Marly's Choice (3 page)

“If you had asked, one of us would have,” he told her quietly, glancing at her in surprise.

“Had I been offered, I may have taken you up on it,” she snapped back. “But I wasn’t, and I didn’t want to ride alone. Greg kindly offered to come with me.”

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Marly smiled sweetly at Greg in thankfulness. She watched in amazement as his chest seemed to puff out two extra inches. What the hell was up with this? Evidently, Cade saw it too, if his look of disgust was anything to go by. Sam barely contained his mirth as she glanced at him, frowning. Brock, as always, was quiet, but when his glance met hers, Marly saw the edge of amusement in it.

Marly shook her head at them all. The moon phases must be really out of whack today, she thought. Every man she had met with seemed to act like they had rocks for brains. It was disconcerting to say the least.

* * * * *

Cade didn’t know why he was so furious with Marly. It wasn’t her fault that the old man had a nasty, perverted mind, or that he was a depraved monster. That he had seen emotions and needs in Cade that couldn’t, shouldn’t be there. It wasn’t her fault that her legs were gorgeous, and any man with eyes in his head would be more than impressed. It wasn’t her fault he could barely control his own body’s response to her, or the swift hardening of flesh between his thighs every time he saw her. She had been raised as his niece. She was growing up whether he wanted to admit to it or not. She had likely already had sex, most girls her age had. Cade wanted to clench his fists at that thought, and barely restrained the need. She may even be having sex with the little punk sitting across from him.

Cade stared at the boy, not caring as that narrow face paled and the hazel eyes widened behind the lenses of the glasses. Greg swallowed tight and hard, giving Cade a measure of satisfaction.

“Please, Cade—“ Marly’s voice wrapped around his fury, pleading, desperate. Biting back an oath, Cade stared resolutely into the tinted glass that separated the driver from the family. He was in a lousy mood and he knew it. He wasn’t fit company for man or horse, and he should have driven himself to the cemetery alone. But Marly was riding with the family, and he was damned if he hadn’t missed her this past year and a half since she started college.

She only came home infrequently, despite the short distance to Dallas. Christmas, Easter and birthdays. Three weeks total if you added it, and he hated it. The house was so still, so silent without her laughter, or her girlish tantrums. No more Marly sneaking into his study at night when nightmares plagued her to sleep on the couch while he worked. He wondered who soothed the nightmares now. His gaze sliced to the James boy, but his head was lowered as he stared in fascination at a loose thread on his jacket. The little jerk.

Cade hadn’t expected her to arrive with a friend. And he sure as hell hadn’t expected a male friend, considering how wary she was of men. She always had been, since her stepfather, and her Grandpa Joe.

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Marly’s Choice

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Cade’s teeth gritted with renewed fury. She carried a scar on her leg from the first and only whipping she had ever received in his house. A whipping Joe had administered that first month Marly had lived with them. Cade would never forget his horror that day when Marie had run screaming to the barn that Mister Joe was whipping Miss Marly. Oh God, Mr. Cade, she had screamed, he’s gonna kill her. Cade had rushed to the house, horrified to see his father beating the tiny girl with a leather strap. Joe had been enraged, furious, demented with anger. Cade had nearly killed him that day.

He had whipped her when he overheard her telling Marie that some little boy at school had attempted to kiss her. An innocent kiss on the cheek by a child with a crush on her, and Marly had paid in a way that left her unable to attend school for two weeks, until the deep bruises and lacerations on her legs and buttocks healed.

“Cade?” Her worried voice interrupted his thoughts, her soft hand on his arm made his skin heat. “Are you okay?”

He covered her hand slowly as his head turned and he gazed into the deep pools of those mysterious blue eyes. She drew him in, her innocence and lack of guile soothing the raging beast in his soul. How in the name of God would he survive when she left again?

“I’m fine, honey,” he sighed, his hand covering hers, holding it close to him when she would have moved it. “Just thoughtful. I’m sorry I’ve been such a grouch.”

Her head went to his shoulder, strands of riotous curls falling over his chest where they had escaped from her braid. He laid his cheek against her silken hair and breathed her scent in deeply.

“It’s okay, Cade. I understand.” It wasn’t a little girl’s voice anymore. A child years younger than her actual age as she had been when she came to them. The voice was sweet and lyrical. A woman’s voice, and he knew from watching that damned James boy what it did to the male race to hear the sexy sound.

“I’ve missed you, Munchkin.” He sighed against her hair, feeling a sense of warmth replacing the cold knot of fury that had filled him.

“I’ve missed you too, Cade.” There was a note of regret in her voice. A sigh of wanting that he didn’t want to delve into too closely.

Stretching his arm behind her, he pulled her close to his chest as the limo moved towards the ranch. The cemetery Joe had wanted to be laid in was hours from the ranch, and completely disconnected from it. Joe had no friends; no family laid to rest in that hallowed ground. He had wanted nothing to do with the ranch at his death, having hated it so much during his life.

Marly’s hand was laid at his chest now, just below her head. Trusting, warm, she lay against him, a fragile weight as cherished to him as any could be. He couldn’t imagine never having her in his life, not needing to hold her, to be assured she was okay. She was still tiny, barely five four to his six four. She was slender and light, with a thick mass of black curls that flowed past her shoulder blades and very nearly to her Lora Leigh

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hips. She didn’t cut it because he loved it so much. She had sworn over the years that if it weren’t for Cade, she would have shaved her head bald. And he did love her hair. When she was little, Cade had brushed and braided it every day until she was sixteen and started getting fussier with her it. Even then, though, there were times she would ask him to brush her hair. Many times when she sought him out in his study deep in the night, she would carry the silver brush he had bought her. She would lay it on the table beside the couch, and he would come to her and brush her hair until she could sleep.

And on that couch, she would sleep until he went to bed. Then he would carry her to her own room, tuck her into the lacy canopied bed and kiss her cheek before going to his own room. The last time he had done so had been the night before she left for college. The nightmares had been bad that week.

“I want to stay home a while,” she whispered now against his chest. “Spring break starts tomorrow, and I thought I’d just stay on until school starts back.”

She had been spending the breaks studying, pushing herself through summer and holidays in her studies.

“Stay home with us then, honey,” he answered her, ignoring Sam and Brock as they watched them quizzically. “You can let your friend take your truck back, and I’ll drive you back to school when you need to return.”

“No, Greg needs a break too.” She yawned as his arms tightened against her.

“We’re both gonna stay. Do you care?”

Cade moved his gaze slowly to the suddenly nervous Greg James.

“Th—th—that’s okay, Marly,” Greg stammered. “Really. Fine. I can go back.”

“Absolutely not.” Marly shook her head against Cade’s chest. “I remember how excited you were about spending the week here. We’ll stay and just laze around and enjoy ourselves. Besides, you know you don’t want to return to your sister’s house.”

Cade read a thread of anger in Marly’s comment. The boy just shrugged and looked at Cade beseechingly. Dammit, did all kids have that look in their eye, that plea for understanding when faced with Marly’s resolve?

“You’re welcome to stay, Greg.” Cade wasn’t about to incite Marly and cause her to move from his hold.

It had been too long since she had let him hold her. He didn’t want the boy there. Didn’t want to know if his sweet, innocent Marly was sleeping with such an incompetent youth, but he would allow the visit to keep his tenuous hold on her now.

“Thank you.” There was a vein of regret, of deeply laced loneliness in the boy’s voice.

Dammit, Cade thought, another kid was the last thing he needed right now. Marly made him crazy enough. She didn’t need help. He didn’t need someone else helping her to push him over the edge. She was doing just fine all on her own. Lora Leigh

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CHAPTER THREE

Dawn was barely streaking across the horizon the next morning when Marly ventured from her room and headed for the kitchen. Cade would most likely be up and gone already, but she knew he always made a fresh pot of coffee before leaving the house for Sam and Brock. It was a cup of the strong, heady brew she was after. Still dressed in the big shirt and thick heavy socks she had stolen from Cade the day before, she padded drowsily into the room. The socks dwarfed her small feet, but kept them warm and snug. The shirt fell almost to her knees, the soft tan cotton covering her well, and making her feel closer to Cade somehow. She rarely slept in anything other than his shirts.

“I was wondering what happened to that shirt. Did you know it was one of my favorites, Marly?” Cade’s amused voice had her stopping short, her gaze going to the corner of the room where Cade sat at the round kitchen table. He was hunched over a steaming cup of coffee, the crumbs of his breakfast in a plate before him as he watched her. His eyes were light, amused; his lips tilted in a sort of half smile that made her heart beat hard and fast.

“Figured you would have already been out working.” She hunched her shoulders beneath the cotton, hoping he would forget about the shirt.

“I got a late start.” His gray eyes were dark as they went slowly over her body. “My socks too huh? How many pairs did you steal this time?” The edge of exasperation in his voice was softened with affection. It was routine, a game. She stole his shirts and socks and he pretended to care how many she made away with.

“Just one.” She shrugged. “It’s not like you’ll miss them.” Marly hid her smile as she turned her back on him, her senses tempted by the smell of hot, steaming coffee. Her body tempted by the sight of the sexy, drowsy man.

He was silent as she poured a mug of coffee, then took a sip of the hot liquid. Her eyes closed as the caffeine hit her tongue, anticipating the rush it would bring her later.

“You should still be in bed,” he told her softly as she stood at the counter, her hands wrapped around her cup.

“I usually get up early,” she told him sleepily, smothering her yawn. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”

She fought the blush she could feel just under her skin. She hadn’t slept because each time she closed her eyes visions of Cade and his arousing mouth danced before her eyes. His lips were full, with a rough, hard edge. His gray eyes were always direct, the thick, black lashes framing them giving him a carnal, sexy appearance.

“Yeah, I was restless too.” He lowered his head, sipping at his coffee. She had heard him in his room. She had watched the door, praying he would come to her. Marly took in a deep, hard breath. He looked sexy and dangerous, if a bit on the Lora Leigh

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drowsy side. She wished the sleepiness had been caused from something other than pacing the floors all night.

“Missing Grandpa Joe?” She took her coffee to the table, sitting down in the chair beside him as she watched him.

Cade grunted. “Hardly. That old bastard held on a lot longer than he should have.”

Marly winced. She hadn’t particularly liked Joe herself, but she hadn’t known Cade was so bitter towards him as well. The ring of hatred in his voice was bitter, consuming.

“He wasn’t a happy man.” She hunched her shoulders, trying to find a way to comfort him.

Cade’s expression shuttered, but Marly glimpsed an edge of pain and fury in his eyes in that last second that made her breath stutter in her throat. How had she not known, in all these years, the anger he felt toward Joe?

“Don’t make excuses for him. He was a bastard and we all knew it. But he was my Father, I had to put up with him.” In Cade’s voice was years of regret and hopelessness. And pain.

Cade shouldn’t hurt like that. Alone, the emotion carefully hidden beneath the surface, like a dark, angry beast roaring in pain, with no one to hear. That thought had tears pricking at her eyes, at her heart. He had always taken away the pain in her life. She wanted to remove his as well.

Marly looked up at him, seeing a vein of sadness running through his eyes. A sadness he could no longer hide. She moved from her chair before she thought of it, and before Cade could stop her, was cuddling into his lap.

She felt him accept her with a surprised start, his arms going around her, clenching around her as he pulled her close. He buried his face in her hair, rubbing his cheek over the top of her head slowly. Her arms were wrapped around his neck, her head on his shoulder, and Marly wanted to cry because it felt so warm, so good to be in his arms.

“I’ve missed you, Cade,” she whispered softly, her lips touching the underside of his jaw. “I’ve missed you so much.”

She felt his hands clench on her. One at her waist, the other at her thigh. The heat of them was like an erotic brand on her skin.

“I’ve missed you too, baby,” he said, his voice rough. “More than you know.”

The material of the shirt had ridden up her thighs, leaving an indecent amount of skin bare. His hand rested there, just below the hemline of the shirt, his thumb rubbing over her skin softly. It was like fire against her flesh, the heat of the caress driving her crazy.

“You’re going to have to stop stealing my shirts, Marly,” his voice was husky, amused as his fingers rubbed the cotton at her waist. “This was one of my favorites.”