Love Reclaimed: (Clean Small-Town Romance) (Kings Grove Book 4)

by Delancey Stewart

  He was quiet for a long minute, shaking his head slowly.

  “She didn’t want me then. But she wanted you—I honestly think she kept you from me partly to continue hurting me. She never went through with the divorce, you know.”

  “You’re still married?”

  “Technically, yes.”

  “Why didn’t you just take me, Dad?” I tried to imagine what my life would have been like, growing up with my dad instead of my mom.

  “Your mother was caring for you. She wasn’t a bad mother, and she loved you. She’d moved in with the man she was seeing—he was a stable, rational man. He seemed to care about you. They argued that they could take good care of you, send you to the best schools.”

  “You didn’t want shared custody?”

  “Your mother convinced me it would be bad for you, to be shuttled back and forth.”

  “You could have sued,” I tried.

  The sad smile flashed again. “I should have done so many things I didn’t do. But I didn’t. I let you stay with them. I thought your mom was finally happy, that it would be stable for you, that it’d be good.”

  “We didn’t stay there long,” I said, a vague memory of packing up the car late at night flashing through my mind. “We left.”

  “Over and over again. She would move from one relationship to another, one city to another. And she never told me where she was… where you were. Years would go by in between contacts. I spent a fortune on private investigators, trying to keep track of you. When I found you again at sixteen and I called you, she’d already convinced you I didn’t want you. Do you remember talking to me on the phone? You were in Florida then.”

  I did. I’d been evil to him. Mom had told me he didn’t visit because he didn’t care. She’d fed me lies about my father, and kept me moving for years so he couldn’t find me… all the things I’d believed growing up started to dissolve and shatter. “Oh my God.” I couldn’t look at him, and I stared out the window, not seeing anything passing the car. I could only see the memories flashing through my mind, reassembling into something I’d never recognized before, finally seeing the truth.

  “Why didn’t you tell me when I went to college? Or started work in New York?” I finally asked, wanting to continue being angry at him, but now feeling a creeping anger at myself for not asking more questions, and at my mother for lying to me for so long.

  “Would you have talked to me?”

  “Probably not.”

  “I did try, Harper. I came to see you once. But you were with a man—you looked happy.”

  “You came? You saw me?” I scanned my mind, looking for my dad standing on a street watching me with Andrew, maybe someone I’d noticed in the periphery of my busy life in New York, but nothing was there.

  “You looked happy,” he said again.

  “Oh my God, Dad.”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Harper. I made so many mistakes.”

  He had. And so had my mother. I honestly couldn’t piece it all together, couldn’t figure out how I felt about everything he’d just said. I’d need some time to think about it, to understand. But I did feel the anger I’d held for him begin to slip away.

  We rode in a silence for a long time then, letting the trees grow and the hills turn green on the sides of the road as the valley floor dropped away and the mountains rose around us. We wound around the foothills toward the mountains that held Kings Grove protected like a jewel between their soaring peaks, and I had the distinct sense of coming home.

  Everything my father had said, everything I was understanding now about my life…it made me wonder how much I really wanted to leave this place. It had been taken away from me once. And maybe I never would have stayed—maybe my instinct would always have been to find something bigger, something that was my own. But now, after the things I’d done and seen, the idea of Kings Grove wrapped around me like a warm afghan knitted by someone’s grandmother, and I was reluctant to give that away.

  “I might go to Austin sooner than I’d planned,” I said, trying out the words as much to feel my own reaction as to see my dad’s.

  He looked over at me. “Oh yeah?”

  “Maybe.” I swallowed, finding a new respect for the man who’d brought me back here, the father who’d finally found a way to bring me home. “Would that be okay?”

  His lips pressed into a line and he didn’t answer for a long minute. “Harper,” he finally said. “Your life is your own. And if you choose to leave again, it’s fine. This time it will be your choice.”

  My choice. My life had been controlled in ways I’d never even realized. But now, I really did have to make a choice. Maybe for the first time ever.

  When Dad dropped me off at the big house, the first thing I did was take a deep breath, filling my lungs with the clean crisp mountain air and closing my eyes as I let it work through me. It was a little like drinking water first thing in the morning when you can feel it sliding through you, slicking over parched dry spots as it swirls down your throat. I felt the air work through my lungs and all the way out to my fingertips. I was glad to be back.

  There was a light on in Cam’s house, but that had been true since the dogs had come to live with him. He could play tough all he wanted, but he wouldn’t leave them in the dark if he was going to be out at night. I’d even stepped up on to the porch during the day to hear the television on low. I’d peered through the windows to see a couple of the curious pups sitting and staring up at the big screen, heads cocked to the side as they’d watched.

  My own house was dark, and since it wasn’t nearly late enough for Tuck to have turned in, I guessed he was out somewhere. I wished he were home. I didn’t really want to be alone. There was too much confusion flipping around inside me, and while I didn’t necessarily want to talk about it, I also didn’t want to be alone to think about it.

  I was just finishing up getting my stuff put away and trying to organize myself for work the next day when Tuck and Cam came in, laughing and loud.

  I leaned over the railing from the landing upstairs. “Hey guys.”

  Tuck’s easy smile remained, but Cam’s dropped from his face, and it occurred to me he wasn’t happy to see me. The idea stung like a slap. He’d been dismissive when I’d said goodbye before going to Austin, and now he looked almost upset to see me again. I swallowed hard, pushing down the hurt.

  “Hey you,” Tuck called up. “We’ve got a ton of film to show you.”

  “Oh yeah?” I started down the stairs. Though Cam hadn’t said a word, his eyes stayed on me the whole way down, and when I stopped in front of him at the bottom, I couldn’t help staring into those piercing blue eyes for a minute, trying to see what was going on behind them. My heart leapt at the attention, but I reminded myself that I’d just gotten back from solidifying my plans for the future. A future away from Kings Grove. Away from Cam. It didn’t matter what my heart thought. Cam had made it clear that the distance wasn’t something he thought could be overcome.

  “Hey,” Cam said before dropping my gaze.

  “You guys have been working?” I asked, following Tuck into the living room. I was relieved. I’d hoped they would, but hadn’t been sure they’d actually do it without me there. The wedding was right around the corner.

  “Your scene list was a big help. We got a lot of the intro material and some shots around the Inn.”

  “Oh.” My voice was a little flat. I’d wanted to be there to help with those. “Good.”

  Tuck seemed to sense my disappointment, and he chucked my shoulder. “You weren’t around, sweetheart. We needed to get a few things taken care of.”

  “Of course,” I agreed, realizing that having one foot already in Austin meant I wasn’t going to be fully present here either.

  Cam seated himself on the couch and I took a spot at the other end as Tuck slipped the card into a huge laptop and popped it open, squeezing his large body between us. He hit “play” and though the shots were rough and cut abruptly from
one to the next, the images themselves were perfect. Wide soaring views of the forest, the valley below, the bright incredible sky and the Inn.

  “These are amazing,” I said. “I want to visit that place, and I’m already here.”

  Tuck grinned, looking proud of himself, but Cam was distracted, and his mouth formed a doubtful line as if he had something to say but wasn’t willing to say it. I watched him, and when our eyes met again, he sprang up suddenly. “Better go take care of the dogs.”

  I stood too, without planning to. “Can I come?” The words were out before I’d realized I was going to ask. “I… uh, I’ve missed them,” I told him.

  He squinted at me, maybe seeing what I was really saying, that I’d missed him. “Sure,” he said, his voice still flat, noncommittal.

  Tuck stood too then, grinned at us. “Don’t you kids get too crazy. I’m going to edit a few of these transitions.” He turned and headed for the big dining room table, which was strewn with paper and hand-drawn story boards for the movie. These guys really had been hard at work. I was glad—Maddie’s wedding was less than a week away. We needed to be ready.

  I followed Cam down the front steps and stayed two paces behind him all the way to his house, where he opened the door to complete mayhem. The dogs were getting too big to stay together inside his little house while he was out, and the baby gates he’d used to block off the hall to the bedrooms had been trampled and clothes were gnawed and scattered around. A boot lay in the middle of the mess in pieces, one puppy sitting next to it with extremely guilty eyes. It dropped it’s little head when we stepped inside and Cam said in a disappointed voice, “Number Four. Bad dog.”

  He turned to me. “That’s the third boot I’ve lost.”

  “Sounds like you should just give them the other one.”

  He lifted a shoulder, and together we cleaned up a bit.

  “Tuck’s taking two of these guys tonight. I can’t keep them any more,” he said, shaking his head as we finished tidying up while the dogs jumped on our legs and feet and generally continued wreaking havoc around us. Matilda looked as tired as Cam, and I guessed at what it might be like to be trapped in a small house with total mayhem all day long. Exhausting.

  “Should we let them out?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Cam said. What he didn’t say was that the second I opened the door, the puppies would scatter, and Matilda would go nuts trying to herd them into the pen Cam had set up. One got almost all the way down the driveway before I caught him and brought him back, dumping him over the little wall into the pen with a sigh of relief.

  “Yikes,” I said, laughing.

  “Yeah, Matilda’s the only one with the sense not to wander away.” He smiled as he talked about the dogs, and I saw a warmth in his eyes that I wished was aimed at me.

  We leaned on the sides of the pen on our elbows across from one another, the dogs yipping and leaping around each other between us. For a minute, there was just the merry sound of the dogs and the heavy weight of Cam’s silence. Then he said, “How was your trip?”

  “It was good,” I said. “Busy.” I told him about the concert series Theo had set up. “He’s ready for me to get down there as soon as possible.”

  “What about the six month promise you made to your dad?”

  “I talked to him about it in the car on the way back from the airport. He just wants me to be happy—and I think he feels like he accomplished what he set out to do in bringing me up here. We’ve talked.” An unfamiliar warmth rumbled through me, thinking about Dad now. “I’ve forgiven him. He explained a lot of things, and whatever resentment I had…it’s gone.”

  Cam’s eyes held mine and he smiled. “That’s really good.”

  “It is.”

  “So when will you go?” Cam’s shoulders straightened as he asked, and his voice was steady, but lower, like he was bracing himself.

  “Right after the wedding.”

  He nodded, as if he’d expected that very answer.

  “You’ve told Mike?”

  I was actually dreading that part. “Not yet.”

  “She’ll be sorry to lose you.”

  “Yeah.” I knew it was true. I also knew I might be letting her down. We’d said six months, and I think when she’d hired me, she’d assumed I would end up staying longer than that—not less time. “I wish I could make everyone happy, but I can’t. I have to try to do what’s best for me, I guess. Put myself back on track.”

  “You sure you’re not on track up here?”

  I looked up, catching his eyes with mine and held them. I hadn’t expected that question; I really thought he was giving up, letting me go. And maybe he was, maybe he was just talking about the job. It took me a minute to process the question and Cam went on.

  “I mean, it seems to me like you’ve got a lot of things here that most people look for when they go looking, right? A great job you enjoy. A good place to live. Family that loves you…” He trailed off and I waited for him to add something else because there was one other thing here that might convince me to reconsider, one thing I knew I wanted in life that I definitely didn’t have in Austin. But I wasn’t sure it was anything I had here either, and if Cam wasn’t willing to take a step forward, I couldn’t either. I’d already tried, and he’d made it clear we were not on the same page when it came to any possibilities between us.

  “This is an amazing place,” I agreed, feeling let down. “But Austin is great too. And at least there…” I paused. I wanted to say that at least there I wouldn’t have to see Cam every day and wonder why he couldn’t just step through whatever wall held him back and acknowledge how much we wanted each other. I wanted to beg Cameron, throw things at him, do whatever it took to get through to him. But he was too afraid to take a risk, and I wasn’t sure I could handle another rejection from him. I was getting that now, I didn’t need him to spell it out for me again.

  “Right,” he said.

  “Look,” I tried. “Even if I stayed here, you’ve made it pretty clear how you feel about things. It’d be easier for me not to do…” I waved my hand back and forth between us. “Whatever this is. All the time.”

  “If you stayed—“ he started.

  “If I stayed, what?” I demanded, frustration and desire mixing inside me. Could he really tell me what might happen if I stayed, could he tell me he’d get out of his own way and give us a chance? “If I stayed… what?” I said, my voice almost a whisper, barely audible over the yips and playful growls of the dogs.

  He stared at me a long second, and my mind chanted to the beat of my heart. Please. Please. Please. I needed to hear him admit his feelings, tell me he wasn’t going to be afraid anymore, that maybe we could get through fear and uncertainty together because there might be something much greater at the end of that dark road. His face cleared and for a second, I felt sure he was going to do it, take that step forward. Then he said, “I’m sure your dad would be pleased if you stayed. Even if he doesn’t care about the promise.”

  “And you? What do you care about?” I’d seen the way he cared for his sister, the careful way he looked out for her. I’d heard him talk about his dad, I knew he cared for him too. I was even certain of Cam’s feelings for the dog at this feet. But I needed him to tell me he cared about me.

  Cam watched me with wary eyes for a long minute, then dropped them. “I want to tell you to stay,” he said. “I want to tell you a lot of things.”

  “Then tell me,” I said, my voice almost a plea.

  He shook his head. “Wouldn’t be fair to you. I can’t ask you to stay here for me when I can’t promise—”

  “It’s a great opportunity.” I cut him off. “I’d have to have a really good reason to turn it down.” Maybe he’d been about to say we had a chance. Maybe he might have been about to tell me we could try. And as much as I wanted to leap across this pen full of puppies and fling myself into his arms, I could see the hesitation in every line of his body, and I couldn’t put my life on hold if he was
n’t willing to try. I couldn’t put my entire life on hold for maybe. “I would like a puppy though. If the offer still stands.”

  He watched me for a long minute, saying nothing, then crossed his arms over his chest. I tried not to appreciate the way the corded muscle bulged beneath the rolled up sleeves of his shirt, the way the ink flexed with it, begging my fingers to follow those dark lines. I forced my feet to stay planted, commanded my gaze to drop to the puppies. “I’ll be sorry to see you go, Harper. And of course you can take a dog.”

  There it was. He was going to let me go.

  Of course he was.

  Chapter 17

  CAMERON

  Tuck and Harper took over the pre-filming for Maddie’s movie, working through the shots they could get prior to the big event. I’d planned to be involved, but Tuck kept waving me off, telling me they had it handled, and I regretted letting him bunk with her in the house again. I could see the lights on up there late into the night, and pictured the two of them getting closer, pictured Tuck stepping in and offering Harper everything I couldn’t.

  I’d practically begged her to stay when we’d been standing outside with the puppies.

  Well, maybe that was an exaggeration. But I’d hinted that she should. That maybe things would be different if she weren’t leaving.

  At least that was what I’d really wanted to say. I’d been thinking about what Maddie had said, about what Harper had said herself. That maybe I was letting fear get in the way of what I wanted—that the idea of losing someone again was too hard to allow the possibility of getting close.

  And now I was losing her anyway. She was clearly avoiding me, and maybe that was for the best.

  Part of me wished she’d never come to Kings Grove, that she could have just stayed where she was in New York, and I could have just stayed up here in my monochrome bubble. Instead, she’d jumped into the center of my world and cast her rainbow light on everything, reminding me what life could be like, that there was more than just getting through the days. Surviving.