“You’re exaggerating,” he said with a raise of one eyebrow.
“I am absolutely not exaggerating.”
Laughing, he reached out and grabbed my hand, sliding his fingers deftly through mine. “Yes, she was being flirty. Why would I care when I have you sitting there? And on a day when we got to hear something so amazing.”
“It was incredible, wasn’t it?” I remarked, giving him a sly grin as the elevator doors parted once again. Stepping into the foyer, we slowly meandered toward the front door. “You know – what we were talking about earlier today… Well, I feel the need to tell you that I am pretty excited right about now. Actually, completely excited.”
Wrapping his arm around my shoulders, he pulled me against him and planted a kiss to my temple. “I love you, Cam,” he responded quietly, “and our baby, whatever his or her name will be.”
“I love you, too,” I sighed. “We really should start thinking about names.”
Cole wasn’t quick to answer, and my phone began to vibrate in my purse, so I fished it out and looked down at the ID, seeing that it was the number for the bed and breakfast. Deciding Rosalie probably wanted to know how the appointment had gone, I casually held the phone to the side of my ear.
“Camdyn, where are you?” I heard Rosalie through the speaker. “I’m in a pickle and I need your help.”
“We just got done with a doctor’s appointment. Is something wrong?” Rosalie wasn’t usually one to call requesting assistance, and she seemed to be in a bit of a panic.
“Please, just get over here as soon as you can. I’m afraid I’ve done something stupid and I don’t know how to fix it. I’m very nervous about the whole situation.”
Cole must have seen the surprised look cross my face, because he stopped walking and stood there in the parking lot staring at me with a slightly concerned expression.
“What is it, Rosalie? It can’t be that bad, whatever it is.”
“Oh, but it is,” she moaned pathetically, breath disjointed as though she were pacing. “I’m all aflutter, and I can’t seem to calm down.”
With an exaggerated sigh, I placed my hand on my hip and shook my head at Cole so he could bear witness to my frustration. “Honestly, Rosalie, what is the problem?”
“I’ve made a date,” she gasped, “with Cal265.”
Chapter Ten
Had I held any expectations of a lazy, stress-free afternoon, any hope towards that prospect had been quickly dashed during that short phone conversation with Rosalie. Whatever secrecy she hoped to cling to when she had originally ducked my questions about Internet dating had been thrown out the window, along with whatever common sense she normally possessed. She seemed to be in the throes of a full-on frenzy when I spoke to her over the phone, and the closer we drove toward home, the funnier the situation began to appear in my mind. The hilarity certainly wasn’t assisted by a phone call I received from Cole’s sister Rachel, casually wondering if her aunt Rosalie had managed to find me, because she was calling all over the place when I wouldn’t answer my phone. By the time we reached our house, Cole and I were trading comic one-liners about the situation with relative ease.
“Why do you suppose she is looking for your help?” he asked as we pulled into the driveway.
“Because I’m a dating expert, obviously.”
“Uh, I’m pretty sure that’s not it. She’s not asking for assistance on receiving a proposal.”
“That’s not funny,” I protested. “She said that exact same thing, by the way.”
He put the truck in park and shut off the engine, swinging open the driver’s side door. “I still can’t believe you knew Aunt Rosalie was looking for dates and didn’t tell me.”
“What was I supposed to say – that I saw her ogling a website? Honestly, I didn’t know she was seriously giving it any thought. Besides, she seemed rather embarrassed. That was when Hannah and Maureen were here, too, so it slipped my mind.”
“I don’t know how you’d concentrate on anything when Maureen was around,” he joked, slamming his door and walking around the front of the truck to open my door. Normally I would have opened it before he had a chance, but I was staring out the windshield, contemplating Rosalie’s odd behavior.
“It’s quite disconcerting, really,” I remarked when he extended his hand to me. “Rosalie is supposed to be a voice of reason in the midst of my occasional confusion. I don’t know how to process this turn of events.”
“Maybe you could distract yourself by contemplating the baby’s room – I have lots of ideas for Cole Jr.’s personal space.”
“Cole Jr.?” I asked with a smile as I slid my hand into the crook of his arm. “I’m afraid I can’t agree on that name. Besides, wouldn’t it be Wyatt Jr.?”
“Good point, and that’s not going to happen.” We stepped up the log stairs together, pausing at the front door.
“Let’s wait until we know whether we’re having a boy or a girl to think about names,” I begged. “It’s going to be hard enough to agree on a name – I don’t want to have to do it twice.”
“Your wish is my command,” he stated gallantly, bowing slightly as he opened the door. “Your palace awaits, milady.”
“If only I had some ladies’ maids to draw me a bath and plait my hair.”
“Sorry,” he added with a shrug, offering up a breathtaking grin. “I’m afraid there’s only me.”
“Well,” I began, reaching my arms up and twining my fingers together behind his neck, “at least I have my Prince Charming.”
-§-
Rambling up to the front porch of the River Rock Bed & Breakfast, I paused just before the front door and thought back to the first time I stood on that doorstep. Water had been dripping down my back beneath the oversized jacket that had been draped across my shoulders by Cole while we stood together on the deserted dirt road. Scared and alone, I had waited with trepidation on the same front porch, where I had been met with a bright flashlight beam to the eyes and an apologetic Rosalie. She assured me she wouldn’t send me back out into the night, and she certainly held up her end of the bargain.
“Rosalie!” I yelled as I opened the front door. “I’m here to save you from your destructive habits.” Laughing a bit at my own joke, I took a few steps into the living room and stopped just outside the kitchen. “Rosalie? I know you’re here!” Six more paces forward and I was standing next to the kitchen table, where I unintentionally began glancing around in a search for cookies or a pastry. The instant I realized what I was doing, I shook my head and continued moving toward the back of the house and Rosalie’s office and bedroom.
“Rosalie!” I called down the hall, looking in the office doorway and finding no sign of an occupant. “Rosalie Mills! Have you passed out with fright?”
“Thank God you’re finally here,” I heard, fingers shooting out from her bedroom and clasping onto my arm like an arcade claw game grasping for a prize. As she pulled me into the bedroom, her form came into view, and I drew my eyebrows together with concern.
“What in the blazes are you doing?” I asked, staring at the wavy, wet reddish-brown hair that was plastered to her face.
“What in the blazes?” she repeated, giving me a strange look.
“It sounded like something you would say if you were trying to talk sense into me,” I explained matter-of-factly, folding my arms across my chest. “Why are you acting crazy and walking around with wet hair?”
“I’m trying to decide on a color,” she stated simply, pointing to four boxes of drug store hair-coloring kits on her dresser. Allowing my mouth to slide open a bit, I shook my head adamantly.
“Absolutely not. I forbid it.” Moving over to the dresser, I grabbed up all four of those boxes, cradling them in my arms. “Black, Rosalie, really? Are you insane?”
“I was going to try to cover the gray, and then I got to thinking that maybe another color would look better on me.”
“Black ain’t it, sister,” I stated sarcastically. “
Anyway, if you were wanting to cover the gray, trying it for the first time a few hours before your first date in decades probably isn’t the most opportune occasion. Wouldn’t you agree that’s true?”
“It sounds rational.”
“Trust me, there will be no hair coloring in this house. If you’re insistent, we will go to a professional. Do you really want to go meet this Cal265 person with green hair?”
“Oh, Camdyn, I’ve made such a huge mistake. I should cancel, don’t you think? He’s bound to be disappointed.”
Dropping those color boxes into her bathroom garbage container, I faced her with my hands planted firmly on my hips. “Why would he be disappointed? You didn’t do something stupid and send him a picture of Cindy Crawford or something, did you?”
“Of course not!”
“And you didn’t tell him you were a multi-millionaire with a private yacht?”
“You know I wouldn’t.”
“So what are you worried about?”
With a heavy sigh, she sat down on the side of her bed, pushing a wet strand of hair away from her forehead. “What if he doesn’t like me?”
The bed sunk slightly as I settled next to her, placing my hand over hers. For a split second I thought about how easy it was to remember our roles reversed, with me sitting on the twin-sized bed in her spare bedroom and her telling me I should be honest with Cole about my feelings. It occurred to me that there might really be no hope of ever being completely comfortable, if Rosalie could so quickly descend into crazy Camdyn territory.
“Rosalie, you clearly have to be half-nuts to think someone wouldn’t like you. If anything, it’s you who won’t like him. You’re quite a catch, if you’d just believe in yourself a tad. When he learns what a great cook you are on top of everything else – well, if he doesn’t propose to you on the spot, then he has something wrong with him.”
“Oh, go on,” she attempted to laugh, falling slightly short of sounding natural.
“What time is this date of yours?”
“Six o’clock,” she moaned, closing her eyes and shaking her head. “I don’t think I can do it. Camdyn, you’ll come with me, won’t you?”
“On your date?!” I exclaimed. “Absolutely not!”
“Not on the actual date – just go with me and kind of inspect him from a distance.”
“That’s absurd.”
“I’ll just cancel, then,” she stated quietly. “I shouldn’t have agreed – I haven’t been on a date in so long, I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m sure he’ll understand. He seems like a nice man.”
She has a date with a nice man.
She hasn’t been on a date in decades. Is that even possible?
Ugh, there’s really no choice, is there?
“Stop twisting my arm,” I ordered with mock anger. “I’ll go on your date, and I’ll spy on you from a distance, if it makes you happy.”
“Yes, honey, I’d love to have you spy on me.”
-§-
Rosalie exposed the true extent of her nervousness when she insisted that I drive her to the predetermined meeting place with Cal265. Nobody ever asked me to drive – not Cole, or my brother Charlie, and especially not Rosalie. Yet, there I was in the driver’s seat of her white Nissan Altima, glancing over at her periodically to make certain she hadn’t fainted. Rosalie had always assumed the role of caretaker and mother-figure in my presence, and this new side of her was throwing me for a loop.
“What made you ask me for help?” I spoke into the silence, gripping the wheel a little tighter.
“You were the only person who knew about the Internet dating,” she answered simply.
“Yeah, but you knew I wasn’t going to tell anyone. Your secret was safe with me.”
She chuckled and nervously reached up to touch her hair, which I had fashioned in loose curls around her face. “Who else was I going to ask, Camdyn? This is a little humiliating.”
“You could have asked Rita.”
I certainly wouldn’t ask Rita for help, but Rosalie and Rita seem to be…
I almost can’t bear to think the words in my mind.
Could they really be friends?
“Rita’s too classy, old Hollywood glamour to help me.”
Gasping, I twisted my head to look at her for a split second before I remembered I was driving and returned my eyes to the road. “Too classy? What does that make me, trashy?”
“No, sweetie, you know that’s not what I meant,” she blurted, twisting her hands together in her lap. “Can you imagine me taking a beautiful woman along on my date? What if Cal265 got a good look at her and decided he didn’t want to talk to me anymore?”
“You make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.”
“Because she’s in my peer group, I mean. You’re the age of his daughter. Besides, you’re married.”
“Well, in that case, I guess you expect me to be okay with you thinking I’m not classy. You’re forgetting the fact that you’re bringing a celebrity on your date. People are bound to recognize me.”
“Oh my goodness, I hadn’t even thought about that! What if people do recognize you?”
“I was only kidding,” I assured her, trying to assuage her nervousness. “I’m not really a celebrity, I was simply trying to make myself feel better after you insulted my sense of propriety. I’ll have you know that I can be very classy if I set my mind to be.”
“You must rarely set your mind,” she blurted.
“Hey!”
“It’s a joke,” she insisted, expelling a loud breath. “I think that’s it, just on the other side of that fabric store. Does that look like an Italian place?”
“Sure,” I said noncommittally. I had a sneaking suspicion she wasn’t kidding about me not being classy, and I was finding myself righteously annoyed with that tidbit of information.
“He said he would be waiting for me just inside, but I don’t want him to know that you brought me. Would you mind just dropping me off in the back?”
“Dropping you off in the back,” I repeated sarcastically. “How very classy.”
“Please don’t embarrass me,” she whispered.
“Okay, now I don’t even want to help you. What do you mean, don’t embarrass you?”
“Oh, dear,” she muttered, glancing anxiously around the parking lot. “Maybe you should stay in the car?”
“Seriously?!” I exclaimed as I pulled into a parking spot at the back of the restaurant, jerking the gear shifter into park. “You can’t expect a pregnant woman to drive upwards of thirty minutes to a restaurant and then want her to wait for you in the car. I feel manipulated and used.”
“Camdyn, I would never…”
“You would never, and yet you have. Shame on you, Rosalie. I demand that you apologize to me at once. I will accept a heaping plate of chicken parmigiana as penance.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Okay, a regular helping of chicken parmigiana, then. I won’t be greedy.”
For a moment it appeared that the banter between us had calmed her nerves as she prepared to open her car door, but suddenly she returned her attention to me.
“Find a way to sneak in a few minutes after me,” she whispered, as though someone would overhear in the privacy of her car. “Just be close, but not too close. I think it will be hard if I can see you, but try to be where you can see us.”
“I’ll be a perfect picture of stealth in action,” I assured her.
“Lord Almighty,” she whispered, grasping the door handle as though we were going off the side of a bridge. “I can’t breathe.”
Sighing, I leaned my head against the seat and stared over at her. “I don’t know how to deal with this turn of events. I’m supposed to be the dramatic one, remember? You’re supposed to be the voice of reason. Make sense, woman.”
“Don’t embarrass me, honey,” she added slowly, punctuating each word as though I wouldn’t understand. While I let my mouth fall open, she slid out of the car and walke
d away, leaving me alone in that vehicle.
“Why does everyone always tell me that?” I wondered aloud to no one, inserting a huff since I was free to wallow in my self-pity without any watchful eyes telling me I was acting crazy. Shoving the door open, I made certain to walk slowly toward the front of the restaurant, lest she manage to see me and accuse me of trying to ruin her date. I paused at the front door, noticing a wooden bench and deciding to sit there for a moment so we wouldn’t walk in so close together. The temptation to sneak a peek inside was looming over me, but I fought it and planted myself on my seat, taking a deep breath and noticing hints of garlic and basil in the air. It hit me suddenly that I wasn’t feeling remotely nauseous at the moment, and hadn’t for a couple of hours, and I might have performed a happy dance right there were it not for a couple strolling casually toward me arm in arm.
Instead, I reined myself in and sat politely, simply enjoying the evening air.
After a moment passed, I pulled open the door to the restaurant and let the smell of herbs hit me full in the face, reveling in the fact that I was feeling so...
Normal. Huh, I forgot what it felt like.
While the hostess seated the couple who had entered before me, I scanned the tables until I saw Rosalie’s back, gracefully seated in her chair across from a lanky gentleman with piercing blue eyes, graying hair, and a pleasant smile. The fact that he was smiling already made me think it couldn’t be going too badly, so I stood on tiptoe and leaned slightly to my right to see if I could get a better look at him.
“How many in your party?”
Falling back to my heels, I smiled politely at the hostess, who looked to be a high school student. “I’m alone,” I answered. “Do you think you could seat me over there?” I pointed to the corner at the right, where I would have been staring at Rosalie’s back while easily able to see Mr. Cal.
For No Reason (The Camdyn Series Book 4) Page 13
