Strange Bedfellows Part 3

36 Hours Serial

As a devastating summer storm hits Grand Springs, Colorado, the next thirty-six hours will change the town and its residents forever….

Strange Bedfellows Part 3

Sworn enemies Cassandra Mercer and Sean Frame become more than friends when they’re trapped inside her car by a dangerous mudslide.

The differences that flared into debates at school council meetings have become personal as Cassandra gets closer to Sean and his son Jason. She sees Jason’s love for his dad, and knows she must find a way for Sean to see it, too.

And Sean is seeing something new in Cassandra. Ever since their night together, he’s realized her crusade for her students comes from true caring. Maybe she can give Jason the stability he needs and a reason for Sean to open up his heart.

Don’t miss the next story in this ongoing series, Ooh Baby, Baby by Diana Whitney.

Dear Reader,

In the town of Grand Springs, Colorado, a devastating summer storm sets off a string of events that changes the lives of the residents forever….

Welcome to Mills & Boon exciting new digital serial, 36 Hours! In this thirty-six part serial share the stories of the residents of Grand Springs, Colorado, in the wake of a deadly storm.

With the power knocked out and mudslides washing over the roads, the town is plunged into darkness and the residents are forced to face their biggest fears—and find love against all odds.

Each week features a new story written by a variety of bestselling authors like Susan Mallery and Sharon Sala. The stories are published in three segments, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and the first segment of every three-part book is free, so you can get caught up in the mystery and drama of Grand Springs. And you can get to know a new set of characters every week. You can read just one, but as the lives and stories of each intertwine in surprising ways, you’ll want to read them all!

Join Mills & Boon E every week as we bring you excitement, mystery, fun and romance in 36 Hours!

Happy reading!

USA TODAY bestselling author KASEY MICHAELS is the author of more than one hundred books. She has earned four starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, and has won an RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award as well as several other commendations for her contemporary and historical novels. Kasey resides with her family in Pennsylvania. Readers may contact Kasey via her website, at www.kaseymichaels.com, and find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/AuthorKaseyMichaels.

Strange Bedfellows Part 3

Kasey Michaels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

When Grand Springs was hit by the massive, destructive storm, everyone was thrown into a tailspin, including Sean and Cassandra. No one would have ever predicted that those two enemies would ever be in the same car, but a mudslide will do that. In those dark, terrifying hours, two people realized that underneath their stoic appearances, they were both searching for something—and found it in each other. And one phone call has the power to change all of that. Sean’s son, Jason, and his girlfriend, Becky, were in a terrible car accident. Jason is alive, but once his father gets ahold of him, he’d better have a good explanation or Jason will be on his way back to his mother’s before the sun rises. Cassandra is hoping she won’t have to pick sides. She loves both and is hoping to have the life and family she’s always dreamed of, but the only way that is going to work is if Sean learns to listen and if Jason can learn to trust enough to speak—and both are as stubborn as mules. Will either be brave enough to make the first move?

Contents

Chapter Fourteen Continued

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

Chapter Fourteen Continued

“Are—are they hurt? Was Jason calling from the hospital?” Cassandra Mercer’s earlier modesty cast aside with the sheet, she grabbed her clothing from the floor, where it had landed in a heap more than three hours ago, and struggled to get dressed. “Sean? Are you going to answer me?”

“Jason says he’s all right,” he said, rubbing his fingers over his cheek, rubbing the palm of his hand across his chin. “They’re examining Becky in the emergency room now. Damn it! Why did I let him have the Mercedes? I should have known he’d have to go showing off, speeding! Where are your keys? In the kitchen? Finish dressing, Cassandra. I’ll meet you at the car.”

She ran after him, holding her shoes under her arm as she buttoned a fresh blouse she had pulled from the closet. “Did Jason tell you the accident was his fault?”

“He didn’t have to,” Sean flung over his shoulder at her as he ran down the steps. “All he had to tell me was that the police were with him and waiting to talk to me.”

“Well,” Cassandra said as she skidded around the corner of the hallway, “that doesn’t prove anything. You’re jumping to conclusions again, Sean. Thinking the worst before you even know anything. Over—”

Sean stopped dead at the entrance to the kitchen, so that Cassandra barreled into his chest as he turned around to face her. “Overreacting, Cassandra? Is that what you were going to say?”

“Sean—”

“No!” he exclaimed, holding up his hands to stop her from defending his son. “Not this time, Cassandra. It’s always two steps forward and one step back with that kid. Give him an inch and he takes a mile. Offer your hand and he grabs for the whole arm. You name the cliché, and Jase will live up to it. Just like his mother, just like me! Or did you forget that we just climbed out of your bed? Without a word of love, a syllable of promise, a mention of commitment-I took all you offered, all I could take, all I could make you give. And then some!”

“You didn’t make me give anything I didn’t want to give,” Cassandra said quietly, her soft brown eyes glittering with tears. “Nobody and nothing has control over my life, my actions. Not anymore. Not ever again. Now, are we going to stand here so I can listen to you being stupid, or are we going to the hospital to see about Jason and Becky?”

“God, what an ass I am! My kid’s in the hospital and all I’m doing is feeling sorry for myself.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “I don’t know why you just don’t tell me to go to hell.”

“I don’t know why, either,” she said, turning her head to press a kiss against the back of his hand. “But I think you have potential. Now, come on, Jason needs you. I’ll drive.”

Chapter Fifteen

Cassandra drove through the dark night, heading toward Vanderbilt Memorial, a disturbingly intense and quiet Sean in the front passenger seat. It had begun to rain, and the only sound inside the car was the soft swish-swish of the windshield wipers—and the beating of Cassandra’s heart.

She could feel Sean’s fear, his anxiety, his need to be with his son. She also sensed his anger at himself for believing Jason to have been at fault when, as she had pointed out, no one yet knew what had happened.

As if reading her thoughts, Sean said quietly, “He said he was all right. But what’s all right? I remember a friend of mine, from college. He was injured in a sledding accident one winter, but swore he was fine. And he looked fine. He got up, he walked around, he talked. And then, about ten minutes later, he just fell down. He—he was dead by the time the paramedics arrived. Internal bleeding, they told us later. Cassandra, if anything were to happen to Jason, I—”

“Jason said he was fine, so he’s fine,” she told him quickly, reaching across the small space that divided them, the chasm that divided her from his parental pain. “We’ll be there in ten minutes, all right? Damn, hasn’t it rained enough in this past week?”

“Do you want to pull over, let me drive?”

Cassandra shook her head, looking out onto the rain-bright street, the reflection of the streetlights on the macadam. “I can manage. Oh—look up there, ahead of us, to those blinking lights. Do you think—?”

“Pull over behind that cruiser, Cassandra,” Sean said, both his hands braced on the dashboard. “That’s my car they’re loading onto the flatbed tow truck.”

Cassandra, her lips caught between her teeth, did as Sean asked, pulling the car to a stop behind a shiny white police car whose red, white and blue lights were still blinking out their warning, streaking the rainy night with color, with a sense of urgency that sent a sickening knot to tighten in the pit of her stomach.

They were both out of the car and running toward the tow truck before any of the policemen or firemen who were on the scene could stop them, Sean calling out who he was and that he was the owner of the Mercedes.

Or what used to be a Mercedes, Cassandra thought as she stopped in her tracks, looking at the car in horror. There was barely anything left of the passenger side of the car. She walked forward more slowly, wiping raindrops from her face, squinting as she took off her wet glasses and taking in the sight of the deflated passenger-door air bag that had deployed when the car was hit.

The dashboard air bags hadn’t deployed, which meant that the impact had all been from the side, and Cassandra looked around, hunting for the source of that impact. She counted up the three police cruisers, the single fire truck—with half a dozen firemen busy washing down the street with hoses they’d pulled from the pumper truck. Cassandra could smell gasoline fumes and looked at the street, seeing the oily rainbows of color that told her at least one of the vehicles involved in the accident had leaked gasoline from its fuel tank.

“Thank God there wasn’t a fire,” she said as one of the policemen approached her.

“You with Mr. Frame, ma’am?” the officer inquired, and Cassandra nodded.

“Where’s the other car?” she then asked, wondering if it looked as bad as the Mercedes. If it did, there may have been more injuries, even a fatality.

“We’re looking for it now, ma’am,” the officer told her, motioning for her to step back. The tow truck was ready to move out, Sean’s twisted car perched on the flatbed like some sort of horrible modern art. “It was a hit-and-run, according to the kid. And there’s white paint on his rear bumper, so we believe him. Someone hit him from the rear, at least twice, and he went spinning out on the wet street. Ended up sliding against that light pole over there, at the entrance to the intersection. It was quite an impact, which happens when a car is thrown into a spin.”

Sure enough, the light pole was leaning drunkenly over the street, something she hadn’t noticed at first. The damage had all been to the Mercedes. The gas that had spilled on the street had been from the Mercedes.

Jason and Becky had been attacked! And they could have been killed!

“Somebody—somebody did this deliberately?” Cassandra looked toward Sean and saw him striding in her direction, the cold, concentrated look on his face telling her that one of the other policemen had already given him the information she’d just heard. “My God. Why? Sean?”

He took hold of her outstretched hand. “Come on, Cassandra, we’re going to Vanderbilt to talk to Jason. The officer told me he swears he didn’t recognize the other car, but I want to hear it from his own mouth, while he’s looking into my eyes. Into your eyes.”

She ran to the driver’s side of her car and slid inside, already turning the key in the ignition. “I don’t get it, Sean,” she said as she carefully pulled around the cruiser, avoiding the area where the firemen were just finishing hosing down the street, then heading for the hospital once more, this time with more than worry and fear riding along with her. Now she was also angry. Very, very angry!

Sean was sitting very still, staring straight ahead, water droplets glistening in his hair, his face lit by each streetlight they passed. His jaw was set tight, his shoulders squared. He looked ready to take on the world, and heaven help anyone who dared to get in his way.

“What don’t you get, Cassandra?” he asked tightly as the lights of Vanderbilt Memorial at last appeared in the distance. “That someone would deliberately run someone else’s car off the street? To some minds, that’s what’s known as good, clean fun. And an inexperienced young kid driving a luxury car? Hell, that must have made it twice the fun!”

“So, you think that whoever did this was really after the car? Or, if I get this right, after the kid who they saw driving such a car? That doesn’t make sense.”

“It doesn’t have to, Cassandra,” he shot back tersely, then pointed toward the windshield. “Turn up there, just before that sign pointing out the emergency entrance. The officer said someone will meet us there.”

She put on her turn signal, then began to slow down. She really didn’t like driving at night, especially in the rain, especially when there were so many lights—lights that seemed to turn into bright star bursts as they shone through the windscreen at her, hurting her eyes.

“Are you saying this all happened because a bunch of kids were out joyriding and just happened to see Jason and Becky?” she asked, trying to understand. “That the reason the kids could be injured, your car totaled, the police and fire departments called out—this entire mess—is because a couple of bored kids felt like having a little fun?”

He shot her an intense look as she pulled into one of the specially marked parking spaces for those coming to the emergency room. “That’s exactly what I’m saying, Cassandra. Now, can you tell me which of your students—your current kids, or any who graduated, or any who dropped out—you believe capable of considering damn near killing somebody else fun? Think about it, okay?”

She sat in the car, her hand on the ignition key, watching as Sean slammed the passenger door and began jogging toward the emergency room entrance. One of her kids? One of her students? Capable of such stupidity? Such dangerous horseplay? No. No, it couldn’t be. Not one of her kids.

“Oh, God,” she said, and slowly lowered her forehead on the steering wheel, feeling sick to her stomach.

* * *

Sean saw Jason immediately, and stopped himself before he could rush across the room to his son. Taking a deep breath and looking at him, Sean visually assessed him as if for damage. Jason looked completely normal, except for the grayish cast to his skin and the untidiness of his hair which, even as Sean watched, Jason rumpled with his fingers as he sighed audibly.

He looked scared, shaken and about twelve years old. Sean’s heart constricted, and he had to take several more deep breaths before he could force his legs to move.

“Dad!” Jason exclaimed, his eyes shining with relief as he turned in his chair and saw Sean. He jumped up hurriedly, then sat down again, his quick smile gone, his gaze intent on the tile floor.

Sean knew what his son was thinking, what he feared. He believed that his father would be madder than hell and immediately start yelling at him. Which wouldn’t have been far from wrong, Sean supposed, if he hadn’t been with Cassandra when the news first came, and hadn’t had her to yell at, to vent his anger to, when his fear turned to a stupid outburst of impotent fury.

But now he’d had time to think, time for the first jolt of fear to be overcome by reason. And it didn’t matter that he’d already found out that the accident hadn’t been his son’s fault. Nothing mattered right now, damn it, except that his son was all right.

Sean quickly crossed the room, nodding to the uniformed officer who was propping up the wall beside Jason, and then dropped to his knees in front of the boy.

“Jase?” he asked quietly, laying a hand on the boy’s knee. “Have the doctors checked you out? Are you sure you’re all right?”

Jason nodded, still keeping his head down. “Dr. Howell checked me out a while ago. I’m just sore, where the seat belt grabbed at me, I guess. He gave me some muscle relaxant pills, or something like that. Becky’s okay, too. She—she was pretty upset. Crying and stuff. Screaming. But she’s okay. They’re just going to keep her overnight because she might have hit her head or something. The police said the air bag probably saved her.” He slowly raised his head, his eyes shining with tears. “I—I’m so sorry about the car, Dad. I know how much you loved it.”

“The car,” Sean said hollowly, feeling his bottom lip beginning to tremble, feeling the prickle of tears behind his eyes. “Jase, I don’t give two damns about the car. Just as long as you’re all right. Do you understand what I’m saying? I love you, son. I love you so much.”

The next thing Sean knew, a sobbing Jason was draped against him, holding him so tightly he could feel each of his fingertips pressing into his back. “I love you, too, Dad,” he gulped out against his father’s neck as Sean returned his embrace, holding his son as the two of them knelt on the floor, rocking him in his arms, letting him cry.

After a few moments Sean felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Cassandra standing beside him, tears running down her cheeks as she smiled down at him. He knew his own cheeks were wet, and he didn’t care. All he cared about was that it seemed so right that Cassandra be here with him, with him and Jason. Now. When their world was upside-down. Because, thanks to Cassandra, maybe they had a chance to turn it upright once more.

“Sean?” Cassandra inquired quietly. “When you have a moment, this officer would like to speak with you and Jason. He has to take his statement and wanted you to be here because Jase is only seventeen. Do you think Jason is up to it, or should we ask if this can wait until tomorrow morning?”

Sean gave Jason a last hug, then helped him back into his chair and rose to his feet. “What do you say, Jase? Are you ready to tell the officer what you know?”

Jason wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, then accepted the box of tissues Cassandra had found somewhere and offered to him. He avoided looking directly at Cassandra, at the officer, at his father. “There’s not much to say, Dad.”

The policeman stepped forward, opening a notebook he’d been holding. “My partner has already spoken with your friend Becky, Jason,” he said kindly, “and she doesn’t remember much beyond a pair of headlights coming at the rear of the car a couple of times, the jolts, and then the squealing of the tires when you lost control of the vehicle. Maybe you can be of more help to us? We know the other vehicle was white, but that’s all we know so far.”

“Jason?” Sean prompted when his son still said nothing. “Why was the driver after you? Had you cut him off or something? Upset him in some way?”

“I—I don’t know,” Jason said, then looked up at the officer. “Maybe.” He ran his tongue around his lips. “Yeah. Maybe I did something to get him mad. White, huh? All I could see was headlights. Like Becky. You know, all those lights, and the rain and all? Can I please go home now?”

Sean looked at the officer, who was already closing his notebook. “He’s pretty shaken up, don’t you think? I can bring him by the station tomorrow sometime, maybe in the afternoon? Around three, if that’s all right? By then he might have remembered something else.”

“Yeah, that’ll be all right,” the officer said, then put a hand on Jason’s shoulder. “Look, son, I know how it is. You don’t want to squeal on anybody, right? You might even think they’ll get off with a slap on the wrist and then come after you, right? Well, think about this, too. That little girl in there might have been killed tonight. You might have been killed. My partner and I, instead of standing here taking notes, might have been knocking on two doors, telling two sets of parents that their kids were smeared all over the street.”

Jason looked at his father. “But I didn’t see anything. Honest.”

“And this isn’t the first time this has happened, Jason,” the officer continued, just as if Jason hadn’t spoken, hadn’t denied any knowledge of who had run him down, caused his accident. “We’ve had two similar incidents in the past year, although this is the first time we’ve gotten so much as the white paint we found on the back of your dad’s car to give us something to go on. Son, you have to help us if you can. Help us now, before somebody else’s kids get killed.”

“I—I don’t remember anything,” Jason repeated, and Sean could see the fear in his son’s eyes, hear it in his voice. “Honest, Dad. Why won’t anyone believe me? I didn’t see anything but the lights! I just want to go home, okay? I want to go home!”

Cassandra gave out a small cry and pulled the weeping Jason to his feet, gathering him close as she walked him toward the door, hesitating only long enough to throw the officer, and Sean, a withering look over her shoulder. Clearly she felt that Jason had had enough for one night, and that it was time to take him home, feed him some warm milk and put him to bed.

“I’ll have him at the station tomorrow at three, officer,” Sean said, shaking the man’s hand. “And, I promise you, he’ll be a lot more cooperative then.”

“Good enough, sir,” the officer told him, reaching for his helmet and gloves, for he was clearly a motorcycle officer. “I gotta get back out there on my bike, anyway. Just let your wife baby him for a while, fuss over him the way women do, and then we’ll give it another try. He’s scared now, confused, but he knows something. I’d bet my badge on it.”

Sean opened his mouth to tell the officer that Cassandra wasn’t his wife, or Jason’s mother. She was, of all things, his son’s guidance counselor. And a namby-pamby guidance counselor at that, whose methods he disagreed with, whose “all kids are good kids” theories made his teeth ache. But he didn’t bother explaining, because it didn’t matter. Not really.

Did it?

No. No, it didn’t. Because Jason needed her. He needed her.

And they all needed to hear the truth.

* * *

Cassandra sat on the living room floor, a half dozen Burke Senior High School yearbooks spread out around her, a notepad on her knee as she gnawed on the end of a pencil. Absently, she scratched Festus behind his left ear as the cat rolled onto his back in ecstasy.

There was something more than a little distasteful to her about thumbing through page after page of photographs of smiling young teens, looking for anyone who looked capable of running a car off the road and endangering two other young lives.

But Jason knew something. Much as she’d like to deny it, she had seen it in his eyes. Seen the terrible knowledge there. Seen the fear. And she was certain his father had seen it, as well.

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