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Girl? To her horror and chagrin, her heart gave a small flutter at the endearment he’d used during their short-lived romance. She dismissed it. Being attracted to Shane was impossible. For too many reasons to list.
“Sorry I interrupted you.” She attempted to pass him. “Let me get out of your way. I’m sure you want to unpack.”
“Stay a while.” He didn’t budge. “We can catch up.”
“I promised Liberty I’d help with her riding class this afternoon.” Surely her sister would forgive this one small fib, considering the circumstances.
It was then Cassidy remembered her sister didn’t know the circumstances. No one did for certain except their mother, and Cassidy had sworn her to secrecy.
“That’s not for another hour.” Shane smiled sheepishly and—dang it all—appealingly. “Your dad mentioned the schedule earlier.”
Her father. Of course, Cassidy thought with a groan. He alone was responsible for hiring Shane and throwing her life into utter turmoil.
“We have a new student signing up.”
“Come on.” Shane gestured to the dining table. “It’s been years since we had a real talk.”
It was true. Cassidy had avoided him and Hoyt like the plague, determined not to let either of them near her son, Benjie. It hadn’t been easy. Shane had competed regularly until recently and often visited the Easy Money.
“Five minutes.” Shane removed his cowboy hat and tossed it onto the table.
She hesitated. The one thing more dangerous than being alone with Shane was being alone with his brother. To refuse, however, might raise Shane’s suspicions. She couldn’t chance it.
“Okay.” She slid slowly onto the bench seat, the faded upholstery on the cushions pulling at her jeans, and repeated “Five minutes” for good measure.
He plunked down across from her, a pleased grin on his face.
Cassidy swallowed. The small dining table didn’t provide nearly enough distance. Shane’s appeal was infinitely more potent up close. His sandy brown hair, worn longer now than when he was competing, didn’t quite cover the jagged scar starting beneath his ear and disappearing inside his shirt collar—a souvenir courtesy of his last ride on Wasabi. And those green eyes, intense one second and twinkling with mirth the next, were hard to resist.
Currently, they searched her face. Cassidy tried not to show any signs of the distress weakening her knees and quickening her breath.
“What’s Hoyt up to these days?” She strove to sound mildly interested, which wasn’t the case.
“Same as always. Heading to a rodeo in Austin this weekend.”
“Still married?”
At the spark of curiosity in Shane’s eyes, she wished she’d posed the question differently. Now he’d think she cared about Hoyt’s marital state. Well, she did. But not for that reason.
“He and Cheryl are doing fine. Bought a house in Jackson Hole last year.”
Jackson Hole. In Wyoming. Good, Cassidy thought. Plenty far from Reckless, Arizona.
“Any kids yet?” She cursed herself for needing to know.
“Nope.” Shane shrugged. “Still trying. Hoyt wants a big family. Or so he says.”
A jolt shot through her. She attempted to hide it with a show of nonchalance. “Tell me about your daughter.”
Shane instantly brightened. “Bria’s four. Not sure yet if she wants to be a princess or a soccer player when she grows up.”
“What? No cowgirl?”
“I’m hoping to change her mind.”
Cassidy’s son, Benjie, wanted to be a champion bull rider. Like his grandfather before him and, unbeknownst to all but Cassidy and her mother, like his father and Uncle Shane.
She quickly shoved her hands beneath the table before Shane spotted them shaking. How was she ever going to keep him from finding out about Benjie and telling Hoyt? She vowed to find a way.
There were those who’d disagree, claiming she should have told Hoyt from the beginning about Benjie. That he had a right to know. Others, admittedly not many, who would side with her. It wasn’t just Hoyt’s nomadic lifestyle and partying ways, which had been one of the reasons for their breakup. Cassidy couldn’t take the chance of him fighting for, and probably winning, joint custody of Benjie.
She’d seen firsthand how parents living in separate towns divided a family. When her brother, Ryder, had turned fourteen, he’d left to live with their father. Up until last fall, Ryder had rarely seen or spoken to Cassidy, Liberty and their mother. Their father’s return had reunited the Becketts, but they were far from being a family. Not in the truest sense. Too much hurt and betrayal, and too many lies littered their past.
No way, no how, was she putting her son through the same broken childhood she’d endured. She would not suffer the same heartbreak that had devastated her mother when they’d lost Ryder. And it would happen. Of that, Cassidy was certain.
“Mom mentioned Bria will be visiting soon.” Cassidy forced a smile.
Shane, on the other hand, beamed. “Every other weekend to start.”
To start? Was he planning on obtaining full custody of his daughter? Cassidy’s anxiety increased. If Hoyt followed his brother’s example...
She pushed the unpleasant thought away. “She’s close by, then?”
“Mesa.”
“Ah.” A forty-five-minute drive.
“That’s why I accepted this job.” A glint lit his eyes as his gaze focused on her. “Now I have even more incentive.”
Oh, dear. Cassidy steeled herself, determined to resist him. “Bria’s mom is okay with you taking her more often?”
“Judy’s been great. She wants Bria and me to have a relationship.”
“But she lied to you about having a child.”
The uncanny similarities between Benjie and Bria weren’t lost on Cassidy.
“I understand her reasons,” Shane said. “I wasn’t what you’d call good father material. Now that I’ve quit my wild ways and found a job which keeps me in one place, Judy’s willing to work with me.”
His brother, too, had quit his wild ways to become a rodeo announcer, but Cassidy didn’t feel inclined to work with him. Not yet, and maybe not ever.
“It can’t be easy for you, seeing Wasabi every day.”
“He’s just another bull under my care.”
Her gaze was automatically drawn to his scar. She’d seen the pictures posted on their mutual friends’ Facebook pages. The gash, requiring forty-four stitches, traveled from beneath his right ear, down his neck to his chest. Miraculously, Wasabi’s hoof had just missed an artery. Otherwise, Shane might have bled out.
“I’m glad you’re all right.” Her voice unwittingly softened.
Shane responded with a heart-melting smile. No surprise he’d inspired a legion of female fans during his years on the circuit. Was that the reason for Bria’s mother’s secrecy? It wouldn’t surprise Cassidy.
“Not my day to die,” Shane said matter-of-factly.
“All the same, it was a terrible fall. How can you bear to look at Wasabi?” Cassidy still shuddered when she passed the well house, even though the accident involving her and her father happened twenty-five years ago. Like Shane, she’d walked away when things might have gone horribly different.
He