Chapter 2 #2
“Well, now,” he said, and made no attempt to hide a yawn. “I suppose you two are as hitched as a couple can be.”
When Ryder moved away, Casey felt a sudden sense of loss, and then reality intruded and she felt nothing but dismay.
She had no intentions of pursuing the intimate part of a marriage and the sooner Ryder Justice realized that, the better off they would be.
She stepped back, then turned away, unwilling to let him see how deeply she’d been affected by what he’d done.
“It served its purpose,” she said shortly, and started looking for her purse. “What do I owe you?”
While she was fumbling for cash, Ryder was dealing with uneasiness of his own.
The kiss was supposed to have been nothing but a formality.
He hadn’t expected to feel anything because it had been months since he’d allowed himself the luxury.
But something had happened to him between the time her breath had brushed his cheek and their point of contact.
Left with nothing but a lingering dissatisfaction he couldn’t identify, he, too, turned away.
It was almost as if he’d left something undone.
He hadn’t been prepared for what the kiss had evoked—what it felt like to hold someone close, the pleasure that comes from lying in a willing woman’s arms.
He inhaled slowly and considered the woman who was now his wife, if in name only. He had agreed to marry her and no matter what, he was a man of his word. But he didn’t want to like her. There was already a time limit on their relationship. God forbid his feelings should ever go deeper.
Casey said something that made the judge laugh and Ryder turned to see what was funny.
Instead of an answer, he found himself watching as Casey peeled five twenty-dollar bills from a wad of cash in her handbag and handed them to the judge.
He frowned, then looked away, uncomfortable with the fact that a woman was paying his way for anything, and more than a little bit anxious as to how he was supposed to fit into her life.
He had already suspected she came from money.
Her car and her clothes had given her away, and the money she stuffed back in her purse only confirmed his suspicions.
For the first time since he’d run away, he thought about what he’d left behind, yet not once did he consider confessing his true background and identity to Casey.
She thought she’d married a bum, a no-account drifter without a penny to his name.
His eyes narrowed as he stared out into the burgeoning dawn.
Part of it was true. He didn’t have two quarters with him that he could rub together.
At this point, the fact that he owned four airplanes and a helicopter, and that his charter service had been in the black for nearly eleven years didn’t matter.
Nor did the fact that the deed to nearly fourteen hundred acres of prime real estate on the outskirts of San Antonio was in his name.
Sick at heart from an accident he couldn’t forget, he’d walked away from it all. Things of monetary value had become unimportant to Ryder. If he could have, he would have given up everything just to have his father back alive and well.
But there would be no trading with God… or the devil. Micah Justice was dead and buried, and no matter how far Ryder went, he couldn’t outrun his guilt.
Someone cleared their throat. He looked up. It would seem that Sudie was patiently waiting to lock them out. Casey held the front door ajar. Her posture and the tone of her voice gave away her impatience.
“Are you ready to go?” she asked.
Something inside him snapped. The quiet in which he’d encompassed himself over the past few months suddenly seemed too confining. Sarcasm colored his answer.
“I don’t know, Mrs. Justice, are you?”
Her bossy, managerial attitude disappeared like air out of a punctured balloon. He had the satisfaction of seeing her pale as he walked past her and out the door.
* * *
The air was muggy, a promise of another long, hot July day.
Sweat was already rolling down the middle of Casey’s back and there was a snag in her stockings.
Since yesterday when she’d made her exit from Lash’s office, her hairdo had been windblown and finger-combed a dozen times.
The last time she remembered putting on makeup was right before she’d gotten out of the car to go into the office for the reading of the will.
She felt like hell and figured she looked a shade or two worse.
She was exhausted and couldn’t wait to get home and into a bed.
But thirty minutes outside of Ruban Crossing, Casey’s plans were about to change.
The flashing red-and-blue lights of a Mississippi highway patrol were an unwelcome addition to the events of the day.
She had expected complications, but not quite so soon, or from the state police.
She looked at Ryder, then began pulling over to the side of the road.
“I wasn’t speeding,” she said.
Ryder glanced over his shoulder, then started unbuckling his seat belt. The highway patrolman was already out of his vehicle with his gun drawn, and although the air conditioner was on and Casey’s car windows were up, they could hear him shouting for them to get out of the car.
“I don’t think that’s the problem.”
“What do you mean?” Casey asked, and turned. There was a gun pointed straight at her head.
“Get out of the car!” the patrolman shouted again. “Do it! Do it now!”
Stunned by the order, Casey began fumbling with her seat belt, but couldn’t seem to find the catch. The harder she tried, the worse her fingers shook, and the longer she delayed, the louder and more insistent the officer became.
“Let me,” Ryder said, and to her relief, the latch gave way, freeing her from the straps.
She opened the door. “Look, Officer, I don’t know what…”
“Get out and put your hands on the hood of the car! You!” he shouted, pointing the gun at Ryder. “On the passenger side! Come around the front of the car with your hands in the air!”
Ryder didn’t argue. He’d learned years ago never to argue with an armed man, especially one wearing a badge.
By now, Casey was out of the car and furious. “What’s the meaning of this?”
Handcuffs snapped. First one on her right wrist, then the remaining cuff on her other.
“Sit down,” the officer ordered, pushing Casey none too gently to a seat beside the rear wheel of her car before proceeding to cuff Ryder in the same smooth manner. He hauled Ryder off to the back seat of his patrol car and shut him inside while Casey watched in disbelief.
“This better be good,” Casey said, as the officer returned and helped her to her feet.
“You’re driving a stolen car and the woman who owns it has been reported missing.”
Casey couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I am not missing, and this is my car.”
The officer took a long, slow look at the disheveled woman in black and didn’t bother to hide a smirk.
“That car belongs to Casey Ruban. Her family reported her missing when she didn’t come home last night.”
“I repeat, this is my car, and I didn’t go home because I was out getting myself married,” she said.
“Excuse me?” the officer asked.
She closed her eyes, counted to ten, then glared at the patrolman, derisively enunciating each syllable.
“Married. Capital m—little a—double r—i—e—d…Maaried. Last night…no, actually it was early this morning that we got married. You might say I’ve been on my honeymoon and you…
” she frowned against the glare of early morning sun, peering at the name tag on the front of his uniform “…Officer Howard, have just stuffed my groom in the back of your patrol car. I want him out, and I want the handcuffs taken off both of us now, or I swear to God I will have your badge and all that goes with it.”
Her adamancy startled the cop, and for the first time since he’d pulled them over, he began to consider the possibility of having been wrong in his first assumption.
But he’d been so focused on being the one to get a lead on the missing heir that he hadn’t followed protocol by asking for their identification first.
“I’ll need to see some identification,” he said.
“It’s in my purse in the front seat, along with a copy of my marriage license. Want to see that, too?”
He unlocked her cuffs and opened the door. “No funny business,” he said shortly, as Casey leaned inside.
She handed him the marriage license, her driver’s license, as well as the title to her car. “There’s nothing funny about any of this, and when I get home, I’m going to have someone’s hide for this.”
The officer looked long and hard at the picture on the driver’s license and then at Casey. There was little resemblance between the cool, composed woman in the picture and the fiery-eyed hellion standing before him.
Casey could see he still wasn’t buying her explanation, but she wasn’t about to explain the mess she was in, thanks to her grandfather’s will. She opted for something he would probably believe.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Casey snapped. “I’ve been on my honeymoon, okay? You try a wedding night in the back seat of a car and see how good you look!”
The patrolman flushed with embarrassment as he began to realize the seriousness of his situation. Unless he made peace with this woman now, he could be in big trouble. The Ruban name carried a lot of clout.
“Sorry, Miss Ruban…I mean uh…”
“Justice,” Casey said. “The name is Justice.” She pointed toward the cruiser. “About my husband…”
Moments later, Ryder found himself standing by the side of the road, watching as an officer of the law did everything but crawl as an excuse for his overzealous behavior.
“Thank you for being so understanding,” the officer said, as Casey brushed at the dirt on the back of her dress.
“We’ll call it even if you just don’t notify my family,” she said. “I want to surprise them on my own.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll just call this in to headquarters so you won’t be stopped again.”