“Damn it, Daisy. Are you hurt?”
I shook my head. “No. I-I’m fine.”
Okay, I wasn’t fine.
Not even close. He would know it soon enough.
A frown carved his rugged brow, and I had the stupid impulse to reach out and smooth it with my fingers. To tease him the way I used to do.
Look at you. Heartbreaker. How many hearts did you steal today?
But he wasn’t mine. He had never really been. He made that much clear when he left me behind.
That knowledge did nothing to stop the butterflies from lifting and scattering in my belly, the same way as they did when I was little more than a girl.
He held my shoulders rigid for a moment before he peeled his hands away, and he averted his gaze as he dipped down and snagged my towel.
Irritation lined his mouth as he opened it and held it out.
“Put this on.” Every word out of his mouth was a coarse scrape.
Jagged and grating.
Deep and low and sending vibrations rolling through the air.
“Thank you,” I mumbled, and I quickly wrapped myself in the thin cotton.
A tremble rolled through me, though it didn’t have anything to do with the chill from the water. It was all from the cold in Cash’s eyes.
He backed away, and he crossed his thick, tattooed arms over his chest.
My attention dropped there. Taking him in for a beat. This man who I hardly recognized but who once had known me better than anyone.
“How the fuck did you find me?” More knives and blades.
“I…I…” I stammered.
“What the hell are you doing here? Hiding out on my property?” he pressed. That question jerked my attention back up where it belonged.
To the ferocity in his expression.
My tongue stroked over my suddenly dried lips.
“I needed to see you,” I admitted.
I might not have seen him in years, but he was still the one person in the world I truly trusted. The only one I could trust withthis.
His plush lips thinned. “You didn’t see theNo Trespassingsigns posted all over my property?”
I chewed at the inside of my cheek as I peered over his shoulder to make sure they were safe before I looked back at him. “I thought they might not apply to me.”
“That so?” he challenged.
He said it like I was a stranger.
A trespasser.
Unwanted.
