Page 90 of Ride Me Cowboy

“Like you never drank before you were twenty-one,” she snaps at Nash, grabbing the glass of wine and taking two big gulps. But I get her a glass of water as well. Her hands are trembling.

We hear the door closing and voices in the hallway, before they erupt into the kitchen.

“Nash!” Austin says, breaking off whatever he’d been talking about with Caleb and Cole. My gaze, as always, effortlessly shunts to Cole’s and something clicks in place inside me, something I can’t fathom but can’t deny. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you think? Staking my claim, that’s what.”

Mack flinches visibly in response to that, then reaches for the glass of wine. I haven’t known Cassidy that long, but I feel an urgent need to get another Mackenzie ally into this room, someone who can go toe to toe with all these guys and not lose her cool; someone who’s been putting them in their place as long as she’s been alive.

I slip from the room quietly as Nash goes through his grievances all over again. I hear him enumerating how disappointed he is, how he’ll be the laughingstock of the record label community if it gets out his kid sister—more or less—was sitting right under his nose, the biggest undiscovered talent in country music in a decade.

I find Cassidy out in the rose garden, a pair of scissors in one hand, a big basket of blooms on the ground beside her.

“Hey, Beth,” she smiles at me, lifts her non-scissor wielding hand in a wave.

I think she’s about to say something else by way of greeting, but I cut her off, “We need you inside.”

Worry immediately takes over her features, so I feel a kick of remorse. This is a woman who’s lost a mother, and a father, and has lived through the torment of Beau’s accident.

“Everyone’s okay,” I hasten to add. “But Nash is here.”

“Thought I saw his truck,” she says.

“Well, he’s in there, reading Mackenzie the riot act for not sending him a demo, or even telling him she could sing, and she looks like she’s about to pass out or be sick and I thought you could—,” I taper off, waving my hands around in front of me.

“Yeah, I can handle Nash.” As she walks past me, she squeezes my hand in hers. “Thanks for coming to get me, Beth. We’re all gonna miss you when you go.”

The reality of that is something I really don’t like to contemplate, and I don’t have the bandwidth for it right now. I follow closely behind her, around to the front door, inside, through the corridor and to the kitchen. The scene is the same—the brothers and Caleb locked in conversation, with Mackenzie sitting at the table, staring straight ahead, glass of wine clutched in her hands like a lifeline.

“The wine was you?” Cassidy whispers, glancing at me.

I nod.

“Good. Her nerves must be shot to pieces. Nash can be a piece of work when he gets a bee in his bonnet.”

“I doubt that,” I say, before I can think twice. Because the truth is, I’ve known a true piece of work, and it was nothing like Nash. If anything, his indignant temper is kind of adorable. His feelings are clearly hurt by the sense he’s been left in the dark.

Cassidy’s eyes linger on my face a beat too long, yet again reminding me of Cole, then she’s striding into the room, lifting two fingers to her mouth and making the loudest, most ear-splitting whistle I’ve ever heard, and likely ever will.

“Jesus, I kind of need those to do my job, Cass,” Nash grumbles, pressing his fingers against his ears a few times.

“Right, you stop being such a jackass. This is Mack’s moment and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let you swan in here and take the shine off of it. We all know this girl deserves every good thing she can get outta life. And if she loves music and wants it to be fromthat, then the only thing she’s gonna get from us is full-throated support. You got that?”

They all stare at Cassidy like she’s some dragon creature, protecting her young. And that’s justexactlywhat she reminds me of. I remember Mack saying that Cassidy fiercely protects her brothers, that she sees it as her job to keep them on the straight and narrow, and I realize now that her love and protection extends to Mackenzie, too.

A strange, heavy emotion washes over me. My mouth is raw.

I have never, and will never, know that kind of love. Not like this. I can tell that it is drawn from the very depths of Cassidy’s soul, from a place that is all fire and flame, and I have no doubt, in that moment, that if she had to give up her life for Mackenzie’s, she would, without even a beat’s hesitation.

“I said,” she roars, “Y’all got that?”

They all mumble and nod, except for Cole, who just stares her down, before turning to Mack. “We’re happy for you, honey,” he says, and it’s so unusual for him to talk to Mack like anything other than a little tomboy sibling that my already-raw emotions start to wobble. I have to get out of here.

I slip out of the kitchen as Cole goes to talk to Mackenzie, and the others are distracted by Cassidy’s ongoing lecture.

Cole

Nash is sitting at the table, explaining some options to Mackenzie. Now the dust has settled, and everyone’s calmed down, he’s back to being Nash, and remembering who Mackenzie is to us.

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