I was hungry, too. You have anything to eat around here?” Carter opened a cabinet, rifled through it for a second, then turned back to his brother. “Are you sure you don’t want some help with that tie? It’s a mess.”
Cade threw his brother a glare.
Carter just laughed. “All right, but don’t blame me if you end up looking like a guy who wrapped his own Christmas present.” He moved some cans of green beans, found nothing behind them, then shut the cabinet door. “This is sad. Old Mother Hubbard had more than you do, Cade.”
Cade hadn’t eaten at home in so long, he couldn’t remember what he had on hand—if anything. “Check the fridge. There might be some leftover Thai food.”
Carter rose, opened the Whirlpool and withdrew one of the paper takeout boxes. He took one whiff, then shoved it back inside the refrigerator and slammed the door. “You need to fix things with Melanie, man, before you die of e-Coli or typhoid or something.”
“My vaccinations are up-to-date,” Cade said with a grin. “And I’m making progress with Mel.”
“How so?”
“I worked with her at the coffee shop all week.”
“Five days serving up lattes? Should have been enough time to solve your problems, the world’s problems and have some time leftover.” Carter grinned.
“You don’t know my wife.”
“Neither, apparently, do you, if you couldn’t get her to talk.” Carter opened the freezer, but found only several inches of frost and one pizza box that had started to curl at the corners. He shut the door again, fast. “Did you ever try to figure out why she won’t talk to you?”
“Because Melanie is more stubborn than a herd of donkeys.”
“Or maybe because she is talking and you aren’t listening.”
Cade started in on the tie again. That was the same thing Emmie had said. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“All along, you’ve been saying it’s her that won’t talk. Saying she’s the one who walked out on the marriage. Did you ever think that it might have been you?”
“That’s insane. I’ve always been there.” The final bow tightened against his neck and he turned around.
“Well, except when I was at work.”
“And how great of a husband do you think Dad would have been if he’d married again?”
“Dad would have been horrible. Heck, he wasn’t even good at the father thing. Never home, always talking about the office, leaving us to do our own thing.”
“Uh-huh. Do you recognize anyone in that picture?”
Cade shook his head. “I’m not like Dad.”
“You are, too. You’re just not as crabby as he is.” Carter grinned. “And you don’t share his opinion that I’m an idiot.”
“He just wants you to make something of yourself.” Cade had served as the go-between for the two for years, but he might as well have been a brick wall, given how little Carter and their father communicated. Cade wondered sometimes if his Type-A, workaholic father envied Carter’s footloose approach to life.
“I did make something of myself,” Carter said.
“What I made wasn’t good enough. He wanted me to be a lawyer. I’d sooner commit hari-kari than spend all day locked up with legal briefs.” Carter snorted at the very idea. “Do you even like being a lawyer?”
Cade sighed and dropped into one of the kitchen chairs. “No, I don’t.”
“Then why the hell are you doing it?”
“Because Dad paid for me to go to college. Gave me a job when Melanie and I had nothing. No money, no apartment, nothing but a baby on the way.”
“And he’s made you pay him back ten times over,” Carter said, sliding into the opposite seat. “If you hate your job, quit.”
“I don’t have a backup plan, Carter. It’s not like I can take my law degree and be a really good bartender.”
“You took your law degree and made really good coffee. Mixing a margarita on some beach in Jamaica should be a piece of cake after that.”
Cade laughed, then returned to reality. To a mortgage, college tuition and a retirement to fund. “I’m not going to throw away a twenty-year career to serve women in bikinis.”
“You have got issues, my brother.” Carter chuckled. “I’d do just about anything to serve women in bikinis.”
“That’s why you’re the bachelor and I’m the—” Cade cut himself off. He wasn’t the married one, not really. “Okay, bad point. Still, I’m not applying for any jobs in Jamaica.”
“There may be an opening as a toy company CEO soon if I keep helping this business run into the ground,” Carter said, then glanced at his watch.
“Anyway, I have to go. I have a date.” He rose. “I may be a bachelor, and a disappointment to my father and a guy whose still trying to figure out who he is, but at least I’m honest about it. One piece of advice. The sooner you get honest with yourself, the sooner you can get honest with Melanie, too.”
Then Carter left, leaving Cade with a mental mirror finally large enough for him to see the reflection of himself. He got out a piece of paper and began to write.
“LAST TIME I SAW YOU in one of those, it was light blue,” Melanie said. “You looked like the Easter Bunny.”
Cade chuckled. “If you prefer the blue…”
“Oh, no. the black is nice.” Maybe too nice because she had to remember to breathe. She noticed everything about him, especially the way the tux framed the muscles and planes of Cade’s body. Every hormone in her body itched to undo the tie, then start on the tiny black buttons, unfastening one after the other until she got him down to his boxers—
And nothing else.
It was a major change from the business casual he’d worn to the bank earlier. True to his word, Cade had stayed quiet throughout the loan process, letting Melanie run the show—and collect the check at the end. Cuppa Life was going to finally fulfill what Melanie had envisioned, which made her excited about the days to come.
But right now, the only thing increasing her pulse was Cade and the sexy cut of the fancy black suit.
“You look amazing.” The compliment shone in his eyes as much as it did in his tone. Cade took a step forward, then reached out and ran a finger along the thin strap of her dress. “Absolutely incredible.”
Her breath caught in her throat, her gut twisted with a want that had never seemed
