Ginger's Heart (A Modern Fairytale, #3)(97)
“Pop told me they’re layin’ a wreath on Woodman’s grave for Veterans Day,” he said, watching her face intently. “We should be there.”
Her chest compressed, squeezing the air from her lungs, and she squeaked, “I’m not goin’ to that.”
Cain took a step toward her, his eyes lasering into hers. “Oh, yes you are, Ginger McHuid. You be ready, or I’ll come up to your room, pull you out of that bed, and you’ll stand there by his grave in your dirty pajamas, you hear?”
“No, I don’t hear. I’m not—”
He turned to walk away, throwing, “See you on Tuesday, princess,” over his shoulder before disappearing into the tack room and kicking the door shut.
“Oooofsh!” she grunted, her eyes burning as her nose flared. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
“Cain Holden Wolfram,” she heard him say, his voice muffled from the other side of the door.
She balled up her fingers into fists by her sides. I’m not going. I’m not. He can’t make me. He can’t f*ckin’ make me!
“Now go on home, princess.”
“Go to hell, Cain!”
“Just got back,” he said, his voice fading as he walked farther into the tack room, away from the door.
Her feet started moving, away from Cain, out of the barn, onto the gravel, which crunched under her furious footsteps as her arms swung by her sides. She kept walking until she stomped into her kitchen, pulled out a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and two bananas, cursing Cain a mile a minute as she made herself a sandwich, then ended up eating two.
***
“God damn it!” she muttered, throwing a dark gray dress on top of the navy blue and black ones already scattered on her bed.
Over the past three days, her appetite had gotten better, but every dress she had still hung unattractively loose on her thinner frame.
She sat down on the bed and flicked an unhappy glance at the clock: 9:48. He’d be here any second, and she knew Cain well enough to know that he was completely serious about hauling her to the cemetery regardless of what she was wearing.
And what was her recourse? To scream at him? Sure. Much good it would do her. He’d pick her up screaming and kicking and toss her in Klaus’s truck one, two, three.
Lock all the doors? Great idea . . . if Cain hadn’t taught himself how to pick locks when he was eleven. And if memory served, he hadn’t yet met a lock he couldn’t pick.
Call the police and have them stand guard at her door? Theoretically this was an option, but one, it would cause a major scene in Apple Valley, and two, calling the police on Cain was a line not even Ginger could cross. As angry as he made her feel, she just . . . couldn’t.
Which really left her only two options: to call his bluff and let him haul her out to Woodman’s grave wearing her pajamas, or find something decent to wear and get dressed.
Standing up, she crossed back over to her closet and took out a pair of dark, dark blue jeans and pulled them on. They’d always been a little snug, so they fit just fine now. Taking a white silk blouse from her closet, she pulled it over her head and added a periwinkle-blue cardigan. Then she twisted her hair into a modest bun and fastened it with a plain old navy blue scrunchie. She skipped looking in the mirror—half of her simply didn’t care how she looked, and the other half didn’t want to look at the deep grooves under her eyes and the hollows in her cheeks.
As she headed downstairs, she heard knocking at the back door and slowed her pace deliberately. He was five minutes early and he could damn well wait. She picked up her purse from a table at the foot of the stairs and rifled through it for ChapStick, running it over her lips slowly, like she had all the time in the world. She smoothed back her bun and stepped into the kitchen as he knocked again, louder this time.
Just as she was about to open the fridge and peruse its contents for a snack, she heard him bellow at the top of his lungs, “Virginia Laire McHuid, you get your ass down here or I’ll—”
“Cain!” She whipped open the door and clapped her hand over his mouth. “Quiet!”
She could just imagine her mother’s pleasure to find Cain Wolfram screaming “ass” at the top of his lungs on her daughter’s doorstep, and she was not in the mood for her mother’s attitude this morning.
His eyes looked down at her, but he didn’t move, and it took another second for Ginger to realize that his lips were pressed to her hand. His mouth was open, and she could feel his warm breath against the skin of her palm. Staring up at him, she blinked and pulled her hand away.
“If you wanted me to kiss your hand hello,” he said, “you could have just asked.”
“Don’t be cute,” she said, fisting her hand to get rid of the lingering warmth on her skin and trying desperately to ignore the way her chest had fluttered when Cain drawled the word kiss.
“Okay,” he said evenly. “I won’t be cute today.”
For the first time, her eyes slipped from his face, and she realized that Cain wasn’t dressed in his usual jeans and Henley. Today, for the first time ever, she was seeing him in his uniform, and it fairly took her breath away.
He wore a navy blue top with three white stripes at the collar and another three at the cuffs, and a black, knotted neckerchief at his tanned, muscular neck. Her eyes traveled over his broad chest, and she raked her teeth over her bottom lip as her eyes dropped to the matching blue pants with a front flap fastened with thirteen buttons. On his feet he wore black formal shoes, buffed to a high shine, which touched her heart for some reason, imagining the time it had taken to get them that shiny. In his hand, he held a starched snow-white cap, which he lifted and placed on his stubbly black hair.