The Best Is Yet to Come (52)

“Exactly.” He didn’t care to hear anything Hope had to say. He knew what he saw. As far as he was concerned, that was the end. He wanted nothing more to do with her.

“And this is where Silas stepped in.” It was more statement than question.

“He contacted Hope.” It tightened his jaw just thinking about what his friend had done. The last person Cade wanted to see or speak to ever again was Hope, and Silas had forced him into it.

“Why would he do that?” Harry asked, and seemed genuinely curious.

Cade huffed out a long breath. “That was my mistake. I called Silas and asked him to join me at Hooters.”

“Hooters,” Harry repeated slowly. “This was soon after you saw Hope with your mother, I take it?”

“Yeah, I needed to think, you know.” A lot of military men frequented the bar there. Being around other veterans was comforting. Well aware of the consequences, Cade knew enough not to get drunk. He wasn’t looking for a fight. Wasn’t looking for anything other than a sympathetic ear. He’d called Silas, thinking his friend would empathize with him. He never got the chance. Before Silas arrived, a woman, Cade couldn’t remember her name, had made it her mission to fulfill his every need. It didn’t take him long to realize her ulterior motive. She wanted Cade to pay for her drinks. When Silas arrived, Cade had been embarrassed at his inability to get rid of her. The woman had more arms than an octopus and was crawling all over him.

At some point, he wasn’t even sure when, Silas had taken his phone and called Hope.

“I don’t know what Silas was thinking,” Cade said, regretting nearly everything about that night. It’d been a big mistake to contact Silas and an even bigger one heading to Hooters.

“I’ll admit it seems out of character for him,” Harry said, thoughtfully, “unless there were extenuating circumstances.”

“Like what? I wasn’t drunk.”

“Then what do you think prompted him to reach out to Hope?”

Cade knew and hadn’t wanted to bring it up. “There was this woman I met.”

“Ah,” Harry said, in that knowing way of his.

He wanted to groan with frustration. “It’s not what you think.”

“Now who’s reading minds?” Harry asked.

Cade ignored the question. “I couldn’t get rid of her. She planted herself in my lap, her hands in my hair, and then she was kissing my neck like it was the world’s finest chocolate.” He had the bite marks to prove it.

“I know the type,” Harry said, sounding sympathetic.

“Yes, well, the next thing I knew, Silas arrived. We tried to talk, but this woman was all over me.”

“Do you think Silas guessed the problem with your sudden change of affection?”

Rather than answer, he shrugged.

“It seems to me Silas was looking more for information than to interfere,” Harry said, and then added, “Of course, I could be wrong.”

“Maybe so,” Cade was willing to admit. “But that isn’t the worst of it. He handed me the phone and said it was for me. He’d called Hope. I didn’t want to talk to her; Silas had to know that.”

“It’s possible,” Harry agreed. “In my experience, we all, at one time or another, try to fix things that would be better off left alone.”

No doubt about it. “This was definitely one of those times.”

Harry uncrossed his legs and was silent for a moment, as though mulling over everything Cade had told him.

“If you don’t mind my asking, I’d be curious to hear what it was Hope had to say.”

Cade snickered. “She was ridiculous.”

Harry’s brows arched. “In what way?”

“She lost a brother in Afghanistan. He was her twin…the last of her family. I had this woman hanging around my neck and Hope told me she trashed her apartment when she learned Hunter had been killed.”

Harry mulled that over for several moments. “Interesting. How did you respond?”

Cade wasn’t proud of what he’d said. “I told her if she assumed I was trashing my life because of her, she was off base. She means nothing to me. Not anymore.”

“Am I correct to assume you haven’t spoken to her since?”

“You’re damn straight.”

Harry nodded. “And she hasn’t made an effort to contact you?”

“I blocked her number.”

“So you don’t know if she has or hasn’t reached out?”

Time for truth. “She hasn’t. I unblocked it the next day.”

This, too, appeared to interest Harry, but he didn’t comment, and Cade was just as glad. “I thought I might, you know, inadvertently see her at the animal shelter,” he admitted.

“You haven’t, though?”

A dozen times in the last few days, Cade wanted to ask Preston about her. He hadn’t, although it took tremendous willpower on his part. He believed she’d purposely stayed away because of him. It didn’t help that the tire store was across the street from the high school parking lot. He’d watched as she’d pulled in that very morning. There seemed to be no escaping her. Anger simmered below the surface. Anger at Hope, yes, but with himself. He looked for her and couldn’t seem to make himself stop.