There’s a soft knock at the door that makes me want to scream. “Go away,” I shout, pressing my hands flat to the wood.
“Mel, let me in. I want to talk to you.”
I was expecting it to be Cary who’d come after me, but it’s Cash’s voice that reaches me. Somehow, the idea of this stoic man trudging up the stairs after me breaks my resolve.
When I open the door, I don’t hide my streaked cheeks or wipe away the tears from my eyes. He’s huge, filling the doorway, imposing but in a way that speaks to his strength and capabilities, his reliable nature. “Scott was wrong to be so insensitive,” he says. “I’ve spoken to him about it. It won’t happen again.” I nod as his gaze roams my face, probably finding me a blotchy mess.
“Nothing about this situation is as I would like it to be.” He rubs his forehead, closing his storm-cloud eyes momentarily.
“It’s not how I would like it to be either.” If he’s waiting for me to make it easier for them to tear my life apart, he’s going to be disappointed. When they do it, they’re going to feel the impact of it too. There are no actions without consequences.
“Do you think you can be happy here?” he asks me. He blinks slowly, waiting for me to respond to a question that I would never have expected him to ask. Is he worried about me being happy? I thought he was fed up with living in a dusty mess.
“You want me to answer that after one day? I’d be a fool to make assumptions about anything that quickly.” Cash nods, his eyes drifting around the room that I have made clean and pretty. A sanctuary in a storm. “And anyway, I know you’re only asking me to assuage your guilt.”
“Assuage?” He shakes his head. “You sure know some interesting words.” His mouth twitches at the corner, and I can’t be sure if he likes it or if he’s laughing at me, and that immediately raises my hackles.
“If you don’t want to feel guilty, then don’t do things that you know are wrong.”
That gets his attention all right. Cash’s posture goes from relaxed to straight, letting me know I’ve touched a nerve. “Is it wrong to buy something that’s for sale, Melanie? I didn’t do anything to your Pa. I don’t gamble, and neither do my brothers. I don’t prey on the weakness of others. But if I can afford to do something that’s going to improve the position of my family, I’m going to do it.”
“And you want to reach out a helping hand to the collateral damage.”
He sighs, hooking his thumb into his belt loop. “Collateral Damage? That’s a movie, isn’t it? Look, you need a place to stay and a job. We need someone to do all the things that we don’t have time to do—seems like a perfect fit to me. I wouldn’t want to see anyone on the street if I could do something about it.”
My spine stiffness and my hands are clenching at my sides. “Cash the good Samaritan.” It comes out as a sneer, and his head flinches backward. Despite my anger, I feel bad for lashing out with spite. That’s not how I was raised, and it isn’t necessary to get my point across.
“Why have you got to make this so hard?” he asks.
“You want me to make it easy for you to break my heart?”
My blurted words hang darkly between us. Cash might be stoic, but I can see how hard he’s finding it to deal with this situation. I’m guessing his acquisition of the Flint ranch was a whole lot less personal. Maybe it’s because I’m a woman that guilt is creeping into his soul.
That makes me mad too. I’m not a fragile flower.
“What do you want me to do?” he asks eventually, and I like that he knows he doesn’t have all the answers. Men usually toss out solutions, even when they’re not required. This man knows better.
The trouble is, I don’t know what I want. I can’t ask for my home back. I can’t ask him to put aside all of his investment for me. We’re strangers who’ve shared a roof for one night. What he knows about me, he could fit on the back of a postage stamp. So, if I can’t ask for that, what can I ask for? Better terms of employment? A more fulfilling job? Job security? Do I even know if I want to stay here?
What I do know is that I don’t want this man thinking I’m a 1950s housewife. There’s a whole lot more to me than that.
“I’m not just a homemaker, Cash. I know how to birth a calf and how to groom a horse. I know how to plant a garden and how to reduce the need for pesticides on crops. I know how to check livestock and bid on healthy ones at the auction. I’m grateful for the roof over my head, although I’d prefer the roof of my family home. But cleaning toilets and baking bread isn’t the full extent of my skills. It’s not all I want to be doing with my life.”