by Lindsey Hart
Cam stiffened. He enjoyed games and would gladly have played along, had the prospect of Dale not been involved. He’d thought he’d have a few minutes with Lana to enjoy their charade. After an hour-long drive in which the scent of her in his rental car tormented him half to death, he was hoping for just a little more time.
“Dale,” Lana echoed, her face taking on a disgusting faraway look.
As though her breathing his name had summoned Dale, there was a knock at the front door.
Cam and Lana froze as one. Lana stared pointedly at the laminate flooring while Cam’s eyes drifted back out to the backyard. The worn trampoline came into view when he stepped to the left. The mats were long gone, the tarp sagging. It had been that way for years. He wondered why Lana’s parents didn’t just get rid of it.
“So, you’re a doctor now.” Frank cleared his throat after Jocelyn rushed out of the room to answer the door. He indicated the oak table and chairs set and Lana sat. Cam took the hint and pulled out a chair beside her.
“Yes. I actually made it.”
“We’re proud of you son. You always said that’s what you wanted to do and no one doubted you.”
Son. Cam managed not to wince. Lana met his gaze for a second and her crystal eyes were as guilty as he felt. She quickly glanced away, slanting her face towards the window, while Cam turned back to Frank.
“Thank you,” he forced out. He knew that Frank used the term casually. He’d heard it before. It just felt different now that he was there with Lana beside him.
Frank’s face softened with happiness when he turned his eyes towards his oblivious daughter. Lana was still staring out the window and missed the look her father sent her way. Cam caught it though. The look was one of love, but it was tinged with relief. It was clear just how worried Lana’s parents were about her. She’d mentioned that. That they didn’t like the fact she was single and worked at a bar and apparently had no prospects. What had she said? That no one had ever held her interest?
Cam was well acquainted with the feeling. Not one woman in his entire life compared to Lana. He’d been able to use the excuse of his intensive studies to avoid dating. After that, he’d escaped and his life was all work.
He knew the truth though. He hadn’t ever laid eyes on a single woman who held a candle to Lana.
Jason and Dale chose that moment to shove their way into the kitchen. Shove was an apt word. They entered the kitchen like a pair of boisterous five-year old.
Cam and Lana’s attention couldn’t help but be drawn to the pair. Lana grinned. She pushed back her chair and went to embrace her brother. He also lived in Austin, as did Dale, but Cam got the impression Lana didn’t see a lot of her brother.
“What? No hug for me?” Dale grinned like a sly little weasel when Lana stepped back, obviously finished with her displays of emotion for the morning.
She hesitated for just a second before she reluctantly moved forward. Dale opened his arms. He gripped Lana tightly as she stepped into the large circle. Cam ground his teeth, eyes probably shooting daggers at Dale until he released Lana.
She looked a little shaken and he figured it had a hell of a lot to do with the fact that she apparently couldn’t get enough of the guy. He couldn’t understand the torch that burned in her for a guy who was little more than a total asshole. Always had been and still was. He was the worst kind of lawyer, the kind who defended people who were guilty and everyone knew it. He wasn’t a criminal lawyer, thank god. At least not the kind that dealt with murder cases. Dale took on the cases of those who were tried for fraud or duping others in business. It was a career that was right up his alley and he was good at it. He’d made a name for himself since he’d set up his own practice.
Lana’s attraction probably had a little to do with the fact the guy looked like a living, breathing model. Or some kind of sex god pulled from the pages of a dirty mag back when that was still fashionable.
His long blonde hair was tied back at the base of his neck in a small ponytail. Strands of it escaped the binding and hung shaggy around his face. He’d probably purposely left a rasp of blonde stubble on his square jaw, like he hadn’t had time to shave. His brow was firm and shadowed a set of ice blue eyes. A straight nose and chiseled cheekbones topped off a face that could have been carved out of stone. His body was even better. Cam could see how Lana actually admitted to fantasizing about the guy. He easily stood at six and a half feet, had shoulders as broad as a house and looked like he hit the gym all day every day. He had played football in high school and he still looked like the star quarterback, even though he hadn’t ever played that position.
In short, Dale was basically the all-American dream.
How the hell could I ever compete? It was a dismal thought, especially when Cam noticed the flush riding high on Lana’s cheeks as she took her seat beside him.
Intelligence. Kindness. Compassion. Maturity. That’s how he could compete. It became even more painfully obvious that Dale was no better than slime when he pulled out a chair at the table and proceeded to regale them all with tales from court, of how he won cases that he had no business even taking in the first place, at least in Cam’s opinion.
Jocelyn and Frank listened with polite interest. Lana tried not to stare at Dale. Cam studied the window. He’d honestly had enough of Dale growing up. Going to the same school with him was bad enough. He’d hoped never to see him again after he graduated.
When he’d agreed to take on this wild scheme of Lana’s, he had done it selfishly, for a chance at his own fantasy. For the one pathetic shot he’d dreamed of his entire life. He’d done it for himself. He hadn’t really even thought about Dale overly after he’d agreed to it. Instead, his head had been stuffed with dreams and hopes for Lana and Lana alone.
There was some foolish part of himself that had hoped she would come to her senses once she saw Dale and figured out that he was still little better than a spoiled, self-indulged child. It didn’t look like that was going to happen, so all he’d signed on for was a few days of utter torture. It was torture watching Lana watch Dale and it was even worse being so close to her and knowing that none of it was real.
“And last week, I met this blonde… real good timing too…” Dale droned on while everyone pretended to be interested. He obviously didn’t get the hint and didn’t seem very broken up at all about his most recent relationship coming to an end.
The whole coming home at Christmas with Jason thing seemed like a ploy to get a decent home-cooked meal.
“I’m going to put that pie in the oven and then I’ll get out the board games.” Jocelyn capitalized on a moment of silence and everyone looked relieved.
She rose quickly, pushing back her chair and heading for the kitchen. The house wasn’t exactly open concept, but the kitchen backed the dining room and everyone could hear her opening the fridge and humming softly to herself as she buzzed around cheerfully.
Dale paused for just a second before he launched into another rousing story of some guy who stole a whole bunch of money from a company he’d owned with his partner. Dale, of course, got the guy off with just a slap on the wrist.
Cam stifled a groan. He glanced once at Lana and was thankful to see that Dale wasn’t doing himself any favors. She looked bored out of her tree. She gave him a low, conspirator’s smile. At least she was on his side. They were in total agreement that it was going to be a very long day unless someone finally had the grace to shut Dale up.
CHAPTER 4
Lana
After a full afternoon spent playing various board games and trying to tone out Dale’s wretched stories, at last, it was time for dinner. That was followed by a few rousing games of backgammon that, thankfully, Jason and Dale excused themselves from.
Tired and ready for bed after a long day of doing almost nothing, Lana went to the front door, picked up her bag and headed down to her old room in the basement. She got the surprise of her life when her mom caught up with her.
Jocelyn grabbed
Lana’s arm gently as she neared the stairs. “Oh, sorry, sweetheart, I forgot to tell you that you and Cam are going to be in the spare room upstairs down the hall from us.”
“What?” Lana’s mouth dropped open. A horrible wave of shock washed over her. She’d promised Cam they wouldn’t have to share a room since it had always been against her parent’s rules growing up. Then again, she’d never actually had a real serious boyfriend but that’s what they always said and after they were twelve years old, Cam hadn’t slept over.
“Yes, sorry. I had told you before that we were having problems with mold after the sprinkler burst in the front lawn and leaked into the window before anyone noticed. We had to rip up the carpet and we were going to put new stuff in when the guy who came to do it noticed that the wall looked soft. He pressed on it and his hand went right through it. We had to gut your old room and it’s still not completely put back together.”
Lana nearly choked. “When did you mention this again?”
“Last month? When it happened. I’m sorry, I didn’t think it would be an issue for you to sleep in the spare room, so I didn’t mention it again.”
“No. No, it’s fine.” Cam came up from nowhere behind Lana. He reached out and took her rather heavy backpack from her hand. “No problem. We’ll be fine up there, won’t we?” He flashed a winning smile at Lana, which did strange things to her already cramped stomach.
Another flight of butterflies exploded and a wild warmth, the kind she really hadn’t felt in a very long time, flooded her chest and spread to every single limb. She was glad Cam had taken her backpack from her. She probably wouldn’t have been able to hold onto it anyway since her hands, arms and legs seemed to have unexpectedly turned to water.
“Yeah,” she forced out thickly. “We’ll be fine.” She turned away from Cam’s dazzling smile and faced her mom with a forced smile of her own. “Thanks mom.”
“Goodnight, you two. I’m so glad you’re home.” Lana’s mother flashed a huge smile that told Lana she was more than just glad that Lana and Cam were there. She was glad they were there together.
It gave Lana a bit of a start, to note the happiness on her parent’s faces. She would have been blind in order to miss it when she walked in the front door earlier, Cam in tow. The sparkle in her mom’s eyes at the moment was also impossible to miss. She knew they wanted her to settle down, she just hadn’t realized how much they cared for Cam and the idea of them together.
“I’ll get my bag and I’ll meet you up there?” Cam raised a brow in question.
“Yes, sure,” Lana stammered. Another wave of heat hit her like she was standing in front of the oven door and it was cranking full blast. She was sure her cheeks were flaming.
It was a strange, unexpected response, kind of like what she’d felt at the mall while they were shopping. She’d never expected the way her body reacted to be so instantaneous and so violent. She’d never been more aware of Cam in her life than she was in that moment.
A few minutes later, standing on the opposite side of the spare room, the door closed, their bags set down and Cam facing her from across the bed, she knew she was wrong. Or at least, the level of awareness ramped up another crazy notch.
This moment is the most aware of him that I’ve ever been.
All of a sudden, those soft brown eyes of his weren’t just the eyes of a long-time friend. His lips weren’t the lips of the boy she’d grown up with. His towering frame, massive, broad build and narrow waist weren’t just Cam’s. They were Cam’s, the Cam she was about to get in bed with, only a thin layer of pajamas between them.
“I thought you said that we wouldn’t be allowed to share a room,” Cam said quietly, humor suffusing his low tone.
“I thought we wouldn’t be,” Lana hissed back under her breath. “We both know how my parents always harped on me in high school when they gave me the dating talk, how I had to keep my doors open, chastity first, abstinence best, no back seats, no groping blah blah blah.”
“Fortunate for them you never found anyone to date.”
“God knows I would have just gone out of the house to do whatever debauchery they thought I was up to as a full-fledged teenager.”
Cam chuckled a little, but color rose on his cheeks. Lana was shocked. Was he actually blushing? They’d talked about far worse than that in their years together. She needed to say something fast, before the situation turned awkward as hell when they slid between those sheets together.
“Remember the time in grade ten when I needed a tampon? I had nothing. I was too mortified to ask anyone. We all know that the girls in our class were snobs.”
“That’s why you always hung out with me.”
Lana laughed softly. “Yeah. But you were the one who went and asked Madeline Stewart in my brother’s class if she knew of anyone who would have anything.”
“That’s because Maddy was nice. She was the only person in that entire class who didn’t torment anyone.”
“Yeah. My brother’s class was full of assholes.”
“Dale included?”
“Pretty much.”
Cam rolled his eyes in exasperation as if to ask why he was truly there. Lana honestly wasn’t even sure. She’d expected a wave of longing, of the same old nervous desire, the girly hormones and chills when Dale walked in with her brother earlier. She’d felt a whole boatload of nothing but awkwardness.
“Anyway, Maddy had some feminine products in her locker, as you referred to them.”
“I think most men have trouble saying the actual word.”
“And you gave it to me and you were blushing so hard your face looked like it was on fire.”
“Yours would have been too if it had been the other way around.”
“Don’t get me wrong. You were my hero that day. You were my hero lots of days,” Lana admitted, voice even softer. “I still get embarrassed when I have to buy them at the store and the cashier is a male. I always look for a female worker, or better yet, hit the self-checkout.”
“Can I ask you something, Cam?”
He nodded slowly. He reached for his duffel and slowly undid the zipper. Lana looked away, as if the actual action of him pulling out his pajama bottoms or whatever the hell he slept in was too intimate for her to bear. This, from the kid she’d once shared everything with. Her darkest secrets, her dreams, her hopes. The only thing she’s never shared was her body, not like this. Not as a full-grown adult woman.
That prickle of tight heat crept over her skin again. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. Definitely not like this, with Cam as a full-grown man.
It occurred to her to look at him. To really look at him and realize that he was sexy. Tall, dark, handsome. The whole checklist that women usually died for, yet he’d always been single that she knew.
“Why have you always been my friend? Why go to the same college as me even though you could have got into a million others? You were always way smarter than me. Why keep in contact? Why do this for me now?”
His hand froze on the duffel. “Because we once promised each other, we pinkie swore that we’d be best friends forever.”
Lana made a sound that was a half choke of disbelief and half a snort of laughter. “Are you serious? We were just kids! Probably no more than six years old.”
“Yes, but I gave you my word.”
“And I gave you mine.”
“And here we are.”
“Here we are.” She realized she was going to have to stop parroting back everything Cam said, so she stumbled across the room rather gracelessly and grabbed her backpack. “We both face the wall until we’re dressed again. Deal?”
“Yes. Deal.”
It wasn’t hard to retreat to opposite sides of the room. The spare bedroom was large. It made the double sized bed look a little stranded at sea. The only other furniture in the room was a nightstand on each side of the bed. As it was the spare room and seldom used, her mom didn’t see the point in truly making it up.
Lana undressed and threw her pajamas on. She flushed hotly at the fact that Cam was going to see her childish, fuzzy purple bottoms with the little yellow ducks on them. She threw on a camisole, the only top she’d brought for bed, ever aware that it was thin to the point of being sheer and lacy and showed the tops of her breasts.
She finally spun around and nearly shouted in indignation when she noticed Cam was already in bed, tucked under the quilt. He had his back to her, his large form taking up most of the bed.
“Hey!” She said indignantly.
“What? It’s not like I peeked.”
Lana had the distinct notion that he was making fun of her somehow. She stomped over to the light switch and killed the light. The room only had one window and the blinds were pulled tightly shut. She followed the red eyes of the clock that glowed on the nightstand on her side of the bed.
The quilt wasn’t heavy and the sheets were quite thin. Lana slid in between the two. She pressed herself to the edge of the bed, as far away from Cam as she could get.
Despite her resolve, the bed wasn’t large and Cam wasn’t exactly small. She could feel the heat of him right through whatever he was wearing.
“Stay on your side,” Lana mumbled in warning.
“Of course.” Again, there was laughter in his voice as though he found the situation oddly funny.
It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t funny at all because at that moment, the heat radiating off Cam was driving Lana wild. She felt it in every limb, every nerve ending, every single fiber of her being. She felt it as a spreading warmth and then a violent chill, a hard shiver of something she couldn’t quite define.
With a sigh of frustration, Lana shut her eyes. She knew it was futile. She wouldn’t sleep all night. Not with Cam’s steady, even breathing, the gentle musk of his cologne or his something or other, shampoo or deodorant or laundry soap in her nose, and his skin burning a hole straight through her heart.