HARPER
Cam’s car was in the driveway when I pulled back in, and I wasn’t sure why it gave me such comfort to know he was home. It wasn’t as if I knew him well, or knew much about him, really.
After I’d had lunch with my father, I’d gone back to the hotel to read through all the information she’d given me and filled out all of my benefits paperwork. I wanted to hit the ground running the next week. Also, I didn’t want to come back to this big silent house and think about anything too deep.
Like the sadness in my father’s eyes when I gave him one word answers to his questions. Or the pain in his voice when he finally said, “Harper. There was a lot more to what happened between your mom and me than you know about.”
That had made me mad. “Tell me, then,” I’d suggested, and the desire to do so had been clear on his face. His mouth had worked in silence, as if he was about to let out the words that would explain to me why he hadn’t visited me, why I’d been sent away when he was the parent who’d clearly loved me most.
“I told myself a long time ago I’d never be the kind of parent who’d poison you against the other,” he said, his shoulders drooping as his bright eyes searched mine. “Your mother isn’t a bad person.”
“I know that,” I’d snapped. “It’s not her I’m trying to understand. I spent my whole life seeing that she’s not a bad person. It’s you I’m not so sure about.”
He nodded, and the anger inside me spun up. I wanted him to explain. I needed him to tell me why things had been the way they were. Instead, he took every hurtful word I flung at him like a pincushion, and just absorbed it. “It’s good to see you again,” he said after a long silence.
Fury flooded me. Why was I here? Why had he made me come back here, if not to explain? “Are you ever going to give me answers about what happened? Or are you thinking we’re going to just start from here?” I finally asked him. “What was your plan once you got me up here, Dad?”
He stared at me for a long minute across the table, his silver eyebrows lowering as he thought. He looked so much like the man I’d worshipped as a kid—his hair more grey, his face more drawn—but my hero was still in there, and I had to fight with the memories I had of him to remember all the years that had come since. He wasn’t my hero. He’d sent me away. “I don’t really have a plan, Harp. I just wanted a chance. To know you.”
“You had a chance,” I whispered. “You had years of chances. You stayed away.”
He dropped his eyes then, and I saw pain flash across his face. I knew there was something he wasn’t telling me, and I waited for him to speak. But after a few minutes, he seemed to get control of his emotions again, and he just raised his eyes and smiled. “I’m just glad you’re here. Maybe we’ll find our way.”
I’d huffed and eaten the rest of my meal in silence. I might have spent years shoveling money at the best yoga teachers in New York City, but Dad had mastered some kind of guru-level passivity right here in Kings Grove. “Put aside your anger and frustration,” my yoga teacher used to say in her soothing voice. “And focus on the energy that comes with calm, with peace.” Dad had mastered his calm energy.
I, on the other hand, had gotten home full of all kinds of energy, and none of it was even close to calm.
I changed out of my work clothes and pulled on leggings and a sports bra, then proceeded to bound up and down the stairs forty or fifty times, trying to wear out the anger inside me. Why had he sent me away? Why hadn’t he visited me? Why hadn’t I ever gotten to come back to Kings Grove until now? What had gone on between him and my mom and why wouldn’t either of them just tell me?
Finally, I collapsed onto the sofa, sweat running down my face. I sat there for a long time, forcing my mind to still, forcing my anger to ebb back to a manageable level.
As night darkened the sky beyond my windows and made the air in the house feel close and alien, I shivered. This was the part of being alone I didn’t like, and it didn’t help that I was too frozen in my spot on the couch to run around turning on all the lights I usually put on at night. Darkness and loneliness combined with whatever long-shoved-away feelings seeing my father had stirred up and I began to worry I might never get up again, might just melt into an obscure puddle on this couch. There weren’t many people who’d notice at this point.
I’d hit a low point. I knew it, recognized it for what it was. I also knew these were the times I was vulnerable to my own negative thoughts and that things wouldn’t get better if I didn’t stand up and march forward. (Thank you yoga and therapy.) But I also knew there was a sense of comfort in the familiar misery, and sometimes it was hard to force myself out of it even if it seemed obvious that movement would make things better. The clock on the wall over the fireplace ticked toward eight o’clock. When it got there, I told myself, I’d stand up and find a path forward.
I stared at the clock’s face as my last three minutes of self-pity ebbed and flowed around me, and when the long hand hit twelve, I stood, feeling weak and uncertain. I made a circle of the room, turning on lights one at a time until the too-big space glowed with reassuring light. I switched the television on, smiling when I found Queer Eye, and set the volume low. I brewed a cup of herbal tea and settled on the floor next to the coffee table with my back against the couch.
This became my routine pretty much every night for a week, and as the days passed filled with work and learning the ropes at the Inn, I began to dread the evenings. I’d wander the house, drink tea, and occasionally stare out at the little fire pit in front of Cam’s, trying to keep myself from wandering out just for the company. And because I was attracted to him.
But a week of solitude was about all I could take, and one night when I’d exhausted my supply of Queer Eye episodes, I stood and walked to the window in the kitchen, peering out toward the little house behind mine. I could see the glow from Cam’s fire pit, and before I could think better of it, I shrugged on a big sweater and some boots and pushed out the front door. I was tired of feeling lonely and sorry for myself. Cam might not have invited me, exactly, but he had said he was there if I needed anything. And right now I needed company.
As soon as I was within the circular glow of Cam’s fire, I began to feel like rushing out here to alleviate my own loneliness might have been a mistake. His chin was low on his chest, his dark eyes fixed on the flames, and his mind might have been on a different planet entirely. He didn’t look up as I approached, even though I purposely shuffled my feet a bit as I neared, letting him know I was there. I doubted the guy carried a gun or anything, but he looked just dangerous enough in general that he wasn’t someone I wanted to sneak up on.
I hesitated, wrapping my arms around myself, an unfamiliar uncertainty sweeping through me.
What was I doing?
Cam stirred then, glancing at me warily at first and then a smile warming his features. “You’re welcome to sit.” Cam’s smile and his gruff voice lifted me out of the self-doubt that pulled me in often lately—self-doubt about everything from approaching a near-stranger’s fire pit to being the whistleblower in my old job to leaving the city. Self-doubt that went back much further than that if I was honest.
“Thanks.” I stepped into the light of the fire and sank down in the big chair opposite Cam, leaving my boots on the ground and tucking my feet up under me. “It’s chilly here at night.” And now I was talking about the weather like a sixty-year old woman. Wonderful.
“One of the best things in the mountains. Even in the middle of the hottest summer it cools off at night.” His eyes didn’t leave the flickering flames, but his voice sounded more even, more welcoming, than a moment before.
I took a deep breath, Cam’s company and the soothing crackle of the fire finally making me feel like I could relax. Tension seeped from my limbs and I began to realize how tired I was.
“Everything okay at the house?” Cam asked, and though I wasn’t looking at him, I could sense that his eyes had left the flames and were on my face. The knowle
dge sent a zing of self-consciousness through me, which I shoved away.
“Yeah,” I managed. “Sure.”
“But…?” Cam pressed.
I didn’t want to complain again that the place was too big for me, that I was scared like a little girl with too much space around me. “It’s bigger than I’m used to is all.”
He didn’t press further and we resumed our fireside vigil, each of us in our own thoughts until he spoke again.
“Seen you in town a bit,” he volunteered after a bit. “Noticed you having lunch with Craig a few days ago.”A question was hidden in his statement.
I nodded, finding his eyes over the flames. “I started work, so I’ve been around.” I’d seen Cam at the diner at lunch the day I’d met my dad, and though I knew that’s what he was talking about, it wasn’t something I would jump to discuss.
“How do you know Craig?” His lips pulled up the tiniest bit on one side, telling me he knew he was prying.
I raised my eyes to consider him. He didn’t seem like the nosy type, and it surprised me he’d ask about what he’d seen. But it was a small town, and I knew he must have been curious. There was probably no point to keeping secrets if I was going to live here for any period of time. “Craig’s my father.”
Cam nodded—not even a hint of surprise on his face, and his eyes stayed on mine, but he didn’t say anything.
“He and my mom—Susan Lyles—lived up here when I was born. They divorced when I was seven, and my mom took me with her when she left.”
Cam didn’t press me for more details, seeming to quietly accept whatever I was willing to offer. It made me want to keep talking.
“I’ve only seen him once since the divorce,” I said, thinking about that one time when Dad showed up soon after we’d moved to Oregon from Kings Grove. “He never visited, didn’t call much. We moved a lot after that. I lived in New Mexico, Florida, Ensenada, Madrid and Toronto. My mom liked to keep moving.”
I checked in to see if Cam was still listening, and when I met his eyes, they glowed in the firelight, filled with what I thought was sympathy or understanding.
“Until recently, I hadn’t spoken to my dad since I was eighteen. My mom and I keep in touch, but she’s more of an acquaintance than anything at this point.” I trailed off and my words seemed to linger around us in the cool air, twisting and spiraling in the light breeze as the flames danced and sparked.
“But you came back,” Cam said, pointing out the obvious issue. Why did a girl who didn’t want to speak to her father cross the country and abandon her life to live in the same tiny mountain town he’d never left?
“Didn’t have a choice. My life exploded. He’s helping me financially, which is humiliating to admit to my landlord, by the way.”
“Nah.”
“I’ve never needed help before.” I felt angry as I said it. “I left for college as soon as I graduated from high school. Paid my own way through community college and then transferred to NYU. Got a job and earned my Masters during the first few years of work.”
“That’s impressive,” Cam said. “Why come back now?”
I didn’t want to tell him that very long story. I slid my legs out from beneath me, slipping my boots back on and leaning forward, letting the heat of the fire lick my face. “It’s complicated.”
Cam didn’t press, just nodded once and then seemed to let it go. Part of me wanted to tell him everything, but I’d monopolized the conversation enough for one night. I pushed down the urge to speak, to fill the strange charged space between us with words, and just leaned into the warmth of the fire and the comfort of Cam’s quiet strong presence instead.
After a few minutes of silence, I realized I didn’t know much about him, except that his sister Maddie worked at the diner and had married Connor Charles, the novelist. They were planning a wedding in August, which would be a big focus in my work life. “What about you?” I tried, sensing for some reason that asking Cam questions might not be something I was supposed to do.
His sharp eyes narrowed and I could see him tense from across the fire. He was silent a long time and I thought he was actually going to pretend I hadn’t even asked a question. When the silence reached a crescendo, pressing me to either speak again or just stand and call it a night, he answered. “Moved here a couple years ago to be with my sister. From Hollywood.”
“Cool,” I said. “Your parents…?”
“Dad lives in Fresno. In a home. He has dementia.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling like an ass. “I’m sorry.”
“Mom died about seven years ago.”
Oh God. Leave it to me to drag up painful memories. “I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head, pushing away my pointless apologies with his eyes closed and his lips pressed into a thin line.
“So you’ve always worked construction?” I tried again.
His eyes met mine for a brief second, and it almost felt like a probe—like that one focused glance had been engineered to glean my objective, to find out if it was advisable to tell me more. His eyes were sharp and penetrating, and when he looked away, my heart was racing and my skin had cooled, leaving me to shiver. Cam was intense—when he stared me down it felt like challenging an oncoming train, but there was something heady about it, exciting. “No,” he finally answered. “I worked in film production first. Got married. Moved up here when she died.”
My heart froze inside my chest and then melted into a disastrous puddle. “Oh Cam,” I said, sorrow for him and for my own impossibly awkward conversational skills swamping me.
“You’re going to say you’re sorry again.”
“I am.”
“Please don’t. You had nothing to do with it, neither of us can change it, and you being sorry doesn’t help things.” He paused a minute. “I am actually surprised you didn’t know already. In town, I’m the grumpy widower.”
A tiny smile came to me at that. “No one mentioned it to me.” I raised an eyebrow. “Are you grumpy? You just seem… calm,” I tried.
“Better calm than angry,” he said, a low chuckle rolling through the cooling air and erasing some of the tension that had floated between us.
“So, movies, huh? Did you work on anything I’d know?”
He smiled and tilted his head to one side, then reached down and took a sip of his drink before speaking. “Mostly art films, some kind of dark stuff. But I did work on one blockbuster.”
“Oh yeah?” My mind raced through the darker movies I could think of—the Batman films, some of the recent thriller hits. “What was it?”
He pressed his lips together and looked at me, his eyes sparkling in the flickering light. “Did you ever see Marry Me Ted?”
“The romcom?” My voice flew from my mouth, surprising us both with it’s volume and high pitch. I covered my lips with my hands.
“You sound so surprised.” Cam pretended to be serious, but I could see the humor still flushing his skin, making his eyes dance.
“That’s not exactly dark or serious,” I pointed out. “That movie was hilarious.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He grinned at me. “Sometimes you sacrifice your art for a paycheck.”
“I hear that,” I said. “Not that I’ve got any art, exactly, but I was pretty good at finance. And now I’m going to be a glorified event planner.”
“At the Inn, huh?”
I nodded.
“Working on my sister’s wedding then?” He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.
“Yeah, actually.”
He seemed to consider this for a moment, then fixed me with a serious look. “Harper?”
“Yeah?”
“If you screw that up, I’ll kill you.” He looked like he was only halfway kidding.
“Noted,” I said. “But I’m not planning to screw it up, don’t worry.”
“Good.”
“Good,” I confirmed, answering his half-teasing tone with one of my own and nodding my head once to drive t
he point home. Cam was smiling, and it made my chest warm to sit here across from him, bantering a little bit in the dark with the warm fire at our feet. It made me feel a little bit less lost, less lonely.
Silence swept in again, and I sat feeling like I’d better get up soon and head back inside, because a big part of me wanted to just sit here as long as Cam would let me, soaking up his company. I was about to stand to go back inside when an eerie howl rose through the silence, sending a shiver through me and pressing me back toward the comforting fire as my eyes scanned the darkness around us. It was the same sound I’d heard that morning. “What the hell was that?”
Cam looked alert, his back straighter, his eyes narrowed. “I’m not sure. I heard something like that earlier, too.”
The sound came again, and ended in a mournful lower note that almost made it sound like whatever animal was making the noise was in pain.
“Wolves?” I asked, my breath a sharp whisper over the crackling fire. I pictured a pack coming to circle us, their glowing yellow eyes signaling our impending doom.
“No wolves up here,” he said.
“Coyotes? Was that the Mountain Lion?” I was trying to think of what other mountain animals might want to eat us.
“That wasn’t a cat.”
We waited for the sound to come again, but the night had returned to relative silence, the sound of owls and crickets resuming their quiet melodies in the trees around us. “I’ll walk you home,” he said after a few more minutes, and I couldn’t help be touched by his awareness that the odds of me standing and going alone to that big open deck facing the forest on my own were very slim. “Make sure you get inside safely.”
“Thanks,” I said, rising, grateful for his comforting presence through the few dark feet to my door.
We walked together through the flickering light to the steps at the front of the deck, and Cam took my elbow in the darkness—a gentlemanly gesture certainly intended to make sure I didn’t trip on the way up. He was probably thinking about liability—California is a very litigious state after all. But all I could think about was how comforting it was to have him close, to have his warm strong hand on my arm, to feel his stoic solidity at my side. When we arrived at the door, I was sad to feel that strong touch drop away, and had to push away fleeting thoughts about what it would be like to have Cam touch me in other places, to have that strong warmth even nearer.
Love Reclaimed: (Clean Small-Town Romance) (Kings Grove Book 4) Page 6