CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Haden
I look out the window at the blizzard raging on as I put some more wood on the fire before taking a flameless lantern into the bathroom and turning on the faucet.
Cassie shivers in the cold space as she picks our clothing up to change into once we’re done.
I wrap a blanket around her from the living room sofa, then grab some towels and a few candles.
I set them on the edge of the tub, the counter, anywhere that will allow us to light up the space a little better.
I pull her close, both of us still naked, as the tub fills and the wind whips outside against the cabin.
I open the blanket that covers her and slide my hands down, letting her plump ass fill my palms as she reaches her arms up around my neck, snuggling in close.
The blanket falls to the floor and she lets out a contented sigh.
There’s a twinge in my chest as I kiss her shoulders through her peachy-smelling hair.
“You looked like you needed some body heat,” I tell her.
“Oh, that’s why you’re holding me close like this and kissing me? Got it.”
“Survival 101, baby.” I kiss her until the tub is full and then I take her by the hand and sink into the hot water, waiting for her to climb in front of me.
Steam rises off our skin as I wet and wash her hair with shampoo, slightly annoyed that she won’t smell right after we’re done.
I like the peachy scent I’m used to. She sighs—the deep sigh of relaxation—and my chest twists with the knowledge that I’m the one making her feel like this.
“Tell me something real?” she whispers as I rinse the last of the conditioner from her hair and she leans back onto my chest. I think for a second.
“I really, really fucking like you. And I’m thinking I no longer give a fuck who knows it,” I say, pinching her hip playfully.
She reaches back and swats at me. “Meh, you’re okay.”
The sound she makes when I pinch her again goes straight to my cock.
When our laughter putters out I sigh, kiss her sweet neck and lift her arm up to trace it with my fingers. With her this close, I decide to give her something I’ve never given anyone else.
“You want something real? I’m glad I blew my knee out,” I say quietly. “I mean it hurt like fuck and still aches sometimes, but that ache makes me glad. Is that fucked up?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“I wouldn’t have been happy playing football. This is what I want. A simple life, maybe some land of my own one day, a place where I can help horses that need it.”
She turns her face toward me and I can’t help myself. I kiss her on the nose. She’s so fucking cute, all wet like this.
“I feel that,” Cassie says. “I don’t like the pressure of singing. I only really want to write music.”
I raise my eyebrows. “I’m surprised. You’re damn good at both.”
“Thank you,” she muses. “I’m surprised too. I would’ve thought you’d like all the admiration of being the star player.”
I smirk. “I didn’t hate that part at the time, I suppose, but I hated the pressure.
Hated the idea that my career should support my dad, that my gifts were being grabbed at by other people, like I owed them.
He always said he ‘needed his win’ after my mother left, and I guess he thought that win should be me. Or that I owed him or something.”
Cassie makes a scoffing sort of noise.
“You don’t owe him shit. People make their own wins. Relying on someone else to win for you isn’t fair.” Her forehead crinkles as she speaks. “I’m starting to think my manager relies on me to create his success.”
“Why?”
“After my last show …” She pauses, and I know she’s pushing something unpleasant from her mind.
“He was nowhere to be found. And all he cared about was me missing some shows. When I went to perform for the last time, before I came to Silver Pines, I wasn’t ready.
I know now I wasn’t even close to ready.
It took Fiona, the manager of another artist, to care for me.
She was the one who called the ambulance.
She was who talked me off the floor. Not Dax. ”
The image of her clinging to the stage stairs for dear life flashes through my mind.
I remember the dark-haired woman with her and hold her tighter.
I continue to trace her arm, moving to the inside.
I run my fingers over a rigid scar about an inch long.
I turn her arm over and graze it with my thumb.
It looks fresh. I never noticed it before.
“It’s from that night,” she whispers. “I just saw blood, I didn’t know where it was coming from at the time.
But it was my guitar. The crowd pulled it off me and the wood cut me as it broke.
The crowd was grabbing at me and they almost pulled me down with them.
” She’s quiet for a beat, and we sit in her silence.
“It’s one of the only things I remember: the way my shirt looked with blood on it. ”
“What do you think about most from that night?” I ask cautiously, offering her a listening ear.
“The look of fear in her eyes. The woman they trampled. I remember thinking she looked like my sister. She was so pretty.” She sniffs so quietly it’s almost inaudible. “She knew she was about to die. I can’t get her face out of my head.”
Fuck me. I swallow the lump in my throat. Just thinking of her there alone, watching that scene unfold, cuts me to the quick.
I hear her suck in a breath as she tries to steady herself. I pull her wrist up out of the water to kiss it, then lace my fingers through hers, kissing her cheek, her shoulders, as she talks.
“I couldn’t help her even though her eyes were begging for help.”
I don’t have to look at Cassie’s face to know she’s started to cry. I turn it up toward me anyway and wipe away the tear that escapes her eye with my thumb.
“My therapist says I shouldn’t assume that she knew she was dying. She says that part could be a delusion of my own imagination. The investigators were saying it was quick for her. But I know. I saw. She knew and I can’t forget, Haden. I can’t forget it no matter how hard I try.”
A small sob escapes her throat, and I can feel her physically trying to hold back a wall of tears from spilling over.
Trying to hold back all her pain, all her trauma.
Because that’s what she’s used to doing.
A hot sort of rage builds in me at the idea of anyone trying to push down these feelings in her.
I use my thumb to stroke her face softly and then I kiss her lips.
If there’s one thing I can give her, it’s this.
For one night I can be her safe space to land. I tighten my hold around her.
“I’ve got you, Cass,” I tell her, cradling her close, gently rocking her. “You can let it all out with me.”
I only need to tell her once. Cassie cries, nestled against me in the tub.
I’m not sure how long we stay there for, but I don’t move.
I don’t try to stop her. I just let her cry and tell her that I’m here.
I hold her and tell her she’s safe, until all her tears are spent.
When the bath runs cool and we make our way back out in front of the fire, I keep holding her close until she falls asleep in my arms. As she sleeps, I think about the many ways in which we’re alike even though we live two completely different lives.
How we’ve both carried other people’s dreams on our shoulders. Dreams that were never really our own.
I watch the way the firelight dances on her cheekbones, and the soft curls of her hair as it dries. I breathe her in—she still smells a little peachy, but she also smells like me.
I like it way too much, and something about my scent mixed with hers is just downright satisfying. Fuck, I’m in way too deep with this woman—this woman who will never really be mine.
Outside, the snow blankets the ranch and I find myself wishing it would continue to snow forever so we could stay here together. Just like this.