Chapter 2
Cassie almost choked on the drink of water she’d taken. “For one thing, I just met you.”
He held out his hand, offering a handshake.
She stared at the offering, knowing full well not to take it or risk him picking up on her body’s reaction.
“I’m Hudson Sturgess,” he said with a smile, unbothered. He clapped his hands together. “If you won’t go with me on my assignment, then at least come back to my place long enough to grab a shower and allow me to load you up with some food and supplies.”
Cassie discreetly lifted her shoulder and got an unpleasant whiff of her B.O. The offer of a shower was almost too good to pass up. Almost. “I’m good, but thanks anyway.”
“It’s the least I can do after you saved my life.”
She eyed him up and down, noting his impressive size. Considering the size and weight difference between them, she should probably be scared of Hudson. For reasons that defied logic, she wasn’t. In fact, she’d never felt safer.
Trusting the feeling would be about as brilliant an idea as walking a tightrope across the Grand Canyon without a safety net.
The thought of clean hair and skin proved tempting…
Going back to Hudson’s place for a quick shower might work under the right circumstances.
Going inside would have the added benefit of getting her out of the open, at least for a little while.
A real bathroom sounded like heaven. Plus, an angry and wounded mountain lion stalked these woods.
She could leave her tent for a little while.
No. She’d been found by Hudson. Her location was compromised.
Moving on was a necessity at this point.
Damn. This was the closest she’d been to him in weeks.
Seeing him, knowing he was okay, meant the world to her.
Leaving now hadn’t been the plan. She needed time, a couple more days, to get her bearings and pluck up the courage to risk a visit.
Would he know her? Recognize her?
A Wildlife Services vehicle came up, slowed, and the driver smiled at Hudson. He motioned toward the area the mountain lion had fled through. The male driver nodded and then parked twenty feet from the back of the trailer.
Cassie couldn’t risk being seen. Panic tightened in a knot that had formed in her chest. “I should go.”
Without hesitation, Hudson waved her off and hopped out of the bed of the truck. “I’ll be right back. I’d like it if you were still here, but no pressure. Do whatever you need to.”
Those words were the equivalent of a warm campfire on a freezing cold night.
“Okay,” she said. The word came out in a croak, emotion twisting her vocal cords in a knot the size of the one in her chest.
“I’ll make sure Marcus doesn’t see you,” he said out of the corner of his mouth before disappearing beside the trailer.
Cassie scooted to the very back of the truck bed and hugged her knees to her chest, forming a tight ball, and strained to listen to the conversation.
“Where’s Joann?” Hudson asked.
“The recent ordeal shook her up pretty bad.” There was a pause. “You know she has a kid, right?”
“I do,” Hudson said.
“She’s spending time with him, taking some time to heal.
” Marcus’s voice was a few octaves higher than Hudson’s.
His deep timbre had a way of rolling over her and through her at the same time.
His physical presence was a force unto itself.
Add the voice, and her skin goose-bumped just thinking about him.
How long had she been on the run? Alone? Too long.
What could she do about it? Nothing.
“I’d better get after it,” Marcus said.
“Take care out there.”
“Will do, Hudson.” A pause was followed by, “I was real sorry to hear about your loss.”
“Really?” Hudson’s surprise caught her off guard.
“I can’t say I knew your father, but my heart goes out to your family.”
“If you knew Beaumont, you wouldn’t feel that way.
” The coldness in his voice, along with those words, meant there was a story.
Maybe the horse rancher knew about pain.
As beautiful as his blue eyes were, there was a depth, a sadness to them that she felt a deep connection to. One broken soul to another…?
Cassie had been split in half years ago and figured she would never be whole again.
It was strange how one mistake could color the rest of your life.
Although her physical age was twenty-nine, she felt older than her years.
That happened when you grew up too fast and crammed years of living into weeks.
Giving herself a mental headshake, she refocused on the footsteps heading toward her. Relief washed over her when Hudson appeared. A shower. A real bathroom. A chance to get out of the woods for a while.
“Does your offer still stand?” she asked in a quiet voice.
He nodded as he went to work changing out a blown tire. She joined him after gathering up the trash.
“Anything I can do to help?”
“I got it,” he said as he finished up. The man’s arms were bigger than her thighs.
His hands were large enough to crush a skull.
Those facts should scare her. Instead, they offered reassurance and safety like she’d never known.
Hudson Sturgess could handle himself in any situation.
He’d thanked her for saving him from the mountain lion.
Cassie realized, upon looking at him, that he would have done fine on his own.
She might have saved him from a few scrapes and bruises, but despite what he said, Hudson would have been more than fine.
However, it was fine if he wanted to give her credit.
She’d take any good karma she could get after feeling the effects of bad decision after bad decision.
Were they really considered bad decisions when you had no other options?
You were surviving, kiddo. You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.
Those were some of her grandfather’s last words to her.
She’d located him after years of searching and had found him weeks before his death.
Broke and alone, Cassie had never cried so hard as she had that day.
Three years, four months, and sixteen days ago, she’d lost the one person who hadn’t known about her existence until it was too late.
Not too late, Cass. Pull your head out and stop feeling sorry for yourself.
A couple of weeks with someone who loved you is better than what some people get.
To this day, she would never understand why her mother had kept her biological father a secret and blocked Cassie from that side of her family.
“Do you want to ride in the front seat with me or back in the trailer with Best?” he asked, breaking through her thoughts. “I hope I’m better company, but you never know. Best is a good horse. Not too chatty, though.”
She glanced at the trailer. It took all of a second to realize it would be the safest place for her. Then, she shifted her gaze to the passenger seat of his truck. “I’d hate to stink you out of your own truck.”
“You couldn’t.” He cracked a devastating smile. “Believe me. I had brothers who decided showers were for the weak during peak hormone years.” He laughed, and it lit up his face. More of those little campfires lit inside her, low in her belly.
“Can I borrow your hat?” She motioned toward the Stetson.
He cocked an eyebrow and then opened his mouth to speak before stopping himself. She could almost see the exact moment that he remembered their agreement involved no questions as it played across his features. “Be my guest.”
“Okay, then. Front seat, it is,” she said, hoping she wouldn’t regret this decision.
“After you,” Hudson said before opening the passenger door like they were on some kind of date.
This seemed like an appropriate time to remind herself that Hudson was a Texas rancher.
Politeness and chivalry were ingrained in him.
He wasn’t opening her door to impress her or make her feel like she couldn’t do it for herself.
Cassie liked it more than was probably safe to allow. The rare time she’d gone with her feelings instead of listening to logic, she’d ended up pregnant and alone. You were barely more than a kid.
That didn’t excuse her actions. She couldn’t let herself off the hook that easily.
Complicated was the best word Hudson could think of to describe the woman crouched down in the seat next to him with a cowboy hat covering most of her face.
She’d tucked her wavy locks up into the hat, which was a clear sign she didn’t want anyone to be able to describe her.
Should he tell her there weren’t many folks around this part of the land?
“I’ll stick to my word of not asking questions and leave it to you to tell me anything you want me to know about yourself.”
“Not much to tell.”
He half-coughed, half-choked.
“Be careful there,” she said, sitting upright long enough to pat him on the back a couple of times. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” he said.
“I’m boring,” she continued. “Tell me about you.”
“You already know I’m a horse rancher on a stud mission. What else can I say?”
“Are those scars on your hands because of your job?”
“These?” He removed his right hand from the wheel for a few seconds, long enough to flex his fingers. “They’re nothing compared to the ones on my arms, back, and the backs of my legs.”
“What did you do to earn those? Roll around in barbed wire?”
“I did that once and, for the record, I was pushed,” he said with a hollow laugh.
“By who?”
“Beaumont.” He hadn’t intended to speak the man’s name with as much disgust and hatred as he did.
“Your father?” The shock in Cassie’s voice reverberated through him, reaching parts of him that had long been forgotten.
“Just Beaumont.”
“I’m so sorry, Hudson.” The compassion in her voice soothed those dark places. As much as he hated Beaumont, the scars weren’t the reason Hudson could never see himself as a parent. Physical pain barely scratched the surface.
“You didn’t do anything wrong. No need to apologize, and I sure as hell don’t need your pity.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Is that what you think this is?”
No, he didn’t. But he’d rather piss her off than go down that road—a road that meant revisiting a painful past and a loss so bone-deep that he’d never fully recovered. “Maybe talking about me is a bad idea.”
“And why is that?” she asked. “I mean, you’re a stranger, and here I am in your truck going God knows where.
I’m putting trust in you, Hudson, whatever-you-said-your-last-name-is, and that’s not an easy thing for me to do.
” She blew out a sharp breath. “And, by the way, I don’t feel pity for you.
But I do think that bastard Beaumont should be in prison if he put any of those scars on you, especially when you were too young to defend yourself, because he wouldn’t dare try that shit with you now. ”
Hudson and his siblings rarely spoke about the past or the pain Beaumont had put them through.
They all dealt with the past in their own way.
Hudson respected it. He wasn’t exactly the light-a-candle-and-stay-up-all-night-talking-about-our-feelings type either.
Hearing the indignation in Cassie’s voice on his behalf when a whole town had looked the other way added more of that balm to his broken heart—a heart broken by far more than abuse and neglect.
“Once again, I find myself needing to thank you,” he said to her. “The past is where it belongs, in the rearview mirror. I’d much rather focus on the now.”
“We can agree on that,” she said. As if he needed more ammunition to tell him that hers was complicated.
Silence stretched on for what felt like hours but was no more than minutes.
“Speaking about the now,” he said. “I have moved back to this town I swore I’d never set foot in again. I’m here for the foreseeable future.”
“As a driver?”
Hudson laughed. “My siblings and I own the ranch.”
“Oh.” There was a long pause. “Do you get along?”
He was hoping Cassie would open up a little about herself if he offered enough personal information about himself, but that seemed about as likely as snow falling today.
“Well enough. My oldest brother, Kade, can come on like a steamroller at times, but he always has everyone’s best interests at heart.
We might not agree on everything, but I can always count on him to step up if I need anything—and I mean anything.
Same goes for my other siblings.” He paused a beat before adding, “As far as my half-brother goes, we’re still feeling him out.
He’s come a long way toward proving himself to the others.
I gave him the benefit of the doubt early on.
” Instinctively, he asked, “Do you have any s…”
Hudson caught himself midsentence.
“Never mind. Forget I asked,” he said.
“No, I don’t…there aren’t any others. I was…am an only child.”
“As much as my siblings can be a pain in the ass, I can’t imagine not having them around,” he admitted.
She exhaled. “I can only imagine what it would be like for someone else to have your back.”
The weight of that statement sat heavily in the truck’s cab as Hudson pulled onto family land and in front of the cabin.
“Is this yours?” Cassie asked. Her tone shifted from a hint of emptiness to one of surprise.
“Home, sweet home.”
He parked and headed around the front of the vehicle to open her door but got there a few seconds too late.
Cassie hopped out of the passenger side. He walked her to the door and unlocked it.
“Go ahead on in. I’ll be back shortly.”
Her eyes widened before she scanned the area behind him like she half expected a random stranger to hop out of nowhere and assault them. “You want me to go inside alone?” A forced calm in her voice gave her fear away if her reaction hadn’t already.
“Just for a few minutes while I take Best back to the barn. I don’t want to leave him loaded up like this.”
“I thought we would be back on the road in less than half an hour.” Her pulse pounded at the base of her throat.
“I’m considering putting off the trip until tomorrow,” he said.
“Why? What would make you do that?” Her words came out in a rushed jumble, but he made them out.
“That way, I can take you anywhere you need to go.”
Hands up, palms out, she backed away. “I don’t need your help.”
Well, shit. Now it was his turn to backpedal.