Return to Her by Alexandra O'Hurley Page A

Mason
walked out of Dave’s room and looked at the drawers sitting out,
the stuff strewn about. His roommate had apparently been in such a
rush to get the hell out that he’d nearly destroyed the place in
his search for his belongings. Mason was ditched and his house left
a wreck. And not to mention…
    Cassie .
    Mason halted in his tracks, his heart
pumping. He needed to find her, make sure she was alright. The need
to protect her was powerful, almost overwhelming. He had no clue
where it was coming from.
    Don’t lie to yourself. You
know exactly where it’s coming from.
    Mason needed to get a hold of himself.
Just because Dave was gone didn’t mean she needed another man in
her life so soon. Cassie was his friend, too, and he would make
sure she was okay. She didn’t deserve to be hurt, no more than Dave
had deserved her in the first place.
    Crumpling the note in his hands, Mason
rushed out the door, locking it quickly before heading to his car.
He glanced at Heather and dug into his pocket for his keys. “I’m
taking you home.”
    The woman didn’t move toward the door,
just stood there staring. “What happened in there?”
    “ It’s fine, but there’s
somewhere I need to go. Get in the car and I’ll take you home.”
Mason climbed inside and revved the engine.
    Heather stood by the car, not moving.
He lowered the passenger window and leaned across.
    “ Are you getting in,
Heather, or are you going to stand there all night?”
    She leaned down to glare at him. “My
name is Jennifer.”
    My bad. “Do you want a ride home or not?”
    Jennifer snarled at him, as she
legitimately had a right to at this point, and finally got into the
car. He felt even worse about the whole fiasco. Mason shouldn’t
have asked her back to his place, he wasn’t sure why he’d done it
in the first place. But then, when a man wanted another woman, one
he couldn’t have, he did stupid things.
    Mason threw the car into drive and
squealed out of the parking lot, his focus laser sharp. Hopefully,
Cassie wasn’t a total wreck.
     
    * * * *
     
    Cassie heard the car pull up into her
driveway. She glanced through the blinds, her initial instinct
telling her it wasn’t Dave’s truck. Breathing a sigh of relief, she
glanced through the darkness. There was no way she was ready for
round two tonight. In the low light of the street lamps, she
struggled to see who it was, and her heart started to beat harder
once she recognized the form of the man.
    Mason.
    Running an absentminded hand through
her hair, she went to the door. Cassie opened it and watched Mason
approach. He stepped into the circle of the porch light and stopped
a couple of feet away from her.
    “ Are you okay?”
    Cassie nodded. She actually was, now
that Dave was gone. A weight was lifted off her shoulders. “Yeah, I
think I am for the first time in a long while.”
    Mason didn’t say anything. He just
watched her closely, as if assuring himself she spoke the
truth.
    “ Did you want to come in?”
she asked, tugging her cardigan around her a little more tightly.
It might be May, but the evenings were still cool.
    “ Yeah, I’ve got some
questions, if you’re up for it.”
    Cassie didn’t really want to talk
about it, but the thought of Mason being there soothed her. She
backed away from the door and let him pass, his cologne doing funny
things to her head. Mason always smelled good. Looked good, too,
not that she’d usually go for that type. He was a little too Adonis
for a girl like her.
    Mason sat down on her couch, leaning
his elbows on his knees. He looked a little funny sitting there,
his long limbs appearing too big for the proportions of her small
sofa. Yet she couldn’t explain how much it mattered that he was
there, checking in on her.
    “ So what did you need to
know?” Cassie asked, sitting across from him in a comfy
chair.
    “ I got home tonight. The
apartment’s been trashed and all of Dave’s stuff is gone. I got a
note, saying he had to leave