Chapter 18
Cassidy
When I came back inside, Xavier was stacking the larger sheets of plasterboard against the wall. I poured water into the tin cup and handed it to him.
"Thanks." He swallowed it in one go and handed the cup back.
I refilled it and handed it back, and he drank that one too.
Figuring he wasn't going to rest, I helped him clear enough floor space for us to move around.
We stepped back and looked at what we'd uncovered.
Nearly every cavity was crammed with foil packets, floor to ceiling, wall to wall. Except for one section near the window, where two cavities were nearly empty. Like it had been missed somehow.
Or maybe someone had removed some packets.
I pressed my palms to my temples, trying to stop the pounding building behind my eyes. "Xavier. Do you think every packet holds cash?"
"Yep."
"Fuck."
"Yep."
I pulled a packet from the nearest cavity and squeezed it, feeling the bundled notes beneath the foil. I grabbed another. Then another. Same thing. Same weight. Same density. I turned and looked at him. "It's all cash." The words seemed to burn my throat. "How does someone get this much cash?"
Xavier's expression darkened. "Illegally."
I stared at the walls as ugly possibilities crowded my mind. "Drug money?"
"Most likely. But I'm no expert." He looked at me. "What do you want to do?"
"What do I want to do?" I let out a breath. "I don’t bloody know."
There wasn't much we could do with the packets. We couldn't hide them back inside the walls, and there were far too many to move anywhere else. We'd stumbled into something seriously dangerous, with no way out and no way to call for help.
I wished Mitch were here. He'd know what to do. Even Declan would have a plan. Kayden would probably throw a damn party.
"What are you thinking?" Xavier's brows pulled together.
"About my brothers." I shrugged. "Wishing one of them would materialize out of that paddock right now and figure this shit out."
"Your brothers." He smirked and wriggled his brows. "Our brothers."
I pointed at him. "You keep saying that, and I will tie you to one of these chairs and gag you."
His mouth twisted into a smile. "I'd like to see you try."
I cocked my head. "You don't think I could take you down?"
"Oh, I know you could. That's why I'd like to see it … sis."
"Bloody hell. Are you always this annoying?"
He swept a hand through his hair. "No idea. I've never had a sibling to annoy."
"You don't have one now, cupcake."
"Hey." He straightened. "I've been upgraded to muffin."
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. How could I find him so fascinating? I should be worried about him. It was like I'd fallen into some kind of weird vortex.
My hands were covered in plaster dust, and my arms were covered in ash. My face was probably covered in soot. "I'm going to clean up. I'm filthy."
Xavier glanced at his own dust-covered hands and arms. "Me, too."
We headed to the bathroom. The old clawfoot tub was half-filled with ash and debris that had fallen through the damaged ceiling.
As I turned on the tap to sweep ash and crap from the bottom of the bath, Xavier hauled out the ruined bunk bed, cupboard door, and the branches that had fallen through the ceiling.
We'd used all the towels to stuff under the windows and door before the bushfire, so they were either still wet or covered in ash and soot.
I grabbed a couple of clean dishcloths from under the kitchen counter. "Here. We can at least wash our hands and faces."
I wet my cloth and scrubbed my hands, face, and arms. The cool water smelled rusty but still felt good against my skin. I splashed some on my face, rubbing away the sweat and grime.
When I glanced up, Xavier was watching me. "What?"
"Nothing." He looked away quickly and dunked his rag in the water. "Just thinking how different this is from my usual Saturday."
"Yeah? What do you usually do? Brunch at some fancy restaurant?" I tried not to watch a drop of water rolling down his well-defined chest, but my damn eyes betrayed me.
"Something like that." He scrubbed his face, then his neck, the muscles in his forearms flexing as he worked. "Though I'm starting to think this is better."
"You're weird." I scowled at him.
He grinned and wrung out his rag.
I turned off the tap and dried my hands on the front of my tank top.
We headed back to the main room, and I tried to ignore how closely he walked beside me or how aware I was of him in the small space.
The men I usually spent time with were gruff, sunburned, and barely talked.
Xavier barely stopped talking, and every second sentence made me want to either throttle him or lean closer.
And we were about to spend another night out here together.
Just the two of us.
Oh God, what if it was more than one night?
I looked out the empty doorway, at the shadows stretching long across the land, and tried to decide if that thought scared me.
It did.
Just not for the right reasons.
"Hey." Xavier reached for my shoulder, but swept his hand away before he touched me. "What do you want to do?"
"What I want is a long hot shower, a shot of rum, and about twelve hours of sleep."
"Well, I can give you one of the three."
I cocked my head. "Which one?"
"Sleep." He nodded toward the bunk. "Take a nap. I'll clean up the rest of this plasterboard."
I stared at him. "You want to clean up?"
"Sure. I made most of the mess."
"Jeez." I shook my head. "You really are from another planet. You're not related, that's for sure. No Branson man has ever voluntarily cleaned anything in his life."
"Brother from another mother." He grinned.
"You're not my brother."
"Come on, sis."
"Stop that." I jabbed a finger at him. "And put your shirt on." I made a show of shielding my eyes. "You're blinding me."
He glanced down at his chest, then back up at me, smirking. He picked up his shirt from the bunk and took his sweet time shaking the plaster dust off it. He pulled it on with a slow deliberateness that drove me crazy.
"Better?" he said.
"Much." It wasn't.
I turned away before my face revealed something I'd regret. My gaze landed on the tinned food stacked on the shelf, and my stomach growled loud enough to be embarrassing.
"I'm hungry." I scanned the tins. We had enough food to last a week.
We could walk home if we had to. I'd done plenty of hiking across Koolaroo's red dirt, courtesy of Frank's favorite punishment of driving me out to the middle of nowhere and leaving me to find my own way back. Character building, he'd called it. Asshole.
I grabbed a can and my cowboy hat from the bunk, shoved the hat on my head, and headed outside without looking at Xavier.
The label on the scorched can was still readable—spaghetti and meatballs. Not my first choice, but we couldn’t be picky. I tipped the contents into the pot, added wood to the fire, and settled the pot over the coals.
We were lucky to have food and water at all. That bushfire could have destroyed everything, including us.
I’m going to kill those fucking Henderson brothers when I get home.
Which wouldn’t be for a while. My brothers probably weren’t even worried about me yet.
Kayden knew I'd gone to the pub last night, and he knew I occasionally didn't come home when I found someone worth staying for. He’d only think about me tonight at the earliest, more likely tomorrow night, before any of them started asking questions.
A search party was still a long way off.
Through the cottage doorway, I could see Xavier cleaning up.
It was damn hard not to like him.
I looked up at the eagle riding a thermal high above the blackened paddock, banking slowly and easily on the updraft.
Bushfires were a natural occurrence out here.
Koolaroo had suffered its share of them.
The grass and trees would grow back, some even thriving after a burn.
Animals would return. Life would go on as it always had.
Eventually, a lush landscape would replace the blackness.
Xavier came out of the cottage pulling his shirt on again, and I was equally disappointed and pleased that he was covering himself up.
“Your mom must’ve taught you well,” I said.
“What?” He squatted and plonked his butt onto the ground.
“Cleaning up like that. Your mom taught you well.”
He released a noise like he had a furball in his throat. “Hell, no. She taught me nothing.” He practically spat the words.
I’d hit a nerve. “At least you had a mom.”
His head came up. “Oh. What happened to your mom?”
Shit! That’s the last thing I wanted to talk about.
Xavier tilted his head, and the sunlight caught in his eyes, turning them the same bright blue as those gems Mitch had found in the cave. The gems that may have belonged to Xavier’s mother.
Xavier turned his gaze to the fire, and his focus was so intense that I figured he was not looking at the flames.
“So …” I said, giving the pot a stir. “You haven’t told me everything about your mom. Like why she was on the plane, and why she left her suitcase behind.”
For a moment, he didn’t answer.
The fire crackled. The spaghetti sauce bubbled thick and red around the meatballs, and its smell mingled with the smoke still drifting in lazy curls from the blackened scrub around us.
Xavier stared out across the paddock like he was trying to see something that wasn’t there anymore. Finally, he heaved a sigh, and shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand, he looked at me. “Mom said everything she’s ever done, she did for me.” His voice was flat.
I waited for him to continue.
He dragged his fingers through his hair and let out a breath that sounded painful. Maybe it was, he’d taken quite a beating yesterday.
“That’s the line she kept repeating,” he said. “Over and over. Everything she did was to protect me.”
“That sounds … comforting,” I said cautiously.
He barked out a humorless laugh. “It’s bullshit.”