4. Chapter 4
Cash
Three weeks in, I know Cassie’s routine better than my own.
Cassie brings a canvas bag. Not the tote bag with the books. A different one. This one has snacks, a spare set of Lola’s clothes that she bought without being asked, wet wipes, a small first-aid kit, and a ziplock of crayons.
She works while Lola naps. Laptop open at the kitchen table, headphones in one ear so she can hear if Lola stirs.
Or she draws on a tablet with a stylus, building the next Barnaby illustration in layers I don’t understand but like watching.
Sometimes I come back early from whatever Raiford has me doing and stand in the doorway for a minute, watching her work.
I time my jobs around her schedule now. I haven’t admitted that to anyone, including myself.
Today Raiford has me on cattle. The east herd needs moving from the lower pasture to the upper grazing section because the grass is getting short and the creek access is better up high.
It’s a two-man job with good horses and a four-man headache without them, and Raiford put me on point after Elise suggested it.
Not Beckett. Me.
“You’ve got a feel for the herd,” Raiford said this morning, handing me a coffee at the barn. “Take Jake and move them before the afternoon heat.”
It’s the kind of work that used to bore me. Before the injury, ranch work was what I did between rodeos. Filler. The thing that paid the bills when the circuit wasn’t running. Moving cattle was beneath me. I was Cash Wylde. I rode bulls. I didn’t babysit cows.
Funny how losing the thing you thought defined you makes everything else bigger.
The drive goes clean. Jake and I push the herd up through the draw with two good cutting horses and zero drama.
The cattle move like water when you read them right, flowing around obstacles, following the path of least resistance.
I know where they’re going before they do.
I adjust the pressure, widen the line, let the lead cow find her own way to the gate.
Jake watches me from across the herd. “You’ve done this before.”
“A few times.”
“Beckett usually handles the east herd.”
“Beckett’s fixing the water line in the south section.”
“So Raiford sent you.”
“Raiford sent me.”
Jake grins. “That’s not nothing.”
It’s not nothing. Raiford doesn’t hand off work he doesn’t trust you with. The east herd is sixty head. Good stock. Worth real money. Raiford trusting me with them means something I’m not ready to think about.
We get them settled in the upper pasture by noon. The creek is running clean and the grass is thick and the cattle spread out like they’ve been here before, which they have. I check the fence line. Solid. I check the water access. Good. I sit on my horse for a minute and look at the valley below.
The ranch stretches out green and gold under the June sun. The barn, the cabins, the round pen where Brynn is working with a horse. From up here it looks like a place that would be easy to belong to.
I turn the horse toward home before the thought gets any further.
At the barn, Raiford is waiting. He’s leaning on the fence with a coffee, which is Raiford’s version of a red carpet welcome.
“How’d they move?” he asks.
“Clean. No stragglers. The lead cow knew the way.”
“She always does. You just have to let her.” Raiford sips his coffee. “You’re good with the herd, Cash.”
“I’ve been around cattle my whole life.”
“That’s not what I said.” He looks at me over the rim. “I said you’re good with them. There’s a difference between being around something and being good at it.”
I know what he’s doing. Raiford doesn’t say things accidentally. Every sentence is load-bearing. He’s building toward something. I can feel the shape of it the way I used to feel a bull shifting in the chute before the gate opened.
“I’ve been thinking about the cattle operation,” he says. Casual. The way Raiford says things that are not casual at all. “Beckett’s got the horses covered with Brynn. But the livestock side could use someone permanent. Elise agrees. And you know she’s better at this than me.”
Permanent. The word lands in the space between us.
“Something to think about,” Raiford says. He finishes his coffee and walks away.
I stand at the fence and watch him go. Permanent. As in: stop visiting. As in: stop acting like a guest. As in: this is your home, claim it.
The thought sits in my chest like a stone.
I unsaddle my horse and brush him down. I put the tack away the way Beckett likes it, which I learned fast because Beckett notices everything and doesn’t hesitate to comment.
It’s 4:40 when I walk to the cabin. Cassie’s car is in her spot. I can hear music through the screen door. Something acoustic and quiet. Lola’s voice underneath it, chattering.
I open the door. Cassie is at the kitchen table with her laptop. Lola is on the floor with crayons, working on what appears to be a portrait of Birdie. Or possibly a purple cloud. Hard to tell with the under-three art crowd.
Cassie looks up. Her eyes move over me. Dusty jeans. Sweat-damp shirt. Hat pushed back. I’ve been on a horse since seven this morning and I probably look and smell like it.
“You moved the east herd,” she says.
“How do you know that?”
“Jake texted Brynn. Brynn told me.” She closes her laptop. “Jake said you read the herd like you’ve been doing it for years.”
“Jake talks too much.”
“Jake is very impressed. He used the word ‘effortless.’”
I lean against the doorframe. “It wasn’t effortless. I just made it look that way.”
“Isn’t that the definition of being good at something?”
I don’t answer. Lola runs to me with her crayon masterpiece. I pick her up and she smashes the paper against my face, which is her way of sharing art.
“Birdie,” she says.
“Beautiful.”
“Cassie helped.”
“I provided creative direction,” Cassie says. “She did the actual work.”
Cassie starts packing up. It’s Thursday. Payday. I pull out my wallet and count the cash. She takes it without ceremony, folds it into her bag, and stands.
I should let her go. It’s five o’clock. Her shift is done. There is no professional reason for her to stay.
“You want to eat?” I ask. “I was going to make something.”
She raises an eyebrow. “What were you going to make?”
“I haven’t decided yet. But it will probably involve pasta and optimism.”
“Those are not ingredients.”
“They are in my kitchen.”
She should say no. She should go home to her apartment and her organized shelves and her quiet evening. Instead she sits back down.
“I’ll supervise,” she says.
I cook. Pasta with garlic and olive oil and whatever vegetables haven’t expired. Cassie sits at the table with Lola on her lap and offers commentary on my technique, which is apparently offensive to anyone who knows how to properly dice an onion.
“You’re crushing it,” she says.
“I’m chopping it. The onion doesn’t care.”
“I care.”
Lola watches us with the attentive eyes of a child who knows something is happening but doesn’t have the vocabulary to name it. She eats pasta with her hands and gets sauce on Cassie’s shirt and Cassie doesn’t flinch.
After dinner, Cassie washes dishes while I give Lola a bath. This is not in her job description. I didn’t ask. She just started washing them while I carried Lola to the bathroom, like it was natural.
I put Lola to bed. Barnaby. Two pages. She’s out.
Cassie is on the porch when I come outside. She’s sitting on the top step, her bag beside her, looking at the mountains going purple in the last light.
I sit beside her. Not close. A foot of space between us. The foot of space that’s been shrinking for three weeks.
“Raiford said something today,” I say. I don’t know why I’m telling her. But she’s here and the evening is warm and she’s the person I want to talk to. “About the cattle operation. About making something permanent.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing. He walked away before I could.”
“Sounds like Raiford’s good at that.”
“He’s infuriating.”
She’s quiet for a moment. The crickets are loud.
“Would you want it?” she asks. “Something permanent here?”
The question is bigger than cattle. We both know it.
“I don’t know,” I say. And it’s honest. “I’ve never stayed anywhere long enough to find out.”
“Raiford’s my cousin,” I say. “He’s the family I’ve always come back to.
I used to come here summers when I was a kid, before I started riding.
This was the place I kept drifting back to.
Every year or so I’d show up, stay a few weeks, help with whatever needed doing.
Raiford never asked how long. Never pushed.
Just left the cabin unlocked and put me to work. ”
I look at the barn. “Most people stopped expecting me to stick around a long time ago. Raiford just never closed the door.”
“Maybe that’s the point. You don’t find out if you want something permanent until you stay.”
I look at her. She’s looking at the mountains. Her profile in the fading light. The line of her jaw. The way she tucks her hair behind her ear when she’s thinking.
She turns her head. Looks at me. The space between us is less than a foot now. I don’t remember moving. Maybe she moved. Maybe the porch got smaller.
“Cash.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re looking at me again.”
“I’m always looking at you.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
Her lips part. Her eyes drop to my mouth and come back up. The look is brief but I feel it everywhere.
“This is a bad idea,” she says. Quiet.
“Probably.”
“I work for you.”
“Technically.”
“There’s no technically about it. You pay me on Thursdays.”
“So we’re off the clock.”
“That’s not how employment works.”
“Cassie.”
“What.”
“Stop organizing reasons not to do this.”
She stares at me. Her mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
“I’m not organizing. I’m listing.”
“List later.”
I lean in. Slow. Giving her every chance to stop me. To organize or list or file this under “reasons Cassie Benton does not kiss cowboys on porches.”
She doesn’t stop me.
I kiss her.
Soft. Careful. Her mouth is warm and she makes a small sound against my lips that is quiet and surprised.
I pull back just enough to see her face. Her eyes are still closed. Her hand has come up to grip my shirt.
When her eyes open, they’re bright and dazed.
“That was…” she starts.
“Yeah.”
“I should go.”
“Probably.”
Her hand is still gripping my shirt.
“Cassie.”
“What.”
“You’re still holding my shirt.”
She looks down at her hand. Lets go. Smooths the fabric like she’s trying to undo the evidence.
“That didn’t happen,” she says.
“It definitely happened.”
“I’m choosing to categorize it as a one-time event.”
“You do that.”
She stands and grabs her bag. Walks to her car. “Monday,” she says. Through the car window.
“Monday.”
She drives away. I sit on the porch. Lola is asleep. The mountains are dark. The evening smells like pine and grass and the fading warmth of a day that changed something.
Permanent. The word Raiford used.
I think about the cattle. I think about the way Cassie’s mouth felt against mine. I think about staying.