Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Huck spent the next week trying to figure out where to take Cadee on Saturday night. He wanted to take her to a fancy restaurant in Dallas, but she’d made it clear when she accepted that she was only giving him a couple of hours.
Sloppy Joe’s was the only dinner option in town, unless he wanted to take her to Honky Tonk Heaven. He didn’t want to take her to a wild bar . . . or to a noisy restaurant where half the town would be ogling them.
Which left him with only one choice.
“So where are we going?” Cadee asked as they walked to his truck.
“It’s a surprise.” He opened the door for her, allowing his gaze to run over her. He took it as a good sign that she’d worn the sexy red halter dress.
Her family stood on the front porch watching. Cooper and Callum with threatening scowls and Camden with a sullen look because he hadn’t been invited. Huck waved at them as he walked around to the driver’s side. Only Cadee’s mama waved back.
“No rush to get home!” she called.
As soon as he got into the truck, Cadee scowled at him like her son and brothers. “A couple of hours is all you get.”
“Then I guess we can’t waste any time.”
Cadee continued to scowl the entire drive into town. She stopped scowling and looked completely confused when they passed both Sloppy Joe’s and Honky Tonk Heaven.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.” He turned on the road that led to the Hennessy house.
“Oh, no, Huck. I’m not going to your house.”
“We’re not going to my house.” He drove past the house and headed down the bumpy road that led to the river. Once there, he parked and hopped out. Before he could get around to her side, she was out and slamming the door.
“You brought me to the river?”
“Would you just relax and go with the flow?” He took her hand and tugged her along the riverbank, then up a steep embankment.
As soon as they reached the top, she jerked him to a stop.
When he turned to her, she was staring at the tree not more than fifty feet away as if it was a monster straight out of her worst nightmares.
She shook her head. “Absolutely not, Huck.”
Huck had worried about this exact thing happening.
But Poppy was convinced that this plan would work.
That bringing Cadee back to the “scene of the crime” was exactly what she needed to remember how much they loved each other.
Huck was now doubting it. But it was too late for doubts. This was the only plan he had.
“Sorry,” he said. “I won and this was the agreed-upon prize. A two-hour dinner date. Your only stipulation was that the dinner be in town.”
“I didn’t know it was at the treeboat.”
“That’s your problem, not mine.” He pulled her toward the huge oak and turned to her when they reached the ladder. “Now am I going to have to carry you up fireman-style or do you have enough courage to go it alone?”
The spark of anger in her eyes told him his words had hit their mark.
She grabbed onto the ladder and started climbing.
Since she wore a short skirt, he got treated to a view of toned thighs and a peek of beige lacy panties before she disappeared over the top.
He heard a soft intake of breath, and he figured he’d either done a really good job . . . or a really shitty one.
He climbed the ladder and found Cadee standing rigidly at the top like a stunned statue. He understood why. The main deck of the treeboat looked like a fairy-dusted dream.
On Poppy’s instructions, Huck had gone to Walmart in the next town over and bought out the store’s supply of battery-operated votive candles and twinkle lights. He’d outlined the entire deck with the candles and draped the twinkle lights from every overhead branch.
Beneath those lights, he’d placed two mismatched lawn chairs and an old card table covered in a white tablecloth.
A mason jar of wildflowers sat in the center, surrounded by more of the tiny candles.
He’d even used some of Grandma Hennessy’s china plates, crystal wine glasses, and nice silver utensils.
Not that Jaxon’s chicken-fried chicken sandwiches and sweet potato fries should be served on nice dinnerware.
Still, Huck was pretty proud of his efforts.
Especially when Cadee turned to him with awe in her eyes. “You did this?”
“With a little help from Poppy and Jaxon.”
“Why?”
He hesitated before he spoke. “Because I didn’t want your last memory of the treeboat to be a bad one.”
Confusion filled her eyes. “That night isn’t a bad memory, Huck. Just what . . .” She left the sentence hanging, but he knew what she’d been about to say. The bad memories were what came after that special night.
Since he didn’t want to talk about those bad memories either, he pulled out a chair. “My lady.”
She hesitated for a second before she sat down. Once he was seated in the opposite chair, he opened the bottle of wine. He wasn’t a wine connoisseur, but having grown up in a bar, he knew how to open and pour wine.
It must have been good, because after she took one sip, she followed it with a deeper drink. Or maybe she was trying to fortify herself for the evening ahead. Things did feel awkward. As they started eating, he searched through his mind for a subject that might ease the awkwardness.
“Your mama mentioned that you’d gotten a degree in interior design.”
She swallowed the bite of sandwich she’d just taken and blotted her mouth with her napkin. “One of my many mistakes. I should have majored in ranch management or animal science. Either would have been more useful.”
“I don’t know if I agree. Making houses feel homey is a worthy skill.”
“Not in Promise Springs. Most folks can’t afford an interior designer.”
He ate a sweet potato fry. “Maybe you could start with a discount for the folks living here. That’s what I intend to do with my swings. I’m hoping people coming to visit from nearby cities will see the swings and want one of their own—not at the discount.”
“That’s a good idea for your business, but for interior design, I’d need to travel to their houses. I can’t do that with Camden.”
He studied her. “I’m here now, Cadee. I can watch him.
” When she hesitated, he continued. “I get it, you don’t trust me.
But just so you know, I love Camden. When I look at him, it’s like seeing my heart walking around outside my body.
I would never do anything to harm him. Because if I hurt him, I hurt myself. ”
He held her gaze. “It’s the same way I feel about you. I know it doesn’t seem like it because I left you. But I left because I thought it was best for you. I thought you deserved so much better than a Hennessy Hooligan who had nothing but get-rich schemes and foolish dreams.”
“I never thought your schemes and dreams were foolish.”
“I know. Every time I came up with one, you were right there trying to make it happen.” He swallowed hard. “I never told you how much that meant to me. You believed in me when no one else did . . . until now.”
Her eyes welled with tears, and she pushed her chair back and got up, moving to the edge of the deck. He got up and followed, standing behind her with his breath lodged in his throat as they both stared out at the river that gleamed in the moonlight like a glittery silver ribbon.
After what felt like a lifetime, she spoke.
“I want to believe in you, Huck. But my brain tells me it’s foolish to believe we have a chance.”
“Then don’t listen to your brain. Listen to your heart. What’s it telling you?”
She turned to him. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “That it’s terrified of being broken again.”
“Oh, Cadee.” He pulled her into his arms and pressed his face into her dark, soft curls, breathing in her scent. A scent he realized now had always smelled like home. “Don’t cry, baby. Please don’t cry.”
“And why wouldn’t I cry, Huck? It’s a crying shame we wasted so many years because we couldn’t tell each other how we really feel.”
He drew back and cradled her face, brushing the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. “Maybe we shouldn’t look at it that way. Maybe we should look at it like we just weren’t ready. At least, I wasn’t.”
She stared at him, her eyes like swimming pools of glistening blue. “What do you mean?”
“Eight years ago, if we’d both had the courage to tell each other how we felt and I’d found out you were pregnant, I would have asked you to marry me.
And while I love the thought of being married to you, Catydid, and wish I’d gotten to see you grow rounded with our child and be there for Camden’s birth and all the following years of his life, I don’t think I was ready to be a husband and father.
I had too many insecurities and hang-ups from my parents that I needed to deal with first.” He smiled sadly.
“In other words, I would have screwed things up, Cadee, and you would have divorced me. If that had happened, we wouldn’t be standing here right now .
. . with a chance at forever. And eight years is nothing compared to forever. ”
He held his breath as he waited for her to speak. After what felt like forever, she did.
“I guess it’s not.” A soft smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “Especially for the love of your life.”
Before he could absorb those sweet words, she rose up on her toes and settled her lips on his in a heated slide that caused his heart to beat overtime and his knees to feel weak.
She tasted the same as the night they first kissed and yet completely different. Like a familiar favorite food with an added ingredient he couldn’t quite put his finger on. But whatever it was, it had elevated the kiss to a completely different level and left him craving more.
He’d promised himself he’d take things slow, but he hadn’t taken into consideration how much he’d missed her.
Just a few heated kisses had him throbbing against the fly of his jeans with a need he’d never felt before.
When she jerked open the snaps of his western shirt and those cool hands started running over his bare skin, he worried he’d come even quicker than he had the first time.
And this time, he wanted it to be all about her pleasure.
He took her hands from his chest and drew them behind her back as he kissed his way along her neck. The softness of her skin had him taking a nip. She moaned and bowed her body against him.
“You like that, Catydid?” he whispered against her neck.
“You like me marking you as mine?” He manacled her hands in one of his and used the other to draw back her hair so he could better reach her neck.
He kissed his way to the muscle that ran just behind her ear.
He gave it a lush lick before he settled his lips and sucked hard.
The needy whine that came from her throat and the brush of her thrusting hips against his erection had him fighting premature ejaculation all over again. He had to tighten his hold on her wrists and step back to keep his sanity.
“Slow.” He spoke to himself as much as Cadee. “We’re going to take it slow.” He kissed her sweet mouth as he moved her back toward the table. When they reached it, he released her long enough to move her plate and wine glass out of the way before he picked her up and set her down on the table.
He held her gaze as he eased her legs apart and stepped between them. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. I stole your cute heart panties that night. I slipped them into my jean pocket while you were sleeping.”
Her eyes flooded with heat. He loved that she liked him having her panties. But what he loved even more was that he would no longer have to pull them out of his nightstand and fantasize about doing what he was doing right now.
He slid his hand beneath the skirt of her dress, enjoying the feel of her toned muscles and soft skin—skin covered in goosebumps. When his fingers met damp lace, they both released a moan.
“Damn, Cadee.” He pressed his forehead to hers to steady himself.
“You feel so good.” He traced the damp line on her panties and again she whimpered.
“So wet . . . so hot . . . so ready for me.” He stroked her again before he slipped his other hand beneath the dress and hooked his fingers in the elastic at the top. “Lift your hips, honey.”
When she went to brace her hands on the table to comply, she knocked over his wine glass.
But neither one of them cared as he swept her panties down her thighs.
He needed to kneel to get them over her boots.
He thought about taking her boots off, but when he finished removing her panties and saw the picture Cadee presented, he changed his mind.
She looked like a country goddess leaning back on her hands with her hair finger-tousled and the red dress rucked up on her spread thighs, exposing a glimpse of sweet, pink, moonlit heaven.
And how could anyone not want to taste heaven?
Lifting his hands to her knees, he spread her wide and took in her glory for a long moment before he leaned in and took a sip, brushing his mustache over her most sensitive part.
“Huckleberry.”
He had never loved his name, but he loved it now. Loved the way it came off Cadee’s lips like a reverent prayer. He wanted to hear her say it again and again. If it took staying right here all night, he was more than happy to do it.
Sliding his hands to her ass cheeks, he scooted her closer to the edge of the table and his waiting mouth.
He took his time, kissing her wet, sweet center and tonguing her in long, lush strokes.
When her fingers dug into his scalp and her thighs wrapped around his head started to tremble, he focused his attention on the nub at the top, flicking and sucking until her muscles tightened and she screamed out his name.
“Huckleberry!”
After he brought his hot angel slowly back to earth, he lifted his head and smiled. “I’m your Huckleberry, baby. And don’t you ever forget it.”