Page 80 of A Song for Another Woman

My throat tightens. He takes one step back, not forward, like he can feel the words crowding me and wants to give them room to exist without trapping me.

"I let too much happen. Duke saw numbers, Melody saw a part to play, and the cameras saw pain they could cut to. And I stood there with an award in my hand and thanked you like you weren't the most important person in my life when you're the air I breathe. I guess it's easy to take oxygen for granted when you've never had to think about what life would be like without it."

I press my fingertips harder into the door frame.

Cade’s eyes go wet, but the tears don’t fall. “I’ve thought about that damned awards show. Not because the internet dragged me for it, and not because people finally realized what it looked like. Because I watched it back, Emmy. I made myself watch it. Your face. Your hands. The way you smiled because everybody had taught you that my life went smoother when you looked fine.”

My breath catches on the way in.

“And then the recording,” he says.

My grip slips from the frame.

"I know, Cade," I say, my words coming out so raw and wrecked, I don't recognize my own voice. "Melody…she came by. Played the whole thing."

I watch the realization settle over his features. He closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them, staring back at me with such an intensity that I almost gasp.

"I wanted you to know so badly what I said that night. But…" He stops, swallowing. "I may not have said the thing you thought I said. But I still made you feel unchosen for two years. That’s the thing I actually did. It isn’t smaller because I didn’t want her.”

The floor seems to tilt under me. I’ve imagined explanations, begging, and him grabbing onto the technicality like a drowning man clings to anything floating. I haven’t imagined him setting it down in front of me like this.

“You lost your name in my life. Emmy Sutton, who could hold a whole town awake at midnight with nothing but her voice, became Mrs. Tyler in a seat somebody else picked. You became the person people managed around me. And I let that happen after I knew better than anybody what your voice was worth.”

I look toward the back of the house because looking at him is too much. The kitchen is half-done: cabinets without doors and a sink still in its box. Beyond it sits a small rise where the reading nook sits over the room, framed by windows that face the dogwood. My reading nook. Not approximate and not inspired by. Mine.

Cade follows my gaze. “I didn’t build this to win,” he says. “I need you to know that.”

A bitter little sound leaves me before I can stop it. “Cade.”

“I know how it looks.” His hands open, empty. “The house. The songs. The Whip. Walking from Lonesome Strings. Leaving Silver Creek twisting in the wind when they wanted another year of ‘Wildfire’ money. It looks like a man stacking up grand gestures and hoping the pile gets tall enough for you to climb over what he did.”

I say nothing.

“That’s what old me would’ve done,” he says. “Made it big enough nobody could ignore. Made it beautiful enough I could call it love and not have to look too hard at what it was covering.”

The light hums above us. Somewhere in the walls, the house ticks as it settles.

“I’m not saying I got it right,” he says. “But I didn’t come to Harmony Ridge to collect you. I came because I couldn’t stand being the man who made you leave. I walked from Lonesome Strings because I needed to know there was still one thing in me that couldn’t be bought. I dropped the songs for free because the second I made money off apologizing to you, it became another way to use your pain. I played the Whip because that place mattered before anyone knew my name, and because if you ever wanted to walk back into it, it needed to still be there.”

He swallows hard. “And I’m building this house because I promised you when I had nothing. Then I got everything and acted like the promise was too small to matter.”

My chest aches so sharply I press a hand against it.

“If you say no,” he says, “I’ll finish it. If you never sleep under this roof, I’ll finish it. If you tell me you want the deed in your name and me gone from the county by morning, I’ll sign whatever you want and go. And I’ll still keep the Whip alive as long as Hal lets me. None of it was ever supposed to be a transaction.”

I move my hand from my chest to my stomach without meaning to. Cade sees it. This time he doesn’t look away fast enough. His eyes drop, stop, and lift back to mine with something fragile breaking open behind them.

I turn toward the kitchen before he can ask. My voice comes out steadier than I feel. “I used to tell people on air that sorry is easy.”

“I know,” he says behind me.

“You listened?”

“To every word." He huffs a laugh. "Some nights, it was the only way I could get a wink of sleep. God, I've missed you so bad, Emmy Lou."

I close my eyes. I face him again.

“So tell me,” I say. “What happens next time?”