Every Night Without You: Caine & Addison, Book Two of Two (Unfinished Love series, 2)

by Violet Duke

  While most folks would probably think there was nothing to miss about living in a minivan, for Addison, having yards and yards of space separating her from the kids, and walls keeping her from hearing their breathing as they slept or their quiet chuckles as they watched a movie had all taken some getting used to.

  “Surprise!”

  The curtain hanging from the opening to the den—aka the .5 of their 1.5 BR, 1 BA apartment—was flung open from the inside, to reveal her twin bed, now adorned with jewel-tone pillows and a matching quilt-like throw blanket.

  In that moment, Addison finally understood why homeowners would get so choked-up when they saw the final big reveals in those home makeover shows.

  “What do you think?” asked Tanner casually, while palming the top of Kylie’s head like a basketball to contain her giddy bounce-bounce-spring hand-clapping.

  Of course, their little sister simply pranced away from him and continued her imitation of human popcorn with even more vigor. “Do you like it? Do you like it?” she squealed.

  Even though Tanner was playing it cool, Addison could see his eyes silently asking the same question.

  “It’s stunning, you guys,” Addison replied finally, voice thick with emotion.

  Her siblings beamed back at her, and pulled her further into her makeshift bedroom so she could see their creations up close.

  “There’s this cute fabric store around the corner that has lots of scrap pieces marked down super cheap because they’re too little to sew anything with,” explained Kylie proudly. “We spent hours digging through the piles the other morning.”

  The other morning…meaning the day they’d asked to go to the public library down the street while she’d been apartment hunting. Instead of using the library wi-fi to play video games and watch movies, they’d been sifting through fabric bins to make her a gift.

  Tanner, always the world’s best kid brother, assured her quickly, “The fabric shop was just a few buildings over from the library so we didn’t go far.”

  Too moved to utter a response, she simply ran her hand over the three brightly-colored pillows—two new standard size pillows they’d picked up from an overstock store that looked massive next to the travel size one she’d used in the van for the past few years.

  For some reason, she hadn’t been able to part with that little pillow.

  Ditto with the dollar store pool floaty raft she used to sleep on.

  “Kylie saw this thing on YouTube where a craft lady just cut some fabric a little bigger than the pillows and then snipped all the edges like fringe so she could tie all the pieces together.” Tanner shook one of the pillows so she could see the knots all around the edges.

  “After we finished those, we did some fringe-tie quilting!” Kylie made ta-da jazz hands in front of the coordinating throw blanket with dozens and dozens of brightly colored little triangles and squares tied together at the corners using the same technique, only with a colorful array of about a hundred different little triangles and squares knotted together in a cool open-weave design.

  “Yeah…Kylie went a little nuts with the whole thing,” added Tanner dryly.

  Nodding proudly, Kylie beamed over what they both knew was Tanner’s teen-speak for a loving compliment.

  Addison peered into the kids’ bedroom and saw exactly one sticker on Tanner’s skateboard, and two stickers on Kylie’s headboard—the projects the sneaky pair had said they’d wanted to focus on today while she was out. Clearly, they’d started on finishing up their surprise for her the second she’d left the apartment. She picked up the blanket and hugged it to her chest even as she cast the world’s greatest kids a stern look. “This must have cost you two all the allowance money you’ve saved up. I’m replenishing your funds.”

  “No!” they replied in unison, glaring at her something fierce.

  “It’s only fair,” argued Kylie. “You always spend all your money on us.”

  “And besides,” added Tanner, “we were thinking if you had a bed like this, it might help you sleep better, so it was for a really good cause. You’re always telling us how we should try to support good causes, right?”

  Now that was just unfair, using her own words against her.

  And dangnabbit, guess she’d done a poor job of hiding her insomnia the past few months.

  What she thought was going to then be a gushy, emotional moment instead seemed to be some sort of checkered flag for the kids to then race over to the kitchen and start putting away the groceries at Mach speeds. “Still two more hours until your shift at the shelter,” said Tanner, pulling off the no-nonsense parental tone like a pro. “So you can go take a nap and test out the bed until then. We’ll take care of getting dinner ready.”

  She blinked back at him in surprise. Granted, the cooks at Joe’s Diner had shown Tanner how to do some prep work and even cook a few dishes, but before today, he’d never made an entire meal alone. Plus… “Are you sure you don’t want me to at least handle the—” began Addison.

  “I’ll use the plastic vegetable knives,” cut in Tanner before she could finish. “And I’ll use the chopping container for the onions. I’ll be careful, I promise.”

  Guess she hadn’t been too good about her newfound feelings toward knives either. Though a few months had passed since she’d last seen the knife-wielding not-right-in-the-head man who’d been stalking her, she still couldn’t even skin an apple with a paring knife without flashbacks.

  “We checked out lasagna recipes online; we totally got this,” said Kylie, booting up their trusty tablet computer. “Just call when you’re walking back from the shelter and we’ll put it in the oven. It’ll be perfect timing. So stop worrying,” she ordered, looking adorably stern with her hands on her hips. “Now go take a nap until—”

  “Oh, crap!” Tanner shot forward to try and catch the gallon of milk on the kitchen island from teetering over the edge, but only succeeded in shoving Addison’s keys off the counter as well.

  They all froze at the metallic clang of the keys hitting the tiled floor, the survival of the milk jug without spillage barely an afterthought.

  Three pairs of eyes stared at the ground in silence.

  It was sort of an unspoken pact, to never talk about the personalized egg-shaped metal keychains Caine had gotten custom-carved for each of them just before they’d left. Not once all summer did it come up in conversation. Not once did any of them take their keychain out from the hiding places they each kept their deeply private belongings.

  Until today.

  Tanner nodded over to the coin tray by the door to show his was now in use on his keychain also, just as Kylie reached in her new school backpack and pulled hers out as well.

  Invisible emotions hung all around them like a dense fog until Tanner finally broke the silence. “We know you miss him, Addison. We do too.”

  Missing didn’t even begin to describe the growing ache in her chest that seemed to echo a little hollower every day. “I’m fine,” Addison lied, not sounding remotely believable even to her own ears. “It was for the best. You know it, and I know it. We owed it to Caine not to put him in the position of having to lie for us under oath.”

  The truth of that prompted small, sad nods around the room.

  “Are we ever going back?” asked Kylie quietly, voicing the one question neither she nor Tanner had broached since they’d all made the decision to leave Creek Hills.

  She didn’t, couldn’t answer him. Because the hope that came with the answer simply made her chest ache even more. “I wish I knew, guys,” she replied softly, honestly.

  She had no idea when David’s case would go to trial. Caine had said it could take anywhere from three months to a year, depending on how David’s lawyers handled his defense, especially given David’s mental state. And even if he was found guilty, David could—and would—file an appeal, which could take another year, maybe even two if the courts were backed up.

  Suddenly feeling the lack of sleep over the past four
months weighing on her like drying cement, she glanced back at her bed. “Maybe I will try to nap after all.”

  …Maybe the horrible nightmares and the heartbreaking dreams that plagued her every night wouldn’t hold as much power over her during the day for once.

  …Maybe she wouldn’t wake up with a raw throat from screaming silently into her clenched fists over visions of David attacking her, attacking the kids.

  …Maybe she wouldn’t wake up broken and bruised on the inside over visions of Caine looking down at his pillow, at the piece of her soul she’d left there…to try and spare his.

  Who was she kidding?

  Just that easily, as it always did, the prospect of hearing the sound of her fear reverberating in her head, or the sound of her heart splintering just a little bit more made her insomnia return in a rush. “You know what? I actually remembered I told Stacey I’d go in early to the shelter today.”

  Addison grabbed her keys and quickly headed to the door. With the shelter being just a few blocks away by foot, she never bothered bringing her wallet. Really, aside from a bus pass, some cash, and a single pre-paid gift card that could be used as a credit card for emergencies, the rest of her wallet was empty anyway—just one of the many ‘Staying off the Grid’ rules she’d researched, which had since become like her bible.

  Hallelujah for the internet.

  “I’ll be home around seven-thirty. Put the chain lock on. Be good. You’re each in charge of the other,” she said with a smile like she always did.

  Then she left before they could see the first tear fall.

  Chapter Two

  Addison quietly finished up some front office paperwork while one of the shelter’s new self-defense instructors, a giant of a man named Hale, went over a few tips on how best to use items the women might have on them or around them as effective weapons to help escape an attack. Hale had only started a few weeks ago, but his class numbers were slowly growing now that he was volunteering multiple times a week at the shelter like she was.

  The shelter was actually the primary reason why she’d picked Tucson to head toward after leaving Creek Hills. When she and the kids had left Caine’s apartment that morning, she’d had every intention of heading north and hiding out in one of the small towns near Grand Canyon. But, while she’d been crouched under the van detaching the tracking device Caine lo-jacked her van with, a single crumpled newspaper page had zigzagged across the parking lot like tumbleweed.

  There hadn’t been any eye-catching photos or anything to snag her attention, but for some reason, as she’d picked it up to go toss it in the trash, the words, ‘women and children’s shelter’ had jumped out at her. Most of the article was smeared and even downright illegible, but she’d managed to make out—and fixate on—several key components of the shelter’s mission statement, along with a reference to the city of Tucson.

  It was like the universe had thrown a symbolic dart at a map for her.

  So, after heading several hours in one direction to sell the van for half of what it was worth, she and the kids hopped on a bus heading the opposite way. She’d lost count of how many more buses they’d taken that day, but by the time they’d been within city limits of Tucson, the sun had been setting. She checked them into the first decent motel that would take cash and had free wi-fi, where they’d devoured their first delivery pizza in years. After the kids finally turned in for the night, Addison stayed up to research cash jobs that would allow her to stay in hiding in terms of identification and taxes.

  Her options had seemed discouraging at best…until she walked into the shelter from the article the next day and saw dozens and dozens of women and children whose situations were infinitely worse. That was how she ended up asking the shelter director if there was anything she could do to help. And how her first official job in Tucson had been one without pay.

  Now, months later, Addison took volunteer shifts every chance she could around the hours of whatever temp job she was holding down at the time, which this week, was one that paid her in cash on a grassroots urban farm along with a bag of fresh crops every other week. The pay was pretty paltry, but it kept her from dipping into her savings too much. And as with every other job she’d held since moving to Tucson, the farm’s no-questions-so-long-as-you-do-your-job policy with its employees was what allowed her to continue to stay off the grid without having to lie.

  Feeling the overwhelming need to keep the lying to a bare minimum was now the new norm in her life, seeing as how she’d walked away from Caine—from the best thing in her life next to the kids—specifically to keep him from having to lie for her.

  There was also that whole cosmic balance she was trying to keep.

  Looking down at the pre-paid phone she’d bought at the start of the summer, her eyes touched on the numbers that she never allowed her fingers to dial.

  It was getting harder and harder with each passing day.

  Even more so with each passing night.

  Sometimes, long after the kids were crashed out, she’d replay conversations she’d had with Caine just so she could hold onto his voice, let it wrap around her like a security blanket as she did her best to fall asleep. Over the past few months, she’d nearly called him over a hundred times when her insomnia would strike.

  Lately, however, this time of day was even tougher to get through.

  Right about now, if she were still back at the diner, this would be when Caine would be coming in for his usual three-hour dinner, which he’d spend saying innocently dirty things to her to make her smile, or looking at her with that dark, compelling gaze that had always been a contradiction of intense, soul-deep depths and playful, laughing sparks.

  Before she realized she was doing it, she was dialing another number she knew by heart, and heading outside to the small deserted courtyard to make the call in private.

  “H’lo?”

  “Joe?”

  No response…other than the sound of a door closing softly on the other end of the phone line, which muted the boisterous diner sounds she was actually a little homesick for.

  “Did I catch you on your way out?” she asked in a library whisper to match the silent stillness of his office.

  “We have maybe thirty seconds.”

  She checked her watch. “I’m sorry, I should’ve called earlier. I’ll call back. I don’t want you to hit traffic on the way to your brother’s restaurant—”

  “Twenty seconds,” broke in Joe, now sounding a little hushed as well. “You doing okay? You need anything? I can overnight money if you need. Just say the word.”

  Addison felt her heart warm up over the brusque concern in his voice. She’d always thought Joe could’ve starred in one of those old movie classics as the quintessential Hollywood-inspired Navy submarine cooks, complete with the tatted-up Popeye arms and a cigar-clad bark.

  Very few folks knew that on the inside, he was just a big, hulk-like softie.

  “The kids and I are doing fine. And you know I’d never call you for any other reason than to talk to you.”

  “I know.” he sighed heavily, sounding both utterly disgruntled and reluctantly charmed by that fact. “Okay, time’s up. You ready?”

  She frowned. “Ready for what?”

  A heavy knocking on the door answered her question pretty clearly.

  Oh.

  No. No, she wasn’t ready. Wasn’t sure if she’d ever be ready. “Is that Caine?”

  “Yup. He’s been in pretty rough shape. I’ll hang up the phone if you want me to, but I think you ought to talk to him.”

  Shoving down the painful thought that this might be her last chance to hear Caine’s voice again, she replied softly, “Let him in.”

  When the second round of knocking—far more insistent and impatient than the first—came to a halt, Addison held her breath and waited.

  A burst of busy diner noise echoed in the room shortly before she heard the sound of a door shutting again, and heavy department-issued boots taking several steps for
ward before stopping.

  “Is that her?”

  Just three words and every bone in her body shook like vibrating tuning forks, reacting, resonating to the low timbre of Caine’s voice.

  “Wait!” she called out to Joe, before he could pass the phone over to Caine. She wasn’t stalling. Well, not really. But just in case this was the last time she’d get to talk to Joe as well, she wanted him to hear a few things. “I miss you, Joe. And I miss the diner. You hiring me saved me and the kids; I’m thankful for that every day.”

  “Damn it,” came the rough response, ladled with emotion. “Now I owe Shirley ten bucks.”

  Before she could reply, she heard him cover the phone and grumble: “Quit glaring at me; you’ll get your turn.”

  Knowing Caine wouldn’t actually physically take the phone from Joe’s bear like paws—not if he ever wanted to have a decent meal in the diner again—she squeeze in quizzically, “Why are you going to owe Shirley ten bucks? And really, when the heck are you going to learn not to let her sucker you into these bets you’ve never once won?”

  “I’ve won a few,” argued Joe indignantly.

  Addison gave him the gracious gift of not calling him on that fib.

  “I’d win even more if she didn’t always cheat and use her voodoo magic. Only way to explain how she keeps predicting things…like how my allergies would suddenly hit when you eventually called.”

  Allergies?

  His meaning hit her not long after when she heard him sniffle gruffly. Aw. “You were the best boss, Joe. I mean it. And the closest thing to a dad I’ve ever had. Or ever wanted.”

  “You’re killing me here,” he complained in a wobbly gravel. “Feeling’s mutual, kid. I was damn near ready to adopt you the day you interviewed for the waitress job.” Another cursing snuffle. “Listen, you better drag your butt back here one day when the shit stops hitting the fan. I don’t care how old you get, or how far you get, you always have a home here.” He paused for a beat before slipping in one final rumbling mumble, “Stay safe. And make sure to make cheeseburgers for the kids the way I taught you—don’t just feed ‘em that fast food crap.”