Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Noah finally made it home close to nine o’clock. The crickets were deafening as he hopped out of his truck and opened the front door.
Cassie’s car wasn’t in her driveway. While he hadn’t wanted to leave her alone after the traumatic evening, she had insisted that she was going to go blow off some steam and clear her head with Lyra. Maybe she needed to be surrounded by feminine energy after being exposed to her toxic ex.
He was going to honor her wishes, even if he wanted nothing more than to hold her all night.
It was just as well. He could stand to get some more work done. There was a piece he needed to start and some financials to review for the sanctuary.
His stomach growled, so he snagged a protein bar from his pantry before sitting down with his laptop. He’d get the boring stuff out of the way before working with his hands.
The internet was slow, and he fought the urge to smack the computer off the table. When he finally got logged in, he looked at the balance and did a double take. There was way more money in there than there had been two days ago. He scrolled to the transaction list and found the most recent entry.
A PayPal donation of $10,000 had come in two hours ago from Dunleavy LLC.
Holy shit. He was going to have to start a whole new sponsorship tier program. This would feed the big cats for months.
He picked up his phone to tell Cassie but put it back down. She needed space. He was going to let her come to him, as much as it killed him.
But he could tell his mom. He picked up the phone again and dialed her number.
“Is your house on fire? Why are you calling me at 9 p.m?”
“Well, good night to you too, Mom. Have you checked the bank account today?”
“No, sweetheart, I’m depressed enough as is.”
“Check it.”
His mom grumbled, and there was a creaking of a bedspring in the background. After a lot of clattering and searching for her reading glasses, she finally logged in.
“Holy nuggets, Noah.”
“I know.”
“It’s not enough to dig us out of trouble, but this is a big step in the right direction. How did this happen?”
“Cassie introduced me to some horse people at the race today.”
His mom was silent for a moment. “That girl has done more for this place in a month than I managed in the last two years.” There was emotion in her voice.
“She’s amazing,” he said, then clamped his mouth shut. He could practically hear his mom smirking on the other end of the phone.
“Well, please thank her for me if you see her before I do. Now, I’m going to bed. The coyotes have been howling at dawn for the last three days.”
“Go to bed. Love you,” he said, then hung up.
He couldn’t help but crane his neck to look out the window at Cassie’s driveway. She still wasn’t home. Maybe she needed someone to take Taco out? He picked up the phone again, then slammed it down on the table.
“Leave her alone. She’s a grown woman,” he said out loud. “Give her some damn space.”
He needed a distraction, or he was going to fixate on her. She had shown remarkable resiliency today. She’d somehow remained calm even with her ex showing up unexpectedly, admitting to stalking her, and revealing some painful and horrible news.
Noah flexed his hands. They still stung a little after laying out Dave.
Even in his darkest days, he couldn’t fathom hurting another human being the way Dave had set out to do.
And all to make Cassie feel inadequate. It was worse than cruel.
It was evil. The fact that she’d lived with this abusive man for years yet was still able to care about others was mind-boggling.
He paid a couple bills, then left the financials behind and strode out onto the back deck.
It was a clear, cloudless night. There was too much light pollution to see the Milky Way, but he could imagine where the boundaries were in the vast expanse of stars.
A beautiful night. One he would have liked to share with Cassie.
Where were these thoughts coming from? He was like a lovesick teenager, for god’s sake. Something in him was shifting. A part that had been blocked off since Bobby had died was creeping open, the barrier dissolving.
He wanted her. There was no use denying it.
“Fuck,” he yelled at the stars, then nudged the door of his woodshed open.
Now was as good a time as any to start on Cassie’s exam cabinets. He side-stepped around another project covered with a blanket and slid out some pieces of cabinet plywood.
She needed something durable that would hold up to years of drawer slamming and dings and dents.
This wasn’t his typical artistic project—it was utilitarian, practically sterile. But he could still make it beautiful in its own way.
They needed to be perfect—soft-close drawers, attractive but usable hardware. He would build her the best damn exam cabinets anyone had ever seen.
For the better part of an hour, he plotted and measured. It was too late to cut, and he didn’t want to stress Taco out if he was home. He made as much progress as he could, then applied another coat of varnish to a different project.
It was hot in the woodshed, and it was getting late. He walked outside and stripped his shirt off. A leisurely swim would be nice.
He got down to his boxers and dove into the water, relishing in the cool sensation. He took a couple laps, then kicked his legs up to float on his back.
“Hey,” said a soft, female voice.
Noah thrashed his arms and looked up. There was Cassie, standing at the fence, still in her red sundress. His heart thumped uncomfortably fast.
“Hey. How was venting?”
“Helpful,” Cassie said. She hefted some kind of drawstring bag over the fence, and it landed heavily on the stones. A plastic oar followed.
“What’s that?”
“A thank you gift,” she said sheepishly. “It’s silly.”
Noah swam to the edge and climbed out of the pool. His footsteps smacked wetly on the pavement. He ducked down to examine the bag.
“Is this an inflatable paddleboard?”
“I got one for both of us. I’ve been wanting to learn since I moved here. I know you’re busy all the time, but I thought it might be…fun.”
“This is great. Thank you,” he said.
“No, thank you. You’ve shown up for me in so many ways since I moved here. You coordinated a town response when I was trapped in the office—”
“Lyra helped,” he interrupted.
“Regardless, you brought me an air mattress and food. Even a unicorn sound machine that I did in fact order for myself later. You took care of me even when you had no obligation to.”
“I’ve told you before, and I’ll keep telling you. We take care of our own. You belong here, even if I didn’t think so at first.”
Cassie smiled. She looked up at him from underneath her lashes. His heart rate went funny again.
“I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t been there when Dave showed up. He has a way of making me…weak.”
Noah placed a gentle wet hand over hers on the fence. “You are the furthest thing from weak. By the end, you were possessed by some kind of mafioso spirit. My knees were shaking.”
She laughed.
“Are you sure you’re doing okay? He said some really shitty things to you.”
The infertility news stood between them like an elephant.
“I’m okay. I talked to my therapist a little bit about it. I’m sorry you were put in the middle of something so personal.”
“You think he came all this way just to break the news in person?”
“I do.”
What an evil fucking troll.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” Noah said. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“It’s okay. You deserve to know.” She took a deep breath and looked away, like she was searching for the right words.
“He always wanted a baby—a son specifically. It wasn’t a good time for me.
I was still in residency, so twelve-hour days, six days a week.
But I said yes because it was easier than resisting. ”
“So you didn’t want a child?”
She paused. “I want—wanted—a family, yes. But in the back of my mind, all I could think about was if we had a girl, what if he spoke to her the way he spoke to me?”
His grip accidentally tightened on her hand, and she flinched.
“Sorry,” he said.
“It’s okay. But it didn’t end up mattering because I couldn’t get pregnant. A year passed, and he got more pissed off every single month. Danger was simmering just below the surface all the time. He blamed it on me—my ‘faulty genes.’”
She looked away again, seemingly lost in time. “Eventually, we started IVF. Months of stabbing myself, miserable side effects from medications, egg retrievals. But it never worked. And then he divorced me after the second failed transfer.”
An uncomfortable amount of feelings were swirling in Noah’s gut.
“In the end, I’m glad that I didn’t bring a child into that relationship,” she said. “He would’ve found a way to get primary custody in the divorce, which would’ve destroyed me. But finding out I’ll never be a mom was brutal.”
“That fucking sucks,” he said. It was a stupid thing to say, but it was true.
She laughed a little. “It really does. Thank you for not offering up some sunshiny toxic positivity.”
“I don’t do sunshine,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks,” she said with a long sigh. “I don’t want to talk about Dave anymore. Or ever again, in fact. Can I join you?”
“In the pool?” he asked. Blood immediately ran away from his logical brain to his smaller, more susceptible one, and he shifted in the hopes that it wasn’t obvious.
“Yeah. I used to love night swimming.”
“Of course.”
She put a foot on the bottom rail of the fence but seemed to struggle to get her leg over the top.
“Can I?” Noah asked.
“Thanks.”
He gripped her around the waist and lifted her over the fence. He set her down slowly, relishing the feeling of her in close proximity. God, she was beautiful. Delicate, but strong. As slender as a willow branch but with curves he wanted—needed—to taste.
She looked into his eyes and pulled at the string behind her neck. The fabric fell to each side, and her dress slipped off like a dream. It crumpled on the concrete.
She wore no bra, only the gentle glow of moonlight on her bare skin and fiery hair. She stepped out of her underwear and looked at him again. He started to reach for her, but she took a step back with a smile.
He watched as she approached the edge and leapt in without hesitation.
She broke the surface a second later, sputtering.
“Oh my god, it’s so much colder than I thought it would be. It’s June. Shouldn’t it be like ninety degrees?”
Noah laughed and jumped in after her, probably sloshing some water out of the pool. It was nice to have company. Especially very attractive and very naked company.
He ached to touch her, but she’d just unloaded a very personal revelation. She deserved to have all the space she wanted.
She kicked her legs up and floated onto her back, arms trailing out to her sides. Moonlight kissed the swell of her breasts, the rigid pebbles of her nipples. Her hair floated behind her like a dreamy curtain.
She should’ve been a painting. If it wasn’t fucking creepy, he would’ve taken a picture. But something told him that even without photographic evidence, he’d never forget this moment.
“This is beautiful,” she said, sighing indulgently. “I see why you like it so much.”
He bit his lip. Swimming wasn’t about pleasure for him. A strange urge to tell her the truth about his hobby was clawing its way up his throat. He usually kept the story buried deep, where it didn’t hurt as much. Everyone who mattered already knew. Everyone except Cassie, anyway.
But he didn’t want to ruin this moment. Not when she was so vulnerable. There had been enough drama today.
“You’ve been on my mind, Noah,” she said.
“Oh? Why’s that?”
Please be for sexual reasons. His dick was so hard, he’d never be able to walk again.
She twirled, pivoting to a breaststroke. She closed the distance between them and snaked her wet arms around his neck.
“I was thinking about that day at the clinic. And what might have happened if we weren’t interrupted by a medical emergency.”
Her nipples teased his skin, and her pelvis drifted against the hard ridge beneath his boxers. Fuck. His brain was too broken to respond. He’d never been such an idiot around a woman before. She had some kind of spell over him.
“And what did you want to happen?” he managed to ask.
Her lips, pillowy soft and a bit cold, pressed against his. Her warm tongue delved into his mouth, dancing with his in a ritual that was as old as time.
He raked his fingers down her spine, determined to bring her as close as possible. All the sensations hit him at the same time. Her shiver under his fingertips. Her parted lips. The strength of her thighs wrapping around him.
Something in him grew, burst. He wanted her. Every part of her. Today, tomorrow, and every day until he turned to dust.
Shit.