She swallowed. “True. Although I’m thinking about staying a little longer.” She blew out a breath and paused for a moment before saying, “Okay, maybe we should start over. Hi, Levi. And I’m sorry.”
“Hello, Camden. And it’s not a problem.”
She worked a lock of hair free from the twist hanging down her back and twisted it around her finger. “I, ah...”
“What are you doing here?”
“Uh, taking a video of the lighting ceremony for my grandparents—”
“I meant in general. You said you might be staying a little longer.” And that was interesting to him in a way that it really shouldn’t be. He wasn’t going to have a fling with the granddaughter of people he considered to be good friends. Neighbors. People he hoped would sell about half their acreage to him in another few weeks. He didn’t need to mess that up with a night of hot sex with their granddaughter, no matter how gorgeous she looked in that wedding dress or how adorable she looked with lake water dripping off her. She trembled again, and Levi grabbed the blanket out of the back seat of his truck to settle it over her shoulders.
“Thank you. Again. Granddad is letting me train a pup he found on the side of the road last summer. We’re thinking about reopening the dog school.”
This made no sense at all. Camden Harris, the girl who had spent summers with her grandparents at the farm next to Walters Ranch, was running away from her wedding two days ago, and now she wanted to work at a defunct dog training school? After not setting foot in town for nearly fifteen years? She’d gone from summers running after her grandfather’s stock dogs, and hanging out with Levi and his friends at the lake, to Kansas City once her mother remarried. And she’d never looked back. Levi would have known if she had. After all, he was the one taking care of Calvin and Bonita Harris for the past few years. Watching the stock-dog school go downhill because, no matter how good a trainer Calvin was, he was also now sixty-seven years old. After the tornado, it had been Levi who helped Calvin sell off the few dogs who could bring in some decent cash.
Camden had avoided all of that. But now she was here?
“Reopening the school?
She nodded. “Training working dogs for shows as well as real-world work. Doubling the income stream of the farm.” Camden slipped the camera strap off her wrist and put the device into her back pocket. “Well, I guess I’ll see you around,” she said after a long moment. “I live here now.”
She backed away, and he realized her grandfather’s truck was parked just a few spaces beyond his. The older truck had a white stripe down the side and a few rust pockets over the rear wheel wells. The bench seat was covered with an old Mexican blanket.
How many times had Levi encouraged Calvin to sell the old bucket of rust?
The door creaked as Camden opened it. She slid inside and drove away, offering a limp wave as she passed him on the street. She was still wrapped in his blanket.
Levi frowned, more annoyed by her revelation that the fact that his emergency blanket was now tucked around Camden.
Calvin was too old to try to start over, and what did Camden know about training dogs? The last he’d heard, she was a beauty queen in Kansas City. There had to be more to Camden’s plans than a sudden interest in her grandparents’ lives or dog training. Something like the value of the one hundred acres of prime ranch land they held.
Now that he knew why she was back in town, he just had to figure out a way to stop her so that Calvin and Bonita could retire to Arizona like they’d been talking about for the last few years.
* * *
SIX TOOK TO the training course like he’d been running it since the summer months. The little dog stopped short when Camden blew her whistle and waited for her to signal him again. When she did, he took off like a shot, circling training barrels and crossing over the fallen log her grandfather had used as an obstacle when she was a young girl.
This training session was good for her, too. It kept her mind off her fall into Slippery Rock Lake with Levi Walters last night. A small piece of her heart wanted to insist he’d caused her to fall in, but the truth was he’d tried to keep her on the dock. She could still feel his hands on her upper arms, and the empty space under her foot as she stepped off the dock.
God, how embarrassing. And she wasn’t going to keep reliving it. Accidents happened, and at least no one else had seen it. Nor had there been anyone to witness the wet, mucky mess she’d been after climbing out of that frigid water because her grandparents had retired to their bedroom before she got back to the farmhouse. There was also the fact that she’d escaped without even a hint of a head cold. Probably she should call Levi, just to make sure he was okay, too. At the very least, she should return the blanket she’d laundered with her wet clothes last night.
A new round of butterfly wings flapped in her belly at the thought of calling Levi. And that was the most ridiculous thing of all, because she barely knew the man. All she should be feeling toward him was embarrassment that he’d caught her at her worst. She had to get past this nervous, excited, attracted feeling. At all costs. Running into him in the bar and again—literally—on the marina dock didn’t make him anything more than an innocent bystander in the chaos that was her current life.
She definitely, absolutely was not going to call Levi Walters. Except to return the blanket.
Finished with the course, Six returned to Camden’s side, sat and waited. She gave him a strong rub behind his ears and offered a dog treat as she praised his work. When she started back toward the house, the dog fell in beside her.
Camden breathed deep, enjoying the smells of the crisp fall morning. She knew it was too far away, but she thought she could smell the apples from Tyler Orchard, and in the distance, she could swear she heard cattle lowing. Leaves crunched under her feet as she walked along the path back to the farmhouse. In the timber, something rustled, and Six’s body went on point. His head swiveled in the direction of the noise, his legs were stiff and his body seemed to shiver in excitement. The rustle sounded again, and the dog whined softly.
“No,” Camden said. “No chasing.”
The dog didn’t turn to look at her, but his ears seemed to droop a little.
Once more whatever it was rustled in the timber, and then a big, gray rabbit shot from the brambles. It paused for a moment when it saw Camden and the dog, twitched its nose and then it was hopping like mad into the trees on the other side of the path.
“No,” Camden repeated, but the rabbit crossed ahead of them again, and Six was off. The little dog pounced, but the rabbit was faster. It made it back into the brambles and trees, but Six was undeterred. The little dog followed, thrashing through the thicket, despite Camden’s repeated shouts of “No” and “Heel!” She blew the whistle, but he kept chasing.
She waited a moment, hoping Six would return when he couldn’t find the rabbit, but the sounds of the dog and rabbit making their way through the underbrush and timber continued. There was nothing for it, Camden decided after a long moment—she would have to go in after them. She studied the brush and weeds and grasses.
She should have paid more attention in science; she had no idea if those brownish-green leaves were new tree growth or poison ivy or oak. And if there was a snake in there... Camden pushed the thought away.
She could handle a little garden snake. Didn’t they hibernate, anyway? It was late November—surely the snakes would be in hibernation by now. And for that matter, if those leaves were poison ivy, it was late enough in the year that the poison probably wouldn’t transfer to her hands. Just in case, it wouldn’t hurt to put on the gloves she’d shoved in the pockets of her hoodie this morning on the way out for Six’s training run.
As she drew closer, the thrashing sounds from the dog and the rabbit got louder—well, she hoped it was the dog and the rabbit coming back and not something larger and more dangerous
that had been flushed out of its den. Were there bears in this part of the state? Camden stepped off the path just as a blur of gray and white fur flashed past, followed by a larger blur of brown, black and white fur, and then Six and the rabbit were bounding down the trail back toward the training area.
Crap.
Well, at least she wouldn’t have to brave the weeds and brambles and possible poison ivy. Camden took off after the dog and rabbit, her booted feet crunching through the fallen leaves and twigs along the path. When the trail opened up to the training area, Six was nosing through an area of underbrush, and the rabbit was nowhere in sight.
“Come,” she said, and the dog looked in her direction for a moment before going back to smelling the ground at one edge of the training space. “Six,” she said, but the dog ignored her. Camden blew on the whistle, and the dog finally stopped nosing through the brush.
He watched her for another second, and she stared him down, keeping her expression serious. Finally, Six trotted obediently to her side.
“Bad dog,” she said, and the dog thumped its tail, a goofy grin on its face. “No chasing. We herd. We gather. We don’t chase.” Levi’s handsome, scruffy face popped into her mind at her mention of that act. The dog thumped his tail again, twice, tongue hanging out of his mouth. “Yeah, okay, chasing is sometimes fun.”
Not that she’d ever chased anything. Joining the pageant circuit had been thrust onto her. Every guy she’d dated had been in her limited social circle. Levi’s face flashed into her mind again. She hadn’t chased Levi as a kid. And she wasn’t going to chase him now, no matter how hard that crooked smile of his made her knees wobble, or how excitedly the butterflies in her stomach flapped their wings when she caught sight of him.
Especially not because, after falling into the lake with him the night before, she’d seen his bare chest, resembling her favorite milk chocolate from a little store on the Kansas City Plaza, glistening and wet from the lake. Definitely not because she’d gone to bed still feeling his hands on her arms, his heat surrounding her when he put that blanket around her shoulders.
Camden didn’t need that kind of heat in her life. She wasn’t in Slippery Rock to have a rebound affair with Levi Walters. She was here to take control of her life, to build something of which she could be proud.
“But we don’t chase,” she said, and repeated the words silently in her mind. Definitely don’t chase. “Come on,” she said, motioning the dog to start walking with her. They arrived back at the barn with no more rabbit-chasing incidents. Camden filled the pup’s food and water bowls.
In the barn, she flipped on the old TV sitting on a dusty table in a corner. The only channel that came in was a Springfield news network, the anchors joking about the unseasonably warm fall. It didn’t feel all that warm to her, but then she was working in the outdoors and not under hot studio lights. With the chattering as background noise, Camden filled the dog food bin and, because it didn’t appear to have been done for a while, swept the concrete floors. Granddad and Grandmom had gone into town that morning, leaving her to begin working with Six. For a first training session, it hadn’t been half bad. Six learned quickly, and Camden remembered everything from those sessions in Kansas City.
She should have taken charge of her life a long time ago. Not that Camden expected everything to go as smoothly as the last few days, but she knew what she was doing. She had plenty of money, money she’d earned on the circuit and then from the pageant coaching business she’d started with her mother.
Mom. She hadn’t spoken to her mother, not in a meaningful way, since walking out on the wedding. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket, thumb hovering over the home button that would unlock the device, when the chatter on the television stopped her in her tracks.
“Okay, this is footage we first aired on the morning show, from the holiday lighting ceremony in downtown Slippery Rock. Although the actual lighting went off without a hitch—” said the male anchor.
“Look how adorable everything looks outlined in red, green and white fairy lights,” the female anchor interrupted. “The town has done such a tremendous job rebuilding after that awful tornado that went through last spring.”
“This will be the first year they’ll host a winter carnival, and most of the weekends leading up to Christmas will include live music at the new grandstand area. You can check our community calendar for more details,” the male anchor went on. “But, DeeDee, not everything was quite as adorable as the lights. Watch as one of the residents is filming the lights and obviously not paying attention—”
The female anchor chuckled. “This gets funnier and funnier every time. Look, Greg! She’s stepping all over that poor farmer. Wait a second. Here it comes,” DeeDee said, glee in her voice. Camden’s heart sank as she focused her attention on the small TV. She and Levi toppled off the dock.
“We have splashdown,” Greg said. “Let’s watch that one more time.”
The tape began rewinding on the screen, and Camden saw her body rise miraculously from the water and tangle in reverse with Levi’s. She wanted to look away, wanted to turn off the TV, but instead found she couldn’t tear her eyes from the sight of herself tripping over Levi and falling into Slippery Rock Lake again. And again, as the anchor team made jokes and kept rewinding the tape that must have been picked up from one of their cameras at the lighting ceremony.
“Here’s the really funny part, though, DeeDee. The woman tripping over the farmer is none other than former Missouri Miss Camden Harris. One of our eagle-eyed interns—herself a former beauty queen—realized who we’d caught on camera this morning. We have to wonder what Ms. Harris is doing in Slippery Rock—”
“And wearing that awful ball cap and ugly flannel shirt,” DeeDee interrupted again. Camden leaned the broom against one of the stalls and wiped her hands over the jeans and hoodie she’d worn to work with Six this morning, feeling self-conscious, despite the fact that no one was here to see her. She ran her hands through her hair.
“We haven’t been able to confirm why she is in Slippery Rock, but we do have a call in to Harris’s reps...just to make sure she’s okay after taking that tumble.”
Camden checked her phone. No missed calls. They obviously hadn’t tried very hard to track her down to check on her well-being. Which was just as well. Camden didn’t feel like explaining what had happened last night. She rubbed her hands over her arms. Or why she could still feel Levi’s hands on her.
Her phone buzzed in her hand, and Camden jolted back to the present. The anchors were still droning on, although they’d gone from her falling into the lake to an elephant giving birth at the National Zoo in Washington, DC.
Grant’s name and face scrolled across her phone screen. Don’t answer it, Cam, she told herself. Nothing good could come from talking to Grant now. Not when she’d just been on TV falling into a lake.
Of course, he probably didn’t know about her frigid night swim; the Kansas City stations wouldn’t have picked up something as silly as this, surely. He probably wanted to talk about her calling off the wedding. Camden didn’t want to talk about that, either, and she didn’t care if it was childish.
Grant knew why she’d walked out, and she didn’t want to go through another it-was-an-accident conversation with him. As if he’d merely fallen on top of Heather and his penis had accidentally found her vagina.
Camden sighed in relief when the phone flipped over to voice mail. She’d call him back later.
Much, much later.
A moment later, the phone buzzed again, and Grant’s face scrolled across her screen. The man was nothing if not persistent in whatever case, cause or catastrophe was at the top of his massive to-do list.
Crap, crappity, crap.
Camden sighed. Now or later. Her ex was not going away.
She slid her finger across the screen to accept the call. “Hello,
Grant.”
“Camden, sweetheart, are you okay?” His smooth voice—and his use of the endearment that always made her feel like she was five—made her cringe despite the fact that he was hundreds of miles away. “I saw that news story this morning. Were you hurt?”
Camden squeezed the bridge of her nose. Damn it. Must have been a slow news cycle in Kansas City if they’d picked up the footage from the Springfield station. It wasn’t as if Camden were some Hollywood star in red carpet attire taking a tumble. “I’m fine, Grant, thank you. It was nothing.”
“Of course it was something. You have to pay more attention to your surroundings, sweetheart.”
“I took a less than two-foot fall into about eight feet of calm water. It isn’t as if I took a header off the Santa Monica Pier during a storm. I appreciate—”
“How many times have I warned you about daydreaming when you should be focused on the task at hand?” Camden rolled her eyes as Grant continued talking. He’d never once reprimanded her about daydreaming, because she wasn’t a daydreamer. That habit had been trained out of her before her first pageant.
Until Levi Walters came back into her life.
Not that he was technically in her life.
“It isn’t like you to do this kind of thing,” he was saying. “My Camden is a planner, even though she gets in her head sometimes. Why don’t you just come home? You’ve only gotten into your own head about—”
“I’m not your Camden,” she interrupted.
Silence filled the phone. “What?” he said after a long moment.
“I’m not your Camden. Yes, I like to plan things, but no, I’m not in my head about not marrying you. You’ve been sleeping with Heather, who I thought was my best friend. You’re the one in the wrong here.”
“And I want to make that up to you.”
“You can’t make it up to me. Even if you could, that isn’t what I want. I want to move on with my life.”
Christmas in a Small Town Page 7