Page 73 of Long Hard Road

“When Fiona was about seven months along, I was out of town leading a training. After my injury, I switched roles with the army and stopped being deployed out of the country. I still traveled quite a bit in the US, though. I got home from a trip to Seattle and found Cassidy in our living room watching cartoons. It was almost midnight and she should’ve been in bed for hours at that point. I asked where her mom was and she said in our bedroom with her friend.” Nate let out a humorless chuckle. “I didn’t even bother to break it up. I picked up Cassidy and took her to bed. Read her a bedtime story and then waited for Fiona and her ‘friend’ to finish fucking.”

Now, my heart was breaking for Nate. I couldn’t imagine how hard that must’ve been, to keep his control because of the little girl asleep in the house.

“The guy who came stumbling out of our bedroom wasn’t a random hookup. He was Cassidy’s biological father. She didn’t know, but Fiona had pointed him out to me once. The guy was such a piece of shit that he had never spent any time with Cassidy. Never paid any child support. But Fiona had known him since she was a teenager and she went crawling back to him while she was married to me.” He took another sip of coffee, this one much longer. “That night, she admitted that the baby she was carrying wasn’t mine. She lied and told me she was seven months along when she was actually in her eighth month because she had to make the conception line up with when I’d actually been in town. I probably should’ve suspected something when all of her doctor appointments just happened to coincide with dates I was out of town for work.”

“Oh my god. That bitch.” I never called any woman that word, but Fiona deserved it.

“I had been planning to adopt Cassidy. Had the paperwork all filled out and just needed to file it. God, I loved that little girl so much.” His head tipped back, eyes closed as his jaw moved slowly back and forth. “I found out that Fiona had taken all my money from my savings account. She gave it to her fuck buddy. He was the one who had convinced her to marry me because then she could later get a divorce and take half my money.”

I wiped away the tears that were streaming down my cheeks. How could that woman have been so cruel to a man like Nate? A man who had loved and cared for her little girl like she was his own?

“I didn’t know what to do. I had told my family I was seeing a woman with a kid, but I never told them about the marriage and the baby. I knew they wouldn’t like how fast I moved with the marriage. When it all fell apart, I couldn’t imagine the shame I would feel admitting how stupid I had been.”

“You were not stupid, Nate.” I hated that Fiona had so completely broken his view of the kind of man he was. “You are a good man and she took advantage of that.”

“I should’ve paid closer attention. There were warning signs the whole time we were together but I ignored them. I wanted it to work so badly that I refused to acknowledge that Fiona was a liar and a cheat.”

I slid across the space between us and put my hand on his leg. “Don’t ever be ashamed of trusting someone you should be able to trust. She’s the fool who didn’t see that she’d hit the jackpot when she met you.”

“I hate that I gave her that piece of my heart.” His eyes fixed on mine and I could see the grief hiding behind a sheen of unshed tears.

“I have an idea. I’ll give you a piece of mine to patch it up.” I put my hand on his chest. “We’ll make it whole again.”

“You already have, angel.” He put his hand on top of mine. “I didn’t think I’d ever be able to let anyone into my life like that again. But then you smiled at me in that café and my whole damn axis tilted.”

“Like getting hit by an asteroid,” I joked. Then, because I was afraid he would shut down and I would never get him to tell me the rest of his Fiona trauma, I asked, “What did you do when you found out about Fiona’s cheating?”

“Nothing at first. She and Cassidy had moved into my house and as pissed as I was, I couldn’t kick Fiona out not knowing if Cassidy would have a safe place to go. I stayed in a hotel for a week until I knew I could deal with Fiona without losing it. Met her at the house and told her she had two weeks to find another place to live.” He removed my hand from his heart but kept it wrapped inside his. “Then I said goodbye to Cassidy. That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I was the only father she’d ever known. She even called me Dad. I tried to explain that she hadn’t done anything wrong and that I loved her, but she wouldn’t stop crying.”

I couldn’t imagine how much that had hurt both of them. I knew from first-hand experience that Nate was the kind of guy you wanted in your life forever.

“I returned to the hotel for the next two weeks and only went back to make sure Fiona had moved out. The house was so damn empty without them and I couldn’t stay there. Got a ticket to D.C. and went to stay with my brother, Brent, for a while. Eventually, I spilled everything to him after I had too much whiskey one night. He helped me get a good lawyer who was able to work the system and get the marriage annulled quickly.”

“This all happened two years ago?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yeah. I didn’t hear from Fiona at all for the first few months, but then she started calling me and leaving these long apology messages. Got some emails from her with pictures of Cassidy. I went back to my house about six months after everything went down to pack up my stuff and I ran into one of her friends while I was in town. She told me that Fiona had the baby and about a month later, her loser baby daddy took off again. That was right around the time I started getting her calls.”

“I’ve never hated someone I’ve never met so much.” I couldn’t believe that woman had the nerve to reach out to Nate after what she’d done to him. “If we run into her in Crestwood, I might have to break her stupid perfect nose.”

“Your nose is better,” he said with a soft smile. Then he pressed a light kiss to it. “You are better.”

“Why do you think she came here?” I had a suspicion she’d come to attempt to win Nate back, but that seemed extreme given that they hadn’t been together in over two years.

“She probably somehow sensed that I was finally happy again,” he said with a dry laugh. “Had to come here and ruin it.”

“Is it ruined?”

His head tilted down and he studied our locked hands. “You tell me.”

“Nothing you’ve told me has changed how I feel about you, Nate. You’re a good man. Maybe the best I’ve ever known. My life is better with you in it.”

He let out a shuddering breath. “I feel the same way about you, Madison.”

“Good. Then we can keep hanging out and having lots of hot sex.” His deep chuckle brought a smile to my face. I leaned in and captured his lips for a slow, purposeful kiss. “I intend to enjoy every last second of my time in Crestwood with you.”

24

NATE

---