Love Her Better (Kaid Ranch Shifters Book 4) Read online

  Sam just looked stunned. “They cried for a picture?”

  “No,” she murmured, slipping her hands around his waist. “They cried for what that picture meant, I think.”

  “Can you explain?”

  “You aren’t very bonded to your brothers anymore,” she guessed.

  “No. I don’t feel much. I try, but I don’t. I don’t feel for anything. It’s like a hole in me, and I don’t know how to fill it up.”

  “Do I fill it up any?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s why they’re cryin’. I think they just wanted to know you are capable of filling the hole, even if it’s not with them.”

  “Oh.”

  “I think they care about you very much, Sam Kaid.”

  “They care about Old Sam.”

  “No.” She eased back out of the hug just far enough to look him in the eyes so he could see her honesty. “No, Sam. They care about you.”

  He looked out over the yard where Wes had disappeared. With a shake of his head, he eased back. “I don’t like this. I don’t like feeling here at the ranch. I don’t like feeling at all.”

  “Okay. Will you show me around?”

  He nodded, but instead of taking her inside the door of the lodge, he led her down the porch stairs and past the barn. There was a trail through some trees and a gate he had to unlatch and re-lock when she was through. A few acres of walking later, there was a small cattlemen’s cabin at the edge of a pasture. A few cows dotted the landscape, and they were mooers, but other than that and the sound of leaves in the breeze, it was quiet.

  He inhaled deeply and climbed the three stairs to a small porch. “Wes and Hunter and Bryson fixed this up when I moved here. It’s been months. I like it, but it doesn’t feel like mine.”

  “Why not?” she asked, eying the bedding on the side of the porch. There was a bed that was comprised of just a mattress and a sleeping bag. No pillow.

  “I’m not used to sleeping inside yet.”

  “Where did you sleep before?” she asked on a breath.

  “In the woods. Where my alpha told me to. That’s how I was trained.”

  “Trained?”

  “He had to break me to control me.”

  “Aw, Sam,” she whispered.

  “Don’t do that, or I won’t tell you the big stuff anymore. Don’t pity me.”

  “I don’t pity you. I wish I could fix the damage it did. There’s no way you got through that without damage.”

  “I don’t need you to fix me. Just need you to listen sometimes.”

  “Okay. Tell it to me then, and I’ll be quiet. Sometimes it’s easier to say a dark thing out loud, and then someone else can help you carry the weight. Sometimes a rough past is too heavy to carry alone.”

  He traced the outline of a dried blood puddle with the toe of his boot. “I hunt the predators here because Wes told me to. It was a job I understood. In my last life, I hunted the predators, too, only sometimes they weren’t the bag guys. Sometimes my alpha was the bad guy, I was the gun, and my wolf was the bullet.”

  “He made you kill?”

  Sam nodded and gestured to a chair by the bed. She sat and waited for him to settle in a camp chair on the other side of the porch. “He called out names, and I ended them. Werewolves. He had a problem with everyone. He was sick, maybe. He built up his pack, and anyone outside of that pack was expendable. I wasn’t the first.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I wasn’t the first enforcer. When he Turned me and my brothers, he kept me. There was an enforcer named Diesel in his pack. He had been his weapon for five years. Maybe six. He was good at his job, but he’d failed Leif twice, and he’d been asking questions. Leif said he was going soft, and when an enforcer went soft, they became dangerous to the one who broke them.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  The ghost of an empty smile graced his face. “Leif thought I did. My first soft act happened on my first job. I hurt him bad, but then I let him go. Same as death, though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He had no one when he left the Wichita Pack. And when you’re broken like that, you won’t ever bond to anyone or anything. You can’t. Too much blood on your hands.”

  “You did all right,” she murmured.

  “My brothers pulled me out. I wasn’t alone. I had normal werewolves around me who focused on me being okay. Who hovered and gave me a safe life until I could function. Until I could pull the fog out of my head and stop wanting to hurt everything.”

  “What was done to you was horrific, Sam.”

  “What I did to others was horrific, Cassidy. You should always remember that.”

  “Someone took advantage of you. Turned you into a monster, but you didn’t choose that.”

  “I didn’t fight it. And after a while, I even enjoyed it. The hunt. The chase. My wolf was satisfied. I slept like a baby at nights. I didn’t have an ounce of guilt after the first year. I was a nuke button, not a man. Never forget I am capable of being a nuke button again.”

  “Not with me.”

  Sam stared off into the pasture and chewed on the corner of his lip. “No, I suppose you’re right. I couldn’t hurt you.”

  “And you don’t have to hurt anyone else again.”

  He huffed a humorless sound. “I just told you I killed people.”

  “Your world is different than the one I’m familiar with. You are governed by different laws. Right?”

  He nodded. “The law of survival is king. Anyone who threatened my alpha or our territory, I stopped them.”

  “You aren’t an enforcer anymore.”

  “Without that, what am I?” He shook his head and searched her eyes. “What am I? Almost all my memories come from that life. If none of that counts anymore, then what am I?”

  “You’re a work in progress. A rancher. A brother. A friend. Special to me. Safety for your horse. Focus on what you can control, Sam. The rest? You roll with the punches. You tread water until the storm’s passed, and then you fuckin’ swim. You find shore. You focus on the important things waiting there for you.” She pointed to herself. “Me. Your brothers. Their mates. The life you have here. Your horse. The Chevelle.” She swallowed hard. “Those fishing poles on my porch that make sense to you. And then someday, you’re gonna look around and realize things are easier. They aren’t like before when you were hurt and confused. Your brain is going to click and piece together a life that you can understand.”

  “You learned all this from training horses?”

  She smiled and gave him a nod. “I’ve watched it happen countless times with them.”

  He looked down at the floorboards for a long time, quiet, kicking at a loose, rusty nail with the toe of his boot. He was mulling something over, so she kept the silence safe for him.

  And at last, he looked up and told her, “Hunter was right.”

  “Right, how?”

  “You are hope.”

  Chapter Twelve

  She could see it so clearly—the invisible line between Sam and the rest of his family.

  He was so quiet in this atmosphere. They were eating dinner by the firepit, all chattering easily. She really liked Maris, Sadey, and Summer. They were friendly and funny, completely comfortable with who they were. Cassidy was probably the quietest out of the four of them. The boys were hilarious and witty.

  Bryson was the strong silent type with the good zingers every once in a while.

  Wes was pure fire, ready to fight, ready with a retort for everything.

  Hunter was the peacemaker.

  And Sam? Sam was a shadow.

  He sat outside of the glow of the firelight, his eyes finding hers time and time again. He didn’t contribute to any conversation. The most he did was smile sometimes if the boys insulted each other enough. The firelight made his eyes glow like an animal’s.

  I miss you, she mouthed over the fire.

  I’m right here.

  Cassidy patted the se
at next to her, and to her happy surprise, he stood from the log he’d been sitting on and approached. He didn’t sit in the chair she’d pointed at, though. Instead, he sat behind her in the Adirondack chair she’d chosen for the pineapple cushions. It was big and comfortable, but she still had to shift her position forward to make room for the large man.

  She rubbed his thigh and leaned back against him, and when she looked back at the others, they were all staring at her like she’d grown a chicken nugget on her forehead.

  “Well, that was unexpected,” Maris said.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you be affectionate with a girl ever,” Hunter said.

  “I don’t really want to talk about old memories,” Sam said.

  “I meant in the last three years. Since you were born.” Hunter smiled brightly.

  Wes snorted. “Okay, what can we talk about then? All the memories you’ve made with us over the last few months?” He waited for a response but Sam was serious and didn’t appreciate his sarcastic tone. “Okay,” Wes said “remember that time we asked you to go to the bar with us and you didn’t make it six minutes before you beat the shit out of two guys for saying hi to you? And then you left, and we all listened to every Tom Petty song they had on the jukebox and ate hot wings for the rest of the night and had a fantastic time, without you. Or how about the time we asked you to play beer pong with us last Friday, but you said you would rather eat your boot with cow shit crusted on it, and then you flipped the table and drank the rest of the bottle of whiskey, gave us the middle finger, and went for a walk that way,” Wes said, pointing to the front pasture, “where nothing exists but cows.”

  “And shit to get on my boots,” Sam said with a smile in his voice.

  “Or how about the time we tried to do family dinners for a while, but you stood us up eighty-four percent of the time, and when we asked what was so important that you would miss family dinners, you said you were washing your hair.”

  “To be fair,” Hunter said, “Sam didn’t use that excuse every time. One time he said he was”—Hunter did air quotes with his fingers—“doing your mom.”

  “Which was weird,” Wes barked, “because that would be him talking about doing his own mom.”

  “I was talking to Bryson,” Sam said in a bored voice.

  Cassidy was trying not to laugh, but Maris and Sadey were snickering from their chairs across the fire. Summer was rolling her eyes heavenward as though praying for patience. “Weeees,” she drawled, “give Sam a break. He’s just a little anti-social is all.”

  “Yeah, then why is he a blabbermouth with Cassidy, but won’t talk to me? His favorite brother. Huh?” Wes demanded.

  “Uuuh,” Summer drawled, “Cassidy gives him pussy. You talk to me more because, guess what?”

  “I know!” Hunter called. “Because you give him pussy.”

  Summer pointed and grinned at Hunter. “Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner. You Kaids are all the same. Easily swayed by titties.”

  Wes crossed his arms over his chest and flopped back into his chair, which almost tipped over. “Whatever.”

  “I miss Asshole,” Sam said suddenly.

  “Who is Asshole?” Sadey asked from where she was rubbing Hunter’s back.

  “He’s my horse.”

  “Oooooh,” Sadey said. “Is he in the barn?”

  “He’s at Cassidy’s stable.” He stood. “That’s communication for I want to go back to her place. See? I’m learning.”

  Cassidy stood and said, “Thank you so much for dinner.”

  “Thank you for actually getting Sam to participate in a dinner,” Maris told her.

  “He’s leaving a family dinner to hang out with a horse,” Wes muttered.

  “The horse doesn’t annoy me.” Sam patted Cassidy’s butt as she started walking toward the truck. He leaned forward and whispered in her ear, “And all this talk about pussy makes me want to take you home.”

  Desire unfurled in her middle. She smiled into the night and leaned against him as they synced their walk toward the shiny Ford.

  “I heard that. And when are you going to get your own truck?” Wes called. “I need mine back at some point.”

  “Can’t quite yet. Been spending my paychecks on car parts,” Sam called without looking over his shoulder.

  “Car parts?” Bryson asked. “What kind of car parts?”

  Sam turned and hesitated, canted his head like a curious animal. “Old ones. Been picking junk yards to fix up her dad’s old Chevelle, and no, Hunter, I don’t want to hear any stories about how I used to fix up old cars. I know I did. This is just something I enjoy doing. Doesn’t mean the old me is coming back.”

  “Whaaaat color is the Chevelle?” Wes asked.

  “It’ll be black.”

  Wes approached them slow, his expression thoughtful. “Racing stripes?”

  Sam turned around. “Dammit, Wes, you know I don’t like anyone at my back.”

  “Racing stripes or plain black?” Wes asked.

  Sam’s sigh tapered into a growl. “You want to come see it, don’t you?”

  “I would love to. Be there tomorrow at noon.”

  “Tomorrow doesn’t work for us. Cassidy has lessons all day. And you don’t even know where Cassidy lives,” Sam muttered.

  “I Googled her. Four one one seven Fontana Avenue. Her brother is the town drunk we see at the bar all the time, her dad’s dead. Mom lives in town with her new husband. Cassidy Marilynn Joiner is allergic to pigs, gets her nails done at the salon every other Tuesday, gets haircuts from Trudy at Nana’s Beauty, trains horses, and her number is 586—”

  “Okaaay, Wes, that’s good,” Summer called from the fire. “Cassidy, it was really nice to meet you. We’re doing a girls’ night in town this Tuesday if you want to join! Dinner and drinks.”

  “I would love to!” she called. “Wes,” she said lower, “your internet stalking is both impressive and creepy.”

  Wes did a little bow like she’d complimented him. “Thank you. See you soon.”

  “Fantastic,” Sam said sarcastically.

  “We’re going to bond,” Wes called as Sam headed for the driver’s side. “Brotherly bonding time. It’s happening this week.”

  “Die in your sleep,” Sam said as he climbed up into the cab of the truck.

  Cassidy paused long enough for Wes to catch up to her, and when he came to a stop beside her, she sighed and patted his shoulder. “Take him on a fishing trip.”

  “We haven’t fished in years.”

  “Just…trust me. Goodnight everyone,” she called as she made her way to the passenger’s side.

  Sam pushed it open from the inside before she could reach for the handle.

  “When did Sam learn manners?” Hunter asked loudly as she pulled the door closed beside her.

  “I like them,” she said with a giggle as he gripped the steering wheel until it creaked.

  “That was exhausting.”

  “I think they’re funny and warm and friendly.”

  “They kept calling you Human Cassidy.”

  “Well it’s better than Wes’s Nut Grease nickname.”

  Sam snorted. And then as he pulled the truck around the drive and headed for the long gravel drive, he chuckled. It was a warm sound that made her laugh in response. And then he chuckled a little louder and murmured, “Nut Grease,” under his breath.

  Her shoulders shook, and she rested her head back against the seat as she laughed.

  “That whole night was ridiculous.”

  “It was perfect. You didn’t kill a single one of them,” she pointed out. “Victory.”

  “Oh, God, are you one of those?”

  “One of what?”

  “The cheerleader types who will compliment every simple thing I do right?”

  “Oh, yeah, I’m definitely one of those. I believe in lots of positive reinforcement.”

  “Well, I’ve never had any of that, so you’re probably barking up the wrong tree. On the
wrong continent. In the wrong solar system.”

  “Or…breaking you didn’t work, so maybe I was put into your life to rehab you in a better way.” With confidence, she arched her eyebrows at him, daring him to argue.

  “Hmm,” he rumbled. “Maybe so.”

  And then he held her hand the rest of the way home.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The murmur of voices before dawn said today was going to be different.

  Cassidy sat up in bed and listened. One was Sam’s, and the others she recognized as his brothers. Bryson was also here, in her house, with the smell of breakfast wafting into her bedroom.

  Her wake-up calls sure had changed lately.

  With a sleepy smile, she dressed and stumbled into the bathroom, brushed her teeth, and put on some makeup, then braided her hair in two little pigtails. Her hair wasn’t quiet long enough, so some of the curls escaped immediately and shaped her face, but she didn’t mind. She would just wear her favorite hat today.

  It was good to hear Sam talking with his brothers after she’d seen how it actually was for him when they’d done dinner together a few days ago. She’d witnessed the tension and watched him go quiet for the days that had followed.

  It wasn’t an unhappy silence. More like Sam turned into himself when he made changes. He’d talked to her about trying more with his brothers, and this morning something felt like it was shifting.

  Whatever was happening made her heart happy for Sam.

  “Hey,” Sam murmured, peeking into the bathroom. “I brought the boys for breakfast.” He wrung his hands. “And to show them your place. If it’s okay.”

  She moseyed on over to him and hugged his waist. “Of course, it’s okay.”

  “I like it here,” he said. “I think I should show my brothers the things I like.”

  “Perfect idea. What’s for breakfast?”

  “Last week you told me French toast was your favorite.”

  “You making me French toast?” she asked, leaning back.

  He leaned down suddenly and kissed her lips. He didn’t kiss her much, so it surprised her. Her stomach fluttered when he told her, “Tell me something is your favorite, and I won’t forget it.”