Once again she inched her arm in the direction of the phone. The effort took so much energy and she hurt so badly that the tears once again leaked out of her swollen eyelids and rolled down her cheeks. Something must be really wrong with her. The tears burned as they slid down the dried skin of her cheeks. It really hurt. Oh no. Oh no! Had she been exposed to radiation? Or a pandemic? Was she so sick she had to stay away from the baby? Please, please, don’t let him already be exposed. If anything were to happen to Enzio her heart would be forever lost.
Blackness engulfed her again.
Chapter 13
More light. She was seeing more of the light. Okay, so now she was hallucinating. The muted rose of her bedroom walls had changed to a deep rust color and there were too many windows. Her bedroom was a corner room which meant she had two windows, one on each outside wall. This place, wherever here was, had an entire wall of windows. Her vision was blurred, but she knew the difference between white curtains and burgundy. The sky didn’t seem right, and the sun was in the wrong place. The air was off, too. It didn’t smell right. Where was the sweet aroma of horse manure?
Her heart stopped.
It had been so dark, in spite of the full moon. The electronic gate would not open and she had to get out of her truck to open it manually. Arms grabbed her from behind. A stinky cloth suffocated her nose and mouth, burning the sensitive skin on her face. The stars exploded into a black hole. Then nothing.
Where was her baby and where the hell was she?
She had left Zio alone in the truck. But the truck wasn’t here. She wasn’t on the ground outside her ranch. Her heart was shredding inside of her. Where was her baby?
“Mama. Mama!”
“Shhh, moro, your mitera mikros is sleeping.” A deep voice spoke quietly. Its slight accent haunted Cassidy’s memory. “If I let you on the bed with your little mama you may kiss her, but no hugging. Remember, it hurts mama when you squeeze her.”
Relief flooded Cassidy’s bruised heart. Enzio was here. He was safe. Please, she wanted to plead, but her dried lips couldn’t move. No sound came out. Nothing. Not even a moan. Let me hold my sweet baby, she silently begged.
The mattress dipped as a weight that far exceeded Baby Z settled on it. Goose bumps covered her arms as she tried to control the trembling that started deep in her soul as she felt the presence of a large man. When she realized he didn’t have the sour stench of old sweat reeking off of him she tried to relax the muscles that were beginning to clench into a Charley Horse. He wasn’t one of the men who had grabbed her. Those men didn’t know such a thing as soap existed, never mind how to use it, and they wreaked of evil. This man smelled refreshing, like a long cool drink on a hot summer day.
It hurt to breathe. She tried a deeper breath and realized there were constricting bands wrapped around her mid-section. Did those bastards break her ribs?
Who was this guy? She knew it wasn’t her creepy uncle; he would never be nice to Z. He would have left the crying baby alone in the truck.
She felt a warm little hand patting her cheek. There must be some bruising on her face because the baby’s little hand hurt her. Cassidy didn’t care about the pain; the joy of knowing her son was safe was the only thing that mattered.
The bed whirled like Dorothy’s house caught in the tornado. She hadn’t felt this degree of vertigo since the last time she had to drive into the Rockies to pick up the children who were to spend a week at Pegasus. Driving along the cliff edges, the sheer drop-offs threatened her sanity and her resolve to complete the mission. She had been forced to realize that her fear of heights was not just relegated to tall buildings.
She had vowed then and there to be a flatlander for the rest of her life. Somebody else would have to do the pick-ups. Common sense told her she would not fall off a mountain, but common sense had nothing to do with her fear. Rico used to tease her about it. He said one day he would take her to Paris and leave her at the top of the Eiffel Tower. He would have, too, if he hadn’t tried to stop a man in the barrio from beating his wife to death. The man, a suspected drug dealer, was negotiating for a reduced sentence while her Rico was dead and his son was left an orphan. With the help of some of Rico’s fellow Rangers and Moose’s legal expertise, Cassidy married Rico on his death bed and he signed his will and the guardianship papers, giving Cassidy the sole legal custody of Enzio. Otherwise, there might have been a legal battle and Zio could have ended up living with strangers.
She couldn’t think about it anymore. It hurt too much.
She couldn’t see anything, but she felt a warm breeze float across her skin. Loose tendrils of her hair brushed against her sensitive nose. She tried, but she couldn’t lift her hands to push the annoying stuff away. The mattress shifted. A gentle hand brushed her hair behind her ear. She felt safe. S-a-f-e.
~*~
She felt glorious. Soothed. No, that wasn’t the right word. She felt more than soothed she felt languorous. Sensual.
Something warm and moist gently patted her face, swirled over her neck and then skittered over her breasts. She savored the aroma of fresh spring flowers after a rain storm, everything smelled clean and fresh. She was sprawled on her back enjoying the wonderful feeling elicited from the slow slide of water down the sides of her breasts. Her nipples tightened into buds. She had never had a fantasy like this one before. Her fantasy life usually revolved around getting the bills paid on time and making payroll with a little extra thrown in to put into Zio’s college fund.
What the . . . No, No, No! She mustn’t use bad language. Z parrots everything he hears. It is easier if he doesn’t learn the word in the first place, than to try to break him of it later. She would not be the “do as I say, not as I do” type of parent.
Cassidy. Snap. Snap. Snap. Keep on topic. Something weird’s going on.
The wonderful warmth left her breasts. She heard water cascading into a pool of water. Then the warmth was back and getting intimate with her belly button. Pain! Her belly button ring was being yanked. It hurt. A male voice uttered something fierce. He was swearing in Greek!
“Hey, watch your mouth. I don’t want Z to learn any bad words,” she declared in a weak voice she didn’t recognize.
“Ah, you are finally awake.” The pain in her belly subsided. At the same time Cassidy realized she was naked, she was mortified to hear his chuckle. There was a man in the room and she was naked! Good Heavens! Her hands scrambled around as she searched for something to cover up with. “Hold still. Hold still. What do you think you are doing?”
“Don’t look at me. Please, I need to get covered up.” Her voice sounded like a sander grinding on dried wood, and it felt even worse.
“You have a magnificent body. There is no need to cover it,” the man declared. His slightly accented voice sounded familiar. She groaned as she realized that not just any man had seen her naked. It had to be Theron Christofides, her daddy’s top pick for husband material.
“I am sorry, Cassiopeia, but I must look at you. I cannot untangle the wash cloth from your jewelry if I do not look.”
“Eeeek!” Her shriek echoed off the walls. “A wash cloth! What are you doing to me?”
Her eyes finally opened with a pop. She could see the dark skinned Greek billionaire, whose wedding to her cousin she had disrupted, standing over her wearing a bright white tee shirt and old faded jeans. His normally well-groomed hair hung over his face. Reclining on the bed as she was, she couldn’t help but notice the huge bulge in those jeans. Could a zipper explode? Because if it could his would at any moment.
He looked so yummy, good enough to eat.
“Relax I am doing nothing nefarious, merely giving you a sponge bath.”
Her mouth dropped open. “A sp-sp-sponge bath?” Did she just shriek?
“You have a tendency to stammer. I never noticed that before. I hope our son does not inherit that trait from you. It will make doing business very difficult for him when he takes over the helm.”
Does not co
mpute, a tinny voice inside her head droned. Your computer has encountered a fatal error. Danger. Danger. Does not compute.
“I don’t think he should have your eyes, either. They are beautiful eyes, but the color is too feminine for a boy. No, it will be much better to save your eyes for a girl child.”
“You’re crazy. We don’t have, nor are we ever going to have, any children.” Her eyes were now as big as the pansy’s they were so often compared to. “At least not together.”
Before he could respond she heard a familiar cry from somewhere outside the room, “Theee! Theee!”
She struggled to sit up, but ended up grimacing when her elbows could not support her.
“Your son is awake. I must attend to him before he starts shouting.” A smile warmed his full lips. “He is very impatient. Much as I am.” He gently pushed her shoulders back down on the mattress and pulled the sheet that draped her lower body over her breasts. “Do not try to move. You are not strong enough yet.” He picked a white cotton tee-shirt off the foot of the bed and lifted her shoulders.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” She really hated that squeak in her voice. She wasn’t a squeaky sort of person. It made her sound weak and she wasn’t weak, damn it. She was a strong woman. Strong women did not squeak!
“Relax, pedhaki mou. It is just a shirt to cover you. I did not think you would like to be uncovered in front of your son.” She could not believe how gentle his hands were as he pulled the shirt over her body. No one had ever touched her with such sensitivity before.
“I didn’t like being uncovered in front of you, but that didn’t stop you from undressing me.”
“Ah, the pyrotechnia returns,” he patted her shoulder. “You did not have any clothes on when I found you, so I did not undress you.”
The blood blazed its way into her face. “Then what were you doing to me?”
“I was merely bathing you. It has been quite warm and I thought to soothe you while you were unconscious.”
“Theeeee!”
“I will bring your son to you.” He paused with his hand on the door knob “What is the name of the moro?”
Moro? Moro? After all those years of Greek classes she didn’t know what moro meant. The foolish desire to cry overwhelmed her. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
“The child. By what name do you call him?”
“Z.
He looked blank “You gave him a letter for a name?
“We call him Z. Short for Zio. Which is short for Enzio.” She couldn’t believe she actually heard a giggle coming out of her throat.
Theron stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him. Now that her eyes were open and her vision clear she took the opportunity to get a better look at her surroundings and tried not to think about why she was naked when he found her. And where did he find her unclothed?
The one thing she knew for certain; this was not her room. Nor was it any room she had ever seen before. Where the hell was she? And why did she have wires coming out of her arm? She was on an intravenous? Why hadn’t she notice that when the hunk was putting the shirt on her? She was filled with questions and feared what the answers would be.
She also hated to admit to herself that when Theron was near her, touching her, tingly sensations raced through her body. He hadn’t just been near her, he had been touching her and looking at her body. Those weren’t just tingles, they had been high voltage electrical shocks sizzling through her veins. What was it about the man that made her react in such an uncharacteristic way to him?
She had to stop distracting herself with thoughts of tingles and find out what was going on.
“Mama. Mama!” Her son’s excited voice brought out of her reverie. She opened her arms and Enzio’s warm squirmy body crashed onto her chest as his arms wrapped around her neck and wet kisses covered her face. Her arms convulsively closed around his dear little body. She didn’t know what had happened to her, but she was sure she never wanted to be parted from this little guy ever again.
An unaccustomed lump of emotion formed in Theron’s heart as he watched the mother/son reunion. Even laying down, wearing an old shirt of his, with her hair a rat’s nest, and the pallor of the last few days clinging to her soft skin, she exuded nothing but love and concern for the child she held so close to her heart. The same child he had grown close to in the time they had spent together.
He would ask her one last time. If she told him she was Cassiopeia this time, he would end his agreement with Costas Dolmides. He would have to find another way to save Evadne. This young woman had suffered enough at the hands of Jenkins and Dolmides. Their game was not his.
Chapter 14
All she had to do now was climb back into the bed. But it was a very high bed. She clung to the oak post at the foot of the four poster as a wave of dizziness rolled over her. Dragging herself into the en suite bathroom had been more of a chore than she had thought it would be. The warm water did little to revive her, but she had to be clean before that man took into his head to complete the earlier sponge bath. That gorgeous, hunky man.
As she gasped for breath and tried to gather the strength needed to get her onto the high bed, she looked around the magnificent room. The room was large enough to contain two ceiling fans. The windows, though open to the breeze, were covered by white gauze curtains that blocked the view. As much as she would like to, she couldn’t see out the windows. From where she stood it looked as if an entire football field lay between her and the goal posts.
She needed to know where she was. She had to have an escape route. No matter where she was she always had to have a way out. Three or four routes were even better.
Theron quietly opened the door so as not to disturb Cassidy’s healing sleep. To his astonishment she was standing, if you could call the bed holding her up standing. Her hair dripped water onto the white tee shirt clinging to her luscious body.
Why on earth had he spent so many years with skinny women? They enjoyed the trendiest restaurants, ordered the most expensive dishes, and then proceeded to push the food around on their plates without any of it crossing their lips. The few women who would actually eat some of the food would purge before the night was over. When he came across one of them, the night always ended early. No amount of mouth wash in the world could erase the memory of hearing someone vomiting.
None of his former mistresses would have survived all that Cassidy had been through. She was thinner after her ordeal, since she had not been able to eat, but she was still the fire haired termagant who had burst into the church on April first. Everything about her was real. Looking at her clinging to the bed he realized that none of the women he had known before had been real, not their hair, their teeth, or their breasts. Even their interest in him was based on what his bank account and notoriety could do for them.
The pyrotechnia sneered at him and his money.
Cassidy didn’t know Theron was in the room until she was swept up by his two strong arms. The vertigo went away to be replaced by a tingling in her tummy and the budding of her nipples. She had never felt like this before. It must be a residual reaction to whatever had happened to her.
She didn’t like to be touched. Her breasts started developing when she was twelve. The boys in school took notice. There had been many times they had corned her to grab her breasts or to shove their hands up her skirts. They always had rude comments to make. Most of the teachers knew what was going on, but they didn’t do anything to stop it. It wasn’t just the boys, either. Mr. Polanski, her seventh grade math teacher, cornered her once and put his hand down her blouse and touched her nipple. He followed her home in his car and when he couldn’t “seduce” her he resorted to blackmail. He thought because she was illegitimate and not even her mother wanted her that she would be easy prey. He didn’t realize that Grammie, Tia Maria, and Enrico had raised her to value herself. She had gone immediately to Grammie and told her what was happening.
Grammie, a no-nonsense feminist, wen
t directly to the police.
Mr. Polanski not only found himself without a job, he found himself in jail. Other girls came forward after the news reported what he was charged with and said he had done the same thing to them. He pleaded guilty, so none of the girls actually had to testify in court.
Grammie believed women had to respect themselves and their bodies. She had failed with Kelley, but not with Cassidy.
Cassidy respected herself. She treated her body well.
Hell! She was still a virgin. She had never met a man who made her want to change that situation. Until now.
She could protect herself from men, but how was she supposed to protect herself from herself?
Theron placed her gently on the bed.
He looked into her deep purple eyes. Eyes that were finally clear and bright with the intelligence he had seen her display time and time again. They were deep with emotion and worry. She was vulnerable.
Theron wanted to kiss her more than he wanted to draw another breath. He wanted to hold her in his arms, possibly forever. He needed to keep her safe and reassure her that all would be well.
There had been many moments over the last few days when he feared for her life. For her sanity.
He did not need to ask her if she was the real Cassiopeia. He already knew she was. While delirious she responded to Cassiopeia and Cassidy, but not to Julia. He had no more doubts.
Theos! He needed to kiss her.
Her lips were not the puffy butt-fat filled lips, made popular by actresses and supermodels. Her lips were in the shape of Cupid’s bow. Naturally a dark rosy pink, and always ready to lift in a smile. Would they already be warm, or would he have to warm them?
He had to kiss her. But he didn’t like kissing. That whole butt fat idea always made him nauseous. He really wanted to kiss this woman, though.
But he could not. He had to give her time to recover. Regain her senses. Let her make the choice if she wanted to kiss him. He could not take advantage of her, especially not after what he had seen in that motel room. She was fragile and needed to be protected, even from him. This was not a good time for his housekeeper to be away helping her pregnant daughter.
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