Page 30 of As It Was (Strawberry Springs #1)

“Yeah. Maybe I am. Or maybe I’m making a move on a man who everyone else is missing out on.”

I brushed past her, ignoring her glare, and was about to head outside when Lucas suddenly appeared in front of me.

“There you are,” he said. “Have you thought about the date?”

I hadn’t realized he wasn’t still on the stage. That’s how little attention I was paying.

“Um, listen, I’m really sorry but?—”

His smile didn’t falter. “You have a thing with Cain, right?”

“ What ? How did you?—”

“I’m not completely stupid. But I still thought I’d shoot my shot.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “About ... saying no.”

“Don’t sweat it. You seem pretty happy here. And I travel, so it would be long distance anyway.” He shrugged. “But I hope he tells you how pretty you are.”

I thought back to the conversation in the truck. “He does.”

“Good. Then I wish you the best.”

I gave Lucas one last smile before I went outside. The cool night air hit me in the face.

“He already pissed you off, didn’t he?” Hugh was still out there, eyeing me like he knew everything that had happened.

“ No ,” I snapped, my anger already rising again. “Cain didn’t piss me off. Trust me, if he did, he would be the one hearing about it, and no one else.”

“Oh, touchy. I see the protectiveness goes two ways, then.”

I blew out a breath and crossed my arms. I needed to text Cain and tell him that I was outside. Or go back inside and face the consequences of my actions. Instead, I seethed.

Then a jacket landed on my shoulders.

“You really should have brought something to keep warm with,” a deep voice said .

I let out a harsh breath. “Yeah, probably. Let’s get out of here before I lose it.”

“For once, I agree.”

“Can I just say—” Hugh began, but Cain turned to him.

“She’s already mad. Trust me, you don’t wanna make this worse.”

He huffed. “How do you know I’m gonna make it worse? All I was gonna say is that you should wipe the lipstick off your mouth before Jackie sees it.”

I turned to Cain with wide eyes; there were smudges of pink on his lips. He wiped it away, but I could feel his tension from where I was standing.

Yeah, it was time to go.

When we climbed in the truck, I was working out what to say if he didn’t talk the whole way home. Or what to do if he was so mad he started a fight.

He did neither.

“I’m sorry about Brooke.”

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“The woman you ran into outside of the bathroom.”

“You heard?”

“Yeah, I was about to walk out.”

I shrugged. “Don’t worry about her. She was all talk and no bite.”

“She wasn’t wrong, though.”

“About what?”

“About me .”

I rolled my eyes. “She doesn’t even know you. The real you.”

“Mollie, you didn’t know me years ago.”

I would have argued, but I remembered the feeling I had in the bathroom. The one that I didn’t know a damn thing about the man who’d just touched me. “Maybe you have a point. ”

He glanced at me and then back at the road. “I wasn’t always like this. When I was younger, I was different.”

“As we all are. I used to be platinum blonde.”

Now he looked at me again. “I can’t see it.”

“For a reason. It was so bad for my coloring.”

“I wish all I was worried about when I was younger was just hair dye.” The words were bitter, but they weren’t directed at me.

“Bad childhood?” I asked.

“I bounced around foster homes. Jackie was the first that stuck.”

I blinked in shock. Jackie was his foster mom? That was how he knew her? “So, you were obviously going through a lot.”

“Her husband didn’t see it that way.”

“She’s married?” I tried to think back to when she’d done my hair. I hadn’t seen a ring.

“She used to be. To a man named Donny. He hated that she took me in, but let her do it because it kept her busy. He made my life hell, and in turn, I did it back.”

“Did anyone know?”

“He told everyone I was just an asshole.” He shrugged. “And I was, but he left the part out where he was tormenting me. Jackie was mortified and tried to mitigate it, but in the end, he was a part of this town. I wasn’t.”

“So, he turned them against you.”

“Part of it I did myself,” he replied. “I was out of the house more when I started working for Bennie. It helped. I would stay late until I saw Jackie’s car just so I didn’t have to deal with his wrath alone. But then I came home to find her trying to hide a bruise on her face. And I knew .”

“He hit her?”

“Apparently all the time. She begged me not to say anything, and I didn’t. But I couldn’t leave it at that. I found him at the bar, where he always fucking was. And I nearly killed him. That’s who they see me as. A punk kid who went after his foster parent.”

“But you were protecting someone.”

“They didn’t know that. And they probably never will. Jackie can’t even talk about that asshole, even though he died years ago.”

“No one knew?”

He pursed his lips and let out a long sigh. “I think Bennie did. Or he had an idea. He tried to talk about it with me, but I didn’t know what to say without outing Jackie.”

“He always had a way of seeing things others couldn’t.” Like how I belonged here. “And like I said when we met, he trusted you with the farm. Which means I do too.”

“That trust isn’t gonna do anything if it ruins your reputation here. We can’t keep doing this.”

“Hang on, what ?”

“Mollie, think about it.”

“I am . We’re changing their minds. And I’m helping you with it, whether you like it or not.”

“But you have a chance here to have a good reputation?—”

“My reputation is mine to do what I want with it. I’ve spent years being so polite and perfect, and you know what it got me? Nothing. I’m doing what feels right. And you feel right.”

Cain’s grip on the steering wheel was tight as he stared at me.

“You’re impossible, princess.”

My skin erupted in gooseflesh. I wanted to blame it on the weather, but I knew it wasn’t that. “I do like defying expectations,” I replied.

He huffed out a laugh before we lapsed into silence. My mind went back to that closet, and I wondered if I’d get the chance to feel that again .

Minutes later, we pulled up to the house. It was late and all the lights were off. I toyed with the hem of my dress, wondering how I could ask about us . But I didn’t need to.

Cain moved first, and suddenly, his lips were on mine.

This wasn’t like the rough kiss in the closet. This was tender and full of a promise that I couldn’t name yet.

“I thought you said this was a bad idea,” I whispered.

“It might be,” he said. “But it feels right.”

His thumb brushed over my cheek, and I leaned into it.

“Is Jackie staying the night?” I asked.

He blinked, but answered quickly. “Probably. I bet she’s asleep.”

“In your room?”

“Probably the guest room. Why?”

I shrugged, heart kicking into gear. “If you need a room, you could always share mine.”

Now he nodded, getting the full meaning of what I was saying.

“Well,” he replied, “she does hate the mattress in the guest room. So maybe she did sleep in mine.” His thumb moved again, sending sparks over every inch of me he touched.

“I think we’re just being nice.”

“I didn’t know we knew how to do that.”

Letting out a laugh, I got out of the truck, hoping he would follow to continue what we’d started.

To do what felt right .