His Unexpected Return

Not that Cassidy would ever be ready for any conversation with Wade.

“Where is Piper?” His voice was so hesitant, so soft and unconfident. So un-Wade-like.

Some part of Cassidy momentarily wished she was the type of person who could ignore him and walk away without a word. But her friends had dubbed her an eternal optimist—too compassionate for her own good—and they were probably correct.

Cassidy pivoted so she could see his profile. She had always loved his hair, how it seemed to do whatever it wanted and he still somehow looked photoshoot ready. Wade had shunned the cowboy hats both of his brothers often wore. For good reason—why hide a head of hair when it looked that great?

Enough of that.

She needed to focus on being upset with him for what he had put her through, and zeroing in on how attractive he was wouldn’t help her down that path.

The fading sun cast his features in shadows. She was glad. It made it easier not to meet his eyes and remember all there had once been between the two of them, what the man before her had once meant to her.

All that could never be.

One man’s lies had altered the entire course of her life and dashed all the childhood dreams she had carried for her future. Cassidy locked her jaw. If one good thing had come from the mess Wade had made, it was the iron lock shielding her heart. No man would ever wield such power over her heart and emotions ever again.

Cassidy ran her hand down the front of her tank top, smoothing out wrinkles that weren’t even there. “A friend from church came and picked her up.”

Wade turned his head and scrubbed his hand over his mouth. His fingers shook a little. “Because of me?”

“They had a sleepover planned already. We just bumped up the timeline a little.”

He dipped his head a bit, acknowledging what she had said. Then he shot out a long stream of breath. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but at some point we need to address what’s going to happen here. I want to meet her. Actually, formally meet her.”

“Sure, at some point.”

“Really?” Wade’s eyes widened.

While she would admit the thought of it made her more than a little uncomfortable, Cassidy would not stand in the way of the two of them meeting. Although meeting and spending time together were two very different things. Piper deserved to meet her dad—deserved to know the truth—and Wade would have to look into his child’s trusting wide brown eyes and explain to her why she was only just meeting him now.

Why everyone thought he had been dead.

She had talked to Piper about Wade ever since she was a baby. Your daddy would have loved you so much. I wish you could have met your daddy. And Piper had recognized who he was immediately from the many photos of him gracing the Jarrett family home. Not to mention the shelf of pictures Cassidy had in the bungalow where she and Piper lived on the property.

The shelf of pictures she would take down and put away the second she got through the door tonight. Correction: not put away—throw away.

It felt as if the day had been sixty hours long. Cassidy’s back was sore and her feet ached. She hooked an elbow on the fence for support. She didn’t want to talk to this man. Didn’t want to be around him right now, but what would be the point of avoiding the inevitable?

“But don’t get any ideas yet. I think I’m allowed a day or two to absorb what’s happened, if you don’t mind.” She summoned all her pain and tears and hurt and let them form a shield between her and him. Because it was necessary to protect herself from his hopeful expression and what it did to her heart.

She stood a little taller. “I’ve been functioning under the impression that you were dead for a long time. And between you and me, it’s a bit of a shock to process.” She kicked at a rock on the ground, sending it tumbling end over end until it came to a rest in the pebbled driveway. “Not that you care about any of that.”

“I care, Cassidy.” A muscle in his jaw popped. His hand came up a few inches as if he wanted to reach out and take her hand, but he hooked it on his shoulder instead. “You have no idea how much I care. I—”

“Well, if this is how you treat people when you supposedly care about them—” she whistled long and low “—I sure don’t begrudge your enemies.”

He shifted his weight one foot to the other. “I deserve that.”

“And more.”

“And more,” he agreed. “But I’d like the opportunity to actually talk to you about what happened.”

“Oh, you would, would you?” Cassidy could hardly recognize her voice for the bite in it. She couldn’t recall ever using such a tone with someone before.

“Cass.” A single syllable spoken so tenderly. But she wouldn’t let that change anything.

Wade had always known how to sweet-talk.

Kind, optimistic Cassidy had been easy to trick, to be the butt of his five-year joke. She wouldn’t give Wade the chance to make a fool out of her again.

Not ever again.

Something she had learned during the last few years was that being kind didn’t mean she had to hold her tongue all the time. One didn’t cancel out the other. Being kind did not have to equal being a doormat in relationships. A kind person could speak hard truths and that didn’t rob away their kindness.

And right about now, Wade was in need of some hard truth.

“Know what I would have liked?” Cassidy faced him fully. “The human decency of being dumped. Faking your death to get out of a relationship was a bit drastic, even for you.”

“I wasn’t—I didn’t—” He jammed his hand into his hair, wove his fingers into the strands and yanked. “I loved you, Cassidy. I loved you more than life.”

His words bounced off the shield she’d constructed from her pain and tears.

She lowered her voice and used a tone she often used when Piper was in trouble. “I think you were young and at one point you might have thought you felt something, but it wasn’t love. It couldn’t have been.”

He opened his mouth, but she shook her head.

“What you did to me? That wasn’t loving, Wade. It was pretty much the extreme opposite.” She sighed, and if felt as if more than her lungs were deflating. “Love is more than stolen kisses and some whispered words. It is day in and day out dedication. It shows itself in someone’s actions.”

And when his actions were laid out on the table and added together, they would not equal love. She didn’t need to say it for him to understand.

He had used her and when he had decided she had no intrinsic value, he discarded her.

It was a truth he would never be able to erase. One she would remind herself of every time his gentle, searching gaze fell on her.

Wade gripped the fencing near where she stood and Cassidy wished he hadn’t. He smelled like salty ocean air and late-night walks and even now, even after everything, his proximity made her heart rate tick up. It had always been that way between them though—a strong physical pull to one another. Her younger self had confused attraction with love. Physical desire is all that had existed between them, not anything real, not anything lasting.

Not anything worth fighting for.

She realized that now.

No matter how handsome or charming Wade was, she wouldn’t allow herself to be drawn to him again.

“I will never be able to take back what I did. I may never get the opportunity to explain why I did it.” Close up now, his eyes blazed with intensity. “But when I say I loved you—believe me. What I felt for you was the realest, rightest thing I’ve ever felt. And it doesn’t matter if you doubt that—it’s my fault that you would—but disbelief doesn’t make something any less true.” He took a step back and ran his hand over his jawline. His fingers tripped along his throat.

She hugged her arms to her body. It had been hot all day but a sudden chill rolled down her back. “It certainly makes for a nice story. But I know what happened, Wade. You can’t rewrite it into something prettier than what it was.”

Wade barked out a single laugh that held no trace of humor. “You don’t believe me. You don’t want anything to do with me. Message received. I get it,” he said. He crossed his arms, mirroring her pose. “Will Piper be back tomorrow? Should we pick a time so I can meet her?”