Chapter Twenty
“Test logs on the Richardson well.”
Jase looked up as the computer printouts hit his desk. Kendall, the only woman he employed, smiled down at him. He leaned back in his chair. Woman? She was a girl, a twenty-year-old enrolled at the community college in Victoria, though the way she raked her eyes down his chest indicated she wanted to grow up in a hurry.
“Thanks,” he said, eager to verify what he suspected to be a major gas pocket.
“You’ve been working a lot,” Kendall said, planting a hip on his desk.
“I always work a lot.”
“If you ever want a break…”
“If I want a break, I’ll take one,” he clipped.
Kendall headed for the door. “Just let me know…”
Yeah. Not going to happen, not when Cassie Mitchum invaded his every thought, waking or sleeping. It wasn’t just an invasion. It was a pillaging. And it burned. While he worked and sweated and ached, it was there. It never went away. He saw her stormy eyes every time he closed his. He saw her beneath him and the way she looked at him with those eyes, the only man in the room, hell, in the entire world. Yeah, she’d looked at him like that.
He’d wanted to maintain a relationship with her—long-distance and out of harm’s way. But he’d royally screwed up any chance at that the day Daphne attacked her. Seeing her hurt had cut him deeper than that damned brick, and at the time, he’d been relieved by her leaving. But every day that passed without hearing from her dug deeper into an already festering hole in his heart.
With concerted effort, he flipped through the pages before him, pleased at what he saw. He wasn’t so pleased when Kendall rapped on his open door. “Someone here to see you, boss.”
“Who is it?” he asked, not lifting his eyes from the logs.
“A landman.”
Jase’s heart leapt into his throat. He cleared it in a hurry. “Send her in.”
“Um…it’s a guy.”
“Whatever,” Jase said, waving away his disappointment. He straightened his leg under his desk and winced at the pain. Every last drop of it. What was that Tennyson quote? Better to have loved and lost? What an effing crock. This shit with Cassie hurt worse than any injury he’d ever sustained.
Speaking of hurt, Daphne was still lurking around Marian but keeping her distance, thank God. And neither he nor Clint had seen or heard from Oscar. Sad thing was, none of it mattered anymore. He no longer had a claim on Cassie Mitchum. And neither did Oscar.
As for Clint and the land? That was a whole different matter. The attorneys were holding that up. Jase couldn’t sign the lease and get Cassie her override until Clint signed the deed, and the deed wasn’t ready. To top it off, neither were convinced they were done with Oscar Martinez. Jase had experienced it in battle—that tense waiting before all hell broke loose. It wasn’t his favorite feeling in the world.
When the landman in question came sauntering into his office, clad in a pink gingham button-down and skinny khakis, Jase suppressed a frown. And not just because “skinny” pants were a thing. The sight of Kyle Kidd brought up questions Jase wasn’t sure he could make himself ask. He settled on a simple one to start. “What can I do for you?”
Kyle snorted and plunked his thin ass on one of the chairs opposite the desk. “To start, you can explain why Cassie hightailed it back to Nacogdoches.”
That had been one of his questions. “That’s where she is?” he asked, relieved to know for certain.
“Yeah, asshole. What did you do?”
She hadn’t shared. Jase let the dig slide.
“If she’s still speaking to you,” Jase said, “please tell her I intend to make good on my offer. She’ll know what I’m talking about.”
“Of course she’s still speaking to me,” Kyle sneered. Then he leaned forward. “I’m serious. What did you say or do to her?”
Despite the knife twisting his gut, Jase was glad Cassie had such a loyal friend. “I broke up with her.”
“For that ex of yours?”
Had she told him that? He’d hinted but kept his words careful. Kyle must want it from the jackass’s mouth. “It was for her own good.”
“Right.” Kyle rolled his eyes. “I’d hoped for better from you.”
Jase crossed his arms over his desk. “Don’t get me wrong, man. I care for that girl, and I’m not about to see her hurt.”
“Too late for that.”
His chest constricted, enough to overcome the throbbing in his leg. But he wouldn’t let it show, not in front of Cassie’s best friend.
Kyle stood, all business. “I’m sure you know her mother’s health is deteriorating. What you may not know, is that she had a hell of a lot riding on your lease.”
“I know that. In fact, I—”
Kyle planted his hands on Jase’s desk. “Good. I’m here to make sure she gets the damn override.”
He respected the hell out of Kyle for showing up to demand something Cassie had worked so hard for. That took a lot of balls. “She’ll get the override.” Even if it kills me.
“That’s what I wanted to hear.” Kyle flipped his bangs out of his eyes. Do guys have bangs? It reminded him of Cassie, although the move was more teen heartthrob and less sexy businesswoman.
“There’s more.”
He cocked an eyebrow at Kyle, not trusting himself to speak. If it was something bad involving Cassie or her mother, Jase wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop himself from hauling ass to Nacogdoches.
“Before she left, she was working on the Neely lease.”
Jase ground his teeth at that but allowed Kyle to continue.
“I’m not sure if that one will come through, but that’s none of your business.” Kyle stopped, and Jase sensed him suppressing another sneer. “Yesterday, our boss offered her another tract. I’m guessing to lure her back down here. It’s small, only ten acres, but everything helps.”
“If it’s none of my business, why are you telling me?” And dammit, why couldn’t he just let the man talk? If it concerned Cassie, he wanted to know, whether he needed to or not, and his defensive attitude wasn’t helping. But he’d been building that defense since she’d left, fortifying his emotions and keeping himself on guard with everyone. He refused to let on how badly he missed her, how his life felt desolate and useless.
“It’s your business because I understand the landowner happens to be one of your rig hands. Claude Lemioux. I want to make this one as easy as possible for her so she can get the signature, land the override, and not have to spend any more time back here than she has to.”
She’s coming back? His heart leapt at the thought of seeing her…right before it crash-dived into the pit of his stomach
Did she still not understand he’d pushed her away for her own safety? Fuck. He ought to spank her ass for even thinking of returning. But because of his smooth-as-silk actions, he had exactly zero claim on her and even less say in what she did or where she went.
“I need Mr. Lemioux’s contact info, and it wouldn’t hurt if you’d…exert your influence. Talk up the lease, pave the way, so to speak. If you can do that, I’ll hammer out the terms with him. I’m already working on the title research, so all Cassie will have to do is hand him a pen.”
“You’d do that for her?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
Absolutely.
He’d never convince her not to return, not with her mother’s future at stake. Hell, he couldn’t even convince her to return a phone call. The least he could do was help her wring every cent she could from one of the most corrupt industries on the planet.
“I can do one better,” Jase said.
Kyle’s eyes gleamed, and Jase liked the man even more.
“Come on,” he said, and set his desk chair spinning in his haste to escort Kyle to Rig Three.
…
Out her mother’s nursing home window, the last vestiges of the southern pine belt met East Texas bottomland. The dark forest had long been a haven for smugglers and outlaws and those seeking reprieve from the outside world. The Big Thicket. Beautiful and dangerous, Cassie finally understood the urge to flee into its depths, even though it reminded her exactly of him.
“You still there?” Kyle asked.
Cassie adjusted her cell phone and watched her mother struggle to connect the straw in her water glass to her mouth. “Yeah, I’m here.”
“I found him.”
“Found who?”
“Claude Lemioux.”
Cassie sat upright in the chair next to her mother’s bed. “That was fast.”
“He’s all about it, too, Cass. He’s got three baby mamas and a mortgage on the land. But…”
The line went silent, and a thousand “but” scenarios raced through Cassie’s mind. Nothing she conjured could be worse than what she’d already gone through. “Out with it, buster.”
“He works for Jase.”
She hadn’t expected that and screwed her eyes shut in a desperate attempt to quell the storm of emotion boiling to the surface. Just the sound of his name hurt. “And?” she managed through her clenched jaw.
“And he just started a two-week hitch.” And that meant a trip to Claude Lemioux’s jobsite.
“Which rig?”
“Three.” Not that it mattered. She glanced at her mother. She’d bought her all new bedding a few days before. It had done nothing to brighten the room. And it sure as hell hadn’t changed the fact that her mother’s day nurse, Shelly, now carried a huge grudge since Cassie had complained about the shower incident. No, getting her mother moved was the only thing that mattered.
“And Jase knows.”
Her phone slipped to the scuffed linoleum floor.
Great. On both accounts.
“What is it?” her mother asked.
“Nothing,” she mumbled and scooped up her phone. “I’ll call you later, Kyle. And thanks. I owe you.”
“You owe me nothing, girl.”
They hung up, but Cassie held tight to her phone, her knuckles white. Hell of a coincidence, wasn’t it? She couldn’t sign the Lucas lease. Neely remained up in the air. And the only sure bet entailed a roulette round-trip to one of Jase’s busiest drill sites.
“What’s his name?” her mother asked quietly.
Cassie glanced over the bed, her heart thudding in her chest, heavy and hard. She swallowed, unsure how to answer. She hadn’t brought up Jase since that ill-fated phone conversation when her mother had mistaken him for Reid. It had broken her heart. Then Jase had mended it, he’d—Oh God—she couldn’t even think about it. “Who are you referring to?”
“The man you ache for.”
Did she remember? Cassie drew a steadying breath and decided to answer her, no matter where the conversation went. “Jason Lucas,” she whispered.
“A strong name.”
“For a strong man.” Cassie pictured that man telling her he loved another. She felt his lips crushing hers, his heart beating wildly against her chest.
“And why are you sitting here when I can see you want to be with him?”
“He broke it off.”
Her mother narrowed her eyes, or tried to, a lioness protecting her cub to the death, even with impaired facial movement. “I hope he had a damn good reason.”
She’d never kept anything from her mother, not even her first time. That particular incident seemed distant now, the pain an entirely different thing. But how do you tell someone about a person they’d already been introduced to?
Honestly.
And with a resigned sigh, the twisted love story came spilling out, including that damned phone conversation. Mortified but owning it, her mother finally asked, “Don’t you see he’s trying to protect you?”
“He could have been trying to protect me from a chupacabra, Mom. I get it. It was the way he did it.”
“Yes, but coyotes happen to be real.”
Oscar Martinez. Had he slunk closer or away since she’d been gone? Her heart beat up into her throat, and she told herself to calm the hell down. Jase had used his ex, his equally sick ex, to drive her away…back to her mom where she should have been anyway. Coyotes, chupacabras, freaking wooly mammoths. He didn’t need her. And he’d been willing to play dirty to make her see it. How do you stick around after that?
You don’t.
But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t be returning to Marian.
And what would she do when she ran into Mr. I Don’t Need You?
She looked up to see her mother slumping against her pillows. Her evening meds were kicking in. Her eyelids drooped, and a strange, drug-induced smile skirted her lips. Cassie feigned her own smile.
There were worse things than swallowing your pride.