More than Neighbors

by Shannon Stacey

  His mother sighed. Not the affectionate, weary sigh he’d heard from Meredith with Sophie, but a sharp sound that indicated she wasn’t getting her way and she wasn’t happy about that.

  “Who is this woman you’re seeing, anyway?” she snapped, since Cam clearly wasn’t going to be swayed by his father’s displeasure. “I’ve heard nothing about her, and it’s foolish that she and her family think you can just go and stay for the summer like this. Especially since we haven’t met her yet, which is just rude.”

  “They think I can go away for the summer because that’s just what I’m doing, and I’ll introduce her to you when I’m sure she’s going to be a part of the family,” he lied smoothly. “And spending the summer together is something their family has always done. It’s a big lodge, with several wings. But there are also several rooms that serve as remote offices for those who need them.”

  “I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous.”

  In hindsight, he probably should have come up with a better cover story to explain a prolonged absence. But he couldn’t claim business overseas or anything else professional, since his father knew everything that went on with the Maguire holdings. So he’d been left with a personal excuse and, still reeling from receiving the letter from Carolina’s lawyer, it had been the best he could come up with.

  “We’ll have dinner when you come home next week,” she said firmly. “You should bring the woman so we can at least meet her.”

  The woman. Most mothers would have been excited for him and asking to meet his girlfriend, or at least have asked her name. Maybe even thinking ahead to weddings and grandbabies. But not his mom. She just didn’t like having question marks in her son’s life that could affect the business. If it had an impact on the company, her husband would be upset, and nobody liked that.

  Another reason he hadn’t been in a hurry to settle down. The idea of bringing a woman home to present to his parents for judging made his stomach turn.

  “I’m meeting Claudine for dinner tonight,” she continued, without waiting for his answer to her summons. “So I’ll have to let you go if I don’t want to be late. Send me your travel plans when they’re made so I can make a reservation.”

  Calls with his mother just sort of ended once she’d decided she’d had the last word, so Cam said goodbye to dead air before dropping the phone on the table. Elinor hopped up to sniff at it, and then she tried to shove it off the edge. As much as he agreed with her sentiment, it was an expensive phone and he wasn’t sure he could get a same-day replacement in Blackberry Bay, so he caught it before it could tip off onto the floor.

  “You’d probably like my mother,” he told the cat. “You’re both stubborn, opinionated and very bossy.”

  Elinor just stared at him, blinking occasionally, until Cam closed his laptop. Eating in front of it was a bad habit, but there was no desk in the cottage. Eating at the table made eating while working too easy, and he was going to have to be more disciplined about it if he didn’t want buying a new wardrobe in a size up to be in his near future.

  “What do you say we put a movie on and just forget about the rest of the world for a while?”

  She didn’t answer, of course, but once he’d cleaned up and stretched out on the sofa to surf through the television channels, Elinor curled up on his stomach and purred.

  It was nice, he thought. For now. She was going to feel very heavy after a bit, and he could only hope she didn’t start doing that kneading thing she liked to do with her claws, but for a while he was just going to lose himself in the TV and enjoy Elinor’s company.

  It was amazing how easily he’d put his mother’s call out of his mind, he thought as he settled on a disaster movie he’d seen once before. Volcanic eruptions were entertaining, at least.

  Usually his mother’s displeasure made him tense—sometimes so tense it crept up his neck and became a headache he couldn’t shake—but it was hard to be tense wearing shorts and a T-shirt, stretched out on the couch before the sun even went down.

  Maybe it was the cat, he thought, reaching up to scratch the one spot on the side of her neck he’d found that didn’t make her try to shred his hand. Pets had never been a consideration in the Maguire household. They were messy. They took time and attention away from important things.

  He couldn’t help but wonder if they felt the same way about children.

  But he was starting to understand why people loved having animals in their homes. There was something about the way you just had to take care of their basic needs and give them affection, and in return they adored you. No stress. No demands. No judgment. They just wanted to hang out and cuddle. Even Elinor, though he wasn’t sure she quite adored him. But she was always willing to allow him to scratch that spot on her neck when he needed company.

  Or maybe it was Blackberry Bay. Life had a different rhythm in the small lakefront town, and it had been jarring at first. But there was definitely something to be said for hammocks and lemonade by the water.

  Chapter Seven

  On Tuesday afternoon, Meredith took a deep breath and knocked on the front door of Cam’s cottage. It probably would have made more sense to go to the slider, but that felt weird to her. She’d be able to see into the cottage before he knew she was there, and she still felt guilty enough about watching him in the yard on Sunday.

  She hadn’t seen him outside since. Elinor had been over a few times to annoy Oscar, but Cam must have been keeping himself busy indoors. And she wouldn’t interrupt his work or whatever he was doing, but Sophie hadn’t forgotten Cam didn’t have a library card and she wasn’t letting it go.

  He pulled open the door while barking into his phone, and she would have waved him off and come back later, but he pushed open the wooden screen door and gestured with his head for her to come in. Then he held up a finger to let her know he was almost done.

  “Yes, I expect you to know there’s an impending divorce and asset division before acquisition,” he was saying. “That’s why we employ investigators.”

  Meredith had experience with waiting for a business call to wrap up, thanks to her marriage, so she tuned him out and looked around.

  This was definitely not the kind of environment she’d ever imagine Cam being in. Everything was clean and fairly tidy, so she didn’t think his grandmother had been hoarding, but she definitely owned a lot of things and the cottage was not very big. And the decorating scheme—which included an overabundance of items stitched, quilted, knit and painted by hand—was decidedly feminine.

  There were also cardboard boxes everywhere, in various states of being filled. She could see one with yarn in it, and another with papers. Embroidery thread. It was obvious he was trying to sort through Carolina’s belongings, but there was a lot to sort. And he was going to need a lot more boxes.

  “Sorry about that,” he said, tossing the phone onto a round table covered with a laptop, a black leather folio and a white tablecloth decorated with Chihuahuas wearing Santa hats.

  “That’s quite a tablecloth,” she said, because it was impossible to leave it unremarked upon. “Especially for June.”

  “There are no words for it, really. I was going to throw it away, but Elinor sat in the middle of the table and refused to move, so I gave up. Sorry about the mess everywhere. Do you want to sit? I have...water. Or coffee. All I have left in the house is coffee, water and a few slices of ham.”

  “I’m fine, thank you. Do you have people who grocery shop for you at home?”

  “No, I don’t,” he said, gesturing to a chair that didn’t have a box on it. “I mostly have business dinners in restaurants or have food delivered to the office or my apartment. That’s apparently not a thing in Blackberry Bay, so I’m learning to feed myself.”

  She sat where he pointed, and waited while he moved a box so he could sit. “I’m sorry to barge in like this, but Sophie’s being a little much right no
w.”

  “So you abandoned her to Oscar’s care and you’re going into hiding over here?”

  The grin he gave her made her laugh. “Trust me, it’s tempting. But I left her video chatting with my mother so I could talk to you about the library.”

  “Weren’t you just there on Saturday?”

  “Yes, and since she gets to have ice cream with you the next time she goes, she’s already read every book she checked out on Saturday. Watching her was like a master class in speed-reading.”

  “I didn’t think kids that little were so smart.”

  She chuckled. “If you hadn’t already told me you don’t have experience with children, that statement right there would be enough to give you away. They’re evil geniuses in training from the time they’re born.”

  “When do you want to go?”

  Part of her had braced herself for Cam begging off. Whether he had too much work or some other excuse, she’d assumed he’d regret setting up a library and ice-cream outing with her. Or maybe he’d still be feeling salty about their curb appeal conversation.

  “I wasn’t sure you were still on board,” she confessed.

  “I’ve had a lot going on with an acquisition going south and when I’ve seen you through the window, you’ve had Sophie with you. But I wanted to talk to you alone so I could apologize for the other night. I was a jerk and I don’t have an excuse for it, so I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, too.”

  “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. You were right in your assessment and I called you a snob.”

  “Sometimes, if it’s somebody’s home, assessments can be delivered with a little more grace,” she said, and when he smiled, she returned the smile. She was happy to put that behind them. “So you’re still in for a trip to the library?”

  “There’s no way I could look that little girl in the face and tell her no. Plus, I’m a pretty big fan of ice cream.”

  “I know you have work to do along with doing all of...this.”

  “To be honest, I could use a break from going through her stuff. It’s pretty overwhelming.”

  “There’s nobody else helping? Any other family?”

  “No.” He was quiet for a long moment and then he looked her in the eye. “I didn’t know about Carolina until after she passed. Her only child was my biological father, but I didn’t know about him, either, and he passed away before she did. I was conceived during a brief separation in my parents’ marriage and my mother chose to return to the man I know as my father. So there’s nobody else. I got a letter from her attorney telling me I inherited this cottage from a woman I’d never heard of and that her cat was waiting for me at the local shelter.”

  “Oh.” For a long moment, she didn’t have any idea of what to say. It was a lot to process, and she couldn’t even imagine how hard it must be on him. “I’m sorry. That’s quite a bit to handle.”

  “I could have had it dealt with, of course. I certainly didn’t have to come out here for the summer, but I was curious about her. About my real father, too—his name was Michael—so I wanted answers. So here I am with a cat who’s not mine and a whole lot of...stuff.”

  She smiled, because as far as she was concerned, the fact he’d picked up the cat and brought her home even though he had no desire for a pet said a lot about him. “You sound like a man who needs to eat ice cream with a six-year-old who’s celebrating your first library card.”

  His return smile was slow but genuine, crinkling his eyes. “That sounds perfect, actually. When should we go?”

  “Whenever works for you. We’re pretty open, but I’ll repeat that she read all of her current books as fast as possible because she’s that excited.”

  “How about tomorrow, after lunch? Even if I wrap up everything I need to do today, my head’s going to be caught up in the acquisition and I’d rather save it for a fresh day.”

  “Tomorrow sounds great.” It was on the tip of her tongue to invite him for dinner, seeing as how all he had was coffee and a little ham, but something held her back. One, he was a grown man. He could figure out how to feed himself. And two...some part of her still needed some distance between them.

  Dealing with that tingle of anticipation when she was going to see him was hard enough. Managing just how far her imagination went when she caught sight of him working in the yard was even more challenging. The three of them around her table, laughing and sharing a meal, was too much right now.

  At least the ice-cream date had been his idea and accepting it had been Sophie’s doing. Meredith could still pretend she had no interest in her temporary neighbor, other than trying to be friendly.

  She stood, since she’d accomplished what she’d come here for. And she could leave her mother video chatting with Sophie for only a few minutes because it was exhausting, even for a loving grandmother. “I don’t really remember Mrs. Archambault or her son very well. I wish I did. But I think she was friends with Mrs. Weaver, who was the mother of one of my friends before I left. It’s a small town, so if you ask around, you might find out a lot.”

  “I will at some point,” he said. “I was going to ask your parents if they knew her, actually, but then I didn’t. My parents don’t know I’m here. They don’t even know that I know about Michael, so I guess I’m just afraid of somebody saying something to the wrong person or on social media. My family tends to fly under the media radar as a rule, outside the business pages, but something like this would make headlines.”

  “That makes me curious about your family. Devin did most of his business in Southern California and your last name doesn’t ring any bells for me.”

  “If you do a Google search, you’ll just get business articles, a few photos of my father and me in suits, and shots of my mother at various charity functions. I’d rather not spice up the results with a paternity scandal.”

  Her face flushed, because she’d already done that—she did a basic search on any adult who would be around Sophie on a regular basis—and that was exactly what she’d found. She’d also noticed he didn’t resemble his parents very much, and now she knew why. “I understand. But let me know if you decide you’d like to reach out to people. I’ve been gone a long time, but I’m still from here. And, in the meantime, Sophie and I can help you sort through things.”

  “I couldn’t ask that of you. There’s so much stuff here.”

  “Which is why you need help.” And there went her resolution to keep some distance between them. “You can take your laptop into the bedroom or out onto the deck, and Sophie and I can sort yarn and paint and whatever else is going on. Just an hour a day or so would make more of a dent than you’d imagine. Think about it.”

  “I will. And I really appreciate it.” He walked her to the door. “Tell Sophie I’m excited about my library card, okay?”

  “I will. And we’ll be ready anytime after lunch, so just let us know when you’re ready to go.”

  She was halfway down the walk when he called her name. She turned, and he was still in the open doorway, watching her.

  “I really am sorry I called you a snob,” he said, grinning.

  “I was being a snob and I’m sorry I insulted your curb appeal. The plastic flowers in the window boxes are really going to cheer up the neighborhood come February.”

  He was laughing when he closed the door, and she was still smiling when she walked through hers.

  * * *

  “Do you think I should laminate it?”

  Sophie frowned at the library card Cam held up. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Putting plastic on it so it doesn’t get ruined if I get it wet.”

  “Why would your library card get wet?”

  “What if I knock over a drink on the table and it spills on my card?”

  The lines between Sophie’s eyes deepened. “Why would your library card be on the
table while you’re having a drink?”

  “I guess that’s a good question,” Cam said, admitting defeat. “Maybe I should just keep it in my wallet, where it’ll be safe.”

  “And you won’t lose it,” she added, with all the wisdom of a seasoned library card holder.

  Meredith chuckled as Cam tucked his pristine new card in his wallet for safekeeping, and Sophie nodded her approval.

  “Should we go back to the cars before we go have ice cream?” he asked, and he winked at Sophie. “I don’t want to drip on my books.”

  “You have to lick around the edges so it won’t drip, silly.”

  They did go back to their cars, though, which were parked side by side in the municipal lot. Meredith had looked uncertain when Sophie asked if they were all going to ride together, so Cam had suggested he take his own car so he could go to the market after.

  Once their books—along with the Spurr Memorial Library tote Sophie had talked him into buying and the documentation he’d brought to prove his residency for now—were locked in their cars, they walked down the main street to one of several ice-cream shops.

  Sophie walked between them, chattering about how excited she was for the next summer reading program event because she’d get to see her friend Kiki again, and Cam was content to listen.

  It was nice, he thought. Maybe too nice, since this wasn’t actually his family he was sharing this typical family outing with, but he chose not to think too hard about it. He’d just enjoy the company while he had it.

  They all ordered twist soft-serve ice cream in a cone, and as they walked to the park behind the shop and found a shady spot in the grass, Sophie showed him how to lick around the edges to keep it from dripping down his hand.

  It still dripped. So did Sophie’s, despite her expertise, and Meredith was the only one who managed to eat her entire ice cream without getting sticky hands. Luckily, she had packets of wet wipes in her bag and he cleaned his hands while she cleaned Sophie’s.