Love in the Light (Hearts in Darkness, #2)(44)

How much more of his present and his future was he going to let his past destroy?

Fuck.

He heaved a deep breath. Eyes on the prize, Grayson. Getting better. Getting whole. Rebuilding his life. And making right all the things he’d done wrong.

Hesitating just one more moment, he opened the card. There was no printed text on the inside, just Makenna’s looping handwriting.

Dear Caden,

I just wanted you to know that I’m thinking of you. And if you need me, I’m here for you. I can’t say I understand what happened between us, only that I’m willing to listen. I don’t deserve more than you, because there is nothing more than you for me.

I still love…that elevator.

Merry Christmas,

Makenna

Caden read it over and over until he had the words memorized. He could still hear her voice saying I love that elevator that very first night they’d met. After hours of being trapped in the elevator and the most incredible sex of his life, she’d invited him to stay the night with her. When they’d settled into each other’s arms, she’d blurted out, I love… And then she’d covered herself by adding that elevator. Caden had thought it was cute. It had given him hope that maybe she was feeling him with the same crazy intensity that he’d been feeling her. And in the days and weeks that followed, that had seemed to be true.

Until, somewhere along the way, he’d stopped trusting himself, the situation, his happiness, and maybe even her. He knocked his numb-ass skull back against the headboard. In that moment, he wouldn’t have been surprised if a cartoon lightbulb suddenly appeared over his head. He’d stopped trusting her…not to abandon him. And so he’d done the leaving.

He’d made his own worst fears come true.

Brilliant f*cking job.

Blowing out a long breath, he rubbed his fingers over what she’d written. There is nothing more than you for me. Could she really believe that? And could he get himself to a place where he did, too?

He picked up the envelope and found the postmark—she’d sent the card on December twentieth. Almost four weeks ago. He knew it was expecting too much to hope she might wait for him, to wait for him to be better. Not just for her, but for both of them. Especially when she had no way of knowing that he was trying to find his way back to himself, so he might earn a chance to come back to her.

He looked at what she’d written again. Once, twice, he swallowed around a lump that had lodged in his throat, and then he whispered, “Aw, Red. I still love that elevator, too.”

*

The next week, Caden moved home and started back to work. He’d been off for almost six weeks and he was starting to go stir crazy sitting around Joe’s house. It was time to get a life. His.

Truth be told, he was f*cking nervous about walking back into the firehouse again. No doubt the rumors were flying about what had happened to him, especially given how bad a shape he’d been in those last few days on the job. And if the guys didn’t have an idea of what might’ve been going on with him before, they’d probably get the gist just by looking at him—while he’d gained twelve pounds back so far, he was still down twenty from where he’d been at the beginning of December.

A shadow of his former self, maybe, but no longer a ghost.

Never again.

But his nerves would have to f*cking suck it. Because he needed the work—not just for the money, but because he needed to help people. Right now, he was all about playing to his strengths, and doing his job had always been one. That much he could definitely give himself credit for.

He shouldn’t have been worried.

To a man, they were nothing but happy to have him back. Even better, the day was a marathon of calls, one after the other, but it was smooth sailing all the way. Clocking out at the end of the shift made him feel ten feet tall. It had been just the confidence booster he needed.

And it gave him a little hope, too.

If he could get back on his feet at work, maybe, just maybe, that meant he could make things right in other parts of his life as well. Above all else, he wanted to make things right with Makenna.

Thinking of her made him ache, but less and less with unworthiness, guilt, and fear. No, this ache stemmed from the hollowness caused by their long separation, by her absence from his life. He missed her so bad that his chest often throbbed with it, like he’d left a part of himself in her hands. And he unquestionably had.

He just needed a little more time. A little more time to get himself right. A little more time to make peace with the past. A little more time to become the man that Makenna deserved and Caden wanted to be.

He just needed a little more time.

*

A few nights later, Caden was sitting at his kitchen table writing out bills and suddenly found himself staring at the dragon tattoo on the back of his right hand and arm.

He saw it every day, of course. But for some reason, he hadn’t actually seen it in a very long time. He hadn’t remembered why it was there.

The tattoo had been a declaration and a promise. A declaration to himself that he’d conquered his fears, and a promise to his brother, Sean, that Caden would be strong, that Caden wouldn’t live his life in fear when Sean couldn’t live his at all.

“I forgot to be the dragon, Sean. But I won’t forget again,” he said out loud.

Which gave him an idea.

He placed a call, got lucky making an appointment, and booked it out of the house. Caden made it to Heroic Ink within twenty minutes.