by Amanda Tru
“So, you’re serious?” Israel asked quietly as if he was uncomfortable with Bailey hearing his words. “I thought you were helping with this website as a favor for Elise. You’re actually doing this as a job? Like a full-time one?”
Immediately offended, Bailey prepared to jump into the fray with both feet and explain precisely how serious a business venture it was, but Camden replied before she quite got her feet under her.
“Sure,” Camden shrugged, carrying the full dustpan to the trash. “It’s a big project that requires full-time work. Why wouldn’t I do it for a full-time job?”
Israel’s eyebrows almost met his hairline, clearly appalled. “You running a dating website? Isn’t that like a blind person trying to sell packs of multicolored crayons? Or someone who lives in the Sahara Desert selling snow boots? Or a vegetarian cooking up a platter of bacon? Or—”
“I get it, Israel,” Camden said, putting his hand up to stop the flow of words. “Just because I don’t have a full and stellar dating resume doesn’t mean that I don’t know how dating and love are supposed to work.”
Bailey fought the desire to burst out in laughter that was both amused at Israel’s words and suddenly nervous about her partner’s qualifications. Camden looked good on the outside, but was he really an awkward misfit who wouldn’t know the first thing about matchmaking?
“That’s why Camden has Bailey and Elise,” Lydia said brightly, calling from the sink where she washed the dishes from dinner. “Camden can handle all the technical stuff, and Bailey and Elise can handle the romance. If Camden chooses to take another job after the site is up and running, I’m sure he can. But I’m excited. I know whatever Camden chooses to do will be successful!”
“Spoken like a mother,” Israel said under his breath.
Chloe impatiently grabbed Camden’s arm and began pulling. “Come on, Uncle Cam. No talking. I play with you.”
Israel stepped forward and scooped up the little girl in his arms. “No, Chloe, not tonight. We waited around for you to see Uncle Cam, but we’ll come back to play with him another time—maybe when he’s already here and we don’t have to risk him showing up late.”
Chloe promptly burst into tears and squirmed to get down.
“Don’t cry, Chloe!” Camden soothed. “Are you coming to Grandma’s house tomorrow?”
Chloe looked at her dad and then turned back to Camden, echoing his nod with her lip still pouty.
“Mom watched her today and will again tomorrow,” Israel explained. “I have to work, and Chloe’s regular daycare is closed for the holidays.”
“Well, that’s good news!” Camden said enthusiastically. “I’m coming to Grandma’s tomorrow, too! We’ll get to play!”
Bailey scowled. They had work to do. Play was not on the schedule, no matter how cute Chloe was. She just didn’t want him to make her a promise he couldn’t keep, but maybe that was typical Camden behavior. Her recent stint waiting at the airport didn’t exactly provide evidence about his dependability.
Chloe brightened a little at Camden’s words, but her bottom lip still didn’t quite retract out of the pout.
“Wait a minute,” Camden said slowly. “I have something that might help.” He rummaged around in his pockets, finally extracting a small origami snowman. “I made this one for you. See, I even made the hat purple, your favorite color.”
Chloe smiled and accepted the snowman happily. “Do you have a kitty, too?”
“Chloe, you need to say thank you for the snowman, not ask for something else,” Israel chided gently.
Camden, however, returned to rummaging through his pockets. “As a matter of fact…” Camden pulled a closed fist out of his pocket and held it in front of Chloe. Then he slowly opened it to reveal a small origami kitty face. “Of course, I have a kitty. I know how much my Chloe likes them.”
Hmmm… Bailey mused, studying Camden with curiosity. A computer geek who folds origami for children. How interesting!
With two animals clutched tightly in her hands, Chloe consented to goodbye hugs and kisses, and Israel quickly moved to escort her to the car.
“Israel,” Camden called before his brother stepped out of the room.
Israel turned back around, his arms still full of little girl.
“Thank you for picking Bailey up for me,” Camden said genuinely. “I appreciate it.”
Israel nodded. “You’re welcome. I’m your big brother. Cleaning up your mistakes seems to be what I do.”
Camden winced. “Hopefully, I’ll get to return the favor and help you out someday.”
Israel shook his head. “Not likely. I seem to recall you passing on that years ago.”
Camden froze, his face draining of expression.
Israel left, and it was several seconds before Camden seemed to rouse himself enough to fling out a, “Goodbye!” in response to Chloe’s frantic calls.
Obviously, Camden and Israel shared some kind of baggage, but the discomfort exited with Israel, providing no further time for Bailey to wonder about the strange tension between the brothers.
“Sit down, Camden,” Lydia instructed, practically pushing him into a chair at the kitchen table. “If you forgot to pick Bailey up, then I know it hasn’t even occurred to you to eat. Let me make you a sandwich.”
Camden didn’t disagree, and Bailey doubted he would dare refuse Lydia anyway. Feeling suddenly awkward and not knowing what else to do, Bailey sat back down in the chair she had vacated when Camden first made his appearance.
Wanting to skip over the pleasantries and small talk and get down to business, Bailey opened her mouth to launch into describing her vision for their business.
“Did you have a good Christmas?” Camden asked, aborting her plans.
I guess we won’t be skipping the small talk after all.
“Yes, I did,” Bailey lied easily. Of course, she didn’t feel the need to explain that she had spent yesterday packing instead of actually doing anything Christmassy. Her boyfriend had gone to his parents’ house, but Bailey had cited her need to pack, refusing his anemic invitation to go with him. It wasn’t as if she’d ever felt welcomed before at any of Dekker’s family gatherings. It always felt like she was on the outside and that the Davidson family merely tolerated her.
In retrospect, Bailey realized she could have gone to either her mom or dad’s house to celebrate, but they hadn’t exactly volunteered an invitation. They probably assumed Bailey would be with Dekker, and it wouldn’t occur to them that she may want to be with them. Bailey loved both her parents and their families, but they seemed very complete without her. Showing up for Christmas would once again feel too much like she was peering through the glass to watch them celebrate.
Nope. A bowl of soup and a fully-packed suitcase qualified as a “good Christmas” for Bailey, and she wasn’t about to complain to Camden or anyone else about her decisions or dysfunctional family dynamics.
“What about you?” Bailey asked instead, resigning herself to the obligatory small talk. “Was your Christmas good?”
Camden nodded. “Yes, it was. Being home is nice. With my previous job, I haven’t come home as often, so it felt good to have the freedom to do that this year. Not all of my siblings made it home, but it was nice to see those who did.”
“How many siblings do you have?” Bailey asked curiously. “Elise told me a few things here and there, but she wasn’t exactly a fount of information about her cousins. Then when we started working on the website idea, those type of details seemed less important.”
“There are seven of us,” Camden replied, smiling his thanks when his mom set a sandwich and a large piece of apple pie in front of him. Israel is the oldest. Then comes Dallas and me. After the boys are all the girls: Geneva, London, Sydney, and Brooke.”
“Wow, and you’re all named after cities or places?”
“Not quite,” Camden clarified. “Brooke is just Brooke. London and Sydney are twins, and Brooke was our surprise. Dad chose her name. I think
after six kids, he was done with place names and filled out the birth certificate for simply ‘Brooke,’ when my mom wasn’t looking.”
“She should have been Brooklyn,” Lydia inserted cheerfully, approaching the table to deposit two large scoops of vanilla ice cream on Camden’s pie.
“Mom still isn’t completely at peace about it,” Camden surmised, his eyes twinkling merrily. “What about your fami—”
“I’m glad you had a good Christmas,” Bailey interrupted, wanting to take a sharp detour around discussing her family. “Hopefully we can buckle down and get a bunch of work done in the next few days. Elise said you’d been working on the website, but she was a bit vague on where you are at and what still needs to be done for the January first release.”
Camden didn’t seem bothered about the change in conversation. In between mouthfuls of pie, he replied. “I have things in a good position. Most of the framework for the website is in place, but there is still a lot of work to do in order to launch New Year’s Day.”
“Want to get some work done on it tonight?” Bailey asked eagerly. “I’m a night owl anyway. Maybe after I get checked into my hotel—”
“Where are you staying?” Lydia asked, coming back over and perching on one of the other chairs.
“I don’t really have a reservation yet,” Bailey confessed. “I wasn’t sure if I’d need to stay in Brighton Falls or Crossroads. I saw on the drive that there only appears to be one hotel here in Crossroads, so I hope they still have vacancies. I figured I’d stay there a few days until I can find a place with a short lease. Elise thought I may need to stay one to three months until the website is running smoothly enough that I can return to Seattle. Then we can conduct everything remotely.”
“There’s no need for you to go to a hotel or even get a rental, Bailey,” Lydia said quickly. “Why don’t you stay here? We have plenty of room.”
“That’s very kind of you, Lydia, but I don’t want to take advantage like that.”
“Nonsense, I insist,” Lydia said firmly as if the issue were already decided. “John and I have an empty house with rooms that aren’t even used. You’d do us a favor by staying here!”
Bailey didn’t quite follow the logic of how she would be doing them a favor, but staying with the Hutchins promised to reduce a great deal of stress. Though she’d never admit it to anyone, she didn’t have a lot of money to spare right now. She’d quit her job at the library to pursue this business venture. Until the website started producing enough revenue to provide her with a paycheck, she would be living off of a limited nest egg. “Well, maybe I could stay for a few days. Just until I find something else.”
Camden grimaced. “Unfortunately, you aren’t going to find anything else. This is Crossroads. Rental properties are a very limited, hot commodity. You can talk to Brooke’s fiancé, Dylan. He’s into real estate. However, I’m pretty sure you’re not going to find something at an affordable price or anything shorter than a year-long lease. Those kinds of rentals simply don’t exist here.”
“It doesn’t need to be anything fancy,” Bailey assured. “I figured I could always stay at the office if I couldn’t find anything else. I’ll probably spend most of my time there anyway, and I’m not afraid of roughing it.”
“The office?” Camden echoed, swallowing his last bite of sandwich while his face clouded with confusion. “We don’t have an office.”
Bailey’s heart leaped with alarm and then dropped to her feet. “What do you mean we don’t have an office?”
“I mean we don’t have one. I’ve looked a little, but I’ve been busy. Like I said, any rental space is hard to come by in Crossroads.”
“You looked a little?” Bailey fumed. Too upset to stay seated, she stood and began pacing, trying to stay calm. “We’re supposed to launch this website in six days. I’ve spent nearly all of my startup money on advertisements for the launch. Now you’re telling me that we don’t even have an office space to work in? You moved back after you got laid off, right? That was like six weeks ago. What exactly have you been doing?”
“Other things,” Camden replied tersely, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms across his chest defensively. “Not looking for nonexistent office space.”
Bailey pursed her lips. How was she supposed to make this business work if her business partner was a lazy, irresponsible, wanna-be computer genius who couldn’t remember to feed himself or get an actual place to hang a shingle?
She’d decided to tell him exactly that when Lydia spoke up.
“Wait,” she said, extending a calming hand to each of them as if she were standing in the middle of two fighters squaring off to do battle. “Camden, if you weren’t able to find an office space, that was something you should have shared with your business partners.”
“I did,” Camden growled. “I told Elise. She said we could make do at my place until something came open. I already have all the necessary computer equipment.”
“Elise didn’t share that info with me,” Bailey said irritably.
“She probably didn’t think it would matter,” Camden grumbled. “It’s not like you can do anything about it.”
Lydia sighed. “Camden, your apartment isn’t big, and you’d likely need to hire a housekeeper before it would be suitable for any occupant other than you. Why don’t you just use your dad’s office here? He doesn’t use it much anyway.”
“Use what?” John Hutchins asked, coming into the kitchen.
“Use your office,” Lydia supplied. “I just told Camden and Bailey that they should use your office for their business until they are established and able to find something else.”
“Sure,” John agreed. “I usually take my laptop upstairs if I do anything, or I just go to the office in Brighton Falls.”
John turned to Camden, slapping him on the shoulder. “I hear you made a good first impression on your new business partner, son,” he teased good-naturedly.
Camden groaned. “I suppose the whole family is already aware that I forgot to pick up Bailey at the airport.”
John explained, “My meeting hadn’t started yet when Bailey and Israel arrived, so I got to meet Bailey and hear the tale firsthand. I’m sure the rest of the family will hear about it eventually, but I don’t think your mother has had a chance to call and tell everyone yet. However, I’m sure it will eventually make it to your uncle, Wayne, and beyond.”
Camden shook his head and sighed dramatically, a slight smile playing about his lips, “Let me warn you, Bailey. In this family, you can never make a quiet mistake!”
John and Lydia laughed, and Bailey marveled at the good-natured teasing. It was something she’d never really experienced, and she wondered whether or not that close connection and humor was common in most families or unique to the Hutchins.
“Did your meeting go well?” Lydia asked John.
“Yes, it was fine,” John replied, grabbing himself a plate for some food. “It wasn’t really much of a meeting. Israel just wanted me to make contact with one of my old business associates. I paved the way for Israel to follow up with him tomorrow, but it was mostly just shooting the breeze with an old friend.”
“Dad was a CEO of a large company in Brighton Falls,” Camden explained to Bailey. “He’s retired now, but Israel took over much of his work in the company. Dad is still on the board of directors and does a decent amount of traveling for consulting and schmoozing when needed.”
“Fine,” Bailey said, her tone still tight with stress. “If Mr. Hutchins is sure we won’t be intruding by using his office, I don’t see that we have a choice. Do you want to get started right now, Camden?”
“Oh, no! Not tonight!” Lydia protested, urging another piece of pie Camden’s direction. “It’s too late, and both of you are probably exhausted. You’ll get a much better result if you wait for a fresh start in the morning.”
She’s hoping we’ll tolerate each other better after a good night’s sleep, Bailey surmised, not needing too much
effort to read between the lines. Unfortunately, after one conversation with her new business partner, she didn’t know that the resulting stress would allow her a good night’s sleep, nor could she promise to tolerate him better tomorrow or any other day in the future.
Camden didn’t seem any happier about the situation than she did. With his jaw set, he ran a hand through his hair, lifting strands of hair to even wilder angles. “I’m going home. Thanks for the food, Mom. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Bailey couldn’t manage a response because everything felt like a lie. She couldn’t manage a cheerful, “See you tomorrow,” because that would conceal the fact that she was really irked with him. She couldn’t say, “It was good to meet you,” because it really wasn’t. He was supposed to get things set up so she could come and put the finishing touches on the website before its release. He hadn’t managed to secure them an actual business space or even pick her up from the airport at the designated time. How much more hadn’t he done because he’d “been busy” being unemployed?
Bailey followed at a distance, watching as Camden went to the front door, ready to exit into the cold, December night in his T-shirt and shorts.
With muscles, rakish hair, a killer smile, and blue-gray eyes that would surely haunt her dreams, Camden wasn’t at all who she’d expected. Shooting one last glare in his direction, it instantly collided with his returning glare, causing her to officially make up her mind. Kitty origami or not, Bailey did not like Camden Hutchins.
“Good morning,” Bailey greeted Camden brightly as she entered the office the next morning.
“Hi,” Camden replied shortly, not fooled by her cheerful attitude.
He knew she’d been mad at him last night, and it wasn’t the kind of mad that is wiped clean overnight. At least, it wasn’t for him.
On some level, he knew that all of his anger shouldn’t be entirely directed at Bailey. Yesterday had involved a rough evening, at the end of a rough day, at the end of a rough few weeks, at the end of a rough few years. No one could aggravate him more than his older brother, Israel, and even though a large amount of his frustration last night belonged in that direction, directing it at Bailey became awfully convenient, especially when her attitude clearly communicated that she thought Camden incompetent and irresponsible.