“Hey.” My sister greeted me as I stepped into the diner, and Adele gave me a smile from her eternal post at the podium by the door.
“Cameron,” she said. Adele had been sweet to me since Jess had died. It made Maddie suspicious—Adele was never nice to her.
“You okay?” Maddie asked, walking me to my usual booth. “You look… you look different.” Her eyebrows and nose wrinkled as she watched me sit, like scrunching her face would help her figure me out.
“Fine. Just worried about being late for work. Spent a little more time at home than I’d meant to.”
“Well, order quick and we’ll have you on your way. Chance was just in here though, and I doubt he’s too worried about it. He said progress was good on the Outpost.”
I lifted a shoulder. I’d been working construction since I’d come back to Kings Grove, slaving away for the Palmer brothers, doing my best to exhaust myself every single day so my mind didn’t torment me at night. Sometimes it worked, but my old life was prodding me more often lately, tugging at my sleeve and asking for attention like a neglected child. I’d been a film producer, and though walking away had been easy enough when Jess was sick, construction didn’t seem to scratch the same itch. Right now I was helping set up an offshoot of the new Kings Grove Inn—a fine dining restaurant halfway up the ridge that was part warming hut in the winter months, part open-air dining in the summer. It was called the Outpost. “Mostly need coffee,” I said, sliding my menu away. “Some scrambled eggs.”
“Be right back.” Maddie tucked her pencil into her apron and disappeared.
I turned my head to stare out the window at the central parking lot, which was flanked by the trees that had given Kings Grove its name. The sun had risen hours ago, and the sky shimmered with late-spring heat. It was going to be a hot summer. The Post Office and grocery store sat directly across the lot from the diner, and as I sipped the coffee Maddie placed in front of me, I watched a familiar little silver Subaru pull into a spot directly in front of the grocery, and felt my heart tick up a notch.
Harper.
She popped out of the driver side in jeans and high-heeled sandals, a loose floral blouse tied at her waist making her look very “city” for the landscape. I watched, unable to look away, as she leaned back into the car to reach for something, and I had a hard time swallowing my coffee as her legs and butt swiveled as she reached. I didn’t like admitting it, but Harper was damned attractive, and this particular view only cemented my opinion.
When she’d retrieved her bag, she stepped back out of the car and closed the door, turning to look around her. If she’d grown up here, she was probably curious about all the changes. Kings Grove had grown slowly over the last decade or so. I know I’d been surprised when I’d come back here two years ago.
Harper’s dark hair bounced in curls around her shoulders and down her back, and mirrored aviator shades covered her eyes. Her perfect little lips stood out, even at this distance, painted a deep plum color.
“Oh Lord, what is that?” Adele had spotted Harper out the window. “Princess, is that your sister? She dresses like you did when you first came up here.”
“Not everyone with fashion sense is related to me,” Maddie scolded, coming back to my table to look out the window. “Oh, she’s cute,” she said admiringly. “Who is that, I wonder?”
“That’s my renter,” I said.
Maddie’s head spun and she stared at me. “Is it now?” I could hear the wheels turning in her head. “Well, she looks like a very nice girl,” she said. “With excellent fashion sense.” She added this last part loudly, looking at Adele, who turned away muttering, “she’s gonna break an ankle… no common sense…”
Maddie sat down across from me after retrieving my eggs from the kitchen. “Tell me about her.”
I started eating, and said through a mouthful, “I don’t know much. Got here last night. Likes coffee.”
“She does, huh?” Maddie waggled her eyebrows, almost like she knew Harper had been by my house this morning in her pajamas, like she thought there might be more to things than there was.
“Don’t get ideas.”
“I have no ideas.”
“You always have ideas.” I swallowed some coffee and gave my sister a focused stare. “I mean it. No ideas.”
She smiled and shrugged. “She’s going to work at the Inn, right?”
“I didn’t interview her, Maddie.”
“She’s living in your house—didn’t you get any references or anything?”
“A couple. A Mr. Franklin and his friend, Mr. Franklin.” The money had been enough for me originally, but now I was kind of curious about my renter. Though I didn’t want to tell my sister that or I’d never get her to stop digging up details and Harper would never get a moment’s peace.
She tilted her head and then her mouth dropped open. “Mr Franklin? Oh my God, are you ten?”
“Her money’s good. All I need to know.”
“And?”
I put down my fork. “I’m trying to eat.” This was our game. I got annoyed at my sister’s persistence, and she repeatedly kept me from sinking into my own isolation. Maddie was the only thing keeping me afloat some days. I wished I could tell her how grateful I was for her. But deep chats had never been my thing, so instead I bantered when appropriate and stayed close the rest of the time.
“Just tell me what else you know and I’ll get back to work and leave you in peace.”
“You’re so nosy.” I swigged my coffee and leaned back. “She grew up here until she was seven and then her parents split. Says her dad is still here, but I don’t know who he is. Last name Lyles.” I stood, dropping money on the table. It felt ridiculous to tip my sister, but I did it every time.
Adele had crept nearer as we talked, pretending to wipe down the booth next to us. When I said “Lyles,” she gasped lightly and then turned and bustled back to her podium when I stood. “What do you know?” My sister asked her.
“What?” Adele was not very good at playing dumb.
“Who is she?” My sister pressed. Adele and Frank had been up here for years. It was no surprise they knew who Harper really was.
“Well, I don’t like to gossip,” Adele said, pursing her lips, her little eyes betraying her excitement.
“Bullshit,” I said through a fake cough, and my sister tried to stifle a laugh. Adele liked to gossip very much and everyone knew it. We stood near the door of the diner, Adele at her podium trying to decide whether to share what she knew.
I shook my head. “I’ve gotta get to work. I don’t have time for this. See ya.” I pushed out the doors into the warming morning, wishing my mind wasn’t screaming at me to stay and find out what I could about Harper.
It was better this way. I didn’t need to know anything about her, other than that she was paying rent.
Plus, there was no way Maddie would let Adele off the hook. If I really wanted to know, she’d tell me. Hell, she’d probably tell me either way.
I drove the truck out the back of the parking lot past the Palmer offices and down the dirt service road to the site of the Inn’s outpost restaurant. It was rising up impressively from the forest, with a huge deck as the main feature. Some ingenious engineering would allow a windowed wall to enclose the deck in bad weather and during the winter months, and stay open to the air in the summer. Inside would be a state-of-the-art kitchen and a winter sports rental and repair facility. The place was mostly bones at this point, but it had been progressing quickly and had a good chance of being ready for the Maddie’s wedding reception at the end of the summer.
“Hey Cam,” Chance Palmer strode around the side of the structure, approaching the truck. “Everything good?”
“Yeah, sorry I’m late.”
Chance shook his head, his toothpaste commercial smile spreading across his face. “No worries, man.” He turned back toward the structure as I pulled my tools from the back of the truck. “Can you keep an eye on the deck planking today,
and see if we can get that railing up around the edges? We need to reinforce it over here where it’s going to be external to the main building so it can handle a lot of snow.”
“Pretty optimistic,” I commented. Kings Grove hadn’t had a lot of snow in a lot of years.
“One day this drought will end, man.”
I nodded. Chance clapped me on the back, and I got to work, clearing my mind of small dark-haired women and mysterious mountain stories, to focus on the physical exertion that felt like it saved my life some days.
Chapter 4
HARPER
I’d been back in Kings Grove one week and I felt like my skin might crawl right off my body. Everything about being back here was strange and disconcerting. I’d driven to the grocery store the day after I’d arrived, and the place had expanded to three times the size I remembered. The diner had a new paint job, the ranger station was shiny and bigger, and the inn across the parking lot was amazing. But I’d conditioned myself to hate everything about this place, and the resentment I felt at discovering it was nicer than I remembered made me twitchy. I didn’t know if I resented the place, the things that had happened here, or myself.
I decided to blame my rampant angst on my father. He was a good scapegoat, and I’d hand this his way too.
The house I’d rented was too big. It felt like a breathing living thing around me, and for the first time in my life, I found myself getting scared for no reason. When I was in one room, I’d swear I could hear something in another, and I spent half my time patrolling the place, ducking my head into closets and double-checking bedrooms. It was ridiculous—Kings Grove had never had any particular attraction to serial killers or axe murderers—but I guess that’s what you get when you spend most of your adult life living in an apartment that allows you to see every square foot from any spot. I knew people equated space with luxury, but I was fully prepared to disagree. Square footage was exhausting.
Between my constant patrolling and the general disaster that my life had become, I wasn’t sleeping a lot, and I was all discombobulated. And I was starting work next week.
I needed to settle myself and figure some things out before I presented myself at the Inn.
The girl I’d been, the woman I’d become, she’d thought she had it all figured out. That girl was so sure of herself, scoring her degree on her own dime and landing a job with her first-choice company in the city. She was so cocky and confident, falling into a relationship with a partner at the firm, believing they were some kind of power couple.
That girl had trusted people. She’d trusted herself.
She was a moron.
I was a moron.
I stepped out onto the sprawling front deck into the darkness, unable to stand another second inside the big house after essentially hiding there for a week trying to adjust. My stomach churned and my skin felt too tight for my body. I wrapped my arms around myself against the evening chill and paced the wide open planks, feeling the quiet presence of the trees looming around me. It was a moonless night, and the woods were eerily quiet, spiking the discomfort I felt to yet-higher levels as I stood alone in the dark, feeling like the only person in the whole world.
A thick and suffocating loneliness threatened to overtake me, and I sent my feet moving again, but stopped my hyper patrol when I heard a stick crack nearby. Was someone out here? I picked up a broom that had been resting in the corner of the deck and was about to investigate when an ungodly yowl rose through the air—not a scream so much as a whining squeal. I’d never heard anything like it, and my instinct told me it was some kind of animal. My mind flashed to the mountain lion Cam had mentioned and I skittered into the circle of light cast by the window of the big house, putting my back to the wall.
I squinted into the darkness and heard another sound—somewhere behind the house. Not a stick cracking, more like a pop this time. And then another sound—a hiss. As terrifying as it was, there was something familiar about that sound. Not a snaky hiss…
A fire?
I scooted sideways back toward the front door and peered over the narrow edge of the deck to the little house that sat just behind mine and off to the side. The one I’d forced myself not to think about.
And there he was.
Cam sat in an Adirondack chair in front of a glowing fire pit, the flames dancing in a low circle at his feet and his face illuminated in the red light like a beacon. I’d seen him come and go over the week, had pushed away whatever strange fascination I had with him. But now… I liked campfires.
I pulled myself back around the edge of the deck, thinking.
Did I dare go over there?
I was in some kind of state, and I knew I wasn’t my most charming self. But Cam had made it pretty clear he wasn’t in the market to be charmed.
And I didn’t want anything from him except his physical presence for a few minutes, just until I calmed down.
Did I?
All the fresh air and open space was making it impossible to think straight. I just knew I couldn’t be alone another second. I was down the steps and in a chair across from him before I’d had time to think too hard about it.
“Please, join me.” Cam’s voice rumbled over the dancing flames, sarcastic and ridiculously sexy.
“Sorry.” I said. “I know I should’ve asked.”
“That’s okay.” His eyes didn’t lift from the flames.
“I’d offer to go, but I have no intention of actually leaving. Not for a few minutes.”
The bright eyes flicked up to my face and then quickly back to the fire at that. “You okay?”
“It’s just… God, it’s so quiet up here. And did you hear that squeal?”
Cam said nothing, and I found myself watching him for a few beats, keeping my eyes low so I wasn’t blatantly staring. He looked so thoughtful there, his chin dipped into his chest, his elbows spread wide and his hands in his lap. I noticed a tumbler on the ground next to his feet, a line of amber liquid forgotten there.
“I’m not used to it,” I said, my mouth pressing forward even though my mind was screaming at me to just stay quiet. Self-control wasn’t really my thing. I’d been a doer my whole life, hell-bent on pushing forward, on accomplishing, on proving things to people. Silence did not come naturally to me. “The city…” I trailed off, trying to think New York City into being around me, working to summon a mental atmosphere of being in my Sixteenth Street apartment, the sweaty must of the city air, the constant hum of energy buzzing in my ears, my mind. “The city was never still like this, never really quiet. I never felt alone there.”
That statement had been close to admitting my current loneliness, which I wasn’t eager to do. Showing weakness wasn’t my thing any more than reticence was. But something about Cam’s quiet—if grudging—acceptance of my presence made me want to talk, to be truthful.
He looked up then, surprising me when he said, “I used to live in Hollywood. I know what you mean. Took me a while to get used to it here.”
“Yes,” I said, my voice coming out maybe too loudly, too enthusiastically. It just felt good to believe he understood even this small thing, though it was also a revelation to learn that Cam wasn’t just a part of Kings Grove, that he’d had another life somewhere else. “And the space… all the open space. I mean, that house. It’s amazing. But it’s so huge…” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Is that why you live in the little house and rent the big one?” I couldn’t picture him on the same paranoid patrols I’d been making, checking closets and bathtubs for serial killers.
He lifted a shoulder in response. “Maybe.”
“Well, it feels too big for me by myself,” I added, never able to just let things go.
The fire seethed and rolled low in the copper circle at our feet, and the sizzling and popping were made louder by the extreme silence of the forest around us. It was mesmerizing, and for a little while I sat transfixed, staring into the fire, sneaking occasional glances at Cam.
Much too soon, he stood,
and disappointment pushed my heart down into my stomach, and made me feel alone again. “Cam?” My mouth was going again before my brain caught up.
He looked at me and it felt like a victory, my mood lightening instantly. “Yeah?”
“Thanks for letting me sit for a few minutes.”
His eyes lingered on my face for a long beat, and then one corner of his mouth lifted in a tiny smile. “It’s fine.” His posture shifted an inch, something in the lengthening of his spine, the way his hand gripped his thigh for a quarter of a second making me think his interest had been piqued by this statement. “You doing okay? Settling in?”
Honesty came before I’d had time to think. “It’s been a little hard.”
He nodded, just a curt dip of his chin. “Well, I’m right here if you need anything.”
Despite the relative coolness with which he’d delivered the words, they did something to me. They wound around me, warming and reassuring me. I wasn’t sure he meant that like, “come on down and bother me whenever,” or “I’ll make sure you’re okay,” but something in me settled when he said it. He was right here. I wasn’t completely alone. “Thanks.”
“Want me to walk you home?” he asked, his eyes rising toward the big house.
“No, that’s okay,” I said, immediately regretting it. I stood and lifted a hand. “Good night.” I could feel his eyes on me as I made my way back across the short open space between our houses, and the knowledge that he was looking out for me, making sure I was safe, warmed me.
I waved, and Cam waved back and then turned. He disappeared into his house, the screen on his door swinging slowly shut even after the big wooden door had sealed, tracing a graceful arc on its tension spring, silently settling back into its frame.
And then the night was still once again.
I watched Cam leave for work the next morning, standing in my front window feeling sad for no real reason as his silver truck pulled out of the driveway.
I needed to get to work myself. And I should check in with my dad. One of these tasks was less enticing than the other, so I dressed for work and made plans to head over to the Inn to meet my new boss, Michaela Grayson. There was something I liked about a woman who went by a man’s name, and I was curious to meet Mike. Dad hadn’t told me a lot about her, and though I’d spoken to her once on the phone—an interview, really—I didn’t know much about her.
Love Reclaimed: (Clean Small-Town Romance) (Kings Grove Book 4) Page 3
