by Kym Roberts
“Good luck with that, Mike.”
Cade gave me a stern look as he held the back of his head and blocked my smirk from Mike’s view. “The wind did it, Mike. You can’t sue someone for an act of nature. How much does she owe you?”
“I don’t—” I started.
Cade glared over his shoulder and I shut my mouth before I dug myself a hole six feet under.
“Seventy-two dollars.”
“You said fifty-two dollars!” My voice sounded higher-pitched than a squealing pig.
“That was before you scarred me for life. Twenty dollars is getting off cheap!” Mike also had reached screeching level.
Cade grimaced, but the auditory pain didn’t stop me. “I’m not giving you a dime. How do I know you’re not lying about dropping off the books in the first place?”
It was Cade’s turn to growl before interjecting, “How’s an even hundred dollars sound?”
“A hundred dollars?” My voice squeaked worse than a rooster with strep throat. “That’s robbery!”
Mike didn’t miss a beat. “You’re robbing me!”
Cade dug into his back pocket with one hand while holding his head with the other. Pulling out a hundred-dollar bill from a stack of God only knew how many, he extended it toward Mike.
Mike also got a look at the wad of cash. “I think it’s going to take two hundred.”
“I think you’re pushing your luck,” Cade said as he stepped toward him.
“I think he’s plum out of luck!” I tried to step around Cade, but Mike snatched the hundred-dollar bill and ran as fast as his pudgy little legs would take him. I hoped he fell in the fountain.
No such luck. He scooted by it and disappeared around the corner.
“Well, sh . . . crap.”
I looked to see what could possibly be worse than me owing my ex a hundred dollars and saw Cade’s hand covered in blood.
“Oh my God, you’re bleeding!”
“Ya think?”
“This is no time to get snippy with me. Let’s get you upstairs and see how bad it is.” I grabbed his arm and began leading him through the gate, noticing a large clay pot of purple pansies on the apartment side for the first time. My dad wasn’t known for taking care of plants.
Cade’s voice softened. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” I insisted.
“You used to think I was fine.”
I caught the question in his eyes and ignored the heat that rose between us. I wanted to walk away, just turn my back on him the way he’d turned his back on me. Then I remembered what my dad had done the last time my mom’s sign split Cade’s head open.
Despite being mad as all get out, Dad took Cade upstairs, got him cleaned up, and then drove him to the hospital. I didn’t get to go with them on that trip. I was told to go to bed, but even then, I knew there was going to be a serious discussion between the boy who was my everything and the man I loved more than anyone. What I didn’t know at the time was how much a few stitches could change my world.
Chapter Eight
“Ow!”
“Stop being such a baby.”
“I don’t think saying ow when someone is peeling back the skin on your scalp is unreasonable.”
I paused, holding my medical ‘instruments’ in the air like the surgeon on my favorite television show as she let the audience know she was going to save her patient from certain death, and explained the procedure to Cade the best way I could. “It’s a little alcohol and a Q-tip.”
I gave him an alternative as our eyes met in the bathroom mirror. “You can let me do it or go to the hospital and get it cleaned out.”
“I already told you I wasn’t going to the ER.”
Sitting on a kitchen barstool in the small bathroom that looked as if it belonged in an old western washhouse, the man took up all my breathing space. I swore his hazel eyes were going to be the death of me. I wanted to be distracted by memories of making the barn wood sign that said “Bath 5 Cents” above the claw-foot tub, but then I thought of how two people could fit in the tub.
That wasn’t helping.
I looked back at the wound on his head, which probably needed a few stitches. “You should go get this sewed up.”
“Are my brains hanging out?” he asked.
“No! Good gravy, what do you think I am, a monster?” Cade didn’t have a chance to respond before I applied a liberal amount of alcohol to his injury. “If your brains were coming out of your head, I would have ignored what was coming out of your mouth and called for an ambulance.”
I admit the wound was probably clean, but I didn’t think it would hurt to be extra careful. Besides, I was enjoying his pain—just a bit.
“That’s good enough.” Cade started to stand up, but I pushed him back down. The last thing I wanted was for him to stand up in this room. Long and narrow, with the sink on one end and the tub and toilet on the other, we’d practically be on top of each other. That would be a little too tempting.
I wasn’t an inexperienced teenager anymore, and this type of proximity could lead to a whole lot more than second base.
I opened the medicine cabinet behind the mirror. “I’m sure Dad’s got some butterfly bandages; he always keeps a supply. Let me put a few on to help it heal.”
Cade’s shoulders relaxed, then stiffened as my chest accidentally brushed against him. Despite not looking at him in the mirror, I felt his scrutiny. He was checking me out, from my curls to my nonexistent behind, and wondering if that move was on purpose.
I wondered the same thing.
“Quit it,” I said.
“Quit what?”
“Quit looking at my body like it’s a fried turkey leg at the state fair.”
“I wouldn’t compare you to a turkey leg—too much meat, not enough spice, and definitely not something I’d want to lick—”
“Fine! Just stop.” The air was definitely getting hot. I opened the package and began to apply one butterfly bandage after another. I felt the skin on his head pull as he grinned from ear to ear. Cade had a way of teasing me until I forgot everything but that smile. I refused to look at it and applied another butterfly.
“You’re more like a long, lean strip of chocolate-covered bacon.”
I scrunched my nose. That didn’t sound appetizing at all.
“The key to its appeal is how you eat it. You don’t jump in and take a bite; the flavors can’t be appreciated that way. No, you savor the layers by slowly licking off all the dark, creamy chocolate that’s so rich you’re dying to sink your teeth into it. Then, when you get to the bacon, you don’t hold back. You devour it . . . let the spice nip at your taste buds as you wrap the lean curves around—”
“I get the picture. You like chocolate-covered bacon.”
“It’s an unforgettable experience.”
This was an unforgettable experience. Drat the man. I changed the subject. “Four butterflies, but I’m not a doctor, so I doubt they’ll stay on long enough for it to heal.” I moved out of the bathroom before he could stand up and work his magic with his bacon talk.
Cade followed with the wooden barstool in hand. I turned my back to him lest we end up trapped in the hallway and scooted toward the long wood-planked bar in the kitchen. Then strategically placed myself behind it.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“Go to bed.”
His eyes crinkled.
I leaned over the counter. “Alone.”
His grin increased. “I meant, what are your plans? Are you going to stay until your dad gets back?”
“I don’t know.”
“He’s going to need you.”
“Like I needed him?” It was below the belt, but I didn’t care. I was playing defense on several fields of play.
Cade’s voice held sorrow. The emotion was distracting. “He loved her.”
“Who?”
“Marlene. I’m worried about him.” The heat was gone from Cade’s expression. He was genuinely worried about
my dad, which made my level of concern rise considerably.
I squelched it.
“Wasn’t she a little . . . I don’t know . . .” I hated to say it, but it begged to be said. “Wasn’t she just a little too . . .”
“Refined?”
“Yes, refined. Dad lives in a barn. He’s a fast-food kind of guy. The closest thing he knows to a restaurant is the Hazel Rock Diner. I can guarantee you, if I open this refrigerator there’s a jar of jelly, a half-gallon of milk, butter, some unidentifiable leftovers from a meal he cooked that involved a can of hash, and a piece of chocolate cake or coconut cream pie. That’s it. Well, besides the stash of bite-size Snickers in the fruit drawer.”
That smile was beginning to form on Cade’s mouth again. I told myself I hated it and looked out the kitchen window, still framed with the lace curtains my mom had hung twenty years before. They were clean but reflected the age of the building. “I can’t see Marlene stepping foot into the Hazel Rock Diner, let alone eating two meals a day there like it was her own personal kitchen. Dad would be lost if they closed.”
“They were opposites, I’ll give you that. But the last six months was the happiest I’d seen Bobby Ray since you left.”
If Cade was trying to make me feel guilty for staying away, I was done with the conversation. I’d left town for a good reason.
I turned on him. “You let those rumors run wild.”
“Some of them were true.” He tried to smile.
“Most of them were trash.”
“It helped you move on.”
“Seriously? Don’t you mean move out of town?”
He sighed as if this conversation was old news. “The rumors made you hate me. With you hating me, I didn’t have to worry about hurting you.”
I wasn’t letting him off the hook. “Your plan didn’t work.”
“You didn’t look too hurt when I saw you at the diner with Hunter. Or Bryan White,” he accused.
We were both acting childishly, but unfortunately I couldn’t stop. “I was trying to make sure every boy in town knew I wasn’t easy, and that I certainly wasn’t pregnant.”
He scoffed. “It backfired.”
I think fire was starting to come out of my ears. “It would have worked if they’d had an honest bone in their bodies.”
“They were teenage boys. They had to live up to my reputation.”
“Your reputation was built on a lie!” Flames were definitely shooting from my eyes now.
Cade tried to add logic. Poor logic. “They didn’t know that.”
I rounded the bar and poked him in the chest with my finger. It was high time Cade Calloway owned his mistakes. “They would have if you’d told the truth.”
“I never said a word about us and if I’d denied it, they wouldn’t have believed it. Besides, the truth can be overrated in the locker room.” He still had the logic of a teenager.
“Are you kidding me? Someone stuffed my locker with pregnancy tests!”
He had the grace to wince. “I saw that.”
“Yet you did nothing.” My hands went to my hips, demanding a reasonable explanation for his silence.
He gave a politician’s answer. “It was twelve years ago. I was just as inexperienced with gossip as you were. I can’t change it now.”
“Gossip is your middle name. You’re a Calloway. You could have tried. If not then, you could now,” I insisted.
Cade wouldn’t budge. “It wouldn’t do any good. You heard Mike.”
“Mike wouldn’t have talked to me that way if you’d squelched the rumors when we were in high school.”
Cade threw his hands in the air. “What does any of this have to do with your father?”
“He didn’t stand up for me either! He plotted with your father—the two of them planned to break us up no matter what the price—and if my daddy hadn’t made me put the stupid pregnancy book in The Book Barn’s window, the rumors wouldn’t have started! If it hadn’t been for your lies, that photo in the paper of me putting up the display wouldn’t have meant a thing!” My voice had returned to that shrill tone that hurt my own ears. It could probably kill a dog.
“How many times do I have to tell you—I didn’t talk about you. Everyone could see you weren’t pregnant. You were a beanpole.”
“Our fathers plotted to break us up and you let them.”
“They only wanted what was best for us.”
“Your daddy wanted to save your football career. He wasn’t worried about me.”
“I wouldn’t have made it to the pros if we’d had a baby,” Cade reasoned.
“I wasn’t pregnant! I’d like a little credit for the fact that I was smarter than that.” Cade looked at the worn leather couch in the living room. It was the same brown leather couch where I’d almost given him my virginity. I would have if Cade’s daddy hadn’t knocked on the door and caught us in an extremely embarrassing position. I ignored the memory, and the feelings it stirred, and stayed on track. “If I had been pregnant, the baby would have been an act of divine intervention, not something that came from you.”
“I would have claimed it.” His act of selflessness was laughably too late and required way too much of my imagination.
“Oh, good grief. Are we really arguing about a baby that never was? A baby born by Immaculate Conception? I’m not Mary.” I walked back to the kitchen, opened the fridge, and leaned on the door with one arm. Some sweet tea would hit the spot right about now—if I could lace it with whiskey.
“I don’t think anyone could confuse the two of you.”
I straightened up slowly and looked back at him, my voice low and dangerous. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that she’s ho . . . holy . . .” He stuttered, “And you’re not.”
“I think you’d better leave.” If he didn’t, I’d actually deserve to go to jail for murder.
“All I was trying to say was that your dad loves you. He did what he thought was best for your future. And mine acted in my best interest. Both of our fathers were wrong. I was wrong.” Before his apology could sink in, he’d closed the distance between us.
I froze. I’d imagined this moment for years after I left Hazel Rock, and now that it no longer meant something to me, it was happening. “Are you apologizing, Cade Calloway?”
“I am.” He nodded, the sorrow evident in his eyes. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I wasn’t more mature. I’m sorry I listened to a ridiculous story about you possibly hurting my chances of getting picked up by the University of East Texas. And I’m really sorry I let my father’s plan to break us up actually work at the expense of your reputation.”
I forgot my anger and stared up at the mouth that had demanded too much of my attention.
Cade pulled me away from the fridge and wrapped his hands around my lower back. “We were great together. We never fought. Never bickered. But we made the mistake of never talking about the future.”
A nervous lick of my lips drew his attention, but he continued. “We lived like tomorrow didn’t matter, and it hurt us when others started talking about how we wouldn’t be able to handle my career. Seeing you again has made me realize just how wrong they were . . . I was.”
His mouth was closing the distance between us and I was powerless to stop him.
“We’ve never been able to stay away from each other.” His voice had that deep, raspy quality it would always get right before he kissed me. Funny, how I remembered that so clearly.
“You’ve done a fine job of avoiding me all day long,” I challenged, knowing that if I let him kiss me, I’d prove I’d done lost my mind.
His voice was barely above a whisper, but I heard every word before our lips met. “The day’s not over.”
Cade’s kisses had the power to disarm, discombobulate, and define the meaning of desire. It never failed to amaze me how I could be completely sane one minute and rooster-in-an-empty-barn nuts the next, when I was in his arms.
’Cause what I was doi
ng was C.R.A.Z.Y. But that old Charli Rae, the one who constantly got in trouble in her youth, was sticking her head into my business. Telling me I hadn’t been kissed in months; a few moments down memory lane in Cade’s arms wouldn’t hurt anything. We were adults. Mature.
His hands slowly moved up . . .
And we were out of control. I pushed off his rock-solid chest, half-hating, half-loving the current Charli, who had some control.
“I think you’d better go,” I said, my tone saying something completely different than my words. I cleared my throat and crossed my arms across my chest before I dared to look into his eyes.
They sparkled. Drat the man.
Cade turned and walked away. Opening the door, I thought he was going to leave without another word.
Then Princess walked in. Or rather waddled in, as if she owned the place.
“No,” I said.
“She needs you.”
“I don’t need her; she’s trouble.” I thought about that scarf she’d planted near my purse. She was the reason I’d gone to jail.
Cade shrugged, as if all women were trouble. “She’s pink. She’s a freak of nature. They don’t live long in the wild.”
He knew that would get me. “I don’t know the first thing about armadillos.” All my frustration was starting to show. “She has to stay in The Barn.”
“She’s lived in the apartment and The Barn her entire life.”
“But she stinks.” And she did stink. Her odor was beyond rank.
“That’s what those two tubs by the door are for. You fill them up at night and she’ll bathe right when she comes in. She loves it.”
I looked at the two plastic tubs. “It sounds to me like she’d be better off if you took her.”
“No. They’re territorial. She’d just try to come back and then you’d risk her getting hit by a car.”
I paused, wondering if that would be such a bad thing.
Cade raised his eyebrows.
I threw my hands up. “Who would have taken care of her if I hadn’t come back?”
The expression on his face said it all. Cade hadn’t stopped by for me; he’d stopped by to take care of Princess.
“Oh.”
“It’s not like that—” Cade started to come back into the apartment, but I stopped him.