Deacon (Unfinished Hero #4)(3)

We needed to rent the units, even in their state.

Because of this, I forced myself forward and said, “Cabins are forty bucks a night.”

His eyes came to me, beautiful tawny eyes, and my stomach twisted.

It twisted because I didn’t want his attention.

It also twisted because those eyes, if they were warm, smiling, affectionate, happy, were eyes you could look into and immediately feel what he wanted to make you feel. All those things. The warmth. The smile. The love. The joy. Lose yourself in them. Lose yourself in him.

Just like right then, staring into those eyes with their dark spiky lashes, I felt precisely what he wanted me to feel.

Cold down to the bone.

It took effort but I forced my lips to tip up, stopped by the spindly-legged table where we had our registration book, and said, “We just need you to sign in. Name. Address. Telephone. License plate number. And I need to run a credit card and see your ID.”

He stepped in, pulling out his wallet, his eyes, thankfully, now on the registration book.

But his lips said, “Cash.”

I looked at Grant who was sizing up the man, something in his snit he didn’t do before.

I was about to explain why we needed a credit card on file when Grant said, “Cash’ll be fine. How long you stayin’?”

The man had picked up the pen lying on top of the registration book and he didn’t look to Grant when he replied, “Three days. Maybe four.”

“Works for us,” Grant muttered.

I gave him big eyes.

He narrowed his at me, an indication to keep my mouth shut.

I didn’t want to keep my mouth shut but I also didn’t want to say something without Grant taking my back, which he was making clear he wouldn’t do.

I didn’t mind someone paying in cash.

I did mind that he interrupted his sign-in when he handed Grant his ID, no credit card, and two hundred dollars. I hadn’t been in the business very long but I wasn’t sure this said good things. Credit cards were kind of important for a variety of reasons, including the fact that they verified ID.

He finished signing in and Grant moved to the locked cabinet where we kept the cabin keys, saying, “I’ll get your change.”

“No. What you got should cover tax. We’re good,” the man replied.

That didn’t bode well either. If he stayed four days, the cost of his cabin was $160 and tax on top of that wasn’t an extra forty.

Now, who had forty extra dollars to throw around? More importantly, why would they throw it at a sub-par cabin in the middle of nowhere?

I couldn’t think on this too long because I saw Grant pocket the money as he handed the man his key.

It was then I stopped thinking we weren’t making such a good decision about renting a cabin to this guy and I was thinking maybe I hadn’t made such a good decision about Grant.

The man took the key and turned to leave.

This prompted me to take another step to him and call out, “You need a receipt?”

He looked over his shoulder at me. Right at me. Right in my eyes. And instantly, I got another shiver.

He didn’t do a top to toe. He didn’t even give any indication he understood I was a human being, much less a female one.

This, too, was unnerving.

I couldn’t say I looked like a pageant queen but I wasn’t entirely hard on the eyes. I had all the right parts in relatively right proportions in all the right places. I wasn’t statuesque and striking. I was five foot five. I had black hair. It was long and thick, though you couldn’t really tell that right then as I had it up in a messy bun at the top back of my head.

But I’d lucked out and got my mother’s eyes, unusual warm brown ones that weren’t dark brown or light, but something in between. They came to a dip on the inner corner and flared out large with long lashes that, if I used mascara on them, it would make my eyes look huge. I always thought they were exotic and beautiful and felt I could say that because they were my mom’s, not mine, just a gift she’d given me. I also thought that because all my boyfriends said my eyes were what made them notice me.

That and my lips, which were very full to near puffy, and they were all mine, not my mom’s. My sister didn’t even have my lips, something she informed me sucked. She got Mom’s eyes too. But she didn’t get my lips (or I didn’t get hers, seeing as she was older than me).

Last, I had a C-cup and it was my experience most men appreciated a C-cup.

This man didn’t.

No. Instead, he held my eyes and jerked his head once in a negative, turned, and walked out of the house.

Grant closed the door after him.

I looked to my boyfriend to share that I wasn’t entirely comfortable with all that had just transpired but I didn’t get the chance to say a word.

He lifted his hand and jabbed his finger at me.

“No f*ckin’ microwaves, Cassidy. You buy that shit, you install it. Now I’m goin’ to town and gettin’ a f*ckin’ drink.”

That was when I stood on the faded, threadbare (but still pretty) circular rug in my foyer in my little house by a river in the Colorado Mountains and watched as my man did just that. He grabbed the keys to his truck and walked out the door.

He grabbed his keys and walked out the door right in the middle of a discussion about our business, which was a huge part of our lives.