CASSI CAME TO WITH A GROAN that was immediately followed by a muttered curse under her breath when she realized she was handcuffed.
Her jaw hurt like hell. He’d punched her. She hadn’t seen that coming. Tommy wasn’t the kind of man who hit women. At least he hadn’t been. But her jaw ached like a son of a bitch so there was no denying what had happened.
She opened her eyes slowly and spared Tommy a short accusatory glance. “I can’t believe you hit me.”
“You were uncooperative.”
“Is it your habit now to hit women?” Given his childhood—she was one of a very small group who knew the details—it was a nasty question. His jaw tightened but she refused to feel bad. He’d punched her in the face. That wasn’t something she was going to forget anytime soon. There was also the fact that she was handcuffed like a common criminal to deal with, too. “I’d have thought that was one thing you’d never do. Seems I’m not the only who’s changed over the years.”
“I didn’t want to. You left me no choice,” he said.
“You had a choice. You could’ve let me go.” His silence told her how futile that argument was but she was more than angry with the man—her feelings were bruised that he’d purposefully hurt her. The Tommy in her memory would’ve beaten anyone to a pulp if they’d laid a hand on her. Now he was the one dealing out the punches. Her eyes stung. She wouldn’t cry in front of him. Instead she allowed a small smirk even though the action cost her as a sharp pain followed. She gingerly worked her jaw. The petty victory could only buoy her spirits for a brief moment but it was enough to keep the tears from surfacing. “You didn’t by any chance happen to grab a small, black leather date book on your way out, did you?”
“You aren’t going to need a date book where you’re going,” he answered and she scowled. “No, I didn’t grab anything but you from that hovel you called an apartment.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” she shot back, an odd pang of embarrassment for her living conditions getting the better of her. What did she care what he thought? “I’ve lived in worse.”
He glanced at her. “Worse? That’s a scary thought. I think I saw a cockroach big enough to cart away a small child.”
“That was Charlie. I feed him scraps. I was training him to be an attack roach. A few more veggie burgers and he’d have been better than a guard dog. I could’ve sicced him on you,” she said dully, feeling ill at the loss of her date book. In her mind, she replayed the scenario again and again, sickened that she’d been so careless with the one important item in her possession.
“So, what’s in this date book that’s so important?”
She swallowed the burn at the back of her throat. Two years of hard work…gone. Why hadn’t she hit him harder? Truth was, she’d pulled her punch a little. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him. Not really. Now…hell, she should’ve knocked his teeth out of his head. She worked her jaw but refused to wince even though the pain felt rooted in her bones. “I guess it doesn’t matter, does it?” she said, looking away so he didn’t read the despair in her eyes.
“No, I guess it doesn’t,” he returned, his gaze never leaving the road, the unfeeling bastard. But then, he cut her a quick glance, saying, “But just out of curiosity—”
She closed her eyes. “Just shut up, will you? Whatever’s in that date book is none of your damn business, so drop it.”
“Fine.”
She leaned against the headrest and struggled not to just let it all out and cry her fool head off. At one time she would’ve bet her life that Tommy would always have her back. The man was integrity personified. Yet, here she was feeling betrayed by the very same man. Cassi twisted so that she could look out the window instead of at the man who was destroying any chance of getting her life back and—ironically—finding justice for her mother.
WHY DID HE FEEL AS IF HE was the one doing something wrong here? Thomas tightened his hands on the steering wheel and wondered if he hadn’t made a mistake in driving. Suddenly, that five-hour ride didn’t seem like a good idea. And what had he expected? It was unlikely Cassi was going to ignore the handcuffs and chatter away like old times. He wasn’t an idiot, even though his actions might indicate otherwise. He’d known all this…but he couldn’t resist the possibility of seeing her again…maybe even helping her through this mess she’d made for herself.
And now he felt like an idiot for even entertaining such thoughts. She wasn’t a damsel in distress. The woman was a far cry from the girl he’d known so long ago. This woman was a criminal…with a nasty punch. His head was still ringing.
So knowing all this…why was he feeling bad for her? He cast a quick glance her way then looked away again. Was that remorse in her expression? Her face, tilted away from him was in profile as she leaned against the glass. A tendril of something long lost kindled to life and reminded him of how he’d thought he was in love with her once.
“Tell me what you think it feels like to be in love,” a thirteen-year-old Cassi whispered from his memory of a day in late May. She’d been wearing a white sundress that dusted her knees and they’d stolen away to a meadow behind Mama Jo’s house on one of the occasions Cassi and her mother had had an argument. During those times, Cassi had often found her way to Thomas’s house, even though their homes weren’t exactly close. The warm breeze had lifted the honey-hued hair away from her face while her blue eyes had sparked with genuine curiosity. They’d tumbled to the tall grass and lay side by side on their stomachs, watching through the swaying green stalks as squirrels chased each other through the white ash trees and birds dipped and wheeled in the flawless cerulean sky.
He’d known the answer because he felt it every time he looked at her. “I think it makes your stomach all tight like someone’s squeezing it real hard, so much so that it hurts, but you don’t mind because it makes you want to be around that person, even when you’re not really doing anything special.”
She wrinkled her nose, not at all pleased with his theory. “That sounds like the stomach flu. Why would anyone want to fall in love if it made them want to throw up? No, I don’t think that’s how it is at all,” she announced firmly. “I think that when you’re in love you feel a tickle in your heart and you want to kiss that person all the time.”
Thomas’s young heart had stuttered at the thought of kissing Cassi. Cassi hadn’t noticed though and had simply sighed dreamily, saying, “I can’t wait to fall in love. I think I would like to kiss someone who wants to kiss me back.” Then an alarming thought had come to her and she sat a little straighter, turning to Thomas. “What if I never find someone who loves me? What if I go my entire life and no one wants to kiss me like that? Oh, Tommy, that’s an awful thought. I would die.”
And he’d wanted to reassure her that that would never happen because at that very moment he wanted to kiss her so bad his brain had simply stopped functioning. Then as he thought to lean forward to press his lips against hers in what would’ve been their first kiss, she’d leaned over and whispered conspiratorially, “Can you keep a secret?” He’d been dumbfounded as she giggled, admitting, “I think I’m going to fall in love with Billy Barton and I’m going to kiss him.”
His world had plummeted.
And Cassi’s first kiss had been with a boy who could burp the alphabet…not with Thomas. Their kiss wouldn’t happen for another four years.
Jerked back to the moment, he suffered the pang of that bittersweet childhood memory and was happy to push it away and focus on the here and now, not the been and gone.
“You hungry?” he asked gruffly.
She didn’t bother to answer.
He withheld a sigh. “Fine. Just asking.”
“Why