But now it was all out there. It was impossible to misunderstand their intentions. They wanted her. Both of them. And God, she wanted them too.
Cade touched a finger to her cheek and tenderly traced the lines of her face, landing on the fullness of her lips, until it was all she could do not to swipe her tongue over the tip.
“A lot of what Merrick said is exactly how I feel. Maybe I fought it more than he did in the beginning because I couldn’t wrap my head around how we could possibly make it work. It’s not going to be easy. It’s going to take the ultimate commitment from all three of us, and we’ll have to work three times as hard as a couple in a traditional relationship.
“But with that said, once I stopped fighting it and allowed myself to say…what if? It was freeing. I began to think of the possibilities. I thought of how happy that I know we can make you. If you’ll just give us that chance,” he ended softly.
“But will I make you happy?”
“You already make us happy,” Merrick said.
Cade leaned down and kissed her forehead. “I understand why you feel the way you do, honey. I get it. I really do. I know we didn’t meet under the best circumstances. I know you have a lot of fears and insecurities over not knowing what’s in your past, and I know you worry that you’re a burden to me and Merrick and that somehow we’ve got it all screwed up in our heads, that we’re suffering some kind of savior complex, and that’s why we’re so into you.”
She blinked, unable to even respond to that.
“I’m right, aren’t I?”
Slowly she nodded. “That’s about it in a nutshell.”
“Put it out of your mind,” Cade said, as blunt as Merrick had been just moments earlier. “It’s not remotely true. You’re here with us because we want you here. There are a number of agencies we could have turned you over to. Hell, we could have just called the police and washed our hands of you months ago. But we didn’t do any of that because we want you here with us, and we’ll do damn near anything to persuade you that it’s where you need to be.”
She smiled then and reached up to take his hand, squeezing for all she was worth. “I don’t know if it’s where I need to be, but it’s where I want to be.”
“Good enough for me,” Merrick said. “Now, I vote we stop rehashing this so we stop making ourselves crazy, and we go out and do something fun today. The weather is beautiful. It’s warm, and the sun is shining.”
“Oh, that sounds great,” she said in a wistful tone. “But what about your workout? Shouldn’t you be leaving?”
The sun wasn’t even up yet. It was routine for them all to rise early so Merrick could run and be at the gym by sun up. He put in several hours on the mat, and then he’d go into the office to help Cade. In the evenings, he ran again and worked on conditioning.
Merrick leaned forward to kiss her, his lips cold from the shake he was drinking.
“Tell you what. Let me get my morning workout over with, and then we’ll go do something together. Just the three of us.”
“The local park is beautiful. Has a great lake where ducks gather to be fed. I could pack us a picnic lunch, and we can hang out in the sun. Bring a jacket, though. There’s still a nip to the air,” Cade advised.
Spring was slowly struggling to make its presence known in Grand Junction. Autumn chill had come quickly in October, as she’d well known because it had been when she’d dragged herself from the Colorado River to collapse on the bank.
It was plenty cold here, and she knew enough about the new Elle to know she wasn’t used to the colder, drier climate in Western Colorado. Wherever she had come from, the temperatures were much warmer. The question was, how had she ended up here. And why?
She shook off the lingering worry and fear, determined to move forward, out of the shadows.
“That sounds great,” she said, injecting the proper amount of enthusiasm into her voice.
And it was perfect. She’d get to spend the day with Cade and Merrick. She’d become fiercely dependent on the comfort and support they offered. They were her security blanket. As much as she hated to admit it to herself, she knew she wouldn’t be where she was right now emotionally if not for the two men who’d taken her in and helped put her back together.
“Here, eat your breakfast,” Cade said, handing her a plate with scrambled eggs, a blueberry muffin and bacon. “When we’re done eating, we’ll head down to take in Merrick’s workout and then we’ll come back so he can get showered and changed. I’ll work on getting us something packed for lunch.”