It's a Wonderful Wife (24 page)

Cadi smiled sheepishly to hide her discomfort over the fact that the two women were just staring at her—slightly slack-jawed—as their gazes traveled from her hair to her face to her body and back to her face again. “I think they're part of an unofficial kayak trail system,” she added when they just kept staring. “I heard it goes all the way up to the state park in Cobscook Bay.”

“My God,” one of the women said softly, “you're beautiful.”

“Ex- . . . excuse me?”

“You must be Pamela,” the other woman said, her sudden hug-attack making Cadi's attempt to correct her come out as a squeak. “I've been dying to meet you for months now. Oh, I'm sorry,” she said, leaning away with a laugh but not letting her go. “I'm Emma, Ben's wife. Holy smokes, no wonder Jesse has been keeping you hidden in New York. You're positively gorgeous.” She finally stepped back, only to tug on Cadi's sleeve. “And look at you, out here on his island all dressed in mud boots and fleece, looking just like a true Maine girl.”

And still before Cadi could correct her, the pregnant woman launched a hug-attack of her own. “Welcome to the family, Pamela! Oh, I know the men said we should probably ignore the harbormaster referring to you as Jesse's
little missus
,” she rushed on, leaning away. “But the very fact Jesse even brought you to his precious island means it's only a matter of time, don't you think?” She gave Cadi one last squeeze, then stepped back and shook her head, lowering her voice to a conspirator's whisper. “Because we all know he's building a house for his future family. I had a feeling you might be the one when Sam told me Jesse actually brought you to Rosebriar last March to help him host a business dinner.”

“And bringing you
here
only confirms it,” Emma seconded.

All Cadi could do was mutely stare at them, feeling more dumb than a chipmunk and otter and ferret
combined
as she prayed to God she had enough of a tan to hide the fact that all her blood had rushed to her belly in response to the punch it had just taken.

Jesse had a girlfriend in New York? One that these women felt he was involved with seriously enough to
marry
?

“You did too hurt yourself when you fell,” Willa said, taking hold of Cadi's sleeve. “Let's find a rock or log for you to sit on before you collapse.”

Emma slipped an arm around Cadi as she let the two of them lead her toward the bluff. The women suddenly stopped when they reached the clearing, their concern she was going to faint evaporating on stereo gasps of surprise. “What
is
this?” Emma whispered.

“Oh my God, it's his house!” Willa cried, abandoning Cadi to rush forward.

Emma chose to drag Cadi along as the woman followed her sister-in-law, although she was thoughtful enough to keep her arm around her. “This is Jesse's house? Why on earth would he build down here instead of up on the hill?”

“Cadi!” Jesse shouted, making Emma turn them both in time to see Jesse charge into the clearing followed by two men.

“Cadi?” Emma echoed, dropping her arm and allowing Cadi to step away. “You're not Pamela?”

“What!” Willa cried, rushing back to them. “You're not
Pamela
? We thought she was Pamela!” she shouted at Jesse just as he reached Cadi.

He tried to grasp her shoulders. “I can explain.”

“You touch me and you're a dead man,” Cadi whispered tightly, pushing his hand away as she took several more steps back. She turned and smiled at the horrified women. “I'm sorry for not immediately correcting you, but I seem to have developed the bad habit of playing along when I'm mistaken for someone I'm not. My name is Cadi Glace, and I live in a tiny town up the coast, not New York. I'm just the architect's assistant,” she said, ignoring the muttered curse behind her as she gestured at the full-scale—and damn perfect, if she did say so herself—model of Jesse's home. “Mr. Kerr hired me to come out to the island and tape off the rooms so Mr. Sinclair could get a feel of the layout and overall size of the structure. So if you'll excuse me,” she went on calmly as she walked past the corner stake and started along the wall of the cliff, “I'll just call it a day and head back to the mainland and let you all enjoy your visit.”

Cadi stopped when she reached her tent and picked her sketchbook up off the folding table, made sure her smile was still firmly in place, then turned and looked down the length of the house at Jesse, who was standing with his arms folded over his chest, staring at her. “I'll leave this here so you can show everyone around your home,” she said, waving the sketchbook. She tossed it back on the table, picked up her backpack, then looked toward the bushes where Wiggles had disappeared. “I'll come back and get my stuff tom—in a day or two,” she said as she started walking back along the cliff toward the path, figuring she'd have Paul sneak her over here tonight to get her cat.

“You even think about touching that runabout,” Jesse said when she was halfway to him, “and the sheriff will be waiting for you at the town pier.”

“Fine with me,” she said without breaking stride—even though she could barely see where she was walking. Damn, two minutes more was all she needed, and then she could burst into tears. “I'd much prefer spending the night in jail than on this island.”

“I love you,” he said—and not in a whisper, either—just as she angled past him, making Cadi stumble several steps before coming to a halt.

She stared up at the cliff to keep her tears from spilling free, not even daring to blink.

“I love you,” he repeated when a full minute went by and she didn't respond.

“Trust me, Ms. Glace,” a male voice said into the silence from somewhere behind her when another minute passed. “He's never uttered those words to a woman before.”

“If you know him at all,” another male added, “you'd know how hard that was for him to say.”

“And I didn't mean it when I welcomed
Pamela
to the family,” Willa chimed in. “I was just being polite because I thought we were stuck with you—her. Stuck with
her
. But if Jesse says he loves you, then we love you, too.”

“Please give him a chance,” Emma softly petitioned. “He really is a good man.”

Still staring up at the cliff, still unable to respond because she was still barely holding it together, Cadi heard movement behind her that seemed to be traveling toward the path as it slowly faded away.

“I adore you,” a warm, familiar, heart-shivering voice said into the growing silence. “I desire you. I admire you. I am in awe of you.”

Two warm, steady, so very masculine hands gently clasped her shoulders, and Cadi finally let her tears spill free by dropping her head and turning into his warm and so very safe embrace. “Did I mention I love you?” he whispered into her hair. “And that I can't imagine ever living without you? That I would do anything for you?
Be
anything for you?” He kissed the top of her head. “Will you be six years old again with me, Cadi?”

She slowly shook her head without looking up, only to feel his chest stop moving in and out. “But I will be sixteen again with you.” She tilted her head back when that chest expanded in a rush. And although she still couldn't see very well, she could definitely tell the dark, Atlantic-blue eyes looking down at her also appeared a little misty. “Sixteen-year-olds can have sex, can't they? Because I really like having sex with you.”

“Will you have babies with me?”

She gave a little nod while still staring up at him. “A whole passel of them.”

He lifted a hand and cupped her head back to his chest with a heavy sigh. “You're going to dismantle the office at Rosebriar, aren't you?”

She nodded.

“And you're going to make me build a treehouse there, too.”

Cadi nodded again, even though he hadn't posed it as a question.

“And I suppose I'm going to have to buy a motorhome.”

“A really big one,” she agreed.

“You do know it's going to take us a month of Sundays to find Wiggles every time we leave Rosebriar to come here.”

“We'll just send our big old scruffy dog to sniff her out. I love you.”

Even though the chest she was pressed against stopped moving again, the heart inside it definitely started beating harder. “Excuse me, what was that? There at the end?”

She looked up and beamed him a huge smile. “I said thank you. If you hadn't kicked me off my comfortable couch, I never would have come up with the plan to find Mr. Right.” She melted into him. “Hundred Acre might not be Glacier National Park, but I definitely got to experience camping firsthand. Honest to God,” she mumbled, “it's beyond me why anyone
wants
to sleep in a tent.”

“With their cat,” he added, giving her a squeeze. “So will you give me a chance to prove that we're Mr. and Mrs.
Right Now
? That you don't have to travel around getting
more
confident or
more
sophisticated and
more
worldly?” He rested his chin on the top of her head. “Because I really don't want to wait two years to get started on that passel of kids, because I'd really like to still be young enough to stay one step ahead of them as teenagers.”

“But we're starting out at sixteen, remember?”

“Yeah, but I'm going to age two years to their one, assuming I don't die of dehydration from sweating bullets every time you cross the reach alone.”

She patted his chest without lifting her head. “I'll save up my errands and hitch a ride with you on the one day a week you go to work at your office on the mainland.”

Another squeeze and another really, really heavy sigh. “Why am I not—”

“They're here! We spotted the
Spitfire
northeast of the island about six miles out!” came a winded shout from the woods, making Cadi step away when Jesse dropped his arms and turned. “Come on,” Ben shouted as he charged into the clearing and gestured at them to follow. “We need your cruiser to go get them!” he called over his shoulder as he ran back up the path.

“Right behind you, brother!” Jesse shouted as he shot after him. He slid to a stop and ran back, snagged Cadi's hand, and shot off again.

“Who's in the sloop?” she asked as she went from standing still to the speed of sound in one second flat.

“Remember the bon voyage party I've been trying to talk you into going to tomorrow? Her. Jen. She's sailing past the island.”

“Your . . . brother . . . said . . .
they
,” Cadi huffed and puffed while trying to remember where that stupid button was to kick on her jet engine before she fell flat on her face.

“Ben's son Mike is with her. They snuck off this morning before anyone could stop them. Long story. Just run!”

“Slowing . . . you . . . down. Promise . . . to . . . wait . . . with—”

Oh, to heck with it. Cadi jerked free and simply stopped. “I'll wait with the women,” she managed to get out in one breath, waving him on as she bent at the waist to suck in gulps of air as he muttered something and shot off again. Good God, she'd probably just burned off the last four pounds of the ten she'd gained building his models—having burned the first six rebuilding the house at full-scale!

She straightened and started walking, only to break into a smile when she'd swear she heard the forest whispering,
Welcome home, Cadi girl. Are you ready for a truly exciting adventure?
just like it had the very first time she'd visited Hundred Acre looking at building sites.

And even though it sounded like the same deep, definitely old, masculine voice as the one back in February, for some reason this time it was eerily familiar—its cadence much like Jesse's, only mixed with the hint of a . . . Texan twang.

•   •   •

Jesse exited the camper on the pretense he needed to go make sure the runabout's dock lines were secure, when what he really needed was five minutes of quiet. His camper was bursting at the seams with people. And Einstein.

He headed down the road to the beach, wondering what Mike had been thinking to bring a ferret on a year-long voyage around the world. Einstein had been so happy to reach solid ground, the little bugger had spent the entire afternoon running all over the north end of Hundred Acre kissing trees and finding mud holes to roll in. Eventually caught, bathed and blown dry, and with his belly now full of kibble—and likely more tuckered out from his morning spent on a sloop surrounded by nothing but ocean than from running through the forest—Einstein had zeroed in on the brand-new human in the group and claimed Cadi's lap as the perfect place for a nap.

Yeah, well, it was a good thing she liked furry little creatures, because Jesse was afraid they'd just gotten themselves a yearlong babysitting job. He stepped onto the floating dock with a chuckle, wondering what Wiggles the ghost cat was going to think of that. Hell, he hoped cats and ferrets weren't mortal enemies. But then he sighed, figuring it would take
two
months of Sundays of searching Rosebriar to find both sneaky buggers every time they wanted to pack up and come to Maine. Jesse stopped in the middle of the dock and decided he better start shopping for a puppy.

He looked down at the runabout and grinned, realizing that when Cadi and Willa had shot over to the mainland to pick up Jen's mother—Shelby had left Hank and Rose and Emma's faithful shepherd, Beaker, in their ex-housekeeper and her new husband's capable hands—the women had apparently made a quick trip to the grocery store. Because when they'd landed on Hundred Acre, the three Sinclair brothers had been pressed into service lugging their purchases up the road to the camper: half a case of Moscato, two six-packs of Moxie, three packages—each—of E.L. Fudge and Oreo cookies, and enough cold meat and cheese to feed a small army. All of which Cadi had probably put on the account she'd confessed to opening in his name in hopes of stretching her dwindling reserve of cash.