by Sharon Sala
“Good day, Mrs. Justice.”
And then he was gone.
My, how word does get around in this town, Casey thought, as she slipped a letter opener between the folds of paper. A glimmer of color began to emerge from beneath the plain, brown wrapping. The second layer of paper was a thick, pure white embossed with silver doves. An obvious allusion to the wedding that hardly was. Curious now, she abandoned the letter opener for her fingers and tore through that layer to a flat black box.
It was a little over a foot in length and no more than three or four inches in width. The lid was hinged by two delicate foil butterflies. Casey gasped at the contents as a card fell out and into her lap.
Inside lay a miniature rapier on thick, black velvet. She lifted it from the case, hefting it lightly. It felt heavy, even warm in her hand, and she knew before she turned it over to view the silversmith’s mark that it was probably solid silver. It was the most elaborate letter opener she’d ever seen.
Curious, she laid it aside and picked up the card, all the while wondering who would send her such a thing. She read, “Casey, On your nuptials: You deserve this… and so much more. Lash.”
She frowned at the oddity of the phrasing, then laid the card aside and picked the small rapier up again, eyeing the double-edged blade with caution. Something near the tip caught her eye. At first, she thought it was rust, and that the letter opener must not be silver after all, because silver did not rust. Even after she ran the tip of her finger across the spot, it didn’t come off. But when she lifted it for a closer look, she suddenly shifted in her seat, making room for the unexpected sense of foreboding that swept over her.
She swiveled her chair toward the window and full light, tilting the blade for a closer look still, then tested the spot with the tip of a fingernail. It came away on her nail. Startled, she grabbed for a tissue and wiped at her finger, unprepared for the small, red stain that suddenly appeared against stark white.
She couldn’t quit staring. The spot wasn’t rust, it was blood—dried blood. But in such a small amount that it might have gone unnoticed.
Now her delight in such a gift was replaced with dismay. It seemed a travesty of something pure to receive a wedding gift with blood on it. The urge to put it out of sight was strong. She laid it back in the box, closing the lid with care, but the words on the card had now taken on a sinister meaning.
You deserve this…and so much more.
Deserve what? What did she deserve? The silver… the knife…or the blood?
The phone rang. It was the private line that only family ever used. She grabbed for it like a lifeline.
“Hello.”
“Casey, darling, it’s Erica. Have you seen Grandmother?”
For once, she was almost thankful for the whine in her half sister’s voice. It gave her something else on which to focus besides Lash’s gift.
“No, I’m sorry, but I haven’t.”
Erica sighed. “It’s nearly one o’clock. She was going to meet me for lunch, and she’s thirty minutes late. She’s never late, you know.”
Casey frowned. That much was true. Gran had a thing about being tardy.
“It’s probably all his fault,” Erica said.
“All whose fault?” Casey asked.
“Your husband…the family chauffeur…however you choose to define him. He took Grandmother shopping hours ago and no one’s seen a sign of them since.” The tone of Erica’s voice rose an octave. “We don’t know a thing about him. I can’t believe you actually brought a stranger into this household, shoved him down our throats and then expected us to accept his presence as status quo.”
Casey stifled a sigh. This was all she needed.
“Look, Erica. Nothing has happened to Gran. If it had, Ryder would have called. He is not a fiend. Besides, why didn’t you call her instead of me? There’s a phone in the Lincoln.”
“I know that,” Erica snapped. “But no one’s answering.” Casey looked at the stacks of files on her desk and wondered how her grandfather had gone so wrong. She was beating her head against a thousand brick walls and all Erica had to worry about was a late luncheon date.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Casey said. “I’m sure she’s fine. I’m sorry she’s late.”
The connection between them was broken when Erica slammed the receiver back into the cradle. For a few wonderful moments, all Casey could hear were muffled voices from the outer office. With a dogged determination of which Delaney Ruban would have been proud, Casey dropped the gift into a drawer and buzzed Nola Sue.
“Cancel my lunch with Rosewell and Associates. Reschedule for sometime next week.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Nola Sue said, making notations as she listened to Casey’s orders. “Do you want me to order you something to eat?”
“I suppose,” she said. “And call home. Tell them I’ll be working late and not to hold dinner.”
Within seconds, she’d forgotten about Lash Marlow’s present and Erica’s phone call. Her entire focus was on the figures before her and the study she would need before she could make an offer for the acquisition of the Harmon Canneries near Tupelo.
A short while later, Nola Sue set a small, plastic tub of chicken salad, a cold roll, and a melting cup of iced tea on the corner of Casey’s desk and tiptoed out without uttering a word.
It was sometime later before Casey even noticed that lunch had been served.
* * *
“Want some ketchup on those fries?” Ryder asked. Eudora poked the lingering end of a fast-food French fry into her mouth and then shook her head. Seconds later, Ryder handed her a fistful of paper napkins.
“Thank you,” she said.
When she was certain Ryder’s attention was otherwise occupied, she licked the salt from her fingers before drying them on the paper napkins he’d tossed in her lap, then leaned back against the seat, sighing with satisfaction.
She couldn’t remember the last time food had tasted this good. Stifling a small belch, she lifted her cup to her lips and latched onto the straw poking through the plastic lid, sucking with all her might. A couple of swallows later, she began to suck air.
“How about another cherry limeade?”
“No, but thank you,” Eudora said, and tossed a used napkin on the floor next to the wrapper that had been around her cheeseburger.
The food had been delicious. She wasn’t going to think about the fact that it had all been served in recycled paper. There was something about reusing paper—in any form or fashion—that smacked of poverty. Eudora Deathridge had not suffered a day of want in her entire life, and had no intentions of starting now. She belched again, then sighed. This had been worth her impending heartburn.
Ryder hid a grin. He’d given her hell this morning and knew it. From the time they’d entered the first store, to the last one they’d exited just before lunch, he’d been on her heels at every turn.
He had been nothing but respectful. It wasn’t in him to be anything else. But he figured the ‘family’ needed to know right off that while he didn’t mind driving them all over kingdom come, he was going to do it his way. And if that meant making himself a slight nuisance, then so be it. He was the best when it came to being a pain in the ass. If they didn’t believe him, then they could just ask his…
Oh, God. He’d done it again. Micah’s name kept hovering at the edge of his mind, popping out when least expected. He hated being weak, but guilt was eating him alive. No longer hungry, he began stuffing his leftovers back into the sack they’d come in.
“Here you go, Dora.” He handed the half-filled sack over the seat.
Surprised by the gesture, she took it before she thought, letting it dangle between her fingers like something foul.
“What am I to do with this?”
“Trash. Put your trash in it.”
She stared at the papers she’d tossed on the floorboard in disbelief. He was asking her to pick up trash? This time he’d overstepped his bounds.
&nb
sp; “Now see here,” she complained. “I don’t think you…” Ryder turned. Their gazes met. His eyes were dark and filled with a pain she hadn’t expected.
“Need some help?”
“I don’t believe so,” she said quietly. “But thank you just the same.”
She opened the sack and leaned down. A few moments later, she handed it back, watching as he tossed it in a barrel on the way out of the parking lot.
“Ryder.”
He glanced up. Again, their gazes met briefly, this time in the rearview mirror.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“I’m ready to go home now.”
He took the next turn, wishing he could say the same.
* * *
It was after eight o’clock. Ryder paced the small apartment like a caged bear—back and forth, from window to chair, unable to concentrate on the story on television, or eat the food congealing on his plate. Stifled by the presence of walls, he refused to admit that he was worried about Casey’s absence.
Another half hour passed. By this time, he was steaming. He knew for a fact that Miles had packed up and left for a three-day trip to New Orleans to play. Erica and her grandmother had had a fight and Erica was sulking in her room because Dora had refused to grovel for forgetting their lunch date. Even Joshua and Tilly had finished up for the night and gone home. But Casey was still on the job. Something about that just didn’t sit right with him, and his patience was gone.
He grabbed his hat on the way out the door. In a shorter time than one might have imagined, he had parked outside the Ruban Building and was on his way inside. A guard stopped him at the door.
“Sorry sir, but the offices are closed for the night.”
Ryder shocked himself by announcing, “I’m here to pick up my wife.”
“And who might that be?” the guard asked.
“Her name is—was—Casey Ruban.”
The man took a quick step back, eyeing Ryder with new attention.
“You’d be the fellow Miss Ruban married.”
Ryder nodded.
“Well, now, I might need to see some identification…just for the first time, you understand.”
Ryder opened his wallet.
“Justice…yep, that would be you, all right,” the guard said. “We heard Miss Ruban had married a man named Justice.” He reached for the phone. “Just a minute, sir, and I’ll let her know you’re here.”
“No,” Ryder said, and then softened the tone of his voice with a halfhearted grin. “I was sort of planning to surprise her.”
The guard smiled. “Yes, sir. I understand. Take the elevator to the top floor. Her office is the first one on your right.”
“Thanks,” Ryder said.
“You’re welcome, sir,” the guard said. “And congratulations on your marriage. Miss Ruban is a fine lady.”
Ryder nodded. Even though she was a little hardheaded, he was beginning to have the same opinion of her himself.
By the time he got to her office, his sense of injustice was in high form. He walked inside and past the empty secretary’s desk without pausing; his gaze fixed on the thin line of light showing from beneath the door on the far side of the room.
* * *
Casey’s head hurt, her shoulders ached, and she was so far past hungry it didn’t count. What was worse, she didn’t even know it. Realization of her condition came only after the door to her office swung open and Ryder stalked into the room.
Startled, she stood too swiftly. The room began to tilt.
Ryder saw her sway and grabbed her arm before she staggered.
All she could think to say was, “What are you doing here?” before he took the pen from her hand, and turned out the desk lamp.
“I came to take you home. Your day is over. It’s night. It’s time to rest. It’s time to slow the hell down. Do you understand me?”
He was mad. That was what surprised her most. Why should he be angry? It took a bit to realize that he wasn’t angry at her. He was angry on her behalf. At that point, lack of food and exhaustion kicked in. Damn him, he wasn’t supposed to be nice…at least, not like this.
She shrugged out of his grasp and reached for her purse. “I don’t need you telling me what to do.”
He stood between her and the doorway and once again, Casey caught a glimpse of the same man who’d come out of the shadows of Sonny’s Place and taken a dare no other man had had the guts to take.
“Then consider it a suggestion,” he said quietly, and reached for her arm.
This time she didn’t pull away. They walked all the way to the elevator without talking, then past the night guard who grinned and winked. Silence was maintained all the way out to the car. It was only after Casey felt the seat at the back of her legs that she began to relax.
Ryder slid behind the wheel, then looked at her. It didn’t take him long to make the decision. “Buckle up. You choose, but you’re not going home until you eat.”
Casey wrinkled her nose. “The car smells like French fries.”
“Dora spilled a few. I’ll clean it out tomorrow.”
It took Casey a moment for the answer to connect. Dora? French fries? In the car? She turned where she sat, staring at Ryder in sudden confusion.
“Who’s Dora?”
“You are bad off,” he said, as he put the car in gear and backed out of the parking space. “She’s your grandmother, isn’t she?”
“You called her Dora?”
He shrugged as he pulled into traffic. “Said she didn’t want me calling her ma’am.”
“Why was Dora…I mean Gran…eating French fries in the car?”
“Because they went with her cheeseburger and cherry limeade.”
Casey’s mouth dropped. “She ate fast food?”
He grinned. “Ate it real fast, too. Never saw a woman so hungry.”
Casey still didn’t believe she was getting the story straight. “She ate her meal in the back seat of a car?”
Ryder gave her a sidelong glance. “Are you still faint?”
She covered her face with her hands and groaned. “My God, why did you take Gran to a fast-food restaurant?”
“Because she was hungry, that’s why.”
“But…”
He took the corner in a delicate skid, the likes of which the Lincoln had never seen. “You know what?”
Casey clutched at her seat belt, almost afraid to ask. “What?”
“You people are too uptight. You need to loosen up a little. If you did, you might find out you-like it. Better yet, you might even live long enough to spend all that money you’re so dead set on making.”
There wasn’t a civil thought in her head as Ryder turned off the highway and into another parking lot. But when he opened the door to help her out, the odor of charbroiled meat made her forget her anger. A few moments later, she realized where he’d brought her, and if she hadn’t been so hungry, she would have laughed.
As he led her in the restaurant, she would have been willing to bet the last dollar she had in her pocket that, by tomorrow, it would be all over Ruban Crossing that Eudora Deathridge had eaten French fries in the back seat of a car. What was going to ice this piece of gossip was the fact that Casey and her honky-tonk husband had also shared a late-night dinner at Smoky Joe’s. As restaurants go, it wasn’t bad. It was Smoky Joe’s sideline that gave him, and his restaurant, such a bad reputation.
Casey lifted her chin as they walked inside. She could tell by the sounds coming from the back room that the floor show was in full swing.
“Wonder what’s going on back there?” Ryder asked, as he guided Casey to an empty booth.
“Mud wrestling,” she said. One eyebrow arched as she waited for his reaction.
His interest sparked, he had to ask. “Women or ’gators?”
“Women,” she replied.
She watched as the light in his eyes faded. She sighed. She should have known it would take more than naked women in a hot tub’s worth of red clay to ge
t him excited.
“I think he saves the ’gators for Saturday nights.”
He handed her a menu. “Good. It’ll give us a reason to come back.”
CHAPTER 6
“I’m coming out. Are you decent?” Ryder yelled.
Casey pulled the sheet up past her breasts and tried to look relaxed as the bathroom door opened. He emerged, but she’d closed her eyes too late. My God! Doesn’t he own a bathrobe? she wondered.
“I’ll be through in a second,” he said.
Casey could hear drawers opening and closing and clenched her eyelids even tighter. That damp towel around his waist was far too brief for her piece of mind.
Footsteps moved toward the doorway.
She opened her eyes. Too soon. She’d looked too soon. He was still there, standing in the doorway in a pair of white briefs. Lamplight spilled into the bedroom from behind him.
This time, his presence did more than unnerve her. Even though his face was in shadow, she knew he was watching her.
She held her breath.
He didn’t speak.
In the bathroom next door, water dripped from the showerhead and into the tub. Then dripped again. Then again. Then again.
He started toward her, one slow step at a time. Casey stifled a moan, clutching at the sheet until her fingers went numb. Once she started to speak, and couldn’t remember enough words to string together in one sentence. She went from panic to dismay to a calm she didn’t expect. But when he walked past her and into the bathroom without saying a word, her calm moved to disbelief.
This time when he emerged, he didn’t look back. The door swung shut between them with a firm thud and Casey was left with nothing but the sound of a racing heart. The drip no longer dripped. The man was no longer a threat. She was safe and sound and alone in her bed—and she didn’t remember ever feeling as lonely as she did right now.
“What’s wrong with me?”
She rolled onto her stomach, punching her pillow and yanking at her nightgown until she heard ribbons tearing. Finally, she closed her eyes, willing herself to sleep, and blamed her restless spirit on the barbecue she’d eaten at Smoky Joe’s.
A chair scooted in the other room. He was obviously making his bed out on the floor. The comfort of hers as opposed to the one he was about to take made her feel guilty. She thumped her pillow and shifted her position. She just couldn’t help it. He’d known from the start this wasn’t going to be a normal marriage.
