Chapter 31
[Ford]
“Cay-Day.” June’s sleepy cry turns both our heads.
With equal parts uncertainty and anxiety, and unable to look Cadence in the eye, I quickly rise, and head to my daughter’s room to get her up from her nap. Holding her tightly to my chest, I spin toward the door to see Cadence standing outside it with her guitar case in hand.
“I’m going to leave.” With her head lowered, her voice quiet, something inside me snaps.
“Leave?” A rush of panic races through me. “Where are you going?” How could she leave after the bomb she dropped?
Cadence was the other woman. She was Romero to my Felicity and me.
“I need some space.” Defeat I’d never heard was heavy in her tone.
“We need to talk,” I rush, stepping toward her with June in my arms.
Cadence steps back. “Later,” she whispers, not convincing me in the least she’ll be back.
I don’t want her to go, I just need a second to think.
However, Cadence is gone before I make it to June’s open door.
Instead of following Cadence, I return to her room, relieved to find her suitcases still in the closet.
Ironically, the rubber duck I’d given her is missing.
I hadn’t given the bright yellow toy a second glance when I invaded her private space.
When I didn’t even know what to look for. I just wanted the truth.
On one hand, guys were dicks, and I had no doubt any man could sweet talk a woman with a smooth line and good looks into bed.
On the other hand, Cadence was smart. She was gorgeous and quirky, and she wasn’t the type to fall for a pretty face and a sharp one-liner.
How had she been fooled? Because deep down, I am convinced .
. . I fucking know . . . Cadence had been tricked.
I didn’t believe the guy wanted nothing from her other than a simple life in the London countryside. Come on. She’s Cadence. Then again, what was I doing with her? Or rather, what was she doing with me? I was a single dad, newly divorced, and an injured baseball player with an uncertain future.
Fucking Sebastian. He’d been right. Cadence had a secret.
He’d also been wrong. She wasn’t cheating on someone else or me.
She wasn’t disloyal like that, and she wasn’t a one-and-done-woman.
Case in point was me. We’d been touching and kissing one another every night for weeks.
Even if we hadn’t had actual sex, I had no doubt we’d eventually get there.
We were still learning things about each other, both in the bedroom and outside of it.
Cadence and I had more to discuss. I wanted to understand her position. She’d told me she didn’t want fucking Evan. She never wanted him to leave his wife or kid. She hadn’t known about them. And I believe her. The conviction in her face. The guilt in her eyes. I believed her. I did.
And I realize her situation was nothing like mine with Felicity.
Hugging June tighter, I stand in Cadence’s bedroom doorway and stare at the empty bed.
Things are certainly clearer now about Cadence’s standoffishness and why she doesn’t stay in my bed overnight.
She doesn’t trust people to love her. Thus, the one-night stands she’s told me about.
The reckless, short-term relationships, she’d hinted at.
She’s afraid to commit to someone because when she finally wanted a person, he wasn’t available.
He’d proven how nonchalantly some people treat their marriage vows, like the Felicitys and Evans of the world.
And if Cadence leaves first, she can’t be hurt. With this Evan-dick, she’d been burned.
“Daddy swink.” June wrinkles her cute nose at my body scent while speaking around her thumb. I really need a shower after this morning’s mowing.
No, Daddy sucks. I should have been more understanding, more patient. I’d just needed a minute, and that minute had cost me. In baseball, you don’t have time to think. You react on instinct. Overthinking leads to missed opportunities. Underestimating leads to injury.
My instinct had been wrong, though. I’d fucked up once again with Cadence.
+ + +
“Hey you,” I croak in relief when I finally find her.
After Cadence left, I’d called Violet to babysit.
That girl was a godsend. Then, I set out in search of Cadence.
I hadn’t a clue where to look. First, I called Enya and explained what I’d learned.
I cursed out Sebastian while also thanking him for giving me the nudge I needed to dip deeper with Cadence.
We’d only been scratching the surface, and I wanted to dig harder into an us.
I’d sensed her holding back for a while now.
She’d erected an impenetrable wall as thick as the ivy in Anchor Field.
Perhaps she thought she was protecting us both.
However, her bunt, a short swing solution, did nothing to prevent me from rushing home plate.
Like on the ballfield, misinterpreting the signs can lead to an unwarranted error.
I had strong feelings for her, and I wanted something long term, even if I didn’t know what that looked like yet.
The last place I expected to find Cadence was at Stone’s house. Vale had called me.
“Did you lose somebody?” she’d teased.
“What do you mean?”
“A very deflated looking country singer just barreled into our driveway, narrowly missing the front porch steps, and then took off on foot down the lane past the barn with a guitar strapped to her back.”
The description certainly fit the woman I was looking for, right down to the poor parking job. To Stone’s I went, driving down the dusty lane myself until it turned into two tire tracks leading toward a rustic structure.
On the back acre of the property was a cabin I’d forgotten existed.
The place hadn’t been more than a stone wall with a window in it then.
Now, the front facade looks newly built while the back wall made of field stones remains.
A new roof covers the one-room rectangle replicating the original building.
Cadence sits on the low step with the door to her back.
She scoots over just the tiniest bit, just a hint of an invitation, and I sit beside her.
The neck of her guitar juts over my thigh, and I quietly wait while she plucks at the strings.
My outer leg presses against hers, and I take my first breath in an hour.
“Don’t run away from me, Caitlin.”
Her given name causes her fingers to screech down the strings, the sound harsh and ear piercing.
“I didn’t run. I drove.” Her attempted joke falls flat, matching the tone of her voice.
“You know what I mean.” I shift, bringing her attention to me.
“If you need to run, run to me.” Suddenly, I’m picturing my brother standing at first base, waving his arms frantically for me to run down the makeshift baseline and into his arms. That brother had been Stone.
Funny Cadence came here as well but I want her coming to me, or at the very least, not turning her back on me.
“Let me be your safe place. Your home plate.” I cup her jaw and draw our foreheads together.
“I can’t if you judge me.”
I tip back so she can look me in the eye. “I’m not judging you. I want to beat the shit out of him. He hurt you. He used you. And then he threw you away.”
“I tossed him,” she reminds me.
“I don’t like it either way.”
“You don’t have to like it,” she tells me, dropping her gaze to the guitar still on her lap. “It’s in the past and I can’t go back.”
She’s right. I can’t change hers. I can’t change mine.
“And no one hates me more than myself.”
“Hey,” I snap. “Don’t say that. You made a mistake. He made a bigger one.” Stepping out on his marriage vows. Not disclosing to her he was even married. He’s the dick here.
I curl her hair behind her ear and tuck a finger under her chin.
I need to see her face. “And I don’t want you hating yourself.
” I press a kiss to her lips, tender and gentle.
I want to comfort her, soothe her broken heart, and lingering guilt.
Because I’m in love with her and she’s going to hate that.
Slowly, I pull back and we stare at one another a second.
“So those messages . . .” I swallow at the thought of this dick getting to her. If not physically, he’s been harassing her mentally. “I don’t understand why you don’t change the phone number. Get a new phone with a new number.”
Cadence pulls her head out of my grasp. “It’s complicated.” She looks down at her guitar and strums against the string in an ominous tone.
“You can tell me.”
“I—” She bites her lip hard. Her expression says she can’t tell me. She doesn’t trust me. Obviously, she doesn’t trust me if she didn’t tell me about him in the first place.
“Who are you protecting?” Did she not change the number because she does want him back? No, she was too adamant she does not.
“My heart.” Her voice trembles, her lip quivers, and suddenly, she’s crying. This beautiful, strong woman who doesn’t seem ruffled by anything sobs once, covers her mouth with her hand and lowers her head.
“Caitlin.” Her birth name only makes her cry harder, and I remove the guitar between us, pulling her onto my lap and wrapping my arms around her as tight as I can. She leans into me, and I kind of hate myself with how much I need her to do that. How much I want to hold her, protect her.
“How do I keep you safe, baby? How do I help you protect your heart?” I squeeze her once while pressing my lips to the side of her head.
My fear is more than watching Cadence walk away from me.
My fear is someone might take her from me.
Death took my mother. Another man took my wife.
I wasn’t letting anything come between Cadence and me. Not even her insecurities.
“Just hold onto me.”
After minutes pass and Cadence relaxes, her sobs slowing, I whisper to her hair. “Let’s get out of this town.”
Cadence looks up at me. “And go where? What about the girls?”
“I’ve got them covered. Violet is spending the night.” I hadn’t known how long it would take me to find Cadence in Sterling Falls, provided she hadn’t left for Nashville, but I’d been prepared to drive all night if I had to.
Now, I had a different plan.
+ + +
With Cadence in my Escalade, her guitar safely stored in the back seat, we drive outside of Sterling Falls. Up ahead, the sign for Randy’s Bar illuminates the dark surroundings.
“Taking me out for tequila, cowboy?” she teases, once again becoming the woman I love, full of fiery spirit and take-no-shit attitude.
“Nope,” I say, driving past the rundown bar with a bright neon red sign. “Need you lucid for tonight.”
“I was lucid back then.” She laughs. “You were the one who couldn’t handle tequila.”
Something tells me I wouldn’t have been able to handle her either that night, but I am in a better mental place now.
My shoulder is doing better. I have my girls .
. . all four of them . . . and I wasn’t letting the one sitting beside me go.
Reaching for her hand, I bring it to my right thigh and hold it there while I continue to drive us through the mountains to a place outside a small town named Wrightwood.
Cadence sits straighter in her seat, eyes wide, mouth open, reading the motel marquee as we approach. “Mountain Motel.”
She’d told me how she’d had plans to stay at this place when she came to Sterling Falls for Enya’s wedding back in October, but she’d cancelled her reservation last minute.
The motel was rehabbed but still had a vintage vibe.
Cadence wanted to check it out because of the history and the potential to make a music video here.
The place had a lobby that reminded her of old supper clubs.
The rooms each had a theme to them. No two rooms were the same.
When I flip my blinker and turn onto the gravel drive, Cadence side-eyes me. “You brought me to a motel.”
After checking in with Violet and saying goodnight to the girls, I made a call to this place. With the summer months in full swing, they only had one last-minute vacancy.
“Not just any swanky motel. This motel.” I set the SUV in park and shift in my seat.
“We can turn around and head back home. Or we can check in to a room and hang out.” My voice conveys how serious I am.
I didn’t bring her here to only mess around.
We could talk. Or I could just hold her.
“I just want to pretend I didn’t drink too many shots one night.
And a beautiful woman didn’t take my pathetic body to a random motel to hide me from my daughters. I missed the ball that night.”
Cadence chuckles. “No, I missed the ball.” She winks.
“Tonight, I want to be the one pretending you are mine.” From that night in October, Cadence told me how she acted like I belonged to her to prevent me from getting hit on by some woman in Randy’s Bar. Tonight, there wouldn’t be much pretending on my part. Cadence belongs with me. She owns me.
We eye one another for a heated second before Cadence opens her door and I hop out the driver’s side. She rounds the back of the SUV and I stop her there.
“How do you feel about role playing?”
Her eyes widen once more. The blue of her irises bright in the dim summer night.
“Why, Ford Sylver, what did you have in mind?”
“Let’s have you enter the lobby, take a seat at the bar. I’ll be the one to rescue you tonight.”
“Will we be sneaking into a motel room afterward?” She clasps her hands beneath her chin and bats her eyelashes at me.
“What is it with you and sneaking into rooms?” I laugh at her enthusiasm, then lean forward and give her a quick kiss. She whimpers.
“No more of that until I have you to myself,” I tease, then I smack her ass and aim her for the lobby.
“You watching me walk away, cowboy?” she calls over her shoulder, accentuating a Southern drawl filled with seduction.
“You know it, songbird.”
She gives her hips an extra sashay. The sundress she’s been wearing all day flows back and forth with an exaggerated sway. The back of her toned legs and that firm ass keep me focused. But it’s really the whole woman who is blinding me with excitement.
It’s time to prove to her she could be mine.