by Jillian Hart
“Time to go home, boy.” She kicked up, swung her leg over his haunches and settled on his broad back. Sprite lipped her knee, as if sensing her pain and attempting to reassure her.
She felt Cameron’s approach, the buoyant buzz of his nearness weighed down by the despair that emanated from his soul. She’d hurt him. She hadn’t told him it was her memories that made her walk away—not his wounded heart or his belief in true love.
She led the way through the woods and down the hillside where the darkness gathered. Where loneliness pulsed like a broken bone. The coming storm was swift, stealing the last of the stars from the sky. Rain broke from the sky as she dismounted outside the main stable.
“I’ll put up Warrior. Go on home.” She kept her back to Cameron and pretended to be busy with her horse, so he wouldn’t guess her regret as he walked away, lightning outlining him as he strode through the grounds toward his truck.
The rain chilled her. Wet her to the skin. She remained unmoving until the red glow from his vehicle’s taillights vanished in the night and the wind.
Chapter Ten
The banner overhead flapped cheerfully in the breeze as Kendra eased the double baby stroller off the curb and onto the people-filled street.
The first day of the town’s annual Harvest Days was in full swing. She had Allie and little Michael all to herself, and a whole day to be a doting aunt ahead of her.
She should be happy, for spending time with her niece and nephew was one of her most favorite things. The way she’d treated Cameron remained a dark cloud in her heart, the same way the remnants of last night’s storm lingered with a dark promise in the eastern sky.
She’d hardly slept last night. It was easier to blame it on the crashing of thunder that kept her from drifting off and the worry of lightning striking the forests on her land and starting a wildfire.
A chunky toy plane crashed to the street, launched from inside the stroller.
“No!” Michael shouted with glee.
Kendra retrieved the toy and tucked it away. “That’s a good arm you have, but let’s—”
“One day he might pitch for the Mariners,” came a chocolate-rich voice from behind her, as familiar to her as her own.
Cameron. Her spirits soared heaven high and plummeted straight to earth. After the way she’d behaved last night, how could she face him? He’d opened up to her and she’d pushed him away. What was she going to say to him?
“Vanilla latte for you.” He handed her one of two tall coffees from her family’s coffee shop. “Your grandmother told me how to influence you.”
“Influence me to do what?”
“To be forgiving.” He knelt, making a face at Michael who laughed. Allie frowned at him, clutching her stuffed pony. “I see the company you keep is improving. You two are sure a better choice than the local sheriff.”
“I take any opportunity I can to make full use of my aunt privileges.”
“Deb and I never got around to starting a family.” Cameron sounded wistful, in the way of an old wrong that could never be righted. “About the time we decided to, she was diagnosed. Guess it wasn’t meant to be.”
“It’s a lot to lose, a future with children in it.”
“Guess you know something about that. Can’t have a family without getting married first.”
“Exactly.” Preferring to say nothing more on that painful topic, she deposited a handful of fish-shaped crackers on both trays.
Allie chose one carefully and popped the whole thing into her mouth, beaming like the precious angel she was.
Michael smacked his tray with his beefy little fists and cracker crumbs spewed in every direction. His gleeful laugh usually chased all the shadows from Kendra’s heart.
Not this time. The yearning was plain and honest on Cameron’s face as he pushed a couple of crackers from the edge of Michael’s tray to the center for more fist-bashing. He wanted children.
Her arms felt empty, her life desolate. She dug through her purse for her sunglasses, blinking hard to keep the sun’s glare from her eyes. She wasn’t crying.
“Good punch you’ve got there.” Cameron stood with coffee in hand, wearing a brown leather jacket over his usual T-shirt and jeans. He looked like everything decent and dependable and capable in a man. Everything a good husband and father should be.
She had no right to be noticing that.
Just because Cameron was a truly good man, that didn’t mean she had to go falling in love with him. She had a willpower of steel.
What about him? Was there a chance he was falling for her?
No way. Impossible.
Then why did her hand tingle with the memory of last night on the mountain? Her palm had fit snugly against his, a perfect match.
He took the stroller from her as if he had every right to possess it. “I’m an only child, so there are no nieces or nephews for me to spoil.”
“You think you can borrow mine?”
“Why not? I’m an accomplished driver. This vehicle has four wheels.”
If Cameron kept charming her with his humor, she was going to love him. Then what would she do? “You must have better things to do on your day off than to hang around with me.”
“I’m not hanging around with you. I happen to be buds with Allie and Michael here. Right, guys?”
“Pony!” Allie shouted, spotting a horse and rider at the edge of the crowd.
“Exactly. My sentiments, too, Allie. Are you ready, Michael? Are you both belted in? Does this thing have a fifth speed?”
“Don’t give Michael any ideas. He likes to go fast, just like his father.” Why was he doing this? Showing up like this with her favorite coffee, taking over, helping out, acting as if last night hadn’t happened. As if she hadn’t walked away when he was reaching out to her. “I suppose you’re out helping everyone with small children?”
“Sure. Thought I’d start with you first. I’ve got an election to win.”
“That’s coming up, isn’t it? After this weekend?”
“Yep. This Tuesday. That’s why I have to make the best impression I can. Thanks for letting me rub shoulders with you and Michael and Allie. Folks are bound to be impressed.”
“You’re running unopposed.”
“Still, I don’t want to get too confident. Put-the-cart-before-the-horses kind of thing.”
“You have the job and you know it.” He looked so right pushing the stroller. He would make some lucky woman a fine husband.
But not her. Didn’t he know that? He wasn’t trying to date her, was he? “I have to be honest with you. I think you have the wrong impression of me—”
“Stop.” His hand, big and rough and warm, settled on her shoulder. There was strength in his touch. Tenderness. “I have the right impression of you, Kendra Nicole McKaslin.”
“And you know my middle name because—”
“Frank got a peek at your license, remember? Don’t ever trust him. He blabs. Can’t keep anything to himself.”
“See? That will teach me never to speed, even fudging it by a few miles per hour.”
His chuckle warmed her and wore down her resistance.
“Kendra, would you do me a favor?”
She took a sip of coffee, savoring the vanilla flavoring. “What do you need, Sheriff? Trying to get my vote on Tuesday?”
“Nah, I figure I’ve already swayed you to my side.”
“Hmm, maybe I have a write-in candidate I’m supporting.”
“The vanilla latte didn’t buy your vote? Then I guess I’ll have to treat you to a cinnamon roll, too.” He halted the stroller in front of the local bakery’s booth. “What do you think, kids? Can I bribe you, too?”
“Bribing? You’re spoiling them.”
“Just following your example.” Cameron ordered enough big gooey rolls to go around plus enough napkins to wipe up the kids afterward and dug in his wallet.
“What’s the favor?” she asked, watching him toss a five on the counter.
“Stop worrying about my motives. Got it? I thought you and I agreed to be friends.”
“We did, but last night—”
“Last night, I took your hand. Sometimes friends do that. They also step in when the other looks lonely.”
Lonely. Cameron was lonely. That’s why he’d joined her and the kids this morning.
He stuffed his wallet into his back pocket. “Look at all the families here. Go ahead. Look.”
“I don’t have to.”
“I look at them all the time.”
Husbands and wives walking side by side, hand in hand, arm in arm or in that companionable closeness that said, We’re together. We’re in love. We’re a team. Children in strollers or carried on hips or trotting ahead yelling, Daddy, Daddy, can I have some cotton candy? Please?
Yeah, she knew. Everywhere she looked she saw what she could never have. Everything she wanted.
Did Cameron feel this way, too?
Kendra accepted the iced cinnamon roll he handed her. The carnival music swelled, lifted by the growing wind. Kids racing by, wind chimes for sale jangling in the next booth and the faint smoke from the fireman’s barbecue were all background.
Cameron was front and center to her, the big man he was, down on one knee, handing Allie her miniature-size roll and patiently breaking Michael’s into bite-size pieces.
“I suppose you can hang with us,” she told him, the shadowed places inside her hurting. “As long as I get some kind of favoritism after you’re elected. For helping your image.”
“Sure thing. I’ll treat you to one of those lattes anytime you want.”
“Deal.” See? They were friends and only friends. Wasn’t that what Cameron meant? He was trying to reassure her, and why did that make her feel even worse?
Allie squealed, pointing. She’d spotted a vendor’s booth of stuffed animals.
“All right, little lady. Your wish is my command.” He steered the stroller in the direction Allie indicated with both hands reaching. “Hi, Phil. I guess we’re gonna need that stuffed pinto pony here in front.”
“No, put your wallet away. This is my day, and you’re not going to spoil it.” Kendra had already whipped out a ten-dollar bill from her back pocket. “And the stuffed helicopter for Michael, please.”
A meteorite might have fallen from the sky and smacked him right in the middle of the forehead, that’s how Cameron felt, affected as she slipped between him and the counter. So close to him, only air separated them.
If she turned a fraction of an inch, he could slant his mouth over hers in a kiss that would change both their lives. Maybe alter the way she looked at him forever.
Lord, please change Kendra’s heart. I’m a patient man, but loneliness is killing me. What he wanted was standing right in front of him. He fought to keep from reaching out. How was it possible to love someone fiercely who didn’t love you back?
Or was loving her a lost cause?
“What?” She crooked one thin eyebrow, as if puzzled why he was staring at her openmouthed, like a fish out of water. Or a man struck dumb by love. “Did you want a stuffed helicopter, too?”
“Nah, I’ll pass, thanks.”
“You look more like the adorable teddy-bear type.”
“What?”
“Admit it.” Laughter lit her up like the corona on the sun. With her hair down, rippling in the wind, in a worn denim jacket and jeans, she was unaware of her effect on him. She flicked a few more dollars onto the counter.
“No—” he protested, but it was too late. The vendor was already handing over the little brown bear and Kendra’s change.
No macho, gun-toting officer of the law would feel comfortable hauling that around the town streets for everyone to see.
Embarrassed, he yanked a five out of his wallet. “Fair play,” he told Kendra before she could protest. “That yellow cat way in the back, it’s all yours. And you’ve got to carry the bear.”
“Fine, but lunch is my treat,” she spoke up, as if he’d agree to that.
“I could be pretty hungry. I might need two fair burgers. Maybe even three.”
“Ooh, and we’ll get a big tub of onion rings to share,” she agreed, accepting the soft-bodied, striped orange cat. “Thank you, Cameron. For everything.”
“My pleasure. This is the best time I’ve had at a shindig like this in years. Since Deb passed.” His throat ached and he turned away, because he was a real man, and real men didn’t get sentimental in the middle of a crowd. “I ought to be thanking you.”
“Oh, Cameron.” As if she could peek into his soul, her eyes filled with a beauty he’d never seen. He could see her soul, too, aching for him. “I’m glad you muscled your way in and stole the kids from me.”
“I didn’t steal them. I just, uh, took charge. I’m sheriff. The town pays me to do that.”
“Sure.” As if she didn’t believe him for an instant, her hand settled on the back of his right wrist. She squeezed gently, comfort flowing from her heart and into his.
Like a new star bursting to life in a night sky, that’s how he felt. As if he’d taken his very first breath, opened his eyes for the first time. A new man, he didn’t dare to move as the light, quick brush of her fingers ended and she moved away.
“You can hang with me and the gang for as long as you want. But I warn you, Michael shrieks. Allie cries. Oh—” Laughing, she knelt to break up a fist-fight inside the stroller. A good-natured fight, since no real harm was done.
Cameron knew he was grinning like a fool, but he couldn’t help it. Was his cause lost? Hardly. He was on the right path. He just had to keep going steady and slow. Show her he was the one man she could trust above all others.
It was his intention to show her that the greatest strength in this world was a man’s tenderness.
“Where to next, lovely lady?” he asked, taking charge of the stroller. “Wind chimes or stained glass?”
“Ooh, I have a weakness for stained glass.”
“Then follow me.” Cameron led the way through the stream of people heading in the opposite direction to the row of booths on the other side of the park. “Look, there’s something for you right there.”
“The horses.” Beautiful mustangs, painstakingly created in colorful glass, dashed along the circumference of a delicate vase. The green Montana prairie rolled beneath their hooves and the brilliant sapphire sky watched over them.
I have to have this. Kendra reached for the fragile piece and plainly saw the one hundred and twenty dollar price tag spinning in the breeze. It was exactly eighty more dollars than she had in her purse.
“It was made for you,” Cameron mumbled in her ear, one hand on the stroller, the other fingering the price tag. “Are you going to get it?”
I wish. “Not in my budget. But maybe there’s something that is.” Beautiful colors sparkled in the sunlight, garnering her attention. She could get something small, maybe something to glitter in her kitchen window. “There, I’ll take the hummingbird.”
“Not the vase?”
“The hummingbird,” Kendra handed over her twenty, complimented the artist on her exquisite work and waited while her blue-and-emerald hummingbird was wrapped in tissue paper. “The parade should be starting soon. Did you want to watch it with me?”
“I sure would.”
Why did his smile warm her up inside, the way sunlight blazed through the stained-glass vase?
Maybe she’d kept herself apart from everyone for too long. She’d stopped shining inside—going through her life, pouring everything into her work and into her duties as a sister because she wouldn’t get hurt. Not by her work and not from her sisters.
But from everyone else? Distant. Polite, sure, but even in this crowd, she was as lonely as if she was sitting on the back porch on a Friday evening.
Jerrod had taken more than her ability to trust. He’d taken away her will to live. She’d been stumbling along, surviving, existing, not living. She hadn’t realized it.
M
aybe that’s why God had brought Cameron into her life. To remind her what she’d been missing, hiding away in her dutiful life. Without making new friends, letting old friendships slip away and allowing work to invade nearly every waking moment of every day.
“Are you all right?” he asked with concern, and she realized she’d been staring off into space.
“I feel almost perfect.” For the first time in six years happiness sparkled inside her, bold like noontime sunshine through the glass. Like hope.
And all because of her new friendship with Cameron.
He felt like a man who’d been able to touch heaven for one brief instant. Cameron had the good Lord to thank as he carefully lifted the basket from the passenger seat. Maybe he should have called, made sure Kendra was home.
Nah. He remembered leaving her at her truck after the parade was finished. He’d asked her if she was in the mood for ice cream. She said she had to get back to the stables and relieve Colleen, who’d wanted to attend the rodeo—an informal annual event to raise money for the volunteer fire department and emergency services.
It was just as well. He’d wanted to kiss her goodbye, but he held back. He had big plans for her, for tonight. He watched her pull away, her pickup joining several of the other vehicles patiently waiting out the traffic congestion in their single-street town. He’d first put in some volunteer time helping over at the rodeo grounds before heading out Kendra’s way with his surprise.
He lifted the vase carefully in his free hand and shouldered the vehicle’s door closed. Nerves tingled in his gut.
Was he moving too fast? Or too slow? It had been all he’d thought about during the afternoon. Nope—all he’d worried about. She’d reached out to him. Laughed with him. Relaxed as the local fire trucks paraded by. The volunteer fireman tossed chocolate gold coins, and he caught a handful for her. With the little tykes there, getting the chance to watch over them, he got a good eyeful of what his future could be.
Would be. He couldn’t let fear get the best of him now. He’d come a long way since Deb’s passing. He’d crawled through a long night of shadow to stand here in the light of Kendra’s affection. It felt like a smile from heaven as he strode through the long rays of the sun that carpeted the path before him.
