by Cara Colter
“Are you okay?” The hardness Kade inserted in his voice was deliberate. There was no sense anyone knowing the panic he had felt, just for a moment, when he had thought of a world without Jessica. Especially not Jessica herself.
Jessica’s eyes flew open. They were huge and familiar pools of liquid green, surrounded by lashes so thick they looked as if they had been rolled in chocolate cake batter. She had always had the most gorgeous eyes, and even her understated look now could not hide that. Unbidden, he thought of Jessica’s eyes fastened on him, as she had walked down the aisle toward him... He shook off the memory, annoyed with himself, annoyed by how quickly he had gone there.
Now her beautiful eyes had the shadows of sorrow mixed with their light. Still, for one unguarded moment, the look in her eyes when she saw it was him made Kade wish he was the man she had thought he was. For one unguarded moment, he wished he was a man who had an ounce of hope left in him.
CHAPTER TWO
WARINESS TOOK THE place of what had flared so briefly in Jessica’s eyes when she had seen it was him, Kade. A guard equal to the one he knew to be in his own gaze went up in hers.
“What are you doing here?” Jessica asked him, her brow knit downward.
What was he doing here? She had asked him to come. “Did she hit her head?” Kade asked the ambulance attendant.
Jessica’s frown deepened. “No, I did not hit my head.”
“Possibly,” the medic said.
“What are you doing here?” Jessica demanded again. It was a tone he remembered too well, the faintest anger hissing below the surface of her words, like a snake waiting to strike.
“You asked me to come,” Kade reminded her. “To discuss—” He looked at the crowd around them, and could not bring himself to finish the sentence.
“Oh!” She looked contrite. “Now I remember. We were meeting to discuss...” Her voice drifted away, and then she sighed. “Sorry, Kade, I truly forgot you were coming.” Apparently she hadn’t lain awake last night contemplating the d-i-v-o-r-c-e.
“It’s been a crazy morning,” she said, as if it needed clarification.
“So I can see,” he said. Jessica. Master of the understatement.
“Who are you?” the woman police officer asked.
“I’m her husband.” Well, technically, he still was.
Kade was only inches from Jessica, but he was so aware that the small physical distance between them was nothing compared with the emotional one. It could not be crossed. That was what hissed right below the surface of her voice. There was a minefield of memory between them, and to try to negotiate it felt as if it would be risking having them both being blown to smithereens.
“I think her arm is fractured or broken,” the medic said to Kade, and then returned his attention to Jessica. “We’re going to transport you. They’ll do X-rays at the hospital. I’m going to call ahead so they’ll be ready for you in the emergency department.”
“Which hospital?” Kade asked.
“You don’t need to come,” Jessica said, and there was that tone again, her apology apparently forgotten. She glared at Kade in warning when he frowned at her.
She was right. He did not need to go with her. And he could not have stopped himself if he tried.
“Nonetheless,” he said, “I’d be more at ease making sure you were okay.”
“No.”
Kade knew that tone: she had made up her mind and there would be no getting her to change it.
No matter how stupidly unreasonable she was being.
“I thought he was your husband,” the woman police officer said, confused.
“You don’t need to come to the hospital,” Jessica said. She tried to fold her arms over her chest. The splint on her right arm made it awkward enough that after three attempts she gave up. She glared at her arm accusingly, and when that brought her no relief, she switched her glare to him.
To what he could tell was her chagrin, he accomplished what she had not been able to. He folded his arms firmly over his chest.
Battle stations.
What did this mean that he was insisting on accompanying Jessica to the hospital? That he was accepting responsibility for her?
Had he ever stopped feeling responsible for her?
“I thought he was your husband,” the police officer said again.
“I am,” Kade said, and heard the same firmness in his voice as that day that felt as if it was so long ago when he had said, “I do.”
* * *
Jessica felt a shiver travel up and down her spine.
Her husband.
She watched Kade standing there, so close she could smell the familiar heady scent of him, his arms folded firmly over the deepness of that chest. He looked grim and formidable when he took that stance.
And even with that intimidating scowl drawing his dark brows down and pulling the edges of his mouth? Kade was the most magnificently made man Jessica had ever encountered. And she was pretty sure the female police officer wasn’t immune to that fact, either.
Jessica had never tired of looking at him, not even when their relationship had become so troubled. Sometimes it had made her anger even more complicated that she still liked to look at him when he was so aggravating!
But gazing at him now, she felt resignation. This morning Kade had on a beautifully cut summer suit that she was certain was custom made. With it he had on a plain white shirt, possibly Egyptian cotton, and a subdued, expertly knotted tie, the slight luster of it screaming both silk and expense.
The ensemble made him look every inch the president and CEO of one of Calgary’s most successful companies. Despite a rather mundane name, Oilfield Supplies did just that. It supplied the frantic oilfield activity of Alberta and beyond. With Kade’s work ethic, ambition and smarts, the company’s rise, in the past few years, had been mercurial.
And yet there was nothing soft looking about the man. There was none of the slender build or office pallor of a desk worker about him. He had learned his business from the bottom up, working on rigs to put himself through university. Despite the beautiful clothing, that rugged toughness was still in the air around him. Kade Brennan, with those long legs and those broad shoulders, and that deep chest, radiated pure power.
He had mink-dark hair. It managed, somehow, to look faintly unruly, no matter how short he cut it. And right now, that was very short.
He was clean shaven—Jessica had never known him not to be—and the close shave showed off the masculine perfection of his face: great skin, high cheekbones, straight nose, full lips, faintly jutting chin.
And his damn eyes, sexy and smoldering, were the deep sapphire of the ocean water. It was a color she had seen replicated only once, off the southernmost tip of the Big Island of Hawaii, where they had gone for their honeymoon.
But well before she’d had that reference point, from practically the moment she had met him, Jessica had spent an inordinate amount of time dreaming what their baby would look like. Would it have his eyes or hers, or some incredible combination of both?
The knife edge of that familiar pain was worse than the pain that throbbed along the length of her arm, despite the ice packs splinted in with her limb that were supposed to be giving her relief from pain.
Her husband.
She could feel her heart begin a familiar and hard tattoo at all that had once meant, and at all she knew about this man, the delicious intimacies that only a wife could know.
That he had ticklish toes, and loved the smell of lemons, and that if you kissed that little groove behind his ear, he was putty—
Jessica made herself stop, annoyed that she had gone there so swiftly. With everything between them, how was it she could feel this when she saw him? As if she had made the slow, chugging climb up the roller coaster and was now poised at the very summit, waiting to plunge down?
With everything between them, it felt like a betrayal of herself that she could feel such a deep and abiding hunger for the familiar feeling of
his arms around her, for the scrape of his cheek across her own, for his breath in her ear, for the gentle savagery of his lips claiming her lips and his body claiming her body.
Her husband.
She felt weak. Where was her newfound sense of herself when she needed it most? Where was her fledgling self-respect? Where was her feeling that her life was working, and that she could have dreams she had set aside when Kade had walked away from her?
Jessica had discovered she could be responsible for her own dreams. It was really much easier without the complications of a man! In fact, she had decided the things she was dreaming would be so much more attainable without a man, especially one like him, who was just a little too sure that he knew the right answers for everybody.
Jessica was certain Kade would not approve of the secret she held inside herself. It was a secret that gave her pure joy, just as once an ultrasound picture tucked in a pocket close to her heart had. She had made a decision to adopt a baby.
It was at the very initial stages, little more than a thought, but she wanted things between her and Kade finalized before she even started the application process. She reminded herself that she needed to be strong for this meeting with Kade, and she despised the unexpected weakness of desire.
She’d rehearsed for a week before she’d called him, striving for just the right all-business tone of voice, planning this morning’s meeting so carefully...
Of course, being caught in the middle of a breaking and entering had not been part of her plan! She could not believe, in all the chaos, she had totally forgotten he would be coming.
That was it. That explained the way she was feeling right now. She’d just had quite the shock. The pain in her arm was throbbing mercilessly, and despite denying it to the medic, it was possible she’d hit her head in the scuffle. Maybe, just maybe, a tiny bit of weakness in the department of her husband was acceptable.
Except right now she needed to be strong around him, not weak!
She stole another look at him. There was no missing how ill at ease the store made him. Something in his closed expression even suggested anger. At that realization, that he was angry, something in her hardened. She had known he might react like this when she’d invited him here.
And she had told herself firmly that it was a test she needed to pass. Divorcing Kade, not just on paper, but with her heart, would involve not caring what he liked or didn’t like about her choices.
Her lawyer was absolutely right. It was time to tie up some loose ends in her life. And the lawyer was not even aware of all the reasons why it had become so important. Her lawyer knew only about her thriving business. Her decision to adopt was a secret, for now.
But it was a secret that required her to acknowledge that Kade Brennan, the husband she had been separated from for more than a year, was one gigantic loose end!
“What happened here?” Kade asked, but typical Kade, he wasn’t asking. He was demanding, ready to take charge.
And she was never going to admit what a relief it would be to let him. “Really, Kade, it’s none of your business.”
The female officer, in particular, looked taken aback at her tone. “I thought he was your husband,” she said again, almost plaintively.
“We’re nearly divorced,” Jessica explained, trying for the cavalier note of a career woman who didn’t care, but she had to physically brace herself from flinching from the word.
Divorced.
She’d rehearsed that word, too, trying to take the bitter edge out of it, the sense of loss and finality and failure.
“Oh.” If she was not mistaken, Officer—Jessica squinted at her name tag—Kelly took to that information like a starving hound scenting a bone.
“What happened here?” Kade asked again.
Jessica glared at him. To her relief, the medic announced they were ready to go, and she was wheeled out past Kade before having to give in to his demand for answers. Behind her, to her annoyance, she could hear the police officer filling him in on what had happened. She glanced back to see the female officer blinking helpfully at Kade and checking her notes.
“She came in to do paperwork this morning, six o’clock. Someone broke in around seven thirty.”
“Don’t come to the hospital,” Jessica called over her shoulder, feeling a childish desire to get in the last shot. “I don’t need you.”
She glanced back one more time just as they crossed through her doorway to outside, where throngs of people seemed to be gathered in front of her house. But she didn’t really even notice. What she noticed was that her arrow had hit home.
Kade looked momentarily stricken by her words.
That she didn’t need him.
And instead of feeling happy that she had drawn blood, she felt sick about it, and some little demon inside her had to try to repair it, and let him know he was needed after all.
“Actually, Kade, can you find a way to secure everything? Please?”
Really, after her remark that she didn’t need him, he should tell her to go get stuffed. But he didn’t.
“And if you could put up a closed-for-the-day sign over that broken window I’d be most appreciative.”
He snorted, but didn’t say no.
“I can’t just leave things. The door is broken. He could come back. Anybody could come in and just start helping themselves to everything in here.”
All her hopes and dreams. It was a strange twist that she was being forced to ask Kade to rescue them.
“Never mind,” Jessica said, appalled that she had even asked him. “I’ll call someone.”
She didn’t need him. She didn’t! Why was she giving him this mixed message: “I need you. I don’t need you.” She had the stunning realization she was not as clear of her soon-to-be ex-husband as she thought she was!
“I’ll look after it,” he said.
She should have protested harder, but there was no denying what a relief it was to have Kade Brennan, her husband for a little while longer, say that he would look after things.
CHAPTER THREE
JESSICA WAS WHEELED out to the ambulance, and Kade prowled through her shop looking for items to repair her door. Finally, in a back drawer in a tiny kitchen area he found a hammer and regarded it thoughtfully.
“This isn’t really a hammer,” he muttered to himself. “It’s more like a toy, a prop for one of her fake nurseries.”
In a dank cellar, he found some old boards. Thankfully, they had nails in them that he could pull and reuse. Why did women never have the essentials? Nails, screwdrivers, hammers, duct tape?
He boarded up the broken front door and found a square of thick wood to write a few words on.
He had to nail it up over the broken window because of the lack of duct tape. A determined thief could still get in, but the repair, though not pretty, actually looked quite a bit more secure than her old door with its paned glass.
He surveyed his work briefly, and recognized it as temporary but passable. Then he called his personal assistant, Patty, to tell her he would be very late today, if he made it in at all. “I need you to find me a simple surveillance system. I think there’s a kind that alerts to your phone. And then could you find a handyman? I need a door fixed, a window replaced and that surveillance system installed. Have him call me for the details.
“And also if you could have my car dropped at Holy Cross Hospital? Whoever brings it can just give me a call when they get there, I’ll meet them for keys.” He listened for a moment. “No, everything is fine. No need for concern.”
Kade walked out to Memorial Drive and was able to flag a cab to take him to the hospital.
He found Jessica in a wheelchair, in a waiting room in the X-ray department.
“How are you doing?”
It was obvious she was not doing well. Her face was pale, and she looked as if she was going to cry.
He could not handle Jessica crying. There was nothing he hated more than the helplessness that made him feel. To his detriment
, he had not reacted well to her tears in the past.
He felt ashamed of the fact that she felt it necessary to suck in a deep, steadying breath before she spoke to him.
“They’ve done an X-ray. I’m just waiting for the doctor. It is broken. I’m not sure if they can set it, or if it will need surgery.” She looked perilously close to tears.
Kade fought an urge to wrap his arms around her and let her cry. But he’d never been good with tears, and it felt way too late now to try to be a sensitive guy. It would require him to be a way better and braver man than he knew how to be.
She knew his weaknesses, because she set her shoulders and tilted her chin. “You didn’t have to come.”
He shrugged. “Your store is secure,” he told her. “I put up a sign.”
The struggle—whether to be gracious or belligerent—was evident in her eyes. Graciousness won, as he had known it would. “Thank you. What did it say?”
“Baby bummer, temporarily closed due to break-in.”
A reluctant smile tickled her lips, and then she surrendered and laughed. “That’s pretty good. Even though it’s a major bummer, not a baby one.”
Kade was pretty pleased with himself that he had made her laugh instead of cry.
“It could have been a much more major bummer than it was,” he said sternly. “Tell me what happened.”
* * *
Jessica couldn’t help but shiver at the faintly dangerous note in Kade’s voice. She could not be intimidated by it!
“Isn’t it fairly obvious what happened?” she asked coolly. “I was doing some paperwork, and there was a break-in.”
“But he came through the front door.”
“So?”
“Is there a back door?” Kade asked. That something dangerous deepened in his tone.
“Well, yes, but we just surprised each other. Thankfully, I called 911 as soon as I heard the glass break.”
“Don’t you think you could have run out the back door and called 911 from safety?”
Jessica remembered what she didn’t like about Kade. Besides everything. She needed a good cry right now and she was sucking it back rather than risk his disapproval. On top of that, he was a big man at work. It made him think he knew the answers to everything.
