Aaron was no fool, and he had done the only thing a sane person would do and left her alone that night. When Cadence woke up the next morning, there was no sign at all that he’d even been home except for his clothes from the night before in the hamper in the guest bathroom and a slightly damp towel hanging on the rod behind the door.
She’d finally fallen asleep the night before after tossing and turning for hours, trying to determine her best course of action. Jamie’s suggestion had been a good one, and it seemed like the smartest location for her to head to for clear skies would be the desert. And she just happened to have a friend who had a whole lot of desert in his back yard.
A bit of research on her IAC let her know that it was about a twenty-two-hour drive to Reno from Kansas City if one were driving normal speed limits. That meant she could probably do it in more like fifteen, but once she left headquarters, there was really no reason to rush, so she might as well plan on stopping somewhere along the way. If she waited until Friday morning to leave, she could be at Cale’s by Sunday afternoon, easily.
Aaron would immediately suspect something, however, if she told him she was going, and if she didn’t tell him where she was at all, he would assume she was headed that way. She’d need some help from her friends to make sure he didn’t attempt to hunt her down. She was certain that, even if she was lost in the desert like Moses, Aaron would find her.
Honestly, she was sort of hoping he would be so confident in her inability to pull this off that he wouldn’t bother to attempt to find her at all. But that would also mean he would have to do something so awful she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to forgive him, though in retrospect, it wasn’t any worse than what she’d already done to ensure she came out on the winning end of this debate.
Once she was showered, dressed, and had forced a few bites of a cereal bar down for breakfast, she headed over to the training facility. If she was going to get away with this, she was going to need assistance from the people she could trust, and it would be easier to talk to them in person, despite the fact that she couldn’t say anything specific about what she was up to.
Walking into the main workout gymnasium, she was shocked to find Aaron there talking to Shane. He didn’t look surprised to see her at all, since that’s where she spent most of her time these days, but she expected him to be in his office, and having him nearby while she went about her scheme would make things more difficult. Since he was dressed in slacks and a button down shirt, he obviously wasn’t going to be doing any training that day, and she was hopeful that he had just swung by on a quick errand.
As soon as Shane saw her, he called out, “Well, if it isn’t old deadeye!” so loudly, every eye in the facility turned to look at her. Feeling her face redden, she attempted to come up with something witty, but she saw Aaron elbow him and say something she couldn’t make out, which told her he was still coming to her rescue even though they were in a heated disagreement.
She saw both of the people she had actually come to speak to across the room. Aurora was instructing some new recruits and Brandon was working out with said new recruits, but taking Jamie’s advice, she decided to approach Shane and the handsome, arrogant man next to him first.
“Hey, Shane,” she said with a cheery smile. “Sorry you couldn’t make it last night.”
“I wasn’t invited,” the gym rat replied, crossing his sufficiently muscled arms across his chest.
“Oh, that’s right,” Cadence said, tilting her head to the side like a teeny bopper and pulling on a loose strand of hair. “Sorry ‘bout cha.”
“I already explained to Shane that it was a pretty simple operation,” Aaron interjected, an attempt to pacify the other Guardian who was apparently upset that he wasn’t asked to go.
“Yeah, I’ll say,” Shane agreed. “Bang, bang you’re dead.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I had to defend my tactics to you,” Cadence replied. She’d never really liked Shane, but this was the first time he’d called her out in front of other people in a while.
“You don’t,” Aaron replied, and wrapping his arm around Cadence he turned to Shane and said, “Just get me those numbers as soon as you can.”
“Sure thing,” Shane said, not taking his eyes off Cadence until after Aaron had her turned around and was leading her away.
“How are you this morning?” he asked, relaxing his grip a little bit.
“Fine,” she said, forcing a smile and mentally repeating to herself, “I am happy. I love this man. Nothing is wrong,” over and over again.
“Good.” He led her over to the sidelines, away from where the others were running through their training program.
“Did you get a lot of work done?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, his hands resting on her upper arms. “Hey, I’m really sorry about what happened last night…”
“No, don’t be,” she cut him off. “I was just upset. I overreacted. I’m sorry.”
Aaron nodded. “Well, let’s just put it behind us and try to make sure it doesn’t happen again, okay?”
On the inside she was screaming, “Are you saying this is all my fault?” But on the outside, she smiled sweetly and said, “Sure. And I’m sorry I told you to F-off.”
Leaning in closely and whispering into her ear, he said, “I somehow don’t think you’re really sorry about that.”
The feel of his warm breath on her skin momentarily made her forget she had at least fifty pairs of eyes on her and that she was extremely angry with him; she had to pull away from him a bit to regain her composure. “No, I am,” she assured him.
He released her and took a step back, clearly having difficulties focusing himself. “All right. Well, we are headed over to the airport around 5:30. I’m going to head back to the office for a little while and then go back home to pack.”
“Okay,” she smiled. “I’ll be there before you leave.”
“All right.” He squeezed her hand before he left, which was just a little reminder that he loved her that didn’t give anyone else the opportunity to make kissy faces or gush all over them
