LITMIR.BIZ

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one more time just as they crossed through her doorway to outside, where throngs of people seemed to be gathered in front of her house. But she didn’t really even notice. What she noticed was that her arrow had hit home.

      Kade looked momentarily stricken by her words.

      That she didn’t need him.

      And instead of feeling happy that she had drawn blood, she felt sick about it, and some little demon inside her had to try to repair it, and let him know he was needed after all.

      “Actually, Kade, can you find a way to secure everything? Please?”

      Really, after her remark that she didn’t need him, he should tell her to go get stuffed. But he didn’t.

      “And if you could put up a closed-for-the-day sign over that broken window I’d be most appreciative.”

      He snorted, but didn’t say no.

      “I can’t just leave things. The door is broken. He could come back. Anybody could come in and just start helping themselves to everything in here.”

      All her hopes and dreams. It was a strange twist that she was being forced to ask Kade to rescue them.

      “Never mind,” Jessica said, appalled that she had even asked him. “I’ll call someone.”

      She didn’t need him. She didn’t! Why was she giving him this mixed message: “I need you. I don’t need you.” She had the stunning realization she was not as clear of her soon-to-be ex-husband as she thought she was!

      “I’ll look after it,” he said.

      She should have protested harder, but there was no denying what a relief it was to have Kade Brennan, her husband for a little while longer, say that he would look after things.

CHAPTER THREE

      JESSICA WAS WHEELED out to the ambulance, and Kade prowled through her shop looking for items to repair her door. Finally, in a back drawer in a tiny kitchen area he found a hammer and regarded it thoughtfully.

      “This isn’t really a hammer,” he muttered to himself. “It’s more like a toy, a prop for one of her fake nurseries.”

      In a dank cellar, he found some old boards. Thankfully, they had nails in them that he could pull and reuse. Why did women never have the essentials? Nails, screwdrivers, hammers, duct tape?

      He boarded up the broken front door and found a square of thick wood to write a few words on.

      He had to nail it up over the broken window because of the lack of duct tape. A determined thief could still get in, but the repair, though not pretty, actually looked quite a bit more secure than her old door with its paned glass.

      He surveyed his work briefly, and recognized it as temporary but passable. Then he called his personal assistant, Patty, to tell her he would be very late today, if he made it in at all. “I need you to find me a simple surveillance system. I think there’s a kind that alerts to your phone. And then could you find a handyman? I need a door fixed, a window replaced and that surveillance system installed. Have him call me for the details.

      “And also if you could have my car dropped at Holy Cross Hospital? Whoever brings it can just give me a call when they get there, I’ll meet them for keys.” He listened for a moment. “No, everything is fine. No need for concern.”

      Kade walked out to Memorial Drive and was able to flag a cab to take him to the hospital.

      He found Jessica in a wheelchair, in a waiting room in the X-ray department.

      “How are you doing?”

      It was obvious she was not doing well. Her face was pale, and she looked as if she was going to cry.

      He could not handle Jessica crying. There was nothing he hated more than the helplessness that made him feel. To his detriment, he had not reacted well to her tears in the past.

      He felt ashamed of the fact that she felt it necessary to suck in a deep, steadying breath before she spoke to him.

      “They’ve done an X-ray. I’m just waiting for the doctor. It is broken. I’m not sure if they can set it, or if it will need surgery.” She looked perilously close to tears.

      Kade fought an urge to wrap his arms around her and let her cry. But he’d never been good with tears, and it felt way too late now to try to be a sensitive guy. It would require him to be a way better and braver man than he knew how to be.

      She knew his weaknesses, because she set her shoulders and tilted her chin. “You didn’t have to come.”

      He shrugged. “Your store is secure,” he told her. “I put up a sign.”

      The struggle—whether to be gracious or belligerent—was evident in her eyes. Graciousness won, as he had known it would. “Thank you. What did it say?”

      “Baby bummer, temporarily closed due to break-in.”

      A reluctant smile tickled her lips, and then she surrendered and laughed. “That’s pretty good. Even though it’s a major bummer, not a baby one.”

      Kade was pretty pleased with himself that he had made her laugh instead of cry.

      “It could have been a much more major bummer than it was,” he said sternly. “Tell me what happened.”

      * * *

      Jessica couldn’t help but shiver at the faintly dangerous note in Kade’s voice. She could not be intimidated by it!

      “Isn’t it fairly obvious what happened?” she asked coolly. “I was doing some paperwork, and there was a break-in.”

      “But he came through the front door.”

      “So?”

      “Is there a back door?” Kade asked. That something dangerous deepened in his tone.

      “Well, yes, but we just surprised each other. Thankfully, I called 911 as soon as I heard the glass break.”

      “Don’t you think you could have run out the back door and called 911 from safety?”

      Jessica remembered what she didn’t like about Kade. Besides everything. She needed a good cry right now and she was sucking it back rather than risk his disapproval. On top of that, he was a big man at work. It made him think he knew the answers to everything.

      Which was why she didn’t even want him to know about adoption. He was certain to have an opinion about that that she would not be eager to hear.

      “Hindsight is always twenty-twenty,” she informed him snootily.

      “How did you end up hurt?” Kade asked.

      Jessica squirmed a bit.

      “Um, we scuffled,” she admitted. “I fell.”

      “You scuffled?” Kade asked, incredulous. “You scuffled with a burglar? I would have thought it was hard to scuffle while running for the back door.”

      “I was not going to run away,” she said.

      “That is nothing to be proud of.”

      “Yes,” she said, “it is. Don’t you dare presume to tell me what to be proud of.”

      From their shared laughter over the bummers of life just moments ago to this. It was just like the final weeks of their marriage: arguments lurked everywhere.

      “Why are you proud of it?” he asked, that dangerous something still deepening in his tone, that muscle jerking along the line of his jaw that meant he was really annoyed.

      “I’m proud I took on that scrawny thief,” Jessica said, her voice low, but gaining power. “I lost my mother when I was twelve. I’ve lost two babies to miscarriage.”

      And

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