“I was the first officer on scene when you called the dispatcher. I’m Sawyer Bishop. I told you about your grandma and your daughter.” She nodded, not sure that was all it was that had her wanting him to keep holding onto her like he was. “The men that hurt you, they’ve been caught and are in jail. You don’t have to worry about them again.”
“Sawyer.” He nodded as he sat across from her. Molly asked if she could lay down with her again, and Sawyer picked her daughter up and put her in the bed with her. “I feel like you’ve done this before. Watched over me.”
“Yes, I’ve been here since you were brought in. Your grandma asked me to stay in the beginning because of the unknown whereabouts of the perpetrators. Then after that, I found that I couldn’t leave you alone.” Raven tried to think what that might have meant. No man, so far as she knew, wanted to spend any time with her. Not even long enough for a date to be finished most times. “You’re thinking very hard. Just ask me what you’re thinking about.”
“Why are you still here?” Her face heated up in embarrassment. “What I mean is, after they found the men, why did you hang around? It must have been very boring to be sitting here watching me rest up.”
“You’d be surprised. You’ve been very entertaining to watch when you get up and dance around the room in that gown.” Molly laughed, and she told Sawyer that he was being silly. “I fell in love with you and your daughter.”
Raven didn’t know what to say to that. Surely the man was jesting. Turning to look at her grandma again, she asked her how long she’d been here. When she heard that it had been nine days, she wanted to demand that they tell her the truth. But Grandma assured her that it had been that long.
Sitting up in the bed, she couldn’t believe how much better she was feeling with every passing moment. Even holding onto her grandma’s hand was a great feeling. Molly laid her head on her breast and Sawyer looked at them. Everything in her body warmed up to the point that she wanted to fan her face. Even to take off the little bit of covers that she had on.
Grandma talked about the things that she’d done for her. Running the company from here. Having her attorney go over and take care of payroll and the such. Even Molly had been taken care of, going to Sawyer’s home with his family to get her away from all the things going on here.
“I have to get me something to eat.” Grandma stood up and put out her hand to Molly. “Why don’t you come with me, child, and I’ll get us both something very bad for us in celebration.”
“I’d like that.”
She wanted to call them back, to beg them not to leave her alone with the man, but they were out the door and no longer her protection. Raven had no idea why she thought that she might need it.
Raven looked at Sawyer again. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I mean, other than having my body beaten up and waking for the first time in a little over a week.” He didn’t say anything, and Raven felt her embarrassment turn up, as well as her anger. “Either say something or get the hell out of here.”
“I can do that. But you need to know this. You’ve been coding since you were brought in. Several times on the helicopter, and twice that I know of here in the hospital. The last time you didn’t come back to us as quickly, nor as well as they had hoped. So I took measures that saved your life.” Raven didn’t want to ask him what they were, his measures, but her mouth seemed to be braver than her mind was. She asked him what he’d done. “I’m a Bengal tiger. White. I don’t know why we’re white. My family has been since the beginning of the line that we’ve been able to trace back. And in saying that, while you were almost dead this last time, as close as you could come, I gave you a great portion of my blood. In doing so, I believe, but I can’t be a hundred percent sure, that I changed you into what I am. A cat.”
“You’re a shifter.” He nodded, and she had to try and get her bearings in the right order. “Who told you that you could do that? I certainly wasn’t made aware of it. I doubt that anyone in my family would have been happy about it either. What right did you have to make me into something that I cannot change back?”
“You’re my mate. I’m assuming that since you knew that I was called a shifter, you would have to know a little about my kind. You know what a mate is?” She nodded, slowly so as not to jumble all the other thoughts that were in her mind. “Holly knows. She said that she was glad for it, as she didn’t know how she’d live without you around. I’ve not mentioned it to Molly just yet. I didn’t know if she’d be able to keep it to herself until your grandma talks to her son. Your mother, she’s not happy with me in the first place.”
“Did you try and eat her?” Raven had no idea where that thought came from, but she regretted it as soon as it slipped from her mouth. “I’m sorry. I’m confused and feeling off my feet. What happened between you and my mother? I’m assuming that it was entirely her fault. Or did she tell you that you weren’t good enough for me because of her being an Addington?”
“Both, actually, but they were neither pointed at me. Not yet at any rate. She’s pissed off with your daughter.” She asked him over what. “You’ve seen her. She’s banged up. Molly got that playing with the neighborhood children while she was playing at my parents’ house.” Raven nodded and said nothing more. She didn’t know why her mom would think that— “We—my family and I—are very poor, and Merriam pointed out to Molly that children of her stature didn’t have fun that was for the poor, then she slapped her.”
Chapter 5
Raven thought about all the things that Sawyer had told her. Then, after he’d left—well, she sent him to her home for clothing—she called her grandma. Grandma had a great deal more to say on the subject of the slap than Sawyer had told her.
“You know the stubbornness of Molly, dear. She won’t speak to her again. Not until hell freezes over. And did you know that she calls her Ms. Addington? Took me about an hour to figure out that Merriam didn’t want her calling her grandma because she wasn’t a legitimate Addington.” Raven asked her what she’d meant by that. “I went to that club of hers. I wonder if she knows that I have a great many more contacts there than she ever will. Anyway, she told one of her buddies that she didn’t count her as her granddaughter because you never married the man. I was so angry that I nearly called her up and gave her a piece of my mind.”
So here Raven sat, waiting for her mother to come to the hospital to see her so that she could get to the bottom of a great many things. Sawyer returned with the clothing that her maid had packed up for her and started out the door again.
“Oh no, you don’t. Don’t you dare leave here without me telling you to.” The man was trying her patience, and she wondered if he knew that she was about as close to the edge as she could be right now.
“I can read your mind.” She felt her face heat again. Another thing that she was pissed off about with him. “Who shit in your cereal? I wasn’t even here. Did your mom call?”
“No, I called her. After I talked to my grandma. Did you know that she’s ashamed of Molly?” He nodded, and she could have leapt from the bed and strangled him. When Sawyer laughed, she sat up higher in the bed and calculated the amount of effort it would take to touch him. The low growl from him had her looking away from him. “Don’t do that. I don’t know if you realize this or not, but it makes me feel weird when you do. I’m not into having a discussion with you regarding that just yet.”
“You want me.” She started to tell him he was full of shit when he growled low again. “I’m not sure what you want from me when you think of things regarding my body.”
“I didn’t think of a single thing about your body. Other than your throat. I want to strangle you.” Sawyer laughed, and the tingle all over her body came back, like he’d laid a very warm blanket over her. When his body stiffened, she looked him up and down. Sawyer had an erection that made her want to strip him naked and see if he looked as thick and hard as he di
d with clothing on.
“You keep smelling like that and I’m not going to be held responsible for what happens next.”
Licking her lips because there was no moisture in her body, she shook her head at him, not even sure what she had been telling him about. Her mouth dried up like she’d taken a bite of dust. Raven felt her body warm up to the point of being on fire. His growl this time didn’t make her pissed off, but hardened her nipples until they hurt. The pit of her belly was churning. Not from being sick like it usually did, but like she was painfully aware of the man in front of her.
“Hello, darling. I’m so glad that you— What is he doing here? I thought you and I said enough the last time I was here. Go along now, Briar patch boy, and let me talk to my daughter without you interrupting me again.” Sawyer didn’t take his eyes from Raven’s, and Raven wanted to scream at her mom to go the fuck away, they had business. Then her father walked in, and Sawyer sat down on the chair right behind him. “I didn’t say to sit, young man. I want you out of here, now. And if you talk to me the way you did before, then I’m going to sue you. See how your poor family likes that.”
“Mother, shut the fuck up.” Raven was finally able to look away from Sawyer just in time to see her father walk in. “Daddy, I didn’t know you were coming in too. Thanks, but I really wanted to talk to Mother alone.”
“I’m here in the event that things get out of hand again.” Dad’s voice was as hard as she’d ever heard it. His anger was dripping off his lips as he spoke too. Raven looked at Sawyer. “Not at him, honey, but your mother. You have no idea what sort of things she spewed at Molly when she was here the last time. Also, she’s not talking to her. Your Molly, not your mother. Molly said she wouldn’t, and by golly, she’s not.”
Dad laughed, and Raven felt her anger get harder—her brain hurt with how pissed off she was at her mother. When she started to tell her off, Sawyer scooted his chair next to her bed and stretched his legs out in front of him. Raven wasn’t sure what that was about, but it didn’t cool her temper anymore.
I’m only here in the event that your cat takes control of you. And she will if you don’t calm her. Do you feel her, Raven? She’s set to protect you. If she gets out, she’ll kill your mother. Sawyer told her again to take deep breaths and let them out. She’s your cat, honey. Just tell her that you have this. And she’ll believe you. For now. Your mother is upsetting you both, so you need to be in control of yourself. All right?
When he put his hand near hers on the bed, Raven grabbed it like a lifeline. It was calming for her too, to have him so close. When Sawyer squeezed it, giving her comfort, she thought, Raven realized that her mom was talking to her. Or at her anyway.
“You will not put me through this again, Raven. Do you hear me? You’ll not be shacking up with that man there. It’s embarrassing to go to the club and have everyone know that you’re nothing but a—well, I was going to say whore, but cheap sounds better.” Dad tried to get Mother to shut up. “I will not. Someone has to tell her what they’re saying about her. And I’m her mother, much as it shames me to say so. You cannot imagine the grief that I’ve gone through just to say that I have an illegitimate grandchild. My goodness. If he leaves you in that position, I’m going to sue the hell out of all of them. You too while I’m at it, Raven. Don’t you think you’ve hurt me enough with the way you live your life? You should see what they’ve done to Molly. Her face and hands are scabbed up like she’s some ragamuffin. Why can’t they just leave us alone and be with their own kind? And her black eye. It’s as big as her fist, and she claims that no one hit her. But Molly has been hanging out with the wrong sort of people, what with her being an Addington.”
“Are you finished, Mother?” She said that she was only just getting started. “I see. Well, you have your say, then I’ll have mine. You should know that I’ve been storing up a great deal more than you can imagine. But you go ahead and tell me what it is you have to endure for being my mother.”
“I’m glad to see that you’re finally going to listen to me, Raven.” Mother sat down in the room’s other chair and glared at Sawyer. “Did you know that he’s an unemployed, broken down police officer? The man that I spoke to told me some wild tales about Mr. Bishop here. That he’s been awarded so many awards for his bravery and valor that it made me ill to think that someone would lie like that. He and his family are broke too. That’s the only reason that I can think of that he’d be wanting to hang around here with you. I’ve wondered if his mind was in the right place, but I think he does this because he figures to get some of my money or your grandmother’s. She’s stupid enough to just hand over her credit cards to him without any qualms about ever getting it back.”
“Which is it, Mother? You think that he could do better than to marry someone like me, someone you just called a whore? Or are you upset that he is a good man that might deserve better than me?” Mother huffed at her. “Let me see if I’m getting this straight in my mind. You think that me having Molly has ruined your life at the club. That everyone is talking about you because of me. Oh, and let’s not forget about me being stupid and just simply handing over my money to someone I’ve only just met about an hour ago.”
“You have it about right. I swear, I don’t know how this family kept their good name intact before I came around. Just the other day, I heard your father talking out on the front lawn. He had his arm around the kid that delivers our papers like he was some buddy that he’d met up with at the club.” Mother huffed again. “I had to have the kid taken off our route so that your father wouldn’t embarrass me like that again.”
“You make him bring the paper up to the front door and hand it to the butler, Merriam. Do you have any idea how that might affect him? How much longer it takes him to do that when he has baseball practice and homework?” Raven looked at her dad, feeling sorry for him for the first time in her life. Dad continued, his voice hard but low. “You had him fired, not put on a different route, Merriam. Fired. All he was trying to do was help out his family as they put their oldest through college.”
“So? I don’t care what he’s telling you—it’s more than likely a lie anyway—but I want the paper handed to me. It’s the least he can do for what he charges me every month.” He asked her what the bill was, and Raven watched her mother. “I don’t know, Roger. I have nothing to do with that sort of thing. I just know that you’re paying too much for him to bring it to us. Why, you own the paper anyway. Why are we even paying someone to deliver it when the entire company owes us a great deal?”
“It doesn’t matter to you, does it, that I had to bring that young man into my offices and explain to him why you were such a bitch. And I did too.” Merriam looked like she could kill him right then, Raven saw. “He’s a good kid, and working out very well in delivering the mail to the offices in my building. So thank you for that find.”
“So, Mother, you’re not only a bitch to your own family, but to others as well.” Raven felt Sawyer squeeze her hand a little bit tighter, and she let out breaths again. When she was calm enough to speak, Raven asked her mother what she’d been burning to ask her all morning. “Why did you slap my child?”
“I didn’t hurt her. Is that what they told you? You’d think that she actually fallen to the floor when she did nothing more than take a step back.” Sawyer said that he’d caught Molly before she hit the floor. “Everyone is making this out to be more than it really is. It was nothing, I tell you. And to be honest with you, Raven, I wish that I had done it more to you when you were a child. Perhaps then you’d not have brought so much grief down on our heads when you scandalized this family and the Addington name.”
Raven had so much more that she wanted to say. A great deal more about being a grandmother and how her own would have handled it. When Sawyer asked her if she was all right, she nodded. Then picking up the phone that was beside her, she made a call to her attorney.
“Hello, Johnson. Th
is is Raven Addington.” She told him that she was getting much better and feeling like she could come back to work soon. Mother said that she was not, and Dad just sat there. He looked broken. “I need for you to do a few things for me, but I’d like it if you could come here to get them started. Anytime that’s good for you.”
“I can come there in about an hour if that’s all right with you.” She said it would be perfect. “Anything that I can do from here now, Raven? You know that I’d do just about anything for you.”
“No. When you arrive I’ll be ready with everything that I want lined up. There is a great deal of it too, Johnson, so you might want to hire on some other workers. I, of course, will take care of the extra pay for you.” Mother said that she would not be paying anything extra. Raven told her to shut up again. “Also, could you please bring me in a few things from my office? I’ll have Mary have them ready for you.” After ringing off with him, she looked at her mother.
“What do you plan to do, Raven? Give away all your money? I won’t allow you to do that. I’ll be right there when Mr. Boggs arrives to tell him what he can and can’t do.” Raven told her mother that she was twenty-nine years old and Merriam looked around. “Hush. Do you want people to hear you? My goodness, Raven, you don’t give away your age like it’s something that everyone should be aware of. Why, if you do that, then they’ll figure out that I’m much older than I tell people I am.”
“Get out.” Mother looked at Sawyer when she told her that. “No, Mother, I want you out of my room right now. And if you think that I’ve embarrassed you at the club, whatever will you do if they find out that I had you arrested for trespassing where you were no longer needed?”
“You have no right to do this to me. It’s all him, isn’t it? You’re trying your best to make me feel bad for telling you the truth. Well, Raven Holly Addington, I will not allow you to make me the bad guy in your life.” Raven stood up and watched her mother’s face pale. “You’re well.”
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