CHAPTER FIFTEEN
TIPPY COULDN’T BELIEVE WHAT she was reading. Cash couldn’t mean a real marriage. Not after he’d said so many times that he’d never remarry. Shocked, she sat down with the tabloid in her hands and reread the whole story.
“Your third kidnapper is safely locked away until the trial,” Cash told her, his hands deep in his pockets. “But your reputation has taken some heat because of that assistant director. I’ve had a long talk with some people I know. There won’t be any more attempts at character assassination from that quarter, at least. Dr. Lou Coltrain and I cooked up this story to repair the damage.”
“Isn’t it a little…drastic?” she wondered aloud.
“What? Blacklisting that arrogant little pipsqueak who worked for Joel Harper?” he wondered aloud.
“No! Thank you for that,” she said, diverted. “I was thinking about the engagement…and this says,” she added, reading the smaller print, “that we’re getting married immediately!”
His dark eyes met hers. “We don’t have any more secrets between us. I know all about you. And you know all about me. I have job security and money in several foreign banks. But even if I didn’t, I’ve got a strong back and I’m not afraid of hard work. I can pull my half of the financial responsibilities. Rory can stay with us, unless he’s overly keen on spending the next eight years in a military school.”
She could hardly get her breath. “I must be asleep,” she whispered.
“Dreaming, or having a nightmare?” he wondered aloud.
“Definitely dreaming,” she whispered, her cheeks just faintly flushed as she looked at him with ardent pleasure. “I can’t believe it!”
He relaxed. The look on her face, ardent and surprised and joyful, made him feel warm all over. He smiled. “Want me to go down on one knee? Or is that your role? Got a ring for me, yet?”
She faltered, until she remembered the byplay about her courting him over the past few weeks. “I didn’t think you wanted one,” she hedged.
“In that case, you’ll have to go shopping. But for the time being…”
He moved forward, dug in his pocket and pulled out a black jeweler’s box. He opened it. Inside were an emerald solitaire surrounded by diamonds and a matching band mingling emeralds and diamonds in yellow gold. “One more thing,” he added, producing a marriage license. “I’ve already had my blood test, and I got the results of the blood test that Lou Coltrain did when she checked you over with the specialist from San Antonio who flew down for your follow-up exam last week.”
“I still can’t understand how you got him to come to me,” she said absently.
“He and Micah Steele are old friends,” he said with out adding anything else. “So we have a marriage license and a date with the probate judge day after tomorrow,” he said smugly. “All you have to do is say yes. I’ll take care of everything else.”
She just stared at the marriage license and the rings blankly, her heart thundering in her chest. She reached out and touched the rings blindly. “I never even dared to hope that this might happen,” she whispered, looking up at him with her heart in her eyes.
He bent and kissed her tenderly, his lips lingering on hers. His heart raced wildly. He kissed her again. “You know everything about me,” he whispered huskily, “and you didn’t run. Could I risk losing a woman who not only is willing to take me as I am, but also a woman who can lay out an armed criminal with an iron skillet? You’re a living legend already!”
She chuckled warmly, reaching up to hold him close. “I’ll take care of you all my life,” she whispered tenderly.
He flushed a little. “That was my line.”
“We’ll take care of each other, then,” she murmured, drawing his face down. She wanted to tell him how she felt, but he hadn’t mentioned love. She was too insecure to start blurting out her feelings just yet. “Are you sure?” she added solemnly.
“I’m sure.” He drew her up against him, wrapped her tight to his hard body, and kissed her with a breathless passion that made her knees buckle. “Glory!” he breathed, before he deepened the kiss and backed her up against the kitchen table. “Tippy…!”
Incredibly, she was on her back among the remains of lunch, with Cash bearing her down hungrily.
“What are you doing?” she exclaimed with her last sane breath.
“Guess,” he ground out against her warm mouth.
She felt fabric give and fastenings snap open. She was trying gamely to marshal her reason. Someone might walk in the door. Rory might come home. The house might be bugged….
Stars exploded behind her closed eyelids as she felt him impale her. Her eyes opened wide and looked straight up into his. She gasped at the deep, fierce movement of his hips. He was watching her face. His eyes were narrow, blazing with desire. His hands were under her back, holding her, while his body moved in and took full possession of her.
She didn’t have enough breath to question what was happening. She was incandescent with pleasure. Her legs opened wider to admit him. Her hips lifted in a shivering arch to meet with his.
It had been so long since he’d touched her with intent. She ached for him. Her face mirrored her rapt delight, her body followed every quick, sharp movement. She was climbing up into the sky. Her body was ablaze with life, with pleasure.
“I must be…out of my mind!” he bit off, and then he groaned as pleasure sliced into him like a knife. “Oh…God… Tippy! I need you…!”
“I need you, too,” she gasped. “So much, Cash, so much, so much!”
“Show me, baby,” he breathed, brushing her mouth with his as the movement of his body became insistent, urgent, desperate. “Show me.”
Her hands fumbled with the buttons of his shirt. When she had it open, over a mat of thick black hair and warm muscle, she jerked up her own blouse and bra and lifted to rub her breasts against his chest.
He groaned harshly. His eyes bit into hers as he drove for fulfillment blindly. The rasp of his breath mingled with the sharp little moans pulsing out of her tight throat.
“Oh…please,” she ground out, shivering now with every quick motion of his hips. “Please, please…!”
His eyes closed as he went still above her for a second and then drove downward with the last of his strength. He sailed off over a precipice, gasped, and began to shudder rhythmically as he moaned hoarsely at her ear.
She was pulsing with him, drowning in the silky pleasure that washed over her like a throbbing wave of heat. She was making high-pitched little noises, her nails biting wildly into his back as she surrendered completely to his possession.
“I can feel you,” she sobbed. “I can feel you, inside me…”
He groaned again as the words enhanced his pleasure. “You’re part of me,” he breathed. “And I’m part of you. You’re so soft, baby. Soft and warm, like a cocoon around me. It’s never been like this.”
“Not for me, either,” she whispered back, clinging to him in the silky aftermath. “Not even our first time together.”
It occurred to him suddenly that he was the only man she’d really had. Her only early experience of sex had been terrifying, painful. But she loved being with him. He could hear it in her soft voice. He could feel it in her exquisite body.
“What are you thinking?” she asked, shivering.
“Don’t you know?” he teased.
“I can’t…think.”
“That’s reassuring,” he whispered with a wicked laugh. He lifted his head and looked into her misty eyes. “I was thinking that I’m the only lover you’ve ever had.”
She hesitated. Her face was troubled.
“Rape doesn’t count,” he reminded her, and his eyes were loving.
“It doesn’t?” she asked curiously. “Honestly?”
He nibbled her upper lip. “It’s like grand theft, what Stanton did to you. But it wasn’t sexual, not to him. Men who rape women are after control, not pleasure.” He kissed her again. “Why don’t you know that?”
“There was one man I dated, years ago,” she began. “He thought it made me dirty. He said he couldn’t have touched me after that.”
“It wouldn’t matter to me if you’d had half a dozen men, as long as I’m the last one,” he mused gently. “Didn’t you know?”
That was when she knew he felt something more than desire for her. His eyes were dark and warm with feeling, with tenderness. She reached up and caressed his cheek, his mouth, with possessive fingers.
“I adore you,” she whispered huskily.
He caught her fingers and kissed them. “Same here.” He lifted his head and looked down at her. His eyebrows arched. “I can’t believe I did this.”
She smiled mischievously. “I can.”
He laughed as he got to his feet and pulled her up with him, slowly replacing clothing, fastening openings, in a silence rapt with delight and amusement.
“At least nobody decided to pay us a visit,” she murmured, looking at the ruins of lunch on the table. Her hair felt odd. She reached behind her head and came back with mashed potatoes and a green bean.
“Oh, dear,” she said.
Cash roared. “You look delicious, darling,” he told her. He wiggled his eyebrows. “If you’d like to roll around in some more of those potatoes, I can lick them off for you,” he suggested.
She hit him. “You stop that. This is no way to begin a marriage.”
“Sure it is,” he said. “Food is the foundation of many a relationship. You do look good in mashed potatoes and green beans.”
“Keep it up, and I’ll decorate you in coffee grounds,” she teased.
He laughed, bending to kiss her warmly. “I didn’t use anything,” he said quietly, sobering.
She smiled lazily. “I know. It doesn’t matter.”
His eyes brightened and he smiled back.
“When and where are we getting married?” she wanted to know.
“Day after tomorrow at the county courthouse. Judd and Crissy are going to be our witnesses.”
“That’s nice of them,” she said with genuine appreciation.
“It is, isn’t it?” He filled his eyes with her. “This is going to be the longest two days of my life.” He meant it, too.
THEY WERE MARRIED EARLY in the morning. Tippy wore her green silk pantsuit and carried a bouquet of yellow roses. Cash wore a suit. Judd, Crissy and Rory stood with them as witnesses, and the probate judge grinned as she pronounced them man and wife.
Rory hugged them both, fighting tears. “This is the best day of my life,” he told them.
“It’s one of my best ones, too,” Cash said, and for once he didn’t get cold feet about commitment. He was thanking his lucky stars that Tippy was his, at last. She looked as if she felt exactly the same. But she was worried about something. He could tell.
Later, he asked her, after they had lunch with the Dunns and Rory at a local restaurant.
“I don’t know,” she told him honestly. “But it’s some thing bad. I’m sorry,” she added quickly. “I didn’t want to spoil our wedding day.”
“You haven’t. I’m getting used to these feelings of yours,” he had to admit. “But tonight, Rory’s staying with Judd and Crissy, and you and I are going to have the sort of wedding night people dream about. Bad feelings or not.”
She smiled tenderly. “I can’t wait!” she whispered.
He chuckled. “That makes two of us.”
IT WAS A LONG AND PASSIONATE night. Cash had incredible stamina. She’d never even read about some of the pleasures he introduced her to during the long night.
“Where did you learn that?” she exclaimed, gasping as she lay under him, with one of his long, powerful legs curled in between both of hers while he possessed her.
“Arnie,” he murmured, one lean hand going to her thigh to position her again.
Her eyes widened. “Arnie?!”
He laughed. His mouth went to her throat and pressed into it, hot and ardent, his tongue touching the hollow where her pulse was visible. “Arnie was my buddy in boot camp. He knew more about women than a producer of X-rated movies,” he murmured. “He had books, he had videotapes, he had magazines…everything necessary to make an expert of a novice.”
“Yes, but practice…makes perfect,” she gasped.
“Mmm-hmm,” he murmured wickedly, nipping her shoulder with his teeth. “But good sex is a thing of the mind and heart as well as the body. With someone you barely know, it’s a minor amusement.”
“And with me?” she prodded.
He lifted his head and looked down into her eyes. “With you, it’s almost sacred,” he whispered.
Her lips parted and tears filled her eyes.
“Don’t do that,” he said, kissing the wetness away.
“I can’t help it. That’s how I feel, too, when I’m with you.” She kissed his chest hungrily. “Every time is the first time. I ache just looking at you.”
His mouth slid up to caress her lower lip. He nibbled it with his teeth while his body moved into a new, slower rhythm. His breath was coming fast and hard, like her own. He lifted his head and looked into her eyes, his teeth clenching with every powerful movement of his body against her.
Her nails bit into his upper arms, contracting with every stab of pleasure. She moaned huskily, moving under him convulsively.
“Yes,” he whispered gruffly. “That’s it. Do that again. Move with me.”
“You like it?” she breathed.
“I love it,” he growled. “You’re magic. You burn me up inside. I love the way it feels when I have you.”
She smiled and arched under him, enticing him, and her hands moved slowly, shyly, down below his waist. She searched his eyes, hesitating.
“Go ahead,” he coaxed. “Do anything you like.”
“You don’t mind?”
He laughed through his need. “No, I don’t mind,” he chuckled. “Come on, chicken. Touch me.”
She did, hesitantly, flushing. He chuckled and reached down to curl her fingers around him. “Like this,” he whispered, and he taught her with a patience that quickly became urgent. “Here,” he ground out, shivering. “Here…yes!”
She looked up at him, fascinated by the anguished look on his face as he suddenly brushed her hand aside and riveted her to the bed under the sudden, ferocious thrust of his body against hers.
“I’m…sorry,” he bit off, gasping. “I can’t hold it…!”
“Love me,” she breathed, reaching up to his hips, tugging them down. “Do it hard,” she gasped. “Hard, hard…fill me up…!”
He lost control. The ferocious, crushing movements of his hips quickly brought him to the verge of a shattering climax. He could feel her eyes on him as he began the sharp climb to fulfillment. It enhanced the pleasure, made it wilder and more exquisite than anything he’d ever known.
She sensed his pleasure. Her legs opened wider, her hips arched rhythmically, frantically, matching him, her nails biting into his buttocks as she coaxed him even deeper.
“Let me watch you climax,” she whispered boldly. “Let me watch, Cash!”
He actually cried out. The powerful muscles in his chest and neck tautened like cords as he convulsed abruptly and whipped helplessly over her.
The fierce crush of his hips, the furious swelling of his body inside hers, brought the most incredible burst of pleasure she’d ever known. His face blurred in her vision as she sobbed in the anguish of climax. Her own body convulsed, too, matching the helpless thrashing motion of his own. For a split second, they were two souls inhabiting one body.
They collapsed together, pulsing with satisfaction, shivering in each other’s arms.
“Now I feel married,” she managed huskily.
“Yes,” he said unsteadily. He kissed her eyes closed. “Now, so do I.”
FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS, life was beautiful. Cash and Tippy grew closer than ever. Rory watched them holding hands with a mischievous smile. He was part of a family. He had a place in the world. He’d never been so happy.
Tippy felt the same, but the nagging worry at the back of her mind hadn’t really abated. She knew something was going to happen, something unpleasant. And it worried her, although she tried not to let Cash see it.
On Friday she was on pins and needles waiting for Rory to come back from the shopping mall in Houston where he’d gone with a new friend’s family. She was equally worried about Cash, on the job. She only wanted to know what was wrong. But her vague feelings of unease gave her no clue.
The phone call came a few hours before Cash was due home. Tippy picked up the receiver hastily and heard a vaguely familiar voice.
“It’s Sergeant William James from the Ashton, Georgia, police department,” he said, jogging her memory.
“Yes, I remember you!” she exclaimed, because he was the officer who’d lived next door to her mother years ago. He’d saved her the night Sam Stanton had raped her. He was also the one who’d called her when Rory was just four years old and helped her get custody of him.
“I’ve got some news for you,” he said quietly. “I don’t know how to put it, exactly.”
“Something’s happened to my mother,” she said immediately. “I’ve been worried all day.”
He didn’t seem surprised. “You always had those premonitions when you were little,” he recalled.
“They’re more curse than blessing,” she replied. “Is it bad?”
“Yes. She’s had a heart attack. I don’t suppose you know that she’s been in rehab for about a month now,” he added surprisingly. “She’s been sober, for the first time since I’ve known her. She’s in bad shape, but she wants to see you before she dies.”
Tippy was shocked. “Is she going to die?” she wanted to know.
“I think so,” he said.
“She hasn’t been much of a mother, even when she was sober.”
“She’s still your blood,” he reminded her.
“Yes.” She hesitated, but only for a minute. “I’ll bring Rory and come home,” she said quietly.
“I know what happened to you in New York,” he added. “It isn’t safe for you to come here alone. You need someone along to watch your back. I can come out there and fly back with you both.”
She smiled. “Thanks,” she said. “But I think I can get Cash to come with us.”
There was a hesitation. “Cash Grier?”
She gasped. “You know him?”
“I know of him,” he corrected. “He phoned here a little while back, to check on your mother and ask us to keep an eye on her in case the kidnappers showed up, if they made bail. She was arrested on conspiracy charges, you know. She made bail and got out of jail pretty quick. Maybe she was afraid of going to prison with Stanton for the kidnapping stunt, or maybe years of drug and alcohol abuse just played havoc with her health. Either way, she’s not going to last long.”
“I’ll talk to Cash and phone you back. What’s your number?”
He gave it to her. She thanked him for breaking it to her so kindly, and hung up. Then she buried her face in her hands and cried, for the childhood she’d never had, for the mother who’d never wanted or loved her. She still had to tell Rory. But she was sure he felt no more for the cruel woman than Tippy herself did. Was she crazy to go home and give her mother another free shot at her?
In the past year, she’d had no one to comfort her during painful times. It hadn’t felt right to worry Rory with things he couldn’t understand. There had been no one else. But now, she had someone.
She picked up the phone and called the police station. When she asked for Cash, he was on the line in seconds.
“What’s wrong?” he asked at once.
She laughed huskily, even through her misery. “Why does something have to be wrong?”
“You never call me at work.”
“Now you’re psychic,” she mused.
“It rubs off. Come on. Spill it.”
She took a deep breath. “My mother’s dying. She wants to see Rory and me.”
He hesitated. “Have you told Rory?”
“No. He hasn’t come home from Houston yet. I’d…like it, if you were here when I do.”
He felt a foot taller. “Okay.”
She laughed a little breathlessly. “Just like that?”
“I’m sort of the head of the household,” he pointed out. “Even if I’m not quite as good with an iron skillet as you are,” he added.
She looked at the rings on her finger and felt warm all over, protected, cherished. “I like that.”
“Me, too. I’ll be right home.”
“You won’t get in trouble?” she asked, because she knew he was still having some problems at work, despite the change of administration.
“Not now,” he promised. “I’ve got friends in high places, if I need them. But things are going well.”
“You were having trouble with that Merrill woman,” she began.
“That particular problem has become Houston’s,” he said smugly. “It’s now officially out of my hands.”
“Thank goodness,” she said without thinking.
“Oh, so you worry about me, do you?” he asked, with a deep, soft note in his voice.
“Always,” she confessed. She wiped away the last of the wetness from her cheek. “I wish my mother had been like yours,” she said involuntarily.
“What’s that old saying, baby? If wishes were horses, beggars could ride?”
She smiled. “I like it when you call me ‘baby.’”
“Female sexist pig,” he accused. “You aren’t supposed to like it.”
“I do anyway. What do you want for supper?”
“I’m cooking,” he said flatly. “You go sit down and watch television or something. You’ve had a blow. You have to have time to get over it. Whatever her faults, and I’ll agree that they were large, she’s still your mother.”
“I was just thinking that,” she told him.
“And crying.”
“How did you know?” she asked.
“I told you. It rubs off. I’ll be home as soon as I delegate a few tasks. You’ll want to fly to Georgia tonight, right?”
“Yes. I have a friend there…”
“Sergeant William James,” he interrupted.
“He said you phoned him.”
“I did. He sounds like a good guy.”
“He offered to come out and fly back with Rory and me, for protection.”
“I’ll do that.”
“That’s what I told him.”
“I’ll get tickets.”
She let out a long sigh. “Thanks, Cash.”
“It’s no big deal. I’ll see you soon.”
“Okay.”
RORY CAME HOME JUST MINUTES before Cash. He noticed that Tippy was unusually quiet, but he didn’t ask questions. When Cash came home looking equally solemn, Rory had a good idea what was wrong.
“It’s our mother, isn’t it?” he asked Tippy while they were eating supper, which Cash had whipped together.
“Yes,” Cash said. “She’s had a heart attack and they don’t think she’s going to live. She wants to see you and Tippy.”
“She’s going to die?” Rory asked.
He nodded.
Rory looked at his sister and reached over to grasp her slender hand affectionately. “I don’t remember any good things about her.”
“Neither do I,” Tippy replied.
“We have each other,” Rory reminded her.
“And me,” Cash added, sipping coffee.
Rory smiled at him. “And you.”
Tippy smiled, too, through tears.
Cash pushed back his chair, tugged her out of hers, and held her across his lap while she cried, her cheek pillowed on his hard chest.
Rory eased himself under Cash’s free arm, and he cried, too.
“It’s silly to cry for a woman who treated us like dirt,” Tippy said huskily, wiping her tears away with the back of her hand.
“Family is still family. We don’t get to choose who our parents are,” Cash said philosophically.
“Tippy said you had a nice mother,” Rory told Cash as he fought his own tears.
“She was wonderful,” Cash agreed. “My father was, too, before he fell in love with a cheap gold digger and broke up our family. He and my brothers were all taken in by her. I was sent off to military school because I didn’t follow suit.” He had a faraway look in his dark eyes. “It’s been years since I saw my father.”
“And your brothers, too, right? All except for Garon?” Tippy asked, recalling an earlier conversation about the estrangement.
“That’s right. When Garon came by for a visit last autumn, he said he was looking at real estate out in the county, but I think it was just an excuse to see me.”
“Is Garon like you?” Rory asked.
“He’s the oldest,” Cash said. “And more hot-tempered than I am. He lives in San Antonio. The other two still live at home with Dad in West Texas.”
“Are any of them in law enforcement?” Tippy wondered.
“Two of them are. Garon works for the FBI,” he said.
“No girls in your family?” Rory asked.
“Not for four generations,” Cash said. “That’s why I had such a fit over Judd and Crissy’s little girl.”
It was a reminder that he’d been crazy about Christabel. Tippy was sure that a small part of him still was. But she was wearing his rings, and he considered her part of his life. She looked up with quiet trust, and she smiled tenderly.
He smiled back, tracing her pretty nose with his fore finger. “You even look pretty when you cry,” he said and bent to kiss away the tears. “Now, get up and finish your supper. You, too, Rory. We’ve got plans to make.”
They went back to their respective places, feeling better already. By the end of the meal, the tears were dried.