Hold On to Me (Return to Haven 3)

“Oh, sure. No problem.” Jade tabbed down on her spreadsheet to the areas she’d remember. “You can even call tomorrow. I didn’t mean to interrupt dinner.”

“No worries,” Livie replied. “I guess Jax wanted to go for drinks with Cash and Tanner, but Tanner had to go home and when Cash showed up he was sick. Jax said he looked like hell. Glad I get to be the stand-in for his buddies.”

Her friend laughed, but Jade had blocked out everything except the fact that Cash was sick. Most likely that was why he hadn’t answered her texts.

“Jade? Are you still there?”

Her eyes darted to the cell on the island. “I’m here. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

She disconnected the call in a rush and closed her laptop. Questions swirled through her mind. How sick was he? Did he need anything? Did he need her to help?

She had no clue, but she knew she couldn’t leave him alone. She’d lived on her own long enough to know that being sick with no one to c

are for you sucked sometimes.

After searching through her cabinets, Jade made up a bag of necessities and grabbed her purse and keys. She didn’t bother texting him to tell him she was coming.

Jade made it to Cash’s house in less than ten minutes. All the exterior lights were off, but his truck was in the driveway. Gathering all her belongings, she stepped from her car and used the light from her cell to get up the curved stone walkway.

She knocked on the door, but there was no answer. Jade gripped the knob, thankful when it turned easily beneath her palm because she hadn’t thought this far ahead and had no other way to get in.

“Cash?” she called softly as she stepped over the threshold and into darkness.

As she closed the door, she ran her hand along the wall for the light switches. She flicked one up, not realizing what it was connected to. The porch lights illuminated the living room without being too bright. The second she turned, she spotted Cash facedown on the sofa. He still wore his tennis shoes and his feet dangled off the edge of the couch. The back of his gray T-shirt was dark with sweat.

Jade dropped her things on the floor at the end of the couch and squatted down next to him. They were nearly face-to-face and she swept her fingertips across his forehead.

The cut from the rough landing was merely a scratch now, the black eye had vanished, and his thick beard covered his jaw once again. He looked back to his old self, only she’d never seen him so drained before.

She smoothed her hands through his unruly hair, pushing it back from his forehead and off the top of his ear.

“You must be an angel,” he muttered without opening his eyes.

Jade smiled. “Your fever obviously broke because you’re sweating, and you must be on the mend if you’re flirting.”

“I don’t have the energy for any shenanigans tonight, honey.” He attempted a smile, which looked ridiculous with his eyes shut and his cheek pressed into the cushion. “Just take care of me like I did you the other night.”

Jade snorted. “I was half-drunk and you had sex with me in the shower.”

“Right.” He raked a hand over half his face. “I’ll take a rain check on that shower sex. See what I did there?”

“I think you need to shut up and rest,” she told him as she came to her feet. “Your flirting is getting worse. I’ll take care of you, so just relax.”

He was already snoring.

Jade continued to stare down at him another minute. She’d never seen Cash as anything but strong and resilient. The man wore pride like a second skin and would probably hate that she saw him like this. Once he recovered, he’d pretend he hadn’t been bad, that he could’ve gotten along without her.

Maybe he could, but she didn’t want him to. She liked the idea of nurturing him. As silly as that sounded, Jade had never really had anyone in her life who needed or depended on her. Perhaps her ego had become involved, because she refused to believe it was her heart. But Cash needed her right now and she wasn’t going anywhere.

Jade gathered her things and headed to the kitchen. She got to work on making her homemade chicken soup. She never claimed to be a great cook, but she had accumulated quite a few healthy eating habits and formulated her own recipes over the years.

She also had started contributing to Melanie’s popular blog, Mel’s Motivational Musings. Her friend was a force in the online blogging world. Her popularity was beyond what any of them could have imagined when Mel had first mentioned starting a blog as a therapeutic way to get over her abusive marriage.

Jade was proud of her friend for consistently posting uplifting and motivational pieces to help women better themselves. And Jade was all too happy to add in a healthy recipe each month. This particular chicken soup was one of her favorites.

Talk about a wild night. Her lover was snoring with his broken fever, while she boiled chicken and wondered if it was too late for a cup of coffee.

Good grief. If this was how she was as a single woman, she’d hate to see herself as a married one. She’d be in bed by nine or some such nonsense.