by Jane Porter
Fortunately, Tommy loved Cade’s truck and was happy to be riding in the cab’s backseat where he could play with the leather armrest with the built-in cup holder. But Rachel was nervous he might break the armrest by flipping it down too aggressively and cautioned him to be more gentle.
“It’s okay,” Cade told her. “He’s not going to break anything.”
“You don’t know that. He does break things. Frequently.”
Cade shrugged. “Then if he breaks it, I’ll fix it. No big deal.”
She opened her mouth to protest, and then blurted something completely different. “Tommy’s babysitter, Mrs. Munoz, isn’t well.” Her voice cracked. “She might be having heart problems.”
Cade shot her a swift look. “Does that put you in a bad spot?”
“I’m not worried about me. I’m worried about her. She’s been wonderful to us...really loving and so patient with Tommy. She never gets mad at him, and whenever I’m in a bind she always comes through for me. And then she makes us homemade enchiladas and the best tamales at Christmas—” Rachel broke off as tears filled her eyes and she suddenly couldn’t stop them. They fell in great fat warm drops and she reached up to catch them, but they were falling faster than she could wipe them away. “It just doesn’t seem fair. I know we’re mortal, but life is just so short, and the people I care about just keep going away—”
And then she stopped talking, embarrassed she’d said so much, and to Cade, of all people! He was the one who’d broken her heart into a thousand pieces and had made every loss after hurt worse.
“I’m sorry, Rachel,” he said quietly, his voice pitched low.
She nodded, struggling to get control. Suddenly he reached out to her and placed his hand on her knee, his palm warm against her skin. From someone else the touch might have been sexual, but this wasn’t sexual Cade, it was loving Cade, the Cade who knew her and had once been so good at comforting her.
At the house, Rachel unlocked the front door and then flipped on the entry light, before getting the hallway lights that led to the bedrooms. Tommy let out a yelp and pushed past her, running down the hall to eagerly turn on all the lights he could reach. He loved lights, and light switches, loved fans, too. Anything that could go on or off fascinated him for hours.
“Tommy’s not afraid of the dark?” Cade asked, watching Tommy disappear down the hall.
“Not if he’s the first one to turn the lights on. It’s a game to him,” Rachel answered wryly, still feeling a little raw from being so emotional on the way home. “But come in. I should go check on him.”
Moving through the house, Rachel noted that Tommy had managed to turn every overhead light on in the three bedrooms and two bathrooms before throwing himself down on the floor of his room with his tub of LEGO. He was in the process of dumping the entire bin out when she looked in on him, but it was fine. Dumping out and picking up thousands of pieces of LEGO was a daily occurrence around here.
Smiling, she returned to the entry where Cade was waiting. “He’s playing,” she said, peeling her coat off and hanging it in the hall closet. “He’ll be happy for a while, too. Once Tommy’s engrossed in something, he’s focused.”
“Is this when you get some time to yourself?”
Rachel laughed. “Moms don’t get time to themselves...not unless you call dinner, laundry and bills ‘mom time.’” She glanced at her watch, saw that it was almost six. “Speaking of dinner, I’d better get something started because Tommy will be hungry soon.”
“I’ll head off, then.”
“You don’t have to. If you like frozen pizza, you’re welcome to stay.”
“Frozen pizza?” he repeated, not looking overly enthused.
Rachel laughed again, unable to help herself. “Or we can order pizza, but if we do that, you’re paying.”
“Done. Tell me what kind of pizza you guys like, and I’ll make the call.”
Thirty minutes later they were all sitting at the round oak table in the kitchen eating pizza and drinking root beer. Half of the pizza was pepperoni and half was cheese, and Tommy, who never wanted anything but plain cheese, watched Cade eat a pepperoni slice and decided he wanted one, too. Rachel nearly fell out of her chair when Tommy inhaled the slice and wanted more.
Cade watched Tommy eat a second pepperoni slice, holding the wedge with both hands, his eyes big and bright, but his expression was dreamy and unfocused, and he seemed far away.
He was a sweet kid, Cade thought, a quiet little boy who lived in his own world, but that didn’t bother him. Growing up, Cade had been fairly disconnected from the world, too, and sometimes it was better to be distant and dreamy than aware of all the chaos and pain.
So far Rachel hadn’t said anything about Tommy’s father, and frankly, Cade didn’t want to know much, having already formed an opinion of Tommy’s father and it wasn’t flattering. Any man who would walk away from his own child was an A-hole and a loser, and both Rachel and Tommy deserved better.
Suddenly Tommy looked up at Cade and smiled. “Pizza,” Tommy said, tomato sauce smudging his mouth as he grinned broadly.
“It’s good, isn’t it?” Cade answered, smiling back at the boy, aware that this was the first time Tommy had ever spoken directly to him.
Tommy continued to grin and eat, watching Cade’s face as he chewed, and something shifted and ached in Cade’s chest.
It was ironic, but with his dark hair and big blue eyes, Tommy looked an awful lot like Cade and could easily pass for his son, just as Cade had looked like his father, rodeo cowboy legend Jack King, who’d died at twenty-seven when his horse had rolled on him during the saddle bronc competition. It was a freak accident—and rare—as most fatalities in the sport came from bull riding, and even then there had only been three in the PRCA since 2000—but it made big news.
Cade wasn’t much older than Tommy when his dad died, just five, but he remembered the funeral and all the cowboys who attended, and how so many of them clapped him on the shoulder, or patted his head, and told him one day he’d be a great cowboy, too, just like his dad.
Funny. Cade rarely thought about his dad, despite becoming a rodeo champion in his own right, but remembering his childhood never felt good and he’d learned to get through life by focusing on the next event, the next road trip and the next prize to be won.
“Done,” Tommy said, pointing to the hall. “Go. LEGOs.”
“You had enough to eat?” Rachel asked, leaning across the table to wipe his mouth off.
Tommy nodded so Rachel excused him, and Cade watched Rachel watch her son dash down the hall and he felt his chest grow tight again. She loved her son so much, and her love was so pure and so unconditional that it moved him deeply. She was so different from his mother, who wasn’t a maternal woman...
Abruptly he stood and gathered the plates and cups and carried everything to the sink, turning the faucet on to rinse the plates clean.
“Leave it,” Rachel said from behind him. “I’ll do it later.”
“I’m here. Let me help.”
“You’ve helped so much already today, Cade. You saved me.”
“I did nothing—”
“Nothing? You were an answer to my prayer! If it weren’t for you, Mia wouldn’t have had a cake, and what’s a wedding without a cake?”
“Not much of a wedding,” he agreed, turning off the water to smile at her, his expression warm. “But it was my pleasure to drive you there, and attend the reception with you. You
looked so happy...it made me happy to see you smile and laugh with your friends. I have a feeling you don’t get to see your girlfriends as much as you used to.”
Her mouth curved and yet he saw a shadow in her eyes. “No, but someday they’ll be moms and we’ll have more in common again.” And then just like that the shadow was gone and she was sitting forward in her seat, smiling mischievously at him. “And you, Cade King, were quite popular at the reception. Seems like you knew everybody. There was a line of folks waiting to talk to you all afternoon. I swear you were more popular than the bride and groom.”
“I sure hope not, considering I wasn’t invited.”
Rachel laughed. “You might not have been invited, but Mia was thrilled you were there. She’ll be telling everybody for the next year that a celebrity attended her wedding.”
Cade grew warm, uncomfortable with talk like that. “I’m not a celebrity,” he growled. “And I was there as your wheels. Your assistant. Your driver.”
Her lips pursed and she arched a dark eyebrow. “My chauffeur?”
“Exactly.”
She gave her head a faint shake, even as her gaze searched his. “You really didn’t mind racing around, wrestling with my cake, dealing with my car?”
“Best day I’ve had in years.”
“Stop it.”
He drew an X on his chest. “Cross my heart, Rachel James.”
Her lower lip quivered before she bit down hard into it. “You’re killing me.”
“Why?”
“You’re too good with lines.”
“They’re not lines, Rache,” he said earnestly, wishing he could reach for her, touch her, take her into his arms. “I mean everything I say. I loved being with you today. It felt good. Right—”
“So, how long do you think it’ll be until my car will be ready?” she asked, jumping to her feet, reaching for the bottle of root beer and screwing the cap on. She walked quickly to the refrigerator and put the root beer away, but the tumble of dark hair around her face only highlighted how pale she’d gotten.
Cade silently kicked himself, wishing he could take the words back. What was the matter with him? Why make her uncomfortable? “At least two or three days,” he said. “Maybe more, depending on how hard it is to find the parts and complete the labor. But Phil will call you in the morning once he’s been able to assess things better.”
“Will it be expensive?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
Cade hesitated. “Probably.”
“How expensive?”
“Could be anywhere from six hundred to nine hundred dollars.”
“Nine hundred?”
“Provided you don’t need a new engine.”
Panic flared in her eyes. “Seriously?”
Cade jutted his jaw, feeling like hell. “Not what you want to hear, huh?”
“No. Accountants might be busy this time of year, but not wedding-cake folks. We slow after Valentine’s Day and, yes, it’ll pick up late April, but...” Her voice trailed off and then she shrugged and forced a smile. “I’m going to go check on Tommy.”
Down the hall in Tommy’s room, Rachel leaned against the doorway watching him line up his miniature LEGO figurines. Pirates and ninjas and little Harry Potters. She loved watching him play and how engrossed he became in his activity. And he’d always loved his room. From the time he was a toddler, it’d been his sanctuary. He’d miss this room, and so would she.
She was still watching Tommy when Cade came to find her a few minutes later. “Everything okay?” he asked.
Her skin prickled with awareness as he came up behind her. She might not want to be attracted to Cade anymore, but her body certainly knew he was there. “Yes,” she said, flashing him a quick smile. “Just thinking. I’ve lived in this house ever since Tommy was born.”
“There must be a lot of good memories here.”
“Hundreds,” Rachel agreed, thinking of the green-and-white nursery she’d decorated for Tommy and the cheerful Beatrix Potter quilt Grandma had sewn for his crib before making a matching quilt to hang on the wall.
“What’s your new place like?” Cade asked.
“Nice,” she said quickly, maybe too quickly, because she saw the lift of Cade’s eyebrows. “Of course it’ll need a little TLC. Every place does. But it’ll be good once we’re all settled.”
“You’re taking the furniture?”
Rachel glanced past him, back down the hall, toward the kitchen with its solid, scratched oak table, but it was a table she loved more than anything, and then to the dining room and living room beyond.
“As much as I can,” she answered, her fingers curling into a fist that she pressed against her ribs. She wouldn’t be taking the kitchen table with her. She couldn’t. It wouldn’t fit through the narrow apartment doorways. And yet that table represented her grandmother more than anything else in this place. Grandma Sally sat there every morning with her coffee and every night at dinner with her iced tea. And it was home. And maybe it was silly, because it was just a piece of furniture, but it made her feel loved. “It’s an apartment, not a house,” she added, huskily, “so not everything will fit.”
If Cade heard the break in her voice he gave no indication. “When do you move?”
“The new people are moving in on the sixteenth, but I have to be out by the fourteenth so they can clean on the fifteenth—”
“You’re moving on Valentine’s Day?”
She rolled her eyes. “Valentine’s Day isn’t a big deal to me, and Tommy doesn’t care, so it’s not something we focus on around here.”
“Can I help you with the move?”
“I’ve already got that handled.” She glanced around Tommy’s room, which would be the last room packed since he didn’t like his things disturbed. She needed to go through his toys, too, and donate the things he’d outgrown or didn’t play with, but she was so sentimental. Many of the toys symbolized the early years. The years when she hadn’t known what was wrong with Tommy, only that something was wrong with Tommy, even though doctors just told her not to worry so much, that boys were often developmentally delayed, that many little boys struggled with speech...
But she’d known. She’d known that something wasn’t right when a baby wouldn’t look at his mother. She’d known in her heart that it wasn’t supposed to be like this...her baby should smile...look into her eyes.... Tommy did neither.
Cade frowned. “Won’t that be expensive?”
“I’m doing it as a barter. A wedding cake in exchange for two guys and a truck for three hours.”
“That’s smart.”
“Mmm,” she agreed, unwilling to let Cade know how hard it’d been to find someone who would barter the move. Rachel had never had a lot of money, and paying for Tommy’s specialists and therapists was a constant strain, but it was worth it. Already the weekly speech and occupational-therapy sessions had made a difference.
“Where is his dad, Rachel?” Cade asked quietly.
Rachel glanced quickly at Tommy before moving away from his door and walking back to the kitchen. “Calgary,” she said, picking up the plates Cade had rinsed and adding them to the dishwasher.
Cade drew out a chair at the table and sat down. “He’s Canadian?”
“No. David’s from Dallas. I met him at a bar in Fort Worth one night when I was out with Mia and some of the other girls.” She added the root-beer glasses to the top rack, closed the dishwasher door and faced Cade. “From far a
way David looks like you—tall, dark, handsome. But he wasn’t you.” She grimaced and shrugged. “Definitely wasn’t you, and we only went out a couple times, but I somehow still managed to get pregnant.”
“And David doesn’t want to be part of Tommy’s life?”
“He gave me money for an abortion before leaving town.” She lifted her chin, looked Cade square in the eye. “I didn’t love David. He was a rebound thing, but there was no way I could get rid of the baby. So I took the seven hundred and fifty dollars he gave me and opened a savings account for Tommy’s college education. And maybe Tommy won’t go to college, but he’s going to have an amazing life. I’ve given up on a lot of dreams these past few years, but I’m not giving up that one.”
Chapter Five
Before Cade could think of an answer, Tommy walked into the kitchen with the television remote.
“Show,” Tommy said, holding out the remote to Cade.
Cade glanced at Rachel. “Can I turn on the TV for him?” he asked, rising.
Rachel sighed and rubbed at her forehead. “Yes, but he won’t be happy. He wants a particular program—”
“Show,” Tommy interrupted, impatiently pushing the remote into Cade’s hand before walking out. He glanced over his shoulder at Cade and gestured for him to follow. “Scooby.”
Cade followed him to the living room and hit Power on the remote. It took a moment before the old TV flickered on.
“Scooby,” Tommy repeated, looking expectantly at Cade.
“Scooby-Doo?” Cade answered. “You like that show? I do, too.”
Tommy flinched, facial muscles twitching before he nodded and smiled, a jerky little smile. “Scooby. Shaaag...Shaaggy.”
“Scooby and Shaggy are my favorites.”
Tommy’s mouth twisted again but this time no sound came out and he simply smiled.
“Hey, Rache, what channel is your Cartoon Network?” Cade called to her, thinking she was still in the kitchen.
