“Fine,” she muttered under her breath, crossing the small kitchen and swinging open the door.
Her eyes slammed into a heather-gray waffle-weave Henley, then slid upward to a square jaw. She lingered on his lips for a moment, ruthlessly pushing down the tiny spark of a memory of those lips pressed against her own. Raising her gaze, she took in the cut-marble slashes of his cheekbones, finally meeting the arctic blue of his eyes.
“Ginger,” he whispered gently.
“Cain,” she answered, the sound small and stunned.
She answered his voice because she could barely see his face.
Her eyes were swimming with tears.
Chapter 24
She looked awful.
In fact, in the twenty-one years that Cain had known Ginger Laire McHuid, he couldn’t ever remember her looking so terrible.
“Hi,” he said, sweeping his eyes over her face.
Tired, glassy eyes stared back at him, with two sets of bags under each. Her hair, which was usually blonde, shiny, and curled, lay limp and greasy around her face. He dropped his gaze to her clothes and realized she was wearing a sweat suit or some sort of pajamas—a light pink shirt that read “Sleepy Time!” had several dried stains of different colors, mostly concentrated across the straining ledge of her breasts, and black cotton pants with white and gray fingerprint smudges on the thighs.
“What do you want?” she asked.
His eyes trailed back up her body quickly until he met her eyes. And as he stared at her, relief coursed through his body because there, behind the tears and the tiredness, the anger and the bleakness, was Ginger. The Ginger he knew. The Ginger he hadn’t seen at the funeral.
“I’m goin’ for a ride and you’re comin’ with me,” he said, leaning against the doorway.
She shook her head and reached for the door as if to close it. “I’m not up for a ride.”
Cain stuck his foot in the door. “You’re always up for a ride, one. And two, I didn’t ask if you were up for it.”
She took a deep breath and sighed loudly, giving him a look that would freeze boiling water. “Cain, go away.” She glanced at his foot, then back at his face. “I mean it.”
“Hmm,” he murmured, meeting her icy gaze unflinchingly. “No.”
“Christ!” she bit out, stomping one foot. “Why’re you botherin’ me?”
He shrugged. “You need to get out of this cottage.”
“You’re not my momma.”
“Thank God for that.”
“I’m warnin’ you . . .”
“Quit bein’ a pain in the ass and go get some jeans on.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You’re goin’ for a ride either way,” he said, adding a little extra steel to his voice as he recalled his promise to Woodman to take care of her. He hadn’t honored his promise, and look at what had happened. He shook his head with equal parts anger at her and himself. “And if you don’t get your ass up on that horse on your own, princess, I will pick you up over my shoulder, walk down the hill to the barn with you screamin’ and shoutin’, throw you into that saddle and smack Heath on her rump as hard as I can. Now go put on some pants. You’re comin’ for a ride with me.”
She blinked at him.
Then she ground her jaw, her face tightening and turning red with fury.
“Pants,” he said, pointing to the stairs beyond the kitchen. “Now.”
“Fine!” she spat. “But I’m not goin’ to like it.”
“Your enjoyment is optional. Your need for fresh air . . .” He leaned forward, took a whiff, and then scrunched up his nose as he jerked back. “. . . and a shower . . . is not. You stink, princess.” He gestured to the rocking chair on the porch as he removed his foot from the doorway. “I’ll wait here.”
“You’re a bully.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
With one last fuming look, she slammed the door, and he heard her grumbling as she walked through the kitchen and headed for the stairs.
He sat down in the rocker and looked up at the manor house. He was hoping to avoid the McHuids. Not that he couldn’t hold his own with them, but he wasn’t in the mood for small talk. He wasn’t really in the mood for a ride either. His body was out of shape after weeks of drinking, but his promise to Woodman had tormented him over the past month, and finally, in the past few days, he’d felt some measure of peace in his heart where his cousin was concerned. At least he was doing something to help Ginger.
And in order to help her, he’d been forced to clean up his own act too. He hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol in three days and had gone for three painful jogs. He’d finally taken his bikes off their pallets and wired some high-tech showroom lighting that made them gleam. Knowing that he had to be there for her meant that he had to take responsibility for himself first. And nothing less than a promise to Woodman—he preferred not to credit Ginger personally with any portion of his transformation—could have elicited such a change.