“You didn’t…” I chuckled.
She shrugged her shoulders at me and laughed, “It slipped, what can I say?”
“It slipped, huh?” I narrow my eyes at her, a hint of playfulness behind them.
“It did.” She says, nodding emphatically.
“Well, then I think you should apologize…” I give her my biggest shit splittin’ grin.
The most sarcastic apology comes from those dark pink lips. “I’m so sorry…”
“Now why is it that I don’t really think you’re the slightest bit sorry?”
“Probably because I’m not?” She shrugged and turned away again to keep working on washing down Koko.
Hell, no. We weren’t done here.
“Well then, if you aren’t sorry, I guess payback is in order.” She turned around looking nervous. What she didn’t take into account before turning from me was that she’d laid down the hose. Within my reach.
She noticed the hose hanging from my hand after I picked it up. “Wha…..what are you gonna do… with… with that?”
“Well, Cass, I think it’s only fair that you get a little bit soaked too…” I said with a smirk and she put her hands up in defense.
“Don’t you dare, Beau Montgomery. Don’t you even…”
She didn’t get the words ‘think about it,’ out before I blasted her with the hose. I didn’t blast her face, but everywhere else was fair game. Shielding her face, she shot curse words at me and threatened me with every single thing she could think of, I’m sure. Thing is, most of the words she actually said were too muffled by the water that I couldn’t hear her idle threats.
When I finally stopped spraying, she was soaked neck to toe and fuming. I could see the smoke coming out of her ears. I knew I was going to get it and at the moment I would willingly accept whatever she dished my way.
“Beau Montgomery!!!!” She yelled. She came running at me, wailing on my chest with her tiny little female hands and I couldn’t help my laugh.
“You hit like a girl, Cassidy Mae.”
“Yeah, well I am a girl.” She laughed good and long at me. I could clearly see that she was a girl. I could also tell that she was into this flirting thing we were doing. Her nipples peaked against her black tank top and I couldn’t help but admire them. I pulled her in close to me so she would stop hitting me. She cringed at first, but settled into me.
“You’re a very beautiful woman, Cass,” I whispered in her ear. Those six words brought my carefree girl back to the woman I didn’t know. She pushed away from me and stared at the ground.
“Don’t say things like that, Beau.”
“And just why can’t I say things like that? You are beautiful. Been beautiful since the first day I saw you hanging out with Reagan and not a thing has changed since then. Other than you turning into a breathtaking woman from the beautiful girl you were.”
She shook her head but didn’t say anything else. I could tell she didn’t believe me. Obviously, that hell of an ex had convinced her that she wasn’t good enough and that she wasn’t pretty. Well, challenge accepted. My new goal in life was to make my girl know that she was pretty.
We stood face to face, so close that I could reach out and kiss those pink lips like I’ve always wanted to. The look in her eye was practically begging me to do it, but there was also a fear clouding the desire. I pulled away.
“I, well, I’ll let ya get back to it. Sorry for interrupting.”
I slowly turned and started to walk away when my name fell from her lips. “Hey, Beau?”
“Yeah, Cass?”
“Thanks for that. I haven’t laughed like that in a long while. It was nice. Minus the whole soaked clothes thing,” she said pulling the wet clothes from her body.
“Anytime, darlin’.” It was the first time I’d used an affectionate phrase for her and she didn’t cringe. I was calling it a win. She shook her head again and went back to Koko.
I was glad at that moment that it was Koko she’d been washing. Any other horse and it may have been a lot worse, but Koko had been around the block a time or two. They called her a bombproof horse. She’d been Reagan’s mare for years and she was actually the horse Faith now used for kid’s lessons.
I needed to get my head back on straight. I couldn’t go around flirting and pretending that Cassidy Mae was my girl. Even though she’d gotten better around everyone, it still concerned me that she was so jumpy. I hated it. I wanted her to feel safe here. With us. With me. But I didn’t know what I could do to make her feel better other than using the things I used with Zeus.
I’d have to earn her trust and desensitize her to me. To prove to her that I wasn’t Andrew. That being with me wouldn’t cause pain and negativity. That she would only be treated with love and given the chance to trust.
If I could get a young, abused horse to trust me then maybe I can use some of the same tools with getting my girl.
But first, I needed to shower.
There was so much work to be done around the stables and my day was far from over. Elle and Titan needed work and I wanted to take Apache on a walk of the fences to make sure we were still secure.
The upcoming county fair had been the only thing on anyone’s lips for a while now. It was the biggest event to roll around at the end of every summer. Only a month and a
