by Melanie Rawn
“Most people aren’t that smart.” He paused. “Wait a minute. If they were that smart—”
“—that’s a whole ’nother kettle of worms, as Lulah would say. When it gets to the point of actively hoodwinking someone you’re supposed to love . . .” She shook her head. “That’s dishonorable, and just plain nasty.” She watched Evan extricate himself and saunter off to schmooze some more, leaving a misty-eyed Shawntel behind. Shaking her head, she was about to ask if Cam wanted to flag down one of the circling waiters for a drink when she felt him wobble a bit. “Cam?”
“Holy shit,” he breathed, wide-eyed gaze fixed on someone near the foyer doors. “Where did he come from?”
She squinted a bit, unerringly found the object of his shocked stare, and chuckled. Curling a hand around his elbow, she coaxed him gently toward the nearest waiter and snagged a glass of something. “Easy, Peaches. To quote the bard, ‘You’re leaving tongue-marks on the carpet.’ Or you would be, if this wasn’t a hardwood floor. Further, I know ‘you’d walk on your lips through busted glass if you could get next to that’—but what good would your lips do you then? Here, drink. That is Jamieson Tyler Stirling, Esquire, acting Pocahontas County District Attorney, and candidate in November for same. He’s thirty-four, B.A. from William and Mary, J.D. from Yale, and, as may be readily ascertained with a single glance, catastrophically gorgeous.”
“Is—is—”
“Come on, drink some more. That’s my boy. Is he gay? Oh, yeah. Is he single? Oh, very. Why don’t you go talk to him?” She considered his poleaxed expression. “Once you can form semicoherent sentences again, anyway. To continue: he likes motorcycles, The Glenlivet, and Linda Ronstadt—or maybe Warren Zevon, or maybe both. Hard to tell.” She waited. Cam just kept staring at what Holly had to admit was a gray-eyed, black-haired, no-man’s-eyelashes-should-be-that-thick walking invitation to sin. “How do I know all this, you ask? Well, you didn’t ask, but I’m going to tell you anyway. At this very moment he has a pair of leather gloves stuffed in the back pocket of his jeans—which fit him quite delightfully, I might add, and don’t tell me not to look, I’m married but I’m not dead. He just now picked up a glass from the tray with The Glenlivet bottle on it. And he’s singing along under his breath to ‘Poor Pitiful Me.’ Of course, the gloves could be just regular driving gloves, but please note that his hair is a mess, which could be either from the wind of a motorcycle ride or from taking off his helmet. I’m hoping the latter, as there are helmet laws in this county, and considering he’s the Acting District Attorney, he’s pretty much obligated to obey them. In any case, you see how simple it is, Watson, once I explain how it’s done.” She waited again. Cam stayed silent. “Plus when he’s not driving something from the county motor pool, he rides his Harley over to dinner at Woodhush. And he went shot-for-shot with us last month with Evan’s collection of single malts.”
At long last the poor man blinked. “He’s changed his drink.”
“Huh?”
Cam half-turned—as if that was all the physical movement he could manage, as if his body would not entirely obey him. As he spoke to Holly, his gaze kept slanting to his left, where Jamey Stirling was now being talked to at great and flirtatious speed by a brace of college-age blondes. “He used to drink Johnnie Walker Black. In law school. Yale,” he added, as if only now recalling the name of the institution. “It was at Yale.”
“I know where you went to law school!” she exclaimed. Grabbing his arm, she pulled, then yanked, and eventually he stumbled a bit and followed her. Out a side door they went, and around a corner of the verandah, and all the while she was talking. “You know him? You do know him! You have a history! You never told me about him.” They fetched up against the porch railing, and Holly glared at her cousin. “You never said a single word—”
“Yeah, I did,” he murmured, staring down into his glass. “I told you about him, kind of, a long time ago—it wasn’t anything. I mean, it was, but—not the kind of thing you talk about. Just—a thing.”
“Eloquent,” she snapped.
“Holly,” he pleaded.
Recognizing genuine distress, she relented. “I’m sorry. Look, do you want to get out of here? You can, you know. Nobody will mind.”
“No. It’s okay. I just—I was startled. I’m fine.” He slugged back the rest of his drink and glanced around for somewhere to put the glass, at last stashing it under a wicker chair. “He looks good,” he said helplessly.
“Yeah. And right now you look like crap on a kaiser roll. Let’s go for a walk.” Holly steered him resolutely off the porch, down the graveled driveway, and out onto the lawn—cursing her stilettos that sank into the grass with every step. When they were well away from the mansion and its floodlights, she picked a bench before a wall of azalea bushes, pointed, and ordered, “Sit.”
“Speak. Heel. Roll over. Good dog.” Cam settled onto the painted wood and leaned back, sprawling long legs. “Okay. And this is all I’m ever gonna say about it,” he warned. “Him, first-year, twenty-one innocent years old. Me, third-year, a jaded twenty-four. Him, trust fund and brand-new Mercedes. Me, three roommates in New Haven’s cheapest apartment building and a six-year-old pickup truck. Him, gorgeous. Me—”
“Hold it right there. You’re gorgeous, too, you moron.”
“Holly, anybody who looks at him—” He shrugged helplessly.
“Yeah, okay, I get the idea. He walks into a room and chairs beg to be sat in. Get to the real story.”
“The first time I saw him . . . all of a sudden I didn’t have any knees. I can still remember every damning detail, believe me,” he went on, mocking himself. “It was a weekend party at Harry and Michelle’s—they married after second year and spent the summer in her grandparents’ house—everybody went over to help paint the place, ’cause that was the deal they made, but they’d spent the summer in bed instead of working on the house—”
“Peaches! Get to the point!”
“Yeah. So Michelle’s invited this guy she knew at William and Mary. He’s only twenty-one—kept skipping grades—and she wants to introduce him around so he’s not completely friendless when classes start the next week. I take one look at him and—”
“No knees?”
“I’m standing there in the living room, sweaty, stubble-faced, wearing the oldest clothes I own, spattered in Plymouth Plum or Roanoke Rose or some other paint with a cutesy colonial name. He breezes in looking like he just finished a photo shoot for GQ. And I swear on everything we hold sacred, four hours later he doesn’t have a speck of paint on him. Like I’d spelled his clothes for him. It was spooky.”
“But he still said he needed a shower, right?”
“How did you know?”
“He was at Woodhush a few weeks ago for lunch. I took him out to the tack room to show him the saddle great-great-whatever-grandpa Goare rode to the Revolution, and you know what the tack room is like when you’re rooting around for the really old stuff. I’m covered in dust and cobwebs, and he’s still immaculate, just exactly like he did have one of your wards on his shirt and jeans—but he says he’s all grungy, and would I mind if he used the hose to rinse off? You’re right, it is spooky.”
“He took off his shirt?”
“Yeah. It was at least ninety, and we had lemonade on the porch while he dried off—Evan got home about then, and ragged on me the whole evening about tucking my tongue back between my teeth—”
Cam shook his head. “He. Took. Off. His. Shirt.”
“Oh.” Holly gnawed on that one for a minute. “Do you mean to tell me—? You and he never—oh, Cam!” She cradled his face between her hands, stroking his cheeks with her thumbs. “Does this have to do with trust fund and gorgeous and brand-new Mercedes?”
“Mostly the ‘gorgeous’ part,” he admitted. “Especially back then. People looked at him and thought six-pack. They looked at me and thought beer.”
She simply stared. He’d felt inferior? Him? Cam Griffen of the straight A
’s and concert-quality piano playing and prodigious magic and big blue eyes and perfectly lethal dimples—
Then she remembered an evening featuring a silk dress that split up the back seam and a diamond that fell out of its setting. “. . . there really ought to be a model or actress or somebody staggeringly gorgeous on your arm. . . .”
“Yeah, okay—I’ve been there, too,” she admitted. “But you never even gave it a chance, did you? Oh, sweetheart, what am I gonna do with you?”
“Leave it alone. I mean it, Holly. Thanks, I love you—but leave it, okay? You can’t fix it, you can’t change it. It’s just—it’s there.” He sighed, then finished ruefully, “Or I guess I should say it’s not there.”
He sat forward on the bench, elbows on knees, spine in a dejected curve as he stared bleakly at the floodlit white mansion. She rubbed her hands gently across his back like she used to do the summer he was ten years old and trying not to cry after his mother died. “You’re a fine, sweet, good man. It’s just not fair.”
“Fair? Life’s supposed to be fair? You’ve gotten idealistic in your old age.”
“I’ve relearned it.”
“For the kids?” He glanced up at her.
“Yeah, now that you mention it. I think that once you become a parent, no matter what’s gone on in your life before the kids, you have to believe in things again. Life, love, hope—all the good old clichés. Maybe not in life’s being fair, exactly, but at least that there’s a chance of it.”
“So tell me, Freckles, what’s your take on the Pandora story?” He smiled with no humor in his eyes. “All the evils fly out of the box to wreak havoc on humans—but at the bottom is Hope. Is that a kindness? Meant to keep us from total despair? Or is it the cruelest joke of all? That in spite of everything, we’re still stupid enough and stubborn enough to hope?”
“You can’t mean that. You’re not that cynical.”
“I’m a lawyer,” he reminded her. Something changed in his face and he squinted at Westmoreland. “There’s something weird about those windows—”
“What?” Turning to look, she saw only the graceful proportions of a restored antebellum Southern mansion three stories high. “What are you talking about?”
“Are you sure nobody’s sensed any magic around here?”
“The place was built more than two hundred years ago, Cam. None of the Nevilles ever had any magic, they never married any of our folk, and if there was any Witchery about the place, somebody would’ve noticed long before now.”
He looked stubborn, then shook his head. “Sorry. For a minute I thought I saw—but it’s nothing.” Pushing himself to his feet, he wrapped long arms around her and went on, “Do me a favor about Jamey, huh? No lectures, no righteous indignation, no ranting and raving, no hugs, no trying to fix it—”
“If you want to make that ‘no hugs’ thing stick, you better let go of me.”
He pretended to consider. “Nah,” he said at last, grinning, and cuddled her closer. “This is nice. You’re softer and mushier than you used to be, and it’s nice.”
“Mushy?! You try having twins sometime, boyo.”
“That was over two years ago,” he reminded her ungallantly, and patted her backside, making her yelp. “Yeah, if I liked girls, you’re the kind of girl I’d like.”
“Soft and mushy.” Holly narrowed her gaze. “You’re gonna want to reconsider your phrasing, there, Peaches. And your next line better be something about the radiance of motherhood.”
“Absolutely luminous,” he said hastily. “Sparkling. Incandescent, even. You glow in the dark. You’re practically radioactive. And don’t call me ‘Peaches’!”
“On one condition.”
It amused her that Cam didn’t bother with a stop at suspicion; he went directly to certainty, prompted by lifelong knowledge of her character—or lack of same. “No,” he announced.
She only smiled.
“How about a compromise?” he pleaded. “If I tell you what went on at Yale, will you—I don’t know, relent, or something? Maybe?”
Seven
January 1994
“SO WHAT HAPPENED TO MORGAN?” Jamey asked, weaving his way through the cramped tangle of furniture in Cam’s living room. “Nobody’s seen him since we left for Christmas.”
“He’s gone.” Cam spoke to the beer bottle between his palms. “Home.”
“What? How come? I know he didn’t flunk out—he’s smarter than anybody in your whole year.”
“He didn’t flunk out.”
“Well, let’s see—what are the usual options? Did he get sick? Break any bones? Piss off somebody at the Dean’s Office?”
Cam shook his head.
“Well, he didn’t go home to get married because he got some girl pregnant, that’s for sure,” Jamey said in a tone that invited Cam to smile along with him.
Cam had never felt less like smiling in his entire life. But Jamey didn’t deserve his snarl. So he made his tone as calm and gentle as he could. “How about I only say this once, and then we never talk about it again?”
“Okay,” Jamey said warily. “But it sounds like I’d better sit down.”
Cam felt the far end of the sagging old couch dip, heard the soft scratch of denim against worn upholstery as Jamey scooted deep into the cushions. Cam didn’t look at him, because he knew exactly what he’d see. Spine straight; no slumping for Mama Stirling’s darling boy. Right arm on the doily Gary’s grandmother had knitted or crocheted or whatever it was old ladies did with yarn to make useless ornamentation for antiquated couches donated to keep their grandsons from having to sit on the floor. Left arm close to his side, long fingers resting lightly on his thigh. Knees apart but not too far apart; no vulgar sprawling allowed, either. Feet—what was it today, sneakers or loafers? He snuck a glance, saw brown Italian leather below thick wool socks and the fraying hems of old Levi’s. Cam knew that pair of jeans, the way they fit just snugly enough to entice but not incite. He also knew the familiar baggy shape of an old black sweater, too comfortable to toss out but too ratty to wear to class, the kind of sweater rich boys wore because . . . well, because that was just the kind of sweater rich boys wore when they weren’t wearing excruciatingly tailored Ralph Lauren.
Cam knew what expression would be on that face with its patrician bone structure and wide, sincere, extravagantly lashed eyes. Jamey would look concerned and curious, and unnervingly patient while Cam found the words. Jamey was always patient. He waited so quietly, he never paced or fretted or drummed his fingers. He simply waited. But the thing Cam knew he was truly waiting for was the thing Cam had resolved never to give him.
Oddly enough, Jamey had taught him patience, too. Or maybe it was restraint. Whatever, it felt like cactus needles in his guts and he didn’t much like it. But if it kept him from touching the kid, fine. He’d be patient, he’d be restrained, he’d swallow poisoned thorns with a Sam Adams chaser if only he could live out this last semester of law school without putting a finger on Jamey.
They’d erratically circled each other since last August, like wayward planets searching for a mutual center of gravity. Cam knew the attraction was mutual. Jamey didn’t understand that it was also mutually disastrous. They were in law school; they didn’t have time for this. Maybe if they were both anticipating a future in private practice, maybe there would have been a hope. But Cam wanted a career in international law, and he didn’t want to have to keep paranoid lists of which countries stipulated jail time and/or execution for homosexuals. Jamey was planning a stint as a district attorney on the way to political office—which of course was just the perfect milieu for a guy who liked guys.
Thus what Jamey waited so patiently for, Cam would never give him. He was bemused and fascinated by this gorgeous kid who had so obviously been waiting all his life to fall insanely in love. But Cam wasn’t going to be the one Jamey did the crazy with. He wasn’t going to be the one to break Jamey’s heart. He didn’t want that on his conscience. If Jamey was going
to louse up his life, he’d have to do it with somebody else.
Cam would never admit to how many hours he’d spent staring at ceiling plaster or faded wallpaper or the lighted dial of his alarm clock, anxiety gnawing at him. Especially after he realized what a hypocrite he was. Jamey’s heart was going to get broken; that was a stone cold fact. And Cam would be the one to do it, because Jamey was in love with him.
“Cam?”
No impatience in the question, just worry. He’d been silent too long, he knew. He’d meant to say it, to tell Jamey the whole thing. Now he just couldn’t. “Morgan went home to Idaho. He didn’t flunk out. As is indeed obvious to anybody with half a brain, he didn’t get some girl pregnant. He’s just—he’s not coming back. Can we please leave it at that?”
Long pause. “Well—okay.”
Mother of All Mercy, how could this kid love him so much that he was willing to accept without question? Anybody else would have been demanding explanations right now. Not Jamieson Tyler Stirling.
No, he had something else in mind. Something infinitely worse.
“So you guys are short a roommate until the end of the year.”
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I’m about to suggest!”
“Yeah, I really do. And no, you really don’t.”
“And the award for Best Obfuscation Using a Single Breath goes to—”
“Knock it off.”
“All I was going to say was—”
“No.”
“Will you for Christ’s sake let me finish?”
“No.” Cam put his beer down and pushed himself out of the couch’s sluggish clasp. “I need coffee. You’re buying.”
And you’re not moving in with us. That’s all I need, my final semester in law school when I’m gonna be insane anyway: you in the shower down the hall every morning.
They walked the five blocks in silence. Cam stared down at his own feet practically the whole way, at the same boots he’d brought with him to Yale as a freshman. If the boots had been pristine and virginal back then, they were worn out as a twenty-buck whore now. He sort of felt the same.