Silver gets quiet for a second. “Please tell me Cay’s okay.”
“Steady progress, but he’s still not opening his eyes.”
“Well, I’ll be here as long as you need me. King is here, too, helping out.”
“Geez, that’s nice of him. Shouldn’t he be in the Super Bowl or something?”
Silver chuckles lightly. “I’m a little afraid of what he’ll do to you if you ask him that to his face. He’s still a little sour over the last playoff game.”
Hours later, when my evening shift is ending, a second miracle comes.
“I’m going to grab some dinner.” I clap Jami on the shoulder as we pass each other in the hallway. “Want me to get you anything?”
He has a stupid grin on his face while he shakes his head. “Nah, I ate with Mom.” Then he winks. “Enjoy your meal.”
It is such a weird exchange that I don’t understand at all, until I walk past the main lobby to get to the cafeteria and spot a familiar face. I think my heart explodes from my chest in that moment. It’s a mixture of relief, confusion, and happiness, and it detonates inside me like a fireworks show on the darkest night.
Hope gets a running start before she leaps into my arms and clings to me like we’ve been apart for months instead of days. Her firm hold around my neck is just the elixir I need to release waves of pent-up tension in my body. I didn’t realize that I’d been compressing it down and bottling it up so tight until the tears start to come. Not just tears. Full-on, grown-man baby sobs begin to rack my body, and it all releases like a flood, drenching Hope in everything I need to try to let go. My fears, my anger, my regrets. The weight of it all is too much. Not even I can hold it in anymore.
Hope pulls me into an empty waiting room and climbs onto my lap, hugging me tightly until my tears dry and my heart begins to calm, then I meet her beautiful eyes. “I was not expecting to see you here.”
She cups my face and tilts her head. “I wasn’t going to let you keep me away.”
I shake my head, my sigh releasing as I move. “I didn’t think they’d allow you up here. How did you get in?”
She smiles and presses her lips to mine. “If anyone asks, I’m your sister.”
My chuckle is deep and booming, bringing a different set of tears to my eyes this time. Happiness. “I’ve never been so attracted to one of my siblings in my life.”
She grins before kissing me again. “I’m a lucky woman.”
Finally, once the fog of seeing her dissipates, I pull back slightly. “Everything okay back home?”
Her smile slips some, but she nods. “Better than okay. I quit my job yesterday.”
“You did what?” I can feel my jaw go slack.
“And then,” she continues, “I started traveling here yesterday. It just took me awhile between ferry rides and sold-out flights. I finally got on a wait list, and here I am. I hope it’s okay.”
My eyes slam closed, and I lean in to rest my head on her shoulder. “Of course it’s okay. But why did you quit? I thought working at Urgency was what you wanted.”
“What I wanted,” she stresses, “was the choice. For once in my life, I wanted to make up my own damn mind without feeling like I had no other option. It didn’t take long to figure out what I truly want.”
“And what’s that?”
She smiles, causing my heart rate to quicken. “You, silly. Everything else will fall into place. My career is something I’ll always be working toward. No one said I had to be working my dream job now. I’m young. There’s so much I want to try and do. But I want to do it at Camp Bexley. With you by my side.” She rolls her eyes to the ceiling and purses her lips in the cutest damn expression I’ve ever seen her wear. “If you’ll have me.”
I brush my lips against hers, moving slowly, not wanting to miss a single beat of this moment. “Oh, I’ll have you all right. I’ll even give you a key.”
She pulls back, amusement glowing on her face. “To your house?”
“To my camp. I need a partner. It might as well be someone who knows the place better than me.”
Shock is written all over her face. “What about your brothers?”
I shrug. “It will always be their home too. When they decide to come back. But I don’t want to do it alone anymore. You don’t have to worry about your noncompete either. Dexter breached his contract by dismissing me as a client, remember? I’ve already spoken with my lawyer. There’s no way in hell he can touch you no matter what capacity you work in at the camp. Case closed.”
Her smile blossoms again. “It sounds like you’ve been thinking about this quite a bit. I have been too. I read over the fine print again and found something else. He can’t stop me from working outside a one-hundred-mile radius. Guess how far Camp Bexley is from Urgency?”
I tilt my head, amused by her research. “How far?”
“One hundred and ten miles. We’re untouchable, Bexley.”
My heart thunders in my chest. “I could have told you that.” I pull her close and nuzzle her neck while breathing in her vanilla scent. “Looks like you have plenty of options now.”
She curls into me. “Oh, Anderson. I don’t need options anymore. We move forward together. I love you,” she whispers.
“I love you too.” I press my lips to hers before I realize something. I pull back slightly so I can search her eyes. “Wait. So, is that a yes to being my partner?”
She laughs and then nods. “That’s a hell yes.”
Our lips meld together again, and our kiss deepens… until a third miracle comes.
“Andy!”
Jami’s voice can be heard down the corridor before he bursts into the room. “Andy,” he says again, his eyes wide with excitement. “It’s Cayson. He’s awake.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
HOPE
TWO WEEKS LATER
There’s something calming about the frenzy happening all around me. Golf carts whiz by in every direction as they transfer staff and party supplies from one location to another. Gourmet skillet scents waft from the cafeteria kitchen as staff prepare for the feast of the century. Tuning notes from the live band can be heard for miles while the musicians do their sound check on the sports field.
We’re only hours away from Camp Bexley’s grand reopening, and my nerves are zinging through me like a pinball machine. All the vendors are accounted for. Staff members are trained and ready. Everything is going precisely as I planned. But it’s what I can’t control that ties my nerve endings up in knots. What if no one shows?
When Anderson and I returned from North Carolina, I hit the ground running. The invitations I’d prepared before Dexter yanked my project away from me were all ready to go, so I started there. Over two thousand invitations went out addressed to local businesses, previous guests, and the media. Of course, the people who were invited won’t all show, but my hope is that a healthy handful of them will.
“Give me that.”
Before I can even look at Silver, she’s swiping the walkie-talkie out of my hand. “What are you doing?’ I squeal. “I’m waiting for the kegs to arrive to get the saloon stocked.” We still don’t have a liquor license, so beer and wine are the most we’ll be able to provide tonight.