Aegis 01 - First Exposure (14 page)

She moved behind the bar, leaned down, and opened the fridge. Finding two glasses, she poured bottled water for both of them and looked across the room at the bed, remembering the massage and everything they’d done to each other in that giant shower.

A slow smile slid across her face, and warm tingles started in her breasts then drifted downward. It was crazy that she was feeling this way when they were supposed to be looking for clues about Melody, but she couldn’t help it. The things Cade had said, the way he’d made her feel… No one had made her feel that way since him. She knew she shouldn’t get her hopes up and that they could never go back, but maybe—
maybe
—that was the key. Letting go of the past and moving forward…together. He sure sounded like he wanted to try. The question was…could she?

Butterflies took flight in her stomach. In the bathroom, the water shut off, and she could hear him humming. She was being stupid, but part of her didn’t even care. She’d been fighting her feelings for him for two days and they weren’t going away; they were only getting stronger. Melody had said the reason she wasn’t happy was because she needed closure. Maybe what she really needed to do was open that door again.

Nerves vibrating, she lifted both glasses of water from the counter and stepped out from behind the bar. Her wrist knocked into Cade’s wallet sitting on top of the shiny mahogany, and the folded leather hit the floor with a clack. Frowning, she set the glasses back on the bar and knelt to pick it up. Then froze when she saw the picture sticking halfway out against the cool tiles near her feet.

The woman with long brown hair and clear blue eyes was pretty—no—gorgeous. And in her lap she held a little boy in light blue overalls. One who was smiling as he stood on her thighs and clapped wildly. One who couldn’t be more than a year old.

Her brain spun, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. Cade didn’t have any sisters. She couldn’t remember if he had cousins, but considering his family dynamics, she doubted it. Her brow wrinkled as she stared at the picture and tried to figure out who—

“He’s my son.”

Avery’s gaze jerked up. Cade stood a few feet from her, a towel tied around his lean waist, another in his hand drying the hair at the back of his head. The worried look in his eyes forced the air to catch in her throat.

“His name’s Zachary. That picture was taken a while ago. He just turned three. He’s three.” He drew in a deep breath, blew it out again. “I was going to tell you. I just…didn’t have a chance. The woman is his mother, Natalie.”

“His mother,” Avery whispered, looking back down at the slim brunette with the big smile. He had a son. Her stomach twisted and turned and felt like it might wring the life out of her. Why hadn’t she considered the fact he could have had a life in the years they’d been apart? Just because she hadn’t? “Your…” She swallowed hard. “…girlfriend?”

“No. I’m not seeing anyone now. I wouldn’t have…” He blew out another long breath. “What happened between us earlier wouldn’t have happened if I was with anyone else now.”

Well, thank God for that. Though knowing he had a son left Avery feeling anything but relaxed. She pushed to her feet. Her hand trembled around the photograph. “Then why do you keep a picture of…her in your wallet?”

“Because…” He raked a hand through his wet hair, then dropped it against his thigh. “Because she was my wife. She died when Zach was a year old.”

Sickness gathered low in Avery’s stomach, and she took a step back until her spine hit the wall. She had no reason to be upset. They’d been apart for twelve years. He had every right to have a girlfriend, to have a child, to get married. And yet, she couldn’t seem to keep her voice from cracking when she asked, “You married her?”

Cade moved forward. “Listen to me. What I said to you earlier was true, but she…” He pulled in a shaky breath. “She was the sister of a guy I served with in the service. We hooked up a few years ago at her brother’s wedding. I was working undercover for the FBI then, and when she told me she was pregnant, I didn’t know what to do. Tommy had told me once that she’d lived through breast cancer in her early twenties, and I owed him for saving my life overseas. And you were off in Hollywood living it up as a celebrity. I didn’t think I was ever going to see you again. So…yeah, I married her. Only…between my job and other things…it didn’t work. She hated my long work hours and the fact I was gone so much, and I started to resent the nagging. After Zach was born, things went downhill fast. I was ready to call it quits, but then she got sick again and I… I couldn’t leave her then.”

He moved closer. So close she could feel the heat radiating from his skin. “But I never stopped thinking about you. You have no idea how guilty I felt over that. My wife’s dying of cancer and you’re the one I’m dreaming about. You’re the one I still dream about. I wasn’t trying to keep Zach a secret from you. I was just trying to find the right time to tell you.”

“The right time.” Avery’s eyes slid closed, and tears burned her eyelids. Part of her wanted to grab on to him and never let go. But a bigger part, the part she’d spent the last twelve years perfecting, wanted to run away and never look back. “We never can seem to find the right time, can we?”

“Ava—”

The walls were closing in. The air growing thick and constrictive. She needed to get out. “I…I can’t do this right now.”

She let go of the picture and moved around him toward the sliding door. The photograph fluttered to the floor. She jerked the door open and stepped out onto the patio, drawing in deep gulps of air she hoped would ease the sting in her chest.

“Ava, wait.”

Warm white sand closed around her toes. She didn’t know where she was going, she just needed to move. To think. To try to get rid of this ache in the pit of her stomach. Cade’s hand at her arm jerked her around to face him. “Don’t walk away from me. Let’s talk about this.”

All the hurt and pain bubbled up and over. “Talk about it? Fine, let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about why you left me in the middle of the night. Why you ran off and joined the military like a coward. Why I never heard from you, even after all the letters I sent you. The only thing I ever got from you after that was the annulment papers. Do you have any idea how that felt? How humiliating it was?”

“Ava—”

“How my parents gloated and told me it was for the best?”

“It
was
for the best.” His voice rose. At his hip, he held the towel tightly together. “I had nothing to give you then. No job, no education, no future. We were living in that hellhole on the edge of Spokane and barely making ends meet, and every one of your dreams of going to college died when your parents cut you off, all because you married me. That might not have seemed like a lot to you then, but I knew what it was like to live without money. I didn’t want that for you. I wanted you to go get an education. I wanted you to have a future. I didn’t want us to end up like my parents, poor and bitter and resenting each other for every bad choice we made. So when your dad came to me and offered to take you back if I agreed to the annulment, I said yes. I did it to save you, not to humiliate and hurt you. And I left because I couldn’t stand to be near you and not have you.”

Avery stared at him. Didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know what to feel, for that matter. Yes, financially things had been tough for them. Yes, she remembered he’d been stressed then. But every time she’d asked him what was wrong, he’d said he was fine. He’d smiled, kissed her, and changed the subject. How could she have ever suspected this was the reason he’d left?

He stepped closer, and in a low voice said, “But that doesn’t mean I stopped thinking about you, and it sure the hell doesn’t mean I didn’t love you anymore. I read the first few letters you sent, but I eventually stopped because I couldn’t stand it. They were pure agony. All I wanted to do was write to you and explain, but I couldn’t because the deal I’d made with your parents forbade me from contacting you. Then the letters stopped, and I heard you went off to USC. And by the time I got my shit together and didn’t care about your parents’ influence anymore, you were already on your way to becoming a big star. What the hell was I going to offer you then except bad memories?”

Her heart pounded hard, and words were hard to form, but eventually she managed, “You didn’t even try.”

He released a long breath. “I didn’t think there was a chance. Ava…” His voice softened, and he moved even closer, until she could feel the heat and life radiating from his skin. “If I had thought you still cared about me at all, I’d have been on your doorstep. You have to believe that.”

Avery didn’t know what to believe. All she knew was that the hurt was still there. A hurt she thought an hour ago she could get past. Now she wasn’t so sure. She looked down at his bare feet in the sand, feeling stupid and foolish and, yeah, devastated all over again. “I…I’m not upset that you have a son, Cade. I’m not even upset that you were with other women. I’m just…” Her heart twisted. “You stayed with her because she was pregnant. And that hurts me. A lot. Because you have no idea how much I wish you would have stayed with me when I was pregnant.”

She couldn’t process when he was close. She needed space. Needed to breathe and work through it all in her head. Everything with him had happened so fast, and now she wasn’t sure of anything. “I need to think.” She turned to go. “I’ll be back later.”

“Hold on.” He caught her by the arm and turned her back to face him. Wide, horror-filled eyes met hers when she looked up. “What are you talking about?”

He didn’t know. She’d always wondered if he’d never read the letters. It was easy to stay angry and think he’d blatantly ignored her, but she knew in her heart he wasn’t that kind of man…even then.

Her heart pinched with a pain she felt everywhere. A pain as sharp as the day he’d left her. “I found out about a month after you’d gone. I wrote to you about it. You obviously didn’t read those letters.”

“Holy shit.” He let go of her hand and took a giant step back.

Were some hurts too big to put behind you? She was starting to think this one was.

Damn her parents…

She crossed her arms over her chest and rubbed the sudden chill from her skin. She rarely talked about this, but since she’d just dropped a bombshell on him, she figured he deserved to know everything. “I…I was hoping you might come back, so I stayed in our apartment. Then when I found out I was pregnant and I knew my parents weren’t supportive of me keeping the baby, I let my spot at Stanford go and got a job waiting tables. It wasn’t easy, but I was able to save tips. I was closing one night about a month before I was due when I went into labor. It was a rough delivery. She got stuck. They called it a…a shoulder dystocia.” Words clogged in her throat, but she forced herself to go on. “The cord was wrapped around her neck. By the time they got her out, it was too late.”

Tears blurred her eyes, but she blinked them back, fought from curling in on herself like she’d done so many times before. “I…I got to hold her after. She had your nose and chin. She was beautiful. I…I named her Bree, after your mom.”

His eyes closed, and he dropped onto his knees in the sand, a man half-defeated. If someone had told her they’d be having this conversation now, after twelve years, she never would have believed them. She’d spent so many years being angry at him for leaving her, she hadn’t wanted to consider what his reaction to the loss of their child would be.

“I…I waited for you,” she went on. “I thought there was still a chance you might come back. But when months passed and I finally realized it was over, I used the money I’d saved for Bree and moved to LA. I got into USC and started taking classes. A talent scout found me, and I did a few commercials. And then things kind of grew from there. I didn’t set out to be an actress. I just wanted to get as far from my parents as I could. And acting gave me a way to focus on something besides you.”

He didn’t say anything. Just sat with his weight on his heels and his hands on his thighs with his eyes tightly closed. And in the silence, as the breeze blew the silky locks of hair off his forehead, she had an uncontrollable urge to wrap her arms around him, to comfort him in his grief. But hers was still too raw, her emotions way too close to the surface. And as much as she still wanted him, she realized there was more than just an ocean of time between them. There was a chasm between who they used to be and who they were now. Between who they’d become and how they lived. He had a child, and that came first—before his wants and needs and way before hers. And before this went any further, she needed to think about that. And decide whether that was something she could not only accept but embrace.

“I…I need a few minutes, Cade. From the looks of things, you do too.”

She turned and took three steps in the sand. His strained “Avery” stopped her.

Not Ava, the nickname he used when he was feeling sexy. Not princess, the term of endearment he tossed her way when he was being cute. Avery. Her given name. The one he’d rarely ever used, and which now left a hole the size of her heart in her chest because she read clearly beyond the meaning.

Some hurts could not be healed. This one—the one she’d just given him—was one of those.

“We’ll finish this later,” she said, blinking back the burn behind her eyes. “Right now I just need a few minutes alone.”