While hearing that was gratifying, it didn’t answer her question.
“Tonight, when he called, he might have claimed he was having a good time, but I knew he wasn’t. I could hear it in his voice. When I asked him if something had happened, he refused to answer. When I pressed, he hung up on me.”
Hope placed her hand over her heart, which had started to beat erratically.
“I don’t have the insight Harry does,” Silas continued. “But I’m smart enough to know something is off.”
“Harry?” she asked.
“He’s our counselor. Like I said, I might not be a professional, but I know a cry for help when I hear it.”
“What did you find when you got there?” she asked, needing to know.
“Cade in a corner with a…”
“A woman,” she finished for him.
“Yeah. A woman. I asked about you and got a look that would curdle milk.”
She felt obliged to explain. “Cade has issues with his family, deep-rooted ones that go all the way back into his childhood. His mother sought me out, and Cade saw the two of us together.”
“That explains it.”
Hope wasn’t sure that it did. Several other factors seemed to be in play.
“Will you come and talk some sense into him?” Silas pleaded. “You need to resolve whatever is between you before he self-destructs.”
Hope bit into her bottom lip, and her throat clogged as she debated the best course for her to follow. “I don’t think my showing up will help,” she said, speaking through the tightness in her throat. “Especially when Cade has apparently already found comfort from someone else.”
“Hope, have a heart. The guy’s in a bad state.”
“I’m sorry, Silas. I really am. I can’t rescue Cade; he has to find what he needs within himself. I’m not his savior. First off, he leaped to conclusions and refused to give me a chance to explain. He blocked my number and shoved me out of his life.”
“Will you at least talk to him?” Silas begged.
“When he’s ready, I will.”
“I mean now.”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah, on the phone. Just a sentence or two. Something that will bring him to his senses.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Women always seem to know the right thing to say. I can only do so much. I’m here. I won’t let him do anything stupid like get in a fight or take this woman home with him.”
She swallowed hard at the image of Cade with another woman. “I don’t have a clue what you expect me to say.”
“Think, Hope.”
Silas was asking the impossible. “He’ll probably hang up on me.”
“Then that’s on him.”
“All right, all right. Give him the phone and I’ll think of something.”
“Thank you.” The relief in his voice was evident.
Silas must have returned to the inside of the bar, because the noise was back as loud as ever. She knew Silas was talking to Cade. Although she strained to hear the exchange, she couldn’t make it out.
“Who’s this?” This time the voice was Cade’s. Clearly Silas hadn’t told him she was on the line.
“It’s Hope.”
“Hope,” he snapped, “I have nothing more to say to you.”
“That’s fine with me, but I have one thing to say to you, like it or not.”
He didn’t immediately disconnect, which told her he was willing to listen.
She prayed he’d hear her and understand. “When the two officers came to deliver the news that Hunter had been killed, I quietly listened, and accepted their condolences. Then as soon as they left, I trashed my apartment and destroyed the very things I loved most, punishing myself. It made no sense. I deeply regretted it the next day, and I continue to live with the regret of what I’d done in my anger and grief.”
“Is that all?” he asked sarcastically.
“Yes,” she whispered. “That’s all I have to say.”
“If you believe I’m on a path of destruction because of you, then you’re wrong. You fooled me, Hope, and I fell for you only to learn you’re like everyone else: full of duplicity. I trusted you.”
“What you’re forgetting, Cade, is that I trusted you, too. It didn’t take much for you to look elsewhere, did it?”
“This conversation is over.”
“Yes, it is. Good-bye, Cade,” she said, her heart breaking as she disconnected. If he said anything more, she didn’t hear it.