by Tawny Weber
Try engaged. Funny how that stung, just a little. She’d moved on too, she reminded herself. Expecting him to take vows of celibacy after their relationship had ended was unreasonable, even if she kind of liked the thought that she might have ruined him for other women. The sex had been amazing. Huh. Funny that she’d remember that now.
She hovered near the truck, her uncertainty driving herself nuts. Act, she told herself. Be decisive. “You were more than friends once upon a time.”
“Things change. She met Tye and preferred his ugly mug to mine. That doesn’t mean I don’t have her back. It just means we’re not having sex.”
And just like that, her brain decided to supply her with a series of images of Kade having sex. With Katie. Ewww. It was unexpected and disturbing—and hot in a twisted way. Mentally she tried to re-dress him because, until recently, she’d had a husband. It had to be the pregnancy hormones her doctor had warned her about. That was the only reason for the warm feelings in her girl parts.
“She kept the ring,” Kade continued easily. “She didn’t throw it back in my face. That suggests we parted on good terms. Or I’m a really generous guy.”
She’d seen the ring more than once. “It was cubic zirconia. You were out what? A whole twenty bucks?”
He shrugged. “If it worked for us, it was nobody else’s business.”
She liked his attitude.
“Abbie.” At the sound of her name, her feet came to a halt. Or maybe it was the way he said her name, all low and rough. Even if she hadn’t recognized Kade’s voice, her body lit up around him. He stood in front of her, a big, too-sexy bad boy in worn jeans and boots, his hands thrust into his pockets as he watched her.
He hadn’t looked at her before. She knew this because she snuck peeks at him whenever their paths crossed at school, which wasn’t often. He was a senior; she was a freshman. That made him gorgeous eye candy but off-limits. Plus almost every other high school girl was after him, and she didn’t need that kind of crowd.
”What?” Smooth, girl. Sure, she wasn’t hunting him too, but she didn’t need to sound like an idiot either. He took a step toward her, and her heart headed toward her stomach like a diver going over a Hawaiian cliff.
“Kade Jordan,” he said, pulling one big hand out of his pocket and extending it to her as if she could possibly not know who he was. He had strong wrists, she thought for no particular reason other than that looking at him was such a pleasure. Strong arms and muscled forearms. Everything about him screamed strength, but the funny thing was that it—him—somehow made her feel safe. Imagine that.
Instinctively she stuck her hand in his—darn manners—and his fingers closed around hers, callused and warm. Oh. God. Something heated and melty zinged through her arm to join her heart in her stomach. The corners of his mouth tugged up in a slow grin.
“My truck’s over there,” he said, nodding his head toward a beat-up Chevy. She’d heard stories about his truck too, about how he off-roaded like a demon and drove like there was no tomorrow.
She tugged her fingers free. “Congratulations. You know where you parked.”
Whoops. This was probably the part where she was supposed to project perky and cute or maybe try the whole melting-glances thing if she’d wanted to add herself to the hordes of girls casting lures for Kade. Which she didn’t. She was almost entirely certain of that.
Almost.
He laughed, and she was lost. “Come for a ride with me.”
God help her, she’d said yes that night to Kade, and she hadn’t stopped saying yes until that night the condom broke and he’d proposed. That had been the one and only time she’d said no. Bad boys never reformed entirely. Somewhere in the unwritten Girl Code, there was a special entry just for Kade Jordan. He was also ornery, surly, and six different kinds of trouble. Unfortunately, the warmed-up parts of her couldn’t help wondering if he still lived up to his high school reputation. He’d been a legend, from the fast car to the six-pack to the bad boy eyes.
Unfortunately, Kade still had the eyes. He’d also probably retained possession of the magic orgasm-giving penis—or at least the magic qualities thereof. It was wishful thinking on her part. She didn’t need a one-time high school hero to help her out in the sex department—she did just fine providing her own orgasms now.
While she was mooning over his penis, Kade led the way to the house. Watching him walk was no hardship. He was every bit as tall and rangy as she remembered and well built. Really, really well built. He’d paired butt-hugging, faded blue jeans with a pair of worn steel-toes. He walked with a distinct limp now though, favoring his right knee with each step.
When he’d first come home, he’d used a cane for the first few days. Then the cane had disappeared, and his face had dared anyone to ask the reason why, or so she’d been told by her friends, who couldn’t quite believe she really didn’t want or need regular Kade Updates. She’d understood how he felt. Neither of them liked asking for help, and both of them preferred doing things on their own. The sooner he came to terms with her stance on helping hands, the better.
Unlocking the front door, Kade stepped inside. Reluctantly, she followed. She’d come out to the building site a few times for the work parties hosted by Will’s hotshot team. Staying away would have been rude even for her, and she’d appreciated what Will’s team had tried to do here. They’d done their best to make a home for her and Baby, and it wasn’t their fault they couldn’t bring Will home too. After a while, she hadn’t been able to face the house, which was why the walls were still starkly, glaringly white.
Kade popped open a camp chair and set it down in the middle of the room.
“I’ve brought your throne. Sit. I’ll be right back.”
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Only Kade could mix sweet with a side of arrogant. She sat, because she couldn’t fight him all the time.
“You’d better watch out for bears,” she called, knowing she was engaging in wishful thinking. Will wouldn’t have built their house on an animal highway, and no one was getting eaten by a bear today.
In a matter of minutes, he was back with a box of sample paints and the goofy-looking dog.
“Stan, guard.” The dog padded over and settled on her sneakers, effectively pinning her in place. Then it licked her leg.
“Vicious watchdog?”
Kade didn’t seem to mind Stan’s soft side. “He trained with the best. We just didn’t brush off on him.”
While Kade popped the lids on the cans with a screwdriver and sorted out an arsenal of paintbrushes, she petted the dog. No. Stan.
“You can name the baby after him,” he suggested.
“That’s going to be a winner if Baby’s a girl,” she said lightly.
He squinted at the wall. “Stanette?”
“Over my dead body. Will’s aunties all have Victorian names. Edith, Adelia, Phoebe. I’m not sure you’re even allowed to write those names in anything but curlicues.”
“So you’ll pick a new name.” He dipped his brush into a can and smoothed a swatch of paint over the wall facing her. The color was a soft gray-green that was perfect in the sunlight. It definitely bore no resemblance to the colors he’d threatened her with earlier.
“Are you color blind?”
“Not as far as I know.” Humming, he started on swatch number two. This one was a cheerful yellow.
“They have Internet tests you can take to make sure,” she observed. “Can I help?”
He gave her a crooked grin before turning back to the wall. “I paint. You choose.”
Which wasn’t going to be as difficult as she’d feared. It turned out the man had a rainbow of perfectly acceptable colors bouncing around in the bed of his truck.
“So the paint choices you threatened me with at the studio… The ones that were so horrible that I had no choice but to come out before you defaced a perfectly fine house?”
“Decoy paint,” he said cheerfully.
Okay. He won.
“You set me up.�
� She admired that. In high school, he’d been a practical joker, the guy who was always good for a laugh and a gag. Uncle Sam’s influence, getting older, the Afghanis who’d blown him up and then tied up what was left in a basement in Khost—whatever the reason, he’d changed. As fun as high school Kade had been, she liked the new man even more.
He smoothed a new coat of paint onto the wall. The gray-green, she decided, fit her mood better and picked up on the colors of the outdoors, drawing her eyes out the window and over the forest. Winner, winner, chicken dinner.
“Someone had to,” he said eventually. He paused on an upstroke, but before he could get out the next words forming in his mouth, a stretching pain down her side had her huffing out a breath.
She’d known her body would change to accommodate Baby, but she hadn’t realized the makeover would be quite so constant. She rubbed her hand over the side of her stomach. No wonder women held childbirth over their kids’ heads for the next twenty or forty years.
“Fuck.” He jammed the brush back in the can and crossed the room at light speed, hunkering down beside her and wrapping his fingers around hers. “What’s wrong?”
“Ligament pain.” Plus her stomach itched like crazy. Pregnancy definitely had its ups and downs.
He frowned. “Should I call a doctor? Take you to the hospital?”
The pain eased up and she fought back a grin. “It’s normal. And gone now.”
Apparently not convinced, he rubbed the spot gently. “Hurting isn’t normal.”
“It is when you’re pregnant, and that was nothing.” She’d already heard a dozen childbirth horror stories from Laura Jo.
“You shouldn’t be living alone.”
Whoa. How had they gone from muscle pains to her living arrangements? “News flash. I’m a grown woman. It’s kind of a prerequisite for having a baby.”
He hadn’t removed his hand, and she had to admit that it felt kind of nice. Okay. More than nice. But no matter how talented his fingers were, he didn’t get to tell her how to live her life.
“What if you need something? What if you go into early labor?”
Great. Stubborn Kade had taken up residence in her new house.
“What if a grizzly bear breaks into my cottage and holds me hostage in the bathroom? I’ll deal with it. I have a cell phone.”
He pulled his hand away and rocked back on his heels. “Abbie—”
She knew that look. That tone. It was the “poor thing, she’s a widow and she must be nonfunctional” tone. And while it had been true, it wasn’t anymore. She was picking up the pieces of her life, and she was moving on. Sort of. It wasn’t as if she could freeze-frame her pregnancy. The baby was coming at the end of nine months, and it didn’t matter how much she wished Will were here.
“No,” she said. “Paint or leave. Those are your only two choices right now.”
“I didn’t ask a question,” he pointed out.
“You were going to.” She wasn’t lucky enough that he’d be the one person in Strong who didn’t want to tell her how he was there for her, how he felt for her loss. She’d kind of hoped that being former high school sweethearts would make condolences too awkward, but no such luck. She was tired of words, tired of talking. Talking didn’t help. It only made her realize what—who—she’d lost. Will hadn’t been perfect, but he had been hers.
“Since you’ve acquired mad mind-reading skills, help me out here. Give me more words.”
Goody. She’d pissed him off. His voice was hard and flat, but the concern was gone. “You’re alone out there. You’re a widow. You shouldn’t be alone. You should have someone to help you. Pick one. I’ve heard them all.”
He shook his head. “Help isn’t a bad thing.”
She pointed to his knee. “Do you let people help you?”
His mouth thinned. “A busted-up knee isn’t a baby.”
Maybe not, but she’d bet some of the feelings were the same. His life had taken an unexpected right turn, pinwheeling out of control, and he couldn’t live it exactly the same way he had before Khost. Part of him couldn’t bend, couldn’t take dead-on impact, and every step he took was a living reminder of what had happened and the changes that had been forced on him. Her baby was a good thing, a piece of Will and her that would become someone new, someone she couldn’t wait to meet. Kade’s knee…well, she honestly didn’t know how he turned that into a positive.
“You need to let people help you. You should talk with someone.”
Right. Like he’d ever talked to someone about his knee and what had happened during his captivity in Khost. “I do things myself, and I’m not talking about Will.”
“Okay.” He stood up and popped the top on the last paint can.
She wasn’t done with him yet. “You don’t get to play amateur psychologist with me.”
“Still got it.” He nodded calmly. “But I do have one question. Are you done living now that Will’s done?”
And this kind of thing was why she spent half her time wanting to kill him. “There are plenty of things on my to-do list. In fact, I have a date with the hospital in about four months. That’s plenty of living.”
“Those are to-dos. I mean fun things. You things.”
“Like bucket list things?” she asked slyly. Kade’s bucket list was legendary in Strong. She wondered if he’d really meant to go there and then decided she didn’t care. He’d left her an opening. She’d taken it.
“There’s nothing wrong with a good bucket list.” He looked pained as he said it though.
When Katie Lawson, his then-fiancée, hadn’t believed he was dead, she’d decided to work her way through his bucket list while she waited for him to come home. As Katie’s friend, Abbie had been roped into helping with some of the items. She’d been willing to learn French, for instance, but other items had been way out of her comfort zone.
“Learn to speak French,” she said, ticking the first item off on her fingers. “Own an island. Fly a helicopter. Write a novel. Run a marathon.”
What kind of book would a man like Kade write? Since he’d decided to stick his nose into her business, maybe asking him wasn’t completely off-limits.
“That last one’s out for today,” he said easily, patting his knee. Somehow, she got the sense that he cared more than he let on.
“Someday,” she said softly, and he grunted in response, probably man shorthand for “I can’t run today, but how does next Tuesday sound?” Kade wasn’t the kind of guy who accepted limitations.
“Besides, you forgot the good parts.” He pointed his paintbrush at her. “The part with sharks and machine guns and me starring in my very own action movie.”
“You really want to do those things?” Because she’d bet he’d done at least half of them.
His smile got wider. “Don’t hold that against me. Katie kept pestering me to make a bucket list, so I resurrected a list I made when I was sixteen. I probably would have painted your living room black back then.”
And she would have chosen purple. “And number two on your list was playing host to a ménage a trois.”
Which was definitely something she hadn’t known about him when she’d been dating him.
He winced. “I was sixteen.”
“Uh-uh. You need to take ownership of your desires. Own them. Have a ménage a trois. In French. You were very specific. I wondered about the French part though. How is sex with two women—and I assumed it was two women—different if you’re not speaking English?”
“Your memory should come with a warning label,” he grumbled, getting a little crinkle in his forehead as he eyed the wall. “There. Choose.”
Paint, she reminded herself. He was offering paint. Not himself, not his hot body, and definitely not to have sex on her new living room floor.
Her resurrected attraction to him had to be due to pregnancy hormones. Will hadn’t been dead long enough for her to even think about dating, let alone sex. She needed another year, another century. But Kade looked at
her, a small half smile tugging at his mouth, and she felt… things. Sexy, warm, erotic things. Crap on a stick, but he was still gorgeous. He was battered and beat up and more than a little rough around the edges, but he was hot. Don’t jump the painter.
“That one.” She pointed toward the gray-green, hoping desperately her finger didn’t accidentally point to something else. Like, say, Kade’s chest or his penis. She didn’t even have to go all the way with him. She just wanted to be closer. On top of him. Naked. Not happening. She stood up so fast that the camp chair fell over.
“I’ve got to go,” she blurted out.
Chapter 3
“Hot date?” A traitorous part of Kade wanted to follow that up with because I’m available.
Naturally, Abbie’s eyes snapped with annoyance. Not lust, he mentally pointed out to certain parts of himself. She couldn’t spend more than ten minutes with him without getting irritated, which would definitely make for interesting sex. He’d had his chance in high school and blown it. Abbie had moved on, and she’d chosen Will.
“You wanted paint picked? It’s picked. Now I’m leaving,” she said.
How she planned on leaving was apparently up in the air since they’d driven out here in his truck, but he had faith in her. She’d work out the details. Abbie always did. Instead, he counterattacked. “You don’t like me.”
She didn’t miss a beat. “Does it break your heart?”
He thought for a moment. “Not particularly.”
Which was a lie, but she didn’t need the truth right now. Hell, he didn’t know the truth. He’d offered to help Katie shock Abbie out of her self-imposed shell, but he hadn’t anticipated the effect seeing Abbie again would have on him. She was sexy as hell, sure, but she still had the same sense of humor he’d loved all those years ago. She still made him smile, and he still liked hanging out with her.
And while he had his head up his butt examining his so-called feelings, she was grabbing her iPod and banging out the door. In addition to being hot, she was downright prickly. He followed since standing alone in her living room wasn’t the point of today’s exercise. She hadn’t gotten far. She stood in the front yard, staring fiercely at a clump of trees like the pine-needle-laden branches had also done something to offend her. He got the definite feeling he topped her shit list at the moment.
