Chapter 2

Cade

“I was supposed to get married today. I didn’t,” Amelia said.

I stared down at her and tried to collect my thoughts into something sensible. But there was nothing sensible about me when it came to Amelia Haynes. Right now, in fact, I was wondering if maybe I should carry her down the street to the courthouse and marry her. I wanted to. Damn did I want to.

The only thing holding me back was the memory of the look on her face the last time I’d seen her. She’d walked in on her former best friend trying to kiss me in bed. It didn’t matter that I’d been turning away and had been plain horrified to wake up and find Shannon climbing into the bed naked. No, what mattered was Amelia saw Shannon mashing her mouth against mine and then acting like it had happened before. Amelia’s face had gone white and then dark with fury. I never got another chance to talk to her. Nothing ever happened with Shannon, but Amelia iced me out of her life. The whole situation was made worse by the fact I’d been about to leave Willow Brook, Alaska for a year a week later. Not enough time to make things right.

The emotional upheaval hadn’t helped me think clearly. I’d left Willow Brook for my planned year with a hotshot firefighting crew in California and mostly stayed away ever since. I’d returned to Willow Brook a few times to visit my family, but I’d never seen Amelia. At first, it was because I was pissed. She’d shut me out so completely. By the time I got around to thinking maybe I should try to at least make some peace, she was dating Earl Osborne by then. I’d bitterly accepted it was probably best to let it go. No sense in stirring up the past.

I was in Anchorage now because I was taking care of a few errands before driving to Willow Brook tomorrow. I’d accepted a job as a foreman on a hotshot crew based out of Willow Brook. I was finally moving home because nowhere else felt like it for me. I’d hoped I was over Amelia, but one look at her and she gutted me.

I stared down into her eyes and tried to think. Her eyes were like honeyed cognac. Her hair, amber flecked with gold, fell in tousled waves around her shoulders. It was a mess really. All of her was. Her wedding dress was dirty, a bruise was forming on her cheek just under her eye, and I was pretty sure she was drunk.

She stared back at me, and I realized I hadn’t said a thing since she made her announcement. “You were supposed to get married today?”

“Yup.” She nodded forcefully. “Sure was. I walked out. Couldn’t do it. You know why?” she asked, a mulish tone to her question.

“Why?”

She poked me in the chest with her index finger. “It’s all your fault.”

I was lost, I truly was. How could it be my fault she didn’t get married?

“Amelia, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I finally said.

She rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically. “No one looks at me the way you did. That’s the whole problem. Why’d you have go and be such an asshole?”

While I was reverberating at what she said, she kept on talking, the words spilling out every which way, here and there a word slurring. “Earl tried, oh he tried, to act like it mattered, but he was like every other guy I dated. Not that there were that many. I’m too big. I’m not feminine enough. It’s like he thought he could prove he was a man by dating me. Stupid, stupid, stupid.” She punctuated these words with a thump of her forehead against my chest, all the while I stood frozen on the sidewalk. Traffic rolled by and pedestrians stepped around us.

Her eyes whipped up again, lasering me with an accusing glare. “You weren’t like that. But after it all, you were.”

Anger rose inside. She’d boxed me out of her life so effectively, I’d never had a chance to even tell her what didn’t happen with Shannon. I looked down at Amelia and started walking quickly, driven by the lingering anger at what tore us apart and the fresh anger at what she said about herself. She kicked her legs against mine.

“What are you doing?”

I couldn’t answer because I didn’t know. It so happened my truck was parked just ahead. I kept walking and stopped beside it, easing her down. The moment her feet landed on the sidewalk, she tried to push away, only to stumble. I reached for her reflexively, catching her fast against me. A bolt of need hit me. Amelia was tall and strong with generous curves. Just as before, my body knew what it wanted. I’d always loved how she stood nearly level with me. My eyes canted down of their own accord to see the soft curves of her breasts mounding up over the fitted top of her wedding dress. I had to force my gaze up and found hers wide and locked on me.

A familiar electricity arced to life. This was Amelia. This was us. Nothing had faded between us, if anything, it burned hotter than it ever had. In a distant corner of my mind, I tried to tell myself not to do this. If I wanted to make things right, I had to go slow. Yet, with her held against me and her amber eyes flashing fire, I did the only thing I wanted. I backed her against my truck. “You’re not too big. Don’t ever say that again,” I growled before crushing my lips to hers.

It was as if no time had passed, well except for the fact I was pouring seven years of longing into our kiss. She arched into me and threaded a hand roughly into my hair, moaning in my mouth with every stroke of her tongue against mine. I couldn’t stop kissing her. She felt so good, so damn good. My mind fuzzed out and all I knew was the feel of her against me. A horn honked nearby, and Amelia tore her lips free.

I opened my eyes, my heart pounding so hard, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I cracked a rib. Her head fell back against my truck. She closed her eyes, her breath heaving. Her fingers loosened in my hair and her palm slid down to rest over my chest. After a moment, she opened them.

“What was that?” she finally asked over the pounding of our hearts.

“I never stopped missing you.”