Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Cara was buzzing with nerves while she waited for Zane at the bakery.
This was potentially disastrous. She didn’t want to be responsible for his relationship with Cody breaking down.
She knew that relationship was so important to him.
She knew that it was the most… Essential thing that he had.
And what if he lost it all because they were making out while she was trying to ride a horse? But she had ridden a horse.
She felt a little bit euphoric about that, but this was a bad time to feel euphoric.
She felt… overstimulated. Maybe that was the best word for it.
There were too many things happening at once, and she was hunkered down in the back of the bakery working on a pan of lemon sweet rolls, even though it wasn’t the right time of day to be working on them, but she just needed to keep her hands busy, and if she had an extra pan or two that would be fine, because then she could give them to Zane, who would probably need a treat after today.
She really hoped that this didn’t damage his relationship with Cody. If it did…
Would he even think it was worth it? Sex destroying the strongest friendship that he had?
This was a big benchmark thing for her, but this wasn’t his first sexual relationship.
That isn’t really fair. He’s made it clear that he hasn’t told anyone half the things he’s told you.
True. True.
She heard the door open, and snuck a peek at her phone right as she was about to walk out into the main dining area. Then she stopped. She had a text from Marlowe.
Do you have time for dinner tonight?
Anxiety gripped her gut, and she grabbed hold of her phone and went out into the dining room, where Zane was standing.
He looked tired, but not… devastated, though she had no idea what he looked like, devastated. She had no idea what his devastation threshold was after the kinds of trauma that he’d been through. She had a feeling it was a lot higher than hers.
“Everything’s fine,” he said.
He jerked his head toward the door, and she followed him out to the dining area. There were a few patrons inside, and none sitting out in the afternoon sun, so it was the best place to talk.
“It went okay?”
“Yes, and I especially requested that he let you have a conversation with Marlowe.”
“So that means I need to say yes to dinner unless I want him to spill everything?” “Yeah. Don’t worry. I have a feeling that she’ll be understanding. Cody was.”
“He’s not mad at you?”
Zane shook his head. “No. He understood. Which kind of made me feel like an asshole. Kind of made me feel like I really don’t understand the people in my life as well as I thought I did. And maybe not even myself. But hey. I guess that’s part of… whatever all this is.”
“Being human?”
“Yeah. Being human. It’s kind of a rough one.”
“Oh. I solidly agree.”
But right now she didn’t feel… She didn’t feel like it was rough. She definitely felt anxious, and she wondered what kind of conversation she was going to have with Marlowe, but it didn’t feel dire.
“Is it okay if I don’t come up tonight?”
There was something strange in his expression, something guarded.
“Sure,” he said.
“I just don’t know how everything is going to go with Marlowe. That’s all.”
“All right. Fair.”
“I just want to make sure I have the… time and space and everything.”
“Sure.”
“You go to bed kind of early.”
“We go to bed kind of early when we have a bed to go to together,” he said.
Her face got hot. “True. Well, I guess I’ll text her back.”
“You said that already.”
“I guess I did. But I don’t have any precedent for this, and I feel…
” She didn’t know what to feel. They had shaped this relationship around a secret.
And it made it easier to pretend that it wasn’t happening.
But now it was out in the open. Or at least, the people who were most important to them knew.
And that meant that she had to somehow explain this tomorrow.
To articulate what was going on between the two of them, and she didn’t know how to do that.
Because it felt like something sacred and secret, something that might have to be torn up from inside of her soul.
She took her phone out and typed in a response.
Marlowe’s answer was swift, and then she had a dinner date at six. That meant driving back to town, because she had to get dressed. She couldn’t go wearing what she had for her horse-riding lesson, and everything else.
She had brought some nice things up to Zane’s, but it didn’t seem like the thing to do right now. Going up there.
Instead, she went home for a little bit, stood under the spray in her shower, and tried to gather her thoughts, tried not to rehearse the conversation she was going to have with Marlowe later, because that seemed like overkill.
But, she didn’t know how to handle this kind of situation. Not even a little bit.
She chose a burgundy dress to go to dinner, because it seemed a little bit sedate and demure, and she didn’t know what kind of image one should project when they were admitting to being in a secret sexual relationship.
The real worry, she decided as she drove out toward the hotel, was that Marlowe would be angry that she had kept the secret.
She drove up the familiar road that led to Painted Ridge Ranch and took an unusual turn, away from Juniper instead, she just smiled. “Hey. Cody texted and said that you wanted to talk.” She had a puzzled look on her face because, of course, that was weird. For Cody to reach out instead of Cara was weird.
“You didn’t talk to him?”
“I’ve been running around all day. I haven’t actually seen him. I’m probably going to end up sleeping here tonight.”
“Oh, what about…”
“He’s fine, and if he’s not, he’s welcome to come here and sleep with me. I’m not opposed. He has a key, and I kind of like it when he breaks in in the middle of the night and joins me.”
Her smile got a little bit wicked.
Cara would’ve been mystified by this only recently, but now, thinking about Zane sneaking into her house, into her bed, surprising her, she suddenly got it. She understood a little bit better than she wished she did. Because it would be nice to be confident that she was maintaining her good sense.
She was not confident in that. Right now, she didn’t feel all that confident in anything.
“He told me that he was going to tell me whatever was happening if you couldn’t make it out. But he said he was honorbound to let you talk to me first.”
Cara scrunched her face up, discomfort skittering down her spine.
“You know, the last time I had a conversation like this, my husband was divorcing me. You’re not divorcing me, are you? Because I thought that I got to keep you as my sister-in-law.”
She was teasing, Cara knew that, but she still felt upset and uncomfortable. “No,” she said. “Of course not.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Maybe we should just get our table.”
“Okay. We can do that.”
Marlowe logged out of the computer she was standing in front of and then walked out from around the desk.
But she paused and pulled Cara in for a hug.
She released her and held onto her shoulders.
“I love you,” Marlowe said. “And I’m here for you.
No matter what. I know that what I got from you, the support that I got from you, that’s something that a lot of people would take for granted, but I’m never going to take it for granted.
I didn’t have family until I married into yours, and the biggest concern I had when Aiden said that he didn’t want to be with me anymore was that I would lose you. That I would lose our family.”
“You never will,” Cara said.
“I know,” Marlowe said. “But do you?”
That was a good question. Because while the kind of abandonment that Marlowe had experienced in her life wasn’t exactly what Cara had experienced, her life very much had loss in it.
Someone could be here one day and gone the next.
Here in body, but gone in spirit. So maybe she had more of an issue with that than she realized.
Maybe there was a little bit more fear there than she realized.
Marlowe led them past the hostess, into the restaurant, and toward a table that was back in the corner, right near the kitchen, and away from the other diners.
Laney, the head chef, popped out of the kitchen, grinning at the two of them. “Menus?”
“Bring us whatever’s good,” Marlowe said. “And wine.”