Cam made two stops on his way out of Blackberry Bay. The first was at the office of Carolina’s lawyer because he’d been dragging his feet on finalizing the estate. He hadn’t been ready to make a final decision. But now it had been made for him.
He couldn’t keep the cottage. Even if it was the sort of place his circle kept as summer homes, he couldn’t drift in and out of Meredith’s life. Seeing her on random weekends would only prolong the pain. He wouldn’t see her enough to heal their relationship, but he’d see her enough to keep himself from moving on.
And there would come a weekend in the future when he’d show up and there would be a man in the backyard, playing with Sophie and kissing Meredith. They both deserved that happy future, but Cam didn’t want to be there to see it.
He was in the office for no more than fifteen minutes to give the man contact info for his assistant, who would be handling everything remotely going forward, except for the final signatures. They’d figure out how to handle that when the time came because he wasn’t coming back.
“There will be crews going in to finish emptying it out,” Cam said. “And then some minor updating. I want it in the paperwork that it can’t be torn down. We’ll find a seller who loves the cottage, who can also afford the taxes and upkeep.”
“I don’t specialize in real estate law, but I’m not sure you can dictate the buyer’s intent after the purchase.”
“Then we’ll bluff, so at least we’ll know the buyer doesn’t have that intention when they sign the papers. I don’t want it torn down.”
The second stop was at the inn to pick up his mother, who’d actually hired a car service to bring her to town and then dismissed it, making it a one-way ride. She was so sure he would cave to her demands that she’d left herself no way home other than riding shotgun with him.
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel after sending her a text letting her know he was parked outside, letting his anger at her keep his pain down to a dull but persistent ache.
Maybe if things had gone differently with Meredith, he could have left his mother waiting at the inn until she finally surrendered and recalled the car service. But without Meredith, there was nothing to keep him here.
He hadn’t been able to say goodbye. Meredith had made it pretty clear she didn’t have anything else to say to him. And just the thought of Sophie’s tears had made him unable to cross the lawn to her yard. Once everything of importance to him was loaded into his car, he’d seen Elinor curled up in Meredith’s kitchen windowsill and realized he wouldn’t even get that goodbye.
At some point he would probably call Tess Weaver, he told himself. She’d been kind to him and he should have seen her again before leaving Blackberry Bay. There were a lot of things he would regret about leaving today, but hurting Meredith and Sophie would be the thing that haunted him forever.
When his mother stepped out onto the sidewalk, his manners overrode his attitude and he got out to take her leather tote. His belongings filled the trunk and a good part of the back seat, but there was space behind his seat for it. Once she’d gotten into the passenger seat, he closed her door and took a long, slow breath.
It was going to be a very unpleasant drive back to the city.
Cam slowed as they neared the white sign with Thank You for Visiting Blackberry Bay written on it in fancy script letters.
He could turn around. He could drop his mother back at the inn before driving to Meredith’s house and... What? What could he do? Ask her to leave behind the new life she’s made for herself and daughter to move to the city? To uproot Sophie and bring her back into an environment where she’d be overwhelmed and have trouble making friends? Did he think he could ask them to start all over again in New York, where they’d wait night after night for him to get home from work?
No. They’d been through a lot and they were happy—truly happy—and he didn’t want to put Meredith in the position of having to choose between a life with him and what was best for her daughter.
He accelerated past the sign and then glanced up at the moment it disappeared from his rearview mirror.
“There’s nothing left for you back there,” his mother said in an uncharacteristically soft voice. “The only thing you get from looking back is pain.”
Then she went through the steps to sync her phone with his car and he didn’t object when she hit a button and an audiobook started playing through the speakers. It was some kind of cozy mystery, which surprised him. He hadn’t realized his mother read for pleasure, and not having known that just added to the sadness clouding his mind.
Listening to the book kept either of them from feeling the need to make conversation, so by the time the five-hour drive was over and Cam navigated Manhattan and pulled his car into the underground parking garage that serviced the Maguire offices, they’d barely said a dozen words to each other.
He left everything but his wallet and phone locked in the car and rode the elevator up with his mother. Despite it being late evening, the offices were still bustling and some of the staff gave him questioning looks, as if they’d never seen a man in khaki shorts and a T-shirt before. Not a Maguire, anyway.
The door to his father’s office was standing open, which meant security had probably told him his son was on his way up, but he paused when his mother stopped in the hallway.
“I’m going to go freshen up,” she told him. “Shall I schedule a dinner for this weekend?”
“Sure.” He didn’t really care one way or another. He’d have to eat and, if it couldn’t be Meredith, he didn’t particularly care who he ate with.
Maybe it was because he was already at as low an emotional point as he’d ever been, but walking into his father’s office hit him harder than he expected. Calvin III looked up when he entered, and he was surprised to see some compassion in the older man’s eyes.
“You’re back.”
“I am.” He sat down in one of the leather armchairs, across from his father.
“Did you take care of everything you needed to take care of?”
The question was heavy with subtext and Cam sighed. There was a part of him that just wanted to blow the lid off everything. All three of them now knew the truth and not discussing it was ridiculous.
But his father—the man who had given him everything it was possible for him to give, even if he wasn’t capable of offering love—was a proud man who was notoriously bad at discussing personal issues. Talking about Michael Archambault—about the time his wife had run off with another man and come back pregnant—wouldn’t do anything but reopen old wounds.
Cam had what he needed. He had Carolina’s journals, safely packed in a bag in the trunk of his car because he hadn’t been able to leave them behind. He knew what truths there were to know, and one of those truths was that the man sitting in front of him was always going to be his father.
He was never going to be the kind of dad who inspired coffee mugs and Father’s Day cards, but if Cam dug deep, there were moments. His father’s hand squeezing his eighteen-year-old shoulder as he introduced him at a meeting as the future of the company. The way he’d stop what he was doing and make eye contact when congratulating Cam for a success—something he didn’t bother doing with the majority of his people.
And on a more practical note—which would probably meet Calvin III’s approval, which was ironic—if he turned his back on his father, he’d be walking away from the company, too. He’d invested too much of himself into it, and while he knew he could go off and build a company of his own, he didn’t want to start over. His parents had made decisions that put his name on the letterhead, he’d worked hard to live up to the expectations and even exceeded them, and he wasn’t giving it up.
“I did,” he finally said. “There’s nothing left for me there and I’m ready to get back to work.”
“Good.”
With a satisfied nod, his father cleared his throat and started talking about a potential merger on the horizon between two companies that, combined, could be competition for them.
Cam didn’t listen. Everything being said was already in a report waiting in Cam’s email inbox, and pain was obliterating his ability to focus.
There’s nothing left for me there.
It hurt more than he’d believed it was possible to not only say those words, but to know they were true. He’d hurt Meredith by letting her believe what was happening between them was weakening his resolve to return to the city. Maybe he hadn’t made her any promises, but he’d known Meredith and Sophie were both growing attached to him and he’d done nothing to stop it.
That somehow he could have them in his life and everybody could be happy was a lie he’d allowed himself to believe, and now they all were paying the price.
“I hate when it’s raining,” Sophie said, her voice a whine that grated across Meredith’s raw nerves.
“Me, too,” she said, even though it wasn’t true in this moment, since the dark day matched her mood.
It also made her aware of how far Sophie had come. There was a time she wouldn’t have minded the rain because all she wanted to do was stay in her room with her books all day. She still had a book with her, more often than not, but the book accompanied her outside and to the park and all sorts of adventures.
So moving to Blackberry Bay had done exactly what Meredith had hoped. Her hometown had helped Sophie open up again and embrace her new community. She loved school and the library, and Kiki was still her best friend.
Meredith just wished it hadn’t also come with a broken heart.
At least the rain keeping them inside meant she didn’t have to watch the people who’d been in and out of the cottage for the last two weeks. It was empty now. She’d heard one of them say that, and later that evening, after everybody had left, she went and looked in through the slider. It looked lonely, sitting empty, and when Elinor made a mewling sound from next to her feet, she’d picked her and carried her back to her house, where she sat and cuddled the cat while she tried not to cry.
Tonight, she was going out. Reyna had insisted and, when Meredith had declined, she’d kept insisting until she’d finally asked her mother to take Sophie and Oscar for a night. Maybe it would do her good to get out of the house, but as she locked up and got into her car, all she wanted to do was crawl into bed and pull the covers over her head.
Putting on a brave face for Sophie had been all too familiar and, though not as hard as the days after Devin died, her little girl was as brokenhearted as she was. No matter how Meredith tried to explain that Cam had to go back to New York City for a work emergency and he was too busy to come back, she couldn’t understand why her friend had just left like that and wouldn’t be coming back. And she’d declared she already hated whoever their new neighbors were going to be.
Once she’d found a parking space, though, she tried her best to shake off the pain of the last two weeks, and by the time she spotted Reyna waiting at a table on the deck, she even managed to smile.
“Oh, honey, you look like you need a drink,” her friend said, so apparently she hadn’t done quite as good a job at smiling as she thought.
“Just one, since, unlike you, I have to drive home.”
“Here’s a better plan. We’ll have dinner and one drink, and then we’ll walk to my place, raid the bakery and then go upstairs to eat all of the cupcakes and drink until we fall asleep.”
Meredith’s laugh was genuine and much needed. “That sounds like a great plan if the goal is to be really sick tomorrow.”
Reyna shrugged. “Okay, so maybe not all of the cupcakes.”
After they’d ordered burgers and cocktails, Meredith braced herself for the question she knew was coming. She’d exchanged a few text messages with Reyna since Cam left, so her friend knew most of the story already, but the auto shop got busy with people waiting until the last minute to get their vehicles ready for the end-of-the-month inspection deadline, so it had been a few days since they’d spoken.
“Have you heard from him?”
Even though she’d known the question was coming, it still hurt. “No. And I don’t expect to. If he was going to contact me, he would have done it by now.”
Reyna scowled. “I don’t get it. I mean, you guys were so obviously into each other and then he just leaves and that’s it?”
“That’s it.” Her throat tightened and Meredith forced herself to take a deep breath. The last thing she was going to do was cry in this restaurant. “He has this whole life in New York City with power and money and the family business. Being here was like a time-out. And I knew it, and you knew it. Him leaving was not a surprise.”
“But leaving the way he did was a jerk move.” Reyna gave her a sad look. “And, honestly, I thought he’d change his mind.”
So did I. “That’s a lot to give up to live here in Blackberry Bay.”
“You and Sophie are totally worth it, though.”
That did it. Tears blurred Meredith’s vision and no amount of blinking would hold them back. She used her napkin to blot at her eyes for a few seconds, trying to get her emotions under control before she turned into a spectacle.
“I’m sorry,” Reyna said. “Let’s talk about something else.”
Meredith sniffed. “How’s caramel apple guy?”
Reyna sighed. “He’s still around. I like him, actually, and we’ve seen each other a few times.”
“Maybe your bad-luck streak is coming to an end?”
“Maybe, but it’s too soon to tell. You know what they say.”
“That Reyna is hell on men,” they said together.
They ate their burgers and Meredith nursed her cocktail, making sure to drink her water in between sips. Reyna noticed and reminded her of the cupcake-and-booze invitation, but she was going to pass. While getting out of the house had been good for her, what she really wanted to do was take a long, hot shower and then curl up in her bed and try to sleep.
“When you’re ready, tell me and I’ll get some ladies together and we’ll have a true girls’ night out,” Reyna said after they’d finished and were out on the sidewalk. “I know you’re not there yet, but meeting more people and reconnecting with more old friends will help cheer you up.”
“Thanks. And thanks for tonight, too. It helped to get out and laugh a bit.”
“Promise me you’re not going to go home and cry yourself to sleep now.”
“I promise.” She’d stopped doing that a few nights after Cam left and the numbness set in. She was so exhausted by getting herself and Sophie through each day that she fell asleep shortly after her head hit the pillow.
And she kept the promise. Mostly. By the time she crawled into bed and Elinor had nestled next to her feet, she didn’t have any more tears to shed. She’d cried them all in the shower.