Chapter 10 #3
“Keep your distance where Emma’s concerned.
First, she works for us. Second, from my own conversations with her and more intimate conversations she’s had with Reagan that Emma has a lot riding on this event.
And third? Might be the toughest to hear, but it’s also the most relevant as it relates to you.
You’re your own man, Cade. You don’t need her to validate your worth. ”
“I’m going to walk away from you and pretend for both our sakes that you did not just say that to me.” Cade stepped away from the cabin, eyes on Eli’s shadowy figure. He made it several feet before spinning on his heel and stalking away.
The crunch of Eli’s boots behind him said this wasn’t over.
Fan-freaking-tastic. Just what I need. An “intervention” from the big brother that never was. Swinging around, he glared at Eli through the darkness. “Look—” he started, but Eli cut him off.
“I want to talk to you.”
“You said your piece. And frankly? I don’t appreciate you ordering me to mind myself where she’s concerned.
It was your wife who set us up on tomorrow night’s date.
” Eli barely managed to swallow his surprise, and Cade grinned.
“Didn’t tell you that part, huh? You might want to get your facts sorted before you come out here to jump my ass, brother. ”
Once again, Eli grabbed him and yanked him around. “Stop it.”
“Stop. What.” The hard bite to each word should have been warning enough.
“I... That is, I wanted to say...” Eli let go of Cade and moved out of reach. “I’ve been home for almost a year, yet for every two steps forward, we find ourselves set back at least one.”
Cade tucked his thumbs in his pocket and snorted. “This isn’t a dance, Eli.”
“Yeah, well, if it were, I’d always be missing the beat and stepping on your toes.” Eli raised his hands and scrubbed them through his hair. “What do I have to do to fix this, Cade? What’s it going to take to make this right between us?”
Cade shrugged, uncomfortable enough to find himself taking up the defensive.
“I’m glad you’re home, but it doesn’t change the fact you left us, me and Ty, to deal with the old man.
Hit me up in a little over a decade and see where we’re at then.
” He started toward the house again, throat tight and steps slow as he waited for Eli to deliver some parting shot, but it never came.
Slowing to a stop, he waited, but no footsteps sounded behind him.
And that, the permission to walk away—the permission he’d lacked all his life—sprang the lock on Cade’s bitterness.
He turned, his breath coming faster, his hands clenching and unclenching.
“You were gone for fourteen years, Eli. You don’t get to waltz off to chase your dreams, to live your life, and then come back here to claim your happily ever after without consequences.
You left me!” he shouted. “You left me to be the son Dad had to settle for because his oldest took off. Nothing I did was ever good enough, nothing I said was ever smart enough, no suggestion I made was ever man enough. I was trying to be you and me, trying to protect Tyson from the brunt of Dad’s anger, and you know what?
I couldn’t. The most I could do was put myself in his way. ”
“Did he hit you?” Eli asked quietly.
Eli stepped toward him, but Cade backed away.
“I asked you to come home, Eli. I begged you. I didn’t want him beating on Tyson, didn’t want him hurting the kid.
And you were crystal clear when you said to me that you’d made your life in Austin, that there was nothing left here for you to come back to. ”
Eli’s breath sawed in and out, and his voice ripped through the darkness. “I didn’t know. I swear to God, Caden, I didn’t know.”
“I wanted you to save us,” he said in a voice so broken he hardly recognized it as his own.
“I would have. I give you my word, I would have come home.”
“You did. For him. At least I managed to spare him the most of it.” Rubbing his chest, Cade stepped farther away. “It’s finished, Eli. It’s finished and Dad’s dead. But there are still moments when I resent the hell out of the fact you ended up getting everything you wanted.”
“What do you want from me? What can I do to—”
“Nothing,” Cade said, fighting to keep himself from falling apart. “There’s nothing you can do.”
“We have a chance here, Cade. You have a chance. Let me make this right. Let me help you realize your dreams.”
“Don’t you get it?” he asked so quietly the crickets nearly drowned out his words, only the breeze carrying his words to his brother.
He tipped his chin up and stared at the millions of stars overhead.
How many wishes did I make growing up? How often did I wish for a miracle?
How many nights did I wish Eli would show up and save them?
Too many to count. He huffed out a broken laugh.
“It was never my lot in life to wish or dream, only to survive. And now? I can’t do anything more than that. It’ll have to be enough.”
Eli started to respond, but Cade shook his head, turned and strode to the house with a swift but measured pace. He wouldn’t run. The only thing to chase him were the ghosts of what might have been, and they’d dogged his heels so long he knew he wasn’t fast enough to get away.
As in every other aspect of life, he wasn’t enough.