Page 50 of Return to You

Kade tried to breathe but his chest felt like it was being crushed by a boulder. He took a moment to collect himself. “There’s one more thing. I love her, man. Ali,” he clarified. “I love Ali. I have for a long time. Ever since Vegas. I know that I’m not the person you’d want her to end up with, and I think she agrees with you.”

He sniffed and his mind replayed the moment she told him they didn’t have a future. It was like a serrated knife twisting in his heart.

“But, if she changes her mind, I want you to know, I’m going to lock that down. If she gives me the green light, I’m going to ask her to marry me. I want her to be my wife. I want the twins to have what we didn’t have growing up. I want them to have a home with two people that love them and each other.” Kade laughed when he thought of how much he and Ali had bickered all their lives. “I know what you’re thinking. That if that’s what I want I should see if they can live with the Myer’s.”

Jess’s mom and dad had been married for over forty years and still couldn’t keep their hands off one another. They’d had a child with serious health issues but somehow they weathered it. It might’ve even brought them closer together.

Kade scrubbed his hands over his face. “But, it’s different now than it used to be. We’re good together. We still call each other out on our shit, but that’s good. I love her, man. And I just needed you to hear it from me.”

The weight that he’d been carrying around for years finally lifted off of him and he sat for a few more minutes in that moment. He was about to leave when he remembered, “Oh and I’m not sure if you know this, but George is sick. He’s dying, I guess. And he’s doing it stone cold sober.”

Kade sat and talked to Patrick for another hour. He told him about the town and how everything was the same but different. He talked about his last fight and how badly he’d fucked up. He told him that he was meeting with Kennedy the next day to look at places to rent and what he was thinking he should get in a house. He wanted rooms for both twins so they could have their own space when they visited him.

He just talked about life. Life that Patrick was missing because he was gone. But for the first time since Kade had gotten the call that his best friend had died, he didn’t feel like his best friend was so far away. He felt like part of him was still around. Still here. Kade knew it was just a feeling, but hell, so was loneliness, pain, and despair. He’d take feeling there was a part of Patrick that was still here, over those feelings, any day of the week.

20

Ali sat on the picnic table in the courtyard next to the rental shop and tried to focus on the Excel spreadsheet in front of her. Since she’d always planned on running the rental shop with her brother, she’d gone to college for accounting and business management. And she’d graduated with honors. This should be the part of her job she excelled at, no pun intended. But she wasn’t doing a very good job. She kept getting distracted, checking Facebook and Twitter, or mindlessly surfing the web.

Not that it mattered. It’s not like she was getting much work done anyway. Her mind kept wandering to the same place.

Kade.

She’d never understood the true agony of something being so close and yet so far before. He was a carrot dangling in front of her; her wildest fantasies wrapped up in the perfect male specimen that she’d been in love with her entire life.

Irritation and resentment bubbled just beneath the surface. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep up her facade. She ran her hands through her hair and reminded herself that although Kade was the reason for her aggravation, it wasn’t his fault. It was her situation.

She tried to be grateful. She was alive. The sun was shining. Birds were chirping. Spring break kicked off tomorrow and the weather was supposed to be in the nineties all week. Tourists would come in droves and people would be out on the lake, and that meant dollar signs for her. The boys were out with Ethan on their dirt bikes for the first time since their dad had been gone and that was something she hadn’t been sure would ever happen again. And she and KJ’s relationship seemed to be getting back to normal. They’d had real conversations where he volunteered information and even asked her questions and laughed at her corny jokes. She’d forgotten how much she missed his laugh.

She should be happy. Elated even. But instead, she was anxious, antsy, and borderline miserable.

“Hey there, beautiful. How’s the ankle?”

Ali turned and saw Laura Lopez sidle up beside her. The brunette beauty ran The Snack Shack housed in the building adjacent to hers.

“It’s better. I can put weight on it now.” She’d been icing it all week at Kade’s insistence. He was a broken record reminding her to keep it elevated and wasn’t letting her do anything herself. He’d been waiting on her hand and foot at home and accompanying her to work every day where he insisted on doing all the lifting, heavy or otherwise. It was driving her crazy. And not in a good way.

“Well, thank goodness Kade came home when he did. I’ve noticed he’s been doing a lot around here.”

That statement was like nails on the chalkboard of Ali’s soul.

She bit her tongue and inhaled slowly through her nose, doing her best to keep her face neutral as she made a noncommittal noise, “Mmm.”

Kade had been back in Whisper Lake exactly one week. Seven days and people were acting as if he were literally a knight in shining freaking armor. Every time she turned around someone was telling her how lucky she was that he was there. People kept saying how great he was with the boys. There was practically a choir singing his praises about the manual labor he was doing around the shop. Manual labor that she’d been unable to do because of her injury and which she’d tried to hire other people to do.

It wasn’t that Ali didn’t appreciate all Kade had done. His skills in the kitchen alone were enough to earn him brownie points in her book. She hadn’t had to choke down a barely-edible home-cooked meal in seven days. And there was life and laughter in the house again. KJ’s room was somewhat clean. Ricky was talking more. Yesterday morning she’d woken to KJ mowing the lawn and when she went downstairs Kade was sparring with Ricky.

The list went on and on and they were all incredible developments. Kade had accomplished a ton in a week.

But it was one week.

What about the seventy-eight weeks that she’d been there?

It wasn’t that she wanted credit for taking care of literally everything and not having a nervous breakdown. It was just that she was tired of people acting as if she should be grateful for Kade because they never would’ve survived without him.

Were things easier with Kade there? Sure.

Did she have everything under control before he got there? Yes.

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