Wedding Vows: I Thee Wed. Shirley Jump

about what could be if they took this path or that path. In the end, there’d only been one road to follow. Cade had always thought it was the right one, but now, seeing his wife’s enthusiasm, he wondered if he’d missed a detour.

      Beside them, the old man snarfled in his sleep. “Bad deer,” he muttered.

      Each of them laughed quietly at the non sequiter, providing a moment of détente, connection. Then Melanie cleared her throat and directed her attention to the room. “Anyway, we’re really cramped in our four hundred square feet here. I figured if I could get a bit more space, I’d get more of the college crowd. The building next door is up for sale and the owner has already offered it to me. If I could buy it, knock down this wall—” she gestured toward the plaster finish “—I’d double the space.”

      He let out a low whistle, impressed. The Melanie he knew had been intelligent, witty, cool under pressure—but never had he seen this business savvy part of her. “You’ve taken this place a lot further than I thought it could go when we looked at it last year, after you inherited it from your grandparents. I guess I didn’t see the potential then.”

      She studied the brass studs on the armrest’s seam. “No, you didn’t.”

      A pair of size fifty boots had a smaller heel than Cade. Had he crushed her dream? He’d only been trying to be pragmatic, to steer her away from a potential mistake. Clearly he’d done the opposite. “I’m sorry, Melanie.”

      She didn’t meet his gaze. Instead she smoothed a hand over the leather. “It’s in the past. I’m all about moving forward.”

      The implied word—alone. “You have a lot of plans for this place. For that you need additional funding, right?”

      She nodded.

      “Something that’s hard to get when you’re a relatively new business.” From Emmie, he knew she’d financed the opening of the shop on her own, with a little from her grandparent’s inheritance, the rest from the nice folks at Visa.“Tell me about it,” Melanie said, clearly frustrated. “Banks want me to have years of success under my belt before they’ll lend me any money. But I can’t get those years of success without investing in my business. It’s that old Catch-22.”

      It was also an area he knew well—and an opportunity to help. And maybe, just maybe, she’d let him in again. At this point, Cade would knock down the damned wall himself if he thought it would help defrost the glacier between them.

      “I have a proposition for you,” Cade said, deciding he wasn’t going to let his marriage go without a fight. He could only pray this was an offer Melanie couldn’t refuse.

       CHAPTER THREE

      “WHAT DO YOU MEAN—a proposition?” she asked.

      Cade rose, slipped over to her love seat and sat down beside her, not too close, but close enough that their conversation couldn’t be overheard by the snoring man or the woman still hemming and hawing about blueberry versus peach crumble.

      He was also close enough to catch the vanilla scent on her skin, the same fragrance he always associated with Melanie. Like cookies, homemade bread…all the things he’d missed in his childhood and had found in his wife.

      His wife.

      Damn, he missed her. Missed coming home to her smile, missed holding her. Regardless of what that piece of paper on his desk said, he’d never stopped thinking of Melanie as his wife.

      “If you stayed married to me…” Cade paused for a second, letting the last word linger in the air as the idea took root in his mind, “just for a while, you could get that funding a lot easier.”

      She backed up against the arm of the sofa, warding off his idea. “No. I want to do this on my own, Cade. Without your help or your family money.”

      He heard the seeds of the familiar argument taking hold in her tone. Eighteen months ago, they’d stood here in this very space, Cade glancing around at the dusty antiques, the cluttered room, seeing only years of books in the red, not potential. He’d offered to help, to give her the business guidance the place clearly needed, to invest some of the inheritance from his grandfather that had done nothing but sit in the bank, but she’d refused.

      I want to do this on my own, Cade, she’d said then. I don’t need you to tell me what’s wrong. I just want you to say go for it and let me do it.

      Instead he’d pulled out a thick stack of research he’d done on the antique industry, statistics proving what worked—and what didn’t. She’d shoved the papers back at him, and in doing so, shut the first door on their marriage.

      He’d shut the second one himself.

      He tossed her a grin. “Just think of it as a little payback for all the years you helped me.”

      She rose, frustration running through every inch of her face. “Where is this new and improved Cade coming from? Since when did you want me to be all independent?”

      He blinked. “I never said you had to be some Stepford wife, Mellie. I’ve always wanted you to have your own life.”

      “As long as it wasn’t at the expense of yours.” Melanie took in a breath, erasing the quick flash of hurt in her eyes. “Cade, you just don’t understand how important it is for me to have something of my own. To do this myself.”

      “I’m trying, Melanie.” He paused, waiting until she sank back onto the seat beside him. “I promise not to do anything more than let you have my credit score,” Cade continued. “We have a lot of assets together, Melanie, a financial record, a damned nice nest egg of Matthews money. The bank will look more favorably on your loan if—”

      “If I pretend I’m still married to you.”

      “It’s not pretending. We are married.”

      “Only because you won’t sign the divorce papers.”

      “I’ve been busy.”

      She gave him the eye roll Emmie had inherited. She sighed, considering him for a long moment.

      “I’m not agreeing to anything. Not until I know what you want in exchange.”

      “Nothing.”

      She shook her head. “I know you, Cade. You don’t make a deal without both sides gaining something. You help me get my loan, but what do you get?”

      “Nothing, except—” he drew in a breath “—a date to the reunion.”

      In her green eyes, the thoughts connected. “As your wife, you mean.”

      Cade had brokered enough deals to know when he’d reached the crux, the point where the agreement could be broken by one party leaning too far or pushing too hard.

      Melanie would eventually be awarded the divorce with or without his signature. He glanced at her left hand, at the circle of gold on her ring finger.

      He weighed his next words, trying to figure out what wouldn’t make Melanie bolt, or worse, encourage her to throw the countertop Capresso machine at his head. “Not as my wife,” he lied, “more as a…fellow reunion attendee. Let people assume what they want.” He voiced the idea as calmly as he would the terms of a corporate merger. Start with business-only, and pray like hell it turned into something more personal later.

      Her gaze narrowed. “Why are you suddenly so interested in going to the class reunion? If I remember right, you skipped the fifth and the tenth. What’s so big about the twentieth?”

      Cade didn’t miss a beat. “Bill Hendrickson.”

      “The kid who carried a briefcase to school every day?”

      He nodded. “He’s now the owner of one of the largest law firms in the Midwest