Chapter 6: Storm-Bound Desires
Tip
The morning after the apology was brittle with unresolved things. Cassidy moved through the kitchen on autopilot, the memory of Wade’s truck taillights disappearing down the dark road, and then reappearing, a sickening loop in her mind. Her father, back from Greenville with the tractor part, was already out in the barn. The air smelled of bacon grease and stale coffee. Her mother hummed a hymn quietly by the sink.
Wade came in through the mudroom, letting the screen door slap shut. He nodded once at her mother. “Mornin’, Irene.”
“There’s coffee, Wade,” her mother said without turning.
His eyes flicked to Cassidy, then away. He poured a mug, black, and leaned against the counter. The space between them crackled with everything unsaid: the screaming in the gas station parking lot, the harsh truths, the desperate run in the twilight, the gruff ‘I’m sorry’ that had barely scratched the surface.
Her father’s heavy tread sounded on the porch. He came in, his work boots tracking fine clay dust. He looked at Wade, then at Cassidy, his gaze lingering on her with a calculation that made her skin prickle.
“Gutter’s torn loose on the old barn,” he said, no preamble. “The one out by the creek. Whole corner’s gonna rot if it ain’t re-secured before the next big rain. Sky looks like hell today.”
Cassidy kept her eyes on her toast. She knew what was coming.
“Wade, you’ll need a second pair of hands to get the ladder steady and pass up the tin. Cass’ll go.”
“I can manage it,” Wade said, his voice neutral.
“You can’t steady a thirty-foot extension ladder and climb it. She’ll go.” It wasn’t a discussion. Her father took his own coffee and walked out, the decision hanging in the air like dust motes.
Wade sipped his coffee. Cassidy didn’t look up.
Ten minutes later, they were in his truck, a silent truce of mutual inconvenience. The old barn was a quarter mile from the main house, nestled in a dip near a dried-up creek bed. It hadn’t held livestock in twenty years. Now it stored rusting equipment and memories Cassidy preferred to leave boxed and dusty.
The sky was a sickly yellow-grey, the air so still and thick it was hard to breathe. The weather felt personal, a pressure building right behind her eyes.
They unloaded the ladder and the new sheet of corrugated tin from the truck bed. The torn gutter hung like a shredded metal wing from the barn’s high corner.
“Just hold it,” Wade said, positioning the ladder’s feet in the soft earth near the creek bank. “Put your weight on it. Don’t let it kick out.”
He climbed, the aluminum shivering with each step. She held on, the rungs biting into her palms. He moved with a focused grace, his body confident in the height. At the top, he wrestled with the broken hardware, his curses floating down, soft and succinct.
The first fat raindrop hit her forehead like a cold tap. Then another. A sudden wind rippled through the tall grass, carrying the electric scent of ozone. The yellow sky darkened to bruised purple in the west.
“Wade,” she called up, her voice tense.
“Almost got it,” he yelled back, not looking down.
The rain didn’t build; it unleashed. One moment it was sporadic drops, the next a deafening, horizontal deluge that soaked through her t-shirt in seconds. The creek bed, a ribbon of dust minutes before, began to gurgle with muddy water.
“Shit!” Wade scrambled down, the ladder slick and treacherous. He jumped the last six feet, landing with a splash in the now-sodden earth. “The loft! Go!”
They abandoned the ladder and the tin, sprinting through the blinding rain for the barn’s side door. He shoved it open, the wood swollen and groaning, and she stumbled in after him. He slammed it shut, muting the roar to a constant, pounding drumbeat on the roof.
Inside, it was a cathedral of dust and gloom. The only light came from cracks in the wallboards, thin grey slices that illuminated swirling motes. The air was cold, smelling of wet earth, old hay, and machine oil. They stood dripping, gasping, water pooling at their feet on the packed dirt floor.
“Hell of a timing,” Wade muttered, pushing his soaked hat back on his head. A stream of water ran down the side of his neck, disappearing under his collar.
Cassidy shivered violently. Her clothes were plastered to her skin, her hair a dripping rope down her back. She wrapped her arms around herself. “Now what?”
“We wait it out. It’ll pass.” He walked toward a rickety wooden staircase that led to the hayloft. “Better view up top. Might see when it’s lettin’ up.”
She followed, because standing alone in the dark seemed worse. The stairs groaned under their weight. The loft was a vast, open space, empty save for a few scattered, mildewed bales and a family of swallows that darted from the rafters with irritated chirps. One entire side was open to the weather, a large loading door long since fallen away, now just a square framing the raging storm. Rain blew in, a fine, cold mist.
They stood well back from the opening, watching the world dissolve into grey water. Lightning fissured the sky, a brilliant white crack that froze the driving rain in mid-air. The immediate, skull-rattling boom of thunder followed, shaking the ancient beams. Cassidy flinched, a full-body jerk.
Wade glanced at her. “Scared of a little thunder?”
“It’s loud,” she said defensively, rubbing her arms.
Another flash, another boom. The temperature seemed to drop another ten degrees. Her teeth started to chatter. She was freezing in her sodden clothes. She turned away from the opening, seeking a draft-free corner, and tripped over a hidden floorboard nail. She stumbled, pitching forward.
His hand shot out, catching her upper arm, yanking her back upright. “Easy.”
His grip was firm, his hand radiating a startling heat through her wet sleeve. She righted herself, but he didn’t let go. They were close. Too close. She could see every droplet clinging to his stubble, the dark intensity of his eyes in the gloom. The drumming rain, the violent thunder, it all faded into a muffled roar. All she was aware of was the heat of his hand, the rapid rise and fall of his chest, the way his gaze dropped to her mouth.
Every insult, every sneer, every moment of searing understanding from the day before crystallized into this magnetic, awful pull. The anger was still there, a live wire. But under it was something else, something that had been simmering since he’d lifted her into his truck on the road, since he’d handed her that warm water bottle.
His other hand came up, rough knuckles brushing a strand of wet hair from her cheek. The touch was almost hesitant, a question. Her breath hitched. A silent, seismic shift.
“This changes nothing,” he breathed, his voice low and raw, a warning to her or to himself.
Then his mouth was on hers.
It wasn’t gentle. It was a claim and a surrender, a collision of rainwater and pent-up years. His lips were firm, insistent. The hand on her arm slid to the small of her back, pressing her into him. She could feel the solid wall of his chest, the damp cotton of his shirt, the startling, muscular reality of him. Her hands, frozen at her sides, came up to clutch at his wet t-shirt, fisting the fabric. A small sound escaped her throat, swallowed by him.
He kissed her like he was fighting, like he was starving. His tongue swept into her mouth, tasting of coffee and the storm. His calloused hands slid down her back, over the curve of her hips, gripping her thighs through the soaked denim, lifting her slightly against him. The rough contact sent a jolt of pure, undiluted need straight through her core. Lightning flashed, illuminating his face—eyes closed, brows drawn in fierce concentration, every line etched with a hunger that mirrored her own.
The world was reduced to the feel of his mouth, his hands, the abrasive wet denim, the heat building between them that fought back the chill. She kissed him back with all the confusion and fury and loneliness of the past weeks, her fingers tangling in his hair, dislodging his hat. It hit the floor with a soft thud.
A loud, scraping sound from below.
Then voices, young and boisterous, cutting through the rain’s drone.
“Holy shit, it’s coming down!”
“In here! Quick!”
Footsteps pounded on the lower floor. Wade tore his mouth from hers, dropping her back onto her feet so suddenly she swayed. They sprang apart, a full foot of space between them, but the air was scorched. He turned towards the loft opening, his back to her, shoulders heaving. She stared at his back, her lips swollen and tingling, her whole body vibrating.
Two figures clambered up the stairs, laughing and shaking water off like dogs. Alex Fletcher and his younger brother Max, from the neighboring farm. Teenagers, all limbs and energy.
“Whoa, hey Mr. Collins! Cass!” Alex said, his grin fading slightly as he took in the scene: the two of them, standing apart, dripping and breathless in the semi-dark. The tension was a physical thing, thick as the dust.
“Boys,” Wade said, his voice miraculously steady. He bent and picked up his hat, putting it back on, a deliberate gesture that felt like the slamming of a door.
“We were fixin’ the fence line and got caught,” Max said, oblivious. “This is crazy, right?”
“Sure is,” Cassidy managed, crossing her arms over her chest, painfully aware of her clinging shirt.
“Should blow over soon,” Wade said, walking to the open loft door, putting more distance between them. He stared out at the rain, his posture rigid.
The boys chattered about the storm, about a new four-wheeler, about school. Cassidy nodded, made vague sounds of agreement. Her skin was on fire where he’d touched her. Her mind was a scrambled, roaring static. This changes nothing, he’d said. But everything had changed. The line they’d drawn in the dirt for weeks had been erased in one thunderclap.
After ten eternal minutes, the rain slackened to a drizzle. The grey light brightened.
“Alright,” Wade said, turning. He didn’t look at her. “Let’s get the ladder secured before your dad wonders if we drowned.”
The boys scampered down first. Wade gestured for Cassidy to go ahead of him on the stairs. As she passed, her shoulder barely brushed his arm. A spark, real or imagined, shot through her. She didn’t look back.
They worked in a stony, efficient silence with the boys’ help, securing the ladder and heaving the new tin sheet into place. The physical labor was a blessing, a channel for the chaotic energy humming inside her. Wade gave short, clipped instructions. She followed them.
When the gutter was temporarily fastened, the sky was clearing to a pale, washed-out blue. The boys took off with a wave.
They loaded the tools back into the truck. The ride back to the main house was utterly silent. The cab held the ghost of their previous fights, their previous apologies, and now this new, colossal thing. It sat between them on the cracked vinyl seat, vibrating with a energy that made the air hum.
He pulled up to the barn. She got out, finally turning to look at him through the open window. His profile was hard, his jaw set.
“Wade—” she started, not knowing what she wanted to say.
“Don’t,” he interrupted, his eyes fixed on the barn ahead. “Just don’t, Cass.”He put the truck in gear and rolled forward toward the equipment shed, leaving her standing there. The taste of him was still on her lips, a mix of storm and salt and something irrevocable. He was right. There were no words for this. There was only the before, and the now. And the now was a landscape she didn’t know how to navigat
The house that night was a tomb of amplified sounds. The creak of the floorboards overhead was Wade moving in her old attic room. The low murmur of the television downstairs was her father’s nightly news. Cassidy lay stiff in her childhood bed, staring at the ceiling, her lips still remembering the exact pressure of his. This changes nothing. The words were a lie. The taste of rainwater and want was a new geography on her tongue.
Sleep, when it came, was not an escape.
It was the old barn again, but not as it was today. The light was different, older, the golden-hour glow of a specific, buried summer. The smell was dry hay and childhood fear, a sharp, animal scent. Her hands were bound behind her with rough, prickling rope, the fibers digging into her wrists. A bandana, one of her father’s, was tied tight over her eyes, the world reduced to hot, dark fabric and the sound of her own ragged breathing.
She was small. She was waiting.
The whistle of the belt cutting the air was the first signal. The crack against the wooden stall door beside her head was the second. She flinched, a full-body spasm. “Please,” she whispered, her voice a child’s.
“Bad girl,” a voice murmured. It was low, adult, thick with a heat that had nothing to do with the summer evening. It was Wade’s voice. The recognition in the dream was absolute, terrifying, and electric. The leather tip grazed her stomach, then lower, a teasing, cruel stroke that made her gasp against the bandana.
It slipped. Just a fraction. A sliver of blurred, gilded world. The figure holding the belt was him—the set of his shoulders, the slant of his jaw, the intensity in eyes that held no apology, only a dark, captivating promise. “Please, Wade,” she heard herself beg, but the voice was hers now, twenty-four, full of a different kind of desperation. “Please just fuck me.”
He moved closer, the heat of his body enveloping her. His lips were at her ear, his stubble scraping her skin. He whispered what he was going to do, the words explicit, visceral, a detailed map of her own ruination. They coiled in her stomach, hot and heavy. She bit her lip to keep from crying out.
She jolted awake.
Her heart was a frantic bird slamming against her ribs. The room was pitch dark, the familiar shapes of dresser and desk only just materializing. She was drenched in a cold sweat, the sheet tangled around her legs. A low, aching throb pulsed insistently between her thighs, a shameful echo of the dream’s terror and its illicit thrill. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, trying to erase the fused images: the memory of childhood punishment and the stark, adult face of Wade Collins painted over it.
“No,” she whispered into the dark. It was a denial of everything—the past, the dream, the hunger his real kiss had unleashed. She felt split in two, disgust warring with a longing so deep it felt like a fracture in her bones.
Dawn arrived grey and tentative. She moved through the morning routine like a ghost, avoiding the kitchen until she heard Wade’s truck start and crunch down the drive. Her mother was wiping counters with a methodical rhythm.
“Your father wants the toolshed organized,” her mother said without preamble. “Wade’s got the heavy lifting out in the back forty all day. It’ll need to be you.”
Cassidy just nodded, grateful for a solitary task, for space. The toolshed was a cluttered, cobwebbed alcove behind the barn. She dragged boxes of rusty nails, sorted coiled hoses, her mind a relentless reel. The roughness of his hands on her hips. The whispered bad girl from the dream. The way he’d looked at her just before Alex and Max had burst in—like he wanted to consume her and was furious about it.
She found an old shoebox tucked on a high shelf, layered with dust. Inside were not tools, but relics: a dried corsage from a long-ago school dance, a brittle red ribbon from a 4H competition, a stack of her own childish drawings. At the bottom was a photograph. She pulled it out, the colors faded to pastel.
It was her, at maybe ten or eleven, sitting on the fence rail by the creek. Her smile was gap-toothed and genuine. Standing next to her, a hand resting lightly on her shoulder, was a younger version of her father. He was smiling too, his face unlined, his eyes clear. He looked like a different man. She stared at the photo until her eyes burned, trying to reconcile this man with the silent, seething presence who now occupied her house.
The back door slammed. “Cassidy! Phone!” her mother called.
She set the photo down and went inside, picking up the heavy corded phone in the hall. “Hello?”
“Cass? It’s Luke.” Her brother’s voice was a welcome anchor. “Listen, I’m sorry about before. Janine’s book club ran late, it was a whole thing. You still need a ride into town? I’ve got to pick up a part at the co-op.”
Hope, thin and desperate, fluttered in her chest. “Yes. Please. When?”
“Hour okay? I’ll swing by.”
When Luke’s sedan pulled up, it felt like a rescue. She slid into the passenger seat, the clean, air-conditioned interior a world away from dust and dreaming.
“You look tired,” Luke said, glancing over as he pulled onto the main road.
“Didn’t sleep great.” She stared out the window. “Dad has me and Wade fixing things together.”
Luke let out a low whistle. “Oil and water, those two. How’s that going?”
He kissed me. I dreamt he punished me. I can’t tell which one scares me more. “It’s fine,” she said. “We get the job done.”
The feed co-op was bustling. While Luke haggled over a hydraulic hose, Cassidy wandered the aisles, past bags of seed and stacks of salt licks. She turned a corner and nearly walked straight into Mrs. Grady, the town’s most dedicated gossip, who was examining galvanized buckets.
“Cassidy McAllister!” Mrs. Grady’s eyes lit up. “I heard you were back. How’s New York? Or, well, not New York anymore, I suppose.”
“It’s fine,” Cassidy repeated, the phrase becoming a shield.
“And how’s your daddy doing?” Mrs. Grady leaned in, her voice dropping conspiratorially. “We see him at the diner sometimes. Looks tired. It’s a lot, running a place like that. Thank goodness for Wade Collins, is all I can say. That man is a saint, putting up with everything.”
The word ‘saint’ landed with a grotesque thud in Cassidy’s stomach. “Putting up with what?”
“Oh, you know,” Mrs. Grady waved a hand, her eyes sharp. “The long hours. The temperament. A man like Wade, he could work anywhere. He’s got a loyalty to your family, that’s for sure. Doesn’t talk much about his past, but he’s steady.” She leaned even closer. “Between us, I think he stayed on after… well, after your little trouble, because he felt sorry for your folks.”
The air left Cassidy’s lungs. “My little trouble?”
“When you left the way you did.” Mrs. Grady patted her arm, a gesture that felt like a branding iron. “It was hard on them. A real blow. Wade’s been the consistency they needed.” She smiled, all false sympathy. “Anyway, good to see you, honey. You take care.”
Cassidy stood frozen, surrounded by the smell of feed and fertilizer, as Mrs. Grady wheeled her cart away. The narrative was so clean, so airtight. She was the troubled runaway, the blow to the family. Wade was the loyal saint, the steady hand. It painted over the complexity of her father’s rages, her mother’s silent endurance, the suffocating truth of why she’d fled. It erased her completely.
“You okay?” Luke asked, coming up beside her with a box in his arms. “You’re white as a sheet.”
“Just… claustrophobic,” she mumbled.
The ride home was quiet. Luke, sensing her mood, just turned on the radio. He dropped her at the end of the driveway. “Call me if you need anything, okay? Real talk, not just rides.”
She thanked him and walked slowly toward the house. The sun was high and brutal. As she passed the barn, she saw him.
Wade was shirtless, heaving a broken section of old fencing onto the burn pile. Muscles corded in his back and shoulders with the effort, his skin slick with sweat and streaked with dirt. He didn’t see her. She watched, unable to look away, the dream and the kiss and Mrs. Grady’s words colliding in her head. Saint. Tempter. Prison guard. Savior.
He straightened, wiping his forehead with his arm, and turned. His eyes locked onto hers. There was no smile, no nod. Just a long, assessing look that traveled from her face down to her dusty boots and back up, as tangible as a touch. It held the memory of the loft, the rain, her mouth under his. It held a challenge.
He bent, picked up his t-shirt from a fence post, and pulled it on over his head, never breaking eye contact. The moment stretched, taut and silent.
Then he turned back to his work, dismissing her. The message was clear. He wasn't going to mention it. He wasn't going to explain himself. The landscape between them hadn't just changed; it had become a minefield, and he was waiting to see where she would step first.