Ginger's Heart (A Modern Fairytale, #3)(52)

“I’m glad for you, cuz.”

“I’ve almost got the switchboard figured out now.” He shrugged. “It ain’t exactly fightin’ fires, but it feels good to be pitchin’ in.”

“Don’t tire yourself out.”

“Quit bein’ a nursemaid,” he said. “Though, speakin’ of nurses, know what else?”

Cain’s head whipped around to look at Woodman, and the sparkle in his cousin’s eye made Cain brace himself as he turned back around, his fingers curling over a hot metal pipe. “Tell me.”

“I been seein’ some of Ginger.”

Putting the metal wrench on a bolt and twisting hard, he managed an “Oh?”

“Sure have. She comes to see me every other night after work.”

Cain winced and his eyes fluttered closed. So she was coming here after work. “That right?”

“Yeah.” Woodman cleared his throat from the porch. “You, uh, you see her at all over at McHuid’s?”

Cain opened his eyes and shrugged, determined to keep his voice casual. “Here and there. But I’m workin’, she’s workin’.”

“Mmm,” said Woodman. “So you’ve seen her.”

“Sure.”

“She’s prettier than every girl we ever met in Europe combined,” said Woodman softly.

Yes, she is.

“Ha!” he exclaimed, his chest compressing as he heard the tenderness in Woodman’s voice. He stood up and wiped his grease-stained hands on his jeans. He needed to get out of here before Woodman saw the truth, that Cain’s feelings for Ginger were just as real, just as big, just as deep, as his.

“You don’t agree? You need glasses, brother.”

“Probably,” he said, reaching down for the wrench and turning to his cousin. “Well, I guess that does it.”

“You headed out already?” asked Woodman, shielding his eyes from the sun as he looked up at Cain.

“Uh, yeah. Got a date with, uh, Mary-Louise Walker,” he said. “Almost forgot.”

Woodman’s shoulders relaxed, and his expression flicked neatly from relieved to impressed. “You hittin’ that again?”

“Every other night,” said Cain.

It was true. He was f*cking Mary-Louise every chance he got, which was actually fairly despicable since every time he buried his cock inside her, he closed his eyes and pretended she was someone else.

“Lucky dog,” said Woodman, winking at Cain before leaning back so his face was flooded with sunshine. “Well, I guess you should . . .”

“Yeah,” said Cain, throwing the wrench in his uncle’s toolbox, latching it shut, and placing it on the front steps beside his cousin.

“Cain!”

“Uh-huh?” asked Cain, pivoting to face Woodman, who had one eye cracked open.

“It’s all workin’ out,” he said, measuring Cain’s expression carefully as he reminded him of his words from their car ride home. “Me and Gin. Just like you said it would.”

Cain’s smile wasn’t forced as he looked back at his cousin. He was happy for Woodman. He was.

Fuck it, he wanted to be.

“You deserve everythin’ you want, Josiah,” he said, meaning every word.

“Thanks, Cain,” he said, closing his eyes again. “I don’t care how busy you get with Mary-Louise, you come and see me before you head back to Virginia next Friday, you hear?”

Cain’s eyes widened and he blinked at his cousin. Head back. Holy smokes, he’d lost track of time. He was leaving in eight days. Just eight more days.

He straddled his bike and buckled his helmet. “You bet.”

As he sped down the driveway, Woodman’s words trailed through his head: It’s all workin’ out. Me and Gin. Just like you said it would.

Of course it is, he thought, clenching his jaw until it ached, his throbbing heart drowned out only by the raging motor between his thighs.

The girl he loved was making the right choice.

The cousin he loved was getting the girl of his dreams.

And Cain?

He was going back to a job he loved, in a world he understood, where Ginger and Woodman and Apple Valley would eventually lose their sharpness and color, and he’d figure out a way to bear their loss.

It was enough, right? It would be enough?

“It’s all you get! It has to be enough!” he shouted, his eyes burning, his voice lost in the roar of his bike rounding a hairpin curve like it was on rails.

Wincing as he sped away from the McHuid’s driveway, Cain tucked his head down and kept right on going till he reached the old distillery.





Chapter 12


Ginger



On Saturday Cain had helped her bring some groceries inside the little cottage, and she’d run into Cain and Klaus at the Country Diner after church on Sunday, but the few times she’d stopped by the barn to see him that week, he was either off-site getting a horse shoed, or his bike was gone. No matter what time she showed up, he wasn’t around, and by Thursday she got the distinct feeling that he was actively avoiding her.

Just like insisting they be friends had been a way of keeping her at arm’s length, he was doing the same by lying low and staying busy. But after a week, Ginger had had enough. They’d left things badly enough three years ago. She wasn’t about to let their awkward conversation in her kitchen be her last glimpse of Cain for another handful of years.