I met his eyes after I fumbled to get the front door unlatched, light from the windows casting a glow on his face. He was an enigma, I decided. He was alternately cold and even a little bit frightening, and then suddenly caring and warm. But even when he was warm, Cam was still quiet and distant, and I figured losing someone so close to him might have a lot to do with that. I realized, as we stood in the open door, light from the living room pouring out the door around us, that maybe I wasn’t the only one on this property who spent long nights feeling lonely and a little bit abandoned.
But I couldn’t let myself get involved. Entanglement was not what I needed. I needed to work for six months and get myself down to Austin to start over.
“Good night, Harper,” Cam said, his voice soft, like a distant storm rolling in.
“Thanks for walking me home. And for letting me sit at your fire, Cam,” I said, holding the doorframe to keep my hands from reaching for him, which they seemed to want very much to do.
“You’re welcome. Good night.” He turned and was gone. I stood for a second in the open doorway, but when the eerie howling sound rose again from the woods beyond, I stepped inside quickly and bolted the door.
As distracting as things here had become, I needed to keep my eye on the ball, and that was my future in Austin.
I settled into the couch and called Theo, Chelle’s cousin.
“Hey Harper,” his warm voice rolled over the distance. “How’s it going?” Theo was a nice enough, business-minded guy I’d met when he’d come to New York to visit his cousin a couple times. We had a lot in common, both working in event management. He focused on concerts and weddings, and we’d had plenty to talk about since my company had been doing very similar things. When my job had exploded, I’d called him hoping maybe his company might have a job, but that was when he confided that he was thinking of starting his own thing and invited me to take part. The stopping point, of course, was my financial situation. I didn’t have the funds to contribute. Yet. But Theo said he’d wait, and that was what I needed to focus on.
“Things are going well,” I said. “I’m looking forward to getting on to the next phase, though, heading down your way.”
“I’m looking forward to that, too. I’ve turned down a couple gigs already that would have been perfect for us,” he said. “Any way you can make this all happen sooner?”
I sighed. “I want to. I promised my dad six months though—and I’ll need the time to pull the money together for us anyway.”
“I might need your experience more than I need your money.”
A little bubble of excitement gurgled to life in my stomach. “Really?”
“I’ve got to check a few things, but I know there’s another job coming my way, and I have a feeling they’d be happier working with you and me. Might be a good chance to cut loose early.”
My mind was spinning. “I don’t know if I can make it happen any earlier.” I felt committed to Maddie’s wedding, and wouldn’t want to let Mike down. And then there was my dad.
“Nothing’s for sure. Let me work on a few things and I’ll be in touch. But think about it.”
“I will. Thanks, Theo.”
“Talk soon, Harp.”
I hung up, torn between excitement at the thought of starting my new life earlier than planned, and worry over the idea of cutting things short here. And for some reason, I was thinking about Cam.
But he wasn’t a reason to stay.
Chapter 7
CAMERON
Maddie was standing on the wide open deck behind the Inn’s secondary space like she was the construction manager, wandering around the job site, asking questions of the crew when I arrived.
“…And so you think the walls will be functional by August?” She was standing at the edge of the deck, looking up at one of the guys, smiling broadly.
“Maddie, you keep distracting these guys and this place will definitely not be ready for the wedding you’re so worried about.” I swung my gaze down to the assistant crew manager, trying to look stern. “Don’t let her up here. If she got hurt wandering around the construction site, we’d have a world of trouble.”
Maddie shot me a dirty look, her brows dropping down low, and then turned back to the guy trying to get his work done, hammer still paused mid-air. “Thanks,” she said to him sweetly before turning around again and glaring at me. “I’m not going to sue you,” she said. “I’m just getting worried. Connor won’t do a damned thing to get ready at home, and the venue looks like it’s destined to be half finished, too. I’ve had enough of half-built houses and half-finished life plans, Cam. I want to get married and move everything forward.”
I swallowed hard, wishing I could muster up the appropriate amount of optimism that this place would be ready. But there’d been a few setbacks, and it was hard to make promises I didn’t know if I could keep. “It’ll be done, Mads, and if it’s not, there’s always the ballroom at the Inn.”
She scowled at me, reminding me of the way she’d looked as a disappointed four-year old.
“And you don’t need a certificate to move forward with Connor. His love for you is completely clear every time I see you guys.”
Maddie’s face softened as if I’d said something about myself—about Jess, maybe—instead of Connor. Maddie worried too much about me since Jess had died. She’d only known my wife those last few months—she didn’t know much about our marriage before Jess was sick. She had no idea about the guilt I felt all swirled in with the sadness. She looked like she was about to say something, but thought better of it, and instead she stepped near and laid a hand on my arm. “You doing okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. Maddie worried about me—there’d been periods in the last couple years where depression and self-pity had gotten the better of me for sure. But I felt better lately, and I had Maddie to look out for. She wasn’t supposed to be looking out for me.
“Come for dinner Saturday? I’m thinking about inviting Sam and Miranda and Chance and Mike.”
A party? I loved my sister, but I’d never been much of a joiner, and parties were a lot of work. I searched for an easy way to let her down, my hands wrapping the back of my neck as I thought. “Mads, I just—”
“You just have to show up. I’ll make your favorite—or Connor will, at least. And I’ll see if we can get Chance to make a cake or something.”
That was tempting. Chance baked more than most guys I knew, and it was clear his talent wasn’t isolated to construction or running a business. He’d made the occasional plate of cookies before, but now that he had Finn and Mike as an excuse, he’d been bringing around a lot more stuff from his kitchen. With another guy, I could see the crews making jokes about his masculinity. But with Chance? No way. Some guys just baked.
Maddie watched me while I salivated about Chance’s baking, and then threw one more tease my way. “I think we should invite your new renter, too. Can you do that?”
“Or you could.” I admitted defeat. But I could still be grumpy and difficult.
Maddie wrapped her hand around my arm, smiling up at me. “I haven’t even met her properly. You invite her. You might as well ride together anyway.” My sister pressed a kiss to my cheek and spun on her heel. “See you then. Oh, and get my venue finished please,” she sang over her shoulder as she hiked back toward her car.
I stood back, looking up at the huge sprawl of deck, the skeleton walls that would eventually hold retractable glass. It had a long way to go, and I wasn’t at all confident we’d get it done. But I promised my sister. So I had to try. “Come on guys, let’s push this forward.” I climbed up to help and got busy building.
The day dwindled to dusk and a sheen of dust coated my arms and face. I shoved my tools back into my truck and then walked back out into the shadow of the big structure.
“Cam, you need a ride?” Jensen, one of the crew called back to me when he saw me heading away from the parking area.
“Nah, going for a hike.”
; He gave me a quizzical smile, but waved and turned away, and I trudged past the big deck and up toward the back trail to the Panoramic Point. I liked it up there near sunset, when a dusky glow of gold and grey settled around the tops of the far eastern peaks of the Sierra Nevada. If there was a mountain lion prowling these hills, dusk was hunting time and not the best time for a hike, but at this point in my life, I wasn’t worried. What would be would be, I figured.
The world looked dimmed at that time of day, like the colors had been muted, a dial turned down until everything was a faint echo of its usual vibrance.
I hiked for an hour and a half, pausing briefly at the ridge to take in the view I loved, to breathe in deep gulps of the thin air. And then I dropped my eyes to the darkening trail and focused on the descent.
The property my family had owned for nearly a century bordered the national forest, and the walls of the house Maddie and I built there were mere feet from the hillside that connected our familiar mountains to the backcountry. Bears and deer were common on that hillside, but as I traversed the familiar terrain, I heard again a sound that was familiar only from the previous day: The mournful howl of an animal in pain. Not the mountain lion I was sure I’d heard before, but an animal that sounded as alone and as tortured as I sometimes felt in the darkness that ended the glimmer of day.
I stopped, listening, as the haunting cry lifted into the air, sounding like it was all around me. But after I’d stood still for a few moments, I was able to discern a direction, and I followed the whimpering cries to a hollow beneath a tilted boulder. I neared the mouth of the small cave, dark and foreboding and nearly obscured by a Manzanita bush. As I stepped near and pushed the bush to one side, the whimper turned to something far more menacing, a deep feral growl meant to serve, no doubt, as a warning. Though I knew whatever was in that cave likely had little energy to fight, I also knew that an injured animal would fight with every last breath it had—out of fear and desperation.
I wasn’t willing to lose a hand to satisfy my curiosity, so I turned and trudged back toward home, every distant cry echoed in my heart in both sympathy and a strange sense of kinship.
My house was silent and dark, not that I’d expected anything else, but sometimes I still managed to be surprised that Jess was gone, even after all this time. I moved through the darkened kitchen, pulling down bowls and filling them without allowing myself to think too much about what I was doing. I moved through the darkness back up the hillside, the light of the moon casting eerie shadows on the familiar trunks and debris of fallen logs. I crept toward the cave mouth, murmuring in a low voice as I neared, and gently pushed the bowl of water and the grilled chicken just past the bush and into the darkness. A deep growl greeted me, but I heard no movement in the hollow, and wondered if whatever was in there might already be too far gone, or if maybe it had narrowly survived a meeting with the mountain cat.
I didn’t like the thought of anything suffering alone, believing no one and nothing in the world cared about the pain and fear it felt. So I made my offering, said a few more soothing words in a kind voice, and then retraced my steps back toward home.
“Aren’t there rules about feeding wildlife up here?” Harper’s voice echoed through the darkness as I walked behind her house, and I looked up to see her looking down at me from her kitchen window, her hair slicked back in a ponytail and a teasing smile on her lips.
“Maybe,” I admitted. “Probably rules about spying on your neighbors, too.”
She grinned. “I saw something creeping across the back of the lot, and it freaked me out. I was trying to figure out what it was.”
“Just me.” I felt heat creep up my cheeks, and took comfort in the knowledge that she couldn’t see it in the silvery moonlight sheeting between the trees.
“What’s out there, do you think? Crying like that?”
I shook my head, mostly because I’d asked myself the same question multiple times, which is what had led me to take a chance on feeding it. “Not sure,” I said. “Not a lot of things it could be, really, sounding like that.”
“What do you think it is?” She tilted her head, leaning toward the window.
“Coyote, maybe, but the elevation’s really way above where they usually range. It’s not the mountain lion or a bobcat, not sounding like that … If I didn’t know better, I would be thinking wolf, but that’s just not possible up here.”
Harper shrugged. “Wanna come up for a minute? I went to the store. I have snacks and drinks.” She sang this last part, and her lack of self-consciousness was charming. I felt the heavy mantle of sadness slip slightly from my shoulders.
I couldn’t have told you what made me say it, except maybe the awareness that the little house in front of me didn’t hold any snacks or drinks, but it did hold silence and too many reminders of too many things. “Yeah,” I said. “Let me shower.”
“Not necessary.” Her voice was bright and clear, like a bell—a wind chime, maybe.
“I’m covered in construction dust. Give me ten minutes.” I turned and went home, shedding my clothes in the bedroom and scrubbing the fine mountain silt from my skin under lukewarm water. I didn’t glance in the mirror—I’d been avoiding it for a while, though I couldn’t have told you why I did that either.
I was on Harper’s front porch in under ten minutes, and she pulled the door open with a broad smile on her smooth clear face. Looking at her gave me an odd feeling, a little like stepping into the sun from the shadows, or shrugging off a heavy sweater in the first warmth of spring. “It’s a dog,” she said, stepping aside to wave me inside.
“It’s not a dog,” I said, though really, it could be. You just didn’t see a lot of wild dogs up here.
She shrugged. “I heard the mountain lion, too, I think. I told the ranger about it. I hope they don’t kill it though.”
“I don’t know what they’ll do. Doubt they’ll kill it.”
She nodded. “Hey, I’m glad you came up. I owe you a thank you.”
I sat in the chair she indicated, at the end of the long wooden table near the kitchen. “Why’s that?”
She carried over a tray of vegetables and crackers, and then put a beer in front of me. “This okay?” she asked, indicating the bottle.
“Yeah, fine, thanks.”
She sat, lifting a glass of water to her lips and lowering it with a smile.
“No beer for you?” I asked.
“I don’t drink,” she said simply. “Plus, the water up here is amazing.”
That was true. “Best I’ve ever tasted,” I agreed.
She grinned at me and said, “Hey, I wanted to thank you for renting me this place.”
I lifted a shoulder. “Sure.” I didn’t add that I’d rented it before and would surely rent it again. Even if she was just another renter, something in me was pushed to make Harper feel more special than that. We sat in silence for a moment, and I felt the burden of polite conversation probably fell to me. “Did you go to work today?”
“I don’t officially start until Monday,” she said. “But I dropped a few things off to get my desk set up.”
“Hello Kitty notebook? Pink stapler?” I don’t know what made me say it, but I couldn’t help it, and Harper’s face lit up in a grin as she punched my arm.
“I’ll take those things in Monday. Today I dropped off my work tiara so it’d be all ready to go when I arrive.”
I laughed. “It’s great how that all worked out.”
“It is.” Silence fell between us then, and she watched me drink the beer. I felt awkward with her watching me that way, but there was something about it I liked at the same time.
“What’s the job, anyway?”
“I was angling for President or at least Chairman of All Things Important.”
“No dice?”
“I guess not. I’m the new events manager.” She raised her glass.
“Sounds good,” I said, clinking my bottle to the edge of her water. As I did it, I felt a twinge of guil
t, and as soon as I acknowledged that little ping, the feeling grew and swelled until it avalanched around me, burying me beneath its weight. It occurred to me, not for the first time, that sitting here with a gorgeous girl, making light conversation and actually enjoying myself, was probably not what I deserved to be doing. I was a widower—and part of me felt responsible for my wife’s death. Shouldn’t I be thinking about that? Beyond the guilt I felt around Jess, I felt guilt whenever I wasn’t thinking of her. I wasn’t sure what the expiration date on guilt and grief was, and I bowed my head trying to figure it out.
When I looked up again, ready to make some excuses so I could wallow properly in the darkness back at home, Harper was watching me.
“Can I ask what happened?” she asked in a soft voice, those bright eyes fixed on my face.
I held her gaze a moment and then dropped it again. “What do you mean?”
“With your wife?” Her voice was soft, welcoming. Encouraging. And I was tempted to stay in the light of her kitchen, the aura of her smiling presence. But I knew I should leave. I put the bottle down, preparing to stand.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “It’s not my business. I shouldn’t have pried. You just look so sad sometimes, so lost. I wondered…” she paused, her eyes darting away and a light blush climbing her pale cheeks. “I wondered if I could maybe help. Talk about it, I mean.”
“Hey,” I said, working to make my voice reassuring and kind. “It’s okay. I just don’t really talk about it, I guess.”
She nodded, and her smile returned. “Don’t go yet, okay?”
I didn’t want to. God, I wanted to stay in the light of her happiness, the shine of those laughing eyes. “It’s been a long day.”
Love Reclaimed: (Clean Small-Town Romance) (Kings Grove Book 4) Page 7