A Reason to Be Alone (The Camdyn Series Book 2)

by Christina Coryell

  I quickly became aware that we were on those televisions again, because Trina started cheering and congratulating me while she held Cooper aloft in his tiny Cardinals gear. Feeling a little ridiculous, I shrugged to the people next to me, and then sat back in my seat.

  “How on earth did you catch that?” Trina wanted to know. I played it off with smug nonchalance.

  “Oh, it was nothing,” I stated. “I told you I would protect Cooper with my life, didn’t I?”

  Wow, I think my hand might be broken.

  Someone I didn’t know patted me on the back, and I turned around and made a sad attempt at a smile before I looked down at my hand again. It was bright red at the palm, and a couple of spots were turning purple.

  Trina started paying more attention to the game after that, and I didn’t blame her. She was now fully aware that a ball could really come flying into our section, and even though Aunt Crazy had come to the rescue, I’m sure she didn’t want to take that chance again. Besides, trying to catch another one of those screamers with my right hand was pretty much out of the question. I almost found myself wishing I could go back in time, and…

  Do what, exactly? Let it hit me in the back, or the head? That would have been way worse!

  No, I had made the right decision, even though I was sure I would regret it for a few days.

  Towards the end of the game, with the Cardinals losing and not much hope of a comeback, the couple beside us decided to cut out early. I noticed when they left, but I didn’t think too much about it until the guy sat back down beside me. At least, I thought it was the same guy until I glanced over and noticed that it was Trey.

  “Nice grab,” he said with a smirk. “We could have used you in the outfield tonight.”

  “Yeah, but I would have insisted on a glove,” I replied, showing him my hand.

  “Dude! Dang, that’s got to hurt,” he stated.

  “Little bit,” I agreed. “How did you know we were over here?”

  “You know, when there’s a TV nearby, you can’t seem to keep yourself off it,” he told me with a smirk. “I saw you after you picked up that foul, and since I knew where the ball had been hit, it wasn’t hard to find you.”

  “I suppose not,” I surmised. “Have you seen the baby yet? This is Cooper.”

  “No, not yet,” he replied as he leaned around me. “Hi, Trina. Huh, he’s smaller than I thought he would be.”

  “Well, he is a baby,” I sarcastically retorted, at which point he responded with a smirk.

  “So, where’s your man? Did you get the dirt on him from Travis?”

  “What is he talking about?” Trina wanted to know, looking at me quizzically.

  “Travis and Cole played ball together in college,” I informed her, “and no, I don’t want any dirt on him, from Travis or anyone else.”

  “That’s too bad,” he said with a grin. “With what Travis told me, I could probably fill a book.”

  “Is that why you came over here?” I asked, feeling the anger well up inside me. He laughed as he shook his head and leaned back into his seat.

  “No, I just saw you and wanted to say hi, that’s all,” he assured me. “We used to be friends, didn’t we?”

  “I thought so,” I sighed, returning my attention to the miserable game.

  “Come on, you’ve got to give a guy at least one mistake in his life, don’t you?” he wondered. “Haven’t I paid for it by now?” I turned to look at him, giving him a confused expression.

  “What is it that you want from me, Trey?” I questioned him. He shrugged and gave a half-smile, as though he couldn’t fully commit.

  “I just want things to be the way they were, you know? I don’t like things being weird between us. I’d like to think I could run into you on the street, and we could just be old friends.”

  “You asked me to marry you,” I protested, wondering if he understood the absurdity of what he was asking.

  “Yes, stupidly,” he agreed. He looked out at the field for a minute before he continued. “So, are you still with…”

  “Yes, I am absolutely still with Cole, and no, I don’t think we can be friends, Trey. This is just too bizarre for me.”

  “Well, good luck on your wedding,” he said as he rose from his seat. “From the sounds of it, you’re going to have a rude awakening.”

  Rude awakening! I should just…

  Managing to control my emotions, I told Trina that we should go ahead and leave, since the Cards were obviously phoning it in. She agreed, and we worked our way out of the stadium with Trina carrying a sleeping Cooper and me lugging the incredibly huge bag. We had made it outside and were crossing Clark Avenue when my phone started ringing, and I looked down to see that it was Cole calling. I answered as breezily as I could, and he immediately started laughing.

  “How’s your hand?” he wanted to know.

  “Well, it hurts pretty bad, and it’s red, but… Hey, how do you know about that?”

  “You’re famous,” he chuckled. “’Look at the way that girl protects the baby,’ the announcer kept saying.”

  “I was pretty spectacular!” I joked. “Was I as graceful as I felt?”

  “Cam, you are never graceful,” he sighed. “It was pretty funny, though – Dad and I were just sitting here watching the game, and all of a sudden there you and Trina were with Cooper. Trina looked like she was enjoying herself.”

  “It was all for show, trust me,” I assured him as we loaded Cooper into the car to head home.

  “It made me miss you even more,” he stated. “When are you coming home?”

  Ah, Cole, I love it that you miss me.

  “As soon as Charlie is back. He’s supposed to be in tomorrow night, but if it’s late, I’ll probably stay until Friday.”

  “And as soon as you get back here, I am not letting you out of my sight,” he told me. “One more week, and I’m not taking any chances.”

  “You can put me on lockdown, if you so desire,” I guaranteed. We said our goodbyes, and then Trina and I headed back to her house for the evening. Once again I offered to let her sleep while I watched Cooper, and she insisted that she was only taking me up on it because I owed her for the baseball game. Honestly, I think she knew this would be her last best bet for a while.

  Twice I put him in his crib only to hear him stir a few minutes later, and I wondered if maybe he didn’t like being alone in that big bed. When I settled him down beside me, he actually slept for five hours straight. Trina probably would have been mortified that I let him sleep in my arms, but what could she expect from Aunt Crazy, anyway?

  -§-

  Trina and I spent an uneventful day with Cooper, and Charlie finally came home at around six o’clock. When I offered to take care of dinner, they both looked reasonably surprised, as though they thought I was actually going to go into the kitchen and cook a meal. Of course, I really meant that I would order a pizza or something.

  Charlie was quite impressed with the way I handled Cooper for Trina while he was gone, and he was even more impressed by the bruises on my hand from that foul ball. It was currently sitting on top of Cooper’s dresser – an ever-present reminder that Aunt Camdyn would gladly stand in harm’s way for him. More than that, it was a pretty awesome souvenir from his first baseball game. I sensed that Charlie was a little bummed that he didn’t get to share that honor with Cooper himself, but he managed to take it in stride, for the most part.

  He regaled us with a couple of stories from his boring conference, but to be quite frank, I didn’t have any interest in hearing any of it. The only thing I desired to talk to Charlie about was that box of Grandma’s stuff that was in the closet. When Trina started to give Cooper a bath, I tried to bring it up disinterestedly.

  “I went through those boxes in the closet,” I stated, staring ahead at the television.

  “Both of them?” he asked. “I thought you didn’t want to look through the BM’s stuff.”

  “I didn’t, really, but it was l
ike gawking at an accident,” I assured him. “I just couldn’t help myself. There were a bunch of baby pictures in there.”

  “Yeah, I saw them,” he said, taking a swig of his soft drink.

  “You saw them?” I questioned, suddenly unable to remain detached from the subject. “You didn’t think the whole thing was a little odd?”

  “You were in them, so I guess they were a little odd,” he remarked with a grin.

  “I’m not joking, Charlie Taylor!” I insisted. “Didn’t you think Rita seemed…I don’t know, happy almost?”

  “How would I know? She was probably delirious and out of her mind. A certifiable nutcase.”

  “No, I don’t think she was a nutcase,” I told him. “She didn’t know how to be a mother by any stretch of the imagination, but when I was with her in Italy, she definitely didn’t act like a nutcase.”

  “I’d personally rather think she was crazy,” he stated with a smirk. “It’s easier to take the abandonment that way.” When he looked over and noticed me giving him a disgusted look, he shook his head and laughed. “I’m sorry, Cam. I know you still take some of that pretty personally, but it’s a lot easier for me not to care.”

  “Not to care would be nice,” I whispered dejectedly. “Did you see the papers Grandma had?”

  “I don’t remember,” he sighed. “It’s been a long time since Trina and I boxed that stuff up.”

  “So you didn’t see the letter about Italy?” I asked him seriously. The quizzical look he gave me told me that he had not, so I went to the closet and pulled out the box, fishing through it again. When I found it, I shoved the box back into the closet and marched over to Charlie, waving it in front of my face. He growled at me a little for interrupting his TV viewing, but he took the letter from my hands and looked down at it, and I watched while he read.

  “Huh,” he said when he was finished, setting it on the coffee table. The look I gave him had to be one of shocked exasperation.

  “What do you mean, ‘huh’? Is that all you have to say?” He leaned back against the sofa and draped his arm across the top, directing his full attention towards me. A small smile played about his lips, and I knew he wasn’t taking this as seriously as I was.

  “What do you want me to say, Camdyn? I’m almost thirty years old. I am way past wondering what my pathetic excuse for a mother was thinking when she abandoned me. Knowing that she wanted to send me to some faceless boarding school in Italy? Honestly? Thank God we weren’t shipped off to a foreign country where we had to spend our summers with that fake woman and her sugar daddy Italian husband.”

  “But…what about that thing Grandma wrote at the bottom? What do you think about that?”

  “That,” he started, looking down at the paper, “actually makes me feel sad. When I think about the amount of time that Grandma spent feeling guilty about keeping us here, or thinking she was doing something wrong... She absolutely made the right decision, and I wish she would have recognized it sooner.”

  “Yeah, me too,” I sighed. I picked up the paper from the coffee table and held it in my hands, staring down at Grandma’s handwriting again. Charlie slid over on the couch and draped his arm around my shoulders in that big-brother way he had.

  “Will you take some well-meant advice, little sis?” he wondered with a smile, and I nodded slightly. “Forget about being mad at her. Believe me, I know it’s justified, and you’ve earned every minute of it, but it won’t get you anywhere. Your life is going to be way better if you stop caring about her altogether. Trust me – she’s not sitting off in some Italian luxury palace thinking about you and me.”

  “I will try,” I assured him sadly, taking the paper back to the closet and tucking it safely inside the box. When I returned to the sofa, Trina had Cooper in his pajamas and Charlie was back to watching TV. I settled next to Charlie quietly, and he turned to smile at me.

  “Take all that stuff home with you, okay?” he asked. “I know you like thinking about history and looking at that old stuff, and I’m not sentimental.”

  “Okay,” I told him.

  “Let me see your hand again,” he ordered with a mischievous grin. I held my palm up and he whistled quietly. “I can’t believe you caught that ball. That was a shot!”

  “I know,” I stated with mocked conceit. “I’m a rock star.”

  -§-

  I pulled up at the bed and breakfast mid-afternoon the next day, and as usual for a Friday, Rosalie was busy preparing for her overnight guests. She was also beginning to worry a bit about the wedding being a week away, and all the arrangements she would need to make. Since most of the festivities were going to be outside, I wasn’t sure why she was so worried, but I tried my best to calm her nerves.

  We went through the cake flavors again, with me assuring her that everything she planned sounded wonderful. She listed off the dishes she was preparing for dinner, and cleared a couple additions with me. Next she asked if I had picked up my dress, and whether we had gotten our marriage license, and whether or not I had checked in with the photographer again.

  “I have everything under control,” I assured her as I helped her stack towels in one of the bathrooms.

  “Do you think your brother will like staying here?” she worried, and at that statement I let out a loud laugh.

  “Charlie? You don’t have to worry about Charlie.”

  “Well, what about Trina?” she asked. “Oh, I do hope it’s okay for the little one.”

  “Everything’s going to be perfectly fine,” I stated. “Trina will love it here, just like I do.” She lowered herself onto the bed and let out a sigh, blowing a stray hair away from her face.

  “I’ve just never had a wedding here before,” she admitted a little sheepishly.

  “Neither have I,” I told her with a smirk, “and I’m pretty sure between the two of us, I’m the one who is supposed to be freaking out.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  After a weekend full of last-minute wedding details between Liz and Rosalie, I was more than ready to get back to a routine on Monday. By routine, of course I meant doing nothing but listlessly hanging out all day, but I was on vacation mode after all. As soon as the honeymoon was over, I would be stressed out and working too hard again, of that I was certain.

  Since I couldn’t run at Rosalie’s anymore per the orders of Ted and Cole, I drove my car to Cole’s house first thing in the morning and tagged along on his jog through the woods. Running with Cole was always a little distracting, but in a good way. When we got back to the house, he stood by the back deck for a minute, so I plopped into one of the chairs.

  “Why don’t you move your clothes over today?” he asked, leaning against the house. “You might as well get it done – that way you won’t have to worry about it after the wedding.”

  “Yeah, I can do that,” I decided quickly, smiling up at him. “Do you care if I go inside and freshen up?”

  “Yes, I care,” he said with a laugh. “I’m going inside to take a shower, and then I’m going to work. As soon as I’m gone, you can come and go as you please.”

  “Man, you are such a party pooper!” I exclaimed, and then I hopped up and gave him a quick kiss. “See you tonight?”

  “Yeah, I’ll come over when I get off work,” he assured me, and then he flashed that killer smile before he walked inside.

  It didn’t take long to gather my clothes from Rosalie’s. The things that were in the closet I just grabbed by the armful, still on the hangers. The ones in the dresser I stuffed back inside my suitcase, just the way I brought them in. She poked her head in at one point and asked what I was doing. When I told her I was taking all my clothes to Cole’s, she pretended to be relieved that I wasn’t running away.

  At least, I think she was pretending.

  Back at Cole’s, I helped myself to the key he had hidden under the welcome mat and pushed the door open to our house.

  Our house. I like the sound of that.

  Retrieving a suitcase, I
hauled it up the stairs and into Cole’s bedroom. There were two separate closets, so I started dragging my things into the one that was empty. Little by little I cleaned out one suitcase, and then another, and then I began hanging my clothes in the closet. With only a few dresses left strewn across the bed, I paused and listened after what I thought sounded like a knock at the door. I quickly decided that I was imagining things, but when I heard it again, I wandered across the hall and down the stairs.

  When I flung the door open, I froze dead in my tracks. I have tried to determine after the fact if I have ever before seen someone open their eyes so wide in my life, but I don’t think I have. Deer in the headlights doesn’t even come close to describing this look. Kid in the cookie jar, you name the metaphor, it wasn’t working there. Nothing was registered on that face but utter, complete shock, and I’m sure mine reflected something similar.

  “Stephanie,” I breathed hesitantly, and I watched as the face of that beautiful woman with the flawless complexion and pin-straight shining hair contorted, finally resulting in her placing her hand over her mouth and sobbing. “Are you okay?” I asked, but she shrugged me off and turned around, sitting on the first step and putting her head in her arms. Unsure what to do, I walked over to her, lowered myself beside her, and gently put my hand on her back.

  “Oh, Camdyn, I am such a horrible person,” she moaned, back shaking beneath my hand.

  “I’m sure whatever it is, you’re not a horrible person,” I told her softly, which only seemed to make matters worse. We sat there for about five minutes, neither of us saying a word, until she finally seemed to pull herself together. I went into the house and retrieved a box of tissues, and when I handed them to her she simply sniffed and rolled her eyes.