Chapter 20 Daisy
TWENTY
DAISY
“What is this, Ethan?” She begged it where she stood in his home office, staring at a man she was supposed to love. Adore. But there was only uncertainty. Dread. A cavern of nothingness carved out between them.
It was her fault.
She never could fully fall. Could never fully give herself when there was a part of her that would forever belong to someone else.
Or maybe he’d just taken advantage of that.
Because Ethan looked at her as if she were insignificant. Stupid and pathetic. If she evaluated it, she knew he’d always looked at her that way, though. She just hadn’t cared enough to recognize it.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“These.” She shook the stack of papers at him. Ones that documented the millions of dollars in his name. Money that she knew they shouldn’t have.
“I told you before I’m good at investments.” He turned back to his computer. It was the way he always ended a conversation.
“Not this good. I know something’s going on here. The way you won’t let me look at your phone. The way you don’t come home until the middle of the night.”
“That’s none of your concern.”
“None of my concern? I’m your wife.”
He was on his feet and across the floor in a flash. Backing her into a wall. His dark eyes had turned to pitch, and fear trembled down her spine.
He angled his head as something malicious suddenly poured from his mouth. “Yes, you’re my wife, which means you do what you’re supposed to do and keep your mouth shut.”
Disbelief escaped her lungs on a shock of air. “I won’t just ignore this.”
He reached up and fiddled with a lock of her hair, glancing at it before he turned his vicious gaze back to her. “Watch what happens if you don’t.”
A peal of giggles tore me from sleep, and I blinked open my eyes where I lay on my side. My stomach turned over with the nightmare. Nausea rolling through me, my heart thudding with the fear.
Ethan’s face behind my eyes and the million mistakes I made along the way taunting my mind.
I gasped for breath, trying to clear it. To refocus. To grab onto the safety that now surrounded us.
Morning light filtered in through the drapes, and I tuned my ear, trying to figure out why my children’s voices sounded different than they normally did.
Another riot of laughter echoed, and I shot upright when I realized those voices were coming from outside.
I tossed off my covers, shucking the sleep off as I jumped from bed and flew out the bedroom door and into the main room.
From where I stood, I could see the children’s door sat wide open.
They were well aware they were supposed to wake me up if I slept later than them, clear instructions given that they were not to bother Cash, though he was always locked behind that secreted door at the end of the hall before any of us woke up, anyway.
They weren’t supposed to be having their wild way by themselves in Cash’s house. It was bad enough during the day when I was supervising. The last thing I needed was them bringing it down as I slept away the morning.
It was already hard enough on Cash, having them under his roof.
I knew that.
Could feel that.
And I didn’t want them scaring him off.
Not when he’d…agreed.
I nearly tripped over my feet when I remembered what had happened last night.
He agreed.
This brusque, harsh, cranky man had agreed to marry me.
After he confessed to being involved in unsavory things. Things I was probably a fool for shoving aside.
I couldn’t contemplate it right then. I needed to focus on the issue at hand.
My kids had gone outside by themselves, and it could be dangerous out there.
Bears and snakes and rushing rivers.
Or something far more dangerous.
Ethan.
My throat thickened as I was nearly sucked back into the dream.
I would have been afraid except I was able to differentiate each of their voices, and now I was just upset they hadn’t listened.
I stormed toward the big doors that opened to the back porch, wondering exactly what type of punishment would work the best to make them understand that they were given these rules for their safety.
I came up to the glass then stalled out with my hand on the handle when I saw Cash was out there with them.
On his knees as he measured something along the end of the wooden porch. Wearing jeans and a white tee and a cap on his head.
Sweat glistened on his tattooed flesh, and his muscles worked beneath the fabric that covered his butt and back.
My mind spiraled back to that first night. When I’d seen him mostly bare.
Every hard, packed inch of him vibrating with that strength the same as it did right then.
Why did he have to be so gorgeous?
But it was more than that.
It was simply because it was him.
The one who’d had my heart since I was a teenager. A teenager with stars in her eyes every time she looked at him.
Apparently, that one tedious little detail hadn’t disappeared with age.
Because I was swamped in a whisk of lightheadedness.
Everything airy and light except for my heart that felt like a brick wall had toppled on me, crushing my chest.
I didn’t have time to stand there and swoon.
Colin was right beside him, crouched low as he tried to inspect whatever it was that Cash was doing. All up in his business and no question in the way.
Pieces of my son’s hair stuck up all over the place, and he was dressed in mismatched clothes and Addy’s far too big pink flip-flops on his feet, as if he’d rolled out of bed and immediately come running out here.
Eva spun a circle in her nightgown as she tried to reach for a butterfly that flitted overhead, and Addy was on the opposite side of the porch trying to reach over the railing to pick a flower from a bush.
I finally gathered myself enough to pull open the sliding door.
The riot of voices amplified the second I did.
“Well, how are you gonna do that?” Colin asked, his words rushed and garbled. “It seems like it’s gotta be a lot of work. Do you like work? Do you even got a job?”
“Over here, butterfwy!” Eva sang over the top of Colin as she twirled. “You gotta come here so you can be my favorite pet except for my doggie Duke!”
Duke ran a circle around her, barking every step and wagging his tail.
“You should leave it alone because you might hurt its wings, Eva. You don’t want to do that, do you? Come and pick a flower with me because we have to surprise Mom,” Addy suggested, my sweet little caretaker.
“No way, I needs it. It’s a pretty pet but not as good as my Duke.” Duke barked like he agreed. “Wook, I got a butterfwy on my jammies, which means we match and it’s my best friend!”
“You gotta cut some wood for it?” Colin kept on at Cash, who I could see was overwhelmed. “Do you think I could cut it for you? I think I can do a saw really good because I’m gettin’ some strong muscles because I’m already five. Did you know that, Mr. Cash?”
Cash grunted at him as he focused between the measuring tape he was using and jotting something on a notepad he had at his side.
“He not Mr. Cash,” Eva drawled. “He Mr. Big Gwumpy Giant!” Eva popped higher on her toes with each word, her little feet vibrating the porch below her as she attempted to bat the poor butterfly out of the sky.
A heavy sigh pilfered out of Cash, and he sat back on his haunches and swiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.
Immediately, those eyes traveled to me.
A perfect parallel to the forest that surrounded him. Every shade of green and warm browns and the barest flecks of yellow. Though where the forest whispered of peace, his shouted of turmoil.
A beast who lurked in the camouflage.
But there was something more there.
The way his attention slowly roved over me as he found me frozen in the doorway.
I found myself unable to move beneath the weight of his gaze.
“I think I can be your good helper,” Colin continued. “You got a toolbox? How about I go get a hammer? Hammers are really heavy, did you know that? If you get a big one. But maybe you got a little one.”
Colin just kept on while Cash had me pinned with his gaze.
The promise he made last night carried around us like a haunted dream.
A millstone he had around his neck. The burden great.
Though there was something so staunch and determined in his expression that I knew he meant what he said.
He would do whatever was required to protect my family, even if it meant this.
“Hi,” I finally whispered, staring right at him.
“Mornin’.” It was a grumble that I still felt wash over me like welcome.
I started to itch, wanting to make this all okay for him.
To make him see this was no big deal when I was essentially asking him to dedicate his entire life. “I’m sorry they followed you out here. They’re supposed to wake me up as soon as they come out of their room. I’ll make sure they don’t—”
“They’re fine.” He muttered the gruff words as he turned his focus downward to take another measurement, pulling out the tape measure and laying it out along a plank.
“It looks to me like they bombarded you first thing in the morning.” Playful exasperation filled it.
“We didn’t bombard him, Mom,” Colin defended. “I’m here to help, and I won’t even get in the way. Not even for one second. Right, Mr. Cash?”
Cash hesitated for only a beat before he grunted, “Yeah, that’s right. Needed a little extra help this morning.”
“See, Mom. He needs me.” On his knees beside Cash, Colin grinned his beaming smile. “We gotta take care of our girls.”
Cash looked at my son for a moment, something unreadable in his expression, before his attention skated to me.
Irresistible and extreme.
But it was me. I needed him.
In more than one way.
I’d been so stupid to allow the fantasies to invade last night. To imagine what it would be like if any of this were real. If he were actually marrying me because he loved me. Because he wanted this life with me.