Loving Her (Keeping Her) (10 page)

Clytie laughed,
"Probably, but I'd rather rent that one for Roxanne once, instead of
owning it."

“Right.  How about the 101
Dalmatians that wasn’t animated?  That was good, ooh, and The Lion, the Witch
and the Wardrobe.”

“Absolutely not.  Too scary
for a six year old when it looks like real people.”  Clytie said shaking her
head.

Cassandra sat back in her
chair to give Clytie an incredulous look.  “You are kidding right?  She’s a
wolf shifter.  I think she can handle it.”

“Nope.  I want her to be a
little girl first, and those have Cruella Deville skinning tigers, and that
evil ice witch that sacrifices Aslan.”  Clytie shook her head firmly.  “Way too
scary for a six year old when it’s not animated.”

“Clytie, she lived with
Essie for years, I think she can handle a movie about her.”

Clytie snorted a laugh and
looked at Roxanne who had actually fallen asleep beside her chocolate ice cream
with her head on her arms.  Her eyes got soft.  “She’s had it so rough,
Cassie.  She’s six years old and already knows there’s bad in the world; I just
want her to see only good from now on.”

Cassie sighed, “Fine, no
live action scary, and we’ll see about getting her a pink pony.”

Clytie laughed.  “All
right.  I know it’s not possible to protect her from everything, but I’m going
to try, at least for a few years.”

Cassandra reached across
and squeezed Clytie’s hand on the table.  “Cleo was right; she is lucky to have
you.”

Before Clytie could do more
than tear up, there was a commotion at the restaurant door.  A tall, cool
blond, that had to be six feet tall, model thin and all legs came into the
restaurant. 
You could cut glass on those cheekbones.
  Cassie thought.

She was wearing an all
white wrap dress and gold Gucci stilettos.

Ooh, pretty shoes,
Cassie thought, then realized she was heading for Ben
and Demon’s table.

“Speaking of that witch in
the movie,” Clytie muttered, leaning forward to get a better look.

Ben knew he was in clear
violation of the agreement by listening in to the ongoing conversation.  They
were just so dang entertaining.  They could argue about the color blue for ten
minutes and do it in such a way that he would be laughing his ass off.  Then
one of them would say something incredibly sweet, and mean it.  They were nice
to each other.  

He had always assumed that
women were like the ones in his family growing up.  Those bitches would smile
at each other than say something cutting or cruel just because they could. 
They didn’t laugh together, unless it was at someone else’s expense and they
were always doing their best to tear people down, never build them up.  

His work in security and
his dating history didn’t exactly change his opinion.  Women came to him and
Mac for the kink of having two guys, they didn’t try to make them laugh or hold
them when they needed it.  They took, period.  Cassandra was all about the
giving.  He could see why the ex-boyfriend prick was trying to hang on, even if
he was going about it in a fucked up way.  Of course, that wasn’t going to stop
Ben from breaking his fucking neck if he came within two feet of Cassie.  He
wanted her; he should have worked to deserve her.  He didn’t, and he lost the
only shot he was going to get.

When the restaurant door
opened, Ben and Demon automatically looked to assess possible threats.  When
Ben saw who it was, he froze, feeling a punch to his gut that was as unexpected
as it was unwelcome.  “Well, fuck me.”

“That’s about right,” Demon
muttered grimly.  “The bitch is back and you are so fucked.”

“Hello Ben.”

“What the fuck are you
doing here Clarice?  And where’s your mate?”

“You have got to be
shitting me,” Demon muttered, then hit his mic.  “We are extracting right now. 
Eli, you see anything out there looks like shifter?”

“Negative.  We got a
situation?  Should we mobilize?”

“No, but send Shawn up for
a look.  I’m leaving the mic on.  We’ll be out as soon as we handle the trash.”

The trash gave Demon a
narrow unhappy look.  “I see you’re still hanging out with this… person.  I had
hoped you would eventually realize you could do better than common mutt,” she
said coldly.

Demon ignored her dig and
looked at Ben.  “You want me to toss her flat ass out the fuckin’ door, say the
word.  Right now, I’m getting the women out before this escalates.”

“Do it,” Ben said, his
words ice cold.  “I’m right behind you.”

Demon stood up to his full
seven foot height and tried to walk straight through her.  She moved, rather
than get trampled. 

“Honestly Ben,” she said
turning back to him when Demon was past.  “I never understood what you saw in
that dog.”

“Yeah, I could see how you
wouldn’t.  Loyalty was always beyond your understanding,” he growled, his eyes
alighting briefly on a confused Cassie and then back, he went ice cold.  “What
the fuck do you want?”

“Can we go somewhere and
talk?”

“No.  Not just no, but hell
no.”  Ben whipped the words out like a weapon.  “Say what you came to say and
get gone.”

“Marshall’s dead.”

Ben blinked without
expression while his guts caved in.  “And?”

She looked confused, but
then she was always quite the actress.  “I thought you’d want to know.  You had
to realize I would never have betrayed you if I had a choice.  Now he’s dead
and I told your family everything.  You can come home and we can finally be together.”

“Ben?”  He turned to see
Cassie and Clytie with Demon carrying Roxanne one handed at their backs.  “You
all right?”

“Yeah, go with Demon,
Cassie.  I’ll be right behind you.”  His voice was raw, but he wasn’t sure what
he was feeling here and he sure didn’t want Cassandra touched by it.

Cassie looked from his
blank face and cold eyes, so unlike her Ben, to the sad looking ice goddess who
wanted him back.
 
Cassie took a moment studying the completely put
together and cold beauty before her.  They looked right together, ice beauty
with gold Adonis.
 She met the light blue eyes and there was a warning
there, malice. 

Ah, there you are.  The
sads just a façade.
 You’re out
for what you can get, and you think that’s Ben.

“I’ll wait in the car for
you,” Cassie finally said, her eyes still on the other woman.  “But if you’re
not out in five minutes, I’ll be back.
 
I just don’t like the idea of
you facing this…person alone.”  She finally turned to meet Ben’s eyes.  “You
might get frost bite and I have plans for all your parts later tonight.”  She
watched him thaw before her eyes, his eyes warmed and then he chuckled,
stepping away from the booth to brush her hair back from her face and nip her
bottom lip.

“Two minutes baby and I’ll
be out with bells on.”

She ran her hand down his
face trying to convey he wasn’t alone.  “I’ll be waiting.”

They were out on the
sidewalk before Cassie released the breath she had been holding.  Then she felt
Demons heavy hand on her head, and she turned to look up at him.

“You’ll do,” he said,
smiling his big scary smile, and patting her on the head again.  Then he moved
them forward to the safety of the Tahoe.

Clytie leaned over her as
soon as they were in the car.  Her eyes were dancing with mirth.  “You’re going
to need all his parts later?”

“Well, I am.”

Clytie chuckled and then
sobered.  “I have a bad feeling about this woman.  She’ll cause trouble if she
can.”

Cassandra sighed out
another breath, her stomach feeling tied in a hundred knots.  “Yeah.  But can
she?”

***

They had waited until they
got the go ahead and then Demon had driven them home, with Ben following with
Eli, and Shawn circling overhead.  They stayed so close on the drive home that
when they parked the car in the garage, Ben was there to open Cassie’s door and
pull her into his arms.  She wrapped herself around him tightly.

“Are you all right?” he
asked.  His face buried in her neck.

“I was going to ask you the
same thing,” she said laughing shakily.  Her hands sifting through his hair. 
“Back at the restaurant you looked like you’d lost your best friend.”

“Yeah."  His laugh was
bitter.  "Guess we have a few things to talk about.”

“Like whom that woman is,
and what she meant when she said she told your family everything and you could
go home.”

“Yeah.”  He said.  “That.”

“I hate to break this up,”
Mac said from behind them.  “But Jordan is on the phone for Cassie and it’s the
third time she’s called.”

Ben moved back far enough
for her to get the portable phone.

“Jordan?”

“Thank goodness.  I’ve been
trying to call.  You don’t have a phone and Clytie is forever turning hers
off.  It’s ridiculous, how do you function without a phone?”

“Jordan,” she said,
exasperated.  “What’s the emergency?”

“Shit, right, some cop was
here from Seattle looking for you.  Says you’re wanted for questioning in some
big crime.  He told mom you were in danger and he needed to find you, like
today.”

Cassie froze, looking at
Ben and then Mac.

“She gave him directions to
Clytie’s.  Sorry Cass.  I didn’t tell her you were coming to visit, but she
probably figured if you weren’t there; Clytie would know how to find you.  Mom
doesn’t watch crime dramas so she doesn’t know that she probably lead the mob
right to you.  I mean, he could be on the take or under surveillance, or
something.”

“It’s fine Jordan.  There
was no crime, just an x-boyfriend causing trouble.”  Her eyes were still going
from Mac and Ben who were watching her like the predators they were.  “I’ll
call you later, OK?”

“Ex-boyfriend huh?”  She
sounded deflated.  “OK, but call me and tell me what happens.”

“I will.  Soon.  Bye
Jordan.”  She hung up the phone, and handed it back to Mac.  “You guys know
about Marcus.”  It wasn’t a question.  She could tell by their faces that they
had heard everything Jordan had said and weren’t surprised.

“We listened when you told
Clytie that first day,” Mac said, his voice neutral but his eyes hot. 

Clytie gasped from the
other side of the car, but Cassie ignored her.

“Let’s add some assurances
about privacy to the conversation we’re about to have, shall we?”

“It’ll have to wait,” Eli
said over the com system in the garage.  “We have vehicles at the gate.”

“A cop?”

“A shitload of fancy cats,
from what I can see, and they’re giving us five minutes to produce Ben or
they’re coming over the walls after him.”

“Did they say who they
are?”  Ben asked.  His eyes narrowed.

“Yeah, your family.  And
here we have one more car joining the party.  Tall dark and stupid is no doubt
the human cop we’ve been waiting for.”  Then Eli laughed over the com.  “Hey,
when they turn this fucked up Greek tragedy into a movie who do you think
they’ll get to play me?”

“I want you in the vault,”
Mac said, looking directly into Cassie’s eyes his own turning the silver of old
metal.  “Take Clytie and head down there.”

“Damn straight,” Demon
muttered.

Clytie started to stutter. 
However, Cassie’s firm voice stopped everyone. 

“No.”

“Cassie,” Ben began, only
to be interrupted.

“No Ben.  Eli can you put
the com at the gate through to me here or do I have to come there?”

“You want to talk gorgeous;
I’ll make it happen from there.”

“Cassie,” Ben started
again, and she turned on him, suddenly furious, her finger raised.

“No Ben.  This is my shit
to deal with, and I will deal with it, then we will deal with your shit,” she
pointed at her chest repeatedly.  “But I deal with my shit, not you.  And if
you try to deal with my shit without me, you will have more shit to deal with
than you can possibly handle.”  Then she poked him in the chest, hard. 
“Understand?”

“Your cousin sure can talk
shit,” Demon muttered to Clytie.

“I know,” Clytie said,
wiping fake tears from her eyes.  “I want to be her when I grow up.”

“I got it.”  Ben said,
rubbing his chest where she’d poked him and grinning.  “Your shit, you deal. 
It’s crystal.”  Mac just held up his hands in surrender.

Well, OK then.

You could hear the laughter
in Eli’s voice when he came back on.  “You’re on Cassie, make us proud.”

“Cassandra?” 
Has his
voice always been that annoying?

“Yeah, Marcus.  Why are you
here?”

“Let me in Cassandra.  We
have business you won’t want discussed in public.”  His voice had turned just a
touch threatening.

“No Marcus, you have
nothing to say I want to hear and we’re really busy right now.  So just…go
away.”

“Cassandra, you don’t want
to piss me off right now.  Let me in, or come out.  Either way, do it now.”

 “You’re not listening
Marcus.  See all those affluent looking people beside you, listening to our
conversation, and look up and see the surveillance equipment.  All of this is
being recorded.  I need you to really think for a minute. 

I realize you’re here to
make my life hell until I come back to you blah, blah, blah.  And you do the
breaking up, not the worthless woman.  Yada yada.  But today’s bad for me
Marcus.  I don’t feel like getting hit by a closed fist this afternoon so I’m
not coming out.  Try again tomorrow when I have the time to deal with your
sorry ass.”

There was a prolonged
moment of silence, then.  “This isn’t over.”

          There
was a minute of silence before Eli came back on.

“Welp.  One
problem down, for now anyway,” Eli said after another minute, and then his
voice softened over the mike.  “Please tell me that I will get the chance to
kill that mother fucker at some point.”

“Get in line,” came from
three male voices at once, making Cassie laugh.

“Next!”  Clytie called.

“Right,” Ben said, pushing
his hand through Cassie’s hair and kissing her softly.  “To my shit.”

“How about this, since we
don’t want to kill Ben’s relatives anyway, why don’t we ask them to drive one
car in with two people and they can talk to Ben.  If they really don’t want
open war they’ll do it.”

They all looked at Cassie. 
Then Mac called to Eli.  “Any visible weapons?”

“Nope.  And they don’t
strike me as trained fighters either.”

 “Huh,” Demon muttered. 
“I’m still shaking my head at the ‘we don’t want to kill Ben’s family’
statement.  Why was that again?”

Clytie elbowed him in the
gut; everyone else just ignored him.

Ben shrugged.  “See if
they’ll deal.”  Then he turned back to Cassie.  “But I need you, Clytie, and
Roxanne in the vault.”

Cassie blew out a breath. 
“OK.  But I want to see what’s happening.”

“Deal.”

“Looks like its deals all
around,” Eli said.  “They’re agreed, and they’re coming in.  I’ll meet the
ladies in the vault and monitor from there while Shawn watches for suspicious
activities outside.”

Well swell.  Back down
to the vault we go.