Welcome to the Family

by Nancy S. Reece

  “That’s the issue Cassie, any problem you have is our problem. That’s what being married is all about. Unless you really want me to sign those papers your brothers tried to force down my throat last year.”

  “What papers?”

  “Matthew showed up in London with divorce papers. I was packing to leave for Jordan and here’s your crazy Autistic brother presenting me with papers because that’s what Martin told him to do, and I can’t get you on the phone. Luckily I did get Kevin, who told me it was all a sham. Another one of Martin’s attempts to get rid of me.”

  Cassie groaned. “I don’t believe the many levels of insanity in my family. Sean, I am so sorry. I had no idea they did that. I spent most of last year between Utah and Atlanta, working on a paper about geothermal power plants and fault lines.”

  “So you don’t want a divorce?”

  “God no,” she avowed solemnly. “You’re the only bright spot in my life, why would I want to lose that?”

  Sean laughed. “Um, maybe because we haven’t seen each other in person in over ten months?”

  That knocked her quiet. “Are you sure it’s been that long?”

  “Ten months, three weeks, and four days to be precise,” he intoned. “Listen love, I’ve been home in London for three months. I emailed you the day I arrived. According to the lack of a read receipt, you still haven’t opened it. What’s wrong Cass, you’ve never shut me out this much before.”

  She took a deep breath and sighed heavily. “I’ve been going through some things with extended family. My mother’s family to be precise. Just some business dealings I inherited from her when I turned twenty-five. I haven’t opened any personal email in months because I never know when my brothers have hacked into the system. You could have called me, I always answer my cell for you.”

  “Have you noticed lately neither of us makes the effort to call the other?” The strain on his face showed her the effort Sean was making to be clear. However, thanks to her captors, she was in too much pain to catch the point she knew he was trying to make.

  Cassie frowned in response. “That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped loving you, Sean. I’ve just been busy with my research and this lawsuit with Nishamora Global, and it’s very hard to know when you are available and when you’re busy. It’s not like you have an office job.”

  “That brings us back to the same impasse we always run into, darlin’. My job, your research, running away from problems, it’s the same place we find ourselves every time we have this argument. It’s never going to change, is it Cass?” Sean’s face saddened, as though the thought confirmed his worst fears.

  Cassie stared at his green eyes but said nothing. What could she say that would be the truth?

  Chapter Five

  Waiting

  The excavation continued. The air became a little fresher and the noise of men and machines grew louder. Time crawled, and soon Sean heard Cassie softly crying. “What’s wrong?” He wondered what decisions she’d made to upset her so.

  “Everything, nothing. The irony of this situation hasn’t been lost on me Sean. We’ve been married for six years but have we lived together for even half that time? What are we to each other? I don’t want to lose you, but your job scares the hell out of me. And I’m afraid my family has scared you away.”

  He thought for a long time. “Three years, five months before this. Whose fault is that? And, while I’ll agree your family is a problem, I’d never let you face them alone if you didn’t want. I’m always here whenever you call, that was the arrangement.”

  “You knew about my problems with intimacy from the beginning.”

  Sean snickered. “In the beginning, there were no problems with intimacy. It’s after I got shot you began to back away from me. I could see you pulling away and nothing would stop it.”

  “I was afraid you were going to die,” she protested weakly. “Then when you lived, I was afraid any stress on the heart would kill you so I stayed away. I wrapped you in bubble wrap to keep you safe. I didn’t know how I would live if anything happened to you. You make me normal.”

  “It wasn’t your place to keep me safe, love. That’s my job. Your past doesn’t scare me, it’s a future without out you that scares me.” Sean’s eyes searched her face for a smile, but Cassie was in full guilt mode.

  “But it was your job that almost killed you.”

  Sean brushed his lips against her ear. “Every day I wake up and leave my flat is a day I might be killed. You can’t live like that darlin’. It’s too stressful. Sometimes you just have to let everything flow.”

  “That’s so funny coming from you, Mr. Special Forces.” She tried to laugh but the dryness in her throat was too much.

  With a deep sigh, Sean allowed his thoughts to drift back to the job which ended with him fighting not only for his life, but for Cassie’s sanity as well. The mission was in Jordan, a simple retrieval that went south when somehow they were ratted out as sympathetic Westerners. When the radicals finally caught up to them at a safe house outside Aqaba, there was no more time to flee. The fire fight was intense, the skirmish over before anyone could scream.

  While Sean didn’t recall the actual shot or where it came from, he did remember waking up in an Israeli field hospital consisting of a group of dust-covered tents and a never-ending line of helicopters to remove the wounded to safer ground. Sean didn’t speak Hebrew, only a smattering of Arabic, which made identification and notification harder. When at last the British Embassy sent a military air ambulance to carry him to Germany, the wound had grown infected from neglect.

  He arrived in Germany with blood poisoning and a raging fever. The doctors took him straight to surgery and removed rotting tissue and flesh, while Cassie flew in from the States to stay with him, nurse him back to life. Even now he only had scattered memories of those days. But he would never forget the moment he saw the scar for the first time. Purple and red and nasty, it was a scant two inches above his heart. Its matching partner on his back told him it that had been his lucky day but it sure hadn’t felt that way. Now, it seemed a barrier disconnecting heart and soul from his daily thoughts and needs.

  After the blood poisoning was defeated, Cassie stayed another six months. Nursing him to health, Sean realized she stayed because she thought everything would be different when he was strong again. When nothing changed, he saw how badly it hurt, even though she tried gallantly to hide the pain. But work was work, and the sums of money Sean made were worth the risk, at least to him. He wanted to keep Cassie in the style she deserved, but that was only half the reason.

  Sean craved the adrenaline his work brought. He loved the planning, the chess match between two sides, pitting his vision against that of an unknown prey. It was what he was good at, and he was enough of an Irish wanderer to know he would always need the fix his work provided. Elsewise he was sure to end up the town drunk at some backwater pub in the Irish countryside.

  That was twenty-seven months ago. They’d had more than a year of togetherness before Sean’s wanderlust began to rise and he’d let it be known he was in the market for a small assignment. When Cassie found out, she’d left without a word, going first to Seattle for several months then home to Atlanta. Sean took job after job and pretended everything was fine while inside his heart broke a little more every day. They danced back and forth through phone calls and emails, or the occasional video chat when the conditions were right, and acted happy and completed when inside he was dying. He assumed Cassie felt the same.

  Cassie twisting beside him brought Sean back to the present. “Are you sure you’re all right? I can give you a little more room.” He tried to scoot backward, but he was against the foundation and could move no further.

  “No, I’m fine. Sean, could I ask you an incredibly complex and life changing question?”

  “A what?”

  Cassie chuckled. “Sorry let me explain, can I ask you to do something for me with no questions asked simply because you love me?” It was g
etting harder to talk, too much dust still flying around in the hot air as the machinery dug closer, and her voice rasped with it as well. Cassie tried to remain calm but he knew her claustrophobia was rearing its ugly head. Soon outright panic would start the hyperventilating. She began whispering, “It will be all right. They taught me well.” Sean listened for a moment to the familiar mantra before answering.

  “What do you want me to do?

  “Help me get free.”

  “That’s what I am doing!”

  Cassie shook her head as well as she could. “No, not this. Help me get away from the unhappy customers who think coming after me is a good way to punish my father. According to your friend, he’s just the first in a long line of pissed off bastards headed in my direction. Help me find normal. I want them out of our lives, out of my life, for good.”

  “Do you think that you could ever be happy that way? Just leaving everything and everyone behind? Not just the brothers but your father and the rest of your life, being with just me in my crazy world?” Sean posed the question he knew she was avoiding putting into words. Was she ready to renegotiate the terms of their marriage?

  Cassie lay there and he knew where the crux of her problem fell. It wasn’t leaving behind the people in her family that gave pause, it was the leaving behind of her career, her degrees, her students and coworkers. How could she study global systems engineering when everyone already knew everyone in the field? Those questions and more flooded over him as a massive tidal wave of emotion. Asking him would mean disappearing forever, running the rest of their lives. But she had to know if any person could make a plan to implement that future, she was lying in his arms.

  Sean cracked the silence. “Have you really considered all the consequences or is this simply a knee jerk reaction to today’s events?”

  Cassie deflected, not wanting to confess her bouts of terror during the kidnapping. “Maybe it is just a reaction, but you have to admit it’s been a rough day.” She paused for a moment, then rushed her words to fill the silence. “You work in that line of business, is my father as bad as Tsichevna said?”

  “What do want me to say, that your father is a boy scout? You know better than that just by association. I’ve worked with MM Air on both ends of more than a few transactions. I’ve never killed anyone on direct orders from your father or brothers, but that doesn’t mean someone else hasn’t.”

  He continued, “There is a very fine dynamic among the men in your family. I include myself in that statement.” He fell silent, giving Cassie the open door. For the first time, she opted to walk through.

  “The men in my family have serious issues, and all of them seem to center around me.” The pain in that simple confession made his heart ache. Truth, no matter how painful, was still freeing. “Maybe because I look so much like our mother. Greg always felt I took his place in her heart, Matthew does whatever Greg tells him to do and Kevin, well let’s just say he’s tried really hard to be a better big brother since we all grew up.”

  “What about me?” Her body’s tension level changed slightly, but Sean couldn’t tell if it was good or bad.

  “Sean, we’ve made for ourselves a life people don’t understand. You’ve always given me room to deal with the demons from my childhood and I appreciate that. But I’m finally ready for more. I’m ready to have a real marriage, with us both living in the same house, not several time zones apart.” Cassie’s voice was shaking, anxious to know where Sean stood on matters.

  “I’d love to do that my darling wife, but what about my work? We both know that even if I say here and now I’m leaving this life behind eventually my wanderlust will have us parted. And, what about when you begin to resent having to abandon everything you’ve work so hard to achieve? Do you want us to end up screaming and pointing fingers at each other, hating each other for decisions made under duress?”

  “Aren’t there others you know in this line of work who are married? How do they handle the danger and the sacrifices and compromises?”

  Sean frowned. “They manage to live as two different people. Try not to take work during certain times of the year so they are home for holidays, have independent spouses with careers of their own who don’t need a full time partner. Listen love, are you saying you want to try this, a proper marriage in a church not in an embassy office in lower nowhere South America, with two goats and a donkey for witnesses?”

  “Hey,” she pouted, “I loved our wedding, and I still get a Christmas card from the donkey. It was a magical night. But yes, I want a proper marriage, in whatever church you want, wherever you want. As long as I’m married to you Sean, it doesn’t matter where we are.”

  The air grew still and heavy as the rescuers switched from the heavy equipment to manual digging. Every delay cost time, time which was running short for Cassie thanks to her injuries. Each breath hurt, something was sticking in her side, keeping her from inflating her lungs as much as she needed. Ash clogged her eyes and nostrils and her mouth felt dry as the desert. Add all that to her claustrophobia and she was one step away from loss of sanity.

  “Sean, how long will it take to get us out of here?”

  “Trying to get rid of me already? But I’m such an excellent man to be trapped with.” The mock surprise in his voice added to that fabulous Irish brogue made the rumble in his chest very comforting. Right now she definitely needed comfort.

  “No, just curious. I’m starting to really hurt.”

  Instantly he was on alert. “What’s wrong? Is it your head?”

  “Yeah actually it is. I mean, they smacked me around pretty good before you arrived. I think my nose is broken, because I can’t breathe except through my mouth. The dust makes that uncomfortable. I can see out of my right eye but the left is swollen shut. My left cheekbone might be smashed as well.”

  Sean shifted around to look at her face. “You look pretty bad,” he admitted. “I am sure you have two black eyes and I think you are right about the nose. Hope your father knows a good plastic surgeon.”

  “Oh I’m sure we could find someone. Can you wipe my eyes?”

  More rustling and then Cassie felt his warm fingers gently wiping across her eyes. When his fingers touched, a spark of electricity jumped between the two. He chuckled quietly.

  “Thank you.”

  “Any excuse to see those beautiful eyes again. Did you know it was those eyes that pulled me to you back at the dinner in Pensacola? One doesn’t see that color of blue every day.”

  “Don’t try your smooth operator crap with me Sean Ferguson! I know all about your lines.” Cassie tried to sound angry but the best she could manage was saucy.

  He laughed, the rumble in his chest against her ear. “I’m not kidding. You have the most astonishing blue eyes. They captivate me.”

  Cassie was sure he felt the heat of her blush through his shirt. “I’m sure I have no idea what you are talking about.”

  The smile in his voice told her more than just the condition of his humor. “Anything else I could do to ease your predicament?”

  “No, just keep me sane. You know I tend to be claustrophobic, a result of being locked in the closet one too many times. If something doesn’t change, I anticipate there being worms in my skin very soon.”

  “Worms in your skin? You use some of the most interesting phrases.”

  Cassie laughed. “Sorry, I’m afraid I have a concussion.”

  “Hmm, you’re probably right. Very well back to your question, how about I promise to stay in Atlanta after you are released from the hospital, not take on any more work for a while? If you still want the regular marriage when you don’t have a head injury, then I’m all in with you.” Sean squeezed his arms tight as possible, to let her know he was still there.

  “Well, I’d hate to keep you from saving the world or buying more illegal arms from my family.”

  “Off topic!” Sean gently reminded.

  “Then ask me something else,” she huffed.

  “Tell me s
omething about your mother.”

  Silent for a moment, Cassie framed her next question carefully. “What do you mean, you know the story about my mother.”

  Sean prodded, “Tell me your favorite memory of the two of you.”

  Cassie took a moment before responding. “When I was little, Mother loved Christmas. We would spend hours in the kitchen making cookies, cakes, candy, you name it. The radio would always be set on holiday music and the house would smell wonderful. It was the one time of the year she always insisted upon cooking everything herself, and she would go out of her way to make sure we kids felt that love.”

  “You still visit her, spend hours talking to her even though the doctors have given repeated diagnoses confirming no hope of receiving an answer.” Sean’s tone was curious yet filled with caution. “Do you think she knows you’re there?”

  “I don’t honestly know. She squeezes my hand every once in a while. Does that qualify as awareness or comprehension? The brain is a delicate instrument, understood in whole by no one. Who knows? But she’s my mother and she didn’t deserve to end up that way. It should have been Martin.” The hard edge in Cassie’s tone was new to him.

  “Has she ever opened her eyes?”

  “She opens them every day, and closes them at night. The doctors said it’s an automatic response to light. In other words, they said I shouldn’t take it to mean anything. But they’re wrong. She knows when I’m there, and when Kevin comes. But we never mention Martin or Greg. Their names upset her tremendously. I refuse to believe she won’t ever get better.”

  Silence reigned again as Sean and Cassie listened for the sound of rescuers, praying they were getting closer. Soon it felt cooler and the air seemed fresher. Cassie found herself rehashing their conversation. What was she doing, asking him to be a regular husband? Normally she was such a level headed person, it must be from the stress of the situation. That, or the fact she couldn’t think straight around him. His male musk assaulted her nostril, even through the blood and dust. If he were to get any closer, she might explode.