Stud Muffin (Donner Bakery #2) - Jiffy Kate Page 0,19

and dare them to say a word. No one does. I tip my head to Sarah when she grabs the door for me.

“I’ll be back in a few,” I tell her.

She offers a small, gentle smile, and I wonder if it’s for me or Tempest.

What has she been up to?

What makes everyone think she’s crazy?

I almost want to pry, but I know I won’t.

That’s an invasion of privacy and I know what that feels like. It’s one of the reasons I’m here in Green Valley. Back in Dallas, everywhere I went—the gym, the dojo, the bar—the only thing people wanted to know was how I was holding up and what I planned on doing with my life.

Will you fight again?

If you do, will you fight to get your title back?

This isn’t how we saw your career ending.

No shit, Sherlock. Never in a million years did I think I, Cage Erickson, would be taken out by a shoulder injury. Maybe too many concussions, which I was approaching the danger zone, but hadn’t been forced to address that … yet. Maybe winning so many belts and keeping my title for so many years that I got bored. Maybe meeting a girl I could see myself settling down with and leaving the fight behind for a family … yeah, that’s one I’d never told anyone about, but it’s been there for the last couple years in the back of my mind. Regardless, when I left the sport, it would be under my own terms.

But being forced out, that shit made me angry … displaced … bitter.

“Put me down,” Tempest mumbles, trying to put some force behind the words, but failing. “I can walk. Put me down.”

“I’m taking you home,” I tell her.

She shakes her head, her eyes still closed. “No, no home … home is lonely … and sad.”

My heart, the one that usually didn’t care too much for sentimental bullshit due to the nice sturdy wall I’d built up over the years, crumbled a little at her confession. When my steps falter, I think about taking her back into the bar. Something inside me sparked to life and I knew in that moment I didn’t ever want to do anything to make her sad. But I couldn’t leave her at the bar. She needed a bed and some water and ibuprofen.

“It’s going to be okay,” I mutter, my lips a fraction away from touching her hair before I stop myself.

What the fuck, Cage?

She still doesn’t even know your damn name. You can’t go kissing her hair, you creep.

And maybe that was a lie. Maybe it wasn’t going to be okay, but I had to believe it was for her sake.

Walking around the side of the building, I approach the truck Hank has been letting me borrow, another benefit of working for him. Those just seem to keep coming lately. I’m starting to feel like he just makes shit up to get me to agree to accepting his help.

Sitting her gently in the passenger seat of the truck, I pull the seatbelt across her chest and buckle her in.

“Don’t want to,” she says, her eyes cracking open and blinking furiously, as she tries to get her bearings. “What are you doing?” Her words are slurred and I know what she’s feeling. Sometimes, when you drink, you don’t even realize how drunk you are until you stop, and then it hits you like a ton of bricks. When she swipes the back of her hand across her face, I realize she may not be feeling so well.

“Hey,” I say, ducking back into the cab of the truck and trying to force her to look at me. “You okay?” I ask. “Are you feeling sick?”

She shakes her head, groaning slightly. “No, just don’t want to go home …”

“Well, I think it’s the best place for you.”

“What do you know?” she asks, a hint of spitfire presenting itself and I smirk.

Laughing lightly, I make sure her seatbelt is secure before leaning back. “Not much,” I tell her, shutting the door and walking around to the driver’s side.

“What’s your name?” she asks, as I start the truck up and put it in reverse, her head lolling to the side to look at me. “I don’t even know you. I don’t go home with strangers… strange,” she repeats, drawing the word out a little like she did when she was stuck on Mindy. I don’t even know her, but I already hate her. “Strange… men.” She laughs and