On a different note, I finally understood where Cassidy got her argumentative powers.
“You made the right decision.”
I turned to see Duff leaning against the doorframe to the kitchen with a pocketknife in one hand and an apple in the other.
“Excuse me?” I said, because what else do you say to a man holding a knife when you’d just let his daughter fuck you in a very public place and you weren’t sure if he knew about it?
He sliced off a piece of apple and popped it into his mouth while nodding down the hallway. “Not putting your two cents in the pot with all that,” he clarified.
I fought the urge to wipe the sweat from my brow. “Yeah, it seemed pretty intense.”
“The wife will say her piece, Cass will apologize, and then all will be right as rain again.” The knife carved out another chunk that he offered to me. When I politely declined with a shake of my head, he continued, “You made another good decision today as well.”
“What’s that?” I doubted he meant my sticking my thingy into his daughter’s thingy, so I thought it best not to say it out loud.
“Getting her out of there this afternoon.”
Oh, that.
“I didn’t really have much choice in the matter. She sort of made me,” I confessed. She made me do other things, too, but again, I didn’t think it would be wise to kiss and tell.
Duff laughed. “That’s my little girl,” he said. “She’s more like her ma than she’d care to admit. Whenever she and Casey would get into trouble, he’d always take the blame. But I knew better. Cassidy was the one wearing the pants in that relationship.”
She might have worn the pants with Casey, but she’d taken them off for me. Again, wasn’t going to verbalize that.
“Maybe he just didn’t like to argue,” I offered.
“And you do?”
“Yeah. I guess I do,” I admitted, and then I leaned in, lowering my voice. “Don’t tell her, but she’s the only one who can give me a run for my money.” It was the truth. In more ways than one.
Feeling the exhaustion from the day and knowing I still needed to check in with Denver before I called it a night, I stretched out a yawn. “Well, I think I’m going to head on up to bed.”
“What do you have planned for tomorrow?” Duff asked, stopping me before I hit the first step.
Shaking my head, I answered with a shrug. “I’m really not sure yet, sir. Why?”
Duff stood erect and walked over to clap me on the back. “Get some sleep tonight. I’m taking you out with me in the morning, son. It’s all hands on deck.”
Dammit! Someone had seen Cassidy and me and I was going to be sleeping with the fishes by this time tomorrow. Though, wait… he called me “son.” Did murderers call their victims “son”? I supposed they might if they were psychopathic killers.
Before I could err on the side of caution and bow out gracefully, Duff was nearly halfway down the hall. Clearly, I had no say in the matter. And clearly, Cassidy had gotten the whole “wearing the pants” thing from her father, not her mother.
CHAPTER 10
Cassidy
I couldn’t be sure what had woken me so early in the morning, but I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed before anyone else in the house. Try as I did to get back to sleep, it wasn’t going to happen. So rather than continue to toss and turn in frustration, I dragged myself out of bed, though I wasn’t entirely sure what I was going to do. The thought crossed my mind to pay Shaw a visit in his room, but after Ma’s rant the night before, I’d found out Da had planned to take him out on the boat and I didn’t want to risk getting caught.
Maybe I should’ve ridden to Shaw’s rescue and kept him from being tortured by my father, but the truth was that I had a lot on my mind and could use the alone time to sort things out. So I headed for the one place that had always aided me in the past in my quest.
The polished wood floors were cold under my bare feet as I softly walked the hall to the end, opening the door that could’ve been the entrance to any room. It wasn’t. On the other side there stood a winding staircase that led to the crow’s nest at the top of the Whalen House. It was just a small room with a glassed panoramic view of Stonington, including the harbor. This place had been my sanctuary, the place where Casey and I would go to be alone when either of us had needed the escape or simply a really cool make-out spot.
I wondered how many times he’d been there without me while I’d been gone. How many times must he have been here thinking about me, missing me, wishing I’d been there with him instead of a million miles away? Maybe he hadn’t at all.
Taking a seat on the red-cushioned bench that Da had built into the wall, I propped my elbow on the windowsill and rested my chin while looking out toward the harbor. Dawn was just coloring the horizon past Isle au Haut with its dusky pinks and oranges, surrounded by the still star-filled sky above that faded into blues and purples at the edges. Red and green starboard and port lights dotted the dark waters of the harbor, as gulls trailed behind in the wakes of boats silently easing through the peaceful tranquillity of a new day just at its beginning.
Stonington really was beautiful. To the people outside our little world, it was a thing of fantasy, something Photoshopped onto postcards, an illusion painted by movie creators in films. But this place truly existed. Maybe I had to leave in order to appreciate its beauty.
The pier below was already bustling with activity, dockhands moving equipment around in preparation for the fishermen who had just started to arrive in pickup truck after pickup truck. Casey would be among them. But then so would my da and, today, Shaw as well.
Jesus, the look on Shaw’s face the day before, the intensity behind those baby blues… I’d used him as an anchor after seeing Casey with another woman. And he’d let me. Somehow I think he’d known it, and he’d let me anyway. My view of Shaw Matthews was slowly changing. Maybe he wasn’t the selfish asshole I’d always thought him to be. Maybe I was the selfish one. The way he looked at me was a dead giveaway to the fact that he would’ve given me anything I’d asked of him in that moment. He’d looked at me like that a lot lately.
I had to close my eyes to push back the image before it overwhelmed me again. “Confused” wasn’t even the word for how I felt about that situation now. I couldn’t go there. I couldn’t take it anywhere but where it was supposed to be. And that was just sex. Nothing more. If I allowed myself to have feelings for him, I’d be taking a huge risk with my heart.
Casey, on the other hand, was a different matter. He was the one constant I could always count on. The one person I knew would be in my corner, come what may. Maybe I’d taken it for granted that he forever would be, that things would never change, that no matter where I went in my life, he’d be there waiting for me.
“Wow. You are so selfish, Cassidy Rose. Selfish and egotistical,” I said aloud, needing to hear the bite of the words.
Maybe Shaw and I had more in common than I’d care to admit.
Because things between Casey and me had definitely changed.
We had changed.
Even though we’d technically broken up a long time ago when I’d left town, I don’t think I ever really felt, in my head and most definitely in my heart, that we were no longer together. Seeing him treat someone else the same way he’d always treated me, even making me an afterthought, hurt more than I’d ever imagined it could. And I knew that look. The way he looked at Mia was the same way he’d looked at me. The way he smiled at her with a bit of a twinkle in his eyes like he was looking at the brightest star in the sky… that was the smile that had been reserved for only me.
I’d been replaced. But then so had he. After all, it was Shaw whom I’d turned to when I’d gotten all up in my feelings about being ignored by Casey in the first place. Though that was a purely physical thing, right? Jesus, I didn’t even know anymore.
It wasn’t like I had any plans whatsoever of coming back to Stonington on a permanent basis. I had no desire to be
with Casey; physical or otherwise. I knew it didn’t make any sense for me to feel the way I was feeling, but I just didn’t want to lose him. And I was losing him, my safe place. I could feel it. All the crazy that had accompanied this whole cat-and-mouse thing between Shaw and me, my inability to now separate the physical from the emotional, had made me want to desperately cling to something familiar. Casey was safe. But Casey was no longer mine.
Was he Mia’s? And if he was, did that mean I’d lost Casey completely?
And the confusion just went up a notch or two on the WTF scale.
I was probably jumping to conclusions about Casey and Mia. Casey was always a nice guy. Yeah, that was it. He was just being nice to the outsider. Right? It didn’t mean anything at all. Mia was a romance novelist writing about a lobster fisherman, and what better way to get that information than straight from the lobster fisherman’s mouth? And Casey was probably playing up the part for her benefit: the strapping young hero, a little rough around the edges, with broad shoulders, a gorgeous smile, perfect body, deep voice, and eyes so beautiful and sincere that they made women want to drop their panties on the spot.
No doubt, Mia had been caught under his spell. It was just the effect he had on females. I almost felt sorry for the heartbreak she would inevitably endure if she’d allowed herself to believe he’d ever be hers. Many had tried and failed. I was the only exception. For Mia’s sake, I hoped she’d get her information and then get the hell out of Stonington. Because unless you were from here, you didn’t stay here.
Then again, I was the one feeling like an outsider lately. The familiar had a foreign air about it, and it didn’t seem to fit anymore. I didn’t seem to fit anymore. Which begged the question: once you left home, could you ever really go back?
It didn’t matter. I wasn’t planning on coming back. At least not for any reason other than the occasional visit. So I had to wonder why I was jealous of Mia in the first place. Casey deserved to be happy. I wanted that for him. Maybe I’d just never considered he’d be happy without me. And I was fucking another man, for Christ’s sake! With some very mixed-up emotions about said man. What right did I have to be jealous?
“Jeez, Cassidy.” I ran my hands over my face, frustrated and annoyed at no one but myself. I’d just done a complete three-sixty in my thoughts, bringing myself back around full circle with no progress toward a solution.
God, I couldn’t wait to get back to San Diego, my friends, and my job. That was my life now. At least there I was too busy to get all caught up in my thoughts. A moment to contemplate wasn’t always a good thing. There was such a thing as overthinking. Especially when it was to the point of driving yourself and those around you crazy. Screw it. Ma always said idle hands were the Devil’s playground, so I decided to head downstairs to get breakfast under way for our lone guest.
And maybe… just maybe, I’d do a little recon to see what was up between her and my boyfriend. Er, ex-boyfriend. Whatever.
Hauling myself up, I stopped and did a double take when I spotted my father’s boat getting under way with one other body on board that I hadn’t expected. A lantern and the binoculars Casey and I had used to spy on people as teenagers were still sitting there on the sill, so I grabbed the binoculars to get a closer look.
Casey Michaels was the other body. Not that I couldn’t have guessed it by his stance. A stance that was very much towering over Shaw in that “I am Poseidon, god of the sea” sort of way.
“Oh, this is so not going to end well,” I mumbled to myself.
But there was nothing I could do about it from here other than to send up a silent prayer that Shaw’s body would return instead of becoming shark chum. Served him right for being a stalker and following me cross-country in the first place. His one saving grace would be if he managed to keep that sarcastic mouth shut, which I knew wasn’t likely to happen.
Oh, well. I’d deal with the aftermath of the testosterone-filled lobstering excursion later. For now, I had a little fishing of my own to do. After all, the intense research of a subject of interest was what I did best.
Just as I’d stood to get on with my investigation into Mia’s story, I noticed something odd down at the pier. The dockhands weren’t moving equipment and preparing to bring in the day’s haul when the boats returned. Rather, they were removing equipment and securing the cranes. Something they did only when a wicked storm was approaching. I looked out toward the water to see the puddle pirates preparing their boats to ride out the weather as well, and not getting under way to check their traps.
Turning to scan the view to the right, I noticed for the first time the blackened clouds coming in from the southeast. All that peaceful tranquillity I’d just noted had been nothing more than the calm before the storm. Crap. Though I hadn’t been paying attention at the time, my very organized brain had recorded and stored the discussion Mrs. Paddock had been having with an otherwise distracted me at the picnic, and said brain was now playing back the details. She’d been talking about the hurricane moving in.
We’re not ready, was the thought that screamed through my mind. How much time did we have? There was so much that needed to be done, and the Whalen House had not yet been secured. Or had it? Was that the thing Ma had been going on about last night? Damn. Now I knew why I’d waken so early. Once again, my brain had been keeping tabs on things while my emotions had whisked me off to some nonsensical place where I’d been exploring my feelings and becoming increasingly oblivious to the real world around me.
That was going to end right here. It was time to kick it into gear and do something productive, something that made sense.
I made a quick stop off in my bathroom to wash my face, brush my teeth, and change out of my nightclothes, and then hurried down the stairs to check on Ma. Ma, of course, was already up and about and watching the news in our private den.
“Morning, Cass,” she said with a worried smile and then patted the arm of the couch next to where she’d settled in her wheelchair.
“What are they saying?” I asked, folding my legs under me as I sat.
Ma shushed me just as the broadcast got under way.
Harmony Hale was poised behind her news desk with a bright smile on her face as if Mother Nature hadn’t gotten her panties in a wad and decided to take it out on Stonington. “Batten down the hatches, Maine… Tropical Storm Ayla has been upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane and is making her way closer to shore. For more about that, let’s turn it over to our weather anchor, Kipp Edgington. Kipp?”
The camera angle changed to a tall, lean man with perfect posture, bleached teeth, and a spray tan. Kipp was so obviously not from Maine. “That’s right, Harmony. Everyone has an eye on the sky, and for good reason.” He moved around the screen behind him, pointing out this and that as he continued, “The current trajectory of Ayla’s path is centered on the island coasts of Maine, but it is uncertain if she will actually make landfall. Though it’s unheard of to have a threat of this magnitude this early in the year, the unseasonably warm temperatures of the Atlantic Ocean have pushed up along the southern and eastern coastline to create the perfect recipe. And make no mistake about it, folks, this one has the potential of turning into a demon. She’ll likely be upgraded to a Category 2 or 3 by the time all is said and done.
“That’s the bad news,” he said. “The good news is that a warm front coming in from way down here in the Gulf of Mexico is going to keep us from getting feet upon feet of snow. Flooding will, of course, still be an issue, as will the wind damage, but at least when it’s over, there won’t be mounting snowbanks to contend with.”
He went on and on about meteorological stuff that I was sure he explained in layman’s terms for the viewing audience, but I was already in damage-control mode.
“What still needs to be done?” I asked Ma.
Ma looked at me, a worry-free and determined expression on her face as she set her shoulders in confidence. “Breakfast,” was her response. And then she unlocked the break on her
wheelchair and began to maneuver herself to head toward the kitchen.
“Ma… the storm?”
“Doesn’t keep our guests from getting hungry,” she said. “Besides, we don’t know how much time we have before we lose power, so we need to get in there and see what we can whip up now that will hold over for as long as we might need it.”
Food? Food was her concern? “What about the house?”
Ma stopped and pivoted the chair around to face me. Impressive move. “Did you not hear anything I told you last night? While you were out gallivanting around, everyone else pitched in to help get the house ready. Including our guest.”
Confused, I looked toward the windows in the front sitting area. The storm shutters had not been pulled closed yet, but they’d certainly been hung. How had I missed that when Shaw and I had returned last night? Jesus, maybe all the sex I’d been having with Shaw lately had jarred something loose in my head.
Shaw!