More than Neighbors

by Shannon Stacey

  “He seems nice,” her mom said in a voice barely above a whisper.

  “You got all that from ‘nice to meet you, Mrs. Lane,’ did you?” Meredith rolled her eyes, but since they were both looking at the men, who’d made their way to the water’s edge with Sophie, her mother didn’t see it.

  “Don’t get like that,” Erin said. “All I’m saying is that your neighbor seems nice. I’m your mother. I don’t want you living next door to a grumpy ax murderer or anything.”

  “I haven’t seen an ax yet.”

  “Good. I want you to be happy here. When I got out of the car and heard you and Sophie laughing, I swear that was the first time since the accident that I’ve drawn a full breath. I’ve been so worried about both of you.”

  “Don’t even start thinking it has anything to do with Cam,” she warned.

  “I don’t care what makes you happy as long as you both keep laughing like that.”

  Thankfully, her mom let the subject drop and was content to watch Sophie walking with her grandfather, her little hand tucked into his. It was a small thing, but to Meredith it was one more sign she’d made the right decision in coming back to Blackberry Bay.

  “This is a perfect yard for a cookout, Meredith,” her dad said as the men joined them again.

  “True, but this is actually Cam’s yard, and buying a barbecue grill is still on my list of things to do.”

  Way down on the list, too, since they’d never done a lot of grilling in California. She’d been thinking about buying one of those small indoor grilling machines, but her dad was right. Their backyard was perfect for a cookout.

  “I have a grill,” Cam said, nodding toward the far end of his deck. “I’d be happy to host a cookout if you have something to grill. And some side dishes. I have a bag of chips, I think.”

  “Mommy bought steaks at the market,” Sophie volunteered.

  “Perfect,” Erin said over Sophie’s excited squeal. There was no way for Meredith to politely decline the offer at this point, so she gave her mother a stern look. She got an innocent smile in return, which she hoped was genuine.

  She wanted no part of her neighbor getting caught up in some kind of maternal matchmaking scheme. He was being polite. Neighborly. That was all it was and all it was ever going to be.

  But on the plus side, she didn’t have to cook and there would be very little cleanup, which definitely made her happy. Freedom from that domestic chore was ringing through her head when she looked at Cam, and it wasn’t until he raised an eyebrow that she realized he could see that joy.

  Then his face softened and he gave her a smile that weakened her knees. She decided he didn’t need to know she’d been giving thanks for paper plates. He could think whatever he wanted if he kept smiling at her that way.

  * * *

  This is all Carolina’s fault.

  Living in her cottage, surrounded by the clutter of a long, full life, was rubbing off on him somehow. It was the only explanation he could come up with for offering to host a backyard cookout for people he didn’t even know.

  Okay, maybe not the only reason. The smile he’d put on Meredith’s face probably had something to do with it, too. She and her daughter both seemed to have resting serious face, which probably wasn’t even a real thing, but it applied to them. Even though he was in well over his head, as far as this cookout went, Meredith’s smile and Sophie’s squeal of delight were worth it.

  All he had to do was cook some meat over a gas-fired flame.

  He stared at the gas grill, doing his best to believe his own pep talk. He could do this. Sure, he was born and raised in Manhattan and had never actually grilled food before. But how hard could it be?

  After pulling up videos online, he’d had to sneak a few photos of the identifying information on the grill so he could go back inside and find model-specific tutorials. Apparently there were a lot of different kinds of gas grills. But he’d finally found some instructions that seemed applicable and, fingers crossed, he wouldn’t blow his eyebrows off.

  It would be a lot simpler to hand the process over to Neal and let him handle it. But there was something about passing the spatula over to another man while Meredith was watching that had him reluctant to admit he hadn’t mastered this skill. It was stupid, he knew. But he wanted to grill these people some steaks.

  Meredith stepping up close to him only reinforced his determination to get it done. He was not going to embarrass himself in front of her.

  “Have you ever used a grill before?” she asked in a voice that was barely above a whisper.

  “What kind of question is that?”

  “You told me you’re from New York City.”

  “Believe it or not, they have barbecue grills in the city.”

  “But have you personally manned one?”

  He was so distracted by how close she was to him that he could barely think. She was trying to keep her parents from overhearing their conversation, which he knew on a logical level, but the closer her head got to his—he could smell her hair and it smelled delicious—the more logic flew out the window.

  “I’ve been standing very nearby when it was done,” he admitted.

  “We could start small. Maybe some hot dogs.”

  He did his best to look offended, but he didn’t exactly have the high ground. And it wasn’t a bad idea. “We’ll leave hot dogs as the emergency backup.”

  She chuckled. “How many YouTube videos did you watch?”

  “As many as I could find.”

  “Good. I like my steaks a perfect medium, by the way.”

  He laughed, and pointed the spatula at her. “You’re pretty picky for a woman with grass stains on her butt.”

  When she laughed with him, he experienced a strange moment of awareness that made his chest ache. Standing over a grill in the backyard, laughing with a beautiful woman while a dog chased a little girl around the yard to the amusement of her grandparents.

  It was surreal how perfect it felt, and for that moment, he almost wished it was real.

  Meredith walked away to calm Sophie down and Cam let the fog of domestic bliss fade away.

  This wasn’t for him. Maybe someday, but even then there would be meals cooked in a stainless steel kitchen or served in the best restaurants. Cocktail parties. Business functions. A mandatory dinner with his parents at least once a week. If he was lucky, he and his someday family would have their own vacation place and he’d be able to join them on the occasional summer weekend.

  As far as he could tell growing up, the Maguire summer house in the Hamptons was just a place his mother went to escape her husband and drink with her friends, which was easier if she left her son with a nanny and his father.

  Cam didn’t want that. He didn’t want any of it, which was how he’d managed to avoid standing in front of an altar with all of his friends and family watching up to now.

  Meredith appeared at his side a little while later and peered over his arm as he sliced into one of the steaks to check it. The close contact along with the heat from the grill made his face feel as if it were on fire, and he hoped if she noticed, she’d blame it on the flames. “I think I went a little past medium.”

  “They look great. You must be a natural.”

  It was a silly thing to be proud of, but her praise made him smile. “Let’s hope these steaks taste as good as they look.”

  They did, and the macaroni salad Meredith and her mother had whipped up was the perfect complement. While Elinor stared at them, obviously silently judging them, from the other side of the glass slider, they sat around Carolina’s patio table—with a couple of chairs borrowed from Meredith’s and Sophie on her grandfather’s knee—and ate.

  Cam didn’t say a lot during dinner. The Lane-Price family hadn’t been together for a while and they had a lot to catch up on. And if there was a lull in the conver
sation, Sophie was quick to fill it.

  He didn’t mind. In fact, he preferred fading into the background and watching this obviously loving family interact. They clearly enjoyed each other’s company, and they laughed a lot. Maguire family dinners were generally quiet and the small talk was focused on business.

  There was a vibrancy to Meredith that he’d seen glimpses of, but surrounded by her family, her eyes sparkled and her laughter came easily and often. He watched her, idly sipping his lemonade, while he pondered the mystery that was his neighbor.

  She had money. That much was obvious from the expensive SUV she drove, to say nothing of the lake house she’d bought. And he wasn’t much on fashion or brand names, but he knew enough to know her wardrobe would have her blending in with any of his mother’s social circles.

  As a matter of fact, he could see her fitting in very well in his world. Besides the surface polish—her hair, her nails and her clothes—the way she carried herself and spoke made him wonder if her husband had been somebody of note in business.

  He forced himself to leave his phone in his pocket. He could do a Google search easily enough. Finding out who her husband had been would only take a few minutes. Hell, he could text his assistant and know pretty much everything there was to know about Meredith, her husband and everybody else in her family in a couple of days at most.

  But this wasn’t business. His relationship with her, such as it was, was strictly personal and for some reason it mattered to him. He didn’t want a dossier. He wanted to get to know her, and for her to tell him things about her of her own accord.

  Their eyes locked and when she tilted her head, the corner of her mouth quirked up in a half smile, he realized she’d caught him staring at her.

  Rather than draw the attention of her parents by saying anything to her, he just smiled and turned his attention to Oscar, who was trying to beg a potato chip from Meredith’s dad.

  “We should hit the road,” Neal said to Meredith when the light started changing and Sophie was clearly starting to drag. “Give you and my sweet granddaughter here some time to wind down before bedtime.”

  Cam glanced at his watch and was surprised by how quickly the afternoon had flown by. This was where he would generally take his leave so they could say their goodbyes in private, but they were on his deck. He wasn’t sure he’d ever learned that etiquette lesson.

  Fortunately, Meredith had it handled. “Yes, we should go back and get out of Cam’s hair, anyway. Are you sure there’s nothing else we can do to clean up?”

  “I’m positive. Most of it was disposable, so there isn’t much to do.” And he didn’t want an audience when he searched for YouTube videos teaching him to clean a gas grill.

  He shook her parents’ hands and told them how nice it was to meet them, and then rustled Sophie’s hair. “I enjoyed the company today.”

  “So did I,” Meredith said, giving him another of those genuine smiles that thrilled him. “Thank you for inviting us.”

  Once he was alone again, he filled the sink with hot soapy water to soak the few dishes they’d used and the greasy barbecue tools. Elinor sat regally on the back of the sofa, giving him a look of such intense disdain that a lesser man might have shriveled up in fear.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he told her. “They’re nice, and it doesn’t hurt us to be neighborly once in a while.”

  In fact, he wouldn’t have minded hanging out with them a little longer. He’d been missing the hustle and bustle of the city when he woke up that morning, so he’d driven over to the café for breakfast. It hadn’t helped and a strong sense of loneliness had overcome him as he’d parked his car in the driveway.

  Until he’d heard the hammock-induced laughter coming from his backyard. It had been a wonderful sound to return home to, even if it was temporary. Maybe someday he’d come home to the laughter of a wife and kids of his own, but if so, that was still a long way off.

  Family had never been a particularly warm and fuzzy concept for him, so he’d never been in a hurry to replicate it and start his own. But if it could feel the way it had felt when he’d come home to Meredith and Sophie laughing in his backyard today, maybe there was hope for him, after all.

  Chapter Five

  A week later, Meredith walked out onto her dock and sat in the swing. Leaning her head back, she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply before blowing out a long, slow breath.

  The move was officially over.

  She’d had to order some cabinet and closet organizers and shelving units online, but all the stuff they owned had a place. Everything was unpacked. The last of the boxes had been broken down and put in the recycling bin.

  Even with all of the downsizing they’d done before leaving California, she’d expected settling in to take longer than a week. A six-year-old and an energetic dog weren’t exactly the best sidekicks for the project. But she’d made two lists each day—one for her and one for Sophie—and they’d tried to see who could check off all their tasks first. Meredith’s jobs might have been more difficult, but it made her life easier when Sophie was engaged with her list.

  Something landed on the swing beside her with a thump and Meredith opened her eyes just as Elinor climbed into her lap.

  “Well, hello. Make yourself at home.” She expected the cat to curl up on her lap, but Elinor only sat there, perched on her thighs, and stared at her. “Why do I get the feeling you’re only sitting on me so you can cover me with cat hair, which will upset my dog when I go back inside?”

  “That sounds about right.”

  The male voice definitely hadn’t come from Elinor, and Meredith tried to ignore the little jolt of excitement as she turned to face Cam. She’d been so lost in thought she hadn’t heard him approaching, and he’d probably come only to get his cat off her dock, but she couldn’t deny there was a part of her that was happy to see him.

  “I was trying to get to her before she could disturb you because you looked so peaceful out here, but she’s pretty fast when she wants to be.” He held up a small brown kibble of some sort. “And she doesn’t seem to be as controlled by a desire for these treats as I’d hoped she’d be.”

  Elinor had been ignoring him, but she made a demanding mewling sound when he held up the treat. She didn’t move, though, so it was clear she expected Cam to deliver it.

  “If I give it to you now, I’ll be rewarding you for jumping on the neighbor lady’s lap while she was trying to take a nap in her swing.”

  “Not to interrupt this debate you’re having with your cat, but I wasn’t sleeping. Just taking a moment to enjoy being officially done with the moving process.”

  “She’s not my cat,” he muttered, but that didn’t stop him from stepping forward and holding out the treat. Elinor still didn’t move, so he had to lean close and feed it to her. Meredith tried not to laugh, but she couldn’t hide her amusement. Cam shook his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a living creature as stubborn as this cat, and that includes my father.”

  Once Elinor had finished her treat, Meredith stroked her fur. The cat arched her back against her hand, casting a “see, she does like me” look in Cam’s direction. “I’m one hundred percent a dog person, but I have heard that about cats.”

  Cam chuckled and shoved his hands in his pockets. Meredith looked up at him, noticing the way the sun glinted off his hair before turning her gaze back to the cat. Over the last week, she and Sophie had spent more time inside than out in the yard, so she’d caught glimpses of her neighbor, but hadn’t really spoken to him since the barbecue.

  She’d heard him, though. A raised, angry voice on what seemed to be a business call that echoed out through the slider screen. A lot of attempts to find Elinor and bargaining to get her into the house so he could lock it up when he was going out or going to bed. Some hammering on the deck, followed by a word she had to make Sophie promise never to repeat.
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br />   “If she’s bothering you, you can just pick her up and set her on the ground, you know,” he said. “She’ll only try it seven or eight more times before she finally gets the message and finds somebody else to harass.”

  “Probably Oscar.”

  “Probably.” At least he looked a little apologetic about the fact his cat’s favorite activity seemed to be appearing on the other side of a window or the slider to make Oscar bark.

  “She’s not bothering me,” Meredith said. “She’s a lot calmer than Oscar, who is currently curled up with Sophie in her bed because she’s trying to teach him to read.”

  He laughed, and she wanted to wrap herself in the warm, vibrant sound. Sure, some aspects of having him as a neighbor got under her skin, and his cat liked to wind her dog up, but he really did have a great laugh.

  “Do me a favor,” he said. “If she successfully teaches him to read, make her promise she won’t teach Elinor. She’s enough of a handful as it is.”

  “How do you think she’ll like New York City?”

  His expression changed and she regretted asking the question. “I don’t think she’d like my apartment at all. And there wouldn’t be any going outside anymore. I’ll probably start trying to find her a new home soon.”

  Meredith stroked the cat’s fur, trying to imagine how upset she would be at leaving her cottage for a new home. Elinor had been Cam’s grandmother’s cat and she’d owned the cottage since before Meredith was born, so it was probably the only home Elinor had ever known.

  “I don’t need both of you looking at me like that,” Cam said, his voice deep with annoyance. “She’s not a city cat. I live in the city.”

  “It’s none of my business,” Meredith said, and then she sucked in a breath as Elinor leaped off her lap, since the process involved a little bit of claw. Not enough to pop through her shorts and draw blood, thankfully.

  Cam scooped the cat up and sighed. “Sorry. I’m just not sure what I’m going to do with her yet. Other than try to convince her to stay in her own yard.”