Page 72 of When It Reins
Wanting to and actually doing it are two different things.
“No,” she squeaks, then clears her throat. “No,” she inflects. “I just wanted to be sure.”
“Well, rest assured, I’ve never murdered anyone.”
“David was a bad guy,” Juniper says, her eyes on the fire now. I don’t bother correcting his name, since it doesn’t fucking matter, anyway. “He used me. I’m sure of that now. And he was doing some bad things to a lot of good, innocent people. But I don’t want that on your soul.”
I lift a brow, wondering if anyone, aside from my blood relatives, has ever cared about my soul. “You worried about me, Little Starling?”
She looks at me then and lets out a breath as if she was working up the nerve to say whatever it is she needs to. Her eyes stay connected with mine, and there’s a determination there that I’ve seen before. “I love you, Mitch Cash.”
Her words knock the smirk off my face and the breath from my lungs. Not because I didn’t know that already. I had a feeling. But having the feeling and hearing the words out loud from the person you love? That is a different game altogether.
“And because of that love, I don’t want you to have to do anything you’d ever regret.”
I take her in and lift my hand up until my rough hands are holding her chin, directing her attention to me and looking herdeep in the eyes. “I will never regret doing anything that would protect you, Starling.”
She looks almost mad when she says, “You love me?”
“You know I do.” I say the words easily, my voice hard.
“Then don’t do anything that will take you away from me.”
32
juniper
I slowly setthe teacup on the saucer and smack my lips. “Rosemary,” I say slowly, my brow crinkling as I eye my cup. “Did you put whiskey in this tea?”
Her blue eyes widen, and she looks into her own teacup. “Oh. Hmm. How did that happen?”
I chuckle and shake my head. “It’s the middle of the day!”
“It’s afternoon, dear. What’s the issue?” She waves her hand at me as if I’m being ridiculous and says, “Plus, we’re celebrating.”
“Oh? What are we celebrating?”
“Well, not only are the families who were losing their homes safely back again, but we have enough left over to put toward some of the residents who needed a little help.”
I smile, my heart blooming at the mention of how much we were able to accomplish for the community. It is truly incredible that we could, that our hard work paid off, and now, the company David works for will have to find another community to buy out.
I frown at the thought. “I wish I could stop that company from doing that.”
Rosemary nods her head, obviously following my train of thought. “Unfortunately, there are a lot who do. I did some research after it started to happen, and apparently, people use it as a money-making scheme. Not just companies, but regular folks do it to buy the land and then flip the properties for a profit.”
“It’s not right.”
Rosemary lifts a brow. “A lot about the world ain’t right.”
She wasn’t wrong there.
My phone buzzes with a text, and I smile at Mitch’s message, which shows a cup of coffee and a café behind it. He is currently on a trip for the club, one he wanted me to go on but said it wasn’t quite safe enough for me to join.
That, of course, made me all the more anxious for him to be gone. I don’t know what he does on his runs, and I’m not sure he would tell me if I asked, which was probably why I didn’t bother. I don’t want to hear the words none of your business. Not from Mitch.
Last weekend, after we got home from our cattle drive, we went straight to the cabin and showered together. His body had lifted mine and done to me what I was dying for all weekend. Especially after I finally told him I loved him.
I wasn’t kidding when I told him I didn’t want him to do anything that would jeopardize our ability to be together.
