Rachel gave Mrs. Munoz a fierce hug goodbye, but walking to Cade’s truck with Tommy’s hand tucked in hers, Rachel felt close to tears. Mrs. Munoz was such a sweet lady. Nothing could happen to her. Nothing.
Fortunately, Tommy loved Cade’s truck and was happy to be riding in the cab’s backseat where he could play with the leather armrest with the built-in cup holder. But Rachel was nervous he might break the armrest by flipping it down too aggressively and cautioned him to be more gentle.
“It’s okay,” Cade told her. “He’s not going to break anything.”
“You don’t know that. He does break things. Frequently.”
Cade shrugged. “Then if he breaks it, I’ll fix it. No big deal.”
She opened her mouth to protest, and then blurted something completely different. “Tommy’s babysitter, Mrs. Munoz, isn’t well.” Her voice cracked. “She might be having heart problems.”
Cade shot her a swift look. “Does that put you in a bad spot?”
“I’m not worried about me. I’m worried about her. She’s been wonderful to us...really loving and so patient with Tommy. She never gets mad at him, and whenever I’m in a bind she always comes through for me. And then she makes us homemade enchiladas and the best tamales at Christmas—” Rachel broke off as tears filled her eyes and she suddenly couldn’t stop them. They fell in great fat warm drops and she reached up to catch them, but they were falling faster than she could wipe them away. “It just doesn’t seem fair. I know we’re mortal, but life is just so short, and the people I care about just keep going away—”
And then she stopped talking, embarrassed she’d said so much, and to Cade, of all people! He was the one who’d broken her heart into a thousand pieces and had made every loss after hurt worse.
“I’m sorry, Rachel,” he said quietly, his voice pitched low.
She nodded, struggling to get control. Suddenly he reached out to her and placed his hand on her knee, his palm warm against her skin. From someone else the touch might have been sexual, but this wasn’t sexual Cade, it was loving Cade, the Cade who knew her and had once been so good at comforting her.
At the house, Rachel unlocked the front door and then flipped on the entry light, before getting the hallway lights that led to the bedrooms. Tommy let out a yelp and pushed past her, running down the hall to eagerly turn on all the lights he could reach. He loved lights, and light switches, loved fans, too. Anything that could go on or off fascinated him for hours.
“Tommy’s not afraid of the dark?” Cade asked, watching Tommy disappear down the hall.
“Not if he’s the first one to turn the lights on. It’s a game to him,” Rachel answered wryly, still feeling a little raw from being so emotional on the way home. “But come in. I should go check on him.”
Moving through the house, Rachel noted that Tommy had managed to turn every overhead light on in the three bedrooms and two bathrooms before throwing himself down on the floor of his room with his tub of LEGO. He was in the process of dumping the entire bin out when she looked in on him, but it was fine. Dumping out and picking up thousands of pieces of LEGO was a daily occurrence around here.
Smiling, she returned to the entry where Cade was waiting. “He’s playing,” she said, peeling her coat off and hanging it in the hall closet. “He’ll be happy for a while, too. Once Tommy’s engrossed in something, he’s focused.”
“Is this when you get some time to yourself?”
Rachel laughed. “Moms don’t get time to themselves...not unless you call dinner, laundry and bills ‘mom time.’” She glanced at her watch, saw that it was almost six. “Speaking of dinner, I’d better get something started because Tommy will be hungry soon.”
“I’ll head off, then.”
“You don’t have to. If you like frozen pizza, you’re welcome to stay.”
“Frozen pizza?” he repeated, not looking overly enthused.
Rachel laughed again, unable to help herself. “Or we can order pizza, but if we do that, you’re paying.”
“Done. Tell me what kind of pizza you guys like, and I’ll make the call.”
Thirty minutes later they were all sitting at the round oak table in the kitchen eating pizza and drinking root beer. Half of the pizza was pepperoni and half was cheese, and Tommy, who never wanted anything but plain cheese, watched Cade eat a pepperoni slice and decided he wanted one, too. Rachel nearly fell out of her chair when Tommy inhaled the slice and wanted more.
Cade watched Tommy eat a second pepperoni slice, holding the wedge with both hands, his eyes big and bright, but his expression was dreamy and unfocused, and he seemed far away.
He was a sweet kid, Cade thought, a quiet little boy who lived in his own world, but that didn’t bother him. Growing up, Cade had been fairly disconnected from the world, too, and sometimes it was better to be distant and dreamy than aware of all the chaos and pain.
So far Rachel hadn’t said anything about Tommy’s father, and frankly, Cade didn’t want to know much, having already formed an opinion of Tommy’s father and it wasn’t flattering. Any man who would walk away from his own child was an A-hole and a loser, and both Rachel and Tommy deserved better.
Suddenly Tommy looked up at Cade and smiled. “Pizza,” Tommy said, tomato sauce smudging his mouth as he grinned broadly.
“It’s good, isn’t it?” Cade answered, smiling back at the boy, aware that this was the first time Tommy had ever spoken directly to him.
Tommy continued to grin and eat, watching Cade’s face as he chewed, and something shifted and ached in Cade’s chest.
It was ironic, but with his dark hair and big blue eyes, Tommy looked an awful lot like Cade and could easily pass for his son, just as Cade had looked like his father, rodeo cowboy legend Jack King, who’d died at twenty-seven when his horse had rolled on him during the saddle bronc competition. It was a freak accident—and rare—as most fatalities in the sport came from bull riding, and even then there had only been three in the PRCA since 2000—but it made big news.
Cade wasn’t much older than Tommy when his dad died, just five, but he remembered the funeral and all the cowboys who attended, and how so many of them clapped him on the shoulder, or patted his head, and told him one day he’d be a great cowboy, too, just like his dad.
Funny. Cade rarely thought about his dad, despite becoming a rodeo champion in his own right, but remembering his childhood never felt good and he’d learned to get through life by focusing on the next event, the next road trip and the next prize to be won.
“Done,” Tommy said, pointing to the hall. “Go. LEGOs.”
“You had enough to eat?” Rachel asked, leaning across the table to wipe his mouth off.
Tommy nodded so Rachel excused him, and Cade watched Rachel watch her son dash down the hall and he felt his chest grow tight again. She loved her son so much, and her love was so pure and so unconditional that it moved him deeply. She was so different from his mother, who wasn’t a maternal woman...
Abruptly he stood and gathered the plates and cups and carried everything to the sink, turning the faucet on to rinse the plates clean.
“Leave it,” Rachel said from behind him. “I’ll do it later.”
“I’m here. Let me help.”
“You’ve helped so much already today, Cade. You saved me.”
“I did nothing—”
“Nothing?