“She’s fine,” I assured her. That had been the only acceptable outcome.
“Because you were there,” Xander commented as he came down the stairs.
Great, now he chose to show up. I shot him a look, but it didn’t stop my brother from running his mouth.
“Cam stepped right between them, even with that gun pointed straight at his chest.” Xander beamed like a proud parent.
Hell. I was in Hell. And knowing Hope, she’d see straight through me.
“You stepped… He had a…” Hope blinked quickly and then spun back toward the living room as Dad stepped into the hallway. “You aimed a gun at my daughter?”
“Claws are out,” Xander murmured.
“Because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut,” I retorted.
“Like the whole town won’t know by morning,” he scoffed.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Dad shouted, jabbing his finger in my direction.
“You aimed a gun at my Willow?” Hope repeated, getting right up in Dad’s face.
“I didn’t know it was Willow, and you have my most sincere apology,” he told her quietly, then focused his venom right back on me, as usual. “Explain yourself.”
“Dad, it’s Camden. Remember? He was up at the ravine with us earlier. He’s home now,” Xander said slowly, as if he were talking to a child…or a man who couldn’t remember who he was 50 percent of the time.
“I know who the hell he is, Alexander. Why are you in my home, Camden?”
Hope gasped and stepped back.
“I’m here to help you,” I told him in the calmest voice possible, gathering every emotion in my body and shoving them in a box, just like I did on missions.
“You? The boy who vowed never to darken my doorstep again? The boy who burned down the bunkhouse in a fit of boredom? The boy who’s been here once in the last ten years, and only to bury his brother? You’re here to help?”
The boy I’d been would have cried.
The teenager I’d grown out of would have cursed at him and walked away.
The man I was now stood there and took it because I was finally strong enough to.
“Dad!” Xander snapped, stepping forward. “Stop it! You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I know exactly what I’m saying. He’s the reason Sullivan isn’t here. He’s the reason your daughter”—he looked at Hope—“buried the love of her life when she was nineteen. He’s the reason everything goes to shit.”
“Art, you know that’s not true,” Hope said quietly.
“He gave the order that killed Sullivan.”
My breath caught as Dad’s ice-blue eyes met mine. I couldn’t deny it. Not when it was the truth.
“I didn’t know—” I started.
“You got him killed! You’re not sleeping under my roof. You’re not welcome here. Get out.”
My stomach turned to lead and plummeted to the floor.
“Dad! No!” Xander shouted.
There was zero mercy in my father’s eyes, zero give, and zero chance he was going to change his mind…but he was the one who’d asked me to come here. Didn’t he remember?
Screw this. Screw all of this. He was never going to listen. He’d made up his mind the moment he read the report Xander had promised not to show him.
I turned around and walked out of the house, letting the screen door slam behind me. Rocks jabbed into my feet as I hit the drive. Shit. I’d left my boots inside. Whatever. I had another ten pairs in the Jeep. I’d find a hotel—
“Cam!” Xander yelled as I reached the Jeep.
I climbed in, but he got to the door before I could close it. A set of keys jangled from his outstretched fingers, but I kept my eyes straight ahead, refusing to see the inevitable pity in his eyes.
“Go to my place. This will all blow over. I promise.”
He’d made that same promise when the mood of the house hadn’t lifted six months after Mom’s funeral. Xander’s optimism was a giant heap of lies he told himself to make swallowing the shit easier.
“No,” I replied. The last place I wanted to be was in Mayor Daniels’s house, getting my dirt all over his perfect life. I didn’t even know where he lived.
“Come on,” he pled. “I’ve got HBO.”
“Don’t watch much TV.”
“You’re still so damned stubborn,” he muttered, digging into his pocket and retrieving another set of keys, this one with an eighties-style Broncos stallion on the key chain. “Then, at least go up to Uncle Cal’s house. Well, I mean, technically he left it to you, so it’s your house.”
Uncle Cal. The one person I’d been able to lean on. The only guy who’d ever understood the rage that always seemed to simmer just beneath my surface.
Xander shook the keys. “Come on. Don’t go to a hotel. None of the tourist places up here are open yet, and it’s a forty-five-minute drive back to Buena Vista. The electricity still works up there, and the water runs. I check it every month. It’s not like I’ve dusted or anything, and it’s not the Four Seasons, but it’s yours. Do it for me, please. I can’t watch you drive away and wait another six years to see if you’ll come back.”
“I’m not leaving the state, for Christ’s sake. Just Dad’s house,” I promised. I’d had no intention of coming back when I left last time. We’d both known it. I couldn’t blame him for that touch of worry in his voice, so I took the keys, and he sighed in relief.
“I’ll check on you tomorrow.”
“I’ll be fine. Will you?” I motioned back to the house. “I know you need a break.”
“I’ll take one once Dad comes to his senses.”
Ha. Like that was going to happen.
“Look.” His voice softened. “We all know you didn’t kill Sullivan. Dad just…” He shook his head.
“I gave the order. May as well have pulled the trigger,” I said quietly, staring at the front porch. Our team had been called in to support a combat outpost under fire, and when our chopper managed to land, all hell had broken loose. I’d been ordered to head toward a break in the defenses with whichever soldiers were available.
“You relayed orders. That’s all.”
“I chose a squad leader to reinforce the side of the outpost taking the heaviest fire,” I corrected him. “That sergeant took his squad and did just that.” We’d split what was left of that platoon down the middle. I could have chosen the staff sergeant on my right. Instead, I took the one on my left and headed for the wall with his soldiers. “Sullivan was in that squad.”