The Secret (Magnolia Grove #4)

by J. B. McGee

  She threads her fingers in my hair.

  “What does it mean, then?”

  “The fruit from the finest guava trees. Juicy fucking melons.”

  She sucks in a breath, then arches, pushing herself against me.

  “But I think I’m going to add my own definition to the Urban Dictionary. Cammie’s Tits: My favorite coconuts.”

  “Don’t you dare!”

  “Maybe I’ll just make a dictionary for us and add it there,” I say in between sucking my way down her taut stomach.

  “Now, that’d be hot.”

  Note to self: Define us. Give her the world. And a fucking dictionary.

  I’m on call this weekend. We were about to hop in the shower together when a call came in for someone having chest pains right outside of the neighborhood. I kissed her, told her to be ready when I got back, and headed out, annoyed that once again I felt torn between being there for someone else and her.

  Luckily, I’m only on call—just a first responder—so the call is quick. Ten minutes later, and I’m already back on my way home because the paramedics arrived before me. The person’s vitals were good, but that doesn’t always mean anything. And I know some medical professionals think you can look at someone to determine their severity, but I know better than judging on that criteria.

  Statistically, though, only six percent of chest pain cases in emergency medicine are actually life-threatening. Of course, when I think about that, it just makes my own hurt so fucking bad. I guess Violet doesn’t really fall into that statistic. By the time she got to the hospital, there wasn’t any pain because she was in cardiac arrest, but she was life-threatening with a true heart condition.

  Pulling back into the parking lot, I push her to the back of my mind. As far back as I ever can send her. Today is about Cammie. It’s the first Sunday since the fallout with her parents, since her father found us in that compromising position at Rind ‘N Grind. Just thinking about the son of a bitch makes my blood boil, but for the last nine years, I’ve been working on my self-control and my rage where he’s concerned in an effort to prove I’m not what he said I am. It’s funny because I said I don’t give a damn about what anyone thinks of me, and I think there’s truth in that. But I heard it enough from him that I think I started to believe it about myself until I realized that day at the springs it wasn’t true. And there’s a difference between caring what someone else thinks of you and what you think of yourself.

  I’m not who he thinks I am.

  But apparently Sundays aren’t so much about him. I know based on her conversation on the phone with Oliver her mother is due to call today, and I’m worried that she won’t since they’ve made no attempt to reach out to her.

  I told her to just give them some time earlier in the week after she got settled in the guest house. I, of all people, know how hard that advice is to take.

  Exiting my car, I walk around the yard to the guesthouse. I knock first because even though I have a key, it’s not my place. It’s hers. It’s one thing for her to invite me in, ask me to stay over, but it’s another to just barge in like I, well, own the place.

  When she doesn’t answer, I debate what to do. She could just be in the shower still. I know she’s here because her car is out front. Dammit. Unlocking the door, I toss my keys on the table. “Cam. I’m back.”

  Nothing.

  Walking to the bathroom, I pause with my knuckles in the air. Vomiting. Is she sick? Sniffing. Maybe she’s crying. I tap on the door. “Vi—I mean Cam.” Fucking déjà vu. I clear my throat. “Cam, are you okay?”

  “I’ll be right out,” she says, totally ignoring my slipup. At least for the moment.

  The commode flushes, and the water turns on. She swings the door open, and her face is pale.

  “You’re sick.”

  She gives me a weak smile. “I just need food.”

  Well, that’s the opposite of what I heard last time. And the opposite of what someone would say if they have a stomach virus or if it was the first time it happened. Wait. The medic in me starts going through my checklist. She’s sick. She needs food. I swallow. Do I say anything? “Do you puke often when you’re hungry?”

  She shakes her head. “I’m fine,” she says in a reassuring tone. “Don’t worry about me.”

  I nod, watching her as she sidesteps me. I’m not going to be able to let this go. We haven’t had sex. I know she’s not pregnant with my child. “Can I ask you something without you getting pissed at me?”

  She shrugs. “Since when did you ever care whether I was going to get pissed at you?”

  “Ha. Fair enough.” I run my hands through my hair, debating whether to just let it go. I’m really going to look like an ass if I ask her. Or a hover boyfriend. I’m sure she knows about all the shit that went down with Vi and the whole eating disorder because of Wells. Maybe I should just wait and see if she gets sick again.

  “So, are you gonna ask?”

  “Do you still feel like going out on our date? If not, I can bring something back.”

  “I thought you were about to ask something else.”

  “Like if you could possibly be pregnant?”

  She gives her head a little nod, and a tear trickles down her cheek. Shit. “Are you late, Cam?”

  She nods again. “Just a couple of days.”

  Pinching the bridge of my nose, I start to pace. “I thought you’re on the pill.”

  “I am.”

  “Been on antibiotics lately?” I ask.

  “No.”

  “Are you taking them at the same time every day, not missing any doses?”

  “Uh-huh. But they aren’t one hundred percent. You know this.”

  “Have you taken a test?”

  “Too scared to do that. Ignorance is bliss.”

  “But is it bliss? Because you could just be psyching yourself out. You could be torturing yourself with that scenario and stressing yourself out.”

  She gives me a small smile. “Ah, you’re always the voice of reason.”

  “Not always.” I smirk. “Do you really think you’ll feel better if you eat?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then, let’s go on our little date. We’ll take a detour on the way home and get you a test.” I cross the small room to the other side and pull her into my arms, kissing her head. “No matter what, it’s going to be okay.”

  “I can’t imagine having Oliver in my life forever. And I’ve been afraid to mention it to you for fear you’d bail.”

  “Don’t ever keep a scary or bad secret from me, Cam. I wasn’t the only one who made that promise.”

  “You’re right.”

  When she goes into the bedroom to get dressed, I notice she left her phone on the kitchen table. I not so accidentally swipe her screen, immediately going to the call log in hopes her mother called while I was gone. I could have just asked her. I probably should have. But I didn’t want to bring it up, if by chance, she wasn’t thinking about it.

  Now I feel like a shithead for doing that.

  Note to self: Never breach her privacy again.

  It’s been about a month since Cammie moved out of her place with Oliver and into Mom’s guest house. I wish I could say that everything has been amazing since then, but that’s not the case. When she hung up with Oliver that day in the apartment they used to share together, of course the ass didn’t do what he was supposed to do.

  He’s made Cammie look like a cheating whore by playing the victim. I didn’t think there was any redemption for him, but if there was, it’s vanished as he’s demonstrated there aren’t enough obscene words in the dictionary to adequately describe how much I fucking loathe him. I wish she’d out his ass. But one of the things I love about her is that she’s not vindictive. Or a bitch even if she used that word once to describe herself, and I playfully let her hear me use it in a sentence of my own.

  Three weeks ago, we had our official first date, which included buying a pregnancy test. Thank fuck that was neg
ative. It doesn’t matter that we’ve known each other our entire lives. I was not ready to share her, but I kept hyping myself up the entire time we were out that it’d all be okay—picturing her with a round belly—and then being smacked with the realization it’d be Oliverfucktwists.

  The sensible side of me knew the statistics were in her favor. The side of me that knows how statistics affect the people I love—and me—was damn near terrified it was going to be positive.

  Had it been positive, it would have only complicated matters. But I do wonder if her parents would be behaving differently if they thought they had a little grandbaby, an heir, on the way. But her child technically wouldn’t be an heir. That’d be Wells’ child.

  Spencer men.

  As I sit at the same table at Rind ‘N Grind I shared with Cammie, I shake my head, balling my hands in fists. It was a month ago when her father caught us a little too cozy. It’s been nine years since the day he told me to stay away from Cammie in the hospital. As guilty as I felt for the bad, wrong choices I’ve made, I thought Cam and I would be okay, that tensions were just running high. As pissed as I was, it kind of went in one ear and out of the other.

  I should have known better than to take her some place she loves, like Rind ‘N Grind, some place where she’s well known. And then to be affectionate with her. But it never crossed my mind we were really hiding something from someone. We’d already agreed we wouldn’t keep our feelings a secret in public, but we should have waited until after we’d told her parents.

  That’s my fault.

  Once again, my actions have caused her pain because neither Mr. Spencer nor Mrs. Spencer will take her calls. They changed the gate access code to their home. When she tried to go there to talk to them after they kept sending her calls to voicemail, she couldn’t even get in to see them, to explain, to give them her side. I understand a parent siding with one child over the other. But this isn’t a sibling version of he said, she said. They fucking took Oliver’s word and the little Mr. Spencer saw without even giving her a chance.

  This isn’t all that surprising, though, really. That day in the hospital, it became clear Mr. Spencer wasn’t the kind of man I thought he was. At the same time, that day proved there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for what he thought was the well-being of his kids. Or so I thought. That’s why all this makes a hell of a lot more sense now to me. It’s not just that he doesn’t think I’m worthy enough for her, that he doesn’t like me. It’s so much more than that.

  But, for the life of me, I can’t figure out how a mother turns her back on her daughter the way Mrs. Spencer has done to Cammie. It’s totally uncharacteristic for her. The only thing I can think of is that she didn’t have a choice. Well, I technically didn’t think of it. Cammie did. There’s a prenuptial agreement between her parents. I put nothing past her father. To think I thought the women of Magnolia Grove took social standing and their reputations the most serious, I know now he cares more than any of us about the optics. Maybe I realized that nine years ago in that hospital, but I was too upset to understand what was happening, that he was trying to manipulate the situation so the light shone favorably on his family, not ours. Did he ever give a damn about us?

  Regardless, he doesn’t make idle threats. I grip my coffee mug a little tighter, letting the heat radiate through my hands. The clock above the glass door shows he’s ten minutes late. Stupid fucker. He comes here every day. Well, he used to until I started coming here to work and wait for him in an effort to catch him. I’ve got a few things I need to get off my chest.

  Cammie doesn’t know I’ve been doing this. I’m not sure how she’ll feel if she finds out. I’m not stupid, though. She says the swelling around her eyes is just fluid retention. That’s bullshit. The bags are from losing fluid in the form of tears. It kills me to see her upset like this, and I’m not going to sit back and do nothing. Not anymore like I did for so long. We’re together now. More than anything, I want to prove to her I am there for her through anything. Like the wedding. I’ve been by her side as she’s undone every single detail, as she’s gotten stares, and when it’s been obvious people are talking about her and us behind our backs.

  Today, instead of driving to Rind ‘N Grind and having my car give away that I’m here, I walked. There’s no evidence that I’m here. My hope is that will make Mr. Spencer think I’ve given up on seeing him.

  When the time he usually arrives comes and goes, I slump in my chair. I am determined to try to fix this between them, but I’m not going to make decisions for the both of us, Cammie and me, anymore. Well, at least decisions that are detrimental to our relationship. When Mr. Spencer cornered me in the hospital, and then after Violet died, I thought what I was doing was best for Cammie. She probably doesn’t know it, but I chose the words on the notes I left for her this morning carefully. Back then, I sacrificed exploring this deep connection we have, sacrificed my feelings, because once you hear it enough times, you start to believe it. I genuinely thought she deserved better. In the beginning, yeah, it was an attempt to save her from the agony I was experiencing at the loss of someone I loved so damn much. I picked a sucky way to do that. But I needed control over something in my life. How I ended things with her was all I had.

  What I was too stupid to know then was that I loved her. That every time I worked myself up that I was good enough, that I was worthy, I got knocked down. It was like the universe was against us.

  Is against us.

  I’m not sure what fool said love shouldn’t be scary, but they clearly never experienced the kind of intoxicating, spellbinding euphoria I’ve been in for the last month. And even before we ever kissed, that year leading up to Violet’s death when I knew I liked being around her, liked even more to annoy the hell out of her, and looked forward to moments when I could touch her—that was love.

  To everyone else, we’ve only technically been together a month. And it’s no secret she just came out of a sham of a relationship with Olivertwit or whatever the hell funny name that Amie calls him. But to me, I know without a doubt, if things had been different when we were younger, she would have never settled for him in the first place. Because she would have been with me for nine years instead of a month. She would have had her bar set so high, the likes of Oliver would have been laughable. But instead, I let her down. To everyone else, the likes of Holden Masters is laughable.

  Back then, even now, she’s had no way of knowing how much more she deserved or should expect. Her father should have taught her that. Fuck, Wells could have taught her that. Ha. Who am I kidding? The thought of him with my sister makes me clench my hands into fists. Screw the Spencer men.

  They’re no better than my father was.

  And I’m nothing like him. If I’d been given the chance, I sure as hell would have tried to show Violet how much she deserved. And it would have been a hell of a lot more than Wells Spencer.

  Wells. I swallow, narrowing my eyes. Surely he’s talked to Cammie since this all went down. And if he has, why hasn’t he done something to intervene for good or bad? He acted like he was such a better brother than me. Now’s his chance to prove it. Talk’s cheap.

  I slide my finger over the mouse pad of my laptop and put the cursor in the search box before typing, “Wells Spencer”. Hesitating a moment, I quickly press enter. In less than a second, results are listed, and I scroll over the link for the contact details I know belong to him—the ones that list Cammie as a relative. I can’t believe I’m about to do this. Of all the people, Wells Fucking Spencer.

  Daniel, one of the medics, is having a baby today. I offered to take his shift so he could be off. Glancing at my watch, there’s less than thirty minutes before I’m due to report. To call him or to wait?

  All I can think of is how that went the last time. Can I actually trust him now?

  My eyes flutter open to the aroma of coffee filling my nostrils, and something about that makes everything inside of me warm. Not because I’ve suddenly started to like the s
tuff since being with Holden. It still has a horrible aftertaste. I’ve tried it a few times. He’s even added all kinds of stuff to try to make it more appealing, but I just can’t bring myself to taking it up. I cringe at the quick reminder of the bitterness. No. The reason the thought of coffee warms me is because it means he was here, that this isn’t a dream. Every morning I wake up in disbelief this is all happening. It’s hard to explain, but it’s just comforting. I pull the covers up and close my eyes. Just a few minutes longer in this comfy bed.

  That’s when the feelings of joy are quickly replaced with dread. It’s been a month since I moved from Oliver’s apartment to here, from sharing a bed with him to sharing one with Holden. Maybe dread isn’t the right word. Most mornings, I feel like a slut even though he was the one cheating on me. Even though if Holden hadn’t pushed me away years ago, I would have never been with Oliver. Because if I’m honest with myself, every day that passes, I’m more and more convinced I’m right where I need to be. But regardless of these two men, it’s been a month of being estranged from my parents because of my choice to call off the wedding and immediately move forward with this relationship. Is it a rebound? Am I rebelling? I’ve asked myself this what seems like a hundred thousand times. Each time, the answer is the same. I was shocked it was Holden in the cabana. There was a part of me that was angry thinking he was just playing more games with me the way he always has. But it’s become clear each day this isn’t a game to him. Although, he’s clearly in it to win it. And by it, I mean me.

  Maybe he didn’t know how to do that when we were younger, but he’s doing a damn good job now.

  Being in this neighborhood, though, sharing a property with his mother, is sometimes more than I can handle. I’m not sure why I’m still here. Don’t get me wrong, the place more than meets my needs. It’s open with lots of windows. With rich colors, modern yet classic tapestries, it looks like it came straight from the pages of Cottage Living. I would know. I have a subscription. That reminds me. I need to change my address with them.