He’d gotten the message.
It was for the best.
It was also unexpectedly disappointing.
Somehow, Jane Denning had wormed her way into his heart. The only way he could make sense of it was to conclude that he, erroneously assuming that he didn’t have any heart left to speak of, had foolishly left it unguarded.
But regardless of the fact that his little fling with Jane was done, Kent the Ken Doll Accountant was not what she needed. She needed someone who appreciated Goddess Mode. No, someone who would cultivate Goddess Mode, who would treat it like a goddamned imperative.
As they turned onto the dirt road that would take them to the farm, Cameron sighed. Resigned himself to spending the next four days being treated with friendly indifference by Jane and fucking frolicking in nature with Kent-Ken and the rest of the wedding party.
He just hadn’t realized exactly what the “nature” part was going to be like.
It should not have been a problem. And at first, it wasn’t. There was a B&B on site, and the wedding party was staying there while the guests would be bused in from neighboring inns on Saturday for the ceremony. As Cam and Kent drove into the parking area, a woman emerged from the administration building. “Welcome to Fournier Farm! I’m Lacy, one of the event coordinators here.” The chipper blonde looked like she had stepped out of a brochure for a dental office. “You’re the first ones here!” She clapped her hands like it was an accomplishment worthy of an award rather than a logical consequence of Cam’s lead foot. “Oh, but look, here’s everyone else!” Lacy walked toward other cars, which were pulling in and parking. “Where’s my bride?”
Much squealing ensued as Lacy and Elise found each other. Everyone watched them shriek-talk until it was decided that the whole gang should immediately go out to inspect the lavender fields to decide specifically where they should have the ceremony.
He watched Wendy and Gia look at each other and shrug. Jane appeared to be struggling under the weight of…a bunch of small chalkboards? He moved to help her, but she twisted away from him. “I’ll actually leave these in my trunk for now.” He tried again to take some of them from her, but she trilled, “I’m fine!” in a voice he easily recognized as false.
Screw that. She might not want to screw him anymore, but she didn’t have to be purposefully difficult.
“Will you let me help you?” he snapped as he pushed past her, opened the back of her hatchback for her, and guided her—the pile of chalkboards semi-obscured her sight—to the trunk.
Everything was fine, he told himself. Fine-ish. He wasn’t particularly looking forward to inspecting lavender fields. Or to any of this so-called bucolic “escape,” especially given that he apparently was going to spend exactly zero percent of it in Jane’s bed, but it was fine. Fine-ish.
Until it wasn’t.
Lavender fields were nothing like the desert. It was apples and oranges. Lavender fields and the desert. It shouldn’t have mattered.
And yet.
He’d become pretty adept at avoiding wide-open spaces since the PTSD hit after his first deployment. Christie’s apartment was in the urban part of Thunder Bay, such as it was. He’d been fine there. Fine-ish. But he’d learned pretty quickly that as soon as he got out of the city limits, the panic would hit and he’d be left sweating and shaking. So he learned to stay safe, which meant limiting himself to places with a certain density of buildings and concrete and people.
And anyway, it had gotten much better. He’d thought.
Regardless, as they trudged away from the main buildings, across a series of gardens and a meadow that bordered the herb fields, it started happening. It didn’t matter that the air was ripe with the scent of lavender instead of the sulfurous smell of gunpowder. It didn’t matter that the sun was shining on purple fields as far as the eye could see instead of sand as far as the eye could see. It didn’t matter that it was a pleasantly warm seventy-five-degree day in freaking Canada and not a balls-melting one hundred ten with ISIS fighters and IEDs hiding all around them.
His stupid body didn’t know the difference, even if his brain did. His heart was jackhammering out of his chest, his lungs were constricting, and he was sweating so much he might as well have been back in the unrelenting desert heat. Fuck.
He tried to tune into what was happening. What was actually happening, which was that the mundane details of a wedding were being discussed. Elise’s mouth was moving, and he struggled to make out what she was saying through the roaring in his ears. Something about not wanting the guests to be blinded by the afternoon sun and should they have made sun hats for everyone?
He was safe, he tried to tell himself. Everyone was safe. He was home in Canada.
But it wasn’t working. He was starting to see gray spots in front of his eyes. He had to get out of there before he made an utter fool of himself.
But where to go? He started to stumble back down the trail they’d followed to get to the fields. He didn’t have a room yet. There was nowhere he could escape.
His car. The Corvette.
Having a destination calmed him a little. Not enough to stop the panic in its tracks, but enough to allow him to propel himself forward in space.
He didn’t even bother getting in the driver’s side. The passenger side was closer, and as much as he wished he could rev the engine and fly out of here, he was in no condition to drive. So he hurled himself inside, doubled over, rested his head on the dashboard, and settled in to wait out the storm.
* * *
“Cameron is being kind of weird, don’t you think?” Wendy said as she and Jane put their feet up in Jane’s room later that night after dinner was done and the evening’s duties discharged.
“Really? I hadn’t noticed,” Jane said, lying through her teeth.
“Yeah, I get that he’s kind of antisocial by nature, but he keeps bailing on everything,” said Wendy with a sigh. “The lucky dog.”
It was true. Jane had noticed, because she apparently noticed everything about Cameron now. In fact, she had attained the “if they were in junior high she would have his class schedule memorized and would be ‘accidentally’ running into him outside chem lab” level of noticed.
But to be fair, it wasn’t like he was being subtle about it. When they’d come back from the fields, he’d been sitting in his car. It kind of reminded her of a kid in time-out, near but separate from the action, except he’d put himself there.
Later, they’d opted for a picnic dinner near a stream that ran through the property, but he hadn’t come with them. And though he, along with the other groomsmen and ushers, had been asked to walk around the property helping the bridesmaids put up the stupid way-finding signs, he had spent about five minutes actually doing his job before slipping away.
He was quite clearly avoiding something. And she wasn’t stupid. She knew what that “something” was.
It didn’t matter, though. This was what she’d wanted, right, when she’d awkwardly extricated herself from Jay’s condo after their spectacular sex-fest two nights ago? She hadn’t handled that well, but he’d obviously interpreted her weird, sudden coldness correctly. She was actually uber-relieved that she hadn’t had to talk to him today. She had a lame little “we had some fun, but since it’s never going to last, best to quit while we’re ahead” speech worked up, but she was happy not to need to make it. He was getting the message.
She just hadn’t expected that in getting the message, he would have retreated so utterly, so much that he couldn’t even stand to look at her.
And it was hard to see him, harder than she’d expected. She wanted him still, so badly. The hardest part was that she could probably have him if she wanted. She could say the word, and he’d be back in her bed. But, stupidly, maddeningly, casual sex with Cameron wasn’t enough anymore.
So it was better that he was hiding.
“Well, it’s probably for the best,” said Wendy. “Because aren’t you still supposed to be babysitting him?”
“I don’t know,” Jane said, huffing a laugh because the idea of being forced to spend time with Cameron, that she had been so averse to him initially, was so absurd now.
“Well, if he’s going to sulk in the corner by himself the whole time, how much damage can he do?” Wendy went on. “Less work for you.”
“Hmm,” said Jane.
“Three more days, and you never have to see Cameron MacKinnon again.”
“Yes,” she said. “Great.”
Because that was what she wanted.
Right?
Chapter Nineteen
THURSDAY—TWO DAYS BEFORE THE WEDDING
Do you think it’s okay if they’re sort of on-purpose ugly?” Elise asked, tilting her head as she contemplated the straw hat she was holding on her lap as she wove strands of lavender through its loose weave.
“It was the best I could do out here in the boondocks,” said Gia, who was standing behind Elise and miming strangling her.
Jane stifled a laugh.
“I think it’s great!” Wendy chirped. “Sun hats for the guests! So thoughtful! And if they look a little handmade, well, they go with all the Mason jars everywhere, right?”
“Because we could take the other route and have a big bucket of dollar store sunglasses for everyone,” Elise said. “Maybe that’s what we should have done. Because then the guys could wear them, too. I don’t really see any men wearing the lavender straw hats.”
Jane sighed. Elise had decided yesterday, during their lavender field inspection, that they needed to offer the guests some sun protection. So she’d sent Gia to the nearest town, and the maid of honor had come back with fifty cheap straw hats she’d scored at some kind of craft wholesaler she’d tracked down. And now everyone was trying to poke lavender strands through them.
“I’m concerned that people might not get that these hats are ironic,” Elise said.
“Oh, but think how cute they’ll be in the photo booth!” said Gia, clapping her hands with false enthusiasm. “You already have all those funny props for that, so these will fit right in. We can take them over there right after the ceremony.”
“You’re right,” said Elise, brightening. “We’ll use the hats for the photo booth, and we’ll get sunglasses for everyone for the ceremony. Like, cute, funny ones. An assortment they can choose from when they go to sit down.”
Still behind Elise, Gia closed her eyes and turned her head heavenward as if appealing for divine patience.
“Maybe…” said Wendy, drawing everyone’s attention. “Maybe you can get, like, a really, really big Mason jar, and you can put the sunglasses in that.”
Gia burst out laughing but covered it with a cough. Jane bit down hard on the insides of her cheeks. Elise furrowed her brow, confused. Then she patted Wendy’s hand and said, “Great idea, sweetie,” in a way that conveyed that the idea was, in fact, the opposite of great.
“Okay, can one of you run back to town and see if you can find a dollar store or a Walmart or something and clean them out of sunglasses?”
“On it!” Gia chirped. “Let me grab some quick lunch inside, and then I’ll head out.” As she turned to go, a group of the guys appeared from the direction of the fields, where they’d been sent by Elise earlier to harvest lavender for the hats. Cameron was not among them.
Kent was, though.
Jane braced herself as Kent set a basket of lavender at her feet. What was wrong with her? Who didn’t want a nice, reliable guy to set a basket of fragrant herbs at her feet?
“You need some help, Jane?”
“Nope, I’m fine!” she said. “I think Elise has changed her mind about the hats anyway.”
Undeterred, he plopped down beside her under the tree. He looked so incongruous, with his khaki shorts and his short-sleeved plaid button-down shirt. She herself was wearing yoga pants and a tank top, having very much taken to heart Elise’s instruction that they could dress casually in the days they would spend at the site before the wedding. What did Kent see in her? Compared to him, she was a slob.
But he definitely saw something, because he was manipulating the strands of lavender, tying one end to the other, almost like he was making…oh, no.
“I made you a crown.”
“Oh…wow.” She pasted a smile on her face and ordered herself to stay still while he coroneted her.
“Oh, that is cute…” Elise trailed off in the way she did when she was getting thoughtful, which Jane knew could only spell doom.
Great. Now she was going to have to hand-weave several hundred lavender crowns in the next two days and fend off Kent.
Kent who was kind of…fixing her hair? What was happening? He had finished placing the crown, but he was sort of tucking loose strands of her hair behind her ears now, which was really—
Then there was the sound of someone clearing his throat.
Not even that, really, more of an indistinct growly sound.
She knew that growl.
“Ah, Cameron, my man,” said Kent, who had, at least, stopped touching her hair. “We wondered what had happened to you.”
Cameron looked awful. Like he was hung over, maybe? It was possible. She had gone to bed early, so she had no idea what the guys had gotten up to last night. His eyes were bloodshot and ringed with dark circles, and he was sweating something awful.
And goddamn him, even in this diminished state, he lit her up like a sky full of fireworks. It wasn’t fair.
He blinked rapidly several times and heaved a big, shaky inhale. Was he going to barf right here? His eyes darted toward the B&B. She followed his gaze. All the other guys were clustered around the entrance, talking to Gia, who apparently hadn’t left for Operation: A Thousand Sunglasses yet.
Then Cameron’s eyes darted around in all the other directions, like he was trying to plot an escape, which, as evidenced by the fact that he spun on his heel without a word and made for the wooded area opposite the lavender fields, he clearly was.
“What the hell is his problem?” said Elise. Wendy’s observation from last night, that Cameron was being weirdly antisocial, even for him, had become common currency. Jane had tried to avoid the conversations about him, because, frankly, it hurt like hell that she was the reason he was being so violently antisocial. What did it say about her that he couldn’t even compartmentalize enough to make small talk in her presence for five minutes?
“You know what? I’ve had enough of him,” said Elise. “I’m going after him, and I’m going to find out what is up his butt. He can’t be allowed to ruin my wedding.”
“I’ll go,” said Jane, hopping up as Kent attempted to place a lavender bracelet on her wrist. Elise could not find out that she’d slept with Cameron, that she was the reason he was being so impossible. And anyway, he did need a talking to, and keeping Cameron in line was what she’d signed up for, right? She smiled wanly at Elise, saying, “After all, he’s my job.”
* * *
The ground was cool against his cheek. The ground was hard beneath his body. As his lungs heaved, they expanded with each inhale against the ground he was hugging like he was taking cover in an enemy attack.
The ground is cool. The ground is hard.
These were real, physical facts. Find something to anchor yourself to the present, the shrink had said. He’d been headed for the stream that ran through these woods. It was hardly the waterfall that had been prescribed, but the gently rushing water had calmed him last night, and it had reminded him a little of Niagara Falls. Of standing next to the rushing falls while Jane kissed him.
Too bad she wasn’t here now. He had a feeling a kiss would work pretty well as an anchor. It was hard to freak the fuck out when you had a lush, curvy woman pressing herself against you, when you had Jane, with her snappy comebacks and her gentle questions, deigning to press her lips against yours. When you had—
“Cameron?”
That voice. Though it was soft, it was a lance, cutting immediately through the panic, arresting it in its
tracks. It was a quick, blessed injection of air when he’d been drowning. Enough air, enough energy, that he could roll over so he was on his back, to check if it was really her and not the product of his fucked-up mind. Because wouldn’t that be the cruelest thing? Being haunted by the shit he had seen was something he could accept. It made a certain sort of macabre sense. But if the universe decided to start sending him visions of Jane that turned out to be mirages? He wasn’t sure he could survive that.
He reached out a shaking hand to brush her ankle, to check that she was real.
She didn’t say anything, just towered over him with the sun backlighting her lavender-adorned hair so that it became a curtain of flame, letting him clutch her ankle like some kind of animal. Goddess Mode: Woodland Edition.
She lowered herself to the dirt next to him, and said, “What’s wrong?”
He wanted to tell her not to sit there. It was the perfect fucking metaphor for them. He was literally wallowing in the dirt, battling the demons that plagued him, and she was lowering herself to sit next to him, concern written all over her beautiful, open face. She was wearing stretchy, light gray pants that hugged her gorgeous curves and a tank top with tiny straps, leaving her arms and much of her chest bare. If she sat here with him, she was going to get dirty.
If she sat here with him, she was going to get hurt.
He wanted to tell her all that. To save her.
But he couldn’t talk. No words would come. He could breathe again, now that she was here, but speech wasn’t attainable yet. It was impossible to force the sentiments his mind was shouting through his closed throat.
So she sat, damning herself.
Because he grabbed her. Once more than her ankle was within his grasp, he scrambled to a seated position and reached for her.
She wrapped her arms around him, and the minute they closed around him, he started shaking like a fucking baby bird tipped out of its nest. His whole body was racked with shudders, in fact. She held him, stroked the back of his head while he quaked.
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