by Cindi Madsen
Since standing wasn’t possible for her—and definitely not for Cam—she dropped to her knees on the sleeping bag, and Cam lowered himself next to her.
“Hey,” he said, even though they’d been talking for hours.
“Hey,” she whispered.
For a moment, they stared at each other, then she threw her arms around him and kissed him, putting everything she had into it.
He gripped her hips and pulled her onto his lap so that she was straddling him, and then he swept his tongue inside to meet hers, taking control of the kiss. Today’s kisses had been far from sweet, and this one bordered on downright indecent…in the best possible way.
It gave her the boost she needed to reach for the bottom of his shirt. As soon as she stripped him of it, his lips moved to her neck and a pleasant shiver traveled down her spine.
Between kisses, he peeled off her shirt, and then they lost clothes a layer at a time. When they were down to just their underwear, Cam laid her back on her sleeping bag.
“You’re beautiful, you know that?”
His words warmed her from the inside out, even as she fought the urge to deny it.
“You are,” he said, and his fingertips drifted down the center of her body, over her belly button, right to the waistline of her panties, where he dragged his finger back and forth, causing an intoxicating mix of anticipation and desire. “And if you want to stop here for tonight, we can. Just tell me what you want.”
“I don’t want to stop,” she whispered, pushing up onto her elbows. “But it’s, uh, been a while. Like, since you and I…”
He cupped her cheek. “I promise it’ll be better than that time.”
“From what I remember, that time was pretty dang good.”
He chuckled and traced her lower lip with his thumb, sending her desire into need-right-now territory. “Yes, yes, it was. But still, this is going to be better. Because we’re going to remember everything.”
She couldn’t help laughing at that.
But then he crawled over her, his weight pressing into her, and the passion in his eyes made her breath catch in her throat. Several times in the past few years, she’d daydreamed that one day a guy would come into her life and sweep her off her feet. She never expected this guy, and she certainly hadn’t thought she’d land a guy who looked like Cam.
Then again, she wasn’t sure she’d landed him—she pushed that thought aside, not wanting to question this night. Maybe her one reckless night had ended with her pregnant and alone, but she liked the middle ground she’d found with Cam. He brought out her adventurous side, and he was an adventure she wanted to enjoy for as long as she could.
She raised her mouth to his, and he kissed her, thrusting his tongue into her mouth, leaving sweet far behind. She arched her body, wanting more, needing more. He’d said to tell him what she wanted, so she opened her mouth and did just that.
“I want this,” she whispered. “I want you.”
Cam covered her body with his, his weight, his kiss making it feel like the ground had fallen out from under her. And in the very moment she thought that this night couldn’t get any better, he moved his lips right next to her ear and said, “I want you, too.”
Chapter Twenty
Emma snuggled in deeper as the early morning air tried to penetrate the cozy warmth of the tent and her and Cam’s shared sleeping bag. Every place her body touched his was nice and toasty. The back half of her, kept warm only by the sleeping bag, was jealous of the front half. As it should be.
Emma’s eyelids fluttered open, and she couldn’t help taking a moment to study Cam’s peaceful face. The second she moved, though, he shot up and looked around, his eyes frantic and his hands searching for something.
Then he seemed to notice he wasn’t…her guess was in a military camp, and his muscles relaxed.
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
He glanced down at her, and a slow smile spread across his face. He leaned over her, kissed her squarely on the mouth, and then rolled, pulling her on top of him. “If one has to wake up, this is definitely the way to do it.”
She giggled and nestled closer. The mountains came alive, though, little creatures making noises, the rising sun making the east side of their tent glow. Even the rush of the waterfall seemed to grow louder, telling them it was time to wake up and start the day.
“Breakfast?” Cam asked.
Emma nodded. “And coffee.”
They scrambled to find their clothes, dressing quickly to fight the chill of the cool morning air. Cam tossed her his thick flannel jacket.
“Don’t you need this?” she asked.
He pulled a flannel button-down over his white T-shirt. “I’ve got this. It’s all I’ll need—I brought the coat just in case an unexpected storm rolled in.”
“Double flannel might be too much for me to take in on you anyway. You already look like a lumberjack right now, and I’ve gotta say, I kind of want to watch you chop down a tree.”
He let out a soft laugh and then pulled her close and kissed her. “You’ll have to settle for gathering wood this trip, since I left my ax at home, but I’ll make a note to wear flannel more often.”
She slipped his jacket over her hoodie, the warmth immediately soaking into her—the tingly flashes of heat brought on by being with Cam first thing in the morning helped quite a bit, too. He unzipped the tent, extended his hand, and they stepped into the cool morning air together.
The beauty of the mountains hit her all over again. From the sea of green trees to the blue-gray rock the rushing white water of the waterfall cut across like a ribbon to the orange rays of the sun shooting out over the ridge they’d climbed down yesterday.
Smoke filled the air as Cam lit the fire, mixing with the dewy-and-pine-fresh scent. While they waited for the pot of water to boil, he pulled her in front of him, wrapped his arms around her, and tucked his chin on the top of her head.
She gripped his wrist, wanting to hold on to him, to this perfect moment. They stood and enjoyed the view as birds chirped overhead. It was one of those scenes that almost seemed like a picture, because it was too amazing to be real.
But it was real, and that made it better than any daydream she’d ever had. She relaxed further into his embrace, twisting her head so that she could plant a kiss on Cam’s sexy lips. Then she returned her gaze to the view, smiling when he nuzzled her neck.
“I didn’t realize just how much I missed the chance to truly get away,” she said. “Worries, cares…they all seem so far away. It makes me feel a little guilty, but I’m not in a big hurry to rush back to reality.”
“You deserve a break. Especially after all you’ve had on your plate the past few years.”
She also knew that going back meant complications. It meant the town watching and adding their unsolicited opinions, the inevitable meeting she’d put off between Cam and her overly opinionated grandma, being interrupted by their little blond angel, and dealing with bills and all those things that made being an adult less fun than you imagined it’d be when you were a kid. “Let’s just move up here. Live in a tent the rest of our lives. We’ll need a fence to keep Zoey out of the water, of course.”
Cam laughed. “You think that’ll contain her?”
“For a day or two, at least. Then she’ll learn how to climb it, and we’ll never get a moment’s rest again.” She shook her head and sighed. “Okay, so maybe I didn’t totally think this through.”
Cam tightened his arms around her, and his whiskered cheek brushed the side of her face as he nipped at her ear. “We’ll escape as often as we can between tours and crazy schedules.”
She knew they were talking in dream scenarios, but she hoped that meant he was growing as attached to her as she was to him. “Deal.”
They sealed it with a kiss and then attended to the coffeepot and breakfast, shedding layers as the sun rose higher in the sky.
Once they finished eating, Cam stood and stretched, a few in
ches of his toned abdomen showing and giving her flashes of last night. His smile said he’d caught her looking.
“Want to hike out by the waterfall?” he asked. “It’s a bit steeper, but the view’s amazing, and then we could circle around until we meet up with the trail. It’ll take about an extra thirty, maybe forty minutes.”
“Sounds like an adventure.” See? Totally down with steep trails by waterfalls, skinny-dipping, and sex in a tent. All things that weren’t anywhere close to boring. Even better than that, something had definitely changed between her and Cam last night. It had been as amazing as their first night together, but the connection was deeper, more emotion behind every kiss, every touch.
Add in this morning, waking up together and the way he’d held her in his arms, and she was dangerously close to falling head over heels in love.
Together they packed up the camp, everything a little more challenging to shove into backpacks after being allowed to spread out and fill with air. Her sleeping bag wouldn’t quite go into the small bag it’d arrived in, even after she’d forced out all the air and rolled it as tightly as she could, kneeling on it as she did so.
Cam approached and motioned for her to hand it over. “Let me show you a little trick I learned in the army.” He pulled out the sleeping bag, undoing her tight roll, and then he started shoving it in the bag.
“Your trick is shoving?”
“You have to shove and expel the air at the same time. It’s practically an art form.” He shot her a sidelong glance, and one corner of his mouth kicked up. “Okay, it’s just shoving. With a lot of muscle behind it.”
She crossed her arms. “What are you saying about my muscles?”
“Have I mentioned how pretty you look this morning?”
Her mouth dropped open, and he laughed. Then he handed her the sleeping bag, all put away in the tiny case it came in, no longer bulging half out.
“You don’t talk about the army much,” she said, testing the waters, because she felt like he purposely avoided it. Everything he’d told her so far was mostly surface. He’d hinted that his job was intense, but he hadn’t come out and said it, and his expression always changed, a shadow of something—sorrow? Regret?—crossing it each time. She didn’t want to push or ruin the mood, but she wanted to better know this guy she was falling for.
Cam put on his backpack, and she thought he was going to ignore her attempt at getting him to open up about it, but as they started toward the side of the lake with the waterfall, he said, “I learned a lot of good life skills in the army, and it gave me the stability I’d never had in my life. It gave me a sense of purpose, too, and the men I served with became family…”
He held back a branch so she could pass through a narrow gap without ending up with a face full of pine needles. “Torres, one of the guys I served with the longest, might even come for a visit sometime in the near future. He and I met and were instant friends, so he’s heard me talk about Mountain Ridge for years. He emailed and said he wants to go on one of the tours once we open. I’m not sure he will, because it’s one of those things you talk about, then life happens, but if he ends up coming, you’ll have to meet him.”
“Torres?”
“Corporal Jay Torres,” Cam clarified. “He went home to Colorado to propose to his girlfriend. I told him about you, though.”
A tangle of tree roots spread out in a web across the trail, and she chose her footing carefully through the maze they made. “You did? How much did you tell him?” In two seconds flat, she’d gone from flattered Cam wanted to introduce her to scared the guy would hate her on principle.
“At first, just that I found out I had a little girl.” He glanced at her. “Actually, I also told him that I was having a hard time not thinking about you. A few days ago, he wrote and asked how it was going, and I told him that you and I were dating now. Since a couple of months ago I’d assured him that the last thing I wanted was a relationship, he made sure to add a lot of ‘I told you so’ in his return email.”
“That’s better than him saying, ‘that girl’s obviously the worst and you should dump her,’ which is what I’d expect after everything I put you through.” She didn’t love hearing him say the last thing he wanted was a relationship, either, but everything had changed—that’s what this trip proved, right?
“We’ve been over this already,” Cam said with a shake of his head. “You had your reasons. Besides, Torres wouldn’t say anything like that—he sees the good in everybody. Even me.”
Emma slowed her pace and placed her hand on Cam’s arm. “That’s because you’re a good guy. Of course he sees good in you.”
All the air seemed to deflate from him, his shoulders and head dropping. “I…I’ve made mistakes—I told you that before—but I made a really big mistake last mission, and…if it weren’t for me, one of my men would be on his way home, too. Instead he’s buried in a cemetery. That’s why I don’t talk much about the army.”
The pain in his voice sent a twinge through her chest.
“I lost my temper, and I wasn’t on guard like I should’ve been.” He started hiking faster, taking huge strides, his gaze never straying from the trail. “Gunfire erupted, and Jones—one of the soldiers in my squad—didn’t make it. For the most part, I’ve come to terms with it, but sometimes…sometimes I go down the what-if hole, and that’s when I feel lost. When I start wondering if I ran away instead of choosing my path, even though Heath and I had the lodge plan for years.”
He ducked under the branches of a tree, and she wished she could catch up and see the expression on his face instead of only having a view of his back as he moved farther out of her reach. “Maybe I should’ve signed on for another two years. But then I’d only doubt my judgment, and that’s a good way to get more people killed.”
Despite the burning in her legs, she pushed harder and faster. “I can’t pretend that I know what it’s like to go on the kind of missions you went on, or to lose a guy you obviously cared about…” Her heavy breathing made it hard to put the kind of emphasis behind her words that she wanted to. “But I think you’re being too hard on yourself.”
He stopped and turned to her. His eyes caught hers, and she wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but she hoped he found it. “I lost my temper, Emma. I let the anger blind me for just a few minutes and… I have a short fuse—you should know that about me.”
He said it as if she should be scared, almost like a warning. She closed the gap between them, ignoring her tired muscles and lack of oxygen, and gripped the sides of his waist, never breaking eye contact. “Everyone makes mistakes, and a lot of us do it in less hectic situations. We get angry; we lose our cool—it makes us human. What I know about you is that you’re a kind, patient person and a good dad. That you make me feel safe and happy, and I trust you completely.”
She’d almost added that she was also falling hard for him, but she worried it’d scare more than assure him, and it didn’t feel like the right moment. It felt like making it about her, and she didn’t want to do that after he’d confessed something that’d obviously been difficult for him to talk about.
A smile seemed worth the risk, though, and she hoped it’d help lighten the mood. “And not to brag, but I’m pretty smart, so you should listen to me.”
He cracked a smile, barely there at first, but then it caught fully and spread. She wanted him to have some kind of breakthrough where he agreed with her, but she supposed that was overly optimistic. He hugged her, though, and she hugged him back, wishing she could squeeze him tight enough to put together any broken pieces inside of him that might remain.
After lacing his fingers with hers, he started up the trail again, this time slower so she could keep pace. By the time they reached the waterfall, she was definitely ready for a break.
She snapped a few pictures of the waterfall with her phone, and then she moved the screen so that Cam was in the frame, the spraying droplets catching the sunlight behind him and creating a backdrop that
was just as breathtaking as the subject.
“Hey, no pictures,” Cam teased, and she stuck her tongue out at him. He grabbed her hand and tugged her to him. Then, like the twitterpated fool she was, she took a picture of their kiss.
When he grunted and batted at the phone, she scolded him, then forced him to pose for a picture where they were both looking at the camera.
Emma swiped her phone screen with the bottom of her shirt, clearing off the water droplets. When she looked up, she caught Cam checking her out, the way she’d done to him this morning. Happiness filled every inch of her, and she felt like she could float—which would be convenient, considering the hike home.
“It’s a bit slippery right here,” Cam said, extending his hand and helping her across the wet rocks. Her backpack was bulky and weighed plenty, but Cam had the tent in his, as well as the cast-iron skillet—not that the weight seemed to slow him down. If they were going to do this more often, she needed to get in better shape. A couple more trips, though, and she should be a pro.
As soon as they were across the rocks, they stared down at the lake they’d left, and she said a silent good-bye to the spot, hoping they would return, maybe even with Zoey.
It’d make sneaking time in the tent so she and Cam could have a repeat of last night a bit harder, but she was sure they’d find a way to work it out.
Cam draped his arm around her shoulders. “Shall we get back to our little girl?”
Our little girl. She saw days and nights with her, Cam, and Zoey, endless weeks and months of fun with the family she’d always wanted.
Just like that, she surpassed starting to fall for Cam Brantley and headed into free-falling territory.
Yep, Tom Petty was definitely playing through her head, a sure sign that she was not only falling, but also in that deliriously giddy place that she hadn’t been in…well, ever.
“Yes. Let’s go home.”
Chapter Twenty-One
