Eyes Wide Open by Kelly

Part 5

Cassy flipped through the television channels. 'How come the only things on
during the day are soaps and talk shows,' she wondered.

There was a knock at the door.

Cassy turned off the TV. 'A visitor.' She smiled. "Come in."

Tom opened the door. "Can I come in?"

"Well, I certainly can't come out there."

Tom grinned. "Right." He closed the door behind him and stood there. "How
are you feeling?"

Cassy could tell Tom was scared. Terrified was more to the point. She
decided to play along.

She refused to meet his eyes. "Tom, could you please sit down. There's
something I want to talk to you about."

He moved closer and sat in the chair. "Oh? What about?"

She patted the edge of her bed. "Can you sit here?"

He got up and moved to where she had pointed. "You were saying.."

Cassy could barely keep from grinning. "Right. It's about what you said
earlier."

'Here it comes, Ryan,' he thought to himself. 'It's the old dumparoo.'

"Tom?"

"Yes?" He looked her squarely in the eyes and braced himself for the worse.

She leaned over and kissed him. Startled, his first impulse was to pull
away, but when he realized that the kiss had not ended he decided to go with it.
Cassy pulled him closer and deepened the kiss. Tom followed suit and
instinctively began to play with her hair as he had always done.

Cassy pulled back with a smile on her face.

Tom could barely control his breathing. He was certain his heartbeat could
be heard in the next room. "Does that mean what I think it does?"

"Yes." She kissed his cheek.

"Yes to what, exactly?" Tom stared at her in disbelief.

"Yes to everything." She sat back and applauded herself for once again
stunning Tom.

"Including marriage?" He could feel his hands go numb.

"Especially marriage."

His eyes opened wide and he let out a wa-hoo. He grabbed her and pulled her
toward him.

"Tom," she squeaked from underneath his neck, "that hurts."

He let her go. "I am so sorry. Did I hurt you?"

"No. I'll be fine."

He sat back in the chair. A huge smile came over his face. "Wow. I can't
believe this. Are you sure about this?"

Cassy was surprised. "Am I sure about this? I accept your marriage proposal
and all you can ask is if I'm sure about it?" She looked at him closely.
"Are you trying to take back the proposal?"

"No!" He said it with such force that it startled Cassy and himself. "No,"
he said more calmly. "I want this more than anything else in the world."

"Good," she smiled, "because you're stuck with me."

He leaned over and kissed her. "There is no one I would rather be stuck
with."

She sat up in the bed. "There is something you need to know."

He didn't like the seriousness in her voice. "Oh?"

"Yeah, I had a visitor today."

"Dalton."

Cassy was surprised. "Yeah. How did you know?"

"I saw him in the lobby. I figured he was here to woo you back."

She smiled. "I knew you had that badge for a reason."

Tom tried to smile, but failed. He didn't want to have this
conversation, but he couldn't let it go. "What did he want?"

"Just like you said. He tried to woo me back."

"And what did you say?"

Cassy looked at him with surprise. "Aren't you the same Tom Ryan I just
became engaged to? What do you think I told him?"

Tom sighed. "Please, Cass. I need to know what he said. I nearly drove
myself mad trying to figure out what he was saying to you and what you were
saying to him."

Cassy looked him. 'Sometimes,' she thought to herself,' he can be the
most loving and generous person she ever met. There were times when all she
wanted was to throw her arms around him and other times when she wanted to
break his nose. This, she decided, was definitely one of those nose breaking times.

"Did you really think that I would return to him after what he had done to
me?"

Tom looked at his shoes. "I didn't know."

"You were there that night at the party. You saw how I reacted when I
realized he was married. You were even there later that night when I
completely lost it. Did you think that seeing him again and watching him
ask for forgiveness was going to make me forget what had happened? I
was shot Tom, not hit on the head."

Tom realized he had gone too far. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply
anything. It's just that there I was sitting in the lobby forever trying to
get up the nerve to come in here and face you, when I saw Alexander walk
out. Any confidence I might have had at that point went all to hell."

It was so hard for her to stay mad at him when he looked so vulnerable and
sorry. "I guess that if the situation was reversed and I saw Miss
Hot-to-trot Leah leaving I might have wondered the same thing. All right,
I'm not upset any more."

"Of course not, you never could stay mad at me. Especially when we were
married."

She laughed. "That's because you thought the best way to reach my
forgiveness level was under my clothes."

He grinned an evil smile. "I can't wait to make you mad again."

"Down boy. All in due time. First, I want to tell you about my visit with
the slime king."

Tom's smile vanished. "Okay, I'm listening."

"As I said, he wanted me back. He laid on some trip about missing me,
needing me, loving me. He told me that he and his wife were getting a
divorce because of his feelings for me."

Tom snorted.

"My thoughts exactly. I reminded him of his little escape with the happy
hooker. He said that it had been a momentary lapse in judgment."

"That's how he rationalized sleeping with a hooker?"

"Hookers, plural. Two. But yeah, that's what he said."

"Unbelievable. What else?"

"The doctor came in and made a reference to my condition and Dalton
demanded an explanation. I told him that you and I were expecting a baby."

"What did he say to that?"

"He said he didn't care who the father was, he wanted me as his wife and
together we would raise this child. He went on to say that once we were
married, your role in the baby's life would be restricted."

Tom face turned red. "That lousy bastard. I'm going to make him pay for
that."

Cassy tried to calm him down. "Tom, please. I told him that it was not
going to happen. I told him I was in love with you and together we would
raise our baby as husband and wife."

"You told him that?"

"Yes I did. You saw him leaving. Did he look happy?"

Tom thought back for a minute. "Not especially."

"All right then. I am officially putting an end to any ghosts from the
past. There will be no more Daltons or Leahs to interfere with our new
beginning."

She leaned over to him. "From now on it will be Cassy and Tom, take two."

Tom leaned forward and kissed her. "More like Tom and Cassy take two."


To Part 6

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