Chapter Six

Willow

My heart lurched as Oscar swung.

Cam’s head snapped to the side.

That dull thud of fist meeting face was a sound I’d never wanted to hear again. Ironically, I’d only ever heard it in Camden Daniels’s presence.

But usually Cam was the one delivering the hits, not taking them.

“I’ve been waiting six years to do that,” Oscar shouted, jabbing his finger in Cam’s direction and swaying.

“And I probably deserved it,” Cam admitted as he straightened his posture. “But it’s the only one you get.” He didn’t swipe at his cheek to see if there was blood. He simply stepped to his side, blocking me from Oscar.

Chairs squeaked against the hardwood as figures rose, and I caught a glimpse of Tim Hall barreling toward us, no doubt looking for the first excuse to arrest Cam.

I stood, but Xander got there first.

“Hey, he didn’t even throw the punch.” Xander blocked Tim’s path.

“Oh yeah?” Oscar asked, and I moved to see what was happening. He swung at Cam again, but even as the crowd gasped, Cam grabbed Oscar’s fist, stopping the punch before it connected.

Holy moly, Cam was fast.

While Oscar still gawked, I grabbed Cam’s free hand. “Come with me.”

He looked down at me with an amused smirk.

“Now.” I let my glare speak volumes.

His smirk faded, and he followed as I dragged him past the bar and into the back room of Mother Lode, noting Charity’s nod toward the floor above us and giving her one of my own. At this moment, Cam needed to be out of sight and out of Tim Hall’s mind.

I waved to Marie, the cook, but didn’t stop, pulling Cam through the kitchen and storage rooms until we reached the stairs to Charity’s place. After climbing them, I unlocked her door with my four-digit code and led Cam into the apartment, shutting the door behind us.

“Rose is asleep upstairs, so don’t make a ruckus,” I warned him.

“Who the hell still says ruckus?”

I shot him another glare and yanked him through her living room, dining room, and into the kitchen, turning on lights as I went. “Sit,” I ordered, pointing to the kitchen table.

He sat.

Okay, that was enough to stun me for a good second or two. I couldn’t remember the last time Camden had done anything I’d asked…probably because it had never happened.

“Now what?” he questioned, mocking me with those dark eyes.

I spun, then opened Charity’s freezer and pulled out Rose’s ice pack. It was a slim unicorn with thin fabric and a glittery mane, sporting an ice pack in the belly. Shutting the freezer door, I turned back to Cam, wincing at the angry red mark blooming on his cheek.

To his credit, Cam didn’t complain as I placed the unicorn on the side of his face. “Hold that there.”

He complied. “It’s not that bad. I turned, so most of the force glanced right off. His ring didn’t even cut me.”

“How would you know?” I asked, lifting a corner of the unicorn to make sure Oscar hadn’t broken Cam’s skin with his class ring. “It’s not like you paused to look in the mirror.”

“I’ve been in hand-to-hand enough to know when my skin splits,” he answered in utter boredom.

“Well, that’s comforting,” I mumbled, noting that he was right. The skin was intact. “Why didn’t you hit him back? No one could have faulted you for it.” Okay, that was a lie. If there was fault to be found, Hall would have found it with Cam. Didn’t matter that Oscar hit first.

“I’m not giving Tim Hall a reason to run me out of town. It’s going to take a hell of a lot more than Oscar throwing a punch to provoke me into a physical fight, especially because I’m not feeling up to manslaughter charges.”

I searched his face for any hint that he was kidding and came up empty. “You think you could kill a man with your bare hands?”

His eyebrows rose slightly. “Don’t think. I know. I’m not the same kid I was when I left here a decade ago, Willow.” There was a wealth of experience in his eyes that I both longed to understand and desperately wanted to ignore. While I’d been away at art school learning about beauty, Cam had been at war.

“That’s obvious. The Cam I knew would have thrown the first punch and never looked back.” Leaving the rest of us to pick up the inevitable mess.

He brushed his hand over where mine lingered at the unicorn. “I’m still the Cam you knew, just not the one everyone else did. Same Cam, with better decision-making.”

The touch had happened so fast, I wondered if I’d imagined it.

Cam cocked his head to the side. “Rose is up.”

“What? How do you—” Sure enough, before I could finish my question about his freaky ninja skills, my nine-year-old niece popped her head into the kitchen, sporting a Taylor Swift pajama set.

“Aunt Willow?” she asked, her big brown eyes way too alert for just waking up. Her chestnut curls were still braided in perfect, smooth piggies, too.

“Hey, Rosie. Sorry we were so loud.” I glanced at the clock and read eight thirty. Charity must have just put her to bed before checking on the bar.

Rosie’s eyes swung to Cam, a little note of shock widening them. “Oh! Hi! Who are you?” she asked.

“Camden Daniels. Nice to meet you, Rosie.” His voice softened, which softened me.

“You too,” she replied, looking to me for reassurance.

“Cam has been a friend since we were kids. He grew up next door to your mom and me.”

“Like Mayor Daniels?” She snuck another peek at Cam.

“Yep, he’s my older brother,” Cam replied.

“Oh. I like him!”

“Everyone does.”

“We just needed to borrow your unicorn really quick,” I told Rose, opening my arms. She walked straight into them, hugging me tight. “Need anything?” I asked before dropping a kiss on the top of her head.

“Nope. Just heard the door beep and thought it was Mom.”

“She’s still downstairs, but I think she’s just checking up on things. She’s not working tonight. Want me to get her?”

She shook her head against my chest. “Nope, I’m okay. Love you, Aunt Willow.” She gave me an extra-hard squeeze.

“Love you, Rose.”

“Thanks for letting me borrow your unicorn,” Cam told her, pulling the ice pack from his face.

Rose’s nose scrunched. “You’re welcome…and you should probably put it back on.” She nodded in encouragement. “That’s gonna leave a mark,” she finished in a tone so like Charity’s that I couldn’t help but laugh.

“I’ll do just that.” Cam immediately put the unicorn on his face.

I let her go, and she gave Cam a shy nod before heading back up to her room.

“Charity doesn’t bring men here, so you probably gave Rose the shock of her life,” I told him, leaning back against the counter. “Even when Gabe comes to get her for visitation, Charity makes him wait downstairs. Not that I blame her. He didn’t show back up until Rose was two.”

“Is she going to be pissed that you brought a man up?”

“You’re hardly a man.” I shrugged, then laughed a little at his wounded expression. “I mean, you’re…you. You’re our friend, not just any man. Besides, Charity gave me the nod to bring you up.” I rushed through that last part, hoping to cease my babbling.

“This is why she bought the bar, huh? So they could live above it?” he asked, his eyes sweeping over the hand-drawn pictures taped on the twenty-year-old refrigerator.

“Exactly. She used her inheritance from our grandfather’s will. When Rose was born, Charity and Dad weren’t exactly speaking. Mom and I supported her when she’d let us, but she wanted to do it on her own. We’d babysit, but she installed the alarm, wired cameras to her cell phone and everything, so she could manage downstairs while Rose slept and still spend her days with her.”

“I understand that,” he said, looking at the camera in the corner of the kitchen. “Needing to make it on your own.”

“You’re just as stubborn as she is.” I shook my head.

“Well, you know us black sheep. When you reject the path everyone else takes, you have to carve your own.”

“Is that what you call it?” I braced my hands on the counter and jumped to sit on the edge.

“What did you use your portion of the inheritance for?” he asked, ignoring my question.

“Why did you reject that path?” I challenged, folding my arms across my chest.

He watched me for a moment, and I held my breath, tension winding in my limbs as he decided whether or not to answer. Decided which sides of himself he was willing to share with me.

God knew he kept me guessing, shifting our roles so frequently that I never knew our norm. I was never sure if that was to keep me off-balance or because he genuinely never knew, either.

“Charity did it for love. First for Gabe, then Rose. But why did you reject that path?” I asked again.

“The path rejected me,” he said quietly. “It didn’t want me, so I decided not to want it.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat, my mind racing with every possible situation that he could apply that philosophy to and wondering how many times his disdain had masked longing.

“Now you. The inheritance?”

“I went to art school. It took me about six months after Sully died to realize that I didn’t, and it didn’t matter how long I waited here in Alba, he wasn’t coming home.” I broke eye contact. Would Cam see it as the betrayal my father had? “So the plans we’d made to go away to college together once his three years were up didn’t matter anymore. I had to take a really hard look at what I’d thought my future would be without him and ask myself an impossible question.”

“How much of that plan reflected your choices and how much belonged to Sullivan?” Cam’s question brought my gaze right back to his.

My heart pounded, my tongue heavy and unwilling to say the words I’d never been able to before.

“Yes,” I finally admitted, the word taking six long years of guilt with it as it left my lips. “And I realized how much of myself I’d given up in the interest of an easy relationship. And it was easy—with Sullivan, that is. I don’t want you to think it wasn’t. Or that he wasn’t good to me.”

“I don’t think that.”

“Okay. Good.” Fingers trembling faintly, I tucked my hair behind my ears. “Because we were happy, and I think I could have been happy following our plan. Going to Boulder. Then maybe law school. Then back here. I could have been happy…,” I trailed off in an unconvincing whisper.

“You just wouldn’t have been you.” The way he watched me sanded away layers of my carefully polished veneer.

“Or maybe that was really me, and this is the alternate reality where everything is messed up.”

He stood, filling the room with more than his massive frame. Cam was a presence that walls couldn’t contain. I wasn’t sure anything could.

“The girl who painted the murals on the hot springs ruins wouldn’t have been happy. Maybe content, but not happy. There’s a difference, Willow. And I’d like to think that Sullivan would have seen that eventually, and you would have gone to art school anyway.”

I shook my head. “Sully never wanted to ruffle feathers. I mean, if Alexander was the good kid, and you were the rebel, then he was the one who wanted to simply exist without conflict. So he would have gone with Dad’s plan. He was the easy one, and it was so easy to love him.” I’d simply realized in these last years that it wasn’t the right love—the consuming, passionate, all-encompassing one in the books and songs I loved. But that truth would never leave my lips. I’d let it fester and rot inside me before admitting something like that.

“It was easy to love him, for all of those reasons and more,” Cam agreed. “But that doesn’t explain why you had to use your inheritance to go to college.”

“My father thought I was still in shock from Sully’s death. That I was being irrational and lashing out against what he felt was a logical and acceptable plan. In reality, I was trying to honor my first dream, since I’d lost my last. I was trying to figure out who I was without Sullivan.” And without you. Not that I hadn’t lost Cam years before when he’d shipped off to basic. “Dad refused to pay for it, which was fine. It’s his money, after all. But once I saw his decision for what it was—his need to control me because he’d lost that control over Charity—I paid for it myself.”

“You carved your own path.” He moved closer but didn’t crowd me.

“For four years, I did. I learned, and I lived, and I even dated, not that anyone in Alba would believe me.” I inhaled deeply, bolstering my courage. “Does that make you hate me?”

“What?”

“That I moved on.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “No. Of course not. Why the hell would you even remotely think that?” He moved to lean against the counter next to me, effectively breaking eye contact.

“Xander was disappointed when I told him one Christmas. The look in his eyes… It was like I’d cheated on Sully. And honestly, that first date felt a lot like I had.”

“Willow, you can’t cheat on someone who’s dead.” His gaze fell to the floor.

“I know that now. It took a few years for me to really get that, but eventually I did. But every time I came home on break, it felt like I was moving on and the town wasn’t. And I get it. I do. Change is literally Alba’s worst enemy. The people in this town would still have me wearing widow black if they had their way, weeping at a shrine for Sullivan.”

“And yet you came back.”

“It’s my home.” I turned to look at him. “And so did you, I might add.” Why?

His eyes rose to meet mine, and he shifted the ice pack on his cheek.

“I came home because Dad left me a voicemail saying that Xander wouldn’t give him a DNR and he needed my help. Then he shot me, kicked me out, and forgot who I was—all within forty-eight hours—so I’m not really sure which of those he was lucid for.”

“Cam,” I whispered. The heaviness of what he faced hit my stomach like an anchor. The mere thought of losing my dad and fighting with Charity about it was nauseating.

“But you chose to come back… Why? To settle down and do what? Get married to a man who will never measure up to Saint Sully in Alba’s eyes? To be ridiculed when you haven’t grieved on their time line and done what they expected? Followed their script?”

“I came home for the same reason you did. Family. And people change. The town will just have to adapt.”

“Don’t fool yourself, Willow. This town exists for the dead, not the living. When the younger generations leave, they only come back for funerals—their family’s or eventually their own. Alba is a huge mausoleum, literally funded by tourists who flock here to see the dead things we refuse to let go. We’re all just part of the exhibit. If you’re expecting change or acceptance, don’t. Survival here depends on our ability not to change, to preserve the past. Change and progress are the two things that will kill this town.”

His words stabbed at something deep—a truth I wasn’t ready to surrender to.

“That’s a really narrow way of looking at our home. And it’s ours, just like you said. If you’re capable of change, they are, too.”

“That’s the point.” He pushed off the counter and put a few steps of distance between us before turning around. “It doesn’t matter who I am now. They won’t let me be anyone other than the kid who threw too many punches, broke too many rules, and got Sullivan killed. They can’t let me change, the same way they can’t let you. It’s a matter of self-preservation. And you know it, otherwise you wouldn’t live so far up the mountain, where you’re all tucked away and safe from prying eyes and judgmental mouths.”

“So you’re saying that I’m doomed to a life of loneliness? Of becoming the eccentric old hermit lady? Because I’m going to love again, Cam. I’m going to love and get married and have kids. All of it.” My eyes narrowed as heat spread in my cheeks.

“No, I’m saying that you would have been happier somewhere else, at least until you knew your man was strong enough to withstand the weight of Sullivan’s shadow.”

I scoffed, hopped off the counter, and turned toward the door before I said something we’d both regret.

His hand closed around my arm, surprisingly gentle in its strength but enough that I stopped in my tracks. I could have shaken him off, it was that light, but instead I savored the contact.

“I know you’re strong enough, Pika. But this town isn’t going to be gentle on whoever you deem worthy enough to give your heart unless they decide for you. And I don’t see you going for that. You let the town dictate once, and I know you loved him, and he loved you, but can you honestly say you’ll let Alba choose for you again? Do you love your comfortable boundaries that much?”

My posture softened, and he let go of my arm. He was right, which only pissed me off even more. Loving Sully had been easy because we’d fit. We’d been supported and encouraged—enabled—by everyone around us.

He placed the unicorn on the kitchen counter. “Thank you for taking care of me. It’s been a hell of a long time since anyone’s done that. I’m going to head down, hopefully get to pay my bill, and go home.”

His broad back filled my vision as he passed me.

How was it possible that no one had cared for him in the past decade?

“You should come to the Historical Society,” I blurted.

He paused but didn’t turn.

“If you want to help your dad, you’re going to have to go against Alexander. You’ll need support, and reminding them that you’re a son of a founding family will go a long way. You don’t have to like the game to play it.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

He walked out, and less than a minute later, Charity breezed into the kitchen.

“Camden’s sure in a mood,” she remarked, grabbing a glass from the cabinet and apple juice from the refrigerator. “Want some?”

I shook my head. “Camden is always in a mood. Stubborn ass.” My voice definitely lacked its usual bite when discussing the middle Daniels.

Her shoulders shook with laughter as she poured her drink.

“How did you two not get together?” I questioned. “You’re exactly alike. I always figured you’d end up dating when we were in high school. Both rebels to the core.” Not to mention that Charity was timelessly beautiful, where I was cute, maybe passably pretty at best.

She looked at me like I was a class-A moron and put away the juice. “Seriously?” She sipped her juice but peered at me over the glass.

“What? It’s not like he’s hard to look at, and you graduated the same year.” It was a logical conclusion. Hell, maybe they had hooked up once and I’d never known. I rubbed my chest, trying to soothe the ache that surfaced at the thought.

“Oh, Cam was hot, and somehow he’s only gotten hotter with age. Have you seen those arms? And the way he caught Oscar’s fist? Smokin’ hot, baby sis.”

Maybe I really didn’t want the answer to the question I shouldn’t have asked. Nor did I want to see my sister walk through the door I’d stupidly opened. Stop being selfish.

“Yeah, so I’m going to head home. Want me to throw Rosie’s unicorn in the wash?” I asked.

“I got it.” Her mirror-image eyes saw more than I was willing to show.

My feet took me to the door, my sister following behind.

“I love you, Rule Maker,” she said, hugging me tight.

“I love you, Rule Breaker,” I replied before leaving, wondering for the millionth time if Dad had known who we’d grow up to be when he’d given us those nicknames in elementary school.

And Cam was right. I needed change and progress, but what I wanted was for the rules to shift. To bend.

He’d always broken them, just like Charity.

I was halfway down the stairs when Charity poked her head out of the door. “Willow.”

“Yes?” I turned, wondering what I’d forgotten.

“I never hooked up with Cam for a reason. He only had eyes for one Bradley girl, and it wasn’t me.” There was zero teasing in her tone or expression.

“Wh-What?” I sputtered. That was definitely not the answer I’d expected.

“Think about it. You’re the only girl who’s lasted more than five minutes in his orbit. He may have glanced at other girls, but he only saw you.”

“No. That’s not…” But it was true. Just not in the way she thought. “He sees me like a sister.” That was why he’d protected me growing up. Why he walked me to the bus when Scott Malone started teasing me. Why he sat across the aisle on the half-hour ride from Buena Vista back to Alba. Why he did everything until we got older and then he…stopped.

“Because you almost were his sister. But don’t be blind, Willow. He looked at you for years. He only stopped when you got together with Sullivan.”

That was impossible. “No, you’re wrong. Cam never cared that Sully and I started dating. He was barely speaking to me anyway. I annoyed the crap out of him by then.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay. If you say so.”

“I do!”

“Yep. Okay. See you tomorrow. Good night!” She shut the door, leaving me gawking up the stairs.

“You’re wrong,” I muttered, but having the last word didn’t make me feel any better.

She was so wrong that it wasn’t even funny. I balked the entire drive home, mumbling to myself as I parked in the garage of my house. Charity had zero idea what she was talking about. Cam had been relentlessly apathetic that last year. He hadn’t given a crap what I’d done.

I picked up the onyx rook from my desk and rolled it between my fingers.

The path rejected me. It didn’t want me, so I decided not to want it.

His earlier words ran on repeat through my brain as I readied for bed.

“You’re wrong, Charity,” I whispered into the dark. Not because I wanted her to be but because I needed her to. And Cam did, too.

But what if she was right?