One and Only

by Jenny Holiday

  So why was she so giddy over the idea?

  Ducking into her room to stash her purse, she stopped to check herself in the mirror. She was grinning like an idiot. She looked…pretty. Her cheeks were rosy, and she might even say there was a twinkle in her eye. What was next? Was she going to burst into song as birds and woodland creatures helped her do her chores?

  Trying to rein in her out-of-proportion enthusiasm, she ran down the stairs and out the door to one of the meeting rooms—the farm hosted corporate events, too—that she’d commandeered for the hat project. She’d left Cameron after showing him how to thread lavender into the hats, promising to be back momentarily. Bedecking the hats was no longer on the job list, since Elise had moved on to sunglasses, but Jane had the feeling that giving Cameron something mindless to do indoors would be good for him. She wasn’t sure what the actual solution to his PTSD was. He needed a doctor for that, but first he needed to get through the rest of the week. And she planned to help him do exactly that.

  Because she had a date on Sunday, and, against her better judgment, she was counting the minutes.

  * * *

  “What are you guys doing?” Elise popped her head into the room. Cam looked at Jane because he wasn’t actually sure how to describe what they were doing. Something with lavender and hats.

  “Oh, we were kind of at loose ends, so I thought maybe we’d finish the hats anyway. Even if you only want them for the photo booth.” Jane smiled brightly at Elise in a way that seemed a touch false to Cam.

  “That’s a great idea!” Elise exclaimed. “I was looking for both you guys because we’re all going to take a hike. Apparently if you cut through the fields, you can connect up with a provincial park that has some great trails.”

  “Oh, I don’t think I should do that,” said Jane, sniffing a little. “My allergies have really been acting up. It’s part of why I moved this project inside.”

  “You have allergies?”

  “I guess so!” Jane said—a little too enthusiastically. “Maybe they’re dormant in the big city!” She coughed. “Anyway, didn’t Lacy say you could lay the place cards anytime? Why don’t we do that after we finish these hats?”

  “Well, there’s a very specific order, as you know,” Elise said, looking uncertain.

  “I do know!” Jane chirped. “You have a map, don’t you? Give it to me, and I’ll set out the cards. Then you can inspect and see how it feels in the actual space. It might be good to live with it for a bit, see if you want to change anything up.”

  “Jane, you are a genius,” Elise said, smiling. “Do you think you could also take the photo booth props down? They’re in boxes in my room.”

  “You got it. Place cards and photo booth props. Check and check.”

  Elise blew Jane a kiss, then turned her attention to Cam. “You want to join us on the hike, future brother-in-law?”

  He glanced at Jane. He knew what she was doing, coming up with all these excuses to stay inside. She was still babysitting him. But this time for an entirely different reason. And this time, as much as he hated to admit it, he needed it. “You know, I think I’ll keep Jane company. And, hey, it turns out I’m actually pretty good at this.” He held out a hat for her inspection, and Elise smiled, buying their lie.

  “All right then! You kids be good! Ta-ta for now!”

  He let a few moments of silence elapse after Elise left before saying, quietly, “Thank you.”

  Jane looked up and graced him with a smile. “No problem.” Then she let another beat go before adding, “But you should probably, I don’t know, see someone about this?” She winked at him. “Because God knows, you can’t avoid lavender fields the rest of your life. You never know when you’re going to be going about your day and suddenly find yourself stumbling into a rogue lavender field.”

  Something in his heart twisted. How did she do that? Toe the line between concern and humor so perfectly? If anyone else had made the suggestion, he would have become defensive. But she made him see that she was right without wrapping her concern up in a cloak of judgment.

  “How many people have you slept with?” she asked suddenly, and the question made him bark a laugh. Here he was, getting all emotional about how sensitive and wise she was, and she hit him with that?

  “Why?” he said, eyeing her warily.

  “I just want to know.”

  “I don’t know. Lots.” He wished he could give her a number—a respectable one.

  “How many girlfriends have you had?” she asked as she concentrated on a hat. The question didn’t seem to be loaded. She had delivered it in an unremarkable, conversational tone. “Like, where it’s been more than just casual.”

  “Two,” he said, relieved that for once he could give her a straightforward, true answer.

  She looked up. “And you got one of them pregnant in high school?”

  Whoa. Apparently his reputation preceded him. He’d never denied it. To do so had always seemed cruel. It would have exposed Alicia unnecessarily. The town didn’t need to be talking about her sleeping around, which is exactly what they would have done if they found out the baby wasn’t Cam’s. Everyone had already made up their minds about him anyway—he was the Devil of Deer Haven. They already thought he’d burned down that barn on purpose, and he was constantly up against his reputation for being a delinquent, so why not add one more item to his bad-boy résumé? It protected Alicia, and it cost him nothing. But for once, for the first time in his life, in fact, he was considering telling the truth on the matter. Because for the first time in his life, he cared what someone thought about him. He cared a lot.

  “No. She got pregnant, but I had nothing to do with it.” He huffed a bitter laugh. It still stung, truth be told. “Or so she said.”

  Jane’s jaw and the hat she was working on both dropped. “Cameron MacKinnon, you come with these warning labels, you know? Burned down a barn. Got a girl pregnant. And you’re saying neither of them is true?” Her voice had risen, and she was almost yelling at him.

  “I did burn down a barn.”

  “By accident!”

  He shrugged. “Well, they might as well be true. It’s a letter of the law, spirit of the law sort of thing.”

  She shoved him. Hard.

  “Ow!” He winced and grinned simultaneously. She had some hidden strength there, his Janie.

  “So what happened to the girl?”

  “Alicia,” he said, feeling, for some reason, that it was important that “the girl” have a name.

  “What happened to Alicia?” she asked, picking up on his cue and rephrasing her question.

  “I don’t know. She moved. Her parents wanted her to get rid of it. She wanted to keep it. I’m not sure what she decided, but the whole family moved, and they cut all ties.”

  Jane was nodding like she was listening to a familiar tale, though he’d never spoken about that time to anyone. “And you let everyone in your family and your town think you were the ne’er-do-well father.”

  “I tried to get her to marry me. The…actual father wasn’t stepping up, apparently.”

  “Of course you did.” She was still doing that knowing-nodding thing.

  “What does that mean?”

  She stood. “I think we’ve made enough hats, don’t you? Let’s move on to photo booth props and place cards.”

  He was a little confused about what had just happened. How did things get so heavy so quickly after they’d been flirtatiously talking about how many people he’d slept with? He’d been intending to ask what her number was. He knew about the shithead ex that had sparked her recent dry spell and inspired her devotion to her vibrators, but now that she brought it up, he found himself intensely curious about the rest.

  He wanted to know about other boyfriends, too, if there were any.

  He wanted to know all kinds of shit about her.

  That wasn’t good.

  So he stood, too. “Lead the way.”

  * * *

  “Okay, so
I guess the stuff must be in these boxes,” Jane said a few minutes later as they stood contemplating the pair of sealed boxes stacked in a corner in Elise’s room. She moved to pick one up.

  “Let me get them,” said Cam, gently moving her away. He hefted them up, and Jane let loose a big sigh. “What’s wrong?”

  “Honestly? I’m sick of this wedding. Being a bridesmaid is like being an indentured servant.”

  “You should join them on the hike.” He didn’t want her to leave him, but he couldn’t hold her hostage. “Take me downstairs and show me what to do, and then you can catch up to them. I’ll be fine.” He hoped.

  “Nope, trust me, it’s better here. Elise is in DEFCON one right now. I just meant, like, how can an event that costs this much money not come with actual servants?”

  He laughed. “I know you’re not much of a drinker, but Jay gave all us guys flasks of vodka when we got here. Said Elise told him he had to give gifts to the wedding party. So he got us these classy silver flasks with our initials engraved on them. I don’t think she knows they’re full.”

  “Ha! I like Jay more and more. Give me those boxes, you get the vodka, and I’ll meet you in the reception room.”

  He twisted away from her—she wasn’t going to carry all this shit. “Nope. I’ll take these down. You stop in my room and grab the flask. I think it’s in the top dresser drawer—room nine on the third floor.” He shuffled the boxes to one side, dug in his pocket for the key, and then flipped it to her.

  “Okay!” She flashed him a smile so warm and guileless, it made his heart wrench. “See you soon.”

  * * *

  Jane was consumed with one thought as she switched on the light in Cameron’s room: she wanted to have sex with him again.

  Would that be so wrong?

  It had been a rather astounding day. If Jane had felt, earlier in her room, like Cinderella singing while she did her chores with some Wild Kingdom helpers, she sort of felt like Cinderella getting ready for the ball right now. She still couldn’t stop thinking about her stupid French fry date with Cameron. Good, honorable Cameron who bore so much more than he had to.

  She eyed his unmade bed. The B&B was luxurious, but it was still an old house converted into an inn. The rooms were small. Cameron’s bed was a twin. She had a double in her room.

  Technically, their little romp in the woods earlier had been a mistake. She had been swept away in the moment, first with the impulse to comfort him, then with a wild lust that was impossible to constrain. Either way, though, more sex hadn’t been in the plan. She had decided, after that bone-shattering night at Jay’s condo, that she couldn’t sleep with Cameron anymore, because she was too close to giving away her heart to someone who would only break it.

  It was so hard to keep holding the line, though. Now that she knew his history, she knew his reputation was not what it seemed. And he was so impossibly magnetic. Even just sitting there next to him in that conference room, working on the stupid hats, she’d had to hold herself back from crawling on top of him yet again.

  She opened the top drawer of his dresser, surprised to find it full of stuff. He didn’t strike her as the type to bother unpacking. But then, he’d surprised her over and over again, hadn’t he, no more so than today.

  She shifted through socks and boxers. There was a tie he must be planning to wear to the wedding. She pulled it out to examine it under the lamp on the dresser. It was a gorgeous red, gray, and black plaid. It made her wonder about his surname, MacKinnon. About his father. There was so much about him she didn’t know.

  She put the tie back and continued her search. Her fingers came to rest on a piece of paper. She started to move it aside. It was actually a…photograph? It was none of her business, but she couldn’t resist. Would it be a picture of one of his fallen army brothers? Of Becky? Or—a flare of irrational jealousy ignited in her chest—would it be the high school girlfriend who betrayed him?

  It was none of those things.

  It was her.

  Well, it was them. She sucked in a sharp breath. It was the shot from Nightmares Fear Factory, the one where he was carrying her, shielding her face from the terrors. She’d seen it only momentarily, projected on a screen on their way out of the haunted house. At the time, she’d been embarrassed, had thought the message the image conveyed was fear. She had been ashamed to see herself so weak.

  But now, she looked at it with different eyes. Cameron’s high school girlfriend. His fellow soldier Becky. It wasn’t only that he hadn’t done the things that everyone accused him of; it was more than that. They had each been opportunities for chivalry—unseen, unacknowledged, unrewarded chivalry, chivalry for its own sake.

  So when she looked at the picture through that lens, looked at it as a whole, instead of focusing on only herself, she saw it differently. Instead of fear and humiliation, she saw protection and bravery. Caring. He had seen her when she was at her weakest, and he’d helped her. Just as she had done with him earlier today.

  She let the picture flutter back into the drawer.

  Screw it. She needed those strong arms around her again. She’d worry about any consequences for her heart later. Right now, she was going to take a big slug of this vodka, and then she was going to proposition Cameron.

  Emboldened, she got out her phone and typed a text.

  * * *

  I’m in your room, and I need some help.

  Cam took the stairs of the B&B two at a time. She was fine, he told himself. It’s nothing. He’d been repeating that phrase like a mantra, in fact, since her text arrived and he tore out of the reception hall, nearly knocking the door off its hinges.

  It’s nothing.

  He didn’t like the vagueness of her note. If it was nothing, why had she summoned him? Why hadn’t she come back to him as planned? Or been more specific with her text, if, say, she couldn’t find the flask?

  He couldn’t imagine what kind of harm could have befallen her in the few minutes since they’d parted ways. But that was the problem: he couldn’t imagine.

  So all he could do was give in and let his growing unease propel him up to the third floor, prompt him to practically break down the door, all the while repeating to himself: It’s nothing.

  Which it was, if by “nothing,” he meant Jane Denning naked in his bed.

  She sat up, alarmed, as he panted, his back pressed against the inside of the door. “What’s the matter?”

  The sheet that had been covering her fell, exposing her full, heavy breasts with their perfect, pink rosebud tips. Her hair was disheveled and her color high. She looked like she’d already been fucked. His dick rose, as if in protest, staking its claim.

  “Nothing,” he groaned, and for the moment, it was the truth. That was the incredible thing about Jane. His life was full of problems. But somehow, through some strange alchemy he didn’t understand, all that shit just disappeared when she was around. Earlier, when she’d come to him in the woods, when she’d come for him in the woods, he would have said that she brought him back to himself. Because that’s what it had felt like. He’d been in the throes of panic, being carried further and further from reality, and she had brought him back to himself. But now he felt the opposite: she was taking him away from himself, from the jobless, lonely, disgraced soldier with no plan. She was a respite, an escape. An oasis.

  And what else was a man dying of thirst supposed to do when he saw an oasis shimmering in the distance?

  The scene snapped into focus, like putting on night vision goggles in what had been pitch-black. He turned around and locked the door, part of him protesting for the brief moment he had to break eye contact with her to do so. Then, after reestablishing it, after claiming her with a look, he broke it once more, this time to pull off his T-shirt.

  When his eyes found hers again, she smiled, slowly, triumphantly. Like she had made this all happen. Like even though he was beginning to stalk toward her, she was the hunter and he the prey.

  Maybe so.


  He could live with that.

  When he reached the edge of the bed, which put her at eye level with his waist, he slowly unbuttoned his jeans.

  Her eyes glittered as she watched him. God, just the sight of her watching him made him painfully hard. When he’d freed himself and stood before her with his dick at attention, she licked her lips.

  Slowly—he forced himself to move slowly because he wanted to torture her more than he wanted to soothe his own ache—he walked over to a dresser on the other side of the room on which he’d placed his toiletries bag. Thank God he had condoms in there. Carefully, shaking with the effort of moving slowly, he ripped one packet off the row. Turning, he tossed it the few feet to the bed, where it landed on her lap.

  She started to open it.

  He shook his head and said, “Later.” He was gonna stick with this slow thing, even if it killed him.

  * * *

  The maddening thing about Cameron was that you could never get him to do what you wanted him to do. Well, that wasn’t precisely fair. In a broad sense, he was actually really good at what she wanted, which was, she supposed, to be seduced. To be racked with pleasure.

  But he rarely did it precisely the way she wanted.

  Like right now, for instance, when she wanted him to come over, put on the damn condom, and slide into her already, he was just standing there staring at her, pupils dilated and a sly smile spreading across his face.

  “Come here,” she said. She had been covered to the waist with his bed sheet, so she kicked free of it, hoping the full monty might serve to move him along.

  He licked his lips. “Oh, I’m going to, Jane. I’m going to.”

  He still wasn’t moving, so she spread her legs for him. Let them fall open as he stood there, to give him an eyeful. It might have been the boldest thing she’d ever done, and it made her hot. Hotter.

  He groaned, and moisture rushed between her legs. “Then what are you waiting for?” she whispered.

  “I’m just…” His voice broke, and she looked up, startled, from where she’d been admiring his chest. He cleared his throat. “I’m taking you in.”