He dropped one eyebrow as he read what had appeared on his screen, and the bandage over his cheek shifted. Some of the bruising around his eyes and jaw had faded from black to purple and blue, and some of his scrapes had sloughed off their scabs.
You could almost see his normal, stunning self under there, except for that constant white gauze patch over his cheek.
He frowned as he read further. "This is egregious."
Rox corralled the mass of her hair with both hands and wrapped it into a bun on the back of her head. "It was signed six months ago. According to the records, Wren was the paralegal on this one, and she's good. She should have caught this. I mean, a blind squirrel could have caught this. It's even set out in its own subsection. It's like they were trying to get caught."
"How odd," he mused.
"We should talk to Wren. Surely she'll have something to say about it. I would call her, but she doesn't answer her phone before nine, and you don't want to talk to her before she's had two cups, anyway. It's just all gibberish before she's had coffee."
Cash stared at his screen. "Yes, do pick her brain when you drop these hard copies off this afternoon. I'll be eager to hear what she had to say."
"You could come, too," Rox said, trying for a bright, casual tone and maybe failing. "You know, just to stop by. Mel said that Daffodil's birthday is today, and they've got a gluten-free, vegan cake."
He looked at her over the top of the screen. The wind ruffled his hair, which was getting a bit shaggy. Even in the shade, the reflecting sunlight caught the natural blond streaks. "Then I'm definitely not going. Gluten-free, vegan cake." He shuddered for dramatic effect. "She's not even allergic."
"Come on, buddy. You're practically healed up. To be brutally honest, you have a little bruising under your eyes, and that's really all that they'll be able to see."
She was sort of lying. Wine-dark stains trickled under his eyes, and his jaw was still swollen. Scraped scabs roughened his arms.
He looked back to his laptop. "I'll wait here."
"They'll be so glad to see you that no one will really look at you." Rox rolled off the teak chaise lounge and stood. "Come on. Give me some company."
"I want to get through a few more of these contracts before supper. Call me on your way to talk about how to approach Wren." He tossed the fob to her. "Take my car."
"I can drive my own car." She dropped her hand to flip the keys back to him.
"The rental SUV is larger," he said, waving off her protestations, "and safer. I don't like you driving around in that infinitesimal sports car of yours. Anyone could run you off the road in that tiny thing and not even notice you were there."
CLOSE CALL
Casimir was lying on a couch in the main room of his house with all three cats spooning him when Rox called while she was driving back.
Pirate, the truly battered ginger one who had even lost his ears, had draped himself over Casimir's stomach and was so asleep that he was limp, his head hanging between his paws down Casimir's side. The other two were farther down by his legs, curled up, and their furry bodies warmed him through his jeans.
He sipped his wine, feeling the liquid go over his tongue with an amber flavor underneath the grapes and alcohol, and he could smell apricots when he swallowed.
He had thought that he would manage to put up with the cats for that first night that Rox had been supposed to stay, and then he would have the service do a deep clean to get rid of the hair and whatever else cats shed.
He reached down and scratched behind where Pirate's ears should have been, and the beast purred without opening his eyes.
They didn't really shed much hair. It just brushed off his clothes. He had always heard that they trailed a cloud of dying fur everywhere they went, but that was inaccurate.
And they were oddly soothing.
His phone rang. Rox's name was on the screen, and he held it to his ear. "Hello, work-wife. What did Wren say?"
"She swears to God that it wasn't in there when she worked on it," Rox said. Her voice echoed as she spoke. She must be using the Bluetooth system in his rental car.
Cash wanted to sit up, to pace to burn off this new information, but Pirate was still purring on his belly. "She was positive," he prodded.
"She was shocked. She turned so purple that she darn near had an aneurysm. She called up her version on her hard drive because she compulsively saves drafts, and it wasn't there. Her hands were shaking at the thought that she might have missed something like that."
"Well, now," Cash mused. "Isn't that interesting?"
"Yeah, and then she-holy crap!"
"Rox?" Cash scooped up the cat and stood, his phone jammed tight against his ear. The silence of the house rang in his ears. "Rox, are you all right?"
"My God, the crazy drivers are out in force this month." He was so relieved to hear her voice that he almost dropped the cat. "It's a good thing that this rental is new enough that it has a hundred percent on the brakes. A pick-up just damn near sideswiped me. I'm on the Pacific Coast Highway. I would have gone over the rail."
"Pull over," he said, setting Pirate on the tile floor and picking up her key fob that she had left in case he needed to go somewhere. "I'll be right there. Just pull over somewhere safe."
"I'm fine. You don't have to."
"You don't sound fine. Your voice is shaking."
"If I got freaked out every time someone tried to kill me on an L.A. freeway, I would never drive anywhere. I might as well become a nun."
Cash walked toward the door to the garage. "You're married. You can't be a nun."
"Or hide in a basement and wear tissue boxes on my feet. Whatever. You get my point."
Cash walked into the garage and unlocked the door to her black sports car. "Pull over. I'll come get you."
"I'm really fine. Not a scratch. Your rental agency will have nothing to ding you for. I'll be home in ten minutes, according to my app."
"Are you sure?" Her voice sounded breathy, like she was breathing more easily.
"I'm sure. Just have a drink ready for me when I get home, work-husband."
He waited in the garage until she drove in his rented, dark blue Porsche Cayenne-an SUV because he had decided to go with something larger, sturdier, until he was ready to buy a new car-opened her car door, and escorted her into the house.
Inside, he poured two fingers of his favorite Irish whiskey in a glass and handed it to her.
She said, "I'm really fine. It was just a close call. If you don't have a close call at least a couple times a month, you're driving like a little old lady from Pasadena. Those brakes are nice and broken in, now." She drained the whiskey in one throw and held out the glass for more.
He obliged, dribbling the whiskey into the glass.
Every impulse in his body was to step forward and wrap his arms around her, hold her and make sure that she was all right, but he refilled the tumbler with liquor because that was all that he could do.
JUST TICKLING
Rox sat on the couch with him, her laptop weighing on her legs. The battery on the left side was getting hot on her thigh.
Cash was still sore, his arms scraped up, and his eyelids were still lavender and yellow with bruises. That white bandage taped to his cheek reminded her of his car flying through the air and his blood splashed on the air bags and spreading over his car's seat.
But watching television and working on contracts at night was becoming unbearable. Sitting on the couch with him, so near him, feeling the heat from his body trickling through the air-conditioned room and detecting the faint scent of his cologne when he moved, was familiar and yet utterly foreign.
It was nudging at their boundaries, the boundaries that had allowed them to work together for three years with no problems.
When they traveled for work on planes, they chose a movie together and then synchronized tapping the start button so that they could laugh at the jokes together or jump at the scary parts at the same time.
One time, he had gotten the giggles so badly at a madcap comedy that she had had to pound him on the back while he coughed as the plane was landing.
Another time, they had watched one of those scary serial killer movies where a guy was running around killing all the pretty young women and using their body parts for unspeakable horrors, and Rox had gotten so psyched out that all men had looked like creepy, creepy killers to her for about twenty minutes, except Cash. That time, when they had gotten off the plane, Rox had practically pinned herself to his side, though she didn't put her arm around him nor let him tuck her under his arm. That was too much for work colleagues. Their rollie suitcases had nudged each other as they hurried down the tunnel to the terminal. Every time she had looked up at him, he had been watching her and blocking the crowd around her, keeping her safe.