Unfinished Hero 04 Deacon (17 page)

Oh God.

I stared in his eyes and remembered what he’d
said the night before, remembered what he’d communicated the first
time I saw him.

Oh
God
.

He didn’t do that
ever
.

“Now you’re gonna make me cry,” I informed
him, my voice underlining my words.

Humor flickered in his eyes as he muttered,
“Jesus, you’re so much of a woman, you’re more woman than any woman
I’ve met.”

I started getting peeved again.

“You say that like it’s bad,” I replied
sharply.

“Hang on, Cassidy, I’m still adjusting to
your last mood swing.”

I glared at him and saw the crinkles by his
eyes.

He was teasing.

“Don’t be playful when I’m feeling
emotional,” I ordered.

To this, he strangely replied, “You get I’m a
badass.”

“Hard to miss, Deacon,” I returned.

“Then don’t tell me when to be playful.
Badasses don’t like that shit.”

His words were so ridiculous (though
undoubtedly true), I couldn’t stop from grinning.

He caught my grin and requested, “Can we keep
this mood for five minutes?”

I shrugged. “Sure.”

“Obliged,” he muttered, the crinkles still
radiating from his eyes.

I put my hands to the ridges of his abs and
slid them up his chest.

He stroked my cheek and dropped closer.

“You wanna clean up?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah,” I answered quietly too.

“Then shuteye or you wanna sit on my
face?”

I blinked.

Then I squirmed.

His gaze heated as he muttered, “Sit on my
face.”

“There it is,” I muttered back. “More
happy.”

I saw the light in his eyes as he dropped
even closer.

“Baby, that pussy on my mouth, your ass in my
hands, the noises you make fillin’ the room, knowin’ I get to drive
deep in your wet, tight cunt while you’re still moanin’ for me.
Then after I give it to you, and you give it to me, I get to bed
down with you tucked tight. You don’t think that makes me happy,
you’re fuckin’ crazy.”

I squirmed more but this time it wasn’t just
a turned-on squirm. It was a turned-on
happy
squirm.

He felt it and gave me another grin before he
gave me another order.

“Go, clean up.”

“Okay, honey.”

He touched his mouth to mine, pulled out, and
rolled off.

I rolled the other way and dashed to the
bathroom.

I closed the door.

But when I got there, I looked in the mirror
and saw my long hair wild, my eyes soft and sated, my skin
flushed.

My hair looked sexy like that, even I had to
say so.

My eyes looked amazing.

My flushed skin made me look vibrant and
alive.

I looked like I’d been fucked hard.

And I’d never looked happier.

I’ll Have Pie

Six weeks later, I sat in my Adirondack chair
on my porch, feet up to the railing, eyes to the rain falling soft
and steady on the trees. My heart was heavy even though I had my
phone to my ear and was listening to my mother talk about the
family reunion she had suddenly gotten a wild hair to have and was
therefore planning.

“Early August, Cassidy, five cabins and we’re
paying. No argument.”

She said “no argument” because she’d birthed
me. She knew me. She knew me even before I was born, telling me
(and anyone who would listen) that I had a lot to say with the
amount of kicking and moving I did before I came out. So she wasn’t
surprised I came out bawling.

She knew I would argue.

And she was right.

“Mom, first, I have two guest bedrooms at my
house so Titus doesn’t have to pay. He and Bessie can stay with me.
I know things are tight since Bessie got laid off.”

“Titus isn’t paying. Your father and I
are.”

At this, my eyes got huge and my voice
pitched higher. “Mom, are you crazy? Titus will lose his alpha mind
if you and Dad try to pay for his cabin.”

“He’ll get over it.”

There it was. She
was
crazy. My
brother would never get over it. And thus, Christmases—Christmases
that the family now usually spent with me at Glacier Lily (this
being what I’d arranged after Deacon had his words with me that
Christmas years ago, not a hardship for my family since my cabins
were
awesome
)—would be a pain in the ass because my baby bro
would show. He would show because he loved me, he loved my sister,
and he doted on Lacey’s kids.

So he’d show.

But he’d do it brooding. And Titus brooding
was no fun.

“How’s this for a compromise?” I started.
“Titus and Bessie stay with you in your cabin. That way they only
have to pay half.”

“Honey, one day, pray to God, you have your
own children. And then, pray to God, you’ll rejoice every day for
decades at the beauty you created. Beauty, if it’s a boy, you don’t
want to hear enjoying his wife in the next room. And, just saying,
vice versa if it’s a girl with her man.”

Instantly, my mouth stretched out and down at
the idea of hearing my little brother banging his wife. Something I
knew he did, and regularly. This knowledge coming not only because
that was what married people did, but also because two years ago,
Mom and Dad had hosted Titus and Bessie’s rehearsal dinner at the
ranch and Dad had walked in on them doing it in the upstairs
bathroom.

This caused Bessie to scream, Titus to shout,
and Dad to slam the door, rush down the stairs and out of the
house, mumbling, “Gotta feed the horses,” when he most definitely
did not have to feed the horses in the middle of my brother’s
rehearsal dinner.

According to Lacey, Dad didn’t look Bessie
straight in the eyes for ages.

Fortunately, he’d gotten over that.

Reminded of this, I replied, “I take your
point.”

“I’m sure you do,” Mom returned. “Now, five
cabins. One for your dad and me. One for Lacey, Matt, and the kids.
One for Uncle Gideon and Aunt Mellie. One for Aunt Rachel. And one
for Titus and Bessie.”

“Mom, you’ve been here. My cabins all have
two bedrooms. You don’t need to pay for that many cabins if folks
bunk up. And I’m not talking Titus with you. But Aunt Rachel could
bunk with you and Dad.”

“Don’t you have that many cabins open in
August?” Mom asked.

I had no idea. I had a lot of advanced
bookings, but since it was early May, I probably wasn’t that
booked.

I reached beside me to the laptop I’d put on
the arm of the chair next to mine, ordering, “Give me dates. I’ll
check.”

She gave me dates as I opened the laptop. I
checked. Then I gave in and booked the five cabins for Mom.

“Thanks, angelface,” she said when I told her
I’d done just that.

“Alternate scenario,” I replied. “Dad can
take this off the money I owe him.”

I suggested this but I knew it would be
wasted breath. This was because Mom and Dad always paid for their
cabins when they came.

“Your father is in a good mood so I’m not
even suggesting that to him,” Mom returned.

“Whatever,” I muttered and heard her
chuckle.

“Not looking forward to seeing us?” she
asked, knowing it was a stupid question.

But I was in a bad mood. A bad mood I’d been
in for weeks. A bad mood that probably wasn’t going to turn good,
maybe for eternity.

“Don’t ask stupid questions,” I answered.
“You’re just ornery and that’s annoying.”

“Takes one to know one,” she retorted.

“Can you stop annoying me now?” I
requested.

“I’m a mother. It’s my job to be
annoying.”

“Well, you’re good at it.”

I heard more chuckling then she said, “It’s
your father’s night to go into town and commune with his cronies.
So it’s my night to have a bath long enough to turn me into a
prune, something I won’t care about because I’ll be lost in a
romance novel.”

I used to read romance because my mother
taught me to read romance, considering she had approximately seven
gazillion romance novels ready at hand at all times (with her iPad,
this was now literally). I loved romance novels. There was a lot to
love, but especially the happy endings.

Now I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that
was all a big bag of hooey, so I was considering burning all of my
romance novels in the fireplace.

And I was going to add my DVDs.

“Enjoy,” I said quietly.

“I will, Cassie. Talk with you soon, honey.
Love you.”

“Love you too, Mom.”

I heard her disconnect and I did the same,
closing my laptop and setting it and my phone on the arm of the
chair next to me, taking that opportunity to nab the glass of wine
I had sitting there.

I again trained my eyes to the trees, taking
a sip, seeing and hearing the soft fall of rain, trying to focus on
that, clear my head, and not let the thoughts of the last three
weeks that had been crowding my mind take over.

A fruitless endeavor.

They took over, like they always did.

And this was because Deacon and I were done.
We hadn’t even started and we were finished.

He did not tell me this. I just knew we were.
I didn’t know how it happened. I just knew it did.

And I was sitting, listening to the rain,
sipping wine, trying not to let this knowledge destroy me.

The time we had when we got together was
great. It was short, but it was wonderful.

The sex was a highlight, for certain. Even
with seven years abstinence, apparently it was like riding a bike
because Deacon was far from rusty.

But the rest of the time was what made that
hope I always stupidly let myself feel bubble over.

This was because Deacon was mellow. Always.
Not that anything happened to make him angry, but his manner was
such that I wasn’t sure he could
get
angry.

Case in point, he didn’t drive his Suburban
cursing at people who cut him off or went too slow, something that
happened more than once (something that I did do, and pretty much
everyone on earth who was breathing). No reaction from Deacon. He
just drove. Further, he didn’t get annoyed when I pushed it about
paying for the dog.

He didn’t get anything.

But Deacon.

He was steady. Relaxed. All this in a way
that communicated itself to me and made me feel the same way.

Although mellow, he was alert, communicative
(in his way), and most of all, present. So very
present
. I
didn’t know how he did it but he was with me in a way I’d never
felt before. A way that I knew he was
with me
. Even if he
wasn’t touching me, speaking to me, being overt about anything, he
was still
with me
. And he made it clear in his Deacon way
that he liked being right there.

With me.

Needless to say, it was easy to settle into
that. So easy, it took only two days for it to feel real. For it to
feel like what we had was forming roots in preparation for growing
strong.

He left and did his job and was back at
Glacier Lily in a week, which was awesome. And we went right back
to what we had the short time before he went off to do his job.

When he got back, he told me he’d have a week
or two to be with me. But he got a call two days in that he’d
said—appearing frustrated (mildly) and disappointed (definitely,
although I didn’t know him that well, so over the past weeks I
convinced myself I read that wrong)—he had to take a bud’s
back.

Again, he couldn’t predict when he’d return
to Glacier Lily, just that he would.

The first time he went, he gave me a phone
number. I called it and sometimes he answered, sometimes he didn’t
and he’d call me back later. If he didn’t answer, it said its
voicemail was not activated, but clearly its call history was
because he’d later phone me.

We didn’t talk for hours, but we
connected.

It wasn’t as good as having him but it was
good. Specifically the time when we did talk for hours (or, just
over one). This time being the time I shared with him my concerns
about hitting non-peak season: the sliver of time after winter and
spring break ended and the summer high season began.

With the aspens turning gold and the dry
climate warm during the day, cool during the evening, autumn was
popular in the Colorado Mountains.

Late spring, early summer, not so much.

This made it tough. Tough to find things for
Milagros to do when she needed things to do because she needed the
money. Tough to cover the money to keep her doing things and keep
myself covered as well.

I rented the cabins steadily and made enough
money to live comfortably, but far from luxuriously.

I didn’t want luxury, had never wanted it. I
might one day get it (or some semblance of it), though not soon as
I’d taken a second mortgage to do some of the work on the house and
cabins and I still hadn’t paid off my dad.

So spring always was a bitch.

And this was what I told Deacon (though I
didn’t get into the second mortgage stuff, just the complaining
about non-peak season stuff). I did this feeling the contradictory
feelings of weird and maybe a little frightened we hadn’t yet
gotten to the place where I could unload my life on him and elated
I finally had someone to unload my life on.

“Up the rates.”

That was what he said when I finally quit
babbling.

“What?” I asked.

“You rent those cabins too cheap, Cassidy.
They’re the shit. Up the rates.”

I was experiencing a heady warmth from his
they’re the shit
that was somewhat overwhelming but I still
managed to ask, “You think I could get away with that?”

“A year ago, two, no. Economy was in the
tank. No matter how great your cabins are, you’d have to take that
hit to get them rented. Now, you got the business you got because
people are gettin’ a deal. They know it. You up nightly rates by
ten, twenty dollars, weekly rates by fifty, they’d still rent them,
because they might not be getting a deal, but they’re still the
shit. You do that, helps you during the lean times.”