“It doesn’t matter whether she is or not, Brody.” He paused and looked through the window of the diner. I followed his gaze and saw her behind the counter, a smile on her face as she talked to a customer. “If you mean what you say you do and don’t intend to go back to Moira, then you make sure you’re there, ready for her when she comes to you. Because she will.” He looked back at me. “She’ll come back to you, Brody. You just gotta let her do it in her own time.”
“You’re right.” I stepped back and leaned against the side of my car. His words rang true. It didn’t mean I had to like what he was saying, but he was right. I couldn’t push her into anything, I had to give her the time and space she wanted, and make sure everything was in place for when she came back to me. “I’m moving in to my new place today,” I told him, not sure why I was saying that. “And I spoke to a lawyer yesterday to file divorce papers.”
Sal nodded. “Just promise me something.” He drew in a breath and let it back out again slowly. “Don’t do anything because you feel like you have to. Do it because you want to. Make sure this is what you really want because that girl has had enough heartbreak to last her a lifetime and she’s not even twenty yet.”
“It’s what I want,” I told him, no doubt in my mind whatsoever. A gray cloud had been lifted off me from the moment I walked out on the family dinner to go to Lola, and all that was left was sunshine and a clear day that showed me the path I should take.
“Good.” Sal nodded, his lips lifting into a grin. “Not sure why she’s interested in an old man like you though.”
“Hey!” I chuckled. “This old man still has skills.”
“Mmmm.” His eyes crinkled at the corners. “I’m glad you’re home.”
“Me too,” I told him. “Me too.”
The thought of going away on another case right now didn’t fill me with the excitement it used to, in fact, all I wanted was to stay home. I wanted to be here for Cade and Lola. I didn’t want to be thousands of miles away, deep undercover, unable to contact them. The life I’d built for myself needed to change, I was seeing that now.
“Hey, Dad,” Cade called as he walked toward us. “I’m ready.”
I lifted my hand between Sal and me, and he shook it. “Thanks,” I told him, not really sure what exactly I was thanking him for. Maybe it was for looking after Lola? Or watching out for Cade, or calling me out on what I was doing. Either way, he’d helped me sort through my thoughts a little more.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Cade said to Sal as he pulled the car door open and slid inside.
Sal grunted and spun around, walking back into the diner, and I took one last look at Lola. I hadn’t expected her to be looking our way, and the jolt to my body had me stumbling back a step. She’d always managed to have that effect on me, right from the first moment I looked at her.
I smiled, and her answering smile told me she was getting there. She’d come back to me, and it didn’t matter if it was in a day, a week, or a year. She’d be in my arms again at some stage, and I promised myself once I had that, I’d never let her go again.
“Why?” I heard Cade ask, and I tore my eyes away from Lola and to him. He was staring at her, too, and I realized what he was asking.
“I…” I couldn’t explain why. There was something about her that drew me in and wouldn’t let go. “She’s… It’s different with her.”
“Different how?” Cade asked, turning to look at me from the opposite side of the car. “You couldn’t have done it with anyone else? It had to be her?”
“You can’t choose who you love, son.” I pulled in a breath. “You’ll realize that one day, and when you do, you’ll understand I had no choice in it.”
He frowned, skepticism rolling off him. But what I said was the truth. He wouldn’t understand it right now, but he would at some stage. “If it’s any consolation”—he pulled open the passenger door—“I think she feels the same.”
I flicked my gaze back to the diner and spotted her taking someone’s order at a table, and I knew he was right. We both felt things we shouldn’t have, but that wouldn’t stop us from being together.
I hoped.
* * *
BRODY
The last thing I wanted to do was be in the same space as Moira, but I didn’t have a choice, not when it came to wanting a healthy relationship with Cade. I could have easily dropped him off outside the house and watched him walk inside, but there was something that needed to be said to Moira.
Sal had told me what she’d said to Lola when she went into the diner, and although I’d said I wouldn’t ask Lola about it, that didn’t mean I’d not tell Moira to stay the hell away. I got it, I really did. I’d done the one thing you weren’t meant to do after marriage promises were made, but there was nothing I could have done to stop it. When fate stepped it, nothing could halt it.
“I need to talk to your mom,” I told Cade when I’d turned the engine off. I’d parked at the side of the road, not wanting to pull into the driveway. This may have been my home before, but it wasn’t any longer.
Cade huffed out a breath and pushed out of the car. “I had a feeling you would.”
He’d been there when his mom had turned up too, and even though part of me wanted to interrogate him and ask him to tell me every word that was said, it wasn’t right. He didn’t deserve to be put in the middle of this. He hadn’t chosen this, I had.
Cade walked up the driveway, me a couple of steps behind him, and moved right into the house. I hesitated by the door, and when he looked back, he shook his head.
“Mom?” His voice echoed throughout the house. “Dad wants to talk to you.”