19
One Week Later
Kade squatted down by the three-foot marble headstone of his wife. He used his hand to brush away the few leaves covering her grave.
“I miss you a lot, you know,” he said, shifting to sit on the ground. “I guess you do know that. You probably can see everything going on down here.” He licked his lips as the winds picked up. “So I guess you probably know about Garcelle.”
He smiled at the thought of Garcelle. “You would like her. She’s funny and smart and full of life, and . . . and . . . she made . . . makes me happy, Reema,” he admitted. “But I guess you probably know that, too,” he said, with a laugh.
“She’s so good with Kadina, and she talks about you all the time with her, and she would help me raise Kadina to be just the type of woman you would want her to be.”
He looked around as the limbs of the trees swayed from side to side.
Seeing Garcelle at the wedding last week had brought it home that she, too, meant a lot to him. When he looked up after the wedding ceremony to find she was gone, he knew that the ceremony had touched her as well. He knew that she loved him still.
I’m here living and breathing and loving you, but I’m not about to fight with a ghost. . . .
“I don’t want you to think that I will ever forget you or stop loving you . . . because I won’t, but I love Garcelle,” he admitted, blinking away tears as he cleared his throat. “I really love her, and I just don’t want you to think that my loving her takes away from anything we shared together.”
The winds whipped around him, and he felt comforted.
“Reema, it’s time for me to move on, and I know now that you would want that for me.” He rose to his feet with ease and brushed the dirt from his pants. “I will never forget you. I promise you that.”
“Good night, Donnie,” Garcelle called out to the gruff owner as she walked out the front door of the restaurant. She pulled her print sweater cap on before she searched in her purse for her keys.
“Garcelle.”
She looked up. Kade stood there, leaning against his car and holding a large bouquet of roses. His usual Dickies uniform was gone, replaced by a black suit and an open black shirt, worn under a crisp tailored wool coat that made him devastatingly handsome. She felt surprised, pleased, and confused by his presence. “Hello, Kade,” she said, feeling awkward in his presence. It had been a week since the wedding. She had just gotten her equilibrium back, and here he was, throwing her off again.
He pushed off the vehicle and walked over to her. The cold wind blew around them, and the scent of his cologne reached her as he held the bouquet out to her. “For you.”
Garcelle bit her bottom lip as she accepted it. Their hands touched briefly, and there was still nothing but sparks. “What’s going on? What’s this all about?”
He reached up and lightly touched her chin. “It’s about me being happy, and you make me happy. The last two months have been hell, but I’m ready for my own little slice of heaven in your arms . . . in your life.”
Garcelle closed her eyes and released a long stream of air through pursed lips as she fought for composure.
Kade continued. “You were right. I wasn’t ready before. I wasn’t able to fully accept you being in my life. All I knew then was that I loved you, and I wanted you in my life. It took time for me to realize that I need you.”
Garcelle buried her face in the bouquet as she got her thoughts and her words together. “You really hurt me, Kade,” she admitted. “I gave you distance. I didn’t push. I didn’t do a Zorrie on you—”
“I know. I know. Can I show you something?” he asked as he reached for her hand.
Her reluctance was obvious. “Kade, I don’t know. . . .”
“Please.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” Garcelle looked into his eyes.
Kade stepped closer to her and brought one hand up to caress the side of her face and then her nape. “Do you love me?”
“My life is fine. Why not let it be, Kade?”
“Do . . . you . . . love . . . me?”
Garcelle let her head fall back as he continued to massage her neck. “Kade . . .”
He used his hand to turn her head so that their eyes locked. “Do you love me?” he whispered, his cool breath fanning her lips.
“Yes,” she admitted in a heated rush. “Yes, I love you.”
“Come on,” he said, reaching for her hand and lightly pulling her toward the SUV.
They rode in silence. Their hands were entwined atop the console in between their seats.
“Where are we going?” she asked, still trying to decide if she was happy or not being with the man she loved. The same man who had hurt her.
“Home,” he said simply.
Garcelle said nothing else. “Your home or my home?” she asked.
He didn’t answer her until they turned down the road leading to his house. It appeared every room in the house was lit up. She had to admit it was a warm and inviting sight.
“If you think bringing me here to prove you can have sex in your wife’s house—”
“Our home,” he told her as he shut the vehicle off.
“Huh?”
“You asked if I was taking you to your home or mine, and I am saying this is our home.”
He climbed out of the vehicle and left her sitting there, more confused than ever. “Our home?” she asked as she watched him jog up the stairs and into the house.
Garcelle dropped her roses on the driver’s seat as she scrambled out of the vehicle and up the stairs and into the house. As soon as she crossed the threshold, she gasped in surprise.
There was a trail of rose petals and candles in tall vases leading down the hall and into the den. “Kade,” she called out.
“I want you to walk around the whole house first and then meet me in the den,” he called back to her.
“What?”
“Just do it.”
And she did. Room by room after room. Upstairs and downstairs. And each room she found completely devoid of furniture. No throw rugs. No curtains. No towels in the bathrooms. No beds in the bedrooms. Nothing. There was absolutely no furniture. The house looked like it had just been purchased and was waiting for someone to turn it into a home.
What was going on?
In Kade’s bedroom, she found the same emptiness, but what really shocked her was that the large wedding photo was gone from its spot on the wall. She left the room and went racing down the stairs. Once in the front hall, she followed the beautifully lit path into the den. “I’m coming, Kade,” she called out.
“Come on,” he urged.
In the center of the room, Kade was down on one knee, surrounded by a thick bed of rose petals. He held a ring box in his outstretched hand.
“Kade?”
“Come to me.”
Garcelle hated to walk across the petals, but she wanted to be close to him. She tiptoed until she stood before him, with her eyes locked on his. “Kade, this so beautiful,” she sighed, her accent very heavy.
“Garcelle, I am more than ready to welcome you into my life, my home, and my heart. I want this to be our home so that we can share our lives together and make our own memories. Our own babies. Our own history. We’ll start fresh. We’ll decorate it together. We’ll make it ours.” He took a deep breath and smiled up at her. “Will you marry me, Garcelle?”
She was touched beyond words. Her heart overflowed with love for him. She couldn’t begin to explain how much all of it meant to her.
“Yes. Yes. Yes. I’ll marry you. I will marry you, Kade Strong,” she said, with a soft, teasing tone, as she bent down to kiss him firmly on the lips.
As he slid the three-carat solitaire onto her finger, Garcelle fell to her knees before him. She grasped his face, and they shared a dozen or more kisses before he pressed her body down upon the plush bed of rose petals.
They undressed one another slowly, as if to cherish every moment of their union. They sighed in pleasure at the feel of each other’s naked flesh. His hard frame pressed against her soft curves as they explored each other’s bodies. Sweat made many of the rose petals cling to their bodies as they rolled about and kissed and whispered words of nothing but love and devotion for one another. And when he filled her with his hardness, each stroke united them at a far deeper level than the physical one. It was the merging of two souls destined to become one.