by Donna Ball
The picture in her mind resurfaced, and this time a child was playing on the front lawn, tossing a tennis ball for a brown-and-white dog that had once been a puppy. The child was a boy, with auburn hair and warm brown eyes. Cassie felt a catch in her chest. Once she had told Shane he didn't know himself well enough to know what he wanted. Was it possible that theory worked both ways? How could she have know what she wanted until someone offered it to her? She couldn't get the picture of that little boy playing on the lawn out of her mind. She could still feel Shane's arm around her waist and her head on his shoulder, and years seemed to roll forward on the screen of her vision, good years and bad years, until it was grandchildren who played on that lawn....
Oh, God, she thought, burying her face in a tissue. Why did I do this? I don't want Shane to find another woman. I don't want him to be with any woman except me. How could I have been so stupid? Why did I do this?
She raised her face and looked at the telephone. Two swift strides took her to it and she punched out the number. It rang and rang, and her heart beat louder with each ring. Finally she let the receiver fall back into the cradle. Too late. He had already left.
She stood there, stared at the telephone and tried to tell herself it was for the best. What would she say to him, anyway? But it wasn't for the best. And she knew what she'd say: that she loved him and she was sorry and nothing else mattered and she'd been a fool not to see that before. But how could she have known it when she had never loved anyone before? How could she know what havoc love could wreak with logic, how it could turn reason inside out and refuse to comply with the formulas she had relied on all her life? Love was a law unto itself. How could anyone understand that until it happened?
The sound of the doorbell jolted her nerves, and she tripped over the cat in her rush to answer it. Her heart was beating wildly and her breathing was labored as she flung open the door, almost as though she had known who would be standing there.
And she was right. He was wearing jeans, a cotton shirt and vest, a Stetson hat and those wonderful, ancient, battered boots. His jaw was knotted and his eyes were stern and there were specks of paint on his hands and in his hair. He was the most beautiful sight Cassie had-ever seen.
He strode through the door and tossed his hat onto the chair. "Why do you keep the cat?" he demanded abruptly.
Cassie took a small step backward, blinking at him. "Wh-what?"
"The cat," he repeated. "You're allergic to it. Why do you keep it?"
Cassie hesitated, trying to orient herself. Her heartbeat was still racing and her limbs were quivering and all she could think of was that he was here, not with Karen, but with her. He was here....
"Be-because," she managed distractedly, "because Fluffy can't help being a cat. And I love her."
"Cassie." His eyes softened with tenderness as he took a step toward her. "Can't you keep me for the same reason? I love you. And I can't help being me."
With a muffled cry she flung herself into his arms. Her lips found his, and whatever words she might have said were forgotten. She hardly knew when he swept her into his arms and carried her to the bedroom. Nor was she aware of their clothes falling away. The room was lit only by the filtered streetlight from the window and glow of the lamp from the other room. His sleek, shadowed form hovered over her as she sank back against the pillows. Her hands caressed the sinewy lines of his arms and the taut indentation of his waist and her fingers tangled briefly in the hair on his chest. His arms slipped beneath her shoulders, drawing her upward, and she opened her mouth to him as they came together, no longer two bodies but one.
The world outside with all its problems and uncertainties dissolved for Cassie, and she knew only the touch of Shane's skin against hers, the strength of his muscles surrounding her, his heat filling her, a perfect match... It was like coming home. They were together, just as it was meant to be. Just as it would always be.
There was so much still to be said, so much that remained unresolved. But lying there secure in his arms, it all seemed unimportant and far away. The only thing that mattered was that Shane was here. She had been given another chance, and this time she wasn't going to run away from what her heart demanded.
Though she didn't really care to hear the answer, after a time she felt obligated to ask, "What happened to Karen?"
His fingertips stroked a delicious pattern along her collarbone. "I gave her to Jack."
She chuckled softly, absurdly gratified. "She was perfect for you."
"Darlin', haven't you figured out by now that I don't want the perfect woman? I want you."
She propped herself on her elbows and leaned over him, her heart filled to overflowing with things she had to say, things that had needed to be said for too long. "Oh, Shane..."
The phone began to ring.
He caressed her shoulder persuasively. "Don't answer it.”
For a moment she was tempted, but the persistent shrilling left her little choice. She gave him an apologetic look and turned away to answer the phone.
She listened in stunned incredulity to the frantic voice on the other end for several moments, and she didn't recall what, if any answer, she gave. She returned the receiver to its cradle and turned slowly back to Shane.
He saw the expression on her face and sat up. "Cassie? Is something wrong?"
Cassie opened her mouth to speak but had to clear her throat before the words would come out. Utter bafflement dulled her tone as she looked at him. "That was Emma. She's at the police station. Jack—and Karen—have been arrested."
***
The inside of the police station was as crowded and confusing as police stations are supposed to be, and despite Shane's constant reassurances that there had been some mistake, Cassie's nerves went from frazzled to shredded in the twenty minutes it took them to get someone to tell them where to find Jack. Eventually they were escorted to an interrogation room where the scene was only slightly less confusing than the one they had just left.
Emma and Jack were standing on the opposite sides of a small table, each talking louder than the other. In the middle was a rumpled, tired and bored-looking detective who had apparently given up trying to take their statements long ago.
"I still don't understand what you were doing there."
"I told you, Shane asked me to—"
"A hotel, of all places!"
"There's a restaurant there, too, you know!"
"She's thirty years younger than you, Jack!"
"What difference does that make? I wasn't—"
"Emma!"
Cassie flew across the room. "What happened? What are you doing here? What's going on?"
Jack glared at Emma across the table. "I told you not to call her." He glanced at Shane and muttered, "Sorry about this."
Shane hooked his thumbs in his pockets and glanced around the room noncommittally. "How's it going, Jack?"
"Not too well, if you want to know the truth."
The detective stood just as Cassie was getting ready to grab Emma and shake some answers out of her. "Are you Cassie Averil, the owner of the service?"
Cassie turned to him quickly. "Yes. Yes, I am. Now will you please tell me what's going on?"
"And do you know a Miss Karen Doyle?"
Cassie looked quickly at Emma. "Yes, she's a client of mine. What's this all about?"
"A client, huh?" The detective looked sour. "That’s one way of putting it, I guess. You paid Karen Doyle to escort Mr. Sanders for the evening?" Cassie turned in confusion from Emma to Jack.
No, of course not. She paid me. And she wasn't supposed to go out with Jack at all. She was supposed to go out with Shane."
"You see?" Jack told the detective grumpily. “That's what I've been trying to tell you!"
“You haven’t told me anything," replied the detective implacably. "All I know was that you were seen completing a financial transaction with Miss Doyle."
“I gave her carfare, for Pete's sake."
“What's going o
n here?" Cassie practically screamed.
The detective gave her an admonishing look. "Mr. Sanders," he replied calmly, "has been arrested on charges of pandering."
Cassie stared at Jack, and he shifted his gaze away, embarrassed.
“ Miss Doyle, a known prostitute," continued the detective, "has been charged with solicitation."
Cassie felt all the breath leave her lungs.
“ And you, Miss Averil," the detective added, "will most likely be brought up on charges of running an escort service unless I have evidence to the contrary, and very quickly. It's late and my shift was over half an hour ago.”
Cassie groped blindly for a chair and Jack fumbled to push one forward just before her knees gave way. The next thing she knew someone was pushing a glass of water into her hand, Emma was fanning her face furiously, and Shane was kneeling beside her. His eyes were a riot of incredulity and amusement as he accused, "A hooker? My perfect match is a hooker?"
Cassie slumped back weakly in the chair, and it was at that point that everything spun out of control.
Emma turned on the detective like a lioness defending its cub. "Now see what you've done! I'll have you know this young lady is from one of the finest families in this city and you dare—"
“I told you not to call her!" Jack said.
Shane pulled Cassie's head onto his shoulder, and it was a long time before she realized he was shaking with laughter. Cassie remembered very little after that. At some point Shane recovered himself enough to bring some semblance of order to the room. He sat down with the detective and explained everything from the beginning, and Cassie confirmed his story with a blank, stricken face and a tiny voice. Emma and Jack put aside their own differences long enough to supply the pertinent details. Karen Doyle was brought in, and although she admitted to her former profession, she swore that her relationship with Cassie was strictly legitimate and that she had genuinely left the business behind. Her apology sounded sincere as she added that all she really wanted was to find a husband.
After what seemed like an eternity to Cassie, Detective Sylby realized Cassie was innocent of any complicity and dropped the charges against Jack. Reluctantly he let Karen go, too, but with a stern warning. Shane, Cassie, Emma and Jack were left alone in the stale-smelling little room, and Cassie felt as though she had just been through a whirlwind, one she had never seen coming.
At length Shane broke the silence. "Well," he commented casually, "I guess that just goes to show you can't learn everything about a person from a form."
Everything snapped together inside of Cassie, as though his words were the focus for the entire previous nightmarish hour, and she whirled on him. "It was your form!" she cried furiously. "You're the one who was so certain what he wanted! All I did was match you with the woman you described and—"
Shane's eyes were twinkling. "That's what I wanted to see—the old spark in your eyes again!"
"This isn't funny, Shane! This is a disaster! You don't know—"
He took her shoulders and stilled her words with a kiss. "Ah, Cassie," he murmured, still chuckling, "never a dull moment. Life with you will never be boring. That much is sure."
Cassie rested her head against his chest and let her arms slide around his waist. After a moment she smiled, not because she saw anything funny about their situation, but because Shane was holding her in his arms and nothing had ever felt better in her life. But even that refuge couldn't completely shield her from the problems that were battering at her, and after a moment she looked at Shane anxiously.
"Oh, Shane," she said, "My business... If this gets out, my reputation—I'll be ruined!"
Shane's expression sobered. "And you can be sure it will get out. There's nothing the papers love more than a scandal like this. We're going to have to work hard to salvage something from this."
She caught her breath, searching his face. "We?'
"Of course. I figure that's part of a man's job, to help his wife when she needs it." And almost before she could register those words, he continued with the trace of an almost embarrassed grin. "I'll tell you something. You were right about my having a head for business. And the truth is, I was getting kind of tired of sitting in the sun. So maybe I could just be semi-retired."
"Oh, Shane—"
He lifted a hand to silence her. Neither was aware of the interested attention they were receiving from Emma and Jack.
"That's what I really came over to tell you tonight," he said seriously. "That you were right about me—about a lot of things. I spent so long dreaming about the perfect life I was going to have that I got the fantasy all mixed up with reality and I didn't even know a good thing when I saw it. I know we're not much alike, Cassie, and we don't have anything in common, but that will be the fun of it. Don't you see? Learning about each other. So we'll fight. I like fighting, just like you said. I like doing things the hard way, and God help me if I'm wrong, but so do you. I want a woman who can talk to me, who knows things I don't, who can put me in my place when I get out of hand, who makes me laugh and makes me mad and makes every single moment worth living. Just like you do, Cassie. You were right all the time about me. It just took a little time to admit it, that's all."
Cassie folded her fingers around his lapels, smiling through a sudden film of happy tears. "I might have been right about some things, Shane," she said huskily, "but I was wrong about a lot of others. Mostly about what I wanted."
"I meant it when I said I wanted to help you in your business," he said urgently. "And you're right. I can hire a housekeeper and learn to cook."
Cassie laughed and looked up at him with sudden mischief. "You don't have to," she told him. "That's another thing I didn't tell you about myself. I'm a gourmet cook.”
Shane closed his eyes, tilted his head to the heavens and murmured, "Thank you, God." Then he tightened his arms around her, laughed softly and declared, "Cassie Averil, you're a miracle. I'm glad I decided to marry you."
Cassie lifted her face to his for a kiss and said softly, "I am, too."
Emma and Jack exchanged a triumphant look. Emma folded her arms across her chest and declared, "Well, it's about time!"
And Jack added smugly, "Didn't I tell you there was nothing to worry about? All we had to do was get them together and let nature do the rest."
Cassie lifted her head from Shane's chest, staring at Emma in slow suspicion. "You—?"
Shane turned to Jack, obviously as surprised as Cassie was. "You! You're the one who sent me to her in the first place!"
"And, Emma," Cassie accused, "you were in on this from the beginning?"
"In on it? It was my idea!" And she smiled at them benignly. "I was playing matchmaker before you were born, missy. Between the two of us—" she tucked her arm through Jack's confidently, "—you never had a chance."
Shane encircled Cassie's shoulders with his arm, his eyes twinkling down at her. "Well, it looks like we've been set up. What do you think we should do about it?"
The tensions and regrets of the past week, the bizarre blurred events of the past hour, the indecision and uncertainties of Cassie's entire life, fell away in cascades of warmth as she looked into Shane's eyes. "Celebrate?" she suggested.
"Sounds like a damn fine idea to me," Jack agreed boisterously. "Let's get out of this place!"
"Just a minute." Shane held up his hand. "Now that you've got Cassie and me straightened out, don't you think the two of you ought to get some things settled between you?"
Emma suddenly seemed to realize how intimately her arm was entwined with Jack's, and started to pull away. Jack looked uncomfortable for a minute, then covered Emma's hand with his own. He cleared his throat and said, "Well, there might be a few things we could talk about."
Emma went a brilliant shade of red, but her eyes were sparkling as she responded sternly, "As long as the first thing we talk about is what business you've got going out with twenty-year-old girls."
"Now, I told you—"
Under the cover
of their playful bickering, Cassie looked at Shane anxiously and protested, "Emma and Jack? But, Shane, they have nothing in common. They—" Shane laid a light, warning finger across his lips, and she lowered her eyes, abashed. "I forgot," she murmured. "Not everything can be written on a form."
Shane kissed her forehead. "You're learning."
Smiling, they walked arm in arm out into the night. Emma and Jack followed them at a much slower pace, holding hands.
##
Enjoy this Excerpt from STEALING SAVANNAH by Donna Ball
ONE
With a passkey lifted from the pocket of a maid he had bumped into in the hall, C. J. Cassidy silently let himself into the penthouse suite, crossed the room in the dark and helped himself to over a thousand dollars in cash, a gold initial ring and a Rolex watch. Without ever disturbing the room's sleeping occupant, he returned to the corridor and rode down to the lobby on the elevator. At three o'clock in the morning, he had the elevator to himself.
The lobby of the elegant Boheme Hotel was similarly deserted. Cassidy stepped off the elevator and concealed himself behind an enormous planter of cascading greenery, pretending to study a directory while he waited to see if anyone would come to the desk. No one did, and he strolled casually toward the exit.
Then he stopped, his eyes caught by a discreet brass plaque that read Offices. He'd already emptied the hotel safe of everything worth taking—and he was forever amazed by the worthless items people felt compelled to lock away in a safe while leaving things like cash and jewelry lying about on their night tables.
He moved down the corridor toward the offices.
The first door he tried was unlocked, which was suspicious enough in itself. He opened it a crack and saw the darkened outer office was deserted, but a faint stream of light was coming from the half-open door beyond it. Cassidy stepped inside and closed the door silently behind him.
On his way across the room, he effortlessly picked the lock on the secretary's desk and liberated a set of keys and the contents of the petty cash box. The reception area opened onto several other offices, the doors to all of which were closed and locked—except one.