He just looked at her a second, taking her in. “You’re right,” he said slowly. “Losing them was a big turning point. It wasn’t easy for any of us,” he said, and there was a slight shake in his voice that made her believe him. Cameron wasn’t so selfish that she thought her brothers’ lives had been a piece of cake; she knew Chad’s life definitely hadn’t been easy.
“If you think about it…” He hopped down from the table and came over to the edge of the stove. She was still in the small corner of space behind it, looking back at him, waiting, listening. “This can be another turning point. For both of us. I can stop living in the past, and you can, too.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“Oh, it’s not,” he said. There was something dark, something wounded, in his eyes. “Most days I wake up thinking I have to hurry up and meet Amy behind the bleachers. And then I remember that those days are long gone.”
He’d never talked to her about Amy before, at least not long enough to say something beyond ‘it’s none of your business’, but now, he seemed to say her name with such ease.
“I’ll bite,” she said, taking a rag out of seemingly nowhere and wiping down the back of the stove with it. “How do we move on?”
He pursed his lips as he thought about it for a second, then he picked up the Tequila bottle and unscrewed the cap. She thought he might pour it down the drain, like Sam had earlier, but he surprised her when he lifted it to his lips and took a hearty drink, then swallowed, coughing.
A small grin tugged at her lips as she watched his eyes tear up from the stout taste. He recovered quickly, though, then held the bottle out for her as if it was a peace offering. “I think we should start by not being so hard on each other all the time.”
He watched her size him up, his eyebrows lifted and his lips slanted in a hopeful half-grin as he waited for her to respond.
Finally, she took the bottle and lifted it in a toast. “Deal.” After she drank to it, Chad went to the cabinet to look for shot glasses. It took him a few tries since she’d rearranged everything in her cleaning spree. He took two out then set them on the table, motioning for her to come out of her corner.
She took a seat at the table while he refilled the shot glasses. “I thought you didn’t drink,” she pointed out as he slid one of the glasses over to her.
Chuckling, he sat down, resting his elbows on the table. “I’ll let you in on a little secret,” he said. “After Amy left, I went on a bit of a bender. Two months of nothing but…this.” Lifting his shot glass, he gently swirled the liquid around. “Looking back, it’s all a haze.”
It surprised her, but she said nothing. She didn’t want to ruin the moment.
“I guess it took the edge off.” He shrugged, then drank the shot. “Until I crashed my truck into the football field one morning.”
“Wait, what?” she asked. This was definitely hard to picture. He seemed so…responsible.
“In all fairness, I was trying to park,” he said. “The parking lot was right above the football field, and there was this hill full of bleachers. When I went to park above the field, I accidentally hit the gas instead of the brake.”
“No way,” she laughed.
“I drove down most of them, but then the truck started to flip. I was okay, and there was no one on the bleachers or the field, so nobody got hurt. But it was pretty funny.”
“I bet Sam didn’t think so,” she said, and it made her chuckle to think she wasn’t the only one to get yelled at by him.
“I don’t think I’d ever seen him so mad in my entire life. I must’ve been grounded for two months.”
She could tell by Chad’s speech that he was a lightweight; he was starting to slur and he had a hazy, relaxed look in his eyes. She realized that, when he wasn’t being so judgmental, his company wasn’t too bad.
He took a small sip off the top of his shot glass and then set it back down on the table. Running his fingertip along the rim of the glass, he looked over at her like he wanted to say something, but decided not to instead.
“What?” she asked as she poured herself a refill.
“I want to ask you something,” he said slowly, “But I don’t want you to do that thing.”
“Thing?” she repeated. “What thing?”
“You know, that thing.” He waved his hand in the air as if to demonstrate something. “Where you run off or get hateful to avoid answering a question.”
“Right,” she said, standing up. She took a can of soda out of the fridge and stumbled over to the cabinet for a glass. “That thing.”
“You do it a lot,” he said, with the last part as a groan. “It’s kind of annoying.”
“I thought you spoke your mind sober,” she said, “It’s even worse when you’re drunk.”
He laughed.
She poured the can of soda into the glass and added a little bit of liquor to the mix. “Go ahead and ask. I’ll try not to do that thing, but I can’t make any promises.”
“Fair enough.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table with a loud thump. “So, how did you wind up mixed up with a guy like Julian?”
She chuckled when Chad scrunched his nose at Julian’s name. Then she sipped on her drink while she tried to figure out a way to give him an answer. “We grew up together,” she said. “We’ve been close for as long as I can remember.”
“Is he the one who turned you onto this, too?” He picked up his empty shot glass and waved it around.
She nodded. “You could say that.” Looking down into her cup, she thought for a minute. “I know Julian’s not the greatest guy in the world, but there was a time when he was the best part of my life.”
“Really?” he asked. After a minute, he added, “Did you love him?”
The question surprised her. She hadn’t really thought of love in a long time. To her, it was just an ideal. A nice, comforting thought and nothing else. With Julian, it was never about love. She’d needed him, and he’d needed her and that had been enough. “I used to think so.” She rested her elbows on the table. “Now…I don’t know.”
“So what changed?”
She twirled part of her ponytail around her finger as she reflected on his question. This time, she knew the answer, but was reluctant to give it. The truth was; Shane had changed things for her. She saw the way he treated her, the way he tried to understand her instead of trying to mold her into someone else, and she thought…isn’t that the way love—real love—was supposed to be? Didn’t Shane act more loving than Julian ever had? She wasn’t sure but it was enough to make her question what she’d felt before. “I was young,” she said. “How am I supposed to know what I felt?”
“I’m just asking,” he said. “Because I’ve been thinking about it and if you’re not sure that you loved him, why marry him in the first place?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” she said.
“I just feel bad,” he said. “You were cheated out of so much growing up, and now this. It doesn’t seem fair.”
She lifted the cup to her lips. “We were all cheated.”
***
Even though he’d intended to let sleeping dogs rest, it just wasn’t in Sam’s nature. He figured the least he could do was look over the case file from Allen’s murder and see if there was anything the Baltimore police had missed, something that would put Cameron in the clear for good. When he called Detective Machado’s cell, it went straight to voice mail. He gave the other cop thirty minutes to return the call, and then decided to bypass him altogether and phoned the Baltimore station directly.
“This is Lieutenant Sam Baker from the Victory Hollow police department,” he said when the receptionist answered. “I was hoping you could help me out. I need some information on a murder. I believe I have the suspect in custody.”
“I’d be happy to help,” the cheery woman said. “Can I have the victim’s name please?”
“Allen Nichols,” he replied.
On the other end
of the line, he heard her clicking away at computer keys. “Um, Lieutenant Baker was it?” she asked, sounding a little puzzled. “Can you spell that for me?”
He spelled out the name.
“That’s what I thought,” she said. “It seems you have the wrong information. There was no murder, but there is a malicious wounding case open. It looks like he was lucky to survive.”
“Wait a second,” he said, trying to process this. “You’re sure there was no murder?”
“Positive.”
“Is there any way you could send me that file?” he asked.
“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to speak with the detective in charge of that case about that,” she replied. “Hold on and I’ll transfer you.”
The line rang once and went to the voicemail system, where an older, gruff voice said, “This is Detective Bertinelli, leave a message and I’ll return your call as soon as I can. If this is an emergency, please dial 911.”
Puzzled, Sam was at a loss for words. If Detective Bertinelli was in charge of Allen’s wounding case…then who was interrogating Cameron for murder and why?
Chapter Fourteen
The next few days passed quickly with no contact from Julian. Cameron wasn’t sure what to make of his sudden silence, but she hoped it had something to do with Sadie and not his next diabolical plot.
She’d made an effort to avoid Shane since her tear-filled confession, but one night after work, he called after her as she was heading across the parking lot.
At first, she pretended not to hear him. She wasn’t sure why, exactly, she’d been avoiding him. All she really knew was that being around him, now that he knew her secrets, was unbearably tense and awkward.
“Wait up.” He jogged until he fell in step with her. “Do you have any plans tonight?”
“I need to go home.”
He grabbed her arm, then quickly retrieved it when she her body tensed. “I want to show you something.”
She stepped back. “Shane, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Come on.” He grinned. “It’ll only take a second.”
The smile made her defenses melt, but she struggled to remain firm. “I can spare a few minutes.”
“Great.” Turning, he led her into the garage, only stopping long enough to turn on the light. “So, my temper got the best of me and I paid Julian a visit the other night.”
“What?” she asked, stopping. “Why would you do that?”
“Don’t be mad,” he said, turning to look at her. “I just wanted to make sure that he would give you the divorce like he said.”
Crossing her arms, she reluctantly asked, “What’d he say?”
“A whole lot of nothing,” he said with a small laugh. “Just like I figured he would.”
“You shouldn’t have gone there,” she said. “The last place you want to be is in his crosshairs. He’ll make you miserable.”
“He can’t,” he said. “Because I control my happiness and no one else, and he doesn’t control yours either. You give him this power over you, Cameron.”
She rolled her eyes and turned away. “That sounds like it came straight from NA,” she moaned, covering her face with her hands.
“So what if it did?” he asked. “Deep down, you know I’m right.”
“What I know,” she said, turning back to face him, “is that this is none of your business. Just because I broke down and told you something that I never should’ve told you, doesn’t mean that you can go around trying to fix the problem.”
“Why are we fighting?” he asked. “I just told you so you know—”
“Know what, that you tried to play the tough guy?” She didn’t understand what was making her so angry. All she knew was the thought of Shane and Julian alone made her panic. Julian could’ve told him anything, screwed with his head, or turned him against her. Maybe he still could.
“No,” he said, “that I care.”
“Maybe that’s your problem,” she shot back, “You always care about people who can never care about you.”
That stung him, she could tell by the way he looked at her in disbelief. “You’re trying to push me away,” he said, shaking it off like a champ. “I won’t let you do it.”
“I have to go,” she said. Turning, she started walking toward the open garage door.
“Wait,” he said, “I wanted to give you something, remember?”
Like she deserved it now, she thought. She kept walking, mumbling, “I don’t want it.”
“Come on,” he said, “it’s rude to turn down a gift.”
With every step she continued to take, she wanted to turn back. Why couldn’t she just apologize and admit she was worried and frazzled? But she didn’t, at least not yet.
She went home, curled up with a choice beverage and moped about it instead. It took a few hours and more than a few drinks before she realized she’d jumped the gun and her attempt to sabotage things with Shane was premeditated. So he’d succumbed to his male instincts for a few minutes—Cameron had done much worse than that before. It wasn’t enough reason to say she could never care about him; that had been a little too harsh. Of course she cared about him. She wouldn’t have taken the time to be so mean if she didn’t. Even as she thought it, she realized how backwards her thinking was.
Just to be safe, she gave herself an hour or so to sober up before she finally drove to Shane’s place. Taking the roads nice and slow, she was careful to avoid getting into an accident. It took her twice the usual time to get there, but finally, she was at his door, knocking.
When he answered, she leaned against the doorjamb and heaved a heavy, worried sigh. “Have I happened to fill you in on just how crazy I am?” she asked, hoping to break the ice. “Really, I’m borderline psycho.”
A small, faint smile brightened his face for a second. “You’re not a psycho,” he said softly.
“But I am really sorry,” she said. “I overreacted.”
“I get it.” He stepped out of the way to let her in the living room. “I crossed the line.”
“No. What you did was…well…” she paused, searching for words. She didn’t want to say sweet because that didn’t exactly fit, although the thought of him confronting Julian did make her feel special in some odd, guilty-pleasure kind of way. “It came from a good place,” she decided finally.
“Well, I’ve done a lot of stupid things with good intentions before,” he said as they sat down on the couch. “Have you heard anything from him?”
“Yeah, he texted me earlier. We’re supposed to meet tomorrow afternoon to sign, so…”
“Good,” he said. “That’s good.”
“Yeah.” As silence fell over them, Cameron’s conscious nagged at her even more until finally, she said, “I say things I don’t mean all the time. I don’t even know why. So if I said something that was—”
“Cameron,” he said, touching her knee just long enough to get her attention. “It’s okay. I told you, those defense mechanisms won’t work on me. I’m about as stubborn as you.” He stood and crossed the room to the kitchen. “Earlier I said I had something I wanted to give you.”
“I don’t deserve it,” she said.
He grabbed a small gift bag from the kitchen table and headed back across the room. “Everyone deserves a present once in awhile.” He sat next to her again and dropped the bag into her lap. “Open it.”
She hesitated, wondering why he’d done this and what strings came along with it. It made her feel uneasy, but he was urging her to open with an eager look in his eyes, and she didn’t want to disappoint him. She pulled off the white tissue paper stuffed into the top of the bag and looked inside. “A camera?” she asked, pulling it out of the bag. It was the digital kind, sleek and thin and would easily fit into her back pocket.
“It’s new,” he said, “I just took it out of the package to see how it works. There should be a warranty in the bag.” From there, he started explaining which buttons activated which functions. This
wasn’t what she’d been expecting, and as she stared at the shiny pink plastic, she couldn’t help but feel puzzled.
“I figured you had enough bad memories clouding your head,” he explained. “I thought it might be nice to capture the good moments, too.”
It was such a sweet, thoughtful gesture. She’d thought he didn’t know her well enough to buy her a present, but she’d been wrong. This was perfect. Looking over at him, she smiled. “It’s great, Shane.”
She turned the camera on and held it up, motioning between them with it. “Do you mind if we…”
“No,” he said with a shy, nervous kind of smile. “Not at all.” Scooting over to the middle cushion, he settled against the back of the couch and stretched his arm out for her. She nestled against him, raising the camera in the air and positioning it so they would both be in the frame. Being so close to him, smelling whatever wonderful product gave him that clean, refreshing scent, feeling his body touching hers, turned out to be distracting and she couldn’t keep the camera steady. Raising his other arm up, he held on to the other end of the camera, his fingertips brushing across hers as he helped her steady it. Once everything was positioned just right, she took the picture.
She didn’t move from his embrace as she lowered the camera to look at the picture. The preview was already up and for the first time she realized just how striking they looked together. He was all blond and carefree, and even in the picture; she could see the sadness in her eyes. But being around him, she looked happy. There was a strange, genuine kind of smile on her face, and she didn’t recognize it. He was the light to her dark, she realized. “It’s perfect,” she said, looking over at him.
But he wasn’t looking at the display screen. His sensitive baby blues were locked on hers in a way she wasn’t prepared for and it allowed her to see how deep his feelings for her went. She found herself wondering what would happen if she kissed him. Would he kiss her back? Would he finally admit that his intentions went far beyond ‘just helping’ her?
Another Life: Another Life Series #1 Page 19
