this meeting with Kade, and she despised the unexpected weakness of desire.
She’d rehearsed for a week before she’d called him, striving for just the right all-business tone of voice, planning this morning’s meeting so carefully...
Of course, being caught in the middle of a breaking and entering had not been part of her plan! She could not believe, in all the chaos, she had totally forgotten he would be coming.
That was it. That explained the way she was feeling right now. She’d just had quite the shock. The pain in her arm was throbbing mercilessly, and despite denying it to the medic, it was possible she’d hit her head in the scuffle. Maybe, just maybe, a tiny bit of weakness in the department of her husband was acceptable.
Except right now she needed to be strong around him, not weak!
She stole another look at him. There was no missing how ill at ease the store made him. Something in his closed expression even suggested anger. At that realization, that he was angry, something in her hardened. She had known he might react like this when she’d invited him here.
And she had told herself firmly that it was a test she needed to pass. Divorcing Kade, not just on paper, but with her heart, would involve not caring what he liked or didn’t like about her choices.
Her lawyer was absolutely right. It was time to tie up some loose ends in her life. And the lawyer was not even aware of all the reasons why it had become so important. Her lawyer knew only about her thriving business. Her decision to adopt was a secret, for now.
But it was a secret that required her to acknowledge that Kade Brennan, the husband she had been separated from for more than a year, was one gigantic loose end!
“What happened here?” Kade asked, but typical Kade, he wasn’t asking. He was demanding, ready to take charge.
And she was never going to admit what a relief it would be to let him. “Really, Kade, it’s none of your business.”
The female officer, in particular, looked taken aback at her tone. “I thought he was your husband,” she said again, almost plaintively.
“We’re nearly divorced,” Jessica explained, trying for the cavalier note of a career woman who didn’t care, but she had to physically brace herself from flinching from the word.
Divorced.
She’d rehearsed that word, too, trying to take the bitter edge out of it, the sense of loss and finality and failure.
“Oh.” If she was not mistaken, Officer—Jessica squinted at her name tag—Kelly took to that information like a starving hound scenting a bone.
“What happened here?” Kade asked again.
Jessica glared at him. To her relief, the medic announced they were ready to go, and she was wheeled out past Kade before having to give in to his demand for answers. Behind her, to her annoyance, she could hear the police officer filling him in on what had happened. She glanced back to see the female officer blinking helpfully at Kade and checking her notes.
“She came in to do paperwork this morning, six o’clock. Someone broke in around seven thirty.”
“Don’t come to the hospital,” Jessica called over her shoulder, feeling a childish desire to get in the last shot. “I don’t need you.”
She glanced back one more time just as they crossed through her doorway to outside, where throngs of people seemed to be gathered in front of her house. But she didn’t really even notice. What she noticed was that her arrow had hit home.
Kade looked momentarily stricken by her words.
That she didn’t need him.
And instead of feeling happy that she had drawn blood, she felt sick about it, and some little demon inside her had to try to repair it, and let him know he was needed after all.
“Actually, Kade, can you find a way to secure everything? Please?”
Really, after her remark that she didn’t need him, he should tell her to go get stuffed. But he didn’t.
“And if you could put up a closed-for-the-day sign over that broken window I’d be most appreciative.”
He snorted, but didn’t say no.
“I can’t just leave things. The door is broken. He could come back. Anybody could come in and just start helping themselves to everything in here.”
All her hopes and dreams. It was a strange twist that she was being forced to ask Kade to rescue them.
“Never mind,” Jessica said, appalled that she had even asked him. “I’ll call someone.”
She didn’t need him. She didn’t! Why was she giving him this mixed message: “I need you. I don’t need you.” She had the stunning realization she was not as clear of her soon-to-be ex-husband as she thought she was!
“I’ll look after it,” he said.
She should have protested harder, but there was no denying what a relief it was to have Kade Brennan, her husband for a little while longer, say that he would look after things.
JESSICA WAS WHEELED out to the ambulance, and Kade prowled through her shop looking for items to repair her door. Finally, in a back drawer in a tiny kitchen area he found a hammer and regarded it thoughtfully.
“This isn’t really a hammer,” he muttered to himself. “It’s more like a toy, a prop for one of her fake nurseries.”
In a dank cellar, he found some old boards. Thankfully, they had nails in them that he could pull and reuse. Why did women never have the essentials? Nails, screwdrivers, hammers, duct tape?
He boarded up the broken front door and found a square of thick wood to write a few words on.
He had to nail it up over the broken window because of the lack of duct tape. A determined thief could still get in, but the repair, though not pretty, actually looked quite a bit more secure than her old door with its paned glass.
He surveyed his work briefly, and recognized it as temporary but passable. Then he called his personal assistant, Patty, to tell her he would be very late today, if he made it in at all. “I need you to find me a simple surveillance system. I think there’s a kind that alerts to your phone. And then could you find a handyman? I need a door fixed, a window replaced and that surveillance system installed. Have him call me for the details.
“And also if you could have my car dropped at Holy Cross Hospital? Whoever brings it can just give me a call when they get there, I’ll meet them for keys.” He listened for a moment. “No, everything is fine. No need for concern.”
Kade walked out to Memorial Drive and was able to flag a cab to take him to the hospital.
He found Jessica in a wheelchair, in a waiting room in the X-ray department.
“How are you doing?”
It
