Chapter 13
[Ford]
As Cadence sings, I’m starstruck. In front of me isn’t someone in a glittering costume with a dance crew behind her and enough gyrations to make a man dizzy. Instead, a sultry woman sings a beautiful song accompanied only by a guitar.
She’s mesmerizing on her own.
When she finishes, Daggett and Cadence are approached by Sebastian.
After a few words are exchanged, Daggett begins “Thought You Should Know” by Morgan Wallen.
The range is more in Daggett’s wheelhouse.
Suddenly Sebastian is dancing with Vale and Stone is dancing with Enya.
Not exactly a mother-son and father-daughter moment, but still a moment.
As Sebastian said earlier, Enya and he aren’t following a script.
Vale and Sebastian are close. Enya’s parents have been invited to the wedding, but they aren’t participating in it.
Neither Daggett nor Cadence fall into the wedding singer category, so once their two songs are finished, Cadence excuses herself. Daggett is coerced into singing one more song and Cadence heads toward me.
Apologize to me. Her tone almost had me dropping to my knees and begging her to let me please her. I’d have done anything she asked of me. What I should be doing is giving her space. Put some distance between me and her. I shouldn’t have kissed her like I had. So harsh. So angry. So desperate.
But I can’t seem to fight this crazy pull toward her.
And she’s approaching me. Only once she nears the table where I’ve been standing off to the side, she scoops up June. Hitching my baby girl on her hip, she takes June to the dance floor and starts spinning in slow circles. Other couples pair up and join the dance.
Enya somehow ends up dancing with her father who is a little too close to Cadence for my liking, so when the song switches to another one sung by Daggett, and Cadence’s father starts for her with June, I find myself moving forward.
“Cadence,” her father begins. “Don’t make a scene.” He’s cupping her upper arm as if he’s about to lead her off the dance floor. Only, Cadence is good at subtly pulling her arm free from his grasp as I reach her.
“Dance with me, if you must dance,” he chides.
“Sorry, sir. The next dance was promised to me.” Wedging myself between Mr. Calloway and Cadence, I grip both her arms and gently move her away from her father. With June still on her hip, I wrap my arms around them both and awkwardly we sway.
Cadence drops her head to my chest a second before June kicks her legs, signaling she wants down. After Cadence sets June on her feet, Cadence straightens, and I stop the potential of her retreating by catching her hand.
“Dance with me.”
With weary eyes, she agrees, and I slip my arms around her better without the hinderance of June between us. With her body lined up against mine, I’m hyperaware of every curve and dip of her shape. Her bare arms circle my neck and I fight the urge to kiss her forearm.
Cadence is dangerous for me and not who I need. She’s famous in her own right, understanding the life of living in hotels, traveling often, and missing out on family time. Her touring life isn’t much different than my season. The lifestyle can be glamorous and tiring.
I wonder if she’s lonely like I’d sometimes been during road games.
“You sing beautifully,” I tell her.
Her head lifts and her eyes narrow, suspicious of the compliment.
“I mean it. Your voice . . .” Her voice is like a seductive siren singing to a lonely sailor.
Sensing my sincerity in my lack of words, she slowly smiles. “Thank you.”
I clear my throat. “Also, I should apologize. A real apology. I don’t know what came over me.”
“Just couldn’t resist me, huh?” she teases, her body tensing beneath my hold as she slips into performance mode. The walls are going up. She’s shutting me out.
“Something irresistible about you.”
“That’s the reputation,” she jokes.
However, I’m not kidding. I shouldn’t have taken advantage of her like I did. I’m surprised she didn’t slap me on my bruised cheek.
“Anyway, I’m sorry,” I repeat. For getting drunk on tequila and spilling my secrets. Running hot and cold. Kissing her. “I’m a mess right now, Cadence.”
“Aren’t we all?” she mumbles, reaching for my tie and sliding her hand down it.
I’m instantly reminded of how she fisted the material earlier, tugging me toward her. I might have kissed her fast and furious, but she kissed me back. Was she as hot and hungry for me as I’d been for her?
“Darlin’?” Both our heads swivel toward Daggett, who is no longer singing but standing beside us. I hadn’t even noticed the song had finished. A disc jockey has taken over.
“Daggett,” Cadence stammers, stepping out of my arms.
“Been fun, girl, but I’ve got to go.”
“Of course.” Cadence pauses, glancing from him to me and back. “Let me walk you out.”
Daggett looks from me to Cadence. “No need. Keep dancing with your man.”
“Oh, he’s not—”
“We’re not—”
Daggett holds up a hand to stop us both.
Cadence clears her throat and tips up to kiss his bearded cheek. “Thanks again, Dag. I owe you.”
“You know I’ll be callin’ in the favor.” He winks at her before holding out a hand to shake mine. Then he steps over to Sebastian and Enya for a farewell.
Cadence and I remain on the dance floor. “You two seem close.”
“All the boys consider me their friend.” Cadence rolls her lips together, eyes dimming.
I scratch underneath my chin. “Yeah, I shouldn’t have said that.” The accusation came purely from envy. She’d never be my friend, even if I did want more with her.
As my leg is knocked into, I glance down at Winnie wrapping her arms around my thigh, and she’s reason number one reminding me why I can’t be with someone like Cadence. While our worlds are similar, they are also vastly different.
“Dance with me, Daddy,” Winnie whines as I reach down to pick her up under her arms. She squeals and giggles before I hitch her on my hip and take her little hand in mine.
“Thanks for the dance, Ford.” Cadence’s appreciation comes with a farewell in her tone.
“It was my pleasure, Cadence.” Along with kissing her.
She exits the dance floor and I spin with my middle child so I don’t have to watch another woman walk out of my life.
+ + +
The morning after the wedding, breakfast is held at the bakery.
The gathering is more of a public affair for those not invited to the wedding who want to wish the newlyweds well.
Sebastian isn’t exactly an exemplary citizen of Sterling Falls, so the people present are probably here out of curiosity and for the free coffee, like Trudy Wallace and Emory Milton, two of the biggest busybodies in this town.
Conspicuously missing is one famous singer.
“Have you seen Cadence?” I ask Stone, as I lift a coffee mug to my lips.
The night ran late once again, but I steered clear of tequila.
Clay and Knox were the instigators this time around, keeping me out when Violet suggested she take the girls back to Knox and Halle’s house for a sleepover. I swear that teen is a saint.
“You seem a little preoccupied with Cadence,” Stone counters. He slipped out before the shenanigans with Clay and Knox, leaving with Hudson, Vale’s son. My eldest brother and I haven’t had much time to talk since I’ve been home.
“Not preoccupied. Just curious.” I set my mug down and glance away from my brother’s assessing eye. Rubbing my hands along my jean-covered thighs beneath the table, I attempt to dry my sweaty palms. Stone is making me anxious because it’s time to tell my family the truth.
“Where’s Felicity?” he asks outright.
Lowering my head, I lean against the table and admit, “I can’t talk here.
” The place is too public and despite Sebastian and Enya being the focus, I don’t want to risk nosey old neighbors or little ears hearing this tale.
Not to mention, I’m embarrassed by my failure.
I never want Stone to be disappointed in me, and I’ve been pushing this conversation off as long as I could.
Stone isn’t letting it go, though. “Meet me in the truck.” He doesn’t mean take my time or get there when I can. He means now.
My girls won’t want to leave the bakery and when Stone and Vale exchange a glance, she’s suddenly volunteering to watch my kids again.
I’m really going to need help with my girls once I leave Sterling Falls, but that’s a thought for when I get home.
Picking up my ceramic mug, refilled with the complimentary coffee, I exit Curmudgeon Bakery and follow my brother down the street to his pickup. Once inside, Stone fires it up and drives.
Our positions remind me of countless rides when Stone would pick me up from baseball practice or drive me home after a game. We’d assess how I’d done. The good and the bad.
Now it was my life we’d be deliberating.
“What’s going on?” Stone lazily rests his wrist over the steering wheel, heading nowhere fast and abiding by the speed limit as he’s the local sheriff.
“Felicity and I . . .” I swallow hard. “Are divorced.”
Stone’s head jerks toward me, the truck swerving with the directional shift, and he grips the steering wheel to straighten our course. “When did that happen?”
“Apparently in the Dominican Republic about two weeks ago.”
“What do you mean ‘apparently’?”
In order to spell this out, I’m going to have to start at the beginning.
“Felicity and I have been struggling for a while. Fighting all the time. I thought it was normal marriage stuff. She’s married to a baseball player who has an erratic schedule, that doesn’t include nights and weekends off, but does include loads of travel for a good chunk of the year. She understood that when we married.”
Stone patiently waits for more details.
“But with the girls, it’s been a lot.” Especially when my wife would have preferred we did not have children in the first place, and then when we did, they cramped her style.
Stone’s fist tightens on the steering wheel, perhaps sensing where I’m already going with my tale.