Slowly, Cassidy turned around. He went to her, set his hands on her shoulders.
“Your mother would be proud of you. How you turned out.”
Then he pulled her into his arms and hugged her. She started to cry. Sob, really.
I rubbed the back of my neck as the sound pierced my heart.
“What she said is all true,” Colt murmured when he stepped closer to me. “I got info on her last yearwhen I looked into the cousin when he fucked with Katie at The Roadside.”
“I remember that,” I said. Cassidy had been a, what, junior in high school in Vermont at the time? She hadn’t been working with her father to get Katie’s land. She hadn’t been around before that when he’d tried to force Ellie to marry him.
“I paid her in cash,” Buck added. “Told me she didn’t have a bank account yet. If she’s a spy, the only thing she’ll be telling her father is how we muck stalls.”
“You know, fucking his daughter’s a great way to get back at the man,” Colt murmured.
I shoved his shoulder for that shit talk. “Watch it,” I snapped.
“She tricked you. Tricked us all. Fucked up Katie’s case. Send her back to Two Rivers, fucked and discarded.”
Colt’s words made me see red. I couldn’t believe he’d talk about Cassidy that way.MyCassidy. So I punched him.
“Shut the fuck up,” I hissed, pointed in his face. “You don’t talk about her like that!”
Colt had a hand to his nose. Blood tricked from it. “Oh yeah, why’s that?”
“Because I love her, you asshole.”
He grinned. So did Buck.
I glared, then realized what he’d done. He’d talked shit about Cassidy so I’d react. “Jesus, you really are an asshole.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t fall for the enemy’s daughter.”
Buck started laughing. “Told you, H. Fuck, I fucking told you so.”
Colt frowned, wiping his hand under his nose, smearing a trickle of blood. “What?”
Buck smiled. “He told me that when I fell for Sage, who had the fucking mafia after her, that he was gonna find a nice, simple girl and settle down.”
Colt laughed, then winced. I’d popped him good, but his nose wasn’t broken. “I think Trout’s worse than the mafia. Go get your girl from Pops. Make this shit right.”
Yeah, it was time to make it right. Time to make Cassidy know that everything was going to be okay. Shit, she’d been worried for over a month about this, all alone.
“Pops!” I called.
He wrapped an arm around Cassidy’s shoulder and turned, leading her back into the kitchen.
“There’s only one way to make this right,” I said, thinking of Trig. “Make it so that Cassidy no longer has the Trout last name.”
Pops’ eyes sparkled. He knew what I was going to say.
Cassidy slowly lifted her head, her face blotchy and tear stained.
“Oh? How’s that?” Pops asked.
“By making her a Wilder. Princess, what do you say to marrying me?”
16
