Cash #2
“Okay.” A pause, while she thinks. “How did you feel about coming back to Dragonfly Creek after you got out of jail? Was that your decision or did your family push it?”
I like that she doesn’t dance around the fact that I went to jail. It speaks to her character, and I need to reward that with a real, honest share, even though my first instinct is always to deflect and flirt.
I lean back against the counter next to her.
“I don’t like backing down,” I say finally. “So when I thought about it, coming home felt like the tough but right thing to do. Like I was proving something. Showing everyone I wasn’t ashamed.”
“Is it still tough to be here?”
I smirk. “That’s a second question.”
Her mouth drops open.
“But I’ll answer it anyway.” I check on the rice, though, buying myself a minute.
“I love it here now. I know your return has been rough, but there’s a lot to love about this community if you can ignore the assholes.
And my family made it really easy for me to tune them out.
It’s been really nice to build something with them, too.
You’ll understand when I take you out to the ranch.
It’s heaven on earth. That’s my next dare for you. ”
“I didn’t pick yet.” Worry tugs at her expression, but she takes a deep breath. “All right…Dare.”
“Come to the ranch with me on your next day off. Say yes to that. That’s your dare right now. Don’t overthink it, don’t worry about what my family will think, or if we’re lying to them. Come out to the ranch and let me show you how easy and safe it is to just…be there.”
I wasn’t expecting to say all of that to her, but now that it floods out, it feels damn right.
“Yes,” she whispers. And there’s a lot loaded into that tiny single syllable. But she pushes past it fast. “Your turn again. Truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
“What did you think happened between Jeb and myself, after you were convicted?”
“Nothing,” I say real fucking quick. Because I know that to be the truth. She doesn’t owe me any explanation.
But the rumours swirl, and she’s aware of them.
Maybe I’m a safe person to practice confronting them with.
“I didn’t seduce him.” Her chin lifts as her eyes go painfully bright. “He told me he’d waited more than long enough. I told him he would wait forever. I should have told him that years earlier, apparently, because by the next day, people were looking at me differently.”
“The next day? Not after you left town?”
She shakes her head. “That’s how it morphed over time. That I fled town, and that’s when he realized I wasn’t serious about a Godly relationship with him. But he was constructing that before I left.”
I really regret being civil this morning.
She puffs out her cheeks. “Your turn again.”
We need to lighten this up.
“Dare,” I say.
“Oh, no.” She presses her lips together. “I can’t think of another one.”
I have a small kitchen, and I make it smaller by crowding her against the counter, bracing my hands on either side of her hips.
“I’m sure you can,” I say.
Her gaze drops to my mouth.
I smirk.
“Should I dare you to kiss me?”
Fuck. I crush my lips to hers, hungry now and not for dinner.
She wraps her arms around my neck, holding me down and returning the kiss.
But when we break apart, both of us breathing, she doesn’t give an inch. She taps her index finger against my mouth. “That was a question, not a dare.”
I growl and catch the tip of her finger between my teeth.
She looks adorably flustered as she flails for anything to keep the game going. “I…dare you to drink a teaspoon of soy sauce.”
I suck at the tip of her finger, making her shudder before I release her hand and straighten up. “Pass.”
“You can’t just—there has to be a penalty for passing.”
“Another kiss.”
She opens her mouth, closes it. “That’s not a penalty.”
“Ending it is.”
She pushes up on her toes, kisses me hard and fast, and yanks her mouth away just as I’m softening into her.
Yeah, that’s a brutal penalty.
I press my hand to my mouth. The timer sounds, and I turn the rice off.
“Your turn,” I finally prompt.
“Truth,” she whispers.
“Were you jealous this morning? When Jessika stopped us on the sidewalk?”
Her mouth opens. Then closes. “I’m not answering that.”
“If you pass, it’s another kiss—”
She turns back to me fast and we crash together.
It’s a penalty kiss, which means I need to end it before she wants me to, which is a fucking hard thing to do.
Her lips are swollen and her eyes are unfocused and glassy as she sways against me.
“Maybe we should eat before this gets out of hand.” I’m breathing hard.
She lets out a weak little laugh.
“Good job on breaking the ice, though.” I gently push her toward the vegetables. “Let’s add those to the meat, and you can chop some green onion for on top.”
Over dinner, we share more readily. No game required.
“You used to live on the ranch full time, right?” Haven pauses between bites to look around my pretty empty apartment.
I don’t have a table, so we’re eating on the couch, facing each other.
“Yep. And I expect I’ll move back there at some point.”
“So why are you here now?”
That’s a complicated question. “We had some break-ins last winter. They stopped when I moved in up here.”
“That’s terrible. Did they steal equipment?”
“No.” I give her a grim half-smile. “Went through my office both times.”
“No way.” She reaches over and squeezes my arm. “Cash, that’s awful.”
“The first time, I thought they were looking for money. We don’t keep any in there over night, and we don’t do a lot of cash transactions anyway anymore. The second time…” I hunch my shoulders up. “They stole my laptop. It was dumped in the park and found a few days later.”
“Did they find who did it?”
I bark a cold laugh. “No, they didn’t even try. Property crimes against an ex-con are a low priority for the Dragonfly Creek Sheriff’s Office.”
She ducks her head. “I wish it were different.”
“Me, too.”
She lifts her face. “I was just a kid when my mom died, but I don’t think her death was investigated properly, either.”
Shit. I put my bowl down on the coffee table and give her my full attention. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.”
“You were twelve, right?”
“Yes. I never knew my dad—Fred’s brother.
He died when I was a baby, in a car accident.
We were all in the car, and my mom had injuries that she never fully recovered from.
I was completely fine, but she depended on pain killers, and that need escalated over the next decade.
As an adult, looking back, I think it was pretty clear that her source for those medications should have been investigated, but to the best of my knowledge, nothing was pursued there.
She overdosed, and my uncle became my guardian. ”
“That’s horrible.” I mean it on all levels. Being raised by Fred Bingham had to have been difficult, on top of losing her mother.
“I think about her all the time. She was beautiful, and funny, and for a long time, my uncle made sure that I didn’t think of her in that light, because she partied and dated other men after my dad was killed. But she was just trying to live, you know? I can’t blame her for that.”
“Of course not. There’s no shame in survival.” I scrub my hand over my jaw. “You know how I changed my name when I became an adult?”
She nods. “To match your mother’s name, right?”
“That’s right.” I take a deep breath. “Luna had a wild era in her teenage years. She ran away from home at fifteen, travelled across the country, and was pregnant with Ridge when she was sixteen. Our father was a much older man who picked her up as a hitchhiker. She found herself trapped in a relationship that her family wouldn’t approve of, and she never reconnected with them.
It took us a long time, well into adulthood, to get the story out of her, and even now we only know parts of it. It’s her least favourite topic.”
“Of course it is.” Haven sets her bowl down, too, and takes my hands.
“Zane tried to reconnect with our cousins in Ontario last year, but so far, she’s dodged our attempts to organize a family reunion.”
“Really? Why?”
“I love my mother with all of my heart. She’s a warrior, and raised us so fucking well given the circumstances around our early years.
But she’s never forgiven herself for losing that connection with her family.
And when Zane found them, it was too late.
Her parents and brothers have both passed on, and she has nephews, but… ”
“It’s hard for her.”
“So hard.”
“I had no idea.”
“Nobody does. We carry enough visible wounds, that one’s been kept in a vault.”
“I’ll never tell anyone.”
“I know you won’t. I trust you.”
We finish eating, and wash up together, and then it’s the easiest thing in the world to pull her into my arms and kiss her again.
Not as a dare, and not as a penalty for passing.
Not as part of a game. Just because she’s soft and understanding and we both have sadness and grief inside us that is temporarily soothed by hungry, needy kisses.
We start in the kitchen, with her pressed against the counter, and then I carry her to the couch and hold her on my lap as I explore her mouth with mine.
But when we slide into a reclining position, when she twists around and suddenly her whole, warm length is pressed against my body—that’s when I know I need to be the stronger person and call this night to an end.
“That’s enough,” I whisper against her lips. “I need to walk you home before we move off the fringes into full on benefits.”
She whimpers, but nods.
It’s the right call.
When we stand, and she’s fixed her dress, I catch her wrist.
I enjoy the way her pulse jumps against my fingertips, even in the loosest of manacles. “Jeb showing up at the garage this morning felt like a warning, you know? So I want you to know that I’m not messing around here. I’ll always do right by you.”
She smiles up at me. “I know.”
And the only reason I can let her go, and take her home, is the knowledge that I’ll get her for an entire day soon and I can take her to the ranch.