“In Slippery Rock?”
“I want a fresh start.”
Grant sighed. “Camden, be reasonable. We can reschedule for the spring, or if you don’t want to wait that long, we’ll elope and throw a big party afterward.”
“I don’t want to reschedule, and I’m not eloping with you. And I’m not going to become Mrs. Grant Wentworth. Ever.”
“We like all of the same things, we have all the same friends. We’re the perfect couple.”
“You slept with Heather Abbott.”
“I’ve spoken to Heather. We’ll stop seeing each other.”
“Gee, thanks,” Camden said, but Grant either ignored or didn’t catch the sarcasm in her voice, because he kept talking.
“Heather and I have known each other for years. We flirted a bit in college, and things just got out of hand when she struck up her friendship with you.”
As if that made it any better. He made it sound as if Heather sought out a friendship with Camden just to get to Grant. Thinking about it, Camden wouldn’t put it past the other woman. Heather could be fun, but there was a hard side to her, a side that was never satisfied with what she had. A side that felt no qualms about taking what she wanted, even if that hurt another person.
And Camden had ignored those traits because Heather’s mother and her mother had been childhood friends. Camden shook her head. It was as if, before finding Grant in the closet with Heather, she’d had no backbone at all.
“You shouldn’t call things off with Heather, Grant. The two of you deserve each other. Just leave me out of it,” she said and clicked off the call. Then she blocked his number and deleted his contact information from her phone.
The old Camden let other people think for her. Her mother thought she should be in pageants. Grant thought they should get married. No one cared what Camden thought.
But she wasn’t going to be that meek girl any longer. She was through being Elizabeth Camden Harris Carlson’s daughter.
It was time she was Camden Harris. Whoever Camden Harris chose to be.
* * *
LEVI THROTTLED DOWN the four-wheeler he’d been riding at the gate separating Walters land from Harris land. He’d installed the gate when Calvin agreed to let him rent a few acres for the older cattle in his herd. Before installing it, they’d had to go around the long way; now it was a quick seven-minute ride from his doorstep to Calvin’s.
And he had no reason to go to Calvin’s on a Saturday.
So why the heck was he sitting here staring at the gate? He was positive Camden would be dried off from their little dip in the lake last night, and if she wasn’t, he was not the man to dry her off.
Although the memory of a few water droplets slowly making their way down her neck and disappearing beneath the vee of her flannel shirt made his heart beat a little harder than it should.
This whole thing was ridiculous.
Camden Harris was not his type. He didn’t go for beauty queens or freckled noses or women who pushed him into freezing lake water. So why couldn’t he go about his day without either wondering what she was doing five times a minute or going out of his way to see for himself what she was doing?
Levi put the four-wheeler in Neutral, unlocked the gate and then drove through it, locking it behind him. All the while he repeated this is stupid in his head. But his hands ignored his brain and kept the vehicle pointed toward the farmhouse. Levi followed a narrow trail between the two farms until it broke free of the trees. Light smoke drifted from the house chimney, and because Calvin only had a handful of dogs left, the runs were quiet this morning.
Camden exited the big red barn, a hoodie hanging just past her hips. She’d pulled her hair through the back of another baseball cap and wore skinny jeans with a pair of rainbow-emblazoned rain boots on her feet. She looked adorable.
And thinking that was what had him driving over here for no reason, Levi lectured himself. Camden closed the door behind her and looked from Levi to the house as if she wasn’t sure whether to wait for him outside or run for cover.
Funny, he’d had the same feeling, only instead of running for the cover of the farmhouse, he’d considered pulling a U-ey and going back the way he came. Levi brought the four-wheeler to a stop near Camden and turned off the engine.
“Hello,” she said after a long moment. Levi realized he’d been staring at her rain boots. Which was double weird. He’d seen a million rain boots in his time. There was nothing remotely attractive about the bulky things, but on Camden they looked almost runway worthy.
Probably her beauty queen training.
“Did you need something?” she asked, and Levi realized he still hadn’t answered her.
Damn, he was losing it. “Just dropping by to see how you’re doing after last night’s swim,” he said.
Camden pursed her lips, and her eyes narrowed, and neither of those actions should make her look more adorable than she’d looked when she first left the barn, and yet, they did. The amber flecks in her brown eyes seemed brighter this morning and when she cocked her head to the left, her hair cascaded over her shoulder in a long wavy tail. She crossed her arms over her chest, and despite the bulk of the hoodie, he thought her breasts rose and fell a bit faster than was totally called for. Probably just wishful thinking, though.
“I’m doing just fine, thank you.”
“Me, too, thanks for asking,” he said when it became clear she had nothing else to say.
“Of course you are. It would take more than a hundred thirty pounds of me to do damage to all, what, two hundred forty pounds of you?”
“Two twenty-five, actually. I’ve slimmed down a bit since my football days.” And he looked damn good, if he said so himself.
“Well, good for you.” She looked toward the house again, but no one had come to the door. “What are your doing here?”
“Isn’t that my line?” Levi asked, and a small smile spread over Camden’s face.
“It kind of is, I guess.” She restlessly shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and occasionally looked over her shoulder toward the house and the lane that led to the main road.
Levi looked around. Calvin’s truck wasn’t in the drive, and the sports car under the big maple tree had to be Camden’s. “Waiting for something?” He pocketed the four-wheeler key and stood near Camden in the shade from the barn. Levi wondered what she saw in the weathered building, the rundown dog kennels, the trees lining the yard.
He saw stability, a place that needed a strong back and some hard work. A place that would fund the well-earned retirement of two people he’d come to think of as family. Space that would let him do a major expansion of the dairy in another few years, especially if things went well with the trial run of ice creams and yogurts next year.
“Grandmom and Granddad went into town for groceries.”
“And left you in the barn?”
She straightened. “I was working with Six, if you must know. He’s the dog I told you I was training.”
“You’re a beauty queen. What do you know about training dogs?” When he’d known Camden, she’d been as likely to chase a dog through the underbrush as to wear a formal gown, but that was a lot of years ago. Years she’d spent on hair, makeup and clothes. And she’d done a good job with those assets, he admitted.
“Plenty, actually. My piano teacher’s husband trained dogs for competitions. He showed me a few things. And I picked up a lot from Granddad and my dad...before,” she added.
“So you walked out on your wedding to train cattle dogs? Really?”
Camden clenched her jaw. “Yes. And why do you care anyway, Levi?” she asked. “You run a dairy farm—it’s not like my farm is in competition with yours.”
“I think you mean your grandfather’s.”
She blinked. “What?”
“This
is your grandparents’ farm, not yours.” He watched her for a long moment. Camden shifted her weight from one foot to the other. He didn’t care that she wanted to train a dog, but he did care if whatever plans she was making interfered with Calvin’s. The older man had loved training dogs, but he deserved a quiet retirement. God knew he’d worked hard enough for it.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I just find it interesting that you ignored Slippery Rock for more than a decade and now you’re back here, training a dog like it’s your life’s mission and calling a farm that doesn’t belong to you yours. Calvin has his own plans, you know. Plans to retire, plans to take Bonita on a cruise, plans to see Tucumcari and Dodge City and any other Old West gunfighting town he can get Bonita to visit.”
“I didn’t ignore Slippery Rock. I was twelve when my father died. It wasn’t like I could jump in a car and drive down any time I wanted.”
“Did you even try?” He leaned a shoulder against the weathered wood of the barn, pushing for answers to questions he knew he had no business asking. Except, Camden interested him.
Not just because he cared about her grandparents.
Because of that sad, solitary look on her face a few nights ago in the bar.
“Again, why do you care?” she asked, but it was more of a shout. “Why do you care why I’m in town or what I’ve been doing since I was a kid? We barely know each other. And Granddad is excited about reopening. You should have seen his face when I mentioned training Six.” Camden frowned as she said the words, though, and Levi pressed on. Not because he wanted her off the property for his own future plans, but because Calvin and Bonita deserved a restful retirement. Reopening the dog school? It didn’t make sense.
“If he were capable of running a fully operating training school, don’t you think he would be? He wasn’t waiting for you to come back to save the day. Think about it, Camden, he loves dogs and he loved training. Do you really think most of the runs would be empty if he wanted them filled? That clients would be calling or stopping by every day?”
“I know things have slowed down, but I thought...” Camden looked around as if noting the old kennels and the handful of dogs for the first time. “Why do you keep demanding to know why I’m here?”
Levi didn’t have a good answer for that. Part of him wanted to know because he didn’t want whatever Camden was planning to hurt Calvin or Bonita. But Camden had never been the kind of person to intentionally hurt another, anyway. People made all kinds of changes in their lives, but something as fundamental as caring was hard to fake or to learn after a certain point. The reason he wanted to know, well, that was harder to nail down. He wanted to know why she’d seemingly picked up and walked out on her life, simply because she interested him. And nothing about that truth was simple.
People in Slippery Rock were an open book, one he’d been reading for most of his life. Camden Harris wasn’t an open book, and behind that bit of fire shooting from her big, brown eyes right now was something bigger. An emotion he couldn’t quite put his finger on. And that probably made him all kinds of an ass, because he kept prodding with only curiosity in his mind, not concern or caring. And that look in her eyes...it nearly screamed for caring. Concern.
And Levi was not in the market for either. He had a dairy to expand, a sister starting a new business, parents who depended on him, friends who...okay, so his buddies were self-sufficient. For that matter, so were Mama Hazel and Bennett. So were Calvin and Bonita Harris. So was his sister. That didn’t mean he needed to add whatever problems made Camden’s eyes go all mushy and soft into his life.
He reached out, brushing his fingers across her chin. Her skin was pale, but a hint of pink brightened her cheeks at his touch. Her gaze met his, and under the fire, under that other feeling that he couldn’t name, something else blazed to life. Something that made his belly tighten and caused him to lean in until he could feel her breath on his cheek. Camden swallowed.
“This...isn’t a good idea,” she said, her words sounding strangled.
But it was too late. She was there, a breath away from him, those wounded eyes drawing him in closer. And then his mouth was on hers, tasting the sweetness that was Camden Harris, a woman who was so far from the type of woman Levi typically spent time with that it made no sense.
Whatever brought Camden to Slippery Rock would complicate his life, and Levi liked to keep things simple. When he played football, training was his focus. At the dairy, his cattle were the focus. With Camden...
Her small hands rested against his chest, and her mouth opened to him. Levi deepened the kiss, wanting more of Camden and not understanding why. Camden’s arms locked around his neck, holding him in place for a long, lingering moment. He pulled her body closer to his, feeling her heat through their clothes, breathing in more of the soft, feminine scent that was her.
With Camden things weren’t going to be focused or easy. She would complicate the hell out of his life, and so he should stop this kiss. Stop thinking about her all the time. Stop remembering how much fun she used to be, or wondering if she still had a bit of that reckless, excitable girl in her. Levi pushed the ball cap off her head so he could bury his hands in her hair.
Who cared about complications? Kissing her was enough to focus on.
She pulled away from him. “Really, really not a good idea,” she said, and this time her words were breathless, her chest rising and falling unevenly. Levi shoved his hands into his pockets, breathing heavily himself. That had moved so much faster than he expected.
“Yeah,” he said, stepping back, putting an inch of space between them. He didn’t want the space, though—he wanted to bury his hands in her hair again, to feel her body curve around his.
“I, ah, should finish cleaning the barn.”
“I should get back to the dairy.” So why didn’t he walk away? Levi couldn’t make his legs work, didn’t want to let Camden get back to her dog training or barn cleaning or whatever else she was doing here, not yet.
“Whatever brought you back—” he started, but Camden cut off his words.
“Let’s just drop it.” She put her hands in the pockets of her hoodie and walked away. At the corner of the barn, Camden turned back. “I’ll see you around, Levi.”
“See ya, Camden,” he said as he started the engine of the four-wheeler.
There was no reason for his chest to feel light at the thought of seeing Camden again. But then, nothing else about Camden made sense, so why should this be any different? Levi shook his head.
He really should have taken that trip to the Gulf or, hell, just to Springfield for the rest of the holiday weekend. He hadn’t, though, and now a trip anywhere that Camden Harris wasn’t didn’t appeal. That was the most ridiculous part of this. He’d had exactly three conversations with the woman, none of which lasted more than a minute or two. He’d seen her wandering around in a wedding gown, which, sure, made him wonder all kinds of things about her curves under all that gauzy white fabric. He’d seen her drenched and annoyed in jeans and flannel and lusted after those silly striped rain boots she was wearing. Not once had she seemed interested in him as anything more than a former acquaintance.
But she’d kissed him like there was more than childhood friendship between them.
Levi took the narrow trail back to the gate separating their properties. Camden Harris wasn’t his friend.
But, then, he had plenty of friends already. Maybe Camden Harris could be something else entirely.
CHAPTER FIVE
“IF WE COULD just focus, people,” Thom Hall said, his voice heavy with annoyance. He stood behind a podium in a large meeting room at town hall. Levi noted that most of the business owners were in the audience. Merle from the Slippery Slope, Bud from the bait shop. Julia Colson from the dress shop and her new destination wedding business, Vows at Slippery R
ock. Collin, Aiden and Adam sat across the aisle from Levi, Bennett and Mama Hazel. Mike from the grocery store.
Mostly, though, Levi was focused on the tall brown-haired former beauty queen sitting in the second row with her grandparents. The woman who hadn’t so much as glanced in his direction since she walked in.
The woman who didn’t own a business in Slippery Rock, who didn’t even technically live here, but who had been welcomed as if she’d been here her entire life.
Why that annoyed him, Levi couldn’t quite explain, but it had been a week since that kiss outside the barn and he had yet to make it through a full day without thinking—or dreaming—about Camden.
It was ridiculous, really. He hadn’t acted like this around a woman since...ever. Levi dated plenty of girls through his college and high school days, and there was always a woman around when he played in the pros, but none of them had captured his attention like Camden Harris. She leaned over to whisper something to Bonita that made her grandmother chuckle. Camden tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, revealing a bit of her delicate neck. Levi swallowed hard and pushed thoughts of kissing Camden out of his head.
“The company would like to start construction right after New Year’s, but we need those landowners affected to grant access rights to the old railroad track areas by the end of next week so that we’re definitely on their schedule.” Thom shuffled the papers at the podium. “I don’t have to tell you what a tourist boon this could be to Slippery Rock. Our section of the old trail would connect the section that runs up to Springfield and then on to St. Louis with the section connecting Joplin and Tulsa. This would be one of the longest rail trails in the US, putting Slippery Rock on the map for not only hikers and runners, but also for bike races. It’s possible we could host a triathlon at some point, which would be another tourism draw. With the downtown rebuilt, and the bass nationals definitely on the schedule for this spring, this hiking and biking trail is another reason for visitors to come to Slippery Rock instead of stopping their vacations in Branson or Eureka Springs.”
Christmas in a Small Town Page 8
