Killing Casanova (16 page)

“Help?” Jake snapped irritably. “Help by telling me some lame story about your own tragic past. Is any of that even true or were you just trying to get me to feel like you understand what it’s like to be hurt?”

Cassie closed her eyes and shook her head before gripping her knees tightly.

“No, Jake. I don’t talk about Dylan to very many people because it shows my weakness and makes me vulnerable. I trusted you with that part of me because I wanted you to know I could be trusted.” Cassie took a deep breath and she heard Jake moving back toward the love seat. “Jake, think about it. What’s worse, the memories of a girl you loved who will always love you, no matter what? Or knowing the person you loved and trusted is out there somewhere, choosing not to want or love you anymore? You see this loss as a great tragedy, which it was. But in your world you are still loved, wanted, strong, and heroic. In mine, I am a silly woman who fell for pretty promises and a nice body, but missed what a snake he was.”

Cassie sensed the pause in his escape, and the need he had to fight the truth of her words with every tortured syllable. Scrambling to her hands and knees, she went to where he sat, placing her hands on his knees. “Jake, her ghost is haunting you into being a ghost of yourself. This Casanova character that everybody thinks you are is not the man Melinda loved in the first place. You buried him beside her, and now you’re holding onto the pain of your past to keep from letting him live again.”

Jake’s body surrendered, defeated into the cushions of the love seat. Cassie heard his voice muffled as if he held his face in his hands. “Cassie. Why couldn’t you be like all the others? Accept the good-time Casanova. Don’t look beyond the smile and charm. Why is it so damn easy to let go with you?” he whispered huskily. “Melinda was not in love with me. She wanted the Hollywood actor all along.”

Cassie was silent, but her hand still rested on his knee and she held it more tightly.

“Melinda was beautiful, smart, and driven. She was too good for this one-horse town and, more than anything else, she wanted out. The night of the accident we had been arguing about the land grant. I was going to the federal courthouse in Carson City to file the paperwork the next week, and I had turned down a secondary part in a local movie that was shooting in the mountains.”

Jake’s voice was no longer distorted, and Cassie figured he had moved his hands out of his face. She reached out and took one of them, expecting him to pull away. His fingers tightened convulsively around hers, and she took a ragged breath.

“It was a graduation party and there was a lot of drinking and partying, but Melinda and I spent the whole night fighting. She told me if I didn’t give up this horse ranch business and take that part, she was breaking up with me. She said that my face was her best shot at a real life and she wasn’t going to shackle herself to Lindley because I was hung up on horses.” Jake’s voice had become distant with his memories, and Cassie imagined him picturing Melinda that night.

“I was shocked. I mean, I knew I didn’t look like Cousin It or anything, but I had never considered a life or career based on my looks until that night. When she started to leave with her brother, I knew he’d been drinking, I didn’t know he was drunk, though. Everyone assumed I had gone along to save Melinda from Carter, but the truth is … I was afraid if she left that night, I would be forced to choose between her and the mustangs. I went along so I could convince her that the life I had planned on the mountain, with her, was the best for both of us.

“She ignored me for most of the drive, and when the truck rolled off the road that night I was still trying to convince her that my skills as an actor and model were worthless compared to what I could do here. I couldn’t save her, and getting Carter out of there only forced him to live with the loss of his sister, the blame for the accident, and the end of his dreams. Melinda was not the only one we lost that night. There were two casualties in that crash.”

“Three, Jake. There were three.”

Taking a deep breath, he leaned back.

“I was untouched that night, Cassie. The only casualty for me is keeping both her version of me and my version of myself fused for all these years so I can prove to her we could have had it all. Casanova keeps my relationships casual, easy, and I don’t have to think about the fact that the man I want to be wasn’t good enough for Melinda; that I will never be good enough for anything except Hollywood.”

Cassie was kneeling in front of him, and now she slid into the narrow gap to lean against his body. Jake shifted beside her and Cassie turned, placing her hands against his chest and sliding her palms until she touched his neck and jaw.

“I don’t know what you look like Jake, or whether your looks have anything to do with who you are, but I am fairly certain I have never pictured this Casanova. Men who can hide behind good looks don’t usually understand themselves well enough to care whether there is more that people might be interested in.”

Cassie took a shuddered breath, as his hands found her waist and slid onto her back. “I don’t care what you look like. I don’t care what those other people see, if you will trust me, I can tell you what I feel.”

Cassie trailed her fingers over the planes of his features, placed her hands on either side of his face, until she ran her fingers through his silky hair and felt it curl beneath her nails. She pulled it gently between her fingers and her mind formed a picture.

“When I was so sick all those years ago, my grandmother would sit beside me in the hospital doing cross stitch. I couldn’t see what picture she was making, the colors she used or the stitch she sewed. However, I could feel the tangled threads curling and silken on the back of the pattern. It was a beautiful picture in my sightless eyes, and your hair feels the same way. What color is it?”

“Black … embroidery thread.”

Cassie smiled widely. “You’re catching on.”

She trailed her fingers from his hair to the line of his jaw, and the rough texture of his five o’clock shadow scraped against her fingertips. She touched his jaw, his neck, his chin, and finally ran her fingers over the curve of his mouth. “The country farm where I first learned to ride horses also had a huge sow that had piglets every spring. When piglets are born they have a soft layer of hair that covers their bodies. After three or four days it turns as rough as steel wool, but for those few days it feels like this.”

Jake’s hand was covering hers now, pressing it against his cheek and catching her breath in her throat.

“This feels like a baby pig to you?” he murmured, his mouth brushing her palm. “I can do better than that.”

Cassie felt his fingers wind into her hair and trail teasingly down the back of her neck.

“The first time you ride a wild mustang, she is jittery, full of energy, ready to run.” Jake pulled Cassie flush against his body, and she felt the pound of his heart as he whispered in her ear. “There is no time to think, or plan. You must wind your fingers through her mane, and take her. Like the wild thing she is.”

His last words were hot against her lips, and she closed her eyes to feel his mouth on hers. The firmness of a peach mixed with the taste of cool water lit like sparks on her tongue. The feeling of the redwoods enveloped her, and she knew she would dream of him tonight.

“Jake!” Cassie finally gasped. “Slow down. I need to think, and I can’t do that clearly when you’re kissing me.”

Jake felt Cassie pulling away from him and reclaimed her mouth before she could go. He held her against him, his heart pounding with hers like the thunder of horses’ hooves racing through his soul. He was alive again, alive in ways he had not felt for so long he had nearly forgotten the sensation. She pulled away again, and he buried his face into her long hair. She smelled of sunshine and alfalfa, and for an instant he saw her without his eyes. She was the touch of the wind against his sunburned neck. She was the taste of chocolate, seasoned beef, and melted cheese. She was the night sky, too vast and deep to understand.

“I thought thinking was what we were avoiding,” he teased.

“Maybe that’s the problem.”

Jake leaned away from her body to look into her fathomless eyes. “This is the first time in a long time I could do that without thinking. It was always a game before, how far to bring them in, how much to hold back, the perfect moment to let go. I have nothing left to hold back, Cassie. I’m not playing, and I don’t want to let you go.”

“I want to trust you Jake, and I have. But the sun will still rise in the morning, and I need to know if I can face it with more than my name on Casanova’s list of conquests. If you wanted to prove that I could be had like all the others, then consider me conquered. It doesn’t need to go any further than this; I can live with this.”

Jake felt as if the print of her hand were burning across his face. Had she been using him? Was this her way of getting back at Dylan? Anger stirred inside him and he gritted his teeth before he could say something he would regret.

The expression on her face hid nothing though, and the tears brimming her eyes could not lie. He understood then, her vulnerability, she only had words, touches and feelings to rely on. Her heart didn’t know how to see truth in someone’s eyes or deceit in the expression of a face. He owed her more than just kisses and promises. He owed her unshakeable trust. She had given it to him, more than if she had offered him her body, she had let him in to her circle of trust and after Dylan had damaged it, she could not afford another breech.

“You’re right,” he said, trailing a line of kisses from her lips to her ear. “Not about putting you on Casanova’s list, but about slowing down. You need to know that I’m not just here tonight, but every night for however long you want me.”

“Those are easy words while we are still here like this, Jake. Tomorrow we have some serious problems and questions that have to be answered.”

Jake didn’t want to think about any of that. The sudden infiltration of reality between them was bringing up her walls as well as his. Trying to focus on what she wanted, Jake sighed and leaned back into the cushions. “Let’s answer some of those questions tonight. Maybe if I can make the world go away again, you’ll come back to me the way you were before.”

“How’s that?” Cassie whispered.

“Lost in what works instead of fixing what doesn’t.”

“It’s the survivor in me, Jake. I die if I focus on what feels good, but doesn’t work.”

“This,” he enunciated, pulling her to rest against him, “feels good and it works.”

“What about the rest?”

Jake ran his fingers through his hair as Cassie reached up and touched his face.

“You look worried,” she said.

“Not worried, just thinking. If I go home now, I’ll be back tomorrow after or maybe before I take care of the northwest alfalfa field. We can figure out how to get that recording to the arson investigator. It might be an illegal recording, but at least it will give them a direction to go. I’m going to go let my folks know what is going on, too, so they can watch out at the farm for Carter, and I can be here doing the same.”

“Jake, you just can’t hang around here and guard me. Miriam will know there’s a problem, Cody will come apart, and the entire program will suffer.”

She had her head laid against his shoulder and her breath was grazing the base of his throat. “Would you be willing to come stay at my place with my mom and my sister? We can bring Jackpot over, too, and you should be safe enough at Caswell Farms and at work in between.”

“Whoa, slow down. I don’t need to move anywhere. If I am working and it’s safe, then living here is exactly the same. I have managed on my own for most of my life, Jake, and now you want me to hide and cower behind your mom’s skirts? I’m not doing that.”

Jake grinned at her, and he could have sworn she could see the look on his face. Somehow in the midst of reconfiguring her life and her refusals to cooperate, she had moved to the center of the room and was now glaring at him.

“Cassie,” he said cautiously, “the only way Carter will leave you out of this is if I confront him with that recorder. I don’t know how long it will take me to find him and work this out. In the meantime, I would feel better if you were … under supervision.”

“And who exactly do you have in mind for this job? I know for a fact it is not amongst Casanova’s skill set.”

“No, but it is in
mine
,” he said taking her in his arms again. “I won’t give you false promises about how you’ll never be alone again, but I need you to take me seriously. I will call Carter in the morning and tell him to meet me about the recording. Tonight, though, you should come with me.”

Murmuring assurances against her lips, Jake felt her melt into his kisses. The rush of emotion he felt in her arms cleared his thoughts, and Jake used his other senses to explore the sensation. Closing his eyes, he listened to the sound of their broken breaths, tasted the sweetness of her mouth, and touched the curve of her body against his. Tangling his fingers through her hair, he sank back down onto her love seat once more.

The night sprawled silent beyond their embrace, until Jake’s lesser instincts finally broke to the surface as Cassie stroked his jaw and spoke. “I’m not moving in with you.”

“Not even if it makes it easier for us to do more of this?”

“Not even then, Jake. As much as I’d like a good reason to keep you with me all the time. Your house comes with chaperones.”

Jake opened his eyes to look at her. She was teasing him away from his guard dog duties, and this argument was actually working.

“Fine. Can I borrow a pillow at least? This couch thing of yours is going to be hard enough to try and sleep on.”

The pillow was found, but unnecessary. Neither he nor Cassie did much sleeping that night. Dawn slipped her amber fingers through the blinds before Jake could persuade Cassie that she couldn’t be left alone that night, and Cassie convinced him that she didn’t want to be. Sleep simply wasn’t on either of their agendas.

When Cassie unwound herself from Jake’s arms to take a shower, he paced impatiently, made a few phone calls, and then went to the barn with her before leaving.