Someday Soon

by Janelle Taylor

  Cammie twisted to look at him and caught him stuffing the tails of his shirt into his jeans.

  “What?” he asked to her look.

  “There’s something sexy about a man in jeans and a flannel shirt.” Her eyes teased him. She was loving this new freedom to say how she felt.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” she agreed, then squealed in surprise when his arms suddenly surrounded her and he dragged her to the bed. “Excuse me, sir,” she said, her hair tumbling richly around her face, a crown of reddish-brown silk. “What thoughts cross your mind?”

  “I think you know.”

  “Are they of an indecent nature?”

  “You’d better believe it,” he growled against her neck, and Cammie shrieked and giggled and pretended to fight, finally giving in with a satisfied sigh as her arms enfolded him.

  “Boat ride, schmoat ride,” she murmured.

  “It can wait…” was Ty’s muffled response, his mouth covering her uplifted lips.

  An hour and a half later, they stood on the pier near the Goosedown Inn and listened to instructions from Earl, a garrulous old fellow who was extremely leery about lending out his boat. Ty may have rented from him previously, but either he’d had a lapse of memory, or this was a regular routine with him. Either way, he eyed Cammie as if it were somehow her fault that he was in this position.

  “Libby Lou’s kinda temperamental sometimes,” Earl said, patting the hull and squinching up his face to gaze at the horizon. “You get caught out there, you gotta baby her along.”

  “The engine?” Ty questioned.

  “Nah. Just the connection, y’know? Don’t get overanxious and flood her. Treat her like a lady.” He gave a sideways glance to Cammie. “You know how to do that, right? Or, do I gotta help you there, too?” He chuckled as if he’d told the funniest joke on record.

  Ty smiled and shook Earl’s gnarled hand. The glance he sent Cammie said he’d been through this scenario several times before. For her part, Cammie had serious doubts about the seaworthiness of the Libby Lou, but Ty had assured her, the small motor boat had performed perfectly every time he’d taken it out. Earl never could quite remember who Ty was, and only when Ty reminded him that Corky from Rodeo Bob’s had introduced them did Earl seem to gather an inkling. Of course, Ty certainly looked different without the beard, but Cammie was convinced this exchange would have taken place no matter what his appearance was.

  But it didn’t matter anyway, for as soon as Ty started talking dollars and cents, Earl babbled on about what the Libby Lou could, and couldn’t, do.

  “I’ve thought about buying a boat of my own,” Ty told Cammie as he helped her step across the gunwale. “But I don’t know if I want a motor boat or a sailboat.” He inhaled deeply, sighing as Cammie clasped his hand and jumped into the boat beside him. “Of course, that’s if I intended to stick around here, and that looks like it’s in jeopardy as it is.”

  “How do people manage to be fugitives?” Cammie asked as Ty took the wheel and she cuddled her red peacoat around her in the passenger seat. Ty’s sweat pants were practically falling off her, but she didn’t care. They were warm and they were his, and that was good enough for her.

  “It’s a hell of a job,” Ty muttered. Gently, he twisted the ignition key and the Libby Lou fired up as if she’d been just waiting for the right man.

  Earl waved them away and headed back up the pier to his small marina and boat shop. He was one of the colorful locals, and Cammie realized Ty was more tied into this community than she’d first guessed. Maybe he didn’t realize how much himself, although it was obvious he dreaded the idea of pulling up stakes and finding a new place to hide.

  But maybe that wasn’t really necessary anymore. Ty had made some peace with himself. He’d written his screenplay as a catharsis, and she believed it had worked. Maybe he wasn’t ready for all the hoopla of Hollywood, but his existence might not have to be such a secret any longer. Maybe he could live happily somewhere, even if the world knew where he was and what he was doing.

  She knew his reappearance on the planet would create a minor sensation; his sudden flight ten years earlier had set up that scenario. But after the initial fuss, wouldn’t he be left alone? Or was that just wishful thinking on her part?

  “Wouldn’t you like the ‘fugitive’ part of your life to be over with?” she asked, revealing her thoughts, as Ty eased the Libby Lou from her berth.

  He gave her a look and shrugged. They’d been over it and over it. Something would have to change before any serious decisions were made about the future, and when that happened, their idyllic time together would be over.

  With expert hands, Ty guided the small boat into deeper waters, and soon they were speeding away from Bayrock and toward the Washington State shore. The stiff breeze ruffled the water into small, frothy whitecaps, but overhead the sky had turned a lovely dusky blue instead of the gray that had dogged the area since her arrival.

  “Do you know why the sky is blue?” she asked, huddling inside her jacket.

  Ty glanced her way. The wind created from their speed tossed his hair away from his forehead and made him seem even more wild and free. “Okay, I’ll bite. Why?”

  “This isn’t a joke. It’s just a little fact I learned. Light travels at different speeds through different atmospheres. Sunlight heads to earth through space which is a vacuum and therefore light travels faster through space than our atmosphere. When it hits our atmosphere—our air—it has to slow down.”

  “Okay.” Ty was enjoying this. “I’m with you so far.”

  “When it slows down, it bends. The angle it bends is relative to the speed that it slows down.”

  “Go on.”

  “Now, think of a prism. The bend of light, or refraction, through a prism creates a whole spectrum of color. But the speed of sunlight is such that when it hits our atmosphere it bends at short, or blue, wavelengths. And that’s why the sky is blue.

  “However,” Cammie continued, “when the sun is setting, the angle of refraction is different. The wavelengths grow longer and on a clear night—”

  “We see reds, oranges, and pinks!” Ty finished, catching on.

  “Very good, sir.”

  “Has anyone told you that you’re a smart girl, Cammie Pendleton?”

  “Woman,” she corrected. “I’m a smart woman. And, it’s Cammie Merrill these days, Mr. Jerry Mercer.”

  “So I read in the credits.”

  “You may just turn into a huge fan of Cherry Blossom Lane,” she said blithely. “It has quite an audience you know.”

  “Except that my favorite character just suffered an early demise.”

  “Dead, in the world of soap opera, isn’t really dead.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Cammie’s eyes crinkled at the corners. She enjoyed being with him so much, it was totally insane. She refused to think about the future and the departure that had to come. These moments were too precious to squander by worrying about the future.

  And it felt great to skim across the bay as if to outrace a pack of wolves at their heels. It just felt great to be with Ty.

  As they closed in on the Washington shore, Ty pulled back on the accelerator. They glanced across at the picturesque town in their sights. “We could dock and take a look around,” he suggested.

  “I like it right where I am.”

  He reached a hand out and caressed her knee in a familiar fashion that nevertheless sent a thrill down Cammie’s spine. “Me, too,” he admitted.

  As the afternoon wore on, they cruised around the bay, gazing at the scenery from one vantage point to another. The sky slowly darkened. Later, Cammie couldn’t remember what they’d discussed. It didn’t matter. It was all just mundane conversation meant to break the silence. The real communication was in the looks they sent each other, the cool, silky feel of the breeze, the beat of their hearts, and the musky scent of bay water. Finally, when they both felt they’d exhausted their tour, Ty
guided the Libby Lou back to shore.

  As they were tying up, Ty said, “There’s something I want to talk about with you.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s been kind of bothering me.”

  “Shoot,” Cammie said, grabbing on to his hand for support as she stepped across the gunwale to the pier.

  But Earl appeared at that moment and wanted to hear all about how his lady fair, the Libby Lou, had handled. Ty gave him a running account of the boat’s engine and how she dipped and yawed and turned and responded to the point that Cammie lost interest. While they talked at length, she turned her face in the direction of the Goosedown Inn and the soft yellow light glowing from its windows. Her teeth began chattering as if on command, and she shot a look at Ty, seeking to catch his attention.

  His gaze shifted briefly her way. Signaling that she was going inside the inn, Cammie caught his slight nod before she hurried to warmth and security. Surprisingly, the place was hopping, and she learned from the hostess of the restaurant that a tour group had chosen to make a side trip to Bayrock on their way from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Seattle. The Goosedown Inn was full to the gills.

  “What’s the story?” Ty asked, coming in to stand beside her. He smelled of fresh air and the sea, and she impulsively slipped her arm through his and burrowed close to his side.

  Her move surprised him, but he seemed pleased enough. “Tourists,” Cammie explained.

  “Aaahh…”

  “What did you want to talk to me about?”

  “Mmmm. It can wait till later.” He looked thoughtful. “How would you like to go to Rodeo Bob’s?”

  “And meet Corky?” Cammie grinned, then her smile practically fell off her face. “And Missy…”

  Ty chuckled, then threw back his head and laughed, drawing collective looks from the curious tourists who were still being seated. Realizing he was dragging undue attention to them both, Ty hustled Cammie out of the inn and down the street toward his house.

  “I’m not interested in Missy. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, come on. We’ll talk later. Right now we’re going for some western cuisine at its most—western.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Not to expect a gourmet meal,” he said humorously as he led the way to his Jeep.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Rodeo Bob’s wasn’t much to look at: a long, rectangular, red-shingled building with a thick, shake roof and only a tiny grouping of windows along one short end. Ty led the way into an anteroom, then held open saloon doors which gave way to the main restaurant and bar. A dance floor took up the whole of one end, and a Cheers-type bar divided the barnlike space in half. The floors were plank board and covered in a thin coating of something like sawdust. Upon closer inspection, Cammie realized it was peanut shells, pulverized beneath thousands of boots.

  “Wednesday night is peanut night,” Ty explained. “Free peanuts, as much as you’d like, with an order of beer or soft drinks.”

  Cammie smiled. “Interesting.”

  “Hey, this is slumming at its finest.”

  “I’m not being a snob. I like peanuts.”

  “Good. Peanut night was my idea…”

  She would have liked to retort that she’d understood he was the landlord, not part owner of the business, but Ty had spied a man with curly gray hair in the “older men’s” horseshoe, who was currently involved in a rather heated discussion with someone sitting at the bar.

  “Hey!” Ty yelled, oblivious to the mood of the discussion, which was on the verge of openly hostile.

  The man behind the bar looked up. His frown cleared upon spying Ty. “Hey, buddy!” he boomed out.

  “Corky, this is Cammie,” Ty introduced. “Cammie… Corky.”

  She shook hands with Rodeo Bob’s owner/manager, receiving a strong, enthusiastic clasp and a bright grin. “Maybe you can knock some sense into Joey, there. The bastard thinks I owe him a free drink.”

  “What for?” Ty asked, glancing at Joey.

  Joey was fifty if he was a day, and his expression was surly. “He shortchanged me last time,” was his bitten-off reply.

  Ty glanced to Corky for confirmation.

  “Yeah?” Corky demanded of Joey. “And before that, you slipped on my front mat and wrenched your knee. Tried to sue me for all I’m worth. And before that, you complained that one of my glasses was chipped and you cut your lip. I’ve been giving you free drinks for years, pal. And you know what? I’m through!”

  Joey glared at him.

  “You must be really unlucky, pal,” Ty pointed out reasonably.

  “You can both go to hell!” Joey growled, sliding his glass down the bar with enough force to send it over the bar’s rim and into the lap of another patron.

  “Hey!” the customer yelled, jumping up from his stool, fists at the ready.

  Joey pretended to be unaware as he strode quickly through the saloon doors, slamming them as hard as he could so they flew wildly in the wake of his departure, as if in a state of agitation themselves.

  “Never a dull moment,” Corky muttered, turning to the hapless customer who was staring down at his beer-soaked jeans. “Hey, pal, how about a pitcher on the house? Give the man a pitcher of whatever he’s drinking, Carl. He’s the one who deserves a free drink!”

  Carl, helping at the bar, set down a pitcher of a wheat beer in front of him. Gratefully, the beer-soaked patron sat back down on his bar stool and poured himself a frothy mugful.

  Appeasement all around.

  Ty surveyed the melee with amusement. “So, what do you think?” he whispered in Cammie’s ear. “A far cry from some of those chichi Hollywood hot spots.”

  “I wouldn’t be all that excited about getting a beer tossed in my lap,” she admitted. “But, hey, when in Rome…”

  “It’s normally not quite so ‘Wild West’ here, but there are sometimes guys like Joey, who’re more interested in chiseling than getting along, everywhere.”

  They sat down at a small table to one side of the bar. Corky came over and wisecracked with Ty awhile. They enjoyed a rapport that Cammie would have described as a “guy thing.” It pleased her for reasons she couldn’t quite analyze, though she suspected it had something to do with the fact that her ex had alienated most people, men and women alike, with hardly any effort at all. Paul’s selfishness just couldn’t be hidden for long, and only Cammie, for all the wrong reasons, had fallen for it.

  “You’ve gone all quiet on me,” Ty observed as Corky brought them a pitcher of the same burnished-gold wheat beer that the unfortunate man at the bar had ordered.

  “I was just thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “Paul,” she sighed, not really all that eager to discuss her ex.

  “Mmmmm.” Ty didn’t sound all that eager, either.

  “He didn’t really make friends. He wouldn’t know how to joke around like you and Corky do.”

  “Corky’s a good guy,” Ty said, a smile touching the corners of his mouth. “He never asks too many questions. Face value is all he needs.”

  “How did you meet?”

  Ty poured them each a mug, then took a long draught of the amber fluid. Setting his glass down, he said reflectively, “Corky had a little beer spot tucked back near the waterfront It was kind of raucous and loud. Everybody wanted it moved. Part of the problem was, it was just too small. I spent a lot of hours there when I first arrived in Bayrock. Too many.” He gave her a swift look, and she could well imagine Ty drowning himself in brewskies on a stool at the end of the bar. “I told Corky he needed to move, but there wasn’t really anywhere to go unless he built something new. That wasn’t in the cards money-wise, so I contracted this building and Corky moved in.”

  “That’s the kind of real estate you’re in? New construction?”

  “New construction, renovation, raw land…” He shrugged. I’ve gotten involved in all phases. It’s something to do.”

&nb
sp; “What are you going to do now?” she couldn’t help asking.

  “You mean since you found me?”

  “Well, yes…I guess so.”

  Ty’s lashes swept downward, and when he looked up again, his gaze was sober and intent. “I don’t want you to leave.”

  Gratified, Cammie admitted, “I don’t want to leave.”

  “Then don’t,” he said urgently. “Stay here with me.”

  The offer was darned near irresistible. “How? What would I do?”

  “You don’t have to do anything.”

  “Ty—”

  “Just share my life. Be a part of it. If that’s selfish, I don’t care. It’s what I want. The question is: is it what you Want?”

  Cammie had no answer for him. Her head felt muddled and thick, and some strange, exuberant part of herself was joyously awakening and saying, “Yes, yes, yes!” Still, she wasn’t a complete romantic. She knew better than to wrap up all her hopes and desires in someone else’s dreams. “You wanted to talk to me about something earlier,” she reminded him, needing to change the subject. “Was it something else?”

  Ty looked as if he would like to keep on pushing the issue most important to him. But he nodded and took a breath. “Well, yeah…I’ve got a few questions about us. About you, actually,” he amended.

  “Me?”

  “Cammie, we haven’t used birth control that I’m aware of. You said it doesn’t matter, that it’s taken care of. But I’d like to know…”

  She couldn’t blame him. He needed an answer. She sure as heck would want one if the situation were reversed. But she couldn’t do it. The idea of blurting out her most dire problem drove a cold spike through her heart. “It doesn’t matter,” she sidestepped hurriedly.

  “Why doesn’t it matter?” he asked, watching her carefully, almost suspiciously to Cammie’s way of thinking.

  For all her ability to talk honestly on most issues, she just couldn’t discuss her barrenness. It was too awful, too raw. She was too fragile. “I can’t…” she mumbled, suddenly feeling as if the room were too tight, the air thick and choking.