“Yeah,” Chance added. “Why would she come here instead of the house? She’s hardly ever here unless it’s to check her mail and lately you’ve been taking that home to her.”
They were right. Jessie never came into the office anymore. If she was in town, she’d call and they’d meet in the apartment.
“Sounds like she wanted you out of the way,” Kid remarked.
“That’s it.” Cadde snapped his fingers. “She wanted me out of the way.” He grabbed his phone and called Rosa.
“Rosa, is Jessie there?”
“No, Mr. Cadde, but something strange happened.”
“What?”
“I was looking for Mirry and I found her on the porch. The front door was opened and Mirry was gazing down the road, barking.”
“I’ll be right there.” He jumped up and reached for his jacket.
“Don’t you want the figures on the Louisiana well?” Kid asked, and he knew Kid was trying to distract him. But there was no distraction from this maelstrom of sadness.
“Leave it on my desk. I’ll look at it later.”
Since it was noon, the traffic was heavy. He weaved in and out of cars and trucks in a hurry to get home. He didn’t know what for. Jessie wasn’t going to be there. She’d made it very clear she didn’t want to see him and had gone to extreme measures for him not to be there. That was just another hurt his loaded heart couldn’t take.
But Jessie had come home for something. What?
On U.S. 290 he got behind an 18-wheeler and couldn’t get around the big vehicle. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as cars zoomed past on his left—seemed like the whole world was headed into Houston to Christmas shop.
Finally, he turned down the county road and sped to the house. He hurried inside. “Rosa, I think Jessie came home. Is anything missing?”
“No, Mr. Cadde, and I looked. Everything’s the same.”
“Thanks.”
He made his way into the living room and fell onto the sofa, rubbing the palms of his hands into his eyes. He needed to know she was okay—that she was safe. The enormity of the situation hit him like a sledgehammer to the head. He hadn’t protected her. She’d been attacked by a Doberman and a lunatic, all on his watch. He’d let Roscoe down, but most of all he’d let Jessie down. How did he live with that?
A whimper sounded at his feet and he saw Mirry looking up at him. Lifting her, he cradled her in his lap. “Did you see Jessie today?”
Mirry wiggled her knob of a tail. “You did, didn’t you?” Rubbing the dog’s head, he got lost in his thoughts. Why hadn’t Jessie taken Mirry? That surprised him. Maybe she was going somewhere the dog couldn’t go. Where, though?
He went round and round the situation, but nothing made sense. How could they go from deliriously happy to this agonizing numbness?
“Cadde.” Chance stood in the doorway. “Are you okay?”
“No. I’m never going to be the same again.” He was honest. That was all he could be.
Chance took a seat in a wingback chair, placing his hat on the arm. Cadde had no idea where his own hat was. Jessie used to tease him about that. He’d never had a problem with his Stetson until he moved into the house for good. Jessie had his emotions turned upside down and he didn’t care about his hat—only her.
“Kid and I did something I need to tell you,” Chance said.
For a moment he was shocked someone else was in the room and then he saw Chance’s worried face. “What?”
“We had a marker made for the baby’s grave.”
“Oh.”
“They’ll set it tomorrow if it’s okay with you. It’s small, just something to mark the site. We put Baby Cadde Hardin and the date on it.”
Cadde held a hand over his eyes and felt a gut-wrenching pain. He waited for it to subside. “Thanks. I appreciate that. Jessie will, too, if she ever comes home.”
“She will. She’s just hurting right now.”
He clenched his hands between his knees. “Did you tell Shay you loved her when you were dating?”
“Uh…yes, and she told me she didn’t love me.”
“I remember. You were devastated.”
“Yeah. That’s not something a man wants to hear.”
He took a breath. “I never told Jessie I loved her.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I was stupid.” He jerked his hands through his hair.
He took a moment to try and understand his own behavior. “Everything was going so great. We were happy, yet…”
“Remember how Mom used to make you say it?” Chance asked. “When she’d drive us to school, Kid and I would jump out yelling, ‘Love you, Mom.’ She’d have to call you back and make you say it.”