why Vashti was surprised. Because his father had been an alcoholic, Kaegan had sworn never to touch the stuff because it turned fairly decent men into assholes.
“Yes, he was drinking and had a barely dressed woman sitting in his lap. I approached him, and when he saw me, the look in his eyes was one I’d never seen before. He proceeded to say some not-so-nice things to me in front of the woman and the friends he’d been with. I tried to get him to go outside with me so we could talk privately, but he refused to do that and said he didn’t want to hear anything I had to say. He said his father had been right about me all along. He told me to leave and that he hoped to never see me again.”
Bryce paused again, and then she said, “When I refused to leave, tried to make him listen to what I’d come all that way to say, he got mad and left...with her. That woman who all but had her hands inside his pants. He kissed her right in front of me and then they left together. I went back to my hotel room and cried the entire night.”
“Oh, Bryce, I’m so sorry you went through that.”
“I am, too. But even on the bus ride back to Grambling, I kept telling myself it wasn’t the Kaegan that I knew who’d said those awful things to me. It had to have been the liquor talking. I even convinced myself that I could forgive him for sleeping with another woman if he’d done so that night.” Bryce felt the knot in her throat when she said, “I loved him that much, Vash. I’ve always loved him. I told myself I could wait for him to come around. That he would regain his senses and would eventually call me. Days became weeks. Weeks turned into months. Months into years.”
She was quiet for a moment, then continued. “I ran into Mr. Chambray at one of the festivals a year later and he accused me of being the reason Kaegan refused to come back to Catalina Cove, even for a visit. He said that I had hurt his boy and that he was glad Kaegan found out what a slut I was.”
Vashti drew in a sharp breath. “Mr. Chambray said that to you?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, Bryce.”
She could hear the trembling in Vashti’s voice and didn’t want her pity. “It’s okay, Vash. That day I finally accepted that Mr. Chambray probably had the same opinion of me that Kaegan had.”
She pulled the car into Vashti and Sawyer’s driveway. When she brought the car to a stop, she turned to Vashti. It was then that Bryce felt her tears. She hadn’t realized until that moment that she’d been crying. “I’ve gotten over him, Vash—honest, I have. But it still hurts knowing he had so little trust in me after all we’d been through together. I had loved him so much, but I promised myself years ago that I would never let Kaegan hurt me again. And that’s a promise I intend to keep.”
KAEGAN MOVED AWAY from the window when Bryce’s car finally drove off. He rubbed a hand down his face, feeling frustrated. Hadn’t he made a vow when he moved back to Catalina Cove that he would not let Bryce destroy him any more than she already had? Each and every time she came to his house—the place that should have been their home—it took another bite out of him.
Tonight had been the last straw when he’d walked into his kitchen and had seen her on that ladder. First off, he had been concerned for her safety. But then seeing her from behind had totally unnerved him. She’d always had one hell of a figure and she still did.
Angry with himself for admiring her ass, he had snapped at her and then the confrontation had begun. Although he’d wished otherwise, Vashti had been caught in the middle. But then, she was the one who’d insisted he invite Bryce.
In the past, it had been pretty easy to ignore her. But not tonight. It might have been her outfit, a pink shorts set with white sandals, that had been to blame. He’d always liked her in pink because he’d thought she always looked ultrafeminine in that color.
He had tried not to notice her but he had. He knew every damn man who’d tried talking to her tonight, and each time one would approach her, his stomach would tighten in knots. It had been ten years, so why was he stressing over a woman who meant nothing to him? Absolutely nothing.
An hour later he’d finished breaking everything down, at least as much as he intended to do tonight. Tomorrow was Saturday and after sleeping late he would wake up and do the rest. He began stripping off his clothes for a shower and for some reason his gaze went to a certain framed portrait on the wall.
There was nothing special about the painting, but behind it was his safe, where his valuables were kept. He walked over to it and entered the combination, then opened the safe. He stared at the only thing inside. That damn little white box.
He reached inside and pulled it out, asking himself for the umpteenth time why he still had it. He should have gotten rid of it years ago, but had convinced himself he needed it as a reminder of the time in his life when he’d been young, naive and gullible, and had allowed a woman to make a fool of him.
He’d left Catalina Cove the day he’d graduated from high school. Together he and Bryce had mapped out a plan for their future. He would serve six years in the military. That would give her time to complete her last two years of high school and four years of college before they married. After she finished college they would marry. She’d been in her senior year of college and he’d come home over spring break. It had been a surprise visit with a purpose. He was going to officially ask her to marry him.
Opening the box, he gazed upon the engagement ring he had saved his paychecks for almost a year to afford. When he’d first seen it in a jewelry-store window he had immediately known it was the ring he wanted to give Bryce. That was before he’d seen her in the arms of another man.
He closed his eyes for a moment when memories of that night assailed him and ripped into him. That had been the night she’d shredded his heart. His father had been writing and telling him that he’d seen Bryce around town with Samuel Abbott whenever she came home from college. But Kaegan hadn’t believed him because his parents had never approved of his relationship with Bryce. They’d wanted him to be with a girl from the tribe.
Kaegan had known Samuel from growing up in the cove. He was the son of wealthy parents who’d owned the only pharmacy in town for years. In high school Samuel had been a star athlete in practically every sport he competed in. He was what the girls had called a superjock and they would hang around him like lovesick puppies.
Regardless of what his father had been telling him in those letters, Kaegan had trusted Bryce. He’d believed the plans they’d made for their future were solid and that some guy like Samuel wasn’t going to turn her head. He hadn’t cared they were attending Grambling together, which gave them every opportunity to be close. Bryce was his girl and that was that.
Although it was close to two in the morning when he’d arrived in the cove that night, he’d immediately gone to Bryce’s house to surprise her. He’d been anxious to ask her to marry him and to give her the ring. Since her brothers had married, she had taken over the garage apartment at the back of her parents’ home.
He had walked toward the garage when suddenly the door to the apartment opened and a man came out. She was walking him to the door and the man was Samuel Abbott. Kaegan had stopped and stared at them. Neither had detected his presence since he’d been in the shadows. In total shock, he watched Bryce lean up on tiptoes and wrap her arms around Samuel’s neck. Angry and hurt, Kaegan turned and walked away while pain had sliced through him. He left town that night without Bryce or his parents knowing he’d even been there.
It had taken a week before he’d called Bryce. He’d even refused to take her call, the one she made to him every Sunday. When he did call her, he didn’t give her a chance to say anything. He told her of his surprise visit home the week before, although he didn’t tell her why he’d specifically come home that night.
Kaegan told her about seeing her in Samuel’s arms on her doorstep at two in the morning. He’d told her he hoped to never see her again and that he would be blocking her calls. When he ended the