Chapter 11
We went for a walk today as a family, and he was very nearly a gentleman.
He felt, in some ways, like my husband. Not my employer.
I feel such deep confusion when I look at him.
My heart beats too fast and my stomach feels wrong.
I want him to come closer, and yet I don’t know what would happen if he did.
C arson got the hope chest loaded into his truck and then traded a few texts with Jessie Jane, promising to begin on the wagon once all of his commitments to Perry were squared away.
Your girl comes first.
He didn’t know what to say to that since Perry was his girl in many ways. But also wasn’t.
Yeah.
Then he drove over to his brother’s house, ready to present Perry with the chest. But first, he had to get through Cassidy’s dessert.
“It’s a no-bake cake,” Cassidy said, as he slipped into the kitchen and sat down next to Perry. “I made it with pudding mix. You can’t mess it up.”
“I’m sure it’s fantastic,” said Perry, overly kindly.
He noticed that Cassidy didn’t respond to Perry.
Perry didn’t acknowledge his arrival, and he found himself distracted by her coolness.
They had been victimized by Cassidy’s attempts at baking before.
Poor Cassidy. She had always been missing that maternal touch.
And she seemed to want a little bit of softness sometimes, to bring some of those traditionally feminine skills into play.
She was determined, he would give her that. But not naturally skilled.
But she was right about the no-bake cake. Which seemed to consist of lemon pudding, Cool Whip, and graham crackers. It was damned good.
“This is great, Cassidy,” said Dalton.
And he caught a pleased expression on his sister’s face when Flynn’s friend complimented her. Carson wasn’t sure he liked that at all.
But the look was gone as quickly as it had appeared, and there was really nothing left for him to ponder.
He was still kind of annoyed at Perry, and the way she had brought up the wagon, but he was still going to give her the gift. For some reason, he didn’t want to do it in front of everybody.
“Hey, Perry,” he said, elbowing her. “I want to show you something.”
“Fine,” she said.
He stood up, and she followed him into the living room, through the immaculately clean house—which was all Austin, not Millie— and out the door.
“What? Are you enlisting me to go help you practice a monologue for your upcoming date with Jessie Jane?”
“I was working on something for you,” he said.
He kept on walking down the porch stairs, but he realized that Perry wasn’t following him.
“What?” He turned and saw her standing there, looking … Small somehow. The porch light was shining on her face, and he could see something wounded and painful there.
“I’m sorry. That was really bitchy of me. All of this. From mentioning your interest in working on the Hancocks’ wagon to … my reaction just now.”
“Kind of,” he said.
“She rubs me the wrong way,” she said, finally walking down the stairs and coming to stand beside him. “I’m sorry. I … I don’t want it to be her, Carson. If you sleep with somebody … I just don’t want it to be Jessie Jane.”
The words hooked him in the stomach, kept him standing there, rooted to the spot. “Why?”
“I don’t know. I don’t like her; I don’t trust her.”
“Why don’t you like her? You have no part in our family history.”
“Okay. Maybe that’s not fair. It’s not fair that I don’t like her. Because it would be for the same reasons that people don’t like you. But … honestly, Flynn would be mad.”
“I know,” he said. “Because he hates her.”
“He’s attracted to her,” Perry said.
That jolted him. And he … well. Hell. That was true.
“Oh. How did I …”
“I mean, come on. He protests so much.”
“I guess he does.”
“He’ll never do anything about it. Because she’s a Hancock, and I really do believe that bothers him.”
“Yeah. It does.”
“Anyway. Just …”
“I don’t want to sleep with her,” Carson said.
“You don’t?”
“No. I really do just want to fix her wagon. It’s not a euphemism. I’m not interested in her. She has never turned my head. I’ve lived here in this town all my life with that woman, and I have never once been tempted by her. Why would I start to be tempted now?”
Perry looked poleaxed, but didn’t say anything.
He walked around to the back of the truck and lowered the tailgate. Perry came around beside him. “What is it?”
“The stain is a little bit wet, so I don’t want you grabbing hold of it. But I’ll drive it over to the cabin.”
“You fixed it,” she said. She climbed up into the bed of the truck and hovered over the hope chest.
“The crack is gone.”
“Yes. The crack is gone. I … thank you,” she said.
“Well. You’re packing up and you’re leaving your life behind. Moving on. It just seemed … it seemed right.”
He got up into the back of the truck with her and sat down on the edge of the bed. Perry did the same, clinging tightly to the side.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was being mean. I think it’s … all the change.”
He scooted a little closer to her and nudged her with his shoulder. “You’re the one that changed things.”
“This time,” she said, looking up at him.
He remembered his dream. He remembered the face of the woman in it. He remembered Perry’s hand touching his. Right then, everything was clear. Far too clear. Perry’s bed. Perry’s hands. Perry right now.
Seventeen years of good intentions evaporated. He felt as if all the good he’d ever done was dissolving then and there. It was the very worst thing.
Because she was looking up at him, face upturned, eyes glowing in the moonlight, her lips parted softly.
And it was like that moment when the wind had come up and caught her hair, when the sunbeam had bathed her in that warm glow. Sunlight, moonlight. They revealed all those secrets he didn’t want to know. How beautiful Perry was being chief among them.
He wanted to kiss her.
The thought was as strong as it was horrifying. He wondered how soft her lips were. If she would get softer beneath him if he pressed his mouth to hers.
Or if she would get stiff and fierce and angry and smack him in the shoulder. That’s what she should do.
Carson was very good at catching a feeling when it was still a seed. When it hadn’t yet grown into a coherent thought, into a fully realized fantasy.
He had done that with Perry since they were teenagers. With what could’ve been attraction to her. He had caught it and choked it before it could ever become anything quite so clear as wanting to kiss her.
Sometimes there were sweat-slicked dreams, but he blamed his subconscious for that. Dreams that had grown in intensity when he was deployed and Perry represented everything he missed. She was home to him. And he’d dreamed of her every night.
He’d also realized he needed to make some changes.
He’d never thought about kissing her when he was right next to her.
Somehow, though, he’d missed a stray thought. It had gotten away.
He had missed it just now. Or maybe he had missed it last night. Maybe he’d lost his grip on it when he was sleeping. But somewhere along the line things had broken down, and now he was thinking, bright and clear, that he wanted to kiss Perry Bramble.
He didn’t move. Because if he did move—if he freaked out and pulled away, or if he leaned in—bad things were going to happen. So he acted like this wasn’t happening. Like he could take this sprout and shove it back into the seed.
God damn.
He tried to erase the words from his mind, tried to take that clarity and make it fuzzy. But nothing took away the longing. The way his chest ached, the way his body was on high alert.
This was something new. This feeling. Attraction like this. He didn’t recognize it. He didn’t know it. He didn’t know himself. And fuck all that.
He didn’t want this. Not with her. Not with anybody. He didn’t want any emotion so intense, so strong.
He knew what it looked like when everything around him was reduced to rubble.
No. He didn’t. Actually, the really terrifying thing was that he didn’t know what it was like when everything around him was reduced to rubble. Because Perry had always been there. Standing strong, being her. She was always there.
And that was why this was a risk he was never going to take. Not ever.
He wanted to be her hero. Not …
This.
He moved away from her slowly. “I’ll drive it over to your place. After.”
“Okay.” Her voice sounded subdued.
“Why don’t you … why don’t you head on back in. I mean … They’re probably playing cards.”
“You aren’t coming?”
“I will in a second.”
Perry got out of the truck bed, and so did he.
Then he rounded the side of the truck and opened up the passenger door. He dug around in the glove box, saying a prayer that his last remaining occasional vice was still there.
He’d given up alcohol. So this seemed like a reasonable occasional indulgence. There was a pack of cigarettes there with two left inside, and a lighter. Once he finished this packet, he wouldn’t buy any more. Maybe.
He leaned against the side of the truck, put one cigarette in his mouth, and lit it.
He closed his eyes, leaned his head back against the door of the truck, and took a deep inhale.
Tonight reminded him of high school. Of tearing around Rustler Mountain on a motorcycle.
And then he remembered him and Perry running around like heathens, her blond hair a tangle.
Looking so pretty. Her bottom lip always had teeth marks in it.
It was always a little red. He wondered if it was from holding things back.
When her father would say awful things to her mother, had Perry been forced to bite her lip and keep it all back?
He had never wondered then. He did now.
And then he suddenly thought of him being the one to bite it. He nearly dropped that cigarette.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
He startled, and he felt as if teenage Perry had just appeared to scold him for his inappropriate thoughts. Except it was Perry right now, and it was about the cigarette.
“Just taking a break,” he said. “I thought you went back inside.”
“I worry about you when you’re weird and moody.”
“ I’m weird and moody?” he asked, gesturing with the cigarette.
“I didn’t say I wasn’t .”
“You decided to leave Rustler Mountain, and now you’re having an emotional reaction to your own choices. That’s not really my problem.”
She scowled. “I’m your friend, so what I want and feel is your problem.”
“You want us to be less each other’s problem. That was a you thing, not a me thing.”
“I also would like you to not destroy your health.” She gestured to the cigarette.
“I don’t need a lecture. I’m just going to finish the cigarette and go back inside.”
“They’re bad for you,” she said.
“Sure. Though they’re not an enemy bullet, so I feel like I can take the risk.”
She reached out and plucked the cigarette from between his fingers. “I wish you wouldn’t.”
She was standing in such a familiar position. Holding his cigarette, looking up at him, mad. It reminded him again of being teenagers. And it made him think of wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her up against him. What would she do?
What would she have done then?
He pushed those thoughts aside.
He did not need to be thinking about that.
“Perry …” he said, beseeching because he wanted the fucking cigarette.
“Just a slow way to kill yourself.”
He growled. Took the cigarette back and tossed it on the ground, grinding it under his boot. “I’m not trying to kill myself. I’m just trying to catch my breath.”
“Weird way to try to catch your breath.”
Then don’t make me feel like my chest is being torn open.
But he didn’t say any of those things, because he didn’t even know quite why he was thinking them.
Everything just felt like a mess. That was the honest truth. “Thank you for the PSA,” he said.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s not fight.”
“It feels like we are. It feels like we’ve been fighting since Jessie Jane showed up last night.” If he were honest, it kind of felt like they had been fighting since that first night she’d told him she was moving.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I had a weird reaction to her.”
There was a pause. Then she turned to look at him. “I think changing the way we are with each other is actually going to be a little bit more work than I realized.”
“You thought it was going to be so much work that you figured you’d move away.”
“It’s not the only reason I’m moving away.”
Except right then, he had the feeling it was the biggest reason. Not her business. And that felt bad. Very bad.
“I’m glad you like the hope chest.”
“I do. I love it.”
She looked as if she wanted to say something else. “What?”
“I would really like to say that you can sleep with Jessie Jane if you want to, and that I don’t care. But it would be a lie.”
“I already told you,” he said. “I don’t want to.”
He didn’t want to have this conversation. Because everything inside him felt tangled up. He felt tangled up.
“Hey, tomorrow why don’t I go by your old place, and we’ll take total inventory of all the stuff that needs to be done.”
“Oh,” she said, looking like she had whiplash. Fair enough. He was giving himself whiplash, but he wanted to get out of this murky valley they’d found themselves in. He wanted to get back on solid ground.
He didn’t like the shifting. He didn’t like it at all.
“Yeah. That sounds great.”
“Don’t tell anybody that I was smoking a cigarette.”
She made a scoffing noise. “I wouldn’t.”
“You told them about Jessie Jane.” They walked up the steps, and she put her hand on the doorknob.
“Well, I’m not jealous of the cigarette.”
She said it so quickly, so casually, that he didn’t process her statement until they were back inside, until Cassidy said something to him about being sure she’d seen a feral hog in the back pasture.
Jealous .
Perry had been jealous of Jessie Jane.
He spent the rest of his night turning that over. But when he went to sleep, he didn’t dream. Mostly out of spite.