Desperate Measures (An Aspen Falls Novel)

by Melissa Pearl

  Saturday, September 8th

  6:00 pm

  Cam should have been gloating.

  She’d been right all along.

  Alex Castillo was exactly the same. He hadn’t changed a bit. Still on the wrong side of the law, still working on a way to get himself put behind bars. Or worse, killed.

  But the news didn’t make her happy.

  It devastated her.

  She didn’t want Alex to be caught up in crime or to be in constant danger. As much as she’d hated him for breaking her heart, she’d never wished for anything bad to happen.

  That wasn’t exactly true. She wouldn’t have minded if he’d gotten his heart broken by the next girl he was bound to get involved with. She would have been fine if he’d never found another woman to date ever again.

  But those things were different. Those feelings were dictated by the aching loss she’d experienced with their breakup.

  She blinked. The last thing she needed was a maudlin trip down memory lane. Not now. Not when she’d actually gotten a semblance of an answer from him.

  “What gang?” she asked.

  He shifted in the bed, his eyes cast downward, focused on the sheets.

  She repeated the question.

  It looked like it took a concerted effort for him to lift his gaze back to hers. “I can’t do this,” he whispered in an anguished voice.

  She tried to focus on the words he was speaking, but all she could hear was the emotion in his tone.

  “Do what?” she found herself asking.

  “I can’t put you in danger.” She bristled but he held up a hand. “Hear me out. Please.”

  She clenched her teeth and waited. She didn’t want excuses, dammit. She didn’t want trite responses. She wanted answers.

  “The one thing I swore I’d never do is put you in danger,” he said softly. He squeezed his eyes shut. “It was the reason I left.”

  Her mouth dropped open and she leaned forward, thinking maybe she’d misheard him. “What?”

  “The reason I left. Why I broke up with you.” He swallowed. “It was for you.”

  She stared at him in disbelief. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  A muscle in his jaw pulsed.

  “Are you saying…?” Her voice trailed off and she had to force herself to swallow down the lump that was quickly forming in her throat. She tried again. “Are you saying you broke up with me to…to protect me?”

  “Why else would I have done it?”

  She gaped at him. She’d grappled with that question for weeks. Months. Hell, it still flitted through her mind every once in a while. Something would trigger a memory and she’d be right back in her mother’s living room, watching in disbelief, feeling her world fall away from her as he spoke those cold words, severing the bond they’d forged.

  “You had a future,” he told her. He wore a pained expression, and she didn’t know if it was from physical or emotional discomfort. “But only if it didn’t include me.”

  Cam was reeling. “But…I loved you.” They were hard words to choke out, and as soon as she said them, she regretted it. Did they make her sound vulnerable? Weak?

  He winced, as if the words were even more difficult for him to hear than they were for her to say.

  “We made plans. We had dreams,” she said, more to herself than to the man across from her.

  “I know. And I ruined them,” he said. “You deserved more, Camila. You still do.” He looked away. “I don’t want to be the one to mess those dreams up. To mess anything up. And being here, answering questions—that messes shit up. I know you don’t believe me. I can’t expect you to, not after everything I’ve done. But please trust me when I say that what’s driving me now is the need to protect you.”

  An iron fist tightened around Cam’s chest.

  Her mind was spinning, but this time there were more than questions swirling through her brain. A flood of emotions rose up like a tidal wave, threatening to wash away all semblance of rational thought and level-headedness.

  Alex had blindsided her.

  Completely.

  She didn’t know what to do, how to proceed.

  She didn’t know the protocol for this. There wasn’t a manual to pull out, to reference.

  Cam glanced back at the nightstand, at the phone still within arm’s reach.

  She was at a loss for how to move forward; this much was a given.

  But she knew one thing she wasn’t going to do.

  She wasn’t going to tell Nate what was going on.

  She wasn’t going to tell anyone.

  Not yet.

  12

  Sunday, September 9th

  8:30 am

  Alex woke up to an empty house.

  He blinked a couple of times, trying to clear the sleep from his eyes and the fuzziness from his brain.

  Stupid painkillers.

  He’d known they would cause side effects like this. He’d told Cam he didn’t need any but she’d insisted he take one. Had stood there with a pill in one hand and a glass of water in the other and waited, staring at him.

  He didn’t know how to refuse. They’d just finished an intense conversation and he was raw. Not just physically, but emotionally, too. Everything ached: his ribs, his leg, his lip.

  And his heart.

  He hadn’t meant to strip back any layers last night. He knew better than to do that, had spent most of his professional years with all traces of the real him tucked carefully away. It wasn’t a question of preference or of wanting to be aloof; he’d had to behave that way to survive.

  But something inside him had snapped. And fear had not been the driving factor. Of course he didn’t want her to call her detective friend, this Nate guy. Of course he needed to avoid the police—to avoid everyone, really—at all costs.

  That wasn’t the straw that broke him, that allowed the curtain to slip a little.

  It was her.

  Cam.

  The naked emotion on display—her anger, her shock, her hurt—had done it.

  Even now, twelve hours later, his gut still clenched at the memory.

  So yeah, when everything was said and done, when she’d for some reason decided to end their discussion for the night—and without calling in her detective buddy for reinforcements—he’d breathed a sigh of relief. And when she’d shoved a pill in front of him, demanding he take it so he could ease his pain and get a good night’s sleep, he’d put up little resistance.

  And he’d taken the damn pill.

  Alex shifted into a sitting position. The painkiller had worn off. His ribs hurt and the wound on his leg throbbed. But he’d properly slept for the first time in almost forty-eight hours, and that had done him a world of good.

  His gaze drifted around the room, taking in his surroundings. Now fully awake, his senses ramped up to high alert and he felt the adrenaline kicking in. He knew where Cam was—she’d told him last night what she had to do that morning—and he knew he’d be waking up alone.

  He just wanted to make sure he really was.

  Alex swung his feet to the side of the bed. His feet touched the floor and he bore his full weight down, bracing himself for the pain he knew he’d feel in his leg. It was there, but it had dulled a little. He glanced down at the wound. The gauze was still clean, which meant the wound hadn’t reopened.

  A good sign.

  He limped toward the bedroom door. It was partially open and he slipped through the crack, sucking in a painful breath as his chest brushed the edge of the door.

  Silence greeted him. He waited in the hallway for a minute, listening. Watching.

  A lawnmower engine whirred somewhere outside. Birds chirped in a nearby tree. In the distance, he heard the train horn as it made its approach.

  He took a tentative step. Then another. His footsteps were thankfully soundless, but he was sure anyone in the house could hear his thumping heart.

  It took five minutes to walk the house, and another five for his breath
ing and pulse to return to normal.

  He was alone.

  He was safe.

  For now.

  Cam had left a pot of coffee in the kitchen. There was a note nearby.

  If you’re reading this, get back in bed. Grab a cup of coffee and get back to bed.

  Alex smiled. He went to the bathroom and found another note.

  Stop walking around. Pee and get back to bed.

  Another grin, wider this time. He did as her notes commanded and headed back to the bedroom. A longer note was waiting for him there, one he hadn’t noticed when he’d woke up.

  I’ll be back by ten at the latest. Eat this if you’re hungry. I’ll get you more when I get back. There’s coffee in the kitchen if you really need it.

  Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t make me regret trusting you.

  There was a foil package of Pop Tarts and a bottle of water sitting on the nightstand. The bowls of soup from last night were gone.

  He eased himself back onto the bed and tore into the first frosted pastry, swallowing it in three bites. He was definitely hungry. Thirsty, too.

  And he was filthy.

  He desperately wanted a shower, to brush his teeth, to physically wash away the remnants of the last forty-eight hours. He’d managed to walk around the house with minimal discomfort. A shower was probably doable. And he sure as shit knew it would be out of the question if Cam were around to put in her two cents on the matter.

  He made his decision.

  Grabbing one of the shirts and a pair of the boxers she’d bought him, Alex headed back to the bathroom. He turned the water on in the shower and then made his way to the living room to check the front door. He fiddled with the doorknob, making sure it was locked, and then peeked through the blinds to do a quick scan of the road. The lawnmower he’d heard was closer than he realized, just across the street, with a teenaged boy pushing it across a plush carpet of long grass. A man in the driveway was washing his car. Next door, a woman was unloading groceries from her car while two kids created chalk masterpieces on the concrete driveway.

  They were normal people doing normal things. Leading normal lives.

  And it was all foreign to Alex.

  Life had been a shit show for him since the day he was born. For most of the kids he’d grown up with, actually. Their reality was a far cry from what the majority of kids and families in the United States experienced. Watching television shows or movies that depicted family life was almost like watching an alien species on a different planet. There was virtually nothing relatable about a nuclear family, about having meals together, about even having food in the cupboards. He’d never lived in a suburb, in an actual house with an actual yard. He’d not once drawn with sidewalk chalk. To this day, he’d never pushed a regular lawnmower.

  Yeah, his normal life would be just as alien to these people as their lives were to him.

  He returned to the bathroom and stripped out of his boxers. It took some doing to get himself up and over the edge of the tub, but the feel of the hot water hitting his skin made the fleeting pain he experienced more than worth it. The water rained down on him, washing away grime and dried blood. He tried not to think about the intimacy involved as he reached for the bottle of shampoo in Cam’s shower.

  His breath hitched.

  She still used Suave. It still smelled like coconut.

  There was a part of him that rebelled at the idea of being in her bathroom, of using her things. He was a stranger, after all. He felt like a voyeur, spying on and soaking in the intimate details of her life. The shampoo, the bar of soap, the small bottle of body wash that he knew had been a splurge for her to buy. The razor, a basic blue men’s one. She wouldn’t pay the pink tax for a women’s razor; he already knew that wasn’t her style.

  But another voice in his head reminded him that he wasn’t a stranger. They’d been out of touch for twelve years, but they’d spent the better part of three years glued to each other’s side. Formative years. Years that mattered.

  He soaped his body, being careful as he ran the bar over his chest. His ribs still ached but the tightness had lessened. He was sure the painkillers had helped relax the muscles, which had in turn allowed the swelling to go down. The soap was not new, the shape more oval after having been cupped in Camila’s hand. It was easy to imagine that same bar of soap gliding over her body, down her thighs, over her chest…

  His body responded immediately to the visual and he muttered a curse. This was definitely not a good place for his head to go. Not now. Probably not ever.

  He adjusted the water so the showerhead shot out ice-cold water, dousing his arousal.

  He needed to concentrate on the big picture, not on a fantasy that would never come true.

  Grabbing a towel, Alex rubbed it over his head and sighed.

  He just needed to figure out exactly what the big picture was.

  13

  Sunday, September 9th

  9:00 am

  Cam smiled at her grandmother, hoping it looked more sincere than it felt.

  She was ready to leave.

  Hell, she hadn’t even wanted to come.

  Guilt immediately pinged through her. Of course she’d wanted to visit—she always enjoyed seeing Grandma—but the timing seriously sucked.

  She should be at home.

  With Alex.

  She drew in a shaky breath. Her nerves were on fire over leaving him unattended. But it wasn’t like she had any other choice. Sundays were the day she visited Grandma. She never missed a visit, not even when she was at her busiest with work. Sure, sometimes she cut the time short, popping in for a half hour instead of an entire morning or afternoon, but she always came.

  Because Grandma would have freaked if she hadn’t. More importantly, she would have asked why.

  Cam smiled thinly. She knew exactly where she’d gotten her own dogged determination from—the elderly woman sitting across from her.

  “You are a million miles away,” her grandma commented.

  They were parked in her grandma’s studio apartment, sitting across from each other in the area designated as the living room. It had just enough space for a small love seat and a cloth-covered recliner. Grandma was propped in the chair, her legs extended, a thick afghan draped over them.

  Cam forced her smile wider and tucked her legs underneath her. She’d folded herself so she only took up one cushion on the love seat. “Sorry,” she said. “Just thinking about a case.”

  It wasn’t a lie, per se. She was thinking about Alex, who technically could turn into a case at any moment…

  “You’re here early,” her grandma said.

  Cam nodded, a little guiltily. “I have some stuff I need to get back to. But I didn’t want to let the day go by without coming to see you.”

  Her grandmother’s dark eyes narrowed. “You’ve never missed a visit.”

  “I know. I still haven’t,” she pointed out. “And I never will.”

  The old woman smiled and her eyes seemed to disappear into a sea of wrinkles. “Good girl, Camila. Always such a good girl.”

  The guilt clawed at her. Would her grandma think she was so good if she knew that she was most likely harboring a criminal in her home?

  “Where is Miguel?” Her grandma looked toward the bathroom door, which was partially closed, and then at the front door of her apartment. “Is he here?”

  “No, Grandma,” Cam said gently. “He doesn’t live around here, remember?”

  The woman’s expression clouded. “He’s at school, isn’t he?” She clucked her tongue. “That boy studies hard. Too hard, if you ask me. He should make time for his grandma.”

  A new emotion flickered to life inside Cam. “Miguel is a doctor,” she said gently. “He lives up by Red Lake. He’ll be here for Thanksgiving. You’ll see him then.”

  Grandma nodded, but she still looked confused, and Cam fought back a wave of despair.

  Her grandmother had slowly been forgetting more and more things. It h
ad been subtle stuff at first, things that made sense. She’d forget where she put something. She’d forget if she made a doctor’s appointment, if she’d remembered to take her pills. Those types of lapses had been expected. She was pushing eighty, after all.

  But she’d veered into new territory in recent months. There would be times when she would ask when Marta, her daughter and Cam’s mom, was coming over, even though she hadn’t seen her in months. She’d forget to go down to the dining hall for a meal. And she would blur the past with the present.

  Cam had talked to her doctor about this, but he’d been dismissive. Those types of memory lapses just happened, he said. At her age, it was expected. There was nothing they could do.

  Cam wondered if there was nothing they could do because there was no treatment, or if it was because state-assisted medical care didn’t deem it necessary.

  “You brought me soup?” her grandma asked. She glanced toward the refrigerator in the tiny kitchen.

  Cam nodded, grateful for the distraction and for the fact that her grandma had apparently come back to the present. “Yes, it’s in the fridge.”

  “Good.” Grandma sniffed. “Far better than the food they serve in that miserable kitchen downstairs.” Her gaze bore down on her granddaughter. “You used fresh cilantro, yes?”

  Cam nodded.

  “And white onions? None of those sweet yellow ones?”

  “I used white.”

  Another satisfied nod.

  It felt like as good a time as any to end their visit. Cam stole a quick glance at her phone, checking the time. She’d only been there for fifteen minutes, but it would have to do. She could always come back later in the week, pop in for a surprise visit. Failing that, she could simply extend her visit next Sunday. Maybe stay the whole day.

  Her grandma frowned when she stood up. “You’re leaving already?”

  “I’m sorry,” Cam told her. She shouldered her purse. “I told you it would be a short visit today.”

  She pouted.