by Marie Force
When she awoke sometime after dawn, he got to see the exact moment when she recalled that today was the day she had to leave. And then he held her while she cried and made sweet love to her one last time, knowing all the while that he’d let her go because it was what she needed, but he’d never get over her.
A new dusting of snow overnight made everything look fresh and clean and more breathtakingly beautiful, if that was possible. Not that long ago, Vermont had been like a foreign country to Cameron, and now it was a place she was sad to be leaving.
“Have you got everything?” Will asked as he emerged from the cabin to see her off.
She rose from the crouch she’d been in to give hugs and kisses to Tanner and Trevor. “I think so.”
“If you forgot anything, I can always mail it to you.”
“That’s true.” Eyeing the car with a growing sense of trepidation, Cameron hoped that she could get herself home without messing it up again.
“You’ll be fine,” he said, seeming to read her mind. “Just take it nice and slow in the mountains.”
“Will the roads be slippery because of the snow?” she asked, expressing her greatest fear since she first spotted the new snowfall.
“Shouldn’t be too bad. The sun is much warmer this time of year, so it’ll melt pretty quickly.”
“Any idea where Fred hangs out on Saturday mornings?”
“Not really,” he said with a smile.
When there was nothing left to do but leave, she rested her hands on his flannel-covered chest and looked up at him, hoping he could see everything she felt for him on her face. “I had the best time. The very best time.”
“So did I. You know where I am if you ever get a hankering to live in the woods.”
“I won’t forget where you are, Will Abbott.”
He withdrew his business card from his back pocket. “Call me? I put my home number on the back.”
Cameron took the card from him and curled her hand around it. “Definitely.”
“Cam—”
She reached up to rest her fingers on his lips. “Don’t. Please don’t say anything that’ll make it worse than it already is.”
“Okay, I won’t make it worse. I’ll just tell you I’m here, and I want you. I want us. And I’m not going anywhere.”
Tears that she’d vowed to avoid filled her eyes and overflowed, spilling down her cheeks as she gently beat on his chest with closed fists. “You weren’t supposed to say anything to make it worse.”
He put his arms around her and held her close. “Sorry, but I couldn’t let you leave without knowing that.”
Cameron clung to him for a long time and then forced herself to let him go, since clinging to his sexy, muscular body certainly wasn’t making anything easier.
With the pads of his thumbs, he brushed the tears from her cheeks. “Will you be okay to drive?”
“Sure thing,” she said with bravado she didn’t feel. “Not to worry.”
“I will worry. Let me know that you got home safely, okay?”
“I will.” She went up on tiptoes to kiss him one last time. “Thank you for sharing your world with me. It’s an incredibly beautiful world.”
“It was my very great pleasure.”
She forced herself to step back, to let him go, to walk to her car on legs gone stiff and wooden. She felt like she was slogging through quicksand as she walked away from him when everything inside her craved more of him. In the car, she had to focus her thoughts to start the engine, to take the wheel, to actually leave him standing in the driveway with the dogs at his feet watching her go.
Half-blinded by tears, she drove down the rutted driveway that led to the main road, the same road where she’d encountered Fred. That night seemed like a long time ago, and it also seemed like just yesterday.
Mindful of the light coating of snow, her emotional state and Will’s advice to take it slow in the mountains, Cameron crept along, keeping her speed under twenty miles per hour. She navigated the last turn before the Butler town line and had to slam on the brakes when a huge obstruction appeared out of nowhere, blocking the road.
There was just enough moisture on the road to spin her tiny car around in a full circle that put her back where she started, her car nose-to-nose with Fred the moose. That’s when she completely lost her composure and broke down.
With her fingers gripping the wheel, she rested her forehead on the back of her hands, her shoulders heaving from deep, anguished sobs.
“Moooo.”
Cameron laughed through her tears as the absurdity of leaving the same way she’d come wasn’t lost on her, even in the midst of heartbreak. She tooted the horn, hoping to get Fred’s attention and get him moving into the woods.
“Moooo.”
Still timid enough around the supposedly “trained” moose to decide she was better off staying in the car than getting out to chat with him, she put the window down. “How about you cut me a break, Fred?”
He made a sound that could only be called a whimper.
Cameron knitted her brows as she stared into the moose’s dark eyes. “It was nice to meet you, too, Fred. I’ll be back. In a month or so. I’m sure we’ll see each other again. And I’m really sorry if I hurt you with my car. I didn’t mean to. I couldn’t see you in the dark. You should be careful about where you walk in the dark.” And you, Cameron Murphy, should be committed for having a conversation with a moose!
He stared at her for another long moment—long enough that Cameron wondered if she’d be stuck here all day with Fred blocking her way out of town. “Please, Fred? I need to go before I forget all the reasons I need to get home and go running back to him. Please?”
“Moooo.” He took a step forward and then another, sticks crunching under his hooves as he strolled into the woods as if he had not a care in the world.
Cameron had never imagined she’d actually be envious of a moose and his carefree existence. Releasing a deep sigh, she shifted the car into drive and continued on, all the while resisting the overpowering urge to make a U-turn and go back to him.
CHAPTER 18
It’ll feel better when it quits hurtin’.
—The gospel according to Elmer Stillman
For an hour after she left, Will waited for her to come back. Only after that first hour passed did it sink in that she wasn’t coming back. He sat on the sofa with a dog head on each leg, watching the fire and berating himself for not having the balls to tell her he wanted to go with her or that he loved her. He should’ve told her that much, at the very least.
And now he was sitting here by himself, as always, wishing he’d told her all the things he’d decided she wasn’t ready to hear.
“So stupid,” he whispered. “So freaking stupid.”
He couldn’t sit there for another second without losing his mind, so he pulled on a coat and headed out with the dogs on a long hike through the woods behind his house. They were gone all morning, and when fatigue and hunger drove him back to the house, he emerged from the thicket of trees hoping against hope that he’d find a red Mini in the driveway.
Cameron’s car wasn’t there, but his dad’s Range Rover was. Recognizing the car, the dogs took off toward the house and the treats that Lincoln always had in his pockets for them.
By the time Will caught up to them, the treats were gone and a fierce wrestling match was under way on the floor. The dogs loved his dad almost as much as they loved him.
“Don’t mind us,” Lincoln puffed from the bottom of the scrum on the floor in front of the fireplace.
“Okay, I won’t.” Will went into the kitchen, made a turkey sandwich and ate it without tasting anything. He chased it with a tall glass of ice water. With his hunger satisfied for the moment, he went to use the bathroom and walked into the wall of lingering fragrance she’d left behind after her shower.
A moan escaped from between his lips. With his hands on the sink, he hung his head and tried to recover from the emotional firestorm th
e scent unleashed within him. He’d never felt pain like this. Not when Lisa left him, not when his grandmother died or even when Caleb died. Nothing could compare to this, a thought that made him feel horribly guilty when he recalled the awful agony of losing Caleb, in particular.
Now he had a very small idea of how his sister must’ve suffered when her husband died so suddenly, which was another thought he felt he had no right to. How could he begin to compare the end of a two-week affair with what Hannah had endured after her husband’s death? He couldn’t, really, but he also couldn’t deny that he felt grief-stricken, as if someone had died.
“Will? Are you alive in there?”
He took a series of deep breaths, splashed cold water on his face and tried to school his expression to hide his inner turmoil. When he was as prepared as he could be to face anyone feeling the way he did, he went to the living room where his dad and the dogs had apparently reached a truce.
“We were worried when you didn’t bring the dogs over to stay with us this morning. Mom thought I should come check on you.”
“I decided not to go to New York.”
“How come?”
“She had stuff to do, and the timing wasn’t right.”
“Huh.” Lincoln scratched at the scruff on his chin. He never shaved on the weekends. “What did she say when you told her you wanted to go?”
“I never got around to actually telling her.”
“Why not?”
“One of her friends called to tell her that her business partner and best friend, Lucy, was freaking out because Cameron was moving to Vermont. I could hear everything the guy was saying, and Cameron said she’s not moving, and she never said she was. After that … I don’t know. It just seemed pointless to prolong it.”
“Mom and I were talking about her last night. We both like her very much, and we like how happy she makes you.”
He couldn’t hear that. Not right now. “Dad …”
“Hear me out, son. When Cam’s mom died, Patrick’s friends worried about what would become of him and his adorable little girl. I remember Mom saying once that Patrick loved his money more than he loved anyone, and she wasn’t that far off. After his wife died, he seemed to direct his grief into growing his business rather than nurturing his daughter.”
“From everything I’ve heard, he sounds like a total dickhead.”
“I can see why you’d think so, but he really loved Ali, and he never got over losing her. He was absolutely lost without her, and that Cameron looks just like her, well … I think it haunts him.”
“That isn’t Cameron’s fault.”
“Of course it isn’t, but the guy is human, and he made some mistakes. Who among us hasn’t?”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I want you to see what she needs, son.”
“And what’s that?”
“Love. She needs love. She needs security and commitment and all the things her dad was never able to give her despite his enormous resources. Those are all things you could easily give her.”
Will shook his head. Gesturing to his humble home, he said, “This could never be enough for her long-term.”
“I don’t think you’re giving her anywhere near enough credit. She took to this place like a bee to honey. We all saw that. Surely you did, too.”
“I did, but—”
“No, buts. If you love her, and I think you do, tell her. Offer her all the things she’s never had. Let her know she’ll always be able to count on you in a way that she’s never been able to count on anyone else. And give her the family she’s always wanted but never had—ours and the one you’ll build together.”
Will hated that his broken heart soared with hope as he listened to his dad.
“Are you actually suggesting I propose to a woman I’ve known for all of sixteen days?” Will asked, amused despite the turmoil that continued to churn inside him.
“I’m suggesting you do what you need to do to be happy—and to make her happy. If that requires you to put it all on the line and propose to her, neither your mother nor I would have any objections whatsoever to that. We had our first marriage conversation exactly five days after we met. You wouldn’t be shocking us, if that’s what you think. And besides, will you feel differently in sixteen months than you do after sixteen days?”
Will had no doubt whatsoever that he would love her this much in sixteen years, if he was lucky enough to get that much time with her. “You make it sound so simple when it’s not. She has a life in the city and a business and a group of friends who are like family to her.”
“It’s not simple, Will. It’s love. It’s the most complicated and wonderful and frustrating and amazing thing you’ll ever experience. If you love her, tell her.” Lincoln got up off the floor and brushed the dog hair off his dark cords.
“She asked for some time.”
“So give it to her, and then put your cards on the table. Don’t hold anything back.” Lincoln patted Will’s face. “Get some sleep, son. You look like hell.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“I’ll see you at dinner tomorrow.”
“I don’t know, Dad. I might not be up for it this week.”
At the door, Lincoln turned and gave him the steely stare that had kept ten children in line for thirty-five years. “I will see you at dinner. And I will see you at work on Monday. And I will make sure you get through this. We all will.”
Before Will could formulate a reply, his dad was out the door, and Will was alone again with the disquiet in his mind and the reminders of Cameron in every corner of his tiny home. Because he was, in fact, absolutely exhausted, he stretched out on the bed.
Both dogs joined him, cuddling up to him as if they somehow knew he needed them more than ever. He was never more grateful for their unconditional love—or that of his dad, who’d given him a lot to think about.
He’d give her this next month to do her thinking and then he’d take his dad’s advice and tell her how he felt. Settled on a plan and with hours to wait until he’d hear she was home safely, he closed his eyes and slept.
It was, Cameron discovered over the next few weeks, extremely difficult to maintain a long-distance relationship with a man who didn’t own a cell phone, who was apparently never home and who was away from his office more often than he was in.
She had never yearned for anything the way she did for him. He was on her mind every minute of every day, especially at night when she would lie awake in bed and remember all the sweet, sexy nights she’d spent in his arms. Because she missed him so much and thought of things she needed to tell him all the time, she resorted to sending him witty little e-mails several times a day so he wouldn’t think she’d forgotten about him.
She lived for his replies, haunting her inbox at all hours of the night and day, and waiting just as impatiently for her phone to ring so she could hear his deep voice and be transported back to his cozy cabin in the woods where she’d fallen truly in love for the first time in her life. She knew that now. The others who’d come before him had been a dress rehearsal for the real thing. Will Abbott was the real thing.
During her workdays at the office and long into the nights at home, she threw herself into the Green Mountain Country Store website with a kind of single-minded focus that was also all new to her. After battling attention deficit disorder her entire life, it was unlike her to be able to devote twelve or fourteen hours a day to the same project without her mind wandering. This, like all things related to her memorable trip to Vermont, was different.
She poured her years of technological know-how and all the love she felt for Will, his family and their business into creating a website that would blow them away. She worked seven days a week until her eyes gave out at night and she had no choice but to sleep.
She and Will fell into the habit of talking every night around eleven thirty when they were both finally home and able to talk for as long as they could stay awake. They chatted about everyth
ing—except for what would become of them when they saw each other again at the end of the month.
The changes in her were apparently obvious to her friends and coworkers, who gave her a wide berth in the first weeks she was back, allowing her to work through the boatload of emotional baggage she’d brought home with her.
Lucy never mentioned her worries about Cameron leaving, and Cameron didn’t bring up the subject either.
At their weekly Monday morning meeting on the third week after she returned, Lucy broached a concern that she’d obviously been sitting on during Cameron’s frenzy of work on the Green Mountain site.
“We need to be cultivating new business,” Lucy said bluntly. “It’s been almost six weeks since you took an appointment with a potential new client, and no one else is doing it either. I know you’re heavily invested in the Green Mountain site, but you can’t neglect your real job forever, or we’ll be screwed when we finish the stuff we’re working on now.”
The reminder that she needed to take a step back from the site and devote some attention to the business hit her like a splash of cold water to the face, snapping her out of the creative high that had kept her from wallowing in the pain of being separated from Will.
And it was devastating to realize that at some point very soon, she would finish her work on the site and have no further reason to talk to him or his family members regularly. Unless she was willing to take the biggest leap of faith she’d ever taken in her life, she would turn over her beautiful site to someone they would hire to manage it, and it would no longer be hers. He would no longer be hers.
“Why do you suddenly look like you’re going to be sick?” Lucy asked, studying her intently, the way she had since Cameron returned, as if she was waiting for Cameron to pull the rug out from underneath their business and their friendship.
“I’m not sick. I’ll take a couple of meetings this week. What’ve you got?”