by Maggie Marr
“But then you don’t,” Emma said.
“But then I don’t.” Tulsa repeated her words, quiet and tentative. She glanced out the window. “I don’t need a man. I’ve never needed a man. I’m just so confused about all these feelings—I can’t get him out of my head.”
“Love can suck that way.” Jo pulled her arms tighter across her chest.
“You know,” Emma said, twirling a lock of hair in her fingers, “you’ve known why you left Powder Springs for nearly twenty years, but Cade—well he just found out. Plus with you being back—”
“And his father lying about not only Connie, but also you,” Jo added.
“That is a lot for a man to process,” Emma finally said. “Maybe you should reach out to him. Maybe it’s time to—”
Tulsa’s curls tossed about her cheeks as she shook her head. “No.”
She pulled a deep breath and placed both her hands palm down on her desk. “He doesn’t want to hear from me. I know he doesn’t.” She tilted her head back and looked up toward the ceiling. “The look on his face when he left, after he asked me about Hudd?” Tulsa sighed and let her gaze trickle from Jo to Emma. “No. I can almost guarantee you that Cade Montgomery doesn’t ever want to see me again.”
“I doubt that,” Emma said. Her eyes weren’t nearly as soft as usual. Her lips drew into a tight line. “We’ve known you for a long time,” Emma started.
“More than a decade,” Jo added.
“And we both know how stubborn you can be,” Emma continued.
Heat pricked Tulsa’s belly with Emma’s words.
“As your business partners, as your friends—we think you need to reach out to Cade. Have a conversation. We are…” Emma’s words drifted off.
“We’re worried about you.” Jo finished Emma’s sentence.
Tulsa scrunched her lips and rolled her eyes with a look that indicated she thought Emma and Jo had lost their minds. “Worried? Why are you worried? I haven’t missed a day of work. I’m here. I take care of my cases and my clients—”
“You don’t eat,” Emma said.
“You don’t sleep,” Jo said.
“I eat and I sleep,” Tulsa fired back.
“You’ve lost at least fifteen pounds.” Emma pointed at Tulsa.
“And I got texts from you last night about the Dobson case at two am, three am, and four thirty am,” Jo offered.
Tulsa examined her hands, which were lying on her lap.
“And to be honest,” Emma said. She pursed her lips together as if willing herself to go on, “Well, to be honest, you look awful.”
Tulsa whipped her head upward and squinted at Emma. “That’s a little low, Em.” Tulsa turned toward her wall of windows and for the first time in weeks seemed to actually see her reflection. Her skin was sallow and there were giant purple rings under her eyes. Her business suit hung around her body like a sack and her curls looked wilder than usual. She closed her eyes.
“We both think you need to speak to Cade.” Emma’s eyes slipped over Tulsa and she felt the tickle of her gaze—a worried gaze that examined a friend. “Your past is linked to him. Everything with your mom and the custody case with Ash. Your future may not be set with Cade, but I’m not sure you can find your way to whatever your future is without a real conversation about what happened.”
They were right.
She’d been fighting this fight and definitely losing, but she would get through this emotional turmoil. She’d won more difficult battles than this.
“We’re not insinuating that this will be solved by you and Cade running blissfully into the sunset,” Emma said.
“What we are saying,” Jo continued, “as your friends, is that you need closure. You need at least a full conversation with this man now that both of you know all the facts.”
Tulsa fought the urge to scream at Emma and run by Jo. To escape her office, to escape her partners, to escape the emotions that churned through her. But anger, she knew, was a surface emotion of pain. The idea of sitting with Cade and actually having a conversation about these facts—her whole body recoiled, which was exactly how Tulsa knew her partners were right. She needed closure even more than a happy ending. She needed an adult discussion about Connie and Hudd and her running away from Powder Springs. Cade might never forgive her, but maybe after the conversation she could begin to forgive herself.
“Okay,” Tulsa said and sighed in surrender. “You’re both right, but I’ll get through this. I know I will. It is just going to take some time.”
Emma nodded. “We want you to know that we’re here for you.”
“You can talk to us,” Jo said.
Tulsa looked out the windows to where the bright blue sky bled into the bright blue water. “I don’t need a man,” Tulsa said, more to herself than to her friends. “I’m not my mother.”
“No,” Emma said. “From what you’ve told us, you’re definitely not Connie.”
“And of course you don’t need a man. None of us need one, though some of us may want one.” Jo looked at Emma. “Why I’m not sure. I have brothers and men seem like more work than they’re worth to me.”
A tiny smile formed on Tulsa’s face.
Emma’s gaze, sharp and focused, landed on Tulsa. “You may not need one, Tulsa, but it seems like you may have found one that you love.”
*
Cade lifted the axe over his head and his shoulder muscles yelped in pain—shredded from the three cords of wood he’d already chopped. The heavy axhead pulled forward with the long swing and struck through the wood. The thud jolted up Cade’s arms. An upsurge of accomplishment shifted through him as the log split in two and dropped to the ground. He might suck at life. He might be a rube. He could even be a fool. But damn, he could chop wood.
Cade lifted another log onto the chop block and set his stance. As he lifted the axe, in the corner of his eye, Cade caught the slow roll of the black-and-white SUV pull onto the hunting cabin’s long, lazy drive. No faster way to lose a foot than to lose focus on a downward axe swing. He closed his mind to the arrival of Wayne and forced his shoulder muscles to work. Thwap. Another success.
“Got enough wood yet?” Wayne called.
Cade heard the SUV door close. He didn’t turn. Instead, he placed another log. Wayne’s boots crunched across frost.
“Winter only lasts five or six months,” Wayne said, his voice softer now that he stood beside Cade.
Wayne wore a heavy down coat, but Cade’s brow was damp with sweat and he wore only a dirty flannel shirt. Axe in hand, Cade glanced at the sky, gray and heavy with clouds. He could smell the snow.
“Got Hudd settled,” Wayne said. “Nurse stays with him. Lottie’s there.”
Cade’s gaze bounced from the gray pall of the sky to Wayne’s face.
“He know it?”
Wayne shook his head. “Nope.”
Maybe it was better for his dad that he’d slipped so far behind the veil. Maybe not.
Cade decided against more chopping. He struck the axe into the chop block, turned, and walked toward the hunting shack with Wayne on his heels. Since he’d stopped moving, his body was freezing up with the cold. And while a part of him wanted the searing physical pain that a good hard cold brought to the body, a bigger part of him wanted another cup of coffee. Cade pulled open the door and stepped out of his work boots, leaving them at the door.
“You’re gonna make me take my damn shoes off?” Wayne bellyached.
“Unless you’re gonna mop the floor before you leave,” Cade said.
Wayne plopped himself down on the bench beside the hunting shack door and pulled off his boots. Cade ambled through the door and toward the open kitchen for a fresh cup of hot coffee. He poured one for Wayne.
“What’s Dr. Bob say?” Cade asked and lifted the cup to his lips.
“That he’s not in any pain. That with the last stroke and the dementia, they don’t think he’ll ever be conscious—the way we think of conscious—again.” Wayne shru
gged, but there was a heaviness in his eyes. “He said we should read to him. He may know we’re there.”
A thick heaviness lodged in Cade’s chest. A guilt. Lately, he’d laid much of Hudd’s care on Wayne and Wayne had accepted the responsibility without complaint.
“You ever going back to the ranch?” Wayne asked.
Cade’s eyes danced around the open room. The hunting shack was remote. Quiet. Serene. A good place to think, to be alone, to examine. And damn, he didn’t care to admit it, but it was the place he’d spent the night with Tulsa.
“Not sure,” Cade answered.
Wayne scrubbed his hand across his jaw while he examined Cade.
“What about work, you plannin’ on ever doin’ any of that again?”
Cade’s spine tingled with Wayne’s words. “I hear the attorney I hired from Denver is doing just fine.”
Wayne nodded and tilted his coffee cup up to his lips.
“I check in,” Cade said. “I go by the office. I’ve got internet and a phone.”
“And a beard. You look like Ted Kaczynski and you’ve become nearly as social.”
Cade turned his gaze toward the window over the kitchen sink. He didn’t expect Wayne to understand. Wayne had always seen Hudd for what he was. A liar. A mean-ass meddling liar who would do nearly anything to get what he wanted.
“Look,” Wayne said, “I know you’re angry at him and you’ve got a right to be—”
“Damn straight.”
“But you can’t just stay holed up here, wallowing and pretending like you don’t have a life. This isn’t you. It’s not healthy. Frankly, after six weeks of this you’re starting to seem like a big damn baby.”
“A baby?”
“A baby,” Wayne said. He raised his eyebrows. “Way I see it, you’ve got two choices.”
Cade crossed his arms over his chest. What the hell did Wayne know about his choices, his life, his anger?
“You can either make peace with what Hudd did.”
Cade jerked his head to the side and rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling.
“Or,” Wayne continued, “you can continue to be angry, act like an asshole, and become pretty much like Hudd.”
Cade whipped his eyes back toward Wayne. He pulled up an eyebrow and a tight feeling coiled deep in his gut. “I’m not like him.”
“Not yet,” Wayne said. “But each day you ignore your family you become a little bit more like him.”
“What the hell, Wayne? Have you been watching Dr. Phil?”
“Brother, I’m just calling it like I see it. You hardly come to town. You don’t have any cases. You haven’t seen Dad—”
“—you mean Hudd.”
“—in nearly two weeks. When was the last time you came to see Holt play ball?”
With those words, a tingle of guilt tightened the muscle in Cade’s shoulder. He screwed his lips tight. “He got a game this weekend?” Cade asked.
Wayne shook his head no. “Bye week.”
“Point taken,” Cade gruffed out. “I’ll be at Holt’s next game.”
“Hudd isn’t the only thing making you crazy.”
Cade backed away from the counter and turned toward the door.
“You gonna try to run away from this one too?” Wayne called as Cade padded across the wood floor.
Cade turned back toward his brother. “I don’t remember asking you for any relationship advice.”
“Well, I’m still giving it.” Wayne ambled toward him.
Irritation raced through Cade; he had half a mind to take a swing at Wayne.
“Don’t even think it, little brother.” A smile curved over Wayne’s lips. “I’m still a helluva lot bigger than you.”
Cade settled his hands on his hips. “What the hell, Wayne?”
“She did the same thing you would have done,” Wayne said, his words soft and low.
“Bullshit,” Cade shot out.
Wayne shook his head. “No, brother. I know you. Put yourself in the exact same spot Tulsa was in—only make her a Montgomery and you a McGrath. You would have done the exact same thing. I know you and I know her—and you would have gone and you would have done it because you would have thought it was the best thing for her.” Wayne stepped forward and tapped his brother gently on the chest. “And in that moment you might have been right.”
Cade stepped back. His jaw dropped and he sucked in air. A tingle curled from his toes and shot through his spine. He closed his eyes and breathed.
Wayne was right.
Cade set his jaw tight. If it had been him sitting in front of Tulsa’s father and Hudd telling Cade that he’d ruin Tulsa’s life, he would have left. With Connie dead and no reason to stay and her not believing him? Like a bolt to the head it hit Cade—what she’d done and why.
He heard Wayne’s heavy footfalls headed toward the door. Cade turned and opened his eyes. “You’re right,” Cade said.
“Damn straight,” Wayne called. “An older brother usually is.”
*
Cade’s dad looked smaller than the last time he’d seen him. One more stroke had all but blown out Hudd’s brain. Cade walked into the bedroom where his father lay. He settled beside his dad’s bed. This man—what was left of this man—was his father. Cade’s heart softened as he looked at his dad. Cade closed his eyes and rested his hand on his dad’s shoulder. The heat that had lain coiled in his gut—the anger—slipped away. There wasn’t any place for rage. There wasn’t any time left for all the pain.
His father had been wrong. Of this Cade was certain. His father had been selfish. Of this Cade had no doubt. But his father had loved his family and Cade believed his father had done what he thought was best for their family at the time, even if he’d been one hundred percent wrong. And with that tiny tidbit of knowledge, the first leaf of forgiveness spread within Cade.
He settled into the chair beside his dad. Dr. Bob had said maybe Hudd could hear them—maybe not—but if there was even the tiniest chance that his dad could hear the story he was going to read, then that was chance enough.
Cade opened the book. He bit hard on his bottom lip to chase away the wetness from his eyes. There was a lot a man could forgive—if he understood the reasons why.
“Chapter one,” Cade said.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The lights were on in Tulsa’s house. She pushed open the door and dropped her keys into the crystal bowl on the side table, just past the door from the garage. She lifted the mail and started to sift through the letters.
“Tulsa?”
A hot tingle, like an electrical jolt, snapped up her spine. A switch flipped on inside her and an excited feeling—an overwhelming sense of joy—sprang through her chest. She looked across her foyer to the living room.
“Cade?”
Her jaw dropped open and her eyes widened with shock and happiness and surprise and hope. Cade stood beside the fireplace.
“Awful nice pad you’ve got here,” he said. He held out his hand and a key ring dangled from his finger. “Savannah gave me the key. She didn’t think you’d mind.”
“What are you doing here? Why—”
“We need to talk,” Cade said.
She walked toward him. She entered the living room, and as she drew closer, she saw the purple shadows of fatigue under his eyes and the worry lines etched into his face that mirrored what she knew were marks her own face carried. With each step closer to Cade, Tulsa’s heart hammered harder in her chest. There was so much to discuss, so much to decide—maybe too much for them. She didn’t know where to start, how to start.
“I understand what you did and I think if the roles had been reversed, I would have done the same thing.”
With Cade’s words, Tulsa sank onto the couch. She didn’t trust her legs to hold her. His words—Cade’s words of understanding—were akin to forgiveness. The words jolted her and yet quelled an anxiousness that careened through her body.
“I couldn’t see it.” Cade sat on the ch
air across from Tulsa. “Not at first. At first I was…” He looked away from her eyes, toward the Persian rug beneath his boots. Then his eyes caught hers again. “At first I was too damn mad.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “It was Wayne.” Cade shook his head. “He said I would have done the same thing if it had been me in your shoes and your father had come to me the way things were back then—after everything that happened.” His eyes flicked around the room and then locked onto her gaze. “And he was right, I would have.”
Tulsa leaned back against the couch. Relief flooded through her—relief that Cade finally understood her choice. He no longer condemned her. He didn’t judge her. If nothing more came from this conversation she could live with this—this knowledge that at least the man she loved didn’t hate her anymore.
“I was really trying to do what was best. Now… well, now it would be different… But then—”
“Tulsa, we were eighteen—”
“Right.” Tulsa nodded, lost in the memory of what was once her at such a young age. “Eighteen,” she whispered.
Eighteen and no mother, no father, no money, and according to her hometown, no future. There’d been one thing that she did have—true love. She looked at Cade. She’d given that up because she thought it was the right thing to do—the best thing to do—for the man that she loved.
“I wanted… You have to know…” Tulsa searched the ceiling with her eyes. “I’ve picked up the phone a million times since then. Began a million letters. But I thought… I thought when I didn’t hear from you and then you were married… I thought maybe Hudd had been right. That it was just a silly romance. A high school thing. A love that didn’t mean anything to you.”
Pain creased her insides. Shame. A shame from being the poor girl from the bad family pulsed through Tulsa. Even while she sat in her Bel Aire home that she’d managed to buy, that little-girl shame still flooded through her chest and caused her cheeks to burn.
“I… never forgot. I just… I thought when you left Powder Springs without a word that you didn’t want us anymore.”