LITMIR.BIZ

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She pulled a jug of milk out of the refrigerator and poured two crystal goblets full of it.

      “Got another glass?” Cash asked as he paused by a chair. “I like milk.”

      She gave him a startled look. “I was going to offer you a whiskey…”

      His face tightened. “I don’t drink hard liquor. Ever.”

      She was taken aback. “Oh.” She turned away with real embarrassment. She hadn’t said one thing right since he’d walked in the door. She felt like an idiot. She got out another crystal goblet and filled it to the brim with milk. He was such a puzzling man.

      He waited until she had the food on the table, and she sat down before he took his own seat. His graciousness made her feel at ease.

      “See that?” she told Rory. “There’s nothing wrong with good manners. Your mother must have been a charming woman,” she added to Cash.

      Cash took a sip of milk before he answered. “Yes. She was.” He didn’t enlarge on the brief admission.

      Tippy swallowed hard. This was going to be an or deal if he was this tight-lipped all night. She recalled what Christabel Gaines had told her once about Cash, that his parents’ marriage was broken up by a model. Apparently the memories were still painful.

      “Rory, say grace,” she murmured quickly, adding another shock to Cash’s growing collection of them.

      They all bowed their heads. She lifted hers a minute later and gave Cash a mischievous glance. “Tradition is important. We didn’t have any to start with so Rory and I decided on a few of our own. This was one.”

      He picked up the serving bowl at her nod and helped himself to Stroganoff. “And the others?”

      She smiled at him shyly. It made her look younger. She wasn’t wearing makeup, except for a light lipstick, and her hair looked fresh and clean swinging loose around her shoulders.

      “We add a new ornament to the Christmas tree every year and we hang a pickle in the tree.”

      His fork poised in midair. “A what?”

      “A pickle, Cash,” Rory replied. “It’s a German custom, for good luck. Our grandfather on our mother’s side was German.” He finished a bite of meat and washed it down with milk. “What were your people, Cash?”

      “Martians, I believe,” Cash replied seriously.

      Tippy’s eyebrows lifted.

      “Right.” Rory chuckled.

      Cash grinned at him. “My mother’s mother was from Andalusia, in Spain,” he said with a smile. “My father’s people were Cherokee and Swiss.”

      “Quite a combination,” Tippy remarked, studying him.

      He stared at her curiously. “Your ancestors must have been Irish or Scottish,” he said, noting her hair color.

      “That’s what I think,” she agreed, but she didn’t meet his eyes.

      “Our mother’s a redhead,” Rory interjected. “Tippy’s is natural, too, but lots of people think she dyes it.”

      Tippy took a long sip of milk and said nothing.

      “I thought about dyeing mine purple, but my cousin, who was our former chief, said it might offend people.” Cash sighed. “That was about the same time he made me take off my earring,” he added disgustedly.

      Tippy almost choked on her milk.

      “You wore an earring?” Rory exclaimed, delighted.

      “Just a simple gold one,” Cash admitted. “I was working for the government at the time and my boss was so politically correct that he wore a sign apologizing for stepping on bacteria and killing it.” He nodded emphatically. “That’s a true story.”

      Tippy was wiping her eyes. She laughed so hard that she was almost crying. It had been years since she’d felt so lighthearted with anyone. From their rocky beginning to laughter was a big step.

      “She never laughs,” Rory commented with a grin. “Especially on location shoots. She hates photographers on account of one made her sit on a rock in a bikini and she got bitten by a tern.”

      “The stupid bird dive-bombed me five times,” Tippy had to admit. “On its final assault, it took part of my scalp away!”

      “You should tell him about what the pigeons did to you on that shoot in Italy,” Rory prompted.

      She shivered delicately. “I’m still trying to forget it. I used to like pigeons.”

      “I love pigeons,” Cash said, grinning. “You haven’t lived until you’ve had them delicately wrapped in puff pastry and fried in olive oil…”

      “You barbarian!” Tippy exclaimed.

      “It’s okay, I eat snakes and lizards, too, I’m not strictly a pigeon man.”

      Rory was all but rolling on the floor. “Gosh, Cash, this is going to be the best Christmas we’ve ever had!”

      Tippy was inclined to agree. The man across from her bore very little resemblance to the antagonistic, hostile law enforcement officer she’d met while filming in Jacobsville, Texas. Everybody said Cash Grier was mysterious and dangerous. Nobody said he had a howling sense of humor.

      Seeing her confusion, Cash leaned toward Rory and spoke in a loud whisper. “She’s confused. Back in Texas, they told her I kept military secrets about flying saucers in a locked file.”

      “I heard it was aliens,” Tippy murmured without cracking a smile.

      “I do not keep aliens in my filing cabinet,” he said indignantly. A minute later, his dark eyes started to twinkle. “I keep those in a closet in my house.”

      Rory chuckled. Tippy was laughing, too.

      “And I thought actors were nuts,” Tippy remarked on a sigh.

      AFTER LUNCH, CASH announced that he was taking them to the park. Tippy changed into an emerald-green pant suit and put her hair in a braid, adding just a touch of makeup to her oval face.

      Her apartment was on a quiet, tree-lined street. It was a transitional neighborhood that had gone from fairly dangerous to middle class. The renovations were notice able, especially in Tippy’s apartment, which had black wrought-iron banisters that led up the stone steps to her two-story apartment.

      In her heyday as a model, she’d had money to burn, and briefly she’d lived off Park Avenue. But after her year’s absence from the profession, when modeling jobs became thin on the ground, she had to budget. That was when she’d moved here, just before she started shooting the movie in Jacobsville that had unexpectedly restarted her career. She could probably have afforded something better now, but she’d become attached to her neighbors and the peaceful street where she lived. There was a bookstore just down at the corner and a food market past it. There was also a small mom-and-pop café which served the best coffee around. It was lovely in the spring. Now, with winter here, the trees were bare and the city looked cold and gray.

      Cash’s red Jaguar was parked just outside the steps that led into her apartment building. She did a double take when she saw it, but she didn’t comment. Rory climbed into the back seat, leaving Tippy to sit up front with Cash.

      “I thought Central Park was dangerous,” Rory remarked as they strolled along the sidewalk after the short drive, glancing at the pretty carriages hitched to horses that were waiting for customers. “And should you leave your car parked there?” he added, looking over his shoulder at the beautiful car.

      Cash shrugged. “Central Park is much safer now. And anybody who can get past my pet rattlesnake is welcome to drive my car.”

      “Your what…?” Tippy burst out, looking around at her ankles.

      He

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