Great and Precious Things

by Rebecca Yarros

  “You were so good to him, Cam. You always put him first, even when I know you missed out on some of the things you wanted.” Her eyes met mine, and I knew she wasn’t thinking the same thing I was, simply because I’d never told her and she’d never caught on. “That’s how I know you never could have set fire to the bunkhouse, you know.”

  I looked away, scared she’d see right through me to the truth of that day.

  “What? Don’t think I’m a bored arsonist?” I stared into the fire, remembering the one that had almost consumed her that night. I’d been so damned lucky to find her through the smoke and flames.

  “No. I never did. It’s not in your nature. Besides, you never would have done anything that put Sully in danger. The torch got knocked over. Accidents happen. I can’t believe everyone blamed you, let alone still blames you.”

  “People need to place blame when things go to shit. Makes them feel like they have control over things they don’t. And of course they blamed me.” I tossed a smirk at her. “I was there, and therefore it was my fault.”

  “You were there for me,” she said softly. “I lost Sullivan’s hand when the beam came down. I thought I was going to…” She paused, taking a deep breath. “I was pretty sure I was hallucinating when I saw you jump the flames, and yet…part of me knew you’d come. Must have been the oxygen deprivation, right?”

  “It was just luck that I stumbled onto you.” I’d been so fucking scared. Sullivan had come out of the bunkhouse without her, sputtering from the smoke, and my only thought had been to get to Willow.

  “It wasn’t.”

  My gaze slowly slid back to hers.

  “You weren’t in the back like we were, Cam. You weren’t finding your way out and happened to come across me. That door led out, and you came through it. You came back in to find me. You saved my life.” Her expression softened, and everything in me rebelled. She couldn’t look at me like that, like I was some kind of fucking hero for doing the decent thing, the selfish thing when push came to shove.

  I hadn’t gone after her because it was the right thing to do. I’d gone after her because I couldn’t bear the thought of her not existing. I didn’t deserve an ounce of her hero worship, not when my motive was pure terror. I wasn’t anyone’s hero.

  “I wasn’t there when it mattered.” My hands curled into fists. “None of the rest matters when you think about that. I let him down in Afghanistan. I let you down.”

  She blinked rapidly and looked away for a handful of heartbeats, but she returned, sadness coming off her in nearly palpable waves. “You didn’t let me down,” she whispered.

  My jaw ticked.

  “You didn’t,” she repeated, leaning toward me but leaving a good foot between us. “It wasn’t your fault. Sullivan’s death was not your fault.”

  “You don’t know that,” I snapped, refusing to even entertain the notion. “You weren’t there. You have no clue.”

  “I do.” When others would have flinched and moved away, she stayed, her warmth and compassion holding me captive, torturing me with her sincerity. “I know you. Maybe not as well as I used to, but I know you all the way to your soul, Camden Daniels. If there had been a way to save him, you would have found it. If you could have given your own life for his, you would have. I don’t need to have been there to know that.” A pair of tears slipped from her eyes, and she quickly swiped at them but still didn’t look away.

  I wore my grief like armor, a wall I refused to let crumble or weaken.

  She wore hers like art, a bold invitation to experience the loss with her, daring you to look away, daring you to forget that he’d lived. He’d loved her.

  She’d loved him. How could she not? Everyone did. Sullivan had been charming and funny and made everyone feel like they were important. He was the best of the Daniels boys, and she knew that better than anyone.

  “How can you, of all people, possibly forgive me?” I shook my head, trying to dislodge her words. “I sent his squad to hold the line. Even if I didn’t know it was his when I relayed that order, I’m the one who got him killed.”

  “I knew about the order.” She swallowed and glanced away before bringing her gaze back to mine. “You didn’t know it was him.” She stated it as fact rather than questioning me.

  I shook my head. “Not until it was already too late.” If she knew about the order, did that mean she knew about the choice I’d made, too?

  She nodded slowly, as if confirming an idea she hadn’t voiced. “I don’t forgive you. There’s nothing to forgive. You loved Sullivan more than anyone in the world. What happened over there had to have been out of your control, because you would have died with him otherwise. You never would have come home without him.” Her voice dropped to a whisper.

  “But I did.” Somehow my voice made it through the stranglehold of my throat.

  “You did.” She smiled and swiped away another tear. “So I know there wasn’t anything you could have done. I know, Cam. I. Know.”

  Her words were supposed to bounce off my walls. They were supposed to fall flat with the I’m so sorry for your losses and the let me know if I can do anything for yous. Instead those soft, healing words slid right into the mortar of my defenses. Instead of attacking, they simply sat and soaked in.

  And when the tension was too much, when it threatened to slice me in half and bleed me out, she didn’t push me to accept or even acknowledge her absolution. Instead she leaned back against the couch and simply asked if I still read out loud like I had when we were kids.

  So I picked up East of Eden from the coffee table, even though I was already halfway through its nearly six hundred pages, and I began at page one.

  “The Salinas Valley is in Northern California.”

  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. Th
at 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.

&n
bsp; “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.”