ALONE TOGETHER I OWEN GRADY

Love How It Hurts

Love How It Hurts

I've been trying since you left

Trying to fix all the bits that you wrecked

I'm just waiting

Till it mends...

Cassandra peered through her trembling fingers as Claire paced the floorboards, Owen watching her sister with hooded eyes. Somehow through the shock, his name had registered, Owen, Owen Grady, no longer the nameless flyboy who had fathered her child, but Owen. Time had barely touched him, only that he was taller than she'd remembered, and more tanned. But he was still as cocksure as he had been back at the dive bar all these years ago, sporting the same mocking grin that set her teeth on edge.

With the place in uproar, Claire crying hysterically and Cassandra still out of it, Owen had swiftly taken charge of the situation. Whilst he'd gone toe to toe with a non-repentant Hoskins over his irresponsible actions, a doctor had been swiftly summoned to check Cassandra over, Claire beside herself, convinced there was internal bleeding and that her sister was dying in front of her. Despite Claire's dire predictions, the doctor had swiftly reached the conclusion Cassandra was only suffering from shock and bad bruising, the thick foliage she'd fallen into literally saving her neck.

With Hoskins then leaving in high dudgeon, Owen had then issued various orders to his men before driving the sisters to his bungalow. He had forced Claire to calm down whilst forcefeeding Cassandra several coffees laced with brandy for the shock, the pair eventually getting a grip of themselves, much to Owen's relief, not having much experience with hysterical women. Now here they all were, Cassandra feeling like a character in a bad telenovela, who had just found the long lost father of her daughter after he saves her from a bunch of dinosaurs, only to discover he had dated her sister who happened to be his boss to boot.

"Admit it Claire, you were having kittens."

"I was having a whole fucking litter, Owen!"

"Oh, I love it when you talk dirty."

"This is no laughing matter, Owen. I'll have to fill out a significant incident report or whatever the hell they call it. There will probably be an investigation, maybe even an inquest" –

-"Whoa, hold your horses, honey; we're getting ahead of ourselves here" –

-"But it's not like it's the first time something's like this has happened either" –

-"And yet you always wonder why there's such a high turnover of staff" -

-"And the raptors, God the raptors, years and years of research nearly down the pan" –

-"Yeah, my goddamn research" –

-"You know, you can be mad at me, Owen, you don't need to be a gentleman about it" –

-"Hoskins is more to blame for this than anyone, Claire," Owen said tiredly, holding up his worn palms in surrender, making Claire finally slow to a stop, "I always knew he would overstep the mark one day, and today was unfortunately that day." As he spoke, his grey gaze fell upon Cassandra, expression inscrutable.

Cassandra swallowed hard, before looking away, suddenly unable to meet his eyes, still finding it hard to believe he was here after all these years, opening the floodgates to a past she'd thought she'd put behind her.

Owen looked at her averted face for a long moment, his own still unreadable. "Uh, I'll be outside, if you need me," he then said gruffly, "just holler."