“You’re shaking.” Cade, still kneeling at her feet, took her hand and held it between his. His hands were warm and wide. Solid. Something to grasp. She held on.
Abigail closed her eyes.
But she saw Samuel again, against her eyelids. No! She wouldn’t close her eyes, then. She held them open, but avoided Cade’s gaze. She looked over his shoulder at the fire, still snapping sleepily in the grate.
“What’s going on?” Cade touched the side of her face.
“I’m sorry. I’m just having a hard time.”
“With me? Is it something I did?”
Fighting to keep the heat from stinging her eyes, Abigail shook her head. She would
not
cry. “Not you.”
“Who was it?”
Abigail’s hands shook harder.
“Did he hurt you?”
Oh, God. “Not much,” said Abigail.
“Son of a bitch.” Cade rose and sat next to her. His arms folded around her, and it wasn’t the same embrace of just moments ago—it was close and strong. No expectation hung from the feeling.
A long moment later, Abigail couldn’t tell how long, Cade said, “You want to tell me about it?”
Abigail tried to speak, but her words caught and stuck in her mouth. She tried again. “It wasn’t that big a deal.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t know why I’m reacting like this. He was crazy, actually literally crazy.” She blinked, hard. “Him and his damn pink roses. He tried to…but I didn’t let him.”
“The kiss reminded you of it?”
“I haven’t kissed anyone since him.”
“Nothing to be sorry for.” Cade’s voice was very quiet but steady.
Abigail moved deeper into his arms, and he pulled her closer. He said words into her hair. She didn’t pay attention to what they were—she could tell by the tone what he meant.
This was the cowboy? The jerk? The guy who wanted her gone?
This was someone else. She’d never felt like this. She fit against him. He was strong. She relaxed into him as if she were melting.
The soft words continued raining into Abigail’s hair, against her cheek. She felt them enter her body and move into a place she hadn’t known needed filling. Outside, the storm eased, the downpour changing into a mist.
If you can believe one thing, believe this: No one will ever notice your mistakes later
.
—
E.C.
H
is arm was killing him. And his back hurt. Why was he on the sofa?
But something moved under him, something warm and soft, something that made him jerk open his eyes.
It wasn’t a dream.
Abigail was underneath him, sound asleep, her head turned to the side on a knitted pillow, eyes screwed tight against the sun starting to come up.
The sun was coming up.
He hadn’t seen the sun rising from a prone position in years. It must be after six already.
But instead of being in a hurry, instead of ripping his arm out from under her, instead of rolling to his side and taking his weight off her, he took a moment.
She was gorgeous, even in sleep. Her hair was tousled, her nose buried in the couch cushion. She took his breath away.
Of course he’d noticed that she was pretty, but this was amazing. The perfect body that fit his, as if they were sculpted from the same piece of clay. The hips that fit his hands. Her mouth that kissed his as if it was made to do so. Those eyes.
He longed for her to open her eyes. He willed as hard as he could for her eyes to open.
Nothing.
He joggled her a little with his arm.
She sighed.
He kissed her, the lightest sweep of his lips across hers.
Her eyes opened. That lightest of blues, that color of sky…
She opened her mouth and screamed. Then she scrambled up and over him, not seeming to notice that she’d knocked him off the sofa in her haste.
“Hey!” Cade yelled as he unceremoniously hit the floor.
“What the hell did we do? Did we…no. Why am I here? I don’t remember!” Her voice sounded on the edge of panic again.
“Look at me,” he said, hoping she would look at him again, that way. Like she had last night.
But she didn’t. Her eyes darted to him and away, out the window, anywhere but into his eyes.
“Aren’t you getting up kind of late?”
“I don’t mind.” The strange truth was that he didn’t.
He watched her struggle to regain her dignity. “Why don’t you go upstairs and change your clothes, and then I’ll make you breakfast.”
“I…Okay.” She was out of the room like a shot.
Eggs, he thought, with bacon. And maybe biscuits. Did he have time to make gravy? He had to get out to the chores eventually, but for the first time in memory, he was okay with letting them wait. Tom would pick up any slack he left.
He hummed on his way to the kitchen.
This wasn’t the way to kick the woman out of his house. He knew that. He still wanted her out.
But maybe, just maybe, there was the tiniest possibility that having her in the cottage so close by might not be that bad.
That guy. That asshole that had hurt her. Cade felt his neck flush with anger again as he walked into the kitchen. Men like that gave everyone a bad name. Thank God she’d gotten out of whatever it was that she’d been in.
His heart felt light, surprisingly light, as he prepared the breakfast, clanking and banging pots, the sound of eggs cracking and bacon popping in the cast-iron pan. He didn’t usually feel this chipper this early in the morning unless getting laid had been part of the previous night. And he hadn’t gotten that last night. He’d sure as hell wanted it. But after she got scared, it was enough just to hold her. No, it wasn’t very manly; he admitted that to himself. But his heart stayed light.
Breakfast was ready in quick order. He didn’t hear the shower anymore. He didn’t hear anything, actually.
He gave it another couple of minutes.
The eggs were getting cold. He called her name.
No response. He went to the bottom of the steps.
“Abigail?”
Nothing.
He started to climb the stairs and was met by a shout.
“No! I’m coming down!”
“Well, hurry up!”
Abigail entered the kitchen. She was dressed in a black V-necked tee shirt, black pants, and black heels. Her hair was brushed into a low, smooth knot at the base of her neck. Her lips looked bee-stung.
He supposed that last could be partially his fault. He smiled.
“Good morning, gorgeous.”
“We have to forget what happened last night. I mean”—she paused, looking at the ground—“I know it’s hard to forget, but it would be better if it didn’t come up as a topic of conversation, and please know that it won’t happen again. I apologize for my part in it.”
While ladling eggs onto her plate, Cade said, “I don’t want your apology, Abigail. I want you to take it back. And I want you to eat.”
She held her head higher. She looked like a bank executive—that was it. A really hot bank executive.
“It looks lovely. But I’m not actually very hungry. I have to go to town this morning.”
“Already talking like a country girl. Going to town. Come on, just eat.” He put the plate in front of her. She pushed the plate back at him.
He nudged it again, down the counter toward her.
She pushed it back, with more force than he had expected, and it flew off the counter and onto the floor with a loud crash. The plate flew into hundreds of pieces, eggs and bacon and biscuits hitting the floor.
“
Shit!
I didn’t mean to…” she said and knelt down.
“Wait,” he said, “be careful. Don’t cut yourself.”
“I won’t. I’m used to it. I break everything. All the time.” She sat back on her heels. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
She was so upset that every part of her body radiated unhappiness. Cade didn’t know how to fix it. He didn’t know her at all, and couldn’t even begin to guess what the magic words were to make her feel better.
“I don’t care about the plate. I have a million of them in boxes upstairs. No idea why she had so many, but she did. And there’s more food. Now, come on.”
He took her elbow and lifted her gently, guiding her to the table, pulling out a chair and seating her in it. “I don’t want you to get food on your good clothes. I’ll clean that up, and I’ll fix you another plate.”
“Why are you being so nice to me? This is about last night? Being pathetic is all a girl has to do?”
“Well, it wasn’t a bad idea, let’s put it that way.” He shot her a grin, aiming for lightheartedness, but it missed the mark, as she looked down at her hands.
“I’m sorry. I guess I’m in a good mood.”
“I’m still in your house. You’re upset about that.”
He nodded. “Yep. I still am. This is my house, and I feel like Eliza bamboozled me, big-time. However…” He slid another plate of food in front of her.
“However,” he continued. “Eliza did it by placing a gorgeous woman here, so I guess it could be worse.”
She flinched.
“Last night was…” he said.
“I said I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Fine. Eat. Talk about whatever you want.”
“I have to tell you something. I should have told you before now. I’m going into town to get a business license this morning.” She took a bite of bacon.
“I don’t know about San Diego,” he was fixing his own plate now, and he could feel his stomach rumble, “but around here I don’t think you need a license to write books like you do. I mean, maybe when you file taxes or something, but you probably don’t need to be in a big hurry about it.”
“It’s not for writing books. I thought I should tell you myself so you don’t hear it from someone else.”
Her voice sounded nervous. Was it shaking?
“What’s it for, then?”
“I’m going to open a business.”
Cade tried to process the words.
“A business for writers? What’s that?”
“A workshop. A place to teach people about fiber and yarn and spinning and knitting, mostly teaching space.”
“Where?”
“In the cottage.”
Cade thought about it, processing the words as fast as he could around his disbelief. “You can’t do that. Not on my land.”
“Technically, it’s mine.”
“No. You don’t have an access road, I control the driveway.”
“I can put in a small driveway through the back of my alpaca run, out to that county road if I have to. It would be nicer to use your driveway, though, if you would consider letting me rent it from you.”
“You don’t have the zoning.” Cade leaned on the counter, gripping the edge tightly. His knuckles turned white.
“Your land is already zoned for it, since your neighbor apparently has some kind of produce stand? This area has multiple zones.”
“You can’t.”
“I can. It won’t be bad.” Her voice slipped back to the eagerness and speed that he now recognized. “You won’t mind, knitters are lovely people. They’ll be quiet. They’ll love coming to a ranch, a working ranch, and they’ll all be fans of your aunt.” She took another bite of her eggs. “This is delicious, by the way. Are they your eggs? I mean, from your chickens? I’m sorry I dropped the plate the first time.” She was talking quickly now. She was nervous. And she had every reason to be.
No way in
hell
was he going to have a goddamn knitting classroom on his property.
“Eliza’s fans are rabid. You have no idea. And I have my own fan base, strange as that may seem. People like my books. They’ll come, they’ll take classes, they’ll look at your sheep.”
“No, they won’t!”
“Well, maybe I can convince you to let them. And once they see your sheep and find out their names, then there’s this amazing thing that happens to knitters—they want the fiber or yarn straight off that animal, and they’ll pay almost anything to get it. So if they see Rosebud in the field, then you can sell them Rosebud yarn at a great price.”
“Are you listening? No classroom. No Rosebud. My sheep don’t even have names, for the love of God.”
“So let me name them! I’d love to do that.”
“No shop. No classes.”
“It’s my dream. I know it’s sudden, Cade, but…”
“Is that how you work? Now I get it.” He nodded.
“What?” she said.
“You kiss me last night and make me feel sorry for you, and I spend all night with you with our clothes
on
. And the whole time you
know
that you’re going to do this in the morning, that you would have to tell me about it before I heard it from someone else. You were just using me last night. Paving your way. Or should I say, paving your driveway?”
“It wasn’t like that, I never thought…”
“You’re a smart lady, Abigail. You’re smarter than I gave you credit for. I thought you were some city chick, dumb enough to accidentally buy two alpacas and a herding dog, dumb enough to want to live in an old cottage on a ranch in the middle of nowhere.”
He nodded as he scraped his own food into the trash. No point, really. He was too mad to have an appetite.
“But no, you bought the alpacas to breed them, so your classes can tour the ranch and ogle the crias, and then you sell that fiber to them at a premium. You have the border collie so you look like a genuine ranch girl. You’re going to sell them the whole package, aren’t you? Trap them in your tourist’s web, and they’ll never know the difference.
“And you thought you could get me on your side, is that right? That if you cried a little and batted those blues at me, I wouldn’t notice when you hung out a sign on the front gate and paved the front yard as a parking lot.”
“I didn’t plan it that way. You kissed me first last night! And in the bathroom, too!”
“That just means you’re good at what you do.”
“You think I planned it this way?”
“It’s obvious. You set me up. But it’s not going to work.”
He watched as her eyes filled suddenly, brimming with tears. She stood and turned, brushing off her pants.
She walked to the front door and turned. “Eliza, when she came up here to see you…those bags and boxes…”
Then she stopped and opened the door. She left, her head down. Clara followed at her heels, her head also lowered, as though the dog thought she was in trouble, too.