From This Moment - By Alison Chaffin Higson Page 0,22
of him and settle down with my head on his chest, his arms go around me and our legs tangle.
I never want to move.
“Are you comfortable there?” I snuggle more into him, “Oh, Yeah.” He chuckles.
“Cade, will you tell me about your wife?” On what sounds like a groan, “What do you want to know?” I lift my head from his chest to look at him, caressing his face, “Whatever you want to tell me.”
Cade pushes me back down on his chest. “Okay.... you have to know that I love Jake, Anna and Beth, but I will always regret those three and a half years of my life. I was a lot different back then and obviously irresponsible.” Pausing. “I was nineteen, celebrating a friend’s birthday which left me intoxicated, and I passed out. The party was at Daniel’s place – his parents being on vacation. I don’t actually remember a great deal, but I do remember waking up in one of the guest rooms in bed with a girl, Janice. Having no recollection of what had happened in the room, I quickly dressed and left. Five months later, I bumped into her in Jackson, she was looking rather pregnant. Turns out it was me who got her that way.”
Cade went quiet, possibly reflecting what happened back then. “I assumed responsibility and insisted we date and eventually we decided to get married before the babies arrived. I was panicking inside, but it was really the only thing to do, because I wanted the babies to have my name. Janice actually told me that unless we got married the babies would have hers.”
Sighing. “Jake and Anna arrived and I loved them at first sight. It was tough. I was just a kid taking on a wife and two babies, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Janice and I didn’t have a marriage; we were more like roommates sharing the responsibility for the twins. Half the time it was as though she hated them and me, she was on anti-depressants which, on more than one occasion, she would mix with alcohol.”
On another sigh, “Are you sure you want to hear the rest?”
I kiss his chest, “Cade, no matter what you say I’m not going anywhere.”
“One night when the kids were about two years old, she told me that she would try and get better, that she needed my help. It would help if we tried to make the marriage work; she wanted to share my bed. So that night, being an idiot, I invited her into my room. She told me she was on birth control to regulate her period. The following day, instead of things starting to change she went back to being her distant self. Nine months later Beth arrived. Three weeks later she took off. Three months after that she died of a drug overdose. I have three kids with a woman I only had sex with twice. What are the chances of that?”
Sensing Cade needs comfort now, I lift my head and move further up his chest so that we’re face to face. “If it was me pregnant with your baby, I would consider myself the luckiest woman alive. I sure as hell would never leave you.” Caressing his face, “Thank you for telling me.”
Lowering my head, I place a kiss on his lips. “I love you.” Kissing him again, I lower myself back down and start talking about my life, giving him time to recover from reliving part of his past.
“I’m a native of Rhode Island. I was fourteen when my parents died in a plane crash in Alaska during a blizzard. My father was the pilot. Having no other relatives in the States, I went to live in Ireland with my maternal grandmother, who I became close to during the eight years we lived together. I have a Degree in Computer Science and Languages from Trinity College in Dublin, which made my grandmother proud. My grandmother died in her sleep two years ago, leaving me heartbroken, but with a fortune.”
Cade hugs me close while I continue. ”Her husband was a banker and invested, really very well. I met Nick just over six months ago and he charmed me right off my feet, to begin with.... very quickly we ended up engaged, arranging a wedding. I didn’t love him. I guess I loved the attention and the idea of being part of a family again. Nick has four sisters all with at least a