Heartless: A Small Town Single Dad Romance

Willa: How is Cade?

Summer: Full hermit-mode. Back to hating everyone. Please come fix him.

Willa: I’m on my way.

With a positive blood test in hand, I get in my Jeep and start the drive back out to Wishing Well Ranch.

As city streets morph into freeways that morph into country roads, I let my mind wander to how things have changed since the last time I drove out here. How I flew out here on a whim, wind in my hair and not a single responsibility on my radar.

Yeah. Things have changed. Drastically.

But I’m oddly at peace.

I’ve shed tears the last couple of days, and I am not a crier. I’ve made plans for myself, and I am not a planner. I have fresh perspective. Took the space I needed to process.

I’ve realized I’m better with Cade than I am without him. And I think he’s better with me too. I intend to tell him as much and then watch him roll his eyes at me.

It’s going to be so romantic.

As the drive wears on, I get lost in my thoughts and my anxiety grows. What-ifs pop into my head. I listen to the most upbeat ’80s music I can find and chew nervously on my nails, hoping that he wants this as much as I do. Hoping I haven’t made him feel stuck.

When I reach the long driveway, I put my Jeep in park and take some deep breaths and shift in my driver’s seat and start doing the drunk-girl pep talk again. Except I’m dead sober and my concerns are way bigger than if I look sweaty or stumble in front of a hot guy at the bar.

I’m a smart, capable adult. I have family and friends who love me. This is just another opportunity for me to start a new chapter in my life. I’m a hot fucking mess.

Shaking my head at myself, I put the Jeep back into drive and head straight for Cade’s little red house.

The little red house with a freshly poured sidewalk out front.

The little red house with a sweet dark-haired boy strumming his guitar on the front step.

The little red house with a man who makes my heart race and my cheeks heat just by scowling at me the way he is now.

And I have to wonder if it’s not a scowl at all. Because the expression is so full of love, so full of longing, that the muscles in my chest seize and I rush to park so that I can be out of this vehicle and breathing the same air as them.

My boys.

“Willa!” Luke’s quickly forgotten guitar rests on the step as he tears across the front lawn toward me. “I’m so glad you’re back!”

“Me too, pal. Me too,” I say as I wrap my arms around him. But my eyes fixate on his dad, who’s standing there, wearing a pair of jeans like a second skin, hands casually slung on his hips. Fucking hat turned backward.

A country boy who looks as good as Cade Eaton should be illegal.

But instead, he’s mine.

“Hi,” I breathe, unable to tear my eyes away.

“Hi, Red,” he replies but he doesn’t move. His son stays latched onto me like a little barnacle.

“How are you?”

His jaw pops as he stares back at me, and I get nervous. Maybe in doing what I thought was best for Cade, I shot myself in the foot.

But when he says, “Better now that you’re here,” I know that’s not true.

Giving Luke a little pat on the back, I say, “Luke, can you head inside for a few minutes? I need to have a private chat with your dad. And I’ll know if you’re eavesdropping.”

The sheepish grin he gifts me has me smiling back at him. His bright blue eyes, sun-kissed cheeks from a summer spent in the sun . . . I’ve never fallen harder or faster for a single person in the world than I have for Lucas Eaton.

“Okay. But first I want to show you the sidewalk we made.” He threads his small fingers through mine and pulls me off the gravel driveway to the freshly poured walkway. Like, I think it might actually still be wet.

When we get closer, the wet concrete confirms my suspicions. I can smell that chalky scent permeating the surrounding air, but it’s what’s decorating the walkway that stops me in my tracks.

There are shiny stones pressed into the concrete, laid out in the shapes of hearts, running the full length of the walkway.

“Plain was boring. So we decorated! They’re like that day we used chalk on the driveway at the main house!” Luke exclaims.

I peek up at Cade. “Like Valentine’s Day threw up everywhere?”

His lips twitch and he just nods.

“And then up here”—Luke drags me toward the house—“we wrote our initials inside the hearts.”

“I love that!” I exclaim, giving him a firm side hug.

He nods happily, biting at his lip, and looking so damn proud. “And this one is yours.” He points at a heart that’s right next to one with the initials C.E., except this one says W.E.

“My initials are W.G., bud.”

I give him another squeeze and he giggles. Cluelessly. “I know. But dad made that one. I told him the same thing.” My head snaps around to Cade, who still hasn’t moved but is staring at me like I might disappear if he blinks. “But he said they wouldn’t be for long.”

A sob that could pass as a laugh bursts from my lips as I blink furiously, desperate to not fall apart right here in front of them. “I love it, Luke. The whole sidewalk is just beautiful.” I hug him again, sucking in air through my nose and trying to compose myself.

“Good. I’m so happy you’re back! If you didn’t come back today, Dad said he was going to drive into the city and get you.” I almost chuckle. That’s such a Cade thing to say.

After one last hug, Luke bounds up the stairs to the front door. But just like he’s done once before, he stops and looks back at Cade and me with a pleased smile on his face and says, “See, Dad? I told you not to be sad. I told you she’d come back. Our wishes came true! She loves us too much to leave.”

The screen door slams and he’s gone.

And I’m crying, hands covering my face. I’m overwhelmed. Relieved. And, okay, possibly hormonal.

“Hey, hey.” Within seconds Cade is reaching for me, gathering me into his strong arms and holding me tight against his chest. “Baby, don’t cry. You don’t need to cry. I think if you cry, I might cry. And I’m not a crier.”

“I’m not a crier either!” I sob, nuzzling against his shirt and taking deep pulls of his pine scent that I missed so badly these last few days. “But I swear I haven’t stopped crying since I left this place.”

He rocks us gently, like a soft, quiet dance. The only music is the chirping of birds and gentle breeze across the hay field out back. He doesn’t talk. He just holds me until my breathing evens out and the stress has melted from my limbs.

Eventually he tips my chin up so that I’m forced to look at him. His chiseled, masculine features are a welcome sight. “You paying attention right now, Red? Because I’ve spent days thinking hard about my life, and I’ve got some things to tell you.”

I nod and press my lips together, a silent promise to listen to him and not just talk at him.

With a deep sigh, he starts, “Thank you. Thank you for being the first person in my life to put me first, to give me options. I’m not sure I deserve that gift, but I know that I’ll never forget it for as long as I live.”

His thumbs stroke along the peaks of my cheekbones, and he holds my head between his palms. Reverently. Delicately. With so much love. “You’re right that I did this once out of obligation. But I’m a thirty-eight-year-old man who has taken years to trust someone again. I’ve had a lot of time to think about where I went wrong. You are not a decision I made lightly. And tying myself to someone I don’t love out of some misplaced sense of duty is not a mistake I plan to make twice.”

A tear slips out of my eye, and he thumbs it away instantly, stroking at my hair now like he always does. “I’m glad you aren’t sad about the baby because I’m not either. But I want to be clear that you have options. All the options in the world. And I’ll be here with you, no matter what. I want to come home to the sound of you and Luke laughing. I want to listen to you play the guitar while I cook dinner. I want to leave you Post-it notes for a long time. I don’t want you to feel stuck with me.”

More tears slide down my cheeks, and he catches every single one. Always sturdy and reliable.

“I do really love your Post-it notes,” I whisper.

“Then I’ll keep writing them.”

“But I still think I’m a better cook.” I huff out, and I know I’m trying to cut the tension with humor, it works for me though, and I’ll probably never stop.

Cade groans but it’s playful. “We’ll have to learn to agree to disagree on some things because I’m not letting you go.”

“Luke agrees with me,” I argue, sliding my hands up his chest.

“I think it’s cute when you two team up on me. I’ll have to make sure the new baby is on my team though. Train ’em young.”

With a deep, relieved sigh, I curl myself back into his chest and revel in the feel of his arms around me. And I say my piece. “I don’t feel stuck with you at all. For weeks I’ve been dreading leaving. You. Luke. This place. I’ve never felt so settled . . . so at home. I also never saw my life unfolding this way.”

He rubs a hand up and down the column of my spine. “Me neither, Red. That’s just life. But you know, I’m not sure I’d have it any other way.”

“You’re not sad?”

“Not even a little bit,” he replies firmly. And I can tell that he means it. “I’ve watched you with Luke for months now and marveled over what an incredible mom you’d be one day. A mom I wished Luke could have for himself . . .” He trails off before adding, “Are you sad?”

“Not even a little bit,” I whisper his words back, and he drops his lips to the crown of my head before pressing my cheek back to his sternum. Right where I can feel the steady, strong thumping of his heart.

“My dad knows you’re pregnant.”

“Okay.”

“He asked me if I have a breeding kink.”

My hands come up to cover my face and laughter shakes my body. “No, he didn’t.”

“He did.”

“Jesus.” I murmur, but it’s still a little thin. A little watery.

“Forget Jesus. Tell me about the carrot. I’ve been thinking about it for days.”

“The woman you’ve known for all of two months tells you she accidentally got pregnant and what keeps you up is wondering about the carrot in her purse?”

He chuckles and gives my hair a little tug, tipping my face up to his. “Yeah.” He shrugs. “You feel right in my life. In Luke’s life. We just . . . make sense to me somehow. And another little person will too. Nothing about that feels wrong to me. The only thing that doesn’t make sense is that fucking carrot.”

I laugh again, because everything he just said is so quintessentially him. He’s not flowery or showy. He’s matter-of-fact, and he just laid his heart on the line for me. It seems like the least I can do is explain the carrot. “It’s just from feeding the horses with Luke . . . I think.”

“You think?”

Busted. “Yeah, I don’t totally recall putting it in there if I’m being honest. It could be from when I still lived in the city.”

“But that’s months ago.” He sounds suitably horrified. I wonder if he’s having second thoughts about being with a girl who keeps old carrots in her purse.

“Yeah,” I reply lamely, nibbling at my lip.

“Panties and carrots.” He shakes his head and lets his hands roam my back as my breathing continues to even out. “I can’t wait to see what falls out of there next.”

We stand in silence for several minutes, just holding each other in the middle of the front yard, beside the heart he made for me, with my future initials written into the center. Like he’s just that sure of me—of us.

Like we’re better together and he knows it.

“I love you, Cade,” I murmur against his chest.

“I love you too, Red.”

Then he just holds me tighter, and I hope he never lets go.