CHAPTER 3
After the family accepted the shock of Casey’s news, there was one more person Casey needed to see. While Ryder was prowling through the garage and the cars that were to be under his control, she slipped into the kitchen in search of Matilda Bass. The need to lay her head on Tilly’s shoulder was overwhelming. She hoped when she did, that she would manage not to cry.
And Tilly wasn’t all that hard to find.
“Come here to me, girl,” Tilly said, and opened her arms. Casey walked into them without hesitation. “You didn’t come drink champagne with me.”
Tilly ignored the rebuke. She had her own idea of her place in this world and in spite of the money the Rubans had, she wouldn’t have traded places with them for any of it. She had more self-esteem than to socialize with people who chose to look down on her because she cooked the food that they ate.
“Well now, what have you gone and done?” Tilly asked. Her sympathy was almost Casey’s undoing. “Saved us all, I hope,” Casey replied.
Tilly frowned. She’d already heard through the family grapevine what a burden the old man Ruban had heaped on her baby’s head.
“If you ask me, that old man needed his head examined,” Tilly mumbled, stroking her hand gently up and down the middle of Casey’s back.
Casey sighed. “Well, it’s over and done with,” she said.
Tilly stepped back, her dark eyes boring into Casey’s gaze. “Nothing is ever over and done with, girl. Not while people draw breath. You be careful. I don’t know why, but I don’t like the feel of all this.”
Casey managed a laugh. “Don’t go all witchy on me, now. You know what Joshie says about you messin’ with that kind of stuff.”
Tilly sniffed. The reference to her mother’s and grandmother’s predilection for voodoo did not apply to her. “I do not indulge myself in the black arts and you know it,” Tilly huffed.
Casey grinned and then gave Tilly a last, quick hug. “I know. I was only teasing.” Then her laughter faded. “Say a prayer for me, Mammo.”
Casey hadn’t used that childhood name in years. It brought quick tears to Tilly’s eyes, and because it was an emotion in which she rarely indulged, she was all the more brusque with her answer. “Knowing you, I’d better say two,” she said, and gave Casey a swift swat on the rear. “Now you run on along. I’ve got dinner to fix before Joshua and I go on home.”
Casey paused on her way out the door. “Tilly?”
“What, baby girl?”
“Have you ever regretted staying on here as cook? You and Joshua are so smart, you could have done a lot of other things besides wait on a small, selfish family.”
Tilly turned, and the serious tone of her voice was proof of her sincerity. “Maybe I could have, but not my Josh. You’ve got to remember, he only hears good in one ear. That handicap lost him a whole lot of jobs early on in our marriage. By the time we landed here with your grandfather, he was glad to have the work. And Mr. Ruban was more than fair. Our pay is good. We have health insurance, something a lot of our friends do not. And, because your grandfather did not like change in his household, the incentive he gave us to stay on was to set up trusts for our retirement. Actually, we’re better off than some other members of our family who have college degrees.” And then she smiled. “Besides, I like to cook, and who else would have raised my baby if Josh and I hadn’t been here?”
This time, Casey didn’t bother to hide her tears. She wrapped her arms around Tilly’s neck. “I love you, Mammo.”
“I love you, too, girl. Now run on home. You’ve got yourself a man to tend.”
Startled, Casey did as she was told, and after that, the day went surprisingly well.
Although Miles and Erica no longer had any hopes of attaining control of the Ruban fortune, their circumstances were still the same. Before, they had come and gone as they pleased, spent and slept at Delaney Ruban’s expense. For them, nothing had changed.
As for Eudora, she’d sacrificed much for her dead daughter’s children. Years ago she’d given up a suitor who could have made her golden years something to remember. She’d left her home on Long Island and came to Mississippi with the best of intentions. She refused to consider that she’d contributed to the ruination of her eldest grandchildren by coercing Delaney to leave their upbringing in her care when he’d begun to focus his attention on Casey.
She hadn’t meant to make them so dependent on others, but it had happened anyway. And now that their life-styles were pretty much set in stone, she felt it her moral obligation to see that their comfort level stayed the same.
Yet when it came to sacrifices, it was Casey who’d sacrificed the most. Whatever dreams she might have harbored with regard to her personal life were gone. She was married to a stranger, and for the next twelve months, had resigned herself to the fact.
At her demand, Ryder had been sent into Ruban Crossing with a handful of money and orders as to what to buy, while she went in to the office. There was a merger pending and an entire factory of workers in Jackson, Mississippi who were waiting to learn if they still had their jobs. She didn’t want another day to pass without assuring them. In fact, everything was running so smoothly it should have been the warning Casey needed, because when the sun went down, tempers began to rise.
* * *
Casey climbed the stairs leading to the garage apartment and tried not to think of her spacious bedroom across the courtyard; of her sunken bathtub and the cool, marble floor, or of her queen-size bed and the down-filled pillows of which she was so fond. Her stomach growled and she wondered what feast Tilly was concocting across the way for the evening meal. At this point, she began to consider the benefits she was losing by having to live under Ryder Justice’s roof. Who would cook? Where did she put her dirty clothes?
Caution forbade her to use any of the services available across the way. From the expression on Lash Marlow’s face when he’d left the house this morning, she knew his anger would not easily disappear. It would be just like him to try and catch her cheating on the terms of the will.
Oh, well, she thought. I can always order takeout and take my clothes to the cleaners.
She took out her key to open the door then found it already unlocked. Her pulse skipped a beat. That meant he was home. Quietly, so as not to alert the “tiger” who lurked within, she shut the door behind her and then stood, absorbing the sight of what was to be her home for the next twelve months.
The entire apartment consisted of three small rooms, the accumulation of which were still not the size of her bedroom inside the mansion. But it was clean, and blessedly quiet. For today, it was enough.
Just when she was beginning to relax, she noticed a man’s shirt draped over an easy chair and a pair of dusty, black boots on the floor nearby. Reality set in.
Never one to put off what had to be done, she reminded herself that the sooner the confrontation began, the sooner it would be over. She sat her briefcase by the door and looked toward the bedroom. Since he wasn’t in here, he had to be in there.
She walked inside. Several pairs of blue jeans lay on the bed, along with a half dozen white long-sleeved shirts, a new sport coat and a broad-brimmed black Stetson. A pile of her best lingerie was on the floor next to the dresser. She frowned, wondering why her things were on the floor.
She stared at the clothes. Where were the uniforms she’d told him to get? She’d given him the address of the place where they’d rented them before. Ruban Crossing was a fair-size city, but he’d had all afternoon to find one simple address.
She opened the closet. It was full of her clothing and nothing else. She looked back at the bed. That explained why he hadn’t hung his up. Obviously, there was no place left for them to hang.
She turned around, eyeing the small room with distaste, then shrugged. Tomorrow, she’d go through her things and have Bea take part of them back to the main house. It was the least she could do.
A door creaked behind her. She spun and then froze. Ryder had obviously just had a bath. Steam enveloped him as he stepped out of the doorway and into the room with her, giving him the appearance of emerging from a cloud. His hair was spiky and still dripping water as he began to towel it dry.
Her thoughts tangled. Most men would appear smaller without benefit of clothing. But not him. He enveloped the space in which he moved, almost as if he took it with him as he went.
Casey frowned again, biting at the inside of her lip and wondering why she hadn’t had the foresight to wait outside. How would she ever get past the memory of this much man covered with such a small, insignificant towel?
“Sorry,” Ryder said, and gave his hair a last, halfhearted rub before tossing the wet towel back into the bathroom floor. “Didn’t know you were here.”
Casey tilted her chin, determined he not know how shaken she was.
“Obviously,” she said shortly, and then pointed toward the clothes on the bed. “I gave you money to get uniforms, not all this.”
Ryder’s eyes narrowed, and Casey knew the moment the words were out of her mouth that she’d ticked him off. He walked to a bedside table and withdrew a handful of money, then stuffed it in her hand.
“What’s this?” Casey asked.
“Your money.”
“But how did you pay for all this?”
He didn’t answer, and she glared. But when he spun and started toward her, she took an instinctive step backward. When he bypassed her for the dresser beyond, she caught herself breathing a small sigh of relief. Determined to get to the bottom of his behavior, she struck again, only this time with more venom.
“I asked you a question,” she snapped.
Her relief was short-lived. When he turned, the anger on his face almost stopped her heart.
“Don’t go there,” he said quietly..
“Go where? I don’t know what you mean.”
“There’s one thing we’d better get straight right now. I don’t take orders from you, and I don’t take your money. I pay my own way.”
She couldn’t imagine how he’d obtained the clothes. For all she knew he might have stolen the stuff. She would have been shocked to know he had a gold credit card with an unlimited line. And, if she’d known, would have been even more surprised to learn he hadn’t used it in months.
“But the uniforms… why didn’t you do as you were told?”
As far as Ryder was concerned, what was in his past was none of her business. Suddenly-he was right in front of her. His breath was hot, his words angry.
“Because you’re not my boss, you’re my wife. I gave you my name, and I’ll drive you and yours anywhere they please for the next twelve months, but I’m not wearing a damned monkey suit to do it.”
Casey’s mouth dropped. Never in her entire life had anyone had the gall to defy her in such a manner. Before she could think of a comeback, he turned away, opened the top drawer of the dresser, withdrew a brand-new pair of white cotton briefs and dropped his towel.
She bolted, taking with her the image of a long-limbed body that was hard and fit and brown all over.
A few minutes later he emerged from the bedroom in his bare feet, wearing an old and faded pair of jeans and no shirt. The casual are-you-still-here glance he gave her made her furious.
Disgusted with herself for not standing her ground, she watched from across the room as he sauntered into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. When he bent down to look inside, the urge to hit him was so strong it startled her. She was not the type of woman to resort to violence. Then she rescinded her own opinion of herself. At least she hadn’t been. But that was before she’d driven into the flatlands and brought out a husband.
He set a package of raw hamburger meat on the counter then went back to the refrigerator. She didn’t know what angered her most, the fact that he was being deliberately mutinous, or that she was being ignored.
Smoothing her hands down the front of her blue summer suit, she tossed back her hair and slipped into the sarcastic mode she used to keep Miles and Erica at bay.
“Are you finished?” she drawled, wanting the bathroom all to herself.
Ryder straightened, looking at her from across the open refrigerator door. He stared at her, from the top of her hair to the open toes of her sling-back pumps. A slight grin tilted the corner of his mouth as he stepped back and closed the door.
His thoughts went to the year stretching out before them, considering which one of them would be the first to break. “Finished?” he muttered. “We haven’t even started.”
With that, he moved toward her.
Panic came swiftly and Casey wondered if the family would. be able to hear her scream from here. She held up her hand in a warning gesture.
“Don’t you dare!” she said, and winced at the squeak in her voice.
She was scared! The fact surprised him. She’d walked into a bar with a roomful of strange men and offered herself up as a golden goat without batting an eye. She’d roused a doctor, a county clerk and a judge out of bed to do her bidding. She’d stared down a roomful of antagonistic relatives and kept a lawyer out of her pants who seemed to have had his own hidden agenda, and she was suddenly scared? And of him? It didn’t make sense. He hadn’t done anything to warrant this. Yet when he might have eased her fears, he found himself letting them grow.
When he got within inches of her stark, white face, he realized why. This woman, who was his wife, was damned pretty. In fact, if a man didn’t get picky about that little bitty mole at the left corner of her lips, she was beautiful.
Sexually, he was a starving man and this woman was legally his wife. Although he’d cut himself off from everyone he cared for, he’d been unable to cut off the emotions of a normal, red-blooded man. Keeping her slightly afraid was a safe way of keeping her at arms’ length. Yet when her eyes widened fearfully and her color rose, he relented.
“Easy,” he said. “All I need to know is how you like it and do you want more than one?”
She would have sworn that her heart shot straight up her throat and she had to swallow several times to work up enough spit to be able to speak. More than one? Oh my God! “I don’t think you understand the situation here,” she stuttered.
“What? Don’t tell me you don’t eat metal”
Her face flushed as she thought of his lean, bare body. “Eat? Meat?”
“Do you like it hot and red, slightly pink, or hard as a rock?”
Her eyes widened even more and her voice began to quiver. “I don’t do things like that,” she whispered, and put her hand to her throat, unconsciously stifling that scream she’d been considering.
He frowned. Things like what? All he needed to know was if she wanted… And then it dawned on him what interpretation she’d put on their conversation. He stifled a grin and pointed back to the counter.
“Are you telling me you don’t do hamburgers?”
“Hamburgers?”
He went straight past her and out a small side door onto the attached deck above the driveway, opened the lid to a smoking barbecue grill, checked the coals, then let the lid drop back down with a clank.
“The charcoal is ready.” He headed back toward the kitchen, pausing at the package of hamburger. “One last chance. Do you want one hamburger or two, and how do you want it cooked?”
There was a silly grin on her face as she slumped to the floor in a dead faint.
* * *
Ryder sat in the room’s only chair, watching as Casey began to regain consciousness. The sofa he’d laid her on was a small, two-cushion affair, and he’d been forced to make the decision as to whether her head would be down and her feet up, or vice versa.
He’d opted to lay her head on the cushions and let her legs dangle. No sooner had he done so than one of her legs slipped from the arm of the sofa and onto the floor, leaving her in an indelicate, spread-eagled faint.
Ryder stifled a grin. Waking in such a compromising position would embarrass anyone. For Casey, a woman obviously used to nothing but the best, it would be the height of humiliation. In a considerate move, he removed her shoes, then lifted her leg back in alignment with the other. But when it slipped off again, he decided to leave it, and her, alone.
As he watched, he couldn’t help but stare at the woman who was now his wife. He was still a little shocked at himself for going along with such a hare-brained scheme. The Justice men were not impulsive. They had always considered the consequences and then lived with their decisions without regrets. Until now. While it was too late to consider anything, it remained to be seen if there would be regrets.
He kept looking at her, separating her features in his mind. It wasn’t just that she was pretty, though he couldn’t keep his eyes off her thick black hair and those big green eyes. And her skin—it looked like silk, ivory silk.
And Ryder remembered that when she smiled, her mouth had a tendency to curl at one corner first before the other decided to follow. It gave her an impish expression, which he knew was deceiving. If this woman had an ounce of playfulness in her, he hadn’t seen it. The devil maybe, but nothing so frivolous as an imp.
While he was watching, she blinked. And when she groaned and reached for the back of her head, he grimaced. It had been thumped pretty good when she’d fainted. He felt bad about that. She might be touchy as hell, and they might not agree on anything, but he didn’t want her hurt.
Casey opened her eyes. The ceiling didn’t look familiar, and for a moment, she wondered where she was. A whiff of charcoal smoke drifted past her nose and, all too swiftly, her memory returned.
Seconds later, she became aware of the implications of her less than ladylike sprawl. What had that man done to her while she’d been unconscious? Better yet, where was he?
She turned her head and caught him staring at her from a chair on the other side of the coffee table. When he grinned and winked, she swiveled to an upright position, grabbing at her skirt and smoothing at her hair. When she could think without the room spinning beneath her, she glared at him.
“What did you do to me?”
He arched an eyebrow. “Not nearly as much as I wanted,” he replied, and knew he’d scored a hit when she doubled up her fists. He stifled a laugh. “Easy, now. I was just kidding. I’ve been the picture of decorum. I picked you up from the floor, laid you on the sofa, and have been waiting for you to come to.”
Her southern manners forced her to thank him. “I appreciate your consideration.”
His grin widened. “Honesty won’t permit me to accept your compliment. I have to admit it was hunger that kept me waiting for you. I was taught that it’s bad manners to eat in front of people without offering them some, too. And, you never did answer my question. How do you want your hamburger?”
If she’d had a shoe, she would have thrown it. As it was, she had to satisfy herself with a regal, albeit shaky, exit from the room, slamming the door shut between them with a solid thud.
“Does that mean you don’t want one?” Ryder yelled.
She yanked the door open long enough to give him what was left of her mind.
“You’re a swine. A gentleman would have covered my legs and bathed my head with a cold compress.”
“If you wanted a gentleman, you shouldn’t have gone shopping for a husband down in the Delta.”
She glared and slammed the door again, this time louder and firmer.
“I suppose this means no to the hamburgers?”
The door opened again, but the only thing to come out was the sound of Casey’s voice at its most dignified. The shriek in her tone was gone and she was enunciating each word, as if speaking to someone lacking in mental capacity.
“No, it does not. I will have a hamburger, well-done, light on the salt, heavy on the pepper.”
This time when she closed the door, it was with a ladylike click. The glitter in Ryder’s eyes was sharp, the grin on his face sardonic.
“So you like it hot, do you, wife? That’s interesting. Very interesting indeed.”
He reentered the tiny kitchen and began making patties from the hamburger meat before carrying them out to the grill. As he slapped them on the grate, smoke began to rise and the fire began to pop and sizzle as fat dripped onto the burning charcoal.
Oddly, it reminded him of Casey in the midst of her family, putting up a smoke screen to keep them from knowing how scared she was, and popping wisecracks and issuing orders before anyone could tell her what to do.
He closed the lid and sighed. He had married a total stranger for the hell of it, but he hadn’t counted on the family that came with her. In fact, they reminded him of snakes, writhing and coiling and biting out at each other in some crazy sort of frenzy.
He thought of his own family, of how loud and rambunctious-of how close and loving they’d been—of how empty and scattered they now were. And how the world as he’d known it had ended because of something he’d done.
He went back inside, leaving the hamburgers and his memories behind.
* * *
“Want another one?” Ryder asked, indicating the two remaining well-done patties congealing in their own grease on a pea green plate.
Casey eyed the plate. Besides being an atrocious shade of green, the plate was chipped. She’d never eaten from a chipped plate before. She suspected this night was the beginning of many firsts. Dabbing at the corner of her mouth with a paper towel, she shook her head.
“No, thank you, I’m quite full.” Grudgingly she added, “It was very good.”
Ryder nodded and continued to stare at a ketchup stain near his fork. What now? Conversation with this woman had been nearly impossible. Every time he opened his mouth to speak, she jumped. And she watched his every move with those big green eyes, as if she expected to be pounced upon at any moment. Hell, she was beginning to make him antsy, too.
He glanced at his watch. “It’s almost nine.”
She paled.
He sighed.
“Easy now, lady.”
“Casey,” she said. “My name is Casey.”
His expression darkened. “Yes, and my name is Ryder. Unfortunately, that’s all we know about each other.” When she looked away, his frustration rose.
“Casey, look at me.”
She did, but with trepidation.
“There’s something I think needs to be said. This is going to be a long haul for both of us. I suppose we each had an agenda for even considering this situation, but it’s done, and for your sake, it has to work, right?”
She thought of Miles and Erica, and then of Lash. “Yes.”
“Okay, then there’s something I think you should know about me.”
Her head jerked up and she was suddenly staring at him in a still, waiting manner. Oh dear, what was he about to reveal?
Again, he sensed her fear. “Dammit, don’t look at me like that. I am not a dangerous man. I do not taunt women. I do not hurt women. I do not force women to do anything they do not want, and that includes the issue of sex.”
Startled by his bluntness, Casey blushed. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” she said.
“I’m listening.”
“There won’t be any.”
Her announcement came as no surprise, but Ryder was unprepared for the sense of disappointment he felt. He chalked it up to several months of denial and let it go at that.
He shrugged. “I will abide by whatever rules you feel comfortable in setting, but I have a couple of my own. I am not your servant. I don’t take orders… but I will listen to suggestions.”
He watched her swallow a couple of times, but she remained silent.
“Well, do you have any?”
Casey blinked. “Any what?”
“Suggestions.”
“Uh…no, I don’t suppose so.”
“Okay, then that’s settled. Why don’t you start the dishes? I want to make sure the fire is out in the grill.”
He got up before he had time to see her panic again.
“Ryder?”
He turned.
She waved helplessly over the table and the dirty dishes. “I’ve never done dishes before.”
“You’ve never… !” Then he muttered beneath his breath.
“Good grief.”
“What’s wrong?”
“You’ve never done dishes.”
She hated him for that dumbfounded look he was wearing.
“That’s what I said. I also don’t do windows,” she snapped.
“And I don’t suppose you can cook, either.”
She had the grace to flush. “No.”
He groaned.
Casey was surprised at her feelings of inadequacy. She hired and fired with the best of them, bought and sold corporations without batting an eye. How dare he consider her lacking in capabilities?
“It’s not my fault,” she argued.
“Then whose is it?”
She had no answer.
“If you ask me, it’s high time you learned. Soap is under the sink, the dishcloth is in it. You’re a smart lady. Figure the rest out for yourself.”
“Where are you going?” Casey asked, as he started out the door.
“To put out a fire then take a shower.”
“But you already had a shower,” she said, remembering the steam… and the towel… and the bare-naked body.
“Yeah, so maybe I have more than one fire that needs quenching, okay?”
It took exactly five seconds for the implication of what he’d suggested to sink in, and another few for her to be able to move. After that, she was glad to have something to do besides think about what he’d said…and why he’d said it.
* * *
The air was thick and muggy from the lingering heat of the day. It was that time of the evening just before dusk and right after the sun has passed beyond the horizon. A family of martens swooped grass-high in daring flight then soared heavenward, constantly feeding on the mosquitos in the air.
Graystone, the home that had been in the Marlow family since before the War of Northern Aggression, loomed large upon the landscape. It was a three-story monolith which had seen better days. Its regal structure and the land upon which it sat was sadly in need of repair, yet at a distance, the charm of the pillared edifice was still imposing.
Lash reclined in an old wicker chair on the veranda of his family home, nursing his third bourbon and water and surveying all that was his. This was his favorite time of the day. It wasn’t because the workday was over and he was taking a well-earned rest It was because Graystone looked better at half-light.
He tossed. back the last of his drink, trying to pinpoint exactly where his plans for glory had gone wrong. The liquor burned and he silently cursed the fact that he could no longer afford the best. He was drinking cheap bourbon, living in the servant’s wing while the rest of the mansion was closed off, and down to doing for himself. He didn’t even have the funds to hire a housekeeper and made only enough at his law practice to keep the taxes paid on his home and himself afloat.
His belly growled. Without conscious thought, he pushed himself up from the chair and entered the house, taking care to lock the door behind him. Just for a moment, he stood in the great hall, staring up at the spiral staircase gracing the entryway, remembering another time when the house had been alive with laughter and people.
Something moved in the far corner of the hall. He winced as the sound of scurrying feet scratched on the marble flooring, then disappeared behind a breakfront. It wasn’t the first rodent of that size he’d seen inside these walls, but tonight, it would be one too many.
He started to shake, first with rage, then from despair. It was over! There would be no more dreams of bringing Graystone back to her former beauty, or of returning dignity to the Marlow name. And it was all because of Casey.
A red haze blurred his vision. He drew back and threw his glass toward the place where he’d last seen the rat. It shattered against the wall, splintering into minute crystal shards. Only afterward did he remember that it had been part of a set, but regret swiftly faded. What did it matter? His only guests wore long tails and came on four feet…in the dark…in the middle of the night.
Startled by the sound of breaking glass, the rat that had taken refuge behind the breakfront made a run down the hallway for the deeper shadows beyond. As it did, something inside of Lash snapped. He grabbed at his grandfather’s ivoryhandled walking stick that had been standing in the hall tree for more than forty years, and ran, catching the rat just as it neared safety. He swung down with deadly force and the sound shattered the silence within the old walls as well as what was left of Lash’s reason. Glass splintered on the wall behind him as he drew back the cane, but he didn’t notice.
Even after the rat was dead, Lash continued to hail it with a barrage of blows until gore began to splatter on his shoes and the cuffs of his pants.
But in his mind, the rat had been dispatched from the first blow he’d struck. He was oblivious to the overkill, or that he might have lost more than his control. He kept venting his rage on a woman who’d dashed his dreams. And it wasn’t the rodent who was coming apart on the cool marble floor. It was the beautiful and complacent surface of Casey Ruban’s face.
When he finally stopped, his body was shaking from exertion and the muscles in his arm were burning from the energy he’d spent. He stared in disbelief at what he’d done, then tossed the cane down on the floor, disgusted by its condition.
Weary in both body and spirit, he turned and then stared at the wall in disbelief. The mirror! The glass in the ornate, goldrimmed mirror that had hung in this hall for as long as he could remember, was shattered. His heart began to pound as he looked at the broken and refracted image of himself—a true reflection of his life.
He stepped back in horror and reached for the rabbit’s foot in the pocket of his pants. All he could think as he backed away was, Seven long years of bad luck.