Chapter 5
Cassidy
I kept my foot down long after the smoke from the Hendersons' truck disappeared behind us. The darkness of the surrounding paddock swallowed us whole as Bruce’s battered engine rattled along like it might shake itself apart at any second.
My hands were tight on the wheel, knuckles white, adrenaline still singing through my veins in a way that made everything sharp and bright and way too real.
My thoughts should be on Bruce, and how stealing his ute was going to put a rocket up the feud that had been raging between our families for decades.
But no.
My mind kept crashing back to the sexy stranger beside me with his careful questions and his expensive watch. He still hadn't explained why he was looking for Frank.
He'd gone all quiet now. Probably hoping I'd fill the silence, start talking, and offer up information he could use.
Good luck with that.
Talking to humans was my least favorite thing, especially strangers. I’d spent most of my life talking to animals—horses, cattle, the kelpies that worked the mobs better than most stockmen we hired. They didn't require explanations, small talk, or careful navigation around bullshit topics.
If Mr. Fancy Pants thought I'd just open up and spill family secrets, he was in for a long, disappointing night.
The land stretched out around us in every direction. Endless red dirt reached toward an invisible horizon, the kind of vast emptiness that made city people nervous.
Lucky for us, the moon and stars lit the way.
I loved the constellations and solar system just as much as I loved my animals, probably because Mom had started our tradition of naming the farm animals after stellar objects.
The cows: Starlight, Luna, and Milky Way.
Our horses: Jupiter, Meteor, Apollo, and Zeus.
We had a whole paddock full of celestial bodies with four legs and attitudes.
Frank’s horse was the only one that missed out.
He’d named his stallion Razor, probably to piss Mom off.
He’d done a lot of horrible things to her, and I hated that I had to keep one of the worst ones locked up tight. It wasn't loyalty that kept that secret rotting inside me. Hell no. It was to save my own sanity.
The moon hung fat and low tonight, painting everything in pale light that made the bush look soft at the edges. Gentle, even. Like one of those fancy paintings in a gallery.
It wasn't gentle.
This paddock was the opposite of gentle.
It was full of Scotch thistles and spear grass sharp enough to slice skin.
Those two plants alone were hell on humans.
Then there were the snakes and spiders …
scorpions … and magpies that had drawn blood from me more times than I could count. Wild boars, too.
God, I loved this place.
I eased off the accelerator and let the ute settle into a bouncing crawl as I angled us back toward the main road, which cut through hundreds of miles of nothing.
At this time of night, we’d be lucky to pass even one other car.
Plus, there were no houses out this way.
Not that any were visible from the road anyway.
But in eighty or so miles, we’d reach Koolaroo land and the driveway to the homestead that I’d called home my entire life.
But no way was I taking the American stranger in the passenger seat there.
Not until I had answers from him.
Hawthorne shifted in his seat and brushed shattered glass from his lap, picking at the pieces with manicured hands that had probably never felt this grubby.
He’d surprised me, though. Most city boys would've been shaking or demanding I pull over.
But he just sat there calm as anything, like nearly getting shot was nothing more than an inconvenience.
He must have felt me watching because he stopped picking at the glass and swept those eyes to me. "You always drive like that?" His American accent was twangy but annoyingly smooth.
I huffed. "Only when people are trying to kill me."
He let out a short breath that might've been a laugh. Hell, it might've been disbelief. "Does that happen often?"
"Once or twice."
"Nice neighborhood."
"It can be. Nothing nice about those Henderson assholes, though."
"I noticed." He shifted and swept glass off his seat. "Want to share why they want you dead?"
"I told you. We stole Bruce's truck."
A low sound rumbled in his throat. "Felt like it went deeper than that."
He was right. The Hendersons and Bransons had been at each other's throats for as long as I could remember.
I didn't even know what had started it anymore, maybe I’d never known.
Perhaps it was just decades of bad blood over bullshit that had turned into grudges and brawls that never ended.
The feuding had started before I was born and would probably go into the next generation.
Provided we lived that long.
Bruce's voice echoed in my head. You're dead, Cassidy. Dead. He wasn't just angry. That was personal. Guess he didn't like being shown up by a woman.
The silence from Hawthorne felt loaded. Like he was trying to piece together what the hell he'd gotten himself into, or how I fit into the Branson family.
Good luck with that. I'd been trying to fit in my whole life.
I felt his gaze on me, studying me like I was crazy.
No argument from me.
I shot him a sideways glance.
Even covered in dust and glass, he didn't belong in this truck.
Didn't belong in the Outback, period. His tan slacks were streaked with dirt, and a fresh tear was along one knee.
His pale blue shirt was pulled loose from his belt, buttons undone at the throat, sleeves rolled up showing forearms that were more tanned than I'd expected.
His dark hair had that deliberately messy thing going on—probably looked sharp as hell in whatever boardroom he'd crawled out of, but out here it just looked weird.
And that gold watch that caught the moonlight probably cost more than I'd make in five years.
And what the hell was he thinking, wearing white sneakers out here? They’d be covered in red dirt and cow shit by morning.
"What?" he asked, cocking one eyebrow.
"Just checking out your shoes. You planning on going jogging later?"
"They're comfortable."
"For a treadmill, maybe. Give ’em an hour out here, and they won’t be white anymore."
"I hadn't planned on going off-road."
I huffed. Fair enough.
Yet he didn't look away. Just kept watching me with those blue eyes, cataloging every detail like he was taking notes, trying to figure out what made me tick.
I looked away first and hated myself for it.
I found a fenceline and followed it for a few miles before I finally reached a gate.
"You mind?" I nodded toward it.
Hawthorne looked at the gate, then down at his shoes, then back at me, and the corner of his mouth lifted, like he was trying not to smile.
"Worried about the shoes?" I asked.
"Not at all." He climbed out, and the headlights lit him up as he walked to the gate.
Holy smokes, those tan slacks fit him in all the right places. Out here, men only wore jeans—stained, faded, practical jeans that could take a beating. However, the way that expensive fabric draped over his ass drew my attention way more than it should.
Yet I couldn't stop looking.
I'd gone to the Rusty Swagman tonight, hoping to find a hot man to take me home.
Someone uncomplicated. Someone who'd help me forget about the long cattle drive and that bullshit with Bevan, and the whole Branson mess for a few hours.
Maybe even wake up tomorrow tangled in sheets that smelled like him—decent cologne, not sweat and dirt. Then never see him again.
This was nothing like I'd planned. Hawthorne was intriguing. Damn sexy. But there was no way I was letting him get that close. He'd come looking for Frank. That meant he wanted something, and whatever it was, I had a rotten feeling it wasn't good for me and my brothers.
Hawthorne swung the gate open, held it while I drove through, then closed it properly behind us. He even checked the chain twice like he actually gave a damn.
He climbed back in, brushing red rust off his hands. "We heading back to the pub?"
I hit the main highway and turned left, away from town.
His eyebrows lifted. "That's a no, I take it."
"Hell no." I shot him a look. "You got a death wish?
That's exactly where the Henderson brothers will go. They’re probably already there, telling everyone that me and the Yank stole their ute and blew up their other one.
" I gripped the wheel tighter. "Ahh, shit.
I'll probably never be able to go back to that pub. "
"Why were you there?" He shifted to face me. "That place is?—"
"What? No place for a woman?"
"Well, I wasn't going to say that, but now that you mention it ..."
"I was there for a beer. Is that so bad?"
"Not at all." The corner of his mouth lifted. "I like it. Nice place."
I burst out laughing, hating that he’d caught me off-guard. "You like getting beaten up, too?"
"Excuse me. I was hardly beaten up."
"That pool cue thing was hilarious. I reckon that one's going to go down in pub folklore."
"It worked," he said, rubbing the rust off his fingers onto his slacks like he didn’t care.
"Yeah, it worked all right. Nothing like beating three Henderson assholes with one stick." I glanced at him. "How'd you learn to fight like that?"
He pulled a face, and I got the feeling he didn't want to share. "I did fencing."
"Fencing? What's that?"
Now, he looked at me like I was an idiot.
I shrugged. "Out here, fencing means putting up goddamned fences, usually with barbed wire."
"Right. Well, fencing is where you face off against an opponent with a sword."
I huffed. "Like Robin Hood?"
He laughed again, and I hated that I liked the sound. "You're funny, Cassidy Branson."
Damn it. I narrowed my eyes at him. "You gonna tell me your name?"
He studied me for a long second, like he was deciding how much truth I could handle.
And suddenly this night wasn’t just dangerous.
It was complicated.