Kade was standing in the hallway near the front door, sorting through a stack of mail. He looked up when I hurried toward him.

“Keys,” I gasped. I just needed to hold it together for a few more moments, just until I was alone. “Please.”

His blue eyes were intent on mine, seeing way too much as he handed me his car keys without a word.

I felt Blane’s hands settle on my waist.

“Don’t leave,” he said.

“Let me go.” I tried to twist away, but he held me even tighter, pulling me in to him.

“You can’t leave like this,” he said, and I could hear desperation in his voice.

I fought now, self-preservation kicking in. “I said, let me go!”

I was suddenly free and I stumbled forward a couple of steps.

“She wants to go, so let her go,” Kade said, his voice like steel.

“Don’t get in my way, Kade,” Blane threatened, trying to push past him.

“What the fuck did you do now?” Kade retorted, blocking Blane’s path to me. “For you supposedly being the responsible one, I seem to be cleaning up a lot of your messes, big brother.”

“Out of my way!” Blane shoved Kade, who didn’t budge.

“You want her, you’re gonna have to go through me.”

I jerked open the front door and glanced back, but Blane and Kade were locked in their own battle of wills as they stood nose to nose. My vision blurred and I turned away. Moments later, I was in Kade’s Mercedes, speeding away from Blane’s home.

* * *

For a while, I just drove and didn’t pay a lot of attention as to where. I kept replaying the conversation between Blane and me over and over inside my head.

Now that I’d had some time, I realized Blane hadn’t been blaming me, but that didn’t make me feel any better. I was angry at Blane for how he’d treated Kandi, when I thought I’d never have any reason to sympathize with her. Was it a relationship she’d gone into with her eyes wide open? Yes, but that didn’t lessen the fact that Blane had taken advantage of her affection, using her to salve his own emotional wounds.

I drove until there was nothing but countryside around me and the road was a narrow path winding through trees, their branches overhanging and shading it. On a whim, I pulled onto a dirt path and turned off the car.

I untied the scarf from my neck, got out and started walking, realizing before long that the pumps I wore were ill-suited to hiking. Reaching down, I took them off, leaving them where they lay.

The grass was cool under my feet, the feel of the earth against my soles taking me back to when I was young and my mom never could get me to wear shoes outside in the summer. Even after the time I’d stepped on a bee, I still regularly ditched my shoes to feel the warmth of the sun-kissed ground between my toes.

I stumbled upon a clear glade among the trees, spots of sunshine breaking through the clouds to dapple the ground. The grass hadn’t grown very high, so I sat down. I had a passing thought that I was getting the nice dress I wore dirty but couldn’t bring myself to care enough to get up.

It wasn’t as hot as it should have been for July, and it was even nicer in the shade. I was glad for the brief respite from the Indiana summer sauna.

I closed my eyes, deliberately bringing to mind happier times when my parents were alive. I knew back then that my dad had wanted a son, but I never felt he was disappointed that he had a daughter instead. One time when I was still small, I’d asked him if he wished I was a boy.

“Turns out, I’m more of a girl daddy than a boy daddy,” he’d said with a smile as he hoisted me in his arms. “God knows best, sweetheart, even if we don’t always see it right away.”

The sounds of the country calmed me. The breeze rustled the leaves on the trees, birds chirped nearby, and I could hear the distant buzz of a bee or two.

I lay down on the grass and stared up at the sky. The clouds were breaking up, their white, cottony shapes drifting by as the sun moved slowly overhead.

I must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew, I opened my eyes to see Kade standing above me.

“A princess asleep in the forest?” He held up my shoes, dangling from his fingers. “Shall I call you Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty?”

I smiled, my heart leaping in my chest to see him, but I wasn’t surprised that he was there. I’d known he’d find me, as he always did.

I sat up, running my fingers through my hair in case there were any leaves or grass in it. “I don’t feel much like either at the moment,” I said.

“That’s all right,” he said, sitting down next to me. “After all, I’m hardly Prince Charming.” I noticed he hadn’t even bothered to change his clothes before coming after me.

“How’d you find me?” I asked.

He cocked an eyebrow. “You seriously think I wouldn’t have a way of tracking my brand-new car?”

I laughed lightly. Of course. Should’ve known. He was close enough that I could lean my head against his arm, strong and solid beneath my cheek.

“How’d it get to this point?” I asked after a while.

Kade’s sigh said he knew exactly what I was talking about. “Who the hell knows?” he said quietly. “It just… did.

“I gave Blane the DVD Tish brought,” he continued. “Thought we’d use it as blackmail rather than you going to the cops.”

“Will that work?”

“James values his reputation more than he wants to put Blane away. I think it will.”

“Can’t we get more evidence for what he did to Kandi?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I added the phone records, that will help, but I don’t know if we can do any more without dragging Blane into it again. If James will drop the charges, that may have to be enough.”

That made me sad. Kandi wouldn’t see justice for what had been done to her.

“Blane’s not going to go see James himself, is he?”

Kade shook his head. “Nah. I’ll go see Junior later.” He turned and looked down at me. “I wanted to check on you first.”

“I’m fine,” I said.

His smile was without humor. “Of course you are.”

Just then, I spied a basket sitting on his other side. “What’s that?”

“I thought you’d be hungry, so Mona packed some food. She insisted on putting it in an honest-to-God basket.”

“A picnic?” I said, delighted. I crawled to the basket and opened it. “It’s been ages since I went on a picnic.”

“You like eating in the dirt, bugs getting on your food, and grass sticking to your ass?”

I laughed, pulling out the containers Mona had packed. “Now who’s the princess?” I teased.

Kade grinned at my joke, the genuine smile wiping away the hard edge in his eyes. I quickly glanced away, my heart hurting because he looked like that so rarely.

“So let’s see,” I said, removing lids. “Fried chicken, grapes, cheese, strawberries, and brownies. Yum.” I reached farther into the basket and pulled out a cold bottle of white wine. “It seems she remembered everything,” I said, my eyebrows climbing. Surely, Mona wasn’t playing matchmaker?

“Except silverware,” Kade said, peering into the basket.

“You don’t need silverware with fried chicken,” I said, rolling my eyes.

I handed Kade a corkscrew from the basket and he opened the wine. We ate, passing the wine back and forth like teenagers sneaking a bottle of booze. I teased him about his reluctance to get his fingers greasy with the chicken.

“You are such a baby,” I said, grinning. I clambered over to him and held up a chicken leg. “Some things are meant to be a little messy.”

His grin turned wicked. “I don’t mind messy. In fact, I have a whole list of activities that are meant to be messy. Coincidentally, they all involve you. Clothing optional.”

My pulse quickened and my smile faded.

I was really going to miss him.

Kade’s grin melted away, too, as we stared into each other’s eyes. I dropped the chicken leg, leaned forward, and kissed him.

I could taste the wine on his tongue and I buried my fingers in his silky hair. My body pressed against his and his arms crept around my waist to pull me closer.

When he lifted his head, we were both breathing hard. My hands moved to cup his face. The soft shadow on his jaw was a gentle abrasion against my lips as I pressed my mouth to his cheek. I brushed kisses along his jaw and down his neck, my fingers moving to the buttons of his shirt.

“What are you doing?”

“You have to ask?” I murmured against his skin, freeing more buttons.

His hands grabbed mine, stilling them.

“I heard you and Blane arguing,” he said. “Is this about getting back at him?”

I couldn’t blame him for asking. The way the three of us were tied so closely together, it was an obvious question.

“This has nothing to do with him,” I said, looking into his eyes. “It’s about us. You and me.”

I reached behind me and slid down the zipper of my dress. Standing, I dragged it over my head and tossed it aside. The look on Kade’s face made me glad I’d worn a lace bra and panty set that was the palest ivory, nearly matching my skin.

I straddled his legs and settled myself on his lap. His hands automatically moved to my back. I pressed my mouth to his once, twice, then looked into the ocean-blue of his eyes.

“Are you going to make me ask?”

My question seemed to break through Kade’s stunned immobility, his mouth taking mine with a fevered desperation.

It was an easy decision, wanting Kade to make love to me. I loved him, though I couldn’t tell him that. Blane and I were over, and there was no future for Kade and me. I had a brief moment of regret. That day I’d first seen him in the courthouse… Maybe if I’d said something then—

But what was past was past and I couldn’t change it. What I could do was make a memory.

Sunlight filtered through the trees as the last of the clouds drifted away, bathing us in a warm glow. Kade’s hair shone like a raven’s wing in the light. His hand brushed my hair as he kissed me. I pushed his shirt off his shoulders and down his arms. His hands left me briefly while he shrugged off the garment, then were back and sliding up my back to unhook my bra.

I broke off our kiss, smiling softly at him as I tossed aside the scrap of lace. Our bodies pressed together and my breath caught at the feel of his skin against mine. Hearing Kade’s groan, I guessed he felt the same.

He touched me so carefully, so reverently, as if I weren’t real, that I might disappear at any moment. His head bent to my breast, the heat of his mouth closing over my nipple. The gentle suction of his mouth sent a direct current along the nerve tracing between my legs and I moaned.

Kade licked and stroked and caressed me as though we had an eternity together, until I felt as though my skin was on fire from the inside out. My panties were long gone, removed at some point by Kade, and now I lay on my back, his hand between my legs.

I clutched at his shoulders as he kissed me, the strokes of his fingers making my thighs tremble. His mouth moved to my breast again, his tongue doing things that made me whimper. His hand moved faster between my parted thighs, my knees bent and open shamelessly wide.

Kade’s head lifted and I felt his eyes on me, but I couldn’t stop the wave of intense pleasure that crashed over me and I cried out with the force of it.

When I opened my eyes, Kade was watching. Embarrassment struck and heat flooded my cheeks.

“You look like a goddess,” he said roughly. “The sunlight on your skin, your breasts. Your hair like a river of gold against the grass. This”—his hand moved, a long finger still inside me—“hot and wet for me, like liquid silk.”

I found his belt and loosened it, undoing the button and sliding the zipper down. Kade helped me get rid of his pants and my mouth ran dry at the sight of him, fully naked in the warm sunshine.

The breeze rustled the trees, cooling my overheated skin. I went willingly into Kade’s arms, our mouths melding in mutual need.

He lay down on his back, pulling me astride him. “It’s only fair my skin take the brunt of this, princess,” he said. “My hide’s thicker than yours.”

He was hard and heavy in my hand, his eyes drifting closed at my touch, his brow creasing as though he struggled for control. I lifted myself up and sank down onto him, going slowly when I felt a twinge inside, letting my body relax to accommodate his length.

I memorized how Kade looked lying on the summer grass. His chest was carved muscle, the faint scars that marked his past nearly invisible in the sunshine. His eyes were so blue, they seemed to reflect the sky overhead, the look in them as he watched me something I knew I’d never forget.