“Game plan?” Charlie asked.
“Keep Camdyn from screaming,” I said.
“That tree branch grabbed me,” she explained for the umpteenth time.
“And the air trips you and food spills itself on you.” Even in the darkness, I could sense the teasing look on Charlie’s face and hear it in his voice.
“Game plan?” Camdyn said, clearly attempting to steer the conversation away from her unfortunate incident at our second stop of the evening.
“The Websters’ home burned down last month,” Willa answered. “They’re staying with her sister until they get on their feet, so they’re in need of monetary help.”
“So we have an envelope,” Charlie completed. “Easy as pie, as long as nobody screams.”
Camdyn answered his taunt by opening the car door and stepping out into the night. I followed by exiting on my side, where Charlie was quickly next to me. Together the three of us strode purposefully down the dark driveway, turning a bend and coming in view of the house. All of the trees seemed to be situated in our general vicinity, with the home itself placed on a large, almost vacant plot of land.
“Problem,” Charlie whispered. “There’s nowhere to hide.”
“So we just ring the bell and run like the wind,” Camdyn suggested. Easy for her to say. I was pretty sure “run like the wind” was not in my body’s vocabulary.
“No way will we get away without them seeing us. We’ll have to hide around the side of the house for a few minutes.” Charlie began walking forward again, but Camdyn stayed put.
“Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen,” she mumbled.
“With you involved…probably.”
“Why don’t you go, and we’ll wait back at the car?” Camdyn suggested to her brother. “That way the chances of being caught will be way less.”
Not getting caught sounded pretty good, but walking back to the car without the blond-headed guy in the black stocking cap didn’t intrigue me at all.
“Go ahead, Cam, and I’ll wait here to make sure Charlie gets back okay.”
She shrugged her shoulders as she turned and strolled back toward the car, while I remained rooted in my spot. It was only while standing there, unmoving, that I realized how cold the wind was as it snuck its way inside my clothes on its trek past my body. A shiver swept over me.
“Cold?”
I had expected Charlie to head off toward the house since I stated I would be waiting, but when I turned he was mere inches from me, his hands finding their way to my shoulders. He began rubbing my arms in an effort to keep me warm.
“I’ll be fine,” I insisted, the warm, woodsy scent of his cologne drifting to me in the wind.
“Come with me. It’ll be fine, I promise. There’s a hedge row right in front of the house, so you can wait for me there to keep out of the wind until we hide.” Giving me a hesitant smile, he tilted his head. “Or, you can go back to the car with Camdyn.”
“And miss seeing the dangerous Charlie Taylor in action?” I teased through chattering teeth. “Not a chance.”
Without a word, he took my hand and led me up the long driveway, pulling me close to him to block the wind. For a split second I hoped that Camdyn kept walking toward the car and hadn’t changed her mind to follow us, but with the wind whipping around, the thought quickly carried off on the cold breeze.
“You want to wait around the side of the house?” he whispered as we neared the dark front door, my eyes focused on the dim light evident behind the curtains. The hedge row was low to the ground now that we were next to it, but being around the side of the dark house wasn’t appealing either.
“Maybe in the hedges, like you suggested?”
Smiling, he gently nudged me toward the squatty row of bushes, while I began rethinking my decision. I consoled myself with the thought that there would likely be nothing hiding there in the cold.
Except myself, of course.
And then I prayed they didn’t have a wild cat.
Inching my body behind the shrubs wasn’t too difficult, but peering toward Charlie from my covert position was rather tricky. He hadn’t really said what he would do once he rang the doorbell, but now that I was crouched behind the bushes, I had my doubts about whether I could quickly exit to run with him.
He turned to give me an enticing grin from his post on the porch, and although he probably couldn’t see me from his vantage point, my heart skipped in my chest. By that point it was clear that I was attracted to him, but there was so much more to it. Never before had I met a guy like Charlie, content to sit on his grandmother’s couch with me until the wee hours of the morning, never making a move toward anything other than sharing conversation.
At least, no attempts apart from the one misguided effort to woo me with the biology lesson. The mere reminder made me choke back a giggle.
Charlie stooped to place the envelope on the porch and then pressed the button, barely taking a step in my direction when the lock clicked and the door began to creak open. Eyes wide, he dove into the bushes, landing awkwardly next to me with his elbow pressed against my abdomen.
The porch light flicked on, and he pressed his index finger to my lips in an effort to remind me to be quiet. As though I needed a reminder. I wasn’t Camdyn, with the propensity to scream at inopportune moments. No, I was the one who stared discomfort in the face and persevered.
Mostly, anyway. At the present moment, the only things keeping me stone-still were the facts that we were likely to be spotted at any moment, there were cold, sharp rocks beneath my thighs that were jutting into my pants, and I could feel Charlie’s breath on my cheek.
An excruciating couple of hours went by as we sat there awkwardly in the middle of those bushes. Not really, but the seconds felt like they took forever, neither of us daring to move a centimeter, staring into each other’s eyes. Finally, we heard a male voice make a comment that someone must have run off, calling into the house about the envelope as he turned off the porch light and closed the door.
“I think you dented my spleen,” I whispered to Charlie as I tried to adjust to the dark. He pulled his elbow back, but didn’t move the rest of his body.
“That’s not your spleen, it’s way higher than that. You’re talking about your intestines.”
“Stop abusing the situation, Dr. Taylor.” I laughed quietly so he would know I was teasing. “Seriously, though, you’re killing me here. Can you move a little?”
“No,” he stated. I narrowed my eyes at him, watching his widen in return. “I’m being honest. Something has the back of my pants.”
Unable to slide past him on those rocks, I reached both arms around his waist, lowering them until they reached the top of his jeans. As I ran my fingers across his waistband, I discovered that his belt loop had somehow hung on a twisted, stubby branch.
“Just for the record, I didn’t plan this.”
I dared a glance into his eyes as I tugged sideways on his belt loop. “Sure you didn’t.”
“Not that I wouldn’t have, but there are too many variables. Convincing Cam to stay in the car and you to hide in the bushes, finding the exact section of this shrubbery that would stick to me like glue…”
“For someone who didn’t plan it, you seem to have all the pieces of the puzzle memorized.” One final jerk, and his entire body seemed to sink against me. “What do you call that?”
Pressing his right fist down onto the rocks, he shoved his body back a few inches as he drew his left hand upward, his index finger making its way to my lips again.
“Ssshh,” he whispered as he lowered his face, gently sliding his hand around the back of my neck as his mouth descended to mine, surprisingly warm after our chilly hike. His kiss was leisurely and overwhelming, so deliciously slow that I could barely force myself to think. Even though it was unrushed, there was nothing timid or hesitant about it on either of our parts. Truth be told, I’d been dreaming about Charlie’s kiss ever since the first time he mentioned it, wondering wh
en and where his “perfect” moment would find me.
And now that he’d kissed me, I knew that he thought I was worthy of that first kiss—the one he’d been saving just in case it was the last. That fact made it that much sweeter.
His lips pulled away from mine as he trailed his finger over my mouth. “You taste like strawberries,” he said. “I love strawberries.”
I couldn’t help but smile as he remained there, precariously holding himself above me.
“This is your perfect moment?” I teased softly. “Hiding in the bushes?”
“I’m pretty confident that it doesn’t matter, as long as it’s with the right girl.” He dropped one more quick kiss to my lips before he went to one knee, peeking at the front porch as he stood. Stepping away from the rocks, he held out his hand so I could rise and join him. As I snuck across the rocks, I placed my hand in his, in case he wanted to offer another one of those kisses. My heart sank a little when he simply glanced toward the trees further up the driveway, determined to head in that direction.
Hand enclosed firmly in Charlie’s, I was extremely aware of two things:
Number one—I had definitely fallen for my best friend’s brother.
And number two—I would forevermore carry strawberry lip gloss in my pocket.
Chapter Nine
Whatever I thought Christmas Eve might look like at Camdyn’s home, I certainly hadn’t imagined exchanging secretive flirty glances with her brother every time I passed him in the house while I attempted to keep my pulse from racing. In order to keep myself busy, and my mind firmly off Charlie, I volunteered to help Willa in the kitchen while Camdyn finished her Christmas wrapping.
When dinner time finally arrived, I set out to find Camdyn, expecting to find her on the couch or stretched across her bed. After checking both those locations and coming up empty, I proceeded to the middle of the hallway and stood there, slightly confused.
“Camdyn?” I called. “Where are you?”
“Green Gables,” was the muffled response. Stepping to her doorway again, I peered inside. When I couldn’t locate her, I walked around the edge of the bed to find her lying on the floor, propped up by her elbows, completely engrossed in a book. It was impossible for me not to notice that she also had Christmas music playing in the background, and her feet were tapping a rhythm against her dresser.
“Dinner’s ready.” I attempted to withhold my grin as I stared at her, but she was just so endearingly quirky, one side of my mouth unwillingly traveled upward.
“I do believe she’s right.”
Crossing my arms against my chest, I stared down at her as she closed her book and flopped over, gazing up at me from her upside-down vantage point.
“She?”
“Anne Shirley.”
Naturally, Anne Shirley. What had I expected, after all? Camdyn convinced me to read Anne of Green Gables once, and there was one line that stood out to me…along the idea that if you’re going to imagine, it might as well be on something worth the effort. That pretty much fit Camdyn to a T.
“What did Anne Shirley say?”
After all this time, I really should know better than to goad her.
“It’s easier to be good if you have fashionable clothes. I think I quite agree. Or at least a fabulous pair of shoes.”
“You’ll get no arguments from me.”
Sitting up, she turned to face me, pulling one knee toward her chest.
“I do believe I could endure a whole closet full of unfashionable clothes for the honor of having the friendship of a kindred spirit like you, Trina Miller.”
“You’ve gone nutty.”
“Have I? Would you not give up fashionable clothes for the privilege of spending Christmas with my fantastic grandmother, rather than your weird step-cousin?”
“Actually, Todd’s not seeming so weird right about now.”
“You’re my Diana Barry.”
Uh huh. Anne’s best friend? The kind of sane one that balances Anne out?
Yeah, it makes sense.
“You’ve gone off your rocker,” I insisted with a giggle. “Come on, your grandma’s waiting.”
Camdyn rose and tossed the book on her bed, giving me an exaggerated kiss on the cheek before she walked out of the room. The only thing I could do was remain stationed there, solemnly shaking my head. By now I’d grown accustomed to her eccentricities, but she was such a puzzle. The fact that she managed to remain aloof and yet be looked at with admiration back at campus always baffled me, but here I stood in her bedroom feeling the same sort of weird connection that we’d had from the beginning.
I was totally her Diana Barry.
Or maybe she had finally sucked me into her delusions.
Shaking off those thoughts, I hurried out of the room and down the hall to the kitchen, where the small table was set with the evidence of Willa’s efforts. She really was a fantastic cook, and I envied whoever would get to use her recipes with Charlie later.
As I settled at the table, Charlie was seated next to me almost instantly, grinning as he pressed his leg against mine under the table.
And just like that, thoughts about Camdyn and food and the future were tossed out of my mind, because the present was all about the man sitting next to me.
♥
Maybe it was because my parents never pushed Santa Claus, or perhaps because they didn’t have a strong belief system to make Christmas special, but other than looking forward to the rather gluttonous day of endless dessert and a few fancy gifts, I didn’t put much stock in the holiday. Not the way Camdyn’s family did, anyway. My mother might have held parties at our home, but it was solely for the sake of socializing. There were no daily reminders of it being the Christmas season, no attempts to focus on thinking about the less fortunate, and definitely no sentimental trips down memory lane.
It really was like I had awakened inside that Charlie Brown story, where they were all making fun of him for having the scrawny tree, but he somehow helped the gang understand the real reason for the celebration in the first place. In the midst of an aluminum holiday landscape, Camdyn’s family embraced the scrawny real tree, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it.
That Christmas Eve, they didn’t go to a grand party or sneak peeks at their gifts. Willa sat in her recliner in the living room with the lights dimmed, the glow of the Christmas tree blinking in the corner, and she read a passage out of her Bible. I couldn’t know for sure, but since my own eyes were having trouble adjusting to the low light, I imagined that she had the entire thing memorized.
Listening to Willa tell the story with emotion in her voice, my eyes began to well up with tears, and I scolded myself a bit for it. My best friend had grown up without her parents, had to earn scholarships to attend college, and hardly ever went out socially because she didn’t want to waste her grandma’s money. When she did spend any cash, she used her “summer fund” that she earned while working at a theme park. I had no right to be jealous of Camdyn, but in that moment, I was.
I was jealous because their holiday seemed loving, and real, and…like family.
Willa leaned over to the coffee table and picked up a small red velvet sack that looked very much like Santa’s bag, dropping three little boxes into her lap. Smiling, she waited as Charlie and Camdyn moved toward her and took their boxes, and then she turned toward me to explain.
“That first year, on Christmas Eve, we were having a bit of a hard time forgetting our heartaches, so we decided to focus instead on the wonderful things the year brought us. It became a yearly tradition. We write one thing on a slip of paper, place it in the box, and hang our hope on the tree and everything it represents.” She tilted her head to the side as she watched my reaction. “We’ve always hung our hopes on Jesus in this house.”
Placing her box on my lap, Camdyn plopped beside me on the couch. “Go ahead. Open it,” she urged. Pressing the string at the top aside, I pulled up on the lid, waiting as the tiny hinge opened. Inside were several strips
of paper, all curled into pretty twists. My mind immediately envisioned Camdyn twirling the paper around the end of her pencil each year.
Unwrapping one strip of paper, I smiled hesitantly at my friend before I began reading. “Camdyn Taylor, age nineteen. For my roommate Trina, who is exactly the lovely best friend I needed.” Shaking my head, I fought the tears rising to the surface. “Oh, come on, that’s not fair.”
“It’s not my fault you pulled that one out of the box,” she argued. “They’re not all about you.”
Pushing my fingers back into the box, I wrapped the end of one twist around my pinky, slowly pulling it up. “Camdyn Taylor, age fourteen. Mrs. Brown’s history class, because she let me write about ancient Egypt instead of the Bay of Pigs.”
“I found that more interesting at the time.” She giggled as she leaned back against the couch cushions. “Obviously I didn’t have my priorities straight, being thankful about homework assignments.”
That didn’t seem all too different from the Camdyn I knew from college, but I kept that thought locked away inside my head while I dumped the contents of her box onto my lap. “Another?” I asked, smiling at her. The next paper I unwrapped was written in crayon, and was obviously a child’s handwriting. “Camdyn Taylor, age six. Charlie sits with me on the bus.” Glancing over at the man in question, I saw him watching me with interest. “That’s so sweet, Charlie. You must have been a fantastic brother.”
“I was clearly delusional,” Camdyn interrupted. Charlie huffed a protest, and she shrugged her shoulders in defeat. “Okay, I admit—Charlie used to protect me when we were kids.”
“It took her fifteen years to acknowledge that fact,” he commented, shaking his head.
Glancing at my lap, I stealthily pulled open another piece of paper. This one was in a different handwriting—likely Willa’s. Camdyn Taylor, age four. Jesus loves me. And Grandma. And Charlie. Twisting it closed quickly, I kept my eyes on my fingers, not wanting to read that one aloud. Age four would have been their first year together after the accident. Instead of prying further into Camdyn’s memories, I swept them back into the box.
Unwrapped (The Camdyn Series Book 5) Page 6
