Alarm sent a shiver through her body. Momentarily forgetting her task, Allison turned so she was facing Cade directly. “Is he ready to throw in the towel on their marriage?”
Cade did a double take. “Far from it. Why would you think that?”
“Because Sarabeth told me that she was afraid the real reason Shawn was so insistent she go with him to the annual retreat for his tech company was because he was going to tell her he didn’t love her anymore and he wanted a divorce!”
“Whoa. Talk about being on the wrong page!” Cade said.
“For both of them.”
Silence fell between them as they finished stringing the lights on the bottom branches.
“Think we should straighten out the misunderstanding?” Allison asked eventually. She stepped back to admire their handiwork. All seemed as perfect as she had planned.
Cade sighed. In a low, gruff voice, he predicted, “Hopefully, they’re already talking things out, which is why they haven’t called the girls.”
“Or...they aren’t talking at all,” Allison worried out loud. Feeling unbearably thirsty, she went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. She got out the pitcher of filtered water. “And they’re both really miserable and they don’t want the girls to pick up on it.”
Cade got out two glasses and held them while she poured. “Sure you’re giving them enough credit? The two of them started dating in high school.”
And, unlike us, Allison thought, they never split up.
“They’re still together now. Sixteen years as a couple is something to be proud of. They may have hit a rough patch—” Cade clinked glasses with her, sipped “—but I believe they’ll work it out.”
“Wow.” Allison drained her glass, then set it down on the counter. “You’re really a lot more romantic than I ever knew.”
Cade set his glass down, too. “Well, then that’s my bad.” He caught her around the waist and danced her over to the archway between the living room and the formal dining room.
“What are you doing?” she asked, laughing.
Mischief glimmered in his eyes. “Look up.”
She did, her mouth dropping open in surprise. “When did you hang the mistletoe?”
He flashed her a crooked grin. “When you were helping the girls get their showers.” He tunneled his hands through her hair and tilted her face up to his. “Of course, we have to try it out properly to see if it works...”
“Cade,” she chided, a thrill soaring through her. “Not another kiss.”
His lips touched hers. “Yes, another kiss...”
The next thing she knew, their lips were fused. Instinct took over and she was all the way against him, wrapped in his strong, steady warmth. His kiss was romantic, sweet and tender. A bridge to their past, their present and maybe, Allison thought wistfully, even their future... Luxuriating in the scent and feel of him, so brisk and masculine and familiar, she rose on tiptoe, returning the caress, letting herself feel everything he wanted her to feel. Until he finally lifted his head. “Well? What do you think?” he teased. “Potent enough?”
Aware she had been caught in a trap of her own making, Allison groaned. “You are impossible, Cade Lockhart.”
“Determined.” He brought her in for a close, comforting hug, then whispered in her ear, “And you know how I am when I want something...”
She did. She also knew how she was when she wanted something. Forcing herself to put on the brakes and come to her senses, she splayed her hand across his chest. “Which is why you have to go home right now.”
Chapter Nine
“Remarkably calm here this morning,” Cade remarked, as he walked in some ten hours later, Zeus by his side. He was wearing a black North Face jacket, dark-rinse jeans and a charcoal-gray thermal knit shirt. He hadn’t bothered to shave, but his dark hair was agreeably rumpled and shiny clean. He smelled like cedarwood-scented soap and shampoo. And the cool-mint toothpaste he favored. Just looking at him made her want to tempt fate and kiss him again. Which wasn’t surprising, given the fact she’d dreamed about him all night.
“Where are the little ones?” he asked, looking around.
“In the kitchen, eating their breakfast,” she returned very quietly. Then gave him a look, one temporary parental figure to another. “And let’s not jinx it.”
His shoulders flexed as he shrugged out of his coat and hung it over the newel post next to Zeus’s leash. “It’s you I should be worried about, then?” he teased, his gaze raking over her, lighting little fires of awareness everywhere it touched.
Only in the sense that I might do something really foolish and fall for you all over again. She tossed her hair triumphantly. “No. I’ll have you know I got up at five o’clock this morning, so I’d have plenty of time to shower and get ready for the day and drink a cup of coffee before the girls woke up.” It had helped her immensely to have that quiet time alone, to pull herself together and plan everything from what she was going to feed the girls to how she was going to keep Cade at arm’s length, emotionally.
“Good for you.” He strode toward her, looking relaxed and capable. “Zeus and I were up, too. We took a walk and then went back to the house, where he ate breakfast and then went back to bed and slept until I got back from my morning run.”
It was easy to imagine them doing just that. But then, Cade always had been an early riser. Bounding out of bed in the mornings with a ton of energy and a cheerful attitude.
Sienna ran out to join them. “Mr. Cade is here!” she shouted over her shoulder.
“And Zeus?” Amber asked, running out, too. Catching sight of the family pet, she grinned and dropped down to wreathe her arms about his neck. She buried her face in his black-and-white muzzle. “Oh, my sweet doggy,” she murmured happily, “I missed you so much.”
“I did, too.” Hazel joined in the hugs, then dropped down to lie on the floor and prop her hips and legs in the air. She pedaled madly. “Look at me, everyone! I’m riding a bicycle!”
“Wow!” Cade said.
Not to be outdone, Jade grabbed his hand. “Come see the drawings I did!”
Hazel, Amber and Sienna tagged along. Together, they made their way back to the kitchen. The girls returned to their breakfasts.
Not sure whether he had eaten or not, just knowing in the past he had always been hungry, probably due to the sheer number of calories he expended, Allison said, “Help yourself.”
“Thanks.” Cade poured cereal into a bowl, then topped it with fruit and milk.
Allison’s computer tablet signaled an incoming FaceTime request from overseas. Finally, she thought.
“Is it Mommy and Daddy?” the girls asked.
It certainly was, Allison noted with relief. But instead of calling from a hotel room, they were phoning from what appeared to be Shawn’s hospital bedside?
“Hey, girls.” Shawn and Sarabeth greeted their children with determined good cheer. “Allison. Cade.”
Sarabeth continued informatively, “We’re sorry it took us so long to call you again, but Daddy had an accident skiing during a team-building exercise yesterday. He broke his leg in two places.” She reached over and took his hand, squeezing it firmly. “So, he had to have surgery last night!”
No wonder they hadn’t called, Allison thought, her heart going out to them.
“Does it hurt?” Amber asked.
“No. I’m good.” Shawn continued to hold his wife’s hand with an affection Allison hadn’t seen between the couple for quite a while.
Sarabeth answered a few more questions from their daughters, then went on to explain, “Daddy has to stay in the hospital a little bit, so we won’t be coming home tomorrow as originally planned.”
The girls groaned in unison, suddenly looking as if they were going to cry.
“But you could do a couple of things to help us,” Shawn went
on cheerfully. “First, Mommy and I are going to need some help decorating the house for Christmas this year, so do you think you can help us out with that?”
“Yes!” the kids cried, getting excited again.
“And then, of course, my cast is going to need to be decorated, too!” He moved the sheet to show them the plain white exterior that extended from ankle to midthigh.
“We can help with that,” Jade volunteered. Her sisters agreed.
“Great.” Shawn smiled.
Sarabeth and Shawn asked more questions of the girls. They heard about baking cookies after school, the visit to the mall Santa, eating peppermint ice cream and buying not just one but two Christmas trees at the lot! One for Allison’s house and one for theirs.
“Well, sounds like you-all have been very busy,” Sarabeth praised. “But now Daddy and I have to talk to Mr. Cade and Miss Allison about some grown-up things, so how about you-all go upstairs and brush your teeth and comb your hair and make your beds?”
“Okay, Mommy!” The kids blew kisses at the screen and scampered off.
When the coast was clear, Allison and Cade sat together in front of the screen. “It’s probably going to be another four or five days before the doctors will let Shawn fly home to the States,” Sarabeth warned, matter-of-fact, “so can you two continue to help out or do we need to hire someone to come in and care for the girls?”
Allison and Cade exchanged glances. Relieved to be of one mind, she squeezed his hand and said, “It’s no problem.”
Cade nodded and squeezed back. “We’ve got this.”
More instructions followed. Then Sarabeth and Shawn promised to call again the next day, and they ended the FaceTime chat.
Upstairs, it sounded like things were getting a little rowdy. In a good way this time. Allison wanted to talk to Cade about the latest developments, but first... “Hang on.”
She went to the bottom of the staircase. Zeus was already there, slowly making his way up. “Girls!” she called. “How’s it going up there?”
Cade stood next to her. He wrapped his hand around his mouth to concentrate the sound. “What are you all doing?” he inquired, taking a more direct approach.
Loud giggles followed.
Then footsteps down the hall. “We are definitely not jumping on our beds,” Sienna declared.
“And we’re especially not hitting each other with our pillows!” Hazel added in faux seriousness.
Amber and Jade appeared beside them, out of breath. “We just need five more minutes,” Jade said, holding up a hand.
“Zeus is keeping his eye on us,” Amber added, wrapping her arm around him.
“Okay, five minutes,” Allison said. “Just don’t be too wild.”
“O-kay!” The girls shrieked and ran off.
Cade grinned at her. Looking relaxed. Happy. And powerfully masculine. Reminding her that he filled up her heart and her soul the way no one ever had. Or ever would. “Why, Miss Allison, that was almost laid-back,” he said.
She propped her hands on her hips and retorted good-naturedly, “Is that a roundabout way of calling me prissy, Mr. Cade?”
His grin widened. “Oh, I would never do that, Miss Allison.” His eyes sparkled.
Instead, he would take her in his arms at the slightest provocation and kiss her, until she was breathlessly begging for more.
And that would be dangerous indeed.
Attempting to keep her mind on the mundane, instead of the potent chemistry sizzling between them, she marshaled her defenses and brushed by him. “Want some more coffee? I need some.”
He smiled again. “Sounds good.”
They stood opposite each other, in the kitchen, mugs in hand, too restless to sit while upstairs the merriment continued unabated. “They’re a lot happier, now that they’ve spoken with their parents,” he observed. “Think they’ll stay that way?”
“My guess?” she responded, reminding him she was as new to this substitute-parenting stuff as he was. “Not for four to five days.”
“There will be a lot of ups and downs.”
“Probably.” Allison sighed, getting the feel of what it would be like to lean on him again. Not that anything but a potential rekindling of their physical relationship was in the cards right now... And she still didn’t know how wise that was. Mostly because she couldn’t see herself surrendering her physical self to Cade without also surrendering her heart and soul. With effort, she forced her attention back to the problem they were currently facing. “Speaking of which... Did you notice Sarabeth and Shawn were holding hands?”
“I did,” Cade confirmed.
“Funny, isn’t it, how tragedy and/or hardship has a way of bringing people back together,” Allison murmured.
And not just their married friends.
But her and Cade, too.
* * *
“I’m surprised Allison didn’t come with you,” Cade’s mom said several hours later after he’d walked into their ranch house, the four girls in tow.
The girls spied his brother Gabe’s quintuplets—who were their preschool buddies—and ran off to join the three girls and two boys at the arts-and-crafts station his mom had set up on the long oak table in the dining room. Two of Cade’s sisters, the artist turned sign company owner MacKenzie, in for a few days from Fort Worth, and Jillian, a botanist who specialized in antique roses, waved at him, then went back to supervising the nine kids seated on the benches. “She had to work.”
“So it’s true?” Carol asked. “She is up for a big-time TV job?”
Cade nodded. “If HITN decides her brand is the way they want to go. That’s not for certain yet.”
His dad joined them. “But she’s got a good chance?”
“Yep,” Cade said, as proud and happy for her as he was worried. Because if this situation didn’t work out the way Allison wanted, she would be heartbroken.
He walked into the kitchen and helped himself to some of the mulled cider warming on the stove.
“Well, that’s ironic,” his doctor-brother Gabe said. “You finally both come back to Laramie County and start to make amends with each other, and now she’s the one who is leaving.”
“She hasn’t left yet,” Cade said, beginning to feel a little irritated by all the poking and prodding into his love life.
His sister Faith walked in. A social worker like his mom, she and her deployed navy SEAL husband were now trying to become foster parents, too. “A friend of mine from the high school said she saw you there last week. Looked like you might be interviewing for a job.”
Jeez. Was nothing private? Cade shrugged. “I was just talking to my old baseball coach.”
Faith noted, “While wearing a sport coat and tie?”
He shrugged again. “I felt like getting dressed up.”
“Word is Coach is retiring,” Travis, the only cowboy besides his dad in the bunch, said, helping himself to some cider, too.
“Hmm,” Cade said and left it at that.
Seeing the quadruplets were well supervised for the moment, Cade looked at the wood box next to the big stone fireplace. “I’ll bring some more wood in.” He headed out, but to his consternation, his father followed close behind.
This was no surprise. His adoptive father had always known when he was upset. Starting when Cade had come to him as a grieving, angry foster kid. Looking back, Cade was surprised that Carol and Robert hadn’t given up on him. Especially because in Cade’s mind back then, there was no way the levelheaded rancher could take the place of his ebullient, former minor-league-baseball-playing birth dad. Any more than he’d thought that the ever-practical and always giving Carol could take the place of his carefree pottery-making-artisan mother. But no matter how much trouble he had given them, Robert and Carol had refused to give up on him. Plus, they had understood from the outset how important it was to Cade
to keep baseball, the only lasting link he had with his late father, in his life. And hence, Robert had spent hours every week pitching and throwing with Cade, long after the ranch work was done. Cade had loved the extra attention then. Now, with his life in flux, he wasn’t sure he wanted it.
“I can get this, Dad,” he said.
The silver at Robert’s temples did nothing to slow him down. Working cattle and riding horses kept him as strong and fit as ever. “It’ll go faster if there are two of us.”
Cade didn’t want it to go faster. He sorted through the kindling at tortoise speed. His dad squinted at him. “So what’s going on, son? Are you worried you won’t get the position?”
Belatedly realizing his dad might have some valuable advice to give, Cade exhaled. “Coach said there are a couple of problems.”
“What happened in Dallas,” Robert guessed.
Cade filled up the metal wood box. He chose his words carefully. “There is concern that if I cut a few corners and came back too soon for my own health, I might encourage players on my team to do so, too.”
His dad knew that wasn’t true. Cade would never jeopardize anyone else. “What else?” the older man prodded.
“My ambition. That it again might be too much.”
His dad folded his arms. “What is your plan to overcome all that?”
Cade swallowed. “I don’t know yet,” he admitted gruffly. “I’ve got a few days to get back to them.”
Robert clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
Cade hoped so, too.
Although strangely enough, it wasn’t the biggest problem he had looming right now...
“What does Allison think of all this?” His dad walked with him toward the house.
Cade saw no reason not to admit, “She wants me to be happy, Dad. I want her to get what she wants, too.”
His dad paused, well short of the back door. “Even if it means leaving Laramie County?”
Cade turned to face him. “That’s the beauty of a cable television show. It literally can film anywhere.”
The question was, where would Allison want that to be? And why did it suddenly matter to him so darn much? It wasn’t like they were a couple again. Not yet, anyway...
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