“Who?” Monroe asked.
“Butch,” Ralen said with a sigh.
Cash didn’t want to ask that asshole either. But he remembered now that Butch had lived in Las Vegas for a couple of years.
“Let’s call the bastard then,” Ralen said with a groan. He glared down at Limpy. “You know, this was supposed to be a fun trip to Las Vegas for me. I thought I might even get to a casino and make a few bets, but nooo, you had to ruin it. Now I’ve got to deal with Butch and ask him a favor. Do you know how much I want to ask him a favor? I don’t. And if the girls weren’t in here, I’d smack you around a bit.”
“Ralen,” Dotty said in shock. “You can’t do that.”
“We need answers, Dotty,” Monroe said, looking surprisingly resolute. “We need answers, and he might have them. How do you think the guys are going to get them?”
Cash waited for Addie to stiffen, to move away, to stare up at him with fear in her face. Instead, she leaned into him, hugging him tight.
“Are you all right, baby?” he asked her.
“I am if you are,” she said back.
“I’m always all right with you in my arms. I know I have to explain why I’m here, but just know I’m here for you, Addie. I’m here because I want you, and I hope you feel the same. If you don’t, well, I’m going to kidnap you anyway, take you back home until you do want me.”
There was silence.
“Jesus, man, there’s such a thing as sharing too much. You’ve gone from having no words to having crazy words,” Ralen told him in a mock whisper.
“Did you just threaten to kidnap my sister?” Dotty asked. “In front of us? Are you insane?”
“Insane for her? Yep. Insanely in love? Definitely.”
All right, maybe he had lost his mind. But he didn’t really care.
“Okay.” Ralen walked over to him, placing the back of his hand over Cash’s forehead as though he was searching for a fever. “Something is wrong with you. Is there a switch? Is there some sort of reset button? Because you have lost your fucking mind.”
“I don’t understand what’s happening here,” Addie said. “Did he really just say that he was insanely in love with me?”
“I didn’t think he had it in him to make big declarations like that,” Monroe said.
“In love with Addie?” Dotty asked. “How can you be in love with Addie?”
Now they all turned to stare at Dotty, and she waved her hands in the air. “You know I didn’t mean it like that. Not that Addie isn’t lovable. Of course she is. I think Addie is amazing. She’s wonderful, kind, beautiful, caring. But you’ve known her for what? Eight or nine days? And some of those days you haven’t even been around! How can you love her?”
When she said it like that, it did sound insane.
However, Cash knew how he felt about her. Now it was clear that he hadn’t been able to find the words to reply to her text before because he’d known that he had to say them to her.
“I just do,” Cash said. He turned to Addie and placed his hands on her shoulders. “And I’m sorry I didn’t reply to yourtext. I didn’t know what to say. Or how to say it. Seems I just had to say it in front of you in person.”
“Apparently, in front of all of us,” Ralen said dryly. “You know, when I said you had to open up a bit about how you felt, I didn’t think you were going to go the full hog. Now the hog’s been hog-tied, it’s got an apple in its mouth, and it’s about to be set on the fire. Shit, I hope you don’t burn.”
He had no idea what Ralen was talking about. He only had eyes for Addie, and she was still staring up at him in shock.
Limpy let out some noises, but they all ignored him. That could wait.
“It’s all right if you can’t say anything back, Addie. Just know that’s how I feel about you, and I’m not walking away, and I’m not giving you up. Maybe I won’t kidnap you, but I need you to know that this is real.”
To be honest, he still hadn’t ruled out the kidnapping thing. He didn’t think that he could return to Billings without her.
“I . . . I . . .”
Cash could handle anything she had to say, except that she hated him, that she didn’t want him. That was something he couldn’t deal with.
