by Cara Colter
Which was why she didn’t even want him to know about adoption. He was certain to have an opinion about that that she would not be eager to hear.
“Hindsight is always twenty-twenty,” she informed him snootily.
“How did you end up hurt?” Kade asked.
Jessica squirmed a bit.
“Um, we scuffled,” she admitted. “I fell.”
“You scuffled?” Kade asked, incredulous. “You scuffled with a burglar? I would have thought it was hard to scuffle while running for the back door.”
“I was not going to run away,” she said.
“That is nothing to be proud of.”
“Yes,” she said, “it is. Don’t you dare presume to tell me what to be proud of.”
From their shared laughter over the bummers of life just moments ago to this. It was just like the final weeks of their marriage: arguments lurked everywhere.
“Why are you proud of it?” he asked, that dangerous something still deepening in his tone, that muscle jerking along the line of his jaw that meant he was really annoyed.
“I’m proud I took on that scrawny thief,” Jessica said, her voice low, but gaining power. “I lost my mother when I was twelve. I’ve lost two babies to miscarriage.”
And she had lost Kade, not that she was going to mention that. In some ways the loss of him had been the worst of all. The other losses had been irrevocable, but Kade was still there, just not there for her.
“Sorry?” he said, reeling back slightly from her as if she had hit him with something. “What does that have to do with this?”
“I am not losing anything else,” she said, and could hear the tautness in her own voice. “Not one more thing.”
He stared at her, and she took a deep breath and continued.
“You listen to me, Kade Brennan. I am not surrendering to life anymore. I am not going to be the hapless victim. I am making the rules, and I am making my own life happen.”
Kade was shocked into silence, so she went on, her tone low. “So if that means scuffling with someone who was trying to take one more thing from me, then so be it.”
“Oh, boy,” he said, his voice low and pained. “That’s not even sensible.”
“I don’t care what you think is sensible,” she said with stubborn pride.
Though, she did plan to be more sensible soon. Naturally, there would be no more scuffling once she had adopted a baby. She would think things all the way through then. She would be the model of responsible behavior.
She hoped there were no questions about how one would handle a break-in on the adoption application.
“So you weren’t running for the back door,” he deduced, regaining himself. “Not even close.”
“Nope.” The new Jessica refused to be intimidated. She met his gaze with determination. She was not going to be cowed by Kade. She was not one of his employees. She was nearly not even his wife. In a little while, they would practically be strangers.
At the thought, a little unexpected grayness swirled inside her—she was willing to bet that was a result of her injury, a bit of shock—but she fought it off bravely.
“I was not letting him get away,” Jessica said. “The police were coming.”
For a moment he was stunned speechless again. He clenched that muscle in his jaw tighter. She remembered she hated that about him, too: the jaw clenching.
His voice rarely rose in anger, but that muscle, leaping along the hard line of his jaw, was a dead giveaway that he was really irritated about something.
“Are you telling me—” Kade’s voice was low and dangerous “—that you not only scuffled with the burglar, but you tried to detain him?”
“He was a shrimp,” Jessica said defiantly.
“In case you haven’t looked in the mirror recently, so are you. And he could have had a knife! Or a gun!” So much for his voice rarely being raised in anger.
“I wasn’t going to stand by and let him steal from me!” At the look on Kade’s face, she backed down marginally. “Okay, so maybe I didn’t think it all the way through.” Something that was definitely going to have to change once she embraced motherhood.
“Maybe?”
She was not sure why she felt driven to defend herself, even when she knew Kade was right and she was wrong. Not just defend herself, but goad him a little bit.
“Break-ins started on this block a few nights ago. No one can sleep at night. We all go down there and check our businesses. That business is everything to me now. It’s my whole life.”
He heard the unspoken, she was sure. That the business had replaced him as her whole life.
The jaw muscle was rippling beneath the line of his skin. She watched it, fascinated despite herself. He was really angry.
“You’ve been going down there in the middle of the night to check your business?”
It didn’t seem nearly as clever now with Kade glaring at her.
“Yes, I have,” she said, refusing to back down. “And I’ll probably do it again tonight, since he got away.”
Well, actually, she probably wouldn’t, but there was no sense Kade thinking he could order her around, could control her with even a hint of his disapproval. Those days were over.
“You are not going down there tonight,” Kade said. “For God’s sake, Jessica, haven’t you ever heard of security cameras?”
“Of course I’ve thought of security cameras. And security companies. But the options are many and the selection is huge,” she said. “I’ve been trying to figure out what is best for me and my budget. Not that that is any of your business. And you don’t have any say in how I decide to handle it. None whatsoever. You and I only have one thing left to discuss. And that is our divorce.”
And unbidden, the thought blasted through her that that was a major bummer.
And the doctor, a lovely young woman, chose that moment to come out, X-rays in hand, and say, “Mr. and Mrs. Brennan?”
Mr. and Mrs. Brennan. That should not fill her with longing! That should not make Jessica wonder if there would ever be another Mrs. Brennan taking her place.
It was over. Their brief marriage was over. They were getting divorced. Kade’s life was no longer any of her business, just as hers was no longer any of his.
She would probably change her name back to Clark. She could be Ms. Clark instead of Mrs. Brennan. The baby would be a Clark.
She wasn’t thinking about a first name. She knew better than that. Or at least she should know better than that. A memory knifed through her: Kade and her poring over the baby-name books. Deciding on Lewis for a boy and Amelia for a girl.
And then the first miscarriage. And somehow, she could see now, in retrospect, what she had not seen then. From the moment Kade had asked her not to name that little lost baby, a crack had appeared between them.
No, she was determined to enjoy the success of her baby nursery design business and her new storefront as a means to an end. She could have it all.
She could fill her life with the thrill of obtaining those adorable outfits no other store would carry, those one-of-a-kind over-the-crib mobiles, those perfect lamb-soft cuddly teddy bears that everyone wanted and no one could find.
And someday, maybe sooner than later, the outfits would be for her own baby. She would design a nursery for her own baby.
“Don’t,” he’d whispered when she had started painting the walls of their spare room a pale shade of lavender the second time. “Please don’t.”
But now she didn’t need his approval. She could do it all her way. She could finally, finally be happy. All the pieces were in place.
Weren’t they? If they were, why did Jessica feel a sudden desire to weep? It was that crack on her head. It was the throbbing in her arm. It was her day gone so terribly wrong, nothing according to her plan.
“Mr. and Mrs. Brennan?” the doctor asked, again, baffled by the lack of response.
“Yes,” Kade said.
“No,” Jessica said at the very sa
me time.
He looked stubborn, a look Jessica remembered well.
She didn’t think she should admit a sudden urge to kill him in front of the doctor, so she shrugged. “We’re nearly divorced,” she informed the doctor. “He was just leaving.”
Kade gave her a look, and then got to his feet and prowled around the small waiting area.
“Well, if you could come with me.”
Jessica stood up from the wheelchair to follow the doctor. She wobbled. Kade was instantly at her side.
“Sit down,” he snapped.
Really, she should not tolerate that tone of voice from him, that tendency to bossiness. But the sudden wooziness she felt left her with no choice.
Kade pushed her down the hallway with the doctor, and they entered a small examining room. The doctor put the X-rays up on a light board.
“It’s not a complicated break,” she said, showing them with the tip of her pen. “It’s what we call a complete fracture. I’m going to set it and cast it. I think you’ll be in the cast for about four weeks and then require some therapy after to get full mobility back.”
Four weeks in a cast? But that barely registered. What registered was that this was her arm with the bone, showing white on the X-ray, clearly snapped in two. Her wooziness increased. She had to fight an urge to put her head between her knees.
“Is it going to hurt?” Jessica whispered, still not wanting Kade to see any sign of weakness from her.
“I wish I could tell you no, but even with the powerful painkiller I’m going to give you, yes, it’s going to hurt. Do you want your husband to come with you?”
Yes, part of Jessica whimpered. But that was the part she had to fight! Aware of Kade’s eyes on her, she tilted her chin. “No, I’m fine. Kade, you don’t have to wait.”
CHAPTER FOUR
YOU DON’T HAVE to wait was not quite as firm as you can leave now. Jessica forced herself not to look back at him as the doctor took her to a different room. But she had to admit she felt grateful that he did not appear to be leaving.
A half hour later, her arm in a cast and immobilized in a sling, with some prescription painkillers and some instructions in her other hand, Jessica was pushed by a nurse back to the waiting area. Her feeling of wooziness had increased tenfold.
Because she actually felt happy that Kade was still there. He sprang from a chair as soon as he saw her, and then shoved his hands into his pockets.
“You didn’t have to wait,” Jessica said in stubborn defiance of the relief.
“I’ll make sure you get home safely,” he said. “I had someone from the office drop off my car for me while I waited. I’ll bring it around to that door over there.”
And then, before she could protest on a number of fronts—that she didn’t need him to drive her and that she was going back to work, not home—he was gone.
She didn’t want to admit how good his take-charge attitude felt sometimes. By the time he’d arrived at the door, she’d realized there was no way she was going to work. She was also reluctant to concede how good it felt when he held open the door of his car for her and she slid from the wheelchair into its familiar luxury. Moments later, with the wheelchair returned, he put the car in gear and threaded through what was left of the morning rush with ease.
Why did she feel glad that he didn’t have a different car? She shouldn’t care at all. But he’d bought the car after they’d graduated from university, well before he’d been able to afford such a thing.
“But why?” she’d asked him when he had come and shown it to her. The high-priced car had seemed as if it should not be a priority to a recent university graduate.
“Because when I marry you, this is what we’re driving away in.”
And then he’d shown her the ring he couldn’t afford, either. Three months later, with the roof down and her veil blowing out the back, they had driven away to a shower of confetti and their cheering friends.
One of her favorite wedding pictures was of that scene, the car departing, a just-married sign tacked crookedly to the back bumper that trailed tin cans on strings. In that picture Kade had been grinning over his shoulder, a man who had everything. And she had been laughing, holding on to her veil to keep it from blowing off, looking like a woman embracing the wildest ride of her life.
Which marriage had definitely turned out to be, just not in the way she had expected. It had been a roller-coaster ride of reaching dizzying heights and plummeting into deep and shadowy valleys.
Jessica took a deep breath. She tried to clear her head of the memories, but she felt the painkilling drugs were impeding her sense of control. Actually, she did not know which impaired her judgment more: sitting in the car, so close to Kade, or the drugs.
She had always liked the way he drove, and though it felt like a weakness, she just gave herself over to enjoying it. The car, under his expert hand, was a living thing, darting smoothly in and out of traffic.
They pulled up in front of the house they had once shared. It was farther from downtown than her business, but still in a beautiful established southwest neighborhood with rows of single-story bungalows, circa 1950.
Oh, God, if getting in his car had nearly swamped her with memories, what was she going to do if he came into the house they had once shared? There was a reason she had asked him to meet her at her business.
“Kade,” she said firmly, wrestling the car door open with her left arm, “we need to get a divorce.”
* * *
Kade made himself turn and look at her, even though it was unexpectedly painful having her back in the passenger seat of the car.
He forced himself to really look at her. Beneath the pallor and the thinness, he suspected something.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
She wouldn’t look at him. She got the car door open, awkward as it was reaching across herself with her left arm.
“You could have waited for me to do that,” he said, annoyed, but she threw him a proud glare, found her feet and stepped out.
But her fighting stance was short-lived. She got a confused look on her face. And then she went very white. And stumbled.
He bolted from the car and caught her just as her legs crumpled underneath her. He scooped her up easily and stared down at her. And there he was, in the predicament he would have least predicated for the day—with Jessica’s slight weight in his arms, her body deliciously pliant against his, her eyes wide on his face. She had a scent that was all her own, faintly lemony, like a chiffon pie.
She licked her lips, and his eyes moved to them, and he remembered her taste, and the glory of kissing Jessica.
She seemed to sense the sudden hiss of energy between them and regained herself quickly, inserted her good hand between them and shoved. “Put me down!”
As if he had snatched her up against her will instead of rescuing her from a fall. He ignored her and carried her up the walkway to the house.
Their house.
He was not going to carry her across the threshold. The memory of that moment in their history was just too poignant. He set her down on the front steps and her legs folded. She sat down on the top stair, looking fragile and forlorn.
“I don’t feel well and I don’t know where my keys are,” she said.
He still had one, but he wasn’t sure if he should use it. It felt presumptuous. It didn’t feel as if he should treat it like his house anymore.
“I must have left my purse at the shop,” she said, trying to get up.
“Sit still for a minute,” he said.
It wasn’t an order, just a suggestion, but she folded her good arm over the one in the sling. He half expected she might stick her tongue out at him, but she didn’t.
“You’ve lost weight,” he said, watching her sit on the stoop.
“A little,” she admitted, as if she was giving away a state secret. “You know me. Obsessed about my projects. Right now it’s launching Baby Boomer. Sometimes I forget to eat.”
He frowned at that. She was always obsessed about something. Once, it had been about him.
“What’s your sudden panic to get a divorce?” he asked.
She choked and glared at him. “Over a year is not a sudden panic.”
“Have you met someone?” His voice sounded oddly raw in his own ears.
Jessica searched his face but he kept his features cool.
“Not that it is any of your business, but no.” She hesitated. “Have you?”
He snorted. “No, I’m cured, thanks.”
“I am, too!” She hesitated again, not, he guessed, wanting to appear too interested in his life. “I suppose you’re playing the field, then?”
“What? What does that mean, exactly?”
“Seeing lots of women.”
He snorted and allowed himself to feel the insult of it. Jessica was painting him as a playboy? “You have to know me better than that.”
“You live in that building. It has a reputation.”
“The condominium has a reputation?” he asked, astounded. “The building I live in? River’s Edge?”
“It does,” she said firmly. “Lots of single people live there. Very wealthy single people. It has a pool and that superswanky penthouse party room. The apartments are posh.”
“How do you know all that?” he asked.
She turned red. “Don’t get the idea I’ve been sneaking around spying on you.”
“That is the furthest from any idea I would ever get about you,” he said drily.
“The newspaper did a feature on it.”
“I must have missed that.”
“It seems like a good place for a single guy to live. One who is, you know, in pursuit of fun and freedom.”
That was what Jessica thought he was in pursuit of? Jeez. Well, let her think it. How could it be that she didn’t know him at all?
“Rest assured—” he could hear the stiffness in his voice “—I live there because it is a stone’s throw from work, which by the way is where I spend the majority of my waking hours.” He hesitated, not wanting to appear too interested in her life, either. “So are you playing the field?”