Chapter Twelve

Willow

I blinked awake slowly as sunlight streamed in through the picture window, hitting me directly in the face. Sheltering my eyes with a hand, I glanced around the room, the events of last night flooding in.

Right. I was in Cam’s living room, stretched out on one of the leather couches with a quilt his mom had made covering me.

He was directly across from me in pretty much the exact same condition on the other couch, but he was still asleep. Both of us had been too stubborn to take his bed, so neither of us had. Taking advantage of this rare moment, I blatantly stared at him, committing every detail to memory.

His lashes rested against his cheeks in thick, dark half-moons. His lips were slightly parted, the full, sculpted lines softening in sleep. He looked a decade younger, relaxed and even content. His tattoos stood out against the white of his T-shirt but blended in with his mom’s colorful quilt. Even the ridge in his nose from a break he’d gotten in high school seemed gentler with the giant who wore this body sleeping restfully.

I wanted to paint this moment, to capture this exact feeling as I watched him at peace. A peace I knew would vanish the moment he opened his eyes and the world beat its way in.

Sullivan had been beautiful and charming.

Xander was handsome. Admirable.

But Cam… My heart hurt with how utterly devastating he was. Sure, “gorgeous” was a good word, especially when he opened his eyes, but his appeal was more than that. He was magnetic, which certainly repelled some, but never me. No, he drew me in like gravity, an undeniable, irrefutable force that anchored my world. A decade apart had taught me that I’d never break free of him, not really. It didn’t matter where I lived—gravity existed and held my feet to the earth. It didn’t matter who I dated—I’d always be drawn to Cam.

Even though he’d never feel the same.

Responsible for me? Yes. He bore that burden by choice. Friendly with me? Sure, when he felt like it. Attracted to me? Eh. Maybe if I ever got out of the sister zone.

But there was one zone I would never get out of—the dead-brother’s-girl zone. Nope. That category came with barbed wire, electric fences, and guards called guilt who shot on sight. After last night, I knew I could tell Cam a thousand times that he wasn’t responsible for Sullivan’s death—it wouldn’t matter. Until he forgave himself, there was little I could say about it.

I sighed softly, took one long last look because I knew he couldn’t see, and then I quietly left the living room, choosing only the boards I knew from experience wouldn’t creak.

There was something to be said for having grown up here, too.

Man, Thea was going to have a field day with this story…if I ever told her. Not that I was hiding it, but she’d want to chat about my feelings. And my feelings were locked up in that whole prickly don’t-go-there zone.

I made my way past the dining room and library to the kitchen and surveyed the contents of Cam’s fridge.

Bacon. Excellent. Mushrooms. Good. Cheddar. Awesome.

Omelets for breakfast it was.

Once that was decided, I tiptoed down to Cam’s bathroom and shamelessly stole the new toothbrush whose mate was already on the counter from the opened pack.

After taking care of all those morning needs and studiously ignoring the mirror, I headed back to the kitchen and started cooking. It was already seven a.m., and knowing Cam, he wouldn’t sleep much longer anyway. At least the sun was out and the snow had stopped. Looked like about two, maybe two and a half feet.

I had the bacon fried and crumbled, mushrooms chopped, and eggs whipped when Cam walked in. I dropped a pat of butter in the frying pan and turned to see him watching me.

Oh crap. Sleeping Cam was one thing.

Sleepy Cam was quite another. He cracked a huge yawn, stretching his hands up to the doorframe. His shirt drifted up, revealing so many abs. So. So. So many abs. It was like they’d brought friends along to play or something, because that many ridges couldn’t be normal. Nope. He was inhuman.

“Morning, Pika,” he said with an easy smile.

And I melted like the butter in the pan. Which was now sizzling.

Also accurate.

Crap.

“I’m making omelets,” I said.

“You are,” he agreed. “You don’t have to, you know. If you give me a second, I’ll do it.”

“No, I wanted to. Want to,” I corrected with a shake of my head. “Mushrooms, bacon, cheddar?”

“Perfect,” he answered, but his brow furrowed. “I’ll be right back.”

He headed toward his bathroom as the smell of burned butter smacked me in the nose.

“Ugh,” I groaned, taking the pan off the burner. A tendril of smoke wafted from the pan. Go figure.

Fine. If I was going to be butter, then I was the cold, hard stick in the refrigerator. Yep. Cold and hard. Not soft, not melty, not sizzling, and definitely not burned.

I washed out the pan and set it back on the stove. Then I started Cam’s omelet.

“Please let me help,” he said, reappearing in the kitchen, all barefoot and yummy.

“I’ve got it,” I assured him, tending to his breakfast. “Consider it my thank-you for saving me last night.” He gave me that weird look again. “What?” I asked.

“I can’t remember the last time someone cooked for me,” he admitted. “At least not outside a restaurant or something.”

“Your girlfriends never make you breakfast?” I could have kicked myself in the face for asking that. My hand clenched the spatula.

“No girlfriends,” he said, leaning back against the counter and watching me. “I tend to keep my”—his forehead wrinkled up—“relationships short and breakfast-free.”

“Because breakfast equals marriage?” I joked.

“Because letting someone do things for you, letting someone care for you, gives them power. Power’s not something I give away.”

I stilled.

“What? Does that sound too cold? Too asshole-ish?”

“No,” I answered quietly, letting my eyes slowly lift to his. “It sounds lonely.”

“Loneliness is a longing, an ache from unmet need for companionship that I don’t feel.” He shrugged.

“You have needs. You’re not a robot.” How could he say that?

“Of course I have needs.” He smirked. “I’m not a monk.”

“That is not what I meant, and you know it.” I shook the spatula at him and that stupid little smirk.

“I’ll start some toast.”

And now my heart was… Nope! I was cold, hard, refrigerator butter.

That Cam was now unwrapping and putting on a butter dish, that was okay. Still cold. Still hard. Still not— “What are you doing?”

He shut the microwave and looked at me with raised eyebrows. “Relax, Pika. I’m just softening the butter.”

My eyes flew wide.

“For toast,” he continued slowly. “Okay? Did you have other plans for it?”

“Of course not. It’s butter,” I said and flipped his omelet to finish it. I cringed when the microwave started. “You know I’m not a little rodent anymore, right?” I quasi-snapped, reaching around him for a plate.

“What?” he questioned, putting bread into the toaster. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I answered quickly, sliding his breakfast onto the plate. “You still call me Pika sometimes.” Just like he had since, well, forever.

The microwave beeped, and Cam took out the butter. There was a divot in the center, complete with a little puddle of melted butter. Ugh.

I started my omelet. Maybe once I was fed, I wouldn’t be so weirdly emotional. Wanting to first run my fingers along his neck, then strangle him had to be a by-product of being hangry.

“I’ve always called you Pika.”

“Right. But I’m not a bucktoothed little kid with big ears anymore.” I evened out the egg and added my fillings.

He laughed, loud and genuine, and my stomach fluttered in hunger pangs. “You think that’s why I call you Pika? Is that really what you believe?”

Warmth flushed my cheeks, and I knew it wasn’t from the heat of the pan. Great. Now I was turning red.

“Well, yeah. Why else would you call a girl who’s basically raised as your little sister a rodent?” I knew it had been a kind of endearment from him. Pet names weren’t something that he did, so the fact that I’d had one—and still did—meant something. But Cam had always said he was free to torture me but no one else was allowed to.

It was the same thing he’d said about Sullivan.

I folded my omelet as I heard the first toast pop up. Then the scrape of that softened butter.

“Look at me,” he ordered, his voice all gravelly and deep.

I did, arching an eyebrow to hopefully keep him clueless about how absolutely flustered he had me.

“I was five the first time Uncle Cal took me hiking by myself. I’d just done something to piss off my dad, can’t even remember what it was now, but Cal told me to get my boots and my jacket, and I did. He’d always taken me with Xander, and Sullivan was still too little, but this time it was just the two of us. He took me up to the boulder slides above this house and told me to sit. So we sat. You’re burning your omelet.” He pointed to the pan.

“Crap.” I flipped it over to the other side and looked at him again, hoping he’d continue, that he wouldn’t shut me out and laugh it off.

“So we sat there with the boulders, and I thought he was going to yell at me. Instead, he asked if I wanted to talk about it, and of course I didn’t. He didn’t make me. He said we could just sit and be still. There was a peace that could come with that if we could master it. And yeah, I’m paraphrasing, because I was five. We sat there so quietly, and this cute little fluffy thing ran out of its hiding place under the boulders and perched on the edge of this rock right next to me.”

“A pika,” I guessed.

“A pika,” he confirmed, turning to grab another plate.

I plated my omelet and moved the pan and spatula to the sink as he buttered the next pieces of toast.

“Uncle Cal told me how rare it was to see one. They usually hide from the bigger predators. He said you have to have three things to see a pika—the right timing, the capability to stay quiet, and the patience to wait.”

He was a flurry of activity as he talked, moving plates to the kitchen table, getting silverware, and taking orange juice out of the refrigerator.

“I told him it reminded me of you, all quiet and fluffy and cute.” He paused before pressing the first pod into the coffeemaker. “‘Not Charity?’ he’d asked. You know how they were always shoving us together, hoping we’d be friends.”

“You’re the same age. My mom and yours used to joke that they’d have to find Xander a good girl for their triple wedding.” I rolled my eyes.

Cam scoffed. “Yeah, I was never going to marry Charity. Not in a million years. Not that she’s not pretty, or smart, or a friend. She’s just…” He paused, his hand on the coffee mug, and my breath held. “Anyway, it stood there—the pika—and it squeaked, and I told Uncle Cal that it was definitely you, because you could get really loud when you were mad.”

I smiled, which was probably a little ridiculous, seeing that he was still comparing me to a rodent. But still. A cute, fluffy one.

He stepped forward, and I moved to get out of his way, only to realize I was his way. My back hit the cool granite counter, and I tilted my head to look up—and up—at him. He wasn’t touching me or even in my personal space, but it felt like he was everywhere, like he eclipsed the rest of the world behind him.

“So I started calling you Pika. The older I got, the more I learned about them, the more it fit.”

“Not because I had really big front teeth.”

He shook his head, then slowly took a strand of my braid that had come loose during the night and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. “No. Because pikas are elusive. They’re only seen when they want to be. They don’t hibernate through winter. Instead, they survive under ten or twenty feet of snow, facing each day as it comes.”

He moved closer until our bodies brushed but didn’t collide. My pulse galloped, racing toward some destination I’d never let myself even contemplate.

“But they can only survive at altitude,” he said softly. “They can’t endure the heat of the lower elevations. They’re made for the mountains. They take the rugged terrain and the cold and the impossible, and they make it home. They survive everything nature says they shouldn’t and still stay so soft.” He ran his knuckles down the side of my cheek with the last word.

My eyes fluttered shut at the contact. When he reached my jaw, I put my hand over his to hold it there.

A second passed. Two. He didn’t move. Neither did I.

I drew in a shaky breath and found the courage to open my eyes, knowing he could be wearing that half smirk, ready with a witty, biting little comment.

Instead, his dark-brown eyes looked just as conflicted as I felt.

“Willow,” he whispered, lowering his head inch by slow inch.

“Cam,” I replied, refusing to look at those lips descending toward mine for fear I’d break whatever spell we were held in.

“Say no,” he pleaded, his words hitting my lips in little huffs of peppermint.

“Yes.” It slipped out, that word I’d let dance on the tip of my tongue since I turned sixteen. Maybe even younger, if I was being honest with myself. Maybe even since I understood what that kind of yes meant.

He cursed as my free hand rested on his chest, feeling his heart meet the racing pace of mine.

“Yes, Cam. Yes,” I repeated, in case he didn’t hear me the first time, knowing full well he did. I’d get him a freaking sign if he needed one.

“Wrong answer,” he warned.

A breath later, he kissed me with soft lips that caressed mine gently, almost reverently.

It felt more like a first kiss than my actual first had been. It was the kiss we would have had as much younger, way less experienced teenagers.

Then it happened again and again—light, sipping kisses that had me rising on my toes to get closer to him. He was so tense under my hand, I wondered if he’d snap or shatter.

He pulled back just long enough to look at me, his brow knit together like he was in pain, searching my face for something he didn’t name.

I saw the moment he decided. The strain disappeared from his face, and determination took its place.

Then his mouth was on mine, hard and demanding. I parted my lips, and he sank inside to stroke my tongue with his as his hands gripped my hips and lifted.

My fingers threaded into the silk strands of his hair as I kissed him back with everything I had. I wrapped my legs around his waist, locking my ankles like I could hold him prisoner, savoring his groan at the contact.

His kiss held an edge of desperation, and it fueled me, seeking more, faster, deeper. If this was the only time I’d kiss Camden Daniels, then I was going to make damn sure he remembered it, because I would.

We were a mile past electric. Past combustible. Past chemistry or anything that could be explained by science. We simply fit, like two halves of completely different shapes that somehow clicked and became whole and new.

He explored the lines of my mouth, teasing with his tongue, biting gently on my lower lip with sharp teeth. Then, before I could take in a full breath to recover, he was kissing me again, robbing me of every thought besides the absolute wildness he stirred in my veins.

I came alive in his kiss, arching into him, taking as much as he gave and then demanding more. He tasted like peppermint and snowy mornings all tangled together with an edge of fire I knew would burn me if I let him close enough.

He growled my name, and heat answered in my belly as I turned liquid. Whatever he wanted, I’d give him. It was that simple. Because this was Cam.

And he was finally kissing me.

His hands shifted so one arm supported me and the other sent jolts of awareness through every nerve in my body as he trailed his fingers up my spine to cradle the base of my head. Those fingers tightened in a light grip, pulling slightly so my neck arched.

“Cam,” I groaned as his lips left mine and sucked a path of kisses down my throat. I was going to die. Right here, right now. There was no way anything got better than this.

His hands gripped me tighter, and—

Ring.

What was…?

Ring.

No cute ringtone for Cam, nope, just the straight-up, jarring blare of an old-school telephone.

He stopped as the third ring sounded, his lips open against the base of my neck. He lifted his glazed eyes to mine on the fourth, then blinked, and just like that, the spell was broken. A flare of panic, of regret widened his eyes.

No. No. No. It was over too soon.

My heart lurched as he set me on the counter, and his arms slackened, letting me go. I fought every instinct to keep him close, to fight his withdrawal, but I uncrossed my ankles, and he literally slipped through my fingers as he retreated.

My body still hummed at a frequency only Cam knew as he reached to adjust a hat he wasn’t wearing. As if realizing that, he stared at his empty hands and shook his head.

“Cam,” I said, hopping down.

“No.” He backed away. “What was I…?”

That hum died a little.

“I can’t touch you,” he muttered. “Not like that.”

“Yes, you can,” I assured him. It probably sounded like a plea. Whatever. I didn’t care. If it brought him back to my arms, I’d say whatever he needed.

“No,” he repeated, looking anywhere but at me. “I can’t.”

“It was just a kiss.” But it wasn’t. It was deeper, and we both knew it.

“And what happens when it’s more?” he challenged, his eyes clashing with mine for a heartbeat. “Did you feel that?”

“Of course I did, and more is fine! Wonderful, in fact!”

“You. Don’t. Mean. That.”

“Don’t tell me what I mean. I know what I want.” I always had. I’d simply been too scared to say it. To reach for it. I’d always known the chances were I could have him like this once but never twice. Even if I let myself slip twice, he never would. And that’s what he would see this as. A slip. A mistake.

“Then, you’re wrong. There’s no way in hell you could want this,” he snapped and gestured between us.

“Because you don’t? I’m only allowed to want what you do?” I wrapped my arms around my torso, suddenly cold. It was like heat that had been coming off my very skin had simply vanished, leaving me chilled and empty.

“I don’t? Are you kidding me right now? You think any of this has to do with what I want?” He shook his head.

“It doesn’t?” I sagged against the counter, shriveling a little. It had been about what I wanted. I never gave him the opportunity to say no. Had he really only kissed me because he’d known I’d wanted him to?

No, he wanted me. Any idiot could see that. Athletic pants weren’t exactly helpful in the camouflage department.

“Hell no. Willow, I lost any say, any right to even…” His fingers gripped his hair for the longest breath I’d ever held. Then he dropped them to his sides, leaving his hair standing on end.

I took a breath when he did.

“I chose Sullivan’s squad,” he finally said, rasping the words. “There were two there, and I chose his.”

“But you didn’t know it was his squad. Making a choice doesn’t change that.”

That same determination I’d seen earlier flashed in his eyes, but this time it was a warning. “I brought him home in a box. I was with him when he bled out.”

“Don’t,” I whispered. The chill was changing, becoming voracious and numbing. The sensation started at my toes and rose up in waves that fed on my joy, my want, even my stupid longing, then froze them out to nothingness.

“You should know.” Pain laced every word, raw and bitter. “It’s one thing to think you forgive me, but you should know what he looked like in my arms. How I tried to get the bleeding to stop, but he’d been shot in the neck. Clipped his jugular just enough to make it slower. I couldn’t even see where the rest of the blood was going. And the medic was coming, just not fucking fast enough.”

Thoughtless. I was empty of everything, even thoughts, as he spewed the story I’d never been told. Never deemed strong enough for the details.

“I ripped off his helmet, and Vasquez—one of my guys—tried to plug the hole in his neck. But Sully’s hair…it didn’t look as blond as before. It was darker, closer to mine, and I remember thinking that was wrong. That he was supposed to be good, like Xander. He couldn’t turn into me. Stupid, right? Because he was turning into nothing right before my eyes, and I could only sit there with his head in my lap.”

My lip started to tremble.

“I knew he was going. There was so much blood. They’d never medevac him out fast enough, not while the outpost was still under attack. I took over holding the pressure on the wound and told Vasquez to fire from Sullivan’s position. And I told Sully, ‘You have to live. You have to. Willow’s waiting. Dad’s waiting. You gotta hold on.’ I knew what it would do to Dad. To Xander…to you.”

I swallowed the whimper that came without permission, tears pricking my eyes.

“And…” He looked away, his face contorting into lines of rage and grief and restraint.

“Tell me,” I begged in a whisper.

“That’s enough. You don’t want…” He shook his head.

“Tell me!” I shouted. “Don’t you dare hold anything back or hide it from me. I deserve to know!”

His eyes slammed shut for a breath. Two. Three. Then they opened and locked on mine.

“It was hard for him to talk. His airway… It was hard. And when he did, it was between these horrid, gasping breaths. He said, ‘Cam. It’s really you. Take me home.’ He begged me to take him home! And we were sitting there in a filthy combat outpost I didn’t even know was his, in the middle of a fucking firefight I’d sent him into, and I couldn’t do shit to save my little brother. And when…” Cam sucked in a breath and gripped the back of the kitchen chair like it would anchor him. “When he slipped away, it was Mom’s name he called, like he could see her or something. His pulse stopped thrumming against my fingers, and his blue eyes…the pupils… He was just gone. It was two minutes at most. I sat there holding him just like I did that one time he skidded down that last switchback at the ravine and tore his back up when we were kids. Remember?”

“I remember,” I whispered. We’d been nine. Sullivan hadn’t listened and had run ahead. Cam had been eleven and was blamed. Cursed out by his dad when we got Sullivan back to the house.

“I was covered in his blood, holding onto this husk that used to be Sullivan, so angry, and empty, and even envious. I wanted it to be me.”

“Cam, no.” I made my legs obey and took a step, but he backed even farther away.

“I begged God to let me trade places. To take me instead of Sullivan, but you know He didn’t want anything to do with me. Sully was good and kindhearted and stubborn and didn’t have a mean bone in his body. He deserved to live.” A tear tracked down Cam’s face, disappearing into his beard, and I doubted he even felt it.

“He did.” I nodded. “He deserved to live, and he was all those things and more. But, Cam, you deserved to live, too.”

“No!” he shouted, throwing his hands out like he’d shake his own head if he could. “Not like he did. Not when he had everyone to come home to.”

“So did you!”

“You honestly think anyone would have looked at Sullivan on the day of my funeral and told him that it should have been him in that box?” His eyes narrowed.

“Your dad had no right to say that.” I shook my head. My fingertips ached with the need to pull Cam close. To go back to that day and stand beside him instead of across from him. To have said the things I wanted to instead of the things I was supposed to.

“He had every right. Sullivan was dead. I should have saved him. I should have sent the other squad to hold the perimeter. Should have taken his place myself. Realized what combat outpost we’d been called in for. I should have held his wound tighter. Had them transfuse me immediately. I should have shot him in the fucking foot the minute he decided to enlist. There are a million things I could have done and a million things I did do that more than earned me that pine box we buried him in.”

“Camden, stop.”

“Still think I did everything I could have, Willow? I sat there and let the love of your life bleed out all over me.”

“You didn’t.” The words were as weak as I felt, and the icy hand of fear wrapped around my throat, waiting for Camden to make me clarify that statement.

“I did. And you think you want these hands”—he held them palms out—“on you? The same hands that reached inside Sullivan and felt the life drain out of him?”

“That’s not fair.”

“News flash. None of this is fair. None of what’s happened to you is fair, and you deserve someone better.”

My head snapped like I’d been struck. “Better? How can you possibly say that?”

“Jesus, you need more? When he died, I was jealous as hell that he got to see our mom first. She was the only person who loved me just as much as Sully or Xander. I was jealous of my dying brother! And angry. So angry!”

“That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

Ring.

“Oh yeah? I was angry at the world. Angry at that asshole with the gun on the other side of the wall. Angry that Dad let him enlist. Angry that Xander sat in a cushy office while I held Sullivan. Angry that you hadn’t talked him into staying with you.”

I blanched. “I know.”

Ring.

“No, you don’t. I was most angry at Sullivan, because he had the right I would have died for and never even used it. Because when he passed, it was Mom’s name on his lips, when I knew mine would have been yours.”

I sucked in air on reflex, but every other muscle in my body stilled. Someone pressed the pause button, and we stood suspended in a moment when not even my heart dared to beat.

Ring.

“What?” Camden shouted into the phone.

My heart pounded. My head felt light, almost detached from my body. I stumbled backward until I felt the counter and then shamelessly used it to keep me upright when my knees threatened to give out.

“When?” His gaze darted to the clock on the wall. “Shit. I’ll be there in seven minutes.” He hung up and left the kitchen without another word, making a beeline for the garage.

I opened the door that had just slammed in my face and ignored the assault of cold air on my bare knees.

“Cam, what’s going on?”

He moved quickly, gearing up to ride.

“Cam!”

He flinched but didn’t stop dressing. “My dad’s had an accident. Xander found him in the garage. He must have been trying to leave, because the car was on but the door was shut.” Cam shoved his feet into a set of wool socks from the locker and then into his riding boots.

“Oh God. What do you need?”

His eyes jerked up to mine. “What?”

“What do you need me to do? Do you want me to go? Should I call the hospital to send an air ambulance? What?”

He blinked twice. “Medevac is on the way. If I leave now, I should make it to Dad’s in time.” He stood and zipped up his coat, then reached for his helmet as I grabbed his gloves. “Just stay here. Where I know you’re not freezing to death out there.” His face disappeared beneath the helmet, and he snapped it on.

I handed him the gloves and grabbed his arm as he turned to leave.

“Be careful,” I said clearly, looking at my own eyes reflecting back in the visor. “Camden, I care if you get hurt. So be careful.”

He nodded once and left me standing in his socks, his…everything as he took the snowmobile out and headed to his dad’s.

I glanced around the garage, my eyes landing on the Bobcat with a very lovely plow attached to the front. At least I wasn’t helpless.

Walking into the living room, I saw Cam’s wallet on the coffee table and groaned.

Guess it was time to dig myself out.