Chapter 33: Finding Forever: Chapter 32

God.

Fern’s whole body hurt.

What the hell had she done to deserve this punishment? She stifled a groan and shifted slightly, but the movement set off a cascade of pain starting at her toes and spearing through the rest of her body to coalesce in her head.

She attempted to open her eyes but her lids felt glued shut. What fresh hell was this? She sighed impatiently and tried again.

She finally succeeded, then winced as bright daylight nearly fried her retinas.

Why was it so frikking light out? How late had she slept? If she wasn’t pregnant, she’d swear she had a hangover.

“Why do I feel so crap?” she wondered out loud.

“Fern?” The deep, familiar voice on her left, sounded gruff with concern. “Are you awake? Can you open your eyes, sweetheart?”

“I’ll open my eyes when you turn off the sun,” she responded grumpily.

There was a squeak of the chair, followed by heavy footsteps, some mysterious rustling and then the footsteps returned.

“I’ve closed the blinds. You want to try now?”

She opened her eyes to a much dimmer room, with Cade standing beside her bed. Well, looming was a much more accurate description of what he was currently doing.

“How long did I sleep?” she wondered, then licked her lips, her mouth was so dry. “And what did we do last night? My body hurts so much. Maybe we should lay off the acrobatic stuff for a while, Cade… and stick to missionary or something. Doggy style maybe. Because I feel like I’ve been put through the wringer.”

Cade started to laugh. And laugh. And laugh.

He sank into the chair beside her bed, folded his arms on the mattress next to her shoulder and dropped his face onto his arms. Still laughing… until she realized that his laughter had turned into something else and she now wondered if maybe…

Was he crying?

She lifted her hand to stroke his hair, and that was when she felt the tug of the needle in the back of her hand. She stared at it blankly, then swept her gaze around the room.

She was in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV drip. And her husband; big, strong, unflappable Cade was weeping beside her.

She felt an instant flare of panic and her hand went to her belly. The bump was still there. But that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Further checking revealed a band around her tummy and she sighed in relief as she recognized it as a fetal heart rate monitor. Which had to mean that there was a heartbeat to monitor.

“Cade,” she murmured, using her other hand, the one closest to him, to awkwardly touch her husband’s shoulder. He lifted his absolutely ravaged face to stare at her.

“Oh God… oh my God, Fern, I was terrified. You were unconscious for so long.”

“How long?” she asked.

“Nearly an hour and a half. It felt like forever!”

“What happened?”

“You don’t remember?” He looked a little concerned, scrubbing self-consciously at his face. “You fell…”

Fern shut her eyes as it all came flooding back in an instant.

“I remember,” she said. “Granger. The meeting. He grabbed me.”

“I should’ve caught you.”

“What? It’s not your fault, Cade, I lost my balance.”

“If I’d gotten to you a split second⁠—”

“Cade, stop,” she whispered. “It wasn’t your fault. What about Casper. Is he⁠—?”

“They think he’s okay. They’ve been monitoring his heart rate. Steady, strong, perfectly normal.”

“What if there are latent complications due to the fall? What if it’s done some damage to him that can’t yet be quantified? We don’t know.”

“No, we don’t, but worrying about the possibility won’t achieve anything either. Whatever happens down the road, sweetheart, we’ll figure it out, okay?”

He squeezed his hand around hers and lifted it to his lips.

“Fern, when you fell down those steps…” He shook his head, eyes tormented. “It felt like my life had come to a complete standstill. My world went to hell in a split second and I realized that I can’t exist without you. Not anymore. I refuse to even entertain the possibility of a life without you. And I know this isn’t the time or the place for this conversation, but I feel it’s only appropriate to give you fair warning that if you decide to choose the whole exploring other relationships option… I’m probably going to wind up cock-blocking each and every one of your dates.”

He looked so perfectly serious and miserable while making the ridiculous threat that Fern couldn’t quite prevent an abrupt bark of laughter from escaping. She immediately winced.

“Don’t make me laugh, Cade,” she chastised.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he said with a grimace. “But I’m not going to watch the woman I love get romanced by some twat with a pornstache and a bad toupee.”

“That’s oddly specific.” She snickered and then froze as she went over his words again. “Wait… did you just say you love me?”

His smile was soft and his eyes tender as they lovingly traced over her features.

“I did,” he murmured, running the back of his index finger over the curve of her cheek. “And I do. Fern. So, fucking much.”

“Love me?” she asked, needing clarification.

“I know it’s a lot to absorb and I understand that you don’t feel the same way. I don’t want you to feel pressured into⁠—”

“Cade!” The impatient snap in her voice shut him up, and he waited warily for her to continue. “I’m going to need to you to back up for a second and spell it out nice and slow for the woman with a traumatic brain injury.”

He winced at the last three words, going pale at the reminder.

“Do you love me?”

His brows knitted and he nodded slowly.

“Fern, I have trouble remembering a time I didn’t love you.”

She couldn’t explain it. Maybe it was the anxiety of worrying about Casper, the stress of waking up in the hospital, or the pain in her head and all over her body. More than likely, it was a combination of all those things… But Fern burst into noisy tears at his quiet confession.

She was vaguely aware of him swearing in alarm, and his hand grabbing hold of hers and as he tried to comfort her but she found herself quite unable to stop.

In the end, Fern emerged from her storm of tears long minutes later, to find Cade stretched out on the narrow bed beside her. His arms were wrapped tightly around her and he was whispering soothing nothings into her hair.

“I’m okay,” she sniffled, a little embarrassed by how dramatic that had been. “I’m sorry.”

“What happened?” he asked, his lips on her temple.

“You love me,” she replied and he went rigid.

“I’m sorry, it wasn’t meant to upset you, I just wanted you to know. My feelings for you have been so confusing these last few months. I thought we were incompatible at first, sexually and every other way. You were so shy and quiet. Too timid… too fucking pregnant.”

He grimaced guiltily at the last couple of words and his palm brushed against her bump fleetingly, as if in apology.

“But then you began to blossom. You took such joy in the smallest of things. Like a walk on the beach, lunch with my family, shopping… talking. Eating. Just life. You made the smallest, most ordinary occurrences seem special. It’s one of your most endearing qualities. Despite the shit hand you’d been dealt, you were sweet and optimistic. Kind and gentle and also so stubborn and brave. I found you fascinating. And so very hard to look away from.

“You lit up every corner of my bleak life with your soft light. More and more, everything that had once seemed ordinary about you seemed more extraordinary to me. I couldn’t stop staring at you. You—quite simply—became the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”

“I’m not beautiful,” she denied quietly and he made a soft dismissive sound beneath his breath.

“To me you are,” he corrected her and her heart melted into a puddle of warm goo that sank into the pit of her stomach and began to radiate heat through her entire body. “You’re quite extraordinary. I don’t think I realized it, but looking back on it now, I wonder if some of my ambivalence toward your pregnancy stemmed from resentment. Jealousy even. I didn’t know it, but I was falling in love with you, Fern. But I would never know what it’s like to have you entirely to myself. I was always going to have to share you with the baby.

“And since you seemed so invested in a future where it would be just you and your baby against the world, it felt like there was no room for me in that equation. And more and more I began to understand that I very much wanted there to be. But I didn’t know how to change that. All I could do was try to show you that we’re better together. That we work. Which was hard to do when I still had these complicated, mixed emotions about Casper. I’m so ashamed that I didn’t love him unreservedly from the very beginning.” Another quick brush over the bump.

“How long have you felt this way?” she asked on a broken whisper.

“That day we had lunch at Gideon and Beth’s for the first time? I realized I was jealous of the brother I hadn’t seen in literal years. I wanted to fucking lay Nox out for making that off-color comment about how he would have been your default husband. I didn’t like my irrational reaction, I felt like I no longer knew myself, which is why I said those fucking ridiculous things afterward. I regret the way I spoke to you that day, Fern. It was more about me trying to convince myself that my feelings for you were wrapped up nice and tight.”

“You made me so angry that day with your no smiles, no friendship mandate. It was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. And to make matters worse you kept contradicting and breaking your own dumb rules.”

“If it’s any consolation, I thought they were dumb even as I was saying them. And I kept breaking them because you’re irresistible as fuck. I was never going to stick to those rules. I enjoyed spending time with you too much.

“And as your pregnancy progressed, I began to panic. I read anything I could find about fetal development and possible complications to the mother. Because, while my feelings toward the baby remained undefined, I was falling hard for you… and I was terrified that something would happen to you. Every time you were sick or dizzy, whenever you looked off or tired, I spiraled and doom scrolled for any explanation under the sun that could cause those particular symptoms in pregnancy.”

“It’s called being pregnant, Cade,” she told him gently, and he winced.

“I know that, okay? But naturally everything you find on the internet leads straight to possible worst-case scenarios. All I wanted was to keep you safe… and it felt like pregnancy was the biggest risk of all. And I think that contributed to my complex feelings toward the baby as well. I felt like I could lose you—in more ways than one—and it would be his fault.

“The way I felt started to change after that interview with Mike Holmes, when you walked out? I was panicking like a damned idiot, unsure of how to even begin looking for you when I realized that I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t pretend that baby had nothing to do with me. I didn’t want to. I wanted the opportunity to know him, love him. Take care of him. I wanted to share in your obvious joy in this pregnancy, but I felt so far removed from it. Like an intruder, unwelcome and unwanted. And I wasn’t sure how to fix that.”

“Oh Cade,” she whispered, dropping her head on his shoulder. She took his large hand and sandwiched it between the mound of her stomach and her palm. “I wish I’d known; I would have included you more.”

“It was easy to fall in love with you, Fern. You’ve changed my life, improved my relationships with my siblings, with my father. You bring me joy, make me laugh and feel less alone. You fill up every empty space inside of me and make me whole. I hate being apart from you and love coming home to you. And I feel like there’s so much more for us to discover about each other and that excites me. I look forward to every day because I know you’ll be there.

“I don’t want to lose you. I hope you’ll choose to stay with me. But in the end, part of loving you means wanting what’s best for you. And if you believe that I’m not what’s best for you…” He shook his head, hand rubbing gentle circles on her stomach. “I’m not going to lie, Fern, that doesn’t really bear thinking about. I truly hope I won’t have to find out what I’d do if that was your decision. But I believe it would be whatever would make you happiest. Because that’s what I’ve been put on this earth for, Fern—making you happy. And if making you happy means letting you go then I’d—I’d…”

His voice choked up and she tilted her head back to look into his agonized face. She knew what he wanted to say and knew he would follow through on the unspoken words if he had to, but she could also see that verbalizing them was near impossible for him.

“You’d let me go?” she finished for him and he gritted his teeth, eyes glittering with emotion, and nodded.

“For an awful, life shattering moment after you fell…” he whispered hoarsely. “I thought you weren’t breathing, Fern. I thought I’d lost you. And it nearly destroyed me. I find I can’t physically talk about voluntarily giving you up after a scare like that. Not now. Maybe not ever.”

“You won’t have to give me up, Cade. I love you too. I’ve always liked you, but I think I fell in love with you when you gave me this bracelet.” She lifted her hand slightly to point to her medic alert bracelet, before lowering it back to his hand. “Nobody but my mother had ever been so concerned for my well-being before. I mean you were so considerate of my every need even before that. Worrying about the sun and peanuts and peppering Dr. Khan with all those worst-case scenario questions… but this bracelet. I felt so special.”

“It wasn’t anything special,” he muttered, sounding a little self-conscious.

“I thought it was. It was special enough to make me fall in love with you. I was halfway there already, but this just tipped me all the way over. After that, I couldn’t imagine ever leaving you. But I felt like I had to consider a life apart from you. I didn’t want you to feel trapped. I knew you didn’t feel the way I did about the baby.”

“In the end it was easy to love our baby, Fern. Because he’s a part of you. And I quite simply adore every single part of you. When I first heard his heartbeat, I felt like I was going to pass out. I didn’t like it, I was panicking and wanted to get out of there with every fiber of my being. And when it stopped, after Dr. Khan switched off the machine, I should have been relieved… but I panicked. I thought something had happened to him. And in that moment, even before I loved him, I would’ve moved mountains just to hear that heartbeat again. Just to know that he was okay. I may not have loved him immediately, the way you did, Fern… but I do love him now. He’s yours. And mine. Ours. And I want what’s best for him. I want him to be okay.”

His hand stopped stroking and applied gentle pressure to her belly, as if he was trying to communicate directly with his son.

“He’ll be okay, Cade… I’m sure he’s—” She gasped as she felt the slightest of flutters directly beneath Cade’s palm. More assertive than any of the little pops she’d felt before.

Cade sat bolt upright and stared fixedly at his hand.

“Did you feel it too?” Fern asked, a hint of awe in her voice.

“He moved,” Cade said, with the same reverence. His eyes jerked up to hers. “He did, right? He moved… fuck! He’s doing it again.”

Another flutter, stronger than the one before.

“Oh God, oh my God,” Fern whispered, laughter and tears fighting for supremacy in her voice.

The tears won when Cade bent his head to her tummy, moving his hand out of the way to kiss the gentle baby bump through the hideous fabric of her hospital gown.

“Hi there,” Cade was crooning at her tummy now. “Hi there, Casper. This is your daddy. Your mum and I are so excited to meet you, little guy. We love you so much and we can’t wait to hold you in our arms.”

Fern hunched over to kiss Cade’s head as he quietly talked to their baby, and her face was wet with tears of joy. There was one more gentle flutter before the movement stopped.

They waited for a few seconds longer but it soon became apparent that the baby was done for now. Cade sat up, his eyes bright with tears and wonder.

“Do you think he heard me?”

“Of course, he did,” Fern said, her voice choked with emotion. “He heard you and he feels safe knowing his daddy is right here with us.”

Fern was kept overnight for observation and she and the baby were both given a clean bill of health the following morning and discharged from the hospital shortly thereafter.

Cade fussed over Fern all the way home.

“I need a shower,” she said as soon as they stepped over the threshold.

“Then I’ll be joining you,” he stated.

She gave him an arch little smile, and he rolled his eyes.

“Get your mind out of the gutter, woman, I’m concerned that you might get dizzy and fall.”

“Wait, so no sexy times?” She pouted—getting a kick out of teasing him—and he gaped at her.

“You literally just got out of the hospital. Definitely no sexy times.”

“Gosh you’re being an old maid about this.”

He clamped his lips shut and she made her way to their room, shedding her clothes along the way. The sexy fitted fuschia maternity dress that she’d worn to her meeting tossed aside carelessly. She’d felt so confident in it. But she never wanted to see it again.

Cade was as good as his word, stripping and stepping into the huge shower with her. He soaped her from top to toe, washed her hair, stood patiently and quietly when she insisted on returning the favor and balked only when her hand closed around his straining erection.

“Fern,” he admonished mildly, stepping out of her hold and shutting off the water.

“But it’s right there… it’s hungry, like me. Can’t we just⁠—”

“No, Jesus, you’d drive a saint to drink. You’re going to rest today.”

Ugh.

She dug out an old T-shirt… one she hadn’t seen in a while actually, and—after donning a pair of panties and striped knee-high socks— shrugged into it.

When Cade, now dressed in a pair of charcoal cargo pants and a black T-shirt sporting Captain America’s shield on the front, turned around and saw her, his face froze.

“Where’d you find that?” he asked, his expression darkening. Fern paused in the act of combing snags out of her damp hair and stared at him in confusion.

“What?”

“That T-shirt?” She glanced down at her Night of the Living Dead T-shirt in confusion and shrugged.

“In my drawer.”

“I thought I’d gotten all of them,” he muttered under his breath.

“What do you mean?” she asked him.

“Nothing.”

“No, you clearly meant something. What happened to all of my other sleep shirts, Cade? This is the last of my original ones.”

“Margot’s boyfriend’s shirts, aye?”

“No, they’re my shirts now. They haven’t been his shirts in over ten years.”

“You like my shirts better though. They’re a better fit, softer cotton.”

She folded her arms over her chest.

“What happened to them, Cade?”

“I don’t know what happened to them.”

“I feel like you do,” she challenged. She was mostly amused by this turn of events. She’d always suspected he’d had a hand in the mysterious disappearance of her shirts. What she hadn’t known was why.

“No, I’m serious, Fern,” he maintained earnestly. “I don’t know what happens to shit after it gets thrown out.”

She covered her mouth with her hand, mostly to hide her smile.

“You threw them out? Why?”

“Because I didn’t like seeing you in another man’s clothes,” he admitted, running a hand over his head as he avoided her eyes.

“Aah, well then…” She dragged the T-shirt up and off, tossing it over her shoulder without a backward glance. His eyes sparked at the sight of her in only knee socks and bright pink panties. He drank in her obviously pregnant body with the little baby bump and her now bottom-heavy breasts with their dark, pert nipples.

He was so busy staring, he was taken completely unaware when she stepped toward him and tugged at the hem of his T-shirt. She had it halfway up his chest before he could react.

“Bend your head,” she commanded and he automatically obeyed. She had the shirt off him and on her in seconds after that. Leaving him to blink at her in shock.

“You stole my shirt,” he said, sounding a little dazed.

She laughed at him.

“You’re right, I do like your shirts better.”

She walked out of the room with a brazen swagger to her hips.

Cade followed after changing into another shirt and ushered her straight to the sofa—even though she insisted that she was fine. He covered her with a lap blanket, plumping up the cushions around her, and making her a mug of hot cocoa with marshmallows.

“You know it’s summer, right?” she asked him from the depths of the cocoon he’d created for her.

“Are you trying to tell me you’re not comfortable right now?” he asked with a skeptically arched brow.

She tossed him a mutinous glare before taking a sip from her delicious cocoa and grumbling beneath her breath.

“What’s that?” he asked, cupping a hand around his ear. “I didn’t quite catch it.

“Maybe I’m a little comfortable.”

“I have a couple of meetings. It won’t be too long,” he told her. “I’ll be in my office. The door’s open. Call if you need me.”

“Fine. Thanks for the cocoa.”

He grinned and dropped a kiss on her mouth.

“Love you.” He seemed to get a kick out of saying it.

“Love you too,” she replied…. Okay, maybe she got a kick out of saying it too.

She lifted her phone and immediately started texting Beth, until he leaned over the back of the couch to confiscate her phone and replace it with the tv remote.

“Hey, come on, man, it was just a text,” she protested.

“You heard the doctor, lay off the small screens and reading for the next twenty-four hours. The television screen is larger, better for your bruised brain.”

“Fine,” she grumbled. She was a little more familiar with his entertainment system now and began flicking through his streaming services. He watched her for a moment, before leaving her to it.

When Cade checked in on Fern an hour later, she was fast asleep. Still curled up on the sofa, buried under a couple of cushions, with the blanket drawn up to her chin. Her small feet were sticking out on the other end of the blanket.

He grinned, feeling a pang in his chest at the sight of her, so perfect and content, exactly where she belonged. He couldn’t quite believe that she loved him. It all felt like a surreal dream, and he was petrified that he would wake up from it at any moment only to find that she’d never really existed.

He shuddered at the thought and sat down by her feet, scooting over, until they were in his lap. He took one of them into his palm—so small—and peeled off her socks before giving her a foot rub. He wasn’t very good at it, just did what came naturally, gently digging his thumbs into her soft heels and soles.

She sighed… and stretched. Then opened her eyes with a throaty little moan.

“Hmm, that feels nice,” she told him with a sleepy smile.

“You have a good nap?”

“Uh huh.”

He moved onto the other foot.

“I wanted to let you know that Abernathy was arrested after you fell. On assault charges. The police have already questioned me, but they’re going to want to speak to you at some point as well. Would you be willing to do that?”

“Yes, of course,” she said with a dark little frown.

“There are plenty of witnesses who will attest to the fact that he grabbed you against your will,” Cade told her. He released her feet and she scooted upright.

“Also, Cyrus is coming over in a few minutes with some papers he’s going to need you to sign.”

“What papers?”

“I’ll leave it to him to explain it to you.”

“It can’t wait?”

“Better to get it over with.”

“You’re being a little cryptic,” she complained.

“Am I?” he asked cryptically and she glowered at him.

He grinned unrepentantly.

“God, you’re annoying sometimes,” she said and his grin widened.

“But you love me anyway, right?”

“Ugh, you know I do.”

The doorbell rang and she squeaked.

“Is that Cyrus? Right now? But I look terrible. And I’m not dressed.” Her hand went to her hair, which had mostly dried while she was asleep. She would usually have braided it, so it was a bit messy. Not that Cade cared. She looked amazing no matter what.

“You look beautiful,” he reassured her. “And he’s not expecting you to be dressed up fancy to meet him, you were in the hospital. Just stay right where you are, he’ll come to you.”

Cyrus was brimming with concern and sympathy when Cade let him in. The older man went straight to Fern—who still felt more than a little self-conscious about meeting her attorney in her sleep shirt—and sat down on one of the easy chairs.

“How are you doing, Fern? I’m so sorry about what happened. If I’d known things would turn out this way, I would have rejected Abernathy’s request out of hand.”

Cade handed the man a cup of coffee and sat down in the same spot as before, taking Fern’s feet back into his lap.

“So many people apologizing for Granger’s actions,” Fern said, her eyes darting to Cade wanting him to know she meant him as well. “When the only one responsible for what Granger did, is Granger himself. I don’t blame you for facilitating the meeting, I don’t blame Cade for not catching me, any more than I blame the stairs for being there or the floor for breaking my fall. So please… no more apologies. Okay?”

Cyrus nodded and smiled.

“How are you feeling?”

“Perfectly fine, thank you. And so’s the baby.” Her hand went to her tummy to give it a reassuring pat. “So, what brings you around?”

Cyrus exchanged an enigmatic glance with Cade, before balancing his briefcase on his lap and removing a sheaf of papers from the interior.

He cleared his throat and leaned forward to hand the documents over to Fern.

“This is an offer from Hawthorne Construction & Engineering to purchase Lambecrete (Pty) Ltd from its owner Fern Imogen Lambert to the tune of two hundred seventy-three million five hundred twenty-two thousand pounds.”

“What?” she whispered, her wide unseeing eyes going over the bold print at the top of the page without absorbing a single word. “I’m not sure… I don’t understand. What does this mean?”

“It means that we’re buying Lambecrete from you, Fern,” Cade informed her softly. “I want there to be no misunderstandings as to why I’m with you.”

“You don’t have to do this, Cade. I know you love me.”

“And this is me proving to you and the world that you mean more to me than anything else. You come ahead of the company, ahead of my family.… My main priority now and always will be making sure that you—and Cas—are happy.”

“How can you do this? Wasn’t it a done deal?”

“It’s backdated. Cyrus and I worked something out. It’s all perfectly legal.”

“Your father⁠—”

“Understands. I told him, the other day actually—after my other discussion with him—that I was going to do this. He’s fine with it. And frankly, even if he wasn’t, I’d still have done it. I don’t want you because of what you have, Fern. I want you and I love you because of who you are.”

Cyrus cleared his throat again, and she met his eyes. He looked a bit awkward to be witness to such a private moment but also visibly moved by it.

“I—and several of my aides—have been over this contract with a fine-tooth comb, Fern,” the man told her with a smile. “Everything is well in order. The terms and conditions are more than satisfactory and—unless you want me to squeeze a few more pennies out of them—my advice is for you to go ahead and sign.”

Fern’s eyes flitted back to Cade, who met her gaze with a level stare. His hand closed over the top of her foot and squeezed reassuringly.

“Please, Fern… it’s important to me.”

She nodded and took Cyrus’s heavy gold pen in her hand and—to make both men happy—took her time flipping through each page, reading the sections requiring an initial carefully. Giving the moment the gravity and consideration it deserved. It took her nearly half an hour, while Cade and Cyrus quietly discussed a recent rugby match, but she finally signed the last page with a flourish.

Cade took the pen from her and added his own scrawl in the designated space beside hers.

“You didn’t read it,” she admonished with a mock gasp and he laughed.

“Sorry, this has already taken up too much of our day and I want your lawyer out of our home so that I can have you all to myself again.”

“That’s my cue,” Cyrus said with a chuckle, capping his pen and carefully placing the contract back into his briefcase. “You get well soon, young lady.”

“Thank you, Cyrus.”

“I’ll be in touch next week to discuss further details on the sale of your company. We’re going to need to set up a meeting with your bank manager ASAP and⁠—”

“Yes, thank you, goodbye, Cyrus,” Cade said, jumping up and crowding the laughing man out of the front door.

Once he’d shut the door behind Cyrus, he turned to face Fern.

“Alone at last,” he said, a predatory smile lifting the corners of his lips. And she squealed as he stalked toward her.

“How do you feel, Fern?” he asked as he closed the distance between them. She leaped to her feet as he approached, catching her bottom lip between her teeth as she waited.

He was next to her in seconds, but because of the height disparity, she had to bend her neck too far back and she jumped onto the sofa to close the height gap.

“I feel fantastic,” she told him, winding her arms around his strong neck.

“No headache?” he asked as he nuzzled her neck.

“Nope.” She caught his earlobe between her teeth. “You?”

“No.” He laughed softly. “Thanks for asking.”

“Cade… what you just did—” she whispered, serious now.

“I did because I love you. And I want the whole fucking world to know it. I love you so much I want to beat my chest and shout it from the rooftops.”

She leaned against him, trusting him to support her weight and—with her lips hovering the merest breath away from his—whispered, “I love you too, Niall”—kiss—“Caden”—kiss—“Hawthorne, and I can’t begin to imagine what my life would’ve been like now if I hadn’t met you. If I hadn’t followed my instincts and trusted you. You’re my hero, Cade. You saved me.”

He laughed and shook his head.

“You’re the hero, Fern,” he corrected. “You saved yourself. You saved me. And that’s yet another thing I love about you. Your strength. Your bravery…. How the fuck did I get so lucky?”

He kissed her, wrapping his arms tightly around her waist and lifted her from the sofa. She hooked her legs around his waist and kissed him back. Hungrily. With an eagerness that bordered on desperation.

He strode to their bedroom, never once lifting his mouth from hers and gently deposited her—on her back—on the bed.

He stared at her, his eyes warm, expression gentle.

“My father told me last week, that he’d felt like he’d lost me somewhere along the way. But what nobody knows is that I felt like I’d lost myself too—until I met you. You found the man I’d buried deep down inside, beneath layers of granite and emotional debris. And you made me whole again.”

He kissed her, reverently, deeply.

“Thank you, Fern.”