7. Easton
EASTON
The house is too quiet tonight.
I sit on the bed with my back against the headboard, legs crossed, guitar balanced across my lap. My fingers move over the strings in a slow rhythm that fills the room, but it doesn’t settle me the way it usually does. Nothing does lately. Not since Cat started getting under my skin.
It’s been a couple of days since I fixed that damn leaky faucet, and I still can’t stop thinking about Cat—about the way she’s knocked every thought loose in my head.
My thumb catches the wrong string, and the note twangs ugly through the room. I stop playing because all I can see is Cat leaving thirty minutes ago, her hair soft around her shoulders, her mouth painted red, wearing cowboy boots paired with a dress that showed off her legs.
Cat can go wherever she wants, with whoever she wants.
Doesn’t mean the questions stop chewing through me.
My jaw tightens before I even realize I’m doing it.
I picture some guy opening a door for her.
Some clean-cut cowboy with an easy smile and too much charm.
I picture him sitting across from her in some dim little place in town, making her laugh the way she laughed with me.
I picture the son of a bitch putting his hands on her.
The guitar lands on the mattress beside me harder than it needs to.
I’m sitting here going out of my mind over a woman. I’ve got to get out of here. Go somewhere I can have a drink and drown out the noise in my head.
I grab my phone off the nightstand and thumb open Lev’s name before I can talk myself out of it.
Me: You up for a beer?
The reply comes fast.
Lev: Already out. I’ll send the address.
A second later, my phone buzzes again with the location.
I’m down the hallway and out the door before I can think too hard about why I’m suddenly in such a hurry.
The porch light hums above the screen door, throwing moths against the glass.
I’m halfway down the steps when the old rocking chair creaks.
Cat’s grandfather sits in the shadows near the rail, one hand curled around the arm of the chair, the other resting loose over his stomach.
His hat is tipped low, but I can feel his eyes on me.
“Headed out?” he asks.
I slow, but I don’t stop. “Meetin’ a friend for a drink.”
He nods. “A drink and some talk can give a man something to listen to besides himself.”
I pause and glance over at him.
The chair keeps rocking. “Thing is, a man can stare at an open door all night and still ask himself the wrong question.”
My fingers tighten around my keys. “What’s the right question?”
“Question ain’t who opened it.” His mouth curves. “Question is whether he’s got the nerve to walk through.”
Heat crawls up the back of my neck, and I hate that he can probably see it even in the dark. “I’m just meeting a friend in town,” I repeat.
“Sure,” he says, easy as anything.
The worst part is, he doesn’t sound like he’s mocking me. He sounds like he already knows why I’m leaving.
I take another step down the stairs. “Goodnight.”
“Drive safe,” he says.
I jog down the porch steps and cross the yard to my Bronco.
The door groans when I pull it open, and the familiar smell of leather hits me as I climb in.
I shove the key into the ignition, and the engine turns over with a growl.
For a second, I sit there with my hands on the wheel, staring past the windshield at the dark stretch of drive leading away from the house.
Do I go back inside, or do I walk through the damn door?
I don’t know if I’m walking through it or driving straight into trouble, but I throw the Bronco in gear anyway and head toward town.
I casually glance around the small bar and take a drink from the beer bottle in my hand.
A pretty brunette across the room smiles at me, but I'm not interested.
Doesn't surprise me. There's only one woman on my mind—Cat.
My attention shifts and settles on Cat instead.
Like I have for the past hour since she walked into the bar, I watch her.
I haven't stopped thinking about her since I arrived.
Cat is the first person I think about in the morning, and her face is the final vision to fill my head at night.
And it's fucking with my head. The need to be around her any chance I can get has become my sole focus. Everything about her intrigues me.
Would you fucking look at me? I'm out here lying low because of a stalker, who is obsessed with wanting to be with me, and I'm turning into one myself. How pathetic is that?
Cat works harder than anyone I've known. She rolls out of bed before the sun rises to help run the ranch, then drives to town to work at the salon. The little help I've offered the past few days is nothing compared to the heart and determination Cat pours out to keep the ranch from drowning.
She's sitting at the bar, talking with a friend, wearing a smile that doesn't reach her eyes, and I want to know why. Cat carries the weight of the world on her shoulders. She deserves to be taken care of, and all I know is I want to be the one doing it.
"Easton." Lev says my name, and I snap my head in his direction.
"Yeah?"
He laughs. "What are you deep in thought about?"
"Not what—who." I set my empty drink on the table.
"Care to share?"
I sigh. "The feisty, fun-sized redhead, Cat Callaghan," I tell him, and he looks back to where my obsession sits.
Lev turns back to face me. "No shit?"
"I can't stop thinking about her."
My friend's face turns serious. "Look, man. I'm all for a guy having fun as he lives up his single life, but Cat isn't a one-and-done woman. Her plate is full, and I don't want to see her get used."
I down the rest of my beer. "It's not like that." Shit, I can't believe I'm fucked up over this. I run my fingers through my hair. "You ever look at someone, and every thought in your head vanishes? All thoughts except for them?"
"I have."
"I haven't." Not until five days ago. "The moment Cat looked at me, all the air left my lungs.
I couldn't think straight. I got tunnel vision.
All I could focus on was her. The feeling was foreign.
It felt like I'd stepped into another dimension or something.
" I fixate on the water stain on the table's surface and trace its shape with my fingertip.
"I had this—this, I don't know…gravitational pull toward her.
An unseen force propelling me to her. Like, if I just got closer to Cat, I would breathe again.
" I let out a short laugh because I sound like an idiot trying to explain myself.
"I sound like a fucking dumbass." Instead of reaching for my beer, I grab the bottle of whiskey that's been sitting in the center of the table and pour a shot, then throw it back.
The smokey oak flavor from the barrel the whiskey was aged in coats my taste buds, and the alcohol burns my throat.
Finally, I break free of the fog my brain settled in and look across the table to find Lev staring back, with the same grin as before still plastered to his face. "I'm clearly fucked up," I admit.
"I agree. You are royally screwed for the rest of your life." He downs what's left of his beer.
"The feeling you get the moment you lay eyes on the one. It's your soul reacting to finding its match—the one person you are destined and designed to walk through hell on earth with."
"That's deep," I chuckle.
Lev shrugs. "Call is whatever the fuck you want. But I felt it the moment I laid eyes on Summer. Nothing else mattered. She was mine."
Laughter draws my attention, and I turn my attention toward the bar to see some dipshit talking to my woman.
Heat floods my veins when his hand touches the small of her back.
Cat stands, and the asshole leads her to the dance floor.
I watch them dance. He twirls her around the dance floor to the fast-paced music, and with each time his hand grips her waist, my jaw tightens more.
This is bullshit.
Do something, my inner voice says.
"Well, Evans." Lev nods toward Cat and the fucker she's dancing with and gives me a 'what the hell you going to do' look.
I push from the table, stand, and stroll across the bar to take what's mine. I ignore the chuckle coming from Lev when I do.
The band playing finishes the song, then quickly moves into a slow one. Cat spots me moving her way, and her eyes widen. "Easton."
"I believe you have your hands on my woman," I tell the guy she's with.
"She's your girl?" Her dance partner glares at me.
"That's right," I inform him and wait to see which way this exchange will go.
The cowboy sizes me up then decides he's better off bowing out. He then looks at Cat, tips his hat, and says, "Thanks for the dance, darlin'." Then walks away.
"What the hell, Easton?" Cat says as I place my hand on the small of her back and pull her body against mine. "What was that all about? I am not your girl."
"Oh, yeah you are. You're mine."
"You're crazy."
"Really? Tell me you don't feel what I feel.
Tell me you didn't feel it the moment we met.
I might sound crazy right now, but you know damn well I'm telling the truth," I growl.
I watch as two reactions pass over Cat's face.
The first one is want and the second one is fear.
Fuck yeah. Cat Callaghan wants me just as much as I want her. She's just scared. "Baby," I murmur.
"Excuse me?" Cat pulls away, and I follow as she stomps across the bar and out the door. The air outside is warm and thick with humidity that sticks to the skin.
"I am not your anything, Easton."
"Whether you want to admit it or not, you are." My boots crunch the gravel beneath my feet as we cross the parking lot. "Tell me you don't feel the same," I say, and Cat stops walking.
"Easton. Listen—" I close in on her. Cat's eyes lock on mine. "We can't," she protests.
"Why?"
"I don't want to get hurt."
I brush the hair from her face. "I won't hurt you."
"Our worlds are too different. It will never work." She shakes her head.