He smiled. “Truth? Something about them reminds me of you. The curly haired girls always live.”
Connor laughed and the sound ran through me like fire. I took his hand and pressed my thumb against his palm.
Cam and I exchanged glances. Dad was actually here, he didn’t think he was on a cruise today, and he knew exactly who we were. It was like the last three years had never happened.
“How are you?” I asked my father, wishing that question could contain so much more than a simple pleasantry.
He smiled and for a minute, we were back in time. He was young and strong, my daddy, my hero. I saw his wry sense of humor and the strength that shone from him. “I’m old, Peach, and I have to tell you, it’s not all fun and games. But I’ve got some friends here,” he glanced back out the door to the two other men who were slowly crossing the lawn, headed away from us. “And life is good. Time passes, you know?”
I wanted more for my father than just time passing, but in the face of age and dementia, I had no real way to give it to him. I vowed silently to visit. Regularly. Often. All I had to give him now was myself, and I wasn’t going to be afraid anymore.
“Got a new book coming out soon?” Dad asked Connor. “I feel like I’ve been waiting forever.”
Connor blushed and grinned. “I do, sir. I’ll make sure you get an early copy.”
Dad picked up the book he’d set aside and handed it to Connor. “If you sign this one, I’ll be like a celebrity around here, you know.”
Connor looked around for a pen, finding one lying on a small table, and signed the inside cover of the book. “It’s an honor to meet you, sir.” He handed the book back.
“Honor’s mine. I’m not the famous one here.” Dad spoke to Connor, but his eyes had landed on Cam after he’d set the book in his lap. The watery old eyes narrowed and he seemed to know there was something wrong.
“Where’s that cute little blond wife of yours, Cameron? Jess?”
Cameron’s eyes dropped and he missed a few beats. Dad’s face changed as he watched him, and I could see that he understood that something had happened.
“Jess died two days ago,” Cameron said.
“I’m sorry, son.” Dad had lost his wife, too, and I saw that thread of understanding float between them. Dad seemed to think about this more, and something in his eyes dimmed. He rocked back and forth slightly, and I wondered if he was comforting himself somehow, after the thought of Mom’s death had come back to him so unexpectedly.
“You okay, Dad?” I asked.
He turned his head toward me—a beat too late—and I knew he’d disappeared again. “Maddie, you’d better get going before the ship leaves port.” His voice was soft, almost like even he didn’t believe his words.
“Dad…” I wanted to say something to bring him back. I was angry at him for switching off like that, for leaving us sitting here while he went off to wherever it was he went when the world was too much. I shook my head and pulled my hand from Connor’s, balling my fists in my lap.
“We’d better get going,” Cam said, rising.
“Thanks for the visit,” Dad said, a false cheer in his voice, the kind you used with people you barely knew. “Think I’ll take a little nap till we’re underway.”
“Sure,” I said, choking on tears that were suddenly clogging my throat. “We’ll see you later.”
Connor’s arm went around my shoulders as we left him there, rocking slowly and re-embarking on his never-ending cruise. We thanked Alex on the way out and then found ourselves back in the parking lot.
“He was right there,” I said, “and then he was gone. Just like that.”
“It was the mention of Jess,” Cam said, not making eye contact, but staring off into the distance. “He didn’t survive the pain of losing Mom. He shoved it into a box and decided to never open it again. The lid popped off when I told him about Jess.”
We stood in silence for a moment. I wondered how much of my father’s condition was self-wrought. Was it possible that if something was painful enough to think about, a person might choose to turn off their entire mind to avoid it? Was my father really that weak? Or had his love for my mother really been that great? Would that happen to Cam? To me?
“I was thinking,” Cam said, breaking the difficult silence that had settled on us like a heavy cloak in the early fall warmth. “What if I came back up with you?”
I stared at him, and then found myself nodding. I didn’t know if we could share the trailer, but I was willing to try for Cam. I could sleep at Connor’s.
“Are Chance and Sam Palmer still the local crew?” Cam had worked with the brothers during the summers when he was in high school and college, building cabins, fixing decks, and doing whatever odd jobs they brought in.
I nodded.
“Think they could use some help now?”
“What about your job?” I marveled that Cam could walk away from his career in Hollywood.
“I’m in between projects. I took time off when Jess got sick.”
“Then yeah,” I said. “Come up. We’ll find out.”
“Maybe we could work on your place,” he said.
I nodded again. “They’ve been trying to get me to let them winterize it at least,” I said.
Cam nodded and we moved back toward our vehicles, ready to make the climb back to Kings Grove.
*
Connor and I agreed that it would make the most sense for me to stay with him while Cam got settled. I spent half my nights at his house anyway, and he had an extra laptop that he’d put photo editing software on as soon as we’d discovered the root of the picture-stealing incident.
We settled Cam in the trailer. He didn’t have any clothes, so Connor went home to get some things for him to borrow.
“Will you be okay up here by yourself?” I asked him as he walked us back to Connor’s car.
He looked around at the trees, the half-built house, and nodded. He took a deep breath and stretched his arms wide. “I think so,” he said. “In a lot of ways, this feels like coming home.”
I smiled. I knew what he meant. This place was in our blood. “It’s yours too, you know.” Jack had casually disregarded my brother’s claim on this property. And when we’d asked him about building, he’d been so angry with me that he’d given me permission to do whatever I wanted. The less he’d had to speak with me, the better, I guessed.
But the thought seemed to be growing legs now. Cam’s eyes narrowed at me, and he turned around slowly, as if seeing the sham of a mansion for the first time.
“I’ll track down the Palmer brothers in the morning,” he said. “We’ll see what we can do about this mess.”
I nodded. It made me happy to believe that someone might take action where I’d been able only to muddle around in my indecision.
*
I drove over to see Cam on my break from the diner the next day, and was only a little bit surprised to find the Palmer Construction truck parked at the top of the hill. Sam and Chance sat with Cam at the picnic table, a roll of drawing paper spread between them.
Cam was talking excitedly, and the brothers were nodding along.
“Hey boys,” I said, stepping out of the car. “Looks like you’re plotting something.”
“Maddie, come sit down,” Cam said. He was smiling. “I have a proposal for you.”
I had no idea what he was going to propose, but the fact that the idea made him smile had me ready to agree to just about anything.
“Let’s build the cabin that should have been here in the first place. For you and me.” His dark eyes gleamed, and I glanced at the brothers.
“I’d love to, but…” I didn’t want to talk about my financial problems in front of Sam and Chance. They knew enough based on the fact that I’d called off construction the first time. “If I could afford to do that, I would have done it,” I told him in a low voice.
“Don’t worry about that,” Chance said, chuckling. “Your brother pledged himself to us a
s slave labor for the next three years.”
“He did what?” I gaped at Cam.
“I don’t want to go back to LA,” he said. “I need to start again. But first, I need to do something. Something that will burn me up every day so I can sleep at night. Something that will pull every ounce of energy I have in me. I remember how tired I was, those summers that I worked up here. I need that. It’ll keep me moving forward. I just…” he looked down at the table. “That’s what I need for now,” he finished quietly.
I nodded. “But if you’re so busy working on other projects, how will you get anything done here?”
“It’s our filler project,” Sam said. “When we’re slow, we’ll work on it. When we’re slammed, we put it aside. Can’t be much worse than it is now.”
I smiled. It was a good plan. “Okay,” I said.
“One thing,” Cam said, looking at me again. “I need somewhere to live in the meantime.”
“Right.” I wasn’t sure what he was getting at. I wasn’t giving up the trailer, not yet. Things with Connor were great, but we weren’t ready to officially move in together. “And…?”
“So the first thing we do is build the guest house. Two bedrooms,” he said, pressing the roll of paper between them flat. “These guys are slow right now. We’ll have this built in three weeks—at least enough to live in.”
I couldn’t help that my jaw dropped open. “Why didn’t I think of this plan? I’ve been living in this stupid trailer forever.”
“You’re the younger sibling for a reason,” Cam quipped. “I’m the smarter, more seasoned sibling. I’m the one with the good ideas.”
“Oh, I see.”
Chance and Sam grinned at me, Chance’s blue eyes sparkling in a way that made me wonder how the hell he was still single, and understand what had Miranda speechless half the time.
“Can you stay with Connor for a little while?” Cam asked.
“I’ll need to ask him,” I said. I doubted there would be an issue. And if wasn’t indefinite, I didn’t feel like I was trapping him into anything. “Guess you guys better get to work, then,” I said, rising. “And I need to get back to the diner.”
I drove back into town, my heart lighter. Cam would be okay, and one of my biggest problems had been lifted from my back.
*
When I mentioned Cam’s idea to Connor at his house that evening, his bright eyes glowed. “Of course you can stay here. As long as you want to.”
“Are you sure I won’t be in your way? I mean, now that you’re working again and everything?” I sat on the floor across the low coffee table from him, a mug of tea between my palms.
He shook his head. “I work better when you’re here,” he said.
“I’m not going to distract you?” I asked. I hated the idea that I had invited myself into his life—maybe further than he would have done on his own.
“I was kind of hoping you might distract me a little bit,” he said, raising a playful eyebrow. His lips pulled into his sexy half grin.
“Well, I was thinking of taking up the drums,” I said, laughing.
He stood up and walked around the table, pulling me to my feet. “Oh really?”
“I’ve always admired Keith Moon.”
He nodded, laughing, and pressed his lips to mine.
“Phil Collins, too,” I said, my words smothered against his smiling lips.
“Are you done?” He asked.
I nodded. “That’s all the drummers I know.”
He shook his head. “I guess we’ll have to spend some of our time giving you an education in great rock drummers, too, then.”
“I guess we will.”
“But maybe you could distract me first.” He was walking me backwards toward the stairs as he spoke, half kissing me as he talked.
My calf hit the bottom stair and I took a backwards step up, taking my arms from around his waist, and pulling my shirt off over my head. I dropped it at his feet and said, “Is this distracting at all?”
He shook his head slightly, daring me to take it further.
“Upstairs,” I suggested, and within minutes we were rolling in the warmth of his big bed before a window filled with giant trees and moonlight. When we’d finished, our breathing slowed at the same pace, and after a while, he rolled to lay beside me, looking into my face.
“You are pretty distracting,” he said.
“Good.”
“So you can stay here and distract me as long as you’d like.”
I grinned at him and he pulled me into his arms and then pulled the comforter over us both. I fell asleep in the comfort of his arms, and awoke early the next morning to a smoldering fire god looking for even more distraction, which I was happy to provide.
Chapter 22
Cam was as good as his word, and his crazy-ambitious plan. Our two-bedroom guesthouse was completed in a month, and my brother and I settled ourselves there comfortably. Cam had made arrangements to put most of his stuff in storage, relying on some friends to pack things away and sell the house for him. They shipped his important items—clothes, guitar, and a few of Jess’s things that he wanted to keep. But overall, his footprint in our tiny cottage was small. And since I’d been living in a trailer, so was mine. We had the trailer hauled away, and I gave the driver excellent directions to my old house in San Diego, letting him know that parking the monstrosity in the center of the driveway would be perfect. I could imagine Jack’s face when he came home to that. I told myself that this one small revenge would close that chapter of my life, and it really felt that way to me.
The big house was underway, too. Cam had allowed Connor to suggest an architect, and Cam and I sat down with her, explaining our more modest desires for the property. I couldn’t wait to see it done, and to have something there that would fit the landscape, augmenting its beauty rather than competing with it.
Jack’s lawyer had been in touch. Connor’s threat to sue him had worked just as we’d thought it might. The joint account was released to me, along with the proceeds from the sale of the photo.
“I’m not sure how I feel, having my financial security ensured by Jack’s sale of that picture,” I told Connor one evening as we ate at the diner in town. “I mean, really, that’s me making money off something that hurt you.”
He shook his head. His stubble was grown in and he looked adorably disheveled. He was at the very end of the book he was working on, and he barely took a break to sleep. I’d had to drag him from the house to go find food. “It’s not like you went out and sold it yourself,” he said. “And it’s amazing, really, that something good can come from it.” He took my hand across the table. “I’m happy about it.”
I nodded. He was right. Though if the money should go to anyone, it probably should have been him. Fortunately, he didn’t have the kind of immediate need I did.
My photography business had grown, and I was often down in the valley for shoots, but I did all my editing in the comfortable office Connor had set up for me in his house. We worked side by side, me trying to concentrate on getting things right, while the fire god tapped away at his keyboard only feet away from me. Sometimes neither of us managed to avoid distraction.
In the end, the house took almost a full year to complete. In that time, Cam got what he’d been hoping for. He worked hard, and almost constantly, pushing his body to its limits every day so that he could fall into bed and sleep, with little energy left to think about much. I know he missed Jess. There was one picture of her in the bedroom he used in the cottage, and he often paged through the book I’d given him when he thought I wasn’t looking. But I thought maybe he was doing better. He spent time with Connor and I sometimes, playing board games or going down to the valley to catch a movie.
The winter wasn’t a bad one, despite the predictions of massive snow. As a result, construction continued almost without stop throughout the winter, and Cam showed up at the diner at the end of my shift in the late summer.
“You getting off s
oon, sis?” He asked from the other side of the counter as I refilled ketchup bottles. I didn’t need the money from the diner much now, but I enjoyed spending time with Miranda, and it was a good opportunity to keep tabs on the news in town.
I nodded. “Why? What’s up?”
“Connor and I have a surprise for you,” he said. He almost smiled as he said it. The light hadn’t returned to his dark eyes, and he looked more broody than pleased most of the time. But he seemed almost happy today.
“Okay…” I was not a big fan of surprises at this point. Life was best when I knew where it was headed.
“Just come to the house when you get off, okay?”
“Our house?”
Cam nodded. “Our house.”
I watched him walk out and get on the motorcycle parked outside, wishing I could find a way to make him really happy again. But that would take time. If I thought life had put me through the ringer, then my brother had been steamrolled, and it took a lot to recover from that.
I drove up the hill to the house slowly, not sure what to expect. As I topped the rise, I was surprised to see it lit up, bright golden light spilling from every window of the two-story structure that stood beneath the tall trees. I parked, marveling at all the little touches that had been completed since I’d last stopped by. Despite the fact that I technically lived here, I spent most of my time at Connor’s, giving my brother the space he seemed to need. But now I saw that I’d missed a lot.
The wooden structure blended well into the environment, all shades of brown and dark green accents. A huge deck stood out to the side and off the back, giving incredible views of the hillside and stream below. The front door stood wide open tonight, and music wafted toward me, along with an incredible smell. Someone was cooking.
I walked in slowly, wondering where my brother might be. And those first steps into the living room would stick with me for the rest of my life. The room glowed from firelight and the LED candles that were lit on every surface. Connor and Cam both stood on the other side of the long dining table, grinning like crazy people.
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