Blinded By Love by Reana Malori
Chapter 6
Cade
Three Months Later
“Where are you going?” Norah was dressed in a yellow sundress, her hair out and curly, and she wore sensible brown leather sandals. Standing in front of me, she chugged the glass of orange juice that I sat in front of her.
“Out,” she responded, a smile on her face.
“Smart aleck. That tells me nothing. Where are you going?”
I wanted to know why she was so happy this morning. She’d been heading out more on her own now that we’d found a rhythm that seemed to work for us. Lilly was sleeping more at night. She was back in school, at least until it let out for the summer in a couple weeks, and the smile that I was afraid she’d lost had started to come back.
All in all, life was looking very good.
Because of Norah.
She nibbled on a piece of bacon then leaned up against the counter. I couldn’t help but watch her lips move as she ate. Then her tongue peeked out to grab a crumb, and my dick hardened with need.
What the fuck? I didn’t want Norah like that. Then again, if that were true, why the hell was I responding to her this way?
She’d been a lifesaver to Lilly and me, stepping in when we needed her the most. During the past three months, it seemed her entire focus was on helping my baby girl get better. They’d spend hours talking about Rebecca, building strong memories that Lilly could keep of her mother. Norah had gone home one weekend to her mother’s house in Alexandria, Virginia, and returned with a box of photos and other mementos from her childhood. Every picture featured Rebecca. They’d spent days going through everything.
Norah had allowed Lilly to pick out several photos that she wanted to keep. They were now framed and plastered all over the walls of her bedroom or sitting on her dresser. Even I could see that Lilly was able to connect with her mother in ways that would never have been possible with only me to take care of it.
Had I needed Norah to move into our home to live with us? At this point, I honestly wasn’t sure. What I did know was that I was desperate at the time. After Rebecca passed away and I was on my own, I’d tried everything I could to help my daughter. It was a genius idea to have Norah come to our home. Within three months, things were getting back to some level of normalcy.
The one thing missing from this equation was Rebecca, but even that feeling of loss had lessened some. By the time she’d passed away, we’d said our goodbyes. We’d had time to talk about the things we regretted—my twenties, her hair in high school. She and I spent hours talking about the things we loved—each other, even if I didn’t say it every day.
She made me laugh when I wanted to sulk. The day she shaved her head, she cried in my arms for hours, then I told her if it worked for Mike Tyson, it would work for her. She didn’t appreciate the comparison but laughed anyway.
My love for my wife was undeniable, but the pain didn’t flare up as often as it did before. When I slept in our bed, my dreams weren’t filled with visions of her slipping from my grip. It seemed they were now full of her laughter and those moments when she smiled at me in her unique way.
Lately, though, it was almost as if she were trying to speak to me in my dreams. Her lips would move, but I wasn’t able to hear her words. No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t hear her. The more frustrated I would get, the more she would smile and stroke my face, her fingers tangling in my beard.
I still missed her so damn much, but now I could look back on our life and smile rather than curse fate for giving me a taste of the good life, only to rip it away from me when I was least expecting it.
“Hey, Cade? You still with me?” Norah was calling out to me, her small hand resting on my arm.
She’d been doing that a lot more lately. Asking me if I were okay, touching me lightly to ground me to the present, or simply standing quietly as I worked through whatever emotion I was dealing with. No more challenging me. No more giving me shit. No more getting up in my face.
After that night outside Lilly’s bedroom, when Norah had finished reading her the story, something had changed. It wasn’t that she was rude or that things were uncomfortable. No, in fact, our living arrangements had become the most stable thing in my life. Part of what made Norah special was her ability to call me out on my bullshit.
Now, things were different. I’m not sure how I felt about it.
“Yeah, I’m still here,” I quipped, taking a sip of my coffee. “You still haven’t answered my question. Where you headed?”
A soft smile lingered on her lips as she stepped back. Is it crazy that I didn’t like her moving away from me? Yeah, that wasn’t something I was willing to delve into right now.
“I told you, Cade. I’m headed out with some girlfriends. There’s the food truck festival in Old Town Alexandria. We've been planning this for weeks.”
Oh yeah, now I remember. She’d offered to take Lilly, but I decided to keep her with me instead. Norah had spent so much time taking care of us, being here for us, that there was no way I was going to have Lilly following behind her on a day meant for Norah and her friends.
“Is that what you’re wearing?” I asked. Not that she looked terrible or anything, but that yellow against her skin brought out a glow. Her glorious, thick, natural hair glistened. It didn’t look like she was wearing any make-up, but she was beautiful no matter what.
Whoa! Hold your horses, buddy. Stop ogling your late wife’s best friend.
She looked down at herself and then looked at me with confusion in her eyes. “Yeah. What’s wrong with what I’m wearing? I’ve been dying to wear this dress for months. It’s been sitting in my closet for a while. You don’t like it?” She grabbed the fabric near her legs and pulled it wide before twirling around. “I feel like Belle.”
Something about seeing her carefree smile made my chest ache. “Then I must be the Beast,” I mumbled low under my breath.
Norah stopped turning. “What was that? I couldn’t hear you.”
Shaking my head, I chose not to repeat myself. “Sit. You need to eat.”
“Fine,” she said, plopping down in a chair at the marble counter that served as a makeshift dining area. “Why are you always trying to feed me? I think I’ve gained ten pounds since I moved in. Lord knows I don’t need to gain any more weight.”
Lifting my gaze to her face, I walked over to her, closing the distance. “Hey.” When she looked at me, her brown eyes were wide with questions. “Just… don’t talk about yourself like that. You can eat whatever you want, when you want. Plus, I don’t see anything wrong with how you look. Any woman should be thankful to have the type of body you do. Okay? And if a man can’t appreciate a woman that doesn’t look like a stick, then that’s their problem.” I stared at her for a few seconds as her mouth fell open. Nodding my head, I motioned to her again. “No more of that, okay?”
“Um, yeah. Okay,” she said as we stared at each other for another second.
Stepping back over to the stove, I finished up the eggs, potatoes, and bacon. “Is Lilly still up in her room?”
“Yeah, she was brushing her teeth. I laid out some shorts and a shirt for her to put on. She should be down in a few minutes.”
More silence as I made a plate for Norah and then for Lilly. It wasn’t uncomfortable. There was just nothing to say. I found over the past few months that we didn’t need to fill the silence with words just to hear ourselves speak. I liked that about Norah. If she had something to say, nothing could stop her. If the situation didn’t require her to speak, she was fine staying silent.
“How long will you be gone?” I couldn’t help asking her. Not that I would miss her or anything, but I was just curious.
“How long?” She lifted another forkful of eggs to her mouth.
“Yeah. Today. Your little outing. How long will you be gone?” I loved spending time with Lilly, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t also worry about when Norah would be back. She was living in my house, which meant she was my responsibility. Right?
Wiping her mouth with a napkin, she looked at me with an eyebrow lifted. “Are you worried about me?”
“No, I just—”
Lilly chose that moment to come down the stairs and bounced into the kitchen. “Morning, Daddy. Morning, auntie Norah.”
“Morning, honey,” I said.
“Hey, ladybug,” Norah said with a smile before getting up from her chair and lifting Lilly to sit next to her. “Do you remember that I’m going out with friends today?”
I watched the two of them interact and couldn’t help but think about how this felt right. It felt good. Logically, I knew something could feel good even if the reason it existed was bad. Watching Norah and Lilly together, I pictured my life one year or even five years from now. This is the scene I wanted to wake up to every morning. I could almost picture it now. Norah, Lilly, and maybe a little boy who had my eyes and his beautiful momma’s smile.
At the vision in my mind, I jerked back.
What the fuck was I thinking?
“Cade? You good?” Norah asked, her eyes on me, a worried frown on her face.
“I’m fine,” my tone was short. Judging from the way her eyes squinted and her lips pulled tight, she heard it too. Damn, why’d I have to look at her lips? They were covered in gloss and looked so soft. I wonder what it would feel like to kiss her.
“Why are you so grumpy? I thought you’d be happy to have me out of here for the day. You know, give you a break from me.”
She was really pushing me today. “I never said I wanted a break from you. If you never leave outside those doors, that’s just fine with me. Don’t ever think you need to leave because of me. That’s not how this works.” Hell, I never wanted her to leave at all. Even though we both worked and were away from home on occasion, when I got home at the end of a long day, it felt good to walk in and see her waiting for me. Or to walk in and hear her and Lilly laughing. Guilt was a hell of a feeling, but it didn’t stop me from seeking her out when I was home.
There was no way I should be feeling this way about Norah. Rebecca had been gone for just over a year. This was too soon. I didn’t understand my feelings or why she was the one I pictured by my side in the future. Maybe I was just projecting because I was lonely. It had been almost two years since I’d made love to another woman. One year since I was able to stand around and have a normal conversation without dealing with the effects of cancer ravaging the body of the woman I loved. More than two years since I could simply enjoy a Saturday morning cooking breakfast without thinking about death and grief and fighting the good fight every day.
It felt good.
Which told me I was treading in murky waters. Glancing over at Norah, who was smiling down at Lilly, my heart stuttered. Oh, hell, I’d made the absolute wrong mistake bringing her into our home.
The conversation we had months ago, standing in the hallway, came back to me. No, she wasn’t Rebecca. She could never replace my wife. But from everything I was feeling inside right now, that wasn’t the problem.
Norah had found a way to make me want to live again. When around her, I smiled more and snapped less. Even at work, my employees seemed more relaxed around me than they’d been in over a year. I was falling for my daughter’s godmother, and I had no way to stop it.
Fuck!
What was I going to do now?