Chapter 5 Cash
FIVE
CASH
What the hell did I think I was doing? Carrying this little girl who clung to my neck like I was her savior while I led the rest of her family toward my sanctuary?
My cabin meant for me and me alone.
Except I figured Daisy knew that was complete and utter bullshit when she stumbled to a stop behind me after she caught sight of the cabin that I built with my bare hands.
One that had been imagined during teenaged middle of the night giggles and foolish dreams.
Building it had been instinct. Unable to stop what my hand sketched before I physically began to bring it to life.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I forced myself to keep moving over the gravel drive to the three steps that led up to the porch.
My boots thudded against the wooden stairs as I climbed them, and Eva cinched down tighter on my neck as I moved across the porch toward the front door.
“You got a bed for me, Big Gwumpy Giant? I got a sweeping bag if I got to sweep on the floor.”
My chest fucking squeezed. Squeezed in something I absolutely could not feel. A groaning of some long-dead piece of me.
I didn’t respond. I only set her onto her feet before I grabbed my phone from my pocket and punched in the code to disarm the security system, then pulled out my keyring and worked through the locks.
Guts a tangle of nerves as I tried to decipher exactly what was going down with Daisy.
Her words spinning around me like I was surrounded by fiends who were coming in for the kill.
I’m in trouble.
It injected aggression into my veins. The violence that forever simmered in my spirit thrashed and pulsed. Vying for a way to be set free so I could inflict the pain I always thirsted for.
Knowing I would destroy anyone who thought to do her wrong and take the most twisted sort of pleasure while doing it.
I couldn’t stop myself from jumping to that conclusion, enraged by the idea that someone had hurt her. I found myself praying to fuck that maybe she was broke, down on her luck, and she was here for a loan or some basic shit. Praying that the trouble she was in could be easily fixed.
But what swam in those cornflower eyes promised it was far worse than that, and the little I’d allowed myself to glean about her life told me she should be financially secure.
Marrying that twat who was a banker.
Disgust burning through me at the thought, I forced myself to open the door, and I stood off to the side as everyone gathered at the threshold of my home.
“Go on in and make yourselves at home.” The words were shards.
Couldn’t believe they were actually coming from my mouth. Was I really inviting them inside? Inviting them to stay?
I should call Theo. Ask him to get over here stat and load them up and whisk them to safety.
But I was pinned by those eyes. The blue oasis a soft toil beneath the light next to the door.
Gratitude, fear, and uncertainty shone back.
I ground my molars to stave off whatever insanity sparked inside me at the sight.
This feeling like I was gonna blow. Grab her and hug her to me and tell her how fucking sorry I was.
But sorry would never be good enough.
The kids started to clamber inside, breaking up my thoughts. Addy and Colin fought to get in front of each other, a riot of their footsteps echoing against the wood.
“Wow, I really like your house, Mr. Cash!” Colin shouted. “You got a real fire and everything. Did you know we had a fire at our camp? I even cooked a marshmallow. You think we could cook some of those in here?”
“Or maybe we can do a fire outside and look at the stars. That’s my favorite,” Addy chimed in.
“I wove marshmawows the very most.” Eva’s tinkling, tiny voice skittered through the air.
While Daisy and I just stood there staring at each other.
Held in the past that was never supposed to catch up to us.
What felt like a thousand years wafted in between.
Her freckles were nearly invisible, though I thought I could remember every single one of them. Locks of cinnamon hair breezed around her stunning face. Her face that had aged a bit during the time that had passed. A wrinkle denting between her brows and a few creases lining the edges of her eyes.
It only made her more beautiful. The woman carved by love and loss. By wisdom and lingering hopeless dreams.
A strand of hair got stuck to her cheek, and I had to stop myself from reaching out and brushing it away. From letting my fingertips trail over her soft skin. From pushing her up against the wall so I could inhale her fresh, floral scent.
Explore that sweet, soft body.
The fact I’d been dreaming about it for years made the compulsion ten thousand times worse.
Energy clashed between us. Awareness and confusion.
She finally cleared her throat. “Thank you, Cash. You don’t know how much—”
“Just go inside, Daisy.” My response came out gruff and sharp.
It was too much. I couldn’t handle her telling me how much this meant or that she needed me. Hell, I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to be able to handle any of it.
But here we fucking were.
Warily, she dipped her head and angled to the side like she was terrified of touching me as she slipped by me to enter my house, though she might as well have run her hands all over my body with her aura that whisked across my flesh.
Something warm and beautiful that I hadn’t felt since I was seventeen.
I blew out a strained sigh and ducked in behind her, but I came up short since she had frozen two steps inside.
Her gaze swept in every direction.
Over the kitchen that took up the left side of the great room and the living area to the right. The stone fireplace and the rustic furnishings and the windows lining the back that overlooked another porch that gave way to the woods.
My home was nice but simple. Cozy and plain.
It wasn’t like I entertained.
This place was simply for me. A roof over my head. A secreted, secluded place to do my work in the locked room at the end of the hall.
I wouldn’t have added the guest room at all except for that one foolish night when I promised to build her a cabin one day, and she’d teased that it wouldn’t be acceptable unless it had two extra bedrooms.
She’d goaded me, wanting to know which of us would get the primary, that playful gleam in her eye, all while the hope had simmered beneath it.
Silently begging me to say that it was going to belong to both of us.
“It’s perfect, Cash.” Her whispered words broke into the tension, the woman static and standing facing away.
Didn’t matter. I could still make out the awe in her expression. Like the cabin was exactly what she envisioned.
But I guess neither of us could have envisioned the way I would destroy our lives.
“Spare room is down the hall, first door on the right,” I mumbled low. “Third room at the end of the hall is off-limits.”
My office was even more fortified than the rest of the house, which was basically a fortress.
I could feel Daisy wanting to ask about it. To pry into who I’d become.
But she could never know that. Details of my life were off-limits even if I wanted to share them with her, which I sure as fuck did not.
“You can take my room,” I rumbled from behind.
Daisy hesitated, body itching, before she peeked back at me. “That’s not necessary. I can share with the kids.”
“Not gonna happen, Daisy. Can see you need your rest.”
Maybe I shouldn’t point it out. Shouldn’t let her know that I noticed the exhaustion and strain that crimped the edges of her eyes and dimmed her sweet aura. But I’d always been able to read her plain as day.
She shuffled her feet, glancing around. “Where will you sleep?”
“On the couch.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to get in your way.”
I took a step forward, voice cut low. “Too late.”
Surprise rocked her back, and she choked over a disbelieving laugh like maybe she wanted to put me in my place, before she seemed to school herself and turned back around and started to herd the kids toward the spare room.
A room that had never even been occupied before.
Forever vacant.
A hollow reminder of what I’d done.
“Well, I guess if you want to give up your bed, I’m not going to argue with you,” she rambled as easily as she could, though the words were edged in uncertainty. “God knows, I could use a good night’s sleep.”
I opened the door on the right, and the kids blew into the room. I dumped their bags inside before I immediately dipped back out.
Unable to stay inside with the laughter and voices that collided as Addy and Colin argued over which bed they got.
I could hear Eva talking and clapping her hands while Duke barked in enthusiasm, clearly far more excited by the company than me.
I turned my full focus on Daisy.
In discomfort, she shifted her weight where she stood in the cramped hall. I towered almost a foot over her, her slight frame appearing fragile in the bare glow coming from the kitchen.
I leaned in close to her, and the words left me like an accusation. “You need a good night’s sleep, considering you’ve been sleeping in a tiny tent for the last two days.”
A tinge of pink kissed her cheeks. “And in my car for two weeks before that.”
A bolt of rage blistered through my senses.
The urge to wrap her up. Hold her. Promise her I was going to fix whatever the hell had gone wrong in her life.
“And you didn’t think to come to my door when you got here?”
Her tongue swept across her bottom lip. “I’m sorry. I was…nervous.” Sadness flashed through her eyes, and she let go of a self-deprecating laugh. “It’s not like you’re excited to see me.”
She peered up at me, and I knew she was thinking about the way it used to be. The way I couldn’t wait to hear her tapping at my bedroom window.
“Don’t exactly get guests,” I admitted.
Those eyes creased at the corners as she studied me. Like she could see the loneliness scored inside me.
“You’re alone,” she seemed to surmise.
Anxious, I raked a hand over the top of my head. “For the most part. Have a few people…”
I stalled out, unable to actually say it.
People I consider family.
I thought Daisy heard it, anyway. Felt it.
Softness filled her features, and her voice shifted into a gentle tease. “And here I thought I was always going to be your best friend. I had some foolish notion that you might jump for joy when you saw me. You always said I was the light at the end of the day.”
Main fucking problem? I was elated to see her face.
And that was dangerous.
I blew out a sigh. “Why don’t you help the kids get cleaned up?
There’s a bathroom through there.” I pointed at the door across the hall.
“Then you can get yourself a warm shower. I’ll put your things in my room on the other side of the house, then I’ll see if there’s anything I can put together for dinner. ”
“That’s not—”
“You came to me, remember?” The words were gravel.
She fiddled with her fingers, gaze dropping before she peeked back up at me. “I don’t want to put you out.”
I gravitated even closer, murmuring far too close to her mouth. “Why do I have the feeling you’re going to do far more than just put me out?”
Apprehension vibrated from her, and she worried her bottom lip.
So fuckin’ cute and shy the way she used to be. But there was a boldness there that she hadn’t quite possessed before. Something that had been getting ready to bloom before our lives had gone to shit.
My Little Wallflower.
She lifted a brave, daring chin. “Because I’m going to ask something of you that I have no right to.”
I braced myself for it, only she pushed me back by the chest.
A thunderbolt of heat blasted through my body.
I didn’t know how I was still standing as she wound out from under me, the woman peeking back as she inched toward the main part of the house. “After I take that hot shower you offered. That river is freezing. I’m not sure I’m cut out for living off the land. Guess it’s a good thing you found me.”
I found her?
The real question was how the fuck she found me and what the hell compelled her to do it.