The Best Is Yet to Come (51)

Cade snickered but was unable to hold back a smile. Harry was doing it again, and Cade didn’t like it. He wanted to stay angry. Anger was comfortable.

“It’s either my sparkling personality or maybe, just maybe, the deep-seated need you have for peace. Peace of mind, peace from your past, and peace to move forward.”

Cade let his words soak in. As much as he was loath to admit it, Harry was right. He thought he might have found the path to it when he’d first started seeing Hope. For weeks he’d watched her with Shadow. He identified with the mistreated dog. He didn’t want anyone close to him, either. He was angry, inimical, hostile to anyone who tried to befriend him. Then Hope came into his life.

He’d admired her determination, her grit and courage in taking a savage canine that was destined to be destroyed and transforming him with patience and love. Only he’d been misled by her, misled and betrayed. She was nothing like what he’d assumed. Once again, he’d been fooled.

It’d been devastating to inadvertently find her speaking to his mother. Her betrayal had felt like a knife thrust into his chest.

“I saw her with my mother,” Cade blurted out, unable to hide his anger and indignation.

“I assume you’re talking about Hope?”

He nodded. “I’d told her things I hadn’t told anyone, and then she turned and betrayed me with what she learned.”

“You mean to say you’ve been holding out on me?” He gave a pout, but Cade knew it was all for show.

Once again, the silence stretched between them while Harry patiently waited for Cade to continue.

After several awkward moments, Cade spoke. “I left home six years ago, and I haven’t been back. The last time I saw my mother was in a courtroom, just before I was sentenced.”

“In other words, you decided six years ago that you wanted nothing more to do with your family.”

“It was a mutual decision.”

Harry cocked his head to one side. “It appears your mother doesn’t share those feelings.”

Cade knotted his fists. “She was there to gloat.”

“Did she say so? Did she use the opportunity to tell you what a disappointment you were? Or anything that would give you that impression?”

Briefly reviewing the scene, he murmured, his voice so low he could barely hear himself. “We didn’t speak…She tried, but I wasn’t listening.” He’d been too embarrassed. Humiliated.

“I see,” Harry said.

Anger sparked in Cade. “I hate it when you say that. You see what? You have no clue, making judgments like you’ve been gifted with psychic powers that enable you to read minds. Well, I’ve got news for you. You’re as much a fraud as Hope and Silas.”

His words fell like boulders off a hillside, bouncing on their way down, destroying the landscape. Cade knew Harry wouldn’t respond to anger. Cade had tried before and had been unable to get a rise out of him.

Harry continued as if Cade hadn’t spoken. “I can see your family is a sensitive issue. I believe, from what you’ve said, that while you remain estranged, your mother seems to have had second thoughts.”

“You don’t know that,” Cade challenged. At one point, he’d been sympathetic toward his mother. No longer. If she’d been genuinely interested in healing the breach between them, she would have made the effort to connect with him instead of with Hope.

“True,” Harry agreed. “But I wonder if you should look at what you saw in a different light. Do you sincerely think Hope sought out your mother? Or is it possible that your mother found Hope?”

“How would my mother even know about Hope? No one in my family knows anything about me.” Cade had made sure of it. When he cut those ties, he never intended to return.

“Your mother knew you were in the courtroom,” Harry reminded him. “I assume you weren’t the one to tell her.”

“Hardly,” he said with a snicker, “but that doesn’t mean Hope is innocent in this. She knows how I feel about my parents. That she would even talk to my mother is in itself a betrayal.”

Harry seemed to measure his words. “You’re telling me you sincerely believe Hope would go behind your back, do an extensive search to find your family, and arrange a meeting. Not only would she do all this, but then take the risk of meeting your mother in Oceanside with the possibility of being seen by you.”

Cade quickly dismissed the idea. “Hope knew I would be at group therapy that afternoon.”

“Only a water pipe burst, and the session was canceled at the last minute.”

“Yes,” he confirmed. Harry had tried to cast doubt on the scenario, and while Cade would like to believe Hope was innocent, he was convinced otherwise. This anger, this darkness he’d been living with the last three days, was familiar, almost welcome. He’d started to trust the light only to learn the light couldn’t be trusted. It was an illusion like a desert mirage.

“When you confronted her, what was Hope’s explanation?”

This was the question Cade had dreaded. “I didn’t give her a chance to lie.”

“Really?” Harry gave him a look of disappointment, which Cade chose to ignore.

“You mean you went with your gut,” the counselor said, “and are finished with her.”