Chapter 9
A month to the day from their wedding, the extra room over the garage was finished, and it was none too soon.
There had been far too many times when Casey had seen Ryder’s brown, bare body, and Ryder had spent way too many nights alone on a floor when he had a wife who slept alone in their bed.
After thirty days of marriage, they were no longer strangers, but the strangeness of their situation was about to make them enemies.
* * *
“Just put the bed over here,” Casey said, pointing at the wall opposite the sliding glass doors. “And the dresser here, the easy chair there…. No, there I think, nearer the corner lamp. Yes, that’s perfect.”
A small, birdlike woman wearing a stiff blue uniform and high-top tennis shoes scurried into the room with an armload of Ryder’s clothes, bypassing the deliverymen from the furniture store.
Her graying blond hair was pulled up in a ponytail reminiscent of the sixties.
Her eyebrows were thick and black with a permanent arch, compliments of a number seven jet eyebrow pencil.
The look was topped off with sky blue eyeshadow and frosted pink lipstick.
Bea Bonnaducci’s appearance hadn’t changed since 1961, the year she’d graduated high school.
The way Bea had it figured, if it had worked for her then, it should work for her now.
“Where would you be wantin’ me to put the mister’s things?” she asked.
“Put that stuff in the dresser and hang those in the closet. At last he has plenty of space.”
Bea did as Casey directed and then scooted out of the room for a second load, leaving her to deal with the last of the furniture being carried in.
And in the midst of it all, Ryder strode into the bedroom, his nostrils flaring with indignation. He glared at the men who were setting the last pieces of the furniture in place, and when they left, he exploded.
“Damn it to hell, Casey! You waited until Dora sent me on some wild-goose chase and then you set Bea to digging in my stuff. I know you want me out of your hair, but you could have waited for me to get back.”
Stunned, Casey stood mute beneath his attack, unable to find a single thing to say that would calm the fire in Ryder’s eyes.
She watched as he paced from one side of the room to the other.
When he stepped inside the brand-new bathroom, he gave it no more than ten seconds of consideration before coming back out again.
“I thought you would be glad to have your own space,” she finally said.
He spun, his posture stiff, looking for a fight that just wasn’t there. “I didn’t say I wasn’t,” he muttered. “What I said was…” He sighed, then thrust his hand through his hair in a gesture of frustration. “Oh hell, forget what I said.” He stomped out of the room as suddenly as he’d appeared.
Casey plopped down on the side of the bed and knew she was going to cry. It wasn’t so much the fact that he had yelled at her. It was the disappointment that did her in. He’d done so much for her over the past four weeks. All she had wanted to do was return the favor.
She doubled her fists in her lap, staring intently at a pattern on the carpet and telling herself that if she concentrated enough, the tears wouldn’t come.
In the midst of memorizing the number of paisley swirls in a square, a teardrop rolled down her cheek and into her lap.
She drew a shuddering breath and closed her eyes.
It didn’t stop the pain or the tears. They rolled in silent succession.
Ryder walked back into the room carrying the last of his clothes that were on hangers and jammed them onto the rod.
“I sent Bea back to the house,” he said, and then the bottom fell out of his world. Casey was crying, and it was all his fault.
“Oh, hell, Casey, please don’t cry.”
“I am not crying,” she said, and hiccuped on a sob.
He stood, frozen to the spot by the pain in her voice and wondered when it had happened. When had she gotten under his skin? And there was no mistaking the fact that she was there. Why else did he feel as if he were about to explode?
“I am a total bastard.”
It wasn’t what she’d expected him to say. She looked up. He groaned beneath his breath. Those big green eyes, the ones he’d come to know so well, were swimming in tears.
“I am the lowest form of a heel.”
She sniffed and he dug a handkerchief out of his pocket and laid it in her hands.
“I do not deserve to see another day.”
She blew her nose and then handed the handkerchief back. “Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” she said. “I suspect you were just being a man.”
He stuffed the handkerchief, snot, tears, and all into his pocket and tried not to be offended by what she said. “Exactly what does that mean?”
Casey shrugged. “Tilly says when men don’t want to show their emotions, they either curse or yell. You did both, which leads me to believe you were severely upset in a way I did not expect.”
He frowned. Damn, but that woman knew way too much about men for his peace of mind. “At any rate, I am truly sorry. I’m sorry I yelled. I’m sorry I cursed. I will try not to let it happen again.”
She tried to glare. When angry, he was a force to behold, but when penitent, there was something about him that made her want to throw her arms around him and…
Her face turned red as she jumped up from the bed. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she said, and stomped from the room.
Ryder groaned and followed her into the living room. She was fiddling with a stack of magazines. It made him nervous. He had a hunch she wasn’t through yanking his chain, and when she spoke, he knew he’d been right.
“Ryder?”
If he was smart, he’d walk out right now before she dug in her heels, but where Casey was concerned, he wasn’t smart, he was caught, and had been since that day in the bar down in the flatlands.
“What?”
“I don’t understand. Why did you get so angry?”
“I wasn’t really…”
“Truth.”
He sighed. Damn. Delaney Ruban had done a real good job on her. When she got a notion, she stuck to it with fierce intensity, and it wasn’t in him to lie.
“I don’t know. I walked in the apartment. Bea was going through my stuff. Too much was changing too fast.” His voice lowered and Casey had to concentrate to hear what he said. “I guess I’m uncomfortable with change.”
“But nothing has changed,” she said.
“No, Casey, you’re wrong. We’re married.” He held up his hand. “And before you tie yourself into a little knot, I know it’s not a real marriage, but dammit, I was just getting used to, to…things.”
He took a deep breath. What he was about to say was going to reveal more than he wanted, but she’d asked for the truth, and truth she was going to get.
“Even if we don’t share anything but a name, there is a certain rhythm to our relationship that I was learning to accept.
” Then he thrust a hand through his hair and lifted his chin.
She didn’t have to like this, but it had to be said.
“Dammit, I guess I wasn’t ready to lose what little of you that I had. ”
Casey knew she was standing on solid ground, but for the life of her she couldn’t feel it. Something inside of her kept getting lighter and lighter and she wondered if she was going to pass out…or fly.
“I didn’t throw you away, Ryder. I only bought you a bed.”
He took the magazines out of her hands and tossed them on the table, then pulled her into his arms. His chin rested at the crown of her head. His arms locked easily across her shoulders, holding her in place.
“I’m sorry I made you cry. I like my room. I promise to like the bed.”
Casey closed her eyes and tried not to think of trying it out together just to test it for bounce. “And I’m sorry I keep bulldozing my way through your life.”
His fingers itched to take down her hair, lay her across that bed and show her what bulldozing was all about. Instead, he counted to ten, pasted a smile on his face, and kissed the top of her head before letting her go.
“I suppose we should celebrate tonight,” he said.
“Celebrate how?”
“You know, a room-warming. Maybe I should take you back to Smoky Joe’s for some more barbecue.” He grinned. “It’s Saturday. That means it’s alligator night, remember?”
She rolled her eyes.
“Well, then, maybe we could make it a christen-the-bed party, so to speak.”
Casey’s voice rose an octave. “Christen the bed?”
“Yeah, I always heard it was bad luck to sleep in a bed without breaking it in.”
“Breaking?” She winced. She’d never heard herself squeak before.
“Yeah, come here, honey. I’ll show you.”
He dragged her across the room before she could argue and all the while she was moving she kept telling herself to do something—say something—anything except follow him across the room!
But she didn’t. She went where she was led as if she didn’t have a brain in her head.
When he leaned over the bed and picked up a pillow, adrenaline shot through her body like a bullet out of a gun.
Oh God, oh God, this is happening. It’s really happening.
And then the pillow hit her square in the face.
She staggered, tasting fabric and feathers and reeling from shock. “Why on earth did you—?”
He sidestepped her and the question with a grin on his face and swung again.
The blow landed on her backside, sending her sprawling facedown on the mattress.
She grabbed the other pillow out of reflex, but it was instinct that made her swing and roll at the same time, crowing with delight as it caught Ryder up by the side of his head.
“That’s nothing,” he warned. “You’re no match for me.” He began to circle the foot of the bed.
“I’ll make you eat those words,” Casey cried, and leaped up on the mattress, using it as a bridge to get to the other side and away from Ryder’s intent.
She was turning around as he drew back his arm and let fly.