“Oh, no. Nothing like that. I still help out with rescue, but I work in a nursing home now. In fact, dogs are how I got my job.”
She stopped and pulled a pebble from her shoe. He waited for her to catch up. “I had the sweetest golden retriever for a while,” she said as they resumed hiking. “A trained therapy dog. Her owner had to give her up. So I took her to a nursing home to visit patients and got hooked.”
“Hooked on what?”
“The people.” She sounded surprised.
“Seems like they’d be depressing.”
“Not at all. I mean, when someone…passes on…it’s really hard. But they’re wonderful. They have the most amazing attitude. They know that they’re going to…that they won’t be around very long. And some are in a lot of pain. But instead of complaining or focusing on what they don’t have, they’re so cheerful and optimistic. They just enjoy every moment they have.”
She frowned suddenly and nibbled her bottom lip. A second later, she slanted him a glance. He was surprised to see guilt in her eyes.
But then she cleared her throat. “Well, anyway, they’re always happy to see me.” Her voice dropped. “I guess I like feeling needed.”
Needed? He stopped, feeling as if she’d kicked the air from his gut. “Since when?”
“Since when, what?” Her eyes searched his. “What do you mean?”
“You know damned well what I mean.” He’d needed her, more than he’d needed to breathe. And she’d still bolted away. He turned and strode up the path.
“Cade, wait.”
“For what? Another lie?”
“Cade, please. Let me explain.”
His jaw rigid, he jerked around. “Explain what? Why you didn’t give a damn about my feelings? Why you ran out of town?” He stepped forward and his gaze pinned hers. “Why your husband’s needs didn’t count?”
“But you…You didn’t…” Her skin paled. “Cade, I…”
He waited, willing her to continue, to explain why she’d run away. But she only twisted her hands and looked distraught.
“Hell.” Disgusted, he strode off. His gut churning, his pulse thundering through his skull, he struggled to control his anger. What did it matter? Their marriage was over. So why did he even care? Why did her betrayal eat at him, even after all these years?
Because he still didn’t understand it. His heart pumping, he picked up his pace. Whenever he looked at her, whenever she talked, she seemed genuine. Sincere. As if she really cared about him. Hell, she even acted like that toward the dog.
And he fell for it, every damned time.
Was it just an act? Was she really that callous, that hard? And if so, why couldn’t he see it? Why couldn’t he get her out of his blood?
And if it wasn’t a lie, if she really had cared about him, then why had she left? And why wouldn’t she tell him now?
“McKenzie, this is dispatch,” a voice on his radio called.
He pulled out his radio and sucked in his breath. No, he didn’t understand it. But he did know one thing for damned sure. Before they reached Missoula, he was going to demand some answers.
Chapter 7
Jordan hurried up the rocky trail behind Cade, clutching the makeshift leash. A sick feeling swirled through her belly. She’d seen Cade in a lot of moods during their marriage, but never this fiercely bitter, and he had a cynical edge to his eyes that had never been there before.
Because she’d put it there when she left.
Fierce guilt cramped her chest. Of course he was angry. What had she expected? That he wouldn’t care that she’d left him? That he’d shrug the divorce off?
Ahead of her, Cade said something into his radio, then shoved it into his bag. Then he stopped and looked back, waiting for her to catch up.
Her gaze met his as she closed the distance between them. His hard jaw tightened under the stubble, and his striking eyes narrowed at hers. And her heart tripped even more.
She’d hurt him, all right, deeply. More than she’d ever dreamed. And no matter how hard it was to discuss it, she owed him an explanation.
And she needed to do it now.
She caught up to him and stopped, trying to figure out how to begin. The dry wind swirled up dust and pushed a pinecone along the trail. The raucous squawk of a Steller’s jay pierced the mounting silence.
She finally dragged in a steadying breath. “Cade, when you were growing up, was there anything you really wanted?”
He held her gaze for several seconds, and she thought he wouldn’t answer. Then he turned and started walking again, and she hurried to match his long stride.
“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “I wanted to get the hell off the ranch.”
She blinked. “But I thought you liked Montana.” In fact, she couldn’t imagine him anywhere else. He was always doing something outdoors-hunting, fishing, smokejumping…
“Montana’s fine. It was the ranch I hated. Doing the same damn work every day. Baling hay and feeding cattle.” He grunted in disgust. “It was a hell of a life, being stuck in that dying town.”
Still marveling over that revelation, she slanted him a glance. How come she hadn’t known that? She knew the most intimate details of this man-what he ate, how he made love-and yet, in so many ways he remained a stranger.
Still, it made sense. Even injured, he exuded energy. She could imagine his restlessness as a teen. “So you were anxious to leave?”
“No way was I spending my life trapped on that ranch, worrying about the price of beef.”
The bitterness in his tone caught her off guard. She studied the hard line of his jaw, sensing he’d had more at stake than a need for independence, but when he didn’t elaborate, she let it go. “Well, I would have given anything to live there.”
His eyes met hers again and he raised his brows. “You didn’t like moving around?”
“Hardly.” Her lips twisted. “Oh, some of it wasn’t so bad. We lived in some beautiful places. But I hated starting over, being the new kid in school every year. Sitting by myself, trying to figure out how to fit in and what to wear. And just when I’d finally get it right, when I’d start to make friends and relax, we’d have to move.”
“You can be lonely even living in one place.”
“True.” She glanced at him, wondering why she’d never viewed him as a loner. He’d always seemed so strong and confident, so impermeable to hurt. But apparently, she’d been wrong.
She gnawed her bottom lip, unable to stop the guilt creeping into her chest. If she hadn’t seen that part of him, what else might she have missed?
“Well, anyway,” she continued. “I didn’t like to travel.”
“How come you never told me that?”
Good question. “I didn’t like to talk about it. It wasn’t…It was a painful way to grow up. And I guess I assumed that you knew, that everyone understood the military lifestyle.” Obviously, she’d been wrong. And that assumption had cost her.
The road switched back, and she paused to haul air into her lungs. Sunlight streamed through the Douglas firs in narrow beams, highlighting the punishing climb ahead. Cade held out his canteen, but she shook her head.
His Adam’s apple dipped as he drank, and she steeled herself to go on. “My dad was always gone. That’s how I remember my childhood, standing on piers, watching his ship disappear, knowing it would be forever before he came back.
