“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.” She chuckled, self-conscious about her outburst. “I’m not an impulsive person. I’m methodical. I weigh the pros and cons of every decision before I make it.”
“Oh yeah?” He raised an eyebrow as he gave her a sidelong look. “Is that what you did when you decided to divorce your husband?”
Okay, maybe she didn’t feel so bad about letting him have it.
“Maybe I was acting on impulse then, but I was hurt and confused. The man I loved, the person I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with, had just disrespected me by discounting my feelings. I was crushed. It wasn’t like Chase to do something like that. We’d always been partners, a team.”
“Then maybe he was acting on impulse, huh? Doing what he thought was best for his family.”
She shook her head. “So Chase has told you that I have an unhealthy attachment to my family, is that it? That I put them before our marriage?”
“Did you?”
“No!” At least she didn’t want to admit she had. The love she had for Chase and their daughter was unlike anything she’d ever experienced. It was almost overwhelming. “Maybe.” She palmed her forehead. “I don’t know. I can see why he’d feel that way.”
“You want to know what I think?”
“I have a feeling you’ll tell me regardless.”
He grinned, nudging her with his elbow. “You catch on quick. I think you’re both living in the past, wasting your time trying to figure out who was wrong or at fault. Does that really matter now? You’re back together. You’re getting a second chance. Isn’t that where your focus should be—on the future?”
“You’re right.”
He slung his arm over her shoulder. “I know Chase isn’t perfect, but he loves you and that little girl more than anything. That I know for sure. There’s nothing more important to him than putting his family back together.”
She knew that, but it was nice to hear it from someone else. “Thanks for listening.”
“Chase is like a brother to me, and I’d really like for us to be friends too.” He reached for her phone. “Do you mind if I add my number to your contacts?”
She punched in her code before handing the device back to him. “I’d like that.”
His fingers flew across the keypad. “Anytime you need to talk about him, I’m your guy. If you’re questioning where his head’s at or whether he’s being straight with you about something, you come to me. I’ll tell you.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because I know how much he loves you. I’m not gonna let him screw that up again.”
“Uh, am I interrupting?” Chase set two drinks on the table while he eyed Jayda’s phone. He’d obviously seen Ethan enter his number and wanted answers.
“Yeah, I was just hitting on your woman, so get lost.” Ethan laughed when Chase scowled. “Man, you make it too easy.” He slapped Chase on the back as he slid out of the booth. “I’m gonna have one more drink with the boys before I head upstairs.” He winked at Jayda. “Remember what I said, okay, sweetheart?”
“I will.”
Chase was still frowning when he slid into the booth across from Jayda. “Sweetheart? Seriously? That guy is such an ass. I really need to find new friends.”
Jayda giggled as she curled her hand over Chase’s. He looked sullen and moody, but she thought it was cute that he was jealous of his best friend. “No, you don’t. Trust me, he’s got your back.”
“Oh yeah?” Chase treated her to a sexy half-smile as he kissed the back of her hand. “Was he talking me up to you?”
“He didn’t have to. I already know how wonderful you are.”
His smile erupted into a full-blown grin. “I wouldn’t mind if you told me.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t.” She smirked as she withdrew her hand, eliciting an exaggerated pout from him. “But suffice it to say, he called me out. I was pissed at first, but I think he just wanted to make sure I was back in your life for the right reasons.”
Chase looked over his shoulder and scowled at the back of Ethan’s head as he stood at the bar. “He had no right to stick his nose in. What goes down between us is none of his business.”
“He was just looking out for you.” She took a sip of her scotch. “I can respect that.” She looked around the bar, which was crowded with the winning team and all the girls who hoped they’d be the chosen one, at least for one night. “But he did say something that struck me.”
“What’s that?”
“That we shouldn’t waste any more time living in the past.” She watched Chase, waiting for his reaction. “He basically suggested we wipe the slate clean and concentrate on the present… and future.”
“You think you can do that?” he asked, trailing his fingertip around the rim of his glass as he stared at the contents. “Just forget everything that went down between us?”
She thought of her little outburst with Ethan and wondered if it was possible to move on. “We can’t pretend we haven’t been apart for years or that we’re the same people we were before the divorce. We’ve both grown up a lot since then. I think we just need to focus on getting to know each other all over again over the next few months. See where we go from there.”
Chase didn’t look thrilled, but he nodded. “Whatever you want.”
***
Chase was lying in bed with Jayda curled up beside him, and he couldn’t get to sleep no matter how hard he tried. He kept thinking about what their life could look like if she agreed to return home with him at the start of spring training.
They could enroll Cadence in school, find gymnastics and dance classes for her, and she could continue her swimming lessons at home instead of having to go to some public pool. If Jayda wanted a new house, he’d give her free rein choosing it. He didn’t care where they lived as long as they were together. And Jayda could enroll in school too. Maybe just one or two courses to start.
His mind drifted back to the conversation they’d had when he learned he’d be getting a free ride to college. He could tell Jayda was thrilled for him, but also a little envious. She’d always wanted to go to college, and he promised her she could just as soon as he started playing pro ball and could afford to pay her tuition.
Now he could finally buy her anything she wanted, and she was too damn independent to accept anything from him. That sucked. And it hurt. What good was money if he couldn’t use it to spoil the girl who’d stood by him when he was dirt poor?
“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” Jayda whispered then kissed his bare shoulder. “You have another big game tomorrow.”
They’d made love before she fell asleep, but even that hadn’t helped to take the edge off. He still felt unsettled, and even though he knew he was being unreasonable expecting her to commit to him so soon, he wanted some assurance that she wasn’t going anywhere.
“I love you,” he whispered, turning onto his side to face her.
“I love you too.” She smiled as she stroked the scruff on his jaw. “But I think I may have mentioned that a little while ago when you were doing wicked things to me.”
“I’ve never felt about anyone the way I do you.” Not even close. “You know that, right?”
“Sure. I feel the same way.” She frowned. “Why do you look so serious all of a sudden? You’re not having second thoughts about us, are you?”
He supposed, given all they’d been through, it was natural for both of them to feel a little insecure. They had the power to destroy each other. “No way. Quite the opposite, in fact. I was just thinking about how great it would be if we could make this work.” He said if because he didn’t want her to think he was taking her or their relationship for granted again.
“It would be great, wouldn’t it?” She burrowed deeper under the white down duvet as her smile spread. “Think about how excited Cadence would be.”
“I can’t stop thinking about that.” He could give his daughter anything she wanted, though he
tried not to spoil her. But a traditional family was the one thing he couldn’t give her… and the only thing she seemed to want.
“That isn’t why you…” Jayda bit her lip, looking concerned. “I mean, I know how much you love her, that you’d do anything for her, but you wouldn’t get back with me just for her sake, would you?”
“What? No! Are you kidding me?” The fact that she could even think that proved he had a long way to go to demonstrate how much he loved her.
“I don’t mean to question your feelings for me,” she said, resting her hand against his bare chest. “I believe you when you tell me you love me. I do. I just know that you love our daughter too, and maybe you’re so anxious to make it official again because you want her—”
He silenced her the only way he knew how—with a kiss. “I’m anxious to make it official again because in here”—he tapped her hand against his heart—“you’re still my wife. In my mind, you’ve always been mine. As crazy as that sounds, I could never imagine you with anyone else.”
He had always been afraid Cadence would run out to his truck one day with the big news that her mama was getting married again. That would have devastated him.
“I could never imagine you with anyone else either,” she said softly. “I’d see pictures of you at fundraisers and galas and sports awards with different women, but it never seemed to be the same woman twice, so I figured it couldn’t have been too serious with any of them.”
“How could it have been? They weren’t you.”
She kissed him tenderly. Her eyes glistened with emotion when she asked, “How did we mess things up so badly? We were supposed to be together forever.”
“We will be. I honestly believe that. Maybe our separation was just a learning experience, something we both needed so we’d realize how much we needed each other.”
She tipped her head back to look into his eyes. “You really believe that?”
“You don’t?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “It’s hard to imagine any good coming from divorce, especially when you’re still in love with that person.”
He tucked her hair behind her ear. “Maybe we both needed to figure things out. We needed to face the possibility of losing each other before we were finally able to admit that being right and alone is worse than being wrong and together.”
“You’re right.” She curled into the warmth of his body, tucking her head under his chin as her legs intertwined with his. “I don’t even care about being right anymore.”
“How about being so independent? Is that as important to you as it used to be?” he asked before holding his breath. He knew they couldn’t be together if they weren’t fully committed to being a team in every sense of the word.
“Are you talking about money?”
“I’m talking about everything. We have to make decisions together, about Cadence, your dad, my parents, your brother, my career, your work, school…” He sighed. “Everything, baby. Last time, it felt like you had your life and I had mine. It’s no wonder things didn’t work out. We never figured out how to be the kind of couple that shares everything.”
“I’ve thought about that a hundred times since the divorce,” she said quietly. “If I could have said the things to you that I wrote in my journal, maybe we’d still be married today.”
He didn’t even know she’d kept a journal when they were married, which he supposed spoke volumes about the depth of their relationship back then. He didn’t know the little things every husband should know about his wife. Maybe he hadn’t taken the time to ask, or maybe she hadn’t been comfortable enough to share all of her secrets with him. Either way, they had to try harder this time.
“Care to tell me some of the things you wrote in your journal?” he asked, rolling onto his back and taking her with him, so she was blanketing him with her body.
“It was stuff about you and my family mainly. About how inept I felt as a wife and mom sometimes, how scared I was that you’d find someone better suited to you or that your career would ultimately take you away from us.”
He stroked her hair, taking his time to process what she’d said. He didn’t want to discount her feelings or make her feel as though she had no right to be insecure because he certainly had been.
“What about your family?” he asked, deciding that was the easiest place to start.
“Taking care of my dad is hard sometimes. It takes a lot out of me. And my brother…” She released a shaky sigh. “I guess he’s someone else’s problem now. A guest of the state, since he can’t post bail.”
“I’m surprised your dad didn’t bail him out.”
“So am I, honestly. But maybe Dad just decided it was time for him to learn his lesson or get straight the hard way. Either way, he’s behind bars, hopefully taking the time he needs to reevaluate his life.”
Chase wanted Dillon to find peace, only because he knew it would give Jayda peace too. “I bet you wrote about the shop in that journal of yours too, huh?”
“I sure did.” She laughed. “Sometimes that little book felt like my only outlet. I bitched and complained about everything in it. Then I would cringe when I read it because I hated how whiny I sounded.”
Jayda had never been one to feel sorry for herself. She believed in taking her lumps the old-fashioned way.
“Did you ever daydream about what your life could be like if you weren’t responsible for your dad and your brother and that shop?”
“Of course I did. Sometimes those fantasies were the only thing that got me through the day. I’d imagine what our life could be like if it were just the three of us with only your career to tether us to one spot, no commitments other than the one we’d made to each other and our family.”
That was all he’d ever wanted, but making his career a priority and asking her to do the same seemed selfish. She wasn’t the one who’d fallen in love with baseball, who’d sworn to do anything, sacrifice anything to make it to the big leagues. It was his dream, and it wasn’t fair to expect her to share it. Even if his dream had the potential to make their lives a hell of a lot easier. If only, for once, she’d take the easy path.
He kissed the top of her head. “Would that be so terrible? Making our family a priority from now on?”
“But my dad—”
“Needs you, I know. And I would never suggest leaving him high and dry, you know that. We’ll do whatever he wants. We could help him sell the shop and move into an assisted living facility, or he could come with us and we could hire a nurse to help him.”
“I can’t believe you would do that, given how terrible he’s always been to you.”
Chase didn’t take it personally anymore. He understood that Bill had always been concerned about the possibility of losing his caregiver and sole source of support. “He loves you and needs you. I can understand that.”
“I know it’s unhealthy,” she said, obviously choosing her words carefully. “His dependence on me. I know I have every right to live my own life, but after my mom died, I just took on that role, you know, taking care of my family.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
“Yet I did a lousy job of taking care of you guys.”
“Don’t say that.” He tipped her chin up with his index finger so she was looking into his eyes when he said, “Cadence couldn’t ask for a better mother. You’re great with her.”
“But she deserves a mom who’s willing to do anything to save the family she committed to, not the one she was born to.”
He didn’t want her to feel guilty for letting their marriage fall apart, especially since he was as guilty as she was. “How about from now on, we just agree to wipe the slate clean? Forget the past and focus on what’s happening here and now?”
“You really think you can do that?” she asked, sounding amused. “You seem pretty caught up in what the future could look like.”
She was right. He wasn’t appreciative enough of the fact that he had the woman of his dreams ba
ck in his arms. That alone was more than he’d ever hoped for. “From now on, I’m going to make a real effort to take it day by day.” He kissed her forehead. “I promise.”
Chapter Fourteen
Chase had remained true to his word. Ever since their chat in that hotel room, he’d remained focused on winning the day’s game and spending as much time with her and Cadence as his demanding schedule would allow. Between practices, meetings, and the press, he barely had time to sleep, but he made it a priority to start his day by sharing breakfast with her and their daughter, which Jayda appreciated.
Chase’s team had split the first two games in the series and were returning to his home turf for the final three, which meant they’d be staying at his house… a home they could share if all went well during the off-season.
“Why can’t we fly with Daddy?” Cadence asked, pouting as her mother helped her fasten her seatbelt on the plane.
“I already told you, sweetheart. Daddy has to fly home with his team. He promised he’d try to see us before the game.”
He’d given her his address and the key to his house and promised to have a car waiting to pick them up at the airport. Cadence had been to his house several times, but it would be a first for Jayda. She couldn’t help but wonder whether it would be large and ostentatious to reflect his status or comfortable and understated. She hoped for the latter.
“Mommy, are you and Daddy getting back together?” Cadence asked, taking a box of raisins from the small backpack Jayda had packed for her.
Jayda had expected this question, since as hard as they tried, she and Chase couldn’t seem to keep their hands off each other in front of their daughter. The touches were subtle, but Cadence was a smart little girl who didn’t miss a thing.
“Um…” She didn’t want to get Cadence’s hopes up since no one knew what the next few months would bring, but she didn’t want to lie to her either. “We’re getting to know each other again, spending time together. We’ll see what happens.”
Cadence’s brows drew together as she popped dried fruit into her mouth. “But you already know each other.”
Make Up Call (Summer Rush #3) Page 14