13. Kade
Chapter 13
Kade
This morning hasn’t been half bad. So far, Presley has proved me wrong, impressing me with her gumption. I would’ve thought she’d give up by now. I knew she could work, but this kind of work is different—not everyone can handle it. I’ve seen grown men complain and give up after a week, especially when they get a whiff of the pig pen. But Presley hasn’t quit, hasn’t complained once. Sure, she’s rolled her eyes at me, but that’s because I’m annoying her.
At first, it started off as a way to have a little fun after last night’s “talk” with Gavin and a way to loosen her up a bit—she’s been so quiet and uptight. I’d say she even rivals Gavin in that department. But despite that, I’m learning that I like Presley. She may be sour, but once I got through that first layer, I found she’s more interesting than anyone I’ve met in recent years.
That makes me hate that she found me hungover and passed out on the couch this morning even more. I didn’t plan for her to see me like that, sprawled out in my day-old clothes and boots, but I drank a bit too much with Jake. Not a bit too much. A lot too much. I honestly don’t remember much about last night besides asking Jake to drop me off at the hands’ quarters rather than the main house so I could avoid my family. The woman must sleep like the dead, because I don’t think I was very quiet when I stumbled in after two in the morning.
Speak of the devil, or should I say Lemon, Presley stops shoveling dirt and wipes a bit of sweat from her forehead with the collar of her T-shirt. The action lifts the hem of the fabric just enough that a small sliver of skin peeks out.
We’ve moved on to clearing some debris from the construction of an indoor/outdoor lounge area behind the barns, a place Blake wanted to build for guests to sit, watch the horses graze, and have bonfires. It’ll be a great spot to get out of the sun.
Presley wipes more sweat away with her shirt, and I bite the inside of my cheek when I see the skin of her stomach again. I wonder if it’s as soft as it looks. When she notices where my eyes are trained, she tugs at the hem so she’s covered again. Her cheeks turn red, redder than they are from the heat and physical strain, and she shoots me a sour look.
“Do you always stare at people for prolonged periods of time?” she asks, leaning on her shovel. Her words are funny considering I’ve caught her staring plenty of times. Just this morning, I could feel her eyes on me while we mucked stalls.
“Do you?”
She purses her lips together as another bead of sweat rolls down her forehead. I watch it travel down the side of her face and over the smooth column of her neck before falling against her shirt. I’d like to say that my thoughts don’t go to the gutter, but they do. Hell, who am I kidding? They’ve been in the gutter since the moment I met her. And now, working with her all morning, hearing her soft grunts and moans while she’s exerting herself, has only made the images I’ve been dreaming up of her more vivid.
My desire to know what she looks like in my ropes, making the sounds she’s making, sweat dripping between the valley of her breasts while she comes, has increased tenfold. When I try to stop them, they only seem to get worse, even when I remind myself that Presley should be off-limits. I tell myself that she’s my coworker, now technically my employee, and she lives on my property. I even tried to remember that she isn’t the type I normally take to bed, that there are a lot of women I could play with who are not her—ones who would literally jump between the sheets if I asked. But none of that matters.
Presley tugs at her shirt again then trains her eyes back to the dirt pile. “Just stop staring,” she says under her breath, wiping more salty water from her eyes.
Ignoring her request, I flick my gaze down her body. But this time, I study her for other reasons. She’s very sweaty, and now, I get concerned.
“You’re looking flushed. Do you need to stop for a lemonade break?”
“I’m fine,” she snaps before turning back to the dirt pile to shovel again.
“I’m being serious. If you need a break—”
“I said I’m fine.”
I hold my hands up in surrender, and she continues to shovel, mumbling something under her breath. Deciding to leave her be for the moment, I pull out my cell from my back pocket to see we’re getting close to twelve. I’ve got a missed text from Jake but none from Gavin. By this point in the day, he’s usually messaged me a few times, but after last night, I can’t be surprised that he hasn’t.
JAKE: You alive after all that whiskey last night?
I chuckle to myself before typing out a text.
KADE: Been working since before 6.
JAKE: I would say that shocks me, but it doesn’t. How’s Presley doing?
KADE: Why do you ask?
I glance at Presley, who’s working away, but the more I watch her, the more I notice she’s slowing down. Her movements aren’t as powerful as they were when we first started. Bzzz. Bzzz . Bzzz . I look down at my phone.
JAKE: You don’t remember?
KADE: Remember what?
JAKE: After you went on about Gavin, you wouldn’t shut up about her.
I wrack my brain, trying to remember last night. Jake and I grabbed a bottle of whiskey from Night Hawk and sat in the back of his pickup to shoot the shit, something we did more of before Dad died. Yes, I wasn’t of legal drinking age, but most people around here believe that if you can go to war and die at eighteen, you can make the choice to drink. If you had asked Emmett Montgomery, he’d say you can drink as soon as you can do a full day’s work. But that’s an idea of his I’d rather not unpack.
Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzzz .
JAKE: To quote you: “I wonder if she has tattoos under that shirt.”
KADE: I did not say that.
JAKE: You did. You turned down every woman who asked for your number after we went back into the bar. In all the years I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you do that before.
I understand why I turned women down—I was not in the mood after the fight with Gavin. But has Presley really gotten under my skin so much that I spoke about her to Jake? It’s one thing to think my own thoughts about her, to be attracted to her, but it’s another to speak those thoughts out loud to my friend, especially when drunk.
Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzzz .
JAKE: Did you die from embarrassment?
I huff to myself before typing out a text.
KADE: Me? Embarrassed?
JAKE: I feel like if anyone can embarrass you, it’s your “Lemon.”
Your Lemon . What the fuck? Maybe I should’ve taken one of those girls’ numbers, because I have no business calling her my anything. I hardly even know her.
I start to type out a nice “fuck you” text to Jake when my eyes catch movement. I glance up just in time to see Presley almost drop to the ground. I shove my phone in my pocket, and in a couple of strides, I’m behind her. I place my hands on her waist, and she jumps, attempting to move away from me. But when she does, she sways on her feet.
“Presley.” My voice is laced with concern. I know something is wrong because she doesn’t push me away this time. My heart beats loudly in my chest, and I feel like I want to stab myself in the gut for not forcing her to take a break—and for not thinking of giving her one sooner.
“Now you call me by my name?” she teases weakly.
I chuckle at her answer but then her body goes limp, shovel falling to the dirt with a thud. At the sudden shift in weight, I almost crash to my knees but manage to keep us from falling to the ground.
“Presley!” I shout, but she doesn’t move. Panic wells in my stomach, and my eyes scan our surroundings to find anyone to help, but I don’t see a soul.
Before I pocketed my phone, I saw it was nearly twelve, which means a lot of the workers probably went to eat lunch. The thought makes me remember that we haven’t eaten, either, and the last thing I saw her drink was coffee right before we came out to shovel.
Jesus, no wonder she fainted. I’m used to working on a hangover and hardly anything in my stomach. Not that it’s good for me, but Presley doesn’t have that kind of tolerance built up.
I lower us to the ground as carefully as I can, placing her head on my leg before I feel her forehead. She feels clammy, her skin wet with sweat. I take off my cap and hold it over her head to shade her eyes from the sun then use my other hand to tap her cheek a little .
“Presley,” I say. “Come on, open your eyes.”
She doesn’t move. I tap her cheek again and still nothing. Dread fills me, and my hands shake. I take a deep breath, willing the curling black tendrils of fear to leave me. Now’s not the time to let how I felt the night of my accident resurface. I need to help Presley, and I can’t do that without a level head.
I place my fingers on her neck. Her pulse is a little slow, but I think she just needs shade, food, and water. I set my hat back on my head and lean forward so my lips are against her ear, my nose tickling the shell.
“Presley, darlin’. Please open those pretty eyes.” I shake her a bit. “If you don’t get up, I’m going to have to spray you with the hose,” I tease. Just as I’m about to make good on that promise, she groans, her nose scrunching up in the way she’s done before, like a bunny.
“No hose…” She moans.
I let out a relieved chuckle, though inside, I feel like I want to hurl. The Kade before the accident would’ve never freaked out over someone passing out—he would have patiently waited until she woke up. This was an entirely new experience, one I never want to feel again.
For a fleeting moment, I think this is what Blake must have felt like the night she saved me. Helpless. Afraid. Like the world is closing in and you’ll do anything to grasp onto a lifeline. But I push that out of my mind, swallowing it down with a smile.
Presley’s lids flutter open, her heavy eyes meeting mine. They widen, then, in a flash, she’s trying to sit up. It happens so fast she almost whacks our foreheads together. “Whoa, there, easy now.” I grip her arms to steady her.
“Kade, let—” Before she can finish the sentence, she’s leaning over and dry-heaving onto the ground while trying to shove out of my grip. I cringe, holding her tight in a very awkward position as her body tries to vomit nothing, reminding me yet again I’m an asshole for not making sure she ate and drank water .
Presley groans, her shoves becoming weaker. I attempt to keep her hair back from her face, but in an unexpected burst of strength, she pushes me. Taking the hint, I let her go as she holds herself up on the ground, another heave leaving her lips.
“Let me help you,” I say.
After another heave has subsided, she takes an inhale, her face screwed up in pain. “I’m good. Please leave me alone here to die from embarrassment,” she manages weakly.
I tilt my head. “Why are you embarrassed?” I’m genuinely curious, because I’ve been in worse shape than her in front of others, said and done a lot of crazy things, like apparently calling her “my Lemon” last night. Seriously, what the fuck was that?
She lets out a long and painful groan. “Please, leave me here to die.”
I stare at the strange girl with purple hair who always surprises me with what she says and does. It only makes me want to know her more, to unravel her, to figure her out.
Fuck. Maybe I do want her. How did that happen?
How the hell did I let that happen?
When she groans again, I curse under my breath. “You’re not going to die. We need to get you up and in the shade, then I’ll get you some food and water. Can I please help you?”
Presley stares at the ground where there’s a tiny bit of her bile in the dirt. I don’t miss the way her face burns at the sight of it. Her arms shake when she tries to get up, her body weak enough that she can’t do it on her own. After another long moment of her struggling, she finally looks at me and nods.
With a breath of relief I stand, staying behind her so I can pull her up under her armpits. I try to keep the movement slow so she doesn’t pass out again. When she’s on her feet, she sways a bit, so I act fast, tucking her into my side.
“Put your arm around my waist.” She grumbles at the request, and I smirk. “Has anyone ever told you you’re as stubborn as a mule?”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re annoying? ”
I let out a sharp laugh to cover up how grateful I am that she’s okay. “Glad to see you’re feeling better, Lemon.”
Her eyes narrow at me, but she does as I asked. Once she’s settled against me, I place my arm around her shoulder and make sure she’s secure. For a brief second, I relish the contact, reveling in how her soft body feels against mine, how she fits perfectly into my side. It’s…nice. More than nice. But I don’t have time to think much on it because the sound of dirt crunching has my focus shifting to meet the assessing gazes of Blake and Gavin.
Great. Just fucking great.
My brother and I make eye contact. He looks from me to Presley, and the nice feeling I had fades. I know that look on his face—he thinks I’ve hit on her, that I’ve got my arm around her for reasons that he’d rather not know about.
Not that I care. After last night, he can think what he wants. I hope the gossip mill told him about me getting drunk with Jake. I hope he thinks I fucked half the bar. At this point, I think Gavin would believe anything anyone told him about me.
“What’s going on?” Blake asks first, rushing toward us. Gavin’s tense features start to relax, as if his brain is recognizing that, from the tone of Blake’s voice, this is not what he thinks it looks like.
“Presley just needs a break,” I answer.
Blake goes into mama-bear mode and puts her hand on Presley’s forehead before her feet have even stopped moving.
“Did you eat this morning?”
My gaze moves to Presley’s profile, and I don’t miss the way her hand grips my waist a little tighter.
“I had a little something.”
I swallow, knowing she’s lying. The question is why—is it because she’s embarrassed?
“Kade, have you given her breaks?” Blake asks, her stern stare boring into me. The normal warmth is gone. I can’t help but notice she’s sporting dark circles under her eyes, as if sleep has been evading her. Are they because of me?
Presley turns her head briefly toward me, her dry lips pressing together. I feel terrible for not taking better care of her and try to convey that through my gaze. I swallow and open my mouth to answer Blake, to tell the truth, but Presley beats me to it, her eyes making direct contact with Blake and Gavin.
“He has,” she says firmly.
Blake deflates, the scolding she had ready to give me leaving her body.
“Presley,” I find myself saying. My brain is trying to figure out why she’s lied both about eating something and about this.
“I just need a little more food and some water. Not used to all this manual labor in the sun,” she says through a breathy laugh.
Blake studies her, Gavin’s protective gaze watching over us like the mother hen that he is.
“I’ll take you up to the main house,” Blake says. “We were just coming to tell you both to come to lunch, anyway.”
“I think I’d like to go back and rest,” Presley answers. “If that’s okay.”
Blake smiles at her. “Of course. I can take you back.”
“I’ve got her,” I say, almost too fast. My fingers press into the soft skin of her shoulder. “You can go grab us some food.”
The already muggy air becomes suffocating, and it feels like Presley and I are in a standoff against Gavin and Blake. When Presley leans heavier into me, I go on high alert, gripping her tighter. I don’t want her to pass out again.
When I take a step forward, Gavin holds up a hand. “I want to talk with you. Let her go with Blake.”
It happens in a flash, but the warmth of Presley leaves me, and then she’s leaning on Blake. For whatever reason, Presley’s sapphire eyes look apologetic when they meet mine. I wonder why, because it’s not like she can know what’s happening. I know she saw Gavin and I argue the first day we met, but she has no idea of the true nature of my family drama unless someone at the bar has told her. Which is possible, I suppose.
“I’ll see you back at the house,” Blake says to Gavin. I see her check in with Presley to make sure she can walk, and then they’re taking off toward the hands’ quarters, leaving me with my brother. I can’t shake my thoughts about last night. Maybe I should just leave this place altogether. I have no idea where I would go, but it would be better than this. Better than the judgment and the tension.
“What did you do to that poor girl?” Gavin asks as soon as Presley and Blake are out of earshot. I flex my jaw as I bend to pick Presley’s shovel up off the ground and start to walk away.
“Kade,” he calls after me. “Please tell me what happened. She’s our responsibility.”
I stop and spin to face him, not liking that he just assumes that whatever was going on with Presley was my fault. I should have gone easier on her; I know that. I’m already feeling like an asshole, so I don’t need to add Gavin’s shitty opinion of me on top of it.
“I don’t have to answer to you anymore, Gavin. You gave up on me, remember?” I drop the shovel on the ground and let my anger come out. “Unless you changed your mind in less than twelve hours?”
“Kade.” He sighs. “I was upset when I said that.”
I stare into the eyes of my brother—the man I once looked up to—a million things I want to say on the tip of my tongue. But it’s not worth it. It will just end up like it always does. I turn my back on him and walk away.
“Where are you going?” His exasperated tone follows me.
I whistle the melody to “Here for a Good Time” by George Strait before yelling over my shoulder, “Didn’t you know, Gav? I’ve got women to corrupt and booze to drink.” The first part is a lie. The second part is not. I think I deserve a drink after this. Blake will take care of Presley and make sure she eats and drinks.
Right now, I just need to be alone.