The morning greeted me with a rain shower pattering against the window, and as I pulled myself out of bed, I realized it was Sunday. My in-laws would no doubt be expecting me at church, and somehow they hadn’t stopped by the past few days to know the truth. They might have still been entertaining Grandma Rose at their home after Grandma Ivy’s funeral, so that was understandable.
Letting the shower course over my body, I thought long and hard about how I would present the facts. Cole was gone. That was a pretty straightforward, easy truth, but it would undoubtedly lead to a million questions – questions that I had no logical answers for, other than suspecting that Cole had decided that marrying me had been a mistake.
Tony and Sara had been right all along – our quickie romance hadn’t been real to Cole.
And why should he want to spend his entire life with a wife who couldn’t cook?
Couldn’t give him what he wanted?
Didn’t give him a child?
Shaking my head, I squeezed some soap into my hand and rubbed it between my palms. Thinking about the whys wasn’t helpful, because I had no explanation. “I can’t do this,” wasn’t specific enough to make my heart completely break in two.
Determined to get through the day, I went through the rituals of putting on my makeup and fixing my curls, even pinning a couple of them atop my head to look a little more polished. In a blue sweater dress and knee-high brown boots, I walked downstairs and retrieved the keys to my car, ready to head out the door. As I began to drive up the long driveway, though, a red pickup began toward me from the distance, and I stopped and waited patiently.
“Hi,” Jake said as he pulled his truck next to my car, hanging his brushed leather-clad arm out the window. “How you holding up?”
“Perfectly,” I joked, smirking over at him.
“Well, you look like a million bucks, so whoever you’re trying to convince, I’m sure it will work.”
“Very funny,” I stated, allowing the back of my hair to settle against the head rest. “I’m going to church, and I’m sure the in-laws will be there.”
“They don’t know?” he presumed. Rather than answer, I simply shook my head. “You want company?”
“Jake McAuliffe at church? Can the world handle this turn of events?”
He rolled his eyes a bit and placed his truck in park, laughing to himself. “I have been to church before, you know. Granted, I was probably five, but I’m pretty sure it’s not going to kill me.”
“You haven’t heard about the lightning strikes, then?”
“Oh, shut up,” he ordered with a deep laugh. “My rig or yours?”
My mind flashed to a picture of Cole coming back and seeing Jake’s truck sitting in the driveway, and that didn’t seem like a good idea. Alternately, him returning to find my car and me not home probably wouldn’t be prudent either.
“How about both?” I suggested.
“A portrait of propriety,” he stated. “Alright, I’ll meet you there, but you really have nothing to worry about.”
“I’m not worried about you,” I insisted as I pulled away from that spot. It dawned on me a few seconds later that he might have believed I was worried about controlling myself, and I admittedly groaned aloud as that idea popped into my brain.
Several minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot at church and exited my vehicle, waiting for Jake to pull in beside me. He stepped away from the truck, clad in a soft brown leather jacket and a pair of jeans, and immediately gave the parking lot a nervous once-over.
“I’m not really dressed for church,” he said quietly.
“I think you’re going to find that church is not the way you remember it,” I guessed, falling into step beside him as we walked up to the doors. Jake stepped forward to pull the door open for me, and I thanked him profusely for his gallantry in a joking manner, trying to lighten the mood before I faced what would inevitably be a thousand questions.
“Camdyn,” my father-in-law stated as I walked through the door. Ted enjoyed his position as a greeter, and his presence was always felt the instant I stepped inside. “It’s nice to see your smiling face. And…Jake? Well, I’ll be – it’s good to see you, son.”
“Good morning, Mr. Parker,” Jake answered, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“Is Cole parking the truck?” Ted asked, looking down at me with concern.
“Actually, Cole’s out of town,” I attempted to explain, feeling guilty. “You remember his friend Nate from Nashville? He’s got this old house that he bought, and Cole’s helping him remodel.”
“That’s strange,” Ted said, an odd expression crossing his face. “He didn’t say anything to me.”
“Well, you know how he gets about that baseball stuff,” Jake inserted, glancing over at me. “He gets a hint that he might get some insight or something, and he’s off to the races. He’s probably swinging a bat right now.”
Ted simply chuckled and patted Jake on the back, and we moved further into the building, stepping into the sanctuary. A couple of ladies noticed me and started making a beeline in my direction, and I grabbed Jake by the sleeve, leaning in so I couldn’t be heard.
“Protect me, please,” I whispered. “All these people keep giving me condolences in these backhanded ways, and I can’t take it anymore. Please, Jake.”
He didn’t say a word, and I was afraid he thought I was being ridiculous, but the instant Muriel locked eyes with me, Jake stepped slightly in front of her.
“Muriel, how’s that pipe we replaced holding up?”
“Oh, well, I guess it’s doing fine.” She halted where she was, and Jake placed his hand at the small of my back and gave me a gentle shove.
“That’s good to hear. If you’ll excuse us, we have people waiting.”
Three more times he headed people off by asking about the weather, or their second cousins, or their health problems. He really was quite adept at giving people the brush-off. Normally I would have found that off-putting, but that day it was a miracle in disguise.
We settled in next to Liz and Rachel, and Jake was able to deflect their questions as easily as he had Ted’s. For the most part, I simply sat there and said nothing, until Rachel asked a question we couldn’t readily answer.
“What made you come to church today, Jake?”
“Oh,” he stalled, glancing at me. “Well, I didn’t have any intentions to, but I had to stop by Camdyn’s to pick up Bailey’s stuff from yesterday, and she was headed out. So I figured, what the heck?” He immediately leaned toward me. “I probably shouldn’t say heck in church.”
“It’s fine,” I assured him.
“Bailey?” Rachel clarified.
“My kid,” Jake offered. “My dad had an accident yesterday and broke his leg, and while I took him to the hospital, Camdyn watched her for me.”
The music interrupted our conversation, and Jake winked at me as though we had accomplished some great coup. Honestly, I felt slightly sick, because I knew he lied.
He lied about picking up Bailey’s stuff – in church. My grandma would have said that made it a special kind of lie.
Pastor Simmons spoke about finding God’s will for our lives, and admittedly I blocked him out. If God’s will for me was having a dead baby and a husband who left me, then I wasn’t much interested. Quite frankly, I was pretty ticked off about the situation. If God was going to strike Jake with a bolt of lightning, he might as well get me at the same time, because my heart was definitely not in the right place that morning.
After the service, Liz asked if I would be joining them for dinner. I politely declined, telling her that I was finishing up some edits on my novel and was using Cole’s absence wisely. If I had been honest, I would have told her that I was afraid she would continue asking about Cole, and I would disintegrate into a weepy puddle of a mess complaining about how my husband had abandoned me in my time of need. It wouldn’t be pretty.
Jake walked with me to the parking lot, and then he stood by my car
door for a second while I fumbled with the keys.
“So, I guess I’ll see you around, then?” he asked, shoving his hands in his pockets yet again.
“Okay,” I stated. “Thanks for what you did in there.”
“No problem,” he said, turning to walk towards his truck. A few steps later, he stopped and hesitated. “You know, I would offer to take you to lunch or something, but I don’t want people talking about you.”
“Talking about me?”
“Yeah,” he acknowledged with a smile. “Believe it or not, I don’t have the greatest reputation.”
“Hmm…I don’t believe it,” I told him with mock sincerity. “See you later.”
I grinned privately for a couple of miles, thinking about the absurdity of Jake trying to protect me from his reputation.
-§-
Cole called me that evening, and when I saw his name, my heart nearly stopped. Swallowing hard to fight the lump in my throat, I answered the phone cautiously.
“Hi,” he said. Just a simple word, and already I wanted to fall on my knees and beg him to come home.
“Hi.”
“My dad called. He just wanted to know what I was working on.”
“Yeah, I talked to him at church today.”
“You told him I was doing a remodel.”
“That’s what you told me,” I stated calmly, fighting the urge to begin shaking.
“You haven’t told any of them?”
Told them what? I have no idea what is happening!
“Rita knows,” I answered instead. “And Jake.”
“Dad said Jake was at church.”
For whatever reason, that statement didn’t feel as though it warranted a response.
“Are you okay?” he continued.
As soon as I heard those words, my brow furrowed at his audacity.
What? Am I okay?
“Am I supposed to be okay? Really, Cole, what a question.”
“I know,” he responded with agitation. “I know you’re not okay, Cam. I also know there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Not from Nashville, at least.”
“Not lying next to you in bed, either,” he sighed.
Wow. One broken heart, coming right up.
“Do you care about me at all, Cole?”
He sniffed quietly, and I knew he had roused some emotion during our brief conversation.
“How can you even ask me that?”
“The same way you can ask if I’m okay,” I muttered, a hot tear brimming over my eyelid and beginning its descent over my cheek. “You know where I am, if and when you change your mind.”
With that, I placed the phone on the nightstand and screamed into my pillow, detesting the tears that slid down my face.
-§-
The next morning found me awake with the sun, so I took a jog up the driveway and down the gravel road instead of our jogging path. Ted met me on my way back home, and he chided me for not being safe.
“Do I need to keep an eye on you, young lady?” he asked. “I know Cole’s off working on some job, but that doesn’t give you an excuse to be hit by a car.”
Hit by a car? That would bookend things pretty nicely, right?
“I’m sure there’s no need to worry,” I answered while trying to catch my breath. “If you’re still concerned, though, you’re welcome to jog with me tomorrow.”
“I’m not that concerned,” he told me with a wink. “I am going to come check on you later, though.”
“Sounds good. Should I fix you dinner?”
“Oh, no. I’ll check on you well before dinner. Is that what ran Cole off, your cooking?”
He was teasing, and had he known the truth I’m certain he would have never said such a thing, so I simply attempted a weak laugh while my stomach fluttered at the thought of deliberately deceiving him. “It’s quite possible.”
“Have a good day!” He waved, completely oblivious as he drove the truck past me, and I continued my jog back to the house.
Not long after I stepped out of the shower, my phone buzzed against the nightstand with the name Lex Luthor emblazoned on the screen, and for an instant I dreaded answering it for fear that there might be another fire he was fighting on my behalf. Steeling myself for a lecture, I brought the phone to my ear.
“Lex,” I said cautiously.
“There’s my favorite author,” he stated happily. “Listen, I know I haven’t called because I wanted to give you some privacy, but I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thanks,” I muttered. Why was it that it was mostly guys who knew how to appropriately handle a consolation, but it seemed to be women who put their feet in their mouths? Completely perplexing.
“So, are you excited about this weekend? This is such a foreign territory for me, I can’t wait to see what happens.”
“This weekend?” I attempted to clarify. “What’s this weekend?”
“Um, hello? Haven’t you been checking your emails? Saturday is your conference appearance in Louisville. I already sent you the plane tickets and everything – please tell me you haven’t lost them.”
“Probably not,” I mumbled. “Lex, I can’t do any conference. You have to cancel.”
“What do you mean?” His voice sounded a little higher, and I sat on the bed and pressed my fist to my temple. “Camdyn, it’s way too late to cancel. Laurel has already sent out all the promos. People have tickets.”
“Lex, I’m not healthy, okay?” A slight hitch in my tone might have belied my assertion, but I was undeterred. “You don’t want me up there blubbering like a baby and having nothing coherent to say.”
“What do you mean, you’re not healthy?” he continued quietly. “Camdyn, you’re having medical problems? Tell me the truth.”
The truth? Bleh, not the truth, Lex.
“Not really medical problems, per se,” I answered hesitantly. “It’s more kind of mental issues…”
“You need a psychiatrist?” The gruff tone of his voice made me squint my eyes in consternation.
“No, I do not need a psychiatrist, thank you very much. I’m having some personal-type issues.”
Lex expelled a rush of air loudly enough that I could hear it through the phone. “Listen, Camdyn, is this something significant enough that we could get a doctor’s opinion on it? I’m talking a reputable medical doctor, not like some guy who’s taking selfies with you in an exam room.”
Perhaps? Maybe I should look into it.
“You’re not answering, so I think that tells me what I need to know,” he kept talking, not really giving me much of a chance to respond. “You can’t back out, Camdyn. You’re contractually obligated to do this conference – there’s a huge monetary pitfall if you don’t follow through.”
“Lex, can’t you do something? I’m your only client. Surely you can…”
“Camdyn, stop! First of all, you’re not my only client. Thanks to your success, I have five clients I’m working with now.”
“That’s great, Lex,” I interrupted. “Congratulations.”
“Quit trying to change the subject. This is breach of contract, Camdyn. It’s not a minor thing. Do you want to ruin both of us?”
I plopped back against my pillow as a sudden wave of nausea rolled across my stomach. If I couldn’t find a way to back out of that ridiculous conference, what was I going to do? Those people expected me to give a speech of some sort, probably for at least an hour, and I was an emotional basket case.
“Well, do you, Camdyn?” he asked a little louder.
“No, Lex, of course not.”
“Then pull it together. I know you can do it. I’ve seen you in action.”
Lex’s faith in me did very little to bolster my spirits, and I sat in front of my laptop for three hours straight trying to come up with some idea of a topic that I could present at that conference. Those women would want to hear about my writing methods, my research I’d conducted, maybe some anecdotal stories about my media appearances. What di
d I have to give them but a flighty young woman who tore around by the seat of her pants, wrote well into the night under pressure of deadlines, lucked into her research, and fumbled through her stints on television? They would know I was a fraud, and the thought terrified me.
“Knock, knock,” I heard from the front of the house. Leaving my laptop in the den, I walked through the hall and into the kitchen, seeing Rosalie standing at the door.
“Rosalie,” I breathed, placing my arms protectively across my chest. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you out there. I was in the den with my computer.”
“Oh, it’s okay. I let myself in, as you can see.” She certainly had, with enough food to feed an army. “I brought you a few things.”
“Thanks.” Shifting nervously where I stood, I struggled to think of some small chitchat to fill the air.
“You can talk to me, if you want,” Rosalie added quietly.
“I know,” I assured her, but no words came. Instead, I stared at the floor and struggled to figure out how to act normal, so she wouldn’t be concerned about me.
“Rita doesn’t want me to ask you any questions.”
Thank God for Rita.
Wow, I can’t believe those words even entered my thoughts.
“You don’t need to worry,” I attempted. “I’ll be fine.”
“Mm hmm, I’m certain of that,” she agreed, taking a step forward. “I also know that Cole high-tailed it out of here, and that you’ve been crying an awful lot, and you’re terrified. And don’t ask me if someone gave me that information, because I can see it all over your face.”
Stunned, I took a step away and felt my backside hit the cabinets.
“Why is Cole gone, honey?” she wanted to know. “I won’t tell anybody.”
Giving a wry smile, I shook my head. “If only I knew…”
“Well, don’t waste your tears on things you can’t control,” she said, stepping up and placing her hand on my arm. “What exactly are you so scared of?”
“At the moment?” I joked, unsuccessfully trying to laugh. “I’ve got this huge conference this weekend, and I’m supposed to be the key speaker.”
For No Reason (The Camdyn Series Book 4) Page 25
