Hunk for the Holidays (28 page)

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

For a second, Cassie was mesmerized by the tall, glowing flames. Then sanity returned, and she raced to her truck. As she grabbed her phone and dialed 911, James came running out the front door in his stocking feet with his phone to his ear. He glanced her way as he hurried down the pathway. Even from that distance, she could read the hatred on his face. Still, she might’ve tried to explain if his neighbors hadn’t converged. People came out from almost every house in bathrobes and slippers.
Les raced over to James while the nosy woman with the cats tried to pull her garden hose across the street. The rest of the people just circled around and stared at the towering blaze.

At the arrival of three fire trucks and an ambulance, Cassie fled the scene of the crime.

Chapter Twenty-four

The reality of what she’d done didn’t fully hit Cassie until she was sandwiched between her two little brothers in the eleventh row of Saint Paul’s a few minutes before midnight mass. She stared at the flickering candles at the altar and wondered when she’d lost her mind. The night of the party? The day after? Today? Or maybe it had been a slow process that started with finding Mike in her closet in thigh highs and heels and ended with arson.

Not that she had purposely set fire to the tree, but it had been her fault. And instead of taking responsibility, she’d slunk away like the coward she was. A coward who had no business sitting in God’s house.

As if to verify this, Aunt Wheezie, who sat in the pew in front of Cassie, craned her little white head around and whispered loud enough for the entire congregation to hear, “So did you try naked?”

“Someone’s getting naked?” Mattie asked. His gaze was caught by a pretty young woman across the aisle, and he flashed his trademark smile. The girl blushed and smiled back.

“Mattie, don’t even think about it,” Rory warned, repositioning a sleeping Gabby on his lap.

“Think about what?” Amy lifted her head off Rory’s shoulder, looking all lovesick and annoyingly content.

“Getting naked,” Patrick said.

“Mattie’s getting naked?” Jake leaned around Patrick.

“I’m not getting naked,” Mattie said. “Cassie is.”

“Shhhh!” Her mother turned around from her spot next to Wheezie and glared at Mattie.

“Don’t look at me.” He held up his hands. “Cassie started it.”

“Matthew, don’t argue with your mother,” Big Al warned from his place right next to his wife.

“I wasn’t arguing. I was just stating a fact. Although I guess it wasn’t Cassie who started it. It was Wheeze.”

“I wasn’t talking to anyone but your sister,” her aunt said. “And if the rest of you would shut your traps, I could get an answer.”

It was too much. The emotional stress from the last few days caught up with Cassie, and she giggled. Since she never giggled, her entire family stared at her. She tried to get a grip on her hysteria. It wasn’t easy, not when images of the last few hours kept popping into her head. Standing outside James’s door naked as the day she was born. Sex against the wall of his foyer. A towering inferno.

Good Lord.

Fortunately, before she dissolved into a fit of laughter, the procession started down the aisle with Father Thomas, the deacon, and the altar servers. Everyone rose to their feet, and Patrick leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Are you okay?”

Just like that, all the laughter drained right out of her and was replaced with the hard press of tears. After days of trying to hide her true feelings from her family, Cassie gave up and told the truth. “No.”

“Sutton?”

All she could do was nod.

“You want me to take care of him for you?” Patrick asked.

She shook her head. Almost setting the man’s house on fire was revenge enough. Since she was being honest with Patrick, she might as well be honest with herself. She couldn’t stand the thought of James being hurt. No matter how many lies he told or how many jobs he took from M & M.

“Good,” Patrick whispered. “I like the guy. Especially after he kicked Steve Mitchell’s ass.”

Cassie turned to him. “He kicked Steve’s ass?”

She spoke loud enough that her family weren’t the only ones who turned to look at her. She tried to bluff her way through it by glancing back over her shoulder and then shrugging. It seemed to work, and as soon as everyone looked away, she leaned closer to Patrick.

“When did this happen? And how did you find out about it?”

Her mother turned back around and shot Cassie a look
that promised severe retribution if she didn’t shut up. Cassie snapped her mouth closed.

Enduring the rest of the service without answers was the worst form of hell. She tried getting a pen from Amy so Patrick could write out the information. But before she could do more than lean over Matthew and Rory and tap her on the leg, her mother reached her hand back and pinched her arm.

The priest had barely concluded the service when Cassie forced the rest of her siblings out of the pew.

“Get a grip, Cassie,” Jake said. “Where’s the fire?”

His choice of words had her shoving Mattie even harder.

“Okay. Okay,” her littlest brother said. “Geez, Cass, I want to get home too, but Mom is going to make sure none of us sees another Christmas if you don’t cool it.”

Except Cassie couldn’t cool it. When she got to the end of the pew, she genuflected and did the quickest sign of the cross she’d ever done before grabbing Patrick’s hand and pulling him through the crowd. Her intention was to get him in her truck, away from the rest of the family so she could interrogate him. But before they got even halfway down the aisle, she was accosted by the women of the church and pulled into a sea of ugly Christmas sweaters.

“Cassie.” Tara Miller gave her the kind of hug you give an influenza victim. “I’m glad I caught you, sweetheart.” Tara was only two years older than Cassie, but she looked and acted at least twenty years older. She would never stand naked on a front porch or almost set fire to someone’s house. Although she had gotten smashed at
St. Paul’s Annual Harvest Festival and thrown up on the hayride.

“Doesn’t she look great?” she gushed to the other women. “Just look at all that hair. I used to have hair that thick, but that’s what four kids and a demanding husband will do for you.” She laughed and placed her hand on her Christmas tree sweater. “And speaking of husbands, my little brother is home for the holidays and would love to meet you.”

“I thought Alex just got divorced, Tara.” The woman in the snowman triplets sweater butted in. “Cassie doesn’t want someone on the rebound. Now, my nephew, on the other hand, has never been married and likes masculine women.”

“You mean rich women,” said the bleach blonde in a sweater that had Rudolph’s red nose strategically placed on the tip of one large breast. “I hear he’s looking for someone to support his gambling habit. My cousin Brian has his own money. He wrestled professionally until he dislocated his shoulder fighting Mad Dog Dan.”

“As if Cassie would want a pumped-up wrestler,” Tara said before her eyes lit up like a flaming tree. “There’s Alex now. Alex!” She waved her hand and moved farther up the aisle.

Cassie seized her opportunity and pulled a grinning Patrick down an empty pew to the other side of the church. But the move didn’t stop Tara’s matchmaking efforts. She latched on to a skinny man in glasses and started after them, forcing Cassie to duck behind a group of people and hide in the first room she came to.

“Cass,” Patrick said when she pulled the door closed
behind them, “I’ve never been overly religious, but even I think this might be pushing it.”

She glanced around the tiny confessional and figured he had a point. Still, she had too many questions to let a little thing like God’s wrath deter her.

“So how did you find out James beat up Steve?”

Patrick sat down and peered through the latticed window before he started talking. “After you told me about what Mitchell had done, I drove to his house. He wasn’t home, so I waited. It didn’t take long. He arrived with some redhead who started this high-pitched screaming when I jerked Mitchell out of his Mercedes. But before I clocked the bastard, I noticed his swollen eye. From what I could get out of his whining plea for mercy, Sutton didn’t care for him mauling you any more than I did.”

Cassie’s heart started to thump wildly. “He punched him because of me?”

“Good enough that I figured Mitchell had paid his dues and let him go with only a few words of warning about touching my sister.”

Cassie shook her head in disbelief. “But Steve was giving him the contract for his hotels.”

“Not anymore.” Patrick laughed. “I believe Mitchell’s exact words were ‘I’m getting an out-of-state contractor. Colorado is filled with nothing but barbaric mountain men.’ ” He got up, towering over her in the cramped space. “Look, Cass, I need to get out of here. Not only am I getting claustrophobic, but I’m starting to want to confess all my sins. And believe me, you don’t want to go there.” He reached for the door handle. “Come on; let’s go home.”

Home.

It was funny. Instead of picturing her condo, she pictured a man with dark brown hair and rich whiskey eyes.

“Just give me a couple minutes, okay?” she said.

Patrick studied her face for only a second before he nodded and slipped out the door.

When he was gone, Cassie sat down and tried to collect her thoughts. It was hard to do when the giddy, girlie feeling was back and worse than ever.

James had punched Steve Mitchell. For her. And a multimillion-dollar contract hadn’t even made one speck of difference. Wheezie had been right. James hadn’t lied to her just to dig up dirt so he’d get the Slumber Suites contract. He lied to get her in bed. And while most women might be offended, it made Cassie extremely happy. Probably because she didn’t believe for a second that the time he spent with her had been only about sex. James cared for her. He had proved that by showing up at her parents’ house.

She froze and started nibbling on her thumbnail. At least, he had cared for her until her father had gotten involved. Until she had botched her apology and almost set fire to his house. Now he hated her. She slumped back against the wall just as the door opened on the other side of the partition.

“Is someone in here?” Father Thomas asked.

Cassie really wanted to keep her mouth shut and hope that he went away, but she figured she was in enough trouble with God without ignoring a priest. “Yes, Father.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I’m afraid that confession
isn’t being held tonight or tomorrow. But if you come back on—”

She cut him off. “That’s all right. I was just… taking a moment.”

Father Thomas chuckled and closed the door behind him. “I need to take those every now and again myself. Any particular reason for needing one on Christmas Eve?” He paused. “Or should I say, Christmas morning? It’s well past midnight.”

She thought about making up some excuse and bidding the priest goodbye. But since she was there, it seemed a shame to waste a good confessor.

She leaned closer. “There’s this man, Father. This man I’ve been dating—well, sort of. And I did something really stupid, Father. Actually, I did a lot of stupid things. The main one being not giving him a chance to explain why he lied—oh, and calling what we had a one-night stand.” She froze. Who did she think she was talking with? This was a priest, not a talk-radio host. “I mean, I shouldn’t have made him think that what we had together wasn’t special.”

“It’s always important to make people feel special,” Father Thomas said.

“I know, and it’s really my weakness. People in my family have trouble letting their true emotions show.” She slumped back against the wall. “I can’t even tell my father that I don’t want to be a paper pusher for the rest of my life. People think I’m so tough, but I’m just a wimp.”

“The meek shall inherit the earth.”

“I don’t want to inherit the earth, Father. I just want
James to forgive me. I just want to get back what we had before.”

“And what makes you think that this James won’t forgive you? Sometimes all people need is a little time to find forgiveness.”

“That might’ve been true to begin with, but after I almost burned down his house, I’m thinking it will take more than time.”

Father Thomas cleared his throat. “Perhaps I could make an exception, and we could do a confession after all.”

“No, Father, I don’t need a confession—well, maybe I do, but it will have to wait. What I really need is for you to tell me what to do to fix it. How can I get James back?”

There was a long pause before Father Thomas spoke. “I’m sorry, my child. I can’t tell you what you need to do to get your young man back. All I can tell you is that God has a plan, and if you will release yourself to his loving care, he will guide you to your destiny. No matter what has happened in the past. No matter what obstacles lie ahead in the future.”

“But how will I know if I’m going in the right direction?”

“Prayer and meditation have always worked for me. If you’re patient, your heart will lead you in the right direction.”

The only thing Cassie felt in her heart was a whole lot of love for James. But somehow she didn’t think that was going to be enough. And maybe she needed to listen to Father Thomas and give James some time. She’d rushed over to his house earlier and look what had happened.