Unfinished Hero 04 Deacon (18 page)

“That’s actually a good idea,” I told him
because it was. I could do this. I’d have to honor the bookings I
had at the rates they’d booked, but it’d be super-easy to change
the website to increase the rates for future bookings.

“Not the scarecrow.”

Deacon’s bizarre words had my head jerking
and my mouth saying, “Sorry?”

“Got a brain in my head, Cassidy.”

He said this with his deep voice bearing a
thread of humor, not insult, which was good.

Still.

“I didn’t say you didn’t,” I replied.

“Woman, that was an offer.”

Again, I was confused.

“What?” I asked.

“Got a brain, I can use it,” Deacon answered.
“You do what you do day to day. It’s your life. You’re up to your
neck in it. Can get mired in that, unless you got someone to kick
ideas around with. Since I got a brain, and you got me, that
someone is me.”

The feeling of heady warmth that gave me was
just overwhelming. So much so I couldn’t speak.

“Woman, you there?” he called.

“Yes, honey,” I forced out and kept doing it.
“Thanks for the offer. I’ll take you up on it. I just hope I make
it so you don’t regret it.”

“How would that happen?” he asked, sounding
genuinely perplexed, which I found unbelievably sweet.

But still.

“You remember Grant?” I inquired.

“Who?”

“Grant. My boyfriend when I, uh…first met
you.”

“Lazy fuck,” he stated, paused, then said
before I could confirm, “Stupid fuck.”

“Yeah,” I replied, smiling. “Him.”

“I remember.”

“Well, my dream, this dream that transformed
when I found these cabins, wasn’t being here doing it alone. I
actually thought most of the fun would be being here, taking care
of these cabins, and doing it together, at the time with Grant. He
didn’t agree. His fun came a different way. The weight of the work,
and me, ended up too much.”

“Cassie,” he said quietly. “Respect, but you
two were too young to take that on. Man his age back then, all he
wants is to get drunk and do it findin’ someone who’ll give him a
blowjob after he’s done gettin’ shitfaced.”

This was absolutely true.

“Sayin’ that,” Deacon went on, “all a man’s
gotta do is look at you, any age he is, and know he struck gold and
has to get his shit together to keep it shiny, but more, keep it
his. But he didn’t just look at you, he knew you, and doin’ that,
no excuse for bein’ the way he was.”

The warmth I got from that settled so deep, I
could ride it for weeks in the Arctic with not even a blanket.

“What I’m sayin’ is,” Deacon kept on quietly,
“you are not a weight. Those cabins aren’t. Life isn’t. It’s just
what it is. It’s part of livin’. It’s part of bein’ together. If it
matters, if it’s good, nothin’ weighs it down.”

“I really wish you were here right now,” I
blurted, and it was the truth, mostly because I wanted to kiss him
and do it hard.

It was then Deacon said nothing.

This lasted some time, so I called,
“Deacon?”

“Same here, Cassie.”

He wished he was with me.

And that felt warm too.

Needless to say, after that conversation, I
thought we could do it, Deacon taking off, me staying home, us
connecting from afar, learning about each other, helping what we
had to grow, making it good, then
connecting
when he got
back.

That was, until he left again. And when he
did, he never picked up when I called and only twice phoned me
back. These were short calls that lasted less than a minute and
mostly were him saying he got my calls and couldn’t talk, but he’d
call when he could.

But he never did.

And then it began to feel weird, me calling
him a couple times a day so he’d see my number on his history and
know I was thinking about him, wanting to speak with him, wanting
to connect, but he never connected.

Then it didn’t feel weird, it felt
humiliating, like I was the girl the guy picked up, had a good time
with, thought it might be worth working at, then found she was
needy and grasping. Calling all the time. Wanting to connect.
Thinking about him way too much, as in creepy-much. All this until
it was time to shut it down and shut her out because she was a
creepy, stalker freak.

That didn’t feel good so I quit calling,
hoping if I did, he’d call.

He didn’t.

He’d been gone nearly five weeks. And of that
five weeks, I hadn’t heard from him in four, and hadn’t phoned him
in three.

I didn’t know Deacon very well but in the
times I was with him, the Deacon I thought I was coming to know
wouldn’t leave me hanging for three weeks.

Unless he was going to leave me hanging
forever.

Which I had no choice but to assume he was
doing. Three weeks was a long time. His last “job” only lasted a
week. This one was five. He had to be done with the job by now and
moving on.

Moving on.

I just couldn’t believe he was doing it. Not
without saying something. He didn’t have to come to Glacier Lily
and lay it out for me. In fact, I was glad he didn’t.

But leaving me hanging?

Forever?

That didn’t seem very Deacon.

Which was another reminder that I didn’t know
Deacon. I didn’t know what he did for a living. I didn’t know his
full name. I didn’t know where he came from or how he became the
man he was.

I knew he was thirty-eight, had slept with
that same amount of women, (well, with me, one more), he was
mellow, didn’t talk much, was great in bed, liked my cooking…

And that was all I knew.

This put me in a bad mood. A bad mood where I
sat on my porch in the rain (though I’d do that anyway) staring at
the trees, trying not to make a big deal of this. A hot guy, great
sex, a feeling of hope it was the start of something beautiful,
something that could be forever—women got that feeling all the time
and found they were wrong.

I tried to make it that simple.

But I knew it wasn’t that simple.

I was staving off heartbreak…again. Doing it
with the impending official adoption of the dog Deacon bought for
me. I had pictures. The breeders e-mailed them to me weekly—the
puppies rolling around, nursing from their momma, growing up, and
playing.

I was in love with all of them and had no
idea how I would choose when the time came two weeks from then when
I’d have to.

I also had no idea how I would claim and care
for a dog that would forever remind me of Deacon.

I closed my eyes tight on that thought,
fighting the feelings that threatened to overwhelm me, and
not
in a warm way. In a devastated, I’m-an-idiot,
I’d-picked-the-wrong-guy, when-was-I-gonna-learn way.

But I opened them when I heard the growl of
an engine through the patter of rain.

I turned my head right to see who was there,
and when I saw the rain slicked black Suburban through the gray
dusk, I quit breathing.

I started again but only to do it erratically
as I watched the driver’s side door open and Deacon unfold his long
frame from the seat. I heard the door slam and remained still, my
eyes on him negotiating the trees at the side of my house as he
stalked to the porch.

My breath caught again when he arrived at the
porch and I could see his eyes pinned to me, his face blank, the
mask returned (not a good sign), but there was no escaping the
heaviness that descended from whatever it was that was emanating
from him.

This could have been why I couldn’t move.

Deacon could move. He put his hands to the
porch railing, and even though the porch (and definitely the
railing) was elevated several feet from the ground, he hauled
himself up and threw his body over the rail, his boots hitting the
deck with a definitive thud.

At this miraculous display of upper body
strength, I swallowed a gasp.

I had no idea what he was doing there, and
even if his expression was giving me nothing, I still understood
from somewhere deep he didn’t want to be there.

But he was.

And I didn’t get that.

Though maybe I did. Maybe I was right. Maybe
it was Deacon’s time to say good-bye, face to face.

Suddenly, I wished he’d left me hanging.

He stared down at me and I still didn’t move.
Just had my neck twisted, my head tipped back, because his
unfathomable eyes were locked to mine in a way I couldn’t
escape.

“Thought you were more woman than any woman
I’d met,” he declared, his voice low but cold, a voice I had for
six years. A voice I thought was gone forever.

A voice it was a blow that hurt like a bitch
to have back.

It was also a bizarre opening.

“Sorry?” I asked.

“A woman who’s any woman at all, she wants
shot of a man, she’s got the guts to tell him.”

I stared in disbelief.

What did he just say?

Shot of a man?

Before I could ask, Deacon kept talking

“You don’t have that and I should let you
make that play. But what you gave me, Cassidy, not gonna let you
make that play. So you want shot of me, I’m standin’ right here.
Now you say the words.”

“Are you crazy?” I whispered, knowing he was
because there was no way in hell he could think I was shot of
him.

Him shot of me, yes.

Me shot of him…

Absolutely not.

“You quit callin’,” he stated.

I finally moved, turning in my seat and
keeping my eyes glued to his.

“You did too.”

“I was workin’,” he clipped.

I felt my eyebrows shoot up. “For weeks,
without a moment to phone just to say hey?”

“For weeks, without a moment to phone and say
hey,” he confirmed, his words still terse.

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Seriously,” he answered shortly and kept
going. “Situation was not good. It was intense. And there were
people there I did not know, I did not like, and I did not trust.
No way in fuck I’m gonna take a call and expose shit to those
fuckers. And no way I could take a call from you and not expose you
mean somethin’ to me. Since I was with them practically twenty-four
fuckin’ seven, I didn’t take a call and I didn’t make a call. Told
you, I would not put you in danger. That world I live in, Cassidy,
it does not exist for you and by that I mean you don’t know that
world and that world does not know you.”

This made some sense, and some of it was very
sweet.

However.

“So what’s that mean, Deacon?” I asked.
“Incommunicado for weeks with no idea when that incommunicado will
end?”

“Fuck no,” he returned. “It means you phone
me so I know you’re good and you’re thinkin’ of me.”

Suddenly, I was over my shock he was there
and this was because I was pissed.

“So I sit at home and give you that and I get
nothing?” I pushed.

“You get knowin’ it’s good for me that I know
I’m on your mind.”

I had to admit, that would be a nice thing to
give.

But when there’s give, there should be
get.

“And what do I get?”

“Woman, if you don’t already know that you’ve
been on my mind every day for the last six years, I got no clue how
to communicate that to you. Now that I’ve had you, that shit has
not changed. It’s just got worse.”

My back straightened and I started glaring.
“Worse?”

“Worse,” he confirmed on a downward jerk of
his chin. “Now it’s not every day. It’s every hour. I don’t fight
it, every minute. Fuck, every
second,
I don’t keep it in
check. Every second, I’m thinkin’ of you, thinkin’ of gettin’ shit
done, but only so I can get back to you.”

That was very,
very
sweet.

I was still pissed.

And this was because I got nothing from him,
not one thing for a month!

“You didn’t tell me that, Deacon.”

“I fuckin’ did, Cassidy.”

“When?” I snapped.

He leaned toward me and shot back, “Every
moment I was with you.”

I drew in a sharp breath.

Because in that instant, I knew he was
right.

“You’re a vulnerability,” he ground out.
“
My
vulnerability. I have no vulnerabilities. I spent years
shavin’ every last one away from me so there was nothin’ left. Now
I got one, a big one, and I do not give one fuck as long as she’s
in Colorado, sittin’ on her porch, waitin’ for me to get back.”

Oh my God.

“Deacon,” I whispered, but got no further
because he kept going.

“But I can’t know she’s doin’ that if she
doesn’t,” he leaned into me again, “
phone me
.”

“What if I need you?” I asked softly, his
words making me no longer pissed.

“Then you phone. You hang up. You phone
again. You hang up. And you phone again. You keep phonin’, Cassidy,
I’ll know I’m not just on your mind, I’m needed. And I’ll phone
back. But I’ll do it on my way to you.”

Oh yes.

I was no longer pissed, like
at
all
.

It was then I stood and faced him, saying in
a calming voice, “I couldn’t know this, honey.”

“Right. Then I’ll educate you,” he returned,
his words still clipped, showing he could definitely get annoyed.
“Those five men you had, not one of them was a man like me. A man
like me, Cassidy, does not sit on a fuckin’ chair on a fuckin’
porch by a fuckin’ river in the fuckin’ Colorado Mountains and tell
a woman he wants to be sittin’ right there beside her when he’s
eighty if he does not mean that shit.”

I felt my chin go back into my neck as I held
his gaze, doing this to fight back the emotion his words rocketed
through me.

Once I succeeded, I suggested, “Maybe we
should get a system down.”

The mask slipped but only for his face to
darken on the words, “You’re not shot of me?”

“Of course not,” I answered. “I just…you
didn’t phone back so I thought you were shot of me.”