The Trouble with Caasi Read online

  “Well?” he demanded again. “Is it true?”

  “Yes,” she said, confirming his suspicions. “But I’m only selling eight hotels. I’m keeping the Portland Empress and the Seaside Empress.”

  “Caasi.” He groaned in frustration. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. I don’t have the time to manage the hotels and everything else.”

  “Everything else? What?” he demanded. “What could possibly be more important to you than Crane Enterprises?”

  Sitting opposite him, Caasi watched his face intently as she spoke. “A baby,” she murmured softly.

  “A baby,” he exploded, and shot to his feet.

  “Blake, I wanted to have a nice logical discussion with you. But if you insist on overreacting like this, then I’m simply going to have to ask you to leave.”

  “You don’t say things like that and expect me to react as if you’ve asked for the sugar bowl.”

  “Okay, okay,” she agreed. “When you’ve cooled down I’d like to have a calm, rational discussion.”

  He sat back down and said nothing for several moments as though trying to calm himself. After a while he asked, “Are you pregnant?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Not yet?” Impatience showed in the set of his mouth.

  Caasi lowered her gaze and struggled to keep a firm grip on her composure. “I’ve met with a real estate agent and have started looking at houses. I don’t want my baby growing up in a hotel the way I did.”

  Blake straightened in the chair, his back ramrod stiff.

  “I’ve also talked with an attorney, and he’s drawing up the necessary papers. I think … the father … should have some rights, but I’d be foolish not to protect myself and the baby legally.”

  Blake’s face was hard, his eyes blazing. Yet he was pale, as if his grip on his temper was fragile. “And the father?” he asked curtly.

  “Yes, well …” Caasi felt the muscles of her throat tighten as the words slipped out. “I’d like you to be my baby’s father.”

  Ten

  Blake’s razor-sharp gaze ripped into her. “What did you say?”

  Caasi had trouble meeting his eyes. “You heard me right.”

  Blake propelled himself out of the chair and stalked to the far side of the room. “Have you seen a doctor?” He ground out the question, his back to her.

  “No, not yet. I didn’t feel that would be necessary until I was fairly certain I was pregnant,” she explained tightly.

  Blake swiveled around, his brow knit with questioning concern. “I’m not talking about that kind of doctor.”

  “Honestly, Blake. Do you think I need a psychiatrist?” Her smile was tense and nervous.

  “Yes,” he insisted. “Quite frankly, that’s exactly what I think. You’ve been working too hard.”

  Caasi’s spirits sank and she lowered her head. Her fingers toyed with a stack of papers on her desk. “I’m not working any harder now than I have for the past five years.”

  “Exactly.” His hand sliced through the air.

  “Blake, the Empress has nothing to do with this. I woke up, that’s all. I’ve decided I want something more out of life than money and an empty suite.” She didn’t elaborate that he was the one responsible for awakening her. “I’m a woman. Is it so wrong to want to be a mother? I can assure you I’ll be a good one.” She inhaled deeply. “June says I’m a natural with the baby and I’d make—”

  “Why pick me?” he interrupted, a grim set to his jaw.

  “Why not?” she said, and shrugged. The heat seeped into her face, reddening her cheeks. “You’re tall, good-looking, and possess certain characteristics I admire.” Nervously she stood up and walked around to the front of the desk. Leaning her thighs against the flat top, she crossed her arms.

  “Just how do you propose to get pregnant? By osmosis?” Blake taunted.

  “No … of course not,” she stammered. “Listen, Blake, I’m not doing a very good job of explaining this. I really wish I hadn’t said anything. At least, not until I’d heard from the lawyer. But aside from anything else, I’d like you to know I’m willing to make this venture worth your while.”

  His mouth twisted into a cynical smile. “You don’t have enough money to pay me for what you’re asking. I’d like to tell you what to do with your proposition, Cupcake, but your face would burn for a week.” Slowly he turned and walked to the door.

  “Don’t go, Blake. Please.”

  With his hand on the doorknob, he turned; his gaze was concentrated on her, disturbing her even more. “There’s nothing you can say. Good-bye, Cupcake.”

  Just the way he said it made her blood run cold. His voice expressed so many things in those few words. Frustration. Disappointment. Contempt. Disbelief.

  Caasi sagged against the desk as the door closed. Blake couldn’t be feeling any more confused than she was. He had been angry. Blazingly angry. She’d seen him express myriad emotions over the years. And plenty of anger. But never like this. This kind of anger went beyond raised voices and lost tempers. This time it came from Blake’s heart.

  The thought of working was almost impossible. Caasi tried for the remainder of the morning, but her concentration drifted, and every page seemed to mirror Blake’s look as he walked out the door. At lunchtime she announced to Laurie that she didn’t know when she’d be back. Laurie’s eyes rounded with frustration but said nothing.

  Caasi let herself into the penthouse suite and slowly sauntered around the empty quarters. She shouldn’t have approached Blake that day. Even the most naïve business graduate would have recognized that this wasn’t the time to propose anything to him. He’d been upset even before she’d opened her mouth. Her sense of timing couldn’t have been more off-kilter. That wasn’t like her. She knew better.

  Staring out the window, Caasi blinked uncertainly. She needed to get away. Think. Reconsider.

  After changing out of her smart linen business suit into capris and a pink sweater, she took her car out of the garage and drove around for a while. It was true that she wanted a baby. But what she hadn’t realized until that morning was that she wanted Blake’s child. If he wouldn’t agree, then she would have to abandon the idea completely.

  She had to talk to Blake and make him understand. All the way to Gresham, she practiced what she wanted to say, the assurances she would give him. Nothing in her life had ever been so important.

  His driveway was empty when she turned into it. She had counted on his being there. Just as she climbed out of her car, it started to rain. Staring at the skies in defeat, Caasi raised the collar of her jacket and hurried up the back steps, pounding on the door on the off chance he was inside. Nothing.

  Rushing back to her car, she climbed inside and listened to the pelting rain dance on the roof. An arc of lightning flashed across the dark sky. Wonderful, she reflected disconsolately. Even nature responded to Blake’s moods.

  Ten minutes passed and it seemed like ten years. But Caasi was determined to stay until she’d had the chance to explain things to Blake.

  Half an hour later, when the storm was beginning to abate, she got out of the car a second time. Maybe Blake had left his back door unlocked and she could go inside.

  The door was tightly locked, but Caasi found a key under a ceramic flowerpot. It looked old and slightly rusted. Briefly Caasi wondered if Blake even knew it was there. After several minutes spent trying to work the key into the lock, she managed to open the door.

  Wiping her feet on the mat, she let herself into the kitchen. Blake’s dirty breakfast dishes were on the table and she carried them to the sink. It looked as if he’d been reading the morning paper, found the article about the rumored sale of the Empress, and rushed out the door, newspaper in hand.

  To fill the time, she leafed through several magazines. But nothing held her interest, so she straightened up the living room and ran warm, sudsy water into
the kitchen sink to wash the breakfast dishes. She had just finished scrubbing the frying pan when she heard a car in the driveway.

  Her heart thumped as though she’d just run a marathon when Blake walked in the door. Turning, her hands braced on the edge of the sink behind her, Caasi smiled weakly.

  “Who let you in?”

  Involuntarily, Caasi flinched at the hard edge in his voice.

  “There was a key under the flowerpot.” Her voice nearly failed her. Turning back to the sink, she jerked the kitchen towel from the drawer and started drying the few dishes she’d washed. At least she could hide how badly her hands were shaking.

  “Okay, we’ll abort that how and go directly to why. Why are you here?” His dry sarcasm knotted her stomach.

  “Would you like a cup of coffee?” she asked brightly. “I know I would.”

  “No!” he nearly shouted. “I don’t want any coffee. What I’d like is a simple explanation.” His hard gaze followed her as she took a mug from the cupboard and helped herself to a cup.

  “Caasi?” The tone of his voice as he spoke her name revealed the depth of his frustration.

  After pulling out a chair, she sat down, her eyes issuing a silent invitation for him to do the same.

  He ignored her and leaned against the kitchen counter.

  She didn’t look at him as she spoke. “You once accused me of having ink in my veins. At the time you were right. But the ink is gone and there’s blood flowing there now.” Briefly her gaze slid to him. His stance didn’t encourage her to continue.

  “So?” His arms were crossed as if to block her out. He drew his head back, pride dictating the indifference he so vividly portrayed.

  “So?” she repeated with bitter mockery. “You did this to me. You’re the one responsible.…”

  Blake straightened slightly. “Does that make it my duty to fall in with these loony plans of yours? Do you have any idea of how crazy you sound? You want to pay me to father your child, so you can be a mother. What do you have against marriage?”

  “Nothing. I … I think marriage is wonderful.”

  “Then if you’re so hot for a family, why don’t we get married?”

  She stiffened with angry pride as she met his glare. “Is this a proposal?”

  “Yes,” he snapped.

  Caasi felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach. Tears brimmed in her eyes.

  “Well?” His voice softened perceptibly.

  One tear slid down her cheek and she wiped it aside. “Every girl dreams about having a man ask her to marry him. I never thought my proposal would be shouted at me from across a kitchen.”

  “I’m not exactly in a romantic mood. Do you want to get married or don’t you?” he barked. “And while we’re on the subject, let’s get something else straight. We’ll live right here in this house and on my income. Whatever money is yours will be put into a trust fund for the children.”

  Her hair fell forward to cover her face as she stared into the steaming coffee. “My mother died before I knew her,” she began weakly. “Maybe if she’d lived I would know a better way to say these things. To me, marriage means more than producing children. There’s love and commitment and a hundred different things I don’t even know how to explain. The quiet communication I witnessed between your mother and father. That look in Burt’s eyes as June was delivering their child. Do you see what I’m trying to say?”

  Blake was quiet for so long, she wondered if he’d heard her. “Maybe as time goes by you could learn to love me,” Blake said with slow deliberation. “I think we should give it a try.”

  “Learn to love you?” Caasi repeated incredulously. “I love you already.” She raised her eyes to his, her gaze level and clear. “I don’t want any baby unless it’s yours. I don’t want any other man but you … ever.”

  In the next instant, she was hauled out of the chair and into his arms. “You love me?” Roughly he pushed the hair from her eyes, as if he had to see it himself, couldn’t believe what she was saying and had to read it in her face.

  Her hands were braced against his chest. “Of course I do. Could I have made it any more obvious in Seaside?” Her lashes fluttered closed as she struggled to disguise the pain that his rejection still had the power to inflict. “But you … you …”

  “I know what I did,” he interrupted. “I walked out. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life, but I turned away and left you.” He released her and twined his fingers through his hair. “I was half a breath from telling you how much I loved you. Then I heard you say that you were absolving me from any responsibility. Here I was, ready to give you my heart, and you were talking to me like a one-night stand.”

  “Oh Blake.” She moaned, lifting the hair from her forehead with one hand. “I wanted you to understand that I didn’t expect anything of you. You didn’t have to love me, not when I loved you so much.”

  Tenderly, his eyes caressed her. “How can any two people misunderstand each other the way we have?”

  Sadly, Caasi shook her head. “Why did you resign? Why did you leave when I wanted you so desperately to stay?”

  He took her back into his arms, and his lips softly brushed her cheek. “Because loving you and working with you were becoming impossible. I’ve loved you almost from the moment you floated into your father’s office that day. I kept waiting for you to wake up to that fact. Then one day I realized you never would.”

  “Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you let me know?”

  “Caasi, I couldn’t have been any more obvious. All the times I made excuses to touch you, be with you. Anything. But you were so caught up in Crane Enterprises you didn’t notice. And to be truthful, your money intimidated me. One day I decided: Why torture myself anymore? You were already married to the company, and I was never going to be rich enough for you to believe I wasn’t attracted to you for your money.”

  “But, Blake, I didn’t think that. Not once.”

  “Then you didn’t realize I loved you, either.”

  Smiling, Caasi slid her arms over his shoulders and looked at him with all the love in her heart. “But now that I know, Blake Sherrill, I’m not letting you go. Not for a minute.”

  Tenderly he kissed her as if she were a fragile flower and held her close as if he’d never release her.

  “I love you so much.” She curled tighter into his embrace. “And, Blake, we’re going to have the most beautiful children.”

  “Yes,” he murmured, his lips seeking hers. “But not for a year. I want you to myself for that long. Understood?”

  “Oh yes,” she agreed eagerly, her eyes glowing with the soft light of happiness. “Anything you say.”

  Five months later, Caasi stood on the back porch as Blake drove into the driveway. Even after three months of marriage, just seeing her husband climb out of the car at the end of the day produced a wealth of emotions.

  “Hi—how was your afternoon?” she greeted him, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him. She worked mornings at the Empress but gradually was turning her responsibilities over to Blake so that the time would come when she could pursue some of the things she wanted.

  Lifting her off the floor, Blake swung her around, his mouth locating the sensitive area at the hollow of her throat, knowing the tingling reaction he’d evoke.

  “You’re being mighty brave for five-thirty in the afternoon,” she teased.

  “It doesn’t seem to matter what time of the day it is. I don’t think I’ll ever stop wanting you,” he whispered in her ear. “Fifty years from now, I’ll probably be chasing you around the bedroom.” His voice was deep and emotion-filled.

  “I don’t think you’ll have to chase too hard.”

  “Good thing,” he said, as he set his briefcase aside so he could hold her tightly against him. “Your cooking is improving, because whatever it is smells delicious.”

  “Yes—that reminds me.” Caasi groaned and broke from his embrace. “I have good news and
bad news. Which do you want first?”

  Blake’s eyes narrowed fractionally. “Knowing you, I think I’d better hear the bad news first.”

  “Promise you won’t get angry?”

  “I’m not making any promises.” He pulled her back into his arms and nuzzled her throat playfully.

  Giggling and happy, Caasi blurted out, “The bad news is I burnt the roast. The good news is I went out and got Kentucky Fried Chicken.”

  “Caasi, that’s twice this month.” Blake groaned, but there was no anger in the way his eyes caressed her.

  “That’s not all,” she added, lowering her eyes. “Honey, I tried, but I can’t make Ekalb into a decent name for a boy or a girl.”

  Blake laughed. “What are you talking about now?”

  “Your name spelled backward, silly. I wanted to name the baby after you, and Ekalb just isn’t going to do it.”

  Silence fell over the room. “Baby?” Blake repeated. “What baby?”

  “The one right here.” She took his hand and pressed it against her flat stomach. “I know you said a year, but eight months from now it will be almost that long.”

  “Caasi,” Blake murmured, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

  “I couldn’t. Not until I was sure. Are you upset?”

  “Upset?” He chuckled. “No, never that. Just surprised, that’s all.” His smile was filled with satisfaction as he pulled her into his arms.

  Closing her eyes, Caasi slid her arms around her husband’s neck and released a contented sigh as she drew his mouth to hers.

  BALLANTINE BOOKS BY DEBBIE MACOMBER

  Rose Harbor Inn

  Love Letters

  Rose Harbor in Bloom

  The Inn at Rose Harbor

  Lost and Found in Cedar Cove (Short Story)

  When First They Met (Short Story)

  Blossom Street

  Blossom Street Brides

  Starting Now

  Christmas Books

  Mr. Miracle

  Starry Night

  Angels at the Table

  For a complete list of books by Debbie Macomber, visit her website,