His erection raged just as strong in her hand as she exhaled with a sigh. “That was…” she swallowed. “That was…”
“Delicious,” Cam finished for her, sucking his fingers clean. She tasted sweet and tangy and all Lydia.
Her eyes darkened. “Why don’t we go inside so I can take care of you now.”
Cam looked to the house as a light clicked on in his kitchen. Lydia followed his gaze, her eyes widening in alarm. “Oh, God. Is Maddie awake?” She covered a mouth with her hand, moving it to the blush on her cheeks. “Oh, shit.”
The ground below him seemed to be suddenly made of shifting sawdust, and Cam could barely keep his footing. “Y-yeah. I should probably get back inside,” he slurred.
Lydia nodded. “Of course. I-I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Cam watched as she ran back to the guest house before he too, entered his cottage. He fell back on the floor below Callie, who had resumed her place on the couch. She blinked awake with a knowing grin.
“Shut up,” he mumbled.
‡
Chapter Seventeen
The next day, Cam woke up face down, cheek smashed into the wood planks. His skin stuck to the floorboards as he lifted his face and left an oily circle as a sort of footprint, evidence of last night’s antics.
Two feet appeared in front of him and he groaned, looking up to find Callie standing there with a couple mugs of steaming coffee. “Here you go, sleepyhead.
Pushing himself off the floor, he slapped his hands against his pants, dusting off non-existent dirt. “Thanks,” he muttered taking the coffee.
“Wow, you are really not a morning person,” Callie said cheerfully.
“And you have either the world’s best hangover, or you weren’t nearly as drunk as I was last night.”
She smirked, lifting the mug to her lips. “I just have more experience than you do.”
He snorted. “Somehow, I doubt that. I’ve got almost ten years on you.”
“Ah, yes, but you’re out of practice…” She paused, wiggling her eyebrows. “In more ways than one.”
He walked past her to the kitchen sink and splashed some water on his face. “Don’t remind me. I just hope things haven’t changed too much in that department.” Stretching an arm overhead, he glanced at the clock. He was going to have to change the battery—it must have died last night. But wait, it wasn’t dead… there was a click from the clock as the minute hand ticked. “It’s not… it can’t be 11:30 already, is it?”
“Sure is, sleepyhead.” Callie sat at the table, reading something on her phone.
“Shit!” He dropped the coffee mug in the sink and scrambled around, grabbing his keys and wallet… dammit, where did he put his wallet? “I was supposed to pick Maddie up from school at 11:00. She has a press conference today.”
“Cam, stop. Slow down—you cannot go into the school looking like that. And—” Callie inhaled before waving her hand in front of her nose. “And smelling like that. You wreak of alcohol.”
“I can’t just leave her there to wait. I’m thirty minutes late.” Ah, there it is. The wallet was tucked under his recliner and he bent down on hands and knees to retrieve it.
“At least wash your face and arms… really quickly.” She tossed him a bar of hand soap that was in the bathroom. “I’ll get you a different shirt.”
He did as she said and just as he was running out the door, Callie followed him, locking up behind her. “You realize this is the second time in one year you’ve gotten one of your brothers drunk and made them late for something?”
“To be fair, Noah got me drunk on Father’s Day. Not the other way around.”
Glancing up and down at each of them, he shook his head. She was in a pair of his boxers, Uggs, and an oversized t-shirt with her coat thrown carelessly over top. He was in his jeans from yesterday and an undershirt. He changed into the clean one as he started up the truck. “We’re quite the sight, huh?
*
Maddie waited on a bench outside the school, fairly patiently for a ten-year-old. She swung her legs back and forth, her feet not quite touching the ground. Where in the world was Cam? Unless Maddie had the time wrong, he was over thirty minutes late.
Lydia’s mind wandered to last night. The kiss. The taste of wine on his tongue. She shivered, remembering the pulsing orgasm she’d had by the lake only hours ago. She should have checked on him this morning before coming over to the school.
Maddie bounced her knee, staring into the semi-circle, biting her lip. The kid was clearly anxious—whether about her dad’s tardiness or because of the looming press conference, Lydia wasn’t sure.
The camera strap dug into the back of her neck, the weight like a giant boulder. She lifted her SLR and focused on Maddie’s eyelashes from behind her—like a quasi-profile shot and the empty road in the background. Click. Maddie’s head jerked around and looked at Lydia, her lips pursed in a mixture of confusion and anxiety. Click.
“Hey,” she objected, “I wasn’t even smiling.” She beamed and put an arm around the back of the bench. “Take another.”
Lydia laughed and zoomed in for a close-up of her sweet face—that big, toothy grin. Click. That was a throw-away shot. They always needed a couple of standard portraits, but rarely were they featured on anything but a cover story. As she walked in closer, she was only an arm’s reach away and stretched to tickle Maddie. She responded perfectly, throwing her head back in a fit of laugher. Click. That right there was the money shot—one that would make a perfect Father’s Day gift for Cam. Not that he’d want any sort of gift from Lydia—not after she had the dreaded conversation with him.
Lydia looked at the back of her camera, scrolling through the pictures she just took. The first one was terribly depressing. A melancholy little girl wringing her hands, waiting for her no-show father. It was exactly what Mara wanted her to capture. Lydia’s finger hovered over the delete button and before she could think too hard about it, she deleted the image.
Her chest collapsed into a sigh. Nothing was ever easy. She lowered herself next to Maddie onto the bench, resting the camera in her lap. “You’re sure he said eleven?”
Maddie nodded, her eyes wet.
“And you tried calling him?”
She swiped her arm from elbow to wrist across her eyes. “I think his battery died. He forgets to charge it when I’m not there.”
The hair on the back of Lydia’s neck prickled to attention. “You weren’t home last night?”
“Nope, my Grandma and I always hang out on Thursday nights. Last night Dad had me spend the night there.”
“What? Why would he—”
“There he is,” Maddie interrupted.
Lydia snapped her mouth shut. If Maddie hadn’t been home—who had turned on the kitchen light?
His truck screeched to a halt at the center of the roundabout, and he jumped out of the car, rushing to Maddie. Her nose scrunched and face twisted as he picked her up in a hug.
He was wearing jeans—the same ones from yesterday, with the smear of white paint and ripped back pocket. His hair was a rumpled mess. As she came closer to say hello, she understood what Maddie’s face was about—he stunk like a homeless man. The smell of day-old wine, sweat, and grease. Clearly, the alcohol he had was more than just a little.
A flash of blonde caught Lydia’s eyes. Getting out of the passenger side was a stunning girl—young. Way too young for Cam… she looked early-twenties at most. Her hair was streaked blond, like a surfer girl, and she was really tan. There was something familiar about her that Lydia couldn’t quite put her finger on. She was dressed in a pair of boxer shorts and an over-sized plain white tee. Cam’s? Lydia stiffened.
How dare he! He had the audacity hook up with Lydia while this twenty-something girl was waiting for him in his house? A gag caught in Lydia’s throat. Oh, God. What if he had been with her before approaching Lydia on the lake?
Lydia bit down on the inside of her cheek to stop herself from saying or do
ing anything stupid. She lifted the camera. Click. She shifted angles. Click. Shifted again. Click.
“At least give me a chance to shower.” Cam’s mouth twitched into a grin and he held a palm out, blocking his face from the lens.
Lydia met his eyes innocently. “It’s eleven-thirty and you haven’t showered yet?” Her eyebrows twitched into an arch.
He looked at her curiously, tilting his head. “It was, uh, kind of a late night last night.”
She smirked at him; the kind of smirk that is less smile and more grimace. “Apparently.”
“You must be the reporter.” The blond was all smiles and cheerfully bounded toward Lydia like a golden retriever puppy. Only the dog’s hair color is natural. “I’m Callie.” She stuck out a hand.
This woman made Lydia’s skin itch. She looked so carefree. So fun and easy and casual. Everything Lydia was not. She glanced down at her own outfit; a tweed pencil skirt that ended just above her kneecaps and a silky light blue button down shirt. She had stupidly chosen to wear it because it reminded her of Cam’s eyes. Now all she wanted was shred it off her body—and not in a sexy, Girls-Gone-Wild kind of way. In an angry, I-want-to-rip-his-balls-off-and-feed-them-to-an-iguana kind of way.
Instead, Lydia shook Callie’s hand with an icy cordiality. “Lydia.” She leaned in and mock-whispered, “You should probably get him in the shower too before the press conference, by the way.” She wasn’t exactly being fair. Her anger was with Cam, not this girl.
“Trust me,” Callie said, still bubbly and animated, “I tried to get him in this morning. He just doesn’t like to listen to anyone but himself.”
Lydia’s blood percolated low in her body, bubbling up to the top of her head. “Uh-huh, I bet you did.”
“Okay.” Cam came over, grabbing Callie by the shoulders and guiding her into the passenger seat. “Well, that’s great. Glad you two met. And thanks for the tip, Lydia. I’ll be sure to shower.”
“Mm,” she said, pretending to be very interested in her camera.
“We’ll see you back here in an hour, right?” Cam jumped back into his truck.
She watched as his truck skidded out of the roundabout toward their home. So much for that, she thought. It was just her luck, though. The first man she’d had feelings for in months… the first sexual urges she’d had since her hormones became balanced, and he was a two-timing, cheating son of a bitch. She stretched her neck to each side, cracking it before she tucked her camera into her bag. On the bright side, at least now, there wasn’t any reason to tell Cam about her involvement with Noah Blue’s article. Glass half full, huh? She glanced at her phone. She had just enough time to grab a coffee from Elsa’s and be back before the press conference began.
*
After grabbing a to-go cup of coffee, she made it back to the school a few minutes before the press conference was scheduled to begin, slipping in through the back doors. Other reporters stood in a line, registering for the press event. For the most part, it was exactly as she had expected. Local papers for Maple Grove and a few others from surrounding lake town regions. A man she recognized from the DC Herald passed her. And soon after, she saw another woman from the Baltimore Record. Rather large papers considering the scope of the story. Were they hoping to get glimpses of Noah Blue or Mistress Vine today?
About twenty feet away, an acquaintance, Max, from the Boston Sun, stood looking at his iPad. “Max?” Lydia smiled and held out a hand to the forty-something journalist. “What are you doing here?”
He smiled and greeted her with an equally warm handshake. “Oh, just following our little media darling, Mistress Vine. It’s not every day a transgender pop star comes to the New England area. What about you?” Lydia opened her mouth to answer, but Max cut her off. “Wait, wait. Let me guess. You want to cover the scandal of a drag queen entering a grammar school? Maybe get some shots of her freaking out and smashing a child’s art piece?” Lydia remembered Mara’s comments the night before, her hand falling protectively to her camera as though it was a family member to be defended.
“Ha ha. You know the City Star loves small town suburbia as much as the next guy.”
He narrowed his eyes, shoving a hand inside his pocket and rocking back on his heels. “Uh-huh. Love slicing it up for breakfast.”
“Not if I can help it,” she responded firmly.
“You ready to move out of New York yet? Boston’s just as great a city…”
Lydia snorted. “Me? In Boston?”
Max laughed and shook his head. “Well if you ever change your mind—”
“If I ever change my mind, I will personally buy you season tickets to the Patriots.”
A small, tinny voice sounded above all the chatter. “Ms. Lydia! Ms. Lydia!”
She turned around to find Troy flailing towards her, all lanky arms and gangly legs. He still had a scowl on his face, but Lydia was beginning to think that maybe Troy just always looked that way. At least during his parents’ divorce. She gave Max a wave. “I’ll catch up with you later.” She turned to Troy. “What’s up?”
“You need your press patch.” He extended his hand, like a miniature media official.
“You mean my press badge?”
He nodded and handed her a laminated rectangle tied to a thin red ribbon. The rectangle was handwritten in child-like script with blue and orange markers. Lydia Ryder, City Star, Photojournalist. She smiled and ran a finger along the edge, recognizing the handwriting as Maddie’s. There was a hand-drawn camera in each corner and a colored-marker portrait of (at least she thought it was) herself. The new badge draped around her neck awkwardly like a kitschy piece of jewelry, but Lydia couldn’t help but smile as she looked down at it.
She approached the front doors of the auditorium, still looking down, mesmerized by her credentials, and reached out a hand to open the heavy doors. Her fingers bumped into someone. “Oh, I’m sorry—” She looked up to find Kyra standing there at the front, like a brick wall. A brick wall with huge knockers.
Her arms were crossed. Her back was straight. And she had on a ready-for-war face. “You’ll have to wait until 12:15 like everyone else.”
“Really?” Lydia squared her shoulders. “I assumed since I’ve been told from the beginning that I was the VIP photojournalist here this weekend, I’d be given a few liberties. But, if that’s how you want to play it, I’ll just wait. Like everyone else.” She gave Kyra a sweet smile.
And if looks could kill, Lydia would have dropped dead right there. Kyra was no doubt expecting her to make a scene—and she refused to give her the satisfaction. What was an extra fifteen minutes? She was still at the front of the line. And no doubt there were plenty of seats in there for… what? All twenty of the people coming?
Mr. Tucker walked up to Kyra, wringing his hands and dragging a faded, white handkerchief across his brow. “Did you do the sound checks?”
“Yes, Mr. Tucker.”
“And Maddie and Cam? Are they here yet?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t seen them.”
His mouth pressed together, making all the pink color drain to white.
“Um, I saw them only half an hour ago,” Lydia interjected. “They were running a little behind, but I’m sure they’ll be here soon.”
Kyra’s glare shadowed her eyes.
“Why Lydia,” Mr. Tucker bellowed. “I didn’t even see you there.”
“You’re having a busy day.” Lydia put on her sweetest smile.
“Well, what are you waiting out here for? You’re our VIP, come on in. Get yourself a great seat.”
He held the auditorium door open and she sauntered in, a little hop in her step, resisting the urge to throw a triumphant glance over her shoulder at Kyra.
Lydia found a seat located front and slightly to the left. Perfect for getting up and moving around but also at a nice angle if she just wanted to photograph from where she was.
She settled in, remembering the express overnight delivery from Mara in her bag.
Opening the envelope, she carefully pulled the proofs out. In red permanent marker, Mara had jotted caption ideas in the margins.
Throughout the week, Lydia had managed to get tons of gorgeous, beautiful pictures of Maddie and Cam. Smiling, happy, affectionate. But the small handful of images Mara had chosen were dreadful. The most awful moments from the contact sheet. Dread rolled in Lydia’s empty stomach. The very first image was the exact one she had promised Cam she wouldn’t use; the one in the coffee shop with him rubbing his temples. Mara’s notes read: Single Father: Overworked or Just Negligent?
She stared at the injustice of it. Cam was a good dad, a good man; this would ruin him. She flipped to the next image, her stomach wrenching into a knot.
It was Maddie dancing on Cam’s feet. Lydia had sent in at least ten different pictures of them, cute as can be, laughing and dancing together. But there it was—the eleventh photograph—Maddie was looking up at her father with sad eyes and a pout and he was rolling his eyes—his sight line looking over toward Kyra, who was in the background. Lydia remembered the moment—Maddie had asked to ride to the auction with Lydia, but Cam had said no. The pout was a reaction to his discipline. As for Kyra in the background, that was just a coincidence. She had happened to walk by and wave at him during the shot. The caption read: Womanizing Father Can’t Focus Long Enough to Parent. The fine hair on the back of her neck prickled with angry goosebumps. If she were a cat, she would have been hissing.
A piece of stationary fell out from between the pictures… a note from Mara. Lydia, he is just a story. Don’t feel bad. Don’t get attached. Just do your job. She squeezed her eyes shut. The nagging feeling in her gut, like a chipmunk attempting to burrow his way out, was all the reminder she needed. Cam was far from just a story. Even with his lies the night before and this young girlfriend of his, she still liked him. And her job wasn’t worth ruining a man’s life over.
Capturing You (Maple Grove Romance Book 1) Page 14