From Ashes

“Phone.”

“What?”

“Phone, Cass, give me your phone.” He turned to look at me and his eyes were still flat.

I nodded and dug through my purse as I held his stare. “I know why you want it, and I’m not going to stop you. But, Gage, I just told you all of this; do you want to talk about it first?”

“No. When I can stop thinking about you and him, I’m gonna come back, and then we’ll talk about it.” He took my phone, stood up, and walked out of the house.

GAGE

I SLID MY finger over the phone, and though I wanted to, I didn’t check the messages. Cassidy had been painfully honest with me, so I knew she hadn’t hidden one damn thing from me. Checking the messages would only be saying I didn’t trust her, and I did. I went to her recent calls, and though I knew she’d been avoiding everyone but this detective, it still felt like a blow to see his name as the top four of her recent calls. Next to each of them was a number. Three, five, two, six. It didn’t take more than a second to add them up. Sixteen. They’d called each other sixteen f**kin’ times in a matter of two days, which he was working the majority of, and one morning. My stomach churned and I pressed on his name. It only rang twice before he picked up.

“Cassidy.” He sighed, sounding relieved. “God, I’m glad you called.”

“Not Cassidy,” I responded.

It only took a few seconds for him to get it. “Gage,” he stated firmly.

“Yep.”

“So she’s there with you.”

“Yep.”

“And you’re calling, which means she’s told you about me.”

What pissed me off more was that he’d known about me and still kissed her, begged her to stay with him. “Told me absolutely everything about you, including how she felt about you.”

“Everything,” he said doubtfully.

“Everything, meaning I just had to listen to my f**kin’ world talk to me for an hour about a guy who knew about me and still f**kin’ kissed and had her up against a wall with her legs around him. She even told me how she helped you out with your clothes before you got in the shower. So yes, I know it all.”

“Jesus.”

“I don’t appreciate people touching what’s mine,” I said in a low warning tone.

He didn’t care or back down. “I’ve never met anyone like her. It didn’t take me more than a couple minutes to know I wanted her, and not just in my bed. Girls like her don’t just come around every day—in fact they don’t come around ever. You weren’t there for her when you should have been. I don’t give a f**k if she didn’t tell you where she went. I would have made it my mission to find her and not let her go again. You let her go two weeks without even calling her.”

“And you let her go four years without even checking up on her. You don’t know the first thing about me and Cass, and you and she didn’t know that Tyler and I were talking daily while she was there. I knew I freaked her out the night of the fight, so Ty and I agreed it was best if I waited for her to come around instead of pushing her. Since Tyler’s the one who took care of her all those years, I figured he knew best, and looks like we were right.”

Connor scoffed. “You can’t keep her in a glass box. I pushed her and that’s what helped her. If not, she’d still be battling her demons and she might not be there with you. Since she told you everything, I’m guessing she told you if you weren’t in the picture, she wouldn’t have walked out my door.”

My hand gripped the railing on the wraparound porch and my head dropped. Hearing her say that had hurt more than anything else she’d told me. “She did,” I said, confirming it.

“Pushing her brought us together, and yeah, it may have ultimately sent her back to you, but it gave us a connection you’ll never understand and you’ll never have with her. I’m not blind, I know she’s completely in love with you. As soon as she says your name those eyes of hers light up and it felt like a punch to my gut every time. But just remember what she said to me. Remember that I do want your girl, and that when you mess up, I’ll be ready to take her from you.”

“Not gonna happen,” I growled, and straightened. “I’ve had enough of other guys trying to take her from me. So hear me when I say that Cassidy. Is. Mine. She came back to me. She’s not going anywhere, and neither am I. I hate what she just told me, I hate that she feels anything for you at all, but I will fight to keep her and make her forget about you for the rest of my life.”

Connor stayed silent.

“I’m putting a ring on her finger. I’m marrying her. And I’m gonna have a family with her here on my ranch. I don’t want to hear from you ever again, and when I say I, note that Cassidy will tell me if you call her, you understand?”

“Yeah, I got you.”

“Good-bye, Detective Green.” Without waiting for a response I ended the call and stormed back into the house.

Cassidy was on her knees, butt on her feet, and looking at me like she had earlier, like she was seeing the sun for the first time and afraid it was going to be taken away from her. I understood the look now; she hadn’t known then and didn’t know now how I was going to react to the Connor thing. Without saying a word, I scooped her up in my arms and carried her through the empty house into the kitchen. Her eyes didn’t leave mine and her hand shakily came up to brush across my cheeks, down my jaw, and across my lips.