“All right,” he clipped. “Here’s how this shit is going down. First off, you need to get to your girl and tell her these tapes still exist. That shit isn’t going to be easy on her, especially if he manages to release them and she gets blindsided. Second, I’m gonna send a guy your way. If Cousin Cocksucker is getting desperate, there is no telling what he’s going to do. I’d rather have feet on the ground and you not need them than be underprepared. Lastly, I’ll make some calls and see if I can figure out what the hell kind of trouble this asshat has gotten himself into. If he’s got as much pull in this small town as you say he does, he’s not going to waste his time working with off-the-grid small-timers. If he’s running scared, someone will know why.”
I let out a sigh, reconsidering the whole kidnapping-Nora thing, but at this rate, New York wasn’t even far enough away from Caskey to keep her safe. “Thanks, Leo. I appreciate it.”
“Not a problem. Take care of your girl and we’ll be square.”
She wasn’t my girl. Well, not exactly. Not in the way that meant I got to keep her when this was all said and done.
But she was still mine.
Or at least I was hers.
“Keep me in the loop,” I said to Leo.
“Will do.”
We both hung up, and I walked straight to the shower. I was quick, not even my cock objecting as I did the world’s fastest lather-and-rinse routine. I spun around the room, dragging on a pair of jeans and a gray T-shirt, and then moved to the nightstand and grabbed my keys. My wallet wasn’t sitting there, so I searched through the pants I’d taken off the night before and dug it out of the back pocket.
Our ten-dollar bill came tumbling out with it. I froze, staring down at it. When the hell had she given it back to me?
While the ten had been in my possession for the last half a decade, it wasn’t often I allowed myself to handle it. For over a year after our night at my dad’s hunting cabin, I’d carried it with me everywhere, never knowing when I’d see her next, and always hoping it would be soon. As time passed, though, and the dream of her finding her way back to me started to disappear, I began leaving it in my dresser at home. I tortured myself with a lot of things, but the memories that bill held were often more than I could take.
Bending over, I plucked it off the carpet, a wave of nostalgia assaulting me.
Snapshots of our past together came back to me in a rush.
Nora laughing as she’d swung from the rope into the creek.
Nora racing away from me, her hair flowing behind her, a smile aimed over her shoulder.
Nora’s eyes as she’d stared at me, her hand poised over mine in the middle of a high-intensity game of Slapjack.
Nora.
Nora.
Nora.
I’d spent five years missing her.
Five years waiting for her to come back to me.
Five years giving her the time and space I’d promised so we could both get our lives together.
In the end, it was Joe who had called me though. Not her reaching out because she wanted me in her life. Not her pining for the last five years, desperate to reconnect. Just…Joe.
Of course, I was going to be here for her. We were friends—first and foremost. But we’d also been more, and learning how to move on without her had almost destroyed me.
After tucking the bill into my pocket, I grabbed my phone and headed out the door.
As much as I would have loved to lose myself in Nora Stewart for whatever time I had left with her, there was no way I was signing myself back up for the heartache that accompanied another goodbye.
I stopped by the Clovert Bakery on my way to her place, hoping to soften the blow with donuts and a coffee. It wasn’t quite seven when I arrived, and her house was still dark, so rather than scaring the hell out of her by knocking, I dialed her number.
She answered on the third ring, sleep still clinging to her voice. “Wow, you’re up early.”
“Actually, I’m outside. Can you let me in so we can talk?”
There was a rustling on her end. “Depends. Is it a good talk or bad talk?”
“Uhh, I brought you donuts and a coffee with enough cream and sugar to kill a horse.”
“So a bad talk then. Great.” Her front door suddenly opened, and she appeared on the other side, her hair pulled back into a ponytail, the phone still held to her ear. She was adorable, all mussed from sleep.
But that wasn’t why my mouth dried.
Or my heart stopped.
Or my cock twitched.
Nora Stewart was standing on the other side of the threshold in the sexiest outfit I’d ever seen. It wasn’t tight, revealing, or anything men usually found inherently sexy. But, to me, it was only one shade below her opening the door stark naked.
She was wearing my sweats—the ones she’d unabashedly stolen from me when she’d snuck out of my bed the one and only time we’d been together. They were my favorites despite the small bleach stain on the left thigh—an accident from when my roommate had taught me to do my own laundry. The bottoms were now frayed and there was a threadbare hole in the right knee, but they were mine.
And she was wearing them.
Five years later.
I couldn’t be as positive if the plain white T-shirt was mine, but based on the way it swallowed her, I thought there was a good chance.
And fuck me if it didn’t do some serious things inside my chest.
Following my stunned gaze, she looked at her clothes. Her head popped right back up. “I’m not giving them back.”
I had to clear my throat before I could reply. “I didn’t ask you to.”
“Well, as long as we’re on the same page.” She swung the door open in silent invitation.
I miraculously managed to put one foot in front of the other without falling and walked into her house. Jesus, this woman was going to be the death of me.
Taking the coffee and donuts from my hand, she carried them to the kitchen counter. “Now, how bad are we talking, Cam? Glazed bad? Or chocolate-sprinkles bad?” She pried open the top on the donuts. “Fuck. A dozen assorted. I’m dying, aren’t I?”
I stared at her. She wasn’t dying, but with what I had to tell her, it might feel like she was. And it was my responsibility to deliver the news, knowing that it was going to throw her back into the pit of demons she’d spent the majority of her adolescence trying to crawl her way out of. She’d come so far and yet another fucking Caskey was going to pull the rug out from under her again—and there was not one damn thing I could do to shield her from it.
Concern flashed across her face, and she abandoned the donuts and walked over to me. “Jeez, I was just kidding. Why are you looking at me like that?”
My throat got thick. Damn, this was going to be like burning at the stake. But it had to be done. She deserved to know. “I got a call from Caskey this morning.”
“Oh, God,” she groaned while staring up at me with bright-eyed anticipation.
Snaking a hand out, I gripped her hip and pulled her in close. “Apparently, someone is following him. He thinks it’s someone I hired, but my guy knows nothing about it.”
“Ohhhhhkay,” she drawled curiously. “So, somebody else hates him too. How is this bad news for me?”
I moved my hand up to her neck, cupping the back and giving her a reassuring squeeze. Fuck, I hated the Caskeys. “He has the videos, Nora. Josh’s videos.”
She blinked, processing and formulating. And I waited for the fallout, ready to be there when she fell.
“And?” she said matter-of-factly.
“And…he’s threatening to release them if I don’t call the mystery man off.”
She blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Thrice.
Like a time bomb ticking down to detonation.
I gave her neck another squeeze. “Nora, babe, I’m here to help, okay? We’re going to figure this out.”
She blew out a controlled exhale. “O
kay. Have you ever defended someone in the mob?”
I cocked an eyebrow. “No.”
She nodded short and slow. “Albanian Mafia? I hear they’re pretty powerful.”
“Can’t say I have.”
“Do you have any connection to organized crime at all?”
More than just a little confused, I shook my head. “Not that I know of. Why?”
Tick. Tick. Tick.
All at once, she exploded. “Because I need a hitman!” Spinning out of my grip, she took several steps away. “Oh my God. What the hell is wrong with that family?” She paused. “Present company excluded. But holy shit, Cam. Those people are insane.”
“I know,” I replied because, well…she wasn’t wrong.
She started to pace. “I was twelve, and I know I didn’t look twelve, but I sure as shit didn’t look eighteen, either. What the hell does he think he’s going to do with that video? It would literally be a federal offense if he uploaded it anywhere. Actually, you know what? Let’s see if he needs to borrow my computer. A federal prison might do him some good.” She stopped and crossed her arms over her chest. “I need you to find out who’s following him. And then we need to pay them double to become our tail, because if it is pissing Jonathan off enough for him to be making threats, I want to be the one responsible for it. I want that joy, Cam.”
A lot of things were happening at that moment. She was making wild and quasi-amusing statements involving a hitman, Albanian Mafia, and joy.
But I was more focused on what she wasn’t doing.
She wasn’t unraveling.
She hadn’t fallen into a pile of broken pieces.
She wasn’t in that pit of demons at all.
My Nora was standing tall, her shoulders back, pissed all to hell and back—rightly so. And I was so fucking proud of her there wasn’t a parallel universe or alternate dimension out there in which I would have been able to suppress my smile.
My legs devoured the distance between us, and I wrapped her up in a bear hug, leaning back to lift her off her feet. “You are fucking incredible. Do you know that?”
“Put me down! I’m in the middle of a rant.”
I laughed—which, given the subject and situation, shouldn’t have been possible. But, then again, I’d seriously underestimated the power of Nora Stewart.
Setting her back on her feet, I waved an arm out. “By all means, carry on.”
And carry on she did. She cussed and raved, plotting out at least seven different elaborate plans to get rid of Jonathan Caskey.
And I sat on the stool, eating a cruller, grinning like a fool, and sipping on my coffee. All the while having no fucking clue how I could ever go back to a life without her.
Deep breath in.
Soft snore out.
Deep breath in.
Soft—
His arm twitched around my middle. I froze, holding my breath so as not to wake him.
I had no idea how we’d ended up in that position. On the couch. Me the small spoon. Camden curled behind me. However, I was in no rush to get out of it, either.
After I’d stopped ranting enough to hold a conversation, Camden and I had moved to the couch. I’d settled into my favorite corner with my legs stretched out across the neighboring cushion, and he’d sat on the opposite end, as far away from me as humanly possible. We came to the conclusion that Jonathan sucked, and I was thankful his investigator was looking into things. I was not in any way happy or comfortable knowing Jonathan had those tapes, but I wasn’t a scared and alone little girl anymore, so I took it in stride. It would definitely be the hot topic with my therapist over the following weeks though.
I’d turned on the morning news for background noise and it had seemed to immediately ensnare Camden. Though it had bored me to sleep. Literally. What? He’d woken me up early. A mid-morning nap had never been more necessary.
I had no idea how long I’d been asleep or how I’d woken up in the cuddly version of The Twilight Zone, but I was not complaining.
Or moving.
Or breathing at the moment.
His twitchy hand stilled.
And I let out a quiet sigh of relief.
“How long have you been awake?” he asked, his voice gravelly and sexy from sleep.
Busted.
“Um…long enough to know you’re a mouth-breather.”
He barked a laugh and sat up, forcing me up with him. “It’s better than being a drooler like you.”
I slapped him with one of the throw pillows. “Lies.”
He stood up and stretched, his T-shirt lifting just enough to reveal a deep V of chiseled muscles disappearing into his waistband. I told myself not to stare.
Then I promptly stared.
And because it was my life and I seriously could not catch a break, he caught me.
“Eyes up here, Stewart.”
I flashed him a tight smile. “Sorry. Maybe leave this part out when you tell your girlfriend about me. Probably the spooning too. I’ve grown quite attached to my eyes and would hate to have her fly down here just to claw them out.”
“Oooh, a catfight. Will there be Jell-O involved?”
“Psh, in your dreams, buddy.”
He laughed, shaking his head. “Your eyes are safe. I don’t have a girlfriend, Nora.”
“What? Yes, you do.”
His brows popped up. “You know something I don’t?”
“You told me last night you have a girlfriend.”
“Uh, no. I told you I wasn’t available. You assumed I had a girlfriend and I didn’t correct you. Big difference.”
For the way my jaw dropped, I probably looked like Wile E. Coyote. “So you lied to me instead of just telling me you weren’t interested.”
“No. I told you the truth. If I had told you I wasn’t interested, it would have been a lie.”
I prided myself in being a smart woman. Growing up the way I had, I’d been a critical thinker since I’d exited the womb. But I could honestly say I had not one fucking idea what the hell Camden was talking about.
“That makes zero sense.”
“Says the person who clearly hasn’t spent five years waiting for the woman they love to actually show up or reach out.”
“What?” I gasped, the pain obvious even to my own ears.
He waved me off. “Wipe that look off your face. It’s fine. I’m not trying to make this a big deal. It’s a self-preservation thing. You’re gorgeous. Of course I’m interested, but I can’t go down this road with you again, knowing it only leads in one direction. We’re friends. I’ve accepted it. It’s not like I’m sitting around, beating myself up over it anymore.”
I shot to my feet. “Oh, so it’s just me, then?”
His whole body blanched. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I cried myself to sleep last night because I finally got a chance to see you again and I thought you were already taken.”
It was the wrong thing to say.
So, so, so the wrong thing to say.
“You finally got the chance?” he snapped, and from the way it sounded, so did his patience. “You’ve had five years of chances to see me. Every fucking day has been a chance for you to see me. But you took none of them.”
What in the actual fuck was happening?
Camden did not have a girlfriend.
Camden was interested.
Yet Camden was currently yelling at me because I hadn’t reached out to him in five years.
I cocked my head to the side. “Oh, I’m sorry. I must have missed all five years' worth of phone calls where you took the chance to see me.”
“I was giving you space. The last thing you told me was you were working on yourself and healing your head and your heart. You said you were too selfish to let me off your hook. Well, guess what? I fucking suffocated on the hook.”
“You told me not to let you go!”
“Because I thought you’d come back!” He thrust a hand into the top of his hair, his
chest heaving. He let out a loud groan and tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling. “Maybe I was just young and dumb, but when you left that day, I thought it was temporary. I loved you. You loved me. The timing was wrong. I understood. We both needed to get our shit taken care of so we could be together. But I thought we were the end game, Nora.”
“We are,” I breathed, reaching out to rest a hand on his chest, but he backed away.
“When?” he thundered, staring me right in the eye, the most agonizing heartbreak carved into his face. “Five years of my life have passed by without you. I graduated from college, law school, started a career, celebrated birthdays and holidays. I went to weddings and watched my friends vow to spend forever with the ones they loved. I took up running, Nora. Come to find out I actually love it. For two years, I gave up meat. Just cold turkey became a vegetarian. Then, on year three, I remembered I really fucking love steak, so that flew out the window. I watched movies and read books I loved and had a six-month showdown with my neighbor because they always vacuumed at three in the morning and it drove me insane. And you weren’t there for any of it.”
My nose stung, and tears welled in my eyes. “I was trying get better for you—for us. I’m still trying to get there.”
“And that’s the problem. You think that a there exists, Nora. Some mythical final destination where we can be together. Meanwhile, our entire lives are passing us by.”
I wrung my hands in front of me. “You deserve someone who’s perfect, Cam.”
“Perfect doesn’t exist! What I deserve is someone who wants to be with me. Not because I’m here. Not because it’s convenient. Not because you need something or I need something. I’m talking someone who cannot physically stay away for one day, much less five fucking years.”
I took a giant step toward him, challenge mounting in my veins. “You think I didn’t want to be with you? You think I didn’t die inside every time I saw a picture of you with some woman on Instagram?”
He let out a humorless laugh and planted his hands on his hips. “What women, Nora? I'm one rung on the ladder away from being a monk.”
“Oh, please. I see the pictures you’re tagged in… Pencil Skirt Barbie, Ski Slope Sally, and my personal favorite: Tattoo Tammy. Come on, Cam. Pick a type!”
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