But desire curdled inside her as she realized it was her phone and it was probably work. She lifted him away from the juncture of her thighs and kissed him. She tasted herself on his lips and the flavor sent her dangerously close to the edge. “Let me…”
“Go,” he said, cutting her off.
He sank back into the couch as she dragged her T-shirt back down over her breasts and dug her phone from her purse. “Shit. It’s my messaging service.”
“Is that bad?” He looked at her over the back of the couch.
“It’s usually an emergency. I’m one of the only vets in the county that has an emergency service.”
Cam frowned and lifted his hips, adjusting his pants. He remained quiet while she dialed the number. She only had a moment to feel disappointed before adrenaline kicked in. “Tell him to meet me at the clinic. I’ll have the front door open.”
She hit the End button on her phone and moved quickly to her pants. “I’m going to have to take a rain check on…everything.”
“You might need these first.” Cam held her panties out. “And I’ll think about forgiving you for answering the phone while I was…”
She threw a pillow at him to keep him from saying the rest.
Chapter 21
BEFORE SHE WENT to the clinic, Hayley gave him a lift back to his house to pick up his truck. Then Cam stopped back by Hayley’s to check on Lilly, the puppies, and the kitten who seemed to think she was a puppy before heading into town. And of course, he ended up stuck behind a school bus.
But that made him decide to turn toward the high school. After all, Hayley had told him to go see the principal. Though he didn’t think he knew the first thing about coaching baseball, he told himself he’d be able to do some googling to figure it out.
Assuming he had a chance at the job to begin with. What if he hated high school coaching, anyway?
He scrubbed his hands over his face. He needed to take a damn nap, but knew he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep. His brain had an amazingly annoying habit of turning itself on the minute he lay down. The more he went without sleep, the more it cranked itself up.
It was a fun cycle.
The long, winding drive toward the high school had changed a lot. The old baseball field now had bleachers on the barren hill that his parents used to sit on to watch his games. The old oak tree in the front of the school must have grown ten feet.
Walking into the office, Cam was hit with a strong sense of the familiar—both good and bad. The smell of floor wax mixed with synthetic pine cleaner and the feeling he was in trouble again. He’d spent so much time in that office for a variety of reasons; most of them weren’t good.
Mrs. Paulson was sitting in the front office and she caught him utterly off guard. She hadn’t changed a bit. Her dark copper skin looked as smooth as he remembered. She’d been stunning when he’d been a student and she was still stunning, even if she was graying at her temples.
Her eyes lit up the moment she recognized him and she came around the desk to pull him into an enthusiastic hug. “Ophelia said she saw you at the supper.”
“It wasn’t a welcome home supper without you there, Mrs. Paulson,” he said warmly. He’d been an epic pain in the ass for the office staff, but Mrs. Paulson had always had a warm smile for him, even when he was facing a new round of ass-chewing from the principal.
Funny, he might have been gone for over a decade, but it felt like yesterday when he thought about standing in the school office with his sidekicks Will, Ben, and Sam.
“You here to see Will?” she asked, interrupting his side trip down Memory Lane.
“Will? No, I’m here to see the principal.”
She smiled slowly. “You’ve been gone a long time.”
It took him a moment to recognize the man stepping out of the principal’s office. Instead of an old Nirvana T-shirt beneath a red flannel shirt, Will Raymond wore a white button-down and a navy-blue tie. His sleeves were rolled at the forearms, just like Will’s dad used to wear them when he stood behind the counter of the pharmacy.
A slow smile of recognition spread across Will’s dark features. “You’re not planning on spray painting the gym doors again, are you?”
“Holy. Shitballs. You’re the principal?” Cam found himself wrapped in a massive hug. Will had gotten bigger since Cam left. “Who the hell did you have to blow to get that job?”
Will grinned and slapped him on the shoulder. “Very funny, dickhead. Some of us went to college after high school, as opposed to joining the Foreign Legion to go blow shit up.”
“Tried the Foreign Legion,” Cam said, following Will back to his office. “They wouldn’t take me. Said the course would be too easy for me.”
“I bet.” Will snorted and sank into one of the old wooden chairs. “When did you get back to town?”
“I’m surprised you didn’t hear,” Cam said.
“I was up at the lake the last two weeks. Needed some time to get my head straight.”
“After?”
“Oh, here’s the sped-up version of the last decade. Went to college, married Bethany Jaeger, got hired here; Bethany got tired of living in this no-Starbucks town, and hit the road with her philosophy professor. And I just got blindsided by all of that a month ago.”
“Shit, man. I’m sorry.”
Will shrugged. “It’s fine. She just wanted out, which is making it relatively easy, as divorces go. I’ll get through it.”
His friend was lying but there would be time to call him on it later. No one voluntarily isolated themselves for two weeks unless they were having serious coping issues.
Cam knew better than anyone did.
“So what brings you in?” Will asked, shifting in his seat as if he was pushing away the unsettling part of the conversation.
“Well, now that I know the school district hires just anyone, I’d like to ask about a coaching job. I heard the baseball team needs someone?”
Will reached for a folder on his desk and handed it to Cam. “News travels fast for a town that still uses dial-up,” he said dryly. “We have the worst record in the state. Haven’t won a game in ages. There are worse jobs to have in this town but I can’t really think of one.”
“I appreciate your honesty, but I’ll take it.”
“You sure? You’ll never go anywhere in public ever again without being interrogated on when the team is going to win, and you’ll probably have your truck egged and house toilet-papered on a regular basis.”
“Seriously, I’ll take it. Perks and all.” Cam glanced down at the folder and thought about the kid he’d been, once upon a time.
And the man he was today because people had bothered to give a shit about him, even when he’d been raising hell.
Maybe this was where Cam 2.0 began.
It wasn’t much.
But it was a start.
Chapter 22
CAM YANKED THE wheel as a logging truck swerved toward him. He stomped on the brakes and turned in the direction of the skid to keep his truck from sliding into the ditch.
When his truck finally stopped, he sat completely still. He sucked in deep, hard breaths and waited for his heart to slow down. His fingers twisted around the steering wheel as he attempted to regain his composure.
What the hell had just happened? He dragged his hand over his face, trying to remember what he’d been thinking about before he’d drifted into oncoming traffic. He drew a blank, unable to tease the thought from his brain.
“Shit,” he mumbled, scrubbing his hand over his jaw. He sucked in another deep, calming breath. He really needed to get this sleeping thing under control.
But the war was still with him, clearly. Here he was, sitting on the side of the road, trying to calm himself down, thinking of all the ways he could possibly screw things up.
Nothing had changed. What the hell made him think he was going to be able to maintain any kind of relationship with Hayley?
Hayley was the one person he’d turned away fro
m when he’d first suspected that something was changing inside him. All those years ago, he’d made that phone call from infantry basic training and told her to move on with her life. That he was a different person and she’d do better to find someone else.
She’d been hurt. Then furious. She’d slammed the phone down on him and they hadn’t spoken to each other again until he’d come home.
He’d had no idea at the time that he was only beginning his journey to the edge of insanity. Looking back, breaking things off with Hayley a few months after he’d left had been the kindest thing he could have done for her.
He’d never meant to come home. The war had changed him—not for the better—and he knew that if he’d come home, he wouldn’t have been able to resist finding her. She was a flame, drawing him closer.
And this time, she’d come to him first.
When he’d seen her standing at the bottom of the stairs of his parents’—his—home, Cam had felt the lockbox of his emotions open.
He started to pull back onto the main road, then stopped. It wasn’t as if he had anything planned.
He stopped those thoughts. That wasn’t true. He had a family. His parents lived less than a quarter mile away. His aunt and uncle were a few miles down the road. And apparently, he’d just taken a job at the high school.
He had ties to this community. He might have cut his small New York town from his heart, but they hadn’t forgotten him. Maybe it was time to start acting like he still had a place here. Like he was still part of the community instead of a visitor.
Blue and red flashing lights appeared in his rearview and Cam swore as he realized it was his shithead little brother pulling up behind him.
“Slow day?” he asked as Ben leaned on his windowsill.
“Yup. Gotta pull over shiftless outta-staters to make the town some money,” Ben said with an easy grin that Cam envied. “What are you doing?”
“Apparently I’m getting pulled over.”
Ben snorted. “Not exactly. Follow me to my place. We’re going fishing.”
“Aren’t you working?”
Ben slapped the edge of the door. “I’m taking a half day. Besides, every other state employee gets tomorrow off for the Fourth except me. I can take the hometown hero fishing if I want to.”
Cam swallowed a lump of irritation. Ben missed—or he deliberately chose to ignore—the emotion Cam failed to conceal. “Follow me,” he said again.
“I remember how to get to camp.”
“Then quit bitching and let’s go.”
Cam shook his head as his brother strolled back to his patrol car, but couldn’t stop the small smile on his lips. Arguing with Ben hadn’t changed. It felt normal. Cam could do normal, right? One day at a time.
He’d adjust to being a civilian slowly. Smoothly. And then he’d redefine his new normal.
Ben pulled out in front of him and Cam followed. They took one side road and then another, following a gravel path toward the camp.
Chapter 23
CAM STILL HADN’T come to terms with his parents’ logic for passing down the two houses they owned to him and Ben, only to move into a smaller house by the river in the exact same town. But as he pulled up to the old family camp, he felt a strong sense of home.
It didn’t last, especially once Cam started taking in all the changes.
The old camp was now a new camp. New shingles covered the small house and there was a new wraparound, screened-in porch. The smaller trees had all been cleared away, and the house sat in an open yard surrounded by ancient oaks. Cam took in the second level and side additions.
It was a real house now, instead of just a lean-to shelter in the woods. In this part of New York, a real house on the waterfront spelled real dollars. Lots of them.
“Like it?” Ben asked, cocking one elbow up on Cam’s shoulder. He pretended to lean on him.
“Yeah. When did you do all this?”
“Over the years. I moved out here right after graduation. During my first snowfall, I realized the place would require a lot of attention to be habitable year-round, so I took out a loan and fixed the place up. Wait ’til you see the inside.”
Curiosity had Cam following Ben. But then he noticed the shadows in the woods surrounding the house. He paused, watching intently, taking in the darkness slinking around the trees.
Ben studied him, his hand poised on the door handle.
Cam shook himself mentally and pasted a thin smile on his lips, hoping to conceal the uneasiness that had momentarily stilled him. “Go, I’m right behind you.”
Cam closed the door behind him, leaned on it, and let out a low whistle of appreciation. His brother had really changed the place.
The camp had always seemed small to Cam. There had been one bedroom and a pull-out sofa, but all the old, ratty furniture was gone. Ben had replaced it with items Cam was willing to bet came from Westchester or someplace closer to the city. Rich, dark fabric covered an overstuffed couch and chair.
The new addition on the bottom level was a kitchen with a center island and a breakfast bar, complete with black slate countertops. And the new second story contained a small study and an additional bedroom.
Cam walked around what had once been the place where he and his brother had spent their summers. He grinned as he spied their former bedroom. It was now three times its original size and boasted a king-sized bed with a solid wood frame.
“I’m so crushed,” he mumbled.
“Why? You don’t like it?”
“No, the place is great. But you got rid of the bed where I lost my virginity.”
Ben choked on the water he’d been drinking. “Actually it’s upstairs. But now that I know that little tidbit, I’m thinking it needs to be burned.”
Cam laughed and it felt good. Natural.
“Beer?” Ben asked, extending a Coors in Cam’s general direction. Never one to pass on a free beer, he shrugged and twisted the top open.
“We’re not really fishing, are we?” Cam asked after the beer had slid down his throat to coat his stomach with a familiar fuzzy sensation.
Ben shrugged and leaned against the counter. “We can. I’ve got night crawlers out back.”
“In what? A bucket?”
Ben jerked his head and Cam followed him out onto the screened-in back porch. Turned out, the worms were stored in a cooler. Cam raised both eyebrows as he watched his brother strain a dozen or so worms from the blue Igloo. “Wow. That must be a real turn-on with the ladies.”
Ben snorted. “I wouldn’t know.”
“Come on. You’ve got to be the most eligible bachelor around.”
Ben shook his head. “Nah. I’m in no rush to fulfill Mom’s fervent desire for grandchildren. You’ve got a good shot at it, though.”
“What’s that mean?”
“You and Hayley? The whole damn town figured that out the night she drove you home from the fundraiser.”
Cam sighed and said nothing. He didn’t know if his brother’s words held deeper meaning or if he was just making conversation. He didn’t want to fight.
“I guess I’m pretty lucky she’s even still talking to me.”
Ben stared down into his beer, silence hanging between them. He looked up. “You hurt her when you left.”
Cam said nothing. There was no defense. He’d been trying to do the right thing by letting her go.
Cam swallowed a long pull off his beer, struggling to keep his guilt in check. “She’s an adult,” he said as easily as he could. “She gets to make her own choices.”
Ben nodded and killed the rest of his beer. “That she does.”
“And you don’t have to like them. Or approve of them.”
“I know that, too.”
He finally looked up at his brother. “Then what are we discussing?”
Ben didn’t look away. “Just don’t hurt her.”
Cam breathed in slowly. “Is that why we’re here? So you can play sheriff and keep the riffraff in check?”
<
br /> “No.” Ben crushed the can and tossed it in a bin. “You and me haven’t exactly been on good terms the last couple of years.” He turned away, leaning on the counter. “When Dad got sick…and you didn’t come home…I hated you for a little while.”
Cam said nothing. He’d been on thin ice with his brother for quite a few years. It was only a matter of time before things blew up. But he wasn’t sure if they were going to keep dancing around the fissure.
His brother bowed his head. “I’m just glad you’re back, Cam.” He paused. “I’ve been afraid for a long time that when you left, you’d never come home again.”
Cam snapped open a second beer. “Yeah, well, as welcome backs go, this one doesn’t entirely suck,” he said. It was the best he could do.
His brother turned around and Cam pretended not to see the red around his eyes. Shit, when had his hard-assed little brother gotten to be such a softie?
Cam frowned at his brother and took a long sip of beer. “So. Are we fishing or what?”
Chapter 24
THEY BOTH PULLED into her driveway at the same time. Cam was sunburnt and tired from fishing, but the warmth from her smile renewed his energy.
“Hey,” he said as she strolled toward his truck.
Her answer was a simple kiss that answered so many questions. She brushed against him and her very presence drove him close to the point of begging.
He slipped his index finger into her belt loop and tugged her closer. “How was your day?”
She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Mostly normal. Yours?”
“I think I got a job and I went fishing.”
“Sounds like a good day.” She lifted both brows. “Tell me about the job. I might be impressed.”
“You should be.” He brushed his lips against hers. “How do you feel about going out to dinner? Maybe downtown? After I feed a certain needy kitten.”
“I need to shower first and check on the puppies, but I feel like that would be fantastic.”
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