I wanted to say I had no idea what that must have been like, to be left completely alone, but I had some idea. I was surrounded by people after my father’s death, but I felt utterly alone.
“If it wasn’t for you,” he said hoarsely, “I wouldn’t have made it.” He brushed light kisses along my cheeks and nose.
“Tell me all of it,” I pleaded with him quietly.
“No,” he said firmly before walking away.
Frustrated, I headed to the bedroom to get ready. There was no point in pressing him to tell me more because doing so would only create more distance between us, and I didn’t want that.
“You’re nervous,” Garrett commented as we started the short drive into Tacoma. His hand reached out to rest firmly on my knee, stopping it from shaking. The late afternoon sun was beating down on us through the windshield, a reminder that summer was still in full swing and the heat had no plans of leaving.
“Yeah, I guess I am,” I admitted with a quick half-smile. Valerie and I accepted an all-cash offer that was more than the asking price if we were willing to close on the house quickly.
Garrett glanced across the car toward me and gave me a reassuring smile. I swiped at a few stray tears rolling down my cheeks before covering Garrett’s hand on my knee with my own. “The house will still be there whenever you want to go and see it. Selling the house doesn’t take away the memories you and your family created there. Those memories will be in your heart forever.”
“Thank you. I needed to be reminded of that.”
We drove across the bay toward Tacoma to the title office. It was inside one of many nondescript buildings in an office park. We pulled into a parking spot just as Valerie was getting out of her car. Everyone exchanged pleasantries as we greeted each other, but it wasn’t hard to mistake the coolness Valerie showed Garrett. She was still wary of him, blaming him for my accidental overdose.
Garrett held my hand firmly as we walked into the title agency’s office. We were shown to a small conference room where we waited.
“So are you leaving right away?” Valerie asked me.
“No. Garrett has to stay for a few more months,” I replied. I reached out for Garrett’s hand and held it tightly. “We’re going to buy a vineyard.”
Valerie’s eyes filled with shock followed by a narrowed gaze that expressed her doubt. Luckily, the title agent popped her pretty blond head into the room in the nick of time.
“All ready for me?” Her smile was bright and white, and her perky demeanor was irritating. Didn’t she realize Valerie and I were selling our childhood home? This was not a day for celebration.
We went through the stack of paperwork, signing one page after the other. The title agent clipped everything together neatly and slipped the papers inside a large manila envelope. “As soon as all the paperwork goes through, you’ll have your funds. That normally takes a week or two.”
“Thank you,” Valerie and I both mumbled.
There was one final step to be completed: handing over the keys. My fingers trembled as I reached inside my purse and pulled out the silver key ring. I placed them on the conference table, letting my palm rest over their familiarity. Valerie did the same, placing her keys in front of her. On an exhale, I pushed them toward the title agent, who scooped them up in her hand and dropped them inside the envelope. After the agent received Valerie’s keys, she stood and smiled before exiting the room.
“I don’t know about you, but I need a drink,” Valerie blurted, breaking the thick tension filling the room. I looked at my watch and smirked at the time. It’s five o’clock somewhere, I thought to myself.
“Whatever you’re having, make mine a double,” I replied, releasing a heavy breath.
“I’ll drive,” Garrett added as we stood and headed toward the door.
“Actually, can I have some time with Cami? Alone?”
Garrett looked down at me, and I nodded. Valerie was leaving soon to travel the world, and I knew this would be one of our last moments together.
“Just call me and I’ll pick you up,” Garrett told me quietly before he kissed my cheek and left.
“It’s just you and me, kid,” she murmured.
“Let’s get drunk,” I declared.
We headed to a favorite local haunt, nothing more than a hole in the wall with a stale smell and dim lighting. We found empty seats at the bar and waited for the bartender to make his way over to us.
“Two shots of Crown,” I told him. This was for Dad, who liked to sip whiskey whenever we had a roaring bonfire along our little stretch of beach.
When they were gone, Valerie and I both ordered a glass of wine, which made the bartender roll his eyes.
“So are you happy?” Valerie was heading right into the heavy conversation without much preamble.
“Yes,” I said confidently.
“Things with Garrett are good?”
“We’re learning about each other, Val. There’s going to be a period of adjustment. We were together for only a few weeks before he deployed.” I took a sip of my red wine; it was awful, and now I understood the look of disappointment from the bartender. He must have known their wine was shit. I pushed the glass aside, signaled to him, and ordered a vodka tonic, which was clearly the better choice based on the bartender’s look of relief. “There’s a wall between us, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“He never talks about what happened, when he was captured.”
Valerie narrowed her eyes. “Did you think he was just going to spill all of that information, Cami? I mean, when Dominic and I were together, he was like a closed book. Wouldn’t budge. I just stopped asking.”
That wasn’t my style. I wasn’t willing to accept Garrett’s silence and the walls he tried to build around himself. I’d accepted his proposal of marriage, which meant I’d already promised to be there for better or for worse. I wasn’t just going to give up because it was too difficult of a subject to discuss because the moment I did, our relationship was over.
“Maybe I should have pushed him to open up,” she mumbled.
I reached across and covered her hands with my own. “I can’t push Garrett, and I don’t think you could have gotten Dominic to open up, either.”
“Cami, you’re buying a vineyard with Garrett. That is a huge commitment. Aren’t you scared it won’t work out?”
“I’m terrified, Val. But I can’t just give up on him because he came back completely fucked up.” Those words were unexpected, and my mind flashed automatically to the moment I inadvertently woke him from a nightmare. My hand rubbed along the base of my throat where his fingers had left invisible brands.
“Cami …” Val breathed out. “If he hurt you or did something…”
“No, Val. He didn’t,” I insisted. “We’re fine.”
Valerie wasn’t entirely convinced, but she let the conversation drop. We quietly sipped at our drinks before I asked Valerie if she was worried about living life without a plan.
“No, I’m not.” She sounded confident. Her eyes twinkled with the possibilities of her new adventure. “I’m subletting a flat in Paris from an American. He’s actually in the Navy, so I’m not worried about him scamming me or anything. And I’ll use that as my home base. I’ve heard that once in you’re in Europe, it’s really easy to travel between the countries.”
Leave it to my sister to have a plan even when she swore she wouldn’t have a plan.
“That sound amazing, Val. I’m so jealous of you. When are you leaving?”
“In a few days. I’m heading to New York for a week to meet up with a friend from high school first.” The smile and glow that appeared instantly the moment she started to discuss her trip started to fade a bit. “I wish I was going to be here to help you pack up.”
“Don’t worry about it, Val. I’ll be fine. Most of my things are in storage anyway, so it’ll be easy to pack up a moving truck.”
“Still, this is a huge step for you, and I want to be there fo
r you.” The big sister rarely came out anymore. We were more like equals, but occasionally, Valerie could be protective.
“You will be,” I reassured her. “There’s phones and email and FaceTime and good ole snail mail. You’ll never be far away from me, Val.”
We finished our drinks, and when I asked Val if she wanted a second glass, she scrunched up her nose. I called Garrett to come pick us up, and when he arrived a while later, my mouth watered at the sight of him in dark denim and a black T-shirt.
“Hi,” I greeted him, my voice breathy and husky. I kissed him greedily, which he didn’t seem to mind from the way he responded.
“Hey,” he said when we finally broke apart. He nodded toward Valerie. “Hi, Val. Do you need a ride home?”
“No, but I appreciate the offer,” she replied. She placed her hand on his shoulder, and said, “Take care of my little sister, okay?”
She hugged me tightly, and I offered to drive her to the airport, but she declined and then she was gone.
Garrett picked up my nearly empty glass of vodka and tonic and sniffed. “I thought the two of you were going to get good and drunk tonight.”
“Not after sampling their wine selection,” I said incredulously.
“Cami, this is a hole in the wall. What did you expect?” Garrett flagged down the bartender and ordered a scotch for himself and another vodka tonic for me. “Before we leave, I want to tell you something.”
Uh-oh. He wanted to talk in a loud, smelly crowded dive bar? “Can’t it wait?” I asked. I wanted these moments of honesty to be quiet and intimate. And after taking one look at him in the tight T-shirt stretched across his chest, I wouldn’t mind being naked.
Garrett shook his head and pulled his stool closer to mine. “No, I need to tell you now.”
I took a drink and waited.
“I got lucky,” he started. “If this had been a few years ago, then getting captured would have meant death. But the rebels who took me saw an opportunity and took it. They thought they could get cash in exchange for my return. They were wrong.”
Garrett fiddled with his glass but didn’t touch the liquid inside. “That’s not to say what happened didn’t affect me. I have very real nightmares more often than I’d like to admit, and I’m trying so hard to deal with them. But I’m not ready to tell you about them, and I hope you can understand that.”
His eyes searched for my understanding, and I nodded. I understood, but I still felt disappointed. I wanted him to confide in me, to trust me with the darkest parts of himself. “Do you ever think you’re going to tell me?” I asked.
“Eventually. The best thing right now is to move on. I want to finish my time and start our lives in Healdsburg.”
“But you can’t just ignore your problems, Garrett.”
“I’m not ignoring them, Cami. I’ve been seeing Captain Dennison weekly, and he’s really helping me deal, but I also can’t just sit around thinking about what happened to me.” Garrett reached out and brushed his large hand across my cheek and let his fingers tangle in my hair. “You have to trust me, Cami.”
When I didn’t answer, Garrett leaned forward and brushed his lips tenderly across mine. “Do you trust me?”
I trusted him completely, but it was hard for me to ignore the sinking feeling deep in the pit of my stomach because I felt like he didn’t trust me. This moment wasn’t about me, though; it was about him. He wanted my reassurance that I trusted him enough to tell me everything when the time was right. “Of course I do,” I said honestly.
Chapter Thirteen
Garrett
It was hard to look at Cami and know that I didn’t trust her completely. I’d asked for something monumental, and she’d given it to me willingly, but I hadn’t given her the same respect in return. I knew she was still coping with her own nightmares. My heart broke every time I looked at her sad eyes and knew she was reliving those bleak moments during my deployment. How I could burden her with my problems when she still struggled with her own?
My only saving grace was I had only a month left before my time in the Army was finished, and then I would fully devote myself to earning every ounce of faith and love Cami gave me. I went to counseling just as I promised, and it helped. My nightmares became less frequent, but every session ended with Captain Dennison urging me to confide in Cami.
And then I constantly had Jackson to distract me with his insane life.
“I thought this annulment bullshit would be easy,” he complained during lunch. “But she’s making it so damn hard! She’s the one who asked for it, so why is she complicating it?”
I shrugged. “Does she realize you’re in the Army and broke?”
“Maybe she thinks I’m like Anderson Clark and have money coming out of my ass?”
I smirked. Not only was Anderson an arrogant asshole, but he came from money too. Why did money turn people into pricks? “I wish I was better help, buddy. But I’ve got problems of my own.”
He narrowed his eyes and gave me a funny look. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re buying a damn vineyard, Hammond. I cannot feel sorry for you, especially when you get to go home to Cami every night.”
“Well, buying a vineyard is just as complicated as getting an annulment, especially since Cami is giving me money for the down payment. And just because I go home to Cami every night doesn’t mean everything is perfect.”
The look of disbelief on his face was almost comical. “Please, tell me you’re joking, Garrett. I thought you were going home every night to home-cooked meals, fresh baked cookies, and a woman who loves you. Don’t tell me you’re not because that would break my heart.”
“I am, and you should be fucking jealous, but we both went through some shit while I was deployed and talking about it isn’t the easiest thing in the world, okay? I don’t exactly want to talk to her about hearing that guy get his head blown off every single night.”
“That’s still bothering you? You’ve seen worse than that, man.”
I shook my head. “This is different. It’s because I didn’t see it, and I just heard it. It’s the way his voice sounded, like a howl of pure terror, right before he was killed. And then there was nothing but silence after the gunshot. I just can’t shake it, Jackson.”
“Can I ask you a question, Garrett?”
“Of course.”
“And you’ll be honest with me? Completely honest?” I nodded my assurance to be honest and waited for his question. “Why is it so easy for you to tell me all of this, but you can’t tell Cami?”
Shit. “I don’t want her to look at me any differently. I don’t want her to look at me and see someone weak.”
“Do you really think she’ll think you’re weak?”
It was hard for me to answer because every morning when I got up, I saw my own weaknesses staring back at me. And if I could see them so easily, then surely Cami saw them just as easily.
“It sounds like you’re both struggling, man. Don’t you think sharing whatever you’re going through will help her do the same?”
“Fuck, dude, have you been talking to Captain Dennison? He says the same exact thing to me at the end of every session.” Although when he said it, it usually contained the words “fuck” and “asshole.”
“Well, maybe he’s right.” Jackson placed his hat on his head and looked me straight in the eye. “Listen, man, I don’t know shit about anything. I’ve been lucky half-assing my way through life, but you’re the closest thing I have to a brother. Don’t fuck this up because you’re trying to be macho or something.”
I placed my arm around him and pulled him close for a side-hug. “Thanks for the advice, Jackson. I owe you.”
Jackson’s words followed me around all day. We had a little more than a month before the big move, and this was turning into a “now or never” kind of moment. And according to my best friend, I had to tell her now.
On my way home, I stopped at Top Pot because I knew they made her favorite doughnuts. A confession like
this needed a little silver lining. And because I knew I’d fucked up royally, I stopped into a local wine shop to pick up a bottle of cabernet sauvignon. Nothing says “I’m sorry, please forgive me” like chocolate doughnuts and red wine.
“Cami,” I called out when I arrived at the apartment that would be our home for another month.
She popped her head out of the bedroom and smiled brightly. God, that smile warmed my heart and made me feel like an even bigger asshole. “Hey! I was just packing up some things. What did you bring home?”
Cami stepped out the bedroom wearing a black sundress, and her hair was loose and wavy. She saw the box from Top Pot and squealed with delight. “Oh my god, you’re the best!”
“I also bought this,” I said, holding out the bottle of wine.
“Yummy,” she said gleefully. She stood on tiptoe to place a smacking kiss on my lips, which made me feel even worse.
“Cami, I want to tell you something.” Her smile and good mood were suddenly gone. I set the box and bottle down on the dining room table and took Cami by the hand before leading her to the couch. I ran my sweaty palms up and down my uniform pants as I searched for the courage to tell her about my first night in captivity. “My nightmares are about a man being killed. I hear his wails and sobbing over and over until, at last, there’s a gunshot. I usually wake up right after the gun goes off, but sometimes, my nightmare morphs into something worse.”
“Oh my god,” Cami breathed out.
“If I stay asleep, then the scene repeats itself, torturing me over and over again. Cami, I’ve seen horrible things during my time in the Army, but nothing compares to the sounds this man made. He was pleading with them for his life, and they just … they killed him.”
Cami angled her body toward mine and reached out for my clasped hands. “I can’t even imagine what that must have been like for you.”
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