by Neesa Hart
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Sorry, babe, that’s some other reporter’s scoop.”
“Is this your way of telling me we’re not going any farther with this today?”
He thought about it, then nodded. “Do you mind?”
She shook her head. “No. You’ll tell me when you’re ready.”
His expression altered so swiftly that it stole her breath. One moment, he was watching her with wry amusement, the next, his gaze turned stark. “Lord, Cammy,” he whispered, his large hands coming up to cradle her face. “Where the hell have you been all my life?”
The rest of the day passed quietly. Jackson talked at length with his sisters, while Cammy endured, with her usual grace, the good-natured teasing of his family. Twice, he caught her watching him as he played games with his nieces and nephews. He was almost certain he read a lingering sadness in her gaze, the same sadness he’d seen the night before when he’d joined her on the porch. But she masked it so quickly that he couldn’t be sure.
He found himself admitting that he was falling. Hard. Demolition hard.
To describe what he was feeling as just physical attraction or chemistry made it seem unbearably tawdry. Even if he’d wanted to deny it, his conversation with her that morning had cinched it. Thoughts of Leo had come amazingly easy with Cammy. She listened intently, he realized. Perhaps because she’d spent so many years unable to, she’d learned to listen with a deep stillness that drew him. She had none of the nervous gestures or fidgets of average people. Instead, he’d noticed after the first day he’d met her, she could sit, perfectly still, waiting, listening.
There was a calmness about her that offered his too-weary soul a solace it urgently needed. He wanted her, in so many ways. As the sun set, and his family enjoyed the noisy exuberance of the dinner table, he used the chaos to disguise his continued study of her. He saw that she’d noticed that Andy and Tommy, who sat directly across from each other at the large table, continued to pass serving dishes through the hands of adults distracted by the dinner conversation. When Cammy handed over the mashed potato bowl for the third time, she gave Andy a knowing look. The little girl giggled.
Cammy seemed to sense his gaze. She met it across the table. He looked, hard, for that hint of sadness, but it remained firmly hidden behind her glasses and her clear, gray eyes. In the distance, he heard the phone ring and realized that his sister had risen from the table to answer it. Still, he held Cammy’s gaze. She seemed momentarily frozen by his probing glance.
He’d never realized the power of nonverbal communication until he’d met her. He could virtually feel her begging him not to look so closely—to take what she’d offered and leave the rest alone. He was fairly certain he’d have to disappoint her on that count.
“Cammy?” Jackson’s sister stuck her head into the dining room. “The phone’s for you.”
Jackson sent her a sharp look. “Were you expecting a call?”
She looked anxious as she pushed her chair back from the table. “Mike knows I’m here. In case of an emergency.” The room quieted as she headed for the kitchen. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Probably a patient.”
Jackson watched her disappear through the door, hesitated half a second, then rose to follow her. He considered himself fairly expert at studying human behavior. It was what had made him so good at his job. With Cammy, he was beginning to get used to her economy of words. The more agitated she grew, the fewer words she tended to use. The unguarded time she’d spent with him last night, and again this morning, had given him some fresh insights into her complexity. Most people, he’d learned, tossed words around, never thinking further about their import. Cammy picked and chose each one as if it were an expensive purchase. Often, what she didn’t say had even more impact than what she did.
That’s why he knew for a fact that, despite her outward calm, she was damned nervous about whoever was on that phone. She had a white knuckled grip on the receiver. “When?” Her voice sounded rough.
He heard the deep sounds of a man’s voice on the other end. Jackson placed his hands on her shoulders. She frowned at his shirt front. “Are they sure? Did you talk to Brian yourself?”
Costas answered her. Jackson kneaded the tense muscles in her shoulders. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, all right.” She met Jackson’s gaze with stricken eyes. “Thanks for calling.”
He pried the phone from her hand. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s my mother. She’s—having a rough night.”
“We can be on the road in an hour.”
“You don’t understand.” Her face was a mask of anxiety. “I’m not sure I need to go back. Her doctor called Mike to tell him she’s more agitated than usual. They’re going to sedate her, see if they can calm her down. He wanted me to know, but I’m not sure it would do any good if I were there.”
He frowned. “Why risk it?”
“It could make things worse if I go. I told her I wouldn’t be by to see her this weekend. I generally go on Saturdays. This could be—” she exhaled a long breath “—this could be a reaction to the change. If it is, seeing me is going to make her angrier, not better.”
His father stuck his head in the door. “Is everything all right?”
“No,” Jackson said.
“Yes,” Cammy muttered at the same time.
He gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Cammy’s mother isn’t well. We need to go back tonight.”
His father looked at her with a tender sympathy that reminded her of his son. “I’m so sorry, Cammy.”
“I—I’m sure she’s fine. She’s been unwell for some time. The doctors don’t think this is really serious.”
“Still,” Jackson said, “we’re going back to Washington.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to ruin the rest of your visit.”
His father advanced into the room, where he scooped Jackson’s car keys off the counter. “Tell you what. I’ll go gas up your car while you pack.”
“Good idea, Dad. Thanks.”
“I’ll tell your mother, too,” he said as he headed for the door. He shot Jackson a dry look. “She’ll want to send food along. She hasn’t figured out that there’s a fast-food restaurant at every exit.”
When he left, Cammy’s fingers tightened in the folds of his shirt. “You don’t have to go to this much trouble.”
“Honey,” he tipped her head back so he could look at her. “What’s going on here?”
“Mike assured me that her doctor just wanted to keep me informed. There’s no cause for alarm.”
He thought he detected a note of bitterness in her voice. “If there isn’t, there isn’t.” He tucked a tendril of hair behind her ear. “If we end up with tomorrow free, I’ll meet you at your place with a video. You bring the popcorn.”
“You could be here with your family.”
“Or I could be alone with you. Hell of a sacrifice, I admit, but I think I’ll survive it.” His gaze narrowed. “Especially after last night. I’ve been pretty much dying to get you alone.”
“This has happened before,” Cammy whispered. “I really don’t want it to spoil your weekend.”
He could see the strain of this new burden weighing her down. He wanted, desperately, to ease it. “We’ll have time to talk about it on the way home.”
Her stricken gaze met his. “It’s not that I don’t care.”
“I know.”
“I’m not even angry with her.”
“I know.”
“It’s so complicated. I just didn’t want to drag you into this. It’s not fair to you.”
He considered her for a moment, then pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. “I’m in, Cam. I think you’d better start adjusting.”
By the time they reached the highway, her withdrawal was complete. He felt it. He hated it.
Her cold hand lay passively in his. Her gaze remained trained on the road.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he prompted.
“No.”
/>
He waited. She didn’t elaborate. “I do,” he told her.
That pulled her gaze from the double yellow line to his profile. “You do?”
“Yes.”
“All right. What would you like to know?”
He sighed an exasperated sigh. “I don’t want a clinical lecture, Cam. I want you to tell me what’s going on inside your head.”
Her fingers trembled. “Sorry.”
Pressing the back of her hand to his lips, he muttered. “Me too. I know you’re hurting right now. I didn’t mean to sound impatient.”
“I have a certain knack for sparking people’s tempers.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“Liar.”
The banter eased his fear. She wasn’t lost to him, just distanced. For now. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he assured her. “I just want you to know that you can.”
“You know, with a philosophy like that, I’m surprised you ever got very far in journalism. What happened to rooting out the truth and uncovering the muck?”
“Why do you think I became a columnist instead of an investigative reporter?”
“You get to work your own hours?”
He laughed. “Are you kidding? I work everyone’s hours but my own.” He briefly met her gaze. “I became a columnist because I’m a lousy investigator.”
She shook her head. “You care too much to stick to hard facts. You like to tell your own story. You don’t get hung up on black and white. You’re too interested in the things that make the world gray.”
“I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Don’t get used to it. I’m sure I’ll find a way to insult you again soon.”
“I’d miss it if you didn’t.”
“If I run out of material, I’ll just borrow some from my mother. She’s got a complete arsenal.”
He heard the pain behind the quip, and decided to wait. Cammy, he knew, was picking and choosing words again. He was a very patient man.
“She’s been in St. Elizabeth’s off and on for the past twelve years.”
He knew from Cammy’s background file that her mother’s long history of mental illness had finally resulted in her permanent admittance to the mental hospital. Rubbing a thumb along the back of her hand, he said, “I know. I read that in your file.”
“It started a long time ago. She was never chemically or emotionally balanced. She has delusional tendencies, repressed anxiety, and severe manic depression.” Her voice had taken on a clinical edge. She could have been giving a briefing to a group of medical colleagues. He recognized it as an evasion tactic, but he forced himself to wait through another extended silence.
When Cammy spoke again, her fingers had tightened on his hand. “She’s generally cognizant enough to know where she is. She hates me for putting her there.”
He resisted the urge to argue with her, resisted the urge to offer some comforting platitude. Guilt, he knew, could eat a hole in a person’s gut quicker than acid. “I’m sorry.” He could give her that, at least.
“I really think,” she said, her voice painfully calm, “that she actually started hating me long before I admitted her to St. Elizabeth’s.”
“Cam—”
“No, it’s true. My mother always believed that my father resented her for my deafness, and . . .” She trailed off.
“And?”
“Other things.”
He wasn’t buying it, but he chose not to press. Not yet. “She hurt you.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
“She still hurts you.”
“She’s my mother. She’ll probably always have the power to hurt me. If I refused to let her inside me like that what kind of person would I be?”
She’d done it again. With a few choice words, she’d blown him away. Cammy had a way of shining a light into his soul that made him see things he hadn’t even known existed. Until that morning, when she’d sat in his tree house and calmly told him she didn’t expect anything from him that he wasn’t ready to give, he’d seriously considered that a part of him had died with Leo. For as long as he could remember, people had demanded that he feel things, say things, write things that would move them.
For years, he’d relished the role.
He enjoyed helping people see things from a new perspective. But in the long days following Leo’s death, he’d begun to question everything, from his integrity to his own sanity. Ever-present in his mind was the nagging doubt that he’d pushed too hard, asked too much. If he’d backed off in his pursuit of Leo’s story, things might have been different. In the stillness of night, when he had nothing but his conscience and his memories for company, the insidious memory of knowing Leo’s life represented award-winning material would creep into his soul and leave a mile-wide path of guilt and destruction in its wake. Somewhere deep inside him, a voice whispered that Leo was dead because of him. And that was the same as murdering the kid himself.
While he’d been writing the series, he’d justified his actions to himself with the idea that Leo’s story hadn’t changed simply because Jackson had been present to tell it. The world had met Leo through his columns, but the tragic circumstances of the child’s life had existed long before Jackson put them in print.
During the weeks he’d spent with Leo and his family, the argument had worked. Jackson had made himself believe it. The sight and feel of Leo dying in his arms, however, had ripped bare the awful truth: he’d become what he despised. Somewhere along the way, with the clamoring of the public and his colleagues in his ears, he’d lost his eye for truth. The stories had become more important than the people. One step at a time, he’d moved so far away from who he was that after he’d taken a hard look at himself he realized he’d lost his way.
And until that morning, he’d more or less convinced himself that he’d never find it again. Then Cammy, who had endured so much more than he ever had, had shown him a picture of grace. He’d almost forgotten, he realized, just what grace looked like.
He clung to her hand, wishing he could absorb some of the turmoil she felt. She’d given him an unbelievable gift that day. He wished he could give it back to her. “Cammy.” His voice seemed to edge past the tightness in his throat. “Did you know that you are probably the most remarkable person I know?”
In the semidarkness he felt, rather than saw, her surprised look. “Why would you say that?”
“Because it’s true. And don’t let anyone, especially not your mother, convince you otherwise.”
“Jackson—”
“I mean it. You’re one of a kind, and I don’t think I’ve ever respected anyone more than I respect you. I’ve seen a lot of the world. Heck, I’ve interviewed most of it. You have more character and grace than all of them combined. If you find yourself doubting that, I’ll be at your elbow reminding you.”
“Okay.” He almost couldn’t hear her whispered response.
He met her gaze again. “And promise you’ll trust me.”
“I do.”
“Promise you’ll trust me with the whole story.”
She hesitated. “It’s not a very nice story.”
“But it’s your story.” He settled their joined hands on his thigh. “That’s why I want it.”
ten
“How is she?” Mike pushed a cup of coffee into her hand.
“About the same.” Cammy shook her head. “She’s not speaking to me.”
“Have you talked to Bruce?”
Bruce Philpott, her mother’s psychiatrist, had just left. “You just missed him. He changed her meds.”
Mike dropped into the vinyl chair next to her. “How are you doing?” he asked.
She took a sip of her coffee. “Don’t you want to know what Bruce prescribed?”
“Not particularly. I’d rather know how my friend is holding up under this kind of pressure.”
“I’m surviving.”
“Cam—”
She l
aid her hand on his sleeve. “It’s okay, Mike. I’m fine.”
“I’m worried about you.”
“Think I’m as crazy as she is?”
“I think you’ve got a right to be mad as hell, and you’re starting to scare me with how rational you are.”
“Nothing’s going to change if I get angry, Mike.”
“You want my professional opinion?”
“Not really.”
“Tough. You’re getting it. I don’t think it’s a question of getting mad. I think you are furious. And the longer you deny it, the worse it’s going to get.”
“I know the drill, you know. I took Denial 101 as an undergrad.”
“Yeah? Then you also know that you can’t possibly be objective about what you’re feeling.” He captured her gaze and held it. “You’ve got to trust somebody, Cameo. Sooner or later, you’ve got to unload this.”
“It’s not a trust issue.” His eyebrows arched. “It’s not,” she insisted. “I just decided years ago that there was nothing healthy about brooding over the hand I got dealt. She’s my mother. She didn’t always treat me very well, but then, she wasn’t exactly mentally responsible, either. So what’s the point in taking offense?” At his frustrated oath, she laid a hand on his. “It’s okay, Mike. I promise.”
“Hell. You make me crazy, do you know that?”
“Yes. Thank you for putting up with me.”
“I’m sorry I had to call you at Puller’s about this. Bruce seemed to think you should know.”
“I’m glad you did.”
“Does he think there are any physical symptoms this time?”
“Her heartbeat is irregular, but that’s happened before. Bruce told me he’d been experimenting with B12 shots to try and treat her lethargy. It probably reacted, finally, with some of her other medication. She was a little odd when I saw her last week.”
“Odd how?”
Cammy shrugged. “She mentioned something about expecting my father to take her to an embassy ball. It’s been a while since she’s lapsed like that. Generally, she’s aware that he’s gone, just not that he’s dead. It’s been months since she’s referred to him as if they were still married.”
“Hmm.”