Page 10 of Ash on the Range (Red Hart Ranch #6)

CASSIE

I sat beneath my brother’s shadow and tried not to flinch every time his booming laugh overrode the conversation. Jude and Gage watched him with identical expressionless faces, though Travis didn’t bother to hide his dislike. And Will…

Will was nowhere to be seen when I needed him most.

I shrugged out from under the arm that Austin threw around me again the moment I freed myself.

Forcing a smile I didn’t feel, I grabbed his mostly finished beer and waggled it in the air, pantomiming getting him another.

My brother’s beefy arm finally released me.

I staggered slightly under my own weight, bereft of the excess pressure that had held me down through dinner.

Jude rose as I moved away from the table, pausing in the middle of the room for a moment, away from everyone. Here, the chatter wasn’t quite as loud and I could hear myself think. Or, not think.

“Are you okay?” He liberated the beers, gesturing me over to the kitchen, walking around the long end of the bench and dove into the oversized refrigerator.

Everything in the big house was oversized, I swore, just to live up to its name and not just in the interest of storage.

“Yes. No. I—” I sucked in a long breath and caught the briefest scent of leather and soap, tinged with pine that I associated with Will, but when I looked around, I couldn't spot him at the table.

Disappointment washed over me as I turned back to face Jude and found him watching me with a far too keen eye.

“I’m fine. I just thought I'd have more than a few weeks without my brother turning up on my—your—doorstep, is all,” I corrected myself.

Jude uncapped two fresh beers and placed them in front of me. “It must be nice to get away from your family at college, halfway across the country.”

I stared. “I am— I mean, I’m not—” I closed my mouth and tried again. “What did Will tell you?”

“Nothing I didn't already figure out for myself." Jude started washing plates that Travis brought to him. I held out my hand for the tea towel, prepared to do my bit and wipe up, but the boys both ignored me. “He’s not so different, you know, from my story. Left home at fifteen, haven’t been back or spoken to the parents since. Don't think the door wouldn’t be locked, actually.” he gave a hollow laugh and I didn’t think we were talking about Will any more.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

Jude watched me as he cleaned. “I found family here, Cassie. A home, too. Will has friends in lots of places. The rodeo here… he comes back every season. Always welcome. That’s the kind of man he’s grown up to become.” Those gray eyes settled on me, hard but not unkind.

I tried not to fidget under their weight. “He’s lucky to have found a place,” I whispered, horrified when tears prickled the backs of my eyes and I felt like I couldn’t turn away or hide.

“Home is wherever you need it to be, Cassie.

" Trav stopped wiping and placed his stack of plates on the counter. “It doesn’t matter if your story is different, or if your brother is the idiot at the table with the loudest voice, telling the stupidest stories. If you fit here, then here is home too.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I clutched my beers and shrank a bit.

Travis was huge, and he’d always seemed so kind.

Now he was more than intimidating, and I had no idea how to hide or step away.

My gaze shifted to Jude, but the foreman who rarely smiled didn’t offer me an out.

Suddenly I was desperate for Eve's company, but I hadn’t seen her for hours, either.

The silence stretched on, one of those times when I knew it was my turn and I had to fill the void.

“I guess I don’t feel like I’ve been here for long enough to fit in.

” Anywhere. “But you’re right. Will does.

And I’ll go back to college soon. And that’s a long, long way from here.

” We hadn’t talked about me leaving. Every time the topic started to come up, we both avoided the shift.

Travis leaned over the counter, grasping one of my hands in his much larger ones.

“Red Hart can feel like a lot, Cassie. I know, and I used to hide from the fact…

hell, I was born here, and I used to hide from that.

But Will fits, and so do you. Just because he's not blood doesn't mean he’s not family.

" Travis let go of my hand abruptly, standing up as warmth hit my back in a wave.

Two hands braced the counter either side of me. I let out a little squeak and inhaled a sharp breath.

Soap, leather and fresh pine.

“Will,” I breathed as the other boys went back to whatever they’d been doing before. I swore my mind filled with fog whenever Will was around, and ceased all its usual function.

“Are these boys looking after you?” His presence was strong and taut against my back, pressing me against the bench.

I swallowed hard at the tension radiating from him. Jude watched us unflinchingly, while Travis just kept wiping dishes, ignoring the interaction at his side.

“I’m fine,” I whispered, my cheeks burning at hosting this conversation anywhere near other people. “It’s my brother I was —” I closed my mouth, wishing I hadn't said anything. The last thing I wanted to do was restart the vitriolic rivalry between Will and Austin.

“I saw.” Will leaned down, resting his lips against my hair and inhaled. “Damn, you smell good, honey.”

“Oh.” Nothing else coherent came out for a moment. “I can, uh, get you a—” I glanced at the other side of the kitchen. But it was empty. Well, mostly empty. Eve wandered out of the pantry, her expression unfocussed as she stared at her phone in her hand.

Will dropped a hand to my hip, his hand flexing there in an undeniably intimate squeeze.

His lips trailed across the shell of my ear, leaving a tingling sensation in their wake.

“Enjoy your night, Cassie. I’ll find you later.

” He pressed a soft kiss to the sensitive spot behind my ear, then his touch and warmth disappeared leaving me staring at the bare kitchen bench and two beers I didn’t care about at all.

I’ll find you later.

His promise murmured in a low voice settled over me. I shivered, grabbed the beers and deposited them on the table next to my brother, intent on finding Will, but Austin’s arm shot out, grabbing for me again.

“I missed you, sis. The van’s been empty without you in it,” he proclaimed loudly.

Too loudly.

I winced, letting out a huff. “You mean you had to get up and cook your own meals and clean up after yourself,” I snarked back, then wished I hadn’t.

Austin’s face, already red, swelled slightly with the heat that radiated from him as he turned radish colored. Actually, he kind of resembled one, too.

The first sign of his rage, of which both Will and I were intimately acquainted with. The story I hadn't told anyone else was why I picked a university five states away when there was one within an hour’s drive from home.

And it has little to do with parent’s weekend or study choices.

“What did you say?” Austin said in a low voice that rippled along my spine.

One of the young ranch hands let out a laugh.

I didn't know if it was at our conversation or someone else’s.

I wasn't game to risk diverting my attention from the predator who watched me now. Both Jude and Travis had moved away from the table, and I was left with a group of coyotes I didn’t know at all.

I wrapped my arms around myself, and wished I'd left the beers in the kitchen., stayed with will and ran away for the night.

And never come back.

“I didn’t say anything,” I whispered. “Sorry, Austin.”

“Not that she has anything to be sorry about, Right, Cass?” Gage planted himself right next to me, grabbing the spare beet I’d been torturing that I had absolutely zero intention of driving. “This is for me. Darlin?” he threw me a cocky grin that I managed to return in part.

Austin frowned, looking between us. “Cassie?”

“This is Gage. He’s married to, uh—” I looked about, but Brit wasn’t anywhere in sight. A rarity as she loved the big house dinners and the social aspect of ranch life from what I could tell.

“My wife isn’t well tonight. Though I'd give her some peace and come up, make sure everything else ran smoothly. Heard some of the rodeo crew arrived, and that you might need company while Will got them settled in out back.” Gage took a large swig from what had to be a warm beer without wincing.

Relief swamped me. So Will hadn't abandoned me after all. He would be back, like he promised. I just had to survive however long with Austin. But that didn’t mean I had to stay with my brother, especially if he was in this mood.

Maybe he and Gage could become good friends.

It looked like the older man was up for the challenge, and I was feeling sassy.

Taking a leaf out of Brit’s book, I smiled sweetly. “Austin, why don't you tell everyone about that time the bull threw you less than a second into your ride?” I excused myself while my brother was still spluttering at the table.

Gage gave me a broad wink as I walked away, heading around the kitchen bench in search of Eve. I found her counting out inventory and making a list on her phone.

“Want some help?” I offered.

“I’m good.” Eve frowned at her phone. A moment later she tapped the offending device with a frustrated huff and stowed it in her pocket, offering me a broad, fake grin that didn’t hide her worry lines. “I think we still have dessert to serve, don’t we?”

“Dessert, right.” I watched her open cupboard doors and haul out stacks of bowls half her own height before I joined her, grabbing spoons.

Bowls that I swore wouldn’t actually first inside the fridge emerged filled with perfectly set dark chocolate mousse.

“Wait, when did you get time to do this?” I stared at the bowl and gave it a taster poke.

Nothing so much as moved.

“Four this morning?” Eve sent me a guilty glance. “Archer gets up early and I don’t get to speak to him all that often.”

I blinked. “You call your boyfriend by his last name?”

Eve’s laugh seemed more strained than ever. “Everyone else does. And it was a habit from the last time he was here.” Her incessant spooning and bowl passing halted.

Plopping a spoon in a bowl, I turned and looked at her. “And when was that?”

She swallowed and looked at me. “Last Christmas?”

“But you’ve seen him since then, right?" I’d just met Will. Okay, not just met him, but the weeks we’d been together had flown by already, and I couldn’t' t imagine being away from him for that long. “You’ve spent more time together than just on the phone, wherever he is?”

She hesitated. “I went to Texas to see him a few months back. It… was good. Great, even.” One hand rose to touch the pendant at her neck.

It looked like diamonds spread out in an abstract shape, like stars.

“I— we ran into some trouble. But he’s coming back,” she whispered.

“He always said he would.” The hand dropped, and she returned to spooning.

And didn't talk again.

I rolled my lips inward. Whoever Archer was, I was already prepared to have words with him. I was sure he had a good reason for not being here, but surely he knew Eve was hurting if he had spoken to her just this morning. And before the sun rose? Who was this guy?

I grabbed some bowls and turned around, running straight into Jude.

“He’s a better man than you think. Saved her life more than once."

I bristled at being blindsided by the stocky foreman. “That doesn’t mean she owes him,” I snapped, then lowered my head. “Sorry. I just— She’s not okay.”

He nodded. “I know. But she loves him.”

And apparently, that was enough. He liberated the bowls in my hands, and walked away.

I stared after him, but there was nothing left to say to anyone.

My mind whirled. I wanted to rant and rave on her behalf but maybe it wasn’t my business.

There was obviously a history here I knew absolutely nothing about, and I hadn’t been around Red Hart long enough to pry, despite working side by side with Eve most days.

On others, I worked alone in Travis’s luxury appointed study. It was quiet there, but it still felt like I invaded his space even though I worked inside it with his permission.

I stared after Jude where he retreated across the open space to the table bearing bowls of mousse, and counted in my head.

It didn’t take more than a handful of seconds before the mass of ranch hands figured out there was more food on offer.

They swamped the kitchen—bearing their best manners, of course, for Eve under Travis's watchful and somewhat grumpy eye. I didn’t think I was alone in noticing her mood, but her twin seemed to have everything under control for now.

Stepping back, I bumped into a warm body. Hands clasped my hips as a smile spread over my face and my heart lurched. Will.