by Claire Adams
It turned my stomach to think of people getting married for that reason. At the same time, who was I to judge? But seriously, wasn’t there a limit? What would make a woman, or anyone, agree to marry someone who had repeatedly shown them they couldn’t be committed to them? Who would even go through the trouble of marrying anyone when all they wanted to do was break their marriage vows anyway? I wished them health and happiness, of course—everyone deserved that—but what thought processes got you there? Why would you bite into an apple you knew had a worm in it?
It made me think of Cameron. Not like that; I didn't think that he would try to make up for repeated bad decisions with a pricey piece of jewelry and an exorbitant divorce settlement but because this kind of thing was what he kept going on about all the time. Society and false expectations ruining people's morals and direction. Maybe the guy had been made to believe that money, gifts, jewelry, the promise of everything if he fucked up again was how he got someone to love him. Maybe the woman had been made to think that material things received from a partner were the measure of how much they loved you.
Was what he had seen so bad that he had literally run away from it? What about me? Was I guilty without even realizing it? Had I chosen my life, my job, the people I spent my time with according to some rubric that had been decided for me? I didn't know. I had no idea, and that scared me.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Cameron
It was beautiful out here, I thought, standing on the deck looking out at the back of the cabin. There hadn't been any more snow since the day before. Everything sort of looked and felt like it went to sleep when it was covered in snow. There was this added stillness, I guess. Silence. My parents and I had always gone on skiing trips when I was younger, but this was different. I was alone, and I had the distinct feeling that they wouldn’t have liked it if they had been here. My mother would have complained that the place was too small, and my dad would have complained that there was nothing else around. He and my mom had always had healthy social lives, from attending other peoples’ events to throwing their own. I had rolled out pretty far from under their trees.
Sometimes I’d think about them randomly; when I was thinking about something else, they’d just pop up. It wasn’t painful to think of them anymore, I just felt a little empty, and the memories, even the pleasant ones didn’t feel like that. They felt like a totally different time, a totally different life. I had never lost my parents before, but I had an idea how the grief thing worked. It took time.
I didn’t feel bad enough that I thought I needed a shrink. Space was usually all I needed. I got to think about everything or stop thinking about everything, whichever served my purpose at the time. I missed them. I always would probably, but that was why I was out here.
It was so quiet. Just like you knew it would be, I thought. This was what was going to happen; you knew that. What had you thought? That she'd just stay here with you?
I took a sip of my coffee and leaned against the railing. It was why you came up here anyway in the first place. Right? To be alone? My parents dying had been the catalyst for so many things that had happened these past few weeks. I wasn’t going to say the worst tragedy of my life had gotten me into bed with one of the most remarkable women I had ever met, but the first real conversation between us had been after the funeral at lunch. The only reason she had come up to talk to me at all had been because of the effect my dad’s sudden death had had on management at Porter Holdings.
Look how much had changed between us since then.
Earlier that morning, I had woken up in the bed. There had been a moment that I had sat up, expecting to hear Natalie in the cabin somewhere, or even better, find her still asleep next to me, but then I remembered.
She hasn't even been gone a full twenty-four hours, and you're already hung up on her, I thought. Did you already forget what happened when the two of you fucked?
Disaster. She had tried to leave without telling you. That was not what a person who wanted to be with you did. Whatever had happened the day after, it hadn't been enough to erase the night we had had together. For her, because she seemed to be so uncomfortable about it, I had held back the way she had wanted. Not brought the night up again and kept my distance. Now that she was gone, I couldn't stop thinking about her. Thinking about having her around, yeah, but those thoughts tended to get quickly overshadowed by the ones where I laid her out on the bed again and fucked her ‘til she screamed.
When she had still been here, it had felt kind of wrong thinking about her like that since we had agreed that that wasn't going to be the kind of relationship that we had. Nothing was stopping me now. Too bad I didn't want to stop there. I fucking missed her. Sexual frustration was easy to take care of, but it would take time before I got used to not having her around anymore. All the time I had been up here before she had shown up had almost faded from memory.
That feeling I had had when I got here the first time; that feeling of peace, of finally being in my own space, away from everything I hated? Yeah, that was gone. Something had changed. I had never thought for a second that her coming up here would have led to this. She was gone, and now was the time I was regretting not having a phone with me so I could talk to her.
I didn't know whether I had ever felt lonely before. Maybe when I had been a kid, jealous of other kids for having siblings when I didn't. Upset the times that my parents couldn't spend time with me. I had probably felt it right after they had died, that sudden separation from the two people who had anchored me in their world. I had never thought that I was the type who really wanted people around, craved company. I wasn’t; it was just one person I wanted to see. So this was what that was like, I thought. I wanted her here with me. I had come all the way out here for what, then?
You know what? The reason was getting fuzzier by the day.
I went back inside and rinsed my cup out.
Then leave, I thought absently. Nothing’s keeping you here. You really want to go be with Natalie, then do it. For a minute, I let myself think about it. Driving back to Provo, yeah, but then what? Natalie had made it clear what she was feeling and what she wanted. The only place anything between us could happen again was my dreams.
It doesn’t matter how much I think I want her, I realized. This was yet another thing that was out of my control. She was just another person I had to get used to missing. I got my keys so I could take my truck out. Staying here, I’d think myself into a never-ending spiral; I needed distraction. Trying to fell a tree in the middle of winter sounded like just the thing.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Natalie
Walking back into the office Monday morning, anyone would have thought I had been gone for a month, not just a week. It had felt like longer somehow. Making the drive from Provo to Salt Lake, again after a week of not having to make it, I had almost enjoyed myself. People I had never talked to said hi to me as I came inside and took the elevator up to my floor. Brett hadn't told me what to say in case anyone got curious, and I hadn't had the option to say I just had a baby.
Not wanting to say I had lost a relative, I had just said travel. Not a lie, and the majority of people had taken it. They had most likely just asked me where I had been to be polite, make small talk. The curious ones still hadn't gotten the truth. Not all of it. I knew the powers of workplace gossip, and I was sure Cameron wouldn't have wanted me talking about his business anyway. There had been things that had happened in that cabin that I was pretty sensitive about other people knowing on top of that.
It is good to be back, I thought sitting at my desk, staring at my computer. Yeah. I had an in-pile taller than I was to catch up on, but I had woken up in my own bed. I had gotten ready for work and come here, cursing how far away I lived. After a week of no conditioner or heating tools, I had had the chance to straighten my hair before going into work, something I had taken for granted out in the mountains where Cameron didn’t even have a hairdryer with him. I had seen all the faces I was
used to seeing and gone through the motions. It was routine. Comfortable. The life I had chosen for myself. The one I had worked to be able to have.
Or it was just the thing that I had learned to get comfortable with. Cameron would probably tell me something like that. I shook my head. He had been my only human contact for the past week, and I was still thinking about him. I had to concentrate if I wanted to put a dent in everything that I had backed up from the week before.
If you want to pine over Cameron, you can do it at home. Better yet that hour-long drive back you're going to have to take to get there from here.
Just as I was getting into the groove, there was a knock at the door. Brett walked in. Just like what had happened when he had called me when I had been at Cameron's, my throat dried out. I felt like a kid who had been caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
"Natalie," he said, smiling at me.
"Mr. Hamm."
"You're in one piece. That’s good to see."
"So was Cameron," I said, cutting right to the chase. He nodded, choosing to stand instead of taking a seat on the other side of my desk.
"It's good to have you back," he said.
"It's good to be back. I know I missed a lot."
"Mm. I hope the weather didn't get in the way of all of your plans," he said. Only the ones that it had been the most important for me to carry out, I thought.
"It wasn't the weather that did," I admitted.
"So you couldn't speak to him about it? Anything?"
"I never got that chance to say anything about the company. I couldn’t. When we talked, he wanted to talk to me about his parents. About how he grew up, the relationship he had had with them. He was still so broken about it."
"You didn't want to make it worse," he said. We had talked about his parents a few times when I had been up there with them, but that hadn’t been everything we had covered. Things like my past and family, other things we found ourselves discussing when it had been too cold to go outside; I didn’t think it was important mentioning them. What I had said to Brett was true in any case. I hadn’t wanted to talk about the business because I had thought it would have been the last thing he wanted to talk about.
"It was like he had been waiting to open up about it, and I had ended up in the right place to hear it all."
Brett smiled sadly and looked down. "He's not very talkative usually. I'm surprised he was with you."
"He just wanted to know his words were being heard by somebody," I said, shrugging. "I don't think he had really been looking for my opinion on anything."
"How's the cabin?"
"Surprisingly nice," I said. "He's very comfortable. You don't need to worry about him."
"I'm going to do that no matter where he is," he said. "That brings us to today." He paused, looking down briefly. He's about to ask for something, I thought. By then I had basically come to expect it. "You missed quite a lot when you were gone." I knew that but the way he had said it, I knew it was more and worse than what I was thinking.
"Bad news?"
"There hasn't been time or a reason to call a second meeting of the stockholders, but they have been contacting me personally. Mr. Granger and Mr. Giordano lack the patience Cameron seems to need from us at this point."
"Okay, so there's less time than we originally thought."
"Much less," he said. "Up to this point, they have had to be satisfied with what I have had to say to them. They have not heard personally from Cameron. For all they know, he could have skipped the country, changed his name, totally have no intention of ever coming back and doing his job. That’s a problem, and they’re getting restless. They want something definite, Natalie. I know as well as you that Cameron isn't going to come down here to talk to a group of irate men in suits."
"So what happens now? What are you going to tell them?"
"Since we can't count on Cameron to grace us with his presence, we need a message. He needs to come back to the present and deal with this. It's his responsibility. You and I can only do so much. He has to hear about it, learn exactly what's going on here without him and what he has to do."
"And you want me to tell him," I said, so he wouldn't have to. He had the decency to at least look apologetic about, but that didn't really make it any better.
"You did say it was a nice cabin," he quipped.
"Wait, like now? I just got back."
"Time isn't on our side, Natalie. I can understand that, but the people with the money and power to influence this company's next moves don't care. We need something from Cameron. At this point, we have to take what we can get."
"How soon?" I asked.
"Yesterday would have been ideal," he said wryly. I sighed, not bothering to hide what I felt about his little announcement. Back to the mountains, again? I had just started getting my bearings back home. I had my own mountain of work to try to get through. It didn't matter though, did it? This was partly, no, completely my own fault. I had had a week, a week, to say something, and I hadn't.
This was just what I got for trying to preserve his feelings. His and mine. Our feelings didn't matter right now though; the only things that did was the company, and the way we were going, Cameron and I were on a fast-track to ruining it.
"Later today is the best I can do. I'll need a couple days," I said, grasping for time that we didn't have.
"I'll need something by tomorrow, Natalie. If you have to call me to tell me, then do it, but it has to be something. A yes, a no, a move, any move, whatever it is he decided. We don't have a couple days." I bit my lip, wondering how the hell I was supposed to pull this off. It was already close to noon. Getting there and coming back alone under good weather conditions would take at least six hours. Stay the night then, I thought, and then come back tomorrow, and this entire mess will finally be over.
I told Brett that I would handle it. He thanked me before leaving again. I stared at my computer, feeling heavy. I had another drive up the snowy mountains to see Cameron, and that wasn't even the part that bothered me the most. I didn't want to be the one to do this to him, but what choices were there? What was left? I could have just done it when I had been meant to, and this whole morning wouldn't have even happened. All of last week wouldn't have happened either, then, I realized, thinking about it. A lot had happened, most of which I wouldn't give anything to take back. No, none of it which I would have wanted to take back.
That night... I'd never forget sitting in front of the fire with him afterward, quiet, just enjoying each other's company. If he saw me again, what would he think? He had asked me to come visit him, but he probably hadn't meant so soon after the first one. This time, he probably wouldn't be so glad to see me, and I wouldn't blame him for it.
I stood and started packing up, ready to head back home. At least this time I'd get to carry a fucking hairdryer.
The weather hadn't been too bad over the weekend, lucky me, I guessed, turning off the road onto the mountain trail. It would be a little while before I was there. I had thought while at home packing very seriously about calling the satellite phone I had left him with and talking to him like that, but had decided against it.
Why? The short answer was I wanted to see him again despite the circumstances that brought me back up here again. The longer answer was I wanted to at least let him hear this from someone he knew cared about him. I could already see where this would go. He would feel like this had been the plan all along, to get his decision about the company. He probably thought that already, even though we hadn't talked about it at all yet.
He was no fool. He knew who he was and what he meant to a lot of people, and he knew that his days up here in his little kingdom were numbered. He just wanted peace, to be separated from that even if that separation was temporary. I hated to be the one to get in the way of his alone time, but I had to be. If that was the way it was, then at least he would know that I didn't like telling him what I had to say any more than he would like hearing it.
I had pack
ed enough for one night and one day. This would not turn into another week-long staycation. With a definite timeline, I wouldn't be able to take my time out there, pretending I hadn't come to say what I had come to say. No distractions this time. No long conversations by the fire, no sitting up with hot cocoa just being with each other. None of that. Strictly business. The thought made me cringe. How had I managed to get to this place with him? What a fucking mess.
How would he react? Thinking about that occupied my mind for the rest of the steady incline up the road to Cameron's cabin. The snow looked like it had been recently plowed, probably by one of Cameron's neighbors. I had my fingers crossed for as much luck tomorrow when I would make this trip yet again.
Might as well move in at this point, I thought, finally getting to the fork in the road that meant I was almost there. It had already started getting dark. Nerves began to set in the closer I got. What did I say to him? What did I do when I saw him again? It had only been days; he would have to have some suspicions about why I was back already. If he didn’t think that the last visits weren’t because of Brett, he’d have to know that this one was. It was a fucking Monday; he’d know that the only way I would have even gotten permission to be out here would have been through Brett. He’d see right through me.
If turning back had been an option, then I would have taken it. I saw the opening in the trees to his driveway and took it, driving back onto the property. I parked next to his truck and killed the engine. Okay, how long could I wait in here before it looked weird? I opened the door and got out, walking out into the snow. I had come prepared in more than enough layers.
