Page 54 of Long Hard Fall

He polished off his beer and sank back into the couch. The floor above him creaked.

Dammit, was one of his cousins here? They were his best friends, but he didn’t need anyone to witness the pathetic man he was turning out to be tonight.

“Cash?”

He almost dropped his beer. That was the last voice he’d expected to hear.

What the hell was Abbi doing here? And what a shitty night to forget to lock the door.

The floor creaked again and he jumped up. She’d find him down here and he didn’t need her getting that far into the house.

Taking the stairs three at the time, he was upstairs in seconds. She stood in his living room; her suitcase sat by the front door. When she turned toward his footsteps and her expression lit up, his chest tightened. All he wanted to do was grab her in his arms and claim her as his own, but he had his pride—and she had a boyfriend.

“What are you doing here?”

She exhaled and her shoulders dropped. “I checked out. I’m not staying with Ellis.”

“Then get another room.”

She stared at him for a couple of heartbeats. “I can imagine what it must’ve looked like to you, but I was a single woman when we met.” She glanced around. “Can we discuss this?”

Yes, he wanted nothing more. “No.”

Folding her arms across her chest, she pinned him with a hard stare. “I was a single woman when we met. I didn’t tell you about him because I didn’t feel the need to dwell on my past. The only reason I still have anything to do with him is because I have to move out of our apartment when vacation’s over. Unless he’s packed up my shit and taken it to my parents, which will be a scene to witness unto itself because they think he hung the moon and stars and that I’d be a lost little puppy without him.”

Her voice was full of conviction, but Cash refused to buckle. She was single when they met, but she still lived with the guy? “Sounds like you two have some things to work out.”

“No. We don’t. He planned to come here with me, then backed out at the last minute. For some reason, thankfully, what he did finally tagged my last nerve. I couldn’t take how he treated me anymore. I couldn’t take how he and my parents ganged up on me and made me feel like a child over and over again. But after Perry died…” She crossed to the couch and sat down, her arm on the armrest, her forehead resting on her fist. “I didn’t want to burden my parents with worrying about me since they lost a son and I’m all they have left. They approve of Ellis and he kept me within the limits of their approval, and that was enough for me. But, Cash, I was so fucking miserable. The night we met—yes, only hours after I’d become a single woman—was the first time I felt like me in a long time. And even then I was determined not to go back to being that girl because I knew breaking up with Ellis would hurt my parents. They’ll be losing him, too. But I’m not going back to him.”

The fence Cash was frantically trying to construct around his heart weakened. She sounded sincere. “Then why is he here?”

Frustration filled her eyes. “He’s been trying to text and call. He acts like I threw a hissy fit and nothing more. That he just needs to talk some sense into me like always and I’ll come back and be a good girl. When I told him about us, he called it a ‘bump in the road.’ What an ass. But at least it made him admit that he might’ve played a role in our breakup.”

She seemed to wait for him to speak. She didn’t fidget or nervously look around the room, but Cash wasn’t a profiler or anything. His only reference point for this kind of situation was Mom crying and Dad stomping downstairs to sleep on the couch.

“What’d you tell him about us?” Why was that important? There was no them anymore. Was there?

“I was honest about how we met—I’m sure he’ll hold it against me. I said that I feel like myself around you and I like how you treat me.” Her small smile broke down even more of his figurative fences. Should’ve known the imaginary ones wouldn’t last forever, just like the ones lining his property.

Fatigue weighed him down. It wasn’t terribly late, but he’d been on an emotional rollercoaster for the last hour. He should kick her out but now that she was under his roof, he couldn’t. Because he wanted to believe her even though all his learned instincts encouraged him not to. “Fine. Take the guest room. I’m going to bed.” He pivoted to head down the hallway.

“Cash, I’m sorry. I had no idea he’d be so hard-headed about the breakup and I’m sorry it hurt you.”

He slowed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Could he believe her? And if he did, did that make it better?

Slightly. Even single for hours was better than not single.

He let out a long exhale and trudged to his room. It was too much to deal with tonight.

Chapter 15

Cash woke up at his normal time, dressed quietly, and tiptoed out of his room. He felt like someone was going to jump out at him and yell “Coward!” They’d be right. He couldn’t deal with Abbi after the raw night he’d had. The only thing he wanted to do this morning was feed his cattle and ride Patsy Cline. A couple hours on his horse tended to clear things up.

He made it outside and went for the tractor. If the engine woke Abbi up, he hoped she’d just give him time and not come and find him. Last night, he’d thought her proximity and honest-sounding words were the reasons he’d waffled and caved, to keep her around and see where their relationship went. But a night of restless sleep hadn’t helped.

For years, he’d thought his number one fear was to be the cheating spouse his dad had been. Now, it was going through life miserable because he couldn’t walk away from a bad thing in pretty packaging.

Problem was, he wasn’t sure that was Abbi. He was afraid to believe her. Sure, his two minutes around Ellis hadn’t made him a fan, but Cash didn’t really know him, just had Abbi’s claims.

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