Page 17 of Cold Foot Cash (Wreck’s Mountains #4)

Cash had minded the girl-rules. He had taken Raynah’s advice, which he believed it was excellent advice, and he’d been open to listening to all of Harley’s hurt, and took it all in calmly, and that was all well and good.

But…he was still himself, and currently, he was pulling up to Lance’s house, aka Harley’s house that the dipshit had pushed her out of, so he could set up a love-nest with his girlfriend. Cash had found out that Lance was taking Harley’s money, and now he was trying to take half of the proceeds from her car that she wasn’t even planning on selling?

Laugh out loud. Hell no. Fuck this dude.

Cash shoved open the door of his truck and got out.

Nice neighborhood. Of course it was. Harley had bought the house with Lance when they’d had two incomes, and she made a lot more than he did. Cash knew that now because she’d spilled it to him today. No wonder Lanced needed as much of her savings as he could get his stubby soft little hands on. He couldn’t afford the mortgage on his salary alone, but he probably loved the prestige of living in this area.

A Lexus was parked in the driveway next to a Honda Civic, so he must be home.

“Don’t fight him, don’t punch him,” Cash chanted to himself a few times before he knocked on the door.

A dark-haired woman answered the door, wearing a pair of low-rise jeans and a red crop top. Alissa, he assumed.

“Whoa, hello,” she said. “Are you the lawn guy?”

“Sure,” he answered. He looked down at the sparkler on her ring finger. “Is your fiancé home?”

“He’s working upstairs. This is my house too. I can tell you what we need done.”

“Is it your house too?” he gritted out. “Harley is still paying half on the mortgage through this week. Can you go get Lance? Please.”

He hated this chick already.

“Lance,” she screamed up the stairs.

“What!” he screamed back from upstairs.

Cash snorted. Ah, romance.

“Pretty sure your ex’s boyfriend is here!” she yelled. As she walked away, she kept talking. “Every day revolves around Harley. Every single day. Forever. Forever and ever, every day will revolve around Harley!”

Okay, this was awesome. Ten points just for entertainment-value so far.

As Lance came down the stairs, Cash got his first real look at the guy. He was wearing black slacks at home on a Saturday, and a polo shirt that was a size too small. His hair was thinning on top, and he seemed to be growing it out in the back. His glasses rode low on his nose. He’d probably been better looking in his twenties, but was aging like a fine milk. Harley was about ten times too pretty for him.

“Let me guess, Harley’s boyfriend?” Lance asked.

“No,” Cash said honestly. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no. Can we talk?”

“What are you doing at my house.”

Cash cocked his head and looked him up and down. All he sensed from him was weakness. “This is you and Harley’s house until Tuesday.”

“The court date isn’t going to happen. My lawyers and I—”

“Look, you fuckin’ frog. Normally I would just handle this by beating the ever-loving shit out of you, but I’m trying to be all zen, and be a better person, because Harley deserves less chaos in her life. I’ll be honest though, you’re skating on ice that is paper-fuckin’-thin, my guy, so my advice to you is to do your very, very best to lower your dumbfuck voice with me, or I’ll revisit my old ways, and you can visit a hospital where they will have to surgically pry your glasses out of your face-skin, and afterward, you can also enjoy some dental bills as they try to reconstruct your entire fuckin’ smile, am I clear?

Lance just stared, then blinked once and lowered his voice to a more reasonable level. “Crystal clear. You said you aren’t Harley’s boyfriend though?” His smug smile was obnoxious and baiting.

“I haven’t even kissed her, man. She’s going out of this marriage classy. She’s not like you.” Cash inhaled deeply, and prayed for patience. “Do you mind if we sit and talk, man-to-man, in a calm and respectful manner, and oh my God I’m doing my best, just say yes before I change my mind.” The last part he said fast because his intrusive thoughts were so freaking loud right now.

“You can’t come inside. You aren’t invited.”

“To the house you took from Harley? No thank you, I don’t want to, but just so you’re aware, I’m not a vampire. Telling me I can’t come inside won’t stop me from doing whatever the fuck I want.” Gah, he just wanted to pound this guy’s face. Cash forced a smile, and talked low and slow. “Outside is fine.”

“I have cameras out here, just so you’re aware,” Lance said as he followed Cash out to the driveway, “and I will be taking any footage to police.”

“Of course you will.” Cash gestured to stack of folding chairs leaned against the inside of his open garage. “Do you mind if we sit?” Because if he stood standing over this prick, he was definitely going to lose it on him at the first rude shot he took at Harley. Sitting would keep Cash’s inner owl’s talons retracted. Probably. Any little bit helped.

“Fine,” Lance said ungraciously. “I’m good with standing though.”

“Mmm, sweet power-move.” Cash grabbed two chairs, yanked them open, clacked them down on the cement and pointed to the one opposite him. “Sit. Down.”

Lance crossed his arms over his chest, but Cash had a clear view of the look on his face. Lance was a big talker, probably on the internet, and on the phone, and in text messages, but in real life, he was a coward. He was submissive as a man, and now he was starting to make sense to Cash. He liked to control women, because he couldn’t do it to men. If he was in a Crew, he would be bottom at the bottom of the pecking order.

Weak men bullied women. Lance was a weak man.

Cash had sized him up and figured him out in all of what? One minute? One minute of being physically around him?

Lance sighed and sat down across from him. “What do you want? If this is a ploy to bully me off of asking for the money for her car, you’re wasting your time.”

“I don’t care about the money. I care about the woman you’re hurting.”

“But you’re not her boyfriend,” he fired off, and there was that smug smile again.

Don’t punch him, don’t punch him. “Her family cares about her too. They aren’t her boyfriend either.”

“Her family is my family,” Lance said, and oooh he was good at baiting and manipulating.

The best way to deal with a man like this was to remain unaffected. “Cool. You loved Harley at some point though, right?”

“I’m not talking to you about my relationship with her.”

“Yes or no? Did you love her?”

With a heavy sigh, he crossed his arms over his chest, and crossed one leg over the other. Ah, now his body language said Cash was getting warmer. “Yes. Obviously.”

“Do you love her still?”

Lance looked away, stared at the neighbor’s house across the street. That was a yes.

“If you can go back to those feelings, and hear me when I say, you are hurting her. You’re hurting her, Lance. You. Are. Purposely hurting her, and you can stop whenever you want.”

Lance huffed a breath and shook his head. “You don’t understand.”

“That you fumbled? That you fumbled Harley? You had the one, and you messed it up beyond repair, and you can never go back. She will never forget the things you did.”

Lance’s arms tightened over his chest, and he just kept staring across the street.

Cash leaned forward, and rested his elbows on his knees. “Here’s what I think. I think you lost yourself in this whole mess. I think at one point, you did have good intentions for her and you did believe in your relationship, and then you got lost in a relationship with Alissa. And you knew it was wrong. You still know it was wrong. But you got so deep into justifying it, and listening to whatever that woman was encouraging you to do, and it became this huge storyline in your life that the only way you could be happy was if you were apart from Harley, and you were allowed to be with Alissa,” Cash said, pointing toward the front door. “And then she needed you to prove you didn’t still care for Harley by being cruel to her. By bringing Alissa to places you know Harley would see, so that Alissa could witness the hurt on her face, and you could go back home and talk about how much you hate Harley, and you and Alissa could get a good fuck in. Am I getting close?”

He still wouldn’t meet Cash’s eyes, but he wasn’t arguing either.

Cash continued. “Now, you’ve done all the things, done all the hurt, set up house with your girlfriend, embarrassed Harley, shamed her, slandered her reputation, and you still aren’t happy like you were supposed to be, am I right?”

Lance’s lips pursed into a thin line.

“And now you’re dealing with the man you’ve become, the man you are, and you know deep down you’re weak. You have to look at yourself in the mirror every day and know you are hurting a woman you know damn-well doesn’t deserve it.”

“I’m not weak,” Lance snapped.

“You are, and you know it.”

Lance couldn’t hold his gaze for long. “I know what you are. You’re one of those shifters. You’re all liars who just convince people of stuff that isn’t true. You compel humans.”

Cash let off a sigh and clenched his fists. He freaking hated this guy. “No Lance, because again, you’re thinking of vampires. I can’t compel anyone. I’m telling the truth and you know it. And yeah, you’re going to be defensive right now because again, weak, and you don’t like being called out, but later you’re going to think about it and it’s going to feel accurate. I’m right. You have the choice to stop being cruel to the woman you hurt, and that’s by letting her go. Let her heal, man. Let her get over the disappointment, and the confusion you’ve created in her life. Let her be happy again, because you and I both know she’s a good woman and she deserves happiness. Stop being weak, Lance. Show up on Tuesday. Sign the papers. Take the money you’ve manipulated out of Harley, and go figure out what’s missing inside of you. I promise, torturing Harley isn’t going to make anything better for you. It just says who you are as a man. You weren’t always like this. I know you weren’t. Harley wouldn’t fall for a man like you are now.”

“Does she ever talk about me?” Lance asked, his voice cracking on the last part.

“Not in a good way. You’ve done too much damage. I don’t think she can see the good parts of what you had because of what you’ve done to her here at the end. She’s still in it, stuck, you know? It’s like mud on her life and she can’t get clean, and you just keep her there on purpose. No woman is going to think good thoughts about a man who does that to them. You lost her a long time ago.”

“She’s going to fall in love with you, isn’t she?” Lance asked.

Cash thought about it, and nodded. “Yes,” he answered honestly. “After she heals from this, yes. I’m not pushing her, but you and I both know she’s been alone for a while. She’s been single for a while. You moved on a long time ago. She will be ready someday too.”

Lance released a trembling breath and said, “I want you to leave now.”

“Are you going to show up on Tuesday?”

“I’m going to talk to my lawyers and ask their advice. I want the money from the car,” but there was a lie in Lance’s tone. He was just saying stuff now. He didn’t care about the money, and his care for the control was slipping now too. “Are you planning on going to be there with Harley on Tuesday?” Lance asked.

“Is Alissa going with you?”

He shrugged. “She just goes anywhere she thinks Harley will be. She’s obsessed with her. She thinks I’m going to go back with her.”

“You know why? A couple of reasons. One, Alissa knows down to her bones that Harley is better in every way than her. It creates insecurity inside of a woman. Two, because you want Harley back. That part of your rocky foundation is on you, man. Figure it out. I’ll go to court if Harley wants me there. She shouldn’t be alone during all of this. It’s hard stuff. You’ve been supported all the way, but she hasn’t had that. How is that fair?”

“Why does it have to be you,” Lance ground out, giving him a dirty look.

“Because a woman like Harley upgrades when she gets hurt.”

“I made a mistake,” he said suddenly.

Cash snorted. “Yeah everyone knows that.” He stood. “I’m glad you did though. You gave someone else a chance to do it better.”

“Yeah, but you’re just friends, right?” he gritted out again. Damn, he really had an issue with letting her go. Spoiled brat.

“See you soon, Lance,” Cash said as he headed back to his truck. He turned as he opened his door. “Stop being a weak man.”

Cash climbed inside and drove away. As he checked his rearview, Lance was still sitting there just watching him leave.

Oh, he would be doing some soul-searching today. He likely wouldn’t show up on Tuesday still, but bright side, at least he would be thinking about it.

Double bright side—Cash hadn’t even punched him.