Where We Meet Again
Page 1
Copyright © 2016 A. M. Wilson
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Contents
Books By A. M. Wilson
About This Book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Preorder Kiersten and Nathan’s story now:
Also by A. M. Wilson
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Books By A. M. Wilson
Stand-alones
Where We Meet Again
When Morning Comes
Pitch Dark
Indisputable
The Revive Series
Unleashing Sin
Redesigning Fate
Resurrecting Her
His Deliverance (A Novella)
Revive: The Series
About This Book
An unexpected pregnancy by a man wielding sweet words and empty promises forced Cami to flee from home.
At sixteen, she gathered her torn and tattered heart, determined to construct the best life for her daughter.
Years after settling down in Arrow Creek, West Virginia, her life flourishes in all areas but one—love. She’s convinced the sacrifice is necessary to keep her daughter happy and a roof over their heads.
Until she stumbles into her childhood best friend Lawrence ‘Law’ Briggs at the local coffee shop, and a painful confrontation ensues.
Their long-buried feelings for one another quickly resurface and challenge a carefully constructed reality. Her strength wavers as Law’s reappearance exposes half-truths, and memories flood through the barrier.
Her daughter is a gift she’d never regret, even if it meant she lost him forever. Dark secrets hold them apart. The deepest betrayal imaginable.
Years of hurt and suffering can’t disguise that Law’s love remains, and Cami’s is equal in measure. But is love enough to find a way forward through their murky past?
1
Rain pelts my yellow umbrella as I dash down the cracked sidewalk toward the only coffee shop in town. Of all the days for my car to break down, it has to be the day we experience torrential rain and I’m scheduled for an important meeting. Factor in the tiny town of Arrow Creek uses one taxi, zero Uber drivers, and one bus that departs at the ass crack of dawn, limits my options to calling in sick or walking.
“I’m grabbing a coffee on my way in.” Wind whips by and steals my best friend’s response.
Gray skies overhead reflect my mood as a storm of nerves churn inside me. The ambulance company in our county has employed me for nearly a decade, and this is the first meeting I’ve initiated with my boss to discuss implementing new technology.
Our current system is archaic, and patient care is important to me. Maintaining mislabeled or misplaced paperwork hinders the hard work we do. A new streamlined electronic system will keep things in order so we can better focus on our patients. The problem, however, is the board and my boss are a group of older gentlemen who firmly believe in the motto, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” To them, the system works just fine.
“You’ve still got another fifteen-minute walk. You don’t have time for coffee,” Kiersten groans through the phone glued to my ear.
“It’s because I have another fifteen-minute walk that I need coffee. I won’t have time to down a cup before the meeting. I can’t go into a room with those misogynistic assholes without coffee.”
“This is true.”
I hum a response and enter the warm café. The aroma of fresh coffee beans and sweet donuts perk me up. I drift into line behind a tall, dark-haired man and listen to Kiersten pry into my private life.
“So, are you going to tell me about your date last night?”
A sigh pops free. I hope I learn to stop revealing my failed dating life sooner than later, because this conversation gets old fast.
“Not much to tell.” I sandwich the phone between my ear and shoulder to dig my wallet from my purse. “We had a nice dinner at his place, and then I left.”
She’s silent for a beat. “Say again?”
“You heard me,” I mutter, not wanting to repeat myself. The line moves forward a step. I go with it and pray it hurries up.
“Please explain to me how you went to this guy’s house, had dinner there, and left. Let me rephrase that,” she shouts, stopping my retort. “You had dinner, in the place where his bed is, and you left. Without sex. What is the matter with you?”
I lower my voice to a whisper. “He was playing ‘Phil Collins’ In the Air Tonight’.”
“What?” Kiersten sputters.
An ache throbs in the center of my forehead. I squeeze the bridge of my nose with my free hand and advance in line. “That’s why I didn’t stay. You don’t walk into a room to get laid and have Phil Collins at the top of your sex playlist. Huge red flag.”
The broad back of the man in front of me straightens at my words, and I mentally slap myself for being so coarse in the middle of a public place.
“Maybe he’s just an 80s fan? That song used to be popular.”
“Not for sex,” I whisper and dart my eyes around the room to see if anyone else listens to this inappropriate recollection. Except for the man in front of me, I appear ignored.
“Maybe that’s the song they conceived you to.”
At the mention of my parents, my stomach sours. “This conversation is over.”
“Oh, come on. So, his taste in sex music sucks. Would Nickelback put you in the mood?ˮ
“No. Just no.”
“I didn’t realize you were so high maintenance, Cam.”
“I’m not.” Move people. I count the three people ahead of me. Pulling the phone from my ear, I check the time. 9:30.
“I still think this is just another excuse for you.”
Kiersten’s voice comes at me loud enough to hear above the whirr of blenders and grind of coffee beans, so I return the phone to my ear. “Leave it alone. I’m not seeing him again.”
“In fourteen years, you’ve gone out on approximately twelve dates, none of them ending in sex. Unless you’re hiring prostitutes from some internet website, that means you haven’t gotten some in fourteen
years. Are you sure your vagina still works?”
My spine straightens in affront. “I’m getting coffee right now. In the middle of a coffee shop. In public,” I hiss.
“Maybe you should get yourself checked to be sure. By a hot doctor, perhaps?”
“Do you want me to grab you a drink or not?” The line creeps forward, making me customer number three.
“Mocha macchiato with a double shot.”
The conversation pivots to a normal topic.
“Oh! A Gerard Butler look-a-like OB-GYN. Can you imagine the size of his–ˮ?
“Kiersten!”
“What?” She feigns innocence, but I’m not stupid. “I was going to say hands, you perv.”
My eyes roll at the back of the stranger before me. “See you in fifteen.”
“That would make a good movie though. Gerard Butler, the hot, mercurial OB. By day, he feels up vaginas and by night he fuc–ˮ.
“Goodbye, Kiersten!” I censor her ridiculous fantasy. My cheeks flame hot, even though the rest of me is cold from my walk.
“Oh hey, what time is the party? And what should I get her? I suck at buying gifts.”
A topic I’ll happily discuss in the middle of a public place.
“This Saturday at noon. My place, as usual. What does any fourteen-year-old like? Makeup, books, music, clothes. Nothing dating related.” Dating advice from Kiersten is a disaster waiting to happen. My best friend is beautiful, kind, but uncensored. I don’t want to imagine the knowledge she’d impart on a fourteen-year-old. “I can’t believe how old she’s getting. I’m not ready for this age.”
“You’re a great mom. You can handle anything. Okay, see you soon, chick.” With that, she hangs up.
As I lower the phone from my ear, ready to indulge in a serious amount of coffee, an ominous vibe slithers around me. My skin prickles as I place my phone into my purse and glance up. Hairs raise on the back of my neck as a shiver races down my spine. The tall man in front of me turns to face the back of the line, angry eyes aimed at me.
All of a millisecond passes in breathless silence before I get my first look into the fourteen-years-older face of my childhood love, Lawrence Briggs.
Or as I’d always called him—Law.
Oh, God.
He’s as beautiful as I remember. Same dark, unruly hair and grayish-green eyes. Now that dark hair contains a few threads of gray near the temples and feathered creases outline his eyes.
He’s tall. So much taller than the last time I saw him. And built. Law was always strong, but more lean than buff. Now big, rounded biceps stretch the sleeves of his Henley.
My mental calculation of all his changes sever when he opens his mouth.
“Explains a lot,” he growls, not concealing the tone or volume of his voice.
Panic steals over me. I bob a glance around the room for assistance. Everyone conveniently rushes around or ignores my blatant plea for an intervention.
“I-I’m sorry?” Shivers strengthen into a full-on tremble.
“Fourteen years ago, you disappeared into the night without a trace. Nobody had a clue where you’d went. Hearing you now, it sounds like you got yourself a teenaged daughter. Explains a lot.”
My jaw drops. The inclination to deny, deny, deny, thrums through me, but playing dumb will get me nowhere. There’s not a chance in hell I wouldn’t recognize the man standing before me, just like he noticed me as soon as I stepped into line behind him. Hell, it wouldn’t surprise me if he clocked me the second I opened the door to this place.
My gaze falls to study my wet shoes. “You don’t know anything.”
“I never was a stupid kid,” he grinds out.
My heart stutters to a halt and my eyes snap to his. He knows. He’s figured out the truth after all this time.
Not needing my reply, he continues. “I’m sure as hell not a stupid man. I can do simple math. You wouldn’t have run away for the hell of it. Even if your entire life went to shit, you still had me.”
“I’ve got to go. I’m sorry.” Screw the coffee. If I stand here another second, I’m going to break down.
Even as my feet carry me to the door, my heart aches to pull me back toward him.
“Just tell me who!” His voice is the crack of a whip. The hurt in his tone is malevolent as it slithers into me, tucking itself into the ancient cracks in my soul.
My spine straightens almost painfully, the realization that he doesn’t know hits me like a semi-truck. “Who, what?” I whisper, too cowardly to face him again.
“Who knocked you up?” He growls this from beside me, right adjacent my ear. The closest I’ve been to Law in fourteen years. It hurts like a physical ache to have his body so near, but emotionally, he’s never been further away.
My head tips forward, too heavy to support with the weight of guilt engulfing me like the unforgiving sea “It doesn’t matter.”
“Matters to me. Matters whose dick was so important you’d throw everything we shared away. Dammit, you dropped out of school and left town without so much as a note in my mailbox where you went. Do you know what that did to me?”
Agony.
He tries to conceal it, but it burns through his words and his tone like a hot iron, branding us both. It scores itself onto my heart next to all the other marks from leaving him in the first place.
“Law, I-ˮ.
He leans in. “Lawrence,” he spits.
“L-Lawrence.” The tremble in my voice vibrates the surrounding air. His name feels foreign on my tongue, having not spoken it aloud in a decade and a half. “I’m sorry for what I did. But I have to go.”
As I push through the door, I long for him to chase after me. He just stands there, the love of my past, glaring at me as if he wishes I was dead.
I feel withered and decayed inside.
So much so, even the rain slapping against my scalp when I forget to open my umbrella does nothing to pull me out of my trance. I’m halfway down the next block before I realize I’m soaked from the rain and finally open the stupid thing.
“Hey, where’s my coffee?” Kiersten asks as I trudge into the office building where the meeting takes place.
I lift my empty hands to my face, staring unseeing beyond their wrinkled texture, and drop them limp at my sides.
“Oh, shit, what happened?”
I clear my throat before I’m able to force the words to squeeze passed. Even then, they sound hoarse. “I need you to drive me home. I’d walk, but I’m freezing. I can’t go to this meeting.”
Kiersten tilts her head, concern etched into her features. “You shouldn’t miss it. They might not give you a second chance to present the info again, and you’ve worked so hard on this.”
“They’ll eat me alive!” I screech, and Kiersten retreats a step. “Not like this, I can’t. I don’t have a chance. You’re the only person I have that can take me home. If you won’t do it, I’ll walk, but it’s still pouring.” I rub a wet hand across my forehead as more tears clog my throat. “I’d like to have some time alone because come four o’clock, my girl will be home from school, and I can’t let her see her momma like this.”
She gathers her coat and nabs her keys from her top drawer. “Okay.” She presses the keys into my palm and curls my limp fingers around them. “Go start the car, and I’ll call Mr. Ross to tell him you’re sick. You owe me. This means I have to miss my lunch break.”
“Thank you.” My voice trembles.
A fogginess settles over me as the stronger emotions wane, and I plod to the parking lot, unlock the car, and crank the ignition. Hot air blasts my numb skin. Detachment steals over me like a curse.
Kiersten contains her invasive questions on the ride back to my house. I mumble my thanks and walk myself inside by rote. After a long hot shower, the numbness thaws and the torrent of tears shatter through the barrier.
When I left home all those years ago, I didn’t allow myself to break. There wasn’t room to feel sorry for myself when I had to provide for
a baby and the decision to leave was mine. Money provided an incentive, and I refused to face Law with the magnitude of my mistakes. When he found out the truth, I’d lose him anyway, and that solidified my decision. I snuck away, knowing it me a coward.
Seeing him returns all the feelings to the surface, and I’m forced to confront them.
For the first time in fourteen years, I cry for all I’ve lost. To remember the boy I once loved so unequivocally, I believed destiny brought us together.
After I finish, I’ll haul myself from my bed, clean my face, and greet my baby girl when she gets off the bus from school.
Losing Law was a consequence of the greatest mistake of my life, but I will never bring myself to regret my daughter.
2
Seventeen years earlier…
“Hey! Wait up!”
I raced my bike through the cloud of dirt Law’s tires kicked up, attempting to catch him. Tall weeds and rogue tree branches whipped against my bare legs. Rain fell from the dark gray sky, and even though I was cold and damp, a smile graced my face.
I giggled while my legs burned, and I chased after my best friend.
“You’ll have to catch up,” he shouted back and raced off again.
Pedaling uphill was difficult on normal terrain, but the once-hard packed earth turned to mud beneath my tires. The trail Law chose was in the middle of the forest, not even a real biking trail. Power lines ran overhead like trail markers, delineating the space four wheelers or snowmobiles used, depending on the time of year.