Four Nights to Forever (16 page)

“You could stay out there a little longer, you know. Or move. Aren’t you always telling me I should live in a place that makes me happy? ’Cause you sound really happy.”

Where the hell had Sam gotten the idea that Cassie could just pick up and move?

Cassie put the knife down and went to sit on the couch and recover from the jolt that thought had sent through her heart. And her brain. When her butt hit the cushion, she put one elbow on her knee and rested her head in the palm of her hand, keeping the phone pressed against her ear as she tried to breathe.

What would
I
do if I moved here?

The idea was as scary as it was exhilarating. And impossible. The wine she had been drinking was going to her head and messing with her common sense. “I can’t simply pack up my life and
move
for some man I don’t know.”

Sam’s voice cut through the confusion that was fogging up Cassie’s thought process. “I thought the mountains were a reason, too. And I’d have a really awesome place to go on vacation.”

Sam.
Cassie couldn’t even consider moving. Sam was still in Massachusetts. “But I’d only ever see you once a year or so.”

Sam may be twenty, but she still had a teenager’s ability to make a shrug audible over the phone. “I’m working this summer in New York. With you and dad divorced, I’m spending alternating holidays with him. You might only see me once a year anyway. And you could always come visit me, too.”

God, that was true. The past summer was probably the last one Sam would move home willingly.

Moving was crazy. And Cassie was crazy for considering it. For wanting to consider it. Moving across the country to be with a ski instructor eight years younger than she was. For what? Because he was good in bed and made her laugh?

Because when she was around him, she could be selfish and selfless at the same time.

Craziness, all of it.

“And who knows where I’ll be after college. Maybe I’d move there, too. Become a ski bum.” Sam’s nonchalance about the whole thing irritated Cassie, even though she knew her daughter was young and decisions like
I’ll just move across the country to be with some guy I’ve only known for a week
were easy because the baggage of life still fit in a carry-on.

“Thank you, Sam, but I’m not doing it.” Cassie tried and failed to keep the exasperation out of her voice.

And to keep the lingering disappointment at bay. To be young again and able to think of moving to be with Doug as an adventure.

“I just want you to be happy, Mom.”

And just like that, Cassie’s irritation was gone.

Was this what it felt like to be the parent of an adult? To have a child who was as concerned for her parent’s happiness as for her own? Cassie’s heart ached a little as she waved good-bye to the little girl Sam had been.

“I want me to be happy, too. And I will be.”
Someday
didn’t even echo in her head the way it had all the other times she’d promised Sam she would be happy again.

“Mom, can I tell you something?”

“Of course.” Sam had sounded so hesitant that Cassie tried to prepare for the worst, while still sounding light and open. It was a balancing act she never felt like she’d mastered. “You can tell me anything, you know that.”

“It’s your birthday, and maybe I should have waited, but—” Sam paused “—Dad’s girlfriend is pregnant.”

Cassie took a deep breath to brace herself against a punch to the gut, but the blow never came. She held her next breath, filling her lungs and letting the air push into her extremities. When she let the breath out, a lingering sense of sadness burbled up about the children she never had, but there was no regret or sadness at the dissolution of her marriage. She was okay, and she would be even more okay with time.

“I thought you should know,” Sam rushed out apologetically. “I told Karen, and she told me to wait until you got back, but—”

“It’s okay that you told me,” Cassie interrupted. “It’s better, really.” The words were hard to say, but true. “Thanks for calling, sweetheart.”

“Happy birthday, Mom. Enjoy the ski instructor,” her daughter finished, then hung up before Cassie could sputter again, the rascal.

She set the phone down, and then turned back to the vegetables. She was chopping the last of the garlic when Doug came out of the bathroom. The white hotel towel was tied low around his waist, a trail of light-brown hair leading down his flat stomach and disappearing under the terry cloth. He caught her staring and cleared his throat. The gap in his towel parted when he shifted his stance a little, and she grinned.

He wandered into the kitchen area, coming up behind her and wrapping his arms around her. The dampness of his towel and hard length of his erection pressed through her yoga pants. “Did I hear you talking to someone?”

“Sam called to wish me a happy birthday.”

“Hmm.” He pulled her hair out of the way and kissed the crook of her neck, his face still warm from his shower.

She debated leaving the next part off, but he’d been so angry on the lift after lunch and she wanted to get his reaction. “She also thinks I should move here.”

It was easier to say such things when he was behind her and she couldn’t see his expression, but it also made her nervous because she could only feel that he stilled, his lips pressed against her neck.

“Does she? Did she say why?” Hopefulness rounded the edges of his words.

Cassie pulled away from him, irritated at Sam for putting ideas into her head. “To see if we could be more. Sam didn’t say that exactly, but she wants me to be happy.”

Tactics had never been Cassie’s strong suit, as evidenced by the fact that pulling away had left her trapped in the small galley kitchen, Doug blocking her only way out. Unless she wanted to climb over the bar. So she faced him and his beautiful body and his crazy, curly hair and the erection she wanted to take into her hands, her mouth, and her body.

“You
could
move here, you know.” Damn him for saying the words with the same nonchalance Sam had used. “And we could try for more.”

“It wouldn’t work, Doug. People don’t just move across the country to be with the ski instructor they’ve known for less than a week.”

He nodded, but he wasn’t agreeing with her. “And that’s all I am to you? A ski instructor?”

“You know . . . I didn’t mean . . .” Only she didn’t know what she did or didn’t mean. “I’m going to take a shower.”

*

Cassie had left a pot of water on the stove and a cup full of rice, so he finished the job she’d started. While the water came to a boil, Doug got dressed and wondered where the conversation had gone wrong. Okay, so it was crazy to think Cassie could pack up her life back east and move to Utah to be with him, but it wasn’t because he was her ski instructor.

The water boiled and he took the pot off the heat. God, he had been so right about his no-fling rule. Even though he wasn’t married, this relationship with Cassie couldn’t go anywhere, and that still hurt.

Hell, maybe it hurt
more
than hoping it would and being disappointed later.

He poured the rice into the boiling water, set the timer, topped off his glass of wine, and went to sit on the couch. His feet were propped up on the coffee table, his head resting on the back of the sofa, when Cassie came out of the bathroom. Her wet hair was dripping down her shoulders, and she held a towel tight around her with one hand and his phone in the other. All her joy had shriveled up since she’d been in the shower, and her face matched the pads of her fingers.

“What’s wrong?” he asked as he rose to his feet.

“You have children,” she said. “They texted you.”

Oh crap.
His heart started to race. He should have told her, back at the restaurant or in the car or anytime before this mention of her moving to Utah to be with him.

“All this talk about how much our relationship means . . .” Her other hand—the one holding his phone—swung in a circle through the air before landing on her hip. “How you don’t want to be ‘just the ski instructor.’ How you care about me. All that and you don’t even
mention
that you have children.” Her words came out tight hisses between her teeth.

He crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I don’t involve them in my relationships. Not unless it gets serious. They don’t need women coming in and out of their lives. Children need stability.”

“Don’t tell me what children need! I’ve raised a daughter essentially by myself.”

She threw his phone at him, and he swiped the lock off, cursing the developers who decided texts would flash across a locked screen. There it was. A text saying they missed him, with a photo of them dressed up for their grandparents. Madison must have taken it. They looked happy. And he wanted them to be happy, even when he wasn’t around. But it still broke his heart. Next year his hours and income would be more stable. He might be able to pick them up from school sometimes. Maybe bring Mia to her dance class, and Tyler to his soccer practice. Then maybe they’d look this happy when they were with him.

When he turned his attention back to Cassie, her eyes were closed, her hand still clutching her towel. Her chest rose and fell with deep breaths. He could just barely hear her softly counting to four with each intake of breath. When she opened her eyes, her entire face was calmer. “I’m not insisting that I meet your kids tomorrow, but it’s difficult to reconcile your encouragement that I leave my life and move to Utah when you didn’t even tell me you had children.”

“Mia is six. She hates to ski, hates the cold, and wants to be a mermaid and live someplace warm when she grows up.” He lowered his hands from his hips before walking closer to Cassie. “Tyler is eight. When he gets to pick the outings for our days together, we drive for an hour to the Golden Spike Monument and he tells me all about trains. It bores both Mia and me to tears, and we always try to talk him out of it. Mostly Mia just cries until we get past Brigham City and stop at the Arctic Circle for a Lime Rickey.”

“Mia is six.” She looked up at the ceiling as she did the math. “You’ve been divorced for four years and—”

“I cheated on my wife while she had an infant at home.” Admitting to his failing hadn’t gotten any easier. “I’m not proud of it. I wish I hadn’t done it. I can say our marriage was over before Madison got pregnant with Mia but that doesn’t make my one-night stand any better. Hell, it might even make it worse because I could have just fucking waited a couple months and then it wouldn’t have been cheating at all.”

Though how long would they have waited, making each other’s lives miserable, desperate to fix something that had started out broken in the first place?

“I’m a better ex-husband to Madison than I ever was a husband. And a better father to my kids now, too. I know what it means to fail the people who love you. To fail yourself and get up the next morning and keep going.” Tough lessons to learn, and he’d learned them the hard way.

They stared each other down. Cassie had to believe that he knew his sin and had been punished for it. That he took responsibility for what he’d done wrong and that his past transgressions made him a better bet for the long run, not a worse one. Five years ago, when he’d followed that woman up to her room and had uncomfortable stranger sex, he’d wanted Madison to think the worst of him. When he’d agreed to come to dinner at Cassie’s, he’d wanted Cassie think the best of him. He still did, even if she also knew the worst of him.

But she didn’t say anything, and she looked too leery of him for his comfort. He stalked over to her. She stepped back until the back of her knees hit the armchair. He could move, let her pass. But he didn’t.

Instead, he placed one hand on her hip. When she didn’t flinch or try to get away from him, he placed the other on her shoulder. Her lips parted. The hand holding her towel shut rose and fell with the movement of her breath.

“You have to understand, that period of time when Madison and I were divorcing, that was the worst of me. My kids . . . my kids are the best of me, but they are also the most vulnerable part of me. Sharing them scares the shit out of me, but if knowing about them is how you know that this is more than a fling, ask whatever questions you have. I will answer all of them.”

*