Chapter 19
Mike
“Did you coordinate with Dolly about the tables and chairs for the fundraiser?” I asked, poking my head into Maggy’s office at the back of the church.
“Beau and Lucas are letting us use their tents from the wedding so we have a bigger space, but I wasn’t sure if we needed to bring tables from here or if she already has some. ”
“I’m going down there for dinner tonight, so I’ll ask her then,” Maggy replied. She was in the process of gathering up a few things before she headed home for the night. “You’re welcome to join me and my husband if you like. I know you’ve been busy lately.”
“Actually, I was thinking about cooking tonight.”
Maggy raised an eyebrow. “A pastor who cooks? That sounds irregular.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m not that helpless.”
“Our last pastor was at my house nearly every night for dinner. You would’ve thought there was no stove in that parsonage house.”
“I’m not very good yet,” I replied, shaking my head. “But I want to get better. Besides, Cash seems to enjoy it.”
“And how is our resident asshole?”
“Maggy!” I gasped. “You can’t say that! He’s a man in need.”
“In need of a good smack,” she replied without missing a beat. “I’ve never met such a disagreeable person.”
“Try to give him a little grace. He’s had a tough time.”
“That’s no excuse to be rude to good folk just trying to help him.”
I held my hands up in defeat. “I know. I know. But I think he’s coming around. He’s lost a lot.”
Maggy raised her eyebrow in my direction, but she didn’t say anything else on the subject.
“Well, I’m pretty much done here for the night.
I’ll check in with Dolly and let you know what she says.
Flyers already went up today, so I expect the entire town will show up on Friday night for this thing.
” She paused, giving me a smile. “And you have your first official sermon tomorrow.”
A flutter of nervousness shot through my stomach at the reminder. “Yeah, I know. I’ve been working on it all week.”
“You’ll do fine,” Maggy assured me, shouldering her purse. “The congregation is excited to finally hear from their new pastor. Just speak from the heart.”
I nodded, though the butterflies in my stomach didn’t seem convinced.
After she left, I locked up the church and walked back to the parsonage, my mind already turning to what I might cook for dinner.
Something simple, maybe pasta. Cash seemed to appreciate when I made an effort, even if he’d never admit it outright.
The house was quiet when I let myself in through the front door.
Cash’s truck was in the driveway, so I knew he was around somewhere.
Probably holed up in his room again, making calls about the ranch or brooding about something.
He’d been doing a lot of both lately and I couldn’t expect one vulnerable night between us to change him that much.
I was pulling ingredients out of the refrigerator when I heard his boots on the kitchen floor behind me.
“Smells good in here,” he said, his voice carrying that particular roughness it always had when he was trying to be casual about something.
I glanced over my shoulder at him. His hair was mussed like he’d been running his hands through it, and there was dirt on his jeans. “I haven’t started cooking yet.”
“Oh.” He rubbed the back of his neck, looking almost sheepish. “Well, it smells like... possibility, I guess.”
The comment was so unexpectedly sweet that I had to turn away to hide my smile. “How was your day? Any luck with buyers?”
Cash leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms. “Not really. Left a few messages.” He paused, then added, “Went out to the Macready place with Rowan.”
I nearly dropped the box of pasta I was holding. “You did what now?”
“Helped with a calving,” he said, his tone defensive like he expected me to make a big deal out of it. “Wasn’t plannin’ on it, just sort of happened.”
I set the pasta down on the counter and turned to face him fully. This was the first time since he’d arrived that Cash had voluntarily spent time with anyone from town, let alone Rowan. “How did that go?”
He shrugged, but I caught something in his expression. A softness around his eyes that hadn’t been there this morning. “Fine. Heifer had a turned calf. Got it sorted.”
“And Rowan?”
Cash’s jaw tightened slightly. “He’s not as useless as I thought.”
Coming from Cash, that was practically a glowing endorsement. I bit back the urge to push for more details, sensing that he’d already shared more than he was comfortable with.
“Well,” I said, turning back to the stove, “I’m glad you got out of the house. You’ve been cooped up in here too much.”
I heard him move behind me, his boots scuffing against the linoleum. When I glanced back, he was closer than before, close enough that I could smell the outdoors on him. I caught a whiff of hay and barn dust and… man.
“What’re you makin’?” he asked, his voice lower now.
“Just spaghetti. Nothing fancy.”
His hand brushed against my lower back as he reached around me to grab a beer from the refrigerator. The touch was brief, probably accidental, but it sent heat racing through my body, anyway.
“Need help?” he asked.
I almost laughed. Cash Callahan offering to help cook was about as likely as him offering to lead Sunday service. “You cook?”
“I can manage not to burn water,” he said dryly. “Probably.”
“In that case, you can chop the garlic.”
He moved to the sink to wash his hands, and I tried not to watch the way his shoulders moved under his shirt.
We’d established our boundaries this morning.
Things between us were just sex, nothing more.
But standing here in my kitchen, watching him dry his hands on the dish towel like he belonged here, those boundaries felt as flimsy as tissue paper.
I handed him a knife and a few cloves of garlic, our fingers brushing in the exchange. His eyes met mine for just a moment, and I saw my own struggle reflected there. This thing between us was supposed to be simple. Uncomplicated. But nothing about the way he looked at me felt simple.
“So,” I said, needing to break the tension before I did something stupid like kiss him right here against the counter, “You coming to church tomorrow?”
Cash raised an eyebrow as he started peeling the garlic. “Me? Church? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Sorry,” I laughed, shaking my head. “I know you said you weren’t really the religious type.”
“It’s your first sermon, right?” he asked unprompted.
“Yeah,” I nodded. “I’m a bit nervous to be honest.”
“What’re you gonna talk about?”
I stirred the sauce, considering. “Healing, I think. Second chances. How sometimes the thing you think you don’t want turns out to be exactly what you need. I figured it would be a good bookend for this entire tornado business.”
Cash’s knife stilled against the cutting board. “Sounds a little more personal than that.”
“All the best sermons are.”
He resumed chopping, the rhythmic sound of the knife filling the comfortable silence between us.
I snuck glances at him as I cooked, noting the way his brow furrowed in concentration, the careful precision of his movements.
There was something deeply attractive about a man who took even simple tasks seriously.
“You ever regret it?” he asked suddenly.
“Regret what?”
“Becomin’ a pastor. Givin’ up... other possibilities.”
I knew what he was really asking. Whether I regretted choosing a life that made relationships complicated, that came with expectations and judgments and a whole community watching my every move.
“Sometimes,” I admitted. “It’s not an easy life. But I’ve never regretted helping people. I think it’s my one real calling in this life.”
Cash finished chopping the garlic and slid it across the cutting board toward me. The smell of it filled the kitchen, sharp and earthy.
“That’s admirable,” he said quietly. “Sounds like you actually have somethin’ figured out.”
I scraped the garlic into the pan, watching it sizzle. “What about you? Did you ever have something like that? Something that felt... right?”
He was quiet for so long I thought he wasn’t going to answer. When I glanced over, he was staring out the window at the darkening sky, his jaw working like he was chewing on words he couldn’t quite spit out.
“Maybe,” he said finally. “Long time ago.”
“What was it?”
“This,” he gestured vaguely at nothing and everything. “Ranchin’. Workin’ with animals. Before everything went to shit, I used to think... I used to think I’d take over the ranch someday. Run cattle like my dad did, like his dad did.” His laugh was bitter. “Stupid kid dreams.”
The pasta water started boiling, and I dumped in the spaghetti, stirring it absently while I watched his face. There was something raw there, something he was trying to keep buried.
“Doesn’t sound stupid to me,” I said. “Sounds like you were good at it.”
“Was,” he emphasized. “Past tense.”
“Is that what Rowan said today? That you’re no good at it anymore?”
He turned to look at me then, his dark eyes searching my face like he was trying to figure out what angle I was working. “No. Why do you ask?”
“It’s just that you seemed to light up when you were talking about helping with that calf. That’s more animated than I’ve seen you since you got here.” I gave him a shrug. “Seems like you enjoy it.”
Cash’s expression shuttered. “Don’t read into it. It was just somethin’ to do.”
But I’d hit something, I could tell. The way he crossed his arms, the defensive set of his shoulders. This mattered to him, even if he wouldn’t admit it.
“The ranch,” I asked carefully, testing the waters. “Your dad’s ranch. What was it like when you were a kid?”
Cash went very still at my question. The muscles in his jaw worked as he stared out the window, his hands braced against the counter. For a moment I thought he might shut down completely, retreat back into that defensive shell he wore like armor.
“It was...” he started, then stopped. Cleared his throat. “It was good. Before.”
I kept stirring the pasta, giving him space to find his words without the pressure of my eyes on him.
“Five hundred head at its peak,” he said quietly.
“Good grazing land, decent water. Dad knew what he was doing with cattle, I’ll give him that.
” His voice carried a note of reluctant respect.
“I used to ride fence with him on Saturdays. He’d point out which pastures to rotate, how to read the grass, when to move the herd. ”
“You miss it.”
It wasn’t a question, and he didn’t answer it like one. Just made a sound that might have been agreement.
“Every morning before school, I’d help with feeding. Had my own horse, a paint mare named Sage.” The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. “She was mean as a snake to everyone but me. Dad said she had my temperament.”
I smiled at that, imagining a teenage Cash with a surly horse, both of them stubborn and fierce. “What happened to her?”
“Sold her when I left.” His expression hardened again. “Sold everything. Had to start fresh somewhere that didn’t...” He trailed off, shaking his head.
“Didn’t what?”
“Didn’t know who or what I was.”
The words hung in the air between us, heavy with old pain. I turned off the heat under the pasta and moved closer to him, not quite touching but close enough that he could feel my presence.
“Cash,” I said softly.
He turned toward me then, and I saw something raw and unguarded in his face. Before I could think better of it, I reached up and cupped his cheek with my palm. His skin was rough with afternoon stubble, warm under my touch.
“That kid who loved the ranch,” I said. “He’s still in there. Still part of who you are. And that’s okay, you know?”
Cash leaned into my touch for just a moment, his eyes fluttering closed. Then he caught my wrist, not pulling my hand away but holding it there against his face.
“Maybe,” he said, his voice rough. “But that don’t change anything. I’m still sellin’ the place and gettin’ the hell out of here.”
But even as he said it, I heard the uncertainty creeping into his voice. The doubt he was trying so hard to suppress.
“The pasta’s ready,” I said, giving him an out from the intensity of the moment.
He nodded and stepped back, my hand falling away from his face. But something had shifted between us, some wall had developed another crack. I could see it in the way he moved around the kitchen, less guarded than before.
He finally shook his head. “Got any garlic bread?”
“Sorry. I didn’t buy any.”
“You got bread, butter, and garlic salt?”
“Yeah?” I glanced up at him. “I think so. Why?”
“Just stand back pastor,” he said, moving me out of the way. “I’m gonna show you how to make white trash garlic bread.”
“White trash garlic bread?” I laughed. “You’ve got to be joking with a name like that.”
“Hell no,” Cash said, already rummaging through my cabinets like he owned the place. “It’s what my mom used to make when we didn’t have money for the fancy stuff from the store. I think it’s better though.”
I watched him pull out a loaf of bread, butter, and the garlic salt I’d forgotten I even had. There was something different about him now, less guarded. The mention of his mother had slipped out so naturally I wasn’t sure he’d even noticed.
“Your mom taught you to cook?” I asked, leaning against the counter.
“Some,” he said, slicing the bread with quick, efficient movements. “She died when I was twelve. Cancer.” He glanced up at me briefly. “After that, it was mostly me and Dad figuring things out on our own.”
My chest tightened at the matter-of-fact way he said it. Another piece of the puzzle that was Cash Callahan, another loss that had shaped him into the guarded man standing in my kitchen.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He shrugged, spreading butter on the bread slices with the same careful precision he’d used on the garlic. “Long time ago. She would’ve liked you though.”
The comment caught me off guard. “Yeah?”
“She always said the best people were the ones who fed folks without expecting anything back.” He sprinkled garlic salt over the buttered bread. “People like you.”
“I bet she’d be proud of you too,” I added, smiling back at him. “You’re a good man, Cash. No matter what you might think about yourself.”
“I’m not so sure about that…”
I stepped up beside him, grabbing his chin and forcing him to look at me. “Well I am,” I said. “And I’ve got the big man himself on my side, so I know I’m right.”
Cash, despite his best efforts, smiled. “If you say so, preacher.”