Unbreakable (11 page)

Casper thought about the size of this house. He’d lived a lot of places before coming to Crow Hill. Apartments. Trailers. For a while in a car. But when he’d been Clay’s age, this was the house he’d called home.

Thousands of square feet left empty while he’d holed up in a bedroom smaller than the one Clay had shared with three other boys.

He’d just shared his with spiders. “I’m going to talk to my partners, see if they mind me moving you out to the ranch.”

“I’ll be fine here, if it’s going to be a problem.”

“It won’t be. And I’d feel a lot better having you out there. We’re working on a new pen tomorrow, so I’ll feel them out then. In the meantime…” He looked around the kitchen, walked across the big room to the door leading into the hallway, and flipped the switch there on the wall.

The bulbs in the fixtures along the corridor’s ceiling burst to life. Three stayed lit, two fizzled and popped. The light was enough for now. “Grab a couple of trash bags. I’ll get you started on the first floor. Should keep you busy till I can get back here tomorrow.”

And then he took a deep breath, preparing to face six years he’d thought he’d put away forever. The closets where his old man had locked him, the marks cut into doorframes when he’d jumped out of the way of belts and fists.

The one deep gouge in the plaster left by a knife that had nicked him before cutting into the wall. He raised his hand and rubbed at his shoulder, wondering if the dried blood in that room was still visible, or if bugs had eaten it away.

If the papers he’d scribbled full of hate and silent screams were still hidden between the studs at the head of the bed where he’d slept.

“You okay?” Clay asked from behind him, the trash bags
rustling in his hands, Kevin shaking his head and flapping his ears in impatience.

Casper was still standing in the doorway, staring the hallway’s length, wondering how many nests of wolf spiders lurked in the woodwork.

“Yeah. Let’s go,” he said, and swallowed as he tugged his hat brim to his eyes.

F
OR TWO DAYS
now, Faith had not been able to stop thinking about the things Casper had told her in bed. Not about loving her body, and getting off to having her, and what the sight of her naked on top of him did to his cock and his balls. She’d had to push that part of the night to the back of her mind so she could try to make sense of the rest.

The frightening, sobering rest.

His mother had sold sex at Bokeem’s Truck Stop. She hadn’t supported him with her waitressing income and tips after his father had left. And he’d known this the whole time he’d been at Crow Hill High, while she hadn’t had a single clue.

How many others had known? Boone and Dax? The faculty? God, had his teachers known? His coaches? Her parents? Had Tess and Dave Dalton been aware of the life Casper had lived on Mulberry Street? For all intents and purposes, he’d raised himself, a
thought that had her chest growing tight around the sadness it contained.

She couldn’t imagine growing up without her family in her business. Sure, she’d bitched about curfews, and weeknight suppers eaten together at a properly set table, and Sunday mornings at the First Baptist Church. And she’d acted out. Not as far out as Boone had, but still. She’d never felt alone or adrift. She’d had a foundation, a place to feel safe.

How had Casper lived otherwise, knowing what his mother did, having no father or other family on his side? No Christmas dinner or help with homework or cheering section on the sidelines of the football field. Had that excuse for a home life been at the root of his hell-raising ways?

She couldn’t blame him, even while finding it impossible to believe she’d never heard any gossip floating through the hallways at school, or in the parking lot of the Dairy Barn after. Especially the way everyone in Crow Hill loved knowing the business of everyone else.

His revelation about his mother had Faith wondering the same thing Arwen had the other day at lunch—why
hadn’t
he arranged to unload that house? There couldn’t be anything there for him anymore—if there had ever been anything there for him at all. So why the obsession? Why not let it go? And why was she letting the things he’d told her get to her this way?

That one, out of all the questions swirling in her head, was easy to answer. Thinking about Casper’s high school years kept her from dwelling on what they’d done. His body, her body, their hands and mouths and tangled limbs.

She’d had sex, not a lot, and not often for a while, but enough to know what she liked, and she had no problem reaching that place on her own. But sex with Casper…

He’d caught her off guard, unprepared. She had no idea sex could be like that in the real world, without actors playing the parts, or authors creating the words, without fantasies.

She hadn’t thought herself naive. She and Arwen and Everly didn’t pull punches when talking about sex, or getting what they wanted from a clueless man. But what Casper had shown her…what he’d done with her, to her…

How was she supposed to process something so far removed from her experience? She was out of her league in
such
a huge way. Even in college, with Jeremy, and Jon—

No. She wasn’t going to go there. She cut off the thought, reaching for the distraction of the dust cloud coming toward her, and recognizing Casper’s big black dualie as the one causing the stir.

Her thoughts of the past keeping her heart in her throat, she slowed, pulled from the center of the road to the side to let him pass. But he didn’t pass, obviously recognizing her car, too, and braking a lot faster than she did. His wheels locked up and his truck slid dangerously close to her front door before he straightened to come alongside her.

They both waited for the air to clear before rolling down their windows. Casper was the first to speak. “If I’d known you were going to come back for more, I would’ve made sure to be here.”

She stuck out her tongue. “I was dropping off some price lists for Boone. For the party.”

“Boone doesn’t have any more money than I do. Just buy the cheapest booze and be done with it.”

“You are such a man.”

“And you like me that way.”

She did, but he didn’t have to know it. Or to know how conflicted
she was about this thing they’d started. It couldn’t go anywhere. They were completely wrong for each other. She knew that. Surely he knew that, too. “If you say so.”

He stared at her for a minute, his mouth finally quirking before he glanced down the road, his profile beneath the brim of his hat all hard lines and stern focus. Or maybe avoidance. Or maybe he was trying to think of a way to talk to her now that there was more than money between them, now that the tension had become knowing and tightened because of it.

“Why don’t you come back to the house?” he finally asked, still looking straight ahead.

No. Not to the house. “I’ve just been there. I don’t have a reason to go back.”

“Right.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Don’t want to make the brother all suspicious and shit.”

She closed her eyes, opened them. “Casper—”

“It’s okay. I got it. Top secret. Lips sealed.”

Wait. Was he pouting? Had she hurt his feelings? “We could compromise.”

At that, he looked over. “How so?”

“Rather than me going back to the ranch, or you coming all the way back to town, we could both go to Fever Tree for supper. The Rainsong Cafe has an amazing—”

“—chicken fried steak. Yeah. I know.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Is that all we’re going to do? Eat?”

“We’re going to a restaurant. So, yes. We’re going to eat.”

He gave a nod as if thinking, then said, “Last I was through Fever Tree, I saw a sign for a bed-and-breakfast. We could get a room.”

Lots of Fever Tree residents banked in Crow Hill. She couldn’t
take that chance. “Let’s start with supper,” she said, clenching her thighs as she thought about that bed-and-breakfast, about clean sheets on a big soft mattress. About the hair on Casper’s bare thighs. “We’ll see about dessert later.”

He was shaking his head, muttering beneath his breath, before saying, “You go on. I’ll get turned around here and be right behind you.”

Nodding, she pulled onto the road, watching in her rearview as he maneuvered his truck in a tricky three-point turn to follow. He bore down on her a lot faster than she’d expected, until the only thing she could see when she glanced into any of her mirrors was his truck, the big headlights, the row of amber fog lamps on top, the grill that seemed to be grinning like a devil. Or a fool.

She shivered, her blood racing beneath the surface of her skin, raising the tiny hairs at her nape and bringing her nipples to points. She pictured his mouth, the smirk there before he lowered his head to catch her between his teeth, to use his tongue to tease her, torture her. Arouse her unbearably.

Longing pulled at her with a sharp visceral tug, coiling in her belly and sending tendrils deeper to stir her lust until she was damp and ready. She told herself she wasn’t being stupid. Her eyes were wide open. But her nipples were hard, and her pussy was tingling, and all she could think of was his cock full and jutting and pushing into her mouth.

Still shivering, she parked, got out of her car, watched as he pulled in beside her, as he walked to the front of both vehicles and waited for her. They made their way to the door side by side, no hand holding, no arms around waists, no accidentally brushing against each other, no touching at all. Inside, Faith took the lead, requesting a quiet table for two from the hostess.

With Casper behind her, she followed the young woman who escorted them to a corner with a window looking onto the patio, where a tiered fountain bubbled and flowed. The sounds of bamboo and brass wind chimes filtered softly through the glass, and as they sat, Casper rolled his eyes.

He filled his chair and his side of the table, and she felt trapped by his size and his presence. The width of his chest and shoulders aside, there was something about the way he ignored the rest of the room, the way he waved off the menus and told the server what they wanted, the way he looked at her while doing it.

As if he saw through her. As if he saw everything.

“Well, you’ve got me here. Now what’re you going to do with me?”

“Eat dinner,” she said after clearing her hunger for him from her throat. “Talk.”

“Like a date, or something?”

“Or like friends. Eating dinner. Talking.”

“Is that what we are? Friends? Because my cock would beg to disagree,” he said, just as their server set her iced tea and Casper’s beer on the table.

Faith waited until the other woman had moved on before leaning toward him, her eyes narrowed. “Thank you. That was amazingly thoughtful.”

He laughed. “I thought you brought me here because no one we know would see us.”

“There’s less of a likelihood, yes. That doesn’t mean you have to be crass.”

“Right. I keep forgetting that’s what you think of me.”

“Good lord, Casper. It’s not like I pulled my opinion out of thin air. Listen to yourself.” She lowered her voice. “Most non-crass
people don’t talk about their cocks in public, much less at the dinner table.”

“In your house, maybe.”

That put a stop to her reprimand. Not that he didn’t deserve it; he was a grown man and knew better. But the last thing she wanted to be was a nag. “You’ve got to know your experience growing up was not the norm.”

“Because my father beat me bloody with whatever he had on hand?” he asked, holding his knife’s blade against the table. “Or because my mother was a whore?”

She swallowed, remembered the scar on his shoulder, wondered now if it wasn’t from a bull like she’d thought. “I didn’t know that about your father.”

He cocked his head, considered her. “First my mother. Now my father. And I’d thought you knew everything, the way you were always staring at me.”

She’d known enough to wonder what it would be like to be so reckless. To walk out of school in the middle of the day while teachers looked on. To drive like a bat out of hell. To pack a longneck for lunch.

She’d known enough to realize he was like no one else in her circle, and that if Boone hadn’t friended him…“I didn’t stare.”

“Oh, you stared. And I imagine when your hands slipped into your panties at night, you were thinking about me.”

Heat rose. “Again with the crass.”

He sat back. “Sorry. I didn’t get a lot of schooling. I barely got fed.”

He hadn’t meant to say it. She could tell by the way he closed up, his gaze going to his plate as their food was served, his mouth a grim line, his pulse a tic in the vein at his temple.

“Is that why the house is so important to you?” she asked
once they were alone. “A reminder of how far you’ve come? That you made it out?”

He snorted, scraped his fork through his mashed potatoes. “Did I?”

“You’re here. That’s something.”

“Yeah, well. It’s just a house.”

“One you’re willing to dig yourself even deeper into debt over. Unless you’re hoping to flip it for a profit. Which might not be as impossible as you think,” she said, holding back the surprise of what she’d learned. No need to let him know she’d researched the structure’s history.

He sawed through a bite of his steak, scooped it through the gravy, shoved it into his mouth. “I don’t know what I want to do with it.”

“Except pour it full of money you don’t have,” she said, reaching for her iced tea.

“It doesn’t matter, does it? I don’t have the money, so the house will stand there until it doesn’t.”

“Have you thought about asking your mother why she dumped it on you?”

“Have I thought about my mother at all?” he asked, looking down at his food.

“Surely you have. Since the letter came about the house…”

He glanced up at that, one eyebrow arched. “Boone told you about the letter?”

“Do you know?” she asked, refusing to be distracted. “Why she dumped it on you?”

“Because she’s a stupid whore,” he said, and went back to eating.

She toyed with her squash casserole, then with her potatoes, finally taking a bite when she sensed him staring, though her appetite was long gone. “Seems strange to come out of nowhere
like that. Giving it away instead of selling it for whatever she could get.”