Unbroken (30 page)

Epilogue

Cade had heard a lot of people say they'd married their best
friends. But he really did. It was the first wedding he'd been to in years where he didn't want to drink. No, he wanted to stay stone-cold sober for the whole thing.

Because he never wanted to forget any of it. Not even the pain in his leg.

He certainly didn't want to forget the way his bride looked. Perfect in a flowing dress that skimmed her now fuller curves, her dark hair loose, a crown of flowers on her head. She was the best-dressed woman in attendance.

Their daughter was a close second. Though Ava Mitchell, named for her great-grandma Jameson, slept through most of the ceremony in the arms of her great-grandpa Jameson.

Cade looked over at Amber, who was talking to Kelsey, Lark and Nicole, laughing as the breeze caught her dark curls.

And he couldn't just stand and watch for another second. “Excuse me,” he said, tipping his hat to Quinn, Cole and John, “I have to go and get my bride. I think I owe her a dance.”

He walked across the grass and held out his hand, his stomach tightening when she turned and smiled at him. It was weird how you could know someone for so long and still feel like every time they smiled at you it was the first time.

“Mrs. Mitchell,” he said, “I think I owe you a dance.”

“You want to dance?” she asked, looking up at the dance floor, her eyes round. They hadn't discussed dancing, for obvious reasons. But he was in the mood to dance, limp or not. And he wasn't even drunk.

“With you, yes.”

“Excuse me, ladies,” she said, taking his hand and letting him lead her to the wooden dance floor.

He pulled her in close, his hand on the curve of her back, the other holding hers tight.

“Dancing, huh?” she said, her face pressed into his neck, her lips grazing his skin as she spoke.

“Yeah. Every bride should dance with her husband on her wedding day.”

He knew he wasn't dancing with any particular rhythm or grace, but he didn't care. Amber was in his arms. And that meant grace didn't matter. Steps didn't matter. Pain didn't matter.

The only thing that mattered was that he loved her, and he wanted to dance with her. So he did.

He felt a tear fall from her cheek and down into his tux collar.

“It wasn't supposed to make you cry,” he said.

She pulled away and looked up at him, her dark eyes shining. “I can't help it. How do you do it?”

“What? Make you cry? Usually I'm just being an asshole.”

“No, not that. How do you manage to surprise me after all this time?”

“It's just because of you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you do something . . . You smile. You laugh. And I realize again just how lucky I am. How blessed I am. And I know I have to do something for you. To give you that feeling you give me every time I look at you.”

She put her head down, her forehead resting on his shoulder. “You don't even have to try, Cade. Because I get those feelings every time I look at you too.”

“But I like to try,” he said.

“Well, I like it when you try, so I won't complain.”

“There's just something about you,” he said, holding her close, feeling her heart beat against his. “Something that brings out the best in me. Even if my dancing is still bad.”

“Are you kidding me? This is the best dance of my life.”

Cade swallowed a lump in his throat and looked around the dance floor, then past that to all the family and friends that still lingered. The children running barefoot through the grass. The couples, new and old.

“There's really no chance of ever getting empty-nest syndrome around here,” he said, thinking all the way back to Lark's wedding the summer before.

“No?”

“Nope. This place just keeps filling up with family.”

She lifted her head and looked around. “Yeah, I guess it does.” She went up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. “I'm glad I'm making my family with you.”

He looked down at her, his chest so full he could hardly breathe. “You know . . . after I got injured I thought my glory days were behind me. But I was wrong.”

“Were you?”

“I was. I know without a doubt that my life with you, with Ava, will be my glory days. And they're just beginning.”

Read on for a special preview of another Silver Creek Romance by Maisey Yates

UNTOUCHED

Available now from InterMix

It wasn't like she even wanted any of this for herself.

Lark Mitchell looked around the completely unconventional wedding being thrown in her yard and fought the urge to cry.

Which was dumb as rocks, because there was no reason to cry. Seriously, the bride was wearing a black wedding dress. It was ridiculous. And, okay, the bride was also marrying the man Lark had spent the better part of two years completely fixated on, but that was no reason to cry.

It wasn't like she
loved
Tyler. And in the year since he'd started dating Alexa, his new wife, and moved to New York, Lark had completely gotten over him.

No, this wasn't heartbreak. She was just in the throes of that left-behind kind of melancholy that she was more familiar with than she'd like to be.

She'd felt that way when most of her friends had gone off to college and she'd stayed in Silver Creek to help out on the ranch. She'd felt it all through high school when other girls had gotten dates and she'd gotten the chance to tutor cute boys in English.

Just this sort of achy feeling that other people were going somewhere while she stood in the same place.

Or, in this instance, sat in the same place. At one of the florid tables placed around the lawn. This little wedding had come to Elk Haven Stables because Tyler was once a ranch hand, and because the bride in black was best friends with Lark's sister-in-law, Kelsey.

Lark adored Kelsey, but she could honestly do without Alexa.

Which might be sour grapes. Maybe.

But damn, woman, marry a dude your own age. Tyler was in her own demographic, and he hadn't known her in high school, which helped, because as awkward as she was now . . . high school had been a beyotch.

“Hey, sweetie.”

Lark looked up and saw Kelsey, holding baby Maddy on her hip and looking down at her with overly sympathetic blue eyes. “Hi,” Lark said.

“Are you okay?”

“What? Yeah. I'm . . . so okay. Why wouldn't I be okay? I had a crush on this guy for like two seconds, a year ago. I never even kissed him.”

“I remember how much you liked him.”

“Thanks, Kels, but I'm a grown-up, as much as Cole doesn't like to acknowledge it. I've moved on. I have another man in my life now.”

Because she was sure three rounds of cybersex six months ago with a guy she'd never met counted as having someone in her life. And if not, it at least bolstered her lie. She needed the lie. It was so much better than admitting she was pathetic. And that she spent most days in her room doing tech support for various and sundry people while eating Pop-Tarts and streaming
Doctor Who
through an online subscription service.

Yeah. Saying she was involved was better than admitting that.

“Oh. Do you? Because Cole”—Kelsey narrowed her eyes—“Cole doesn't know.”

“No. And it's okay if it stays that way.” The idea of her brother finding the transcripts from those little chats she'd had with Aaron_234 was ever so slightly awful.

Almost as bad as admitting that the closest she'd ever come to sex was a heavy breathing conversation. Over the Net. Where you couldn't even hear the heavy breathing.

The very thought made her cringe at her own lameness. It was advanced geekiness of the highest order.

At least she excelled at something.

“I'm not going to keep secrets from Cole,” Kelsey said, sitting down at the table. “I mean, I won't lie to him if he asks.”

“He shouldn't ask. It's not his business.” Of course, Cole wouldn't see it that way. To Cole, everything in her life was his business. Thankfully, Kelsey and Maddy had deflected some of that, but then there was Cade. Cade, who was the more wicked brother. The irresponsible one. The one who should be cool with her doing whatever and finding her way in life by making a few mistakes.

But Cade was even worse than Cole, in his way. The hypocrite. She always figured it was because, while Cole guessed at what debauchery was out there in life, Cade had been there, done that, and bought the souvenir shot glass.

She'd considered ordering the shot glass online. So to speak. But she'd never done a damn thing. So all her brothers' overprotective posturing was for naught, the poor dears.

Although, Cole had nearly torn Tyler a new one when he'd suspected they might have slept together. Alas, no such luck.

She'd love to have a mistake that sexy in her past.

All she had was a greasy keyboard and a vague, stale sense of shame, which lingered a lot longer than a self-induced orgasm.

“Yes, well, you don't want to keep your boyfriend from us, do you?”

“He's not my boyfriend. He's not. I exaggerated a little. It's not like that.”

“Oh, so . . . is he someone in town, or . . . ?”

“He's on the computer. He's not . . . I haven't talked to him in a while.” Like they'd ever really chatted about anything significant. It was more like a straight shot to “What are you wearing?”

“Oh . . . okay.”

“But the bottom line is that I'm fine. With this. Right now. Alexa and Tyler are welcome to their wedded bliss. I'm not in the space to pursue wedded bliss. I have other things to do.”
Like sit on your ass and shoot zombies?

No. Real plans. To travel, someday. To have adventures. Maybe a meaningless fling here and there. In Paris? Paris seemed like a good place for a meaningless fling. Silver Creek certainly wasn't. She knew all the idiots here.

Worse, they knew her. They knew her as a bucktoothed nerd who would do your calculus while you did the cheerleader. It was a poor set of assumptions with which to begin a relationship, so she just never tried.

It was better than doing the guy who was doing the cheerleader. Doing math was way less painful. Keeping it virtual was a lot less painful.

Otherwise you ended up watching the only guy you'd ever really thought you might have a shot with marrying another woman. Not that that was what was happening. Because she didn't love Tyler, dammit.

But if she had married him, she wouldn't have done it in a black dress. She was a gamer geek with limited social skills, but even she knew major life events were the time to drop your freak flag a little bit. Wear some lace. A pair of pumps. Ditch the Converse All Stars for a couple of hours.

Not that anyone had asked her, of course.

“I'm glad; I was a little worried about you.”

Worry for Lark's well-being was apparently a virulent contagion at Elk Haven Stables. Cade and Cole had a bad case of it, and Cole had clearly infected his wife.

“No need to worry. I'm golden. I'm not in a picket-fence place right now.”

“Yeah, neither was I,” Kelsey said, shifting Maddy in her arms and looking pointedly at the little bundle of joy.

“Unless you can get knocked up driving by sperm banks now, I'm not going to be in your situation anytime soon.”

Kelsey laughed, the motion jiggling Maddy and making her giggle. “Yeah, steer clear of those clinics, or you might find yourself shackled to an obnoxious alpha cowboy for the rest of your life.”

“Already am, Kels. Two of them. We're related, which means I can't just ditch them. I'm not marrying a cowboy.” She looked back at Tyler. “I'm sick of cowboys, in fact. I'll find someone metropolitan who knows that high fashion isn't a bigger belt buckle and your Sunday go-to-meetin' clothes.”

“Nothing wrong with wanting something different,” Kelsey said. “I guess Cole is my something different, so I can see the attraction to something you aren't used to. I still rent out my house in Portland. If you ever want to go try something a little more urban . . .”

For some reason, the idea made Lark's throat feel tight. “Uh . . . maybe another time. Cole is just getting all his social media stuff going for the ranch, and you know he needs close help with that. He's death to computers.” All true enough, but in reality she could do most tech help remotely.

She would leave someday. Just not today. Or next week. Or next month. But that was fine.

“Well, that's true,” Kelsey said. “But I'm not tech-illiterate, so I can help him a little. I do work on my computer, so I'm pretty familiar with everyday glitches.”

“But who would optimize your blog?” Lark asked. “It's just starting to get huge.”

“True. The modern world is a wonderful thing.”

Kelsey was a health and wellness columnist, and she still had her column published in papers across the country, but since moving to the ranch, she'd started doing a lot of humorous posts about acclimating to life in the sticks, and thanks to her already established audience, it had become an instant hit.

And Lark was in charge of design and management of the website and its community.

Which was nice. It was nice to feel important. Nice to be needed.

“So you're really okay?”

“Yes,” Lark said. “Stop giving me your wounded puppy eyes—I'm fine.”

“Great. I'll be back in a minute, I have to go grab Cole.”

“Neat,” Lark said, reaching down beside her chair and pulling her phone out of her purse. She was itchy to check her email, because it had been a couple of hours and she hated the feeling of being disconnected.

She keyed in her PIN and unlocked the screen, her email client immediately loading about fifty messages.

She opened up the app and scrolled through the new mail. She had another one from Longhorn Properties. She'd been negotiating with the hiring manager, Mark, for a few days now. She hadn't told anyone in her family about the offer, because she knew her brothers would get all proprietary and think they had to do it all for her.

Like she wasn't smart enough to handle her own job opportunities in her own field. And yes, she worked for the family by and large, but she'd also done websites for several local businesses and had become the go-to IT tech for Silver Creek residents.

This would be her biggest deal by far. And the first time she'd be signing a contract for a job. But she was ready for the challenge.

She'd be setting up computers, servers, firewalls, and web filters at a ranch for troubled boys, and then doing a little bit of tech training too. It was a big undertaking, especially with everything she already did at Elk Haven, but honestly, she could use something to mix up her life.

Something that wouldn't take her too far from the safety of her bedroom.

She had a little bit of a complex. She could admit that.

But she'd lost her mother so early, and then her father. Cole, Cade, the ranch, they might drive her nuts—but they were all she had. All she knew. Life felt horribly insecure outside of that. Terribly fragile.

Life was safe in video games. When you had armor and you could collect health right from the ground. Along with an AK-47 to take care of anyone or anything that might threaten you.

She skimmed the email and typed in a hasty reply, asking for more details on time frame and payment, then hit send.

“Is that thing welded to your hand?”

Cade walked over to her table and sat on the edge of it, his friend Amber in tow. Amber gave her an apologetic look. She would be annoyed with Cade silently, but Lark knew if push came to shove, Amber's allegiance was with Lark's obnoxious brother.

That was one relationship she had no desire to ever figure out.

“Nope, detachable.” She tossed the phone down into her purse. “Unlike your stupid face, which you're sadly stuck with.”

“Very few people have a problem with my face.”

“Oh, dear, the tone of this conversation is lowering already,” Amber said.

He turned to Amber. “Women really like my face.”

Amber's forehead wrinkled, her brows drawing together. “Do they?”

“If not my face, they like my . . .”

“No!” This came from both Amber and Lark in unison.

“My personality,” Cade said. “Sick people. You are sick people.”

“Yeah, we all believe that was going to be the next word out of your mouth, Cadence,” she said, using a name she'd assigned to Cade in childhood to piss him off.

Her brother hopped down from the edge of the table, wincing when his foot made contact with the grass, freezing, a pained expression on his face as he waited for what Lark assumed was a wave of pain to pass through him.

“Hey,” she said. “I didn't think your leg was bothering you as much now.”

“It's not,” he said.

“Lies. Dirty lies. What's up?”

Cade gave her a hard look. But she knew he'd tell her, because he knew she had no problem harassing him until he did. “Nothing,” he said, his tone hard. “It's nothing new. Just the same shit. It's like there's this nice little highway of pain that goes from my knee up to my spine. Not any worse.”

Just not any better. Not really.

She hated that. Hated that Cade couldn't ride anymore. Hated that he hurt all the time. That day had scared years off of her life. She'd been convinced, when they'd gotten the call about Cade's fall, that he was going to die too.

That she was really destined to lose everyone she loved. All of her family. That she would be left alone.

She blinked and tried to pull her mind back into the present. Cade wasn't dead. He might be surly, and he might have a limp, and he couldn't compete in the circuit, but he wasn't dead. She really appreciated that since, as much as he drove her crazy, she needed him.

“Well, glad it's not any worse.”

“Me too.”

“So, want to get hammered?” she asked, not that she made a practice of getting hammered—but it seemed like it might be a good idea.

“Hell yeah,” he said. “And Cole bought a lot of booze. His wedding gift to the newlyweds.”

Amber's lips twitched. “You're going to get hammered drinking champagne? Because Cole bought champagne. For the toast.”