by Sara Cate
Is this Clint all over again? If I give everything to Callum, will he change his mind? Will he break my heart when it’s at its fullest? Especially when he learns everything.
“Marry me, Cadence.”
I gasp again, squeezing his hands that are still cupping my face. It’s like my dreams are staring me right in the face, and I can’t work up the guts to reach out and take them. There are still things Callum doesn’t know about me...things in my past that could be deal-breakers for him.
But with that look of love and hope in his eyes, I can’t deny him. I can’t force him to wake up from this dream when I know I don’t want to.
“Yes,” I answer through my tears, and his mouth is on mine, clutching my body to his so tightly I can barely breathe.
Once we break our kiss, everything feels different. We are both high on this new development, and the world feels like it’s ours. Whatever problems we need to work out, we’ll work them out later, together. Tonight, I want to enjoy this feeling.
The next morning as I wake up, I nuzzle myself against his body and kiss the center of his chest all the way up to his ear, and he groans as he starts to wake.
“What time is it?”
“Seven-thirty.”
We were up well past one in the morning, trying to get that noise complaint we wanted so badly. When the phone did finally ring, we didn't answer it, but we did enjoy one last earth-shattering orgasm that shook the walls of our hotel room before we called it a night.
“We have to get back to the house,” I say, peppering kisses along his neck and chest.
“Check-out isn’t until eleven.” His hands roam my body, and I feel him trying to tug my body on top of his.
“Callum, we have work to do.”
“Look who’s the responsible one now.”
I don’t protest as he positions me on top of him and fills me with a thrust. We do have a few minutes to spare, and as bad as I feel for leaving Bridget for a day and a half by herself, I can’t turn down the way this feels with Callum because I know the moment we get back, everything will be different.
Thirty-One
Cadence
It’s been three weeks since Dublin. It felt like a dream, and as soon as we got into the car to drive home, the dream ended and we woke up.
Callum said these things take time. He’s working up his letter of resignation to his bishop, and I can see the stress it’s causing him. He pours over the letter day and night.
We didn’t tell anyone about his plan, and I feel the excitement of it all waning with every passing moment. At the dinner table, I see his eyes on me. I see the guilt he feels, the remorse for not doing what he promised he would, and I hate that this is tearing him up.
Reaching my foot across, I gently rest it against his leg, and I offer him a warm expression. It doesn’t do anything to melt away the stress he’s carrying, but I keep it there anyway.
As for me, I’ve managed to shelf my nagging doubts. For now.
Which is good because it’s been replaced with a new form of anxiety. I’m two weeks late.
At first I figured it was just coming off the birth control that threw me off, but this morning, I noticed my breasts were sore and I could barely stomach the smell of sizzling ham from the kitchen.
Since buying a pregnancy test in a small town when you’re the only American girl and word travels fast, I forego the physical evidence and accept it for what it is.
I’m pregnant.
It’s not like I can be surprised about it. We’ve been banging like teenagers, and I haven’t been on the pill in over a month. Still, I can barely get out of bed with the way my guilt is chewing at me.
How will I tell him? He has enough on his plate right now, but if he doesn’t quit soon, people are going to do the math and realize that he and I were doing it long before he left his priesthood. What if he can’t leave?
We really didn’t plan this out. I know he’ll be happy, or at the very least, he’ll act happy. But I’ll know that deep down...I’m just another responsibility for him. Between the farm and the church, he has to figure out what to do with his pregnant mistress, who is also his employee.
Callum’s position at the church brings him income, albeit not a lot, it’s still money, and if he quits, he’ll be taking a pay cut. Can the hotel income support us all?
And then on top of everything, there’s the constant reminder weighing on my soul that I have not been completely honest with Callum. And I wanted to tell him that before all of this happened, but we rushed it. We fucked up. I fucked up. Again.
Sick of soaking my pillow with my own pitiful tears, I climb out of bed and get dressed. I don’t say a word to Bridget as I rush out the door. There’s not an ounce of makeup on my face, and my hair is stacked messily on my head. I look as fucked up as I feel.
This needs to happen now. I can’t wait another second, but the heavy emotion hanging on my heart nearly makes me want to turn around. Is bringing up the shitty things I’ve done in the past going to make anything right?
If Callum doesn’t want me after he knows the truth, it’s better to tell him now before it’s too late.
He’s in his office when I get to the church, and I storm in, slamming the door behind me. His head pops up from his bible, and I notice he’s writing his homily for tomorrow night’s service—not his resignation letter.
“Cadence.” His brow is furrowed, like he’s angry, and I watch it morph into concern as he takes in my appearance.
“I have to tell you something.” My voice cracks.
“Sit down,” he commands, but I can’t. I’m buzzing with energy, and I know if I sit, it will fizzle out and I’ll change my mind.
“No. I did something, and you have to know about it because you may not want me anymore once you know.” A sob shakes through my body, but I bite it back. He stands up, and I want to melt into his arms. I crave the comfort of his touch, but I can’t have that right now. I need to do this first.
Carefully, I take a long, steady inhale. Then I let the words out. “When I was sixteen, I got pregnant.”
That word alone stings. The memory is tied to it, and it immediately triggers painful memories I’ve never been able to bury.
He doesn’t answer, but he searches my features, waiting for me to continue.
“I wanted to keep it,” I sob, nearly doubling over from the pain, remembering how badly I hurt. “But my parents…”
Callum reaches for me, but I snatch my body away. Quickly, I say the next part before I chicken out. “I didn’t. I didn’t keep it, Callum. I had an abortion.”
He flinches, and I catch it. I watch the way he changes when he learns this about me. Hot tears leak across my cheeks as I clutch my abdomen, knowing what it hides. Feeling as if this is all too much, and I’ve somehow managed to fuck up so royally, I will never recover.
“Why are you so upset?” He reaches for me again, but I back myself against the door.
“Because that should be a deal-breaker for you. Because you have values that make you better than me, Callum, but you overlook them all the time.”
“What are you talking about?” His voice has deepened, growing frustrated.
“You’re Callum, the rule follower,” I sob. “That’s what you do. You follow the rules, do your duty, live your life guided by something or someone else, and now you’re letting me determine your life, but you need to know the truth about me.”
“I do know the truth about you,” he says so loudly it shakes the painting on the wall. Things are spiraling, and I see the panic set in his eyes. He’s starting to feel helpless because I’m tearing myself away, crumbling the walls of the sacred place we built together, and there’s nothing he can do to stop it.
“Cadence, I don’t care about what you did when you were sixteen. If you think my values make me better than you, then you don’t know me at all.”
“I know you’ll do what’s expected of you. You live for your duty, and I know I came into this
town as a temptation. I seduced you and as soon as you started fucking me, you realized that you’d have to do the right thing. You’d have to marry me.”
“Stop it,” he snarls with piercing anger in his eyes.
Every party of my body aches. This emotional pain is physical, and I hate myself for coming here and starting this, but I have no choice. I’m finally doing the right thing when for so long I’ve been doing nothing but fucking up.
“Tell me I’m wrong, Callum. I know it eats you up that you’ve been sleeping with me without being married to me.”
“Why are you doing this?” His fists are clenched at his side.
“Why haven’t you turned in that resignation letter?” I cry, pointing at the open laptop on his desk.
“I told you—”
“These things take time, I know. But I don’t think you want to resign, Callum. I think you’re torn. Torn by duty, torn because you don’t know who to follow anymore, God or me.”
“Just because I’m torn doesn’t mean…”
“I don’t want to tear you away anymore.” Nausea bubbles up my chest as I watch his anger melt away. It hurts so much, but I have to do this. It’s bad enough I’ve ruined my life; I don’t need to ruin his life too. If I stay, he’ll leave the church, work himself to the bone at the house. And there's no going back from that. I love him too much to watch his devotion to me ruin his life.
“Don’t do this.” His cold-faced plea nearly breaks me.
“I’m going home, Callum.”
When he doesn’t move, his eyes still focused on my face, I bite down my guilt and send one last shot, putting this beautiful daydream out of its misery.
“Home, home. I’m going back to Pineridge.”
Thirty-Two
Callum
I have lived my life at God’s will. It was His will that led me to my ministry. For twelve years, I served Him without fault.
So why has He brought me to this? Why has He shown me love, given me the keys to a different life, if only to take them away?
If this is providence, faith in His plan, then my faith is failing.
“Are you sure about this?” Bishop Hawthorne asks in his office. My letter sits on his desk, and I’m across from him, my hands shaking in my lap.
“I am.”
He leans back, seemingly in thought. He begins to drone on about commitment and God, advising me to pray on it longer and what verses to read before I decide to go through with this, but I’ve tuned him out. I nod along, and persist when he asks me again.
I’m really doing this.
Cadence boarded her plan last week. Bridget and Daisy sobbed all morning, and neither of them spoke to me when they came home from the airport. I can’t be in the house, but I can’t be in the rectory either.
Everything that happened that day came down so fast, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t expect it. We rushed things that were too delicate to be rushed. We brushed aside the conversations that we were both afraid would end what we had built, but I know that if we had faced them when we were supposed to, it might not have ended like this.
She was right. I was going to marry her out of duty. What kind of man would I be if I didn’t? But she didn’t put the faith in me, in us, that I needed. Those doubts and fears I watched swirl around her head tore us apart, and all I could do was revise my fucking letter one more goddamn time.
I should have turned this in three months ago. My ass should have been in this chair the first time I watched her lips move, hanging on every word like it was God who spoke them. I was a coward.
I asked her to hang around for me. I kept her hidden like a dirty secret and then somehow acted surprised when everything imploded. Of course she doubted my loyalty.
But the moment she walked out that door, I promised myself I would not contact her again until I was available in the way she deserves. Unfortunately, my line about these things taking time wasn’t a lie. To become laicized can take up to a year or more, which is why I’m here to beg Bishop Hawthorne for mercy and to get this process rolling faster than usual.
Without sounding too disrespectful.
“I can’t convince you to stay through Christmas, can I?”
“I’m sorry.”
It’s already September. I hate to think about the holidays without Cadence. The sooner I get this over with and get her back, the better. If it’s not already too late by then.
Thirty-Three
Cadence
The weather this time of year is perfect. I’d be enjoying it a lot more if I could leave my bed. Luckily for me, Sunny and Alexander have a beautiful pool house equipped for guests that gives me enough sunshine through the floor-to-ceiling windows that I don’t have to feel bad about my lack of vitamin D.
When I hear Sunny come through the door, I try to pretend to be asleep but she knows me better. I feel her settle onto the bed behind me, cuddling close so that her arms are wrapped around my waist. Then she nuzzles her face into my hair.
I didn’t realize how much I missed my little sister until I spotted her as I came out of the terminal into the airport. I thought I had cried out every last tear I had until my eyes found little Sunny standing alone behind the rope waiting for me. I couldn’t stop the tears as I ran into her arms and sobbed onto her shoulder.
Since then, I’ve answered questions vaguely, but when your sister runs off to Europe, falls in love with a priest, and comes home knocked-up, it’s not exactly a mystery as to why she’s so upset. So she’s been giving me my space.
But now that I’ve been home for a couple weeks, I can feel her getting restless and ready to talk.
“How are you feeling?” she asks, and I know she means physically.
“Tired. Sick. Sad. The trifecta.”
She squeezes me tighter. “Do you know how far along you are?” It’s the first time she’s really asked about the pregnancy since I got here, and I want to push away the thought. So I just shrug.
“I don’t know. A month. Maybe six weeks?”
Moving slowly to keep the room from spinning on me and sending me to the bathroom, I sit up and face my sister cross-legged. She does the same, and soon I’m reminded of all the years she and I sat on our beds like this, talking about boys. Well, it was usually me talking about boys while Sunny listened, never judging. It was like she looked up to me then, and I’m so glad she didn’t follow in my footsteps. She found the one guy for her and she’s perfectly happy spending her whole life with him, but that’s always how Sunny was. She knew what she liked, what she wanted, and she went out and got it.
I see her sad expression as she watches me, and I know what she’s thinking. Sunny was just a kid when I got “in trouble” as Mom refers to it. I remember that day so vividly, how mad Dad was, complaining about how much it would cost him and blaming Mom because she didn’t watch me enough.
No one asked me what I wanted, but what choice did I have? I couldn’t do it without them, so I had to do what they wanted. And I did. My life was expected to return to normal after that, and all I wanted was to find a man who wanted me, who would give me what was taken away so long ago, to right past wrongs.
Looking up at my sister, I clutch my stomach. Needles burn the backs of my eyes as she bites her lip, and I already know what she wants to say.
“Don’t ask me what I’m going to do, okay?”
“I wasn’t,” she answers as moisture pools around her blue irises.
“Because I know what I have to do.”
She blinks a tear down her cheek. “I know you do.”
My lip trembles. “I’m keeping it, Sunny.”
“I know you are.” Her hand jets out to grab mine and we squeeze each other impossibly tight. After a moment, my head drops down to her lap and I let warm tears fall. Her hand stroked my hair out of my face and across her legs.
“I hate to be the devil’s advocate here,” she adds after a few minutes. Oh, Sunny. Always the practical one. I know exactly where she’s going with t
his one. “He deserves to know, Cadence.”
I let out a groan. “I know he does, but you don’t understand. He’ll leave everything for me. He’ll quit the priesthood, his family’s business, fuck, I think he’d leave Ireland for me if he knew.”
My sister’s hand stops moving. Then in a sarcastic, low drawl, she adds, “Oh no, not a man who would give up everything for you.”
Sitting up quickly, I dry my tears. “But that’s the thing. He wouldn’t be doing it for me. He’d be doing it because he thinks he has to.”
Sunny’s head tilts and her brow furrows. “Oh my God, Cadence. What did they do to you?”
“Who?”
Reaching out to stroke my hair, she says, “All the boys who somehow collectively convinced you that no one could truly love you.”
My shoulders slump, and I let out a heavy exhale. “Oh. That was me. I did that.”
Later that day, I actually gather the strength to get out of bed, put on real clothes and join my sister and brother-in-law for dinner. It was a mistake.
Seeing them together, how in-sync they are, itching to constantly touch each other but choosing not to for my sake only makes me feel worse. It makes me miss him so much I have to excuse myself and go back to the pool house. I can’t live like this, not forever. I have a tiny person on the way, and it’s going to be up to me to take care of them.
Instead of going back to bed, I settle myself on the edge of the pool and dangle my feet in the water. Just behind Sunny’s new house is our old house. Mom sold it after she got cleaned up, but the memories it held are still there. Memories of a young, naive woman who gave everything away too easily.
I think about what would have happened if I’d met Callum sooner. He would have been even more annoyed with me when I was younger. If we hadn’t been forced together, I probably would have never given him a chance. He was too cold, too stern, and no fun.
Would he have brought me closer to God then? Am I any closer to Him now? I always figured I was at war with God, trying to steal someone who had pledged his faith to Him.