She stilled and went limp beneath him. Thomas exhaled loudly, wishing to hell he hadn’t had to do that, but he figured it was the lesser of two evils at that moment.
“Damn it, Cassi,” he muttered sharply, feeling like shit. It went against his personal beliefs—men who hit women were scum—but she’d given him no choice. Still, even knowing this, it didn’t lessen the feeling he’d just crossed a line. A good agent didn’t let the past affect his actions. If he’d hesitated, she would’ve gotten away and he would have had to explain why to his superiors.
Pulling his handcuffs, he made short work of securing her. He climbed to his feet and took a quick look around the cramped apartment.
Ugly
was the appropriate word for it, he thought as he made a short circuit. Peeling yellowed wallpaper covered the walls, and brown, matted carpet covered the floor. He doubted anything in this place belonged to Cassi. From what he remembered, thrift store garbage wasn’t exactly her decorating style, which told him she’d rented the apartment furnished. There was nothing personal in this space, nothing that would suggest she actually lived there. She had the essentials but nothing else. The occupant of this house lived a transient existence. Here today, gone tomorrow, which fit Cassi’s M.O. Still, he opened a few drawers and rifled through the contents. A grim part of him was hoping to find evidence of drugs because maybe he could understand why she’d turned so bad if he found she suffered an addiction. But when his search came up empty, he couldn’t say he wasn’t relieved, too.
No pictures, no personal effects. What a lonely life, he reflected for a minute before returning to where Cassi lay unconscious. He’d lied. He’d wanted to know her story, her reasons, but he’d be damned if he let himself slide down that slippery slope. He didn’t cause her to make her bad choices. He had to keep sight of that before he went and did something foolish, like trust her to tell him the truth and then fall hook, line and sinker for her lies.
Thomas hoisted her onto his shoulder, grunting under the weight and taking care not to notice the plump, round curves of her ass right at his face. There were a million different reasons why he shouldn’t be attracted to her, but his hand itched to touch her and it only served to sour his mood further.
Why Cassi? Of all the women in the world…why her? There were too many memories, too many unresolved feelings, just flat out, too much of everything. He’d been a fool to take this case but what was done was done. He’d see it through, no matter what. And he absolutely
would not
give in to the strange and inappropriate urge to give that firm ass a nice squeeze.
He passed a neighbor or two but didn’t stop to explain why he was carting away an unconscious woman on his shoulder, nor did he flash his badge. Funny, no one asked any questions. That said a lot about the neighborhood she was living in. Definitely a far cry from the digs she was accustomed to, that was for sure.
Cassi had lived in the rich part of town where they grew up in Bridgeport, West Virginia. Her house had been the most lavish, ridiculous piece of masonry Thomas had ever seen. Cassi came from old money and she’d enjoyed all that it had afforded from top-shelf education to high-society circles. Hell, she’d even had a coming-out party when she’d turned sixteen just like they did in the Old South. His upbringing hadn’t been so privileged. Until he’d been put in Mama Jo’s care, his home life had been hell. He didn’t like to spend much time remembering those days. And there was no reason for him to, either, but a memory floated unbidden from his past. Odd, given the circumstances, but it flashed real and tangible before he could stop it.
“You like her,” a young Christian had said, his voice wise for a twelve-year-old kid who still slept with a ratty teddy bear that smelled so bad it probably scared away vermin. Owen glanced up from whittling on his ash twig, interest in his eyes at their brother’s sudden proclamation. “So why don’t you just ask her out or something?”
Thomas’s face had colored. “I don’t like her,” he protested. “We’re just friends. Nothing wrong with that.”
They were down by Flaherty’s Creek behind Mama Jo’s house “stayin’ out of mischief” as per Mama’s instruction.
“It’s s’ okay, you know,” Christian said, skipping a rock across the water, listening as it splashed to the other side. “If you like her, I mean. She’s pretty.”
Thomas followed Christian’s lead and threw his own rock, giving a short, victorious smile as it skipped one more time than Christian’s rock. Finally, he shrugged. “It’s not like that,” he said. “She’s not like most girls. She’s—” he scratched at his head “—I don’t know, special. She doesn’t notice that my clothes aren’t brand-spanking-new or that I don’t have a bunch of money like the rest of those dumb Yanks do. She thinks I’m funny, too.”
“Funny-looking, you mean,” quipped Owen with a smothered grin before returning to his whittling.
“Ha-ha. Go back to your stick or I’ll tell Poppy Jones a thing or two about you.”
Owen narrowed his stare at Thomas, his green eyes darkening. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“I would.” Thomas gave his brother his best shit-eatin’ grin. “Like how you stare at the back of her head during class with this dopey look on your face.”
Christian cackled and slapped his knee. “You guys both got it bad. You won’t see me drooling over some girl. You gotta get them on the hook before you reel them in. And whatever you do, don’t let them get their claws into you. If you do, you’re done for.”
Both Thomas and Owen shared sour looks but they couldn’t exactly say anything to the contrary, because even as the youngest, Christian had the girls going nuts over him. In fact, they trailed after the kid like he was made of chocolate and they all wanted to take a bite, but Christian never let anyone catch him…at least not for long.
Owen straightened and examined his work. A rudimentary, but not half-bad-looking bear totem stared back at him. He tucked the finished work into his back pocket and went to stand by Thomas. “You know, you’re right. Cassi is different than other girls. She’s cool and I hope you two stay friends a long time. I mean it.”
That quiet statement resonated with Thomas, striking a chord deep inside him. “Thanks, man. Me, too. Yeah…I mean…” He shifted on the balls of his feet and admitted something private. “It would be cool if we did but she’s got all those rich friends…I don’t know. I don’t really fit in with her world.”
Owen knew a thing or two about not fitting in, but he shrugged and said, “Who cares what her rich friends think? Cassi wants you in her world so forget about them. She’s the one who matters, right?”
“Yeah, I guess,” he agreed.
“So make the most of it then. And don’t let her go.”
Thomas shoulder-bumped him with a grin. “Look at you all wise and stuff.” They shared a laugh and then Thomas sobered. “Thanks.”
Owen grinned in answer and opened his mouth to say something but he never got the chance. Christian barreled into them both with a loud battle cry and they all went tumbling into the creek for one last cutthroat game of Drown the Rat before the sun set on the horizon.
The recollection of their laughter drew a soft smile from his lips. He didn’t know why that memory, of all the ones tucked away in his mind, rose to the surface but at least it elicited warmth instead of pain, like the ones before he came to live with Mama Jo.
As far as he was concerned, his life before age twelve didn’t exist. Shaking off the odd melancholy, he grabbed his cell phone and stopped short of giving his superior a status update. He figured there was no rush. The prisoner was secured and it was a five-hour drive back to headquarters. With nothing but time to pass, he thought he’d use the opportunity to satisfy the questions in his head.
It was a foolish idea. Somewhere in his mind there was a stern voice of reason warning him that this was a bad plan but he wasn’t listening at the moment. He could charter a plane on the Bureau’s dime and be there in half the time but he wanted to drive—and he wanted to spend time with her.
She opened her eyes slowly and spared Tommy a short accusatory glance. “I can’t believe you hit me.”
“You were uncooperative.”
“Is it your habit now to hit women?” Given his childhood—she was one of a very small group who knew the details—it was a nasty question. His jaw tightened but she refused to feel bad. He’d punched her in the face. That wasn’t something she was going to forget anytime soon. There was also the fact that she was handcuffed like a common criminal to deal with, too. “I’d have thought that was one thing you’d never do. Seems I’m not the only who’s changed over the years.”
“I didn’t want to. You left me no choice,” he said.
“You had a choice. You could’ve let me go.” His silence told her how futile that argument was but she was more than angry with the man—her feelings were bruised that he’d purposefully hurt her. The Tommy in her memory would’ve beaten anyone to a pulp if they’d laid a hand on her. Now he was the one dealing out the punches. Her eyes stung. She wouldn’t cry in front of him. Instead she allowed a small smirk even though the action cost her as a sharp pain followed. She gingerly worked her jaw. The petty victory could only buoy her spirits for a brief moment but it was enough to keep the tears from surfacing. “You didn’t by any chance happen to grab a small, black leather date book on your way out, did you?”
“You aren’t going to need a date book where you’re going,” he answered and she scowled. “No, I didn’t grab anything but you from that hovel you called an apartment.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” she shot back, an odd pang of embarrassment for her living conditions getting the better of her. What did she care what he thought? “I’ve lived in worse.”
He glanced at her. “Worse? That’s a scary thought. I think I saw a cockroach big enough to cart away a small child.”
“That was Charlie. I feed him scraps. I was training him to be an attack roach. A few more veggie burgers and he’d have been better than a guard dog. I could’ve sicced him on you,” she said dully, feeling ill at the loss of her date book. In her mind, she replayed the scenario again and again, sickened that she’d been so careless with the one important item in her possession.
“So, what’s in this date book that’s so important?”
She swallowed the burn at the back of her throat. Two years of hard work…gone. Why hadn’t she hit him harder? Truth was, she’d pulled her punch a little. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him. Not really. Now…hell, she should’ve knocked his teeth out of his head. She worked her jaw but refused to wince even though the pain felt rooted in her bones. “I guess it doesn’t matter, does it?” she said, looking away so he didn’t read the despair in her eyes.
“No, I guess it doesn’t,” he returned, his gaze never leaving the road, the unfeeling bastard. But then, he cut her a quick glance, saying, “But just out of curiosity—”
She closed her eyes. “Just shut up, will you? Whatever’s in that date book is none of your damn business, so drop it.”
“Fine.”
She leaned against the headrest and struggled not to just let it all out and cry her fool head off. At one time she would’ve bet her life that Tommy would always have her back. The man was integrity personified. Yet, here she was feeling betrayed by the very same man. Cassi twisted so that she could look out the window instead of at the man who was destroying any chance of getting her life back and—ironically—finding justice for her mother.
So knowing all this…why was he feeling bad for her? He cast a quick glance her way then looked away again. Was that remorse in her expression? Her face, tilted away from him was in profile as she leaned against the glass. A tendril of something long lost kindled to life and reminded him of how he’d thought he was in love with her once.
“Tell me what you think it feels like to be in love,” a thirteen-year-old Cassi whispered from his memory of a day in late May. She’d been wearing a white sundress that dusted her knees and they’d stolen away to a meadow behind Mama Jo’s house on one of the occasions Cassi and her mother had had an argument. During those times, Cassi had often found her way to Thomas’s house, even though their homes weren’t exactly close. The warm breeze had lifted the honey-hued hair away from her face while her blue eyes had sparked with genuine curiosity. They’d tumbled to the tall grass and lay side by side on their stomachs, watching through the swaying green stalks as squirrels chased each other through the white ash trees and birds dipped and wheeled in the flawless cerulean sky.
He’d known the answer because he felt it every time he looked at her. “I think it makes your stomach all tight like someone’s squeezing it real hard, so much so that it hurts, but you don’t mind because it makes you want to be around that person, even when you’re not really doing anything special.”
She wrinkled her nose, not at all pleased with his theory. “That sounds like the stomach flu. Why would anyone want to fall in love if it made them want to throw up? No, I don’t think that’s how it is at all,” she announced firmly. “I think that when you’re in love you feel a tickle in your heart and you want to kiss that person all the time.”
Thomas’s young heart had stuttered at the thought of kissing Cassi. Cassi hadn’t noticed though and had simply sighed dreamily, saying, “I can’t wait to fall in love. I think I would like to kiss someone who wants to kiss me back.” Then an alarming thought had come to her and she sat a little straighter, turning to Thomas. “What if I never find someone who loves me? What if I go my entire life and no one wants to kiss me like that? Oh, Tommy, that’s an awful thought. I would die.”
And he’d wanted to reassure her that that would never happen because at that very moment he wanted to kiss her so bad his brain had simply stopped functioning. Then as he thought to lean forward to press his lips against hers in what would’ve been their first kiss, she’d leaned over and whispered conspiratorially, “Can you keep a secret?” He’d been dumbfounded as she giggled, admitting, “I think I’m going to fall in love with Billy Barton and I’m going to kiss him.”
His world had plummeted.
And Cassi’s first kiss had been with a boy who could burp the alphabet…not with Thomas. Their kiss wouldn’t happen for another four years.
Jerked back to the moment, he suffered the pang of that bittersweet childhood memory and was happy to push it away and focus on the here and now, not the been and gone.
“You hungry?” he asked gruffly.
She didn’t bother to answer.
He withheld a sigh. “Fine. Just asking.”
“Why you?” she asked him abruptly. He gave her a quick look and saw the glitter in her eyes. “Isn’t there some kind of conflict of interest, seeing as we have a history?” He could’ve lied but he couldn’t bring himself to utter a word. His silence was telling. She barked a short laugh. “You didn’t offer that information. Interesting,” she said, returning her gaze to the darkened landscape outside the window. “So, it seems Thomas Bristol isn’t always Dudley Do-Right when it suits his purposes to bend the rules.” She shrugged. “I’m the last person to judge for what you may consider obvious reasons but if there’s one thing I never pegged you for, it’s a hypocrite.”
“I’m not a hypocrite,” he bit out, his hackles rising at the mockery.
“Oh? I didn’t manage to finish college but I’m pretty sure I have a full grasp of the word’s meaning. Please explain to me how you are not indeed a hypocrite, judging by your actions? Is it not required for you to disclose any personal history or relationship with a suspect or prisoner?” He didn’t answer, which was good because she continued. “Ah, well. Like I said, if you’re Thomas Bristol, rules are simply guidelines but for everyone else, the law is black-and-white.”
It wasn’t like that but when she put it that way it sounded pretty damn bad. “You’re right. I didn’t tell my superior. I wanted—”
to see you again
“—to make sure that you were treated as fairly as possible given the situation. You know if you’d pulled that stunt back there with anyone else you might’ve gotten yourself killed. Did you think about that at all when you were going all kung fu on my ass?” She refused to look at him. He swore under his breath, wondering why he was wasting his time. “Forget it. You know, you’re right. I should’ve walked away the first time your file crossed my desk. I should’ve done an about-face and left you to whoever had the misfortune to get your case, but I didn’t because at first I thought there had to be a mistake. There’s no way the girl I used to know had turned into a criminal. But when I couldn’t deny it any longer I wanted to make sure that at the very least, you had someone who would treat you kindly.”
At that she gave him a brief look, derision twisting her mouth. “Kindly? This is your version of ‘kind’? Pardon me if I don’t subscribe to your brand of kindness,” she retorted and rubbed gingerly at her jaw with her bound hands.
“You seem to forget you cleaned my clock the first go-round.”
The corner of her lips twitched. “Of course I haven’t forgotten. I’m just wishing I hadn’t pulled my punch. Maybe the situation might have played out differently.”
She’d pulled her punch? He nearly did a double take. It’d felt as if she’d beaned him with a hammer. Gone was the girl who’d shied away from anything physical for fear of breaking a nail. “Where’d you learn to be such a bruiser?” he asked.
She didn’t look inclined to answer but after a drawn-out pause, she answered coolly. “You’d be surprised what I know.”
“At this point no, I wouldn’t,” he muttered.