Broken (34 page)

Max toyed with the lid. Frustration, anger, and budding curiosity combined to form a toxic brew in his belly. Here he’d been pouring out his heart—okay, he’d been yelling—and she’d given him a gift. Not exactly the response he’d been expecting.

When Cassidy sighed impatiently, he manned up and lifted the top, letting it fall to the mattress. The contents were hidden by tissue paper. Max moved it aside. Inside was a small jeweler’s box and two familiar-looking cards. Heart thumping and hand shaking, Max lifted the first card and read it. He set it gently, reverently to the side and picked up the second one. The name on it was the same.

“You took my name,” he said hoarsely, referring to the new driver’s license and Social Security Card proclaiming Cassidy Brannon was now Cassidy Desalvo.

She nodded mutely, tears sparkling in her beautiful brown eyes.

He nudged the ring box. “Is this…?”

“Wait,” she said and came around the bed to stand at his side. “I want to do this properly. I wanted to wait for Christmas, but you forced the issue.” She took the square blue velvet box, lifted the lid, and took out the ring. Staring into his eyes, she said, “Max Desalvo, I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to bear your children, raise them with you, love, laugh, and grow old with you. I want you to be my husband in every sense of the word. If you feel the same, will you wear this ring as a symbol of your love and commitment to me and our family?”

Too overcome for words, Max nodded and held up his left hand for Cassidy to slide the wedding band on his finger, specially made to match hers. As soon as it was in place, Max snatched her into his arms and kissed her. It felt like their wedding day all over again.

They reaffirmed their love for each other in the most basic way possible. As he moved over her and joined his body to hers, he linked their left hands together. Their matching wedding bands glinted brightly.

“I love you,” he murmured as he pumped his hips.

“I love you,” Cassidy said, meeting him thrust for leisurely thrust.

She cradled his cheek with her right hand. “Kiss me.”

“With pleasure,” he said, lowering his mouth to hers.

Max was happier than he’d ever been in his life. Finally, he was home. Cassidy was his. Every heartache and hardship they’d been through was worth it, because it had brought them to this point, and he had no doubts they’d be one of the lucky few, like his parents, who’d be together and still in love with each other fifty, sixty years from now.

Much later Max asked, “How? When?”

“I called the ring company and had the matching band made the same week we married. I was so moved by our ceremony, I’d have given you one then if I had it,” she said, tracing patterns in the hair on his chest.

“And your license and Social Security cards?”

She sighed and propped up on one elbow. “I was already leaning toward changing my name but was afraid to do so. What if you left again?”

“Cassidy,” he protested, appalled she believed he could leave her after all he’d done to get her back.

“I know with this,” she pointed to her head, “that your leaving was the result of your family’s evil shenanigans, but here,” she pointed at her heart, “I wasn’t so sure. I hurt. Some of it was you, and some of it was the lingering remains of Phillip’s betrayal. They all kind of swirled together.”

Hadn’t he gone through something similar? He should have realized she was still dealing with some baggage from her previous marriage. While he and Amber hadn’t been married, he’d still been hurt by her actions, and it had shaken his confidence in himself as a man.

He rolled to face Cassidy. “What decided you?”

“You did. That, and my parents’ visit. You handled them so wonderfully. You were my rock. At no time did I worry that you wouldn’t support me, or you’d tell my mother more than I wanted her to know. I realized it all boiled down to trust. Either I trusted you or I didn’t. If I did, it was silly to keep waiting for something to happen that never would. And if I didn’t, why was I wasting time with you? I’d already spent ten years in a relationship that crashed and burned. I wasn’t willing to waste more in another relationship doomed to fail.”

She traced his lips, watching her finger. When he caught it between his teeth, she raised her gaze to his. “Once I put it in those terms, the decision was easy.”

“I won’t leave you,
ever
,” he assured her. “And I’ll never be unfaithful.”

Cassidy smiled, a beautiful one that softened her whole face and lit up her eyes. “I know.”

She glanced around the bedroom. “As for this, I consider this our room and our bed. The only reason I haven’t said anything about your clothes is because frankly, the way it stands now, there isn’t any room. Your things are in the bathroom and wallet on the dresser. I figured we’d combine the rest after the remodel was complete.”

Max also looked around the small master bedroom and groaned inwardly. He felt like such a fool. The closet was small and narrow, not the typical large walk-in, and was barely large enough to contain all the things Cassidy stored in it. It was the same with her dressers. There was minimal furniture, probably a holdover from when she’d needed maximum floor space in which to maneuver a wheelchair and later, the walker. The room needed a major overhaul.

“Instead of adding a large outdoor deck, I want to make this room and the bathroom larger. I have some idea of how I’d like the finished product to look. I figure I’d move downstairs with you while remodeling was going on up here. We can find a small corner and set up a sleeping space for Zoe. I’m not comfortable with her being up here alone. With the new staircase, I can maneuver up and down it without too much stress on my leg. Afterwards, we can use the downstairs space as a combination guest suite, office, and playroom for Zoe.”

This time he did groan aloud. “All this time we’ve been on the same page and I didn’t realize it.”

Cassidy shook her head. “I should have said something. I thought you knew from my actions what I was thinking and how I was feeling. I should have known that, like me, you needed the words too.”

He pulled her close and kissed her softly. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For forgiving me. For being my salvation and giving me another chance,” he said, his forehead resting on hers.

“No, Max, thank
you
.”

It was his turn to ask, “For what?”

Her answer humbled him. “For being you, for loving me, and despite everything I said and did, not giving up on us.”

The next two weeks passed in a flurry of activity. Between his business contacts, her coworkers at the medical clinic, and their combined multitude of friends and acquaintances, they had some type of engagement, party, or function to attend just about every night. Max was on cloud nine every time Cassidy introduced him as her husband.

The only fly in the ointment was his family. They bombarded his phone daily with text messages and calls he sent straight to voicemail. He couldn’t quite bring himself to delete them, but neither did he listen to or read any. His inboxes quickly filled to capacity.

Cassidy never brought up the subject again after that night. Sometimes he caught her watching him, concern in her gaze, but she didn’t say anything. On his part, Max was conflicted. Anger and hurt kept him from reaching out to his family. At the same time, he had a beautiful daughter, a wonderful wife, and he wanted to show them what they’d, with their interfering ways, almost caused him to miss out on.

Max had to constantly remind himself that he didn’t need the others. Cassidy and Zoe were more than enough. He might miss talking to his many siblings and their offspring, and being with them at church and their many gatherings, but they had to pay for what they’d done. Painting the entire family with the same tarred brush wasn’t an action he felt comfortable taking, but he needed to stand firm. They’d sense the slightest weakening of his defenses and move on it until his walls of resistance crumbled. It was better this way.

Sunday, two days before Christmas, Cassidy hung up the phone and turned to him with a frown. “That was my father. He says they’re not coming.”

Max, who was still looking for any reason not to visit his parents on Christmas day, scowled as well. He was counting on Cassidy’s family being here to be his excuse for avoiding his own. He’d broken down and begun reading the text messages sent by his siblings, but it was the ones from his nieces and nephews that were undermining his resolve. “Why? What changed their mind?”

Cassidy shrugged as she returned to the table. “Dad says the weather is too severe for them to chance getting on the road. Zoe, stop playing with your food and eat it.”

He glanced at their daughter who was using her spoon to scatter her peas all over her plate and the tray. She gave her mother a gamine grin. Max was mildly amused by her antics, but his turmoil over this unexpected change of plans prevented him from expressing it. “You’re sure they can’t make it? I know how much they were looking forward to spending Christmas with Zoe.”

“I’m certain. Mom has already rearranged her schedule to have dinner at their place with those family members who can make it,” she said. Cassidy narrowed her eyes at Zoe in a manner to show she meant business. The toddler chuckled, picked up a green pea between two small fingers, and held it out as an offering to her mother.

He drummed his finger on the table, thinking fast. “We can go to them. Load up the presents in the car drive over. Pittsburg isn’t that far. We can leave Christmas Eve and return Christmas night. And, you’d get to see your grandmother and other relatives. Have they met Zoe?”

She glanced up from wiping Zoe’s face, forehead crinkled. “No, they haven’t, but Max, the roads are icy, and the forecast is predicting more snow. Besides, I’m on call and one of my patients is due at any time. I don’t want to travel out of town, even for the day. I definitely don’t want to get on the road in these conditions.”

He latched onto the excuse like a drowning man thrown a life-preserver. Cassidy had almost been killed in one motor vehicle accident with less than perfect road conditions being a factor. Of course she wouldn’t want to risk traveling in this weather. He breathed a sigh of relief. “So, going into Philly is out of the question?”