Marly's Choice (Men of August 1)

“I could have sent the limo,” Cade muttered, and she knew he was talking about her decision to bring Greg. Marly frowned at his rude behavior. She had never known Cade to act so surly, so hard to get along with.

“So you could have. But I didn’t want to be alone Cade, and no one was offering to come after me.”

That had hurt her. Marie, their former housekeeper, and now sometimes cook, had been the one who had informed her of Grandpa Joe’s death, Cade had been unable to even place the second call, or leave a message in her apartment. She knew he would have been busy. But she also knew he would have been considerate enough to do it for Sam and Brock.

“If you had asked, one of us would have,” he told her quietly, glancing at her in surprise.

“Had I been offered, I may have taken you up on it,” she snapped back. “But I wasn’t, and I didn’t want to ride alone. Greg kindly offered to come with me.”

Marly smiled sweetly at Greg in thankfulness. She watched in amazement as his chest seemed to puff out two extra inches. What the hell was up with this? Evidently, Cade saw it too, if his look of disgust was anything to go by. Sam barely contained his mirth as she glanced at him, frowning. Brock, as always, was quiet, but when his glance met hers, Marly saw the edge of amusement in it.

Marly shook her head at them all. The moon phases must be really out of whack today, she thought. Every man she had met with seemed to act like they had rocks for brains. It was disconcerting to say the least.

* * * * *

Cade didn’t know why he was so furious with Marly. It wasn’t her fault that the old man had a nasty, perverted mind, or that he was a depraved monster. That he had seen emotions and needs in Cade that couldn’t, shouldn’t be there. It wasn’t her fault that her legs were gorgeous, and any man with eyes in his head would be more than impressed. It wasn’t her fault he could barely control his own body’s response to her, or the swift hardening of flesh between his thighs every time he saw her.

She had been raised as his niece. She was growing up whether he wanted to admit to it or not. She had likely already had sex, most girls her age had. Cade wanted to clench his fists at that thought, and barely restrained the need. She may even be having sex with the little punk sitting across from him.

Cade stared at the boy, not caring as that narrow face paled and the hazel eyes widened behind the lenses of the glasses. Greg swallowed tight and hard, giving Cade a measure of satisfaction.

“Please, Cade—” Marly’s voice wrapped around his fury, pleading, desperate.

Biting back an oath, Cade stared resolutely into the tinted glass that separated the driver from the family. He was in a lousy mood and he knew it. He wasn’t fit company for man or horse, and he should have driven himself to the cemetery alone. But Marly was riding with the family, and he was damned if he hadn’t missed her this past year and a half since she started college.

She only came home infrequently, despite the short distance to Dallas. Christmas, Easter and birthdays. Three weeks total if you added it, and he hated it. The house was so still, so silent without her laughter, or her girlish tantrums. No more Marly sneaking into his study at night when nightmares plagued her to sleep on the couch while he worked. He wondered who soothed the nightmares now. His gaze sliced to the James boy, but his head was lowered as he stared in fascination at a loose thread on his jacket. The little jerk.

Cade hadn’t expected her to arrive with a friend. And he sure as hell hadn’t expected a male friend, considering how wary she was of men. She always had been, since her stepfather, and her Grandpa Joe.

Cade’s teeth gritted with renewed fury. She carried a scar on her leg from the first and only whipping she had ever received in his house. A whipping Joe had administered that first month Marly had lived with them. Cade would never forget his horror that day when Marie had run screaming to the barn that Mister Joe was whipping Miss Marly. Oh God, Mr. Cade, she had screamed, he’s gonna kill her.

Cade had rushed to the house, horrified to see his father beating the tiny girl with a leather strap. Joe had been enraged, furious, demented with anger. Cade had nearly killed him that day.

He had whipped her when he overheard her telling Marie that some little boy at school had attempted to kiss her. An innocent kiss on the cheek by a child with a crush on her, and Marly had paid in a way that left her unable to attend school for two weeks, until the deep bruises and lacerations on her legs and buttocks healed.

“Cade?” Her worried voice interrupted his thoughts, her soft hand on his arm made his skin heat. “Are you okay?”

He covered her hand slowly as his head turned and he gazed into the deep pools of those mysterious blue eyes. She drew him in, her innocence and lack of guile soothing the raging beast in his soul. How in the name of God would he survive when she left again?

“I’m fine, honey,” he sighed, his hand covering hers, holding it close to him when she would have moved it. “Just thoughtful. I’m sorry I’ve been such a grouch.”

Her head went to his shoulder, strands of riotous curls falling over his chest where they had escaped from her braid. He laid his cheek against her silken hair and breathed her scent in deeply.

“It’s okay, Cade. I understand.” It wasn’t a little girl’s voice anymore. A child years younger than her actual age as she had been when she came to them.

The voice was sweet and lyrical. A woman’s voice, and he knew from watching that damned James boy what it did to the male race to hear the sexy sound.

“I’ve missed you, Munchkin.” He sighed against her hair, feeling a sense of warmth replacing the cold knot of fury that had filled him.

“I’ve missed you too, Cade.” There was a note of regret in her voice. A sigh of wanting that he didn’t want to delve into too closely.

Stretching his arm behind her, he pulled her close to his chest as the limo moved towards the ranch. The cemetery Joe had wanted to be laid in was hours from the ranch, and completely disconnected from it. Joe had no friends; no family laid to rest in that hallowed ground. He had wanted nothing to do with the ranch at his death, having hated it so much during his life.

Marly’s hand was laid at his chest now, just below her head. Trusting, warm, she lay against him, a fragile weight as cherished to him as any could be. He couldn’t imagine never having her in his life, not needing to hold her, to be assured she was okay. She was still tiny, barely five four to his six four. She was slender and light, with a thick mass of black curls that flowed past her shoulder blades and very nearly to her hips. She didn’t cut it because he loved it so much. She had sworn over the years that if it weren’t for Cade, she would have shaved her head bald.

And he did love her hair. When she was little, Cade had brushed and braided it every day until she was sixteen and started getting fussier with her it. Even then, though, there were times she would ask him to brush her hair. Many times when she sought him out in his study deep in the night, she would carry the silver brush he had bought her. She would lay it on the table beside the couch, and he would come to her and brush her hair until she could sleep.

And on that couch, she would sleep until he went to bed. Then he would carry her to her own room, tuck her into the lacy canopied bed and kiss her cheek before going to his own room. The last time he had done so had been the night before she left for college. The nightmares had been bad that week.