Grump’s City Girl (Boots and Heels #2)

29. Beau

Chapter 29

Beau

M y first instinct was to tackle that fucker and take him down—but that could possibly put Cassie’s dad as an open target. And I was still injured, and that was another problem. My eyes dropped to Cassie, and I burned to grab her and take her out of the way, but I could not move just yet.

I felt like I was staring down the horns of a mad bull.

“You don’t want to do that,” I said calmly. “You don’t want to kill him.”

“And why shouldn’t I?” Sam whipped his cap off, the same cap I had looked at earlier down in the lobby. “He fucked up my life, and now he is going to pay for it. Do you know what it was like to see your privileged sister flounce around town in Bentleys and Audis when I had to ride a bike to school and get a job after school?”

“My family abandoned me, too,” I said calmly. “I know it hurt… I know it felt like they never loved you, but that is no excuse to destroy their lives.”

“I disagree,” Sam snarled, his blue eyes eerily just like his father’s. “It stung right down to my bones when I saw him at her races and looked right through me like I was cellophane. He is not a father. Throwing money at my mom to keep us silent is a coward’s way out, and I am going to show him what cowards get.”

I spotted Cassie as she began to come to. But I had to keep his attention on me. “A man would have come to him, sat down, and voiced his frustration, not plan to assassinate him.”

“I sent him a million letters saying that,” Sam said, pointing the gun at the older man. “He ignored every single one.”

“I never got a single one,” Mr. Carrington said, and I wanted to believe him, but I had no basis to. I didn’t know the man.

“Liar,” Sam screamed and let off a bullet. It slammed into the wall inches away from the man’s head. “Stop lying to me!”

Cassie was slowly rising and inching her way to the gun that had been knocked out of her hand when Sam gun-butted her. I was more determined to keep his attention on me. “Then tell him now,” I said. “Tell him what you wanted from him.”

“Don’t play mind games with me,” Sam snapped. “There is no more time for talking, only action.”

“I completely agree,” Cassie said as she snapped the gun and shot one into the back of Sam’s knee.

He went down, and I flung myself at him, knocking the gun from his hand, and laid punches everywhere I could land them. Sam tried to recover, landing his punches, but I couldn’t feel them, not with adrenaline running through me. With a roar and with no hesitation, I grabbed his forehead and rammed the traitor’s head to the floor.

He went motionless.

Breathing hard, I heaved myself to my feet and went to the guard, yanking the pair of handcuffs from one of their belts.

“Beau!” Cassie screamed, and I pivoted just as Sam’s fist came at me. I ducked with a hairsbreadth to spare and landed a blistering punch in his gut.

Cassie looked like an Amazonian warrior. She grabbed him, rammed him into the wall, and jabbed her knees into the bleeding wound. Sam screamed, but I slapped the cuffs on him while her father snatched a phone from his desk and called the police.

As the adrenaline began to filter from my body, I wrapped a hand around her middle and pulled her from Sam, letting him collapse to the ground. “Are you all right?”

Blood was spotting at her temple, and she looked dazed, but she nodded. “I’m better now. So much better. Relieved, too.”

Sucking in a breath, I added, “When he pistol-whipped you, I wanted to take him down, but I knew that would leave your dad open.”

She swallowed. “Thank you,” but then she pulled from my arm and yanked Sam’s head back. “What is the code to stop the video leak?”

The fucker looked at her, worked his throat, and spat bloody spittle into her face. “If you can’t figure it out, you shouldn’t have been born.”

What the fuck was that?

“How dare you,” Mr. Carrington snarled. “You have no right to?—”

“No, Dad…” she stopped him while wiping his spit away. “He just told me the code.”

From the spot on the floor where the cell had fallen, she plucked it up and came to my side. She opened the app and typed in six numbers: 02, 14, 98… “My birthdate.”

The code flashed once… twice… three times—then went off. She sagged into my side, “Thank fuck.”

“The police are coming,” her dad said, circling Sam to crouch, his face pitying. “You are going to tell them everything and tell me everywhere you stored copies of that tape, y’hear me?”

Sam asked, “And why would I do that?”

“Because it's my words or your actions that decide if you get dropped into a hole or not,” Mr. Carrington said. “And believe me, my word is heavy.”

The police came in and saw the scene, then leaped into work. Ambulances were called, men were lifted to the hospital, and then we went to the station and got our reports in.

A medic looked at Cassie and patched her up. They looked at me, too, but only gave me some painkillers, happy to report that I had not ripped my stitches.

When they gave us something to drink, I could only turn to Cassie. “Thank God you decided to go and see your dad tonight because God knows by tomorrow, you wouldn’t have had a dad.”

She sagged into my side. “I want to go home.”

“I am sure your mom would love to see you,” I brushed my lips across her temple.

Cassie looked at me, her eyes wide and brimming. “I mean Wyoming, Beau. I want to go back to your ranch. When all this is over and done with, I want to go to the one place I finally found freedom.”

I didn’t want to guess what she meant by that, and as much as I wanted to hope, I had to let her come to me and then meet her halfway. “I’d love nothing more.”

The police loaded Sam into the waiting ambulance and whisked him away, and I let out a sigh of relief. “It’s over, baby. It's fucking over.”

She turned to me. “I love you.”

“I love you, Cassie Carrington,” I said. Because, honestly, I wasn’t pretending that wasn’t true for one fucking second more.

She blinked but didn’t look away, a smile curling her lips. “And to think this all started because I didn’t listen to a damn thing that lady said,” she laughed. “It’s the one time not paying attention gave me something good. You, Beau, stubborn-as-a-bull Lowell, are that good thing.”

“Back at you, baby,” I kissed her.

Two Weeks Later

Two challenges later, after we had returned to the ranch in the nick of time to meet Sutton’s time limit, we were in the last stretch with Nelly and Quentin. All around us were our old competitors – appearing to have “returned” for the finale— but as the finalists, we were the center of attention.

Sutton was rocking on his heels, a few cards tapping on his thigh; Ariana was silent beside him. “It’s been a long six weeks, hasn’t it?”

Nelly snorted. “Felt like a hundred years.”

“You four have persevered; you have fought hard, and now, only two pairs of you are here,” he said. “We have talked, debated, asked the viewers, and now, we have the results for who has won the competition. One of your two couples will win, and the other will sadly walk away with nothing but memories. Are you ready?”

“Lights,” Liliana called out, and two stage lights shot up from behind Sutton.

“Let’s see the highlights of your time here,” Ariana said.

The TV descended, and clips of our interactions shot up on the screen. The first challenge we did… I was hoisting Cassie on that horse and her taking off. I hadn’t truly seen a replay of that day, and now that I was looking at her, I saw the Cassie I had seen that night in her dad’s office, completely focused.

God, she looked sexy.

They cut to the obstacle run challenge, and I didn’t hide the smirk when I saw myself hoisting Cassie on my back and running like a bat out of hell. They cut to the kiss at the end of the run, and with the way Cassie was looking at me, I wondered if that was the day we had started to fall in love.

They cut to the cooking challenge, and I winced… Jesus, that was not my finest day, was it? Then, that night, I was in the backyard with family calling in. The camera zoomed into my face, and I saw myself for the first time. The emotions crossed my face as I watched my brother pour his heart out to me.

Mercifully, they had cut that French dick’s spiel and gone on to clip in the last two challenges we’d had; a hiking challenge up to a specific section of Gannett Peak and then, lastly, the Poker game.

They switched over to Nelly and Quentin, and I counted the times in all those five clips where Nelly had a cup of coffee in her hand. I swear that girl would bleed Columbian roast if she were cut. By clip three, Nelly had gotten Quentin out of his jacket and tie getup and into t-shirts and jeans.

The first time I saw Quentin laugh like a loon was when Nelly poked at him with chopsticks and lifted a cloche of comical plastic sushi for him. The man was in love with her, no doubt. It even picked up a snippet where Nelly looked like she’d been railroaded, and Quentin came to sit by her, not saying a word but just hugging her into his side.

The TV shut off, and Sutton smiled. “It’s been a rocky road, hasn’t it? There were ups and downs, circling around, and highs and lows, but now, we have the winning pair, and these cards hold the answer. But before we go into it, I’d like to ask you four questions about how you feel. If you have prepared yourself for winning or not winning, Nelly?”

“I’m prepared,” she said, “Win or lose, I am so glad I came here. I found out that I have so many sides to me that I never believed before. I realized that I have much more resilience and determination deep inside me that I know I can pull up in the days ahead.”

“Ah, good,” Ariana said. “Cassie?”

“I never expected to see Beau again, but—” she twisted to me. “—I’m not sorry. Unbelievably, your competition has shown me different sides of him that I never saw when we were together. I now have a few more friends from all walks of life that I would have never met before clocked up in my office in Montana. I treasure them all, but most of all, I am happy to be here.”

“And that, apart from getting you guys to match up romantically, is what we aimed to have you all experience,” Sutton replied. “But through all those ups and downs, you two have persevered, and we have the winner here.”

We shared a look, and I moved my hand to wrap it around her shoulders. Sutton eyed us and then looked at the cards. “The winners, by favorite viewers' vote and by surmountable progression are…” he paused. “Beau and Cassie.”

My gut gripped me. I had a feeling that we would win, but I also knew something else: I’d won something even better than money.

Cassie looked at me, wordlessly telling me the same thing I held in my heart. She leaned in for a soft kiss, then turned to Sutton. “We’re elated, but… we’d like to pass on the two-fifty thousand. I want to give my half to Nelly and Quentin, and Beau wants to give his to Rome and Alice.”

Pure shock ran through the room.

Nelly spun to us, tears in her eyes. “What? A-Are you sure?”

“Sure,” I told her, then looked at Cassie. “I already got what I wanted.”

Nelly took us down in a flying tackle, babbling how happy she was and how thankful she was. Cassie laughed herself to tears, and when I finally peeled myself from the ground, Rome was coming forward, disbelief wrapped all over his face.

“I—” he paused. “I don’t know what to say, but thank you.”

Grabbing his hand, I pulled him in for a one-armed hug. “It’s not a problem.”

He shot a look to Cassie. “You’ve got a good girl there, Beau. Don’t fuck it up.”

I laughed. “I hope not.”

“Well,” Sutton said, “That’s unexpected. Are you two sure?”

“A hundred percent,” Cassie blew hair from her eyes. “We’re okay.”

“Okay then,” he pivoted on a heel to look at Ariana. “I guess the winners are Quentin and Nelly, Rome and Alice. Come up you four.”

As they went up to the stage, I took advantage of the camera being somewhere else than on me and Cassie, bent my head, and kissed her, lightly at first, until her mouth opened, and her tongue sought mine. Shit .

This wasn’t the time or place for a make-out session, but I’d been dying to kiss her the moment she stepped into the green. Fuck it… I kissed her hard, one hand sliding back to cup the nape of her neck, and Cassie moved against me, our bodies fitting together easily. My lips were soft but demanding, urging her to open wider and kiss me back.

“I think we know why Beau didn’t care for the money.” Quentin laughed. “He already got his prize.”

“Damn right.” I shot over my shoulder. “Now go hug your money and leave me alone.”

Laughter tore through the outdoor space until Sutton put a stop to it. He pulled the cards in half and flung them into the air. “And that, folks, is the end of this season’s matchup, but keep your eyes peeled for the next season. And remember, love is an action word. From all of us at the Ex-change, have a wonderful night.”

I knew Sutton meant it in a general sense, but I was going to take it another way. I had a bed upstairs, and God knew I wanted Cassie in it. I still had to take it easy with my shoulder and my arm as the bone was still knitting together, but damned if I didn’t want to throw her over my shoulder caveman-style and carry her off to my bed.

“Hey…” I nosed at her temple. “Do you want a nightcap?”

Her lips curved. “You want a drink or to wear me like a nightcap?”

“That one.” I grinned, getting up and pulling her along. “We’re going to have more than a wonderful night.”

As we went off, Ryker’s wolf whistle cut through the air, “Go hit it, Beau.”

I still didn’t like that guy… but he was right. I wanted to have her wrapped around me until morning light.

“All right, guys, we need to get some champagne,” Ariana called out. “Let them have their fun; we’ll have to continue the party here!”