For No Reason (The Camdyn Series Book 4)

by Christina Coryell

  “Aren’t you Camdyn Taylor?” I heard from somewhere to my left, and I turned to greet the stranger, thankful for the interruption.

  Chapter Twelve

  “I’m home!” I yelled through the back door, dropping my suitcase on the hardwood. If Rachel, Sara and I had arrived back in Memphis an hour later, I might have missed my husband. The way the new normal was shaping up, his workday would end and he would easily transition into baseball mode, leaving precious little time for me in between. After a long evening, he usually stumbled in and marched straight to the shower, after which he plopped exhaustedly on the bed. He normally stayed that way only for a few seconds, eventually propping himself up on his elbows and giving me that enticing grin, assuring me that there was no place in the universe that he would rather be than in my presence.

  Just thinking about the way he made me feel, my heart caught in my chest as I strolled forward and peeked into the living room, expecting to find him sprawled on the couch or standing in the kitchen. When I couldn’t manage to locate him, I made my way to the stairs and marched up towards the bedrooms. Half convinced that he would be taking a nap, I was surprised to see his form in the first “guest” bedroom. Stopping short in the hall, I watched him for a minute as he knelt on the floor, tightening a bolt. A short step into the room, I fully took in the wooden crib against the wall and the matching rocking chair in the corner.

  “Cole,” I whispered, unwittingly raising my hand to my neck. He turned slowly and pinned me with those dark eyes, peering right into me in a way that threatened to undo my composure.

  “I know you didn’t want to decorate yet,” he immediately defended himself. “This isn’t really gender specific, though, and we’re eventually going to need this stuff. We might as well get it sooner than later, right? Now we don’t have to worry about it, and… Why do I feel like you’re upset about this?”

  “I’m not,” I was quick to assure him. “It’s just… The realness of it is a bit overwhelming, isn’t it?”

  “No.” He rose to his feet and took a step toward me, stopping just a few inches away. “I’m sorry.” A heavy pause punctuated his words. “I don’t find any of it overwhelming, Cam.”

  In spite of my internal fight to tamp down what I perceived to be an overreaction, a sharp breath escaped from somewhere deep inside, and I bit my lip to try to still my emotion. My response was clearly perplexing Cole, because he furrowed his brow and watched me expectantly. Unable to express what I was feeling, I tossed myself forward into him and threw my arms around his neck, clinging to him as though his presence could steady everything. In all reality, it probably could.

  After a split second of shock, his arms wrapped tightly around my waist, and his face settled against my neck. I felt his warm breath expel in a rush of relief, and I smiled as I closed my eyes and enjoyed the moment.

  “Am I pressing too quickly?” he asked quietly, nuzzling even closer against my neck. I shivered as his lips grazed against my skin, and shook my head almost imperceptibly.

  “No,” I insisted. “You are welcome to run full-speed ahead, and drag me right along with you, because I am so ready.” Pulling back, I put my palm against his cheek and directed his gaze into my eyes. “Cole, I know I’ve been hesitant and nervous and I gave you every reason to question me, but not anymore. Every day that passes I am more connected to this tiny life inside me, and I can’t wait to meet him or her so we can be a family of three. We can decorate, or talk about names, or plan out potential college prospects, or anything else your imagination desires. I’m absolutely, completely, without a doubt, entirely ready for this.”

  “Are you really?” he whispered, seemingly taken aback.

  “Yes, really.” Releasing myself from his grasp, I walked over to the rocking chair and sat down easily, gently pushing myself back and forth. He placed his hand against the side rail of the crib and smiled contentedly.

  “Clay,” he blurted. I stopped rocking and rested my head against the chair, giving him a puzzled glare.

  “Dirt,” I said in response. He chuckled and glanced down at the floor, shaking his head.

  “I mean, I like the name Clay.”

  “Clay,” I repeated, letting the name rattle around my mind for a moment. “Clay Parker.”

  “It matches the whole ‘C’ theme – Cole, Camdyn, Clay…”

  “Um, pretty sure it can’t work that way, Wyatt.”

  “Buzzkill,” he muttered.

  Rising from the chair, I stepped up to him and placed my hand against the crib rail, staring down into it and imagining a baby resting there. “Okay, so that’s one possibility. What about a girl’s name?”

  “The baby’s a boy.” He stated it so succinctly that I nearly gasped.

  “Number one, Mr. Parker, you have no way of determining whether the baby is a boy or a girl, so that’s ridiculous. Second, my mother’s instinct tells me that she is a girl, so you are incorrect.”

  “I didn’t know you had a mother’s instinct,” he countered mischievously, placing his hand over my slightly swollen abdomen.

  “Yes, well, apparently it skips a generation.” He couldn’t resist laughing, and I melted into his arms again.

  “I missed you so much,” he breathed. “You have no idea how much.”

  “I guarantee I missed you more,” I argued. “I slept in the same room with Rachel and Sara. Your sister snores like a locomotive.”

  “Really? Last night, I listened to Michael Bublé alone. I started feeling really awkward about it.”

  “That is awfully strange.”

  He sunk his fingers into the back of my hair and pulled me forward, stopping a mere breath from my lips. “Never leave me again,” he insisted playfully, adding a smile for good measure.

  “Says the man who wants to play baseball and travel the country.”

  “Clearly I haven’t thought it through,” he continued. “We’ve got the entire evening to hash it out – I’m all yours tonight.”

  -§-

  The next morning, the sunrise shone a little brighter than most of its previous counterparts, and the air smelled sweeter than I remembered. Cole and I had spent the entire evening dreaming aloud about our baby, and daring to imagine a life for ourselves that extended well past the next moment. We talked about what might happen if he did manage to realize some of his baseball aspirations, and what it would mean for us as a family unit. Ultimately, we promised to go wherever our dreams took us, whether they involved diamonds and long balls or movie sets and press releases.

  Time was devoted to reminiscing about our own childhoods, and what we wanted to replicate and avoid for our baby. It was a struggle at first for me to press past a vague reply of, “Don’t be Rita,” but eventually Cole managed to coax out the fact that I wished I had taken some sort of music lessons. Also, I casually mentioned that I wanted our child to be well-read.

  Cole thought that suggestion rather funny, so I had to inform him that my grandma possessed a gigantic collection of Nancy Drew books that grew to torture me over time. At first, when I was eight or nine, I really liked Nancy and the thought that she could be brave, smart, pretty, and popular. As time passed, though, she really got on my nerves because she was way too perfect. There was nothing that felt real about her, so I begged my grandma to get me a library card and let me out of my Nancy rut.

  It was only after that time that I felt free to explore, and I quickly fell in love with Anne Shirley instead. Anne (with an e) was kind of brave when it counted, too smart for her own good, pretty enough even though she thought she was funny looking, and could make a mess out of anything. That girl could seriously screw things up, and Marilla and Matthew still couldn’t help but love her. Anne was definitely my kindred spirit, not Nancy.

  To his detriment, Cole remarked that he completely understood why Anne would resonate with me, and I punished him by walloping him upside the head with a pillow.

  As for what Cole would have changed about his childhood, he told me fir
st and foremost that he wouldn’t have had a sister. Since that wasn’t particularly helpful, I asked him to try again. As it turned out, he wished that he had been closer to his grandparents. That would be easy to rectify in our situation, he insisted, since his parents lived next door; however, that brought up a whole swarm of thoughts pinging around my brain regarding Rita and my baby never knowing her grandfather. (Yes, I said her, because I was totally convinced that I was correct.)

  The talk about grandparents led to a discussion on what nicknames our child would give Cole’s parents, and we decided Pappy and Meemaw would probably be chosen – the same ones Charlotte liked to use. The baby would call Rita… Well, Rita, I guess. Anything else would be weird.

  Then, Cole announced that we could use some music and Michael Bublé began crooning “You Don’t Know Me.” The magic was gone, however, and once again I asked him to change the song. Naturally, he wondered why I was suddenly so opposed to what had been my favorite tune, and I offered the pathetic excuse that I had simply heard it too many times and grown tired of it.

  The truth was, Jake ruined it. Sometimes songs become imbedded in memory with a particular event, and every time the familiar music plays from that point forward, the event replays in your mind. “The Power of Love,” for example – every time I heard the first few notes of that song, mentally I imagined Marty McFly on his skateboard cruising behind the back of a truck because he was late for school. That song belonged to Back to the Future. “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” belonged to Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey.

  As for my particular situation, I doubted if I would ever be able to hear the words to “You Don’t Know Me” without thinking of Jake’s flirty glance in the cab of his pickup truck, and the way the hair on the back of my neck reacted. Of course, that also included the knowledge that I couldn’t admit any of that to Cole, because part of me knew it was ridiculous.

  So, I simply told him I had moved on and would rather listen to something else.

  In the midst of talking about our future, we drifted off to sleep. Although the sun had risen earlier than I would have liked, I didn’t feel the least bit grumpy about it, because I was in a blissful state of mind. My second appearance on Almost Midnight with Jamie Price had been a success, I spent some much needed girl time with Rachel and Sara, and I had come home to beautiful daydreams about a lifetime of happiness with the most incredible man I had ever met. Life was good – so good, in fact, that I fought the urge to pinch myself by glancing over at Cole. He had clearly been watching me, as was evidenced by the smile curving his lips.

  “Good morning,” I sighed. Snuggling into his arms, I stared at the sunburst pattern on the wall that was reflecting from the glare of the window.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “We won’t have many days like this left,” I predicted, watching my fingers move with the rise and fall of his chest. “We’ll have precious little time being you and me, before we have a plus one. I’m not ready to give this up just yet.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he argued. “I’m definitely not giving this up.”

  “What are you going to do with the baby?” I teased.

  “She can sleep beside you.” Lifting myself up to my elbow, I stared down at him as one of my curls cascaded into his face. Shoving it aside, I allowed him to witness my surprised expression.

  “You just said ‘she.’”

  “Ugh, I did? You must be rubbing off on me.”

  “This is a fascinating turn of events.” A smile crept onto my face as my phone began buzzing against the nightstand. “Hold that thought, Mr. Parker. I want to explore this further.”

  He lifted an eyebrow as I leaned across to grab my phone, but he didn’t allow himself any other reaction. Giggling slightly, I looked down to see that the phone number showed Charlie Camden.

  Grandpa Charlie.

  My heart felt even lighter as I thought about Grandpa sitting there with his morning coffee – a fresh pot that he brewed and hid from Hannah, to avoid those fruity sweeteners she had the tendency to try to force upon him. The thought of him calling so early to have one of our little chats about his future grandchild pumped the level of my happiness up another notch, and I grinned to myself as I lifted the phone to my ear and said hello.

  “Camdyn, it’s Bill.” Not Grandpa, but Bill – Meg’s husband. Snooty cousin Maureen’s father, Bill. I couldn’t hide the disappointment from my face. “Are you there?”

  Snapping myself out of the fog of displeasure at hearing Bill’s voice rather than Grandpa’s, I took a deep breath. “Yeah, sorry, I’m here.”

  “Hannah asked me to call you. It’s Charlie, he…” A long pause occurred, after which Bill cleared his throat. “Charlie passed away this morning.”

  “What?” I managed to squeak out. “No, it can’t be…” Cole rose to a seated position next to me, and I placed my hand on his arm to steady myself.

  “I’m sorry, Camdyn. I don’t have any further details yet, but as soon as we know something, I’ll call you again.”

  I ended the phone call without bothering to say goodbye. The phone dropped to the bed and slid sideways for a second before it toppled to the floor, but I hardly noticed. Barely two months had gone by since I discovered the existence of my maternal grandparents, and although I was eternally grateful for the chance I had been given to be part of my grandfather’s life, I wasn’t satisfied. A million things rushed through my mind that I wanted to ask him, but now…

  “Camdyn?” Glancing up into Cole’s eyes, I felt the euphoria of the morning give way to despair, and I crumpled in front of him.

  “Grandpa died,” I said simply. He didn’t try to say any words of comfort or make things appear brighter than they were. Instead, he pulled me to his chest and held me against him as I sobbed.

  -§-

  “Are you going to tell her?”

  It had taken me hours to call my brother Charlie to tell him the news about our grandfather, because I simply couldn’t get myself together. Even once I worked up the nerve to dial the phone, it took me three attempts to get all the broken words to string together in some semblance that he understood. Afterwards we had labored in uncomfortable silence, neither of us having anything to offer the other in the way of condolences. We were experiencing the same pain, Charlie and me, so we just shared it quietly for a bit.

  Then, he had unexpectedly broken the stillness with that grating question: Are you going to tell her?

  The thought honestly hadn’t crossed my mind. Logically it made sense that I should be the one to tell Rita, because I was the only family member currently conversing with her in any fashion. I was hesitant to talk to her about Grandpa before, though, because thinking about what she had done to him infuriated me so. Now that he was gone, there would never be any hope for reconciliation for them – at least not on this side of heaven.

  Having any sort of relationship with my estranged mother would not have occurred had it not been for Grandpa in the first place. If he hadn’t talked to Cole, to try to get him to convince me to forgive her, I wasn’t certain I would have gone through with it. At the time, I remembered telling myself that it was for Grandpa. He hadn’t wanted me to live with a life of regret, he said.

  The thought started a fresh round of crying, and Charlie haltingly told me it would be okay.

  “I am such a jerk,” I spit out, cradling the phone in my hand while I sunk to the floor and placed my forehead against my knees.

  “You’re not a jerk,” Charlie argued.

  “Yes, I am. Rita wanted to go to Philadelphia, Charlie. She said she would save up enough money to take me with her, and you know what I said? ‘You made your bed, so you can sleep in it.’ That’s what I said, Charlie.”

  “You told the truth.”

  “Grandpa didn’t get the opportunity to right that part of his life, don’t you see? Rita wanted to go back and see him, and I refused to go with her. I’m a terrible person.”

 
“Cammie…”

  “Don’t defend me, Charlie. It’s useless. I know what an idiot I’ve been, and I can’t undo this one. This one is going to haunt me for the rest of my life.”

  “Only if you let it.”

  The foreboding thought that I would certainly let it remained in the back of my mind, and I attempted to warn it away with a forceful shake of my head. That notion was very old-Camdyn, and I sincerely hoped that I had evolved out of that stage of my being. I was preparing to be a mother, so acting like a grown-up who had her act together seemed like a necessary trait. Pulling that off while also mourning for the grandfather I barely knew was proving to be somewhat problematic, however.

  “I’ll figure it out, Charlie. And I guess I’m going to tell her, too.”

  “So, I guess I’ll see you in Philly, then?”

  I hadn’t paused to think that attending services for Grandpa Charlie would mean yet another trip to Philadelphia.

  “I think maybe I should sign up for frequent flyer miles or something,” I muttered. “I’ll see you in a couple days, Charlie. Give Cooper a kiss for me, and tell Trina I could use some Oreo cookies right now. She’ll understand.”

  -§-

  A late summer rain pounded the pavement as I drove in silence to Rosalie’s bed and breakfast, the only sounds meeting my ears being the patter of rain against the roof and the squeak of the windshield wipers as they erased the traces of water and dust from the glass. When I slowed to turn into the drive, my eyes lifted to the white sign post and that same sight I first witnessed the night I followed Cole’s headlights into the driveway: River Rock Bed and Breakfast.

  It wasn’t difficult for me to remember how lost and scared I had been that night, because the feelings were rushing back to me - not necessarily because I desired to take a trip down memory lane, or because I myself was feeling any of those emotions at the moment, but because I was imagining how the news of her father’s sudden death was going to affect Rita. Having grown up without a father, I remembered the longing and the sense of loss I felt, and I didn’t even really have any frame of reference to validate those emotions.