Chapter Eleven
Labor Day morning dawned bright and warm. Cassie had deliberated on what to wear for the last several days until she finally decided on a pair of denim shorts and a deep red sleeveless shirt. The collar was enough to hide the edge of the scars and she was able to wear her hair in a high ponytail.
Shane had wanted her to sleep over at his house the evening before but then he’d gotten called out for work at nine-thirty and she’d just headed home. She wasn’t comfortable enough in his house to be there alone just yet.
She’d headed to Penny’s first thing but Shane was already there with his mother and brothers, setting everything up.
“I thought I’d be able to beat you here.” Cassie smiled at Polly, her hands on her hips.
“Honey, you’d have to get up a lot earlier to beat me to it.” Polly laughed and pulled her into a hug. “I’m glad to see you here. Come on out here and tell me what you think.”
Penny’s backyard had been transformed into the perfect place for a party. A canopy was set up near the big oak tree and several tables rested beneath it for shade. Several stations of tubs filled with ice and cans and bottles of soda dotted the area. Penny’s dock had several floats and donuts for the kids to play on lying around.
“Wow. It looks great.”
Shane saw her and dropped what he was doing to come and swoop her up into a hug. He dropped a kiss on her lips. “Morning, gorgeous. Sorry to have to duck out on you last night.”
“Well, I suppose it’s one of the hazards of being a cop’s girlfriend. Is everything all right?”
He smiled at her and Polly laughed. “You just said you were my girlfriend.”
“I am aren’t I? I thought we’d discussed it.”
“We did. I just like hearing it.”
Cassie rolled her eyes.
“I like hearing it too. It’s about damned time.” Polly harrumphed and moved back out into the yard to order people around.
Before too long, people began to show up and two very large barbecues began to fill up with burgers and chicken.
Shane heaped food on Cassie’s plate and got up to get her another glass of tea. He’d been very careful to make sure she stayed hydrated and ate well after she’d scared him several days before. At first she’d been testy when he insisted she take care of herself and eat better but to his relief, she finally let him take care of her. She did appear to be sleeping better though and the dark circles were gone.
“You’re good together.” Liv patted his arm after he’d gotten the glass of tea. “I wish...well, I’m glad for you and Cassie. She’s a good person. And she clearly makes you happy. Love is a good thing, Shane.”
He saw the sadness on her face and her eyes moved to Matt and then away. “I’m real sorry things didn’t work out with Matt. I hope you find what I’ve got with Cassie. You deserve it.”
Liv shrugged. “I wish it had worked too. But you can’t make someone love you. They do or they don’t. It was a nice time. He was lovely to me. He just didn’t love me and after a while I couldn’t deal with loving someone when they didn’t love me back. Love changes you. Look at you. You were an asshole, Shane. God, you treated Maggie like shit. But you see now, you see in ways you couldn’t then. That’s good.”
Brody called to her and she smiled and waved, moving to him after she’d said goodbye to Shane.
He stood there, thinking about the last thing Liv had said. That love changed how he saw things. Sure he’d been sorry he hurt Maggie because he liked her as a person. Liked her as a sister, even loved her as one. But loving Cassie had opened his eyes. He wasn’t sure he liked what he saw of himself before. He’d closed himself off and it hadn’t made him particularly nice to women. He hadn’t been a cad, but he hadn’t seen them in the way he should have.
He looked across the lawn at her as she laughed and talked with Penny, her back resting against the tree trunk. Damn she was beautiful. Yes, stunning on the outside, but her inner beauty shone like a beacon. He loved her. He didn’t see her with love, he didn’t love things about her, he loved her. Was in love with her.
“You love her, don’t you?” Shane’s father came to stand next to his son.
He looked at his father. “You’re scary. I just realized it myself. I’m scared to death I’ll fuck it up. I don’t have the best track record with this stuff.”
Edward chuckled. “That’s love. Real love is scary. Because you know what you stand to lose. But she’s damned strong, Shane. You need that. You didn’t need some tough-as-nails woman to capture your heart. That’s Marc. No, you needed a woman who was as strong as you but who engaged your ability to empathize. To show you what it meant to truly rise above and live. She’s a fighter, our Cassie. She’s your equal and your other half because she gives you the ability to see beyond yourself.
“You’re a good man, Shane. But you’ve been selfish with women after Sandra. It’s been hard to watch you wall your emotions off the way you did. All we could do was hope like hell Cassie would come along and break your shell. And she did and you’ve broken hers too. Seeing you so gentle with her does my heart proud. I’m proud of you, son. You’re a man now.” Edward pressed a kiss to his son’s cheek and squeezed his shoulder before Shane moved to walk down to his woman.
But before Shane got to her she was standing up and looking toward the water. She took off at a run and Matt ran the other way, toward the front of the house.
Shane yelled her name but she dove off the dock and he ran, balls out, to reach her. Dee was crying and, in what felt like slow motion, Cassie surfaced, holding eighteen-month-old Michael in her arms. He’d fallen from the dock into the water and at some point, he’d taken a knock to the head and a deep, ugly wound gashed into his forehead.
Matt shoved him out of the way and took Michael from Cassie. Breaking free of his trance, Shane reached out to help her scramble up onto the dock.
“Back up,” she ordered and everyone did. Shane put his arm around Dee with Arthur on the other side of her.
Matt opened a medical bag and Shane watched in awe, as his Cassie melted away and a confident, in-charge woman replaced her. Her face was set in concentration as she tipped Michael’s neck up and leaned in.
“Matt, I’m going to need something for this head wound but let’s get him breathing first.”
Matt took orders smoothly as she began to give CPR to Michael, who’d turned blue.
Dee sobbed and he heard his father yell out that an ambulance was on the way.
Cassie broke her lips from Michael’s and turned him onto his side and he coughed, water gushing from his mouth. She continued to give orders to Matt while she alternately spoke to Michael in a soothing voice to keep him calm.
Without taking her eyes from Michael, Cassie addressed Dee. “Dee, honey, can you hold it together? Just kneel down and touch his legs. He’s scared. I’m going to get this gash on his head cleaned up and the bleeding stopped. He’ll probably need a few stitches. Ask when you get to the hospital for a surgeon to do it. Preferably a plastic surgeon if one is available. That should help with the scar. He’s going to be all right, Dee.”
Dee took a deep breath and fell to her knees. She reached out to rub Michael’s legs while talking to him, reassuring him. Cassie continued to work and Matt handed her everything she asked for. The siren sounded as the ambulance neared.
The paramedics ran over with a board and Cassie spoke to them clearly and quietly, explaining what had happened and what had been done. Dee moved to go with them in the ambulance, Arthur would follow in the car. Cassie followed until they got loaded in and drove away.
As she returned to the yard, Shane looked to her, amazement on his face. Matt wore an identical look.
She held up a hand. “I need a drink. The story is long and I can’t tell it with everyone here.”
Polly had already begun to shoo people out of the yard and Edward put a tumbler filled with an amber liquid into her hand. One handed, he pressed her into a chair in the shade.
When everyone but the Chases, Penny and Liv had gone, Cassie took a deep breath, and the smoky scent of good scotch filled her nose. Two swallows and it was gone. The heat spread through her, warring with the adrenaline crash.
“My name is not Cassie Gambol. It’s Carly Sunderland. Or rather, it used to be Carly Sunderland, it’s been changed legally. A long time ago in a galaxy far away, I was a successful vascular surgeon at a private hospital in Orange County. You all know the story of my ex-husband.
“I divorced him. He wasn’t happy. He harassed me and my family. Showed up at my job until they had to bar him from the hospital and he lost his position and ability to practice there and his own practice group tossed him out. I kept quiet and was careful when I went home so he couldn’t follow me. I thought I’d been successful. But I wasn’t. Eight months later he found me. Broke into my condo while I was sleeping. I woke up with him on my chest and a hammer coming toward my face. I threw him off but I tripped leaving my bedroom and he landed on my back. He held me down while he used the hammer to shatter the bones in two of the fingers in my right hand. I tried to get free but he’s a big man.
“Blood was everywhere, I was slipping in it as I tried to struggle. I’ll never forget the smell. It wasn’t like I’d never smelled blood before but it was different because I knew it was mine. I knew I was losing too much.
“He’d hit me so hard the handle of the hammer began to splinter, and it broke completely when he hit me on the back of the head with it. I worked to stay conscious as he began to stab me with the shattered handle. Repeatedly. In the back and neck. He left me for dead as I lay in a pool of my own blood. But I managed to reach my phone just as I passed out. Luckily 911 sends someone out when there’s no response.
“I was in a coma for three weeks and then in the hospital for nearly another month. It’s all more complicated than I want to dwell on but after that they found him and arrested him. Put him on trial.
“At first they thought he’d paralyzed me. The wounds really messed up some of my nerves in my right arm. But with physical therapy, and my good luck at having one of my colleagues work on me, they saved most of my movement and by the time the trial was midway through I could walk through the door on my own power.
“I testified. They convicted him. He was supposed to be remanded immediately, awaiting sentencing. But there was some sort of paperwork error and they let him go. By the time they realized their error he’d skipped town.”
She held up her hand to silence Shane, as Edward handed her another drink. Penny pressed some crackers into her other hand, which she ate to stave off the nausea.
“He called and taunted me. Said he’d be back to finish the job. It wasn’t like I could be a surgeon ever again. I don’t have the fine motor skills in my hand to do it. I had a wonderful victim’s advocate the court hooked me up with. She got me enrolled in a program to change my name and social security number. He’d tracked me to my new apartment with my social security information.
“My brother drove through Petal a few years ago on his way to Atlanta and he liked it here. I chose an apartment I saw online and Carly went away and Cassie moved to Petal.”
“Jesus God.” Maggie looked up at Cassie.
Cassie swallowed and turned to look at Shane, wincing as she saw him. “I’m sorry I lied. I’m a little messed up right now, but I’ll go home and clear out of town as soon as I can. You must all hate me.”
A deep, tortured sound came from Shane as he fell to his knees and pulled her into his arms. “How you survived that and had the courage to come here and start your life over I’ll never know. Cassie, you’re amazing and I love you so much it hurts.”
Cassie blinked several times, trying to figure out if she’d heard him right. “What?”
Shane pulled back and kissed her and kissed her again for good measure. “I. Love. You. Cassie, you’re so damned strong. I don’t hate you. How could you think I’d hate you for not wanting to share that horrible fucking story?”
“I lied about my name.”
“So what? Cassie Gambol is your legal name now isn’t it? Honey, you must think I’m a grade-A prick if you think I’d be angry at you for having to give up everything to move here to protect yourself from a homicidal freak.”
She put her face in her hands. “I don’t know what I thought! You don’t...you’re all...shit. I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
He laughed. “You’re sorry? Honey, let’s get you to my house, okay? Get you tucked into bed for a rest. You just saved Michael’s life and told us one hell of a story. That’s got to take a lot out of a girl.”
“I’ve got lake water all over me.”
“Why don’t I go to your place and get you some clothes? I’ll bring them by Shane’s.” Penny squeezed Cassie’s hand. “Honey, I knew you were good people the minute you walked into my shop and not a damned thing you’ve done has made me doubt that.”
“I lied to you all!”
“Not about anything important. Your actions speak the truth, Cassie. You were in charge and strong out there on that dock today. Even though it exposed you, you did it. You saved Michael’s life without even a thought. You’ve been a good friend to us and you’ve, well, you’ve saved Shane too.” Maggie fought tears.
Cassie couldn’t deal much longer. She needed to be away from them all before she lost it. She also knew she couldn’t be alone in her apartment. “My keys are in my purse. It’s in the front closet.”
Marc jogged inside and brought her purse back out and Penny took her keys and handed the purse to Shane, who took one look at Cassie and picked her up. “We’re going to go to my house. I’ll talk to you all later.”
He started toward the car and Cassie laid her head on his chest and closed her eyes.
As the car pulled out of the driveway, everyone else stood on the front porch watching Shane take her to his house just three doors down.
“Holy hell.” Matt leaned back against the front porch rail.
“I’m going to go to Cassie’s and get her clothes.” Penny moved to her car.
“I’ll stay here until you get back.” Polly sat in the porch swing and Edward joined her.
Penny waved and left.
“I can’t even imagine. I knew it was bad. When she told us about the abuse I was horrified. I thought there was some big incident but she didn’t say. I just had no idea it would be this.” Maggie leaned back against Kyle.
Polly sighed. “I knew it would be a strong woman who’d finally captured Shane’s heart. But she’s braver than any woman I’ve ever met in my life. Imagine just up and leaving after suffering so much and starting over again halfway across the country.”
“She won’t be safe until this asshole is found.” Kyle held his wife to him.
“Shane won’t stop until he is.” Matt spoke with absolute certainty.
* * *
Shane took her up to his bathroom and turned on the water in his shower. “You can use a T-shirt for the time being. Let’s get you cleaned up now.” He tried to hold on to the tasks to get her comfortable. Anger and fear warred within him but he didn’t want her to see either. He needed to be strong for her right then. Later on he’d go into his weight room and beat the hell out of the bag.
Woodenly, she let him help her out of her shoes and pull her shorts and panties down. As gently as he could, he freed her hair from the ponytail. Reaching down to pull her shirt off, he steeled himself. He knew seeing the scars would be shocking but he also knew he had to control his rage at Terry Sunderland to not make her feel bad. Her hands came down to stop him.
“Let me see you, Cassie. I think you’re beautiful. You’ve told me the hard part. It doesn’t matter to me. The scars don’t make you less beautiful.”
“You don’t know. The scars...”
“Is that why you’ve left your shirt on when we make love?”
She nodded slowly. “That and well, my stomach and stuff.”
“Cassie, please trust me. Your body is gorgeous. I don’t care about the scars. They only make me think you’re more beautiful.”
More beautiful? Was he out of his mind? Angrily she pulled the shirt up and over her head and yanked her bra off. She moved her hair away, giving him her back. “There! Still think I’m beautiful? Still think fourteen stab scars makes me more beautiful?”
She felt the press of his lips over each one of her scars until tears came from so deep she couldn’t stand anymore. He was there though, taking her weight into his arms, pulling her into the shower with him.
She clung to him as he shampooed her hair and soaped her up the best he could with her arms wrapped around him.
“Come on, darlin’. Let’s get you out of here and dried off.” He helped her out of the shower and toweled her off after he’d wrapped up her hair.
Leading her into his bedroom he had her sit on his bed. “I’ll be right back. I’m guessing Penny has been by and left your clothes downstairs.”
And she had. Left a bag just inside his screen door without disturbing them further. There was a note that Cassie’s keys were at Penny’s house when she needed them.
He stood in his living room, a towel wrapped around his waist, thinking about her scars. Out of Cassie’s presence he let the rage take him. The rage at seeing the pink skin of fourteen scars on her back and neck. Of knowing the man who’d done it to her was still out there, keeping her so afraid she didn’t sleep at night. That the sick fuck had taken away her career and nearly killed her—all because she wanted a divorce. Took away her name and her home.
He needed to let it wash through him because the last thing Cassie needed was a pissed off man. He knew right then that he would track Terry Sunderland down and turn him over to the courts or kill him himself. Shane Chase was a man who lived by law and order, believed in the power of justice. But at the moment, he wanted to kill another man. Wanted it with a power he’d never felt before.
Forcibly unclenching his fists, he took several deep breaths and let it go. He picked up the bag to bring Cassie her clothes.
Cassie lay on his bed quietly, her hands folded over her abdomen. Totally naked. The shock of her beauty hit him in the gut like it always did but this time with greater force because she wasn’t covering up. She was totally exposed to him emotionally as well as physically.
“Darlin’? I’ve got your clothes here.”
“Do you want me to cover up? Do the scars creep you out?” She sat up, the wet strands of her hair moving over her shoulders and chest.
Putting the bag near the door he pulled off the towel and stood there, naked and hard. “Does it look like your scars creep me out, Cassie?”
She shook her head. “Shane?”
“Yes, darlin’?”
“Do you have condoms?”
“Yes.”
“Will you come here and make love to me please?”
He froze a moment. “Are you sure, baby? I’d like nothing more than to do that but I don’t want you to do it if you don’t feel up to it. It’s been a trying day for you.”
“It has.” She nodded. “But I... I need to feel alive and you make me feel alive. When you’re inside me, with your hands on me, I feel alive and vibrant.”
He crawled across the bed to get to her. “You... Cassie, you make me feel so much. I love you. I’ve said it to another woman but I didn’t even know what love was until I met you.”
She moved to her knees and touched his chest and encircled his neck with her arms. “I love you too.” Her voice was small but he heard it and his heart skipped a beat. “I love you but I’m scared.”
“Let’s work on that, okay? Because I’d give my life for you, to protect you. I love you and that means you’re mine. And not in the way he meant it. You’re not a thing to me. You’re everything to me. I want you to be free from fear. Happy. You deserve that. Let’s work to make sure I can help protect you.”
She pushed him back on the bed and scrambled to straddle his body. “I love that you asked to protect me.”
“I love this position.” He grinned lasciviously. “And I’m trying. God knows I want to hide you and go to war for you, but I know that’s not what you need so I’m trying to find a middle ground. Because I have to tell you, I want to find this bastard so you can live freely. I want you to be able to choose to be Carly or Cassie. As long as you’re with me, I don’t care what you call yourself.”
Leaning down, she kissed his lips and then the cleft on his chin. Her hands skimmed over the hard, tight flesh of his shoulders and chest. Through the hair there and over the coppery nipples, his gasp of pleasure bringing her a smile.
“I like that you have hair on your chest. It makes you even more masculine. And my goodness are you masculine. It makes me all shivery.”
His hands slid up her thighs and came to rest at her waist. “I’m glad. I like that I’m not the only one shivery all the time.”
She brought her lips to the hollow of his throat and swirled her tongue there, tasting the salt of his skin. Over his collarbone and down, teeth grazing over each nipple. Scooting back, her ass rested on his thighs as her hands traveled over the flat muscle of his belly until she finally reached his cock.
“I like this too.”
“I’m really glad. It likes you as well.” His voice was strangled. “We can get to the making love stage soon, right? Because I really need to be inside you.”
“In due time, Sheriff.” With that, she bent down and took him into her mouth, bringing him off the bed with a hiss of pleasure.
She explored him slowly with her mouth, with lips and tongue. Around the head, tasting him, and then slowly taking him as far as she could before nearly pulling off him.
His hands gripped the sheets so tight she was surprised he didn’t rip them. But his control, all for her, to make sure he didn’t spook her, touched her. And she yearned for a time when he’d take her wild and hot, when she could be taken without fear. A time she felt would come someday.
Shane looked down his body at Cassie. Her dark hair, slowly drying, played peek-a-boo with her face so he got carnal glimpses of her sucking his cock. What he didn’t see was just as hot as what he did see. One of her hands wrapped around the base of his cock and the other did something naughty and really good with his balls.
The hot wet of her mouth surrounded him and he was awash in pleasure. He knew he had to stop her soon or he’d come and he’d already discovered just how much he liked being inside her when that happened.
“Baby? Cassie, honey? Stop now, I’m getting close.”
She pulled off him with a slight pop and looked up. She looked so wicked and sexy at that moment his cock jumped in response. Her lips were wet and swollen, eyes half lidded, hair tousled.
“That’s the point, Shane.”
He laughed. “Ride me, Cassie. I’ll come, but I want to be deep inside you when I do.”
Pouting, she took the condom from him and rolled it on. He was fairly sure he’d never want to put his own condom on again, the way she did it, slow and precise, was damned sexy.
Crawling forward, she reached around her body to open herself and guide him to her gate. He took it all in as she slowly sank back onto his cock.
Hot. Fuck, she was hot and tight as her pussy took him in. Welcomed him. Each time she pulled her body up, he watched the flex of her thighs and her breasts swayed forward.
“You’re amazing, Cassie. So pretty up there I don’t have words. I could look at you for days.”
A crooked smile slid over her mouth and she rolled her eyes. “I love that you’re so full of shit.”
“You know, you’re snarky when you get warmed up.”
“Ha! You should see me when I’ve known you a while.”
And that little comeback settled around his heart. “Yeah.” He smiled a moment, drawing a fingertip around her nipple, delighting in her pause and the way her lip caught between her teeth. “I can’t wait.”
She took a deep breath and added a swivel when she came back down on him. “That was very nice,” he said, voice strained.
“I got the mad skills. I haven’t used them in a few years, but I got ’em.” She tapped her temple and he laughed.
It was important to her that he realize she was more than the sum of those years with Terry. There was a time when she’d loved sex and she was quickly back there. Something about the way he looked at her, touched her, made her whole, enabled her to think about a future.
“You got ’em all right.” He continued to circle her nipple with one finger and drew another down her stomach, finding her clit. Gasping, she rolled her hips forward. At first it was a slow stroke, building the fire of her pleasure.
“Cassie, give it to me. Let me feel you come around my cock.”
She shivered at his words and arched, putting her hands on his thighs.
“Oh that’s a sight. I love the way that looks. Almost as good as how it feels.”
His voice was strained as the new angle of entry dragged the head of his cock over her sweet spot. That, along with his finger slowly sliding back and forth over her clit, brought orgasm over her with a sharp shock.
Shane looked up at her, watched the arch of her beautiful body. As her pussy clutched and clasped around his cock, he pulled her down on him and came, her name a hoarse whisper on his lips.
Boneless, she fell to a sated heap on the bed. He murmured that he’d be right back, checked the house to be sure it was locked up and lay beside her, his arms around her body, until she was deeply asleep.
Tucking blankets around her body, he set the air conditioner to keep the room nice and cool and grabbed some shorts before heading downstairs.
In his weight room, he worked out for well over an hour, hitting the bag, imagining it was Cassie’s ex. He pushed every last bit of his anger and grief for her through his fists until he was so exhausted he trembled.
He heard a tapping on the door and got rid of the gloves before going out to see who it was.
Matt stood there and held up a six pack and a bag of pretzels. Kyle held up a dish of chicken and Marc held a cobbler. Shane let them in and put his finger to his lips.
“Cassie is sleeping. Come on through.”
They followed him into the television room and flopped down on the couch. No one said a word until beers were cracked open and the pretzels passed around and chicken tasted. Shane put the cobbler aside for Cassie.
“How is she?” Matt asked.
“She’s exhausted but sleeping. I thought the nightmares were just about the abuse. Shit, he broke in while she was sleeping. It’s a wonder she slept at all.” Shane ran a hand through his hair.
“You’ll find him, Shane. Tell us what we can do to help.” Kyle sighed and sat back.
“I will. Now that I’ve got a name that’s a start. I’ll call the officer in charge of her case tomorrow and see what he’ll tell me.”
“How are you?” Marc asked. “I can’t imagine it’s easy for you to know the woman you love has gone through something so awful.”
“I’m better now. I punched the bag for a while, did some judo. I’ll get down to the range tomorrow and I want her to come too. She’s a strong woman, I’m betting she’ll feel even better with some basic proficiency with a weapon. She’ll feel in charge and I’ll be helping her. God knows how touchy she’d be if I just did it all for her.”
“You really love her, don’t you?” Kyle smiled. “I’m sorry she had to endure all of that. But she’s a damned strong woman and she’s good for you. Maggie wanted to come over but she’s with Momma, holding her back.”
Shane nodded, understanding. “Momma must be like a bumblebee in a jar right now.”
The brothers laughed, thinking about their mother in protective mode but being unable to leave to come and comfort Cassie and her son.
“Thank you.” Shane looked to each of his brothers, jerking his chin at the food on the table.
“You love her. She loves you. That makes her one of us now.” Matt shrugged his shoulders matter-of-factly.