His sister’s entire college education to her dream school was covered if he just signed the addendum.Everypenny. But he wouldn’t until he could sort this whole mess out and earn Cadence’s blessing. “I’ll be back.”
Chapter Nineteen
Cadence
Cadence stood with her suitcase in hand, stranded on the porch. “Ed, I really don’t have time for this.”
The moose didn’t seem to care that she was in a hurry. He’d grown fond of Cadence’s car windows, and was uninterested in moving. He intermittently licked the glass and studied his reflection.
“Ed, you have to go.”
But when Cadence took two deliberate steps down the stairs, Ed lifted his head, turned and looked directly at her. His ears lowered against his head, stopping her dead on the bottom step. He snorted, as if deciding whether or not to charge, and Cadence crept backward up the stairs.
“Some time for you to stop acting like a dog, Ed,” she muttered under her breath as her heart raced. If she had cabbage or blueberries to toss onto the lawn as a diversion, she would’ve in a heartbeat. Being reminded that the favorite local wildlife could break all of her ribs was not the pleasant thought she wanted to leave Sunset Ridge on today.
His enormous size was made more evident as he took slow strides in her direction. Those giant antlers could scoop her up if that’s what he wanted. “Come on, Ed. I gave youblueberries. Twice.”
Her back was butted up to the locked front door when Ed reached the staircase. Had the moose ever stepped onto the deck before? Would he crash through the boards? He had to weigh two thousand pounds, and she wasn’t certain the planks could handle that pressure. “Ed, be careful.”
He tilted his head, his eyes still fixed on her.
“How about you meet me at the kitchen window?” she asked, not expecting Ed to ever understand. “I’ll give you more blueberry cobbler.Allof it, if you want.”
A whistle rang out through the air, drawing Ed’s attention. Cadence had to stretch onto her tiptoes to follow Ed’s gaze, but it landed on Ford at the edge of her driveway. Every emotion she’d been retreating from twisted into one powerful gut-punch. She’d been trying to outrun this confrontation, at least for today.
“Thanks, Ed.”
The moose clomped off toward the trees, almost as if he and Ford had been in cahoots.
Cadence fished the key out of her pocket, the urge to run inside and hide behind a locked door overwhelming. But before she could secure the key in the lock, Ford stepped onto the deck. The plea in his eyes when he spotted her suitcases begged her to wait. “You leaving?”
“That was always the plan.” She tried to sound cold, indifferent. After all, the man had befriended her formoney. It made her question everything about this past week. They’d spent so much time together sprucing up the place, but had he ever expected her to sell?
“I know you know about the money.”
“Yes, Iknow. Fifty thousand dollars, Ford?” A tear rolled down her cheek as the betrayal squeezed at her heart. “You lied to me.”
“I shouldn’t have kept it from you, Cadence. I’m sorry. Can we please talk?”
She folded her arms, back pressed against the door. “Talk. You have five minutes before I leave for the airport.”
“Patty asked me on her deathbed to try to convince you to keep the lodge in the family,” he explained. “She told me if I could help remind you how much you loved this place, you would want to stay.”
“It wasn’t only up to me.”
“She said if you chose to keep it, you would know how to convince your sisters to give it a chance.” He took another few steps forward, cautious and slow. Giving her the opportunity to run if she still wanted it. “Rilee wants to go to Boston. I can’t afford it, even with her scholarship.”
She softened at Rilee’s name, but her guard remained up.
“The fifty thousand was always going to help pay her tuition. Even with the bonus Patty offered me, I never knew how I was going to cover it all withtwojobs. But the money was supposed to buy me time. And I guess it was more than I thought it was. Enough to cover Rilee’s entire college education.”
“But?”
“But I won’t take a dime without your approval. The money doesn’t mean a thing to me if it’s the reason I lose you.”
He was only a couple of feet from her now. There was nowhere to run. Her heart pounded in her chest, frustrating her at the effect this man still had on her despite the whopper of a secret he’d kept. “What if I didn’t want to stay?”
“I would never have convinced you to stay if I knew it wasn’t something you really wanted.” He reached for her hand. She tried to pull away, but his fingers found hers. “I didn’t expect to fall in love with you. That was never part of the plan. But I did, Cadence. If you leave, my life won’t ever be the same. And not because of the money. I can always come up with the money another way.”
