“Is everything okay?” I managed to blurt before Tyler’s mom threw her arms around my neck. I looked over at Rosalie with wide eyes not understanding what was happening, but she just smiled as her own eyes filled with tears. Unsure what to do next, I stood there and let her hug me until she finally backed up and put her hands on my shoulders.
“God bless you,” she said, smiling at me. “Tyler has been so upset all week, and just a few minutes ago, he came to me and said that he was sorry for the way he acted, because there were lots of kids who had no families at all. He said he should be grateful that someone wanted to be part of his.”
“He said you were the one who talked to him,” Rosalie stated softly.
“Yes, it was me,” I told them, “although I don’t think it was the talking that won him over.” They glanced at each other and then looked at me quizzically.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Tyler’s mom expressed. I smiled and looked down at the ground before I answered.
“Well, when I agreed to take a picture at the wedding with him to make his friends jealous, he perked right up,” I explained. Rosalie started howling with laughter, and soon Tyler’s mom joined in. She hugged me one more time, told me thank you, and then excused herself to her room. I remained in the doorway in my pajamas, Rosalie still quietly chuckling.
“That was a good thing you did,” she told me. “I couldn’t be any prouder of you if you were my own daughter.” She reached out and hugged me, and then she told me goodnight. I shut the door when she left, and for the second time that day, I dissolved into tears.
Chapter Nine
Saturday morning I woke bright and early and asked Rosalie if she wanted help with breakfast, but she told me she had it under control. Instead, I dressed for an early run and headed out the front door right as Cole’s blue pickup was pulling in the driveway.
“It’s pretty early for a Saturday morning!” I called to him as he opened the truck door, stepping out wearing shorts and the University of Tennessee t-shirt he was wearing the night he rescued me from the rain.
“I thought I would move those tables back out of the way before it got too hot,” he said, sticking the keys back in the ignition and rolling his truck windows down. “You’re not crying yet today, I see.”
“Well, I’ve only been around you for a few seconds, give it time,” I told him sarcastically. He shut his truck door and leaned back, folding his arms across his chest with a smirk.
“You know, I got to thinking - that whole crying thing could have been another trick. You had me wrapped around your finger…again. Pretty suspicious.”
“Ugh, please tell me we are not going down that rabbit hole again!” I retorted with exasperation. “If I were going to play a trick, I could come up with something better than crying.” I turned and took off toward the road, and was surprised when he showed up to my left a few seconds later, matching me stride for stride.
“I didn’t say it was a trick, only that it could have been,” he explained. I glanced over at him jogging along beside me and smiled, shaking my head.
“Are you going to keep this up?” I asked. “I don’t know if I can handle a workout and an argument at the same time.”
“That depends,” he said with a smile. “How far are we going?”
“I will be going exactly one step farther than you,” I stated, picking up the pace. It only took him a few more seconds to catch me again, laughing.
“Did you just challenge me?” he asked in disbelief.
“I think I did,” I told him with a grin, “but that might be a trick too, so I would be careful if I were you.”
“How could that be a trick?” I gazed off into the trees as I jogged and gave it some thought.
“Well,” I started, “I could fall into a ditch and sprain my ankle, and then you would have to carry me back to Rosalie’s.”
“That’s a pretty good one,” he stated with a laugh.
“I could trip over a rock,” I offered. “A bird in one of those trees up ahead could launch a kamikaze attack against me. I could be bitten by a rabid squirrel.”
“I’d like to see how you pull that one off!” he exclaimed.
“We shall see,” I said mysteriously, turning onto the gravel road. I couldn’t help but notice that he took the position that would be nearest passing cars, as though protecting me. I jogged on in silence, aware that he seemed to be having no problem keeping up, even though I was going quite a bit faster than I normally would. I wasn’t sure how far he thought we were going, but I knew that I would rather jog ten miles than wimp out before he was tired, so I pushed myself to keep up that pace for as long as it took.
About ten minutes in, I dropped my speed down just a bit, afraid that I was going to give out. He kept right along beside me, not saying a word. Once I was going slower, I felt more normal and was confident that I could keep it up for a while. At about the fifteen minute mark, though, he broke his silence.
“Okay!” he said, a little breathless. “You made your point.”
I stopped running about twenty feet in front of him and turned to face him, where he was standing with his hands on his hips.
“What, you’re finished already?” I asked, teasing him.
“You’re killing me!” he laughed. “It’s too early in the morning to be breaking into a sweat.”
“But you did it so beautifully!” I continued to tease, beginning to walk towards him. He pulled the bottom corner of his t-shirt up to wipe the sweat from his forehead, and I caught enough of a glimpse of his abdomen to distract me from watching my feet. I hit some loose gravel, and before I realized what was happening I was careening sideways into the ditch. I landed on my left hip and my left shoulder, gratefully in a patch of grass instead of the rocks. When I looked up, Cole was shaking his head in disbelief.
“That was not on purpose!” I exclaimed, sitting up and rubbing at the grass stain smeared across my wrist.
“Yeah,” he said with a chuckle, “that seemed like a complete accident.”
“You shouldn’t laugh. It was your fault, practically taking your shirt off, and all that…” I pointed to the general area around his stomach and twirled my hand in a circle.
“That doesn’t make sense,” he told me, still laughing. I lifted my shirt sleeve off my left shoulder and glanced at it to make sure I wasn’t bleeding, and he reached his hand out towards me.
“You’re very distracting,” I explained, accepting his hand as he hauled me out of the ditch.
“So what you’re saying is, you were checking me out, and you fell into the ditch,” he stated, a smile tugging at his lips.
“I was not checking you out,” I protested, feeling my face grow hot.
“You were totally checking me out,” he argued with a wink, displaying one of his rip-your-heart out smiles. “Come on, I know a shortcut.”
He started down another gravel road that went off to the right, and I jogged past him. He made a loud groaning noise and then settled alongside me, keeping pace. As soon as we topped the hill, a bridge came into view in front of us. When we were almost to it, he reached over and grabbed my arm to stop me from crossing and led me down into the grass.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” was all he would reply. I followed him for a few feet until we made it to a well-worn path, and then he motioned for me to go ahead. I could hear the river gurgling by on our left and the sound of birds singing overhead. We walked on in silence for a few minutes, with the only exception being the moment when I walked into a spider web and went into momentary hysteria as Cole looked on in amusement. Pretty soon, we came upon some wooden steps leading up away from the river, and once I started up them, I recognized the back of Rosalie’s house.
“What an awesome thing to have in your back yard,” I remarked. Cole stepped up beside me and stopped, and we looked at the house together.
“Pretty cool, right?” he asked, throwing an arm around my shoulders. �
��Just for the record, I could have kept running.” I turned slightly so I could look into his eyes.
“Really? Cause I was just getting started.” I winked at him before I took off toward the house, leaving him standing there behind me. Bounding up the back steps into the house, I went straight into the kitchen, where Rosalie was finishing breakfast preparations. I searched in the cabinet for two plastic cups, filled them with water, and then grabbed two bananas.
“Two cups?” Rosalie asked as she fluffed her scrambled eggs.
“Yep,” I replied, and she gave me a knowing look.
“That boy’s been over here more this week than he has in the last month,” she told me. “I can’t imagine why.”
“Neither can I,” I said with a grin, turning to head out the back door. I walked around to the side of the house where the tables were, finding Cole on his back in the grass under the shade of a tree.
“Worn out?” I asked, prompting him to sit up and jump back to his feet.
“Nope.” He took one of the cups from me with a thank you and sat down at the nearest table. I offered him a banana, and he took it with a laugh, stating that he could smell bacon and eggs and all I brought him was a piece of fruit. I told him I would take it back, but he insisted he was teasing.
After a few minutes, he went to work putting away the tables, and I helped him as best I could. I might have been his match in running stamina, but he blew me away in the strength department. For the most part, I folded up chairs and carried them to the barn while he carted off the heavy tables. When we were finished, I started to head back to the house when he asked me what I was going to do that day.
“Probably write for a while,” I said.
“Right,” he mumbled, looking down at the ground for a minute. “Maybe later I could take you out for lunch?”
Ah! He is finally asking me out again! And of course it has to be the same time I promised to go to the wedding. Boo!
“I would love that, Cole, but I already told Tyler I would go to the wedding with him.”
“Yeah, okay,” he stated, running a hand through the front of his black hair. “I don’t know what I was thinking anyway. You are…completely exasperating. Just when I convince myself that I can overlook certain things, because I like you, I really do, something else pops up to remind me to steer clear of you. You know, yesterday, this morning, I felt like maybe there really was something…and then, boom! You’re going to a wedding with some random guy. But it’s fine. It’s fine.”
My first instinct was to say something rude to him, but I remembered my promise to myself from the day before, that I wouldn’t lash out at him again.
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Cole,” I muttered, biting my lip.
“Why?” he asked. “Don’t apologize to me for how I feel, that’s ridiculous. You don’t owe me anything, anyway. Go out with every guy in the county, what difference should it make to me?”
“Okay,” I said with a sigh, heading towards the back steps and turning at the bottom to look at him. “But just so you have all the facts, Tyler is not some random guy. He’s a twelve year old boy who is having a problem with his mom getting married today, and if me agreeing to go to the wedding means he will have the courage to stand at the front of the church next to his new stepdad, then I’m sorry if you can’t overlook it.”
I didn’t bother to wait for his reaction. I just turned back to the steps, silently walked into the house, made my way to my bedroom, and shut myself in. Grabbing my laptop and sitting on the bed, I was determined to think about the book instead of my miserable life for a few minutes.
Concentrate on Willa. She has made it to Tennessee. What does she do now? Think, Camdyn, think.
What did he mean, overlook certain things?
He means the proposals, of course. What else could he mean?
And why should I have to take responsibility for someone else’s actions?
Unless he thinks it is all my fault – which he does, of course. That’s why he keeps accusing me of planning things to trick him.
He probably sees that girl who rejected his proposal every time he looks at me. How completely unfair is that comparison?
But this isn’t about me, it’s about Willa. She’s in Tennessee. Somehow she meets up with Robert. I bet he didn’t accuse her of planning a trick.
Ugh!
I put my face in my pillow and pounded against it with my fist, stifling the urge to scream. When I finally succeeded in calming myself down, I sat back up and looked at the last few words I had written about Willa, looking for any kind of inspiration.
-§-
After a few hours had passed with me glued to my laptop, I heard a knock on the door, and Rosalie came in wearing a deep blue dress and looking concerned. When I asked her what was wrong, she told me she couldn’t get her hair right and asked if I would help her. I followed her to her bedroom, where I grabbed a couple bobby pins and went to work. I definitely was not meant to be a hairdresser, but I was able to work her hair into a reasonably good updo within a few minutes. I curled a couple of pieces towards the front, and then stood back to have a last look.
“There,” I said, “you look beautiful.”
“That’s a word I don’t hear very often!” she exclaimed, having a look herself.
“Well, if that’s true, that makes me sad,” I told her. “I will say it again – you look beautiful.”
“Thank you honey,” she replied, taking both my hands. “You better get ready yourself.”
“I know! I guess I lost track of time. It probably wouldn’t do to go to a wedding wearing jogging shorts.”
“I would think not!” she laughed. “Is everything okay? Cole was upset earlier. He told me he needed to talk to you, but I told him to leave you alone for a while.”
“Everything is fine, no worries. I better go hop in the shower.”
“Okay, I will see you at the church then,” she stated, hurrying back into the kitchen to gather up some last supplies for her cake.
As soon as she was out the door, I started running the shower. Immediately after taking off my t-shirt, I noticed a bruise on the upper part of my left arm. Knowing that it had to be from falling during my run that morning, I quickly peeled off my shorts and checked my left thigh to find that it was also turning a shade of purple.
“Great,” I whispered to myself as I climbed into the shower. The only thing worse than knowing I was clumsy had to be having painful visual blemishes as a reminder. I quickly squeezed some shampoo into my hand and began working it through my hair.
Who falls into a ditch, anyway? Only you would do that, Camdyn.
It wasn’t my fault that the rocks slipped under my feet, though. That could happen to anybody.
But it wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t gawking at your dreamy jogging partner and his tight abdominal muscles beneath that t-shirt.
Ugh! Why do you always have to be such a mess???
I hurriedly finished my shower and began drying my hair. After several minutes, I gave up and went to applying some light makeup. I went through the things I had hanging in the closet and decided on an emerald green sleeveless dress with a drape neck and tiny belt in a length that hit just above my knees. Once dressed, I went back to my hair to finish the drying process. When I was finally satisfied that it was dry enough, I looked as though I had stuck my finger in an electric socket, my hair was so big. After several minutes of working with it, along with several strategically placed bobby pins holding a significant portion of it back, I decided that was the best I could do.
I grabbed some gold strappy heels and my keys, and I headed out the door, making it to the church a full twenty minutes before the wedding was set to start I snuck in the back door to find Rosalie putting the final sugar flowers on her cake.
“Looks perfect,” I told her as I walked up behind her. She carefully positioned a sugar flower on top, and then turned to look at me.
“My word, Camdyn!” she exclaimed. “
You look absolutely stunning.”
“Thank you,” I said quietly. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen Tyler?”
“He was with his mom earlier. He’s been looking for you, so I’m sure he won’t be hard to find.”
Rosalie was absolutely right. As soon as I entered the church sanctuary, Tyler was waiting for me. He looked so cute in his black suit and tie, chatting with a couple of his friends. I watched as it looked like he was making his apologies for leaving them, and then he pointed at me, and their eyes grew wide. As he started walking toward me, a huge grin spread across his face.
“Okay, that was awesome!” he whispered when he got near. “I told those guys I had to go, my date was here, and then they just looked at you and said, ‘Whoa!’”
“I thought we agreed this wasn’t a date,” I told him quietly, trying not to giggle at his excitement.
“I know, I know, but I couldn’t resist. My mom wants to talk to you.” He held his arm out like a gentleman, and I took it and followed him to where his mom was getting ready. He knocked on the door, and when the maid of honor opened it, he pointed to me. She opened the door wide and motioned for me to come in, and Tyler followed.
“Camdyn!” Tyler’s mom said when she saw me. “You have done so much for us already, but I was hoping you would do me a favor.”
“Of course,” I said.
“We are leaving right after the reception to get on a plane, and Tyler is going to be spending a few days with a friend. We had everything worked out so he could leave with that friend from baseball practice tonight, but we forgot to think about how he would get there. I don’t suppose you could take Tyler to his baseball practice? All you would have to do is drop him off.”
“I’d be happy to do that,” I told her.
“Oh, thank you so much! I will just leave him to you after the reception then, if that’s okay.”
“That’s perfectly fine,” I stated, smiling back at her beaming face. Tyler and I then went back to the door and exited the room, heading back toward the sanctuary.
A Reason to Run (The Camdyn Series Book 1) Page 12
