Chapter 34
34
ALTA
T wo days.
Two long, dull days sitting around the house under Cas’s protective, fatigued stares. Sarah arrived the same day Chandler left, providing a bit of a distraction from everything, but being stuck inside was suffocating. Sarah had the privilege of going out into the real world for her shifts at the local coffee shop in town. John escorted her to work and home, with Sadie at his side each time.
Sadie’s curious side-eye glances and outright stares grew creepier each day—or maybe it was my imagination running away with me since I had nothing better to do.
And I meant nothing. Cas hadn’t laid an intimate hand, tongue, lips, nothing on me since Chandler left. He said I was the one distraction he couldn’t afford, whatever the heck that meant. So not only was I bored but also horny. I kept telling him it was cruel to give me a glimpse of the good life only to retract his gorgeous body from my touch—and bonus, I still had to look at it every day. I didn’t even get a chance to seduce him at night. Sarah took up shop in Cas’s bed with me each night. John and Cas rotated shifts, and when Cas’s time for sleep came up, he made it a point to fall onto Chandler's bed, fully clothed.
He said one positive was that even his mind was too exhausted to drum up the normal nightmares.
So there we were, day three of lockdown. Sarah left around five for an early morning shift, meaning I woke up at five due to the loud racket she caused while getting ready. No wonder her friend in Denver kicked her out.
Unable to go back to sleep, I tossed on Cas’s marine’s sweatshirt, sweat pants, wool socks, and my running shoes, then tiptoed to the bedroom door. I cringed at the creak it gave as I pulled it open an inch to scout the living room.
Empty.
A deep breath pushed from my lungs. On silent feet, I crept past the couch and tiptoed toward the door. The cold metal knob shot a jolt of excitement through my palm. I wasn’t running; that would be stupid, and I wasn’t an idiot. No, I just wanted one minute outside in the cold mountain air, alone.
The first gust of wind caught my breath, but a broad smile spread across my cheeks anyway. Everything was quiet; not a single bird sang, no coyote howled. Rubbing my hands up and down my arms, I leaned back against the closed door, taking in the stillness, letting it creep over me, calming my high-strung nerves and overanxious thoughts.
In the darkness of the morning, without anyone watching, my thoughts wandered. So much had happened over the past couple weeks that it was hard to filter through all the emotions that swirled through me. There was a shift, a change brought on by Cas—which was a good thing. It was like he woke me up, breathed fresh air into my lungs, pulling me from a long sleep. Parts of my body and heart thrummed and sizzled only for him, only with him. Even if he didn’t protect me from my potential fate, he’d already saved me.
Ten years of my life I’d wasted being scared, hidden, and ashamed of my past. Like it was my fault. None of it was, and Cas helped me realize it wasn’t about me. I wasn’t to blame.
Confident, self-assured, and strong were words I’d use to describe myself after just a few days with him.
This version of Alta Lady Johnson was who I was meant to be.
“Just what in the fucking hell do you think you’re doing?”
The back of my head slammed against the door, and a startled scream tore from my throat. The crunch of crispy cold grass and gravel grew closer. A bright red dot glowed in the dark, marking where Cas stood in the driveway.
“Answer me,” he demanded before taking another deep drag. I stared mesmerized as the cherry of his cigarette burned bright. “Lady.”
“What are you doing out here?” I asked instead of responding.
“Smoking and patrolling the area, looking for any signs of someone waiting, watching. Your turn.”
I sighed and tucked both hands under my armpits. “I just wanted five minutes of fresh air, of quiet, of being alone.”
“You want to be alone?”
“Yes and no,” I said honestly. “I want to be alone, but then again I want you here with me while I'm alone.” I let out a fake laugh. “Just another one of my quirks, I guess.”
Cas stepped closer, shifting into the streams of light pouring out from the house’s illuminated windows. With his head slightly tilted, the light and shadows accentuated the firm lines of his face. His dark eyes glittered as they stared deep into me. My breath caught as my heart jackhammered in my chest. The intensity, honesty, and desire behind his eyes were too much.
I wanted him. All of him. All of him all over me.
After tossing the cigarette butt into the can reserved for his litter, he strode past me and swung open the door. Mouth gaping, my eyes followed his movements in shock. It had to be a joke. No way would he leave me out here, alone.
The thousands of questions in my mind came to a halt when Cas reappeared with pillows and a quilted blanket tucked under his arm.
Lips parted in shock, I watched as he tossed down the pillows before arranging them like two makeshift chairs. After two fluffs of the blanket, spreading it out evenly over the cushions, he turned, eyebrows raised.
“Well come on. You wanted to be out here, and I know you’re fucking freezing.”
I was.
Pulling the collar of his sweatshirt over my mouth, I smiled behind the cotton while taking in a deep sniff of his lingering scent.
He got situated first, lounging on the porch with his back against the wall, legs crossed at the ankles in front of him. He lightly patted the cushion at his side, and I sank to my knees and crawled under the blanket, laying on my side and tucking my head against his chest. For the first time in days, I inhaled deep, filling my lungs with freezing fresh air.
His fingers raked through my long hair, carefully tugging each tangle free with more gentleness than I ever gave it. Slowly, pinks and gray burst over the trees. Thick white clouds of morning fog rose from the ground, suspended in the air just feet from us. No sooner had the sun shone its first rays than the birds woke, chirping happily through the trees and singing of another beautiful day.
“Beautiful,” I said in awe. It’s why I loved the mountains. A west Texas sunset was hard to beat, but mountain dawn gave it a run for its money.
“Yeah, perfection.” Smiling, I turned to look up only to find his eyes on me. “I know someone like me—no family, no career, no money—doesn’t deserve you, but… I want you to know that whatever happens after all this, I don’t want to lose you. I don’t know what that means logistically, but if you want to figure it out with me, we will.”
I sucked in a breath. Was I ready for this conversation?
“You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted to toss that out there.” A shy, self-conscious smile tugged at his dry lips.
“We deserve to be happy, Cas Mathews. We deserve to be happy and free.” Leaning up, I pressed my lips against the pulsing vein of his neck. “And we made a deal, remember? We’ll be alone, together.”
Calluses scraped my cheeks as he cupped either side of my face, pulling me up. Both thumbs hooked into my lower lip, tugging down until it popped back into place. Again he dipped both thumbs past my lips, but that time he thrust them past my teeth, filling my mouth. My eyes fluttered closed as heat blazed through my veins, settling deep in my core. A low groan rumbled in his chest when I wrapped my lips around his thumbs and sucked deep, lapping at the pads with tiny flicks of my tongue.
“Damn you, Lady,” he hissed.
“You started it,” I mumbled around the intrusion in my mouth, which was slowly moving in and out.
A deep rumble of an engine revving broke the spell. As quickly as his thumbs had thrust in my mouth, they disappeared. Jumping up, he tugged his gun free from the holster on his hip and engaged the slide.
John’s old Dodge rounded the curved drive, making Cas’s shoulders drop from their semipermanent place by his ears.
“Oh good, another day with that dipshit,” he sighed as he put the gun back into the holster.
“When are those FBI guys coming to help?” I asked. Chandler called yesterday with the report of them finding all ten bodies, which were being identified with dental records and DNA samples, and told us he was still working on finding Cas some help in protecting me.
“Tonight,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest and widening his stance as John approached the porch.
I shook my head.
Men.
“Well that should help. Maybe then you can get more than a few hours’ sleep.” I knocked his calf with the tip of my toe to get his attention. “With me,” I whispered.
“Fucking finally,” he grunted in response. “I’ve never had blue balls so bad.”
“What are you two talking about?” John asked as he climbed the steps, his hesitant gaze flicking between Cas and me.
“Nothing,” I said at the same time Cas said, “Blue balls.”
“Whatever,” John grumbled, then pushed the front door open to stomp inside.
Our smiles mirrored one another’s when our eyes met. Cas simply shook his head and went back to watching the sunrise.
“Peters called this morning with an update. It seems all the women had traces of a sedative-type drug in their blood. Since we still don’t know how long he held on to the women before disposing of them, we don’t know if he drugged them only during their capture or if he kept them for a few days, keeping them drugged. But we’ll know more after autopsies.”
I couldn’t blink. Couldn’t breathe. A tremble started in my hands and worked its way up my arms, over my shoulders and out, making my entire body shake in fear. I knew what those women went through, but unfortunately for me, I survived it.
“Cas,” I barely managed.
Not sensing my struggle, he simply craned his neck to look over his shoulder. “Fuck,” he cursed and dropped to his knees. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, I didn’t think—” Tugging me against his chest, he pulled me across his lap, allowing me to curl into a ball on top of him.
My eyes slammed shut, not wanting to see the sympathy in his eyes. It was the one thing he hadn’t shown me during our time together, and I sure as heck didn’t want to see it now.
Should he have known his words would be a trigger? Maybe. But did I blame him? No.
“Breathe through it,” he murmured over and over into my hair. “I got you. You’re safe.” His heartbeat thundered in my ear pressed against him. I listened to the steady beat, mimicked his deep breaths, allowing both to seduce me into a calm trance. “I’m so sorry. You’re safe, Lady. Stay with me.”
The desperation in his shaking voice kept me from slipping further into my panic attack. Still, my heart raced so hard, so fast, that I just knew I was having a heart attack.
“I love you,” he barely whispered with his nose in my hair. “So fucking much.”
The memories Cas’s earlier words brought to light dissolved back into their hiding spot in the dark corners of my mind.
Loved me.
Me.
Those three little words yanked me from my downward spiral. Steady, calm breaths replaced the earlier frantic ones. My pulse still raced, but for an entirely different reason. Our skin clung together as I pulled away from his neck.
“You do?” I asked with a growing smile.
“Yeah.” He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. “I do. You make me feel….”
“Happy?”
“Wanted. And now that I’ve found you, I realize that’s all I’ve been searching for my whole life. You.”
I brushed the tips of my fingers down his scruffy cheeks. “You make me feel happy, and safe, and normal.” I shrugged at his raised brows. “Everyone’s tried to fix me. You’re the only one who noticed me for who I was—scars and all.”
“Ditto, Lady. Ditto.”
Something vibrated against my bottom, making me look down between us.
“Don’t get too happy. I don’t have a vibrating dick. It’s my cell,” he grumbled. Helping me off his lap, he jammed his hand into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out the phone. He stared at the number before answering and holding it to his ear. “Hello. Yes…. Really?” A few seconds of him silently nodding drew my ear closer to his phone, hoping to catch a word or two. “Great. Yeah, I can be there in a few. Thanks, see you then.”
After running a hand down his face and scratching at his beard, he stood and extended a hand to me. “I’ve gotta run to the station. Seems they were able to get some evidence off Benny and want to talk to me about it.” His large fingers wrapped around mine and hauled me up. “You okay with numb nuts in there?”
I dropped my head back and groaned in frustration. “Yes, I’ll be fine.”
“I don’t like him.”
“Really? Hadn’t guessed that,” I said with a sarcastic bite in my tone. The animosity between those two was becoming unbearable, way past the point of annoyance.
“He wants what’s mine, and he can’t have it.”
My hand froze over the doorknob. Slowly, to give myself time to rein in my frustration, I turned to face him once again. “One, I am not a toy in the sandbox, so stop treating me like one. Two, he might want it, but he can’t have it because you have me. And three… three….”
“Three, I’m a possessive jackass who won’t stop being a possessive jackass because that’s the way I’m made.”
I flashed him a narrow-eyed glare. “I don’t like point three.”
“Point three causes point one and two, so point three is the keystone to all this.”
“Whatever.” I pushed through the door. As soon as I was inside, the claustrophobic feeling came back in full force.
Cas strode past to his room while John watched from his seat at the kitchen table, where he ate a bowl of cereal.
“What's eating him?” he asked.
“He has to run out to the police station.”
“Ah,” John said between bites. “Overprotective ass.”
With an eye roll, I fell onto the couch and stared at the ceiling. A dark shadow encroached from the other side of the sofa. Flicking my eyes over, I found Cas’s concerned dark ones.
“I’m going. We good?”
“Good.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Because if we’re not?—”
“Freaking A, Cas, just go. I’ll be fine. We’re fine. Everyone is fine.” Okay, that was a little snippy. What was going on with me?
“Don’t take offense, man,” John said. I couldn’t see him from my prone position on the couch, but the sound of the chair scraping back and loud footsteps told me he was moving closer. “She’s about to start.”
“Ah,” Cas said in relief. “Need me to get you anything?”
I gawked at the two men. What the heck.
A look of pure shock or confusion must’ve been written across my face, because John explained, “We’ve worked side by side for a while, Birdie. It’s one of those things guys just kind of pick up on.”
Grabbing a throw pillow, I slammed it over my face and screamed into the dusty fabric. “Go away,” I yelled into the pillow, making my words muffled, but unfortunately not my hearing.
“Just go, man. She’s fine,” John urged.
“I don’t want to leave her like this.”
“Like what?”
Cas sighed. “Frustrated.”
“Man, she’s a woman. She’s going to be frustrated with you more often than not. Better get used to it.”
“Should I get her anything while I’m out?”
The long pause in their conversation had me holding my breath, very interested to hear John’s response.
“Dove chocolate. She loves dark Dove chocolate.”
Beneath the pillow, my eyes filled with tears. John was a good man. Not the one for me, but his heart was big and intentions pure.
“Thanks, man. I owe you one.”
“No problem.”
Even after the door shut and the resounding click of the locks slid into place, I stayed where I was, the pillow protecting me from the outside world.