by Liz Isaacson
“Sounds great,” she said, stepping back and reaching for her folder. “Let’s look at this while we eat.”
Dylan ducked around her, a flush in his face that Cami found adorable. He pulled the food out of the oven and put it on two plates while she sat at his table-for-two barely outside of the kitchen.
She placed one palm on the folder. “Do you think I can qualify for a loan for the business?”
“Of course. The Three Rivers Bank gives special rates to locals.” He put a sandwich cut on the diagonal in front of her. She didn’t know how to make it fit with what she knew about Dylan.
“And besides, you live right next door to the guy who gives out the loans.” He shrugged. “Seemed like you and Carole Anne were pretty close.” He watched her, and Cami’s face heated.
“So I told her about you,” she said, thinking of her punishing kick-boxing session from that morning. “And she challenged me to call you. That was all.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Actually, I did.”
He peered at her, those eyes watching her with extreme interest. So much so that he ignored his food. “I did not get a call from you.”
“The call just didn’t connect before I freaked out and hung up.” She stared at him for another moment and then laughed. “Besides, you used the after-hours emergency line to call me.”
“And it worked.”
She rolled her eyes and picked up her sandwich to take a bite. After chewing and swallowing, she said, “So I’ll go talk to Levi tomorrow.”
Dylan took a long drink of his water. “What time are you gonna go? Maybe I could come with you.”
Cami’s chest cinched, and she took another bite of her sandwich. “If you want.”
Dylan watched her for a moment past comfortable, then dropped his gaze to his plate and set down his sandwich. “So you don’t want me to.” He wasn’t asking.
Cami didn’t know what to say, didn’t know why she didn’t want him to come. Yes, you do, a voice whispered in her head. Be honest and tell him.
She took a breath and prepared to speak.
Chapter Thirteen
Dylan didn’t hear much past, “Dylan, I’m scared.” Cami kept talking, but Dylan could only solve one problem at a time.
A few more words obviously entered his mind, because when she finished, he said, “Cami, we can go as slow as you want.”
“It’s just that I have a lot going on right now, especially with the new build, and the high school gym is full of water, and now I have to figure out financing….”
“Pipes at the high school?” Dylan felt like he could eat again, so he picked up his sandwich and took another bite. Cami told him about the leak there, the flooded gym, the meeting with Gerald, all of it.
Dylan liked listening to her talk. Liked that she’d come over after work. Liked not being alone and not relying on Boone for company.
So even though he’d just said they could go slow, nothing in his thought pattern was going less than sixty miles per hour.
They finished eating and moved to the couch, where she showed him the offer. It looked good—a reasonable amount of money for the shop, the building, all the equipment, the insurance, the van.
“It’s everything you want,” he said, glad she’d leaned back into his chest a while ago.
“It is.” She finally closed the folder and relaxed, and Dylan definitely thought he could get used to having her in his life like this. But he switched on the TV and let it carry them through the next bout of silence.
When she left, Dylan kissed her carefully but not deeply, and she was the one to take them to the next level. Dylan stopped it almost immediately, ducking his head and licking his lips to taste her again. “You should go.” He lifted his gaze to her, his meaning clear. Can’t stay and kiss me like that and expect me to go slow.
“Yeah, sure. See you later.” She pressed the folder to her chest and went down the hall, a smile on her face.
Dylan closed the door and leaned into it, a sigh hissing out of his chest like a leaky balloon. “You’re in too deep,” he told himself as he moved their plates from the table to the sink. But he didn’t know how to get out. Wasn’t even sure he wanted to. And that was a whole new feeling for him that he’d have to figure out.
Later that week, he really wanted to see Cami again, but his “slow game” plan was to wait at least three days before contacting her. Now, if she called or texted him before the seventy-two-hours ended, great. But he wasn’t going to pressure her to see him.
She really did have a lot going on, as all the foundational plumbing at the build needed to be done and he didn’t have much business up there for a while.
So he focused on the upcoming Christmas parade, and he scheduled a few hours every morning to go over to the city storage units to check out the vehicles that had been moved there.
When he arrived on Friday morning after a fun evening with the veterans at Courage Reins, he whistled as he entered the huge warehouse.
As Halloween approached, the air cooled a bit, especially in the morning and evenings, and the warehouse wasn’t too hot yet.
He picked up the clipboard that hung on a nail next to the door and scanned the list of vehicles the city would be using in this year’s parade. There were thirteen this year, and Dylan sighed as he saw the Elf Tree House and Santa’s Workshop.
Those floats had dozens of moving parts, and they never worked from year to year. Sometimes he had to rewire the entire float to get all the elves to rotate, and one year he went through the lightbulbs one by one on the workshop float in order to make sure everything that was supposed to flash, in fact, flashed.
He glanced up from the clipboard, a sigh passing through his body. “Not starting with either of those,” he said, walking past the tree house with a pointed glare.
Instead, he stopped next to the Reindeer Galore float and started by checking the electronics panel. All the cords looked good, like they could easily be plugged into the aux inputs of a car.
He got to work, checking all the wires, the connections, and finally climbing up and then down into the car. After hooking everything up, he started the vehicle and said a little prayer.
He got back up onto the float and walked around the reindeer, checking for the lights and motion that should be working now that the electricity was flowing.
This float had never given him much trouble, and it didn’t today either. He flipped pages until he found the Reindeer Galore sheet and he began checking boxes.
Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen…. One by one, he went through each reindeer and made sure everything that needed to be checked was checked. Even Rudolph’s nose didn’t give him any trouble, and Dylan moved onto the next vehicle.
He didn’t quite make it through all the checks on the Three Little Snowmen float before it was time for him to get back to the office, but there was still plenty of time before the parade to get everything up and running.
He texted Bill on his way out, letting him know what he’d done and that he’d recorded it all on the clipboard.
Thanks, Bill sent back. I’ll try to be there next week.
It wasn’t necessary, and sometimes Bill slowed Dylan down, but if he wanted to come over and watch Dylan check wires, he wasn’t going to tell him no.
Back at the office, he checked his phone, hoping Cami had texted him during the short drive between the warehouse and the Electric Company.
Her texts during their three-day hiatuses became less frequent as she struggled to keep up with everything going on in her life. Dylan knew she was stressed with getting all the paperwork started for the loan to buy the plumbing shop, knew the high school job had set her behind in her regular work, knew she was working twelve hours a day just to keep up and not lose any customers. After all, the build would last for two years, but she’d need the support of the community long after that.
Still, he missed her. He wanted to see her every night, not every third. He wanted to hold her
, and kiss her, and confide in her in person, not through a text. He hadn’t felt like this about a woman before, and he didn’t know what to do.
So he didn’t invite himself to her Friday night horseback riding sessions, and he didn’t complain when he didn’t get to see her on Saturday.
He’d invited her to church, and she’d said she’d sit by him and they could go back to her place afterward, something they’d been doing for the past couple of weeks. She had a swing on her back deck, and it was peaceful and quiet there, and he could kiss her whenever he wanted.
And he and Cami would see each other two days in a row, because the barbecue at his parent’s place was on Monday night. “You’re still good for the barbecue tomorrow, right?” he asked as he and Cami left church together. He didn’t want to appear desperate, but he couldn’t imagine having to show up by himself.
“Yeah, I think so.”
She thought so? He quirked an eyebrow at her, but she didn’t see it as she focused on the railroad tracks across the street.
“I have a couple of jobs I said I’d catch up on in the morning.” She danced in front of him and smiled. “But I should be good by three.”
“Great, I’ll come pick you up a few minutes before that.” He beamed down at her but kept his hands in his pockets.
Her golden eyes sparkled like diamonds, and Dylan’s thoughts soared to the gem. He’d been thinking about them a lot lately, which was ridiculous. He and Cami had been dating for a month, and she’d expressly said she thought things were moving too fast.
That was weeks ago, he told himself.
“Let’s go for a drive today,” Cami said as he extracted his keys and unlocked his truck.
“Where do you want to go?”
“Let’s explore a little. Do you know the area very well?”
“Sure, I grew up here.”
“Take me somewhere amazing then.” She gave him one of her gorgeous, full smiles.
“Can we eat first?”
She laughed, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “Eating is a given. But maybe we can find somewhere we’ve never been.”
Dylan’s stomach growled, but he told it to behave. “I like this adventurous side of you.” He slid her a sideways glance. “She doesn’t come out much, does she?”
“She’s hidden behind the seriousness of paying bills and fixing pipes,” Cami admitted. She slid across the seat and lifted the console so she could sit right by him.
“Is this your adventurous side too?” He took her hand in his. “Because now I really like her.”
She giggled and said, “No, this is the side of me that really likes you.”
Dylan forced himself to coast to a stop at the sign. He looked down at her. “I really like you too, Camila.” He leaned over and kissed her. This kiss could’ve really morphed into something serious, something full and round that he’d never forget, something new between them starting after only a few seconds.
But someone behind him honked, startling him away from Cami and eliciting another giggle from her.
“We’ll get back to that,” he said gruffly as he eased through the intersection and set the truck on the road leading past Rivers Merge and north out of town. “Have you ever been up to the Oklahoma border?” he asked.
“Nope. Is there something exciting out there?”
“I don’t know if I’d label it as exciting,” he said. “But just across the border, there’s this tiny little town. I used to go up there with my friends. They serve two things: meat and frozen yogurt.”
Cami scoffed. “Those two things don’t really seem like they go together.”
“They really do, though.” He felt the weight of her gaze on the side of his face, and he glanced at her. “What? They do.”
“So you dip your ribs in yogurt.”
“No, ew.” He laughed. “But the ribs are savory and delicious, and I won’t lie, I’ve dipped my French fries in the yogurt. It’s good.” A few seconds passed before he remembered something else. “Oh, and they’re only open until Halloween, so today’s a great day to go. They’ll close tomorrow.”
“I hope the winter slows down a little,” she said, sighing. “But I don’t see that happening. Rivers Merge is a two-year project.”
Dylan didn’t want to talk about work, so he just said, “Yep,” and asked her if she’d been to the three rivers that had given the town its name.
“Once, when I was little,” she said.
“Well, let’s go there,” he said.
“We don’t have our swimming suits. We’re still in our church clothes.”
He looked at her, his pulse spiking at the mere sight of her. He hoped it always would. “That’s the adventure, sweetheart.”
Dylan felt like someone had taken out his heart and grilled it before stuffing it back inside his chest. He couldn’t stop thinking about grilling, and potato salad, and watermelon. All things his mom had planned or made for the barbecue he and Cami had just arrived for.
“You ready?” he asked from the safety of his truck.
“You know, I think I am.” Cami smiled at him and opened the door to get out, a picture of ease, but Dylan knew she had no idea what she was getting into. His older sisters had always been more like mothers to him than sisters, and Second-Mom wasn’t better than Third- or Fourth-Mom.
But he got out of the truck too, following Cami up the sidewalk to his parents’ front porch. She wore a sleeveless shirt the color of apricots and a pair of black jeans. Her lean legs extended down to a pair of simple sandals with more buckles than Dylan knew shoes could have. She’d added a curl to her hair and extra eye makeup to her face today, all of which Dylan liked.
In fact, he was having a hard time disliking anything about her, and he felt himself getting close to the Dangerous Line again. The one that urged him to stomp on the accelerator and make a trip to the jeweler in Amarillo.
He slipped his hand into hers as he stepped past her to open the door. “They’ll be out back,” he said, sure his mom would have the spread already on the tables in anticipation of meeting Cami.
He caught Alecia moving through the sliding glass door, saying, “Get that last bowl, Ruthie. They’ll be here any minute.”
His oldest niece, Ruthie, picked up a green bowl of salad a moment before she saw Dylan. “Uncle Dylan!” She almost dropped the bowl back onto the counter before rushing toward him.
He released Cami’s hand to receive his niece. “Hey-ya, Ruthie. How’ve you been?”
She giggled in his arms and said, “Mama’s teachin’ me the piano now.”
“Oh yeah?” He thought of his oldest sister and her unyielding rules for chores and meal times. He imagined what a piano lesson with her would be like and his appreciation for his niece grew.
“Yeah, I can play a couple of songs. Wanna hear?”
“I’m sure—”
“After lunch, Ruthie.” Alecia filled the doorway leading outside, her words of the no-nonsense variety. She tucked her blonde hair behind her ear and smiled at Cami. “You must be Camila.” She came forward and hugged Cami, who didn’t seem uncomfortable with the hello whatsoever.
“And you must be Alecia.” Cami stepped back and smiled at her. “And you’re Ruthie, obviously.”
Dylan put Ruthie down, and Alecia pointed to the salad bowl. “Mom’s got everything set up outside.” She followed Ruthie outside with the salad, and Dylan took a deep breath.
“That wasn’t so bad,” Cami said.
“That’s the tip of the iceberg,” he muttered, stepping through the sliding glass door first.
Chapter Fourteen
Cami felt like she’d been thrown into a fast food restaurant play place. Kids seemed to be everywhere, and they all dropped what they were doing to swarm toward Dylan. Choruses of “Uncle Dylan!” and “Uncle Dylan’s here!” rang through the sky, almost deafening Cami.
She got the heck out of the way before she got trampled by a dozen under-ten-year-olds. Dylan got mobbed, but his
bass laughter could be heard above the higher shrills of his nieces and nephews.
“He’s obviously well-liked,” a woman said. Not Alecia. She grinned at her younger brother. “I’m Sally, the middle sister.”
“Cami.”
Sally was also a hugger, which didn’t bother Cami as much as it normally did. Maybe the bear hug from Sister One had prepped her for all the hugging. Because Dylan’s mom came next, and she had the shine of tears in her eyes. Cami was very curious about what Dylan had told them about her, but she kept her smile in place and allowed the hugging.
Rose, the youngest, giggled during the hug, sobering long enough to say, “He really likes you, you know.” She held onto Cami’s shoulders for an extra moment and stepped back, only to be replaced by Dylan’s tall, tanned father.
Who also hugged her.
Cami was hugged out for the year by the time Dylan unburied himself from the small humans and his dad retreated back to the grill. Dylan returned to her, several of the kids coming with him.
“You okay?” he asked, taking one look at her and wrapping one arm around her shoulders.
“Fine.” But she leaned into his strength, taking it for herself.
“Guys,” Dylan said to his nieces and nephews. “This is Cami.” He squeezed her shoulder, and she waved to the kids.
“Hey, guys.” She grinned. These Walker’s made cute kids, with blonde hair and blue eyes for miles. “Tell me your names.”
“Start down there,” Dylan drawled in his Texan tone. He pointed to the left end of the row.
“Michael,” the boy said.
“Taryn.”
“Lisa.”
“Bryant.”
“Boyd.” He was clearly the youngest, but had the oldest name, and Cami’s heart softened toward the cute boy.
“Nice to meet you all.”
“Go on, now,” Dylan said. “We’ll come play in a few minutes.”