He's torn between loving her and the memory that she'd been his brother's girl. Cadie thought she would be with Mattie and love him forever. Losing him and being attacked herself put her in a coma for four weeks. When she wakes up, she finds that fate, the fickle bitch that she is, has devised another future with her with another man. It was hard for her to deal with the fact that that man was Jack, Mattie's oldest brother.