As I’d feared, Cam all but avoided me after Tuck arrived, though we saw each other plenty. I’d stopped by to say hello a couple times, visited with the puppies and Matilda, and tried to talk to him, but he kept me at arm’s length, never acknowledging what happened between us. I knew we needed to talk, but there was enough going on at work that finding time became nearly impossible, and when I did have a moment, Tuck was usually there.
The three of us sat out around the fire pit a couple times after work, but Cam was quiet, and he dodged my attempts at meaningful talk for a solid two weeks. One night Tuck went inside before me, and I was determined to talk to Cam, to see if that connection was still there, or if I’d imagined something that didn’t exist.
We sat in silence for a few minutes, the fire filling the space between us. Finally, Cam spoke. “Things going well for you at work?”
“They are,” I said. “I wasn’t sure I’d be a good fit, but I love working with Mike, and it’s fun being at the Inn. There’s so much going on.”
“Seems like it would be a good fit,” he said.
“It does?”
“Yeah,” he nodded, agreeing with himself. “You’re one of those go-getter types.”
“You know me so well all of a sudden?” I pulled my legs up beneath me in the big chair, turning to face him.
“You have an aura.”
“An aura?” I laughed. “I didn’t peg you for the woo-woo type, reading people’s auras and drinking kombucha.”
“Fermented foods are very good for the gut,” he informed me, a wry smile lifting the corners of his mouth.
“Right.” Cam was a contradiction. He looked so tough and serious, but every now and then something else broke through, a little glimpse of the light-hearted man he might have been once before.
“I lived in Hollywood, remember? We were very into living clean and healthy, yoga and all that.”
“Yoga. Really?” I grinned at him.
“I’m practically a yoga master. I’m like a black belt.”
“They don’t give belts in yoga.”
“They do if you’re serious about it.”
I gave him a level look and then couldn’t stifle the laugh that escaped me. “So do you still practice?”
“You don’t need to practice when you’re as good as I am.” He delivered all these lines with a perfectly straight face, and I giggled giddily.
“Demonstration please.”
“I don’t want to embarrass you with my skill.” He shook his head.
“Or embarrass yourself, you mean.”
“Ha. I bet you don’t even know the fearful possum pose.”
I crossed my arms. “That is not a pose.”
He stood and then crouched down, raising one arm over his face. Then he plopped himself back down in the chair. “Boom.”
“Oh my God.” I was cracking up now. It was good to see this side of Cam, relaxed and open. “You’re right, you’re clearly an expert.”
Cam was laughing too, the sound warm and low like distant waves. It washed through me and helped to lighten the worry I’d begun to feel about whatever lay between us. At least I knew it wasn’t something I’d just imagined—but Cam seemed intent on ignoring it most of the time. But now, with him clearly relaxed and open, now seemed like the right time to talk. I just had to think of exactly what I wanted to say.
We both became quiet and the night filled in the silence around us, distant birds calling through the cooling air and skittering creatures moving across the forest floor. And then, just when I was about to address the issue at hand, the unearthly scream I’d heard that first night shot through the silence, starting low and then growing to a final shriek that set my hair on end and shot me to my feet.
I stood next to the fire, having stepped forward toward Cam without even realizing it, and he was there. He’d stood up too, stepping close to me, and when I looked up at him, he pulled me into his chest, the strong arms circling me, the warmth of him against my cheek.
“It’s okay,” he whispered, and I realized my heart was hammering in a frenzied rhythm in my chest. “It’s okay. It won’t hurt you.”
“The mountain lion?”
I felt him nod against my chin. “I’ll talk to the rangers again tomorrow. It’s been on this hillside a while—it needs to find another home.”
I stepped back a bit, and his arms loosened around me but didn’t fall. I allowed my hands to rest on the broad planes of muscle across Cam’s back. “They won’t kill it, will they?”
“They’ll trap it, move it to the back country.” He was gazing down at me, the intensity in his eyes amplified by the firelight. His eyes moved across my face, landing on my lips, and the world stilled.
Everything that happened after that was instinct—I don’t remember deciding to tilt my chin higher, to move ever so slightly forward, to encourage Cam to follow through on the action I could see him contemplating.
When his lips brushed mine, it was like a distant whisper, a quiet room, a lull before the next wave crashed ashore. I felt the shiver run through my body, down my arms to my fingertips, igniting in the places our bodies connected—hands, arms, lips. He pulled me closer and his lips pressed more firmly to mine, the kiss deepening as I allowed my body to mold to his, let my hands roam his back, dropping lower until Cam groaned into my mouth.
The sound twisted inside me, wakening the yearning I felt for him, and even as my mind spun—telling me we really needed to talk, my body took over, and all I wanted was more of him.
But the kiss ended as unexpectedly as it had begun. Cam’s arms fell away and he stepped back, his hand covering his mouth, as if he could wipe away what had just happened. He wouldn’t meet my gaze, and I stood before him feeling abandoned. “Sorry,” he said, stepping back. “I told myself I wasn’t going to let that happen again.”
“No, it was… why?” I asked. “Why can’t that happen again?”
He shook his head. “I told you before. It’s just not a good idea. And you’re leaving anyway. It’ll just complicate things.”
It had been several weeks since I’d heard from Theo in Austin, and though I’d initially worried I might be leaving earlier than expected, now I was starting to worry he’d changed his mind altogether. But I didn’t tell Cam any of that. I let emotion drive my words instead.
“You’re being ridiculous. We’re attracted to each other. We’re not good at pretending otherwise, and I don’t see any reason to. It’s hard for me to be around you, pretending there’s nothing going on. It would make more sense to just face the attraction and see where it leads us.”
His eyes glowed in the light of the fire. “It won’t go anywhere good,” he said. “I already told you I don’t have luck in relationships, and it’s better for you if we just ignore this…whatever this is.”
“That’s not really my style,” I told him, beginning to feel more angry than anything else. “And I think your ‘curse’ is complete bunk. You know what I think it actually is?” I was goading him, almost wishing he would get angry. Any emotion would be better than the resigned attitude he had now.
“What?”
“I think you’re scared. I think you’ve been hurt—by people, by life—and I think you’re afraid to try again. Because the truth is, there’s always the chance you’ll get hurt.”
He let out a long breath but didn’t answer.
“It’s a crappy way to live,” I told him.
His eyes dropped, and I wondered if I’d pushed too far. Part of me wanted to step toward him, take him in my arms and tell him it was all right. But I was still angry, and hurt, and so I stepped away instead.
“Good night,” I said, walking away and leaving him there with his denial and fear for company.
Chapter 13
CAMERON
Maddie was beginning to make a habit of dropping by the work site any time she was headed into or out of town for work at the diner. The fact that we’d hit a major glitch with the installation of
the retractable ceiling wasn’t helping her stress levels as we headed into the end of July and neared her wedding month. We were at least two weeks behind schedule and had been that way for almost two weeks, and between Maddie’s constant questioning and my own distraction, I didn’t have high hopes it would be done in time.
“We could still do it out here,” Chance was saying to Maddie as I arrived one morning with the wedding just a few weeks out. “But we’d have to run the food up from the Inn.”
“So it’ll be cold by the time anyone eats,” Maddie said, barely containing her irritation. “Why can’t we cook up here, again?”
“We ran into trouble getting the park service to approve the propane tanks, and Anthony refuses to consider electric stoves.”
“You can’t have a high end restaurant without gas stoves,” Maddie agreed, shaking her head. “I don’t blame him.”
“I told him we could set up microwaves back there, reheat stuff when it gets up here,” I told her, which earned me dirty looks from both Chance and my sister. Evidently microwaved wedding reception food was not a thing. I wouldn’t know. I’d eloped.
“The day really isn’t about the food anyway, Mads,” I told her, trying to make her feel better.
Her hands were fisted at her sides and her cheeks were pink. “It’s not just that—it just feels like one thing on top of another, you know?”
“What else?”
“I visited Dad yesterday. He yelled at Connor and kept asking me where Jeremy was. I don’t think he’ll understand what’s going on if we bring him to the wedding.” Her face crumpled and I pulled my sister into my arms. Losing our father slowly was almost more painful than losing loved ones suddenly could be.
“I’m sorry, Mads. I’ll go see him this week, see if maybe that was just a fluke.”
She shook her head into my chest. “They said he’s been declining, that he has fewer lucid days.”
I clutched her a little tighter, thinking about the nearing day when I’d lose one more person I loved. Dad might not have been quite himself for a while, but he was still here. Still one more person in the count of those I hadn’t lost.
Maddie stepped back and looked up at me, wiping at her eyes. “I don’t know if I’m really sad about the food,” she said. “Or if it’s mostly Dad. I can’t control that, you know? But I feel like if I try hard enough, I can control the construction and the food.”
I glanced past her to where Chance was looking overwhelmed as he talked to the engineer about the roof. “I’m not sure about that,” I said. “Come on, let’s get out of the way.” I walked her back down to her car, which she’d brought up the construction road, which was now covered with gravel instead of just dirt. The goal had been to make it easier to get the crews and equipment in and out, but Maddie seemed to think it was so she could drive out more easily. “You’re really not supposed to be out here,” I told her, not that it would make a difference.
“Harper’s been saying it’s time to solidify plan B,” Maddie sniffed.
Just hearing her name sent a painful spike through my chest. “Well, she’s probably right.”
“What’s going on there, anyway?” My sister looked up at me and I knew she could see right through me.
I shook my head. “She’s a renter, Maddie. That’s all.”
“Bull.”
“What do you want me to tell you?”
“Tell me something that will make me happy, something that will let me stop worrying my big brother will be alone for the rest of his life just because he’s afraid to try anything different.”
I dropped my arm from my sister’s shoulder and stepped back, her words stinging. “It’s better for us both,” I said, my voice harsher than I intended. “She’s leaving anyway.”
“So you might as well pretend she’s already gone, I guess. No one has ever had a relationship with someone who lived somewhere else.”
Sarcasm. Wonderful.
“I’m a grown man, Mads. Let me make my own decisions, okay?”
“Is this about that stupid curse?”
I dropped my eyes to the ground. I knew the curse wasn’t real, and Maddie was the third person to accuse me of being scared. It was starting to piss me off. “It’s about doing what makes the most sense for both of us. It’s about protecting my heart, and hers.”
“It’s about being terrified someone might actually love you.” Maddie climbed into her car and added, “I hope you figure it out before it’s too late. She’s going to Austin in two days.”
Wait, what? Harper had told me her plan—she was going to be in Kings Grove for six months. “Two days?”
“Ha. See? I knew you cared.”
“She was supposed to be here six months.”
“She has to go work something out with her business partner there. She’ll be back.” She pulled her seatbelt on and shut the door, leaning her head out the window. “And when she gets back, you better figure this out because you’ll need to get that movie underway. Something about my wedding better go right.”
I watched Maddie drive away, my head spinning a bit. My chest ached, and I wasn’t sure if it was from thinking about my father or Harper. Or both.
Either way, I knew I needed to figure some things out.
When work ended for the day, I approached the thing that was easier—visiting my dad.
The drive down the hill had been like a meditation for me. I knew every turn in the road like a childhood story I’d long since memorized, and beyond traffic and the occasional branch in the roadway, I barely had to be conscious to navigate it, freeing my mind to do other things.
I was headed to see Dad, but my mind was on Harper. I could admit to myself that I’d felt a wash of sadness and disappointment when Maddie had told me she was going to Austin and I thought she meant for good. I could even admit I’d had a fleeting thought that I’d missed an opportunity, let something good glide by without trying hard enough to catch it.
But now that the opportunity still existed, I felt the same reluctance to approach it that I’d been feeling since the day I’d first kissed her. The emotion that welled up inside when I thought about being close to her was overwhelming, like a tidal wave threatening to take me under and never let me up again. I needed to breathe, and I’d been washed away before, only to end up stranded on a beach I didn’t know, a version of myself I didn’t recognize. As much as I wanted Harper, I wasn’t sure I could let myself be sucked under like that again.
Dad was sitting outside on his small patio when I arrived to see him.
“He’s had a pretty good day,” the nurse told me, walking me to his room. “Mr. Turner, your son is here to say hello.”
Dad turned his head, and I watched his eyes scan me without recognition, but with interest. “Hello,” he said, the way you would greet a stranger you thought you’d probably met before.
“Hi Dad.” I approached the chair next to him. “Okay if I sit down with you for a while?”
He nodded. “Sure, I like to have company.” His forehead wrinkled as he watched me sit, and I knew he was scanning whatever memory he had left, looking for some marker that would lead him to me, to an understanding of who I was. Instead, I saw the frustration, the knowledge of what he might be missing. “I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I… I know I’ve met you, but…”
“It’s okay,” I said, careful not to call him Dad again. I didn’t want to make it harder for him.
Dementia was an unfair illness, and while I was thankful to still have my dad here, to sit beside him, I knew I was being selfish in that gratitude. Dad wouldn’t have wanted this—Mom would surely not have wanted this for him. But he still remembered Maddie, I reminded myself. Even if he did think she was in high school. It was hard not to wonder how I’d been erased so completely from his mind while my sister remained, but I had enough things to worry about—I tried not to fixate on that.
“Maddie mentioned she’d stopped by,” I said, and that earned me a smile.
<
br /> “She’s a good girl,” he said. Then he turned to me, eyeing me with suspicion. “How do you know my daughter?”
I sighed. I didn’t want to upset him. “I’ve met her once or twice is all. Just happened to see her out running errands today.” It wasn’t quite a lie.
He nodded. “I miss her,” he said, and I wondered what logic was at work in that mind of his, how he categorized having a daughter he believed to be a teenager while he stayed here, in this place. None of it made sense, and the degradation of what remained of his active memory was heartbreaking.
I sat with him for a while after that, talking about the weather, the food he’d had today, and the cat who prowled through the common space between the little fenced patios. We stayed on the surface, and that’s where Dad was still able to participate. When I left, he thanked me for coming, and I said goodbye, both to the quiet man sitting on the patio, and to the idea of a father I knew I’d never really see again.
Loss felt like a theme in my life, and I drove back up the mountainside wondering how much more loss I could survive.
I arrived home to find a lamp knocked over, a work boot in pieces in the middle of the living room floor, and the house a general state of destruction.
“Matilda, you’re supposed to be watching these guys,” I told the big dog, who had the grace to look sheepish about the havoc her crew of tiny mutts was causing now that they were mobile and curious.
The dogs were almost four weeks old and they were becoming way too much for me to handle. I’d tried to puppy-proof the living room, taking out the rug and laying out newspaper in one corner, removing the pillows from the couch and the television remotes from the coffee table (I’d learned that one the hard way). Still, they were getting bigger, they were very curious, and they were bored being in the house while I was at work.
I’d fenced a part of the area between the two houses so I could take them all out and let them play, but I couldn’t leave them there during the day. The mountain lion was still camped out on the hillside beyond, and the rangers were jumping through hoops trying to trap it. A few puppies would probably be too much temptation for it to resist, and I thought the dogs might even be the reason the cat hadn’t moved on.
Love Reclaimed: (Clean Small-Town Romance) (Kings Grove Book 4) Page 13