Remington

Cassi’s car skidded to a stop in front of my cabin.

She leapt out. Slammed the door. Shouted my name.

“Remington Marshall! Get out here!”

Cassi always did have a temper on her. Her pout could drop a man to his knees. That little cock of her hip was a quick and dire warning to behave. And that eyebrow. That was the worst. As soon as her fingertip traced over that mischievous arch, even the bravest soul knew to surrender.

So, I always used to try to piss her off.

Who wouldn’t risk a good tongue-lashing from a beautiful girl like her?

I’d toss a water balloon in her window at night. A firecracker at her feet on the way to school. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d let the goats loose just before she had to feed them. Hard to chase a herd of hungry, garbage eating monsters when she was locked in the chicken coup.

When we were young, I’d fucked with her in every way but the best one. Why would I miss a chance to screw with her now?

“Hey, Sassy.” I reclined on the porch swing and crossed my legs on the railing. “Couldn’t resist the chance to see me again, huh?”

She stomped up the porch stairs. “Rem, I swear to God…”

Tabby gummed on Barbie and waved with four chubby fingers.

Cassi caught herself mid-profanity. “What in the…Harry Potter is this?”

The envelope smacked against the railing with a thud. The flap opened, revealing a stack of green as bright as the trees I’d chopped to earn it.

“That’s your advance, Cas.”

Worth it to watch her squirm. And money well spent to get that fabulous ass back to the cabin.

The two days we’d spent apart had lasted a goddamned eternity. Felt longer than the five years I’d gone without her. It wasn’t just her eyes, her voice, the sexy way she’d mewed when I’d finally taken the kiss that had been owed to me for half a decade. I’d spent so long dreaming of this woman that when I finally had her in my arms again, it seemed like yet another fantasy.

I had to see her again.

Her hand settled on her hip, and what a hip it was. The pair of tiny shorts covered her booty, but they were skin tight. She was a tiny, five-foot thing, but her pint-sized legs reached to her chin. Dark. Smooth. Just begging for a hand to run along that perfect skin.

She spat the word. “My advance?”

“Yeah.” I sipped a beer and pawed through the half dozen rocks, toys, and wood chips Tabby had placed in my lap. I found the coaster and set my bottle on the handmade bench beside me. “I thought you could use it. Get something pretty for yourself and some supplies for the kids.”

A wagging finger. Good sign. “What supplies for the kids?”

“Whatever you want. Finger paints or tricycles. More diapers. Do you know how many diapers this kid goes through in a day?”

She bit her lip. Now she was really cooking. “Are you even listening to yourself?”

“Yeah, you’re right. They’re too young for paints. Maybe get them some crayons. Oh, and one of those puffy plastic baby books. Tabby loves to gnaw on them.”

All one hundred and twenty pounds of Cassi bumbled onto my steps, seething with frustration, rage, and, presumably, an unquenchable lust that made her quite irritable.

“I told you.” She spoke through gritted teeth. “I’m not going to be their nanny.”

“And I decided I wasn’t going to take no for an answer.”

“That’s not how this works.”

“You’d be perfect for this job.”

It wasn’t just a tease. Goddamn it, I needed her help. She’d panicked me into believing the entire cabin was a death trap. Exposed outlets. Cabinets with cleaning products. Wobbly railings. I’d been so fucking terrified, I nearly slept in the truck with the kids buckled up tight in their car seats.

“I’m sure you could handle them yourself,” she said.

I couldn’t.

“Who wouldn’t want an expert around to show them the ropes?” I shrugged. “I also have handcuffs if you prefer. Blindfolds…”

“Rem.”

“Cassi.”

She crossed her arms. “Look, if you’re worried, there’s a big ol’ woods behind you. I’m sure there’s a pack of wolves that can show you how to raise a kid.”

“Won’t you at least consider it?”

“No.”

This was my fault. I shouldn’t have kissed her. I knew it’d be a mistake, even if it hadn’t felt like anything but the most right, honest, and most perfect thing in the world. For years, I’d hated myself for letting her go. At least in those few seconds pressed against her, I’d found a moment of peace.

“You know the kids would love you, right?” I nudged Tabby with my hand. She babbled and offered Cassi a handful of ground up cereal mixed with a bit of drool.

“Bababa,” Tabby said.

“See?” I took a breath. “Don’t make a baby beg.”

“She’s convincing.” Cassi gave her a big kiss on the cheek. “Where’s Melanie?”

I jerked a thumb behind me, into the house. “Playing with her dolls.”

“Are you sure?”

“That’s what she was doing five minutes ago.”

“…But you don’t know what she’s doing now?”

“There’s no houses for ten miles, so I think I’d notice an UBER pull up.”

Her mouth gaped. “You left her unsupervised in the house?”

“Relax.” I picked up the beer, offered her a sip, and drank the rest when she refused. “I hid my dad’s old magazines. No fires today. She can’t get into any trouble in there.”

Cassi didn’t believe me. She marched into the house, searched the living room then returned with a scowl. “Sure, she can’t get into any trouble in there.”

“That’s what I said.”

“You’re right. She’s not in there.”

“What?”

She rapped her fingernails on the door. “I don’t see her.”

“She’s tiny. Look down.”

“I am looking down.” She headed into the house. “I’m looking everywhere, Rem. I don’t see her!”

I rolled my eyes and hauled the baby into my arms. “I’m sure she’s playing.”

Cassi ducked into the kitchen, checking the cabinets that weren’t nailed shut. “Seriously. I can’t find her.”

Great. This morning we’d played a rousing game of wake-up-Uncle-Remington-by-jumping-between-his-legs-so-we-never-get-a-cousin. At lunch, Mellie delighted me with her one-act play, I-don’t-want-to-eat-that-I-don’t-like-chicken-even-though-I-ate-it-twice-yesterday. And just before Tabby’s nap, I learned of a new sport, scream-so-the-baby-won’t-sleep.

Now it was hide-and-seek. I couldn’t take much more of this. When did we play my favorite pastime, drink-until-the-whiskey-tastes-good?

“Mellie!” I shouted down the hall. “Get out here.”

“Mellie?” Cassi checked the bedrooms. The cabin wasn’t huge. She scoured the potential closets in less than a minute. “Mellie, where are you?”

Damn it. I shifted Tabby to the other arm and pulled a blanket off the couch. “Mellie, come here so Uncle Rem doesn’t stroke out.”

“Rem, I don’t think she’s here.”

“Of course she’s here. She’s just hiding.”

Cassi extended her arms. “Where?”

Good freaking question. “I wasn’t outside for long.”

“Why is the backdoor open?”

“I was letting the place air out. Started to smell like Clorox scrubbing pads and baby wipes, and no, I didn’t mix them up.”

Cassi hadn’t worried me yet, but that pit of dread bundled in my gut. That fucked-up sense when the tree crashed down the wrong way and the widow branches aimed for whosever head was closest.

“All right.” I sucked in a quiet breath. “Let’s say…hypothetically…if a kid happened to wander outside without me knowing…how far could they toddle?”

“Rem!”

“Hypothetically.”

“There’s a three-year-old lost in the woods?”

Cassi crashed through the back door and rushed into the yard. The trees bordering my property closed in hard and fast. The canopy engulfed the house, and the thick weeds, ferns, branches, and rocks cluttered the clearing below. The yard was overgrown to the point of strangulation, but a path spread beyond the forest’s edge. The evening sun penetrated in spots, long shafts of golden light. Right out of a Disney movie.

Just the spot a princess would love.

“Mellie!” My voice echoed off the trees. “Come here!”

Cassi must have mentally mapped the entire forest. She scoured the tree line. “Okay. She couldn’t have gotten far.”

“Maybe the wolves took her.”

“Be serious.”

“She’d probably be better off with them than me.”

What sort of man lost a little girl in the damned woods? My gut churned. I wasn’t cut out for the baby-sitting gig, but this was a new level of incompetence.

I swore. “I only took my eyes off of her for a few minutes.”

“That’s all it takes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought you knew better than to let a little girl wander off in a freaking forest!” Cassi sucked in a calming breath. “How many minutes is a few?”

“Five.” A lie. “Maybe ten.” Didn’t make me feel better. “Fifteen?”

“Jesus, Rem.” The temper flared again, but Cassi contained it. Barely. “Fine. We’ll go looking. Let’s get a flashlight and a first-aid kit.”

My heart nearly stopped. “A first-aid kit? Why?”

“We don’t know how long we’ll have to look, and if she’s hurt…”

“Don’t even say it.”

I wasn’t hearing it. I rushed to the house. The first-aid kit was easy, some prissy little white box Cassie had insisted I buy at the store. No luck on the flashlight. I hurried outside and gestured for her to follow me to the workshop adjacent to the house. “Flashlight is in there.”

Cassi matched my pace. “And so is Mellie, if I had to guess.”

“I told her the shop is off-limits.”

“But you weren’t watching her.”

Just what I needed—a toddler stashed away in the most dangerous place on the property. Rusted tools hung from waning pegs. Old machinery with no guards for little fingers waited in the corners. Splinters, spiders, and shards of wood covered the floor. What had been my dad’s old shop was now my mess. I’d meant to get some work done on the inside—clean it up, start making some carpentry pieces again. Not like I’d get the chance if I had to balance two little girls around a band saw.

“Mellie?” I slapped the light switch. The old fluorescents flickered, but it took a while for them to hum. I searched between the old machines. No kid. No blood either. That was good.

As long as she wasn’t smooshed under an old wood pile.

“Mellie, come here.”

I’d kept an old flashlight pegged into a workbench, but the batteries had worn out long ago. I swore.

“Shit.” I pointed to Cassi. “Start looking. Check out front again. I’ll grab some batteries and search the back of the house. Call me if you find her.”

The baby started to cry, but Cassi shushed her as she jogged away.

My stomach plummeted to my feet and tripped over the gravel.

What the hell was I supposed to do in a situation like this?

Did I call the sheriff? Get a search crew?

Did I shout her name to scare her home?

What if she was lost? What if she’d gotten hurt?

For Christ’s sake, she was only three, and those had been some rough-ass years with her mom. Hopefully she wouldn’t remember much of this when she was older—especially when her good-for-nothing uncle lost her in a forest because he was too stupid to check on a suspiciously silent toddler.

I burst into the house, racing for the batteries.

A tiny voice greeted me from the living room.

Mellie sat on the couch, big smile on her face, reading from an upside-down children’s book.

“I want chocolate milk,” she said. “Read me a story?”

The girl was thirty pounds of absolute chaos, and she’d drop me to my knees. I clutched the wall.

“Cassi.” My words were too gruff. I shouted outside. “I found her.”

Cassi ran inside, cradling Tabby and sinking against the wall in relief as Mellie volunteered to read her an excerpt of Cinderella even though she held the Frozen book in her hand.

“Oh, thank God.” Cassi couldn’t catch her breath. “Did you put her up to this?”

If only. Might have worked better than the three hundred bucks I’d stuffed in the envelope. “Nope.”

She sighed. “You okay?”

“Twenty-seven is a good age for an aneurysm.”

She groaned, her head striking the wall. Tabby liked that. She giggled as Cassi did it again.

“Okay. You got me.” Cassi’s surrender was as beautiful as it was absolutely necessary. “I think I might stick around for a couple days.”

“You won’t regret it.”

“Already do.” She closed her eyes. “You’re a bad influence on me, Remington Marshall.”

Hell, even I knew that. It was why I left Butterpond in the first place. Cassi Payne deserved better than a man like me. But now I needed her more than ever.

“You afraid of a little trouble, Sassy?”

She approached, handing the baby off and smirking. “You aren’t a little trouble. You’re the worst kind of bad boy.”

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

“Because you’re the type who thinks he can turn good.”