"Probably," Mac sighed. "He wants to know when you want to get together again. With both of us."
"Ohh," Cameron said, laughing. "I guess I made a good impression, huh? Was it the outfit?" Standing, Cameron left her desk and paced her office, lifting and resettling this thing or that thing. She rearranged the flowers in a vase, listening to Mac.
"Actually, it was the Geronimo joke. He tells it to everyone that'll listen. I gotta warn you though; I'm not sure how you'll be able to top that one."
"Oh no. How will I keep him impressed then?" Cameron mocked. "Does he know the one about putting a boogie in a tissue?"
"Yeah, babe, sorry to break it to you. That one came home from school with him when he was six. I do have an idea though. A way you might be able to wear down his tough and rugged exterior."
"Mmhm, and how's that?" Lifting the soft fabric of the window curtain, Cameron glanced out the window, watching the children play in the park across the street.
"Lions. And tigers," Mac hedged.
"And bears. Oh my. Are you inviting me to the zoo Mac?"
"Well, nothing ate you last time," he offered, laughing. "Besides, it's very rare that anything scary escapes the zoo. And Logan says that if you come, he promises to share his cotton candy with you."
"Hey!" the boy shouted, laughing, from the background.
Cameron laughed, listening to the child shriek, screaming laughter. Holding the phone away from her head, Cameron waited for the laughter to subside and then cautiously brought the phone closer to her ear. "He wants to talk to you," Mac laughed.
"Okay," Cameron said, dropping the curtain and turning from the window. She braced her shoulder against the wall, anticipating the higher sound of Logan's voice, so like and yet so different from his father's.
"Hi, Cameron," Logan said, still breathing heavily from whatever he and Mac had just been doing.
"Hey, little guy," she said. "I hear you want to see if I scream like a girl when lions roar at me."
Logan laughed. "Dad says you pee your pants. I gotta see that!"
She pursed her lips, color and heat creeping up her throat to cover her face. "Your dad told you that, huh? I guess I'm just going to have to come then, to prove I'm tough enough. But I'm going to eat all your cotton candy, for teasing."
"You want to ride a camel with me? Dad always says he can't because he has to take the pictures."
"Aren't camels, kind of, um, big?" Cameron shuddered at the idea of getting close to one of those beasts, with the rocking steps and giant bodies, black tongues and spit. Ew.
"Yeah. But, you know, don't pee your pants or anything," the boy teased, and Cameron stiffened at the bark of laughter she heard, guessing that it was most likely from Mac. "Oh you're gonna pay, buddy. Just you wait," she thought. Aloud, she put some power in her voice and retorted, "Oh, I'm pretty tough now, for a girl. I bet I could take you on, shrimp."
"Yeah, we'll see," he laughed back. "You probably can't even play Angry Birds."
"I've got an Angry Bird for ya," she giggled. "Did your dad feed you some cereal with crazy sprinkled on it this morning or what?"
"I feed myself!" he shouted, laughing. "You don't know kids at all!! You have a lot to learn, ya big girl."
"You gonna teach me, kid?"
"Yeah, starting with camel spit," he giggled. "I have to go, my dad wants the phone. Will you come with us?"
"I'll be there," she laughed. Waiting for Mac, Cameron grinned. She'd been used to that kind of silly banter once, long ago. She and her brothers would go after each other often, and she still had little verbal volleys with Harmony or Tabitha from time to time. But having a kid in her life? So far, he was a much needed source of fun and amusement; he made her feel light-hearted and somewhat freer of spirit than before. Still, she also hadn't missed noticing the sense of responsibility that had settled over her regarding Mac's little boy.
She'd met him only once, and already she wanted his happiness; she longed for his giggles. She wanted to keep sharing pizza with him; she wanted to take him for ice cream. She wanted to teach him things and bandage skinned knees. And if he wanted her to sit trembling between the humps of a camel, well then, she would be there.
"So you're coming?" Mac laughed.
"You told him my animal horror story? Mac!" Cameron lectured, trying to maintain a semblance of ferocity.
Still laughing, Mac said, "Well, if it helps me any, I told him the story as a way to talk him out of wanting the zoo."
"That little sadist," Cameron grinned.
***
"There he is! There he is, look!" Logan exclaimed, poking his finger at the front of the glass tank. Curled in the back of the miniature habitat, looking out from atop its own coiled red-orange body, there lay an eyelash viper. "He's poisonous," Logan warned. "And he has super long fangs. And when he bites you, and your heart pumps the venom through you, it hurts so bad, and it makes you not be able to clot your blood and stuff. And then you die. So he can eat you."
Shuddering, Cameron pressed a hand to her stomach. "I see. Well lucky for me, he's in there and I’m out here, right? Shall we move on now?"
Mac laughed, taking her hand as Logan trotted excitedly over to the next window, pressing his face to the glass to peer in at an albino rattlesnake. "Western diamondback," Mac said, pointing as he led Cameron closer. "That one's Logan's favorite because of the albino thing."
"Oh, he likes slithering venomous creatures with satanic eyeballs, does he?" Cameron teased. "This whole part of the whole zoo thing is disgusting. Slimy, creepy crawly things."
"They aren't slimy. Does this mean he can't ever bring his little pet python with us if we come over to your house? It's really small; only a couple of feet long." Mac said, struggling to keep a straight face. Cameron froze, her heart leaping into her throat.
"He does not have a snake. He doesn't; tell me he doesn't," she begged, her eyes wide in terror as she held her hands out in front of her.
Mac laughed, pulling her close to wrap an arm around her shoulders. "Okay, he doesn't," he said.
"Can we go see the other stuff now?" Logan asked. He grinned wickedly at Cameron, winking at her with his sparkling eyes. "Like maybe the camels? And if the camels are tired, can we ride elephants instead?"
"You can," Cameron retorted, remembering too late that she didn't have the right to answer as she had. "That is, if your dad thinks it's a good idea," she finished. Mac chuckled beside her, lifting their joined hands to drop a kiss on the back of her wrist.
"You don't want to ride an elephant?"
"Uh, no. Have you never seen the documentaries about psycho elephants that go nuts and wreck everything they see?" she hissed back, keeping her tone low so that Logan couldn't hear her.
"Alright. Camels!" Mac said, laughing as he turned to grin down at his son who was bouncing on the balls of his feet with excitement. Taking Cameron's hand, Mac stepped in behind his son, and they followed together as he scrambled toward the camel enclosure down the path.
“Jeez, I can't believe I'm doing this," Cameron muttered.
"Walking with me?" Mac said with a wink, nudging her arm with his elbow as they walked. "I know. I'm a pretty hot ticket, but you know, some women just have all the luck."
"Hot ticket," Cameron scoffed. "A hot ticket to stick me on a spitting death trap."
"Look, look, the camels are open!" Logan gushed, rushing forward to take the last place in the waiting line. He turned, beaming up at Cameron, and for just a second, she allowed herself to smile down on his face as if he were hers to love. Tears pricked the backs of her eyes, and she blinked them away, reigning herself in. To distract herself, she forced herself to look up toward the front of the line, where a zoo employee was guiding people up a short staircase to a platform, from which they mounted the backs of the camels in groups. Her heart tripped, and she had to force herself to breathe. "Oh, they sure are big, aren't they?" she asked. "Wow. They are just really, really big."
"Nah, I've done this
a dozen times," Logan said. "I know what to do."
"Do? You have to do stuff? I thought you just sit there!" Cameron squeaked.
Logan laughed. "I was kidding, ya big girl. You do just sit there."
The closer the line got to the camels, the more Cameron had to work to keep her breathing even. If it had been anyone else she was with, she'd have backed out of the camel ride. But it wasn't anyone else; it was Logan. It was Mac's boy; the motherless child of the man she was falling in love with, and he was looking forward to riding a camel with her. She couldn't back out, not on him. And so, far too soon for her tastes, she found herself climbing the steps with one hand nervously sliding up the safety rail, the other resting lightly on Logan's slender shoulder. Taking one last deep breath, she mounted the last step and joined Logan on the platform.
"Okay, dude, here goes," she said, forcing her voice to come out perky and happy instead of shaky and weak. Logan twisted in her arms suddenly, wrapping his skinny arms around her waist, his face pressing into her stomach.
"Thank you for riding with me even though you're scared," he said.
Glancing around, Cameron tried to judge how much time they had before their camel unloaded on the next platform and came back for them. It looked like they had time, so she took him by the arms and set him away from her. Squatting down in front of him, she took his hands in hers and said, "Courage isn't about not being afraid, Logan. Courage is about doing what's important, even if you are afraid. And if you want me to ride with you, well I guess I'm riding. But if this thing spits on me, I'll dunk your head in the toilet later." She smiled, straightening as the boy dissolved into helpless giggles and occasional shrieks of, "Ew!"
Mac stood watching along the guardrail, camera in hand, as Cameron was suddenly engulfed in the arms of his son. He caught the surprise in her face, pressing the camera's shutter button as her smile widened, her fingers lost in the soft hair of the boy clinging to her. Mac hadn't realized how much his son needed a woman in his life; he'd had unlimited help from his mother since Alex had died, but no grandma could ever stand in for a mommy. He just hadn’t seen it before.
Clearing his throat, he watched Cameron set Logan apart from her, squatting low to place herself at the boy's eye level. Logan's face grew solemn as Cameron spoke to him, and Mac wondered what it was that she was saying. Then Logan fell apart, laughing helplessly as Cameron stood again beside him, dropping her hand lightly on his shoulder as they waited together. Her curls blew in the slight breeze, and he saw her stiffen, straightening her shoulders as a camel approached their platform. Her breasts rose and fell; he knew she was taking a breath to steel herself against her nerves. And then he watched her carefully board the back of the camel, situating herself as comfortably as she could before reaching her arms out to take his son close to her body.
With one thigh to either side of the camel, she had no lap to hold Logan on, but she scooted him close to her, holding his waist protectively even as she leaned slightly to check the distance to the ground. Snapping another picture of them together, Mac's heart filled, an empty place that had resided in his chest since the loss of his wife suddenly ceasing to be there. Sure, he'd always hold Alex close in his memories, but as he watched his son fall head over heels for a woman who braved her terrors to make him happy, Mac tumbled along too, into love.
"Sorry," Cameron muttered again, having gripped Logan's waist tightly enough, again, to make him stiffen. "It just rocks a lot. Really far."
"You've really never rode a camel?" the boy asked, twisting slightly to look over his shoulder at her.
"Nope, not even once," Cameron answered, leaning over him to speak into the curve of his ear. "Generally, if it's bigger than I am and has more legs than me, I'm scared of it."
"Well, just don't worry," Logan said. He took her hands from his waist and leaned into her, wrapping her hands more tightly together on his flat but boyishly soft stomach. "I've done this a dozen times, even by myself, so it's safe enough. I know what to do."
Cameron's hands lifted and fell with the breath of the little boy in her arms, the scent of dirt and camel mixing with the soft, soapy smell of the child. She rested her head close to him, breathing him in as she remembered similar words from his father. The first time she'd braved a ride on Mac's motorcycle, she'd been so afraid it would tip, afraid it would slide or fall, or that she herself would fall off.
"It doesn't have doors or a roof or anything," she'd said.
"It has me," Mac had answered back, and Cameron had been reassured, just as she was now, with the high pitch of his son's voice drifting back to her with the scent of his boyish spice. She laced her fingers together over Logan's stomach, smiling to herself. And as his hands settled over hers, she blinked furiously to fight back tears. She couldn't pretend she didn't want his father, and she couldn't pretend she didn't want him. The boy needed a mother, didn't he? Cameron knew she could never replace the mother he'd lost, but as she held his little body in front of her, rocking along with the beast beneath them, she knew she wanted to be his stand-in.
Coming around the final bend in the camel's endless circular track, Cameron caught sight of Mac, standing along the guardrail. He was talking to another man, gesturing as he talked. The other man looked amused, the boy beside him sulking.
"Hey," she said, nudging Logan's stomach with her laced hands. "Who's that guy over there with your dad?"
Logan stretched to see, then leaned back into Cameron quickly. "That kid goes to my school," he said. "He's the biggest stupidest jerk ever. I hate him."
"That's a pretty strong emotion, huh?" Cameron asked, curious.
"He gets me in trouble because he's always so mean to me, and one time I hit him. I made his lip bleed."
"Why?" Cameron asked.
"Because he said I'm a loser because I don't have any mom," Logan answered, so quietly Cameron barely heard him. "He says my mom died because I'm stupid."
"Hmm. Been going to school with him a while then, huh? He knew you before your mom got sick?" She wanted to slide down from the camel's back, stalk over and give that boy a talking-to. She wanted to do worse than that to the boy's father, who obviously wasn't trying hard enough to instill compassion in his child. Instead, she settled for hugging Logan close to her, knowing that once they approached Mac and the people he was chatting with, Logan would likely pull away from her.
"Yeah. He used to come over and play at my house, but when my mom got sick, he couldn't come over anymore because she didn't ever feel good. And now he doesn't like me."
"I see," she said, suddenly gripping him more tightly than she'd meant to as a misstep caused the camel to rock especially hard. Logan laughed a little at her reaction and covered her hands again with his own.
"Don't worry Cameron," he said. "You're safe here with me. I know what to do, remember?"
Even as he struggled with the loss of his mother and the subsequent loss of his friend, the boy was kind and reassuring to her. Cameron struggled to keep her emotions in check as the camel approached the platform. She handed Logan off to the employee in charge, and then took his hand to allow him to haul her from the back of the camel. Walking down the stairs from the platform, they sought Mac's face and found him alone at the guardrail, a scowl on his face. He turned though, hearing them approach, and he arranged his face quickly into a proper smile for his son.
"Have fun, kid?" he asked. "I took pictures of you guys up there."
"Yeah I had a good time, Dad. But Cameron was a wuss," he teased, looking over at her and winking, a slight dimple showing in his cheek. Cameron pursed her lips.
"Yeah? Well next time I'll toss your little butt and go ride on my own. I wasn't a wuss. I was holding your hands so you wouldn't be scared," she retorted.
"Uh huh," Mac said, mussing Logan's hair.
"I saw Kenny and his dad with you," Logan said, and Mac's face tightened. He exchanged a silent look with his son, and Cameron could tell they needed some time to talk. Looking around them, sh
e spotted a corn dog stand a few feet down, and a sign for bathrooms.
"Uh, I'm gonna be right back," Cameron said, breaking the moment. Logan and Mac both turned to look at her, questions in their eyes. Cameron pointed toward the sign for the bathrooms, giving Mac a silent look of her own, one that darted down to his son and then back into his own blue eyes. He nodded slightly, his eyes lighting with understanding, and she said, "There's a ladies' room right there, so why don’t I meet you boys at the corn dog stand when I come out?"
"That's a great idea," Mac said quickly, tugging Logan close to him as they walked together toward the bathroom entrance.
"Yeah," Logan laughed reaching out to touch Cameron's arm lightly. "Then you won't pee yourself if something scares you. Like a turtle. Or a terrifying ant," he teased. Softening the words, he leaned toward her, hugging her before moving back to his father.
Prescription For Love (The Kingsley Series) Page 21
