Chapter 35 Daisy
THIRTY-FIVE
DAISY
Cash wound down the mountain through the forest. The road was a weaving two-lane road hugged by trees. Bright, glittering rays of sunlight flashed between the branches and leaves.
It was a quiet, peaceful beauty that enclosed us.
Cash seemed to find no rest in it. His attention continually roamed, taking in both the road and our surroundings, ready if something or someone were to suddenly jump out.
The most unsettling part was it wasn’t irrational. I could almost taste the threat all around.
He and I were mostly silent while constant chatter filtered in from the backseat.
“I bet Nolan is really cool. He likes cars, right, Mr. Cash?” Colin enthused.
“Do you think I’m allowed to feed the baby?” Addy asked over the top of Colin. “I got to feed Eva when she was a baby, and I did a great job, and I even held her, so I think it would be totally fine so Luna’s mom can have a break. Moms get really tired, you know, and I’m always helping my mom.”
“I want to ho-ed a baby.” Eva giggled.
“You are too little,” Addy told her.
Cash peeked over at me.
Both flustered but filled with this reverence I could feel him trying to keep hidden.
“I think we’d better not plan on holding any babies today,” I finally said when I pried myself away from the force of his stare.
It was difficult to do with the man sitting in the driver’s seat. A beast taking up the entire thing. Those muscled arms covered in ink stretched out as he gripped the steering wheel, wearing a plain white tee and jeans and a cap on his head.
The glimmering rays of light striking against him through the window made him look like some glorious, fallen angel.
“We don’t know them, so we can’t go in there making assumptions or asking things that aren’t our place,” I continued, trying to prepare my children.
“It is your place.” Cash’s voice was stony.
I whipped my attention back that way, confusion bounding through me like a new thread being woven into my being.
I was having a hard time making sense of the change. It was as if when Cash had made that commitment to me two days ago, something had been unleashed in him.
Something forbidden unlatched.
He glanced my way before he turned back to the road. “It is your place if your place is with me. They’re my family.”
My heart thundered at my ribs, and I inhaled as deeply as I could, trying not to look too earnestly into what he meant.
At what he was implying.
Cash’s jaw clenched like he couldn’t believe what he said, either, and I forced myself to turn my attention back out the windshield.
A few minutes later, the road opened up as we got to the bottom of the mountain and hit the valley into the small town of Moonlit Ridge.
Cash slowed more as we came upon a nightclub that was in an old church. A club called Kane’s, which was named after the owner whose house we were going to today.
My nerves scattered as Cash made the left and began to follow along a lane on the far side of the club parking lot before it turned into a narrow drive bracketed by lush, leafy trees. We wound through until we hit a big clearing.
A two-story white house was in the distance. A rambling lawn fronted it, and more shade trees hedged it in protection.
My stomach tightened when I saw a bunch of cars parked in the circular drive out front.
A discord of my children’s voices began to resonate from the back.
“Is this it? Cool house, Mr. Cash!” Colin peeped. “I bet it’s got stairs because the roof is really tall. Did you know I had stairs at my old house? But I like your house the best so that’s okay if it doesn’t have any.”
“Are we here? This is where Maci lives?” Addy asked.
“I want to pway. Wet’s go, Gwumpy Giant!” Eva pushed at the straps of her car seat.
All while I was pummeled with a million things.
Gratitude that Cash would bring us here. That he would introduce me and my children to the people who had come to mean the most to him. That he had agreed. That he’d given me basically everything when I had nothing to offer in return.
It was all mixed with a deep-seated grief at what all of this represented.
The fact that I was asking Cash to take my babies on if I no longer had the capacity to do it.
The truth that these people would be the ones my children would come to know if something were to befall me, while I knew absolutely nothing about them.
The mere scraps of information I had was what Cash had offered. That he’d met them when he left West Virginia for LA. When he’d been changed somehow, hardened into this man that I now knew.
A man who claimed he had committed horrible acts without giving me any details as to why. No true view into who he was.
I imagined those he called his brothers to be every bit as menacing as him.
“You don’t need to be nervous,” Cash grumbled from the side. “These are the kindest, most welcoming people you’ll ever meet. They accept you for the good things that you are and nothing else.”
Cash stared over at me as he said it. As if he were wondering why that had been extended to him. The man believing he had no good thing left and no beautiful thing to bestow.
Even with all that brutality and savagery he wore like a brand, when I looked at him, that was all that I saw.
Goodness.
Beauty.
“You can’t expect me not to be.” I tried to force lightness into my voice. “I have to compete with all of them for the title of your best friend.”
Cash smiled. Smiled a smile I hadn’t seen in so long.
One that was playful and sweet.
Those hazel eyes glinted and danced beneath the light.
Only his voice darkened into something that could only be considered greed as he leaned over the console toward me. “You think anyone could compare to you, Little Wallflower?”
The air wheezed from my lungs, and he stayed there for a beat before he tossed open the door and climbed from his seat. “Come on, we’d better get inside.”
Cash swung open the rear door. Colin had already unbuckled and scrambled out. Addy was right behind him.
I blew out a strained breath, trying to prepare myself for whatever was ahead of me, before I forced myself to get out and go to Eva’s door.
She reached for me with her arms outstretched but her shoulders still pinned to the seat. “I get to go pway, Mommy! Hurry!”
Softness washed through my spirit, and I quickly worked through her buckles and pulled my baby into my arms.
Then confusion was slamming me all over again when Cash suddenly rounded the back of the SUV and stepped up to my side.
His presence swarmed.
His big body a fortress.
A shield.
A sanctuary.
He set a gentle hand on the small of my back.
Chills raced up my spine.
What was he doing?
I could almost feel him trembling. His own nerves vibrating through his body. “Don’t normally come here like this, Daisy.”
Uncertainty pinched my brow. “I thought you said they get together every Sunday?”
“They do, but I don’t normally attend. I keep my distance the best I can.”
It hit me then.
Because he didn’t feel like he truly belonged. Didn’t feel he was worthy to be in their mix.
Or maybe he was terrified of loving again.
Of loving how deeply he once had.
The scars driven so deep he was afraid of ever facing a repeat of something so awful.
And he was here.
With me.
With my children.
“Thank you for bringing us here,” I whispered.
“Fank you, Mr. Big Giant.” Held in my arms, Eva beamed up at him.
Heavy emotion rolled through his being, and he dipped his chin at her. “You’re welcome, Eva. Think this is going to be a good day.”
Then he began to guide me toward the house where Addy and Colin impatiently waited at the top of the steps.
“We’re gonna be late!” Addy shouted. She swayed back and forth, sending her floral sundress billowing around her. Her dark hair was braided and pinned up on her head.
Her face so full of life and none of the fear she’d quietly carried over the weeks before we came here.
Colin had been more unaware of it, his inquisitiveness never waning and that grin never fading.
And my little Eva. She squirmed and hummed with uncontained excitement.
“Here, let me take her,” Cash grunted, extending those massive, tattooed arms as if it were his job.
She didn’t hesitate to jump into them as we started up the steps. A giggle ripped out of her as he swung her onto his hip.
Her tiny arms wrapped around his thick neck.
“You got me, My Giant?”
“Yeah, I’ve got you,” he grumbled in that deep, low voice.
God. How was I supposed to handle this?
This feeling that swept over me?
Old dreams trying to break through the barrier where I kept them trapped.
That innocent love trying to sprout from the dried, barren floor that lined my insides.
Our feet thudded on the wood planks as we crossed the porch. My nerves twisted and coiled in my belly as we approached the door.
Cash didn’t knock.
He swung it open to the chaos that echoed from inside, though the voices and laughter were coming from the end of a long corridor on the right.
“This way.” He ushered us inside. Addy and Colin went clambering down the big hall as if they’d taken it a thousand times.
“Addy. Colin,” I tried to warn beneath my breath as I increased my pace to catch up. We passed by a formal living room, a library, then a dining room.
Honestly, the house was absolutely stunning. The walls lined with crown molding and large pillars accented the high ceilings, though it was still welcoming and cozy.
But I didn’t have time to really appreciate it since I was trying to stop my children from barging into someone’s home like they owned it.
I guess they learned a whole lot from me.
Barging into Cash’s world like I had the right to it. Hijacking his life like I was entitled to it.
Cash only chuckled, and his low voice drifted over me from behind. “Think you’re going to find you don’t have a thing to worry about.”
I nearly made it to Addy and Colin by the time they hit the end of the massive hall.
“We’re here!” both Colin and Addy shouted as they burst through the opening.