“It was a destination wedding anyway. It’s a different destination now. We just have to change the flights,” Cassie said, as if that were the most ridiculous objection yet. “I have to go. So many things to work out. Oh wait—Kade, I’ll have to call you as I work out details. I’ll need your cell phone so we can arrange things.”
Kade looked like he’d just gotten shot in the gut with a round of rubber bullets. Finally someone else was looking as shell-shocked as me.
“Yeah, just text me and I’ll have Leah call you back, and you two can handle it when you need things.”
Oh, yeah, wonderful. He offers and then dumps it back on me again.
“That’s great. We can handle it. I’ll call you back, Leah. I’ve got lots of arrangements to work out fast.”
“Cassie?” There was no reply. “Cassie!”
She’d already hung up. She was probably calling her mother, callingeveryone, and then they’d all be showing up here, to see the felon in her natural habitat. My chest was starting to tighten up, the way it had before the last meltdown, and I didn’t even have a shed to go hide in.
“I can’t believe you did that,” I said to Kade, shaking my head as I made my way to the door.
“What are you talking about? She needed a place and I was trying to help.”
“Any chance to humiliate me and you take it.”
“What are you talking about?” He reached for me, and I pulled my arm away before he could touch me.
“Just leave me alone,” I said, running out the door.
“Leah, I really––”
“I need a minute. Please.”
I threwa rock into the stream an hour later, not looking up to where Kade appeared on the bank.
“How’d you find me?” It was dark out. I’d thought it would be a little harder.
“The barn was empty.”
I used to hide in the old barn every time I was upset. It seemed I was as predictable as the sun rising. I wish I could say the same for him. If anyone tried to set their watch by him, the world would spin into chaos. One second he was trying to banish me to the dark ages, exiling me to shed life, with no plumbing and sketchy heat, and now he was insisting I live in the bedroom near his and hosting my best friend’s wedding.
The wedding offer had seemed like a way to parade me around in humiliation, but he might’ve been trying to be nice. Why, I didn’t know, but we were dealing withNice Kadenow. It was also the worst favor he could’ve done me, which suited pretty well, considering it was him.
He walked closer and took a seat just out of arm’s length. He must’ve known I’d try to shove him in the freezing water and drowned him if I could’ve reached.
He took off his jacket and held it out to me. I’d been too busy running out of there to bother with something as silly as a coat.
“I’m fine,” I said.
He kept his arm out.
“Fine,” I said, throwing it over my shoulders.
“Are you upset with me?” he asked.
“What tipped you off? My running out of the office or my hiding by a stream in order to avoid you at the ranch?”
“Hiding? You did come to a spot thatyouknewIknew.”
“I did not. If I’d thought you’d find me here, I would’ve gone somewhere else.”
He tossed a stone into the creek. “Ten years ago, a couple weeks before you moved away, we sat in this very spot together.”
How had he remembered that? Even I hadn’t remembered, and I’d logged every moment we had together in some secret notebook in my mind.
