Page 24 of Change of Heart

Now he was laughing too. “Try it. I’m a much better cook than when we were toge—never mind.”

I opened my mouth and he popped it in. My eyebrows went up. It was great. I covered my mouth with a hand as I nodded my approval. “It’s delicious. Tarragon?”

“Yep, it’s Gram’s recipe.”

“I never tried this one.” I used to go to their Sunday dinners all the time and had probably tasted most of their family specialties. “How is she? I haven’t seen her yet.”

“She’s good. She lives in the apartment above the garage now. Rose is married to my partner, Trevor, and they live in Gram’s house with his kids. You’ll have to come to the next Sunday dinner.”

A thrill shot through me at the thought of going to his parent’s house with him, but I decided not to think too hard about it for now or I would get carried away. “Rose is the only one of your sisters I haven’t seen in town yet. You already know that I’ve relapsed and am addicted to Violet’s coffee again, so we see each other all the time. And Holly and I ran the track at the high school together the other day. It was nice to catch up with her.” Part of what I missed when Cade and I split up was his sisters. They were awesome and had always treated me like I was one of them.

“She’s finished with her travel blog—she shut it down. Did she tell you? She’s staying in Sweetbriar now, just like you.”

I froze. I had thought of staying in town, that was true. But I hadn’t made a one-hundred-percent definite decision yet. “Uh—”

“Do you want to see what’s on TV and make this evening historically accurate?” His eyes twinkled as he sipped his wine.

“Let’s do it.” We could talk about my future non-plans and uncertainty later. Reality could wait. This was fun and I didn’t want to ruin it.

He powered it up, and the news was on. Trent was being interviewed about his new play for an entertainment segment. “Oh crap.”

This was just great; my second ex-husband was on the television while I sat eating dinner with my first ex-husband.

“Well, this isn’t awkward at all,” he quipped.

“Um...”

“You’re recently divorced from the best-selling author of theAdaline Paige Mysteries, Keli Marlowe. What happened, Trent? How are you holding up?”

“Keli will always be my best friend. Look, we got married on a whim. We were lonely. We were never meant to be man and wife. In fact, she’ll be back home right here in New York as soon as the latest Adaline mystery is done. We’ll have our usual celebratory lobster dinner and toast to another best seller. I’m fine, she’s fine. Everything is fine.”

Trent’s laughter rang out from the speakers, and I flinched, afraid to look at Cade and see his reaction. As far as Trent knew, that was my plan; he wasn’t lying. I hadn’t spoken to him about Cade, so he had no clue I had been considering staying in Sweetbriar.

Chapter9

Cade

She’s leaving?

I’m such an idiot.

I let my heart get in front of my logic with heragain.

We never should have gotten married. I had always known she had ambitions bigger than what she could achieve in Sweetbriar, but I had convinced myself I could love her enough to make her happy. And like the stupid, lovesick fool I had always been for her, I’d just done it again.

“So, you’re not staying? I thought since you had your own place this time—”

“Cade, let me explain—”

“You know what? Let’s not bother.” My heart constricted painfully. I pressed a hand to it and stood. “Obviously, this was a mistake. Sweetbriar will never have what you need.”

Iwill never have what you need...

Her feet hit the floor, she stood and tried to catch my eye. “No, that’s not it at all—” Her gorgeous blue eyes glittered like she was about to cry. I had to look away. Her tears had always bent me to her will. I couldn’t never bear to see her cry.

“We should just quit while we’re ahead. Don’t you think? Dragging up the past, old feelings, memories... It’s all pointless when you were never planning to stay. Why would you—”

“Please, I didn’t mean—”

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