by Diana Palmer
"That's what I thought once before," he bit off.
"I'm not here because you're rich," she said bluntly.
His jaw tautened. "If you're insinuating..."
"I'm stating a fact," she interrupted. "No woman who loved you would do what she did. You don't walk out on people in pain, or turn away from them because of something they once did. True love is unconditional."
"You'd know?" he drawled sarcastically.
Her eyes touched his hard, lean face with its faint scars and she smiled. "As a matter of fact, I would," she said softly. Her soft hand splayed over the hair-roughened muscles of his chest.
He misunderstood the words. He thought she meant Cullen, the man she'd lived with. He averted his eyes and fought to keep his breath steady. The nightmare, the old familiar one, had unnerved him briefly. "You don't know what I have to live with."
"You shot a boy."
His eyes darted up to hers, incredulous. "How the hell would you know?"
"You were shouting it," she said simply. "I watch the evening news along with the
rest of the world. I'm totally aware that in
third world countries, paramilitary units have plenty of little boys who can use an
AK-47 or even a K-bar if they have to." He scowled. She wasn't horrified. She wasn't
even shocked. "Cullen fought in Vietnam, Cash," she said softly. "He told me all
about it, things you'd never think he'd seen. He was so cultured, so worldly, but he
watched children die, too. I know things about war that even Rory couldn't guess."
He began to relax, just a little. "I fought in the Middle East. In South America. In
the jungles of Africa. I did it to make big money. But I learned that there's a price you
pay for that sort of quick profit. I'm still paying it."
She reached down to touch his mouth gently with just her fingertips. "You have nightmares. So do I. In fact," she added, as a pale face peered in around the door, "so does Rory. Right?" she asked her little brother.
He came into the room and closed the door. "Sam beat me up so bad that I almost died," he agreed, tumbling into the bed on the other side of Cash. "I wake up screaming in the middle of the night sometimes. So does she," he added, nodding toward his sister.
Cash let out the breath he'd been holding back. "So do I," he confessed quietly. "But you won't anymore tonight," Rory said, climbing under the covers. "Goodnight, sis." It wasn't the time to force answers out of a reluctant Cash. She liked Rory's impish idea better. After all, he could kick them out of bed if he didn't like it, she mused.
Tippy lifted the sheet and bedspread and crawled in on the other side of Cash, moving to pillow her cheek on his bare shoulder. She smiled and sighed softly, closing her eyes. She felt as if she'd come home. "Good night, Rory."
"Good night, Cash," Rory added drowsily.
"Good night, Cash," Tippy seconded, and yawned. It was still very early in the morning. Wind was howling outside and it was starting to rain. She thought absently what a great blessing it was just to have a warm, dry, safe place to sleep at night. People took it too much for granted. In her youth, she'd spent many a lonely, frightened night on the streets before Cullen had found her.
Cash hesitated as he felt the soft warmth of two bodies beside him in the darkness. He felt safe. He felt warm. It was raining cats and dogs, and the wind sounded cold. He lay back with a confused sigh. He wanted to protest. He didn't need company or comfort. He was a tough guy. He could take care of himself and his own nightmares.
But after a minute, the soft, warm weight of Tippy's body on one side and Rory's on the other knocked the fight out of him. What the hell. He closed his eyes. And he slept.
CASH DIDN'T MENTION ANYTHING about having two bedmates when he got up to go to work the next day. For several days, he kept to himself, taking time to show Rory how to make a worm bed and even taking him fishing. Tippy wasn't invited. But she didn't really mind. She liked seeing Rory so happy.
Early one morning while Rory was still asleep and Cash had gone out with a nod,
Tippy smiled as she heard the slight noise outside the kitchen door. Mrs. Jewell was
out shopping, but Cash must have forgotten something, she thought as she put the iron
skillet on the stove to make herself some eggs.
She heard the screen door open, but no key was inserted in the lock. Instead, the
doorknob was rattled, hard.
With her heart racing, and thoughts of the would-be kidnappers coming after her, she almost panicked. She'd almost forgotten about being in danger in the routine of the past few weeks. But now, all her instincts were bristling. There was a hard kick at the door now, as if someone outside was trying to break in.
She grabbed up the phone, fumbling a little, and dialed 911 with shaking hands, all the time watching the wooden door.
"Chief Grier?" came the 911 operator's surprised voice on the line.
"It's Tippy Moore," she replied. "Someone's trying to break in. Please send someone over as quickly as you can." "I'll dispatch a unit right now, Miss Moore. Please stay on the line...Miss Moore?" Tippy had laid the phone down and grabbed up the large iron skillet in both hands,
because the door was starting to part company from the jamb. She'd been a victim all her life, one way and another. First Sam Stanton's victim, then every pushy male's, then the kidnappers who'd threatened her life. She was tired of being a victim.
She moved to the side of the door, so that it wouldn't hit her when the determined intruder broke in. Her heart was racing, and she was frightened, but she wasn't going to back down. Not now. This man was going to pay for the sins of every man who'd ever attacked her. She tightened her hand on the cold handle of the skillet. Its very weight was reassuring.
The noise was louder now, as the determined person outside began to throw his weight against the door. It was splintering. It was old and flimsy now, and somehow fragile. Another two hard blows, and it was knocked back on its hinges. A tall, thin man in denim and a knit shirt burst into the kitchen with a gun in one hand.
At last, a target! Tippy swung the frying pan with all her might. The gun went flying and the man shrieked.
Ironically, his pain gave her strength. "Break into my house, will you?" she raged. She swung the iron skillet at his shoulder and he yelled again in pain. She lowered it and swung it at his kneecap. "Attack me with a gun, will you? I'll cripple you!"
He was screaming now, hopping on one leg, holding his hand and favoring his shoulder as he tried to back toward the shattered doorjamb. Tippy kept coming. She was furious. This man had invaded her home, threatened her person. She didn't care if she went to jail for assault, he was going to pay for trying to kill her!
"You can tell Sam Stanton that he's dog meat!" she yelled at him, swinging the heavy pan again at his shoulder, the one she'd already hit once. He screamed again and tripped as he tried to back away from her. "I'm not going to hide in a closet while he sends pond scum like you to shut me up before his trial!"
"Help!" the intruder cried, stumbling to his knees as he scampered out the door.
Tippy had the frying pan lifted for another blow when sirens screamed down the
small street and three police cars—one of them containing Cash—screeched to a halt
at the driveway. Seconds later, uniformed officers with sidearms drawn and at the
ready position stormed up to the house.
"Get down on your knees and put your hands behind your head. Now!" Cash yelled at
the man, with his pistol leveled at the man. He hoped he sounded calm. His heart was
about to beat him to death. He'd been so afraid that he'd be too late to save Tippy.
"I can't...lift my arms," the man sobbed. "She hit me! She tried to kill me! I want
protection!"
Rory came into the kitchen and out on the back stoop, rubbing his eyes, still dressed
in pajama bottoms. He s
tarted when he saw all the police cars. "What's going on?" he
asked Tippy, drawing attention to her. The police officers, including Cash, suddenly
noticed Tippy,
too. She was holding a huge iron skillet in both slender hands. Her flaming hair was
rayed around her flushed face like a halo. She was still wearing her green satin pajamas
and the loose robe, and she looked so beautiful that for an instant, the policemen were
simply starstruck.
"Cuff him!" Cash yelled at two of his officers, who managed to pull out of their
trance and get to work on the suspect.
Tippy was breathing hard. Her green eyes were still flaming. She came down the
steps toward the intruder.
He screamed. "Save me! I'll tell you everything! Just get me away from her!"
By now, neighbors on both sides of the street were standing on their lawns, gaping at the unexpected bit of theater that broke the monotony of a routine Monday morning. One of the elderly women was openly chuckling. Tippy?" Cash asked softly as he moved toward her. "Are you okay, sweetheart?"
She nodded, breathless at the endearment and the concern. She lowered the frying pan. "I thought it was you, until he rattled.. .the doorknob and started breaking in." She took a deep breath, her eyes on die suspect, who was being led away to a police car.
Cash was still getting his own breath back. He holstered his service revolver blindly, his dark eyes rapt on her face. "Are you sure he didn't hurt you?" She smiled weakly. "It was sort of the other way around. I got really mad when I saw the gun in his hand," she confessed.
Cash's eyes flashed. "Gun?"
She nodded. "It's on the floor in the kitchen. I knocked it out of his hands." She swayed a little. "I feel sick." "Don't let them see it," he said quickly, catching her under the elbow. "You'll spoil
the image."
She sucked in a breath. "I'm okay," she whispered. "Just don't let me fall."
"Not a chance," he promised.
She turned to the officers gathered around. "Thanks, guys," she said in her pretty,
breathless voice. She smiled and they just stared raptly. "His pistol is on the floor in the kitchen. I think he meant to shoot me."
"He was armed?" one of the young officers asked, aghast.
She nodded. "It looked like a .45 to me," she added.
"I'll retrieve it. Get me an evidence bag, Harry, and call in our investigator. I know it's his day off," Cash added, when the young officer seemed hesitant. "He won't mind. Trust me." "Sure," the officer said at once. "Glad you're okay, Miss Moore," he added with a smile.
She smiled back. The other officers were still staring.
"You hit him with a frying pan?" Rory was trying to get a handle on the situation.
"Gosh, that was brave!" he added. "I'm going to call Jake and tell him!" He took off toward the living room.
"Come on," Cash told Tippy, with an arm around her waist. "I'll carry the skillet for
you, darling," he whispered mischievously and with a wicked grin. "We wouldn't want
you to strain yourself or anything."
She burst out laughing as she handed it over. "Going to arrest me for assault?" she
whispered.
"That depends. Are you planning to assault me?"
"First chance I get," she replied, teasing.
He went inside with her, his eyes angry on the busted door and doorjamb, and
more angry when he saw the .45 automatic on the floor. He imagined all sorts of
horrible scenarios. He and his men would never have made it in time to save her,
despite their haste. If she hadn't had that skillet...!
He pulled her against him and kissed her with feverish desperation. She clung to him, giving back the hard kiss. He was passionately aroused. She felt it down to her bones. Her legs began to shake, with mingled excitement and delayed fear.
"He could have killed you," he ground out as his mouth slid down to her silky warm throat. A shudder went through his powerful body. "Damn him!"
She slid her arms around his hard waist and laid her cheek on his uniform shirt. "I wasn't even afraid when it was happening," she said wearily. "I guess you're rubbing off on me."
'That's what it looks like to me, too," came an amused drawl from the door.
She peered across Cash's chest to see Judd Dunn walking into the room.
Cash glanced at him and smiled. "She took him on by herself with this," he lifted the iron skillet in his free hand. "When we got here, he was crawling away from her at top speed screaming for help."
Judd's eyes twinkled and he burst out laughing. "I'll be damned."
'The neighbors will live on this for weeks," Cash sighed, looking down into Tippy's soft eyes. "Rory's in the living room calling his friends to brag on his sister. Elegant, famous Miss Moore, foiling an assassin with a cast-iron skillet."
"I didn't get my eggs," she muttered. "I was just putting the pan on the stove when he came along. Do you think he's part of Sam Stanton's outfit?" she added. "The one who got away in New York?"
"Likely," Cash replied. "But he seemed willing to confess to anything a minute ago, if we'd save him from you," he added with a chuckle.
"If I don't get my breakfast soon, he's going to need saving," she said. She moved away from Cash and reclaimed her skillet. "Eggs, anyone?" she asked, moving nonchalantly back to the stove, while the two men looked on with pure delight.
TIPPY HAD COOKED SUPPER for the three of them despite Cash's objections. He felt that she needed rest after the ordeal earlier, and offered to take them out to a restaurant. She wouldn't let him. She needed to keep busy, she told him. It wouldn't do to brood about something that was already over.
"She's like that," Rory told Cash with a grin, giving his sister a teasing glance. "She never complains, no matter how bad
things get."
"I noticed," Cash replied. He finished his piece of steak and washed it down with coffee. He was still steaming over the ease with which the third kidnapper had made his way into town and into his house without arousing suspicion. He scowled at the coffee as if it were responsible for all his problems.
"Is it too weak?" Tippy asked immediately.
He glanced at her. "What? The coffee?" He lifted it to his lips. "No. It's just right."
"You're upset because the man got into the house..." she began.
Cash's scowl grew thunderous.
"You'll just have to get used to it," Rory told him conversationally. "She reads
minds."
"I noticed," Cash said, his lips making a thin line. Then he realized that he was
being difficult, when she was the one who needed comfort and understanding.
"Sorry," he added.
She only smiled. "It's okay," she replied. "I should be apologizing. I don't mean to
be obnoxious."
"You just read minds," he finished for her.
"Only mine and yours," Rory told him. "She can't do it with other people."
Cash stilled. "She can't?"
Rory shook his head, finishing his mashed potatoes. "She tries, but it never works." That made a huge difference. It was as if he and Rory were part of her. He'd never felt that way before, not even during his brief marriage.
What was really bothering him was the fear he'd felt when he knew that an intruder was in his house, that Tippy was in danger, and he hadn't anticipated it. During the scant minutes it took him to get to the scene, he'd had hell imagining what might be happening to her. He'd been impotent, and he didn't like it. Worse, the fear he'd felt for her safety was different from any fear he'd ever felt in his life. She was already part of him, part of his life. If he lost her...!
"Want some ice cream?" Tippy asked to divert him. "We've got chocolate."
"I'm not really hungry for dessert."
"Me, neither," Rory confessed. "It's been a long day." He got up, excusing himself from the table
formally, and went around to hug his sister close. "I'm glad you're okay," he said in a husky tone. His eyes closed. "You're all I've got."
