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Chapter 11

She had lain in his arms all night.  It was quite obvious their second attempt at love-making had been much more satisfying for Tori.  Chase remembered clearly the flush that had invaded her cheeks and the insistent rhythm with which her body had ridden his.  She’d been confident and eager for fulfillment and Chase hoped it meant she was more comfortable with the idea of physically being with him.  He enjoyed her body, he enjoyed her touches and he wanted her to feel the same.

Naked, her body brushed against him and Chase bit back an oath as his own body responded immediately.  Leave it to his new wife to turn him on when she wasn’t even trying.  Of course, the fact that he had almost lived like a monk the past year while he’d been looking for suitable wife material had much to do with his body’s highly sensitized reactions.  It certainly wasn’t because of what Sophie had insisted—that he was falling in love. 

He glanced down at Tori’s sleeping face.  She was a unique woman, a challenging woman.  And she was his wife so why in the hell was he trying to mentally deny Sophie’s words?  Why was he trying to talk himself out of falling in love with the woman he was wed to when in his heart all he wanted was to adore his wife and make a family of his own?

It was only a knee-jerk reaction to years of bachelorhood.  He’d always vowed he’d never fall in love when he was younger, and now that he was older and settled he knew in his heart he wanted to fall in love.  But could he trust to fall in love with Tori and not have his heart ripped from his chest?  Could he trust that she’d remain his wife even if her mother began meddling?

He sighed, he just wasn’t sure.  And, until he was sure, he wasn’t going to broach the topic of his growing feelings with her.  It would only give her the upper hand and he was a man who never relinquished such control.

She mumbled something unintelligible and rolled away.  Chase took advantage to stand up and extract himself from the bed.  If he hurried, he could be showered and shaved before Tori ever awoke.  He paused by the side of the bed and watched as the sheet slipped from Tori’s bare chest.  Damn, did he really want to rush off to the shower now?

Crystal blue eyes blinked awake and surveyed him for a long, humorous moment as they lingered longer on strategic areas of Chase’s body.  Then, with a wry smile, Tori asked, “Gosh, Chase, don’t you ever think of anything else but sex?”

Just like the day before in his office, he could have hit her with a real zinger, but he didn’t want to embarrass her.  Instead, he drawled, “That’s why I was heading for a cold shower.”

“A cold shower?”  Tori shook her head and threw the sheet aside.  “Why waste all the cold water when we could put your incredible appetite to work.  Come here.”

She had initiated it so Chase wasn’t going to fight it.  He easily fell into her arms and their love-making was hungry and hurried.  Tori appeared to enjoy it as much as she had the slower rhythm of the night before and from the way she moved beneath him, Chase realized she had learned much in the art of making love in just a few days.

“I am really starting to like this,” Tori murmured against Chase’s throat as they both caught their breath after their early morning exertion.

Chase rolled away, brought her with him to his chest and said seriously, “I’m glad.  I’ve been afraid you might be…hesitant to let loose after…well, after what happened in the barn.”

Tori shrugged.  “I thought so too.  But with you…it’s different, Chase.”  She looked up at him and smiled.  “You care about me and are so concerned with how I feel.  It’s cured me of any ill thoughts I may still have about what almost happened in that barn.”

“Really?  You’re completely cured?” he asked, skeptical.

She nodded but Chase thought he still sensed some hesitancy in her eyes.  Part of her was still frightened, he was almost sure of it.

“Hmmm, we’ll see,” he said.

Growing slightly defensive, Tori said, “I am.  You’ll see.  When we return to the ranch, I’ll march myself right into that barn and take care of Ellie and there’ll be no hesitation.”

“All right,” he said and he knew his tone was still slightly disbelieving as he extracted himself from the bed.

“All right?  All right!”  At Tori’s terse words a pillow flew across the room and hit him in the back of the head.  “I am not a fragile flower, Chase McNamara.  I’ll show you when we return to the ranch.”

Life was never going to be quiet and subdued as long as Tori was in his life.  Chase chuckled at her defensiveness tossed the pillow back at her and returned, “Fine, darlin’, we’ll see.”  And he was positive he never wanted to go back to having his life quiet and subdued.

**

If Tori was indeed over her fright, completely and totally as she had insisted, then why was it that as Chase came in from the balcony he found her letting loose a scream, dropping her hairbrush and hightailing it back into the bedroom when she stumbled upon the room service waiter?  The young man was standing over his cart, setting the small table by the window and looking more startled by Tori’s outburst than Tori had herself.

“Uh…sir, I’m…I’m terribly sorry,” the man immediately apologized.  “I…I didn’t do anything.  She just…screamed.”

Tori was slowly opening the bedroom door and peaking around the corner, looking embarrassed now instead of frightened.

“Its all right,” Chase quickly assured the man.  “It was no fault of yours.”  Chase threw Tori a pointed look.  “Was it, darlin’?’ he asked her.

Tori slid from behind the door wearing the white terry-cloth hotel robe and shook her head.

“You didn’t do anything,” Tori said.  “I was just…uh…I wasn’t expecting anyone to be in the room besides my husband.”

The young man nodded and as he gathered his cart to leave, Chase felt compelled to hand him an extra nice tip for the scene Tori had created.  He saw the young man out and as he did, he turned and looked at Tori again.

“Still say you’re over it all?” he asked her.

**

“Chase, where are we going?” Tori asked as she looked out the passenger window of the Mercedes, thinking that they were certainly in too expensive a car to be touring through the less desirable part of town.

“You’ll see,” he said evasively.

Tori again surveyed the area and asked, “Is this safe?”

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?  I thought you believed in helping the less fortunate.  We take a drive a bit too far to the east and suddenly you want to race back to our luxury hotel suite?” Chase taunted her and Tori immediately rose to his challenge.

“I never said that, I was just concerned and wondering if you knew where we were heading.”

Chase pulled into a small parking lot next to a medical clinic and answered, “I know exactly where we’re going.”  He turned off the ignition.  “Come on, it’s safe enough.”

Tori followed him out of the car and into the building with the simple sign that read “Eastside Medical Clinic.”  There was a line of patrons, some with screaming babies, some old and decrepit, some just looking like people down on their luck.  Tori was taken back for only a moment before her sympathetic side kicked into overdrive and she put a smile on her face and walked bravely beside Chase.

While she had been making her observations, Chase had inquired about a Doctor Reed and it was only a few moments later that they were led back into an office to wait.

“So, why are we here?” Tori asked him as he sat himself down in an office chair and seemed content to wait.

“Because, my friend’s a doctor here.  I wanted to introduce you.”

“I don’t need a doctor.”

“A shrink perhaps,” Chase teased gently with a smile. 

When Tori glowered at him with narrowed eyes he chuckled and reached a hand out toward her.  Reluctantly she took it and allowed him to tug her closer.

“Darlin’, I want you to meet my friend.  She might have some helpful hints for you,” Chase explained.

It took a moment for the word “she” to sink in and just when it did in walked a tall, slender brunet.  The woman was striking, beautiful, and Tori immediately recognized her as the woman who Chase had arrived with at the charity dinner a few nights before.

“Chase!” the woman said enthusiastically with a smile.  “This is a surprise.  I get to see you twice in one week.”  Then she threw a hand on her hip.  “What’s wrong?”

Chase chuckled mildly, as if he were used to such taunting from this woman, and stood.

“Paula, I never did get to introduce you to my wife, Tori,” he said.

Paula Reed then turned and leveled her gaze on Tori.  The woman smiled easily, friendly actually, and replied, “No, but she certainly did make quite an impression at that charity dinner.”  Paula moved forward and held out her hand.  “How are you, Tori?  It’s my pleasure to meet you.”

Tori couldn’t help but like the woman immediately.  Paula had that no-nonsense way about her.  There was nothing pretentious or fake about her, she was real and had obviously put Chase in his place more than once over the years.  And that, Tori could respect about the lady.

“Nice to meet you too, Paula,” Tori returned and took the woman’s firm, confident grasp in her own.

Paula’s gaze then swept over Tori and she asked boldly, “So, you’re the woman who tamed Chase McNamara, huh?  I never thought I’d see the day.”

“You would have if you’d been at our wedding,” Tori mentioned, curious as to why an obviously old and close friend of Tori’s hadn’t been to their wedding.

“I am very sorry I missed that event.  But I was out of the country and seeing how Chase couldn’t wait to marry you, I’m afraid I missed out.”

Quickly Chase interjected, “Paula, if I hadn’t married Tori right then and there, she would have run out and disappeared on me.  I had to make my move when I had the chance.”

“Oh, so that’s how it worked out, is it?” Tori countered.

Chase smiled warmly at her and tugged on her hair.  “Yeah, darlin’, that’s how it worked out and you damn well know it.”

To any observer it would appear to be a good-natured taunt and not a reminder of just how Chase had bamboozled Tori into a wedding.  But after the past few days Tori wondered if she even minded about that recent past.  She was, after all, falling madly in love with Chase.  Well, at least she thought she was.  She couldn’t entirely know since she’d never been in love before.

Turning away from the warmth of his smile, Tori asked Paula, “Tell me about this clinic of yours.”

“Gladly,” Paula said with a smile and immediately took Tori by the arm and gave her the tour of her free clinic for those in need.

“We operate entirely on donations and at times, those can get low.  That’s when I put in a call to my good friend Chase here and he wrangles me up some money.  That and the local medical community in which my husband is a surgeon assists when they can with volunteer time and supplies,” Paula explained as she showed Tori around the small, but very badly needed clinic.

“I think its amazing what you do,” Tori told her, impressed by the woman’s fortitude to keep something so desperately needed alive and well in a less-than-desirable neighborhood.

“Tori’s one of those bleeding-hearts like you, Paula,” Chase chimed in.  “In fact, she’s even hell bent on putting my ranch out of business by rescuing one cow at a time.”

Paula looked at her friend with a mix of curiosity and amazement.

“Really?” she asked.  “How ever did you two end up together then?”

“Long story,” Chase and Tori both said simultaneously.  Then they laughed.

“Yes, it is a long story,” Tori confided.  “And I suppose we’re still trying to work out the details of how our very different life-styles will mix.”

“Like oil and water perhaps?” Paula offered gently.  “But that’s what makes a marriage fun.”

They toured the rest of the facility and Tori could see the passion the woman possessed for her work.  Tori respected the hell out of Paula Reed for what she was trying to do for the community and by the time she had seen the sparseness of the clinic and the dire need of its patients, she felt that old familiar pull to assist rising up inside of her.

“Right now I’m negotiating with the landlord of the building next door to try and open up a woman’s shelter.  I see women in such bad places—young girls pregnant, women and children out on the streets—and I want desperately to make a place for them to go.  But…well, the landlord is just not cooperating.  He’s asking for more than I could ever hope to afford and besides it’s…”  Paula sighed with frustration as she glanced out the window toward the old brick building next door that she was trying to acquire.  “It’s just not the best neighborhood to house women and children in.  What would be ideal would be a place in the suburbs but middle-class families don’t want shelters or charity homes in their backyards and I certainly could never afford that kind of rent.”

Paula then gestured toward a young girl, heavily pregnant, following a nurse down the hall and into an exam room.

“Take that girl for instance,” Paula said.  “She’s fifteen, ready to have a baby at any moment and was kicked out of her house by her alcoholic mother when the woman found out about the pregnancy.  She’s been living in a homeless shelter ever since and coming to see me for regular check-ups.  But once that baby comes…just what is she supposed to do?  Keep a baby in a homeless shelter?  No, she needs….something…some place…to go.”

Tori was silent for a long moment.  Her mind was working, thinking, and she felt Paula’s words more than she heard them.  Paula had that same kind of fight that Tori had, only Paula had skills to use to help people and Tori…well, she only had money and right now she had no access to that.

They parted company with Paula not long after that heartfelt conversation and as Tori and Chase drove down the highway for the ranch, Tori sat silently in the passenger seat and pretended to listen to Chase while he chatted.

After it became obvious she wasn’t listening, Chase finally interrupted Tori’s train of thought and demanded, “Okay, sweetheart, tell me what I’ve done this time to make you mad.”

“What?” Tori questioned, landing her gaze on Chase and looking at him with wonder. 

“You’re mad.  Why?”

“No, I’m not,” she insisted.  “I was just…thinking.”

“About?”

Not ready to let Chase entirely into her head, Tori replied, “Just things.”

“Things, huh?  They wouldn’t be things that had anything to do with this morning would it?  When you freaked out at the sight of our waiter?”

Tori shook her head, having completely forgotten about that incident and the incident in the barn a week ago since seeing Paula’s clinic.

“Nope.  That never crossed my mind.  Neither has Seth Majors for that matter.  I’m thinking about something entirely too important to worry about those minor inconveniences.”

Chase hid the smile that was tugging at his lips and returned his gaze to the road ahead.  His little detour to see Paula had been just what Tori needed to get her mind on more important matters indeed!

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Reluctant Bride – Chapter 12