Love Me if You Dare

by Toni Blake

  Fletcher said, “I’m able to see the futility in anger. I can forgive my wife because I know, in the end, when she comes back, that I’ll be filled with such happiness that it won’t matter. So I just . . . skip ahead to already feeling that way. It saves a lot of pain, I promise you.” Then he gave his head an inquisitive tilt. “Do we know for certain, though, that everything you experienced with Cami was fake?”

  Reece blinked, clearly thinking it over, and for some reason Tamra’s heart rose to her throat waiting for the answer.

  “If she ran back to her room,” Reece replied, “and used information I’d given her on the boat to get what her company wanted, almost as soon as we got back, doesn’t that mean it had to be fake?”

  Fletcher’s gaze narrowed. “One thing doesn’t necessarily equal the other. And from what I can tell, your conversation with her afterward wasn’t really a fact-finding mission.”

  “I figured anything she’d say would just be a lie,” Reece shot back.

  “Maybe so, maybe not,” Fletcher reasoned. “But regardless, the one fact I see is that you’re making assumptions based on what happened, when in fact, many roads could have led to this outcome. You believe you know what Cami did or said, what her intent was, but I’m not sure your email from Vanderhook, or even her admission that she communicated with them about that ordinance, is proof that everything you shared with her wasn’t real. As I say, doing the job she was sent here to do and having sincere feelings for you aren’t mutually exclusive.”

  As Reece silently took that in and mulled it over, Tamra did, too. And after a moment, she asked Reece a question, one that felt important to her. She reached over, touched his arm, and said, “Did you really believe her on the boat? Did you really feel like she loved you?”

  In the wicker chair next to hers, Reece gazed out over the sea, thought it over for a minute, and said quietly, “Yeah. I did. I really did. Next to the loss of my family, it was . . . the realest thing I’ve ever felt.”

  Tamra thought Reece a good judge of people—while he usually faced life in an easygoing, optimistic way, he wasn’t the sort of guy who wore rose-colored glasses or imagined things to be something they weren’t. And while part of her wanted to be a different sort of person, a person who would use this time to swoop in and try to make some big, romantic play for him, the bigger part of her just wanted his true happiness—perhaps more than she wanted her own—and so she knew what she had to do.

  CAMI had hoped her sincere resolve would allow her to wake up with some new sense of direction, or hope, or a way to somehow correct some of what she’d messed up. Unfortunately, however, she opened her eyes to find herself on the tenth floor of a fancy resort that felt strange and distant and sort of cookie cutter to her, and everything still felt wrong. She wanted desperately to do the right thing here, but she didn’t even know what that would be.

  And the very thought of Reece was like a knife to her heart. She loved him, but . . . had he really loved her? She found it hard to believe anyone who really cared about her wouldn’t even listen to her side of the story, and would be so very cold and heartless, sending her away like that. Maybe Reece had more in common with Peter Pan than living in his own personal Never-Never Land. Maybe he’d never grown up. Maybe he didn’t know how to love.

  A directionless hour or two in her room finally led her outside—and she found herself heading to her car, and then driving to the Hungry Fisherman. She couldn’t fix much here, but she could at least ask Polly to check on the cat and tell her that if she or Riley could just look after the kitty for now, once she got settled and got some direction back in her life, she’d be happy to adopt Tiger Lily permanently.

  “I’m still not sure life in my place in Atlanta would be very exciting for her,” she said across a table to Polly in the empty restaurant, “but . . .”

  “But cats don’t need a lot of excitement,” Polly explained to her, swiping her hand down through the air. “And that kitty couldn’t be luckier to find somebody who cares as much as you do. She belongs with ya, plain and simple.”

  “Well,” Cami said with a conceding tilt of her head, “it’s more like you found me for her. So thank you.”

  “Nothin’ to thank me for, honey—I just wish things hadn’t turned out like this.” She’d told Polly the main gist of what had come down yesterday afternoon.

  “Me, too,” she said on a sigh. “I know I haven’t exactly handled everything here wonderfully myself, but . . . don’t I deserve a guy who would at least hear my side, who wouldn’t jump to conclusions and assume the worst about me?”

  Polly patted Cami’s hand where it sat on the table, curled lightly around a soda glass. “You do, and I’m surprised at Reece. But . . . well, he’s had a rough way to go over the years, and I guess maybe he had a kneejerk reaction that . . . wasn’t only about you. If that helps at all.”

  Cami took that in. Now that she knew Reece’s past, she could easily understand that. But at the same time, it still hurt. “I guess,” she began, “what it comes down to is—there’s the part of this that’s about me and him, and the part that’s about his business. And even if I’m upset over the me-and-him part, I feel a lot of responsibility about the Happy Crab. And I just wish I could fix that for him.”

  Polly took a sip of her soft drink, and Cami thought she looked surprisingly hopeful as she said, “There must be a way.”

  “I can’t imagine what it is,” Cami told her. Because it seemed impossible at this point.

  And yet . . . something in Polly’s voice made her begin to at least wish, to wonder . . . was there any conceivable thing she could do that would somehow reverse all this and make things right?

  When Cami left the restaurant, she considered venturing across the parking lot to knock on Riley’s door and say hi to Tiger Lily, but she thought better of it. She was persona non grata at the Happy Crab and she wouldn’t want a nasty run-in with Reece.

  But instead of getting back in her car, though, her flip-flops led her across the street to the beach. Maybe seeing people out having fun would lift her spirits. And maybe a walk along the shore would do something to inspire her next move. She wasn’t sure why she was even still in Coral Cove, but by the same token, she couldn’t quite bring herself to go home. Right now, Atlanta and Vanderhook didn’t feel much like home.

  She carried her flip-flops in one hand as she walked up the packed, wet sand along the water. The sound of the surf rushing in and out was indeed calming, and so she tried to focus on it and let it still her mind. The one big asset she’d always had in life was her belief in herself. She always believed in her ability to succeed, to solve problems, to do whatever it took to accomplish her goals. And so if there was an answer to this, it must lie inside her—and that meant she just had to relax and let it come to her.

  Just then, her phone buzzed—she had a text.

  THIS IS REECE’S FRIEND, TAMRA. CAN YOU MEET ME? IT’S IMPORTANT.

  Whoa.

  Was Tamra going to tell her off? Defend Reece’s honor? And had she lifted Cami’s phone number from Reece’s phone when he wasn’t looking? Or maybe she’d gotten it from Christy, who also had it. Regardless, it seemed like a lot of trouble to go to—but what else could Tamra really want with her, all things considered?

  Though she’d said it was important. What if it was? What if Tamra actually had something constructive to say?

  All she’d felt from Tamra so far was judgment, resentment, and a general sense of disdain . . . so maybe agreeing to meet her wasn’t wise, but following her gut instinct, which was really all she had to go on these days, she texted back:

  I’M ON THE BEACH. MEET UNDER THE PIER IN FIFTEEN MINUTES?

  Tamra agreed. And Cami was nervous—but too curious, she supposed, to do anything but follow through, so she headed toward the pier.

  When she saw Tamra approaching from the direction of Sea Shell Lane, her chest tightened. Please don’t let this be a mistake. She really wasn’t up for anothe
r ugly confrontation—with anyone.

  “Hi,” she said when Tamra was just a few feet away.

  “I only came to say one thing,” Tamra told her.

  Wow, talk about getting straight to the point. “Okay.”

  “I sat around wasting time with Reece, never telling him I had feelings for him.”

  Oh. Yikes. Well, already this explained a lot. Like why Tamra had taken such an instant dislike to her. She’d been an unwitting rival.

  “But if I had another chance to let him know how I feel, I would take it. So if you really love him, if you really want him, you should do something to fix this. Because he really loves you. And I know he has some issues, but that doesn’t change how amazing he is. And I just want to see him happy.

  “I think people act like love, real love, is something you can find around every corner. But I haven’t found it too often myself. I know plenty of people who haven’t. So if you find it, you shouldn’t let it just slip away. Because what if it never comes again? If I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t give up on something good just because some bad things happened. If you truly love him, if you truly never meant to hurt him, you need to dig down deep and find a way to show him.”

  And with that, the other woman started to walk away—but then she stopped, looking back pointedly. “And if I’m wrong here—if you really did use him and really don’t give a damn, then please do the decent thing and go the hell away.”

  Then she turned around and trod back up the beach away from Cami.

  On the one hand, it was hardly a miracle solution. She still didn’t know how to fix any of this.

  But it was . . . a reminder. That love counted for something and shouldn’t just be thrown away over a misunderstanding or a mistake, no matter how big. And that Reece was a great guy. And yeah, he was flawed. We all are. But maybe his reaction yesterday was forgivable. If he wanted her to forgive him.

  No, Tamra hadn’t given her any answers. But she had perhaps . . . shone a light where there hadn’t been one before. And maybe that was enough, enough to inspire Cami, enough to show her what direction to look in.

  Toward Reece, not away from him.

  “I don’t see how it can have a happy ending.”

  J. M. Barrie, Peter and Wendy

  Chapter 22

  WHEN CAMI lay down to bed that night in her resort hotel room, she still didn’t have any practical answers on how to do what Tamra had said—figure out a way to fix things with Reece, and for Reece. But Tamra’s confrontation had made Cami remember: All her adult life she’d been a woman of action, and this seemed like a good time to get back to that old taking-care-of-business side of herself—only this time she needed to focus on what she could do for other people. She felt more determined than discouraged now, and just hearing that Reece loved her helped a lot—it was like a salve on her wounds.

  And so when she woke up the next morning, it was with an idea in her head.

  And as she showered, that idea led to another, and another.

  And the truth was—she had no idea if any of them would work. Because if fixing all the Happy Crab’s troubles were as simple as the plans now filling her brain, why hadn’t she thought of them before?

  But then . . . sometimes inspiration was simple. And sometimes it just took a little hope to nudge it into being. And maybe that was why all this was coming to her now.

  So it was with a fresh new sense of resolve to get what she wanted that she put on her red power suit and pumps one more time—and set off for the Coral Cove City Building.

  REECE tried to feel like his old self as he put Fifi’s leash on her and walked her across the street to the beach. But he didn’t.

  He tried to feel like the same old laid-back, carefree guy he’d been a few weeks ago as two attractive twenty-something female tourists approached him in bikinis to ask about his giant iguana and have the usual photos taken with her. But he didn’t pull that off, either. In fact, despite that one of the girls was flirty as hell and had a tattoo on her lower back that said Easy Come Easy Go, he wasn’t interested. At all. He even ended up making an excuse for why he couldn’t get together with them later that night.

  This’ll get better, though. It just takes a little time. Wasn’t that what people said about breakups anyway? He’d had so few relationships that he barely knew how to deal with his emotions at the moment—he only knew he didn’t like them.

  But hey, if that old saying was true—if it took half the length of a relationship to get over someone—he’d be over Cami in a flash. Because at least this had all happened fast. At least he hadn’t had the chance to get used to having her around, used to depending on her, used to what it felt like to love her and have her in his life.

  Even if it felt, oddly, as if he had, as if she’d been a part of his world for much longer than just a couple of short weeks.

  Funny, he’d never have believed a woman could have such an impact on him that quickly.

  And he knew he had some stuff to deal with, some big decisions to make about how exactly he was going to respond to Vanderhook’s underhanded threat. All he’d managed to do so far was spend time thinking about the Tinkerbell who’d flitted in and out of his existence nearly faster than he could blink—but who had still changed . . . everything.

  THREE days later, wearing the shorts and flip-flops that now felt much more normal to her than her suits, Cami once again got in her rental car—but this time she made the short drive to the Happy Crab.

  It was nearly dusk—the sun would set soon—and she hoped Reece wouldn’t be at the Sunset Celebration tonight; she hoped he’d just be hanging out at home. She hadn’t seen Polly or any of her other new Coral Cove friends in the last few days—she’d been too busy; nor had she responded to any of Phil’s texts or emails. Only as she parked her car in the Happy Crab lot did she finally decide to send him a quick text. She kept it simple, vague.

  I KNOW I’VE BEEN OUT OF CONTACT. IT’S COMPLICATED, BUT I’M HANDLING THINGS.

  If Phil knew what that actually meant, it could spur him to action that could risk counteracting some of her recent progress. That’s why she’d stayed silent until now. And this text, she supposed, was intended simply to keep him a little confused, off balance. She didn’t expect it to regain his trust or anything, but she figured it couldn’t hurt if he thought they were still on the same side, working with the same goals. Though she’d kept it distant and unspecific because if this were, say, a trial, she would officially be considered a hostile witness by now. She’d jumped ship, joined the other team.

  Even so, she was nervous as hell getting out of the car. She needed to talk to Reece, but if he was still as angry with her as he’d been the last time she’d seen him, she wasn’t sure she could handle it. Her heart still reeled from those last few painful moments between them—and only focusing on the other tasks at hand had held her together and kept her functioning like a normal human being.

  She took a deep breath as she approached the office door. When she pulled it open and stepped inside, she suffered both disappointment and relief to find Reece wasn’t behind the counter. But she smiled when she saw Fifi stretched out on the floor behind it.

  “Hi,” she whispered, walking back toward the huge iguana. She wasn’t sure why she was whispering, but maybe having no idea where Reece was kept her uneasy. She was dying to see him, yet also afraid to—both ready and not.

  Without weighing it, she stooped down to get more up-close and personal with Fifi. “I owe you an apology, Fifi,” she said, voice still low. And maybe it was stupid to be apologizing to a reptile who couldn’t understand her, but perhaps it was like talking to Tiger Lily—there was a certain comfort in it, and even if the cat couldn’t make actual sense of her words, Cami felt that on some level she absorbed the sentiment and feelings within them.

  “I never meant to use you to hurt Reece. I never meant to hurt Reece at all.” She shook her head. “I still don’t know how all this really happened. I guess the main t
hing is—I never meant to fall in love, but I did, and that made everything confusing.

  “And I don’t know if he’ll ever forgive me, if he could ever trust in me again or believe how much I really love him, but I think I’ve at least found some ways to fix some pretty big things. And I hope I can fix more of them. Fortunately, when it comes to real estate, I’m pretty good at fixing things. At having vision and seeing what needs to be done. So that part I’m feeling pretty confident about. It’s the other part—about Reece and me—that I’m not as good at.”

  “Do you want to touch my iguana?”

  Reece watched as Cami flinched, then stood up and turned to face him. Her eyes were wide and beautiful, but she looked full of fear. He’d heard a lot of what she’d said. And it was almost enough to give him some sort of hope—about everything—but even so, his heart felt hard in his chest. It almost seemed to whisper to him: Don’t trust so easy this time. Be more careful than before.

  “Hi,” she said softly.

  “Hi.” He met her gaze but tried to follow his heart’s sound advice.

  “I . . . I think I fixed the problem,” she said again.

  “How? And which one?”

  She blinked, still looking nervous. “I talked to the mayor. About the ordinance. And about how Vanderhook was planning to use it against you. He wasn’t even aware of the ordinance and when I explained what was at stake, he called an emergency meeting of the town council yesterday and they abolished it. He said he could understand the possible need for the law, and that it could always be reinstated at some point if necessary, but that since your family was responsible for making Coral Cove a tourist destination, it was the least he could do. He doesn’t want to lose the Happy Crab, either.”

  Reece’s heart lifted. Yeah, this was a big problem averted. Freaking enormous!

  And he was pretty amazed—both that she’d gone so far to repair the situation, and also that it had never occurred to him to throw himself on the mercy of the town because of his family history in Coral Cove. “But . . . as much as I appreciate that,” he told her, “don’t you think Vanderhook will just find some other way, dig up some other meaningless infraction?”