Unbroken (20 page)

“That's . . . good to know, except—what's this guy's deal?”

“I don't know,” she said. “I have a suspicion, but I don't know. He was a competitor of Cade's on the circuit, and I find it . . . odd that he's here.”

“Odd
sinister
? Because I got a sinister vibe.” She lifted the coffee cup to her lips.

“Yeah. I find it all odd sinister. Cade is reluctant to see it because . . . well, because of a lot of things. Partly because of his own screwed-up psychology.”

“I am well familiar with screwed-up psychology,” Nicole said. “Given that I have some of my own.”

“Don't we all,” Amber said.

“I think anyone who doesn't is maybe lying to themselves. Well-adjusted is a myth.”

“Clearly,” Amber said, “we should hang out.”

“Only if your fiancé can deal with it.”

Amber frowned. “He's not my keeper. But also, I think he'll come around. He's genuinely not a jerk. What he's had is a harder life than I think anyone in his family even realizes. He . . . in so many ways grew up with a different dad than everyone else. Because he knew, even when no one else did.”

She sighed. “I get that. I even kind of know it's not about me. But that does not mean it doesn't sting a little bit.”

“Naturally not.” Amber looked around. “I have to take your order now or my chops will get lightly busted.”

“Something that will clog my arteries, please.”

“Got it.” Amber frowned and paused. “Also, being nosy, what are you doing in town so early?”

Heat spread from her neck to her face. “Just out for breakfast.”

Amber's eyebrows shot up. “I see.”

“Really. I had an early-morning craving for . . . griddle grease.”

“Okay. I'm sure that's true. Who doesn't? Okay, I'm going to put your order in. If Davis starts harassing you again . . . let Cade know.”

Nicole nodded slowly. “I will.”

Sixteen

Cade waited outside of the diner, leaning against his truck,
his arms crossed. He'd dropped Amber off that morning just because he'd been reluctant to separate from her.

He'd made some noise about needing to check his post-office box. At five thirty in the morning. And she hadn't questioned it.

It had been weird, sleeping with her wrapped around him. But it had been nice. And waking up next to her this morning had been even nicer.

He liked that they seemed to have decided to go ahead and indulge their attraction for . . . however long.

He was completely cool with that.

Amber walked out of the diner, her dark, shiny hair piled on her head, her apron bunched up under her arm.

She was beautiful. The kind of beautiful that hit a man like a punch in the gut. He wasn't sure how he'd missed that for so long.

Yeah, sure, he'd known she was beautiful. He'd looked at her figure because he was a guy, and she was a woman. He'd had serious fantasies about her in high school, excusable by the fact that he'd been sixteen and a virgin, and susceptible to an erection brought on by a stiff breeze.

But this was different. This was like seeing her for the first time. Last night, when he'd seen her completely bare for the first time, when he'd tasted her, when he'd allowed himself to linger over every detail of her body, from her flavor to her scent, the way she felt under his hands, soft, slick and perfect, well, that was when he'd realized—really, really understood—that he was dealing with the kind of beauty that a tiger possessed.

Beautiful, sleek and capable of swallowing you whole.

On top of all that, she was making him mentally wax poetic, and that was another kind of magic in and of itself.

He wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her. Right here on the street in front of everyone. And why the hell not? Everyone already thought they were together. More specifically, people already thought they were getting married. It wasn't like the rumor was going to get any more intense than that.

Cade pushed off of the truck and started to walk toward her, moving quickly down the sidewalk. A smile curved her lips, and he felt like something in his chest lifted. Like a weight had been removed.

The last two steps were a jog, and then he pulled her against him and kissed her. Not as deep as he wanted, not as long as he wanted, because it was a public place, and if he went too far, he'd be tempted to go further.

When they separated, he looked down at her face. Her eyes were wide, her lips shaped into an O.

“What?” he asked.

“Just surprised by the greeting.”

“Pleasantly, I hope.”

“Yeah,” she said, patting his chest. “Yeah. Very pleasant.” Then she rose up on her toes and kissed him again.

“Now I'm the one who's surprised. Ready to go? We can stop by the hospital.”

“Yeah, that would be good. Oh . . . shoot, I left my purse on the hook in the diner. Can you come back in with me?”

“Sure.”

They walked back to the diner together, their fingers brushing. But he didn't take her hand. Mainly because he wasn't sure where that fell in the grand scheme of their line-blurring relationship.

Because kissing and sex pertained to scratching the lust itch. Even sleeping together could fall under that header, since it put lust satisfaction within arm's reach. Hand-holding was an unknown.

So he didn't.

He held open the diner door for her and she tossed him an impish smile when she walked in ahead of him. He couldn't help but smile back. And feel a little punch-drunk.

“I'm just going to go to the back.”

“Sure,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and standing to the side of the door so he didn't block the entrance.

“Cade!” It was Delia, running across the diner, her full cheeks pink, her arms outstretched. She tugged him into a hug, and his back twinged.

“Delia,” he said, wincing and pulling away.

“I just wanted to say congratulations again. And I have pie. I'm going to get you and Amber some pie. Congratulatory pie.” She turned and headed back toward the kitchen, and Cade groaned internally.

“What are you gettin' pie for, Mitchell?”

Hank, the resident tractor mechanic, was sitting at a table near the door with about four of the town's other elder statesmen.

“Engaged,” Cade grunted.

“Well, shit!” Hank said. “Not to my favorite waitress.”

Amber chose that exact moment to appear. “Hi,” she said, as if sensing she'd walked into an event in progress.

“Amber, how can you marry this lunkhead? You were going to marry me!”

Amber's face flushed pink. “I . . . well . . .” Amber was so rarely rattled that seeing it now made him feel a little rattled. “You can't marry me anyway. Because Molly would kill me. And you can't tell me you forgot about her. You've been married to her for forty years.”

“His memory is startin' to go,” Tom, the man to Hank's left, said.

“Well, it can't be that far gone,” Cade said.

“Hey, Delia!” Hank said. “How about a round for Cade? Since he's tying the knot and all. My treat.”

“Oh, no . . .” Cade said, “we've got to go to the . . .”

“Hospital,” Amber said. “Best if we're sober.”

“Then I'll drink to it,” Hank said, his voice carrying across the restaurant to everyone sitting there having their dinner. “Drinks all around for Amber and Cade Mitchell. To celebrate their upcoming wedding!”

The room erupted into cheers and Amber ducked her head, tucking her hair behind her ear and looking like she wanted to disappear. Cade moved near her, put his arm around her shoulder. “Thanks,” he said.

“Yeah,” Amber said, “thanks.” She offered a halfhearted wave to the people who were currently drowning them in applause and cheers.

Though it was probably mainly excitement for free alcohol.

“Let's go,” Amber said, leaning in and whispering through gritted teeth. “Before they start asking for a demonstration of our love.”

“Got it.”

“Well, we have to go. Have a drink for Ray Jameson, if you could. There you go, Hank's buying everyone two drinks!” Cade said, framing the last part as an announcement.

“Sonofabitch,” Hank said, giving Cade an evil glare that was only partially sincere.

That's what he got for being a nosy bastard.

“Sorry, man, have to go,” Cade said, slapping him on the back, then returning to Amber's side, putting his arm around her waist.

This earned them another round of applause and Cade lifted his hand in farewell as he led Amber out the door. “Small-town busybodies,” he muttered when they were out on the street.

“Well, I guess we have . . . Silver Creek's approval.”

“I guess.” He dropped his arm from around her waist, because like hand-holding, he didn't know what jurisdiction this casual intimacy thing fell under.

He did open the truck door for her though, which seemed like the thing to do for a woman you were sleeping with.

“Thanks,” she said.

He watched her the whole way around the front of his truck to the driver's side. Watched her raise her arms, her graceful fingers pulling pins from her hair. By the time he opened his door and climbed inside, her hair was down, a mass of glossy waves around her shoulders, some sort of flowery scent released into the air.

And everything at the diner just faded away. Because when it was just the two of them, it wasn't about the farce. It was just about Amber and Cade, and whatever the hell was growing between them. If it was even anything. Maybe it was just sex and lust. But it was powerful sex and lust.

She was everything beautiful. He'd never in all his life wanted a woman the way he wanted her.

“You're like a perfect bite of cake,” he said.

“What?”

He didn't know where that had come from. And he sure as hell didn't know where the nice, coherent thought from earlier had gone. Blown away by a floral-scented breeze, no doubt.

“Like that bite of cake,” he said. “The one where the layers are joined together by frosting, and the back is frosted. So it's a little bit of cake and . . . a lot of frosting. It's the best bite.”

“What?”

“I just meant that if you were cake . . . or if . . . women . . . people, were cake, that you would be . . . You're really fucking pretty,” he said, gunning the engine and putting the truck in first before pulling out onto the street. “And that . . . that has nothing to do with Davis, or protecting you from him, or pretending to be engaged. It just . . . is.”

“Oh.”

He looked at her. She was looking at him, blinking periodically.

“What?” he asked.

“Are you trying to compliment me?”

“What the hell do you mean, am I trying to compliment you? I just did.”

“Obviously. You're . . . kind of adorable when you don't know what to say.”

“I really don't know what to say. Well, that's a lie, I did know what to say; it just came out in a stupid metaphor.”

She laughed. “Okay . . . you're like . . . that smell in the air just before fall. When the air is starting to turn crisp in the evenings and lose the heat. And it makes you ache for the time that's passed and makes you look forward to . . . to what's ahead.” She let out a sigh. “How's that for terrible?”

He tightened his hold on the steering wheel until his knuckles burned. “It was pretty damn good.”

“I'm glad you liked it. It's true.”

“I make you happy and I make you . . . ache?” he asked, not sure what to think about that.

“Everything good does. At least in my experience.”

“Hmm.”

“If you'd like, I could put frosting on my breasts.”

His head snapped to the right so he could see her, and he forgot for a second to look at the road. “What?”

“I'm just saying . . . wouldn't that be a better bite of cake?”

He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. “Technically there would be no cake. Technically it would be all icing. And skin.”

She lifted a shoulder. “Semantics.”

“Cake semantics.”

“A minefield.”

“I guess.”

When they got to the hospital, he battled with the hand-holding again. He wanted to offer her something. Comfort. But that, he decided, fell under the friendship responsibility, while hand-holding did not fall under a friend gesture.

He settled for rubbing her back just between her shoulder blades as they walked to the front counter, signed in and got their badges.

Just a little bit of contact. Just to let her know he was there.

They walked down the halls and into the room. Her grandpa's eyes were open, and one side of his mouth lifted into a smile when he saw them.

He tried to speak, but it came out garbled.

“It's okay, Grandpa,” Amber said. “You don't have to talk.”

Ray raised his hand in a slight wave. Cade returned the gesture.

“How are you feeling?” Cade asked.

Ray made a dismissive, slightly disgruntled sound.

A nurse breezed in past the curtain. “He's doing better,” she said.

“How much better?” Amber asked. She turned and recognized the other woman as Amanda Jones, a woman who'd been about three years ahead of her in school.

“Better. He's more with it today. His mouth still isn't saying what he'd like it to, but he seems a little more with it.”

Amber looked down at her grandpa, and Cade felt an echo of her sadness. They were a lot alike, him and Amber. She didn't have very many people in this world, and that meant the ones she had were special.

Not that he'd treated Cole, Kelsey, Lark and Quinn like they were at all special recently. Or, in Quinn's case, ever.

Then there was Nicole. She was family, and she had no control over her circumstances. But he was treating her like . . . well, like crap, because of all his own issues. And that wasn't fair. And it was a sorry abuse of family.

“Congratulations,” Amanda said.

“What?” Amber asked.

“I heard. About your engagement. Susan at reception told me.”

“I . . . I . . .” After that scene at the diner, this was really just too much.

Cade put his arm around her waist. “Oh, yeah, we're very excited.”

“Ecstatic,” Amber said, looking down at her grandfather, who looked . . . happy. So damn happy. Oh, frick, how had it gotten this bad? How was it all this tangled?

Damn small towns. Honestly, it was like no one around here had their own life to worry about.

“Do you have a date set?”

“June,” Cade said. “Because . . . there's something about June, right?”

“June brides are brides forever,” Amanda said, her smile turning gooey. Who would have thought the town was filled with a bunch of damn romantics.