Part 7
Sometime during her overlong shower Tom had come upstairs, changed, and gone down to the pool. As they had every night for all the time they had been in this house she could hear his even, angry, strokes in the pool below her window as she sat on her bed wrapped in her robe.
She could pretend that nothing had happened and join him, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Her bathing suit, the red one she knew he liked, was clenched in her fist but she couldn't bring herself to put it on. Cassy, the woman cop who feared nothing was afraid and for once she was admitting it.
She was afraid to go downstairs and look in Tom's eyes and have him see in hers. She didn't have the strength to hide her feelings anymore. Or to resist them. But it would be a mistake. The biggest mistake she had ever made. If she went to Tom now it would only mean she would lose him eventually.
She had managed to convince herself that Tom's reactions lately meant he was healing from Virginia's damage and would soon be his old self. He would, she had told herself, realize this was just rebound and that taking this any further would ruin both their friendship and partnership. This time for good. So she had done nothing, tempted as she was.
>>>>>
Tom pulled himself out of the water and heaved a breath as he grabbed his towel and rubbed the moisture from his body. A mysterious smile flitted across his lips as he admitted that his furious laps had eased only some of the tension that flooded his body.
My wife.
The smile turned into a full fledged laugh.
Divorced for what, three years now? Four? And he still dared to think of her as his wife. Not too long ago he was to marry another and now she was thinking on another's proposal. A good man. A man who could give her the safety she needed, not another cop who might not come home one night. A man whose biggest danger was the nurses who worshiped the ground he walked on, but who could never hold a candle to Cassandra St. John.
But she was his and he wasn't about to let her go.
>>>>>>
Cassy heard Tom's steps coming down the hall and half stood when she realized they had stopped outside her door. When he knocked, she sat back down, frozen.
After perfunctory knock, Tom opened the door and walked towards her. His eyes held hers, leaving them only to glance at the red bathing suit lying at her feet.
Unconsciously, Cassy pulled the lapels of her robe closer together. Looking at Tom's wet, bare body she wished she had made the effort to dress herself.
Tom's towel dropped to lie next to her bathing suit and he sat down next to her.
Cassy bit her tongue to stop from telling him to not sit on the satin bedcover in wet bathing trunks. Tom's lips curved knowingly as he put his hand against her cheek to prevent her from turning away.
"Don't marry him, marry me," Tom said.
"Marry you?" Cassy asked, her eyes wide with shock.
"We belong together," he said.
"As partners, friends," Cassy said hoarsely.
"As partners and friends and lover," he said.
"We aren't compatible, we'd fight all the time," Cassy said.
"We haven't fought since we've been living together this time, until now," Tom said.
"This was just pretend," Cassy said.
"I haven't been pretending," Tom said.
"We haven't even been sleeping in the same room." Cassy stood up and walked a few feet away.
"I let you pick out my sheets." Tom smiled.
"This isn't about sheets. That was just one of our stupid fights. We fought about everything. You know we can't be together that way," Cassy said weakly.
"I know that we were foolish and walked away too quickly, without really committing to it. We didn't know how to be together without being together twenty-four seven. But now we know that being partners isn't enough," Tom said, not moving to follow her.
"It's enough for me," Cassy said.
"Is it? Is that why you haven't accepted the doctor's proposal? Is that why you've cycled through men faster than I cycle through socks since we divorced?" he asked. "Tell me you don't compare all men against me and what we once let ourselves enjoy? I know that I do it. We were married Cass. Married! And you walked out like it was a casual one night stand."
"There was nothing casual about my leaving!" Cassy's face reddened.
"And I let you, because I believed like you that it was easier to walk away than to work out what was wrong," Tom said.
"I left because if I hadn't one of us would have killed the other," Cassy said.
"Like the past few years?" he said.
"That's different," she said.
"Why? Because we don't admit how we feel? Or show it? Because we use other people to fill in the empty spaces?" he asked.
"Dammit, Tom! What do you want me to say?" she demanded.
"That you love me and you're tired of these games," he said calmly.
"I am tired of these games!" she said.
"And you love me," he said.
"You're just on the rebound," Cassy said.
"From you. Always from you," Tom stood up and walked towards her, his eyes daring her to flee again.
"They'll split us up again," Cassy said in a low voice.
"They'll split up our work partnership, but not us," Tom said.
"Then who will cover your back? Or mine?" she asked.
Tom paused, that was the heart of the matter. Seven months of marriage and for months after their divorce full of worry about who was covering the other's back in the field.
"Check," Tom said wryly.
"Checkmate," Cassy said.
"The queen might find a solution, yet," Tom promised leaning down and pressing a kiss against her cheek before quietly leaving her room.
Cassy closed her eyes and expelled the breath she had been holding.
End Part 7