Cassie McGraw Box Set: Books 1-3

by David Archer

  That got both my parents to laugh, and broke the ice the rest of the way. We went inside where Mom had a big lunch laid out on the table. Since we’d known we were going to get there in the early afternoon, Dex and I had skipped stopping for lunch, so the big platter of left over roast beef and microwaved bowls of veggies were a welcome sight. Tell Mom the president is going to drop by for lunch in ten minutes, and she can produce a five course meal out of leftovers.

  Of course, Mom knows that I need to eat more than most girls my size, due to the burns, but I had never gotten around to mentioning that Dex had also been touched by fire. Mom just figured he had a wonderfully healthy appetite, as he put away two full plates without even slowing down.

  After lunch, Mom took me upstairs to my old room for a private talk, while Daddy and Dex went out onto the big front porch. Daddy likes an occasional cigar, and Dex happily accepted when Daddy offered him one. Of course, that meant the front porch, because mom doesn’t allow smoking in the house.

  “So,” Mom said as we were sitting on my bed. “You brought him to meet us. Does that mean it’s getting serious?”

  “Well, I think the fact that we’re living together means it’s already pretty serious,” I said. “But if you’re looking for wedding plans, you need to slow down. I’ll admit that I’m a little bit crazy about Dex, but I’m just not ready to take any real permanent steps.” I gave her a sheepish smile. “I know you’d rather hear something else, but…”

  “Cassie,” Mom said, cutting me off. “After what you’ve been through, I wasn’t sure you’d ever even have a boyfriend again. I know how hard it must be for you to trust another man at all. I’m very, very proud of you, Cassie.”

  “Oh, I trust Dex,” I said. “To be honest, I trust him completely. If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that he would never, ever do anything to hurt me, not on purpose. He actually saved my life once, already, you know.”

  Her eyes got wide. “He did? How?”

  I had told her about the recent case involving the abductions of abused women, and she knew that I had even been involved in the investigation. I hadn’t quite mentioned the fact that I had gone undercover, or that I had actually killed one of the perpetrators myself, but they found that out when they were reading the news stories about it. Those stories, however, left everyone thinking that it was the police who had saved me at the last minute. I had to explain that, in truth, it was Dex who had come crashing through an overhead door and plowed a car into the man who was trying to kill me.

  “Well,” she said when she got her head wrapped around it. “Sounds to me like he’s pretty determined to keep you safe, then.”

  “I’ll say,” I said with a laugh. “He went and got his own concealed carry permit, so that he can pretend to be my bodyguard. He really is quite a guy, mom. And, oh my goodness, I hadn’t noticed it before today, but did you see how much he looks like Daddy?”

  She smiled. “I saw that the first time you showed us a picture of him. I always used to tease you that your daddy was your very first crush. Do you remember telling me, I think you were about six years old, that you were going to marry him when you grew up?”

  I giggled. “Oh, my gosh, hush,” I said. “I was just a little girl, that was normal.”

  She reached over and stroked my hair. “Yes, it was.”

  Out on the porch, however, an entirely different conversation was taking place.

  “So, Dex,” my dad had said. “You and Cassie are living together.”

  “Yes, sir, we are,” Dex said. “I’m hoping we’ll change that, someday, though.”

  “Yeah? You that fond of her, are you?”

  Dex looked him in the eye. “Yes, sir,” he said. “ I love her, and Cassie is fully aware of my feelings, but she doesn’t like me to say it out loud.”

  “Well, you know what she’s been through, right? I’d imagine hearing those words is a little difficult for her sometimes.”

  “Yes, sir, I agree. I generally keep them to myself, but I am afraid they slip out now and then.”

  They sat quietly for a couple of minutes, puffing on the cigars and trying to see who could blow a bigger smoke ring.

  “So, how did you come to be so close to Cassie?”

  “Well, it started out because neither one of us really cared much for the dating scene, but we both liked to go out and have some fun once in a while. We had gotten to be friends when she handled a situation for me, tracking down an old friend of mine who had gotten into some trouble and helping her get out of it. We talked it over and decided that having a friend we could talk to, go out to dinner with, have a few beers or even do a little dancing with, seemed like a good idea. We started out just once in a while, then it turned into a Friday night habit, and then I realized one day that I was thinking about her all through the week. Back in December, she asked me to help her with her case she was working on, and we had to pretend we were a married couple for a few days. That meant staying together in an apartment, and when it was over, neither one of us wanted that part to end. We sat down and talked, and she asked me to move in with her.”

  Daddy nodded. “I guess that sounds about right,” he said. “I guess her having a few million dollars in the bank didn’t really have anything to do with it, did it?”

  Dex looked him in the eye. “Of course it did,” he said. “That was the reason I had to move in with her, instead of her moving in with me. She bought her house, I was just renting mine.”

  “Uh-huh,” Daddy said. “Has she been spending a lot of that money on you?”

  “Not until a couple days ago,” Dex said, still meeting my dad eye to eye. “That’s when she asked me if I’d like to have my own business, and bankrolled me so I could open my own shop.”

  “A repair shop? Is there really any money in that?”

  “Oh, there can be,” Dex said. “What we’re doing, though, is starting a custom shop. I’ll be building custom and restored antique cars. And before you ask, yes, sir, I’m very good at it.”

  “Well, that sounds pretty good,” Daddy said. “And I guess that explains it pretty well, too.”

  Dex cocked his head to one side and narrowed his eyes. “Explains what, sir?”

  Daddy glared at him. “It explains why a good-looking young fella like yourself decides to fall in love with a woman with such terrible scars as my daughter bears.”

  Dex told me later that he started to get angry, but then he forced himself to stop and think about it from my dad’s point of view. He didn’t doubt for a second that Daddy loved me, but Daddy also wasn’t blind. He could see just what the fire had done to my face, just how disfigured I really was, and while he might always insist that I was still his beautiful little girl, the eyes don’t lie.

  The way Dex saw it, any man with a daughter who was so disfigured would naturally be suspicious of any guy who expressed interest in her. Add in the fact that I had a healthy bank account, and that suspicion turned to outright distrust.

  “I can see,” Dex said, “how you might think that. However, there is something else you need to know. You see, I’ve been with some absolutely beautiful women, and you know what I found out? I found out that beauty, that kind of beauty, really is only skin deep. Ugliness, on the other hand, can show right through the most beautiful exterior.” He flicked the ashes off his cigar, took a big puff, and then went on. “Now the reverse of that is also true. Cassie has some really ugly stars. I see people all the time who can’t bear to look at her, and it makes me ache for her, sometimes it even makes me angry. I don’t say anything, I don’t do anything, because Cassie doesn’t need me to draw attention to the fact that somebody else thinks she’s ugly. Instead, I make sure that when I tell her how I feel about her, she knows that it’s because of the woman she is on the inside, not because of what I see on the outside. I make sure she understands that I’m in love with who she is, not what she looks like. When I reach for her, I don’t flinch away if I happen to touch her scars. When I feel li
ke kissing her face, I make sure to kiss all of it, not just the part on what she calls ‘her pretty side.’ When we go out together, I reach out to take her hand, but I don’t care whether it’s her right hand or her left hand. Now, you think you got me figured out, but I’m going to suggest that you ask Cassie what she thinks about all this. You can ask her without me being in the room, I won’t mind a bit.”

  Daddy just looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. “Fizzed you off, didn’t I? I challenged you to convince me that you’re not just using my daughter, and it made you mad. Am I right?”

  “Yes, sir, you’re right,” Dex said. “But then I put myself in your shoes for a minute, and I could see things the way you might see them. If I were in your position, if that were my daughter and I was talking to her boyfriend, I might feel exactly the same way you do. I’m trying to tell you that I’m not out to use Cassie in any way. I don’t want her money, I want her. I want her in my life for as long as I can have her there, and I’ll even confess to you right now that that is one of the reasons I agreed to this business deal. See, sometimes she gets to feeling like she’s not good enough for me, and that really breaks my heart. She might decide, someday, that living with me isn’t going to work for her anymore. I don’t know how I would handle that if it ever happened, but I do know this. I couldn’t stand to go through life without seeing her, without talking to her, I just couldn’t stand it. Well, now we’re also business partners. If there’s one thing about being business partners, is that you have to talk to each other. This whole auto shop is just my way of getting a little extra insurance on being able to see her for a long time to come.”

  Dex said Daddy stared at him for almost a minute without saying a word, and then broke out in a big smile.

  “Damnation,” he said. “You really do love my daughter, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir, I do.” Dex said he sat for a moment, then returned the smile. “And just for the record,” he said, “I understand Cassie a whole lot better than just about anybody else could.”

  He stood up out of his chair, and suddenly peeled his T-shirt up over his head. Daddy gasped.

  “I was burned when I was a kid,” Dex said. “Car accident, got gasoline all over me from here down and it got lit up. I was just lucky enough that my scars can be covered up with my usual clothes.”

  “Put your shirt back on,” Daddy said. “My wife don’t need to see that. And I want to thank you, for sitting here and talking man-to-man with me about this. My wife, she reads the emails Cassie sends her and she’s pretty convinced that Cassie is in love with you, too, but too scared to admit it. Me? I just needed to get the measure of the man who’s going to be protecting my daughter when I’m dead and gone.” He flicked his own ashes, then blew a smoke ring straight at Dex. “I don’t think I could ask for a better one than you.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Because we had eaten a late lunch, we had an even later dinner. Mom and I worked together in the kitchen, making fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, corn, and pumpkin pie, and I found myself remembering some wonderful times when I was growing up. I had always loved cooking with my mother, and especially on the big weekend dinners.

  It was a wonderful evening. We all sat around talking through most of the afternoon, and then sat down to that fantastic dinner. We followed that up by playing Monopoly, something I hadn’t done since high school, and Dex ended up winning.

  On a farm, you go to bed at a reasonable hour and get up early. By ten o’clock we were all ready to get some sleep, and Dex and I were cuddled up in the bed I had slept in all the way through high school. Luckily, it was a full size bed rather than a twin, but it wasn’t nearly as roomy as the queen-size we had back home.

  “It’s fine,” Dex said. “In case you never noticed, we only use about half of that big bed, anyway. Either you cuddle up on me, or I cuddle up on you, but we’re always together on one side of it or the other. There’s plenty of room in this one.”

  I giggled, thinking of the times my high school boyfriend, Scott, had snuck in through my window and complained about how small my bed was. Somehow, I didn’t think I wanted to explain to Dex what I found so funny, but I lucked out and he didn’t ask.

  Of course, that naughty thought reminded me of the times Scott and I had made love in this bed, being careful of the squeaky spot in the box spring so that Mom and Daddy wouldn’t hear us. Since they were just down the hall, that might have been a bad thing.

  I suddenly felt that insatiable, mischievous desire to re-create those moments with Dex, so I let him know I was in the mood to get frisky. He opened his eyes and looked at me, and a smile spread across his face as he reached for me.

  Yep. Same spot still squeaks. Mom and Daddy were either ignoring us, or giggling.

  Afterward, as we lay there cuddled together, Dex told me about the conversation with my dad. He has an excellent memory, so he probably repeated it word for word, but he went to great pains to make sure I understood that he was not offended. Oh, he admitted to getting a little irritated for a moment, but then it was like he told my dad. He put himself in Daddy’s shoes and tried to see it from his point of view. When he did that, the irritation popped like a bubble.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I always was Daddy’s girl, and he’s always been very protective of me. I didn’t think about the possibility he might give you a third-degree.”

  “Nothing to be sorry for,” Dex said. “Be grateful that your father loves you that much. Besides, I told you when we first started getting together that girls’ parents never seem to like me. I’m hoping I can win your dad over, but this is how it usually starts.”

  I poked him in the ribs. “From what you’ve told me, Daddy is already starting to like you,” I said. “I’m pretty sure Mom thinks you might be the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “Your mom might like me,” he said, “but I think the best I can hope for out of your dad, for right now at least, is that we respect each other. I’m pretty sure he believes I care about you, and he seemed to think I would be adequate to take care of you once he’s gone, but he never actually said he liked me. I’m just saying.”

  We cuddled ourselves to sleep, and woke early with the dawn. My room had east-facing windows, and the sheer curtains did nothing to cut down the sunlight coming in. That’s probably why I wake up whenever sunlight manages to touch me in the mornings.

  The smell of coffee was already coming up the stairs, so I let Dex get the first shower while I went down to see Mom in the kitchen. She broke out into a big smile when I walked in, and pointed to the coffee pot.

  “Did you sleep okay?” Mom asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “We both did. Although, it did seem a little strange, sleeping with Dex in my old bed. When I brought Mike out to meet you, you made him sleep on the couch downstairs.”

  “That’s because you were still pretending to be a virgin,” Mom said, “so I kept pretending I believed it.”

  I’ll bet my eye was as big as it’s ever been. “Mom!”

  She gave me the “mom look,” the one that says I only thought I had her fooled. “Your bed springs squeak, Cassie,” she said. “And your dad spotted Scott climbing out your window more than once. I’m just glad you never ended up pregnant.”

  I stuttered a couple of times, then finally managed to speak. “I was—careful,” I said.

  “I figured you would be,” she said. “As for now, you’ve already been living with Dex for a few months. It would feel kind of silly to pretend we didn’t know you were sleeping together at home, and you’re an adult, now.”

  I gave her a wry grin. “Your grown-up daughter, who’s living in sin?”

  “I don’t think sleeping together means you’re living in sin,” she said. “As long as you’re happy, Cassie, that’s what matters most.”

  Mom was making biscuits, but she had eggs and bacon cooking on the stove. I took over with the biscuits, beating the dough and rolling it out
, then folding it over and doing it again. I hadn’t made scratch biscuits in years, but making them that morning convinced me it was time to buy a rolling pin.

  Dex came down a few minutes later, and I headed back out to get my own shower. We were only going to be staying for the morning, and planned on leaving shortly after lunch. I hurried through my shower so that I could spend as much time as possible just enjoying the peace and quiet of being at home on the farm.

  Daddy had already been out working, turning over the south fields with the plow. It was already almost the end of March, and he would be planting corn in early April. I used to drive one of the tractors myself, sometimes, and I can clearly remember pulling the manure spreader, dumping tons and tons of cow shit onto the freshly plowed ground. Nowadays, Daddy had to plow the fields and then go spread the manure himself.

  When he came in, he washed up at the kitchen sink like he always did, and then we sat down to eat. Mom poured Daddy a cup of coffee and set it by his plate, then fixed his plate for him. When that was done, she finally took her own chair.

  We weren’t a terribly religious family, because Mom and Daddy figured religion wasn’t what got you into heaven, anyway. We were, however, a Christian family, and grace was said over every meal. The day before, Daddy had said grace at both lunch and dinner.

  That morning, he looked over at Dex. “Would you mind to ask the blessing?”

  Oh, boy. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Daddy was throwing out another test. Was Dex good enough for his little girl? I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, because I’d never heard Dex say any kind of prayer out loud.

  He looked at my dad with a grin. “It will be an honor, sir,” he said. He bowed his head, reached over and took my hand as I sat beside him, and then began to pray.

  “Father in Heaven,” he said, “we give You our thanks for this beautiful day, and for the chance to be together and enjoy Your bounty. Thank you, Father, for these wonderful people I’ve had the chance to meet, and for their daughter, who has brightened my life in so many ways. We ask You to bless this food for our consumption, and for the nourishment of our bodies, but to impart also to us Your grace, Your love and Your wisdom. In Jesus’ name we ask these things. Amen.”