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And there would be no handling of pretty female tenants while he was at it. So his body was just gonna have to calm down.
He had a feeling this was going to be a long couple of months.
Chapter Two (#uef2b3295-115e-5d93-a025-37af37c0e3fc)
WHEN CASSIE FINALLY made her way back up to her apartment she was exhausted. She also had no fewer than three missed calls from her mother. She kept her phone on vibrate during the workday, which probably gave her mom fits. But then, her mom was the main reason she kept it on vibrate.
Work hours seemed to mean nothing to the woman.
Cassie was about to call her mother back when the phone started to shiver in her hand, the screen lighting up and her mother’s picture appearing on it.
Cassie groaned and hit “accept.”
“Hello?”
“Cassie, I’ve been trying to get a hold of you all day.”
“Yeah, Mom, I’ve been working all day.”
“Did you just get home?” The note of worry in her mother’s voice did not inspire any warm fuzzy feelings in Cassie. Not at this point. Not considering Cassie lived directly above her workplace. Her commute was a staircase. “It’s late, Cassie.”
“I know, Mom. But such is the hazard of running your own business. Anyway, I walked back up to the apartment using the interior stairs. Nothing is going to happen to me between work and home.”
“But you work too much. How in the world are you supposed to meet anyone when you’re working all the time?”
Ahhh, and here we came to the bottom of mama Ventimiglia’s worry. Not so much for Cassie’s safety, but for her singledom.
The guilts would come next. They were her mother’s specialty. A single mom, she’d always been hyper invested in keeping her daughter from making the same mistakes she had.
The biggest mistake being getting pregnant without securing a man. Cassie was always thrilled to be numbered as one of her mother’s mistakes, even if the other woman didn’t really mean it that way.
“You know, Mom, I serve people coffee all day. I talk to people all day. I meet new people every day.”
“But I bet you’re going to tell me you can’t date a customer.”
Cassie sighed heavily. “You never know. Never say never. Never assume windows are locked when doors are closed, or something like that.” What she really wanted to say was absolutely no, never, no. But she knew that would only keep her mother on the phone longer. And it wasn’t like she didn’t enjoy talking to her, sometimes. Her mom was nothing if not well-meaning, but when it came to the topic of Cassie’s love life, or lack thereof, Cassie would rather she left well enough alone.
“I worry about you. I don’t want you to end up like I did.”
Alone. With nothing but a daughter and no man. “I know. But I’m fine. I really am. I’m happy.”
“I don’t see how you can be happy, losing Allen like you did.”
Cassie fought the urge to scream and hurl the phone across the room. “I don’t feel like I lost much of anything divorcing him. He was a dud. Better to have no potato chips than broken potato chips, or something.”
“It’s still a potato chip, Cassie.”
Cassie sighed. Hoisted by her own bad analogy. “Right. Well, I’m on a diet.”
“Do you still have the meals I sent for you in the freezer?”
“Yes, I do. I’ll have one of those, thank you.”
“I only say these things because I worry. Because I love you.”
“I know.” Cassie sighed again, heavily. “I love you too. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Talk to you tomorrow.”
Cassie disconnected the call and flipped it from her hand onto the couch, walking through the open floor plan living room and into the kitchen to rummage around for dinner. There was meatloaf in the freezer. Along with frozen mashed potatoes all portioned up for her already, and cooked with love by her mother. So yeah, she could be a bit overbearing, but there were some things Cassie really couldn’t complain about.
She put the plastic container in the microwave and started it, then wandered over to the couch and flopped down. The couch butted up against the connecting wall to Jake’s apartment. She heard a squeaking noise, then the sound of running water and realized it was the shower. She and Jake must typically run on different schedules, because she hadn’t heard his shower noises before.
She’d never lived in this place while someone else lived in the adjacent one. It had originally been open space, and at one point in time, both units had been rented out. Then it had sat empty for ages before Cassie had rented it from Dan Caldwell, and until now, she’d never realized how thin the walls were.
And now she was terminally distracted wondering if Jake had taken his clothes off yet. Realizing that he was naked just on the other side of the wall. She jumped up off the couch and scurried back to the microwave, tugging open the door and closing it as loudly as possible in a vain attempt to drown out the sound of running water.
She pulled the lid off the Tupperware and grabbed a spoon, stirring the potatoes with much more vigor than was necessary.
Taking a bottle of wine and a glass out of her cabinet, she poured herself a generous amount. The wine would help. It would dull her senses. Hopefully make her slightly less edgy, and slightly less aware of what was happening in the apartment next door.
She took a sip of wine, and eyeballed the couch. That was usually where she ate but she wondered if she was inviting disaster by moving back over there.
But then the alternative was huddling in a corner of her kitchen just because she couldn’t get a handle on her hormones. That was ridiculous.
She sniffed and collected her dinner, walking back over to the couch and setting the plate on her coffee table. She startled when she heard what sounded like his shoulder bumping up against the shower wall. It sounded very slippery. And solid.
She took another gulp of wine.
She found herself thinking back to the last conversation they’d had before he’d left town. The one that had made her realize she had to tell him how she felt. She’d been tutoring him. Meeting with him twice a week after school in the library to go over math.
She’d been the only one to volunteer for the job—at least, the only one who’d been qualified to do the job who had volunteered for it. It had been intoxicating to be near him finally. And something else entirely to actually spend time talking with him. She’d been certain that there hadn’t been more to the guy than everyone thought he was.
Yes, he’d been into some trouble. There was no denying that, and he didn’t try to. But there was more to him than that, and she’d seen it clearly.
It had been an unseasonably warm day in Copper Ridge. The sun taunting them as they sat inside, beneath stale fluorescent lights. But Cassie hadn’t been sad to miss it. Because looking at Jake for an hour or two during their study sessions had quickly become the highlight of her week. They had been the only two students left in the library, and she’d been able to see his stress written in every muscle, every tendon in his body.
He’d actually been picking up on all the math really well, but that day he hadn’t been able to concentrate.
She’d asked him what was wrong.
Just family shit.
He hadn’t said anything else, but she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it. About him. And for a moment she’d been overcome by a sense of longing that was much stronger than fear. She put her pencil down, and her hand over his.
That had been the first time they’d touched. The second time had been today, when she’d brushed his fingertips handing him a muffin.
Fifteen years between those touches and both had affected her much the same. Electricity that shot straight down to her bones.
She’d jerked her hand away then too. But she had decided that night that when she saw him again she wouldn’t pull away. Because they had a connection, she had felt it.
She’d been an idiot, which was basically her track record with men, as she knew now. But she’d been so innocent then that she hadn’t realized she could be so wrong about another person.
Jake had been her introduction to that. Jake should’ve served as a warning. Because the next day, Jake had been gone. And the day after that Jake had still been gone. And the day after that.
He had never come back. Hadn’t graduated. At least not at their school. His father was still in town, but Jake was gone. The older man had never reported him missing, so she’d assumed he knew where he was.
But she hadn’t.
She hadn’t seen him after that day in the library until last week when he’d come riding back into town, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t thought about him in the years between.
She’d thought about Jake Caldwell far more often than was reasonable.
And she was still thinking of him, though it was sort of hard not to when the man was showering just on the other side of her living room wall.
She heard another thump, followed by a very male sound, something that verged on a grunt. She froze, her wine glass touching the edge of her lip.
She shouldn’t be listening to him. It was a violation of his privacy, and there was no excuse for her to be sitting there trying to work out exactly what was going on.
But then, in her defense, this was sort of an invasion of her privacy too. She was a hostage to the noise. Yes, she could move further away from the wall. And yes, she did not have to lean in closer to it, or hold her breath so that she didn’t miss anything, but this was her home and if she wanted to sit at an awkward angle and listen intently to the activity happening next door, she had every right.
She heard another sound, similar to the first and heat flooded her face as realization crept over her. She suddenly had a guess as to what exactly was happening in the shower. That realization should have sent her searching for a pair of earplugs. Instead, she set her glass of wine down on the coffee table and, biting her lip, leaned even closer to the wall.
Unbidden, her eyes fluttered closed, images filtering through her mind. His muscular body, water sluicing over his bare skin, and his hand wrapped around his—
She swallowed hard.
Her heart was beating in her ears, and she willed it to slow down so that it didn’t block out any of her auditory entertainment. Guilt played companion to the tightening ball of adrenaline in her stomach. But it wasn’t enough to stop her.
It had been a long time since she’d felt like this. A long time since she felt that sweet anticipation, that low-level hum of excitement that ran along every nerve ending, shooting sparks through every vein.
She was unwilling to let it go. Unwilling to do anything that might break the spell she was under.
She heard one more sound, a short, harsh groan and a curse, then the water shut off and she was left feeling unsatisfied, hollow and unsteady.
She picked the wine glass back up and gulped the rest of the contents down. She was going to need another glass to forget the sound of Jake’s self-administered pleasure. Another glass to soften the need that was currently cutting into her like a knife.
The temptation to take her own shower and indulge in exactly the same activity was almost overpowering. But she was going to see him tomorrow. She was going to have to look him in the eye and make his coffee, and it was already going to be nearly impossible. If she thought of him while doing...that...it would be the most terminally uncomfortable moment in the history of mankind.
She was going to drink another glass of wine, watch reruns of Gilmore Girls and forget that this ever happened. It shouldn’t be too hard.
She ignored the fact that the moment when she’d put her hand over his fifteen years ago remained one of her most vivid memories. Ignored the fact that that probably meant tonight would be burned into her brain forever.
Because there was no point in dwelling on Jake Caldwell. None at all.
Chapter Three (#uef2b3295-115e-5d93-a025-37af37c0e3fc)
JAKE WAS SO caught up in the hell that had been his day that it wasn’t until he was inside the coffee shop and in front of the counter, that he remembered.
Then, as his eyes connected with Cassie’s, it all came flooding back.
His shower, and exactly what had gone through his mind when he’d jerked off in what had proven to be a futile effort to get sex off his brain. All he’d wanted was a little relief, but inescapably that moment when her fingers had brushed his hand kept playing through his mind, and then he would picture her face. But not looking uneasy, or blank and carefully professional as she usually did. No, he’d imagined her brown eyes clouded with desire, her full lips pink and swollen. Her dark hair out of its usual ponytail, and spread out over his pillow.
Yeah, he’d pictured that. And now he was standing in front of her in The Grind, those images intermingling with reality. It was official, this place regressed him. He needed to get out. If hours up to his elbows in mud and sheep shit hadn’t proven that, his reaction to her certainly did.
He turned his head at the sound of the bell above the door. A man in a uniform whom he recognized from high school as Eli Garrett walked in. Eli was as clean-cut as ever, tall, dark-haired and smiling. Also fully able to beat the ever-loving shit out of someone should the need arise, Jake had no doubt.
Anyone in a law-enforcement field tended to make Jake nervous. Even though he hadn’t been arrested since high school. And even then, no charges had ever been formally filed.
He deserved it, at least in one case. Stealing money out of the register of the farm and garden where he worked had been pretty low. Especially considering how nice the owners had been. But while he’d been cuffed and taken down to the station, in the end the owners had said there must’ve been some mistake. A little scaring him straight combined with some mercy he knew he hadn’t deserved.
Cassie looked past Jake and smiled. That was not a smile he’d ever seen directed at him and he found himself feeling annoyed that the other man was on the receiving end of it. “Hi, Deputy Garrett. The usual?”
“Yes, Cassie, thank you.”
“Of course. Deputy Garrett, do you remember Jake from high school?”
Great. Now he had to be friendly. He took a breath and turned so that he was facing Eli, then held out his hand. “Jake Caldwell. Back in town for a bit.” He didn’t need to be intimidated. And he didn’t need to stand there feeling ashamed of who he’d been.
“Yeah,” Eli said before accepting Jake’s offered hand and shaking it firmly. “I remember you.”
“That might not be a good thing.”
“Do any of us really want to be remembered for who we were in high school?”
That was a bit more kindness then Jake expected. “I don’t guess.”
“So, what brings you back into town? Moving home?”
Jake bristled at the description of Copper Ridge as home. “My dad died. He left me his estate. I’m just back to get the ranch and things into shape before I put it on the market.”
“Sorry about that.”
“It wasn’t unexpected.” Which was sort of an odd response, but he wasn’t going to stand around and pretend to be grieving. Not considering that he hadn’t even seen his father once in the fifteen years since he left. No one was more surprised than he was that the old man had left him the place.
He nearly snorted. The place and all the shit in it. Junk on the front lawn, stacks of paperwork he would need six months to get through.
“Even so,” Eli said, “sorry to hear it.” Cassie handed a cup of coffee back to him and Eli handed her a five dollar bill before nodding once. “See you around.” He turned and walked away.
“You make a practice of serving customers in front of the line last?” Jake asked, directing the question a Cassie.
“No, it’s just that Deputy Garrett is a busy man.”
“You don’t think I’m a busy man?”
Color flooded her cheeks, and he couldn’t deny that he took a small amount of pleasure in having rattled her. “I’m sure you are. Speaking of busy, you must want your muffin.”
“I would. I would like my muffin.” He didn’t really care about the muffin.
