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.
“There was this one time when I was nine and he’d been gone for months. I’d been counting the days until he came home. I’d made one of those paper chains, you know, where you tear off a link every day? And the chain was finally gone.”
They started walking again. “We got the call that the ship was in sight, so we drove down to the pier. We saw it in the distance, and then the pilot boat went out to meet it. I was so excited, I thought I was going to burst.”
Her stomach clenched at the memory. And that old dread trickled in, that horrible sense of betrayal. “And then the ship stopped, right at the entrance to the harbor, and it started to turn. I thought that the pilot had told them to, so it could enter the harbor at a better angle, but they’d been called out on another case. They just turned around and left. I didn’t even get to see him. And they were gone for another month.”
Cade frowned. “Your father couldn’t control that. He was just doing his job.”
“Exactly. A job he cared more about than me.” Her throat tightened, and she searched his face, praying he would understand. “And that was my biggest wish growing up. To find a man who loved me enough to stay home.”
She’d thought that man was Cade. He’d swept her away with his intensity, the way he’d made her the center of his thrilling world. And during those amazing months in the cabin, she’d lived the life she’d always dreamed.
Eventually, she’d discovered the truth, that she hadn’t really enthralled him, or at least not for long. That he did everything with the same high energy, and he thrived on excitement and change.
And no matter what she did or how hard she tried to please him, she couldn’t hold him down. Adventure lured him away every time.
Just as it had seduced her father.
Cade stopped and turned to face her. His eyes blazed, and a red stain inched up his neck. Shocked by his sudden anger, she took an unsteady step back.
He moved forward, crowding into her space. “So, because I didn’t spend every damned second by your side, you figured I didn’t care?”
Unease thumped through her chest. “It was worse than that,” she said, her throat dry. “I hardly saw you.”
“I stayed with you when I could.”
“Sure, during the off season.”
“During the summer, too. Every minute I wasn’t working. What more did you expect?”
“Is that how you measured our marriage?” he continued. “By how many minutes I punched on a goddamned time clock?”
“No, of course not, but-”
“Hell, you didn’t want a man. You wanted a dog, somebody who’d sit at your feet every night.” He jerked his head toward the leash. “Well, it looks like you got what you wanted.” Looking furious, he turned and strode up the road.
Her face hot, her stomach balled, she slowly trailed him. Was Cade right? Had she expected too much from him? Had the problem really been her?
She dragged in a trembling breath. He made her sound so selfish. But was she wrong to want her husband around, to have a loving companion to warm the long nights?
She lifted her chin. “I don’t think that’s fair. Some men care more about their wives than their careers.”
He turned back to face her, his jaw rigid. “It’s not a matter of caring. A man has to support his family.”
“By being gone all the time?”
“If that’s his job.”
She shook her head. “Not all men think that way.”
He scoffed. “Good luck finding one who doesn’t.”
She looked away. “I already have.”
“You’re engaged?”
His incredulity stung. She snapped her eyes back to his. “Is that so hard to believe?”
His eyes narrowed even more. “What’s hard to believe is that any
She flinched as he strode away. Phil was a man, a perfectly nice one. She pictured Phil’s easy face, his laid-
