There was something about him, though . . . something that set him apart from all her exes. It was in the way he stood and the way he talked. It was in the easy way he held himself, and in the old Chuck Taylors he wore when he wasn’t in motorcycle boots. He’d be thirty-four on April fifth, more than a decade her senior . . . though he believed she was a couple years older than she was.
He had more than ten years on her, yet in some ways Casey seemed like a teenager. Normally that wasn’t a plus for a woman, but Abilene’s own teenage years had been forfeited. She’d never experienced young love as she should have, never been with a guy and had it be about fun, about exploring like dumb, eager kids. She was always the student, with men. An innocent in need of teaching, or saving, or corrupting. She’d fantasized a thousand times about how sex with Casey would be, and not even in a horny way—not since her hormones had banished her sex drive, at least.
He’d be eager, she bet. Silly, and energetic, and shameless. Up for anything, and every emotion he felt would be right there on his face. She loved his voice, too—not deep like his brother’s, but soft, and sexy when he spoke low, late at night. What would he say, in bed? She swallowed, unable to guess but knowing it’d be brash. His ears and throat and cheeks would be bright pink, like they got when he was embarrassed. No guile, just proof that he wanted her. Lust bloomed at the thought, chased by a different heat—shame. The two were as married inside her as bees and their stingers, a product of the strict breed of Christianity she’d been raised in and formed by. The lust, she knew now, was wholly natural, a force from deep in her body. The shame was all in her head. Though knowing that didn’t keep her from feeling it.
Where Casey was concerned, though, fantasies were all she got. Good as he’d been to her, as both a boss and a friend, she knew it shouldn’t ever be more than that. She knew he’d been to prison, but for what crime, she wasn’t sure and frankly didn’t want to know. For her, it was enough to know that he’d done time. Enough to tell her that letting this crush grow any deeper would just be history repeating itself yet again. For her daughter’s sake, she had to pick with her head the next time she fell hard for somebody.
And though she and Casey weren’t meant to be, she welcomed the what-if daydreams. She’d missed being sexual these past months, and feeling the surge of power that came with it.
She might not be the most obvious sex object, but the whole petite-girl-with-big-eyes thing worked on some guys, and she’d always gotten a rush from seeing that glint in a man’s eye. The power she felt, feeling wanted like that . . .
Sure, she’d been led astray, but never all that unwillingly, she could admit.
“Refill?” Casey asked, tipping the coffeepot to his own mug.
“No, thanks. One’s probably plenty. Hoping I might steal a nap, if Mercy goes down at ten like she has been.”
“Good thinking.” He took a seat across from her, eyeing the baby. “You spill anything on her?”
“Not yet,” she fibbed, spreading butter on the second half of her muffin. You didn’t spill crumbs, she reasoned. You dropped them. No one told you crap like that about motherhood—how you’d accidentally drip oatmeal on your poor baby’s head, or sneeze on her, or otherwise undermine your dignity on an hourly basis.
“What are you up to today?” she asked.
“Meeting my brother and Duncan, before Benji’s opens,” Casey said. Duncan was his co-owner at the bar, her other boss. “To finalize plans.”
She knew what he meant—plans to do with what might happen once her ex was released tomorrow morning. After her shift tonight, Abilene would be hanging up her bar towel until further notice, and Vince would probably be arranging to meet with James, to take the temperature of the situation. She was afraid of the details. As long as Casey or Miah was nearby, she felt safe.
Though what am I really afraid of? she had to wonder. James’s anger, or everyone finding out the truth about me?
False names aside, she’d been two very different girls in her short life. One sweet and lost, one thoroughly ugly. Neither quite what they seemed to be.