Cade: Fire And Ice: A Second Chance Hockey Romance (9 page)

My brain ran through the reasons why it was a bad idea. Ellie would probably be with someone else. She was probably still really angry with me. Even if she wanted to see me, she still wouldn't be able to leave North Falls. My parents would go crazy if they heard about it.

But I couldn't shake the idea. Woozy and dreamy on painkillers, I spent the next few days daydreaming about Ellie, something I didn't usually allow myself to do. She would be twenty-three years old, a woman. I couldn't help but smile at the thought of her being a grown woman. After all, it was technically me who made her one. Jessica encouraged me to go, telling me that even if Ellie hated my guts, at least it would keep me from torturing myself for the rest of my life over not having even tried.

So I did it. I bought a plane ticket and flew out alone with a baseball cap pulled almost all the way down over my eyes so no one would recognize me and a burning, almost painful anticipation growing inside me. I checked in to North Falls' only hotel, rented a car and then lay on the lumpy hotel bed with my legs hanging over the bottom edge, trying to work up the courage to do what I needed to.

Finally, I decided to go for a drive around town to calm myself down a little. Nothing had changed in North Falls. Every time I turned a corner part of me expected to see Ellie there in her flimsy winter coat with her mass of dark brown hair tumbling down over her shoulders. I drove to the mini-mall where the salon where she used to work was located - it was still there, and it was open. Feeling like a creep, I parked where I had a view of the front door and waited.

Not ten minutes later, she walked out. Her hair was different but it was definitely her. She was looking down, raking her hand through her purse, looking for something, and my heart was pounding so hard I thought it was going to burst.

Ellie. My beautiful, sweet, lovely girl. Tears sprung up in my eyes unbidden and I swiped them away quickly, blushing hard despite the fact that I was alone. Other than her hair, which was styled neatly in a way I'd never seen it before, everything else was the same. She took a phone out of her bag and I watched her body sag as she looked down at the screen. Five years later and my only instinct when I saw Ellie upset in any way was to comfort her. I couldn't, though. Not then. I couldn't just jump out of my rental car and scoop her up in my arms no matter how much I wanted to. She had a life. A life I knew nothing about. Maybe she had another man to wrap his arms around her and kiss away all her pain.

The text message from Bill was vitriolic but, I'm ashamed to say, not unexpected. My boyfriend was prone to outbursts like that and our relationship was anything but stable. He was an unemployed single father to a four year old daughter. We met at the grocery store when she accidentally dropped a gallon of milk on the floor and I, having witnessed it, took her hand and led her away from the spill while Bill went to notify another store employee.

He was older than me, thirty-five, and not bad-looking for North Falls. That's pretty much all it took. Things were alright at first. Not like they'd been with Cade, but I'd long since put aside any fantasies about meeting a man like him again. Bill looked after the boys, allowing me to take on more work at the salon and the grocery store without worrying about who was caring for them. After the first six months, after we'd settled into a routine, things got rocky. Bill didn't seem any closer to finding a job - in fact he seemed more than happy to stay home with the little ones all day - and he started showing a petulant, angry side of his personality. He didn't hit me, though. And he wasn't an addict (although he certainly wasn't averse to a couple of nights a week at one of the local bars). That was enough. I didn't feel deprived or sad because I didn't allow myself to feel those things. I'd never had high expectations anyway. As long as my brothers were taken care of, that was good enough for me.

Bill did have a tiresome habit of breaking up with me every few months whenever I dared to express any kind of upset with him. That time, it had been about a job opening at the hardware store in the next town over from North Falls. I'd told him about it, lent him my car to go and fill out an application, and he hadn't done it. When I asked him why he flew into a whiny rage and told me he hadn't had the time because he'd been looking after my brothers. Tired after a long day at the salon, I'd responded badly, rolling my eyes and accusing him of making excuses. Which he was - the whole reason I'd lent him the car was so he could take the kids along - but that didn't matter. I got the text at work and went outside into the parking lot to read it so none of my nosy co-workers would see if I got upset.

"You're gonna have to cancel work tomorrow, Ellie. I'm going out. Also, I'm done with this shitty relationship. We're roommates from now on. Nothing more. I mean it this time, we're finished. Don't bother waiting up for me tonight, I'm going to the bar and I might meet someone."

Ah, there it was. The every-two-months break-up text, complete with threats to see other people. The first couple of times he'd done it, it had bothered me. Now it just annoyed me. If he wanted to be roommates, fine. I went without Cade Parker. I could
definitely
go without Bill Stanford. Still, the flat refusal to look after the kids, forcing me to take a day off work, pissed me off. Who did he think paid for his daughter's meals? Who did he think paid for
his
meals? I was sorely tempted to send a text back to him pointing this out but I held off, knowing it would just egg him on even further and possibly jeopardize another workday.

I looked up at the sky, sighing to myself and then walked back into the salon. One of my co-workers, Ashley, was eyeballing me.

"What?"

She smiled, one of those smiles people give you when they know something you don't.

"Guess who's back in town, Ellie?"

I grabbed a broom and started sweeping up hair clippings, uninterested in Ashley's love life.

"Ellie, seriously, guess who's back?"

"I have no idea," I replied flatly.

"That hockey player, from the Kings? The one you dated in high school. Cade Parker?"

Ashley's words rang in my ears. The name she'd mentioned. Cade Parker. Had I heard her correctly? I kept my eyes on the floor but I could feel heat rising in my face and the sudden pounding in my chest. Cade was back?

"What? How do you know?"

"My cousin's wife works at the hotel - she said he checked in this morning. "

I could feel my co-workers watching me, waiting for a reaction. They knew all about me and Cade Parker back in high school - everyone in North Falls did. I'd almost ruined his career. His parents had to pull him out of school to get him away from me. I got pregnant with his baby and had an abortion against his wishes, breaking his heart. That last part was a complete lie, but it didn't stop anyone from believing it.

"Oh," I said, still refusing to look up because I didn't want to give the busybodies at the salon the satisfaction of seeing me rattled.

Cade was back in North Falls? Why? Mary, the fifty-something woman who owned the salon, had the same question.

"I wonder why he's back in North Falls? Come back to rescue his one true love?"

There were a few mean titters of laughter at that comment, laughter that no one even bothered to try and stifle. That's how unlikely it was deemed that anyone - let alone Cade Parker - would want to come to North Falls to rescue me.

Things were different. Different than they had been in high school. But they were still, in their own deflating way, exactly the same. I didn't get beat-up any more, but I still didn't get any respect. I was still the lowest person on anyone's totem pole. That's why my co-workers didn't try to hide their laughter. The idea of Cade Parker being interested in me was literally laughable.

Still. Why was he back? Was he even back? Was Ashley messing with me? I couldn't ask. To ask would have been to reveal that I cared, and I refused to do that. When my shift was over I gathered my things and left almost immediately, knowing the boys and Kaylee, Bill's daughter, were all home waiting for me.

The whole drive home I kept expecting to just see him - walking along the side of the road or in another car beside me at a red light.  When I walked into my trailer, located in the same park as my mom's but crucially separate from my hers, my heart still hadn't resumed its normal rhythm. But by nine o'clock, when the kids were finally in bed and I was tidying the mess they'd created, I'd pretty much decided that Ashley's cousin had been mistaken. Cade couldn't be back in North Falls. It seemed impossible.

At five minutes to ten, there was a knock on the door. I actually thought I'd imagined it and stayed where I was on the sofa until it happened again. Then I got up and looked through the peephole. It was Cade. He looked exactly the same, maybe a bit bigger, more muscular than he had been at eighteen, and with a much shorter haircut, but it was definitely him. His face looked anxious and I had to lean against a table as my head swam with the surreal feeling of five years seemingly wiped away in an instant.

"Ellie?"

Cade was speaking through the door, trying to keep his voice down. I panicked, not wanting him to wake the sleeping children but not in any way prepared to handle looking him in the eye, either. What was he going to think of me? What did he want? Did I trust any part of myself around him?

"Ellie? Is that you? Your mom told me you were here."

So he'd gone to the old trailer. I was surprised my mom had told him where I was. She'd probably been too drunk to notice who she was talking to.

I put one sweaty hand on the doorknob and opened it. Then I just stood there awkwardly for a few seconds, clueless as to what to do.

It's scary how fast a person can slip into old habits, old emotions. I felt myself, my body, recognizing that it was Cade standing in front of me and everything just clicked back into place as if it was five years ago and he was there to pick me up on the way to an Ice Kings game.

"Cade," I breathed, stepping towards him and pulling his head down to my shoulder without even thinking about it. It was always like that between us. I reacted to Cade instinctively, without thought. That's how it had been that night in the car when he took my virginity and it was how it was then, as he stood on my doorstep with his head buried in my hair.

"Cade. Oh my God."

I stroked the back of his neck and the feeling of his warm skin, so smooth and real, woke something up inside me that had been dormant for a long time. When I turned my head towards him and pressed my lips against his neck, murmuring his name, it was almost as if I was watching myself from the outside. How was this happening? How was Cade Parker back in my arms after five years of nothing? And why was I holding him and kissing him after the way he left?

None of those questions mattered. As soon as he felt me kiss him he lifted his head up and found my mouth with his, pushing me up against the wall just inside the front door and running his hands over my body with what felt almost like desperation.

"Ellie." Cade's voice was full of emotion. "Oh my God, Ellie. I missed you so much. I missed you
so much
."

I should have questioned him. I should have asked him why he never made any attempts to contact me if he missed me so much. I should have asked why all those photos of him with various women were all over the internet if it was me he wanted. But I didn't ask him any of those things. I couldn't. Something was in control of us but it wasn't me. I don't even think it was Cade. It was whatever force grew out of our sudden proximity, and I didn't stand a chance of resisting it. His hands on my body, the scent of his skin, the sound of his heavy breaths - I couldn't do anything but respond the way I did.

We stumbled our way into the trailer, tearing our clothes off as we made our way to the couch, both of us completely out of our minds with blind need. When he pulled me down onto his lap and I felt him between my legs he let out a low groan.

"Ellie. I need to be inside you."

"Cade, I know, I-"

My voice dissolved into a needy little sigh as he cupped one of my breasts in his hand and leaned down to suck the stiff nipple into his mouth. My back arched sharply towards him as the sensation of his tongue flicking over my nipple seared its way right down between my legs. When he flipped me easily onto my back and pulled my panties off I lay there, looking up at him, knowing what was coming and breathless with how much I needed it. I reached up and trailed my fingers down one muscular arm as he unzipped and took his cock out.

"Cade."

My legs opened automatically and I dug my fingers into the firm, muscled flesh of his shoulders when he pushed himself into me, positioning his body just right and then thrusting the rest of the way in until I was clamping my own hand over my mouth to stifle my little cries of pleasure.

"Oh.
Ellie
."

I couldn't help but smile as he rocked his hips down against me and I lifted mine up off the couch to meet him.

"Do you like that?"

I gasped as he suddenly slowed right down, pushing himself all the way inside me and holding himself there for a few sweet seconds.

"Yeah, Cade. I love-"

He buried himself inside me again, forcing the breath of my lungs and cutting me off. No other man had ever come close to doing to me what Cade did without even trying. As soon as he was inside me I could feel the orgasm beginning to build, I knew it was coming. He knew it, too.

"Are you gonna come, Ellie?"

I nodded quickly, conscious of the sound of my breathing getting faster.

"Yeah...Cade. Please, I, Cade-"

He leaned down and kissed my neck, dragging his tongue over my skin while I felt the muscles of his back tightening under my hands.

"You sound so good, Ellie. You're so sweet. I want to feel it when you come. Are you close?"

I was close. I could feel the impending blank space looming over my consciousness as Cade's breathing started to get ragged.

"Yes. Cade. I have to be quiet. I - the kids are - sleeping. Please, I have to be-"

I was completely incoherent but he knew what I was saying. He ran a finger over my lips and pushed it into my mouth as my body started to stiffen and my head rolled back over the arm of the sofa. It wasn't enough, though. The shaky moan I let out started to turn into a scream and Cade closed his hand flat over my mouth as I felt myself starting to pulse around him and the ache in my sex exploded into bliss.

"Look at me. Ellie.
Look at me
."

I couldn't do it, I was too lost in my own pleasure to understand anything he was saying, so he lifted my head himself, forcing me to look into eyes just as he was brimming over. I watched his jaw clench as his body went rigid and his hips pinned me down on the sofa. Then he took a deep, shuddering breath and groaned my name as he started to come, not looking away from me for a second.

I remembered that feeling. The one I got when I'd been with him before, years ago. The raw masculinity of his orgasm, the intoxication of his hunger for me. He kept his eyes locked on mine until he was finished and then he leaned down and kissed my sweaty forehead.

"Ellie."

He wanted to say something more, I could feel it. He didn't, though. We got dressed without saying much, mostly just listening to each other's breathing slow down again. Then we sat on the sofa next to each other as a sensation I can only compare to a kind of emotional shell-shock rose up in my chest. Before I had time to try and stop myself, I was sobbing. Big, ugly, gulping sobs that shook my body and sent tears cascading down my cheeks.