by DJ Jamison
So, yeah, a bit of temper was only fair. Because once again, karma had screwed me.
Chapter 20
Camden
I pulled up to Reid’s house, dressed in faded blue jean shorts and a tank. I wasn't going for professionalism, unless it was professional handyman. We still had work to do, and I couldn’t afford to let my reluctance to cut Reid’s ties to town keep me from doing the job at hand. I needed the payday.
Given the awkward distance between us, I wasn’t sure I had anything to hold onto anyway. Days had gone by with us exchanging only the briefest of greetings. We spoke just enough to work together, but we didn’t discuss the argument.
Every time Reid looked at me, I could see a thousand words in his eyes but nothing came out of his mouth.
I thought about apologizing more sincerely. I’d learned something about his family that I knew might interest him and I hadn’t told him. And he was right, mostly it was for selfish reasons. I didn’t want to risk losing Ivy Lane, when it was the only thing I had going right now. But I wasn’t lying when I said I had a lot on my plate. I was distracted by a lot of things, not least of which was starting some sort of short-term relationship with Reid that I’d probably leapt into far too quickly.
I hadn’t wanted to interrupt the lovely dream that was Reid kissing me and holding me close with something as drab as real life. But inevitably, real life had intruded anyway.
Reid hadn’t apologized either, though his soft gaze seemed to say it was sorry every time it grazed over me. Needless to say, we hadn’t touched or otherwise been intimate since the day Sherrilyn interrupted our grind against the wall. Maybe it was for the best, though. Reid would be leaving, and I was already too attached to him.
Focus on the work, Cam. Get to that payday you need.
I popped out of my car, grabbed my (Miguel's) toolbox from the back and started up the walk. I didn't see Reid’s car, but he usually kept it in the garage so that wasn’t unusual. But I did see a rundown junker at the curb, still idling judging by the rough engine sounds I could hear.
Weird. I’d been here enough to recognize all the cars regularly in the neighborhood. I’d never seen this one before, and given what I knew about Reid and Lee being in hiding, I slowed down and looked around.
The sun was bright in the sky with clouds that looked like puffs of cotton. A glance down the block showed old two-story houses in various stages of deterioration. This was an area of town in need of some TLC. For every house with new siding and windows, there were two others with peeling paint and sagging porches.
A few cars were parked along the street; there were no driveways in this historic neighborhood where the homes were build on a slight incline and retaining walls separated the yards from the sidewalks below. But it was the middle of a workday, so it was pretty quiet.
Nothing said "sinister," but seeing that car had the hairs raising on the back of my neck. I sat down the toolbox and tugged my phone from my back pocket. I texted Reid.
Strange car at your house?
His response was instantaneous.
Don't stay there! Get away NOW
Oh shit. The reality of the danger hit me, and I nearly pissed myself. I jogged halfway to the car, then hesitated when I realized I'd left the tools in the middle of the sidewalk.
A figure rounded the house from the back and my heart lurched. For a moment, I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. I was sure this was how it felt at the moment of death.
Then the curly blond hair and stout shape of a sturdy woman snapped into place.
Sherrilyn! It was Sherrilyn, the pushy Realtor. Sherrilyn, the widow of Aaron Winters. Someone familiar, not a dangerous killer after Lee.
Relief washed through me, followed by concern. Sherrilyn’s presence didn't explain the strange car. She always drove a Porsche, and this was a junked-out Chevy with rust eating through the paint and a large crack in the windshield. No way Sherrilyn would drive a junker like that even on her day off.
“Sherrilyn,” I hissed. I didn’t want to call out too loudly, still all too aware that dangerous men might lurk inside the house. Sherrilyn, unaware of the danger, cut through the yard right in front of the windows.
She didn’t even look at me.
“Sherrilyn,” I tried again, waving my hand to get her attention. My eyes darted from her to the windows behind her, but I couldn’t see any sign of movement inside. That didn’t mean no one was there, though. I just knew that any moment the door was going to swing open to reveal ... well, I didn't know exactly what. A bad guy with a gun? Would he shoot someone on the street in broad daylight? Probably not. Right?
Sherrilyn was acting so strange. She should have noticed me. I was in her direct line of vision, but her eyes skimmed right past me as if I wasn’t there. She cut across the grass and directly to the junker parked at the curb. What the hell was she doing?
"Sherrilyn!” I called a bit louder.
It was when she opened the car door that pieces started coming together. Her hair was wild, not its usually hair sprayed-into-concrete state. She wore jeans and a ratty T-shirt instead of her Realtor uniform of a lady’s dress suit.
And she was driving that junker of a car.
“Where’s your Porsche?” I whispered to myself as I watched her start up the engine and drive down the street. Not for one moment had she acknowledged my presence.
I stood frozen on the street, my heart still beating hard as I watched her drive away. It took a few beats before I turned back to the house with a new realization.
If Sherrilyn’s the driver of that car, then …
There was no bad guy waiting inside to kill Reid and Lee.
Oh, thank God.
With legs feeling like jelly and pulse just beginning to return to a normal speed, I returned to the sidewalk in front of the house and picked up the toolbox.
Which is when I saw smoke rising above the back of the house.
***
Reid
I slammed the gas pedal down the second Lee buckled in, and he swore and grabbed the “oh shit” handle over his head.
“What the fuck?”
“Camden texted me about a strange car at the house.”
Lee gasped, and when I glanced over all color had drained from his face. “Oh my God! We can’t go there! They’ll kill me, Reid. Shit. Shit! I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry, but you can’t take me there … please! I know I fucked up, but—”
“What do you mean you fucked up?” I asked.
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I knew even before he answered. The memory came to me in a flash, so clear I felt like an idiot for not being more suspicious when it happened. My phone going missing in the car after we’d been dancing. Lee “finding” it and handing it over. Jesus, I’d been so stupid.
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
“You used my phone, didn’t you? Who did you call?”
“Fuck, I didn’t think—”
“Who. Did. You. Call?”
He lapsed into Vietnamese, a language that sounded more like music than words to my ears, and this music was panicked and regretful. I caught snippets of words, but they had no meaning to me. Xin loi and mè and giêt.
I grabbed his shoulder and shook hard. I had no time for hysterics. I wasn’t going to walk Lee into a firing squad, but Camden’s life could be at stake. It was my job to put Lee’s life first, to get him as far away from a threat as fast as I could. But for the first time in my life, I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t leave Camden to pay the price for Lee’s mistake.
“Who? Speak English!” I tightened my grip on Lee’s shoulder and he cut off abruptly. “Lee, come on. Calm down.”
“My mother,” he said brokenly. “I called my mother.”
Oh, goddamn it. Camden’s life was in danger. We’d been discovered. And why? Because a boy missed his mother. And I had a piece of the blame, too. I’d called my mother and spoken to her in front of Lee without thinking of how it would affect him. I�
��d been too caught up in my feelings for Camden to question my phone’s disappearing act and Lee’s finding of it.
I’d fucked up on the job. Again.
“What if they hurt her?” Lee asked. “What if they killed her?”
I shook my head, concentrating on the road. I’d drop off Lee at a safe distance, and then I’d continue on to the house and hope to hell I wasn’t too late for Camden.
“Check my phone. See if there's anything new from Cam.”
He tapped around, then bounced in his seat. “There’s two messages!” He gasped. “Oh my God!”
“What?”
“He texted to say the strange car belonged to Sherrilyn. They didn’t find us. Oh, shit. That was fucking terrifying.”
“No, shit. That’s why you don’t make calls to people you know—”
The phone buzzed in his hand. I glanced over just as his smile vanished. “Fuck’s sake. Can’t we catch a break?”
“What now?” I asked, taking a turn so fast Lee slid sideways and our shoulders bumped. He grabbed the bar over the door and pulled himself back into his seat.
“The fucking house is on fire.”
“You better not be yanking my chain. I’m still buzzing with adrenaline here, and I’m still pissed at you.”
“I’m not!” He brandished the phone at my face, which I couldn’t read because I was driving. But as I rounded the last turn onto Ivy, I didn’t need to hear his answer. I could see the smoke cloud from the end of the street, and I could hear the sirens of fire trucks approaching behind me.
I pulled over to the curb far enough down the street I wouldn’t be in the way of firefighters. Neighbors milled across the street, lining the sidewalk to watch the heavy smoke rolling off the house. I couldn’t see any flames from here, but that amount of smoke didn’t bode well.
While I was relieved the strange car was Sherrilyn’s and I was facing a fire instead of a firefight, I kept a sharp eye on our surroundings. This could still be the work of the Dragon Boyz, though it didn’t seem like their style. A drive-by shooting would be more their MO than setting a fire when no one was home.
Still, the smart move would be to get Lee out of here, just in case. But I could see Camden across the street, hands clutching his hair as he watched the fire crews go to work. After the scare I’d just had, I needed to see him. Touch him. Comfort him, but also myself.
“Stick close to me,” I told Lee. “Just in case …”
His eyes widened. “You think it was them?”
“Not really, but you never know,” I said.
I jogged down the street, Lee at my heels, and crushed Camden in a hug when I reached him. “You okay?”
He nodded his head against my shoulder, and I squeezed him tighter than the situation warranted. He was safe. The house might be burning, but my Camden was in one piece.
I pulled back to say something comforting, and Camden’s shell-shocked eyes met mine.
“I’m never going to sell this house, am I?” He looked across the street, where high-powered hoses sprayed arcs of water over the house. “Fuck!”
He dropped into a crouch, clutching his head in his hands as he watched his hopes go up in flames. I knew Camden needed this sale, but I was still too relieved Camden was okay to be upset about the house.
I lowered myself to a crouch in front of him and cupped his face.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But the important thing is you’re okay. We’re all okay.”
Camden nodded, his expression dazed. “Right.”
“Christ, Cam, I thought you might be in danger,” I said, a shake in my voice that surprised me. His eyes focused in on me for the first time since I arrived. “That strange car. I really thought …”
“I’m safe,” he said.
I kissed him. I didn’t give a fuck who was watching. I didn’t care about my cover. With Lee’s indiscrete phone call, we’d have to relocate anyway. That tore me up, too, because the last thing I wanted to do was leave this man behind.
“You’ll still sell this house,” I said when I pulled back. “Insurance will cover repairs, and then it’ll be back on the market. Hell, maybe we’ll even get a new kitchen out of it.”
He gave a watery laugh, and his smile — weak as it was — lit up my insides.
We stood up and his gaze took in the state of the house. The flames were doused, but the firefighters were still hard at work, ensuring each and every ember was out and no more hot spots remained. They’d broken several windows, and no doubt what the fire hadn’t touched, water and smoke would have ruined.
“Let me know what you find out from insurance. Until then, I guess my work here is done.”
It felt strangely like a goodbye. He moved to step around me, and I caught his arm.
“Camden, wait. Just because the house is in limbo doesn’t mean we are. I know we had that little spat, and I was an asshole. I’m sorry.”
In the back of my mind, I also knew I’d have to take Lee away from here until his trial. No one from the gang had shown up here yet, but that didn’t ensure they wouldn’t. Not after he’d called his mother. If she told anyone where he was, or if anyone overheard her conversation …
I should let Camden tell me goodbye. But for some reason, I couldn’t. Not without some assurance he’d be waiting when I returned.
“Don’t worry about it,” Cam said. “You were right. I should have told you as soon I knew. I’m sorry too.”
“Good, so, don’t worry okay? I’ll make sure you’re okay. You can count on me.”
He hesitated, before kissing me on the cheek. “Thank you, Reid, but I’ve put my faith in men before. It’s time I counted on myself.”
“I know, but—”
“Besides,” he interrupted, nodding toward Lee. “You have another person relying on you. I’ll have to wait my turn.”
I watched him walk to his car with an ache in my heart. But I was proud of him too. Camden was stronger than he looked. Blow after blow, he stood tall and kept climbing that hill. Someday, he’d reach the top and look down at everything he’d accomplished. I really believed that.
I hope he did, too.
Chapter 21
Camden
Miguel and Jeremy stared as I walked in. They’d been cuddled on the sofa, watching a movie together. It was the most at peace I’d seen them since I’d barged in. I’d probably feel bad for interrupting if I could feel anything at all. I was still numb.
“What the hell happened to you?” Jeremy asked.
“Jesus, Cam, you smell like a campfire!” Miguel leapt up and threw an arm around me. “Are you okay?”
At their words, I became aware of how hot and grimy I was after standing in the heat and smoke for more than an hour while I watched my best chance for a career burn to the ground.
I laughed, aware I sounded a bit cracked. “Yeah, no. I’m not okay. Ivy Lane caught on fire today.”
Miguel pressed a hand over his mouth in shock. Slipping it down, he asked: “Lee? ... And Reid?”
I noticed that his first thought was for Lee, but I didn’t point it out in front of Jeremy. Miguel was going to have some choices to make about their relationship, but I’d do my best not to get involved. I wondered if he knew the truth about Lee if he’d more or less attracted to the man. Yes, Lee is available ... but surprise! He’s also in danger of being killed at any moment. Reid had refused to give me the finer details of who exactly wanted Lee dead and why these unknown assailants were such a threat. That wasn’t typical of your run-of-the-mill murder case — at least, based on what I’d seen on TV it wasn’t. I didn’t have much personal experience, but I had a feeling it was more complicated than his brothers getting shot in a robbery gone wrong.
“Reid and Lee are okay. They weren’t home when it started.”
Jeremy watched us from across the room. He always maintained a distance from me. I knew Jeremy wasn’t my biggest fan, but at least his suspicion that I was more than a friend to Miguel had eased after o
ur talk the night I poured a drunk Miguel into bed. Jeremy still kept his distance, but he no longer threw around accusations.
“Well, at least no one got hurt,” Jeremy said. “Camden, how about you shower off the smoke?”
I wrinkled my nose. I did reek, and this was just about the nicest thing Jeremy ever said to me, so I nodded gratefully.
“Thanks, I’ll do that.”
Once I was in the shower, the tears came. Despite what Reid said, I knew this was the end for my real estate career, if you could call it that. I’d tried, but I couldn’t go on like this. In the morning, I’d call my mother. She had a spare room in her house in Arizona. She could put me up while I got my shit together. I’d find a steady job, something that didn’t depend on sales. I obviously didn’t have the right touch, and a career that depended largely on a lucky break until you could build up a client roster wasn’t a good choice for someone like me. If it weren’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any at all.
Except for those few days with Reid. You were lucky to experience that, even for a brief time.
I turned off the shower, and Miguel and Jeremy’s voices filtered through the walls. They were arguing. Again. Their arguments were only about me about 80 percent of the time now, but I still felt guilty every time.
I rubbed my skin dry, my tears forgotten and wrapped a towel around my waist. I hadn’t thought to bring in new clothes, and the clothes I’d discarded smelled too much like smoke to put on again. I carried them to the laundry, then returned to the living room where I had some spare clothes in the front closet.
All the way there, I listened to Jeremy and Miguel arguing about me.
“Didn’t you say this Ivy Lane place was going to be his big break?”
“Yeah, but there’s other houses out there—”
“None of which he’s sold!” Jeremy interrupted. “We can’t let him continue to mooch off us indefinitely.”
Jeremy’s gaze caught mine as I entered the room, then slid down my bare chest to the towel around my waist. His eyes lingered a moment, and he caught his bottom lip between his teeth.
