33. Chapter 33
Chapter thirty-three
Shelby
“Give yourself time,” Nora says, approaching with a piece of paper wrapped in her fingers. “This all went down just a few days ago.”
Nodding, I point to the paper because I don’t want to get into the semantics of my questions. I wasn’t asking about me.
What I felt and still feel for Ben doesn’t compare to the spark that ignites when Cason is around. I could blame it on trauma or even the bonds that form in tense situations, but I don’t think that’s it.
With Ben, I was infatuated by his attention and the way he seemed all consumed with me. However, I never truly knew the man beneath the facade. He was a fraud.
Cason doesn’t hide behind anything, except maybe fear.
The man completes small acts of kindness without expecting anything in return or even telling anyone that he did it.
Case in point, after Nora explains her process for tracking the days via a crinkled piece of paper, we pass back into the living room where I pause to find a new stack of books sitting on the table.
“Oh,” Larry says. “Cason brought those back.”
Once again, the man did something without asking for anything in return. While I admire him for it, I wish he would demand something because my heart yearns to be someone he needs instead of someone he feels like he has to protect.
“You okay, Lottie?” Amanda asks and I eye the older woman sideways. She’s been quiet since last night and I’m not sure if it's due to Harry’s declining health or something else.
The vision of her granddaughter still haunts me, but I don’t know if it would be a blessing to know she’s at peace or another burden for the woman to carry on her already frail shoulders.
“Hm? Oh, I’m fine, dearie,” Lottie says, turning from the window. “Who wants to help me feed the chickens?”
“Me. Me!” Zoey squeals and I chuckle. Thank god we still have someone here to breathe a little innocence into our lives.
After they set out, Bean behind them, I walk to the window. Beyond the glass, I find Cason standing in the field, Bo, happy for his return at his heels.
Cason crumbles a piece of grass in his hands while he looks at something I can’t determine or maybe it’s because I can’t see.
Does he think about his wife when he’s alone? Miss her warmth or maybe the way she smiled when he said something funny?
He hasn’t exactly been a jokester but perhaps before all this, he was a different man, more settled and happier. The thought pinches my chest, and I rub the ache away before exiting into the sunshine.
I can’t change how he feels but I need him to know that I see. I see the way he tries to make the little things better, how he’s looking out for us, me even when he’s battling his own pain.
He may never return the feelings slowly growing in my heart but that’s something I have to process. It’s not his fault that I’m falling for him anymore than I guess it is mine.
I know he senses my presence when I slip between the slats of the fence, but he doesn’t turn when I stop beside him and gaze out over the fields. When he doesn’t speak, I touch my wrist, wishing I knew how to bridge the gap between us, even if only so we can be friends.
Perceptive as always, he tips his head, no doubt eyeing my nervous movement and I drop my hand as I say, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
Everything, I want to say, instead, I point at the house. “The books.”
Meeting my gaze, his lips quirk and my heart tumbles when he says, “You’re welcome. I picked all the ones with half naked dudes. Hopefully that’s what you like.”
“Uh,” I squeak before fanning my cheeks. “Yeah, thanks.”
Chuckling, he brushes his shoulder against mine and says, “I’m surprised.”
“Why?”
“I guess there’s a dirty little mind in there, after all.”
Oh. My. God.
Speechless, I raise my gaze. His warm brown eyes twinkle but when his stare drops to my lips and the tip of his tongue swipes across his own, it almost sends me to my knees.
Touching my swirling stomach, I back away, mumbling, “I like, you know, the writing.”
“Uh-huh,” he rasps, and I stifle a groan. Thank god, Lucifer, the cow with the beady eyes breaks the tension when she nips at Cason’s ass and he jumps away with a yelp.
When a laugh escapes me, he turns, his eyes narrowed but that damn lip quirked, and I back away, giggling, “Now you’ve met, Lucifer. She’s a little . . . spicy.”
His brows dip, and he turns to the cow warily as I make my way back to the house with a smile.
Cason
Over the following few days, I recruit the guys, and we begin the arduous process of fortifying the fence line. It’s a piecemeal project because we didn’t have the resources to bring back everything, I would have liked with us.
We’ll need to make several more runs but before we do, I’d like to attend the meeting set for Monday to meet the surviving neighbors and make plans.
With any luck, there will be the numbers to band together in a fight and back up plans should something go down that my group can’t fight their way out of.
Per Nora’s crude calculations, that's two days away. In the meantime, we can work with what we’ve got. Well, some of us can, I decide with a silent sigh when Nate cries, “Fuck!”
It’s clear he has no fucking idea what he’s doing but I give him credit for trying even if he’s made more progress on bruising his body than fortifying the fence.
“Let’s take a break,” Larry grunts and I eye what we’ve accomplished with a frown.
At this rate it’ll take weeks to get this done and I don’t have weeks. With every day that passes I could be missing my family who no doubt are waiting for me to come before figuring out what the hell to do.
Rosanne’s brother and wife were the farthest away but making up time while I linger here.
Tamping down my rising frustration, I nod but I’m not happy and I walk the other way rather than take out my irrational anger on the guys. My issues are not their problem.
However, there is still the risk that a group of those things will come through and we can’t waste time we don’t have. Just two more fucking days. That’s it and hopefully I can leave with the reassurance that I’m not leaving these people in an untenable situation.
My thoughts continue to churn but I welcome the distraction when Shelby says, “Cason!”
Pausing, I take in the rolling green grass and sunlight glinting off the barn as she approaches. Her soft footfalls resound in my brain, and I stiffen up the closer she gets.
She’s not my responsibility but every time I look into her blue, blue eyes, I backtrack, making excuses as to why I should stay. My family is out there somewhere; a man I call my brother and his new baby. They need me but so does Shelby.
“I found the doohickey you were looking for,” she says, and I smile.
“Doohickey?”
“Yeah,” she holds out her hand and I eye the wrench before a shiver rolls down my spine. It bears no resemblance to this conversation but Rosanne’s deep, dark eyes the last time I spoke to her flash before me.
It was the morning everything went to shit. Please don’t go, she begged me, but I put on my uniform and gave her empty assurances before leaving anyway.
I don’t know what I was thinking but it’s not that I would finally come home to pack us up and get the hell out of dodge only to find her dead in the bed, our bed with her arms wrapped around her lover and my fellow peer the Oregon City PD.
I knew they had an affair, but I thought it was over and despite how hard it was to let go of the pain of her betrayal, I arrogantly thought I was the one being noble. I left my wife at the end of the fucking world because I chose my duty as a cop over my wife.
Would she be alive now if I had stayed?
“Cason?” Shelby says breaking me from my thoughts and a tickle of annoyance slides down my spine.
“Just leave it by the fence,” I snap before I can stop myself. Shit. I did it fucking again.
“Right,” she mumbles, retreating and I count her steps until I get to twenty before saying, “I’m sorry.”
But she doesn’t answer and when I turn, I find her at the edge of the field, her head bowed in defeat while she slinks away from the asshole who took his anger out on her.