Cam was about to say, Maybe just let her call them, but he figured it was better to shut up.
Nick didn’t say much as they got busy, but Cam figured he was just concentrating. They’d been working for about an hour when Darla brought in a tall cold pitcher of lemonade and some cookies.
Not just any cookies. Oatmeal with chocolate chip—Nick’s favorite. Cam was starting to wish he’d made up some excuse not to come.
“I’ve got that call now,” she said, smiling. “You guys okay?”
Nick barely gave a nod, so Cam made sure to smile and wave from the top of his ladder. “Thanks, Darla,” he said. When the coast was clear, he assessed his brother, who was using a crowbar to scrape rotten wood from the ceiling. “You okay?” Cam asked.
Nick halted whatever he was doing with the crowbar. “Fine,” he said, before starting up again.
“Okay,” Cam said, but he kept standing there. Because he knew his brother enough to know something was off.
“Will you get back to work?” Nick said, exasperated. “We’re burning daylight.”
“It’s just that you seemed excited to be here but you barely thanked her.” Cam crossed his arms. “And also, it wouldn’t kill you to tell me what’s bugging you.”
Nick rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re going to stand there until I say something.”
“Yeah,” Cam said, chuckling. “That’s what I was thinking. So maybe you’d better spill.”
Nick shook his head. Cam was ready to give up and get back to work when Nick said, “This could’ve been my life.”
Cam squinted out at the hundred eighty degrees of sun and sea in front of them. “Oceanfront? Panoramic views?”
“I don’t care about any of that.” Nick paused a long time, leaning his body against the ladder. “I mean working on a project around the house like this. Eating cookies. Reading on the deck. It just…it makes me think about what could’ve been.”
Working on projects? Eating cookies? Nick being sentimental? Cam walked down from his ladder and took a cookie, holding the plate up to Nick. As far as he could tell, his brother was talking about being with Darla. Doing everyday-life things…together.
He was also certain Nick was going to hate what he had to say. But he said it anyway.
“Maybe it could be again.”
Nick snorted.
Cam threw out his hands. “You’re both still single is all I’m saying.”
“I wasn’t ready to be a grown-up,” Nick said in a voice almost too low to hear. “I…caused a lot of pain.”
That made Cam’s thoughts swing back to Hadley, who was never far from his mind. While he and Nick had been working, he’d found himself doing double takes, thinking that a woman with her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail was Hadley as she ran through the waves or that she was one of a trio of women on the beach laughing. Every part of Seashell Harbor seemed to remind him of her.
And the fact that he’d blown it too.
“Maybe you should have another go at it,” Cam said, realizing he was probably the worst person in the world to give advice.
His brother wouldn’t meet his eyes, choosing instead to look out on the horizon, where a few tiny white specks of boats made frothy trails and puffy white clouds sailed by, oblivious to any human angst.
Nick gave an uneasy laugh. “You’ve always been an optimist. Ever since we were kids. Remember Boomer?”
Now it was Cam’s turn to shake his head. “Please don’t bring that up.” Boomer was their longtime golden retriever. One day when Cam was twelve, he’d come home from school to find Boomer gone. His dad had sat him down and explained it had been his time, and he’d had to cross the rainbow bridge.
His dad had done his best, but there’d been no goodbye. No ceremony. No burial. Boomer was just…gone. Sort of like his mom.
“You asked for weeks if he was coming back, remember?” Nick said. “Like you just couldn’t accept that he was gone. Like you could wish him back to life.”
Cam had loved that dog. It still hurt to think about it.
“Maybe what’s wrong with us goes back to Mom,” Nick said.
Out of the three of them, Nick was always the one who brought up their mother. Lucy was too young to remember her and Cam…well, he’d always put his energy into forgetting about her as best he could. “I don’t want to talk about her,” Cam said, trying to harden his heart like usual. But it seemed as though Hadley had changed the consistency of his heart to melted ice cream.
“A mom’s supposed to love her kids no matter what,” Nick said. “If she doesn’t, how do they ever feel anyone else can?”
Cam winced a little, but he was going to punt on this one, so he kept his reply light. “Maybe you should be getting your psych degree instead of an MBA, Dr. Phil.”
“We don’t talk about this,” Nick said. “But maybe we should is all I’m saying.”
“Nick, I don’t disagree that Mom leaving maybe messed us up,” Cam said. “But you and Darla were really young. Maybe you both made mistakes. But…she’s here now.”
“Too much water under that bridge. And it’s too late. We’ve both moved on.” Then he went back to prying wood slats.
Cam walked to the other corner of the porch and kept ripping out his area, planning to meet his brother in the middle.
He was a little jolted by what Nick had said about their mom’s effect on them.
Except he couldn’t help but see the irony. He was telling his brother to examine his heart, to take a leap of faith, to salvage a relationship that at one time meant everything to him.
Hadley had meant everything to him too. He kept telling himself that his head wasn’t right, he wasn’t settled, he still had a lot to prove. That she might still be hung up on that ass Cooper. That she wouldn’t remain in Seashell Harbor for much longer.
But she was here now, and so was he. And his heart wanted what it wanted.
Chapter 19
Let me get this straight,” Kit said as she walked with Hadley down Petunia Street on her way to work at Seaside Auto Body, where she ran the front desk. They’d just dropped Ollie off at day care on the kind of summer day that made you want to skip work and lie on the beach all day loading up on sunshine and salt breezes, reading a book, playing paddle ball, and collecting shells. All of which Hadley hadn’t done in…When was the last time she’d had a beach day? Did nothing? She couldn’t even remember.
Cooper had hated the beach, at least in the U.S., because he was constantly mobbed by people. He even had a rule about not giving autographs when people sought him out, which Hadley found embarrassing.
“You’re meeting Cam at the courthouse to work on arrangements for the benefit? Really?” Kit was positively apoplectic at the prospect of Hadley and Cam working together. Nothing Hadley said could calm her down.
“Gran felt it would be an opportunity for both of us to refocus on how we’re trying to help out the town,” she admitted.
“I heard customers in the shop buzzing about Cam’s restaurant versus your dog rescue. It’s quite the heated debate. And that doesn’t even count the fact that there are photos of you two getting into it all over the Internet. They’re speculating that you and Cam are an item.”