One Summer Evening - One Summer Evening Part 18
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One Summer Evening Part 18

frail, and now that she can't work, I'm afraid she'll go downhill that much quicker."

"I doubt that, though I do agree it's probably best for her to stay away

from the hotel and its day-to-day pressures. But for heaven's sake, you should, too."

"I know, I know." Cassie's tone was bleak.

"But how can I just walk out and leave her?"

"Austin's already doing most of the work. He'll just have to suck it up and continue."

Cassie trudged back to the sofa and plopped down on it.

"I just wish Austin had moved on when Alicia died, or else stayed in the real estate business."

"Yeah, that would've been nice."

"I'm still reeling from the fact that he seems to breeze in and out of

Mother and Daddy's house like he lives there."

"So what about Austin, really? I'm dying to know what happened when you saw him."

"Nothing."

Jo Nell snorted.

"I don't buy that for a minute."

"Okay, so seeing him again knocked the props out from under me.

Honest to Pete, Jo, I didn't know what to do." Cassie's mouth flattened.

"For a second, I couldn't get my breath."

"I don't doubt it," Jo Nell responded.

"So how did you feel?"

Cassie gave her a puzzled look.

"I just told you."

"You know what I mean." "No, I don't," Cassie said tartly, hoping Jo

would get the message that she was treading on forbidden territory.

She didn't.

"I'll spell it out, then," Jo hammered on.

"Was the sizzle still there?"

Cassie's eyes flared.

"There was never any sizzle to start with."

"That's another crock, and you know it. There must have been something

between you for y'all to get it on and make a baby."

Cassie turned scalding red.

"As I look back on that evening and relive what I did, I still can't

believe it happened, I must've been out of my mind."

"Since I had the pukes and wasn't there, I wouldn't know. Maybe if I had been, you wouldn't have gone off the deep end."

Cassie's eyes were glazed.

"I still shudder when I think of how long afterward I lived in dread of

Daddy finding out what I'd done. Even though I was mostly to blame, he

would've killed Austin." "You have to admit, what Austin did was the ultimate betrayal of afriendship. Why, that's fodder for a novel. Your daddy's thirty-two-year-old best friend has a quickie with his eighteen-year-old daughterand knocks her up. Yeah, I'd say that's pretty ball-busting stuff."

"You have such a way with words," Cassie bit out.

Jo Nell spread her hands.

"Hey, I'm just rehashing the facts, though maybe in a more colorful

way."

Cassie released a deep sigh.

"You're exactly right. It was horrible then, and it's horrible now."

"Since it's a done deal, what you have to decide is if you can be around Austin and handle it, for your sake and Tyler's."

"Austin means nothing to me."

Jo Nell cut her a sharp glance.

"You sure about that?"

"Yes, dammit, I'm sure."

"Okay, okay, but methinks you protest too much."

"Well, me, meaning you, can go to hell."

Jo Nell laughed, shaking her head.

"Don't you see, Jo? I have to try to make it work." Cassie heard the plea for understanding in her voice-- or maybe it was vindication--whichever, she couldn't control it.

"I just couldn't say no to Mother, not after all I've put them through, though I blame them for part of it, too."

"What a freakin' mess."

"Which could get worse," Cassie added, a tremor in her voice.

"What it could do is let the wildcat out of the sack, and that wildcat who can scratch a lot of people."

"Dammit, Jo, I don't need more gloom and doom from you."

"But it's the truth, Cass, and you have to face what you're up against, what bloody well may happen if you stay here."

"I swear that Austin will never know the truth."

"What if he does? What if he finds out that Tyler's his son?"

Cassie felt her stomach turn a somersault, and she couldn't say

anything.

Jo Nell had no such problem. She was on a roll.

"If the truth ever came out, it could ruin a lifelong

friendship--James's and Austin's.

And what about Tyler?

That poor little boy has been through the wringer, what with having to

live with that creep Lester, the only daddy he's ever known, then being stigmatized by his going to the pen."

"That's only half of it," Cassie added in a low, agonized tone.

"I can imagine, having been put through hell by a man myself. But the more serious danger is one I don't have to spell out." Jo Nell's voice was terse.

"If Austin were to learn the truth, what would he do? Have you thoughtabout that?"

"He'll never get Tyler away from me," Cassie said in a fierce tone. "He sure as hell might try, and then where would you be? Up shit creekwithout the proverbial paddle, that's where. A custody battle would besomething Tyler might never recover from."