Page 110 of Finding Forever

“Me? Fine…” She blushed beneath his searching stare. “Why do you ask?”

“You seemed a little reserved earlier, with Beth.”

“I told you before, Cade, it’s hard for me to form attachments when I know that it’s destined to become yet another doomed relationship and God knows, I feel like enough of a failure as it is.”

“You’renota failure,” he told her in an urgent undertone, his hand wrapping around her bare bicep in a firm grip. “Don’ttalk about yourself like that. I understand that it’s terrifying to let people in. But you can’t close yourself off from the entire world, Fern. Beth wants to be your friend and you want her friendship. And, even if we were to split up, I would never expect you to give that up.”

If?

She still vividly recalled the phone conversation she’d overheard all those weeks ago. Still carried the words—which had not even been aimed directly at her—in her heart like painful scars. Fern wasn’t the woman he’d ever considered settling down with. She wasn’t his type. He didn’t believe her to be a good match. She’d known that since the beginning. Hearing him admit it out loud had only solidified that fact.

Fern and her baby had no business in this man’s life and—no matter what he’d said or done since—she was better off remembering those words, spoken in an honest, unguarded moment.

The only thing more certain than death or taxes was the fact that this marriage would end. There was noifabout it.

She worried at her lower lip, and set aside her own bruised feelings about a conversation that he had no idea she’d overheard, and focused on what he was saying right now. He was right about Beth, of course. Fern had unfairly sidelined the woman because of her fears.

She hoped it wasn’t too late to rectify that mistake.

“What are you thinking?” Cade asked. The quiet words brought her eyes up to his and she realized that he asked her that question, or some variation of it, quite often. Why was he always so interested in what was going on in her mind?

“I was?—"

“There she is!” The booming voice interrupted her reply and startled them apart.

Cade’s face settled into an irritated glare, while Fern’s wide, shocked gaze swiveled around to see her father-in-law standingjust inside the front door. “Come over here lass, let me look at you.”

“Fuck me,” Cade muttered beneath his breath and—coming out of her dazed surprise—Fern angled an amused look at him before obediently walking toward James Hawthorne who enfolded her into an enthusiastic bear hug.

“Mother of my first grandchild. D’ye hear that, Elizabeth Anne? What haveyoubeen doing this last year and half? Slacking off? You let this wee fae lass beat you at the post.”

Beth rolled her eyes irreverently.

“Happy as always to disappoint you, Old Man,” she replied cheekily. “Now, how about you unhand the pregnant woman—I’m pretty sure you’re squashing her—and set the table?”

Fern’s eyes widened in horror and she wriggled out of the man’s hug, before straightening her hair self-consciously.

“Oh, there’s no need for that, Beth,” she said. “I’m happy to…”

“No Fern,” Beth said, her voice implacable as she kept her narrowed gaze on her father-in-law. “You just sit buh-back and relax. If this old man is going to be free… freeloading in our home for the next three weeks, he’s going to have to make himself useful.”

Fern watched in awe as James Hawthorne, one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the construction industry, grumbled good-naturedly and—after giving Cade a quick self-conscious one-armed hug—obediently followed his tiny daughter-in-law’s directive.

“And try not to break anything this time,” Beth told him, coming to stand beside Fern and crossing her arms over her chest as she watched a grinning Gideon reacquaint his father with the layout of their kitchen.

Fern wound an arm around Beth’s waist and leaned toward her to confide, “I want to be just like you when I grow up.”

Beth giggled in response.

“You just have to kuh-keep him on his toes. He’s nev… never had to do for himself and he thinks all of this is some massive adventure. Y’know, living like the ordinary folk do? He’d get sick of it if he had to stay for longer than just a few weeks. Buh-but he really enjoys the novelty of cleaning up behind himself, fuh-folding laundry, doing the dishes…”

“Beth,” Fern whispered, scandalized. “You make him do the dishes? But you have a dishwasher.”

Beth’s eyes twinkled up at Fern over the rims of her glasses and she laughed wickedly.

“Yes, we do… but since he doesn’t have a clue what a dishwasher even looks like, we’re g-good. Gideon and I always wind up loading all the dishes Dad ‘cleaned’ into the dishwasher after he goes to bed anyway. But he has—uhm—he has no idea.”

“Well, he won’t be hearing it from me,” Fern said.

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