Sometimes It Lasts Read online

  “You’ll tell me when she does?” he asked hopefully.

  I couldn’t tell him no. I nodded. “Of course.”

  He seemed pleased with that answer and stepped back to lean against the railing that Jeremy had leaned against earlier. Cage’s long legs crossed at the ankles in front of him, and the hem of his shirt lifted just enough when he crossed his arms over his chest that I saw a hint of his hip bones and lower stomach. I loved that part of his body. Jerking my gaze away from his bare skin, I couldn’t look back up at him. He’d have noticed where my attention had been.

  “Are you in love with him?”

  I kept my gaze fixed on the front yard. I didn’t want to look at him and talk about this. He’d see right through me. But could I lie to him? “I love him.”

  “I know you love him, Eva. I didn’t ask that. I asked if you were in love with him.”

  No. I wasn’t in love with him. Cage knew that. Jeremy knew that. Why was he asking me this? “We need to talk about what you want to do about Bliss. Not about me and Jeremy.”

  “You’re wrong. I’m not here to just talk about Bliss. I’m here to talk about us. It’s past time we talked about us.”

  Anger rose in my chest. How I could go from confusion to pain to anger all in five minutes? I didn’t know, but Cage York managed to bring out all my emotions. “You’re right. It is past time. You had your chance and you didn’t want it. The chance to talk about us is over because there is no”—I swung my gaze back to meet his—“us. Not anymore.”

  Cage shook his head slowly and dropped his hands from his chest. Then he took two long strides to stand in front of me. He leaned down, putting a hand on each side of the rocking chair until his eyes were level with mine and only inches away. “Make no mistake. There will always be an us. You can pretend like what we had never happened. You can ignore your feelings. Hell, baby, you can even marry Jeremy fucking Beasley. But there will always be an us. No one and nothing can change that.” He let go of the chair and went back to his previous position.

  I took a deep breath when I realized I had stopped breathing. I wasn’t ready for this. I thought I was, but I was wrong. Again. “I can’t do this with you today. I need more time.”

  “I’d like to give you more time, sweetheart, but you’re carrying my baby. Not Jeremy’s. Mine.” His eyes hardened at the mention of Jeremy. “I want my baby. I’m not letting another man step in and play daddy to my kid. And I sure as hell ain’t letting him play house with my woman, either. This is far from over.”

  He moved, and I prepared myself for him to get up in my face again, but he didn’t. He was leaving. I watched him walk over to the stairs. “Because I love you more than any goddamn thing on this fucking planet, I’m gonna let you have one more day. You just lost your daddy, and I’ll never forgive myself for not being here with you. I’ll live my life regretting it. But I’ll be back. You’re mine, Eva Brooks. Always. You told me that yourself and, sweetheart, I’m holding you to it.”

  CAGE

  “You gonna go back in that apartment of yours? Or is it gonna sit empty for the rest of your life?” Preston asked as he slid a beer toward me and took the seat across from me.

  “I’ll go back in it when Eva and I are together again,” I replied and took a drink.

  “Heard she was engaged. That sucks man.”

  “She’s mine. That ring is temporary.”

  Preston nodded. He wasn’t going to argue with me. “Manda thinks y’all will work it out.”

  “We will. I won’t lose her.”

  “She admit the baby was yours?”

  “Didn’t even try to deny it. She isn’t a liar. She just doesn’t trust me. I deserve it. I might not have done what she thinks I did, but she’s right about one thing. I didn’t fight for her. I let her words hurt me. I withdrew because it’s what I fucking do when someone tells me they don’t want me. My damn momma screwed me the fuck up. I let my past control how I dealt with Eva’s rejection. The woman who gave me life still manages to fuck up my life without even being around.”

  Dewayne sat down at the table with us and I glanced over at him. I hadn’t seen him since I had been back in town. His head was shaved now.

  “Sounds to me like you fucked it up. Own it man. Don’t blame it on the bitch who birthed you,” he drawled.

  I stared at him as his words sank in. Fuck me. He was right. I’d let my insecurities about being loved control me, and then I’d used what my momma had done to be my excuse. Eva deserved a man. Not a whiny-ass baby who used damn excuses for their mistakes. I wasn’t going to make excuses for my shit. Not anymore.

  I would make her love me again. I wouldn’t explain anything to her. I would just be the man she needed. The one I hadn’t been. The one my woman and my baby deserved. How the fuck I was supposed to do that, I wasn’t sure, but I was gonna go do it.

  “You’re right,” I finally replied.

  Dewayne smirked. “I’m always motherfucking right. It’s what I do.”

  Preston chuckled and I had to admit: The dude made me smile. I had missed home. It was time I grew a damn pair and got my shit together. Eva’s daddy would have never made excuses. He wouldn’t have hid from his pain by refusing to even go to his home. He was a man she had been proud of. I wanted to be that too.

  I laid a twenty on the table and stood up.

  “Where you going? We just got here,” Preston said as I shoved my stool backward.

  “To get my shit and move back into my apartment for starters,” I told him.

  “What made you suddenly decide to move back in? Five minutes ago you couldn’t go in the damn place.”

  I didn’t want to waste my time explaining this to Preston.

  “I’ll see y’all later,” I said instead.

  “What the hell?” Preston said, looking at me like I had lost my mind.

  “He decided it was time to be a man,” Dewyane replied, and I just grinned as I walked to the door.

  * * *

  Deciding to stop hiding and take my life back had been easy when I’d been sitting in the bar with Dewayne as he’d taunted my manliness. But standing in the front door of my apartment and looking at the empty space where Eva’s piano once sat was taking the fucking air from my lungs. I stood there and let the times I’d walked in this door and she’d been sitting there playing, then smiling up at me, replay through my mind.

  I closed the door behind me and dropped my bags on the floor. The silence haunted me. Eva’s music and her laughter were gone. She wasn’t going to come walking out of our bedroom, grinning at me. I’d let her push me away when she needed me most. I could blame Ace for setting me up. I could blame my momma for my insecurities. But I’d done this. It was my fault I’d lost her.

  Tomorrow I’d start proving to her I was worth her love. I knew what I was gonna do then. No begging for forgiveness; those were just words. No excuses; those were just weak. It was time I showed her with my actions.

  Chapter Seventeen

  EVA

  Noise from outside at the barn woke me. I rolled over and grabbed my phone to check the time. It was after six, but Jeremy didn’t normally get here this early during the fall. I threw the covers back and grabbed a pair of leggings and a sweatshirt from my closet and pulled them on. If he was here this early, that meant either the cows had gotten out or one was sick. But I hadn’t heard one crying last night.

  After I’d brushed my hair and teeth, I slipped on my work boots and turned on the house floodlights before heading outside. I turned the corner of the house and froze. That wasn’t Jeremy’s work truck. It was mine, Daddy’s. . . the one Cage had used. I backed up and looked back toward the driveway. Cage’s Mustang was right beside my Jeep.

  Okay. Good news was I wasn’t being robbed. But what was Cage doing? Where was Jeremy when you needed him? I took a deep breath and steadied myself before heading down to the barn to confront Cage.

  He was loading bails of hay. He was going to go spread it. How did h
e know that was on Jeremy’s list of things that needed to be done today? The morning air was cold now that the heat of summer was gone. He was wearing a long-sleeved thermal shirt ,and that hat Daddy had let him use was on his head. He turned around with a hay bail in his hands and stopped when his eyes met mine.

  “Morning,” he said with a smile that made different parts of my body tingle before he walked over to the truck and tossed the hay back there. He dusted his gloved hands on his jeans and tilted his hat back. “Don’t worry. I work for free.” He winked then went right back to get another bail of hay. What the hell was he doing?

  I just stood there, unable to form words, while he grabbed another bail and tossed it into the truck. A million reasons as to why he was doing this ran through my mind, but none of them made any sense.

  Finally I found my voice. “Cage,” I said calmly, although my emotions were all over the place. “What are you doing?”

  He stopped and glanced back at me with that sexy grin of his. “Well, sweetheart, I’d have thought that was obvious. I’m loading hay so I can haul it out there and spread it. I’ll get to the feed next, and did you know that the east corner is weak on the fence? I drove around it this morning to check things out, and it needs to be replaced. Also, you got two calves that need to be tagged. They’re getting bigger.”

  Again. I was without words.

  “I’ll get to it though. Jeremy said he’d get here after seven but that I could get started without him.”

  Jeremy? What? I just shook my head. This didn’t make sense. Was I still asleep? And if I was, then why was I dreaming about Cage with his shirt on? Normally his clothing choices were limited or nonexistence when he showed up in my dreams. We were also on a bed or against a piece of furniture. Not talking about my cows. Or fences.

  “Cage?”

  “Hmm?” he said, walking toward me with more hay in his hands.

  “Why are you doing this?” There. I’d managed to ask a question that made sense. Other than some odd grunts here and there.

  After he’d tossed the hay into the truck, he walked over to stop only a couple of feet from me. His gaze wasn’t playful this time. He was serious. “Because I want to, Eva. That’s why.” He replied then turned and started to walk off and stopped again. I watched as he turned back to me with a smile on his lips. “You let me know if my girl starts moving. I want to feel her.”

  I simply nodded, and he pulled his hat back down to shade his eyes from the early morning sun before going back to work. As if I wasn’t standing there. Was this his way of us talking about it? Today I expected him to show up again and demand answers and we’d figure this all out. That wasn’t happening apparently. Instead he was working on my farm.

  I could stand there and stare at him, but he didn’t seem to want to talk about anything else. Before I could decide if I was supposed to go inside or stand there or pinch myself and wake up, Cage walked over and opened the truck door. “Back up, sweetheart, I gotta take this on out to the field.”

  I did as I was told. Then I watch him crank up the old truck and drive it out to the gate. He jumped out and opened the gate and then drove on inside. A door slammed behind me, and I jumped before spinning around. Jeremy had driven up, but I hadn’t heard him. He was looking out at Cage with an expression on his face I couldn’t read. “I’ll be damned. He showed up.”

  So Jeremy was expecting this? “You knew he was coming here. . . to work?”

  “Called me last night. Told me he’d be here whether I wanted him to be or not. He wasn’t coming to help me. He was coming to help you. Didn’t offer any other excuse—just said he’d be here at six and wanted to know what needed to be done. I told him about the hay, thinking he’d had too much to drink when he called. Guess I was wrong.”

  I watched as Cage began to spread the hay and slapped one of the cows on the side to move it. I couldn’t help but remember the first time he’d gotten up close to a cow and how freaked out he’d been. The memory made me smile. “Why’s he here?” I asked out loud, even though I didn’t think Jeremy had the answer to it either.

  “I ain’t figured that out just yet,” he replied. Jeremy gently squeezed my arm then walked to the barn to get to work. He was as confused as I was. I turned around and walked back to the house. If they were gonna work, then I guess I should make them breakfast. There was a good chance Jeremy had already eaten, but I doubted that anyone had fed Cage. He couldn’t work on an empty stomach.

  Bliss kicked as I walked back up to the house. I placed a hand on my stomach. “Could you save that excitement until your. . . daddy. . . is close by?” I glanced back over my shoulder to see her daddy, and I wondered how this would work. How would he be her daddy and not live here? He’d be back in Tennessee next week. When Bliss was born, he’d be in the thick of baseball season. I doubted he’d even be there. There was so much that didn’t work with us. That was one thing of many. I’d never be in Tennessee with him. I’d be here. I wasn’t sure I wanted Bliss to grow up with an absent father. One who just dropped by when he had a chance. I wanted her to feel loved. Could Cage give her that?

  CAGE

  Not looking back at Eva and Jeremy had been hard. I’d been ready to take off running and jump the damn fence and jerk him away from her if his lips went anywhere near her body. I was here to show her I was ready to be the man she needed. But I had my limits.

  I was pleased to see they didn’t even hug. They weren’t in fucking love. They’d barely spoken. That wasn’t the way to tell Eva good morning. She deserved a helluva lot more than what I’d just seen.

  “You showed up. Not sure what the hell you’re up to though. Still trying to figure that out,” Jeremy said, leaning out the window of his truck.

  “That the way you always tell Eva good morning?” I asked, ignoring his comment.

  I watched the frown crease his brow. He didn’t even realize what was wrong with what I’d just witnessed. Yeah. . . they weren’t in love. They’d always be friends. Nothing more.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “The fact you had to ask me is all the answer I need,” I replied. I walked around to get into my truck. “East corner is bad. If we don’t get it fixed, a cow is getting out. I’m heading over there next to work on it.”

  I opened the door and climbed in.

  “I’m not giving up easy,” Jeremy informed me.

  “I’m not ever giving up,” I replied then drove off. I had a fence to fix.

  * * *

  I hadn’t even got started on the fence when Jeremy’s truck came to a stop beside me. I stopped rolling up the wire that had been used to patch the weak spot and looked up at him.

  “She’s made breakfast. You need to go eat,” he said.

  I wanted to go eat. I was starving. But did she want me there? “Doubt she made it for me,” I replied.

  Jeremy spit out the window, and I wondered how she dealt with the fact that he dipped during the day when he was working. That shit was gross. “She hasn’t made breakfast since her daddy got too sick to eat it. She didn’t fix it for me.”

  Hope rose up in my chest and I couldn’t keep from grinning. She’d made me breakfast. Hot damn. “Then I guess I better go eat it,” I replied.

  “Yeah, I guess you better.”

  I threw my shovel back in the truck and stuck my work gloves in my back pocket. Jeremy drove off and headed back to the house. Guess he was going to go eat too. I was hoping he’d sit this meal out and give me time alone with Eva. As long as they didn’t kiss, I could do this. She also hadn’t been wearing her ring this morning, just like she hadn’t been wearing it yesterday. That was a good sign. It also helped me stay calm. Seeing another man’s claim on her did things to me. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all.

  * * *

  Just like I figured, Jeremy’s truck was at the barn. I could smell the biscuits and bacon from the front porch. I’d missed my woman’s cooking. She could pretend this wasn’t for me, but I knew bett
er. Jeremy had already cleared that up. Smiling, I opened the door and walked in.

  Maybe it was the way the sun was shinning in the room from the window or maybe it was just because I’d walked in here thinking things were different. That this meal meant something. But the diamond sparkling on Eva’s left hand mocked me silently. The good mood I’d been in was gone with one simple flash of a diamond. So was my appetite.

  Jeremy was already sitting at the table, eating. He glanced up at me then went back to drinking his coffee. “Pecan crop was good this year. It’ll be better next year. I’ve never had to do the harvest without Wilson. I’m learning. If you want to pay for an extra crop dusting this year, we can afford it. I think it’ll pay off with the crop.”

  Eva glanced at me nervously and twisted her hands in front of her as she covered her left hand with her right one. She had put it on. Now she was trying to hide it. “Uh, yeah. . . I guess. We’ll talk about it later,” she said, shifting her gaze from Jeremy to me and back again. “Help yourself. Plate’s on the table,” she said without looking at me.

  I pulled out the chair across from Jeremy and watched as she hurried over to the coffeepot, poured a cup, and then set it beside my plate. “I, uh, y’all go ahead and eat. I think I’ll just go—”

  “Have you eaten?” I asked, cutting off her attempt at escaping.

  She shook her head.

  “Do you get sick in the morning?” I asked, suddenly realizing I didn’t know about that part of her life now. Did our baby make her feel bad in the mornings?

  She shook her head again. “No. Not anymore. That goes away. . . ,” she trailed off.

  I stood back up and pulled out the chair to my left. “Sit down, Eva.” She stood there and stared at the seat like she wasn’t sure if she needed to bolt or if I could catch her.

  “If you don’t sit down and eat, I’ll go back out there and work. I’m starving and your biscuits smell incredible, but if my being in here is keeping you from sitting down and eating, I’ll be damned if I’m gonna sit here. You need to eat.”