“Very funny,” I mumbled.
“You know what you need?” he wondered, a twinkle in his eye. “I think you need some good, old-fashioned fun. Race you to the leaf pile.”
He was up in a flash, and I tore off through the yard after him. He easily reached our destination before I did, flinging himself haphazardly into the giant pile. Taking a second to consider the proper form for such an activity, I decided to perform a backwards dive into those leaves, which fluffed up around me in a great poof of debris.
“That was beautiful,” he stated, rising to his feet and reaching for my hand. Reluctantly I sat upright, fingering the back of my head. Pop took that opportunity to pounce, licking just centimeters from my lips. I swatted him back, wiping my face in disgust.
“I might have given myself a concussion,” I teased, stretching out my fingers. With one solid motion, Jake hauled me up and out of the pile, pausing to pull a leaf out of my hair.
“Parker would never forgive me if we damaged that pretty little head of yours,” he assured me. “I hope you’re kidding.”
“Yes, I’m kidding.” Taking my hand out of Jake’s and reaching upwards, I drifted it across the back of my hair, finding a couple stray tagalongs. Crunching them in my fingers, I dropped them over the top of our slightly messy mound of browns and yellows.
Clearing his throat, he took a step away from me. “I better get going.”
“Can I offer you lunch or something? You did an awful lot of work.” That statement earned me a smirk, and he shook his head.
“No, I don’t want to be in your house with you, Camdyn. I’d feel really guilty about that. I’m starting to feel a little weird about being in your yard, to be honest.”
“I’m making you uncomfortable,” I reasoned. Taking another step backward, he shook his head.
“No, and that’s the problem,” he sighed. “This might be one of the hardest things I’ve ever said, but here goes: Call him, Camdyn. I don’t know what’s going on with him, but I know how much you mean to him. Make me that promise.”
“He doesn’t want…”
“Please,” he said more forcefully. “Promise me.”
Feeling slightly perplexed, I nodded my head. He continued backing away, finally giving me a smile.
“You had fun today,” he announced with a salute. “Mission accomplished.” Climbing into his truck, he gave the horn a quick honk as he drove away.
-§-
The phone rang five times before Cole’s voice sounded on the other end via his voice mail greeting. Hanging up, I dialed again. Three times I repeated that activity, until I finally heard a different sound greet my ear.
“Hello,” he sighed heavily.
“Stranger,” I began. “I was beginning to think I might never hear your voice again.”
“I’ve been busy.”
Ouch.
“Oh, me too,” I assured him, “writing the speech for the conference this weekend, raking the leaves out of the yard, reminiscing about Dad with my mom…”
Coughing, he continued in a strained voice. “You just called Rita your mom.”
“Reminiscing about Dad with Rita,” I corrected, feeling a strange hollow spot in the pit of my stomach.
“I forgot about your conference this weekend.”
“Please come home,” I blurted, heart beating erratically, afraid of his answer. “Whatever I did, if you’ll just explain it, maybe we can work it out?”
“You think you did something?” he choked, breathing heavily into the phone. “Camdyn, I love you so much.”
“You said you couldn’t take it anymore, whatever it is.” I sensed his emotion through the phone, and I held my breath.
“Watching your broken heart and knowing it was my…” His voice broke away and faltered, and I held the phone a little tighter. “Knowing it was my fault. I made the wrong choice years ago, and now you’re paying for it. And I couldn’t protect you from it, could I? You are… just… devastated, Cam, and what can I do but sit and watch? I’m so sorry.”
The tears sprung to my eyes almost immediately as I realized what he was saying.
“Oh, Cole.” I couldn’t hide the sound of the sadness in my voice, even though I tried. “I have no idea why this happened, but what you’re thinking is so wrong. You can’t protect me from what life gives us.”
“You deserve the best.”
“I have the best,” I was quick to answer, grabbing a tissue from the nightstand. “His name is Cole Parker, and I’m currently dying a little inside, because I feel him distancing himself.”
“I don’t want to,” he continued as he sniffed. “Babe, I don’t want to.”
“You know what my mother said to me this morning? She told me that, here with me and Rosalie, she almost felt like there was life left for her. After the complete destruction she’s put herself through, she’s found a bit of hope.”
He didn’t say a word, but I could hear the shallow sound of his breath coming through the speaker.
“My heart has a permanent crack in it, Cole,” I went on, taking a gulp of air. “I’m not going to lie about that. It’s still yours, though, every piece of it.”
Silence greeted me on the other end of the line.
“Cole?”
Fighting the panic welling up inside me, I steeled myself against the wall.
“Cole?”
Without so much as a warning, the line went dead.
Chapter Twenty-One
Ten of the most excruciating minutes of my life passed in a slow haze, while I alternated staring at the wall and clutching at my heart as though it would leap out of my chest. My promise to Jake had been kept, but at what price? Curling up against my pillow, I stared at the wall, completely devoid of tears. It was as though I had none left to offer.
The phone buzzed against my tightly balled fist, and I picked it up and glanced at the screen through blurry eyes. Before I could read the message, there was another buzz, and another, as text after text arrived in my inbox:
Can’t find my voice right now, but you need to know.
Leaving was so wrong.
Please forgive me.
I miss you.
You are the best thing that has ever happened to me.
Relief washed over me, and I laughed into the stillness of the room. Punching the dial button on the phone, I waited as three rings passed. When I heard a click, I didn’t hesitate.
“Cole, you don’t need to say anything, okay? I just want you to listen.” He didn’t speak, and I smiled to myself. “I miss you, too. Every crazy normal thing. I miss your little songs in the mornings, and your jokes about my cooking, and your smile that turns my spine to jelly. I miss the person I am when you’re here. You make my life so much more than ordinary. And I love you, you hear me? Whatever you told Nate you would do, finish it, and then find your way back to me.” I was met with stillness, and I drew my bottom lip between my teeth in anticipation.
“Okay, I’m sorry, but I just need to know that you heard me,” I blurted. “Can you clap your hands, or snap or something?” Quiet laughter pealed through the phone, and I closed my eyes in ecstasy at the sound.
“I heard you,” he whispered. “I heard every word.”
“Good.” I sucked in a deep, shuddering breath, and couldn’t keep the smile from spreading across my face.
“Nothing matters without you,” he sighed, drawing in a breath of his own. “It’s kind of like Rita said – we’ve got a lot of life left. I’m ready to get to it.”
I leaned back against the wall as I sat on the bed, eyes shut as I focused completely on his words. “Please don’t hang up,” I begged. “I’m completely in love with the sound of your voice right now. Stay on the phone with me?”
“Forever, if you want.”
“Forever sounds like a perfect dream,” I sighed. “We have so much to talk about.”
“Yeah, like since when do you call Rita mother?”
“Or why Jake knows that I wear pink
underwear on Fridays?”
“That’s unfortunate,” he stated quietly. “I think I talk too much while I’m working. Wow, have I missed you. Do you remember the first time we talked on the phone?”
“Yeah, I think you were angry with me.”
“No, I was angry with myself,” he insisted. “You called, and I sprayed myself with the hose on accident. Then, I just started pacing back and forth, wishing there was some way I could make you want me the way I wanted you.”
“You really thought that?”
“Every minute, Cam. Every minute of every day since the instant I laid eyes on your beautiful face, in Aunt Rosalie’s kitchen, trying to figure out how to make hot chocolate out of a box. I was so distracted.”
“I was soaking wet, and bleeding.”
“All I wanted was to kiss you.”
“That’s so pathetically desperate,” I teased.
“I know,” he laughed. “I’ve been desperate for you my whole life.”
“God, thank you,” I breathed, not even caring that Cole heard me. “Thank you for this man. Please don’t ever let me forget how I feel in this moment.”
“And thank you for Camdyn,” Cole stated on the other end of the line, “that she can look past my stupid faults and allow me the complete joy that is simply being her husband.”
-§-
A chilly rain pattered on the rooftop as I stood at the front picture window gazing at the pile of leaves Jake and I created the day before. Our jump into the center had scattered a few, and it looked like Pop had blown across them a couple of times. There was no doubt autumn was in full swing, attested to by the fact that I was wearing a soft, chunky navy blue sweater above my jeans.
My flight was scheduled for two o’clock in the afternoon, and even though I still felt really awkward about the speech I had prepared, I knew the conference wasn’t avoidable. With one last look at the leaves, I drew my attention to my laptop, settling on the couch and staring at the white screen, the blinking cursor at the bottom taunting me.
Are you really finished?
Really?
Really?
Selecting every bit of text, I deleted it in one swipe. For a moment, I felt absolutely great about it. Then, the realization that I had only a couple hours sunk in, and I brought the entire thing back up on the page, sinking into the couch cushions.
“It’s just a stupid speech,” I muttered.
I was completely unconvincing.
The sound of the phone ringing gave me a welcome reprieve, and I placed the laptop aside and strolled over to the kitchen, expecting Lex, or Laurel, or maybe even Rosalie wishing me luck.
“Heartbreaker,” came the unusually sedated voice of Jake. “You busy?” With a pang of guilt, I glanced over at the laptop.
“No, not really.”
“Meet me at the café? Please? I need to talk to you.”
“Are you okay?” I wondered, slightly uneasy due to the tone of his voice. “Why don’t you just come over here?”
“No.” He gave a short laugh, and then paused for a few seconds. “No, I can’t. Do you have time to come by the café?”
“I can make time,” I told him carefully.
“Good,” he stated almost immediately. “I’ll be here waiting.”
The drive to the café gave me too much time to think, driven by the sound of the windshield wipers drifting back and forth across the glass. There was no shortage to the preposterous scenarios floating through my head.
Jake’s dad’s surgery hadn’t gone as planned and he is going to lose his leg.
His ex discovered that I drove Bailey to town without a car seat, and she’s refusing to let him see his daughter again.
Jake and Rita are going to be married.
That last option literally sent a shiver down my back, and I drew in a shallow breath hoping I was jumping to conclusions.
He was sitting near the back by a window – I knew that because I saw his form the instant I pulled up at the place. Breakfast was over and it wasn’t quite lunch time yet, so the area was mostly empty, save a few older gentlemen enjoying a good chat over coffee. Two of them stopped to wave a friendly hello in my direction as the bells jingled overhead. Jake rose and gave me a half-smile, waiting for me to sit down.
“This is unexpected,” I told him as I slid into the booth.
“Yeah, for me too,” he said cryptically as he sat back down. “Rita’s not here today because she was going with Rosalie to your big weekend thing in Louisville, so I figured this would be a good time.”
So maybe the Jake and Rita thing is correct after all…
Looking down, I mentally instructed myself to knock it off. I had been told enough times that my thoughts had a tendency to flicker across my face, and I didn’t want that one bouncing across the table.
The waitress stopped beside us and asked if I wanted anything. I ordered a hot chocolate, and Jake thought that sounded pretty spectacular, so he ordered one as well.
“What are you thinking?” he wondered. His question caught me by surprise, enough that I furrowed my brow a bit.
“I’m wondering what you’re up to, that’s all.” He smiled as he nodded his head, and the waitress brought the hot chocolate to the table. Wrapping my hands around the mug, I attempted to drive the chill from my skin.
“I called Parker this morning,” he told me with sincerity, looking at his steaming cocoa. My heart dropped out of my chest like a lead balloon. Every stupid scenario that had been running through my head was stopped dead in its tracks by the thought that it could have something to do with Cole.
“And?” I choked out.
“He’s been a friend to me like no other. I didn’t want to leave things awkward between us.” He was refusing to look at me, and my attempt to swallow only brought a dry, desperate thickness. Lifting the cocoa, I sipped a bit, nearly scalding my tongue in the process. By the time I brought the mug back down, he still hadn’t said another word.
“Jake, what are you talking about?”
“Alexis got the job.” He twirled the cup around slowly on the table. “She and Bailey are moving this weekend. It’s a teaching position, and it’s what she wants to do. It made my decision really easy.”
“What decision?” I quietly prodded, still uncomfortable.
“To leave,” he sighed. “I’d been thinking about it a little bit lately anyway, but I want to be in Bailey’s life. Someone who knew the pain of not having a parent around once convinced me of that.”
A sad smile spread across my face as I reached over and placed my hand on his. “I’m proud of you, Jake. I know Cole will miss you, though. I’ll miss you.”
“That’s the other reason I have to go,” he continued quietly, staring down at my hand atop his. “I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up.”
“Keep what up?”
“Pretending that I don’t feel something for you.” Inhaling sharply, I slowly pulled my hand away from his. “It’s a risky game I’m playing, Camdyn. How do I look my best friend in the eye every day, knowing I want what he has? Knowing I want his wife?”
“Jake…”
“I made you a promise, and I won’t break it,” he assured me, staring directly into my eyes. “I’ve wanted to. A hundred times I’ve wanted to. The other day, when I was trying to comfort you and convince you that Cole would be back, I told you that you were a woman who came around once in a lifetime. Saying that hurt me to the core, because I think it might be true. What does that leave for me?” He broke our gaze and directed his focus to the window, taking a deep breath. “What I wanted to say – what I really wanted to say – was if you were mine, I would never leave you. Not for a moment.”
Completely stunned, I couldn’t force a reply from my lips.
“And now I’ve broken my promise anyway,” he laughed, returning those blue eyes to mine. Tiny specks of brown were flecked there, just like I remembered from that day he drove me back to Rosalie’s from my jog months ago. �
��Cole asked me not to tell you any of that, but now I have.”
“Cole knows about this?” Instinctively I lifted my hand to my lips, trying to force back my shock.
“I told him this morning. He asked me not to hurt you – just to go quietly so he could explain it later. My selfish nature won, though, didn’t it? Because I… I wanted to see your face before I walked out of here, and I’ll be haunted for the rest of my life if I don’t at least ask the question.” Shaking my head, I willed him to stop. “If it had been me – if I had been the one to happen upon you that night… If I met you first, would it still have been Cole? Could it, maybe…”
“Jake,” I whispered, pressing my hand against my heart to stop the ache. He nodded with moist eyes as he rose and stood next to the table, staring down at me.
“Be happy,” he said simply, leaning down to press a kiss against my forehead. Seconds later, I heard the familiar jingling of the bells at the front door, and I placed my head on my arms in that booth, mourning the lost friendship and imagining how Cole was feeling at that precise moment.
-§-
The rain was dissipating as I rounded the corner into my own driveway, pulling down the pine tree-lined lane. The rustic log home stood in the distance, the picture of idyllic beauty. I longed to curl up in the den and settle with a good book, awaiting Cole’s return, but there was no time. Arriving for my flight before it boarded was going to be a challenge as it was, since I had wasted so much time at the café, but I hurriedly went to the front door so I could grab my bags and be on my way.
As I was placing my key in the lock, a paper taped to the latch caught my attention. Unfolding it, I held it gingerly in my fingers as a solitary raindrop fell from the sky, moistening one corner.
In my reading this morning, I came across an interesting thought: If God is going to use someone, maybe He takes them through tough experiences so they’ll be able to understand others’ pain?
For No Reason (The Camdyn Series Book 4) Page 27
