Colton (Found by You Book 7)

by Victoria H. Smith

  Saying the words openly hadn’t been as bad as I imagined. She had saved my life. She had been there… for me.

  But then again, she always had, hadn’t she? Cami. Perfect, put together Camille who always handled situations for me no matter how crappy or extremely minute they may be. She did things, took action on things, that went above and beyond her job title sometimes, and I never appreciated her like I should have. I didn’t see her like I should have.

  Well, I was seeing her now, sitting before me with her hands in her lap and lips parted. It was like she had words on them, but just couldn’t form them.

  Talk to me. Tell me what you have to say.

  I wanted to pull them out of her and shake her to do it, hold her arms and squeeze ever so slightly. Her mouth opening kept me from doing that, her hand pushing a stray brown curl out of her eyes.

  “Did it help?” she asked, shyly, and so not like Camille. “Did rehab help you?”

  The question had surprised me, but it was an honest one. She, like anyone, might have that question for me, but Cami wasn’t anyone. Cami was at the front lines of my life.

  She wrote the press statement.

  The soft coos of my nephew beside me sounded in the air. He sung to himself while he colored, and I just listened to him for a moment, trying to figure out everything I wanted to say. Eventually, I went with the script.

  I opened and closed my hands on the table, smiling slightly. “Of course, but hey, you know that right? You wrote what I told the press.”

  Her face fell, her head down. Her tennis bracelet clinked the table while she tapped her nails on it again. “Yeah, but, Colton—”

  “Clean bill of health,” I surmised, nodding my head with it. “My issue with drugs and excessive alcohol is cured.”

  Dark eyes found mine, reaching into my soul if at all possible. “But you don’t have a drug problem, Colton.”

  The words shot through me and went deep, gripping on like a grapple hook. She really was on the front lines and, because of that, knew more than she probably should. She knew more than anybody probably should.

  I guess that’s why I decided to keep her close.

  Well-seasoned, I passed what she said off once more with a slight wave of my head no matter how futile the attempt. “I guess some of us have ways of hiding our vices,” I told her. Our pain.

  That mouth of hers went thin again, and she leveled me a hard gaze that said more than any words could. “Yeah, I guess so,” she said, then shifted her stare over the restaurant. That only left more tension between us, but again, that had never been her fault.

  My saving grace came in the form of a woman in a business suit with a set of brightly colored eyes. My sister-in-law Roxie had a smile on her face and a wave for me when she spotted our corner both.

  I rose up, standing.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Roxie said, wrapping a tiny arm around me. She had to pop up on her toes to get to me, her being so small and petite like Camille.

  Where had that thought come from? I supposed I saw a little too much of my assistant this morning, so I blamed it on that. I hugged Roxie. “Nah, you’re not late at all. We just ordered.”

  “Oh, good, good.” Roxie had changed so much since I first met her years ago on my gram’s ranch. She was all business and mommified now, but that wasn’t a bad trait. Jackson exploded in his booster seat, screaming, “Momma, momma!” with an edge on it as thick as any accent from my oldest brother, Hayden’s, kids. He had two girls.

  Griffin must be rubbing off on the little guy.

  Smiling wide, she grabbed her son, hugging him close as he wrapped his arms around her. “Was he good?” she asked, patting his back.

  “Perfect,” I said, maneuvering his booster seat out of our booth to give her room to sit with him on our side. I never had a bad thing to say about my nephew. He was super well-behaved. I didn’t consider myself great with kids, but when it came to him, he made it all easy. My nieces? Yeah, they ran around like crazy kids. Cami watched our exchange. She’d stood, her hands clasped in front of herself, and I motioned her way. “Roxie, you remember Cami? My assistant?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said, giving her a hand over Jackson. “How have you been, Cami?”

  And why did my assistant look thrown for a minute like she didn’t have words at first? Again, so not Camille. Her head shook slightly. “Great, and you?”

  Roxie shrugged, sliding into the booth with Jackson. The waitress brought a high chair, and he soon took up residence there. “Fine, though a little tired,” she admitted with nothing but that sunshine she always gave off. “Quick trip, but successful trip.”

  “Oh, what are you working on?” Cami asked, leaning in. I wasn’t surprised she got into business talk right away. That was just her.

  “Just got done vetting a couple of sports agents. I like to meet them firsthand before I approve them to our lists. I think they’ll make nice additions for our clientele.”

  What Roxie did for the sports community was really amazing, and no doubt saved many young players from what could be real sharks in this business, myself probably included in that number. She found Joe for me, and I couldn’t be more appreciative of that. I considered that guy more than my sports agent, but my friend.

  “The real work begins when I get home, though,” Roxie continued. “I had to fire my marketing head recently. I hated to do it, but she kept flaking out on me. Calling in sick and not showing up for work sometimes.”

  Cami made a face. “How unprofessional.”

  Roxie nodded. “Yeah, it’s put me in a spot with our plans to rebrand. We’re trying to get new slogans and a revamped mission statement in place. I’ve always loved the old ones, but Griffin and I were talking and feel new ones will freshen up the brand.”

  My brother a businessman. So crazy to even think about that, but it was cool he found himself to be a dual threat with that and his sport.

  “That sucks,” I told Roxie. “About your marketing head?”

  “Mmmhmm, but we’ll figure it out, though.”

  Our little friend, the older waitress, came back, and Roxie gave her an order of a turkey sandwich on rye, and all the while Camille watched her, chewing her lip like she wanted to say something. I smiled then, a thought coming to my head. I waited until Roxie got done ordering, but then, I threw it out there.

  “Camille can probably help you out,” I told my sister-in-law, picking up my water to take a sip. I swallowed. “If not temporarily until you find someone. She’s got a degree in marketing and communications from NYC.”

  Cami’s lashes flashed to me as if surprised I knew that for some reason. Of course I knew that. She worked for me.

  Roxie smiled at her. “Is that true?”

  Now, I knew from moments previous Cami loathed being put on the spot, but in that moment, no one could wipe the smile off her face.

  Her shoulders lifted, going modest. “I used to work in corporate America for a while.”

  My eyes widened a bit at that, that one bit of news new to me. Cami had come to work for me through a hiring agency, and I knew about NYC as she’d told Joe in passing. I mean, it didn’t surprise me at all really that corporate America was her background, and she herself made more sense a bit. How together she always seemed to be made sense, but what had me a little confused was her current position.

  Working for me.

  “So it wouldn’t be a problem,” Cami went on. “If you need the help, I can put something together. I just need to know what you’re looking for.”

  “And you wouldn’t mind letting her go for a bit?” Roxie asked, turning in her seat to me. “I mean, it would all be through email, but yeah, I’d love the help.”

  I offered her a smile, then Cami. Her eyes on me, she seemed to be looking for some type of approval, which I had no problem giving.

  The two hammered out the details through the rest of lunch, shooting around a couple details or two, but I think they kept it at that since I was th
ere. We had a pretty casual lunch, and I liked that whatever pressure had been there between Camille and me seemed to have evaporated. My sister-in-law being her usual ray of sunshine I was sure had something to do with that. After dessert came goodbyes, and we went out the back of the restaurant to do them. Gratefully, the paparazzi only thought to stalk the front of the dive.

  Roxie gave me a hug with a sleeping little boy between us. Jackson was knocked the hell out before his ice cream even came.

  “Thanks for watching him,” she said to me, then waved to Cami when she offered to take the leftovers to the car. “And thanks, Cami. I’ll be sending you that email.”

  Cami’s head lowered, nodding. She told me she’d be in the car, her arms filled with Styrofoam to-go containers.

  “She’s nice,” Roxie continued, finding me over her shoulder.

  “She’s, um, she’s something. Professional if not anything.”

  “Yeah,” she said with a wide smile. Her hand pressed to Jackson’s back, rubbing while we both watched the back restaurant traffic for a bit.

  “She was there, right?” Roxie suddenly said, and I had to say I thought that question would come sooner. “That night, at your house?”

  Pushing my hands into my jeans, I nodded. “She was. She saved my life.”

  “Mmm,” came from her next, and I feared the follow-up, but then I wondered why.

  She gave me a hug, my nephew between us. It said so much with absolutely no words at all. She didn’t let go for a long time, and after it was over, she mentioned not one more word about the incident. She left it at that, taking Jackson with her after I said goodbye to him.

  And she’d never know how much I truly appreciated that.

  Chapter Six

  Cami

  Lucky, Tommy typed. His envious keystrokes followed up with several smiley faces, so I knew he did have some genuine happiness for me.

  Grinning, I keyed, Just working my way through this thing.

  Because that’s all I had been doing for the past few years, trying to make my way and finally, finally getting my foot in the door of something worthwhile. That journey started with my move to Los Angeles. My job as an athlete’s assistant had always been a means to an end, a jumping point for my career in a new environment.

  It was one happily unknown to me.

  Well, you’re definitely doing it, Tommy entered into the chat screen. We’d started chatting originally so he could notify me he’d finish organizing Colton’s charity vouchers. One thing about my boss was he was actually very giving. Colton donated to several nonprofit organizations every month, and Tommy and I handled keeping track of them. By that, I meant Tommy did, and I approved them.

  Being first assistant had its perks.

  Let me know if you need a second chair on your new project with Roxie, Tommy went on. He ended the statement with a winking smiley, and I rolled my eyes at his choice of words. Tommy had been pre-law once upon a time and still often found a way to feed me terms like “boiler plate language” among other things.

  Will be all over that, I told him, my sarcasm ringing through the words. To lessen the blow, I shot him my own winking smiley.

  It wasn’t that I believed Tommy couldn’t help me. In fact, quite the contrary. He was brilliant really, a little panicky but brilliant nonetheless. I knew because I hired him myself, but I didn’t want too many seasoned chefs in the kitchen with this task. No, this project with Colton’s sister-in-law? It was all mine.

  Fine, spoilsport, he responded. I’ll try not to be green with envy as you work your way out of this place.

  As I work my way out…

  I had only blinked and a small portion of my life went by. They’d been years of running, hustling.

  They’d been years of Colton Chandler.

  I’ll bet you’ll be happy to get out, Tommy went on. When this project with Roxie leads to something?

  My fingers flicked to respond. They’d even hit a few keys, but I thought better of it, backspacing. My time working for Colton had been a difficult one to define and really hammer down if I had liked the time spent or not. I mean, it had been more than stressful, trying. In many ways, he fit the cliché of a standard young athlete. He was rich with fancy cars and wild parties. Then, there were the women who flowed through his life. God, so many women. I even juggled them sometimes, herding them like cattle around for the prince himself. But the thing about Colton was that side of him was only one. He gave the world a face, then went home with another. He had always been kind to me, fair, so that made gauging who he really was quite hard. He wore them both equally well, those two sides, and because he did, falling into an easy stride with him had been easy. I was comfortable with him in the sense that I knew how to handle him.

  That was until recently.

  I told Tommy I had to go, but thanked him once again for providing the charity spreadsheets. He really was an excellent boy Friday for me.

  After closing out the chat box, I brought up Roxie’s email. I had read it several times, but studied the content to make sure I noted every detail she needed for her vision of a rebrand for her company. She was very thorough so that made it easy, and my brain pulled for all the tips and tricks I learned on how to hook a buy through only so many words. I had been surprised to see the correspondence so quickly in my inbox. Roxie’s message had come in a couple hours after Colton had driven us back home, and that only made me respect her more for her ability to juggle the way she did. With her son, she no doubt played patty cake with one hand while drafting this email to me with the other, and she was in transit too. At lunch, she said she planned to be back in Miami to make a meeting she had with a client the following morning. Working woman, mom, she was like Super Girl, and I had so much respect for that. I aspired to be that one day.

  I worked hard on the project, burning the midnight oil. Eleven o’clock saw me getting a cup of coffee, one I snuck out to a drive-thru to get. I didn’t want to root around Colton’s house more than I had to do so. I had been grateful for Colton sharing Roxie’s opportunity with me, but I couldn’t ignore the elephant in the house between us if I ran into him.

  “Clean bill of health,” he’d said at the diner, and also, “You wrote what I told the press.”

  I had written his press statement, which made it all so much worse. I thought just earlier that Colton had always been fair to me, and I believed he never made me uncomfortable or do anything I didn’t want to do, but that wasn’t entirely true. He had made me do something I didn’t want to do. He had me lie for him.

  I wonder for how long.

  The heat behind my fingers burned me out of my thoughts. I placed my coffee cup on the counter, shaking my hand out before sucking on the red welts on my fingertips. I needed to finish this project so I could ultimately leave. It was time to start converting my position to something less intense and less stressful.

  Nodding to myself with the thought, I went to pick up my cup in the kitchen warmed only by evening light. A gasp caused me to turn my head. Facing the hallway, I stepped toward it. The gasp hit again, and I padded that way, turning my head while I rounded the corner. But then I heard something only in my dreams, my nightmares.

  A voice called out, deep and so much pain lined the surface. I sped toward the voice, fear in my veins.

  Oh, God, please not again.

  My hands to my lips, my entire body shook as I came across a familiar scene. Colton. He lay on his white leather couch, blankets wrapped around him every which way. Fortunately, that’s where the familiarity ended. He didn’t thrash tonight, but merely stirred. His arm went over his eyes, and a croak left his lips this time. He was having a dream, most likely a nightmare like I believed I’d come across when I fled to this room.

  His arm fell, and his head popped up, his chin in the air like he was trying to rip out of himself or whatever he suffered from behind his eyes.

  I ventured to the couch, not knowing what to do. Were you supposed to wake people up when they h
ad a bad dream? Or maybe that was just when they were sleepwalking.

  I took the edge of the couch, just enough room for me to sit beside him. “Colton?”

  No response came from him, his head turning. His eyes creased as he panted, and I couldn’t take it anymore, seeing him that way. I put my hand on his shoulder before I could stop myself. I needed to shake him, make this all stop or something. Almost immediately, a hand shot out toward my wrist.

  His fingers gripped me so tight but then, eventually, loosened up. He loosened up, along with the rest of his body.

  My hand coasted, the pads of my fingers traveling the line of his shoulder bone. He had such strong shoulders, and all the while he held me. He held me as I made it to his neck. With his short buzz cut, his hair was rough at the nape. My fingers stayed there.

  He opened his eyes then, and his curly blond lashes reminded me of the head of hair he used to have. I didn’t miss it, though. I liked him this way.

  Blue eyes shifted but found mine quickly. He blinked. “Cami?”

  I went to let go of him, and the awareness of our hands came to him. He let go, and I took my hand back, placing it in my lap. “You were calling out,” I told him. “In your sleep?”

  His lashes lowered slowly over his eyes. He pressed palms to them as he sat up. “Thanks,” he said, drawing his hands down his face. “For waking me.”

  I nodded, giving him room as I slid to the other end of the couch. “Why are you sleeping down here and not upstairs?” It was late. He should be in his bed.

  Reaching over, he touched the lamp on the end table. The room filled with soft light, and the space of a champion lit the room. His trophies were everywhere, the accomplishments decorating the back wall behind his entertainment stand. He’d done so much in only a few years in his field.

  “I haven’t since that night,” he admitted, staring at his legacy too. Maybe because I was. He dampened his lips. “Just haven’t.”

  I pushed my leg under my knee. Normally, I might have been concerned by my appearance, oversized t-shirt and bed shorts. I worked all night and wanted to be comfortable, and Colton wore something similar, his long body in shorts and a ribbed tank top.