Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
AVA
After spending all of yesterday holed up in my room with my laptop trying to tie up some loose ends in Miami, I’m relieved when Kasey texts me about meeting up.
Ava? the message came through from an unsaved number—but I’d know that number anywhere, even after thinking if I deleted it I’d eventually forget it.
I’ve been wondering if I’d hear from you, I write back. Thought you were going to make me chase you down again.
We need to talk, he says, ignoring my quip. You free this afternoon?
When and where?
Ranch. Can you be here in an hour?
I sent him the saluting emoji and leaped out of my bed to take a shower.
My hair’s still damp when I pull my SUV up the long drive to the main house.
I pass by it and head straight for his cabin, wondering briefly who might be watching through the windows, vaguely aware of the fact that I probably look like a lost yuppie from the city.
And then I fight a laugh because that’s exactly what I am.
Kasey answers the door on the second knock, shirtless with worn jeans slung low on his hips. He fists a shirt and his cowboy hat in one hand, pulling the front door shut behind him with the other as he steps out onto the porch.
“Let’s take a walk,” he says as he steps past where I stand, not even deigning to look at me as he pulls the shirt over his head. I watch muscles along his back work with the movement before it all disappears behind white cotton.
I realize my mouth is hanging open and swiftly clamp it shut.
“Oh,” I say, hiking my purse higher on my shoulder.
“Okay, sure.” I follow him down the front steps and out onto the worn dirt path that leads either back to the main house or out to the other cabins.
The sun is ripe today, and sweat pools along my spine beneath my satin blouse.
“Gorgeous day,” I say, carefully stepping around a cluster of rocks that he stepped right over.
“Mhm,” Kasey hums back, pushing his hat down over his head, casting a shadow around his shoulders. My eyes follow a path down his body until I catch myself staring at his ass and have to look away.
When he veers right toward the big barn, my heart leaps as the possibility of getting to see the horses I know they keep in there up close; I haven’t been around a horse in so long. But then a sinking feeling comes over me. “Wait, we’re not riding today, are we?”
“No,” he says. I swear I hear the hint of a sarcastic laugh in the way he says it, like putting me on a horse would be simultaneously hilarious and terrible.
I glare at the back of his head as I stumble forward, trying to keep up with his long strides. “You don’t have to say it like that.” I have my own reasons for not wanting to get on a horse right now, but he doesn’t know those. As far as he should be concerned, I still know my way around a saddle.
He turns to look back at me. “You’re wearing those things again,” he grumbles, ignoring what I said, eyes flickering down to my feet.
I drop my gaze to the one of the many pairs of Manolos I’ve been collecting over the past couple years, evidence of my hard work and success. “As opposed to . . . ?”
“Those aren’t the right shoes.”
“Well, I didn’t realize you’d be taking me on a hike.”
“It’s not a hike. We’re literally walking on flat ground.”
“Fine.” I smile. “I didn’t realize you’d be taking me on a walk.”
He rolls his eyes. “You’re going to sink into the mud.”
“I don’t plan on stepping into any mud, Kasey.”
“And then you’re going to get spitting mad and take it out on me.”
I narrow my gaze. “I don’t take my anger out on you.”
He has the audacity to snort. “And then you’re probably going to cry. You’ll try not to because you’re stubborn and don’t want anyone to see you cry, least of all me. But you will.”
I stop walking. “What are you doing?” I ask, feeling the temperature of my blood rising with this charade of a conversation.
He turns to face me, two brown eyes roaming lazily down to my waist before dropping again to my feet. “You know damn well those shoes don’t belong on this ranch.”
“Yeah? Well, get used to it, because soon these shoes are going to be all over this ranch.”
“What do you mean?” A spark in his eyes catches hold in my chest, a warmth that’s so familiar it scares me. I haven’t seen this man in a decade, and yet my body still responds to him as if nothing’s changed. As if all this time and distance hasn’t cleaved us in two.
I stare at him. “You think I’m going to keep living at home after we’re married?” I ask.
He curses, turning away to look out toward the pasture. And then he’s on the move again, steering us back toward the barn. When he walks through the wide double doors and into the shade I follow suit, eyes tracing down the line of horses who look curiously at us from their stalls.
“There’s so many of them,” I say out loud, more to myself than to him.
“Twenty-two right now,” Kasey says. “Four more come in next week.”
I nod. “You guys have gotten bigger.”
He shrugs. “We have our ups and downs. It’s been slower the last couple years, but lately it’s been busier.
” I watch as he grabs a shaving fork from the rack on the far wall and heads for the first stall.
He gives the horse inside a tentative rub on the nose before unlatching the door and disappearing inside.
“Um,” I say, “are you working right now?”
“Yep,” he calls back.
“I thought you wanted to talk.”
He easily pokes his head over the stall’s wall—it’s gotta be at least six feet high. “I do,” he says. “But I also have to work. Thought I might be able to rope you into helping, but . . .” He looks at my feet again before his head drops back down.
I shift my weight from one foot to another, feeling ridiculous just standing here while he mucks. “I’m a lawyer,” I tell him. “Not a ranch hand.”
“Don’t read into it, Ava. Just find a place to sit down and I’ll work while we talk.”
I look around the barn, but there’s definitely no place to sit. I sigh. “Do you want to start or should I?”
“Ladies first,” he grumbles.
“Great. Okay. Well, since it already came up, let’s get back to the topic of housing. I’m going to have to stay here, Kasey. You know that, right?”
The stall is silent for a long beat. A horse behind me whinnies.
“I have a second bedroom,” he finally says. “It’s furnished. Should have what you need.”
“Works for me,” I reply, keeping my voice light.
“And you’re going to stay in it,” he adds.
I frown, confused. “Yeah, that would be the idea.”
“And my room is for me,” he continues. “Me only.”
I bark out a laugh, understanding where he’s going with this. “Damn, Kasey. I get it. No funny business. Won’t be a problem.”
“What about your job?” he eventually asks over the rhythm of the rake sliding across the ground. “Don’t you have, like, court? Or something?”
“Uh . . . I’m taking a bit of a break from work. And even if something comes up, I should be able to handle it remotely from my laptop.”
“Fancy,” he says flatly.
I look around the barn again, growing uncomfortable on my feet.
I find a beautiful golden mare eyeing me intently.
I move closer and hold out my hand for her to sniff.
“So, I guess to kick this off, we’ll need to get engaged.
Maybe in the next week or so? A whirlwind romance?
I don’t want to move too fast, but the clock’s ticking.
Plus, it’s not like we don’t already have history. Maybe you could ask me in the gazebo—”
“I already proposed to you once, sugar. That was enough for me.”
His use of sugar sears through me, as does the memory of a small diamond ring and a flannel blanket on the beach.
It leaves me feeling painfully raw. He comes out of the stall and finds me petting the golden horse as she nuzzles her nose into my ear.
After watching for a second, expression curious, he turns to unlatch the door of the next stall and disappears from view again.
“Okay.” I nod. “No public proposal, not a big deal. I’ll just start wearing a ring around town when we’re ready. People will . . . figure it out.”
“Works for me,” he says, voice even, betraying no emotion.
“What about the wedding?”
“What about it?” The rhythm of the rake sounds through the barn again.
“We should probably host it here on the ranch. It’s what people would expect—”
“No,” he interrupts. “We can go to the courthouse.”
I sigh. “That’s not enough. Anyone who might suspect this is all a sham will find it highly convenient if we marry in a courthouse. It can’t look like an item we’re checking off a list. We need to make an event out of it, show people it’s a cause for celebration.”
“Well, we’re not getting married here. Find someplace else.”
“No one will believe you’d want to get married in the church, Kasey.”
The stall door bursts open. He storms out, rake in hand, looking surprisingly murderous.
For a moment I catch a glimpse of a seventeen-year-old Kasey who’s just found me skinny dipping in some rich kid’s pool in the middle of a house party.
“You know what this ranch means to me, Ava,” he says, eyes wild.
“It’s the only reason I’m agreeing to any of this.
But I draw the line at inviting a bunch of strangers here to sit and watch me make you my fake bride.
” His voice goes deathly quiet. “Especially not after everything you’ve already fucking put me through. ”
His eyes drop down the length of my body, like he’s cataloguing the myriad of changes that serve as proof of my betrayal.
Like he just might demand I reconcile all the new details he finds against the ones he knew so well before.
And for the first time since marching into his bar with this harebrained scheme and a quiet, desperate need to see him, I realize how scared I am.
Scared of what he might find beneath the surface of my armor.
Scared of what I might find beneath his if I look hard enough.