Chapter 18
Come on Get Higher – Matt Nathanson
Cassidy
By the time we made it to the main house I was burning up. The weight and feel of Gunner’s arm around me made me hot. Not like I had a fever but a longing desire. It scared me to think he had that effect on me, but the feelings it evoked were exciting, too.
“In you go,” he said, opening the front door and stamping the snow from his boots. “Honey, we’re home!”
I paused to stamp my own boots and chuckled when I heard Wilder yell, “Your family don’t live here any longer, you need to leave.”
“He thinks he’s the funny one,” Gunner grumbled.
He was grinning, though, when I glanced at him, and it was clear he did think his brother was the funny one. When he moved to help me with my coat, my heart did a fly-by of my rib cage and added a loop-the-loop before landing back in my chest.
“Go into the lounge and get in front of the fire.” His voice was deep and raspy, like there was something stuck in his throat.
When I looked at him his eyes were darting around the foyer. Looking anywhere but at me. Taking off his own coat, he hung them both on the rack. His broad shoulders filled out his Henley to perfection. His ass in his jeans was even better.
“Cassidy.” I turned to see Lily in the doorway. “Looks like you’re staying overnight.”
“It does.” I glanced at Gunner who was hovering by the staircase, hooking his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. “I hope you have some spare jammies for me.”
“I do and if not I’m sure one of the boys has a tee you can borrow.” She turned a mischievous grin on her brother-in-law. “You have one don’t you, Gun?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure I do.” He moved past me for the lounge, and I heard him whisper, ‘meddlesome woman’.
As he disappeared into the lounge to yells from Bertie and squeals from Billy, Lily sauntered my way.
“What’s happened?” she asked, tipping her head on one side and perusing me. Just like she did with the kids in her class when they were regaling her with some fantastic tale.
“Nothing’s happened.” I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
When I tried to walk past her she caught my hand. “Do not lie to me Cassidy Ann Turner.”
I burst out laughing. “Boy you get all country when you’re being nosey.”
“So?”
“We’ve been working on the camp. Calling about permits, getting costs for equipment. That’s it.”
Lily put a finger to her lips. “Hmm. You both look different. Shifty.”
“Shifty! What the hell does that mean? How do we look shifty?”
“Not bickering for one. Or calling each other names like my third graders.” She winked and then turned on her heels. “Come on in, get warm by the fire while I get dinner started.”
Then she disappeared leaving me wondering what made her think something had changed between Gunner and me.
The house had finally quieted. Nash and Lily had gone to bed hours ago, and Bertie had been tucked in with a story that Gunner insisted on reading to her despite her protests that she was too old for bedtime stories.
As for me, I couldn’t sleep, so after what felt like hours of tossing and turning I found myself in the kitchen, standing by the window watching the relentless snowfall in the glow of the moonlight.
“Can’t sleep?” Gunner’s voice came from behind me, low and gravelly with tiredness.
I spun around, finding him in the doorway wearing flannel pajama pants and a worn gray t-shirt that clung to his shoulders. His hair was mussed, like he’d been running his hands through it.
“Too much on my mind,” I admitted, wrapping the borrowed cardigan, Lily’s, tighter around myself. “And I don’t usually need coffee to function, but I think I had too much today. It’s your fault for brewing such good java.”
He chuckled and moved toward the refrigerator, pulling out a carton of milk. “Hot chocolate helps. My mom used to make it whenever I couldn’t sleep.”
The mention of his mom caught me off guard. It was the second time today he’d referenced her, and I couldn’t help but feel there was something significant in that. I got the feeling he didn’t talk about her much outside the family, so it felt like an honor in some ways.
I watched as his large hands worked with surprising gentleness, measuring cocoa and sugar into a small pan of milk warming on the stove. The domesticity of it made something flutter in my chest.
“Thank you for today,” I said softly.
He glanced up, his eyes catching mine. “For trapping you here in a snowstorm? Or leaving you in my office alone while I dealt with my assistant?”
I smiled. “For listening to me about Charlie. For taking my suggestion seriously.”
His hands stilled from stirring the pan for a moment. “It was good advice. I should have thought of it myself.”
“We all have blind spots.”
The silence between us felt different than our usual tense standoffs. This was something quieter, more intimate.
Gunner poured the hot chocolate into two mugs, then nodded toward the living room. “Fire’s still going. It’s warmer in there.”
I followed him, settling onto the plush sofa while he placed the mugs on the coffee table and then kneeled to stoke the dying embers of the fire back to life. The room was cast in flickering amber light, shadows dancing across the walls.
Gunner reached for a mug and handed it to me before settling beside me, not too close, but close enough that the heat rolling off him made my skin hum.
“You still cold?” he asked, his gaze flicking to where my hands curled around the mug.
“A little,” I said with a soft laugh. “I think I have issues with my circulation.”
He didn’t respond right away. Just reached for the throw on the armchair and, with an unexpected tenderness, draped it over my legs. His fingers grazed my knee as he tucked the blanket in, the touch fleeting but electric. Like he knew exactly what he was doing and exactly what it would do to me.
“Better?” he asked, his voice lower, rougher.
I nodded. Words didn’t feel safe right now. Not when everything between us suddenly felt charged. Intimate. Like the space we shared had shrunk, holding only the two of us and something sharp-edged and inevitable.
The wind rattled against the windows. The fire crackled.
I sank deeper into the couch and the blanket, my fingers tightening around the mug, but my eyes, traitorous things, kept drifting to him.
To the strong curve of his jaw, the dusky stubble that shadowed his skin.
The way his lashes fell like secrets when he looked down.
He was entirely too beautiful for someone who drove me this insane.
“You’re staring,” he said without looking at me.
I didn’t even try to deny it. “Just trying to figure you out.”
He turned then; one brow cocked with amusement. “And what’s the verdict, Miss Turner?”
“That you’re not who I thought you were,” I said, letting the truth show in my smile.
A slow, almost smug curve touched his mouth. “That’s a good thing, right?”
“Undecided.”
Gunner laughed, and the sound landed somewhere deep in my chest, warm and dangerous. When he shifted, our shoulders brushed and neither of us moved away. I could feel the shape of his presence like gravity.
“You know what,” he said after a beat, his voice quieter now, “I was wrong about you, too.”
“Oh?” I tilted my head, watching him over the rim of my mug.
“I had you pegged as this uptight city teacher who thought she knew better than the rest of us country folk.” His eyes met mine, steady and unflinching. “But you care. About these kids. About this place.”
His words slipped under my skin like silk, threading into places I hadn’t even known were aching for validation.
“And now that I know you’re a farm girl,” he added with a crooked grin, “I have to come up with new reasons to find you irritating.”
I snorted. “Irritating?”
“Okay, challenging.” He corrected, with a wink. “Which is basically my kryptonite.”
I groaned, followed quickly by an impossible smile. He looked unfairly good in the firelight; golden skin, strong arms folded, mug balanced on his chest like he did this every night. Like we belonged here.
I set my own mug down and leaned back, just a little. Close enough to smell him. A warm spice and cedar, and something deeper, uniquely him. Close enough that if I shifted even an inch, our legs would touch.
“You know we could be good together,” he said then, so softly it didn’t feel like a confession. It felt like a promise.
My breath caught. “At the camp?” I asked, even though I knew he didn’t mean just that.
“That too.”
He turned, placing his mug beside mine, and lifted a hand, slow, like he didn’t want to startle me. He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers warm against my skin, lingering.
His palm cupped my cheek, rough and gentle all at once. “Cassidy,” he murmured, my name like it was a secret between us. “I’ve been trying not to want you. But I think I’m losing that fight.”
I felt the pressure of longing against my ribs as I leaned into his touch without thinking, my eyes fluttering shut as his thumb traced the curve of my cheekbone.
Peace and chaos warred in my chest. Everything about this moment felt like a lullaby and a lightning strike.
When I opened my eyes again, his face was closer. His gaze flicked down to my lips. The air crackled.
“I should—” I started, unsure what I was even about to say.
“Don’t overthink it,” he whispered, his nose brushing mine.
His breath was warm and sweet and close. My hand moved of its own accord, settling against his chest. His heart thudded beneath my palm, strong and fast, echoing mine.
“Tell me to stop,” he said, his voice low and rough.
“I can’t,” I breathed.
And then he kissed me.
Soft at first. Testing. Questioning. My sigh was the answer he needed. His hand slid into my hair, tilting my face just so as he deepened the kiss, his mouth warm and patient and devastating.
The tension we’d built up for weeks unspooled in a single touch. He kissed like he meant it. Like he didn’t care that there were a dozen reasons why this was dangerous. He kissed me like I was the only thing tethering him to the earth.
I melted into him, my fingers curling into his shirt. I could feel him everywhere, his hands, his heat, his heartbeat crashing against mine.
When we finally broke apart, breathless and wide-eyed, he rested his forehead against mine.
“Still think I’m irritating?” he murmured, his voice husky.
I grinned, tracing the stubble along his jaw. “Completely,” I said.
And then I kissed him again, just to prove how much I didn’t mean it.