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 you?” she asked him abruptly. He gave her a quick look and saw the glitter in her eyes. “Isn’t there some kind of conflict of interest, seeing as we have a history?” He could’ve lied but he couldn’t bring himself to utter a word. His silence was telling. She barked a short laugh. “You didn’t offer that information. Interesting,” she said, returning her gaze to the darkened landscape outside the window. “So, it seems Thomas Bristol isn’t always Dudley Do-Right when it suits his purposes to bend the rules.” She shrugged. “I’m the last person to judge for what you may consider obvious reasons but if there’s one thing I never pegged you for, it’s a hypocrite.”
“I’m not a hypocrite,” he bit out, his hackles rising at the mockery.
“Oh? I didn’t manage to finish college but I’m pretty sure I have a full grasp of the word’s meaning. Please explain to me how you are not indeed a hypocrite, judging by your actions? Is it not required for you to disclose any personal history or relationship with a suspect or prisoner?” He didn’t answer, which was good because she continued. “Ah, well. Like I said, if you’re Thomas Bristol, rules are simply guidelines but for everyone else, the law is black-and-white.”
It wasn’t like that but when she put it that way it sounded pretty damn bad. “You’re right. I didn’t tell my superior. I wanted—” to see you again “—to make sure that you were treated as fairly as possible given the situation. You know if you’d pulled that stunt back there with anyone else you might’ve gotten yourself killed. Did you think about that at all when you were going all kung fu on my ass?” She refused to look at him. He swore under his breath, wondering why he was wasting his time. “Forget it. You know, you’re right. I should’ve walked away the first time your file crossed my desk. I should’ve done an about-face and left you to whoever had the misfortune to get your case, but I didn’t because at first I thought there had to be a mistake. There’s no way the girl I used to know had turned into a criminal. But when I couldn’t deny it any longer I wanted to make sure that at the very least, you had someone who would treat you kindly.”
At that she gave him a brief look, derision twisting her mouth. “Kindly? This is your version of ‘kind’? Pardon me if I don’t subscribe to your brand of kindness,” she retorted and rubbed gingerly at her jaw with her bound hands.
“You seem to forget you cleaned my clock the first go-round.”
The corner of her lips twitched. “Of course I haven’t forgotten. I’m just wishing I hadn’t pulled my punch. Maybe the situation might have played out differently.”
She’d pulled her punch? He nearly did a double take. It’d felt as if she’d beaned him with a hammer. Gone was the girl who’d shied away from anything physical for fear of breaking a nail. “Where’d you learn to be such a bruiser?” he asked.
She didn’t look inclined to answer but after a drawn-out pause, she answered coolly. “You’d be surprised what I know.”
“At this point no, I wouldn’t,” he muttered.
CHAPTER FOUR
“I HAVE TO PEE,” SHE announced, looking to him to see if he cared. To be honest, she didn’t really need to go but it was a plausible excuse to get him to stop the car. They’d been traveling for about an hour and a half, and each mile away from New York and her precious date book made her panic level climb but she kept it under control. It wouldn’t do to have him know just how desperate she was feeling about this whole situation. She didn’t need to give him yet another piece of leverage to use against her. So, the excuse of bodily function seemed the best bet.
“How bad?” he asked.
“I’m about to soak your leather interior. Is that bad
