First Kiss (6 page)

He turned and studied her. “He was smart, wasn’t he?”

“Smartest man I ever knew.”

“Why do you suppose he failed out of school?”

Olivia shrugged her shoulders, uncomfortable with the subject. “It’s hard to fight the kind of abuse he was dealing with.”

Cade only nodded. She knew he didn’t want to face the fact that that was exactly what was going on in Conner’s life while Cade strived to be the best athlete and get every pretty girl in the back of his car.

His arm moved from the back of the swing and now rested on her shoulders. She tried not to tense, but she was sure he’d felt her do so. He moved his arm back to the swing. “How old were we the last time we sat here? Twelve?”

She sucked in a breath. “Eighteen.”

Cade gave her a questioning glance, and she gripped her hands together and set them in her lap. “I had come over to see your dad. He wasn’t home, and you were sitting here. You told me to sit and wait.”

“Oh, yeah.”

She wondered if he recalled it at all, really. She had been in her oversized clothes with her hair shielding her face and her thick glasses slipping down her. Did he remember that she sat on one side as tense as she was now while he smoked a cigarette, which his father would have hated?

Did he realize that he’d not said a word to her after she had sat down? Did he remember that a few minutes later Parker’s sister had pulled up in front of the house and called her a nasty name, and that he’d laughed and then took off with Patsy as they both laughed?

Olivia turned and looked at him, and, at that moment, she knew he’d remembered it. The look of terror on his face as he looked back at her said it all.

She rose to her feet. “I should go.”

He reached for her. “Olivia, I am so sorry.”

She took a step back from him. “Cade, this isn’t important. I just need to go.”

“I don’t want you to run from me. I’m not who I was back then.”

“Really? Because I would have thought you would have been here then.”

She stepped around him and headed up to get Gage. Only five minutes later, with a crying toddler, she was driving away.

Chapter Five

Olivia set Gage on the floor with his toys and turned on the TV. She started his movie and headed back out to the car to retrieve her groceries.

As soon as she’d opened the trunk, she realized she’d left some of them at Cade’s house. With a string of curses, she slammed down the trunk door. She wasn’t going back. She had just enough money she could replace them, and she was going to avoid Cade Carter the rest of the time he was in Aspen Creek. She was already a wreck with Austin gone and Parker asking her to dinner. The last thing she needed was Cade slipping his arm over her shoulders and promising her he’d changed.

It was getting dark, and a soft breeze blew the curtains in a lazy wave. Olivia decided it was time for dinner. They had a routine and that brought her an immense amount of joy and comfort. She’d cook dinner, give him a bath, they’d share a book, and then she’d rock her beautiful son to sleep.

Olivia went about starting dinner. As the oil in the pan began to sizzle, she heard the doorbell chime and Gage let out a squeal of delight. She shifted the pan to the back burner and hurried to the front room only to find Cade standing just beyond the locked screen door and Gage already standing there looking up at him, smiling.

A shot of anger burned through her before she’d noticed the smile on her son’s face. The fact that Gage recognized him and, on his own, had run to the door to let him in wasn’t a good thing in her mind. Cade Carter wasn’t going to attach himself to some toddler, especially when that toddler belonged to her.

“What are you doing here?” The question was borderline rude—on second thought, it was spat out as rudely as she could have made it.

He lifted the new gallon of milk he carried in his hand and the other bag of groceries she’d left. “You left these in the fridge. I thought they might be dinner. I also took the liberty of getting a new gallon of milk for you. We used quite a bit at lunch.”

Olivia let out a slow breath and an accompanied growl as she picked Gage up and rested him on her hip. “You didn’t have to bring them over. I would have gotten more,” she said as she unlocked the screen and pushed it open with her free hand.

Cade stepped in immediately and walked straight through the house to the kitchen as if leaving the groceries on the floor wasn’t an option.

Olivia locked the door so Gage wouldn’t accidently push it open and then followed Cade to the kitchen.

The moment she stepped through the door, Gage began reaching for Cade, who had set the bag on the table and even opened the refrigerator to set the milk inside. When he turned and saw Gage’s arms open to him, he reached for him.

Olivia realized she was gripping Gage’s legs tightly as Cade had to tug to release him from her grip.

“Hey, big guy,” Cade said and Gage rested his head against his shoulder.

There was a pain that resonated in Olivia’s chest. Of all the men in the world, Gage had to choose this one to be comfortable around? Well…why wouldn’t he?

She moved past them both and back to the stove. She pulled the pan back over the burner and turned on the element again.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt dinner.” Cade moved in behind her, almost too close. “Chicken?”

“Yes.”

“Homemade chicken. Can’t tell you the last time I had that.”

She could feel the words stinging the tip of her tongue. They were going to come out or choke her trying to keep them back. “Would you like to stay for dinner?”

“Yes.” His answer was very quick, and when she turned to look at him, his smile was wide.

Why was he doing this to her? Couldn’t he just be predictable and go home?

“Okay, get out of the kitchen and let me finish this then. I have a lot to do. I have to finish this and then I have to give Gage his bath and he has to get to bed.”

“Let me give him his bath. It’s the least I can do.”

She was well aware that her jaw had dropped and her mouth hung open. She had to look like an idiot standing there sorting out his offer.

“You’re going to give him a bath?”

“Sure. Can’t be that hard, can it?”

Gage had sat up in his arms and was clapping his hands. “Dade. Bath.”

She was sure they’d both stopped breathing.
Dade
. Her son’s attempt at Cade…or dad?

She watched Cade’s face as he registered the sentiment. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he’d swallowed hard. “I’ll get his bath.” He turned and started down the hallway, obviously familiar with the house.

Olivia turned back to the stove, removed the pan from the heat again, and rested her hands against the counter. What was she doing?

A few minutes later she could hear the water running in the bathtub. Gage squealed at whatever it was that Cade had said to him. She didn’t hear it as his voice was muffled from down the hall.

Olivia finished frying up the chicken, set it on a plate, covered it with a towel, and went to check on her son.

The bathtub was nearly full of bubbles. Gage’s head and shoulders were all that were visible of him.

“Cade, how much soap did you put in there?”

He laughed. “Until he told me to stop.”

She shook her head and looked down at the enormous man on the floor of the little bathroom. His shirt was soaking wet, and he was grinning from ear to ear watching her son blow handfuls of bubbles his direction.

“The bath was for one, Cade. Not two.”

He looked down at himself. “Didn’t even notice, really.” He then shifted a glance up at her, his eyes taking their time to focus in on every inch of her body before they reached her face. “Did you come in here to join us?”

She cleared her mind and then her throat. Those eyes staring up at her meant no good and she knew it. “Dinner is almost ready.”

“We still have to scrub.” He took his eyes off of her and settled them back on Gage who blew another handful of bubbles his way. “Do you have a wash cloth?”

“Yes,” she said, but it croaked out of her throat. “If you want to take that shirt off, I can dry it while we eat.”

Cade gave her a nod and began to lift the white cotton T-shirt from his body. She wondered if the gasp was audible when she looked at him. Every muscle on his back was firm, his arms were sculpted, and his chest and abs chiseled.

He held out the shirt in his hand and smiled as he looked up at her. Yep, he’d heard her suck in that breath, and now she’d turn blue holding it.

Again, she cleared her throat. “I have to squeeze by you to get the wash cloth.”

The bathroom was so small that she found herself having to balance against him, resting her hand on his bare skin. Her fingers gripped his shoulder as she reached past him to open the drawer with the wash cloth. Her thighs grazed his back, and she felt his body stiffen beneath her touch. Could he feel her tremble?

She grabbed the cloth and stood back up straight. When he looked up at her, his eyes were dark. Yes, he’d felt the tremble. When the corner of his mouth curved up, she worried that he’d read too much into it. Perhaps she’d read too much into it.

“I’ll be in the kitchen. I’ll finish up dinner.” She hurried out the door before turning back. “His pajamas are in the top drawer of his dresser.”

Cade watched Olivia hurry away. He’d never had a woman touch him so unassumingly, and the moment had been incredibly intimate.

He turned back to Gage who was quietly watching him as if he’d understood what had happened.

Gage smiled up at him and his chest tightened. He’d come back to Aspen Creek under protest. Never in his life would he have dreamed he’d be half naked in Olivia’s bathroom, bathing her son, and waiting on dinner. It was a bit too domestic for his taste. So why did it feel so right?

He shook the thought from his head and went about finishing his job of getting Gage clean.

Once Gage was wrapped in a towel, Cade carried him down the hall until he found the bedroom with a crib and Disney characters on the wall. He set him in the crib and walked to the dresser. He pulled open the top drawer and pulled out the first pair of pajamas he found. As he shut the drawer, he noticed the picture frame on the top. His breath caught in his chest.

His shaking hands gripped the frame and he looked down at it. There were two pictures. In one, Olivia was in the hospital with Gage wrapped in a blanket and held close to her chest. She was happy and glowing.

It was the other picture that had his jaw clenching. There was his own father standing in the hospital holding a newborn Gage in his arms.

A stir of different emotions burst inside of him. Olivia was a mystery and entangled in his family. The smile on his father’s face was nearly as wide as Olivia’s, and the love in his eyes, holding the baby, hurt Cade. Had he looked at him like that? But it was then he noticed his father’s bright eyes.

He turned and looked at Gage standing at the railing of the crib. His eyes.

He looked back down at the picture of his father. “Who is your daddy, little one?” he whispered to himself.

Olivia set the table as Cade walked into the kitchen with Gage in his pajamas. The sight of him holding her son was nearly as moving as the look of him.

She’d always thought he was handsome, but now he was also the sexiest man she’d ever seen and her body was acting strange when she looked at him, as if just that one touch would never be enough.

“You can set him in his chair.” She pointed to the chair at the table with the plastic seat strapped to it.

Cade set Gage in the seat and strapped him in. He pushed him up to the table. “What can I help you with?”

The thought that Cade would offer to help with dinner amused her and a laugh escaped her. “What’s funny.”

“I just never thought I’d ask you to help me with dinner.”

She turned to reach for the salad bowl and she felt him move in close behind her. His hand rested on her hip and his breath was on her neck.

“You know, I never thought you’d invite me to dinner either.” He pressed closer against her and her breath hitched. His hand slid around to her stomach.

Cade reached out, picked up the bowl she’d had her hands on, and turned to set it on the table. She had to steady herself for a moment before turning to face her son and the man who was confusing every emotion she’d ever had.

As she turned, the sight of Cade at her table, seated next to Gage, gave her stomach a twist. It should have been the most familiar site. A man seated next to her child, prepared for dinner, giggling as they played with each other. But it was when they both looked up at her with those matching blue eyes that she thought she should just kick him out of the house. Any man could have walked into her life and she’d be satisfied. No, it had to be a Carter man.

Cade watched Olivia as she sat down at the table. Her lips were pursed, her shoulders straight, and her eyebrows were drawn together. He’d seen that face before. She was hiding something.

He wasn’t sure what it was about seeing her again, but he didn’t want to leave and just let her be. He didn’t want to think that he’d be gone in a day and never see her again.

The overwhelming urge to hold her and ask her what was bothering her was taking over.

He reached for her hand and rested his atop hers. “Is everything okay?”

She sucked in a deep breath as though she was going to start yelling at him, but instead she looked up at Gage and let the breath out. “I’m fine.”

Not another word was said, and she went about filling plates of food.

He’d managed to keep his seat between Gage and Olivia. She’d cut up Gage’s food and Cade had helped him, but he knew she’d watched his every move, as if she were questioning his motives.

When dinner was finished, Olivia let Gage down from his chair and he began to pick up the plates.

“I can do that. It’s late.” She took the dishes from his hands.

“Olivia, what’s wrong?”

“I can’t have you here. It’s confusing me.”

She set the dishes in the sink and stood there.