What bothered him most about the incident was the lack of emotion he’d felt at the news.He loved her.At least he thought he had.Wasn’t a man supposed to cry at such a loss?
He closed his eyes, trying to imagine Casey dead, picturing the hordes of people that would come to her funeral, of the eulogy he would have delivered expounding her life.He saw her lying in the casket, beautiful even in death, and felt guilt that he was letting himself play so lightly with something as serious as her life.
He rolled over, taking the sheets with him as turned on his side, still haunted by the sight of her face.As he tried to sleep, his thoughts began to unfurl like jumbled up scenes in an unedited movie.
In one scene, she stared at him, cool and patient, and he realized that he was remembering the way she’d looked the day of the reading of the will.He tossed, rolling himself and the covers to the other side of the bed where Casey lay in wait for his arrival.There she stood again, her face a study in shock that slowly turned to a cold, white rage.He remembered that well.It was the way she’d looked when he’d announced the terms of Delaney Ruban’s will.
He groaned.He could have talked Delaney out of the foolishness.Oh God, if only I had.But it was too late.Lash had presumed too much and he knew it.Who could have known?The Casey he thought he knew would never have gone into the flatlands and come out married to some hitchhiker, to some stranger she found in a bar.
And therein lay part of Lash’s dilemma.He’d bet his life and the restoration of his family’s honor on a woman who had never existed outside the realm of his imagination.In other words, he’d bet the farm on a woman who didn’t exist.
“Casey.”
The sound of her name on his lips made him crazy.He rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling.If things had gone the way they should have, she would be here, right now, in bed beside him.He closed his eyes and saw her smile, imagined he could feel the touch of her hand on his face, the breath of her laughter against his neck.He reached out, tracing the shape of her body with his fingertips, watching her eyes as they grew heavy with passion.He grew hot, then hard and aching, and when there was no one around to take care of the need, he reached down and dealt with it on his own, calling her name aloud as his body betrayed him.
* * *
“More flowers for little sister,” Joshua announced, carrying another vase of cut flowers into the library and setting them on a table just out of the sunlight.
Casey smiled, more at the use of her childhood name than for the flowers he carried into the room.She started to get up when he waved her back.
“You stay where you’re put,” he ordered.“I’ll be bringin’ those cards to you.”
Casey laughed.“You sure are bossy today.”
Joshua lifted the card from the flowers and dropped it in her lap.
“No more than usual, I’d say.”
He straightened the edge of the blue afghan covering her legs then patted her knee as he’d done so often when she was a child.His dark eyes searched the marks on her face.Her lip was no longer swollen, but the bruises were spreading and the scratches had scabbed over.The sights deepened the frown on his brow.He couldn’t have cared for her more if she’d been born of his blood.
“You be needin’ anything, you just give me a ring, you hear?”
Casey reached out and caught his hand, pulling it to her cheek.
“Thank you, Joshie…for everything.”
He shook his head, embarrassed at emotion he couldn’t hide.“Don’t need to thank me for doing my job,” he muttered, and stalked out of the room as fast as his legs would take him.
Casey glanced at the card, then back at the flowers.These were from Libertine Delacroix and they were pulling double duty: get-well sympathies and congratulations on Casey’s recent wedding.She smiled.If Delaney were here he would be eating this up.Libertine was at the top of the county’s social echelon.She had a summer home in Ruban Crossing and the family home on the river outside of Jackson.
The doorbell rang at the same time that the telephone pealed.Aware that Joshua couldn’t be in two places at once, she picked up the phone.
“Ruban residence.”
“Casey?Is that you?”
It was Lash.At that moment, she wished with all her heart that she’d let the darned thing ring.
“Yes, it’s me.What can I do for you?”
She heard him clear his throat and could imagine the papers he would be shuffling as he gathered his thoughts.However, he surprised her with a quick retort.
“I heard about your accident and am so very glad that you’re all right.”
“Thank you.”
“Yes, well… I know this may be an inconvenient time, but I was wondering if I might come by.There are some papers you need to sign.”
