A father for her child, p.13
A Father for Her Child, page 13
We’ll forget it happened, my ass.
“Zach...” Winnie, the physiotherapy receptionist, studied him with serious brown eyes. “Uh, you’re in with Deon this morning.”
His stomach crawled. He flattened his lips. Probably gave away his surprise, but it was that or yell something entirely inappropriate in Cadie’s workplace. “That’s what’s in the schedule?”
She nodded. “I didn’t change it, so I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s an error.”
“It’s not. Cadence must have changed it.” A fist clamped around his heart. “She here?”
Winnie shook her head. “All her morning appointments have been rescheduled. Maybe she needed extra time to unpack her new place?”
“Must have,” he lied. Extra time to avoid him was more like it. He muttered a choice piece of profanity, one he’d learned from his cousins on his first visit to Bavaria as a preteen. There really was nothing like the guttural brevity of German when a person needed a solid oath. But words failed to relieve the pressure behind his ribs.
“Cardenas!” Deon Wilson poked his shaved head around the glass partition and crooked a dark brown finger. “Less gabbing, more rehabbing.”
Zach forced a groan at the cheesy rhyme, knowing the therapist would expect it. They ran in the same search and rescue circles and had developed an amiable relationship since Zach had moved to town, occasionally snowboarding together or sharing a Friday beer at a pub gathering. Zach appreciated the guy’s easygoing nature. Would have been eager to work with him but for the utter cock-up motivating Cadie’s abandonment. No matter. He wasn’t dragging Deon into his drama. “They teach you that cutesy crap in your training?”
“Client Amusement 101.”
He walked over to the other man, hopefully out of Winnie’s earshot. “Look, I don’t know what Cadence told you, but—”
“She told me if you didn’t stick around for the appointment, she’d recommend your doctor put you back on crutches.” From the uncertainty in Deon’s gaze, he couldn’t decide if Cadie was serious or not. “You two have a falling out? When she called me yesterday to switch things around, she implied you knew about the change.”
“Something like that,” Zach mumbled. He itched to ditch his session and find her before his shift started at work. But if she was barking about contacting his doctor, he didn’t want to test out the threat.
An hour later Deon sent him to the gym to finish on the recumbent bike. A few minutes into the pre-programmed cool-down, Caleb Matsuda sauntered over. Sweat dripped from his brown-black hair and he inventoried Zach with assessing eyes.
“You still limping like you were last week?” the physician asked, stopping in front of the bike and bracing his hands on the display. “I meant to call you and talk to you about that, make sure your doctor didn’t jump the gun by letting you walk without a mobility aid.”
Zach cocked a brow. “Gotta say, man, I have enough medical professionals on my ass.”
Caleb nodded in concession. “Fair.”
“Don’t worry—I’ll be ready to tear up the slopes with you come opening day.”
Paling under his tawny olive complexion, Caleb rubbed a hand down his face. “No need to rush on that.”
A protest leaped on Zach’s tongue but he held it back. He wasn’t sure which of them Caleb was referring to when it came to rushing back onto the hill. He hadn’t even considered that Caleb might not have been up a mountain since the avalanche. The guy had been a wild man on skis, but if anything could cure an adrenaline addiction, it was getting sucked under a churning wave of snow.
Not to mention discovering three of their friends hadn’t been rescued in time.
Zach shook his head, still questioning why he’d been rewarded for making excuses and begging off the morning’s filming that day. And again on Hammond’s Chute—things could have gone just as sideways with his ski accident. Really, rehab was a small price to pay. Over the course of his freestyle career he’d never missed more than a few weeks due to injury. The reality of six ski-free months struck fear into his hopefully well-healed bones. He’d train until he fell over to avoid looking like an idiot the first time he strapped on skis.
“Did, uh—how’d Cadie’s move go?” Caleb inquired.
“Well. I think she’ll be happy in her new place.” Zach took a swig of water from the bottle he’d stashed in the cup holder. “I wasn’t able to help her much. No lifting and all that.”
“I’m sure you figured out a way to make yourself useful.”
Coughing, he sprayed water across his knees. Yeah, he’d been useful. Three times, to be exact. “Um, we...well...”
Way to be articulate.
The corner of Caleb’s mouth played up. “Something else I’ve been meaning to talk to you about—that date I went on with Cadie—”
“None of my business.” Frustration burned through Zach’s body and he pushed harder against the pedals.
“You sure about that?”
“Damn sure.” One night together, no matter how perfect, didn’t give him the right to care if she started seeing someone else. He should want her to start seeing someone else. He certainly couldn’t be that something more for her. Not if he expected to keep his promises to Sam. And even if he could break them and still live with himself, Cadie shouldn’t have to. After how Sam had treated her, she deserved a man above reproach in the reliability department.
“Well, for what it’s worth, we won’t be going out again. She said she wasn’t ready.” Caleb cleared his throat. “But then I saw the way she looked at you... Made me wonder if she was telling the truth.”
Refusing to entertain the flicker of hope teasing his gut, Zach grabbed his workout towel and wiped the sweat from the back of his neck. “She was.”
Caleb crossed his arms. “You want her. Are you freaked out over Sam or something?”
“I came for physio, Matsy, not for talk-about-my-feelings hour.”
Inclining his head, the other man drummed the electronic bike display in a nervous pattern and shifted on his feet. “You know, twenty minutes under the snow was plenty of time for me to think about life, to realize it’s better to spend it on things that truly matter. And with people I love.”
Zach had the “things that truly matter” part down, but spending life with the people he loved... That was trickier. “Can’t argue with that.”
With a flick of his gaze at Zach’s rapidly spinning feet, Caleb raised a brow. “You got something against that machine?”
Zach laced his fingers behind his head and barked out a laugh.
His friend’s expression sobered. “I overheard some of what went down between you and Sam the night before the slide, and I’m guessing that’s not easy to live with, but Zach, man—focus on the living, not the dead. That’s what matters. Every time.”
Zach’s mouth hung open a fraction. How the hell was he supposed to respond to that?
Leaning in, Caleb clapped Zach on the shoulder, saving him from having to stutter a reply. “Meet you for beers before you go to Whistler?”
“Yeah,” Zach said. “You definitely not coming, then?”
“Nah, I’m good leaving that behind me.” Caleb strolled toward the exit, leaving Zach to mull over the other man’s words.
For one, the guy was full of it. If he wasn’t mentally able to get on skis, he was in no way leaving the avalanche behind him. And Zach had a feeling that facing the specter would probably help Caleb out.
But truth had dwelt among the lies. Focus on the living... Zach would love to do that, to fall into Cadie and never come up for air. Spinning the pedals, he rubbed his chest, right over his aching heart. Yeah, Sam mattered.
But Cadie and Ben mattered more.
He wasn’t going to resist when it came to no longer working with her—she’d drawn her line in the sand. He’d make do with Deon. But if she tried to withdraw from their friendship and from being a father figure for Ben, he’d have to fight. And if he could figure out a way to keep his promises to Sam while exploring something deeper than friendship with Cadie, well—it was a possibility worth contemplating.
* * *
As Cadie entered her office Thursday morning, she was willing to crown herself Sutter Creek’s Champion Disappearing Act. Avoiding Zach’s early appointments? She scheduled her pool-therapy sessions for first thing in the morning. Dodging him in town? She used unpacking as an excuse to stay in after work. Ducking him while he was on shift at the lodge? She didn’t visit Andrew at work for any reason.
She’d admit the ghosting routine was less than ideal. But what else was she supposed to do? She didn’t know what to say to him. A memory rose from the ether: the second day of ethics class when her professor had eyed the students and lectured, “I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but don’t have sex with your clients!”
She cringed. Way to be the lowest common denominator.
Half of her, though, was glad she could tie her distress to the violation of her ethical code. Meant she didn’t have to look too closely at the root of the misery threaten ing to explode from her every pore, which had nothing to do with her physical therapist’s regulations. Far safer to blame it on work and to keep avoiding Zach until she decided what to tell him.
He’d left numerous messages. Voice mails. Texts. A handwritten Post-it for her to call him stuck to her desk Monday morning. Seven letters in impeccable cursive.
Call me.
Z.
Her fingers hadn’t worked when she’d tried to throw the note away, so she’d just moved it to the bottom of her computer monitor.
Tuesday he’d stuck it to the screen.
Wednesday to her framed picture of Ben.
It was the most futile Easter egg hunt in the world. But that didn’t stop her from sitting in her ergonomic chair and scanning her office today, searching for a square of turquoise paper. Nowhere on her desk or the small supply cabinet... A flash of blue-green caught her eye in the otherwise empty, small recycling bin by the door.
Sadness, inversely proportional in size to the tiny, tight ball resting in the bottom of the bin, walloped her.
He gave up?
She pressed a hand to her throbbing stomach. It’s better this way. All she had left were her career and her family—and sleeping with Zach over the weekend had threatened her career and the reputation of the family business.
Tears pricked her eyes over her stupidity, but she managed to keep them at bay through her morning appointments. At lunch, she changed out of her running shoes into flip-flops, grabbed her purse and headed for the back door, needing to pick up a few things for Ben’s birthday party this Saturday. Her dad was hosting the festivities in his backyard. She’d taken care of the grocery shopping yesterday—driving the forty-five minutes into Bozeman to ensure she didn’t run into Zach at the local supermarket—so decorations ranked highest on her short to-do list.
“Cadie!”
Groaning at how close she’d been to escaping unnoticed, she stared at the ceiling as she turned toward her sister. “What?” she snapped.
“Whoa!” Lauren held up her hands. “You have been in a seriously pissy mood all week. Want to fill me in?”
The thought of telling Lauren what happened Saturday night was so absurd, Cadie almost laughed. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to bite your head off. I’ll be fine once it’s the weekend. I just want to get through Ben’s birthday—”
“Oh, yeah,” Lauren interrupted. “Because children’s parties are the definition of calm and regenerating.”
“It’s not that, it’s—” She coughed, didn’t bother finishing. Come party time, her ability to dodge Zach would evaporate. But she couldn’t un-invite the birthday boy’s godfather. Not when he loved Ben so much.
Not when she lo—
No. Don’t even think it. He doesn’t want that from me. And I’m not free to give it.
“Cadie? I could be off base here, but are you anxious about celebrating Ben’s birthday without Sam?” Lauren ventured.
Cadie’s cheeks tingled as the blood drained away. Should she have been thinking about that? For heaven’s sake. She really didn’t know what she was doing when it came to grieving. Small crap, like opening a magazine to a two-page advertisement for ski boots, made her want to escape to a corner and weep. But she was planning a first birthday party for her son and she hadn’t even thought of her son’s father.
Mainly because she’d been too busy sleeping with Sam’s best friend to spare a thought for Sam. She winced.
Concern wobbled on her sister’s face. “Should I not have said that? I never know. Not saying anything, I feel like I’m ignoring an important part of you. Saying something, I feel like I’m jabbing a stick into an abscess—”
“Ew. You’re not practicing medicine anymore. Leave the revolting similes behind.”
Lauren made a face. “Fine. I meant I feel like I’m making it worse. Either way, I’m making it worse.”
“You’re not.” The only person making Cadie’s life worse was Cadie herself.
“You say that. But...”
“I mean it.”
Reaching out—up, really, given Cadie had half a foot on her sister—Lauren wrapped her arms around Cadie. “Let me get my wallet and I’ll come help you with errands. Do not tell me no. It’s my nephew’s birthday and I want to buy the balloons and help you hang the streamers.”
“I—I wasn’t going to say no.” Cadie squeezed back. “And thank you for asking about Sam. I’d rather face the painful parts rather than sweep everything under a rug.”
Liar. The spike of reality drove into her lungs, stealing her breath. If that were true, I’d have talked to Zach days ago.
* * *
Late Saturday morning Cadie’s dad’s backyard brimmed with people—her immediate family and various cousins with small children, plus a couple of parents with kids from Ben’s community center class.
Cadie and Lauren had converged on the house for an early breakfast. Then, with their father’s help, they had festooned the backyard with the three balloon bouquets acquired by Lauren as well as the requisite streamers and dangling Elmo and Cookie Monster cardboard cutouts they’d found on their lunch hour shopping blitz. The only part of the whole affair holding the birthday boy’s attention was the talking helium balloon Lauren had splurged on. Ben sat on his great-great-grandmother’s quilt on the grass, repeatedly yanking the balloon’s anchor ribbon and setting off the tinny recording.
Elmo loves you. Elmo loves you. Elmo loves you.
Ah, well. The smile on his face and his laughs as he entertained her dad and her aunt made the repetition worth it.
Wanting to make sure everyone was occupied either with a task or with celebrating, Cadie scanned the yard from her perch on the stone patio that curved out from the kitchen sliding door and scanned the backyard. She’d conscripted her siblings for odd jobs. Smoke rose from the barbecue, where Lauren and Tavish snuggled together as they flipped burgers and turned wieners. Shouts of glee tinkled from Andrew’s domain on the corner of the lawn. He was waving his arms dramatically, refereeing a fight-to-the-death cornhole match between their aunt’s school-age grandkids. And everyone was taking a turn giving Mackenzie a break by snuggling the newest Dawson addition. Cadie would have to go steal her nephew away for a few minutes soon. A month or so from now, they’d wake up and find that Teddy wasn’t a newborn anymore. He’d been born early so he was still small, but that wouldn’t last forever.
Neither will Ben’s little years.
Her eyes stung. How was he one already?
Flip-flop footsteps clapped on the flagstones behind her. She didn’t need to turn to know who it was. Only one person was unaccounted for.
“Man, honey.” Zach’s low tones rumbled through her body as he sidled up to her, carrying an oversize box wrapped in cheerful, dotted paper. “Where did a year go?”
Figured he’d read her mind. She lifted a shoulder at his question and studied him out of the corner of her eye. He wore a short-sleeved, jade-and-brown-plaid, button-down shirt that brought out the green in his eyes. Khaki shorts encased his strong thighs. A flicker of pain glinted in his eyes and the present shifted in his hands, forcing him to juggle and let out a, “Whoops.”
No need to overanalyze the source of his discomfort. It wasn’t his injuries today. The blame lay entirely with her and her impulsive decision to give in to her physical craving for him. And now look at them—she’d screwed up their personal relationship as well as the professional one. But her son’s birthday party wasn’t the place to slice open that vein of conversation.
He tilted his head toward the outdoor speaker mounted to a post at the edge of the patio, currently playing Mumford & Sons. “Nice of you not to subject us to Raffi.”
“Who?”
Adjusting the present into one arm, he put a hand to his chest in mock outrage. “Did you just ask me who Raffi is?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“The Canadian children’s troubadour?”
“Key word there, Cardenas—Canadian.”
He shook his head, sun glinting off the rich mix of browns that always became more apparent as the summer went on and the sun lightened his hair. “You are missing out. Ben, too. My next day off, I’m making him a Spotify playlist and educating him on ‘Baby Beluga.’ You’ve let me waste months of being off work when I could have been building his Raffi repertoire.”
“Thank God he’s only gone a year without.” She smiled in amusement, appreciating he was opening with something inane instead of “So about those naked hours we spent together...” She held out her hands as he shifted the present again. “I can put that on the table for you.”
A corner of his full, sexy lips lifted. “I’ve got it.”
