Didn’t want to be reminded of what he’d lost.
But it ate at him over the months...ate at him through the holidays and the New Year and all through this past year until the holidays rolled around again.
What if she wasn’t okay?
What if she needed something?
What if she needed someone?
He didn’t know why he couldn’t relax. He was sure she’d be fine. Rachel was smart and pretty as anything. What man wouldn’t sweep her off her feet and give her the storybook happy ending?
But the thing was he didn’t know for sure, and he needed to know, with the need for knowledge and a resolution becoming stronger with every passing day until he traveled to Mineral Wells to see her for himself.
And now he saw, and he knew, and he’d been wrong.
So very, very wrong.
She wasn’t okay. And sure, she could make light of losing her house—Sally’s house—and she could be brave about raising a little boy with developmental disorders on her own, but he knew the truth. He knew how her story was supposed to go, and it wasn’t like this.
Acid burned his belly. He longed to lean out the window and puke. To vomit all the pain out of his body. But it wouldn’t help the pain in his heart.
Cade couldn’t remember the last time he felt so ill.
That wasn’t true. He could remember. Five and a half years ago in a moment of alcohol-induced righteousness, he told himself he didn’t need a nineteen-year-old girl giving him an ultimatum, and he’d climbed out of bed, stepped into his jeans and his boots and walked out on her.
Cade blinked. His eyes felt gritty. Hot. He blinked again, trying to clear his vision. The gate to his property came into view and he braked, punching the remote in his truck that opened the gate.
Pulling through his gate, his vision clouded again. His lashes felt damp. Cade ground his teeth together, his jaw aching at the effort to restrain emotion. Leaving Rachel had hurt, but not half as much as knowing how much he’d wounded her.
* * *
IT’D BEEN A ROUGH NIGHT and a rough morning, Rachel thought, watching the tow-truck driver pull away from her and her broken-down car, leaving them both on the side of the road where the driver had found them. And now things weren’t merely bad, they were the worst.
As in the worst-case scenario.
Mia’s wedding was supposed to start any minute, and yet Mia’s gorgeous wedding cake was still in Rachel’s car—a fifteen-year-old Jeep Cherokee she’d bought secondhand but was ideal for transporting cakes—because the tow-truck driver couldn’t hitch the Jeep to his truck without destroying the cake, and there was no way Rachel was going to let Mia get married without her cake.
In between calling the tow-truck company and waiting for the driver to arrive, she’d phoned a half-dozen different people trying to find someone who could transport the cake to the gardens in Weatherford, but no one was answering and she knew why. They were all at the wedding.
My God. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t.
If there was one small blessing it’s that Tommy was with Mrs. Munoz for the afternoon and wasn’t here to see her fall apart.
But no, she couldn’t fall apart, not yet, not until the cake was delivered to the gardens.
Staring out toward the highway, her heart thumping a mile a minute, she suddenly thought of Cade’s black truck. His truck would be perfect. It had a huge cab and plenty of space for a delicate four-layer wedding cake.
Rachel didn’t know where Cade lived anymore, only that he had a ranch somewhere in Parker County, and Weatherford was the seat of Parker County, so he couldn’t be that far out of the way...
It’d been over five years since she’d tried to call him, but she knew his old cell number, would always know that number, and wondered if it would work now.
Quickly she punched in the number and held her breath, praying it was the right number, praying he’d answer, praying he was free—
“Hello?”
Her stomach fell and her legs turned to jelly. “Cade?” she whispered.
“Rachel? What’s wrong?”
Of course he knew that if she called him something had happened. He, of all people, would realize this wasn’t a social call. Overwhelmed by intensely ambivalent emotions, she couldn’t speak for a moment, her throat swelling closed.
“Rache?”
“I’m okay. I’m just...” She glanced around her at the fields bordering the empty highway. It was a very rural highway with minimal traffic this time of day. “...stuck on the side of 180 with Mia’s cake in back of my Jeep. I can deal with my car later, but I’ve got to get Mia’s cake to the reception—”
“I’m on my way.”
He reached her in twenty-eight minutes. Rachel knew because she’d stared at the clock on her phone the entire time, and then once he arrived, in dark dress jeans and a black jacket that matched his black hat, he had the enormous cake out of the cargo area of her Jeep and into the cab of his truck in no time. She didn’t even have to tell him to be careful. He handled her cake as if it were made of glass. Arriving at the gardens, Cade summoned the catering staff and put them to work, moving the cake into its spot on the round table near the dance floor just as the first guests began to stream into the tent.
Without even shedding her coat, Rachel went to work repairing some of the little buttercream swags and re-creating some of the torn lacework with the tubes of icing she’d brought from home. She stood back to inspect her handiwork. It wasn’t perfect but it was still damn good and Mia would never notice.
Heaving a massive sigh of relief that the cake was here and safe and beautiful, Rachel quickly tucked the tubes of icing back into her bag, hiding them from the guests who’d begun to wander around the tent looking for their places at their assigned tables.
She glanced up to discover Cade watching her, a curious expression in his blue eyes. “What?” she asked him.
“You’re amazing.”
She blushed and pushed a wave of dark hair from her warm cheek. “Perhaps you haven’t been paying attention, but I’m actually something of a disaster.”
“I have been paying attention, and you have no idea how much you impress me. You’re a beautiful and amazing woman, Rachel James.”
A lump formed in her throat and she had to blink and look away. There was a time when she’d hung on to his every word, when a compliment from Cade made her float on the air. But now his compliments stung because they were just words, and she didn’t trust words, and she definitely didn’t trust him.
“Maybe we could find something cold to drink,” she said. “I’m really thirsty. How about you?”
* * *
CADE HAD PROMISED RACHEL that he’d drive her back to Mineral Wells whenever she was ready to leave the reception, and Rachel had warned him that it wouldn’t be until after the cake was cut, in case there was a cake emergency. But fortunately for Mia—and Rachel—there was no cake emergency, and at four the cake was finally cut and devoured. In fact, not a piece remained anywhere, including the small top round, which Mia had intended to save.
When told that Mia was near tears over losing the smallest cake round, Rachel found Mia in the ladies’ room dabbing her eye makeup, and Rachel gave her a quick hug. “Don’t cry,” Rachel begged her. “I’m going to make you a miniature wedding cake for your first wedding anniversary next year. It will be just as lovely and will taste twice as good, since it will be fresh and not froz
en for a year.”
Mia blinked as new tears welled. “Really? You’d do that for me?”
“Yes.” Rachel grinned and winked. “It’s a piece of cake.”
Now buttoning up her winter coat, Rachel walked with Cade through the gardens on their way to his truck. “That was such a beautiful wedding,” Rachel said, her high heels crunching gravel as they left the paved path for the parking lot. “But it’s always a relief when the cake has been cut and eaten, and I know the bride and groom were happy.”
“I heard you promised to make Mia a small cake for her wedding anniversary,” Cade said, fishing his keys from his pocket.
“She was so sad that the top round was eaten and there’s no reason for her to be sad today. It’s simple enough for me to make her something for next year.”
He opened the passenger-side door of his truck for her. “Will you charge her for the anniversary cake?” he asked, offering her his hand to give her a boost up.
“No.”