Wrecked (19 page)

But in her defense, nowhere had it said he would be here today.

He tipped his head to the side, a cocky smirk on his face. He leaned in closer, bracing his forearms against the railing and shaking his head. “You couldn’t let me be happy for just a few minutes believing you came looking for me? You are one hard woman, CeCe Cole. Beautiful, but hard.”

She drew her brows down, digesting his words even as he grinned at her. Had he wanted her to come looking for him? “You were happy?”

“Yup.” Wade drew the short word out in the slow, languid way she’d become used to him doing during their time together. “Happiest I’ve been in—about a week and a half or so.”

“Oh.” They’d been separated for about a week and a half, or close enough to it that she got his meaning.

Was he telling her, in his roundabout way, that he hadn’t been happy since leaving her?

She was too damn old to play teenage games and guess at what he was feeling. Flirting was one thing—she enjoyed that—but games were another.

CeCe drew in a breath, about to tell him that, when he climbed over the railing. She had to take a step back as his boots hit the ground.

He stood before her and treated her to his signature cocky grin. The one she didn’t want to admit to him she’d missed seeing daily even if he could be the most frustrating and annoying man on Earth.

“Hey there, beautiful. I didn’t get to give you a proper hello.” Hands cupping her face, Wade leaned in and pressed a kiss to her lips.

She felt the rough scrape of stubble against her face and remembered how he only shaved every other day. Today must be the off day. She tasted the mint of the gum he was chewing. She knew it was because he tried to not chew tobacco during the actual event, only allowing himself to before and after.

Every thought careening through her brain while his lips pressed to hers made her realize how much she’d come to know about the man after only having been with him for a short time.

That was the last thought she had before he broke off the kiss, much too quickly in her opinion. Pulling back, he glanced at the stands behind her. He shook his head and stifled a cuss, dropping his hands away from her.

“What’s wrong?” She missed the heat of the contact immediately.

“I can’t do this here.” His disappointing words were accompanied by the slow sway of his head.

“Do what? Kiss me?”

The regret, obvious in his expression was some consolation. “Yup. Not even a little bit, ’cause there ain’t nothing little about what I feel when it comes to kissing you.”

“Really?”

As a crooked smile tipped up one corner of his mouth higher than the other, Wade shook his head. “Yeah, really, and you damn well know it. You’re too damn tempting. And I’m supposed to be working. Not to mention that there’s someone here watching who shouldn’t see me acting like a horny teenaged boy around you.”

The attraction to him that had tightened her belly was replaced by nausea.

Was the bastard married? Or did he have a serious girlfriend and she was here? How dare he kiss her.

“Who’s here?” She spun to search the crowd for the woman Wade had two timed while in her bed.

“Retract your claws, beautiful. It’s not another woman.”

“I never thought it was—”

She didn’t get to finish her denial as Wade interrupted, “Yeah, you did. And it’s my daughter.”

“Your daughter?” That concept stole anything else she might have thought to say. Her anger was replaced with curiosity. “She’s here?”

“Yup.” He tipped his head toward the stands. “See the girl in the pink tank top with the braided hair?”

“
That’s
your daughter?” CeCe hadn’t known what she expected but it hadn’t been the young woman Wade had pointed out.

“Yes, ma’am. That’s Brittany. God help me.” He let out a breath that sounded as if he was weary. “God, I wish the temperature would drop like forty degrees so maybe she’d put on a sweater.”

There wasn’t much chance of Wade getting his wish. The Texas sun was still high in the sky, beating its heat down on everyone.

CeCe glanced at the girl, taking note of all the details that added to her perfection. Most likely the same things that made Wade, as a father, sound so exhausted.

Her long willowy arms, in perfect proportion with her tall slim body. The graceful curve of her neck, the upturn of her nose. High cheekbones set off by a mane of thick hair contained in a braid that reached to her elbow.

“She’s breathtaking.”

He sighed. “Yup, for better or worse, she’s a beauty. Just like her mother.”

The comment had CeCe shifting her attention. She moved from Brittany, who had no idea she was under scrutiny while she chatted with the much younger boy standing beside her, to Wade. “You told me your ex-wife was a bitch. You never told me she was beautiful.”

“Oh, she is both. A beautiful bitch.” Wade lifted a brow and shot CeCe a look. “Apparently, I have a type.”

CeCe scowled and said without humor, “Ha, ha.”

“Keep that temper of yours in check, beautiful. You know how I love when you get riled up. I might not be able to control myself.” He smiled and winked.

She’d risen to the bait, as she always did with Wade. He knew exactly how to push her buttons.

Not giving him the satisfaction of a response, she changed the subject back to his daughter. “You know, with her height she could be a model.”

His eyes widened. “Over my dead body, she will.”

“Why? I modeled.”

“That’s fine. I’m not your father. I am hers. She’s only just turned fourteen.”

CeCe saw the genuine concern in him. “This is a new side of you. Over protective father.”

“Nothing over protective about it. It’s common sense. I was a boy once. I know how they think. And believe me, I don’t want any males thinking about my daughter like that.”

She knew first hand how Wade thought, especially when it came to sex. She couldn’t say she blamed him for worrying about boys thinking similar things about his daughter. Though it was amusing to see this side of him.

CeCe glanced at the beautiful girl again before turning back to Wade. “What happened between you and her mother?”

He lifted his brows, as if surprised she’d asked. After throwing a quick glance over his shoulder at the arena, which was filling with a stream of young women on horseback, he looked back to CeCe. “They’re gonna bring the colors in any second. Then there’ll be the National Anthem and the opening prayer. Then it’s show time. I don’t have a whole lotta time to talk right now.”

“Will it take a long time to answer my question?”

“No. I guess not. We were young. We—or at least I—never intended it to last longer than a few tumbles. Maybe the summer. Sorry to be crude but it’s the truth.” His gaze met hers. “Then Brittany came along and changed all that.”

So he’d gotten married because she’d been pregnant.

“And if you’d all rise for the presentation of the stars and stripes . . .” The announcer’s request put an end to a more in depth discussion at the moment, just as Wade had predicted.

Wade shot CeCe a look. “Good enough explanation?”

“Yes. Thank you for telling me.”

“Anytime.” After one more look that felt ripe with meaning, he turned to face the arena.

A girl on horseback rode around the perimeter at breakneck speed. Her hair streamed behind her nearly as far reaching as the red and white stripes on the flag she carried.

CeCe took a step forward and stood next to Wade, shoulder to shoulder with him as he took off his hat and held it over his heart. He held it there through the singing of the National Anthem, and then bowed his head throughout the blessing of the event, the participants and the animals.

The opening ceremony finished with an audible, “Amen” from the crowd, echoed by Wade.

Having been more intrigued with the man next to her than what was happening out on the dirt, CeCe mumbled the same and then watched as he planted his hat back on his head.

“I gotta get out there. You’ll be here for the whole thing until the end?” he asked.

“Yes.” She had been considering sneaking out early and taking the car to the airport where her jet was on standby to leave tonight. That plan had gone out the window the moment she heard Wade’s name over the loudspeaker.

“Good.” He smiled. “You have a seat?”

She had yet to look at where that seat was, but she had a ticket. She held it up for Wade now. “Yes.”

He nodded. “Okay. I’ll see you when I’m done. Maybe we can grab a bite after?”

“I’d like that.”

“It’s a plan then.” His grin had her heart fluttering.

He slid on sunglasses but she felt the power of his gaze even after she was no longer able to see his eyes.

Damn. She was in trouble with this man.

He turned toward the fence and only after he’d vaulted over it did she turn toward the stands.

First, she’d find her seat. Then she’d call the pilot and tell him she’d be flying out later than she’d thought. Possibly even tomorrow rather than today.

Sometimes being the owner of Cole Shock Absorbers, and the Cole jet, had its benefits.

“Excuse me.” She tapped a man wearing an official-looking shirt on the shoulder. When he turned to face her, she thrust the ticket forward. “Can you tell me where this is?”

The older man squinted at the ticket and nodded. “Yes, ma’am. That’s this section right over there. Front row.”

He tipped his chin in the direction of the section where Wade had pointed out Brittany. After a closer look, CeCe saw the empty spot next to her. She thanked the man and made her way over. A second check of her ticket and the number marked on the section proved that was the place.

It looked as if CeCe and Wade’s daughter would be spending some time together. That was an intriguing and kind of frightening concept for a woman who had no children of her own.

CeCe took her place next to Brittany and couldn’t help glancing over.

The girl must have felt CeCe’s gaze on her. She turned her head and said, “Hey.”

“Hey.” CeCe answered her in kind.

“You know one of the riders?” she asked.

“Um, no. I don’t think I know any of the riders.” That wasn’t a lie. Wade wasn’t riding. “Why do you ask?”

Brittany lifted one shoulder. “No reason. It’s just that this section is usually where the riders’ families sit.”

“Oh. Well, I contributed to the relief organization so one of the people from the booth gave me this ticket.”

In exchange for the check with a whole lot of zeroes on it that she’d had the finance department cut to the organization . . . CeCe didn’t mention that detail to Brittany.

“Oh.” Another lift of one shoulder from Brittany was followed by, “That’s cool.”

CeCe guessed she passed the test and would be allowed to stay in the
family
section. Meanwhile, the fact she was sitting and talking to Wade’s daughter, peeking into a part of his life she never knew existed until today, made the whole day feel even more surreal.

Seeing him as a father was beyond strange. She’d known him as an overt flirt and a cocky smartass. She’d seen him drunk and in the throes of passion. But never had she even thought to imagine him in the role of concerned father.

It gave her something to chew on while the first event began.

She’d never had kids of her own but technically she wasn’t completely out of the realm of motherhood. She was a stepmother to John’s son from his first marriage, but the first Mrs. Cole had custody.

During their marriage, CeCe had only seen the boy a couple of times a year, and that was usually at some exotic vacation at an island resort or something equally distracting that John would insist on taking them all to for the times he had visitation.

Now, Johnny was an adult, off on his own, using his Masters Degree to build a career.

Sitting next to Brittany watching a rodeo was more than she’d ever done with her own stepson in all the years she’d been married to John. It made her feel closer to Wade and a little freaked out at the same time.

This was what normal felt like. It was strange.

Not unpleasant. Not at all. Just . . . different. Now that she’d tasted it, she wanted to try more. Wanted more of this with Wade. With his daughter too if he let her.

That fact scared CeCe, but that Wade might not give her the chance scared her even more.

Franticly searching until she found him again in the arena, CeCe went back to tracking Wade with her eyes.

She was definitely in trouble.