by Karen Rock
She brushed something from his cheek, her touch achingly tender. “I’m not sure it would have been much of a competition.”
“We’ll never find out, just like we can’t change what happened.”
The sparkling light reflected in her brown eyes. “No. And maybe we shouldn’t wallow in it, either.”
He nodded. “Ma’s right. Jesse would want us to be happy. He cared about that most of all.”
Suddenly, the heaviness that’d been buckling his shoulders since Jesse’s death eased. The grief, the remorse he’d been carrying all these years was his own making. Not Jesse’s. He saw that now.
Jesse would want him to be happy. And nothing made him happier than Sofia.
And Javi.
“You care about others as much as Jesse did,” Sofia insisted and her indignant expression, her defense of him, stirred him deeply. “You just show it differently. I used to believe you wanted to control me because you didn’t think enough of me, and maybe that was true at first. Now I know it’s coming from a good place. You just want to keep everyone safe.”
“Protected,” he murmured, touched that she alone understood him. It felt like a homecoming. “I want to be that person for you and Javi. Controlling you or anyone is wrong, but I’ll always be the kind of man that looks out for others, especially my family.”
“Am I part of your family?” She choked up a bit on the last word. His eyes whizzed to the ceiling and he blinked fast, thinking about her lonely, difficult life.
With every breath he took while on this earth, he’d make it all up to her.
“Yes. More than that, even.”
He cupped her face, then bent to kiss her, lips grazing her mouth as gently as he could manage considering how much he ached for her. How out of control she spun him. Sure, he’d wanted this for a long time, but this was all too new, too miraculous to be rushed when he wanted to enjoy every moment.
He kissed her that way for a long time, savoring her sweet taste, exploring every nuance of her mouth. The rightness of this moment shook him like an earthquake, ripping him up inside so it felt like his heart split wide, letting the light rush in. He wanted to take her away somewhere even more private. A mountain retreat where they’d hole up for weeks with nothing but the wild and each other to explore.
But for now, this...
She was warm and sweet in his arms, her kisses tentative at first and then more aggressive as he prolonged them. He relished the feel of her fingers walking up his chest to curve around his neck, nails gently scraping through the hard facade he showed the rest of the world to the man he was beneath.
How fragile a person became, he marveled, when you entrusted your heart to another. Yet he wouldn’t have it any other way, even if he could control his feelings for Sofia. She brought him to his knees with one look, yet he’d never felt stronger, more alive than when she smiled at him. It was a strange juxtaposition, this helpless potency she alone drew out of him.
He tunneled his fingers in her loose waves, drawing her in closer still, deepening the kiss. Her legs seemed to turn soft and boneless, but his arms stole around her waist to support her. She trembled slightly.
“James,” she whispered as she broke the kiss, her eyes full of the moonlight spilling through the window. “I don’t want this to end.”
They stared at one another for a moment, the sound of their ragged breathing filling their ears.
“You and me both.” He growled the words more fiercely than he’d intended, but it was impossible to imagine ever letting her go, now or in the future.
He bent to kiss her neck in the hollow of her throat and felt her pulse race beneath his lips, his whole body yearning to be closer to her scent, to her softness, her taste. He wouldn’t deny himself any longer, not now or ever again.
Tomorrow, at the party, he’d convince her to stay. Yes, that was what he’d do. It would be a great way to end a fantastic evening.
They’d planned everything perfectly.
What could go wrong?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
JAMES HURRIED THROUGH grooming Milly, one eye on his watch. The Cade family Christmas party started in just three hours.
“Uncle James, will Mama go to jail?”
James’s hand stilled on the horse comb and he turned to peer down at Javi. Blowing softly, Milly sidestepped in the horse barn’s main corridor.
“Why would you think that?”
“’Cause she said so.” Javi’s face was pale, brown eyes wide. “On the sleigh ride. I was sleeping. Then I heard her say it.”
James’s mind flew back to that evening. They should never have talked so openly in front of Javi, even if they had believed him to be asleep.
“I’m sorry you heard that, bud.” He untethered Milly and led her back to her stall. “I promise you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“But I’m only little.” Javi grabbed the feed bucket and shoveled sweet-smelling cornmeal. “I can’t save her from addition.”
“Addition?” James snapped off the faucet after filling Milly’s water trough. Then the word Javi meant hit him. A big word. One Sofia never wanted Javi to know. His gut twisted.
“Do you mean ‘addiction’?”
Javi nodded and his dark hair swooshed to cover his blotchy face. “What’s addiction?”
Oh. Lord. Here it came.
Javi deserved to know, and Sofia’s delay in leveling with him had ended just as James worried it might—with a young child scared and confused.
“Will she do bad things like Daddy?” Javi’s voice quavered. “Is she gonna get sick and die?”
James caught Javi tight in his arms and held the trembling boy. No child should suffer this way. “No. She won’t die.”
“But addiction is bad.”
James swore under his breath. Javi was his nephew, and if Sofia couldn’t bring herself to explain things as important as this, then he would. A mother’s wish was important. But what if the parent was incapable of making a decision in the best interest of the child...a decision in her own best interest, too? Perhaps, once she saw that Javi still loved her after knowing the truth, she wouldn’t need to run off to Portland. With no secrets to hide from, they could begin their life as a family, right here.
Starting now.
If James hoped to one day be a father to this child, then he had an obligation to tell Javi the truth. And he wouldn’t shirk that responsibility, no matter the cost, though he prayed Sofia would understand.
“Is her addiction because of me? Sometimes I’m too loud. And I don’t listen.”
“You’re not to blame,” James said firmly. Poor Javi. He was scared. Confused. “Addiction is when a person can’t stop doing something, like when we eat a bowl of chips but then we wind up finishing the bag.”
Javi snuffled and leaned back. His eyebrows met over his nose. “That doesn’t sound bad. How come you go to jail?”
“Sometimes the things you’re addicted to can be bad.”
A tear slid down his cheek. “Then Mama could die like Daddy and go up.”
“She’s not going to die, Javi. Promise.”
“But I’m too little to save her. I’m not Batman.”
He brushed back his damp hair. “You don’t need to be because—”
“I can save myself.” Sofia’s tight voice cracked through the stable and he whirled, dismayed at the pain distorting her features.
Pain and hurt that he’d put there.
But Javi deserved to know the truth.
Javi raced to Sofia and flung his arms around her waist. He buried his face in her stomach. His voice emerged, muffled.
“Just because you do bad things doesn’t make you bad, Mama. I love you.”
Her chest rose as she breathed deep before releasin
g a shuddering sigh.
“Mama?”
“I know, sweetie. I know that now and I love you, too. Come on. Supper’s ready and then we’ve got the party to dress up for.”
“Sofia,” James called and she pivoted at the door, her shoulders high and jaw tight. “Can we talk?”
“Later. Too much to focus on right now.”
He watched her disappear around the corner of the door, torn between forcing the conversation as he would have in the past or letting her go.
In the dimness, the horses nickered and his heart thudded in his ears as he forced himself to stay behind.
To let her be.
Would she come back?
* * *
“YES—I WILL MARRY YOU!”
A raucous cheer rose from the party crowd a few hours later, thunderous in the packed room. James clapped and hooted as his older brother, Jack, dressed as Santa, rose from bent knee, swept his girlfriend-now-fiancée, Dani, into his arms and kissed her so passionately the jubilant group whooped even louder.
“Isn’t it a miracle?” his mother crowed beside him. “Never thought we’d get Jack home again and now here he is, with a wife-to-be.”
“Santa’s name is Nick, not Jack,” he heard Javi say beside him.
James nodded absently, his eyes scanning the room for Sofia, a strange longing scraping through him. He was happy for his tormented brother who’d finally found the peace he sought after apprehending Jesse’s killers and discovering the love of his life six months ago.
Would he and Sofia find that same joy?
“Is she going to be Mrs. Claus?” Javi asked, pointing at Dani. In a green dress shirt that highlighted the red in her hair, the freckles dotting the upward tilt of her nose and her dancing, mischievous eyes, she resembled an elf. It was easy to see why Jack had lost his heart to the vivacious stable manager who’d enchanted his family from the moment they’d met her.
“You might say so.” James dropped a hand atop Javi’s carefully slicked back hair.
A clapping Sofia, tucked beside her NA counselor and a slouching teenager from the same support group, caught his attention. In a rose-hued chiffon dress that revealed one smooth shoulder and silver heels that highlighted her shapely calves and delicate ankles, she knocked the breath clean out of him. She had her hair fixed different and he liked it. Piles of dark curls twisted atop her head, then fell around her long slender neck. She could have stepped right off the pages of some fairy tale. In fact, she’d put any of those princesses to shame, he’d wager.
She was just as beautiful.
And just as remote.
She might as well be hidden in some tower, for all the access he’d had to her this evening.
Since the barn incident, he’d hoped to catch her alone, but she avoided him, bustling from table to table, guest to guest, ensuring everything went off without a hitch. Not that she need worry. She’d planned the event perfectly.
About an hour ago, the guests began arriving and there’d been nonstop action ever since. From signing the holiday-themed guest book, to posing for pictures on the sleigh, to grabbing plates of barbecue, to dancing to Justin’s surprisingly appropriate holiday mix, their chattering, animated neighbors were enjoying old-school Cade hospitality.
“This must be Jesse’s boy,” someone pronounced in the stern, nasal voice that haunted most of James’s childhood. One sidelong glance at the tall, steel-haired woman confirmed his suspicion. Lillian Grover-Woodhouse, the strict principal of their local school.
“This is my grandson, Javi.” Joy used the subdued tone she’d always adopted when called down to Mrs. Grover-Woodhouse’s office for one of her troublemaking offspring. “Say hello, dear.”
“I don’t want to call her ‘dear,’” protested Javi, turning and burying his face in James’s side.
James pressed his lips together to keep from laughing.
“Well!” Mrs. Grover-Woodhouse tutted a moment, nonplussed at this challenge to her undisputed authority in the small community. “I certainly hope he’ll be joining us at school soon. It appears it might do him some good.”
Javi tipped his head back and regarded her upside down. “My teachers don’t like me because I don’t bring in paper.”
Mrs. Grover-Woodhouse’s stern face softened. “Young man, no educator of mine would ever feel that way. We care about all of our children, and we always have enough paper.”
“And crayons?”
Her straight shoulders curved as she bent ever so slightly to peer directly into Javi’s eyes. “Every single color,” she avowed.
“I want to go to school here!” Javi whirled between him and James’s mother. “Please, Grandma. Please, Uncle James. Can I?”
“That’s up to your mama, honey.”
And you, he swore he heard his mother add silently, or he could read it in her eyes, at least, as she studied him with raised eyebrows. She’d been hinting around about him and Sofia and he knew without her needing to spell it out that she’d be thrilled to see them together.
As would he.
He nodded, mind made up. This “let fate take the reins” approach was wearing a hole in his patience. He and Sofia needed to settle things and not waste another moment of the wonderful party apart.
After several minutes exchanging pleasantries and shaking hands, Jack finished crossing the room. His older brother and fiancée seemed to have cornered Sofia beside the punch bowl.
“Congratulations.” James gave his brother a quick, one-armed hug, then kissed Dani’s cheek.
“Thanks. There’s no greater feeling,” Jack said without taking his eyes from a blushing Dani.
“We’re trying to convince Sofia to plan our wedding here this summer.” Dani tore her gaze from her fiancé and smiled at Sofia. “She’s done an incredible job with the party.”
“I couldn’t have pulled it off without James,” she murmured, eyes averted.
“He didn’t boss you around too much, then?” Jack thunked James on the back hard enough to make the air whoosh out of him.
Sofia’s curls swirled as she shook her head. “I wouldn’t let him get away with it.”
Jack squinted at her, then peered at James before his deep rasp of a laugh emerged. “She’s a keeper, bro. Don’t let this one get away.”
“That’s what I’m telling her.” He angled his head, hoping to catch her eye.
Look at me.
“And that’s not bossy at all,” Dani drawled. She ladled punch into a red Solo cup and handed it to Jack.
He swallowed back a laugh. “Of course.”
Sofia, he noticed, hadn’t even cracked a smile. He shifted closer to her. “Dance with me?” he murmured.
Before she could answer, a loud, chattering group bottlenecked beneath the Christmas tree bower and the room fell silent.
“What are they doing here?” Jack slammed down his cup and a wave of punch splashed onto the table.
James’s mouth dropped open. The Lovelands. Here. On Cade land. Strolling in like they owned the place, acting as though they had any right to be here.
“I invited them,” Sofia said, as calmly as if making a weather observation.
James gaped at her. “Without telling me?” He’d thought they’d moved past secret-keeping and on to a place of trust.
“I didn’t think you’d approve.”
“Darn straight.”
A dark suspicion grew. Did this have something to do with Boyd’s interest in his mother? He and his siblings had worried when mysterious presents began arriving. Since nothing seemed to come of it, however, they’d dropped their fears. Apparently they had been lulled into a false sense of security, never noticing the devil standing on their doorstep. And Sofia had invited him right in.
“Who are the Lovelands
?” Dani asked in the tense silence.
“What you call creatures lower than snakes,” James hissed.
“Welcome!” His mother’s voice rang into the quiet and the crowd parted, making way for her as she advanced on the family. Boyd stepped forward and his giant-sized sons, Daryl, Cole, Travis, Maverick and Heath, moved to flank him, wearing identical scowls, arms crossed over puffed chests. His fair-haired daughter, Sierra, a wildlife veterinarian, peeked over her father’s shoulder.
Boyd wore a dark blazer atop a crisp white shirt, gray dress slacks over alligator boots and a bolo tie with a large turquoise stone. His thick white hair was mostly hidden beneath a wide rancher’s hat.
He handed Joy a bouquet of red roses and a murmur ran through the electrified crowd. His mother buried her nose in the flowers and her face suddenly transformed, her features smoothing, her expression opening. For an instant, he didn’t recognize her. It was like looking at a stranger...or someone he’d forgotten, he hadn’t seen her in so long.
It reminded him of how she used to look at his father.
Did she care for Boyd? Love him?
A knot formed in the pit of his stomach. No opportunistic Loveland, seeking to fix his financial woes, would court his vulnerable mother. James wouldn’t stand for it.
Sofia dropped a hand on his tensing bicep. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“The stupid thing was inviting them in the first place.” He clapped a hand to his forehead. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes, you did.” Hurt weighed down her quiet voice.
Boyd bowed, then extended a hand to Joy. Just as the pair reached the dance floor, the music zipped off. Justin’s teeth appeared in a grizzly-bear snarl.
“Play the music!” hollered one of the Loveland brothers. Daryl, James supposed, the only mouthy one in the taciturn bunch.
The Lovelands were known in the community as stubborn, grudge-holding, silent types, men of action, not words. Whenever anyone needed a hand, the Lovelands showed up. They didn’t have much to donate beyond their time, but they gave it generously; he’d admit that much.