I wasn’t avoiding you. I just thought you had left early this morning and were out somewhere doing cow things.”
“Cass.”
Her eyes drifted to the paper bag and coffee cup in my hand.
“I took the girls to school this morning.” I dropped the lump wrapped in wax paper on the table and approached her with cool tactfulness. “Walked Bree to her homeroom to make sure no one gave her any shit.”
“A show of force is never a bad idea,” she said cooly as she peered curiously at the coffee.
“Stopped by the fancy coffee place and picked up your concoction.”
Cassandra lifted an eyebrow and popped the lid on the paper cup to peer inside before giving it a sniff. “Okay, be serious. I know I give you shit about being a mind reader, but how do you know the kind of latte I drink?”
I leaned in and let my beard tickle her ear as I whispered, “All I had to do was walk inside and ask if a loud New Yorker had been in lately. And then I asked them to give me whatever she ordered.”
She snorted as she raised the coffee to her lips. “Impressive.”
I grabbed the breakfast sandwich off of the table. “Bacon, egg, and cheese on a roll.”
Cassandra looked genuinely surprised. “It’s not on a biscuit?”
“Not on a biscuit.”
She set the coffee aside and started ripping into the wax paper. “I could kiss you right now.”
“Fine by me.” Before she could get her hands on the sandwich, I grabbed her hips and pinned her against the counter, kissing her until we were both breathless. I tangled her hair around my fingers and gave it a gentle tug down, forcing her to look up at me. “Will you stop avoiding me now?”
She licked her lips. “Are you bribing me?”
“Is it working?”
“We’ll see.”
“Then I’ll keep bribing you.”
“So, you admit to bribing me,” she said with a hint of smug victory in her voice.
I dropped her mug into the sink, ripped a paper towel off the roll, and wiped up the coffee spill. “And you just admitted to avoiding me. I think we can call it even.”
A mischievous smirk worked up her lips as she took a bite. “You keep bringing me breakfast, and I might keep avoiding you. It’s working out pretty well for me.”
She was trying to put up a good front, but I could see the mistrust and hurt lingering in the steel blades of her eyes.
I had a laundry list of things to do today. Usually I would have been three or four hours into my workday by now. But for some reason my boots were rooted to the kitchen floor and that to-do list didn’t seem so important.
“How’d you sleep?” I asked, resting my ass on the counter’s edge and crossing one ankle over the other like I had all the time in the world.
“Fine,” she mumbled around the roll.
“I suppose so.” I stretched my arm out behind her back, and she hunched forward. “Especially since you went to bed at what—seven? You know, after you ate dinner over at Becks and Nate’s house.”
“She wanted to catch up, then I was tired,” Cassandra objected.
“Cut the shit, princess.”
She balled up the wax paper, tossed it in the trash, and started to pace. “What do you want me to say?”
I stayed right where I was, not wanting to add to her nervous energy. “I want you to be honest with me. Are you okay?”
“No.” She threw her hands in the air. “I’m not. Is that what you want to hear?”
Shit.
“Cass…”
She ran a hand back through her hair. “I felt like I was going to start climbing the walls. Okay? It was quiet after you left, I just kept watching the clock for the girls to get home, and then I panicked. I didn’t know what would happen after the situation at the school with Bree, then after what we …
you know… did. I needed time to think it over.
So yeah—” she threw her hands in the air “—I walked down to see if Becks was home. The repairs on their house are done, so I helped her fold baby clothes and put things away in the nursery. And, yes. I came back after I knew you’d have the girls getting ready for bed so I could slip in undetected.
I didn’t have the capacity to deal with feelings or not swearing around them or whatever you obviously have the patience to deal with every fucking day. ”
“Cass.”
“If avoiding a situation I didn’t have a plan for makes me the bad guy then?—”
“Cassandra.” I caught her around the waist. “Stop.”
Tears filled her eyes and it broke something inside of me.
I cupped her cheeks. “What’s the matter?”
“I just told you?—”
“No. You told me why you were scarce last night, and that’s fair. I don’t blame you.” I wiped beneath her eyes. “Why are you crying, sweetheart?”
She looked at her right hand as it lay against my chest. “I think it finally hit me last night.”
I knew that feeling all too well. Realizing that the person I thought I would spend the rest of my life with was gone without warning.
Grief doesn’t come in stages. Frankly, it would be easier if it did. It ebbs and flows like waves. Bad days always follow good days, but better days are never far behind.
Unfortunately, coping with grief is easier said than lived.
“Come here,” I said as I wrapped her up in my arms.
Cassandra folded against my chest without an ounce of fight.
“Don’t run away from me, princess. Not without leaving a glass slipper.” I kissed the top of her head as she laughed softly. “And if you need a healthy coping mechanism other than avoiding me, you know where to find me.”
Cassandra wiped her eyes. “I don’t think hooking up is a healthy coping mechanism.”
“I wasn’t talking about sex.”
“I have a hard time believing that,” she countered.
“I have firearms, hatchets, and throwing knives. Pick your poison.”
She looked up with curiosity in her eyes. “Do you have Tripp-shaped targets?”
I chuckled. “We’ll have to get a better printer in the office.”
To my surprise, Cassandra rested her head on my chest and closed her eyes as she sank into me. “How was Bree this morning?”
I raked my fingers through her hair. “A little skittish going back to class. She wanted to wear a turtleneck.”
Cassandra swore under her breath.
“She wore the necklace you gave her again. I hope that was okay.”
“It’s fine.”
I debated bringing it up when Cass was already feeling down, but Bree had been torn up when Cassandra wasn’t around to talk when she got home from school. “Bree missed you last night.”
Cassandra pushed away from me.
“Cass.”
“What?” she clipped as she reached for her overpriced coffee.
“You promised her that you’d be there to debrief when she got home from school.”
“So? She has you and a therapist. Sometimes I think you should have been a therapist instead of a cowboy.”
“That’s not the point. Don’t make a promise to my girls if you’re not going to keep it.”
“If you haven’t noticed, I’m not a kid person. I guarantee you, it’s a good thing I didn’t talk to her yesterday. I was a mess.”
“See, you keep saying shit like that, and yet I don’t believe you.”
Her eyes turned down to the coffee.
“As much as I try to turn back the clock, they’re not babies anymore.” I slipped my finger beneath the hem of her shirt and traced the skin along the waistband of her silk pants. “So, you can keep saying you’re not a kid person, but you know what I see?”
“I have a feeling you’ll tell me,” she mumbled.
I hooked my fingers around the elastic waist and tugged her hips against mine. “You’re a protector.”
Cassandra’s cheek pressed against mine as she whispered, “You think I’m a better person than I am. I’m just a bitch and I know how to monetize that.”
I tilted my head and kissed the corner of her mouth. “I think you’re a better person than you let yourself believe you are.”
Her whisper was a ghost floating against my skin. “All I wanted was some good dick.”
“Pretty sure I delivered on that, princess. But if you need me to help jog your memory, it’d be my pleasure.”
The radio on my hip crackled with CJ’s voice. “Chris—you around?”
Cassandra broke away, using the interruption to disappear into her room.
“Go ahead,” I said into the radio.
“Grab the vet bag and get out here. I need an extra set of hands.”
I watched Cassandra sashay around, pulling clothes out of her suitcase to get dressed for the day. She hadn’t even unpacked…
What was I thinking?
I shook it off. “Yeah, I’ll be out. Hang tight.”
“Everything okay?” Cassandra asked from the guest room.
“Uh, I’m not sure. Sounds like one of the animals is in trouble or something. I’ll be back up after a while.”
Her breasts bounced in a black bra as she pulled on a blouse. “I’m going to need an hour of your workday today,” she said, shedding the vulnerable woman who had admitted she was heartbroken, and donning the armor of Cassandra the publicist.
“Do I finally get to see what I’ve been paying you to do all this time?” I asked as I filled up a thermos with coffee from the pot.
“More like you’ll get to see what you’re going to fork out an exorbitant amount of money for over the next few years.”
“I’m sorry— years ?”
She popped her head back into the bedroom doorway. “You told me to go big.”
“Stop right there.”
I froze in the doorway of the office. Cassandra sat behind my desk, looking a little green around the gills.
She held out a hand to keep me at a distance. “Dear God, you smell atrocious. What is that ?”
“It’s hot out today,” I said, taking a step inside. “Probably got a little sweaty.”
She pinched her nose. “No. Out. You smell like death.”
“I thought you needed an hour of my time.”