Page 30 of Freeing the Wild
If we’re going to live next to each other, we need to clear theair, and I’m not going to beat around the bush.I watch as her mouth pops open, but she offers no words.
“Thesong,” I say clearly.“It’s a lie and we both know it.”
Cassie looks into the cabin where Wade and Ivy are talking, then back to me.
“Not all of it is a lie … it’s nothing.It’s just a song,” she says meekly.
Fuck if those words don’t cut me to the quick.If it’s just a song, then I guess that makes us just strangers, and that, in turn, makes me take the asshole route.
“Okay … truth is, you’re right, it wasjusta song,” I bite out.Smooth, dipshit.As if I haven’t thought about her every fucking day.She narrows her eyes at me but I keep going.“It wasjusta night, right?So it’s already forgotten about, Princess.Oh, and I’ll make sure I stay in my own yard so you don’t get any ideas about writing another one.”
I tip my hat to Cassie, nonchalantly, in a bid to drive home just how much Idon’tnotice how frustratingly beautiful she is.Then I turn and make my way inside, carrying her suitcase and setting it down in the bedroom where Ivy is asking Wade to add some shelves.I clear my throat.
“Need me for anything else?I’m just gonna grab a quick bite to eat before—”
“Oh, about that.Don’t eat yet.My mama and CeCe are cooking a big brunch up at the main house for everyone,” Wade says as he checks his watch.“Should be ready within the hour.Can you text Dusty and some of the other guys to come?CeCe wants as many there as possible.Says they have an announcement.”
“We’re just gonna get Cassie’s things sorted and then we’ll all be up too,” Ivy adds as Cassie comes into the room.This time she doesn’t even glance my way.Good.
“Great.I am hungry,” Cassie says, turning to Ivy.“Thankyou for letting me stay.I’m looking forward to a month of spending some quality time with y’all and playing with this little one.”She tickles a smiling Billi before turning to face me with that hollow look in her eyes.
It’s at this point that my jaw falls slack, because I might be able to pretend for a weekend that Cassie Spencer doesn’t exist.But a month?Christ.Is it too early for a drink?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Haden
An hour later, myself and Dusty push open the door to the big house.The other guys were too busy to make brunch but we promised to bring them some food afterwards.
“Come on in!”Jo, aka Mama Jo to everyone here, calls out.She’s in the kitchen at the back of the house with Ivy and Cassie’s mom, Glenda, cooking up a storm.My stomach growls at the smell of the promised bacon and eggs as I toe my boots off.
“Morning,” I call to the group as I hang my lined flannel jacket under my hat on the bank of hooks in the entryway.
“Smells damn delicious,” Dusty says as he does the same.
“You aren’t even in the kitchen yet and you already owe me a dollar!”Mabel, Cole’s daughter, says.That little nugget just popped up right out of nowhere.
“Shoot,” Dusty says, reaching into his wallet.“Shouldn’t you be at school?”
Mabel smiles a toothy grin at him as she takes his dollar happily.“Professional development day,” she says.
I chuckle and ruffle her hair.“Where’s your dad?”
“In the kitchen with Ginger,” she answers, moving past me to get to Billi when Ivy, Wade and Cassie come through the door.
“Hey girl!”Dusty says to Cassie.“Good to see you!”
I side-eye her because I just can’t help myself.Her cheeks are rosy with the cold, and as she smiles at him, I look away.I focus on the back of the house as Cassie and Dusty start catching up.Jo is humming along to Billy Strings as she fries bacon on a huge griddle, and CeCe is behind another working on a mountain of sausage.The whole Ashby family is here, including Nash, Ginger and even Olivia Sutton, the third friend in CeCe and Ginger’s Not Angel’s group trio.I pull up a stool beside Nash as he and Cole bicker about plays from last weekend’s Super Bowl.
“See this?A full-out pornstache on this fucker?”Nash says, patting me on the back, checking to make sure Mabel is out of earshot.
“Coffee,Pornstache?I mean Haden?”Ginger smiles sweetly from the other side of the counter while she works on toast duty.I nod to her with a smile and nudge Nash with my shoulder, before running my thumb and forefinger over my stache then down into the scruff of my jaw.
“Jealous?”I ask Nash.
He chuckles.“Not a chance.If I wanted to look like Kentucky’s version of Smokey and the Bandit, I would.”
Jo’s almost eighty-year-old father, Dean, chuckles from the other side of the island.“Don’t listen to him, Haden, heisjealous.”He leans on the island on his forearms and picks up his coffee mug with a mischievous crinkle around his eyes.“You know what they call a man without a mustache?”
