In Tune (Red Bird Trail Trilogy Book 3) (10 page)

I
t was the
rarest of rare nights, both Cash and Harper were doing homework. Cash avoided it like the plague, but he knew that if he failed the semester, he’d never hear the end of it from Harper.

“Remy,” he yelled from where he sat at the kitchen table. “How about you go ride your bike, dude. I can’t concentrate with that television on.”

Remy looked like he wanted to argue, but Harper piped up. “If you go ride your bike for an hour, I’ll make cookies tonight.”

“Deal.” Remy came over, shaking her on it.

“What about me?” Cash asked, holding his hand out.

“What about you?” Remy asked with a newfound attitude that Cash had to admit he thoroughly enjoyed and hated at the same time. “You wanted me to do something without giving me anything in return. You deserve no handshakes.”

Harper chuckled as Remy made his way out of the apartment, and she glanced over at Cash. You have to admit, he’s right. You can’t always ask someone for something and give nothing in return.

It hit him almost right in the chest that perhaps she was talking about their situation. “Do I not give you enough?” he asked, fear in his voice. “Is there something you want from me that you’re not getting?”

“No.” She laughed. “At some point we need to have a discussion about the future, but I don’t expect us to be having it right now.”

He closed his book, giving her his full attention. “Well, why not? Why shouldn’t we have it now?”

“We need to study,” she reminded him.

“Studying will be there in a few minutes. This is important,” he argued. “Where do you see yourself in the next few years?”

She knew he was being serious about this, could tell by the way he looked at her and the tone of his voice. Knowing all of this, she knew without a doubt that if she didn’t answer, he wouldn’t let this go. Closing the book, she blew out a deep breath. “I see us together, with Remy, hopefully not in this apartment. I see myself graduated from school, hopefully working part-time for myself and part-time for someone else. I don’t think my business will be grown by then, but I hope like hell that I’m working on it. I want us to still be together. Maybe by that point we’re planning a wedding; maybe by that point we’ve realized that we enjoy what we have. I don’t know.”

She waited a few minutes.

“Well what do you see?”

Cash wasn’t as quick to answer as she was, but it didn’t make it any less profound. “Much of what you said. I definitely see us out of this shoebox; I see me working for Heaven Hill full-time and doing stuff on the side. I don’t know that I’ll still be running the Trail. Maybe by that time I will have grown up enough to feel that my immortality is no longer guaranteed. I hope that we’re not struggling, but it’ll be okay if we are.” He reached out and grabbed her hand. “No matter where we are and what we’re doing, if I’m with you, I know things will be great, because we’ll make them that way.”

Harper smiled widely at him. “I don’t know what it is about you and your uncanny ability to turn on the charm, but sometimes I wonder if you even realize you do it.”

“Oh, baby, I know.” He leaned over and kissed her, slipping his tongue inside her mouth, lazily stroking against hers.

“The most important thing,” she observed. “Is that we both see each other together in a few years. I think the jobs will take care of themselves. For me to do what I want to do, I’m going to need some experience—same with you, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t dream big.”

“What would your big dream be?” he asked, kicking his legs out in front of him.

“Owning my own bakery. Doing what I want to do, and nobody telling me how I have to do this or how I have to design that. I want the flexibility of being my own boss and the feeling of success I’ll get when I make it. It’s going to be hard though,” she cautioned him.

“Anything that’s worth it is hard, Harper. That doesn’t scare me.”

“It doesn’t scare me either.” She shrugged. “I know for at least the first few years it’s going to be nothing but hard work, but I figure we’ve made it this far, we can make it through anything.”

“I may not know how to make a brownie, cookie, or a cake, but baby, I can get out there and shake my ass for you. If that’s what it takes to get people into your bakery, that is what I’ll do.”

She giggled, throwing her paper at him. “You just want me to objectify your body?”

“You can objectify me anytime you want to; I have no issue with that.” He got up and came around then grabbed her out of the seat.

She squealed as he lifted her up onto the table and locked her legs around his waist. He bent so that their noses were together, their foreheads touched.

“We’re gonna make it, aren’t we, Cash?” she whispered, hooking her arms around his neck.

“I hope so, babe. The only thing that’s going to stand in our way is us. We’ve got all the hard shit out of the way, we’ve shown what we can do in the face of adversity, and we can excel. It’s what we do when things are easy—do we still fight for it, or do we let it slip away? That’s going to be the big test.”

She was quiet as she thought of what he said. Easy wasn’t always better, and she hoped they never forgot how hard they’d fought.

‡
Chapter Sixteen

“W
e’re gonna make
it, aren’t we, Cash?”

Those words played over and over in his head. They were the reason he was here tonight, against his better judgment, at the Trail. He’d pulled his emergency money out of its hiding place at his house in Richardsville and saw only a couple hundred dollars there. That was his true emergency fund; he hated to touch it, but he had to, just like he had to be at the Trail tonight. The Trail was the easiest way to get enough money to take care of the bills they had coming in and also take care of the upcoming holiday. He’d never been big on Christmas, but he wanted to make this one good for his little family.

“You ready?” Slim asked, coming to stand next to his friend.

“As I’ll ever be, but fuck it’s cold out there.” He breathed into his hands, trying to warm them up. His mind drifted, and he thought about Remy and Harper, alone at home, warm and waiting for him. For the first time, he was having thoughts about the future and realizing that maybe this wasn’t the only thing he could do to make money. It was dangerous, and even though he hadn’t been caught before, it didn’t mean he wouldn’t ever be caught. Now he had other people to worry about; other people counted on him.

“Let’s get this over with,” Rodrigo said from where he stood. “This close to the holidays is not the best idea we’ve ever had.”

Cash knew that meant that the police patrols were up, and that he was worried they would get busted. If Rodrigo was worried, then he was definitely worried. Rodrigo had been doing this a long time.

He watched as final bets were placed, ignoring the shouts of some of the girls he’d messed with at one time or another. He no longer saw them. No one mattered anymore but Harper, and he couldn’t wait to get this done and go home to her.

*

Cash breathed deeply
as he switched lanes, letting a smile spread across his face. He had this race, he had the money he needed, less than five seconds to go. As soon as he crossed the finish line, he let off the gas, letting his car coast. As he turned it around to go back to where Rodrigo was, he saw blue lights flashing in his rearview mirror.

“Motherfucker,” he cursed, trying to decide what would be his best course of action. If he ran and didn’t get away, there would be more than one charge. If he ran and
did
get away, they’d get him the first time they saw him. “Fuck.” He punched the steering wheel, pulling over to the side of the road and putting his blinkers on.

He didn’t have a record, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been stopped by cops before. He knew the drill. They wanted him out with his hands on the back of his head. He heard them tell him to walk backwards towards their voices and then to lie down flat on the asphalt.

There was nothing more embarrassing than this. He realized that as he lay against the road, his cheek against the coldness of the ground. This was humiliating, and he was going to have to call Harper and tell her to bail him out of jail. Never in his life had he dreaded a phone call more than the one he knew he had to make.

*

Harper stood outside
the local jail, Liam and Tyler with her, waiting on them to release Cash. She hadn’t been able to stay inside; it had caused her too much anxiety—something she’d have to talk to Doc Jones about on her next session.

“He’ll be here soon.” Liam pulled a cigarette out of the pack he had in his jeans and took one out, lighting it quickly. “They won’t keep him long. We have friends in there, and if they know he’s with us, he’ll be processed quickly.”

“I don’t want him to get hurt,” she admitted, wiping at her eyes, trying to make the tears disappear.

Since she’d gotten the phone call and the reassurance that Heaven Hill would be there, she’d been crying off and on. Probably the culmination of a million different things going on in the past six months. They had only known each other for roughly six months. She couldn’t believe it had been so short a time. Her life had changed in so many ways since she’d met him. Harper wasn’t sure she’d trade any of it, even the bad and hard stuff. It’d made her want to fight for their relationship that much harder.