Emma took her gloved hands out of her pockets and brought them up to hug herself from the sudden chill the memories had brought on. She realized her voice sounded detached and devoid of emotion, which was a lie. With every detail she retold, she relived the anguish.
“I don’t think anyone noticed when this guy dragged me into one of the bedrooms. Just when I thought something horrible was going to happen to me, somebody jerked the guy’s body off me. One second I was in terror, and the next I was in the arms of someone I knew would keep me safe.”
“Cain?” Hayden looked at her for the first time since they’d left the house.
“Yes, it was Cain. I don’t know how she knew, but she saved me.”
“So as her reward, you left her?”
His voice sounded so incredulous his mother almost laughed. Her son wasn’t yet twelve, but he already thought like the heir to the Casey name. Every sacrifice she’d made to get Hayden back was in vain. Cain was too ingrained where it mattered most—his heart.
“I didn’t leave because of that, Hayden. After she calmed me down and let someone take me upstairs with you, she cleared the grounds. I waited up because I was so worried about her, and because I wanted her to hold me and make the humiliation go away. After what seemed an eternity, I went downstairs to look for her. The man was gone, but Cain hadn’t cleaned up yet.
“I saw her hands. Her hands and her clothes are etched into my brain, and I’m sorry, but I couldn’t live like that any more. There was so much blood. She was covered in it, so much so that it felt like it would taint all of us like a flood. The sight of it made me sick.
“I didn’t want to be responsible for getting someone hurt, or worse, just because I shared a bed with the head of the Casey family. I’m sorry if that’s hard for you to hear, but it’s the truth.”
She put her hand on Hayden’s arm to get him to stop walking. When he paused, she thought she had gotten through to him and he’d understood her position.
“Mom protected you, and you left because of it?”
Hearing it put like that, her actions didn’t make much sense to her either. “I’m not one of my father’s cows, Hayden. I don’t belong to Cain like some piece of furniture. As much as I respect her sense of family and honor, this isn’t feudal Japan where I’m expected to walk four steps behind her. I was her wife, and I wanted to have some say in what happened in my life and the lives of my children.
“But she told me she didn’t kill the guy like she wanted to because I asked for his life. I thought it was a job for the police—not Cain’s hands or the muzzle of her gun. Do you understand all of Cain? What she’s capable of, under the right circumstances?”
“I understand better than you. But you left one more person out there just waiting to hurt her or me. All because you were weak. Did you think of that when you were being so charitable? Sure, you did what you thought was right. But I can’t respect you for it. You and your clear conscience. Too bad you didn’t care as much about Mom and me. Why didn’t you ever stop to think about me?” The anger that had been bottled up for four years came pouring out until Hayden was screaming at her.
Hayden’s words hit her like physical blows, so she moved a little away from him, and her eyes filled with tears again. “Listen to you. No eleven-year-old should have to think that. This doesn’t have to be your life, son. I more than care about you, I love you. It killed a big part of me to walk away. You, Cain, and Marie were my family. You’re still a part of my family, and I want you to know you have options other than Cain.” When Hayden didn’t object she moved back close enough to put her hand on the sleeve of his coat.
“What, I could come live here and learn to milk cows? Better yet, I could spend the rest of my life trying to get Grandmother Carol to not look at me like she hates everything about my family and me. No, thank you. You wanted me here so we could get to know each other. Well, you’re no one I want to waste my time getting to know better, lady.” He jerked his arm out of her grasp and walked farther away from her, wiping his eyes as he went.
Emma just watched him leave, not thinking of anything that would make him stop. The hope she had so fragilely pieced together when she left for New Orleans to see him again shattered with every step he took away from her. She was sure this defeat would hurt as much as giving up her life with Cain.
Hayden turned back toward the house, ignoring Mook as he passed. He wanted nothing more than to leave when Cain arrived. Coming here was a mistake, and Cain would have to respect his wishes about not caring to have a relationship with Emma. He had done his part. He had tried because of the precious memories he still clung to when he remembered his mother. This time around he would walk away, and she could spend the rest of her days reliving the pain of loss.
“Let him cool off, Emma. Don’t worry. He’ll be fine. You just hit a raw nerve without knowing,” said Mook.
“What do you mean?”
“He still misses Marie. It upsets him sometimes when someone mentions her name, and he wasn’t expecting it.”
“Did Cain have to institutionalize her?” Emma remembered Cain’s younger sister and the afternoons she’d spent listening to Cain read to her. She recalled Marie’s blue eyes looking adoringly at Cain.
“She died almost three months ago.”
“What? How?”
“You aren’t getting the story out of me, and I’ll have to insist you don’t ask Hayden about it again.” The bodyguard broke out into a run when his charge disappeared into the house, leaving Emma to fill in the blanks however she wanted.
The two houseguests spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening behind the closed door of their bedroom. Emma walked past it more than twenty times but took Mook’s warning seriously.
Chapter Eight
The sun had set by the time Emma felt comfortable enough to knock and see if Hayden and Mook wanted to come down for dinner. Her hands flew to her chest when, before her knuckles made contact with the wood, the door opened. Hayden had his coat on and rushed past her toward the stairs, obviously heading outside.
She heard the front door open and close and ran down after him. Is he leaving? Her worst fears were confirmed when she saw the entourage of people standing in her father’s yard.
Pulling back the curtain in the living room, she spotted a large SUV parked near the barn. From the light spilling out of the large building, she saw Hayden clinging to Cain. He stayed in Cain’s arms for a long time, as if trying to make himself feel better after the horrible morning he’d spent with his birth mother. He’d obviously called, and she’d come early to take him away.
Cain and Hayden strode into the barn, leaving all the help, as Cain liked to call them, outside near the car. The head of the Casey family surely wasn’t expecting a mob hit or trouble here, since she’d brought only Merrick and a couple of others with her. In New Orleans, depending on what was going on in the business, anywhere from four to eight guards trailed Cain every day. They had also been a presence in Emma’s life, and of all the things she missed, the guards weren’t one of them.
Emma looked on as Hayden told Cain something and kept pointing toward the house. Cain cocked her head to the side as she listened, looking in her direction every so often as if she knew Emma was standing at the window.
When the boy finished, Cain hugged him again before she put her hands on his shoulders and started to explain something to him. “Hayden, she didn’t know about Marie, so try and let that one go, buddy.”
Cain squeezed his shoulders, trying to get him to look up. The death of her sister was still a raw spot for both of them, but especially for Hayden, who had spent so much time with Marie. Cain would arrive on many an afternoon to find him reading to her from one of his textbooks so she could learn whatever he was studying in school.