Chapter Four

Willow

My cell phone flashed an alert for a front-door entry, and a video clip automatically started playing. I tugged my headphones down to rest around my neck, effectively silencing the BANNERS album I’d been listening to, and saw my best friend on the screen, juggling a carrier tray of coffee and my house key.

Another hour and this project for Vaughn Holdings would be finished, but something told me I was about to hit a major delay. Thea never popped in without a reason, and I had a sneaking suspicion that reason was Cam.

“Willow?” Thea called out.

“In the office!” I mentally kissed my productivity goodbye and set my headphones on the glass desk.

“There you are!” She gave me a smile brighter than the morning sun and a cup of coffee from Alba Perks.

I thanked her for the coffee, then took a sip of the chocolaty mocha and waited to hear why she’d dropped by so early. She liked to get to her yoga studio before nine, even in the off-season.

“I was hoping you’d be home.” Her eyebrows rose over light-blue eyes.

“Ha! It’s eight thirty a.m. on a Tuesday, so I’m working. Where else did you think I might be?” I took a sip and savored the mocha, wondering how long it would take for her to bring him up.

“Oh, I don’t know…over at the Danielses’ place?” she asked in mock innocence, blowing the steam across the lid of her cup.

Not long at all.

“Okay, what have you heard?” I leaned back in my chair as she plopped her butt right on my desk. The gossip wasn’t something I’d missed while I was at college, but Thea was someone I’d longed for every day at Rutgers.

“I know that I was dropping Jacob off at preschool and some of the other moms had a few fascinating stories about a very hot, very tattooed, very Daniels-looking man stopping in at the gas station before heading up the mountain. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, now, would you?” Her blue eyes sparkled as she tilted her head.

“Why on earth would I know who stops in for gas?”

“Oh, come on. Julie Hall was dropping off Sawyer before heading to the hospital, and she said—”

My cell phone alerted me to another entry, and a quick peek showed my mother walking in.

Work from home, they said. It’ll be fun and productive, they said.

“Mom! Boundaries!” I called down the hall.

“Thea! How lovely to see you.” Mom ignored my comment, her perky grin sending warning signals down my spine. What was she up to now?

“Mom, seriously? I thought we had the whole ‘the key is only for emergencies’ discussion?” Moving back last year had definitely challenged my mom’s hovering nature, but I knew she did it out of love. She was in her element with someone to fuss over, and lately that someone was me.

“Well, you get so grouchy when I interrupt your work, so I figured I’d just let myself in and see if you were here before bugging you.”

I wasn’t touching the lack of logic in that statement with a ten-foot pole. “Right. Mom, what’s up? I know you didn’t drive all the way up here to see if I was home. You could have done that with a phone call.”

She shifted an overstuffed canvas tote on her shoulder. “Is it a crime to want to see my daughter? I mean, you were gone for four years, and I feel like I’m still getting used to having you back. I love having both my girls home again.” Her tone was so exaggerated that I nearly choked on the syrupy sweetness of it. “But I do need a favor from one of you.”

“We both know that Charity is asleep, so out with it!” I demanded with a laugh. No doubt my older sister had gone back to bed after taking Rose to school. She usually worked the closing shift at her bar, since she lived right above it.

Mom smiled back, mirroring my own, and set the bag on the purple armchair in my office. When I’d bought what I’d lovingly called The Outpost, I’d repainted every wall and all the woodwork white, decorating in pops of bright color that I could easily change out when the mood struck. Art school had given me an appreciation of how color affected mood, and after losing Sullivan…well, I’d needed a lot of color. Now, I was good with just bits and pieces.

“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.

“Not bad! We partnered with that little resort down in Mount Princeton, so they’ve been sending business our way. Today is a bridal party!” Thea finished in excitement.

Mom’s expression changed in a way that only I caught. It was a twinge of pain that she’d learned to camouflage quickly over the years, but it was there nonetheless.

In some ways, losing Sullivan had been harder on her than it had me. I’d lost the man I loved, the one I’d planned on spending my life with.

She’d lost her dream of holding a grandchild that she could see both herself and Lillian in. It had been like losing her best friend all over again, combined with mourning what she’d considered to be my future.

I saw it all the time around our small town—the specter of what-if. The futures parents dreamed for their children died hard around here, and laying them to rest demanded a thousand impromptu funerals over the course of a lifetime. The past could be buried and would eventually set you free. Hopes and dreams for futures that would never come to fruition? Those suckers were the real ghosts.

Mom blinked herself free of her most recent burial.

“That’s just great, Thea. I’m so proud of you. How about I walk you out? You can tell me how Jacob is doing. I just love getting to see his sweet little face around town.”

Thea agreed, then hugged me tight. “Call me. I mean it. I want to know everything.” She pulled back and gave me the same look she’d dished out around locker doors in high school.

“I promise.”

“Oh, and Willow, if you have anything you think Cam might find…useful, why don’t you take that over at the same time?” Mom hinted. “He says he’s back for good, so he might need it.”

My face flooded with warmth.

“Yep. I’ll get right on that. See you later.” I forced a smile and ushered them out my front door.

Once I shut it behind them, I leaned against the oak expanse and did my best to breathe like a normal person on a normal day.

So what if he’d jump to conclusions? So what if I’d be opening myself up to a heaping dose of ridicule and that cold, cruel stare? Mom knew damn well what I had stored in my spare bedroom, so wasn’t it better if I delivered it before she accidentally blurted out my secret to Cam? The only thing more embarrassing than what I was about to do would be him showing up and demanding it himself.

I was doing this now to save myself further humiliation…not because I stupidly wanted to see him. Right.

My bare feet crossed the sun-warmed hardwood of my little house, passing the open-concept living, dining, and kitchen area, then my office, and heading back to the two bedrooms, only one of which was occupied.

Mom and Dad built The Outpost the summer I’d decided not to go to college. The summer I’d decided to stay home and wait for Sullivan to return from deployment. Bed-and-breakfasts were huge up here, but little houses where families could vacation were even bigger. They’d rented it out for a couple of years before Mom decided that the rental business wasn’t for her, and now it was mine. Well, in another three hundred and forty-eight mortgage payments, it would be.

I opened the spare bedroom and sighed at the contents.

“Stop being a chicken,” I lectured myself.

Then I put on my shoes, tied my hair up in a messy bun, and got to work.

A half hour later, my SUV climbed the last stretch of snow-laden dirt road that led to Cal’s. Camden’s black Jeep sat parked in the driveway, the tires and lower portion of the paint caked in mud.

I put my car in park and killed the ignition, and before I was ready, I found myself knocking on his front door.

Only a minute passed before he flung said door open. He really was bigger than when he’d left; my mind hadn’t made that up yesterday. He dwarfed me in a way that would have intimidated me if I didn’t know him so well.

Camden might slice me open emotionally with a few careless words, but I was 100 percent safe with him and always had been. Oddly enough, I was probably the only person in Alba who could say that.

“What do you want, Willow? I was trying to get the Scout up and running.” His voice was rougher than the scruffy beard he’d grown.

Well, that explained the grease streaks on the white shirt that draped over his heavily muscled frame and the jeans that hung sinfully well on his hips.

Enough of that. This is Cam.

“I wanted to bring you a few things,” I said, motioning to the bag I had slung over my shoulder. “Can I come in for a minute?”

A debate flickered in those dark eyes momentarily before he nodded and stepped back, allowing me entrance.

The house was just as I’d remembered—an eclectic homage to the man who’d built it between visits home from wherever he’d been working. The entry’s smooth hardwood led to warmly painted walls that boasted exotic artwork framed between exposed beams of reclaimed wood.

A smile lifted the corners of my lips as I glanced around.

“What?” Cam asked.

Saying “nothing” would just irk him, so I was honest about my random thoughts.

“I was thinking that Cal was years ahead of the whole reclaimed-wood trend. He would have been the ultimate hipster now.”

He blinked at me, and warmth crept up my neck.

“You know, because hipsters do everything before it’s cool?” I added, hoping to ease the awkwardness of my joke.

It didn’t.

“Right.” He looked at me with expectation, and I cleared my throat.

“My mom asked me to drop this by.” When he didn’t reach for the bag, I kicked off my shoes, skirted around his enormous body, and headed for the kitchen. I’d been in this house almost as often as Cam growing up, so at least I knew my way around. When I reached the well-loved handmade table, I set the bag down and emptied the contents.

Homemade cookies began the assault on table space, followed by muffins and banana bread in quantities that suggested Mom had expected a small army.

“Guess she baked last night,” I muttered before setting his shoes on the floor.

His eyes dropped to the boots before meeting mine.

Tension strung between us so thick, I could have hung my laundry on it. I hated how he only spoke when he’d finally driven me bonkers from wondering what he was thinking. Hated how he’d always known exactly how to get under my skin. Hated that he made me wonder what was going on in his head when I so often blurted out whatever was in mine.

“So you’re staying up here?” I asked, breaking the stare to take in the familiar lines of the kitchen. It was dusty in places, especially in the cracks of the hand-laid backsplash that depicted the mountains around us in carefully chosen pieces of granite.

“Seems like it. Tell your mom thank you for me.”

I ignored the gruff answer and let my palm trail over the stonework. “I’ve always loved this piece.”

“You should, since you did it.”

My gaze flew to his. He’d remembered that? He’d barely been around that last summer.

“I just helped.” I shrugged.

“Whatever you say.”

“Thank you. For yesterday. You saved my life.” I paused between each sentence, hoping he’d reply. “Rumor is that you’re here to stay.”

“Since when do you listen to rumors?”

“Are they true?” If he was going to ignore my question, then I was ignoring his.

“Yeah, I’m sticking around.” He folded his arms across his chest, drawing my attention to the ink that decorated his skin from his wrists up into his short sleeves.

His left forearm held a scene of pine and aspen trees that sheltered a twisting creek that formed a pond just above his elbow—a pond I recognized. The hot springs that straddled the property line between what had been our parents’ but was now our land.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked, just like he always did. Most people were content to let me live in my head, or they tried to bring me back to the conversation. Cam had always pried my thoughts loose, and I let him, even if he’d usually mocked me for them right after.

Maybe I was a masochist.

“That I always figured you just left and never looked back.” My finger lightly traced the outline of the hot springs, his skin smooth and warm under mine, then paused at the inked rendition of the abandoned structure we used to jump from as kids. “But you took us with you.” Where had he found the drawing? Did he realize it was mine?

His scent hit me, and I realized just how close I was to him, that I was actually touching him. I jerked back and felt my cheeks heat all the way to my ears.

He didn’t say anything or even move. Nope, he stood there like the brick wall he was, giving nothing away in those unreadable eyes of his, but at least he wasn’t making fun of me.

“So anyway, I brought a few more things. I can just grab them from the car, and then I’ll be on my way.”

“Need help carrying them in?”

The thought of him seeing everything in my car had me scrambling for an out. “Oh, no. You go back to the Scout. It’s only a box or two. Nothing I can’t handle. I’ll just let myself out when I’m done.”

His eyes narrowed slightly, but he finally nodded. “Okay, suit yourself. I’ll be in the garage if you change your mind.”

He headed toward the garage, which opened along the east side of the house, and I put my shoes back on and went out the front door. Even if he had the garage door open, he wouldn’t see the collection I was about to haul in.

Sweet, crisp air filled my lungs, and the contrast from indoors made me realize how badly the house needed to be aired out and thoroughly cleaned. How long had it been since anyone had lived here? It had been since before Sullivan died.

I made trip after trip from my car to the entry hall, first pushing boxes against the wall and then stacking them until I’d carried in everything I’d brought.

The grandfather clock chimed, and a smile tugged at my lips. I loved that clock. Had it made in Germany, Cal had told me before showing me how to wind it.

My feet carried me across the entry into my favorite room in the house—the library. Dust sparkled in the air as light came in the row of windows taller than I was. Books lined the walls, reaching toward the ceiling in stacks and unorganized lines. It was a riot of color, paperback and leather, but though dust covered the floor, none touched the shelves or the empty chessboard in the corner.

Camden had been in the house for only a night and had already taken down the sheets Sullivan and I had cut apart to cover the books and furniture when Cal passed away. That day with Sullivan, so close to his enlistment, should have been the memory I lingered on, should have been what sent my hands to the spines, but it wasn’t.

It was the sound of Cam’s voice, lighter and higher, reading aloud while I painted in the corner on the little easel Cal always left just for me. My hands had been busy and my mind quiet—full of other people’s stories and Cam’s voice.

I plucked a title from the shelf, noting the multicolored, highlighted passages just as Cam found me.

“Sorry, I got distracted,” I told him, my nose scrunching.

“So I see.” He looked around the room, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he remembered the same things about it that I did.

He walked over, his boots heavy on the floor, and I cringed at my lack of manners. “Sorry, I forgot to take off my shoes after that last load.”

He snorted. “That’s our parents’ rule. Not mine, if you can’t tell.” He took the book from my hand and surprised me by not putting it back but flipping it to read the cover. “East of Eden. Good choice.”

“Steinbeck,” I commented.

“So it says.” He slightly lifted the corner of his mouth. “‘There is more beauty in truth, even if it is dreadful beauty.’” The quote tumbled from those lips easily.

“You always did have a good memory for books.” That was putting it mildly. He could remember lines and details that most people glanced over and never thought about again.

“It’s one of my favorites. Besides, books are easy,” he said with a shrug. “They lay out their truth in literal black and white. Probably why Dad never liked them. He’d rather make up his own stories so they conform to what he already believes.”

“People are harder,” I noted. “Are you really okay? I mean, he shot you.” I asked the question that had plagued me since last night.

“Right as rain.” He lifted his shirt with a smug little smirk, revealing miles of abs that dipped and rose to the tattoos that started along his side and covered his chest. In the center, just beneath his pecs, the skin was a livid red, peppered with a series of deep-purple bruises. “See?”

“Cam,” I whispered, stepping closer.

He backed up and dropped his smirk and the shirt. “No problem here.”

“I wasn’t worried about you physically,” I muttered to his back as he left the library, but I knew that was the only response I was going to get. Cam would tell you he was fine if he were bleeding to death.

“Holy shit, how many boxes did you bring?” he asked as he walked into the entryway.

Crap. I should’ve been gone by now. I really didn’t want to see him realize what his father had done. What I’d done.

“Um. A few.” I beelined across the entry as he opened a random box.

“This is my football jersey.”

I paused with my hand on the doorknob. So close.

“Yeah,” I said quietly. Cursing myself for a fool, I turned to watch him.

His eyebrows drew together in confusion as he riffled through the box. “My trophies, my foot—” His head jerked up, and his eyes found mine. “This is from my bedroom.”

I nodded.

“But…” He shook his head. “But Xander said Dad boxed it all up and threw it out after…” He drifted off.

“After Sullivan died,” I finished for him. “You knew?”

Now he was the one nodding.

“Xander called that night and told me what your dad had done. Said he’d left it all at the base of the drive to go out with the trash.” I focused on the boxes, ripping my eyes from the stare that was always too intense to hold for long. “I waited until a little after midnight so no one would see, then drove over and took it all.”

“You took it all.”

“Doesn’t that look like all of it?” My chest tightened with the need to get out of here, for this humiliating moment to end.

“Willow.”

I shook my head and opened the door.

A large palm appeared above me, shutting the door and caging me on one side.

“Willow, look at me.”

Slowly, I dragged my eyes up his shirt, over the supple lines of his throat, and past his lips until I found his dark eyes on me. Those eyes had always screwed me over. People who didn’t know him well called them soulless, and I’d rolled my eyes and let them think what they would. Those eyes were so full that there simply wasn’t room for any lighter colors, already saturated with every emotion he never let himself show.

“Why would you do that? Haul yourself out of bed in the middle of the night to save my stuff? Go against both our fathers?”

“Because Sullivan would have done it for you.”

He backed away, a flicker of pain showing in the way his mouth tensed. “Thank you,” he finally said, his voice low and deep.

I nodded, then opened the door and retreated to my car, leaving Cam in the entryway with his boxed-up, rejected childhood.

I’d never lied to Cam, not once. I’d never been capable when those eyes were on me. And I hadn’t just now…not really. I’d simply given him the easiest of both truths.

Yes, Sullivan would have done it for him. That was just who he’d been.

But I hadn’t done it only for Sullivan. I’d crept out of my parents’ house and filled my car to the very last box for the truth that Camden would never admit.

Sullivan may have done it for Cam, but even in our worst moments, Camden would have done it for me.

I was almost home before I realized I still didn’t know why Cam was here. But if he was sticking around, my safe little existence was going to get shaken up like a snow globe if I couldn’t keep my feelings to myself.