the wife, there had definitely been moments when he hadn’t been the best husband—and he had no intentions of doing it a second time, assuming he could figure out what he’d done wrong.
As he listened to her run down a laundry list of ingredients for a Frazzle, his mind reached back over the past years, but he didn’t find one place he could point to as the fault line. Sure, there’d been arguments. Moments when neither of them was especially happy, but no one event that glared back at him, an arrow pointing to the big mistake, saying “fix me and all will be as it was.”
His marriage had dissolved gradually, like threads in a blanket that came undone a little more each time you placed it on your lap. At night, he paced the living room of the house where he and Melanie had once lived—happily, he’d thought—and found no clues in the beige wall-to-wall carpet and soft sage walls.
He’d played that mental game a thousand times since she’d left and never come any closer to finding the solution than wondering if maybe he’d worked too much, been too unavailable to her. He was willing to be available now—and had told her so that night she left—but Melanie had still shut the door and drove away.
Even now, she was shutting him out, except this time she had a cappuccino machine between them, as if holding him at bay with a little steam.
They worked together for a few more hours, the day passing quickly. Before he knew it, Melanie was locking the door and counting the money in the cash register. “We’re done already?” he asked.
She nodded. “I close early on Sundays. There’s not enough business to justify staying open as late today as I do on the weeknights. During the week, we have the business people and the college students, but on the weekends, the businesses are closed and the students are more often out on dates than here.”
Cade glanced at his watch. “It’s early.” He paused, then figured he needed to bite this bullet someday. “Are the students the only ones with a date?”
“Me?” she looked surprised, then laughed. “No. I wouldn’t have the time or the energy even if someone had asked me out.”
No man had asked her out. She was spending her nights alone. Cade figured all the men in Lawford had to be either blind or brain dead to not want Melanie.
“Then how about dinner?” he asked, the words leaving his lips before he could think about the wisdom of the question. “With me.”
“Oh, Cade, I really don’t think—”
“It’s dinner, Melanie. Two chairs, a table and a meal. No hidden strings. No innuendo.”
Exhaustion had shaded the area below her eyes. No wonder, too, given the hyperspeed she worked at. He wanted to scoop her up, take her home and tuck her into their queen-size bed, letting her sleep until those shadows disappeared and the smile on her face became brighter, more like the Melanie he used to know.
“You need to eat,” he said softly.
“No, I need to get home.”
“To what?” Cade took a step closer. “To an empty house? An empty fridge?” Two things he was far too familiar with. “Have dinner with me, Melanie, for old times’ sake. Not because you’re my wife or because it might lead to something else. Hell, just go because you’re hungry and I’m offering a free steak.”
“Cade, we’re getting—”
“You don’t need to remind me every five minutes of the divorce,” he said, lashing out, unable to hear that word one more time today. “I know where we’re heading. I may not like it, but I’ve accepted the inevitable.”
She took a step closer, her chin upturned, her green eyes afire. “Have you?”
Hell no, he hadn’t, but he wasn’t going to say it. Instead he let his gaze sweep over her, reading in her eyes the same riot of emotions as earlier. He moved closer to her, coming within inches of her lips. Want curled around his heart, humming within him the familiar song of Melanie, of how she would feel, taste. “Have you?”
“Of course I have.”
“Then prove it,” Cade said, lowering his head, his breath whispering across her lips. “And kiss me.”
WHEN CADE KISSED HER, everything within Melanie went from ice-blue to red-hot. It was as if he’d never kissed her before, as if she’d waited for this touch for a lifetime.
With a clarity that astounded her, Melanie remembered every detail of that first, electric touch from twenty years ago, how she’d wanted him all night, fantasizing about the moment when he would finally go beyond holding her hand.
They’d gone to the mall, wandering the tiled space, not buying anything. They’d talked and laughed, all the while aware of the tightening tension between them. When they’d stopped to throw a penny into the fountain, Cade had moved into place behind her, ostensibly to guide her hand, but more, she knew with that instinct every woman possessed, to touch her.
She’d tossed the penny, made the wish that had simmered inside her all night, then turned to him, hoping. As if he’d heard her thoughts, he’d kissed her, under the pale white cast of the lights above them. It had been everything she’d dreamed about—and more. Cade Matthews hadn’t disappointed her with his touch.
Not then, and not now.
Those memories washed over her, whispering against this new kiss. Desire arched within her, rumbling through a body that had been focused on business matters for far too long. His lips were tender against hers, drifting over her mouth, an easy, sweet taste of what was to come. Then, when she didn’t pull away, his kiss deepened, taking her down a sensuous path so familiar, it nearly made her cry.
She’d missed him, damn it. Missed his kisses, missed his touch. Before she could stop herself, her arms stole around his neck, feeling the ends of his short hair tickle against her skin, making every inch of her want him with a fierceness that bordered on frenzy.
His tongue slipped between her lips and every resolve she’d had melted in the seductive waltz he played on her mouth. She did the same to him, nerve endings tingling with awareness and memory, one fire stoking the other.
He reached up and cupped her jaw, tenderly, in the way he used to, back when their focus had been on each other and nothing else. Behind her closed eyes, a slideshow of memories flashed through Melanie’s mind, teasing at the edges of their kiss, urging her to forget the divorce, forget the hurts.
How she wanted to give in to that kiss, to do nothing more than love this man. To let his touch erase the words, the silences, the nights spent alone.
But she had spent too many regretful mornings knowing no kiss could do that.
Melanie jerked back and broke the connection, ignoring the pull of regret. “Cade, we can’t do this.”
“Why not?” he asked, his gaze still locked on hers. “We’re still married.”
She turned away, busying herself with cleaning the counter, trying to tamp down the need still rolling
