Kade reminded her. “To discuss—” He looked at the crowd around them, and could not bring himself to finish the sentence.
“Oh!” She looked contrite. “Now I remember. We were meeting to discuss...” Her voice drifted away, and then she sighed. “Sorry, Kade, I truly forgot you were coming.” Apparently she hadn’t lain awake last night contemplating the
d-i-v-o-r-c-e.
“It’s been a crazy morning,” she said, as if it needed clarification.
“So I can see,” he said. Jessica. Master of the understatement.
“Who are you?” the woman police officer asked.
“I’m her husband.” Well,
technically
, he still was.
Kade was only inches from Jessica, but he was so aware that the small physical distance between them was nothing compared with the emotional one. It could not be crossed. That was what hissed right below the surface of her voice. There was a minefield of memory between them, and to try to negotiate it felt as if it would be risking having them both being blown to smithereens.
“I think her arm is fractured or broken,” the medic said to Kade, and then returned his attention to Jessica. “We’re going to transport you. They’ll do X-rays at the hospital. I’m going to call ahead so they’ll be ready for you in the emergency department.”
“Which hospital?” Kade asked.
“You don’t need to come,” Jessica said, and there was
that
tone again, her apology apparently forgotten. She glared at Kade in warning when he frowned at her.
She was right. He did not
need
to go with her. And he could not have stopped himself if he tried.
“Nonetheless,” he said, “I’d be more at ease making sure you were okay.”
“No.”
Kade knew that tone: she had made up her mind and there would be no getting her to change it.
No matter how stupidly unreasonable she was being.
“I thought he was your husband,” the woman police officer said, confused.
“You don’t need to come to the hospital,” Jessica said. She tried to fold her arms over her chest. The splint on her right arm made it awkward enough that after three attempts she gave up. She glared at her arm accusingly, and when that brought her no relief, she switched her glare to him.
To what he could tell was her chagrin, he accomplished what she had not been able to. He folded his arms firmly over his chest.
Battle stations.
What did this mean that he was insisting on accompanying Jessica to the hospital? That he was accepting responsibility for her?
Had he ever stopped feeling responsible for her?
“I thought he was your husband,” the police officer said again.
“I am,” Kade said, and heard the same firmness in his voice as that day that felt as if it was so long ago when he had said, “I do.”
* * *
Jessica felt a shiver travel up and down her spine.
Her husband.
She watched Kade standing there, so close she could smell the familiar heady scent of him, his arms folded firmly over the deepness of that chest. He looked grim and formidable when he took that stance.
And even with that intimidating scowl drawing his dark brows down and pulling the edges of his mouth? Kade was the most magnificently made man Jessica had ever encountered. And she was pretty sure the female police officer wasn’t immune to that fact, either.
Jessica had never tired of looking at him, not even when their relationship had become so troubled. Sometimes it had made her anger even more complicated that she still liked to look at him when he was so aggravating!
But gazing at him now, she felt resignation. This morning Kade had on a beautifully cut summer suit that she was certain was custom made. With it he had on a plain white shirt, possibly Egyptian cotton, and a subdued, expertly knotted tie, the slight luster of it screaming both silk and expense.
The ensemble made him look every inch the president and CEO of one of Calgary’s most successful companies. Despite a rather mundane name, Oilfield Supplies did just that. It supplied