CHAPTER 15
Mollie
LET GO AND LET GOD
I CAN’T STOP SMILING.
Just like I can’t stop dancing. I have no idea how much time has passed, only that I’m covered in sweat and my feet hurt.
“This one isn’t a country song,” Sally says into the mic, “but you can’t not dance to it, so we figured we’d play it for y’all.”
Patsy counts out the beat with her drumsticks, and then Frisky Whiskey bursts into a twangy version of “Wobble.”
People go nuts. I shout. Cash puts his fingers into his mouth and lets out an ear-splitting whistle.
The dance floor is packed now. Who knew so many people lived in such a tiny town?
Who knew they could all wobble like a boss?
I’m downright giddy as I join the front line of dancers beside Cash. His face shines with sweat, his cheeks pink, shirt sticking to his chest and stomach.
When he shakes his ass, bending his legs in time to the beat, I can only stare. Laughter bubbles up inside my chest.
“You laughin’ at my wobble?” he shouts over the music.
Nope, I’m checking out your delicious Wrangler butt like every other
person in this bar. “I would never!”
“Good luck keepin’ up.”
“Watch me.”
I let go and let God. I dance my heart out, smiling like an idiot while sneaking glances in Cash’s direction.
He looks so damn hot in his jeans and backward hat. I should’ve known he was a good dancer by the easy rhythm he finds whenever he’s on horseback. But to see those long legs and that perfect butt in action like this —witnessing him letting loose in a way I never imagined he was capable of?
I’m so turned on I could scream.
My body pulses at the memory of how Cash manhandled me the other day. At the time, I found it offensive. Now I’m wondering if he’d manhandle me that way in bed. He’s got the muscle to toss someone around—that’s for damn sure. But would he have the balls?
I close my eyes and will the thought to evaporate. Sure, I’m having the time of my life dancing with Cash. And the way he told that guy who asked me to dance to fuck off?
Not gonna lie, being spoken for like that—protected—was hot as hell.
Guys back in Dallas are sexy in their own way, but they’re never territorial.
They never speak so plainly or act so quickly.
They also don’t dance the way Cash is dancing.
Despite all that, I can’t touch this cowboy with a ten-foot pole. I’m realizing just how important it is to establish a solid working relationship with him and his brothers. I feel like Dad and I let each other down on so many things.
I’m not going to let him down again by doing something stupid with the guy who runs our family’s ranch.
Even if that guy is turning out to be a decent human being.
A decent, thoughtful, incredibly sexy human being who can wobble with the best of them.
On any other night at any other bar, I’d be taking him home.
Tonight, the only thing I can do is take him to task on the dance floor.
We dance, and we laugh, the bar a blur as we move. Cash keeps tabs on me during every song, not so much as glancing at other people.
I never ever want to stop.
But I finally hit a wall when Frisky Whiskey moves into another slow song. My feet throb. My eyes burn, knees and back on fire.
I’m suddenly so tired, I could fall asleep standing up.
Cash must notice, because he puts a hand on my back. “Ready to get outta here?”
“I’m beat.” I glance around the bar. “Shoot, where did Wyatt go? He’s
my ride home.”
“I’ll give you a ride.”
I arch a brow at Cash. We’ve been too busy dancing to drink much—two beers each, the last one finished several songs ago—so I know he’s okay to drive.
I just don’t know if I’m okay to drive with him. Just the thought of riding shotgun beside Cash already has me thinking about a different kind of riding.
The naked kind.
I’ve enjoyed more than a few back-seat make-out sessions in my day. But making out with a cowboy like Cash in the back of his pickup? Those big hands roving slowly over every inch of my body?
That’d take the experience to a whole new level.
I wish I could ignore the tight, buzzy energy between us. I wish I could stop leaning into it. But it just feels too damn good to be touched this way.
I’m just having too much fun.
Even now, sparks erupt inside my skin from the place where his fingers find the gap between my top and skirt on my back. There’s no chance we’ll actually get naked together. But the idea of it—the tease—there’s something to be said for that kind of anticipation.
Hooking up with Palmer is very straightforward. There’s no buildup. No flirtation. Just a knock on the door and then, well, we get to it. Sometimes, we’ll have a glass of wine beforehand, but I always, always know how it’s going to end.
Honestly, that’s why our situationship works so well. I don’t have the time or the bandwidth to play guessing games. But being out with Cash makes me realize just how sterile my interactions with Palmer are. The sex is
fine, sure.
Bet the sex with Cash would be better.
Clearing my throat, I ask, “So you can dispose of my body on the side of the road?”
Cash grins. My pulse skips. “That’d be plain stupid. I’d feed you to the
cows, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“Do y’all always joke about dismemberment like this?” John B asks. “It’s a little…dark.”
“Only when we’re together.” Cash pushes me toward the exit. “We’ll see
you in the mornin’, John B.”
“Y’all be good.” John B chuckles. “No body parts in the feed, all right?”
Stepping out into the night, I’m hit by a blast of still, humid air.
“How the hell is it still so hot out?” I fan myself with my hand.
Cash is still grinning as he digs a set of keys out of his pocket. “Lucky for
you, my truck doesn’t have AC.”
“They make cars that don’t have AC?”
“Yes, ma’am, they do.” Dropping his hand from my back, he yanks open the passenger-side door of the same enormous red pickup I saw parked outside Goody’s office that fateful day we read Dad’s will. “I’m among the lucky few to own one.”
I climb into the truck. “How do you not die?”
“I drive naked a lot.”
“No, you don’t!”
He laughs, the sound making my stomach flip in the most delicious way.
“I don’t. Your butt sticks to the seat too much. Gives you this, like, terrible rug burn.”
Hesitating, I glance at the upholstery. “Ew.”
“Aw, c’mon, Mollie. I’ve never had my bare ass on the seats. Not the front ones, anyway. I like to keep a clean car.”
My nipples pebble to tight, sensitive points. Can Cash actually read my mind?
What would he say to all the dirty shit he sees there? The stuff about back seats and big hands?
And how does he keep a clean car on a ranch? He must spend a good amount of time taking care of it. I don’t know why that makes my heart beat faster, but it does.
Cash closes the door behind me. The window is already partially rolled down, so it’s not totally stifling inside the truck.
Glancing around, my stomach flips again at how neat the interior is. Cash wasn’t joking when he said he likes to keep it clean.
The pickup is old, but the gray upholstery looks new. A little worn, sure.
But very well maintained. There’s a cassette deck in the dash. The front seats are actually one large bench that’s surprisingly comfortable.
The truck smells like sun-warmed cotton and clean air. Hint of lemon on account of the faded air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror.
Buckling my seat belt, I try not to stare as Cash climbs in beside me and
puts the key in the ignition. The muscles in his forearm bunch against his skin as he turns the key.
The truck rumbles to life, sending a vibration up the backs of my thighs
that lands right in my clit.
I suck in a breath.
Cash freezes, his hand on the gearshift. “You all right?”
“Yep. Yes. Fine.” Just about to burst into flames, no big deal.
He uses one hand on the top of the wheel to guide the truck out of the parking lot. The crunch of tires on gravel fills the cab.
Then we’re moving smoothly through the night on a road so dark, it’s like being out in space. Cash cranks his window all the way down, and I do too.
The breeze sends my hair flying. He glances at me, the red light of the dash catching on the slope of his nose, the fullness of his lips.
“Too much?”
I hang my arm out the window, surfing my palm on the breeze. “Just
right.”
“Music?”
“Sure.”
He punches a button on the dash, and a Brooks & Dunn song starts playing from the middle. It’s just loud enough to hear over the roar of the open windows.
“Cassette tapes,” Cash explains with a shrug.
This old-school approach to driving is actually kind of charming. I hum along to the music as the breeze cools my skin and blows the hair back from
my face.
Turning, I catch Cash looking at me.
“What?” I hold my hair back with my other hand.
He shakes his head, focusing his gaze on the windshield. “Nothing. You just look like your daddy, sitting like that.”
My heart squeezes. “I do? How?”
“He’d hang his arm out the window too. Although he’d sing a lot louder.”
I grin. “I inherited my mom’s voice. You do not want to hear me sing.”
“I heard you plenty back at The Rattler.”
“You didn’t run.”
“Don’t mean I didn’t want to.” He’s smiling, eyes liquid, and my God, how does someone so handsome exist? “Your daddy did have a nice voice.”
“I remember that, yeah. He loved music.”
“You do too. Y’all are alike—I can see that now.”
It’s a compliment. One that makes my chest hurt.
Cash is throwing me bones again. Glancing at him, I want to know why.
I want to ask the question that’s been banging around inside my head since we met.
“Why didn’t you come to the funeral?” I ask. “You say you and Dad and everyone else on the ranch were tight. But no one from Hartsville showed up.”
Cash’s chest rises on a sharp inhale. “We weren’t invited.”
My stomach lurches. “What? That’s not possible. Mom said she invited
everyone Dad knew.”
“She didn’t invite us.”
“You sure? Maybe y’all missed it in the mail —”
“No one got an invitation of any kind, Mollie.” He adjusts his hand on the top of the wheel. “I know, because I reached out to your mama after she sent those men to bring your dad’s body to Dallas.”
“You called my mom?”
“Garrett never lived in Dallas. He only mentioned it because it was where you and your mama lived. I knew he wouldn’t want to be buried there, so I reached out to Aubrey to tell her that.”
The saliva thickens inside my mouth. “What did she say?”
“Nothing nice.” He chuckles darkly. “When it became clear she wasn’t gonna budge on the location of the burial, I asked her to send me the details so we could attend. She said the service was for family only and to please stop calling her.”
Yep, now I definitely feel like I’m going to vomit.
I want to fight Cash on what he’s telling me. Call him out for lying. But if I’m being honest, this sounds like something Mom would do. Maybe to protect me? To stick it to Dad one final time?
Whatever her reasons, it was a shithead move on Mom’s part. She hurt these people. I see that now, because Cash’s Adam’s apple bobs on a hard swallow.
“That must’ve truly sucked for y’all,” I manage. “I’m really sorry, Cash. I wondered why no one from the ranch came. Mom said she sent word to Dad’s friends, but…”
He lifts a shoulder. “We did our own thing here. Little ceremony, nothing fancy. But I think everyone needed a sense of closure, so I put something
together.”
Always a leader.
Always thoughtful.
The lump in my throat is the size of the moon. “How are you not angrier about this?”
“I am angry.” He glances out his window. “Really fucking angry, Mollie.
But at some point, I gotta let it go, or it’ll eat me alive.”
I feel that.
God, do I feel that.
“I’m angry too. At myself, mostly.”
That gets his attention. He glances at me with this look in his eyes— softness, pain, all of it raw and real—that makes my stomach dip. “Why’s that?”
I look down at my lap while I pick at a loose thread in my skirt. “I should’ve known Mom was up to something. I feel like I should’ve—I don’t know—followed up or double-checked the guest list or something.”
“You didn’t know, Mollie.”
“I think part of me did, though.” My turn to swallow. “Mom never had nice things to say about Dad. And I’m sure you noticed, but my father and I didn’t exactly get along. I think…maybe I was so angry at everyone, myself included, that I let shit slide. I’m sad Dad is gone. But I was—am—mostly
angry.”
That’s one hell of a confession.
A pause.
Then, Cash says, “I had a therapist tell me once that for some people, sadness manifests as anger.”
I laugh, if only so I don’t burst into tears. “You’ve been to therapy?”
“Of course I’ve been to therapy. Why do you think I’m such a charming, well-adjusted beacon of contentment and emotional maturity?”
I laugh again, this time for real. “You’re full of surprises, I’ll say that much.”
“Can I ask what happened?” Cash does that thing where he adjusts his hand on the wheel. “Between you and Garrett?”
Letting out a long, low breath, I fall back against my seat. “Long story short? My parents had a nasty divorce. Not because anyone cheated or anything. But I think my mom was really hurt by the fact that my dad didn’t follow us to Dallas. He didn’t choose her, you know? And he didn’t choose
me either. They were supposed to split custody, but Dad never brought me back to the ranch, and he never really came to see me in Dallas.”
“That’ll break anyone’s heart.”
I swallow, hard. “Broke mine, yeah.”
“I’m sorry, Mollie.”
“Thanks.” I manage a tight smile. “Dad loved life on the ranch, but Mom really struggled with it. She said she felt like she was living on a deserted island. I think she missed her family and friends back in Dallas.”
Cash nods. “That’s fair. Ranch life isn’t for everyone. Takes a special kind of person to weather the ups and downs.”
“She begged him to move with us to Dallas. But I guess he loved the ranch too much to leave it behind, so he stayed. Mom says she’s not angry anymore, but sometimes, I think she’ll always hate my Dad for not chasing her. For a while, I hated him for not chasing me.”
Cash takes a minute to absorb this. I appreciate the fact that he’s not filling the silence with empty platitudes about grief or relationships. If there’s one thing Cash doesn’t do, it’s small talk.
“Did you and your dad talk or see each other much when you were little?” he asks.
I tilt my head back and forth. “Here and there, yeah. Every so often, he’d visit, usually when he had business meetings. He’d take me to dinner or whatever, but that was it. I know Mom didn’t want me going back to the ranch alone with him. I think after a while…” I shrug. “He just stopped trying maybe? Who knows? But it pissed me off, and my mom, she didn’t help me feel any better about it because she was pissed too. I hated him because she hated him, you know? I felt bad for her.”
“Not easy, raising a kid on your own.”
“Exactly. So when I started feeling some teenage angst on top of all that, I think I snapped. I stopped answering Dad’s calls. When he came to visit, I refused to talk to him. Our relationship never really recovered.”
“That’s tough,” Cash says gruffly.
I blink back tears. “I really regret it now. By the time I was in high
school, Dad and I were strangers.”
“How old are you now?”
“Twenty-six. Why?”
Cash glances at me. “When your dad stopped calling, that was right around the time he took my brothers and me under his wing. Not that that’s
an excuse, but…yeah, we kept him busy. Real busy.”
I blink again, a mixture of emotions unfurling in my center. Do I feel relief that Dad disappeared not because of what I did, but because he took in five orphaned boys and had his hands full?
Or do I feel hurt that he chose those boys over me? Because, God, knowing he loved them day in and day out—knowing he showed up for them in a way he never did for me—sends a knife through my heart.
No wonder I’ve been so angry all this time. What I’m really feeling is sadness over the fact that Dad made me feel unwanted for most of my life. It wasn’t intentional on his part; I get that now. But that’s how I felt, and it still hurts like hell to hear how wanted—how loved—he made other people feel.
“I know that’s a lot to chew on,” Cash continues, reading my thoughts once again, “but it’s something to consider.”
I nod, the breeze blowing my tears across my temples. “I’m glad he was
good to y’all. I really am.”
“But?”
“But what?”
“Be honest.”
I cut him a glance. “Why? So you can hate me even more?”
“So you can get it off your chest. Whatever it is, Mollie, don’t let it eat you alive.”
My heart somersaults. I look him in the eye.
One, am I imagining it, or does Cash keep saying my name? My real name? I like it more than I should.
And two, why not tell him the truth? Chances are, I’ll be back in Dallas sooner rather than later, and I’ll never have to face Cash Rivers again. So what if he thinks less of me? I really do have nothing to lose.
Maybe that’s why I blurt, “But I wish Dad had been good to me too. I wish I’d been good to him when I had the chance. I wish…well, my mother is clearly a piece of work. I wish I hadn’t let her sway my opinion of Dad so much.”
Cash’s eyes move to the windshield. We’re quiet for a long beat. My cheeks burn, even as the lump in my throat begins to dissolve.
Go figure—telling the truth really does make you feel better.
“Your mom is your mom,” he says at last. “She’s the one who raised you.
Of course you were going to side with her. Cut yourself some slack.”
“Would you? Cut yourself some slack after you irreparably damaged your
relationship with your dad?”
He thinks on this for a minute. “I got on your dad once or twice about this. More’n that, actually. All the things I wish I’d said to my parents that I never got to…” He takes a deep breath. “I told him he’d regret not making
more of an effort with you.”
My stomach seizes. “You did?”
“Hell yeah, I did. Maybe you messed up, but he was the parent. He was an adult. He should’ve known better. I loved Garrett—don’t get me wrong.
But he could be so stubborn. The regrets I have, I knew he’d have them, too,
so I said something.”
“And what did he say?”
Cash takes a breath. Lets it out. “He said it was too late to right all his wrongs. From all accounts, he was wrecked after y’all left, and he didn’t know what to do. He knew your mom was unhappy. He said he thought it wasn’t just the ranch that made her miserable—it was being with him. He didn’t want to cause her more pain by following her to her new life.”
“But he caused so much more pain by not doing anything,” I reply thickly.
“I hear you. As far as you were concerned, he said he didn’t want to take you away from your mom. He knew Aubrey needed you, and you needed
her.”
“I needed him too.”
“I told him so. I think he finally came to that realization, but he felt like he’d done too much damage at that point to ever fix it. I’m not making
excuses for him —”
“I know.”
“But he was sick over it, Mollie. I swear on my life that Garrett died
loving you more than anything.”
I can only stare, eyes welling. “Cash.”
“Yeah?”
“Can I hug you?”
He laughs. “I thought you wanted to murder me?”
“I can do that too. But…thanks? For sticking up for me.”
“If I’da known you, I wouldn’t have done it,” he replies with a smirk.
I give his shoulder a shove. “Just when I was starting to like you.”
“See?” He meets my eyes, a grin on his lips. “Charming and well adjusted as fuck. You’re welcome.”
It’s then that I realize my stomach has stopped hurting.
