They ate their ice cream in silence and he still held her hand.
“Ah hell,” Cade whispered under his breath. She felt him tense, his fingers tighten around hers. She turned to see what he was looking at and her own stomach dropped. The couple in the distance waved to them. The woman was pushing a double stroller and two little girls were walking beside the man. They weren’t so far that she couldn’t make them out. They were their old neighbours, across the hall in their apartment building before they moved to Fort McMurray. Rachel and she had become good friends. They were both pregnant at the same time, and their due dates were one month apart. The only difference was that Rachel went home with two beautiful baby girls and she went home without even one and war wounds that felt like they would never heal.
Julia forced a smile on her face and waited, feeling a lot like a sitting duck, as the family walked over to them. Cade leaned forward, surprising her by placing a gentle kiss on the top of her head.
*
Cade silently cursed the coincidence. This was the first day that Julia had actually looked excited by the prospect of spending the afternoon with him. Her body language, the ease with which she spoke to him, everything. Now the freaking one family in all the world that threatened to rain on their parade was walking towards them. And how many kids did they have? They had multiplied since they’d last seen them.
He glanced down at Julia and saw she had on her fake smile. Hell, he couldn’t blame her, so he plastered one on himself.
“Omigod, Cade and Julia, is that really you?” Bob and Rachel Anderson ran over to them, obviously not noticing that he and Julia didn’t move an inch in their direction.
“Wow, it’s so great to see you guys. How’ve you been?” Julia said. He had to give her credit—she looked cheerful and only he could detect the slight edge in her voice.
“We’ve been great. It’s such a shame we lost touch! We’ve just been so busy. Bob here is on the ladder to the top and I couldn’t be prouder. I’m busy with the kids, you know how it is,” Rachel said.
“Yeah, I guess we know a little about how that goes,” Cade said, squeezing her hand again.
“So, I bet you can’t even tell them all apart.”
Cade’s eyes glazed over as she patted each child’s head as she said their names. What was the point? It wasn’t like he was going to remember after they left.
“Yeah, that’s great,” he said, losing some of his willingness to pretend.
“Your kids are all so adorable. Time has flown by,” Julia said. He had to hand it to her, she sounded happy and at peace. He knew she was looking at the oldest two. Sophie would have been the same age.
“So you guys have moved back to Cedar Ridge?”
“Well, I have a teaching job here.”
“How wonderful! And kids? Tell me you have a bunch of kids!”
He had the almost uncontrollable need to push this woman in the lake. What the hell kind of person asks a question like that? She knew they’d lost Sophie. Julia looked up at him, panic on her face. “Uh—”
“We’ve been busy with work and enjoying life, and didn’t really have the desire to incessantly reproduce,” he said, lacing his arm around Julia’s shoulder. She willingly snuggled into his side and he felt a bit of what they used to be. Her schmuck of a husband’s face turned bright red, but Rachel didn’t even bat an eye.
“We moved away for a bit, job transfer for Bob. But now that we’re back, we should all get together!” Rachel said.
“First chance we get,” Cade said. It was his go-to line for whenever people he planned on never seeing again insisted on seeing him again. “Well, it was great seeing you. Beautiful family.” He tugged on Julia’s hand and walked away, not caring if they looked rude. Julia chucked her remaining ice cream cone into the nearby garbage can and he did the same.
Minutes later they were walking their separate ways down the pier. He was still holding on to Julia’s hand. “What are you thinking?” he asked, hoping to God that encounter hadn’t devastated her.
She didn’t say anything for a moment and they stopped walking as they reached his car. She burst out laughing. “Incessantly reproduce? I think I almost died not laughing.”
He grinned.
“I’m also thinking I’m really happy you were with me and that I didn’t run into them by myself.”
He took a step into her, brushing back some of her hair. That answer made him feel good.
“What were you thinking?” she asked, her brown eyes filled with that gorgeous mix of curiosity and solemnity.
“I was thinking I’d shoot myself if we had two sets of twins.”
He kissed her while she was laughing, and he couldn’t ever remember feeling this good. Her hands climbed his chest and she pulled him down, closer to her. Her breasts pressed against his chest and he cursed the fact that they were in a public place. He kissed her like a starving man and she fed him, her tongue tangling with his. He buried his hands in her hair, holding her to him, promising himself he would never, ever leave this woman again.
Chapter Five
The mood had shifted after they met those dimwits at the pier and their kids. He didn’t know if Julia was panicking now that she couldn’t deny their chemistry or if she was letting the encounter bother her.
It was supposed to be a fun and easy-going outing. He wanted to remind Julia of the way they used to be. Instead, even he found himself reflecting on what had been instead of what could be. He had replayed their early days together so many times, searching for ways he could have done things differently. He had known the second he met her at the university bar that she was the one for him. She wasn’t just a girl to go home with for the night, but a person he had an unexplainable connection to, and that had never happened to him. Hell, he hadn’t even known he believed in that kind of shit until he met her. He’d come from a broken home, had no idea what marriage truly meant.
He and Julia were both young, too young to get slammed with the kind of responsibility that came their way. He was raised in a house that didn’t believe in hard work, sobriety, or anything of value. He’d always felt like he didn’t really belong with his family, and had always wanted more for himself, better. He’d been driven by ambition and had scored a scholarship to an elite university. That had put him in contact with some of the brightest friends he’d ever known, and pulled him into a world that had so many possibilities. He and his roommates had become loyal friends and had big plans to make millions that already started during their years at school together.
When Julia found out she was pregnant, though, he knew he couldn’t gamble on their success. He needed to find a way to support his new family. He was older than Julia by a few years and after graduation took a job up in Fort McMurray in the oil sands business. It had been grueling work, but he was earning an income, and she was finishing school through correspondence. It was all supposed to be temporary. They would come back home and he’d join his friends. She’d come back and go to teacher’s college. Except they never came back together for good. They were broken up by then.
He glanced through the kitchen window at Julia. She was standing in her backyard, drinking an iced tea. The heat had curled her hair slightly and the sky had turned grey, impending rain obvious. The last few days had been bittersweet and despite the fact that she was being civil to him now, he felt like so much hung between them. He wanted all of it out in order to move forward.
He wasn’t really a talk-about-feelings type of guy, and after Sophie died he hadn’t known what to do, what to offer Julia. He’d always been enough for her, but after that…he’d been nothing, he could offer no solace. Words had meant nothing. He had given her space. He’d believed her father that he should leave. It had felt like the right time to prove himself. He was doing her no good, nor himself. He didn’t have rich parents to fall back on and he didn’t have the luxury of taking months off work while he grieved.
He wasn’t going to lose her a second time, and he�
�d do whatever it took to get through to her, no matter how unpleasant. He swung open the French door that led to the patio. Her shoulders tensed when she heard him.
“Feels like rain,” she said as he came to stand beside her. “I think I’ll go to bed early tonight. I have a headache.”
He leaned his head back for a moment. “You’re trying to run down the days until our week is up. Not playing fair, Jules,” he said softly.
She gave him a sidelong look. “None of this is fair. I was bulldozed into agreeing to this, so it’s pointless.”
“That kiss we shared? That doesn’t happen with just anyone. We have a chemistry, a connection that will never go away, no matter how scared you are.”
“I’m not scared.”
“You are. You’re scared shitless because you’re afraid that you still love me, that you still want me. You’re afraid of starting over.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and he caught the slight tremble of her chin.
“Do you trust me?”
She opened her eyes and nodded slowly. Well, at least they had that. “Then come with me, trust me.” He held out his hand. She stared at him and he read the indecision.
“Where are we going?”
He tugged on her hand and brought her back into the house. His heart hammered in his chest at what he was about to do. It was either going to ruin everything or it would finally break through the walls she’d erected and bring them back. He’d never been the kind of guy to play it safe and he was about to risk it all.
*
Julia had no idea what he was up to. All she knew was that seeing that family had brought back so many memories of the way they had all been. It also had made her wary of trying again with Cade. As much as she was still attracted to him, she wasn’t willing to try again. He’d want things she had vowed to never want again.
The way he’d been so protective over her, the way he’d dealt with Rachel and her husband had been endearing…and that kiss had been explosive. She wanted him desperately, she knew that. She could never just go to bed with Cade. She wouldn’t be able to separate her feelings; she wouldn’t be able to let him leave…
He sat on the couch, looking delicious, like he always did, and the sight of him pulled at her heartstrings. “I want you to look at pictures with me,” he said, holding up his phone.
Her heart slammed against her ribs with a force that stole her breath away. She swallowed hard against ache in her throat. “No,” she whispered, her eyes blurring.
“Yes, sweetheart. I know you’re not letting me in and that’s not going to fly this time around. We were a family and I let you do it your way last time. I let you pretend, I let you hide, and we ended up alone. I have slept alone for three years. Three years, Jules. This time we acknowledge our past, the family we were, and then we can move on.”
She crossed her arms, trying to quell the shaking and backed up a step. He’d been faithful to her for three years? She could barely see and she was torn between walking forwards and backwards.
She took a step in the other direction.
“Oh no you don’t,” he whispered, getting up and tugging her down with him. He sat on the ground and pulled her onto his lap. He didn’t do anything at first and her body was reacting to being held by him. He always smelled good, like some kind of fresh, clean scent and man.
Her back was against his hard chest and his strong arms were wrapped around her. It was hard to breath, to concentrate, and for a second she felt safe and like she could go where he was suggesting. Before she had a chance to escape, he presented his phone. He was holding it in front of her, his chin on her shoulder. He pulled up the first picture, the two of them, outside school, laughing, then on their cheap honeymoon weekend but laughing and happy. They had looked so young…not that they were old now, but there was an innocence to them. After what happened, it felt as though they’d aged.
“Shit, we looked young,” he whispered, his voice, his lips against her ear sending shivers through her body.
“I was thinking the same thing.”
“You’re more beautiful now, though,” he said again, this time adding a kiss below her ear. She almost sighed or whimpered.
“That’s a very smart thing to say,” she whispered, trying to keep things light, trying to trust him. She felt his smile against the side of her head. Good grief, she’d be a pile of mush by the time this trip down memory lane was over.
He swiped the camera with his index finger, the next picture making everything inside her clench tightly. She was standing in the tiny bedroom of their apartment, proudly showing off her baby bump. She squeezed her eyes shut, as waves of memories that she’d buried somewhere deep resurfaced. They’d been so happy. He’d been so sweet to her, never once making her feel like a burden. She didn’t dare breathe, even when he kissed the side of her neck and flipped to the next picture. That was the moment, the picture she knew existed, the one she’d begged the nurses to take…screamed at all of them to take. Cade had looked at her with grief in his eyes, and supported her, commanded them to take the damn picture for his wife, the early morning that Sophie had been stillborn.
She hiccupped on a sob at the sight of the three of them, Sophie in her arms, Cade standing next to them. She was the most beautiful baby girl she could have imagined.
“That was our baby girl, Jules, and no matter what, she’ll always be our baby, and we were a family at one point in time. We can’t go back, but we can’t ignore that we existed.”
She stayed clenched in a ball on his lap as he spoke to her, whispering in a ragged voice, “I blamed myself for so long. If we had been closer to a hospital, if we had been closer to home, if it hadn’t taken me so long to get home that night. I would have done anything to give you our baby back, sweetheart.”
When she heard his voice break, and felt his tears on her face, she turned in his arms to face him, to finally face the man she’d loved like no other. He took her breath away, all hard lines, masculine features. Cade had a toughness in him she admired, but he had a heart, a soul that felt so deeply. She placed her hands on his wet cheeks and he squeezed his eyes shut. His jaw contracted beneath her hands and she slowly raised her mouth to his. She needed him, she’d needed him for years and she’d shut him out. But he was back, for her, he had suffered as she had suffered, and was alone as she was.
With a low, guttural groan he kissed her back, voraciously, and she met him, kiss for kiss. His tongue tangled with hers, his hands going from her head to her back, to her sides. He kissed her as though he’d never let go, lowering her back into the pillows on the floor. His hands roamed her body and she lifted herself, needing more of his touch, needing all of him. She grasped the hem of his shirt and then tossed it to the ground. She almost cried out loud at being able to feel his hot skin beneath her fingers again. Soon they got rid of her clothes and they were finally skin to skin and his lips, his mouth roamed her body.
“Cade,” she whispered, as he stopped, his head resting on her abdomen. “What are you doing?”
His hands contracted on her hips and he kissed her flesh, his stubble prickling her skin. “Your body housed the most beautiful little angel and I will be forever grateful to you, Jules.”
She raised her hands to cover her face, to hold in the sobs that immediately wanted to be released when he spoke those words, but he was there in an instant, moving them away, kissing her, absorbing her tears, and she felt his, amidst a rush of kisses, tongues tangling. She felt him on a level she had never experienced, never imagined. His hands tormented her; his lips cherished her as he became reacquainted with every inch of her body. He made love to her like he had been starved for her, with a desperation and a devotion that robbed her of speech.
She held on to him as he entered her, and she wept his name as he entered her, filling her in a way that allowed nothing else. There wasn’t any more pain, anymore void, because he filled it. He rasped her name and she clung to him, letting him, trusting him, to take them home.
Chapter Six
Sometime during the night they’d managed to get to her bed, and made love again. It was as though no time had passed, and yet it felt different being with him. They were the same and yet so different. There was an intensity in him that hadn’t been there before.
Dawn was breaking, slowly streaming through the curtains. She watched him sleeping, his features relaxed, and she smiled at how peaceful he looked. She never wanted him to leave again, but she didn’t know what they were doing, what the expectations were, where they could possibly go from here.
He opened his eyes and immediately made contact with her. He raised his arm, his hand going to her face, softly resting there as he smiled at her. Cade had a smile that would forever make her toes curl and lose her train of thought.
“Why do you look so worried?” His voice was still thick with sleep, deep, and very delicious.
She gave a little shrug, tightening the sheet around her fingers. “I don’t know what we’ve done.”
He laughed, a little wickedly. “The very best thing.” He rolled over, pinning her under him. ‘This is the way I want to wake up for the rest of my life. When we’re old and you’re cranky.”
She jabbed him in the stomach, frowning. “I’m not going to be cranky when I’m old.” He laughed and kissed her neck. She sighed against him, already forgetting what she’d been thinking about, worrying about.
“You are, and I’m going to be one of those mean old guys.”
She laughed again and then stopped when he kissed her. “I don’t ever want another baby,” she whispered against his lips, feeling safe in his arms, but afraid by what he expected of her.
He sighed, pulling her into him, and she clung to him, his hard body, feeling his heart beat. It was even, steady, strong. His lips touched her hair, the top of her head.
