by Judy Baer
In spite of Mattie’s little lecture, my sister was not nearly as repentant as I wanted her to be, but I was getting sore lying on the floor. I made a great show of coming to gradually—eye flutters, little groans and all. I might have felt more guilty about it if my sister—as soon as she knew I wasn’t brain damaged or anything—hadn’t started in on me again.
“You’ll thank Stella and me one day, Cassia. She cares about you. I care about you.”
“And that gives you permission to interfere in my life?”
“I’m your sister. It’s my job.” She crossed her arms across her chest and jutted her jaw forward, reminding me of Pepi, a little bull terrier we owned when we were children. When he was trying to be fierce, he would tuck his head into his shoulders, growl and make a yappy little scene. And when we were finished being amused by him, one of us would pick him up, scratch him under the chin and do something ridiculous to him like make him ride around in our doll buggy and love him out of his snit. I wasn’t ready to pick up Jane and scratch her under the chin just yet.
“This is between Adam and me,” I insisted.
“Then why didn’t he tell you that he was a journalist?”
“He said something about writing, but I never pursued it.”
“You just didn’t want to know, did you?”
“How do you know he’s writing a story about me anyway?” But I knew better. Why else would he be so interested in my thoughts, my family, my friends? He’d be a fool not to take advantage of a sucker like me.
My sister’s pitying look was more than I could stand.
“Jane, I understand that you were trying to protect me, but what you and Stella did was underhanded.”
“It’s not as if we were trying to hurt you.”
I knew she was convinced that she’d done the right thing. She’s also incorrigible.
“What are you going to do now?” she ventured.
“To clean up your mess, you mean?”
“It’s not my mess if Adam Cavanaugh is the one who made it.”
If only I felt as calm as I sounded. My guts felt as though they were in a blender. Why had Adam done this? He obviously has plenty of awards and enough money to be content. This felt hurtful, intrusive, even cruel. I thought we were friends… and more.
“You’re going to face him, aren’t you? And make him explain?” Jane persisted.
I sighed. How, I wondered, could even a wordsmith like Adam Cavanaugh explain this?
I crept home after dinner feeling used and abused. Though Mattie tried to cheer me up, it didn’t work. If I hadn’t been a lottery winner, would Adam have even given me the time of day? Probably not. All around me people were holding their hands out, begging for a slice of me—the money, the notoriety, my story.
How, I wondered, did God feel? People were always asking Him for things, trying to make bargains with Him, using His name for their own purposes, wanting success, health and wealth.
He must feel like a heavenly ATM machine where people come to take, take, take and never give back. I could relate.
CHAPTER 23
One of the more intriguing aspects of this Million Dollar Dilemma is that Carr, a professing Christian, was raised to believe that gambling is not acceptable.
While gambling is not specifically forbidden or much mentioned in the Bible—except for the fact that the Roman soldiers cast lots for Jesus’ robe after the Crucifixion—Carr believes it is inappropriate for her to do anything that might make her an unsuitable role model for others….
Adam threw the article he’d been writing to the table as Terrance watched.
“I’m quitting.”
“Quitting what, exactly?” Terrance shifted in his chair.
“Quitting writing this article about the lottery winners. Quitting betraying Cassia. Quitting being a hypocrite. Quitting journalism maybe.” He picked up the paper and threw it into the trash.
“Your life’s work?” Terrance asked pointedly.
“If I have to. Terry, I’ve always lived my life as ethically and aboveboard as possible. I chose to focus on human rights issues because it was a way I could contribute to the world, let others know how much need there is out there and provoke them to action. Doing this story behind Cassia’s back feels so wrong. I’m walking in quicksand and pulling her in with me. We’re both going to suffocate under this lie.”
“But now there’s a book deal—” Terrance’s mouth snapped shut as Adam stared at him.
“‘Book deal?’”
“I ran it by an acquiring editor at lunch yesterday. I had no intention of bringing you up, but it just sort of…happened. He loves the idea. Said there were a few books around, some of them a few years old, about lottery winners, but none about someone trying to give it all away. He’d like you to research all the big lottery winners in the last five years or so and see where the people are now. He said your reputation as a writer would give it lots of credibility and—”
“I thought you were the one who told me I could quit.”
Terrance flushed and looked a little ashamed of himself. “I didn’t really know we could get a book deal when I said it.”
“‘We’ aren’t getting anything. This whole subject breeds corruption in everyone involved.” Adam paused. “Except Cassia, who seems to be supernaturally protected from greed.”
“It weirds me out when you say stuff like that, Adam. I know she’s very religious and all, but you seem to be catching it.”
Adam scowled even more deeply and his eyes flashed. “There was a time in my life when I was religious, too,” he told the agent.
“No kidding?” Terrance leaned forward.
“Don’t look so surprised. You know I grew up with a Christian grandmother who made sure my brothers and I knew what the Bible was about. We were sent to church-affiliated schools. My family always went to church on Sundays. Grandma never missed an opportunity to talk about being a Christian and the power of prayer. I even said yes to Christ.”
“So what happened?”
Adam put his head in his hands and runneled his fingers through his dark hair. He’d let it grow longer on the sides of late. Cassia liked it that way.
“Too many horror stories. Wars, famine, pestilence, innocent women and children plagued by conflicts in which they were completely innocent. I started writing those stories because I thought I could raise awareness in the world. Instead, I lost my own faith. How could a gracious God allow these things to happen? My grandmother said that God wasn’t the cause of evil, that sin was, but I always wondered why He couldn’t just stop it. I was sure I’d never believe again when I came home from Burundi.”
“And then Cassia showed up,” Terrance concluded.
“She sure did. Invoking all those Bible passages, forgetting that no one other than her family could convey entire philosophical thoughts and opinions with a verse-and-chapter citation,” Adam said softly. It had driven him crazy and he’d loved it. She was funny and smart, and he never minded that she set herself up to explain time after time.
He’d also fallen for her convoluted logic, which meandered this way and that, only to end up right on target. He admired and envied her absolute trust in God to provide and her determination to do what He wanted her to do. She allowed no one else to influence that.
“I hadn’t seen faith like that for a very long time, probably since my own grandmother died. I’d begun to think faith and religion were all a charade.” Adam sighed. “But there’s nothing sham about Cassia. Nothing.”
“So you’ll just quit?” Terrance asked, incredulous.
“Yes. And I’ll have to tell Cassia.”
“Is that really necessary?”
“If we’re to go on as friends…”
“Or more?” Terrance inquired.
“It’s too big to sit between us.” Eyes unfocused, Adam stared at an invisible point on the wall. “Maybe, if I give it a little time and distance, we could even learn to laugh about it.”
“Right. Laugh.” Terrance looked at him sympathetically. “You’ve got it bad, haven’t you, buddy? The uncommitted, detached, stoic Adam Cavanaugh has found the woman who can tame him.”
After Terrance left, Adam attempted to busy himself reading the stacks of mail he’d received that morning, but he couldn’t focus. Everything reminded him of Cassia. Cruise ships, mortgage offerings, credit cards, life insurance policies—he wasn’t interested in any of them unless he could share them with Cassia. That realization was devastating. Adam had made up his mind years ago that he was not—and never would be—the marrying kind.
Cassia, on the other hand, wouldn’t be interested in a relationship with a man that didn’t involve marriage.
Nothing was turning out as he had planned.
Absorbed as he was in untangling this conundrum, Adam responded automatically to the knock at his door, not checking to see who it might be.
It was, he was quick to discover, a spitfire so hot under the collar he could have sworn he saw smoke coming out of her ears. Cassia Carr was a heat-seeking missile and, radar in place, she was headed right for him, ready to blow him out of the water.
“You…you…” She looked like a lovely, fluffy red Guinea hen protecting her nest. It was obvious that she couldn’t come up with any names to call him—none that she’d allow to slip past her lips.
“You…thug! Robber! Thief! How dare you skulk around pretending you’re my friend when all along you’re pilfering snippets of my life to use for your stories! You’re nothing but a low-down, stealing…”
“Bandit?” Adam offered gloomily.
“Yes, and…”
“Crook?”
The outrage and disappointment on her face speared his heart. He’d taken something from her that was so personal—her friendship, her confidences and the intimate moments she didn’t share with just anyone. She’d even allowed him to be the one who took her to the lottery offices to get the money! She couldn’t have handed him this story any more completely if she’d tried!
“Gullible fool,” she muttered. “Henrietta Hick, right off the farm, that’s me. Trust everyone you meet. It’s a miracle I didn’t just leave my doors open at night with a ‘Help yourself’ note on the kitchen table.”
“It’s my fault entirely, Cassia. Not yours. It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this….” He scraped his hands through his hair knowing nothing he could do or say was going to calm her down now…or maybe ever.
CHAPTER 24
It’s been two days now, and I’m still weeping like a willow. If I cry any more, I’ll have to rehydrate.
Jane, seeming to read my mind, handed me a liter of water and another box of tissues.
“How could he?” I asked for the hundredth time, still expecting Jane or Mattie to have an answer. For the hundredth time they looked at me helplessly, as if I’d asked them to explain the theory behind quantum physics.
Men and quantum physics aren’t that different, I guess. Both are incomprehensible, problematical and virtually unintelligible to the ordinary person like me. I’m sure I’ve considered quantum physics more often than falling head over heels for a scoundrel like Adam.
Winslow, who hates it when I cry, looks as though he’s about to have a nervous breakdown. He’s licked tears off my cheeks until they’re red and raw. His pink tongue hangs out of his mouth in a way that suggests that it is so exhausted it couldn’t roll itself back into his gaping maw. Jane, too, has been crying. Her nose looks like Bozo the Clown’s. Mattie is the only one who hasn’t shed any tears, but her eyes have been squeezed tightly shut, her lips moving and her fingers clasped in an attitude of prayer.
We’d explored every avenue of excuses for Adam and come up with none that would mitigate his treachery. From there we—Jane, actually—moved on to bashing the entire male population.
“Animals, all of them,” she muttered.
“Be nice. Don’t say bad things about animals. Animals have good qualities. They don’t have to shave their legs.”
“Barbarians.”
“They can do seventy-four different functions with a pocket knife and a match.”
“Uncivilized…uncouth….”
“They can wear the same pair of shoes for an entire year without anyone thinking they have no fashion sense.”
“Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“You’d better eat something, dear,” Grandma said. “You haven’t put a thing in your mouth in almost two days.”
“I just can’t, Mattie. My stomach turns over every time I think of the lies Adam has perpetrated on me,” I told her.
“Toast and tea,” Mattie decided, ignoring me. She’d fed us toast and tea for almost every childhood trauma. “And a little chocolate.”
I felt a quiver of life in my taste buds. “Maybe just a sip of tea…” And a jar of fudge ice cream topping and a spoon.
“Praise God,” Mattie said. “I think you’re beginning to snap out of it.”
“‘Snap’ isn’t exactly the word,” I said, sipping at the highly sugared tea she handed me. “Right now there’s no ‘snap’ left in me. But my red hair is kicking in.”
Anger is normally a stranger to me, but according to my family, when I finally do reach boiling point, I’m quite a sight to behold. Fortunately for me, my grandfather, who’d learned to control his own temper, had taught me two things about anger. First, it’s a fine motivator. Second, being angry is a miserable way to live. I learned early that the best way to settle a score is to take the high road and to rise above the conflict.
Grandma spoke. “There’s some good that will come out of this, just you wait and see.”
“But what?” I wailed.
“That, you’ll have to ask God about.” She gave me an enigmatic smile.
The only time I ever consider the benefits of a king-size bed is when Winslow sleeps with me. I made the mistake of allowing him into my bed when he was a puppy and his piteous yowls in the middle of the night made me weak with sympathy. I’ve been breaking him of the habit every since.
Since the Cavanaugh debacle, Winslow has found that if he lays his enormous head on the side of the bed and stares up at me through wispy bangs, I’ll eventually say, “Oh, come on, then. It’s all right.”
He scrambles up—no easy feat—and lays his head on the pillow next to mine, promptly falls asleep and begins to snore. In the night he twitches in his dreams. I wonder who or what he’s chasing. Pepto, probably, who fascinates him even though they have yet to meet. Winslow is well acquainted with Pepto’s scent and perks up every time he catches it. I should tell him that sometimes the dream is simply better than the reality. I certainly discovered that with Adam.
The phone rang as we were dozing off. I almost ignored it, but my curiosity usually wins out over my common sense, so I answered it.
“Cassia?”
For a moment I didn’t recognize the voice. It was low, grave and seriously masculine. “Ken?”
“How are you, honey? I heard about the jerk in your building.”
I closed my eyes and stifled a groan. Oh, no. Jane, you blabbermouth! “Ken—”
“I’ll be up in the morning.”
“Ken, you don’t have to—”
“Of course I do. I don’t want anyone messing with you, Cassia. Do you want me to pound him flat for you?” He sounded cheered by the idea. “I could rearrange his face, remove a few teeth and make his nose point in the opposite direction….”
“Oh, quit it. I’m okay.”
“And I’m coming, so don’t try to argue. I told you that building was a lousy place for you, honey. But no, you wouldn’t listen to me—you had to find out for yourself….”
“G’night, Ken.” I gently hung up the receiver and breathed a deep sigh. It was completely unnecessary for him to come to the Cities and comfort me. Still, I thought as I drifted off to sleep, it was very, very sweet….
Winslow growled so deep in his chest that I could feel his body vibrate. I sat straight u
p in bed and listened. Nothing.
It was 6:00 a.m., three hours before I’d planned to get up. Winslow made a clumsy slide and noisy crash off the bed and onto the floor and trotted woofing toward the front door. I pulled on some jeans and threw a sweatshirt over the oversize T-shirt I’d worn to bed and followed him.
I heard a scrambling sound outside, as if someone had fallen on the floor and was trying to get up. Then I heard the old shave-and-a-haircut-six-bits knock and my heart sank. Not Adam!
“Honey, are you in there?”
Ken. I threw open the door and let him in.
“Hey, babe!”
Before I knew what was happening, Ken scooped me into his arms and spun me around. I gasped and hung on.
He gave me a smack on the lips that made me recall that his nickname in high school had been Hoover, according to the grapevine, for the suction.
“What time did you get here?” I managed as he settled me onto the floor.
“I left right after I talked to you. I didn’t want to wake you when I got here, so I just slept outside your door.”
“On the floor?”
“Sure. I’d do anything for you.” He looked around. “This isn’t the Ritz, is it? Kinda cozy, though. Hey, dawg, come ’ere.” Winslow, who’d been impatiently waiting his turn for attention, shook his wagging end so hard that his ears quivered.
Ken dropped to one knee, scratched him behind his ears and did that dog-whisperer thing he did. Before long, Winslow licked his face, sighed happily and dropped to the floor with a thud.
“This wasn’t necessary, you know. I’m fine.”
He took in my bird’s-nest hair, bleary eyes and pale skin studded with freckles. “You don’t look so fine. You’re beautiful, of course, but not fine.” He looked around. “Have you got any coffee in this joint or do we have to go out?”
“There’s a coffee shop down the street that has blueberry crunch coffee cake that’s even better than Mattie’s. And I want a whole milk latte with three shots of espresso.”
Ken grinned, and his white teeth gleamed in his tanned face. “That’s my Cassia. I love a woman who doesn’t diet.”