“So you’re right, we both know Charity is still sleeping, so I was thinking that you might run a few things over to Camden for me.”
“Ha! I knew you knew!” Thea jumped off my desk, making my monitor wobble.
I steadied the equipment that cost more than I’d made my first year and sighed, glancing up at the onyx rook that sat next to my monitor. That little chess piece was more valuable than any of my electronics.
“Yes, I knew,” I told Thea. “Why can’t you run it over yourself, Mom? The Danielses’ place is way closer to your house than mine.”
I’d put off thinking about Cam since the moment I’d woken up this morning. And by put off, I meant refused to acknowledge when he’d popped into my head…which had been about every minute or so. Plan was working out great.
It wasn’t like I could help it. He’d basically been gone ten years. He was bound to bring up some thoughts…some feelings.
“Because he’s not at the Danielses’. He’s up at Cal’s place. Not that it’s Cal’s anymore. It’s his, you know,” Mom finished with a nod.
“He’s at Cal’s?” I asked quietly. He’d always been more comfortable there as a kid—we all had—but it wasn’t like that place was really cleaned up enough to live in yet.
“Art… He was difficult last night, as you well know.” Mom shot me a glare that told me she’d been filled in on what had gone down at the ravine.
God, Cam had just gotten home, and Art had kicked him out? That was the only explanation for him staying up at Cal’s. My eyes were drawn to the huge picture window in my office that looked east across the ridgeline, and my heart lunged against my ribs, like it was straining to travel without me. If he was at Cal’s, that meant there was only a mile between our houses. For ten years, he’d been thousands of miles away—half a world, sometimes—and now he was close enough to visit with a quick walk.
If I dared…which of course I never did. Because I was an idiot, not a masochist.
“Willow?” Mom prompted me from my thoughts. Always here but never present. That’s what Dad lovingly said when I drifted off as a kid. He didn’t find that same quality quite so enchanting now that I was an adult.
“Sorry,” I apologized out of habit. “So why don’t you just run it over to him yourself?”
Mom cringed. “Well, I grabbed his boots— It’s a long story, but I was there when it all happened, so I thought he might be a bit embarrassed to see me.”
“As opposed to being delighted to see me?” I tilted my head. “You know he can’t stand me.” Cam’s loathing of me was the worst-kept secret in all of Alba, and we were known for fast gossip. Even when I’d been with Sully, Cam had barely tolerated my presence those last months before he went off to basic, and then it had been under obvious duress.
It hadn’t always been that way, but it was sure where we ended up.
“Right, and that’s why he stepped in front of a loaded gun for you,” Mom chided. Oh yeah, she was miffed that I hadn’t filled her in last night.
“He did what?” Thea shouted, the sound echoing off the bare walls.
“Calm down,” I mumbled. “He had on a bulletproof vest.” Not that I’d known. When I’d thought that bullets had penetrated his chest… I never wanted to feel like that again. As for what I’d felt, well, I wasn’t pausing to examine that, either.
“Not on his head, he didn’t,” Mom retorted.
“Who had a gun?” Now it was Thea glaring at me.
“Arthur Daniels,” Mom explained. “Don’t worry—Xander locked it up. But you can’t tell me that boy hates you when he literally put his life on the line for yours.”
My mind drifted to his mint-and-pine scent. His arm locked around my waist. The way he’d ordered me to go, both before his father shot him…and after. Glad to know he was still a walking contradiction.
I sighed, letting my head rest against the high back of my chair. One thing I’d learned about Camden was that he might absolutely abhor my presence, but he’d never stand by and watch me get hurt.
“I never said hate. He no doubt did that because he loves you guys. Always has. And I’m sure he feels some weird sense of responsibility because Sullivan died.”
Both Mom and Thea averted their eyes, as usual.
“I can say his name. You can, too. It won’t hurt me any more than it already does.” Sure, his loss still ached, but not in the way it had. That first year, it had been a sucking chest wound. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t see past the next few minutes.
Now it was like a reconstructed knee that ached when the weather changed. I knew it could flare up again at any minute when the conditions were right, but it consumed me only in rare moments. I had put myself back together years ago. Unfortunately, none of Alba had gotten the message that I was healed. They still treated me like I might dissolve into a puddle of tears at any moment.
“We know,” Mom said softly with a sad smile. “We just…worry.”
Thea’s lips pressed into a thin line, and she nodded. Sully had been her husband’s best friend, and Pat had struggled just as hard as I had.
But no one had suffered like Camden. I’d known with one look at the funeral that Cam had been irrevocably shattered by what happened to Sullivan.
“So his boots are in the bag?” I put us back on topic just to steer clear of the grief tsunami that threatened to overtake the room.
“Right. Yes. And a few other things he might need. Would you mind running them over? I’d really appreciate it. And I know you two don’t particularly get along, though you most certainly used to.”
Man, did she love to remind me that at one point I’d been attached to the Daniels boys at the hip. Especially Cam.
“I just…” She continued when I remained quiet. “I know he’s not mine, but if Lillian were here…” She shook her head, unable to continue.
“I’ll take it,” I agreed, knowing it would ease her and maybe myself, too. “If I hurry, I can be back by ten and get this finished.”
“Oh, I have to head to the studio!” Thea jolted as if she’d just noticed the time. “I have a class coming in at ten I need to get set up for.”
“Business is good?” Mom asked.
Starting up something new was always a risk in Alba. Sure, the season—the summer months—was a gushing waterfall of business, but the fall was slow and the winter downright dead before a trickle started back up in the spring. It was one reason the younger generations kept leaving.