“You think you can come on my land and fucking touch my wife?” Cash’s face is so close to Billy’s I have to step to the side a little to see him. His face is turning purple now, and I don’t think Cash is really looking for an answer to his question. It’s clear the man won’t be able to talk with how tight Cash’s squeezing his throat.
“You don’t look at her, you don’t talk to her. In fact, you don’t even know she fucking exists.” Cash is so mad I can feel the anger pulsing off him in waves. He continues to choke Billy, and all I can do is stand there, shocked by how fast everything’s happened. I don’t even know where Cash came from. It was like he knew a man touched me, and poof, he just materialized. That actually would not shock me at this point.
“Fuck!” I hear someone yell, pulling my eyes from the scene in front of me. I see Earl and three other hands with him start to run towards the porch. They head for Cash and try to peel him off the other man. It takes all four of them to finally get Cash off Billy. When Cash lets go, Billy slides down, his ass hitting the porch. His hand goes to his throat as he coughs over and over again. I look back to Cash, who’s still being held back by the men as they try to calm him down, but it doesn’t seem to be working.
He keeps pulling to get free, wanting back at Billy.
“He fucking touched her.” He lunges again, this time breaking free of two of the hands, and I jump in front of him. He halts, almost running right into me, and I throw myself into his arms, wrapping myself around him. No way he’ll keep going at Billy if I’m locked around him. If we don’t stop him, I’m starting to think he might kill the man.
His hands go to my ass, catching me easily. I pull back and cup his face. “You marrying me today or you going to jail?” I ask him as I lean in, my lips just a breath from his, and I can see his face visibly relax.
“Marrying you.”
“Think we should practice that kissing part again?” I tease him, brushing my lips across his.
He takes my mouth. The kiss is hard and demanding, almost knocking the air right out of my lungs. I can feel everything he felt moments ago. All the adrenaline still pumping through his body, only now he’s using it on me. He pulls back sooner then I want, breaking the kiss.
“Get him off my land,” Cash says, not taking his eyes from mine as he starts to carry me towards the house.
“I’m calling the Sheriff. He’ll hear about this.”
“When you call him, can you tell him he still owes me a hundred dollars from our last poker night?” I hear Earl say as Cash kicks the door closed behind us and places me on my feet.
His eyes run over me, and I can see the rest of the tension leave his body.
“Goddamn, you look perfect.” His voice is gruff, but he takes a step back from me.
I take a step towards him, and he holds one hand up.
“Barely hanging on, sweetheart. I gotta get you to the courthouse, and if you touch me right now with how I’m feeling, I’ll snap and take you right on this floor.”
“There’s more than what just happened out there, isn’t there?” I ask, pointing to the door we just came through.
“Yeah. I was already fucking pissed before I saw Billy reach out and touch you. I went right over the edge after that.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing. Not a goddamn thing.”
I just stare at him. Cash runs a hand over his face, then pulls it through his dark hair.
“I went to the Johnsons’ and they weren’t there.”
“But June was.”
“But June was,” he confirms, making me uneasy. I don’t like that one bit.
“I sat and waited and waited some more while June ran her mouth. Baby, you know how I feel about that voice of hers.” He says it like he was tortured, making me roll my eyes.
“She offered me something to drink. I said no and that if her mom and dad weren’t back in the next five minutes, I was gone. That’s when she fucking lost it. Tried to throw herself at me. I dodged her, and she hit the floor. Hard. Then she started crying.” He studies me for a second, and I can tell there’s more and he doesn’t want to say it.
“What, Cash? Just say it.”
“I just stepped over her and left.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?” He mimics my response. “You’re not mad? I thought you’d be pissed I just left her there crying. Last time she started with those tears, you told me to be nice. I thought—”
“That’s what got you so mad?”
“Big fucking part.” He lets out a deep breath. “All I kept thinking was that if you had to listen to some man talk for thirty minutes about how you should marry him, I’d lose it. Then I came around that corner and there’s a man standing on my goddamn porch fucking touching you.” He yells the last part.
I just shake my head and walk over to him, placing my hands on his chest, smiling up at him.
“How can you be smiling? I still want to go back out there and beat the shit out of someone.”
“I’m smiling because you’re so jealous. You’re even jealous for me over you.” I start to laugh because saying it out loud makes it ever funnier.
He just shakes his head.
“We should go get married. I think that might help.” I’m not sure who he’s trying to convince, me or him.
“Sure it will,” I tease.
“Maybe if you were walking around here with a round little belly, that might help, too,” he adds.
“Can we focus on one thing at a time here? The wedding first,” I remind him.