Chapter 2-2
1858 Words
Sarah rose and sauntered over to the fridge to get a diet pop. She had legs that seemed to never end, and he hadn’t yet tired of watching her. Sarah came back over and sat next to him folding up her long, slinky body. They had been dating for almost a year, and he was starting to think he might actually be serious about her.
The phone rang, interrupting the show Sarah had started to put on as her tongue darted out to nip at her pop can.
“Hello?” It was nine o’clock on a Wednesday night, who could be bothering them? He didn’t recognize the number on the screen.
“John?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s Cassie. I—”
Cassie? Calling his home? He glanced at Sarah, his heart rate speeding up. Why did Cassie’s voice always cause a physical reaction in him? He turned away from his girlfriend and said quietly, “I’m sorry, I can’t talk right now.”
He hung the phone up, pausing to slow his breathing.
When he turned, Sarah was watching him, her eyebrows raised. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just another telemarketer. You know how annoying they are.”
He stood and stalked into the kitchen. Cassie must have gotten his number from the files at work. How dare she call him here? The phone rang again; he ignored it.
“Are you going to grab that?” Sarah called from the other room.
He rubbed a finger to his pounding temple. With a sigh he called to Sarah, “It’s the same number.”
At least he wasn’t lying to Sarah about that.
Why would Cassie call him? Could that strange story of hers be true? He doubted it. But if there was a small chance she could be in physical danger, she had no one around since Harry was away at a conference. He cursed his conscience for letting the doctor in him care.
Sarah walked into the kitchen. She leaned against the door jamb, arms crossed. “Want to go grab dinner?”
“Not really.”
“Order in?”
“I’m not hungry.” His tone was listless.
She sighed. “What’s the matter?”
He shrugged and spread his hands out in a gesture of defeat. “Long day. I’m tired.”
She eyed him. “You said your day was fine. Now it’s not?”
“I guess now it’s not.”
“Did I do something?”
He let out a sigh. “No. You didn’t do anything. It’s something from work.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
She stood there silent. Then she nodded. “I think I’ll go home.”
“Okay.” He held the door for her after she grabbed her coat and purse. He touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’m not real fun tonight.”
She smiled. “It’s okay, John. Call me later.” Then she was out the door. She’d only be mad for tonight. She hardly ever threw a stink about anything. One of the reasons he’d managed to stay with her for nearly a year.
John muted the TV with a sigh when someone knocked on his front door ten minutes later. Had Sarah come back? He opened the door to find Cassie standing there.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” He started to shut the door when her foot shot out to wedge the door open.
“John, wait! Please. I need your help. It’s an emergency.”
“Go to the hospital.”
“It’s my son. He needs a doctor.” She looked him straight in the eye, no explanation, no excuses.
He went still, the blood froze in his veins, and he was both hot and cold all at once. Cassie had a son? How old? There couldn’t be any possibility that he had a son too, could there?
“Where is he?”
“My car.”
“Take him to the emergency room.”
“I don’t want to risk using our names.”
“For God’s sake, Cassie—”
“He fell down, he’s bleeding. I think he needs stitches.”
“Cassie—”
“He’s just a kid. He’s innocent in all this.”
She was nearly in tears. He bit off a curse. How did she manage to draw him into her life when all he wanted was to be left alone? “I’ll meet you at the clinic.” He turned and shut the door on her.
At the clinic, he unlocked the doors and turned on the lights while Cassie brought in her son. She put him on an exam table. John’s knees almost buckled in relief. The child was only five or six, too young to be his son. He was a nice-looking kid with blond hair that had a funny cowlick in the front. He had big brown eyes like Cassie.
“What’s your name, little guy?” John sat on a stool and rolled over to sit directly in front of the boy, who was now eye level with him.
“Timothy Reeves. But everyone calls me Tim,” he said, his tone sweet and childish. John glanced up at Cassie. She didn’t notice. She was staring intensely at her son’s hand in hers.
“What hurts, Tim?”
“My arm.” He pointed to his left arm. Then he asked, “Who are you?”
“I’m John Tyler.”
“Are you a real doctor?”
“Yeah, the real thing.” He smiled.
“Wow. Do you touch dead things?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Honey, tell the nice doctor what’s wrong,” Cassie interrupted as her son started to open his mouth to speak again.
“I jumped on the bed. I fell off. I landed on one of my toys. It cut me.”
“It seemed to be bleeding badly. Maybe I overreacted, but it was hurting,” Cassie finished, her tone brusque, but her gaze tender on her son.
John removed Tim’s coat. A bandage on his upper arm showed Cassie’s attempt at first aid. Blood oozed from the edges. John cut the wrap off and gently cleansed the wound. He looked up at Cassie to tell her that her son would need stitches. Her face was as white as a bone. He remembered then that the sight of blood made Cassie squeamish.
“He’s going to need a few stitches.”
She nodded. “I figured. That’s why I came to you.”
John attended to Tim’s wound as Cassie looked on, clasping his other hand. By the time Tim was done, he had five stitches, and once over his initial pain and fear, he was fascinated that he’d gotten sutures. He was a talkative little guy, curious and surprisingly tough for the cut he had.
Once everything was cleaned up, John glanced at Cassie and nodded toward his office, his message clear: it was time they talked. “Hey, buddy, would you mind if I talk to your mom about some work stuff? You could wait right over there and play with the games.”
“Can I use the Legos?”
“Sure.”
“Okay.”
“Can’t this wait? Tim needs to go home.”
“I’m okay, Mom,” Tim piped up. She sighed and nodded. John turned and led her into his office and half shut the door so her son wouldn’t hear.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me you had a son?”
“I’m trying to protect him. The fewer people who know about him the better.”
“Does Harry know about him?”
“Yes,” she said simply.
John ran his hand through his hair. “You’re hiding Tim, aren’t you? Not yourself.”
Cassie nodded. She seemed to wilt in front of his eyes. She looked at him wearily and groped around for a chair to sit in. She suddenly didn’t seem so tough then, or so sinister. Seeing her now, like this, as the scared mother to a little boy, changed everything.
“Is there really any threatening paroled ex? Or are you hiding Tim from his father?”
She shook her head at him, her eyes wide. “You really do think that low of me, don’t you? Do you think you could let the past go for just a few minutes?”
Pressure throbbed in his temples again. “Not easily.”
“Please understand our history has nothing to do with my son.”
“Is this a custody dispute?”
She sighed heavily. “What I told you is true. But Tim is the reason I took such drastic measures and left. Marcus Leary, my ex, is disturbed. When I left him, we ended up in a nasty custody battle. In the end I won full custody with supervised visits. I have paperwork to prove it if you don’t believe me. The day I was awarded custody, Marcus came to our apartment and broke in. He had a g*n and threatened to kill me. My sister, Kelly, was there and hid in the bathroom with Tim, calling the police. The police arrested Marcus, but not before he’d managed to attack me.”
Cassie stared hard at the floor as she spoke. She twisted her hands together.
By her fidgeting, she was in obvious distress as she described her ex. He didn’t like the image in his head of someone hurting her. Of bruises on her pale skin. He had long wished ill for her, revenge toward her, but not this. Never for her to be physically hurt by some faceless man. He squeezed his fingers into a fist. “What exactly did he do to you?” he asked gently.
Her gaze jerked up to his face. “Nothing I didn’t recover from. But the one thing I did learn from that night was how dangerous Marcus is. And now that he’s had five years in prison, I’m terrified of what he plans to do.”
“Plans to do? You sound convinced he’s after you.”
“I am. He showed up at Tim’s school and tried to pick him up. I had put the school on alert, and they called me. Marcus disappeared before anyone could catch him. I knew, however, that this was my one chance. Marcus would only make one mistake. We had to leave our life and leave then. Or next time Marcus would succeed. He doesn’t often make mistakes. I took this as my chance and gift that he had done so this time. I don’t need another warning. I took this one for what it was. I picked up Tim, called Harry, and arranged to disappear too.”
John was silent for a moment. “You should have told me from the start that you’re protecting a child.”
She shrugged. “It really has nothing to do with you. But now that you know I have a son to protect, can you see why I have to have this job?”
“For your son.”
She nodded. “For my son.”
He nodded. What else could he do?
She smiled, a genuine smile for the first time since she’d shown up in his life again. He blinked. She looked like the Cassie he used to know.
“I understand how hard this is for you.”
He looked away. “No. You can’t possibly fully understand.”
She stood. Only when she was at the door did she turn back around. “I am sorry for being here. I’m sorry I need this job at your clinic. But I have to keep Tim safe. That’s all that matters to me.”
John didn’t answer. She pressed her lips together, than nodded as she stepped out of his office, and helped Tim put his coat on. She clasped his good hand in hers and left the clinic. John let out a long breath, standing at the clinic’s front door to make sure they made it safely to her car. He had a bad feeling that their time working together had been increased tenfold by the addition of Cassie’s vulnerable son to the situation. How could he take out his animosity towards Cassie if it put her kid in jeopardy? He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. It was that simple. Cassie was in his life now, and he was going to have to find a way to live with it.
- Writer
