“Because if I don’t, I’ll try to turn this into something that it isn’t,” she admitted.
“Something like what?” he asked curiously.
“Like a happily-ever-after fantasy.”
The admission gave him pause. Because he liked Cassie—and he really liked making love with Cassie—but he had no intention of falling in love with her. “You don’t believe we can have a mutually satisfying physical relationship without making a big deal out of it?”
“I know that a couple of orgasms are not the foundation of a lasting relationship—”
“Three,” he interjected. Then, in response to her blank look, he clarified. “You had three orgasms.”
She blushed but didn’t dispute his count. “The number is irrelevant. You have to—”
He silenced her words with a quick kiss. “Hold that thought.”
She frowned at the command but didn’t say anything else when he slipped from her bed. He’d noticed the small three-piece bathroom tucked near the stairs when she led him up to her bedroom. Thinking only of the necessity of dispensing with the condom, he wasn’t paying attention to the shape of the space and, when he turned, rapped his head smartly on the sloped ceiling.
When he returned to the bedroom, rubbing his head, he saw that Cassie had wrapped herself in a short, silky robe and had scooped up the condoms that were scattered on the floor and stuffed them back into the broken box. He caught the edge of the drawer as it was closing and withdrew a strip from the box to set it on top of the table.
She looked at him, the arch of her brow as much a challenge as a question.
“I want to see if we can set another record,” he told her. “For the world’s slowest simultaneous orgasms this time.”
“I’m not sure there really is such a record,” she said dubiously.
“I don’t care,” he admitted. “I want to make love with you again.”
* * *
Make love.
Those two little words stirred something inside of Cassie’s heart. She was probably reading too much into the expression, especially considering that she would have been offended if he’d used the common crude vernacular. Still, there were other ways to describe the act, various euphemisms that he might have relied upon—such as the “mutually satisfying physical relationship” he’d already referenced. But she wanted to believe that what they’d shared was lovemaking, because she wanted to believe that hers wasn’t the only heart involved in what was happening between them.
Except that she was trying to keep her heart uninvolved.
Yes, the experience of being naked with Braden had been beyond incredible, but she needed to maintain perspective here. He was a single father with a young daughter—a widower who had lost his wife barely a year earlier. It would be a mistake to believe that what they’d just shared was anything more than the result of an intense and mutual attraction or that it could lead to anything more than that.
“I have a habit of falling hard and fast,” she admitted, as he eased her back down onto the mattress.
“Don’t fall for me,” he said. But with his lips skimming down her throat, and lower, it was really hard to concentrate on his words.
“I know I shouldn’t,” she acknowledged. “Because falling in love with a man who’s still in love with the woman he married is a heartbreak waiting to happen.”
He lifted his head to look at her. “You think I’m still in love with my dead wife?”
“It’s okay, I know—”
“No,” he said. “You don’t.”
She frowned at the certainty in his tone as much as the interruption.
He took a moment to gather his thoughts before he finally said, “The truth is, I’m only a widower because my wife was involved in a fatal car accident before she could divorce me.”
“What?” she said, unable to make sense of what he was telling her.
“A few weeks before the crash...Dana told me that she wanted to move out,” he admitted.
She couldn’t imagine why a woman—especially a new mother—would choose to break up her family. Unless her husband was abusive or unfaithful. And though she couldn’t imagine Braden being guilty of either of those offences, she was obviously missing something. “But...why?”
“Things hadn’t been good between us for a long time,” he confided. “I thought it was the stress of not being able to have a baby, and maybe that was a contributing factor, but obviously there was more going on than I realized. Only six weeks after we brought Saige home, Dana decided she couldn’t do it—that she didn’t really want to be a mother after all.”
Cassie was stunned. She didn’t understand why anyone would pursue adoption unless they were desperate to have a baby—or how anyone, when finally given the incredible gift of a child to raise, would suddenly decide that they didn’t want to be a parent. “Oh, Braden,” she said, her tone filled with anguish for him and what he’d been through.
“I’m only telling you this so you know that I’m not still missing my dead wife. I did grieve that her life was cut so tragically short—and I grieved for the loss of the life that I thought we were building together. But the truth is, the love we’d shared died long before she did.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
“The point of sharing that sordid tale wasn’t to elicit sympathy,” he told her. “It was to let you know that I’m with you because I want to be with you, because I don’t want anyone but you.”
Her heart began to fill with cautious joy and tentative hope. “Then this isn’t...a one-night stand?”
“I sincerely hope not,” he said.
The simple and earnest words tugged at her, but she struggled to maintain her balance. Because there was still a lot of distance between “not a one-night stand” and “forever after” and it would be a mistake to believe otherwise.
He tipped her chin up and brushed his lips over hers. “Now can we stop talking and start taking advantage of the hours we have left in this night?”
She lifted her arms to link them behind his head. “You don’t want to hear all of my deep dark secrets?” she teased, in an effort to lighten the mood.
“Everyone has secrets,” he said. “But unless you have six previous lovers buried in your backyard, I don’t need to know all of them right now.”
“Not six previous lovers, only one.”
He paused, just a beat. “You only had one previous lover?”
She smiled sweetly. “No, I only buried one in the backyard.”
His lips curved just before they settled on hers. “I’m willing to take my chances.”
Chapter Eleven
Saturday dawned bright and sunny—a perfect day for a trip to Frazer’s Butterfly Farm made even more perfect by the fact that Braden had persuaded Cassie to join him and Saige on their outing. As they toured the facility, his daughter was mesmerized by the graceful fluttering wings of the colorful insects and happy to watch them swoop and glide. When one landed on Braden’s shoulder, he slowly bent down so that she could get a closer look. Saige’s eyes grew wide and she clapped her hands excitedly.
Of course, the sudden movement and sharp noise startled the butterfly and it flew away again. But there were so many of them that it wasn’t long before another one—and then two and three—ventured over to feed from the sugar paper Cassie carried in her hand. And while Saige obviously enjoyed watching them from a distance, she screamed like a banshee when one of them dared to land on the guardrail of her stroller.
But the winged creature didn’t go far—flying away from Saige’s stroller only to settle again on top of Cassie’s head.
“I’m holding sugar paper in my hand—why do they keep landing on my head?” Cassie wondered.
“Because your hair smells like peaches,” Braden noted.
“You think that’s what’s attracting the butterflies?” she asked skeptically.
“It’s attracting me,” he told her, dipping his head to nuzzle her ear.
Despite the warmth of the day, Cassie felt shivers trickle down her spine and goose bumps dance over her skin. She put a hand on his chest and pushed him away. Braden grinned but backed off—for now.
They walked through the education center, where they could view butterflies at various stages of development—from egg to larva to chrysalis to butterfly. They even got to see a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. One of the expert guides advised them that it was about to happen, pointing out the wings clearly visible through the now-translucent casing and contrasting it to other encasements that were opaque and green in color. The emergence didn’t take very long, and though Saige didn’t really seem to understand what was happening, she was content to sit in her stroller and munch on some cereal O’s while Braden and Cassie watched.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Braden admitted, as the butterfly unfurled its vibrant orange-and-black wings.
“It is incredible, isn’t it?” she said.
“One of Saige’s favorite stories is that one about the caterpillar that eats and eats and eats until it becomes a beautiful butterfly.”
Of course, as a librarian, Cassie was familiar with the story. “She’s probably disappointed to see these caterpillars aren’t eating through cherry pie and lollipops.”
“I think she’s just enjoying being here,” Braden countered. “But speaking of eating—are you hungry?”
“A little,” Cassie admitted.
“Why don’t we go find someplace to have our lunch?” he suggested.
“That sounds like a good idea to me.”
So they made their way outside, where there were walking paths and gardens and picnic areas and play structures. As they followed along the path, Cassie noticed a trio of butterflies circling around the stroller. She leaned down beside the little girl to draw her attention to the pretty insects, only to discover that Saige was fast asleep.
“If she’s tired, she can sleep anywhere, anytime,” Braden told her.
Which she remembered from the first day he was with Saige at the library, when the little girl had fallen asleep in his arms. “It must be nice, to be that young and carefree, with no worries to keep you awake or interfere with happy dreams,” she mused.
“What kind of worries keep you awake?” he asked, steering the stroller off the path and toward the dappled shade of a towering maple tree.
“Oh, just the usual,” she said dismissively.
He took a blanket from beneath the stroller and spread it out on the grass. “Job? Bills? Family?”
Cassie helped him arrange the cover, then sat down on top of it, leaning back on her elbows and stretching out her legs. “Actually, I love my job, I live within my means and I don’t have a family.”
After checking on Saige to ensure that she was comfortable, he stretched out beside Cassie. “No one?”
She shook her head.
“I can’t imagine what my life would be like without my parents, brothers, aunts, uncles and cousins and their spouses and children,” he said.
“You’re lucky to have them,” she noted. Then, “This is an unexpected side of you—I never would have guessed that you were the type to watch butterflies in the sky or eat lunch on the grass.”
“It’s a new side,” he admitted. “I used to be focused on the business of Garrett Furniture almost to the exclusion of all else. And then, when Dana and I decided it was time to start a family, I shifted my focus to the business of having a baby.”
“Sounds romantic,” she said dryly.
He managed a wry smile. “It was at first. Candlelight dinners and midday trysts. But when nearly a year passed with no results, it became an endless succession of tests and doctor appointments and schedules.”
“Did they ever figure out why she couldn’t conceive?”
“She had a condition called anovulation. It’s a pretty generic term with numerous possible causes and, depending on the origin, there are various treatment options, some of them highly successful. But not for Dana.”
“I’m sorry,” she said sincerely.
“It was a difficult time for both of us,” he said. “And then, six months after we finally decided to pursue adoption, we got a call to meet Saige’s mom.”
“That must have been exciting.”
“Exciting and daunting, because we knew that she was meeting with four other couples, too, in an effort to find the best home for her baby. Our odds were, at best, twenty percent, because there was always the possibility that she would decide none of the couples was suitable and expand her search.
“And then, even when she did choose us, we knew there was still a possibility that she might, at the last minute, change her mind about the adoption entirely and decide to keep her baby.”
“I can only imagine what an emotional roller coaster that must have been.”
He nodded. “We were so excited—and so afraid to admit that we were excited in case the baby that was finally so close at hand would be snatched out of our grasp.” He looked at that baby stretched out and sleeping in her stroller now, and a smile touched the corners of his mouth. “Since she was born, not a single day has passed that I haven’t thought about how incredibly lucky I am to have her in my life.
“But still, aside from the fact that I was getting a lot less sleep, my day-to-day life didn’t change a lot. And I was pretty proud of myself that I managed to squeeze fatherhood into my busy schedule.
“Then, one morning when I was getting Saige dressed, she was looking at me and babbling nonsense and I saw something in her mouth. Actually two somethings. She’d cut her first teeth. Not that they looked much like teeth at that point—more like tiny little buds poking through her gums. But it suddenly struck me that those two teeth hadn’t been there the day before. Except, when I thought about it, I couldn’t say for certain that was true. It was a normal milestone in a baby’s life—but it was huge to me because I’d almost missed it.
“That was when I forced myself to slow down a bit and vowed to not just appreciate but savor at least five minutes with my daughter every day.”
“She’s a lucky girl,” Cassie said softly.
“I’m the lucky one,” he insisted. “I just wish...”
“What do you wish?” she prompted.
“Lindsay said that she chose us because we could give her daughter what she couldn’t—two parents.”
“There was no way you could have known that your wife would die only a few months after Saige was born.”
“But even if the accident had never happened, we wouldn’t be together now,” he reminded her. And he’d been devastated not just that Dana’s senseless death obliterated any hope of a reconciliation, but because it meant he’d failed his daughter, that the family he’d promised to give to her wasn’t ever going to exist.
Cassie touched a hand to his arm, a silent show of support.
“When I got to the hospital and talked to the officer who had responded to the accident scene and he told me what had happened, do you know what my first thought was?”
She shook her head.
“I thought, ‘Thank God, the baby wasn’t in the car with her.’ Even through the shock of losing my wife, there was relief that Dana didn’t have Saige with her when she was hit—that our baby was safe.”
“And you feel guilty about that,” she realized.
“Hell, yes,” he admitted. “I’d just found out that my wife was dead and, instead of being grief-stricken, I was relieved.”
“You weren’t relieved that she’d died—you were relieved that you hadn’t lost your child, too,” Cassie pointed out gently.
<
br /> Braden nodded, accepting that she was right. And he was grateful that he’d found the courage to tell her about the feelings he’d never been able to speak about before, because her understanding helped him to finally attain a small measure of peace.
Cassie gave his hand a reassuring squeeze.
“Now—you said something about food,” she reminded him.
He unpacked the contents of the cooler: buns piled high with meats and cheeses, carrot and celery sticks, seedless grapes and miniature chocolate chip cookies. There was even a bottle of sweet tea for them to share and a couple of juice boxes for Saige, paper plates and napkins—and antibacterial hand wipes.
“You sure know how to pack a picnic,” Cassie remarked.
“There’s nothing very complicated in here.”
“Those cookies look homemade,” she noted.
“Not by me.”
“Your mom?” she guessed.
He nodded.
“Did you tell her that you’d invited me to spend the day with you and Saige?”
“No,” he assured her. “The last thing I want to do is encourage my mother’s matchmaking efforts.”
Cassie smiled at that as she unwrapped a sandwich. “Are you sure that’s what she’s trying to do?”
“There’s no way she would ever ‘forget’ Saige’s sock monkey anywhere unless it was on purpose.”
“And what do you think was her purpose?”
“To put you in my path—or attempt to.”
“She did seem disappointed to learn I wasn’t there when you showed up to get the monkey,” she acknowledged, nibbling on her sandwich.
“And since that failed, I’m guessing her next move will be to invite you to dinner at her house—and then she’ll invite me and Saige, too,” he warned.
“Do you really think she’d be that obvious?”
“She thinks she’s subtle,” Braden told her. “She invited the neighbor’s single granddaughter to my brother Justin’s thirty-fifth birthday party because she felt it was time he met a nice girl and settled down.”
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