The Best Is Yet to Come (50)

“I’m sorry, Silas. I really am. I can’t rescue Cade; he has to find what he needs within himself. I’m not his savior. First off, he leaped to conclusions and refused to give me a chance to explain. He blocked my number and shoved me out of his life.”

“Will you at least talk to him?” Silas begged.

“When he’s ready, I will.”

“I mean now.”

“Tonight?”

“Yeah, on the phone. Just a sentence or two. Something that will bring him to his senses.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Women always seem to know the right thing to say. I can only do so much. I’m here. I won’t let him do anything stupid like get in a fight or take this woman home with him.”

She swallowed hard at the image of Cade with another woman. “I don’t have a clue what you expect me to say.”

“Think, Hope.”

Silas was asking the impossible. “He’ll probably hang up on me.”

“Then that’s on him.”

“All right, all right. Give him the phone and I’ll think of something.”

“Thank you.” The relief in his voice was evident.

Silas must have returned to the inside of the bar, because the noise was back as loud as ever. She knew Silas was talking to Cade. Although she strained to hear the exchange, she couldn’t make it out.

“Who’s this?” This time the voice was Cade’s. Clearly Silas hadn’t told him she was on the line.

“It’s Hope.”

“Hope,” he snapped, “I have nothing more to say to you.”

“That’s fine with me, but I have one thing to say to you, like it or not.”

He didn’t immediately disconnect, which told her he was willing to listen.

She prayed he’d hear her and understand. “When the two officers came to deliver the news that Hunter had been killed, I quietly listened, and accepted their condolences. Then as soon as they left, I trashed my apartment and destroyed the very things I loved most, punishing myself. It made no sense. I deeply regretted it the next day, and I continue to live with the regret of what I’d done in my anger and grief.”

“Is that all?” he asked sarcastically.

“Yes,” she whispered. “That’s all I have to say.”

“If you believe I’m on a path of destruction because of you, then you’re wrong. You fooled me, Hope, and I fell for you only to learn you’re like everyone else: full of duplicity. I trusted you.”

“What you’re forgetting, Cade, is that I trusted you, too. It didn’t take much for you to look elsewhere, did it?”

“This conversation is over.”

“Yes, it is. Good-bye, Cade,” she said, her heart breaking as she disconnected. If he said anything more, she didn’t hear it.





Chapter 18




Cade sat in Harry’s office with his head down, avoiding eye contact. Neither man spoke. It’d been five minutes of silence, and Cade knew Harry would wait patiently for Cade to begin the conversation, even if it took the entire hour.

He kept his gaze focused on the gray carpet. Funny, he’d been in this office multiple times and had never paid much attention to the carpet pattern of white swirls on a gray background. It was easier to concentrate on the intricacies of the rug than on what was happening in his own life.

“It hasn’t been a good week,” Cade finally said, when the silence grew too heavy for him to ignore.

“What made it such a miserable week?” Harry asked. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs.

“Hope.” He didn’t elaborate.

Harry waited, apparently wanting Cade to fill in the details. It came to him that perhaps the counselor had already heard everything he needed to know about the situation from Silas.

“Silas told you, didn’t he?” Cade remained angry at him. Silas had no business contacting Hope. They’d had words that night, and Cade said things he’d regretted almost as soon as they left his mouth. In the space of twelve hours, he’d lost his girl and his best friend. It was a tragedy worthy of a Shakespearean play.

“I haven’t spoken to Silas,” Harry stated calmly. He made a notation on the pad in his lap, as if this information were of some significance.

“He butted in where he didn’t belong,” Cade snapped, looking up from the carpet and meeting Harry’s gaze. He wanted the counselor to understand that not only had Hope betrayed him, but so had the man he’d called his friend.

“What exactly did Silas do?”

Cade refused to answer; anger simmered just below the surface as he silently reviewed the events of that evening.

“You should know the only reason I’m here today is because it’s court-mandated.”

To his shock, Harry laughed.

“You find that funny?” Harry was full of surprises. Cade couldn’t figure the other man out, no matter how hard he tried. He had a gift of extracting information that Cade never intended to reveal. Cade supposed that was what made Harry a good therapist, even if Cade found him irritating.

“No, actually, I find your honesty refreshing. All along I assumed you came because you found my company scintillating.”