The Exception(74)
He pursed his lips together, his brows furrowing. “I’m not sure,” he said, clearly mystified by my question. “Is it bad that I don’t think I’ve ever really looked that far into the future?”
“No, I guess not.”
“I’ve never thought about it before but I didn’t care. Each day was a day to get through. There was really no point in looking any farther unless it was something for work. But now that I think of it, I have been thinking ahead a little more, wondering what we will do a few days from now, what we will do next weekend. But five years is a lot different than a few days.”
He sat quietly, pondering my question. “Where do you see yourself in five years, Jada?”
“I’m not sure. I had thought I would have a home of my own, complete with a little white picket fence. I figured I would be sharing my life with someone, starting a family maybe. But obviously that got blown out of the water.”
A hint of sadness wiggled its way inside my chest. The dreams I had for my life since I was a little girl seemed so far out of reach. I was afraid I would never be able to grasp what I wanted out of life.
“You can still have that.”
“Yeah, I guess. I don’t really even know. My life has changed so much.”
“Life gets better with change.”
“Sometimes,” I said, considering his words. “But sometimes it doesn’t.”
“Look at me,” he said, smiling nervously. “I changed the way I live. And if I hadn’t, you never would have had me. Change is good.” He ran his fingers up my arm. “I didn’t plan it, but you’re the best thing that has ever happened to me. Do you know that?”
“Oh, Cane,” I said, his words causing me to choke up. “I don’t even know what to say to that.”
“You could say you feel the same way,” he said, shrugging his shoulders casually, making me grin.
“I do feel that way.”
Cane wrapped one arm around my waist. “I haven’t felt this content in a long time. Probably since my dad died.”
“What was he like?”
His chest fell quickly as he blew out a breath.
“I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer that.”
“No. I want you to know me.” His hand stilled and cupped my waist, pressing my body against his, like he was afraid I was going to pull away. “My dad was a great dad. He was reliable, even-keeled. And he was the hardest worker I’ve ever known. He wanted me to step up at Alexander Industries—to really throw myself into it.”
“You seemed to have done that.”
Cane stilled. “I was dating a girl after college named Ashley. She moved back to Providence. I thought I loved her.” I could feel him shake his head. “Anyway, Dad wanted me to stay here and I didn’t. I just followed her across the country.”
“That’s kind of romantic.”
He snorted. “That’s all kinds of fucking stupid, that’s what it is. So I get there and see the real her. She’s around her family, her friends, and she isn’t the girl I thought I knew. I complained about it to Dad and he wanted me to come home. He was looking at this property in Queen Creek to buy to build a subdivision on and he said he needed my help. Well, one night Ashley and I went to a bar and some things happened and I realized I had made the wrong choice. So I called him up that night, it was a Saturday, and told him I was coming home.”
Cane’s body stilled, his heart picking up speed beneath my cheek.
“He was thrilled. So I was supposed to go home on that Tuesday. But on Sunday Ashley told me she was pregnant with my baby.”
I pulled my head back in shock as my stomach fell to the floor. I pushed a swallow down my constricted throat, the thought of a baby Cane running around Rhode Island making me sick. “Really?”
He laughed menacingly. “Really. So Dad calls me Monday night to go over my travel plans and stuff and I told him what Ashley said. He was really disappointed, angry, all that stuff.”
Cane adjusted his position but made sure I didn’t leave his side. “He had finally decided to buy this property in Queen Creek that belonged to this widow lady, even though it was a mess. There was a guy that owned a small piece of land next to this parcel that wanted it, too, and he was driving potential buyers away so he could end up getting it for a cheaper price.” He brushed a strand of hair out of my face. “That other guy was Simon’s dad.”
“Did he go ahead and buy it?”
“We were on the phone. He was telling me he had made an offer and how I had messed up by knocking Ashley up. That I should be there learning from him, helping him. All of a sudden, I could hear a change in his voice and he said he needed to get off the phone. He said he thought he was being followed and the car behind him had begun driving really erratically. So we hung up. And an hour or so later, Max called that my dad had died in a car crash.”