Page 35 of Honor ’N’ Duty

Kade knelt next to Laia, doing his best not to stare at the gentle curves of her breasts just visible beneath the top of her dress.

“This will make you feel better. I promise.” Smoke’s ears flicked as she continued talking to him in a soothing voice. “You’ll be back to chasing bad guys in no time.”

The moment the ice pack hit the pads on the bottom of his paw, Smoke jerked his leg away.

“Easy, boy.” Kade rested his hand on Smoke’s belly, rubbing it in slow circles, distracting him while Laia applied the icepack.

“Here. Let’s try this.” She picked up Smoke’s paw and held it on the ice for a few seconds, then removed it, repeating the process and adding in a few seconds each time. By the time she’d gotten to the fifth round, Smoke allowed her to wrap her scarf around his paw and secure the icepack to his injured joint. “See?” She pet his head, smiling. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

When Smoke gave her an answering snort and a quick lick to her chin, she smiled. “Thank you. That’s all the payment I needed. Now,” she added, pointing a finger at his dog, “I want you to ice your paw at least three times a day, fifteen to twenty minutes each time.”

The directions were, Kade knew, for him more than Smoke. He continued rubbing Smoke’s belly, wanting to make sure he remained still and didn’t dislodge the icepack. “You’re as gentle with animals as you are with children. You’ll make a great vet.” She’d make a great anything.

“I hope so.”

For a few more seconds, she continued petting Smoke, then she looked at Kade, and he knew his momentary reprieve had come to an end.

“Stay,” he ordered Smoke, and when Laia sat on one side of the long sofa, he took up position on the other end. As far from her as he could get. He rested his arm over the back of the sofa, doing his best to look relaxed. Inside he was tied up in knots, his muscles coiled tighter than a muzzle spring.

The corners of her mouth lifted. “I won’t bite you.”

I can only wish.

“Tell me something.” She scooted to the center of the sofa, halving the distance between them. “Josh has been gone for over two years. If you never stopped thinking about me, why did you stay away? Why didn’t you take any of my calls?”

He struggled to find the right words that wouldn’t land his sorry ass in a world of hurt. “I wanted to.” He took a deep breath, then stared for a moment at the ceiling. “I just…couldn’t.”

“Why not?” she repeated.

Kade dragged a hand down his face. Josh might as well have been sitting on the sofa between them, pushing them apart with his bare hands. “I stayed away all this time because if I heard your voice, let alone saw you in person, I wouldn’t be able to walk away again. It was better if I just didn’t show up at all.”

What he should do was get up and walk away. Now. Sitting right there, not three feet away, she was his worst nightmare and his hottest dream. “You were in mourning.” They’d all been in mourning. Especially his parents.

“Exactly.” She pointed to her chest. “I was in mourning. Part of me will always miss Josh. He’s the father of my child, and nothing will change that. But I don’t intend to wear black for the rest of my life or enter a convent. Six years ago, you said there was something between us, so don’t even try to deny it.”

She was right. He couldn’t deny it. But it didn’t change a thing.

“It’s more complicated than that. I can’t just move in on my brother’s widow.” To this day, he’d never told his parents how he felt about their daughter-in-law. They’d been blissfully ignorant, celebrating their oldest son’s wedding, then the birth of their first grandchild. He couldn’t take away their bad memories of what happened to Josh, but he could still preserve the good ones.

Laia’s brows drew together. “When this is over with Colon, you’ll walk away and leave all over again. Won’t you?”

His throat closed in so tightly he could barely choke out the word he hated saying. “Yes.” Because the guilt eating him up inside was still there like an immovable steel barricade that not even a missile could penetrate. But he couldn’t tell her that. Ever.

She took a deep breath, then shut her eyes. When she opened them, they were soft, calm, drawing him into their beautiful depths as they always had. “Since we’re being honest here, tell me…what would you have done if I hadn’t married your brother?”

Moved heaven and earth to make you mine. “I’d have asked for your phone number.”

“And then?” She inched closer on the cushion, sending up warning flags in Kade’s brain.

“Then…” Don’t do it. The last thing he should be doing was playing this dangerous game with her because he was weak and getting more so by the second. “I’d have asked you out to dinner.”

Her tongue darted out to lick her lips, not a seductive move, just nervousness, judging by the white-knuckled way she twisted her hands together.

“Where would you have taken me?” she asked.

That was an easy one. It was a scenario he’d gone over and over in his head hundreds of times. “Mandino’s in Long Branch.” His favorite restaurant, one he’d been certain she would have loved.

She smiled. “I know that place. It’s on the water. I’ve never been there, but I’ve heard it’s beautiful. And romantic.”