He tightened his grip around my shoulders and kissed the top of my head, one of the last remaining mud-free zones on my body. A shiver raced down my spine, and this time, I didn’t mind if he knew it.
Grandmother looked hard at Cash. “Doesn’t your employer realize that you have a goal—a dream—that you’re chasing?”
Hold up! Did my grandmother really just act like an employer was wrong for not recognizing someone’s dream? Our family dynamics would have been so much better over the years if she’d applied the same standard in her dealings with my parents and me.
Maybe this was part of her new and improved persona. Or maybe it was just easier to let people other than your own flesh and blood follow what she’d always called frivolous and fanciful ideas.
I couldn’t take any chances. It was still too dangerous for me to tell her what I wanted to do with my life if I still wanted any chance at a relationship with her in the future. I’d seen first-hand what she thought of musical aspirations over the years, and it wasn’t pretty. Mom had never been able to win her over. A few yoga sessions and a trip across the country to find herself wouldn’t change her feelings overnight.
No. I had to stick to the plan. Delay and divert.
Delay any deals she wanted me to make and divert her attention as far away from business talk as possible. I took a deep breath, preparing myself to face the biggest challenge of my summer. “All right, Grandmother, I’ll tour the property with you on Saturday, then I’ll go do the pickups for Cash.” I looked up at him, determination building in my gut. “You can get a head start cooking the meat, and I’ll bring the rest of the fresh ingredients to your cooking station with plenty of time to spare. How does that sound?”
Cash grinned at me. “It sounds amazing—you’re amazing.”
Seeing the pressure fall away from his features did strange things to my stomach, strange and delicious things. It wasn’t just Cash against the world anymore. He had me in his corner, and he liked it. We both did. I was officially hooked on the high I got from having his back, and I needed more. “Is there anything else I can do to help?”
He thought for a long moment. “There is one thing.”
“Name it, and I’ve got you covered.”
He patted his side and Moose trotted up to us. “Let this boy stay at your place for tonight.”
My head came out of the clouds and smacked into reality so sharply that I almost yelped—just like Angel had when the ladies started squirting the mud out of his fur. “Come again?”
“I have to be at work at four in the morning, and the weatherman’s expecting thunderstorms all night.”
I shrugged. “And…? What’s the big deal? It’s not like you keep him chained up outside.”
“Oh, Willow,” Grandmother said, “you can’t leave that sweet dog all alone during a thunderstorm.”
No, I was pretty sure I could.
“He’s terrified of storms,” Cash said.
And I’m terrified of him most of the time!Oh, how I wished Grandmother wasn’t standing three feet away on the other side of that fence so I could argue my case with Cash. But as far as she knew, Moose was just as much my dog as he was Cash’s.
“You should have seen him last night with just the rain.” Cash knelt down next to Moose and hugged his neck. “He paced and cried all night.” Moose and Cash looked up at me with puppy-dog eyes, pulling on my heartstrings a little more with every sorrowful flutter of their lashes.
My head already hurt. I’d faced more fears than I’d ever believed was humanly possible for one day, and there were more right around the corner. I’d walked into a den of dogs, washed a ferocious beast, faced my grandmotherandagreed to look at property with her…
And now this?
What was next? Sharing my bed with Cash’s nine-hundred-pound foster?
“Fine. I’ll take him.”
* * *
Rain beatagainst my living room window as the dark clouds outside blocked the final rays of the sun. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the lights flickered. I strummed the final chord of my new song and relished the feeling of my acoustic guitar vibrating against my body as I hummed the final notes of the song.
For the first time since I’d come up with my crazy idea to convince Grandmother to give me my inheritance, a song had poured effortlessly out of me—and it hadn’t had anything to do with heartache. I reached for my cup and sipped the remaining drops of tea, smiling as I recalled the lyrics I’d just penned in my notebook.
You wouldn’t give up, you wouldn’t let go, you kept looking ’til my heart was found.
You wouldn’t walk away, you promised that you’d stay.
And now our hearts beat as one, our feet dancing to the rhythms of love.
