His to Cherish by Stacey Lynn Page A

imagined. I had always figured that because he had a kid at my school, it wasn’t the right time.
    Yet out of all of his friends, for some reason he’d kept
me
close to him after Derrick’s death.
    What those reasons were, I didn’t have a clue.
    That kiss screwed everything up.
    He tasted me and decided I was no longer worth his time.
    It was the most epic, painfully devastating brush-off. It hurt even more than when Cory left, because although I tried to head it off, I had known Cory wasn’t going to stick around forever. Not when our conversations became strained with silence and heavy sighs when we were together. I knew the infertility treatments took a toll on our marriage, and I knew when he started staying out late that something was broken.
    At the time, I was in my head so much I didn’t make the effort to care.
    And even when he left, it took me months before I realized the truth. Cory was a cheating jerk. We’d gotten married young and maybe it simply wasn’t meant to be.
    Most days, I was okay with it. I didn’t hate Cory. That didn’t mean I ever wanted to receive an invite to his daughter’s birthday party, though.
    But with Aidan, just thinking about that kiss, or that moment two years ago, or the look on his face on Friday night—I hadn’t been able to eat or drink the pain away. And I’d tried all weekend.
    Which was why I was at Kate’s Kakes on a Sunday morning. I planned on drinking coffee and stuffing myself with a piece of everything she had in her display window.
    “Hi, Kate,” I called with a wave of my hand as I entered.
    I was staring at the case when Kate walked up to me and slid a coffee into my hand over her tantalizing display case of bagels, muffins, and cupcakes. “Um, Chelsea?”
    “Thanks,” I mumbled, so distracted by the delicious carb overload that was about to occur that I didn’t catch the odd tone in her voice. “I’ll have one of everything.”
    “What are you doing here?”
    Her question made me pause, and that time, I did notice the strange tone.
    I looked up, taking a sip of my coffee at the same time.
    “What?”
    Her eyes flickered to the door and back to me. “What are you doing here?”
    What an odd question. I frowned and then waved my index finger in front of the case between us. “Um…getting one of everything in your case?”
    “No,” she whispered. “I mean…why are you here and not at home?”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Go home.”
    “What?” My eyes widened and my lips parted. Kate and I weren’t friends, but we were friendly neighbors. I’d been a customer in her store ever since it opened, before I’d known my new neighbor across the street was the one who’d opened this place. “Why?”
    “Because.” She drawled out the word and leaned forward. Then she did something incredibly strange. She reached out and grabbed my wrist, squeezing firmly, like in the way you knew someone was preparing you for bad news and they wanted a grip on your pulse while they delivered it. “I can’t say. But you have to get home.”
    “You’re freaking me out.”
    Then she did something stranger. She smiled right before a quiet laugh fell from her lips. “Trust me.” That smile turned into a grin. “You’re going to want to take your coffee and get home. Now. Promise.”
    My heart fluttered at the still odd tone in her voice. Weird. She let go of my hand, reached inside the display, and handed me my standard Asiago bagel.
    “This is for the road, but later…when you understand…I want details.” She leaned in again, giggled, and in a conspiratorial voice she said, “And I mean specific details. Now get.”
    She waved me off and I took a step back.
    “Kate, have you eaten too much sugar?”
    Her laugh increased in giddiness and volume. She was so loud that several customers turned their heads in our direction. “Get. You’ll see what I mean when you get home.”
    I shot her a strange look and made a mental note to stop by her house