Page 59 of Her Tempting Traitor
Somehow he’d grown to trust Gabby Butcombe. He believed she wanted to help him. He believed shecaredfor him.
Christ, his damned heart was involved now, and he couldn’t imaginenottrusting her.
He’d spent fifteen years learning to make snap judgements about people and never trusting someone an inch more than necessary, yet everything he knew about Gabby told him that she could be trusted…and could be useful in helping him.
“Da!” Gus’s sudden bellow from the river startled them both.
Cassian, still so unused to hearing that name, whipped his head around to see his son standing in thigh-deep water, triumphantly holding a frantically wriggling fish.
“I do not believe it,” came Gabby’s awed whisper. “Hedidcatch himself a trout.”
“How in the hell…” Cassian muttered, thrusting himself to his feet. Or rather, one foot and one wooden prosthetic. “Gus!” he yelled, heart pounding. “How did ye?—”
His weight shifted and he lurched to the side, cursing his poor balance.
But Gabby was there, grabbing his elbow. She stopped his fall, lent her strength. It was such a small movement but it kept him from falling on his face and embarrassing himself further.
Cassian swung his gaze back to the river in time to hear his son yell, “Whoa!” in his attempts to hold on to the slippery fish, attempts swiftly ended as he fell over backwards.
Gabby was chuckling, but Cassian kept his gaze locked on the water where Gus went in, only breathing a sigh of relief when the perturbed-looking lad shot to his feet again, water sparkling from his hair, and began to splash about, likely looking for the fish again.
Only then did Cassian drop his gaze back to his elbow where Gabby still held him.
“Sorry,” she blurted, dropping her hold as if he’d burned her.
But he scooped up her hand and squeezed it. “Nay, I should be thanking ye. I’m just no’ used to?—”
“Only having one foot?” Gabby quipped, a knowing sparkle in her eyes.
“I’ve never had someone care for me,” he admitted.Never allowed it.
Her lips tugged into a frown as she moved closer until she faced him squarely. “Careforyou, or careaboutyou? Plenty of people care about you, Cassian.”
Did they? He glanced over at his splashing son, and remembered how Gus had called himDa. How his gut had tightened. How a sense of pride had overwhelmed him.
“Perhaps,” he admitted. “But I’ve never needed…help before. I’m used to being strong.”
Her fingers tightened around his. “You are still strong. Everyone needs help sometimes.”
How can I help?
She’d asked him that last night.
Couldshe help him?
He was beginning to think Gabby could do anything she put her mind to. She knew her way around a llama and Uncle Dickie and his son and their river. And he desperately wanted to find a way to accept her help.
Now she peeked up at him from under auburn lashes, that sparkle of mischief in her eyes again. He was so lucky to have met her, someone who wanted to have fun with him, who cared enough to help him. To even offer it.
“Gabby,” he rasped, then stopped, unsure what to say.
She glanced at the river, and a part of him—the part that wasn’t focused on her nearness and the way his cock was already pulsing with need—was glad she had enough control to remember Gus. “Yes, Cassian?”
That was when she tipped her welcoming head back.When her lips—plump and pink—parted on a soft sigh. When he knew he was lost.
With a growl of surrender, Cassian wrapped his arms around her and lowered his lips to hers.
Perfection.
