Killing Casanova (12 page)

Debra took a shuddering breath. and Cassie felt the older woman’s hand grow cold against her warm skin.

“Jake and some of his friends were in an accident where the truck caught fire.”

Cassie nodded, and tried not to picture Jake in that circumstance. It was difficult to keep an objective viewpoint if she saw it in her mind.

“Were they hurt? What happened? Give me an idea of what Jake might be dealing with.”

Cassie wrapped her hand around Debra’s, which was trembling against her arm. Cassie braced herself for the details as Debra talked, finally understanding why Jake had been so close, yet so distant lately.

“He was in a truck, on his way home from a graduation party with his girlfriend and her brother. They were coming down from Navajo Canyon, and they missed a curve on the narrow canyon road. The truck rolled six times, and Jake was buckled inside when it started burning.”

Cassie winced openly, trying not to paint gruesome pictures in her mind of the scene.

“How did they get out? Debra, I know this is bringing up painful memories for you, too, but if the fire retriggered the trauma in Jake, then he may be reliving something else, too. I need to know as much about it as I can so I know how to help him.”

“Jake got himself and Carter out by undoing the seatbelts and climbing through the broken windshield, but …”

“Carter … Carter Langdon?”

“Yes, Carter was Melinda’s brother. They were twins.”

Cassie gasped. “I heard Jake and Heidi talking about someone named Melinda, but I had no idea.” Debra sniffed a little, and Cassie’s mind formed another picture with the sound. “They
were
twins? As in past tense?”

“When the truck rolled, Melinda had been sitting on the console between the seats. The windshield shattered in the rollover, and she was thrown out of the truck. It rolled over her as it fell down the side of the canyon road.”

Cassie was staring wide eyed at Debra’s face, seeing nothing but the horror she could feel hanging between her and Debra.

“Was Jake driving?” Cassie asked quietly. “Does he blame himself for the accident?”

“Jake tried to take the keys away from Carter so he could drive, but Carter was drunk and wouldn’t let Jake have them. Jake wasn’t even supposed to be in the truck that night. He and Melinda had gone to the party together, but when Carter got drunk and wanted to leave, Melinda wouldn’t let him go alone. Jake couldn’t talk them into going with him. He went hoping to talk Carter into letting him drive. Does he blame himself for it? Absolutely.”

Debra punctuated her last statement, and Cassie blew out a shaky breath.

“He saved her brother from the fire, but he couldn’t save her,” Cassie stated to clarify.

“Worse than that.” Debra sighed. “He walked away without a scratch on him. Carter tore his shoulder up pretty bad, and he was on track to be the next team roping champion at the national finals rodeo. He has never been able to rope since that night, and he blames Jake.”

Cassie sighed again, still shaking her head.

“Is that why Jake doesn’t drink? I have been with him at Mcgoo’s and he always has a drink, but I have never smelled anything but cola on him. I thought that was strange for a guy who picks up women in bars.”

Debra didn’t respond as Heidi’s soft bubbly voice skipped up next to them.

“I’m ready, Mom. I want to go tell Yake about riding today, let’s go.”

Debra reached out quickly and took Cassie’s hands in her own.

“Thank you, Cassie, for all your help and all you will be able to do with …”

Cassie tried not to frown at Debra as she thanked her again and left with Heidi.
I do not want to know this much about Jake,
she argued internally.
It makes him too tragic of a hero.

The smell of dusty earth and horse hair mingled in Cassie’s nose as she left the barn’s enclosure to begin her notes on Heidi’s session. Running her fingers along the smooth painted surface of the barn’s door, she turned her face away from the sun and felt the hot afternoon light against her hair. With skilled, practiced hands she began swinging the tip of her cane above the graveled dirt high enough so as not to catch the rutted drive that would be underfoot in the next thirteen steps.

As Cassie’s feet took her from the barn to the ranch house, they paused with the slight change in inclination of the road. She focused her attention on the path of her travel. If even a few feet off track, Cassie would miss the end of the wide porch near the kitchen door, and she and the chickens would end up fighting over who was going to escape the coop first. Cassie wrinkled her nose at the smell of feather fumes that wafted toward her. Side stepping away from the sound of the creaking coop, Cassie held her breath. The hens were particularly pungent today, and once again she found her thoughts lost in barring the smell from her senses.

As she turned her nose to breathe air not fowl, she caught a brief scent of soap and skin before colliding headlong with someone.

Cassie staggered back with a gasp, fumbling apologies and hoping no one had been watching her. The few months at The Rocking J ingrained her mind with a mental map of the ranch, but weather and unpaved surfaces were always subject to change and she would forever have to be conscious of her steps.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you stumble on someone you or your horse hadn’t already sensed was there.”

Jake’s voice was casual teasing, but Cassie’s defenses sharpened with his comment, and she openly glared at him.

“Most people don’t stand as quietly as possible in the middle of the road waiting for a blind person to bump into them.”

Jake was silent at her angry retort, and her cheeks blushed furiously. She heard him shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other before stepping back from her.

“I’m sorry, Cassie. I wasn’t watching to see if you’d bump into me; I was just coming to talk to you about Starlight, and I wasn’t thinking.”

Cassie grimaced guiltily and tossed her dark hair back from her flushing cheeks. “I’m sorry, Jake. I’m still a little unsteady around here, and you startled me.”

“Where is everyone?”

Cassie heard his voice drift from side to side as he looked around the ranch yard.

“If the vans and trucks are gone, then they have already gone to your place for the annual benefit dinner.”

Jake was silent, and Cassie narrowed her eyes against the heat of the sun blaring against her left cheek.

“Why would they have gone without you? Are you supposed to be walking the six miles to the ranch?”

Jake’s voice held a sharp disapproving edge, and Cassie fought back a smile. It surprised her that he had immediately picked up on the predicament she would be in if all the vehicles were gone and she was not with them. Most people rarely remembered that she could not just jump in her car and go wherever she wanted.

With an unconscious shake of her head, she attempted to fight back the fluttery feeling his response sparked in her. Jake Caswell was not a man to be trusted, she forcefully reminded herself. Everything Debra told her about Jake’s past and the times Cassie unintentionally witnessed his genuine goodness had planted seeds of faith in her mind. Seeds that now seemed to be exploding into full foliage on their own accord.

“I’m not going to the fundraiser. Cody is with his grandparents in Reno, and he calls every night at nine. Someone has to be here for the call. He doesn’t care who, so I told Miriam I could use the time to catch up on my therapy notes. My screen reading program has been down for a couple of days while I wait for the upgrade.”

“Your screen what?”

“My screen reading program,” Cassie reiterated. “How do you think I work on the computer?”

Silence met her again, and Cassie pictured Jake’s blank expression as he tried to imagine her on a computer. Her laughter broke the stillness of the heavy heat, and Jake began chuckling dark in his chest as well.

“I guess I never thought about it.” Jake made the admission sheepishly, but Cassie’s ears picked up on a different sound.

“Jake … your lungs are still rasping. Have you been to a doctor yet?”

Cassie turned, putting the setting sun behind her again and moved toward the house, Jake trailing her and the dust her stick was kicking up. As he stepped beside and took her elbow in his hand, Cassie automatically pulled her arm free of his grasp and slid her hand to hold his elbow. She fell in one step behind him as they kept walking, her mind registering how naturally she let him take the lead of a sighted guide, and how instinctually he’d done it as if they’d practiced it before.

“I had it checked with the doctor; he says there will be some scarring, and I just need to stay active so I don’t lose any of my lung capacity.”

Jake stopped at the stairs to the porch, and Cassie dropped her hand from his arm.

“It’s a good thing you and your ears aren’t around my house. My mom is hypersensitive about every cough and tickle in my throat. If you talked to her about what you hear, I would be in bed around the clock.”

“Avoid Caswell Farms until September. Got it,” Cassie muttered, trying not to blush guiltily with the reference of talking to his mother.

Cassie felt the blush of her cheeks climb higher as Jake said nothing. She was sure she could feel his eyes watching her face flush; she cleared her throat.

Jake sat down next to her and quietly asked, “Do you think I’ll be safe by September?”

“You won’t be there anymore starting in September, right?”

She heard the sound of his head moving in response but she couldn’t tell if he was nodding or shaking it. Cassie caught a gasp in her throat as she realized she hoped he was going to correct her assumption about September.

“I … I have a shoot in New Zealand in September,” he answered, “but I also have a proposal for the mustang preserve that I have to file with the Bureau of Federal Land Grants. I have to decide which needs me more.”

Jake’s deep voice was a little broken, and Cassie responded carefully.

“The way I understood it, you are pretty good at doing both.”

Jake leaned back against the steps, and Cassie felt the shift of his body beside her as the wood creaked beneath his weight.

“I guess up until now I have done all right, but this was never the plan.”

Cassie could feel a surge of emotion suddenly flow like rushing water. As the sensation passed between them, she knew Jake was ready to give words to what had been haunting him since that fire, and she reclined back against the steps next to him.

“What was the original plan?”

Jake did not respond, and she pictured him staring off into the dusky twilight deciding how much of this he could put words to.

“Five years ago when I got the original grant, it was temporary and based on my ability to make Mustang Mountain a self-contained wildlife preserve. Through the development of the natural resources and the expansion of the herd I have been able to do that, but now …”

His voice broke off, and Cassie waited while he brewed over his thoughts before continuing.

“When I was seventeen, it made sense. I was all about those horses, and a life here working with them was all I could see. I had this whole dream of living up at the reservoir and we …”

Jake’s voice broke off again, and Cassie suddenly had the image of a beautiful girl race into her mind.

“Anyway,” he said clearing his throat. “That was before I was doing this acting thing, and now what I originally thought of as my life doesn’t look anything like I thought it would. The preserve needs someone to run it full time. There’s too much for me and my dad to try to do between our other careers, and I have to decide if I am going to give it up.”

“Which one?”

“Which one … what?”

“Which one are you worried about giving up?”

Jake didn’t answer, and Cassie felt a shift in their formerly comfortable exchange. “Are you happy doing either one?”

Cassie could tell that Jake had not expected her to ask that question, and she waited for him to recover his voice.

“I enjoy different parts of both,” he stammered uncomfortably.

Cassie sighed and shook her thick hair away from her face. “Which one holds more pain than you can live with?”

“I don’t think I understand. Neither one is painful. They both require hard work, but I can handle that.”

Cassie shook her head fiercely and grimaced into the western sky. “No, Jake. No matter which lifestyle we choose, there is pain involved. Whether it’s pain over our past, unfulfilled expectations, or regrets about the person we have become. Growth can be painful.”

Jake started to chuckle darkly and then gave a short cough. “I don’t understand any of that, Cassie. You’re the one with the college degree. If you can’t put it into real life terms, I’m lost.”

Cassie grimaced and bit her bottom lip. Her mind flashed to a mental picture she still carried of Dylan, and she hesitated only momentarily before turning away from Jake.

“Fine, Jake, but after I tell you this real life story, I would appreciate if you’d at least attempt to understand.”

Her words were quick and sharp, and the absence of sound from Jake made her take a deep breath and soften her tone.

“Before I came to work with Miriam, I worked in a teen behavioral program in Albuquerque. I absolutely loved it. I loved the work, the ranch, and the kids. It was very fulfilling, and I felt as if I had finally found where I was supposed to be. The couple who ran the program were like my own parents, and the people I worked with were the best group of people I have ever known. The guy I worked the most closely with was a probation officer named Dylan Haskins. He taught me more about behavior modification than I had ever learned. He was amazing with these kids: tough, firm, kind. Loving. And we soon ended up dating and eventually engaged.”

Jake shifted uncomfortably beside her, and Cassie took a deep calming breath. She knew this would be more emotional intimacy than Jake was used to, but if he was going to trust her with his past. she was going to have to take a chance on him with hers.

“Dylan and I had only been engaged for about a week when one my boys ran from the program, and I had to pick him up from juvenile detention. When I went to the office to sign him out, one of the female officers was talking about Dylan. She said that even though he was engaged, he didn’t let it put a damper on his social life. She still saw him every Friday night at the bar because that was the night his fiancé was working. After I worked out everything at the detention center, I called Dylan and asked him what was going on.”