“I’m glad you like it,” I managed to say.

“Does she move yet? I mean… can you feel her?” he asked, taking a tentative step toward me and stopping.

I only nodded. I was having trouble with my words. This was the gentle Cage I remembered. How did I hurt this Cage? I couldn’t be business like with this Cage.

“I want to feel her move,” he said, lifting his awed gaze from my stomach to meet my fascinated gaze.

“She isn’t moving right now,” I replied.

“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.