Chapter 6 #2
He didn’t hate his parents for being different.
But he sometimes resented the way they’d taken on a load of responsibilities they weren’t equipped for.
But then, they were totally distant from their own parents, and as far as West knew, they were different from everyone they were related to, so it was possible they hadn’t realized how hard raising children would be for them.
West was forewarned, by watching them, and therefore forearmed. Which meant he didn’t have any excuses.
He drove way too fast down the dirt road that wound around the mountain. But no one would be coming the other way this morning and he was in a mood. His truck slid on the gravel and the slight thrill took his mind out of his ruminations.
Head empty, no thoughts, just for a few moments. His ideal state, and so difficult to achieve.
He pulled into the space in front of the arena and took a breath, but as he did, Cassidy pulled up beside him. He gripped the steering wheel a little bit tighter, then got out of the truck.
There was nothing that could prepare him for the impact of her. The shocking intensity of it. For a man with as much experience as he had, the novelty of being struck by lightning every time he saw someone was …
It was like a drug.
The kind of substance he thanked God every day he had managed to stay away from, because his personality was prone to addiction; he would lose himself that way.
Cassidy Wilder was a drug, laced with something he couldn’t identify.
And he knew perfectly well that was how you ended up in cardiac arrest. No thanks.
But after his blissful drive over it was a shock to the system, and he couldn’t decide if he was reveling in it, or if he wanted to jump off the nearest cliff.
“Good morning, boss,” she said.
The back of his teeth hurt.
“Morning.”
“What do you have to teach me today?”
“I want to start connecting the couple of things that you’ve already learned. But I was actually thinking maybe I would take you on a little tour of the facility.”
He hadn’t been thinking that. The idea popped into his head before he had a chance to really think it through. But then, his best and worst ideas always came to him that way.
“Oh.”
“If you’re interested.”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m interested. It’s kind of funny, because being a Wilder and all, it’s not like any level of good behavior was expected of us—either from the family or the town. But the one thing we were really discouraged from was consorting with you people.”
He snorted. “Yeah. I know. Austin wasn’t my biggest fan. Still isn’t.” The way the other man had kept him out of the house last night was solid evidence of that.
“It’s not personal.”
“Actually, it’s about as personal as it gets. It’s about the literal blood that runs through my veins.”
“The sins were Butch Hancock’s, not yours.”
“Might as well be ours—we’ve been punished for them.”
“Were you longing for Austin’s friendship?”
“No. The feud is silly, though. He takes it so seriously.”
“Why is that silly? He feels hurt by the Wilders’ reputation. By the town. And Butch was part of what happened.”
“Sure, but that’s the point. These things happened before any of us were born.
Why should we be part of the bad blood?” He realized that was an ironic thing to say, when he’d earned his outlaw reputation with such fervor.
“Your family was punished by Rustler Mountain for being related to outlaws. But then, you turned around and looked down on us.”
Cassidy glanced away. “Well, Austin took the whole thing personally.”
“I get that.” He did, but he was kind of resentful too. His life had been more isolated because of the Wilders’ enmity toward his family. An enmity that he hadn’t caused and hadn’t done anything to perpetuate.
“Anyway,” she went on, “if there’s ever been one thing that was off-limits to me, it wasn’t The Watering Hole, it wasn’t wild parties or anything like that. Just … this.”
“Yeah. Hilarious,” he said.
Her admission didn’t bother him. He didn’t know why he was being … unfriendly. He was the one who had offered to give her the tour. He was being gruff because he didn’t want to flirt.
High opinion of yourself.
The truth was, if there was anyone he was safe from accidentally seducing, it was probably Cassidy.
He had clocked that crush she had on Dalton Wade right away. She was starry-eyed. He wondered … He wondered if there was something going on there. It hadn’t seemed like it to him. Not at all. The interest appeared one-sided, but he had a difficult time imagining any man being immune to Cassidy.
In fact, it was impossible for him to imagine. The way she moved, the way she smelled, the way she wrinkled her nose when she was irritated at him. She was too damned compelling for him to believe that any man could be entirely oblivious to her.
Maybe she was more experienced than he thought.
Or maybe that was the devil talking.
Back when he’d been a kid, there was a special program you could sign up for at school.
You walked to the church next door at the end of the day, and listened to a Bible story, sang some songs and had some cheap, watered-down punch.
He had always signed up, because why wouldn’t he do that instead of sitting in class?
But he had trouble sitting still in church too, and the woman who helped teach the class had told him it was the devil that made him act the way he did. The devil that encouraged him to disobey. That made his body restless and his actions impulsive.
God is not a God of confusion. Your behavior shows confusion. And that confusion is from the author of lies.
He was old enough now not to believe that. Not to actually think it was the literal devil that had wired his brain the way it was.
But her words stuck with him.
This idea that all of those behaviors came straight from hell. And he had less control over them than most. The truth was, he did question himself sometimes. Right now was one of those times. But he dismissed his concern.
He wasn’t going to work so hard to not … whatever the hell it was he was trying to keep from happening.
“Come on, then,” he said. He gestured toward his truck.
“You want me to … get in the truck?”
“Yes, Cassidy. I want you—” The words stopped there. And for a second, he found himself speechless. But only for a second. “To get in the truck.”
The little hiccup in the air resolved itself. But he thought he saw a little jolt go through her body.
“Okay. I will.”