Chapter Two
For the first time in a long time as she waited for Artie to turn off the big overhead restaurant sign, Cassidy wasn’t eager to ride home. She found herself lingering, one foot on the curb, the other on her bike pedal, letting the cool October night air wash over her. The restaurant seemed so desolate now without the lights and the kids and the bustle. And no matter what she’d done, whether zooming around with food trays like a crazy person or comforting a sweet boy with a tummy ache, all thoughts revolved around Mason. She played and re-played every word he’d said. She wondered if he had a girlfriend. But mostly she remembered the gut punch of seeing him, all six foot three inches of smooth sculpted muscle, patiently signing autographs outside his car.
In a way, it was touching to see a man that big and splendidly masculine holding the crayon stubs his eager fans dug out of their floorboards and gloveboxes to offer him. He was so easy with the kids, too, teasing some, nodding solemnly to others. With his broad shoulders, narrow hips and short dark hair, he would have attracted attention even if he hadn’t been a local sports hero and multi-millionaire. He was an athletic sponsor’s dream, his crooked half-smile both roguish and charming—and at this point, splashed across almost every souvenir the Dallas Lone Stars sold. Not that she’d paid much attention, of course.
She waved to Beth and Darlene, wincing when the back-end of Darlene’s Buick went KER-whump exiting the parking lot. Beth lived three blocks from Darlene, so it was an easy drop off. Cassidy preferred her bike. She worked the nightshift on Thursday and Saturday, even though Artie frequently told her not to. “You’re young. Go have a life,” he’d say, betraying the soft heart he tried to hide behind a grouchy exterior. But Cassidy didn’t want a life. She wanted exactly what she had: Lexie, her family, and her grandmother’s old ramshackle house with its wide front porch, its whispering sycamores, its thousand memories of when Grams was alive. Dad had made a tire swing for Lexie in the yard before she was even big enough to reach it.
“Having a life” led to trouble, Cassidy reminded herself. She should know. It led to longing and heartache and a bunch of other stuff it didn’t pay to think about. Stuff that always pointed back to Mason.
And now Mason was here.
She pedaled slowly past the deserted shops and empty parking spaces, past the half-barrels on the sidewalk brimming with early-season petunias. The big water tower with the word Cuervo on it, squat like a gnome with stick legs, loomed reassuringly against the night sky. A breath of wind brought with it the mossy smell of the creek and the sleepy chirping of crickets. The gravelly bark of the Wilsons’ Great Dane, Boomer, sounded from two streets over.
Cassidy felt her heart swell as it always did when she rounded the corner and saw her sister’s bakery, Sweet Dreams, with its gilt lettering on the storefront window. Lexie loved her Aunt Maggie, something a mom learned to use to her advantage when trying to motivate a nine-year-old to do things she didn’t like to do. A trip to Maggie’s bakery with its yeasty aroma of dough rising and bread baking, of chocolate chunk macadamia nut cookies and fresh-brewed coffee, guaranteed that school work got done quickly and well. And there Maggie would be, up to her elbows in flour, singing along to the Frank Sinatra records playing on Grams’ old turntable.
No, Cassidy knew how lucky she was. Being a single mom had been tough, no doubt about it. So far, neither Parker nor his family had shown any interest in his daughter. But she preferred it that way. What if they were constantly wrangling for custody in court? What if Lexie couldn’t spend Christmases with the only family she’d known, the only family that loved her?
Cassidy spotted Mason’s car parked in front of the Double Aces Bar & Saloon and braked hard enough to skid. She froze, petrified that he might see her and think she was stalking him. Of course, he would go there with his friends. Not much else to do in a town this small. She could easily imagine the reception they’d gotten from regulars who’d watched every game on Dougie’s big screen. There were a handful of women who sometimes hung out there, too. Kayla, for instance. With her boobs. Cassidy refused to let herself think about Kayla.
She slid off her ten-speed and walked it across the street where the awnings created deep shadow. He couldn’t see her now, but through the window she could see him perfectly. He and his friends were shooting pool. For a moment she just stood there taking it in, the lazy dangerous strength of his body as he lined up a shot, his easy smile, the way his forearms rippled beneath the rolled-up shirt sleeves. And despite her earlier contentment, a wave of desire crashed over her so fiercely her knees went weak.
It had been so long since she’d felt anything close to sexual hunger, at first she didn’t recognize it. When she did, a terrible fear seized hold of her. She felt a little sick. Heat blistered her insides and raced to all her pulse points. For a second, she was fifteen again staring at hunky senior Mason Hannigan in his football jersey running drills out on the field.
No one looked at her the way he did, that slow perusal that started with her eyes and then dropped to her lips as though he might devour them. When she talked to him, everything he’d seen, experienced, knew, made him different from her. Better. Mason was not only a celebrity, he was possibly the most eligible bachelor in America. She was a single mom who fixed her own leaky faucets and mowed her own stubborn lawn. She worked at Artie’s Burger Express.
Ten years she’d spent doing damage control to her reputation. Ten long years trying to erase the shame of being a teen mom, of having had to clutch schoolbooks to her swollen belly in a vain attempt to disguise her condition. And while it was true that pregnant girls weren’t shipped off to distant relatives anymore, that didn’t mean people didn’t assume things about their character. Bad things. Cassidy had done everything within her power to make up for whatever disgrace her parents had suffered because of her.
But God help her, she wanted Mason with a hunger that hurt her pride. Still. After all these years. Wanted him with the same blind intensity she’d had when she was fifteen. She watched him sink another ball, mesmerized by his grace, by the economy of movement of the powerfully built. When he straightened up to chalk his pool cue, the breadth of his shoulders alone worked its way over her skin like a heat rash, winding down and around to parts of her it was way easier to pretend didn’t exist.
What a glorious male animal he was, lord of everything. She was Cinderella without the singing mice.
The best thing she could do was avoid him. In a gesture that felt as though a decision had been reached, that she was already moving forward, Cassidy braced one foot on her bike pedal. If she wanted him, she’d just have to find a way to deal with it until he went back to Dallas and his Super Bowl rings and supermodel girlfriends. After all, she was twenty-five now, not fifteen. Her eyes were wide open.
And if your eyes are open, she reminded herself as she launched the bike, you’re less likely to fall flat on your ass.
* * * *
It was going to be one of those mornings, Cassidy realized as she and Lexie stood panting on the sidewalk while the school bus chuffed merrily away.
“Well, Lexerina, it looks like we’ll be walking to school,” she said, shouldering the heavy backpack.
Lexie heaved a martyred sigh. “I hate it when you call me that.”
“Since when?”
“Since forever. I’m not two anymore.”
“That’s right. I keep forgetting.”
“If you call me Lexerina at school, I’m going to pretend I don’t know you.”
“That’ll be kinda hard since we totally look alike.”
Lexie made a pouty face that pulled all Cassidy’s maternal heartstrings, although she couldn’t show it. Adorable it may have been, but pouting wasn’t something a mom wanted to encourage.
“Explain to me again why your shoes and your homework were out on the front porch,” she said. “Especially since it took us twenty minutes this morning to find them.”
“Aunt April needed better cell phone reception.”
Cassidy herded Lexie across the street and onto the sidewalk. “Since when does Aunt April talk on her cell phone while you’re doing homework?” The information surprised her, especially since it was sweet, conscientious April—who’d just been hired by Raymond County as a social worker. On Cassidy’s late nights, one of her sisters or her mom came over to babysit.
Lexie paused by the Franklins’ rosemary bush as she always did to rub her hands on the leaves. The smell of rosemary wafted up, making them both inhale appreciatively before moving on.
“Aunt April got a million calls and messages last night,” Lexie said, sniffing her hands. “You know we don’t get good reception in the house.”
“What messages? Because of her work?”
“No, because of you.”
Cassidy felt her heart stutter like a bad car engine before wheezing back to life. Had someone seen her outside the Double Aces? Oh, what a horrible thought! What if they told Mason that she’d been lurking around, staring at him? Shame rose furiously in her cheeks. She hadn’t even so much as looked at a guy until Mason showed up. And now people were talking about her. Again. As though ten years of no dating, of always being there for her daughter, meant nothing at all.
“Mom, are you okay? Your face is all red.”
“I just want to know what business is it of theirs—”
“You’re not mad, are you? At Aunt April? Because she didn’t say anything mean, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s that football guy. What’s his name—Mason? Everybody saw the video and—”
“What video?”
“Of him signing autographs at Artie’s.”
“But what’s that got to do with me?”
“One of the dads took a video and posted it on Facebook. You can see Mason totally staring at you like a big creeper. Oh, but he’s super cute though, you know, if you like him. Everybody wanted to know if y’all were dating so they called Aunt April.”
Wow. Just… wow. Cassidy dragged the back of her hand across her perspiring forehead. She had no idea what everyone thought they saw on this alleged video, but why they were calling her sister and asking questions about her life made Cassidy want to scream, cry or hide. Preferably all three. At the same time. But she had to walk Lexie to school. She had to buck up and smile at people when they started asking her questions, which they would. If there was one thing Cassidy knew for sure, it was that in Cuervo, secrets were pocket change that nobody expected to keep.
“Well, it’s all a lot of nonsense,” she told Lexie as they crossed the high school football field. Lexie’s school was half a block past it, shaded by hundred-year-old cedars. “If anybody asks you, Lex, be sure to tell them you have no idea what they’re talking about. And that it’s rude to pry into other people’s business.”
“I don’t know why you’re so mad about it.” She shoved her rosemary-scented hands inside the pockets of her hoodie. “Isn’t he rich or something?”
“Uh, since when are we friends with people because they have money?”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Then what do you mean?”
“Aunt April and Aunt Maggie and me…”
Cassidy waited for her to finish that sentence, but her lips were already pressed together in a grimace of disapproval.
“And Grandma and Grandpa. We think it would be nice if you went out sometimes, you know, like a regular person.”
“I’m not a regular person?”
“No,” Lexie said, her eyes wide with earnest appeal. “You’re a mom.”
They covered the last quarter block in a reproachful silence that Cassidy hoped would put an end to further discussion of her love life. Or lack thereof. The relative peace of the football field gave way to a queue of yellow school buses erupting with kids. More kids yelled in the open-air hallways and burst into classrooms. The line of cars dropping off fretful grade-schoolers told Cassidy that the stressful morning had not been hers alone. Lots of parents were losing their minds.
“Where’s my hug?” Cassidy put her arms out, knowing what Lexie’s reaction would be.
Lexie grabbed her backpack for protection. “Here? In front of people?”
“Okay, I’ll just wait until you’re asleep like I always do.”
Lexie’s horrified expression was worth the effort it took to keep from laughing. Cassidy watched her daughter disappear in a crowd of other fourth-grade girls with ponytails and bright rubber wristbands.
Now all she had to do was run home and watch this ridiculous video everyone seemed so worked up about. Of course they were reading things into it that weren’t there. She and Mason were just old friends, and—
“Cassidy!”
With a feeling of pure dread, she spun around and saw her mother’s friend, Mrs. Connors, waddling toward her. She had a cigarette in her mouth, and they weren’t even off school property yet. Mrs. Connors collected cats and gossip with equal insatiability, and Cassidy wasn’t so much surprised to see her as she was surprised to see her here. Then she remembered that Mrs. Connors did a little substitute teaching. Mrs. MacFarland, the principal, must have called her in.
“Walk with me, Sugar.” Mrs. Connors steered her with one hand. “Can’t smoke in the teacher’s lounge, and now they don’t like me smoking where the kids can see.”
“Don’t you have to teach class?” Cassidy said, hoping she didn’t sound too desperate.
“Nah. Second period.” Behind a cedar only slightly wider than she was, Mrs. Connors whipped a silver lighter out of her smock, lit the cigarette, and took a long drag. “We smokers. They hunt us for sport, you know.”
“Mrs. Connors, I really—”
“You can spare an old woman two minutes. I’m not here to tease you about your beau.”
“Ah, see, that’s the thing. I don’t actually have a beau.”
“That right?” Mrs. Connors turned a sharp, all-seeing eye on her. “Says you, I suppose. But here’s what I got to tell you, and I want you to listen.”
Cassidy waited, but it cost her. Every cell in her body screamed at her to run away—not just back to her house, but back to last week before Mason Hannigan and nosy, camera-wielding Little League dads were even on her radar. For a second, Mrs. Connors’ face went blank, as though she couldn’t remember what she wanted to say. Then the bell rang announcing the start of the school day, and all the cogs and wheels in her head seemed to lurch forward again.
“Hell. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Hell.”
Cassidy’s heart sank. No way was she going to let herself get buttonholed into an impromptu church sermon by Alice Connors. “Listen, I have a thousand things I need to do before Lexie gets home.”
“I know all about you, Cassidy Roby. I know you’ve struggled. I know how hard it’s been for you to hold your head up after Parker Nolen dumped you. Where’s he hid himself these days—Houston? San Antonio?”
Utterly confused now, Cassidy stood blinking at her while the last of the stragglers yanked backpacks out of their parents’ cars and made the mad dash to class.
“So you made a mistake with that Nolen boy. Pfffft. Who cares? Only difference between you and everyone else is that you got caught.”
No, Cassidy thought, I am not having this discussion. Not with one of my mother’s friends. This stuff was personal. Even if Mrs. Connors meant well, talking about it in broad daylight felt like one of those dreams Cassidy had where she was standing naked in the line at Wal-Mart.
“You’ve always been my favorite of Priscilla’s girls,” she went on. “When Hank was alive, I always used to say to him, ‘That Cassidy’s got a lot of spunk’. But ever since your Lexie come along, you’ve been hibernating like a mama bear with her cub.”
“I have spunk?”
“Time to come out, Cass. Stop trying to apologize for something that happened a hundred years ago. Folks got no leave to judge anyway. Oh, sure, everything looks nice and tidy on the outside here in Cuervo. But all you need do is scratch a little and you’ll find that everybody’s got their own version of hell, a hell of their own making.”
“Mrs. Connors, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I gotta hunch that life is fixin’ to open a door for you real soon.” Mrs. Connors squinted against the cloud of smoke. “Spare your sweet mama the pain of watching her daughter slam that door shut again. It won’t be easy, I know. There are a whole bunch of folks here who won’t like seeing you rise above your place. Souls in hell always enjoy the company.”
“Are you saying that Cuervo is hell? I love Cuervo. I don’t—”
“You go on thinking that,” she said, crushing her cigarette butt underfoot. “But just you remember what I said.”
Stunned, Cassidy watched her tramp back to the school building. Was this what being a crash dummy felt like? She couldn’t get back to her house fast enough. All she wanted was to lock the door and hide there until all this craziness blew over.
She turned to go, but stopped mid-stride. Wait a minute.
Locking the door.
Wasn’t that what Mrs. Connors had warned her about?
* * * *
Finally.
Mason spotted Cassidy emerging from the football field, heading west. Three times he’d jogged around her daughter’s school. He had to take his morning run anyway, so why not kill two birds with one stone? He didn’t know if her daughter walked to school or rode the bus, but figured it was worth a try. But one more lap spent peering at all the kids and someone was going to call the cops.
Grabbing the hem of his T-shirt, he stopped to wipe his sweaty face and discovered that he’d have to set a harder pace if he wanted to catch her. Cassidy moved fast. She’d already barreled around the corner. Mason doubled down, glad he’d managed to out-pace Jasper and the others. He could lose them altogether if his luck held and then have a chance to talk to Cassidy without the chaperones.
He felt… What was the word for it? Alive. Like a light had been switched on. Maybe something had been missing from his life and until now he hadn’t realized what it was. Living in Dallas was great, everything he’d dreamed of and more—the three-story mansion with its magnificent indoor/outdoor pool. His 3,000-square-foot fishing cabin. His ten cars. But lately it seemed as though the house had gotten bigger, lonelier and emptier. Everyone he met only knew Mason Hannigan, Quarterback. No one remembered Mason Hannigan from Cuervo, the one who used to pitch a tent directly on the football field every night before a home game.
It had meant something different then. Winning wasn’t about the money or the advertising contracts. It was about the team. It was something Mason tried with all his might to hang on to even now. Especially now. It was one of the reasons he valued close friendships with his teammates, why he believed friendship to be the secret to their success. They weren’t just pro-athletes looking for personal glory. They were a team. Coming home for Coach’s award ceremony only reinforced that. Then he’d seen Cassidy again. Mason rounded the corner, expecting to catch sight of her. When he didn’t, he put on his after-burners and bolted to the end of the street. There she was in her cute pink running shorts and pink hoodie. He admired her tanned, lean legs, the way her hair blazed gold where the sun caught it, and the same tongue-tied feeling of the night before came over him. She seemed both different and familiar somehow, and all he could think about was getting close enough to find out if what he felt was real or just a high school flashback. “Cassidy!” he called to her.
When she turned, she was already on the porch of an old clapboard house. There was a fat orange tabby sleeping in a puddle of sun. Two sycamores grew in the front yard and their branches met in the center, forming a canopy. And there she stood with a kind of dazed expression, all pink and cheerleader-y, and she was so damned pretty it made it hard to concentrate on things like words. Just by breathing, she managed to cast a spell over him. He knew then that the memory of her gazing at him from the porch would burn itself into his brain cells forever. He would always see her just as she was in this moment, demure and sexy as hell, and the heat of it found its way right down to his stomach. “Hey,” he said, winded from chasing her but manfully determined to hide it. “This your house?”
Instead of answering, she whipped her gaze to a house across the street. A woman with pink foam rollers was giving them a hard stare through the window.
“Oh, boy. That’s Mrs. Felps, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Yep. And she’s got her phone in her hand.”
To hell with Mrs. Felps. He drew one hand over the back of his neck and hoped he didn’t smell too sweaty. Jasper said women dug the smell of male sweat, that he’d read it in Men’s Health magazine, but Mason had his doubts. He lifted the hem of his T-shirt again and scrubbed his face with it, surprised to see Cassidy feast her eyes on his abs and chest. What do you know, he thought, and his optimism took an upturn.
“Where’s your, uh, posse?” Cassidy asked, her cheeks a flaming testament to having peeked.
“If I had to guess, probably at the Double Aces, skulling beers. I make them run every day during the season. They hate it, but games won in the fourth quarter are always won because of cardiovascular conditioning… and I’m totally boring you, aren’t I?”
She flashed him a smile that made his heart do its own tiny wind-sprint. “Not even a little,” she said. “Who wouldn’t want to know how y’all manage to rack up so many victories?”
A lot of women, he wanted to say, but it pleased him that her interest seemed genuine. He dropped down on the porch steps and patted the place next to him. “Wait. I don’t suppose Mrs. Felps would let you get me a glass of water first, would she?”
“Be right back.”
He waited, listening to the screen door clatter and the sound of her feet retreating to the kitchen. The orange tabby heaved itself up, arched its back and then sat again, this time with its tail wrapped around its legs. Mason had the distinct impression of being sized up and found wanting. The cat slitted its eyes at him, one tom to another, and Mason thought, Better get used to it, buddy. I’m not that easy to get rid of.
“Here you go.” Cassidy handed him a glass of water. She sat, pulling her knees up to her chest, close enough for him to smell her bath soap and the light floral fragrance of her shampoo. Mason tried not to sniff her too obviously, but just sitting here beside her made him stupidly happy, as though the piercing blue sky and all those puffy little clouds, the thick syrupy sunshine, the chirping birds, had all been created just for them. It was like living inside an old-fashioned snow globe, only Texas style, with falling leaves instead of snow.
Every part of his body had a heightened awareness that she was next to him. He could reach out and touch her, if he dared. But he didn’t dare, not yet. Mason had a hunch that full contact would ignite a fuse in him that nothing in this life or the next could put out. Hell, he didn’t even know if she liked him, despite having caught her staring.
“It’s a sweet place you’ve got here,” he said, casting around for evidence of male occupation. Across the street, Mrs. Felps now had the living room curtains clutched in one hand and the receiver death-gripped in the other.
“Grams left it to me and Lexie just before she passed.” Cassidy stretched out her legs and Mason tried frantically to hold onto the thread of their conversation. Whoa, boy. Focus.
“So it’s just you and your daughter then?”
Oh, that was brilliant.
Cassidy slid him a look. “It never seems that way, but yes. My folks are just two blocks over.”
“Oh, hey, I saw your folks this morning.”
“You did?”
“Nobody comes through Cuervo without seeing Doak.” He hoped she didn’t think the visit to her parents was some lame attempt to get close to her, which it totally was.
“Did my mom invite y’all to dinner?”
“Yep.”
“Oh, well. A shame that I’ll probably be working.”
No, she wasn’t. After giving him a funny-but-not-exactly-disapproving stare, Priscilla Roby had referred to a calendar she’d posted on her refrigerator. The calendar had little stars penciled in above the same days each week. Mason guessed they were the days when Cassidy worked, and the granddaughter, Lexie, needed babysitting. “How about tonight?” Priscilla had asked him. “We can get the whole family together and make a special occasion out of it.”
“Have you ever fed a quarterback plus three offensive linemen?” he’d asked her.
“Can’t say that I have. But Doak can get the fryer out and we can fry a turkey just like we do on Thanksgiving.”
Since Doak didn’t argue, and Temple, Jasper, and Brian were all making hand signals urging him to say yes, and there was a photo of Cassidy on the refrigerator wearing a bathing suit and walking with her daughter on the beach (eyes front and center, Mason. Front. And. Center.), he’d agreed. Then he’d remembered Priscilla’s curious expression and worried if she was already on to him.
He’d never maneuvered this hard in his entire life.
“It’s tonight,” he told Cassidy. “Your mom said she’d call. She wants you to bring…” Mason couldn’t remember what she wanted Cassidy to bring because Cassidy was running her hands down her legs. He could tell she did it unconsciously, but that only made the one hundred percent pure grain lust fire even hotter through his veins.
He stared at her digging her thumbs into the muscles of her calves and then stared harder as they wended their way back up her thighs. Sweat sheeted his skin. When she turned her head to look at him, the urge to kiss her made every muscle in his body seize. Her lips were inches away, pink and pillowy and slightly open. Christ, she was killing him. He was close enough to see each individual eyelash, the way sunlight made her irises appear even bluer. There were downy hairs on her cheeks and a beauty mark on her left temple. Since when did he even start noticing things like that? She went to his head like one beer too many, and for one crazy moment, she seemed to sway closer as if maybe she wanted him, too. His heart beat faster. Was it possible? Did Cassidy want him? There was a roaring in his ears as he leaned in to taste her and—
“There you are,” came Jasper’s voice from somewhere not far enough away. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere, and believe me when I tell you that everywhere ain’t a long ways to look.”
Mason dragged his gaze away from the pure carnal temptation of Cassidy’s lips and saw all three of his buddies grinning at him from the sidewalk. No one was even remotely sweaty. Temple had a cruller stuffed in his mouth. A white bakery bag bulging with goodies dangled from Jasper’s hand. Brian held a Styrofoam coffee cup and a jelly doughnut and was regarding him as though nothing had happened, as though it weren’t perfectly fucking obvious what he’d been trying to get going here.
Jasper gave Cassidy his Boy Scout smile. “Ma’am.”
“Please, call me Cassidy.”
“There’s a terrific bakery in town,” he remarked. “Would you like a doughnut? Plenty to spare.”
“It’s my sister Maggie’s bakery,” she said proudly.
Go away, Mason silently urged them.
“That’s a fine-looking house you have,” Temple observed. “Older than mid-century, isn’t it?”
In his head, Mason did a high-pitched, mocking imitation of Temple saying, Older than mid-century, isn’t it? Since when had Temple turned into Frank Lloyd Wright? He dashed one hand through his hair to keep from charging over there and punching him until he shut his mouth.
“Oh, and we also saw inside your old courthouse,” Brian said as though she’d done the construction herself. “The lady there told us all about its history.”
Cassidy popped to her feet, clearly eager to talk about it, while Mason took a few deep breaths. If he looked at Cassidy’s ass while her back was to him, his friends would see and tease him about it all afternoon. If he didn’t, he’d hate himself for being a coward.
So he looked. Her ass was high and round and a perfect fit for his hands. You’re not even halfway through the first quarter of this game and you’re already too sunblind to see the football, he told himself.
“Oh, no! Muffins!” Cassidy cried, rousing him from his thoughts.
Muffins?
Only then did he realize the orange tabby had squatted two inches away and was about to pee. Mason saw an insolent gleam in the cat’s green eyes that must have been the kitty equivalent of throwing a penalty flag. He jumped up while Cassidy lifted the wily bastard and dropped him on the lawn. When she leaned over to scold him, though, Mason couldn’t tear his eyes away. And no matter how wrong it was to stare at her like this, no matter how urgently he told himself to stop, he kept right on doing it.
Jasper cleared his throat rather dramatically. Behind his fist, he muttered to Brian and Temple, “Yep. He’s a goner.”