CHAPTER 6
Another painful yank on his beard brought Cash crashing back to the present and the very pissed-off woman underneath him. Heart still hammering he scrambled to his feet, pulling her up alongside him. “Are you okay?” he spoke harshly, adrenaline still calling the shots, because Jesus, did she recognize him? “What are you doing here?” He slid his hands down her arms, checking for injuries, she tore herself away, stumbling back, but regaining purchase as he stepped out to catch her. The look in her eyes kept him rooted to the spot.
“I was working,” she squawked hoarsely, voice not sounding anything like he remembered.
The twang was there, but where was the soft musical lilt? The gentleness?
She squatted, reaching for a notebook next to a thermos, and scratched something bold on the paper. Standing, she ripped out the paper, and thrust it toward him, giving it a shake. Her beautiful deep green eyes flashed with pain and suspicion.
Cash’s stomach dropped through the floor. Did she recognize him?
He took the paper. What in the hell was going on here? Angry black words spoke volumes. KATE. Sorry. I can’t talk.
His head snapped up as relief washed through him. The last thing he wanted to do was explain himself to her. Not now, not when he was only just getting his shit together. He scrutinized her, looking for any signs of recognition.
None.
He’d never been so grateful for a thick beard in all his life.
He’d knocked her hat off when he’d tackled her, exposing dark glossy hair, not the sunny blonde from last summer. And it was shorter. Still long, but he remembered her hair falling nearly to her waist. He liked the shorter length. And the sturdy, plain work clothes. And her face without makeup. If a pair of terrified green eyes hadn’t been burned into his memory, haunting his nightmares, he might not have recognized her. But what in the hell was Kaycee Starr doing at Resolution Ranch?
Out of a fog, his training kicked in. Shit. What was he doing, standing here wasting precious seconds when he needed to be securing the perimeter? “Stay here,” he barked. “Don’t move.” He spun on his heel not bothering to wait for her assent, starting by verifying each stall only held horses, or was empty, then checking the tack room. Once outside, he circled the barn, looking for signs of forced entry in the fading light, of footprints, anything out of the ordinary. Nothing. What had he heard? With a sigh of defeat, he re-entered the barn.
She was waiting for him at the entrance, face set. She thrust another piece of paper at him.
The noise was a truck backfiring.
No way. It couldn’t have been. It sounded just like a Kalashnikov. The same span of time between shots. He dropped his hand, shaking his head, dread pooling in his belly. It had been a Kalashnikov.
The sympathy in her expression confirmed he’d misheard.
And that he’d lost his fucking shit again.
He scrubbed a hand over his beard, nausea roiling through him. “I… I’m sorry,” he choked out. His chest burned. He thought he’d come so far, and he hadn’t even made it off square one. He stared at a piece of straw on the floor. How could he look at her ever again? “I reacted,” he said, hearing Bones’ voice. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he whispered.
He should go tell Travis. Let him know what happened. For all the good it would do, because Travis would tell him what he already knew. That all the events that had led him to this point could be a part of his story, or be the story. And it was up to him to decide.
Kaycee tugged on his coat, and he dragged his gaze to hers. Wallowing in an existential crisis in front of her wouldn’t change a thing. He needed to man up and take her pity or her anger, or whatever she was going to throw at him, even if it burned a hole in his stomach to do it. But he only saw empathy, and softness. His chest pulled tight. He deserved worse. He’d freaked out, for chrissakes. Tackled her.
“I’m okay,” she mouthed and turned, taking the curry comb out of the bucket hanging next to the tack room door.
He remained rooted to the spot, stunned, until it registered what she was doing. No one cared for Samson. No one. He followed her and laid a hand over hers. “No one takes care of Samson but me,” he growled softly.
She answered by rolling her eyes and continuing to brush Samson’s coat.
“I don’t care if it’s your job. He’s my horse, and I’ll be taking care of him.”
The look she gave him dripped with indignation, but she handed him the brush. Forcefully. Then she spun on her heel and rushed out of the barn. He laid his head on Samson’s shoulder, desperately trying to bring calm to his body. But even breathing with Samson didn’t calm his jumbled thoughts. Not one iota.
Was Kaycee in trouble? Did she think he was a freak? Why the fake name? He wracked his brain, trying to remember anything he might have seen in the press. But he’d pretty much tuned out everything about Kaycee after her stalker had been captured, no thanks to him. Would it help or hurt her safety to let Travis know? A tremor ran down his arm. He squeezed shut his eyes, willing his hand to stop shaking.
A noise at the door pulled his focus. She was back, and the look she gave him dared him to stop her as she led Travis’s horse, Flipper, to another station by the tack room. Cash restarted his ministrations but watched her discretely. Her movements with the horse were smooth, confident. If he remembered correctly, there’d been a stable on her grounds in Nashville, but it surprised him given what he remembered about her dossier, that she behaved as if she’d been around horses her whole life. As if stable chores weren’t beneath her.
She worked faster than he did, and they finished at roughly the same time. Somewhere in the process of leading the horses to their stalls, then working silently side by side to feed and water them, Cash realized his hands had stopped shaking. Calm had returned to his body. When the horses were settled, he walked down the aisle, hands full of tools to return to their rightful place, hearing her footfalls behind him. But when he stepped out of the tack room an offer to safely see Kaycee/Kate to her trailer on his lips, he was alone.