by Calinda B
“Strange things happen in the lodge when a stone like that is placed in the pit.”
“Like what…?” Now Cam felt the twister start to gather speed.
“Not for me to say, brother. The lodge is sacred and not to be spoken about once you leave. You will have to see for yourself when you are in the sacred womb.”
Cam took a hard swallow and did not speak. Mano put a hand on his shoulder. Cam looked up at the guy with a grimace.
Mano laughed. “Don’t think about it too much, my friend. Best to be in the here and now and wait for the moment to arrive…”
“Yeah, alright…that’s about all that I can do, huh? One step at a time, as they say...” He paused and looked up at the night sky, brilliant with stars. The stars that made up the Big Dipper were twinkling with yellows and blues overhead. He felt himself instantly calm as he gazed at the wonder of the universe. Contemplating the stars, he thought of Chérie, and he became even more soothed. Such a powerful and beautiful woman… A dark silent shape like an owl floated overhead. Owls were so quiet Cam always referred to them as little ghosts. He smiled up at the silhouette as it soared off into the woods. “God, it’s beautiful out here.”
“It is indeed.” Mano looked up and shared the view with Cam. “Why don’t you check in with Charley and then head on home? I’m going to stay here tonight. Jayze is taking care of Severe. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Alright, man…” Cam reached out and shook Mano’s hand. “Thanks for bringing me here, Mano.”
Mano brought Cam’s hand in close, wrapped his free arm behind Cam’s shoulders and pressed his shoulder against Cam’s. “Stay strong, bro. Stay strong and keep your eyes wide open…” He spread his fingers wide in front of this face and leaned his head back. “Like the stars, man…like the sky.” With that, he turned and strode away.
The ride out of Hurricane Ridge was uneventful. Cam did not notice the time it took to drive back down the mountain towards home. The journey took hours to get to the destination; it only seemed to take minutes to return. He did not think twice about pulling up the driveway of Chérie’s house…he just parked the car and got out like he belonged there. He looked over at the two cats sitting on the dark porch like they were waiting for him. “Hey, you two,” he whispered. He reached down to scratch Mac on the head. He walked up the porch steps, eased open the door, slipped inside, removed his shoes, and then padded up the stairs.
When he reached the door to the bedroom, he paused for a brief second to look over at Chérie’s sleeping form. His heart surged. Slipping off his clothes as quietly as he could, he peeled back the covers, got in the bed, and pulled her close. Without fully awakening, she gave a sigh and pressed in closer. He kissed her hair softly and once again gave thanks for her being in his life again. He must’ve done something right during their time apart to get another chance again. By God he was not going to fuck this up this time. Last time he had been scared and ran like a jack rabbit. Not this time. Tucking himself around her, he allowed the stillness he felt inside to wrap around her like a soothing blanket. Then he fell into one of the most peaceful sleeps he had ever had in his life.
Chapter 18 – Chérie
When I awoke, I felt familiar warmth next to me. Familiar arms were wrapped around me. Smells which I knew and loved, intermingled with a smoky campfire aroma greeted my nose. I was lying next to Cam. Yum... It had been months since I’d shared the bed with Cam…with anyone. Kayden didn’t ever come into the house for some strange reason. In fact, we never dated or did the things that ordinary couples did. I guess I just accepted that he and I were not ordinary in any way, shape, or form. But with Cam, these things were oh, so possible and oh, so delicious. I loved the warmth of his skin next to mine after a refreshing sleep.
I rolled over to face him. His eyes were closed, his mouth slack, and his breathing was deep. I watched him, pleasure and joy spilling out my heart. I was coming to love him in new and richly satisfying ways. Then I looked over at the clock. “Crap, crap, crap…” I muttered. I had to go pick up my paycheck the moment the community center opened. My checking account was about to be overdrawn, and I had to act fast to keep a check from bouncing. Quietly sliding from the bed, I pulled on my clothes and tip-toed downstairs. I figured I’d leave a note for Cam on the dining room table.
I pulled out of the driveway, munching on a muffin and trying to balance my tea cup without spilling hot tea on my lap. Traffic wasn’t bad so I arrived in the University District area in record time. I sailed into the community center, picked up my check, and headed for the bank.
When I got out of my car, a German Shepherd was running towards me, a leash streaming from his collar, and a man tearing after him. The dog lunged at me, and I stumbled backwards, falling into the person next to me who had gotten out of her car the same time I had. “Oh…” I exclaimed, dropping my tea cup. The cup shattered on the hard asphalt, sending fragments of glass in a firecracker-like explosion. The woman behind me dropped her purse. The dog took off, his owner in hot pursuit. I whirled around towards the woman, apologetic. “I’m so sorry. Are you alright?” Without looking at her I crouched down to retrieve the strewn contents of the purse. I scooped up lipstick, jewelry, a pack of Camel cigarettes, and a checkbook and stuffed them back into her clutch bag. Then I stood up to hand it to her.
The woman looked familiar. “Aren’t you Angela Myers…the woman Cam used to tell me about? You worked at the same building, right.”
Seizing her purse with perfectly manicured hands, she replied, “Yes…Chérie, right…?”
“That’s right,” I said brightly. “How are you?”
“Well, enough,” she responded haughtily.
“Your hair looks different.” I remembered her hair as a drab brown. I also remember that she dressed pretty conservatively in neutral grays skirts and sober shirts. Cam used to tell me she looked like a frigid librarian. Now she stood in a stunningly sexy pink clingy sweater with her ample cleavage screaming ‘look at me,’ black pencil pants, and high heel boots. Her hair was a dark aubergine color that shimmered and sparkled in the sunlight. She dripped with a predatory sexuality.
Her voice was cool and elegant. “Yes, after I received my MFT, I needed a switch.” She drew out the pack of cigarettes and took one out. Reaching into her purse, she withdrew an elegant silver lighter. The initials AMT were engraved on the polished surface.
“Are those your initials? Did you get married?”
“Not yet…” she breathed. “There’s been a complication in the plan.” She placed the cigarette between pink lined lips and lit it with sophisticated grace. Taking a deep drag, she blew out smoke in my direction. “And how are you since you and Cam split up? He was quite heartbroken after that. I think he got over it, though.”
I coughed and waved my hand in front of my nose. What was she talking about? How did she know how Cam was or wasn’t after we split up? “Not really…” I said, stepping away from her smoke. “He said he missed me every day.” I smiled at her.
One of her eyebrows arched. “Did he now? And when did he tell you that?”
I wanted to say “none of your fucking business” the way Cam would, but instead I politely responded. “He told me that when we went kayaking the other day. We started seeing each other again. It’s going great. Better than ever,” I gushed.
Her face seemed to freeze over, and her eyes took on the glacial blue appearance of an ice cave. She stood there, smoking, not saying anything; a weird glint appeared in her eyes. Then she droned, “We’ll see. Things might change. You never know what can happen.”
Perplexed, a deep frown creased my forehead. “That’s a weird thing to say since you don’t really know either of us.”
“Oh, I know Cam fairly well.” Another stream of smoke blew my way. “Let’s just say we spent quality time in San Diego, and then it continued when he came back to Seattle.” She dropped her cigarette butt and crushed it with the pointed toe of her black high heel. “Say hello
to him for me, won’t you? Tell him I’ll be in touch.” She turned to walk away. “Good to see you looking so…chipper,” she called over her shoulder.
I was flabbergasted. No doubt I looked like an open-mouthed carp standing there watching her curvaceous figure disappear into the bank. I looked down at my own body. Slender and shapeless, in my view anyway, I wore jeans and a t-shirt. I hadn’t even combed my hair yet, I’d left in such a hurry. There was nothing exotic or glamorous about me. And what did she mean she’d spent quality time with Cam in San Diego and then back in Seattle? Suddenly, all the bells and whistles started going off in my head like a pin ball bonanza. She was the one Cam had hooked up with in San Diego last year. She was the one he had dated when he got back…and those initials on her lighter…AMT... Angela Myers Tyson…it had to be. She wanted to marry Cam…my Cam. She even smoked the same brand that he had in his car. My solar plexus throbbed with knives of dark energy. I was furious. Furious, jealous, hurt, enraged, you name it. Forgetting about my bank account, I got back in the car and headed for home. My home…not Cam’s and my home... He could up and get out of there pronto.
When I got back, he was sitting on the couch drinking coffee and flipping through a magazine. He looked up at me and smiled. “Hi. Get your errand done?”
I slammed the door shut. My voice came out icy and cold. “I ran into a little friend of yours.”
His face crumpled into a frown. “What’s the matter, babe? What friend?”
“Angela Myers. Or is it Angela Myers Tyson? Or did you fail to let me know you asked her to marry you?”
Cam’s face clouded black and angry. He sat his coffee cup down on the end table with a sharp thwack, causing the dark liquid to spill over the edge of the mug. “What the fuck are you talking about? I never asked her to marry me. I don’t care a whit about Angela.”
“That’s not the impression she gave. She said you shared quality time in San Diego and then when you got back. She said you and I would not make it.” I started to cry. Cam leapt to his feet and ran over to console me. “Get away from me, Cam. You were with her. I thought you were with a stranger down there but you were with her. You were probably planning this when we were still together.”
Cam’s face looked anguished. “No, babe, it wasn’t like that.” He turned away from me so I could not see his face.
“You’re lying, Cam. I know that look.” Now, I was sobbing, hot angry tears slicking my cheeks.
He looked over at me, dark circles smudging his eyes. “You have to let me explain, babe.”
“I don’t have to do anything, Cam. I trusted you. I let you back into my heart.” Mine was now breaking into shards like my tea cup in the parking lot had done.
“Chér, you’ve got to let me explain.”
“No,” I shouted and my heart hurt even more. “No, no, and no. How could I have trusted you and let you back in?” I started to hiccup.
Cam ran upstairs and returned with tissues from the bathroom. He handed them to me and sat back down on the couch. “I’ll wait. I know I deserve this.”
“You can wait outside,” I wailed.
“Nope, not going to happen… I get to have a chance to set things straight here.”
His calm unnerved me, but I wasn’t ready to give in. This was not the Cam I remembered. That Cam would have stormed around the house, throwing things against the wall. I looked over at him from the corner of my eye and saw he was clutching something in his hand. His body was shuddering, no doubt with the effort of trying to quash his raging temper. I kept watch with a sidelong squint and saw him take several deep breaths. Then he looked over at me and saw me looking at him out of the corner of my eye. He patted the couch beside him. I stomped over and sat in the chair opposite him.
“Fair enough…” he stated. “I deserve this,” he said again.
I frowned at him. He was certainly changing. Where did angry, reactive Cam go? I folded my arms over my chest. “I’m waiting.”
“Okay…alright… I told you I made mistakes. And she was sure one of them. I told you I went on a drunken bender down there in California, right?”
I nodded sullenly.
“And I didn’t know she was going to be down there, babe. That’s the truth. And I told you I started smoking again down there, right?”
I nodded again.
“So I was standing there smoking, and she came up behind me and surprised me. She asked for a cigarette, and I guess she started up with an old addiction too.”
“Gee, what a wonderful thing to share,” I commented sarcastically.
“Yeah, I know. It was stupid. And then she asked if I wanted to go get a drink. I really didn’t want to, but I was beating myself up over my stupidity in leaving you so I agreed. I felt stuck between a rock and an asshole, and the rock was my stupidity and the asshole was me.”
I glared at him. “I’ll say…you broke my heart.”
His eyebrows went up. “Can’t say that I fared much better watching you and Fabio... But I really don’t want to trade pot shots, babe.”
Wow, he was acting really mature. I sure wasn’t. “So then what happened?” I added with a pouty face.
“I’m not sure this story will be useful, babe.”
“I want to hear it. If you don’t tell me what happened, I’m going to fabricate a story in my head, and I guarantee you that my story will be worse than yours really is, Cam. And I’ll hold it over you the rest of my life.” I narrowed my eyes at him. My lips were in a thin, tight line.
Cam sat there, considering. His face, which had looked so bright a few moments ago, now looked drawn and pale. Then he blew his breath out from between pursed lips and continued. “So we went to a bar and got hammered. She asked me if I wanted to go see her room. Again, I didn’t want to, but I figured I had flipped the switch to self-destruct so I may as well follow her.”
I tapped my foot nervously. “And then?”
“And then she took her blouse off, and I said I loved you and couldn’t be with anyone else. And she got sick, and I helped her to the bathroom and held her head over the toilet. Then, she passed out on the bed; I tucked her in and left.”
We both fell silent. Cam looked out the window, his face brooding. He glanced over at the spilled coffee and went out into the kitchen to retrieve some paper napkins. When he returned he dabbed at the mess, crushed the napkins into a tiny ball, and tossed it into his cup of joe, before settling back down on the couch. I stared at the fake, green suede couch pillows. The cats strolled into the living room and jumped on the chair. They sniffed me, looked at one another, jumped down, and disappeared. “And the next scene…?”
“I sobered up and felt like I should have followed through with my self-destruction. So I went to the conference the next morning, and then brought her coffee and muffins. She looked like hell, but I kissed her. And I wanted to fuck her. I missed you, I hated myself, and I was horny. But she said no.”
I bit my lip. My foot was jiggling back and forth, and I had this weird floaty feeling in my chest. This was hard to listen to. My gut was knotted so hard it felt like my grandma was wringing it out with her strong farm woman hands. But I knew I had to hear the whole story. “Okay, hard-ass, keep it rolling.”
“And then I called you…I wanted to confess, say I’m sorry, and come home. But when you got on the phone with me, I chickened out and broke up with you instead.”
There it was. He broke up with me and then he could feel justified in fucking her. A mature thought started to form in my head. I tried to push it away, but it persisted in making an appearance. You weren’t much better, ma chère, spending time with me. Kayden…of course he was here with me. But why was he defending Cam? Because you are my heart and my heart is not happy right now.
He was right. I was sad, sad, sad… Sad and hurt…“Okay, so tell me how the story ends,” I sighed.
Cam’s eyes were encircled with dark, angry smudges the color of a bruise. “I had sex with her after that. Then I came home. I
missed you like crazy. But I didn’t deserve you. So I had a couple sex dates with Angela.”
“Did you like having sex with her?” I couldn’t help but ask the question.
“Truth?” Cam looked at me pointedly.
I gave him an equally pointed a look. “Truth…” I confirmed.
“Yes and no. I liked it that I could let go with her. I wanted it to be you, though. I would look down and see her and loathe myself. I don’t find her all that attractive. And she wasn’t…she isn’t you.”
“What do you mean you could let go with her?”
He shrugged. “I mean that I always seemed to hold back with you. Like I would break you or you wouldn’t want me if I let you see the potency of my sexual energy. And then, after your discovery of having been sexually molested, you seemed so fragile. And you kept pushing me away. I think you know by now I’m a really sensual, sexual guy. I felt like I was going to explode if I didn’t get some release.”
Ouch. I stared at him, my eyes a wash of pain. “I thought there was Mr. Hand,” I snipped.
He let out a guffaw. “Mr. Hand and I weren’t getting along back then. I thought you’d walk in on me or criticize me or something if you ever caught me doing that.”
I picked up the pillow next to me and began running my palm back and forth over it. “I was hurting, Cam. I was confused, bewildered, and betrayed by my childhood. And I needed you. I really needed you during that time, and you left me.” A fresh wave of tears stung my eyes.
“I know…it wasn’t very mature. I can’t apologize enough. I want to show you…now that we’re seeing each other again…I want to show you that I can do better.”
I gave him a small smile and watched his face brighten a little. “I’d like that…” I said in a small voice. “And I’d like to show you that you don’t have to hold back with me.”
A wicked smile formed on his face. “And I’d like that. Don’t get me started. I’m a little bit raw right now, and I don’t think I can deal with the fucking star dreamling and his claw marks.”
