Cassie hugged her arms closer to her chest, rubbing her hands over her upper arms, trying to dispel the chill that had nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with the danger stalking ever closer, it's eerie spectre looming before her.
Things were coming to a head, and with Jake here Cassie feared all hell was about to break loose.
Chapter 6
Jake rested against the lobby fireplace. The roughhewn stone and timber structure occupied one entire wall, the blazing logs providing the perfect romantic spot to snuggle with the one you loved. Exactly the opposite of the mood he was in. He was still royally pissed about the lack of answers he'd gotten from Quinton Chase earlier. Anger simmered just beneath the façade of the calm exterior he portrayed. His fingers itched to have the man's neck under his hands, choking him until he turned blue. Dammit, he was evasive as an eel and just as slippery.
The face of the woman he'd spotted last night played through his mind again. She'd looked like Cassie. His beautiful, special Cassie. The need to see her again kept him planted here in the lobby instead of being out on the slopes, getting in some quality ski time. Every dark-haired woman who walked passed got his intense stare but none of them was his mystery woman.
Feminine laughter, full and rich, wafted across the nearly empty space. Gut instinct had him turn toward the sound. It was a hauntingly familiar yet brutal sound, like a physical blow. He focused on the couple walking across the lobby. There she was—dressed in leggings and boots, with a scarlet pullover skimming over her curves and across her hips, topped by an insulated jacket. A red and white knit cap adorned her dark curls.
A man stood just inside the lobby doorway, the petite brunette stopping beside him. It was her. Cassandra's doppelganger from the elevator last night. No, not her double. According to Quin she really was Cassie.
Jake's gaze focused on her and her alone. Everything around him disappeared as he took in every detail. Though her hair was darker, her green eyes were exactly the same. And her smile. He remembered that smile. It lit her face with a glow, a joy she shared with anybody gifted to witness it.
It was her! His Cassie.
Without conscious thought his steps led him straight to her, his eyes never wavering from her. Mere seconds and he'd reach them. As though some sixth sense alerted her, she turned. A variety of emotions played across her gorgeous, hauntingly familiar face, shock followed closely by guilt before she pasted on another smile on her face, this one as insincere and as phony as a three dollar bill.
"Cass?" Jake voiced the question, knowing full well it was her.
"Jake! Oh my goodness, I can't believe you're here." Stepping forward, she blew air kisses and patted his arm, the gesture causal and meaningless. She linked one arm through her companion's, patting his biceps with her other hand.
What the hell? I know it's been nearly seven years but she's acting like we're practically strangers. We were lovers, damn it.
Turning to the man beside her, Cassie stepped back. "I'm sorry. Jake, this is Brad."
Jake shook the hand the stranger extended, barely sparing him a glance. Instead he couldn't take his eyes off Cassie. She'd changed over the years. Time and distance had matured her into a beautiful woman. The youthful hinted at curves had filled out, voluptuous and sexy, even covered with a thick sweater, pants, and a heavy coat dotted with snow. He recognized the body he'd once known so well.
"Jake Stone?" The stranger's deep voice speaking his name with a distinct Southern drawl finally pulled his attention from Cassie's face. He still couldn't believe she stood in front of him, here and now. "From Cougar Hills?"
"Yeah, that's me." Wondered how he knew him.
"I've heard a lot about you over the years."
Years? Just how long had Cass been with this guy?
"Brad, not down here." Cassle leaned in toward the man, her quiet plea barely above a whisper. "It's too open."
"Damn, honey. Sorry, you're right." The corner of Brad's lips tilted upward in a grin and Jake wanted to punch the smug look right off his face. Wait, I don't have a right to feel jealous. Cass isn't mine—she hasn't been in a long, long time. Pain clawed at him, sharp and ragged as the realization of that truth hit home.
"Stone, we need to talk. Let's take this upstairs."
"Fine. Lead the way." Jake bit out the words through clenched teeth, angry. He hated that he had no right to feel anger or jealousy. Cass had left him without a backward glance. No call. No letter. And apparently no regrets.
With a wave of his hand, Jake stepped back to let Brad and Cassie precede him to the elevator. Within moments they were entering the room, no, make that suite, where apparently they were staying. Together, damn it.
"Make yourself comfortable, Stone. I need a minute with . . . Cassie."
Brad tugged Cassie's arm lightly, leading her beside the window. They whispered back and forth. She shook her head and he nodded, obviously arguing.
Finally, Brad reached forward and pulled Cassie into his arms and Jake instinctively took one step forward before he caught himself, stopping in mid-stride. He didn't have any right to interfere. Besides it didn't look like the big man was hurting her. Still, he wanted to punch his fist into that smirking face. No it wouldn't help anything, but it sure would make him feel better.
After what seemed like an eternity, Brad released her giving her a little push in Jake's direction, then walked into the bedroom, closing the door with a quiet snick.
Brad had left him alone with Cassie.
She spun around and faced him, a look of resignation crossing her face before she blanked her expression and pasted on a smile. Gesturing Cassie indicated he should sit. Jake preferred to stand, pace, anything to release the pent-up energy coursing through his system. Instead, he sank into the depths of the couch and leaned back to rest his arm along the top. Relax, he thought. Let her take the lead, listen to what she's got to say.
"It really is good to see you, Jake." Cassie's whispered words stroked his ravaged soul, a gentle brush against the ragged edges of the scars left behind at her disappearance. "I know you won't believe me, but I've missed you."
"You're right." Jake couldn't bite back his quick retort. "All the calls, the letters, they've told me exactly how much you missed me."
Cassandra winced at the harshness of his tone, but he couldn't hide how he felt. Wouldn't even try. She'd left him, not the other way round. Let her explain—if she could.
"I couldn't contact you, Jake. It was too dangerous." Jake stiffened at her last words, disbelief then anger racing through him.
"Dangerous? Cass, you disappeared without a word. Nothing. The only way I knew you weren't dead is because there wasn't a funeral."
"There would have been if I'd stayed." Cassandra whispered the words. She remained silent, just staring down at her hands, fingers twisting over and over.
"What are you talking about?" Jake knew his tone was rough, harsh, but didn't try to soften his words. Seven years worth of hurt flooded through him, not easily banked. Confusion and pain cluttered his thoughts. Hurt strangled any sympathy he might have felt. Although he wasn't totally blameless; he'd kept his own secrets from her.
"There's so much you don't know, things I never told you. I was too . . ."
"Too what, Cass?"
Cassandra finally looked up, met his gaze. Tears filled her eyes and she blinked rapidly, fighting the tears. The battle was lost as a single tear broke free, trailing down her cheek. Before he realized it, his hand reached out, wiped away the lone teardrop from her smooth cheek. A flicker of awareness sparked low in his gut. Her skin still felt like satin. Her startled jolt proved she wasn't immune to his touch, either.
"I was ashamed. And scared. I never told anybody in Cougar Hills about—my father."
"Doc Daniels?"
"Yeah, the great healer. Cougar Hills leading citizen. The man held up as an example to the entire town of a fine, upstanding father, husband and philanthropist. Someone they should all strive to b
e like. A man among men, beloved by all its citizens."
Icy cold dread seeped into Jake's brain at the hatred filling Cass' voice. Oh, man, this was bad. He'd never heard her utter one harsh word against her father, yet the words spewing forth now rang with anger and hatred.
"Everyone in Cougar Hills loves him. He's best friends with the sheriff, he's a deacon in the church. He even serves on the city council. Nobody there knows what a heartless, cold, abusive bastard he really is."
Jake's gaze never left Cassie's pale face. The far off look told him she wasn't in the present but somewhere long ago, in a small town in Texas.
Thinking back, he'd never heard anything bad about Dr. Daniels. Folks in Cougar Hills just about worshiped the ground he walked on. When his wife and daughter disappeared without a trace the whole town helped him search and then grieved right along with him. The picture Cassie painted of her father didn't match up with the man he remembered.
"Hard to believe he's not the perfect pillar of society he portrays, isn't it? Trust me, I lived with the monster for nearly eighteen years. So did my mother, the woman he beat for nearly all of those eighteen years."
Jake stiffened. The idea of any man raising a hand against any woman repulsed and incensed him. "He hit her?"
"Hit her? No, he didn't hit her—he beat her. He'd come home from work and if he had a rough day, he took it out on her. I can still see the horrible bruises. Her back, her chest, her sides. Anywhere covered by clothes. Everywhere except her face. Heaven forbid she had a black eye or a split lip. People might have seen what a cold-hearted merciless bastard he really was. And as a doctor . . . he knew exactly where to land each blow to cause the most pain, incapacitate her for days at a time, but never leave a visible mark."
"I had no idea, Cass. Nobody did—does." How could I not have noticed?
"Why didn't you call the police? Report him, get him thrown in jail?"
"Sheriff Baxter knew. That's a stone cold fact—I told him myself." Cass practically spat out the words.
"Why wasn't he arrested?"
"The good sheriff is my father's lapdog. They hung out together all the time. One time when he'd had too much to drink, my father came home late. It was after eleven at night. I'd gone to bed because it was a school night, but mom sat up waiting. She didn't dare go to bed until he got home—she knew what would happen."
Cassandra stood and walked around the back of the sofa directly across from him. She wrapped her arms around her middle, looking around the room but not meeting his gaze.
"It was obvious he'd been drinking. Demanded his dinner the minute he stumbled through the doorway. Mom got up to get his meal and he backhanded her across the face because she didn't move quickly enough. I heard the slap all the way in my bedroom. I ran out to find him wailing away on her, not caring this time where the blows landed. He'd started punching her in the stomach, then in the kidneys. Mom huddled on the floor, curled up in a ball as much as she could. Then he kicked her. Defenseless, bloody, lying on the floor, she didn't raise a hand to defend herself and he kicked her so hard he broke her arm."
"Cass . . ."
"I heard the bones snap. Did you know that was possible, Jake? To actually hear the crack of both bones in someone's arm as they break? It's not a sound you ever forget. I never want to hear it again." Cassie shuddered reliving the moment. Jake forced himself to stay seated on that damned couch and let her talk.
"I called Sheriff Baxter while my father rummaged around in the refrigerator, pulling out the covered plate with his dinner. The bastard sat down and started eating with my mother lying on the floor beaten bloody and with a broken arm."
She stopped and drew in a long deep breath, letting it out in ragged spurts. Taking a few more steps, she ended up back over by the huge windows, the sun shining through, illuminating her fragile beauty, along with the dark circles beneath her eyes.
"By the time the sheriff got to our house, I'd gotten momma up into a chair and started cleaning up the worst of the blood. Her right eye had swelled shut, and her lip was cut and swollen where he'd backhanded her. She cradled her arm in her lap, rocking back and forth, never saying a word, just a soft keening moan over and over."
Jake couldn't stand it any more. He had to get up and move. Hearing Cassie’s tale of the horror she and her mother endured practically under his nose, she might as well take a knife and drive it right into his heart.
"Sheriff Baxter took one look at her and he knew what happened. He knew. My father paused long enough from stuffing his belly, told him she fell down the back steps bringing in the laundry. Tripped over her own two feet and that's what caused her injuries."
Cassie's bitter laugh held so much pain, Jake balled his hands into fists to keep from grabbing her and pulling her close against him. He needed to comfort her, just as he knew she needed to finish this.
"I called him a liar. Me, a lowly sixteen-year-old girl called her father, the respected doctor, a liar. Although to be honest, I didn't exactly call him a liar. I screeched it at the top of my lungs. The whole time, he sat there finishing up his supper, like nothing happened. I told Baxter he'd needed to take her to the hospital in Austin, get her x-rays and treatment. He sputtered and huffed around a bit, said my father could take care of her, as if I'd let that happen. I told him if he didn't get us to the emergency room, I'd call the Austin newspaper and air all of Cougar Hills’ dirty little secrets."
"Secrets?"
"Jake, our home town is so full of secrets and liars it’s a wonder God hasn't struck them all dead.
Chapter 7
Cassie watched the array of emotions flitting across Jake's face. The words she'd spoken, the story she told bore no resemblance to the Cougar Hills he remembered from his youth; she knew that. Nobody in the entire town realized what a heartless monster her father was, how vicious and cruel. Her mother took the brunt of it all her life, shielding her from his abuse, his mindless rages.
She remembered being a little girl, maybe four or five, hiding in her pitch black closet with her doll, Amber Lynn, her pink blanket pulled over her head to block out her father’s bellowing yells and her mother's whimpered cries. Remembered trembling so hard she dropped Amber Lynn on the floor, sitting huddled beneath her blankie, and prayed her daddy would leave—and never come back. That made her a very bad girl, but she didn't care—he'd stop hitting her momma if he left.
"Cassie, what secrets?" Jake's deep-timbered voice broke through her childhood memories, jolted her back into the moment.
"Sheriff Baxter and my father run that town. Practically everybody there owes them something in one way or another. Extensive medical bills they can't pay. Drunk driving arrest which magically disappear off the books. Assaults, bullying. They own everybody."
"Not everybody. My family's still there and they sure as hell don't own them."
Cass smiled at thought of his family. The Stones' home had been her sanctuary, her salvation from the realities of life. They remained rock solid through-and-through. Jake was right. Neither Sheriff Baxter nor her father had ever been able to control Mr. or Mrs. Stone.
"No, they're the best people I've ever known, Jake. Your parents would never be part of the goings on in Cougar Hills."
"Dammit, Cass, what are you talking about? What things? Jake's hands grasped her shoulders, fingers digging into her skin but not to hurt, not in anger—like her father.
She drew in a deep breath, stepped back and Jake's hands dropped to his sides. His gaze bored into hers, defying her not to answer. A line had been drawn in the sand today, when he'd finally found her again, and he wouldn't leave without answers. Answers to why she'd left Cougar Hills without a word and hadn't contacted him since. The truth wasn't pretty. She couldn't tie it up in a neat little package and make things better.
"Cougar Hills is a very small town, you know that. More a blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of place. Out of the ebb and flow of mainstream Texas, almost like a snapshot from the Saturday Evening Post." She pause
d, collecting her thoughts.
"First it was drugs. Mostly marijuana in the beginning."
"Drugs—they ran drugs through Cougar Hills?"
"Did, although maybe they still do, but this was a long time ago. I first realized what was happening when I was thirteen. Saw more than one exchange take place between my dad and others behind the house. Bad men, evil men." Cassie shivered with disgust, remembering the lecherous grip of one of the men who caught her spying on them. His dark eyes reminded her of a shark's eyes, cold and soulless, devoid of anything except blackness and death. Dressed in his thousand dollar suit, driving a low slung sports car, he and his compadres had spied her peeking around the side of the house, curious and overtly brave as only a naïve teenager could be. Another of the men grabbed her, dragged her into the midst of their meeting, laughing at her terror.
The evil one, the one she'd somehow known had been the boss, looked her up and down, running a finger down her cheek. She'd jerked her head back, away from his touch and he laughed, a mirthless sound she still sometimes heard in her nightmares. It was one of the only times her father actually treated her with something close to kindness, saving her from heaven only knows.
"From marijuana it moved on to cocaine. Same deal, same dealers, much bigger profits."
"Why didn't you ever say anything to me, Cass?"
"You weren't much older than me, Jake. What could a couple of teenagers do? Especially when the highest authority in our town was in on the whole deal. Sheriff Baxter made sure the drug runners received safe passage through our fair town."
"Did your mom know?" Jake's hand reached up to cup her cheek and Cassandra leaned into his touch, closing her eyes as his thumb slid along her jawline in a soft caress. There was a leashed strength in his hand, yet his touch against her skin gave comfort not pain.
"I think she figured it out about the same time I did but there wasn't anything she could do. Like I said, who could we go to? We needed proof. So we watched and we waited. Mom squirreled away a little bit of money every week from the grocery budget, a couple of bucks here and there until she bought a cheap digital camera."
9 Ways to Fall in Love Page 74
