28. Cash
CASH
Idon’t plan things.
Ask anyone.
Except, apparently, now I’m buying wine and ordering takeout and sourcing fresh flowers for a woman, and I’ve been lying awake at two in the morning thinking about whether the spot on the south rise has a good enough view.
It has a great view.
I’ve been going there since I was twelve; I know it has a great view.
I still checked it twice yesterday.
This is what Halle Dawson has done to me.
I want to be clear about that.
I’ve texted her every single day. A picture of the sunrise from the south pasture. A stupid meme Dawson sent me. A reminder that the diner still has her favorite pie.
I kept it light on purpose.
I haven’t seen her since that morning. The one where she woke up in my arms and then quietly asked for time to think. I’ve respected it, I’ve even stayed away from The Bar. But every night, I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering if she’s going to decide I’m too much.
I’m already at the edge of the barn when she pulls in. She cuts the engine to the bike and swings off, shaking her pink hair loose from the helmet, and I give myself about three seconds to appreciate the view before I move.
She hears me coming this time—I make sure of it. I want her to know it’s me before I’m close enough to touch her … after everything.
So I let my boots scrape loud against the gravel on purpose.
“Hey,” she says quietly.
“Hey.” I can’t stop the small smile that pulls at my mouth just from seeing her face. “You came.”
She nods once, looking a little unsure. “Your forty-two text messages were enough to convince me.”
I want to close the distance between us, slide my hands into her hair and pull her against me until there’s no space left.
I want to bury my face in the curve of her neck and breathe her in until the last week of silence stops echoing in my head.
I’ve missed her in a way that feels stupid and pathetic for a guy my age, but I don’t care.
I’ve missed the sound of her voice when she’s half-asleep.
I’ve missed the way she rolls her eyes at me when I say something cocky.
I’ve missed the way she fits against me when she finally lets herself relax.
I’ve missed her.
I want her to be mine. I want to wake up next to her without wondering if she’s going to pull away again. I want to be the person she comes to when shit gets hard instead of the one she needs space from.
“I know, and I’m not sorry, but I’ve got a blindfold. You don’t have to wear it if you don’t want to.”
She’s quiet for a second, and I can almost see the wheels turning in her head. After everything she’s been through, I don’t blame her. I just hate that she has to do it with me.
Then she says, softer than I expect, “Okay.”
My chest tightens.
“Okay?”
“Put it on me, Cash.”
I step closer and gently place the blindfold over her eyes. My fingers brush her skin as I tie it, and I have to fight the urge to let my hands linger. I check the pressure twice, making sure it’s secure but not too tight. I don’t want her to feel trapped, I just want her to feel … safe … with me.
“Too tight?” I ask, voice low.
“It’s fine.” There’s a short pause. “Thank you … for asking.”
I stay close for a second longer than necessary, breathing her in. The blindfold makes her look softer somehow. More vulnerable. And all I want to do is protect that.
Protect her.
“Come on,” I murmur. “I’ve got you.”
I guide her to the ATV and get her settled on the back before swinging in front of her. The second I sit down, her arms slide around my torso, hands fisting lightly in my shirt. I haven’t even started the engine yet and she’s already pressed up against me.
“Where are we going?” she asks.
“Hold on.”
“Cash.”
I give it some throttle and she tightens her grip instantly, chest flush against my back, thighs bracketing mine. Her face is right there, near my neck, and I can feel every breath she takes.
She holds on the whole ride, even though I’m not going fast, and her hands stay curled in my shirt, her body molded to mine like she’s trying to disappear into me. She can’t see a damn thing, and that fact sits hot and heavy in my chest.
I take the long way on purpose.
“I missed your scent,” I say over my shoulder, mostly because I want to hear her voice instead of just feeling her breath against the back of my neck.
There’s a pause.
“Excuse me?”
“Your smell. You have this specific—”
“I know what you meant.”
“Just saying. I like it.”
“Of course you do.”
“What? Am I not allowed to—”
“It means I didn’t wash my hair, Cash.”
I think about that. “Is that a normal thing?”
She scoffs. “Yes, Cash. Some women don’t wash their hair every single day.”
“That’s kind of gross.”
“Men are gross in general, so we’re even.”
She’s been pressed against my back for the last several minutes, hands gripping my shirt, thighs tight around mine, and every bump in the road makes her press in closer. I can feel the heat of her through my clothes. Every time she shifts or readjusts her grip, it goes straight to my dick.
I’m twenty-two years old, and I’m having a genuinely stupid amount of trouble keeping this ATV in a straight line.
This is fine. I’m fine.
I am absolutely not fine.
She doesn’t loosen her hold even a little. If anything, she leans in more, her cheek brushing the side of my neck like she doesn’t even realize she’s doing it.
“You’re holding on tighter than you need to,” I say, because I need to say something.
“I literally cannot see anything.”
“That’s the point.”
She doesn’t answer, but she also doesn’t let go.
I stop at the south end of the ranch and cut the engine.
My favorite part of this property is how quiet it gets the further out you ride. Most of the ranch noise drops away until it’s just the land and the sky. Out here, the sky at dusk feels endless—golds bleeding into deep oranges, then darker at the edges, like the day’s giving up without a fight.
I help her off the ATV and take the blindfold off slowly, watching her eyes adjust to the light.
She blinks a few times, then takes in the view first.
I’ve got a blue blanket laid out from Dawson’s barn, a bottle of the Malbec she likes, two containers from the diner, and a jar of daisies I cut from my mom’s garden before I left the house. Nothing fancy, just something I put together because I wanted her here.
Halle takes it all in, her face caught somewhere between surprise and something softer.
I stay quiet for a second, letting her look.
“This spot has always been mine in a way the rest of the ranch never really was.”
She glances over at me.
I shove my hands in my pockets and look out over the land instead of at her.
“Rhett’s got the main operation, Dawson’s got the horses, and I’ve always been …
the wild one. The one who shows up and works and does what he’s told, but doesn’t really have a claim on any of it.
Grandpa left the ranch to all of us, but we all know how it actually works.
Rhett’s the one who’s supposed to carry it. I’m just here.”
I let out a short breath. Almost a laugh, but not quite.
“Sometimes it feels like I don’t actually own any of this. Like I’m just borrowing space on land that was never really meant to be mine.”
I look at her then.
“But standing out here … I don’t know. It still feels like mine.
Not because of paperwork or bloodlines or whatever the hell is supposed to matter, but because I love it.
Because I’ve bled on this dirt and ridden every inch of it and I know the way the wind sounds depending on which pasture you’re standing in.
That’s mine. Even if no one else will say it out loud. ”
I shrug, a little self-conscious now that I’ve said it out loud. “Guess I’m still figuring out what that means.”
Halle doesn’t say anything right away. She just watches me with that steady look she gets when she’s actually listening.
I nod toward the blanket. “C’mon. Food’s probably getting cold.”
“Cash …”
“Sit down,” I say before she can get any further.
She hesitates, mouth still half-open like she’s not ready to let it go. But then her eyes drop to the blanket again.
“How did you—” She bends and picks up the wine bottle, turning it in her hands so she can read the label. “This is exactly the wine I buy.”
“I know.”
She looks up at me, eyebrows pulled together. “How do you know what wine I buy?”
I almost tell her that I went through her pantry while she was sleeping that first night I stayed over at her house. That I saw the four bottles lined up and made a mental note. It would be easy to say it the old way, cocky way, but I don’t.
“I noticed the empty bottles in your recycling the night I stayed over,” I say instead. It’s only half a lie. “Figured you had a type.”
Something flickers across her face. It’s quick, but I catch it. She pushes it down fast, though, and looks back at the blanket.
“The diner food too?” she asks, softer now.
“Lucky guess and a good memory. You order the same thing every time you’re there.”
“I do not.”
“You absolutely do.”
She huffs out a breath, but she’s fighting a smile now. I watch it win as she finally lowers herself onto the blanket, tucking her legs under her.
I sit down across from her, close but not crowding. The tension from whatever she was about to say still lingers in the air between us, but for now, she lets it sit.
I’ll take the win.
We eat as the sky finishes its colors above us, the ranch going dark and gold below.
At some point, she goes still next to me, looking out at nothing in particular, and I know exactly where she’s gone even though she hasn’t said a word.
“Hey,” I say.
She blinks back into the present. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“I was just—” She shakes her head. “I don’t know. It’s stupid. We’re sitting here with wine and flowers and somewhere out there …” She doesn’t finish it.
“I know,” I say. I don’t pretend I don’t know what she means. “It happened, it’s real, and it’s handled. You don’t have to carry it tonight if you don’t want to. But I’m not going to pretend it didn’t happen either.”