For Life (13 page)

“You were never like my dad,” I whisper, choking on my tears.

“Close enough,” he says, pulling a tissue from the box on the table and scooting closer.

“I had a problem,” he admits as he wipes my face, gently dabbing under each of my eyes before swiping under my runny nose. I make a face at him and he cracks a smile before growing solemn again. “But I haven’t had a drop of alcohol since February of 2004.”

“I’m proud of you.” I couldn’t be more sincere, and he realizes it, because he swallows hard and looks at his feet.

“I never thought I would ever hear you say that,” he says. “All along, that’s all I ever wanted. I wanted you to be proud of me, as a husband and a father. As a man.”

I cup his cheek with my hand, and he closes his eyes and nuzzles into my palm. “Forgive me, Cass,” he whispers.

“There’s nothing to forgive.”

“Forgive me,” he insists.

My heart pounds as I form the words I didn’t realize I was waiting to say. “I forgive you, Grady.”

“For eleven years, I’ve missed out on what we had this week. We make a great team. Always have.”

“We do,” I agree.

“We should’ve been together, Cass. I fucked up. God, I wish I hadn’t.”

“We can’t change the past, Grady.” I’m leaking again and he reaches for another tissue, but suddenly I’m too raw to let him comfort me, and I pull back.

“That’s true,” he says, still holding onto my hand. “We can only tend to the present.”

Suddenly, I’m hot and achy, leaping out of my own skin. I’m on uncomfortable ground here, and I hate the feeling of vulnerability that shakes the earth further, leaving me reeling. Grady is both too close and too far away for what I need, and suddenly the simple things I thought I wanted - his lips on mine, his body pressed against me - have a terrible price that I’m not sure my heart is ready to pay.

When my dryer buzzes I’m grateful for the diversion and leap from my chair. Grady squeezes my hand but I slip from his grasp.

“Cass?”

I don’t want to have to answer the questions in his voice. “Tending to the present,” I offer lamely over my shoulder, blinking back tears. I can tell by his silence that he’s not fooled.

“Cass,” he rumbles.

I reach the laundry room just in time for a fresh onslaught of tears and pray like hell he doesn’t come after me. I fling open the dryer, hauling the fragrant towels out as I call over my shoulder, “Yep! Give me a second!”

My heart is pounding and I want to scream.
Tend to the present. Tend to the present.
First I thought he was coming to have sex with me. Then it turned into an apology.
Then
he made me cry. And now? “Tend to the present”? I don’t even know what that means.

You know exactly what that means
, says the little voice in my head.
Stop sticking your head in the sand and listen to that man, because he’s saying exactly what you want to hear.

Except he isn’t.

Is he?

I have to walk back through the kitchen to get to the hallway, and as I move quickly with the basket, Grady stands. “Cass,” he growls. He knows I’m avoiding him.

“Just a minute, Grady.” I haul it down the hallway with the basket to my chest, praying I won’t drop it. When I get to my bedroom I collapse on my bed and gulp air as if I’ve been locked away without it during our entire conversation. I am so out of my depth here.

What do I say to him?

What do I even want?

“Cass.” He taps lightly on my door and I walk to it but don’t open it. On the other side is a beautiful man whom I’ve known more than half my life, but who will be the death of me because he makes me feel things I don’t want to feel.

I open the door and face him.

He stares at me for a moment before speaking. “Tell me why you’re crying,” he presses.

I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

“Be honest, Cass.”

“I am being honest! I don’t know why I’m fucking crying! I have no idea what I’m doing - what
we’re
doing! And what does it matter, Grady? Why do you even care?”

“You’re my
wife,”
he says gently, and I freeze.

“Ex-wife, Grady.” My voice trembles with the words and I grip onto the door handle for dear life.

He shakes his head. “No, Cass. I know what I signed. I know what we are, legally. But those divorce papers don’t mean shit to me. I’ve loved you since I was sixteen years old and I’ll never love another woman but you as long as I live.”

Just like that, I’m stunned into silence. He registers the shock on my face as I process what he’s said.

Grady’s hardly lived the life of a monk. I know there have been women over the years. People talk, and they love to tell me who he’s been seen with. To his credit, he’s been discreet. He hasn’t had a bunch of random women around our kids. But he sure hasn’t been lonely, either.

There was one woman in particular, Yveta, who hung around a long time, more than a year. Although I wasn’t involved in Grady’s life my friends were only too happy to tell me who she was, what she looked like, and where Grady took her.

I even saw her, once, when I was dating Adam. I was coming out of the grocery store and Grady was holding the door of his truck open for her to climb in. She was a gorgeous, dimpled, blond china doll of a woman, elegant and smiling and made up to perfection. I was wearing faded yoga pants and had my hair in a sloppy bun, and I prayed that they wouldn’t see me. They didn’t, but I never again went to the grocery store without at least putting on lipstick, because I couldn’t bear the thought of running into my ex and his perfect little girlfriend when I looked like hell. Not because I cared what he thought of me, exactly. Grady had seen me in far worse than yoga pants over the years. But no woman wants to be the sloppy ex.

Yveta stuck around a while. I heard she even went to Thanksgiving dinner at Donna’s house that year, which shocked the hell out of me. But she was gone by Christmas and even the kids didn’t know what had happened, only that their dad was single again.

“Yveta?” I ask.

“Not even close.” He takes a step toward me. The heat flares between us, and I find myself speechless. My body has taken over, and I don’t want anything else but Grady’s hands on me. He steps closer and takes me by my wrist, his fingers circling it, his thumb at my pulse point. Just his touch makes me shiver, and not because his hands are still slightly cool. He hasn’t touched me like this in nearly eleven years. No one’s touched me with this much intent in the past eleven years, in fact. What I had in the interim with Adam was many things, but it never blazed like this.

“I loved Adam,” I say softly, trying to put the brakes on whatever’s happening here. I should’ve been more careful. When I kissed him, I wasn’t looking for that kind of reconnection. It was about comfort and familiarity. It was about lust. He’s read me wrong. He thinks I want something I know is impossible. It’s like all those nights so long ago when just his touch would lure me back into bed, and I’d forget all the things that didn’t work between us, all the the things that I needed but wasn’t getting.

He interrupts my crazy thoughts. “I know you did. But not like you loved me.”

“No.” I can’t even lie about that. “Not like you.”

“I was young and I fucked up. I’ve known that since the night you threw me out. But I love you and I’ve never stopped loving you. I’ve never stopped wishing I could have my family back.”

“It’s too late for that, Grady.” My voice trembles a bit until I clear my throat. “We had a good week. We’re friends again. Let’s just leave it and not spoil anything.” I tug my wrist back and rub my hands on my jeans, desperately trying to wipe away the moisture on my palms.

“Fuck that.” He shakes his head, dismissing what I said, but he doesn’t look angry. The look in his eyes is pure determination. He’s looking at me like he did at the football game the night we met, twenty years ago. He has a purpose, and his purpose is to win me back. He takes a step toward me, and I retreat back into the bedroom.

“In Delaware we had a moment,” he insists.

“Yes.” I lick my lips. “But that’s all it was. A moment.”

He shakes his head. “That’s not all it was, Cass.”

I take another step back and he closes the space between us, hulking over me.

“Is that all it was to you?” he asks softly. “Just a moment? Can you honestly say that’s all it was?”

“I—” The words freeze in my mouth. I can’t say that. If it was just a moment it wouldn’t have kept me up at night. I wouldn’t have replayed it in my mind over and over again. I wouldn’t have wished I could go back to it every day since it happened.

I wouldn’t have touched myself to the memory of it.

“There’s a reason you can’t. You and me? We belong together. We fell in love when we were
kids
, for Christ’s sake. We’ve loved each other our whole lives. We hit a rough spot and both of us—” He shakes his head at me and gives me a warning look when I try to protest. “
Both
of us made mistakes. And then we did the worst thing of all, Cass. We gave up on each other.”

He brushes his thumb down the curve of my jaw and follows the line of my throat, right down to the hammering pulse between my collarbones. When he speaks again his voice is quieter. “My brother is dead and either one of us could be dead tomorrow. I’m not living one more day without you in my life, Cass. Not one more fucking day.”

April 2, 1997

Grady

I watch the steady rise and fall of her chest and twine my fingers through her hair, brushing the ends of one thick lock over my lips, loving the way it tickles. She does that to me sometimes, and though I pretend it gets on my nerves, it doesn’t. I live for the moments when it’s just us together in this bed, nothing but our love between us.

When I bury my face in the warmth of her neck, she stirs against me and I make my move. Or I try to, because Cassie’s fingers have swelled with the pregnancy. As soon as I slide the gold band onto her finger, it sticks at the knuckle and the pressure wakes her. The diamond ring I put a deposit on last summer and have been paying off ever since doesn’t fit, and though I was sure of the size when I bought it, I hadn’t even thought about the possibility of her fingers changing along with the rest of her body once I found out she was pregnant. I’m an idiot.

“What are you doing?” she asks, her voice still scratchy from sleep.

“Cassandra Leigh Daley,” I begin, the words I’ve been rehearsing in my head for months on the tip of my tongue. And then my voice breaks. Like a pussy.

Her big dark eyes open and fix on me. “What are you doing?” she repeats.

“Cass,” I try again, and everything I wanted to say disappears. All I can do is croak, “Marry me.”

She blinks and stares at me.

“Marry me.” I repeat myself, squeezing her fingers. I need her to say something.

Stretching out her hand, she admires her ring silently, tears glistening in the light as she turns it, letting the sparkle set her eyes on fire. “It’s beautiful,” she whispers. Thank God, she’s not disappointed.

Even swollen, her fingers are still small, and the diamond I couldn’t afford looks substantial on her hand. Not big. But big enough that she can be proud of it when she shows it off to her friends. I kiss her ring finger just above the sparkling gem and she turns to face me. Drawing her knees up as far as her belly will allow, she takes my hand and presses it against her distended side. As always, I’m entranced by the energetic movements of our baby inside her and in awe of Cassie.

“I know you’ll take good care of us,” she whispers.

“It’s not just because you’re pregnant,” I whisper fiercely. “Don’t ever think that. I love you. I want to spend my whole life with you, Cass. Just like we planned.” She studies my face as I slide my hands to cradle the sides of her neck. “I bought it in August. I’ve been chewing my arm off trying not to tell you. I wanted to so many times.”

At my confession she flings her arms around me. My skin underneath her face is suddenly wet but she doesn’t move. She just lies there, letting the tears drip down her cheeks and collect between us.

Fuck. Is my timing that horrible? Is this a pregnancy thing, or does she not want to marry me? She still hasn’t actually said yes.

“Cass?”

She doesn’t speak for a long time, and when she does her voice is thick and halting.

“I’m just afraid,” she whispers.

Afraid I can work with. “Tell me what you’re afraid of, baby.” I kiss her forehead, her nose, her temple. She closes her eyes and I touch my lips to her eyelids in turn.

“I’m afraid I’m a failure.” The chokes sob wrestles its way from her throat, tearing free. “I’m not going to be a good wife. I’m not going to be a good mother. How can I be?”

Her fucking parents have done this to her. “Listen to me.” I cup her face so I can look at her. She tries to look away but I kiss her and hold her still. “Cass, please.”

Her dark eyes finally settle on mine again. She looks so vulnerable I almost don’t want to press her. But I know this is right and I know we can put whatever she’s afraid of behind us.

“I. Love. You,” I whisper fiercely. “You’re going to be an amazing mother. And there’s no one else I’ll ever want as my wife, not as long as I live.”

“Do you promise?” Her lip trembles and she looks like she must’ve when she was a little girl, sad and scared, alone in her room because her shithead parents were too wrapped up in their own drama. And I know that’s what she’s afraid of. She’s afraid of being like them, as if she ever could be.

“I swear it, Cass,” I vow. “Please say yes.”

She nods, and finally she whispers, “Yes, Grady. I’ll marry you.”