My whole life he’d shown me nothing but the very best of kindness and care, and this was my response.
Once again, my fear was going to cost me.
The pressure in my chest burst into a hurricane of shame and guilt. My mouth opened to offer some sort of apology—some sort of explanation. Anything.
But there was nothing.
But there was nothing left inside me.
A choked cry bubbled up out of my lips as I covered my mouth and darted behind the counter, fleeing for the back room and the back door.
As I stumbled outside, the salty ocean air finally made its way into my lungs just as the rest of my vision blurred into equally salty wells of tears.
Covering my mouth to muffle my sobs, I fell to my knees.
“Cambria!”
My mom’s arms came around me, and she held me as I sobbed.
I cried violently, as though I could retch up my stomach, my lungs, my heart… all the organs that had failed me. All the pieces of me that had failed to scream or push back. All the broken bits that had been too paralyzed to take a stand against my attacker.
Several minutes later, as the quakes in my body began to subside, I felt my mom shaking through the wreckage.
More guilt drained in through all my cracks.
“I’m… so… sorry.”
“Oh, honey,” my mom pleaded. “What is going on? I’m so afraid. Please, tell me what’s wrong.”
I didn’t want to, but I knew I would.
My mother had always been one of my best friends. I’d told her everything. From every detail about what happened in school, to my impossible crush on the school’s golden boy, Bennett Covington, to the first time he’d kissed me, and I’d needed to know if shooting stars inside my stomach was normal.
Whether it was boys or the bakery or my dreams, I told it all to her. Every piece of my life, even when I left to go to school, had been an open book.
Until that day, when the book was sealed shut.
There were so many reasons I’d wanted to keep this from her. Many of which stemmed from guilt and shame of what had happened.
Over how I’d let it happen.
But the biggest reason was I’d hoped that moving home would fix me. I thought that being around my family and my town would make things better. But all it had done was remind me that I wasn’t whole… that there were traumas too great for even the caring Carmel Cove to fix.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I murmured, numbly staring down at the space between us because I couldn’t raise my eyes to meet hers. “I…I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I just wanted…” I swallowed hard. “I just wanted to protect you, but I see now that no matter what I do, this is going to hurt you.”
“Honey, Cambria, what is it? You can tell me.” Her thumbs wiped tears from my cheeks and I could feel the soft trail of flour that was being left over them. “You can tell me anything. I’ll always be here for you.”
I couldn’t nod. I could only duck my head farther.
“During my licensing exam, the man I was… working on…” I shuddered. “He raped me, Momma.” The last came out in the thinnest whisper. “And I didn’t stop him.”
She flinched like I’d shot her, and the recoil in my heart told me I had.
I’d shot through her happiness and the brightest of hopes she’d had for me. I’d shot through the balloon of pride that had lifted me higher and higher in her esteem all these years.
I’d shot through our reality, confessing to the unhealable wound I’d returned with. The one that had slowly and steadily been bleeding out my heart.
“Oh, God, Cammie. Oh, no. No, no, no.”
There wasn’t even a split-second between my confession and the moment when she pulled me against her chest, pulled me—a grown woman—into her lap in the middle of our parking pad in the back and held me like I was a child.
“I didn’t do anything, Mom,” I repeated. “I didn’t try to stop him. I didn’t scream. I didn’t… I didn’t even report him.”
I’d confessed a thousand mistakes of mine over the years. I’d never been the one to try to cover it up and hope it wouldn’t be found out.
One time, I’d been over at Ocean Roasters to get a hot chocolate, and while I was waiting, I accidentally knocked over the pastry stand on their counter. Before Larry could even come back with my drink, I’d already bolted down the street to confess to my mom, who walked back up with me to apologize to Larry, himself. Another time, I’d wanted to go get ice cream on the beach with my friends, but my mom said no because they were older and there wasn’t a chaperone, so I lied and told her I was going home to study instead. I made it halfway to the beach before I turned back for the bakery and approached her in tears, confessing what I’d been about to do.
I didn’t know if I was just naturally this way, or only when it came to her. Maybe because she’d raised me on her own. Maybe because she worked so hard so I wouldn’t have to sacrifice. But there was something that wouldn’t let me disappoint her in that way.
And now, I felt like I finally had.
“I have my license, Momma.” It was the last truth I had left to tell her. “I’ve had it for weeks now, but I couldn’t tell you because I don’t know that I can—” I broke off and shook my head as I wiped my nose. “I don’t think I can do it; I don’t think I can work at the spa. Not like this… not anymore.”
As the words came out, I knew that this part was the worst. Knowing what he’d taken from me was one thing. But having to admit that it wasn’t over was another.
That he was still stealing from me.
My security.
My sanity.
My future.
Another wave of sobs bubbled up and I blurted, “I’m so sorry, Momma. It’s my—”
“Cambria Grace Mariano.” She tugged me back harshly, so I had no choice but to look at her.
Her face was red and raw, layered with tears that only a mother could cry—the ones that come from knowing your child was hurt beyond measure and there was nothing you could do about it. That she hadn’t been able to protect me.
“Don’t you ever apologize,” she commanded with a watery version of a tone I knew better than to disobey. “You hear me? Whether or not I know all the details. Whether or not I know the exact circumstance, if there is one thing I do know, it’s that this isn’t your fault.”
I wanted to believe her. More than anything. I’d never once doubted a single thing she’d ever said to me.
Never once.
Until now.
Rock bottom would have been a manageable place to start from. At least there, I would’ve had something solid to stand on. But where I was, there was nothing solid. No firm foundation to build toward healing.
There was only a thread, thinner than dental floss, that held me prisoner.
“I need help, Momma,” I admitted brokenly, the words pulling off the very last Band-Aid I’d slapped on top to try to cover up the bullet hole in my chest.
I’d thought I could do this on my own. I’d thought some time and plenty of distance would be enough to let me put myself back to rights.
But there was no right after this.
“I may not know what happens now, I may not know how we are going to get through this, but we will.” She tipped my chin up to her. “You hear me, Cambria?” I could hear her trying to be strong for me. “You are going to get through this. You are going to be okay because you are strong.”
She pulled me tighter and rocked me against her.
“We’re going to get through this, honey. Together. It’s all going to be okay.”
She layered promise on top of promise and each one felt like they were dandelion petals blowing away in the wind. Far-flung wishes for something so unlikely to come true.
As she spoke, I realized just how gaping and deep the wound really went.
And of all the things he’d taken, this was the worst. The broken pieces of my heart crumbled into the finest dust the moment I realized he
’d taken my ability to believe my own mother, the only person I’d never doubted.
And in that moment, I’d never felt so hopeless.
When I finally disentangled from my mom’s embrace several minutes later, I looked up and saw that Larry was standing there—had been standing there—the entire time.
I didn’t know what time it was, but I knew he was either late to the meeting or had completely missed it altogether in order to stay here and make sure I was okay.
I wanted to thank him. I wanted to hug him.
Such a simple thing I’d done as many times as I’d breathed during my lifetime, only now, a hug might as well have been a walk through fire for how my body completely revolted against it.
Embarrassment dripped over me, but he had a right to know. I wanted him to know, too. And if there was anyone else in my hometown who would know what to do and how to help, it would be Larry.
As my mom and I stood, he took a few cautious steps toward us, the strain on his face making him look his eighty-odd years.
Whatever was weighing on him, I knew hearing my confession had added to it.
“I’m so sorry,” I murmured quietly as I approached him.
It wasn’t right—it wasn’t fair to lay this on him, but I knew he wouldn’t have it any other way.
It’s Larry. It’s just Larry.
I repeated the thought over and over again in my head as I extended one hand, my fingers shaking as they searched for comfort and forgiveness from his.
I saw the slight shake in his shoulders and his trademark clearing of his throat. I’d only seen Larry Ocean cry three times in my life: his son’s funeral, his wife’s funeral, and the day his granddaughter, Laurel, left Carmel Cove and didn’t look back.
He reached for my hand, and I used every ounce of strength not to recoil at the touch.
It’s just Larry. Breathe. Just Larry…
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered again.
Sorry for hurting you. Sorry for burdening you. Sorry for not being stronger. Sorry for not fighting back.
The list of sorries was as endless as the sea.
Those aged eyes, weathered with war and loss, trials and triumphs, hardened like steel on mine as his arthritic fingers tightened ever so slightly around my fingers.
“Cambria, you’re here now. You’re safe. That’s what matters, alright?” The question was rhetorical; he was that sure. “You start right here, from this moment. You start right where you are, you use what you have—who you have to lean on, and you do what you can.”
The lump in the back of my throat inflated like an emotional balloon.
A thousand times I’d heard him say that. A thousand times to a thousand people who desperately needed to hear it.
Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.
I never thought I’d be one of those people.
The squeeze of his fingers brought me back to the moment.
“You do what you can,” he repeated, hoarsely. “And you never… never… stop fightin’ for yourself, you hear?” He shook my hand, his words worming their way through all the broken pieces inside me and settling like seeds in ashen soil. “You never stop fightin’. I want you to promise me.”
I wanted to tell him I didn’t know how to fight. If I did, I wouldn’t be where I was. I wanted to tell him I couldn’t make the promise because I didn’t want to break it.
But that was the thing about Larry Ocean—he never asked of you something he knew you couldn’t give.
“I promise.” Maybe if Larry believed I could, it would be enough.
Swallowing and blinking back tears, my gaze slid over to my mom who’d come up behind me and put an arm around my shoulder.
“I’m leavin’ here to call in a favor,” Larry said to her. “Shelly’s the only one I’d trust for this, and I know once I speak to her, she’ll be here by the end of the week, and we’ll get this sorted. We’ll get through this.”
He kept saying ‘we.’ And for the first time, I didn’t feel alone.
I didn’t see it, but I felt my mother’s grave nod as she pulled me tighter and murmured her thanks.
“You’re not alone, Cambria. Not here. Not anymore.”
My head tipped down.
Only time would tell if it would ever truly rise back up again.
Have you caught up on the other standalones in the Carmel Cove series? Laurel and Eli’s enemies to lovers story, BEHOLDEN, starts off this small-town series. Then, in BESPOKEN, love blooms from opposites sides of the track for Jules and Mick.
And if you’ve already devoured those, there’s also Ash and Taylor’s book, REDEMPTION! This emotional, surprise pregnancy romance is set in Carmel, but takes place before the events of the Carmel Cove series. It can be read as a complete standalone.
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Standalones
Reputation
Redemption
Revolution: A Driven World Novel
Hypothetically
Carmel Cove Series
Beholden
Bespoken
Besotted
Befallen
Beloved
Covington Security Series
Betrayed
The Sacred Duet
The Gargoyle and the Gypsy
The Odyssey Duet
The Fall of Troy
The Judgment of Paris
Country Love Collection
Tequila
Ready to Run
Fastest Girl in Town
Last Name
I’ll Be Your Santa Tonight
Michigan for the Winter
Remember Arizona
Winter Games Series
Up in the Air
On the Edge
Enjoy the Ride
In Too Deep
Over the Top
The Gentlemen’s Guild Series
The Artist’s Touch
The Sculptor’s Seduction
The Painter’s Passion
The Passion & Perseverance Trilogy
(A Pride and Prejudice Retelling)
First Impressions
Second Chances
Third Time is the Charm
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To Mr. GQ—Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gave us a fairy tale.
To Najla—Thank you for working with me until we got this one perfect!
To Ellie, Rosa, and Stacey—You ladies are the wizards behind the screen, making my words sparkle and shine! Thank you for everything you do!
To all the Bloggers—Thank you for everything that you do! You never cease to amaze me.
To my Readers—Thank you for coming back to this town with me time and again, losing yourself in a story setting so many of us would love to call home.
Rebecca Sharp is a contemporary romance author of over 30 published novels and dentist living in PA with her amazing husband, affectionately referred to as Mr. GQ.
She writes a wide variety contemporary romance. From new adult to extreme sports romance, forbidden romance to romantic comedies, her books will always give you strong heroines, hot alphas, unique love stories, and always a happily ever after. When she’s not writing or seeing patients, she loves to travel with her husband, snowboard, and cook.
She loves to hear from readers. You can find her on Facebook, Instagram, and Goodreads. And of, course, you can email her directly at [email protected].
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Happy reading!
xx
Rebecca
Besotted: An Enemies-to-Lovers Small-town Romance (Carmel Cove Book 3) Page 32
