He was at the cupboard containing the liquor, looking at ease and unperturbed, making drinks in his kitchen while she cooked.
This she found vaguely alarming because it was not-so-vaguely appealing.
Abby decided to focus on the drink rather than the appeal of Cash and herself doing normal boyfriend/girlfriend stuff in his kitchen and replied, “Martini.”
While Cash started to make the drinks, Abby opened the crock pot and the aroma from the food wafted strongly into the room. Without delay, she began to spoon in the dumpling dough.
Then she heard him say, low and deep, “Fuck.”
She froze, gooey spoon in hand, and turned to see him staring at the crock pot.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“What is that?” he asked in return.
Abby looked down at the crock pot then back to Cash, worry filling her at his reaction and she answered, “Irish stew. Um,” she hesitated then went on, “don’t you like Irish stew?”
His eyes went from the pot to Abby and she held her breath.
“You know how you feel about cashmere?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered.
His lips turned up slightly at the ends. “I feel that way about Irish stew.”
A weird, intense, happy warmth spread through her at this news.
Then it occurred to her that she’d said she wanted to roll around in cashmere and it was on the tip of her tongue to tease him but she stopped herself.
Ben, she would have teased.
Jenny and Kieran, she still could tease.
She could even tease Mrs. Truman (probably).
Cash wasn’t hers to tease.
She went back to her task and muttered, “That’s good.”
She felt him get close and then she felt him casually kiss the side of her head as she was at her business with the dumplings.
At his kiss, the happy warmth was joined with a short, strong, lovely shiver.
He was back to seeing to her martini before she had a chance to shrug off this reaction. It took effort but she had herself firmly in hand by the time she finished the dumplings, cleaned her hands, pulled the crock out of the heating unit and slid it in the oven to bake the dumplings.
She was closing the oven door when she heard, “Abby, we have a problem.”
She looked up to see Cash close the refrigerator and turn to her, his face was grave.
She felt her heart start beating faster.
“What problem?” she asked.
He walked to her as she flicked the oven mitts off her hands and onto the counter but he didn’t answer.
“What is it?” she prompted when he didn’t speak.
He got close and put both hands on her neck.
“Darling,” he said solemnly but there was a strange, magnetic light in his eyes, “we don’t have any olives.”
Then she saw his mouth twitch.
Her belly dipped and her heart lurched.
But she didn’t speak.
Cash was teasing her.
She could likely protect her heart from domineering, sexy, charismatic Cash but loving, kiss-on-the-side-of-the-head, teasing Cash?
Impossible!
He squeezed her neck, “Do you think you could do without the olives?”
Abby considered this. Then she bit the side of her lip.
Because the answer was no, she could absolutely not drink a martini without the olives.
Cash’s eyes dropped to her mouth then he gave a shout of rich laughter and his arms came around her, pulling her to him.
“I take it that’s a no,” he said over her head and she could tell by his voice (not to mention the laugh) that he found this highly amusing.
“That’s a no,” Abby admitted to his chest.
He kissed the top of her head and then murmured there, “I’ll drink the martini and make you an amaretto.”
She nodded then he moved away.
She had nothing to do but wait for the dumplings to bake. Therefore Abby was at odds with how to proceed seeing as they were moving around his kitchen like an old married couple and she shouldn’t be thinking about how lovely it was to move around Cash’s kitchen, with Cash, like they were an old married couple.
She decided to stand, hip against the counter and watch him make her drink.
“Did you have a good day?” she asked, thinking that sounded lame.
“No,” he replied.
“No?” she repeated, watching him work, noticing that the ingredients for her favourite drink were all ready at hand. Obviously Cash (or Moira) had a conversation with Aileen and the kitchen had been stocked with her preferences.
That gave her a warm feeling too.
He continued as Abby fought valiantly against the warm feeling. “I have to go to Germany tomorrow.”
Abby watched him move to the fridge for the ice and enquired, “When will you be home?”
“Saturday.”
Abby’s breath caught.
Her first thought was that she wouldn’t see Cash for three days.
She’d been with him every day for over a week. She was used to being with him. She was used to having dinner with him. She was used to sleeping in his bed. She was used to sleeping with him in his bed. She was used to doing other things with him in his bed too.
She didn’t like the idea of not seeing him.
Maybe for a day but three?
Then Abby’s emotional warrior reared up and mentally kicked her in the shin.
This reminded her that she and Cash didn’t exist in that joyful time where everything about their relationship was shiny and new. They weren’t caught in those early days of discovery where you spent every moment you weren’t together thinking about being together and every moment you were together thinking life was bliss. It wasn’t the beginning of something that you knew, you just knew was going to be something magical.
They were nothing of the sort (even though it felt like they were).
Three days was a godsend. Three days meant she could shore up her defences and have her head screwed on properly. Three days was a miracle.
Her miracle lasted two seconds because Cash went on. “I want you with me.”
Abby’s body jerked at his words.
“In Germany?” she breathed.
He dumped the ice in a tea towel but turned his head to her and she saw he was smiling. “No, darling, I thought you could go to Capri. We’ll meet back here.”
Even though he was amusing, Abby didn’t laugh. She was busy searching blindly for a way out.
Germany meant all Cash and nothing but Cash except when Cash was working, which would be time she was alone, without workmen, paint pots, Jenny, Mrs. Truman and her spaniels, which would be time she’d be doing nothing but thinking about Cash which meant zero time to get her head on straight.
She came up with a solution.
“What’ll I do with Zee?” she tried.
His brows went up. “Zee?”
“My cat.”
“You named your cat Zee?”
“His name is Beelzebub but that’s hard to say all the time, especially when you’re yelling at him,” Abby explained.
Cash stared at her then asked, “You’re telling me you essentially named your cat Satan?”
“Well, yes,” Abby replied as if it was perfectly natural to name your beloved pet after the Lord of Hellfire and Damnation and watched as Cash did a very slow blink which forced her to defend her choice. “You don’t know him. Trust me, he’s aptly named. He can be a little devil.”
He watched her a moment then his face grew warm and soft and Abby struggled with her instinctive, highly pleasant reaction to that look.
He smiled and turned away, shaking his head. Then he slammed the ice in the tea towel against the counter, twice.
“I’ve tried that, it doesn’t work. You have to use a rolling pin or a meat tenderiser,” she informed him helpfully but watched as he upended the perfectly crushed ice into her drink
then she muttered, “Okay, well, if you have the strength of He-Man, it works.”
She heard his chuckle as he handed her the drink, tossed the tea towel into the sink and went back to the martini.
“Can you get someone to look after your cat?” he enquired.
She could. Jenny would do it. Pete would do it too. Hell, Mrs. Truman would probably do it.
“Yes,” she replied and tried not to sigh.
He poured the martini from the shaker into a stemmed glass, saying softly, “Make the call.”
Abby blinked.
Then she asked, “Now?”
He turned to her, took a sip, his eyes on her over the rim of the glass.
Her brain noted Cash looked very sexy drinking from a martini glass.
Her emotional warrior trotted over to her brain and slapped it upside its head.
“Now,” he replied after his hand lowered. “We leave from Bristol Airport at half ten.”
Abby’s eyes bugged out. “Ten thirty! But I have to pack.”
“I’ll take you home tomorrow morning to pack,” he told her.
“But, I need time to pack,” she blurted, horrified. “We’re going to be gone for three days. That’s six outfits. Day time and night time. Plus accessories. Plus toiletries. Plus I need to strategise makeup. I have to be prepared for anything. That might take hours. Under normal circumstances, that would take days.”
“We’ll be at your house by seven. We have to be at the airport by nine. You have an hour and a half.”
“Seven?” she breathed, beyond horrified straight to distraught.
Seven meant she had to be up, showered, dressed and made up to leave Cash’s at six. That meant she’d have to be out of bed by four thirty.
Abby’s headache started pounding but she didn’t have time to worry about it because she’d started to hyperventilate.
The only times she remembered being up and out of bed of her own accord that early were Christmas mornings when she was a kid and the time her parents took her to Disneyland.
Abby didn’t do mornings, especially not super-early ones where only nurses, doctors and criminals were awake and functioning.
Cash saw her dismay and tried to calm her with promises.
“You can sleep in the car,” he said.
“But –” she started.
“And on the plane,” he went on.
“But –”
He came close, mouth smiling (like she was amusing him), and he put his hand to her neck, effectively silencing her with a gentle, affectionate squeeze.
“Abby, make the call,” he demanded.
She gave it a moment, ever-hopeful he would relent.
He didn’t.
Abby sighed.
Then she made the call.
* * * * *
Abby was lying on the sofa off the kitchen, her temple resting on Cash’s thigh, her eyes unseeing on the book in front of her.
She didn’t want to be in that position (well she did but she didn’t).
But she was.
After dinner, when Cash told her he had a few things to read through before going to bed, she’d joined him on the sofa and he’d manoeuvred her into that position.
Skilfully.
He was sitting upright, feet on the table, ankles crossed, reading glasses on, going over papers while his fingers idly played with her hair.
This felt nice.
All of it did.
So Abby was concentrating on anything but how nice it felt.
She decided to concentrate on dinner, which was weird. After they sat down to eat, her headache had begun hammering and her mind inventoried her belongings in a failed effort to decide what to take to Germany.
Conversation was short and stilted but not intentionally. Abby was miles away namely, in Germany, wondering what the weather was like.
She didn’t figure Cash noted this because halfway through dinner he took a call with a murmured, “Sorry, darling, this is important,” and then was on the phone the rest of the time they ate.
At his side, watching him sitting at the head of the dining table and talking business while eating was when she realised he worked like a demon.
He got up early, got home late, read through papers at night and worked weekends.
Abby asked herself, what kind of life was that?
As far as she could tell, outside of working out and the time he spent with her, he had no life away from work. There were no photos around his house, no mementos from travels, no blinking answering machine with messages from mates who wanted him to meet them at the pub.
Nothing.
This worried her. Then she got worried because she was worried. Then she told herself to stop thinking about it.
He was off the phone by the time she’d done the dishes and put the food away only for him to tell her he had more work to do.
Now she was on her side on the couch, head resting on his thigh, legs curled into her belly, trying to read but there was so much in her head, she hadn’t turned a page in ages.
His fingers moved to her hairline, tracing it from temple to behind her ear, then the tips drifted down the length of her neck to her collarbone.
Abby’s attention moved from her thoughts and focused on his fingers.
Then she heard his rough brogue say, “You’re angry with me.”
In surprise she rolled to her back and looked up at him. “Pardon?”
He studied her from behind his sexy glasses.
Then he tossed his papers to the side, his eyes came back to hers and he repeated, “You’re angry with me.”
She stared at him a moment then placed her book on the table, rolled back around, put her hand to the couch and pushed up to face him.
Then she said, “I’m not angry with you.”
His hands went under her armpits and hauled her closer so she was almost sitting in his lap. She put both her palms on his chest as one of his hands dropped from under her arm, the other one came to rest on her hip.
“Abby, don’t lie to me,” he said, but softly, taking the sting out of his words. “You haven’t been yourself all night.”
She felt her brows go up and started, “I –” but he cut her off.
“It’s the house.”
Her brows lowered significantly, registering her confusion. “The house?”
“I’ll not have you living in that house the way it is,” he stated firmly.
It dawned on her that he meant her house.
“Cash –” she began again only to be cut off again.
“I know I told you I wouldn’t get involved but, darling, it’s taking too long. I don’t like the thought of you there without the bare necessities. Simon’s report indicated there are other significant issues. They have to be seen to promptly and I’m going to see that they are.”
“Cash, I –” she began again only to be interrupted again.
“I’m not discussing this,” he declared.
Abby sighed and she did this deeply and loudly.
Then she asked, “Can I speak now?”
“Only if you don’t intend to argue with me,” he answered.
She didn’t know whether to laugh or yell.
She wanted to laugh because it felt nice, him taking care of her, seeing to her “issues”. She hadn’t had anyone (but Jenny) to help her along the journey of life for so long she forgot how good it felt to share the burden.
She wanted to yell because he was way, too, damned bossy.
Instead, she did neither. Partly because she had a headache but partly because escorts didn’t argue, girlfriends did.
She was, she told herself firmly, the former, not the latter.
“I can’t say I wasn’t a bit,” she hesitated then found the word she was looking for, “peeved when Simon and Nigel showed up today. But I got over it.”
His lips tipped up at the word “peeved” but he replied, “If that’s the case, can you explain why you’ve been distant all night?”
&nbs
p; She answered immediately, “Yes. I have a headache. I’ve been fighting it all day. I –” she stopped talking because she saw his eyes narrow dangerously and she knew from experience that was not a good sign.
His hand came up and pulled off his glasses.
“You have a headache?” he asked, his voice had dipped low, toward the scary zone where it went when he was irate.
“Yes,” she told him cautiously then went on. “It’s not a big deal. I get them sometimes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded to know and she could tell by the way he did that he wasn’t irate, he’d gone beyond that.
“It’s not a big deal,” Abby repeated, confused by his reaction.
“Normally, no. When you’ve slammed your head against a basin and lost consciousness, then yes, it fucking well is,” he returned, tossed his glasses on his papers and reached for his BlackBerry.
Abby blinked and asked, “What are you doing?”
His eyes were on his BlackBerry and he was using his thumb to manipulate it but he answered, “I’m calling my physician.”
Abby pulled in a breath then said quietly, “Cash, you don’t have to do that. It’s just a headache.”
His eyes came to hers and pinned her to the spot.
Not that she could go anywhere. The hand that was resting on her hip had become fingers gripping it.
“Have you felt nauseous?” he asked.
“No.”
“Dizzy?”
“No.”
“Problems with balance? Vision?”
“No!” she cried. “Cash –”
But his eyes moved away and he said into his phone, “Tim? Cash,” and Abby stared at him in shocked, but contradictorily pleased, horror as he continued, “sorry for the late call but Abby had an accident last night, hit her head and was unconscious for several minutes. She was checked by paramedics…”
And he went on and Abby watched him.
When it became clear to Cash that all was well and clear to Abby, from what she heard of their conversation, that Invisible Tim had given her the go-ahead to live her life and take the flight the next day, which was something she hadn’t considered or she would have faked a full-blown concussion, Cash ended the call.
“Tim thinks you’ll be okay,” Cash informed her.
“I already told you I was okay,” she informed Cash.