“They called me from day care to come and pick her up. She’s been really out of sorts for a few days, but she’s had her hand in her mouth all the time. I thought she was teething.”
“Okay, let’s take a look. You can keep holding her. She’ll probably like that better.” Ash rubbed his stethoscope in his opposite palm for a minute, warming it before placing it on Emma’s little bare back. He moved it around, a look of concentration on his face. “Her lungs sound good. Let’s look in her ears while you’re holding her. Just hold her head on your shoulder—yep, just like that.”
Ash looked in Emma’s ear. “That one looks a tiny bit red. Let’s see the other side.”
Cam switched Emma to his other shoulder and gently held her head while Ash looked in the other ear.
“Gross. Well, I think we found the culprit for the fever. That one’s definitely infected. Okay, you can lay her down on the table.”
Infected? Cam’s stomach sank. “So she has an ear infection? She hasn’t been herself, but I just thought she was teething. No wonder she was so hard to calm.”
Ash looked up and apparently caught a glimpse of Cam’s face, because he straightened, his hand on Emma’s belly. “Okay, first of all, it’s entirely possible that this started as teething, so stop beating yourself up about that. Second, what you’re feeling is regular old parent guilt and you’re going to have to put it aside. You’re not a bad dad because you missed an ear infection.”
Cam barely heard the rest of Ash’s pep talk because his attention snagged on the word parent. What he was feeling was parent guilt, dad guilt. The thought was a revelation.
“Okay, you can get her dressed now.” Ash waited until Cam had his hands on Emma before turning to the counter, talking as he typed. “I’m going to send a prescription to the pharmacy for an antibiotic, affectionately known to parents of young children as ‘the pink stuff.’ The pharmacist will give you a syringe to dose it and the instructions will be on the bottle.”
He turned around and faced Cam, his arms crossed. “So, what’s the deal with my sister?”
Cam, his fingers fumbling on the snaps of Emma’s sleeper, looked up. “What?”
“It just seems that y’all got married awfully fast. I could tell yesterday that you care about her.”
Cam lifted Emma to his shoulder. “Ah...yes. Yes, I care about her.”
“Good. Because if you break her heart, I’ll personally make sure you’re sorry.”
“Ash? Cam? Are you in there?” The door to the exam room flew open and Jules rushed in. She promptly scooped Emma into her arms, the loose legs of the sleeper flapping.
Cam didn’t even try to speak. There was no point in trying to get between Jules and Emma.
“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry you’re feeling bad.” She rubbed Emma’s head and turned on Ash. “Is she okay? Why does she have a fever?”
“She’s going to be fine, Jules.” Ash put his arm around his sister and squeezed. “Just a simple ear infection. I’ll let Cam tell you about it. I’ve got to keep moving.”
The door closed behind him, leaving Cam and Jules in the exam room with Emma, who was whiny and sleepy. He put his hand on Emma’s tiny back. “Ash sent a prescription to the pharmacy. She’ll be good as new in a few days.”
“I feel so bad.”
“Me, too. But according to your brother, that’s just your average parent guilt and we need to get used to it.” Cam gathered the diaper bag and blanket. Jules was standing in the open door now, her mouth hanging open. He had a moment of sympathy for her, considering he’d had the exact same feeling a few minutes ago when Ash first said it to him.
“Jules.”
She looked at him, her eyes wide, and he smiled at her. “I’ll take her home so you can get back to work.”
“No, I’m not going back. I want to be with Emma when she’s sick.”
Emma’s cries had turned to legitimate screaming, the kind where her face turned purple and she had to pause for air. Cam wasn’t sure if it was her ear or if she was just over the whole doctor thing, but either way he wasn’t arguing with Jules. He followed her out the front door. “Let’s get Em in the car and see if that calms her down. And maybe we should get some fever reducer at the drugstore.”
He slid into the driver’s seat while Jules snapped Emma into the car seat and gave her a pacifier. He was pretty sure that wouldn’t last, but at least the volume of the crying went down a little. Jules opened the passenger-side door. “Hey, don’t forget your car is across the street at the bakery.”
“Come on. Start the car. She always goes to sleep in the car seat.”
Cam turned the key in the ignition and, sure enough, as the motor started humming, Emma’s pacifier-muffled cries started to fade.
Jules looked over at him. “It’s like the magic bullet. The only problem is you can’t stop.”
Cam looked down. He had a full tank of gas and a load of your average dad guilt for missing that Emma had an ear infection. So he put the car in Drive.
* * *
Jules pointed to a small indentation in the trees. “Here. Turn here!”
He whipped the wheel to the side and turned onto an overgrown dirt road. As they bounced over the grooved track, Jules glanced back to make sure Emma was still sleeping. So far so good. She’d fallen asleep as they pulled into their driveway, and because they knew better, they backed out again and kept driving.
“And how does getting stuck in the middle of nowhere help us out this afternoon?” Cam’s voice was dry.
She shot him a look. “Trust me.”
He laughed, his eyes on the narrow trail ahead of them. “Apparently, I do. With my whole life.”
Her breath caught in surprise, but in a way, he was right. And she was trusting him just as much, which explained why they were both on tenterhooks all the time. It was really hard handing your heart—handing your life—into the hands of someone you barely knew, even if that person happened to be your spouse.
They drove for another minute, bouncing over the ruts in the rarely used road. She leaned forward. “Just a little farther.”
A few seconds later, they broke through the trees into a clearing. Light speared through the clouds, sparkling on the river below.
Jules sat back with a smile as Cam let the car roll to a stop.
He put the vehicle in Park, letting out a low whistle. “Remind me not to question your sense of direction in the future. This is spectacular.”
She unlatched her seat belt and reached down to the floor, where she’d left the bag from the drugstore. “When I ran in to check on the prescription, I picked up a little something.”
From the bag, she pulled out two pints of ice cream and a package of plastic spoons. “I feel like we deserve this. It’s been a whale of a two weeks.”
He laughed. “That’s about the truest thing I’ve ever heard.”
She checked on Emma again. The infant pain reliever they got at the pharmacy must’ve kicked in because for the first time in several days, she was sleeping soundly. It was a relief, in a way, to know something was wrong and they could fix it.
Jules tucked her feet underneath her and took a bite of her ice cream. As it melted in her mouth and the silence settled in the car, she could feel the tension doing the same. In the distance a barge chugged toward them, the powerful engines of the towboat pushing the huge craft upriver against the current.
That was the way she felt. Like the past couple months since her friend died she had been here alone, pushing against the current. Until Cam came along and she wasn’t doing it alone anymore. It was still hard, but the problem with the current didn’t seem so insurmountable.
The undercurrent...now, that was another story. She could almost hear the low hum in the silence between them. The sound of all the unspoken...stuff between her and Cam.
She cleared her th
roat. “I know you didn’t expect to take on the girls, me, my messy life. It hasn’t been easy on you, I know that.”
He was quiet, taking a couple of bites of ice cream, his eyes on the river, before responding. “I’m not gonna lie—it hasn’t been a walk in the park. But it hasn’t been easy on you, either. You took in two grieving kids, even if they didn’t understand what they were grieving for, when you were devastated yourself.”
“I haven’t even had time to really process Glory’s death. It seems like this black hole that I have to keep stepping around in my mind because I don’t want to fall into it.”
Cam’s eyes were on the barge crossing in front of them on the river. “I get that. I have a few of those places in my mind I don’t want to visit. Regardless, you’ve handled it.”
“Maybe. I haven’t handled any of it very well, though.” She shook her head. “The café? I can’t even. I need to figure out a way I can balance everything with our family.”
Our family. She gulped and barreled on, not wanting to think about the consequences of that statement. “To be honest, I was surprised no one objected to closing the café, even temporarily. We all have more than a little sentimental attachment to the place.”
“Did you know your mom used to let me sweep up after school so I could get a doughnut on my way home?”
She smiled. “I didn’t know that, but I’m not surprised.”
“She always had a way with the misfits. When I walked into the café after being gone for fifteen years, it was like I’d just walked out last week. I have a sentimental attachment to the Hilltop, too. I bet everyone in town does, which is why they would still come even if you decided to do something completely different with it.”
“I bet when you rolled into town that day, you didn’t expect to be married a week later.”
“No. That’s one even a fiction writer couldn’t dream up. I’m not sorry, though.”
“You sound surprised.”
“Aren’t you?” He turned toward her and brushed a flyaway curl from her face, his hand trembling a little bit. “Are you that much of an optimist? That when you came up with that idea, you were like, ‘Oh, yeah, we’ll go with the easy plan.’”
She laughed quietly and wrenched her gaze away from his long mesmerizing fingers. “You know better than that. That was the plan of a desperate realist.”
“Last week was completely awful.”
She winced. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. I just know the girls missed you. I missed you. Missed this. Sitting, talking nonsense about our day.”
She looked back at him then and his eyes were steady on hers, full of dark emotion.
He sighed, shrugged a little. “I was angry for so long after I left Red Hill Springs, and when the anger burned out, there was just...nothing. I’ve never had this, Jules. Never had anyone to share life with, not like this.”
Her throat ached with emotion. This was an arrangement, a contract, so to speak. This wasn’t a romance. It wasn’t even meant to last.
“This isn’t real,” she whispered, her eyes still locked on his. But all those what-ifs—the ones she kept pushing away in the middle of the night—wouldn’t leave her alone. What if it could be real? What if she leaned into this relationship?
Leaned into him?
In the back seat, Emma squirmed and whimpered. Cam held her gaze for another long second. Then he smiled, the emotion vanishing from his face. “No, you’re right. We should probably go. Emma’s medicine is ready by now and we need to pick Eleanor up.”
As he put the car in gear, she stared out the window at the sparkling river. Going against the current was difficult. More difficult than just going with the flow of the water. Unlikely, even.
But still...
That towboat had been straining to push a barge full of cargo up the river. The waves were choppy and the trip upriver would always be challenging. And yet the pilot was still able to safely navigate to where he wanted to go.
She glanced over at Cam’s handsome profile—his strong jaw spoke to the strong character underneath. She wasn’t sure there was anything safe about this relationship with Cam.
Especially not her heart.
Chapter Nine
The text had said to meet Jules at the bakery after dropping the girls off at day care. Jules’s assistant, April, had told Cam that she was next door at the café. The lights were off, but the door was unlocked. He pushed it open, smiling a little at the jingle of the bells hanging on the handle.
In the darkened room, with no patrons, the café looked a little worn and sad. The benches in the booths were aging and cracked. The air today wasn’t filled with the aroma of fresh blueberry pancakes and bacon, and it seemed stale and heavy.
Jules looked up from where she was sitting at a back booth. Sunlight poured through the adjacent window, making her blond hair glow like a halo. He slid onto the bench across from her. The table was covered with papers. Drawings, to be more precise. “What’s this about?”
She flattened one hand on the table, a pencil still wedged underneath her index finger, and gestured with the other. “Okay. Don’t talk until I’m done, because I want you to hear the whole thing before you make a judgment. But something you said yesterday got me thinking.”
“Yeah? What did I say?” That one drawing on top looked like a long glass bakery counter. Was she thinking of expanding the bakery into the café?
He looked up to find her patiently waiting for his attention. “Sorry. Continue.”
She went on. “When I was feeding Emma a bottle in the middle of the night last night, I remembered that you said something about how people would come to the café even if I did something completely different with it.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Yes...”
She lifted a finger and he closed his mouth. “So part of what drives me crazy about the café is that I’m not good at running it. I don’t have control over the menu or really even the quality of food because it’s not my expertise. But...if I create a menu that combines my love of baking with quality local ingredients, I think I could really get excited about that.”
“Okay, so far I like this idea.”
She slid a piece of paper across the table—the drawing he’d been trying to decipher. “So basically, what I’m thinking is we combine the bakery and the café. We have this long glass case, and at one end it’s a bakery case and the other end is where you order.”
He nodded. “I can see it.”
“We’ll open for breakfast and lunch, serve bakery items, pastries and such, but we’ll also serve a few specialty items like French toast for breakfast and hand-carved sandwiches or quiche, maybe, for lunch. With me so far?”
“It sounds awesome. I want some French toast right now.”
Jules laughed. “I’m sure you’ll get the chance. I have to test the menu items on someone. Which brings me to my last point. I’ll create the menu and we’ll hire someone to run the place for the day-to-day.”
“I think it’s a fantastic... Wait.” He paused, replaying the conversation in his head. “You said we. We open for breakfast and lunch. We hire someone to run the place.”
She tapped her pencil on the table, looking down, her eyes—and her feelings—hidden. “Truth is, Cam, I need an investor. I can’t afford to do this on my own.”
“So it’s about the money. That’s why you asked me here?”
“No!” She met his eyes across the table now, her gaze intense and direct. “No. Or at least not completely. It would be a big project in the short run, but in the long run, doing this would free me up to do what I love—be the creative force behind an innovative menu and spend time with you and the kids.”
“Okay.”
She closed her eyes, then tilted her head and opened one a crack, looking at him through a veil of lashes. “Okay.
..yes?”
He laughed. “Okay, yes. But I’m not doing it as a favor. This is a sound investment.”
Jules pulled him to his feet and threw her arms around his neck. He closed his arms around her. Oh, she was remarkable. Smart, creative, driven, unshakable.
No wonder his plan—the one to delude himself into believing he was marrying her solely to protect the girls—was failing. He let her slide back to the floor. “I do have one condition, though.”
“What is it?”
“We go on a date. A real date, with a babysitter and everything. We can ask Joe’s daughter, Amelia.”
She caught her bottom lip between her teeth as she studied his face. “A date.”
Cam grinned. “Yep. You know the concept. We dress up. Have food that neither of us cooked. Do something fun... A date.”
Shoving him gently, she laughed. “I’ll agree to dessert Wednesday night after we get the kids to bed.”
Resilience. That was the word for what he admired about her so much. Every time life dealt her a blow, she stood back up and faced it down with heart and brains. Grit.
He was so toast.
* * *
“The girls are asleep, but sometimes Eleanor has nightmares. If that happens, it helps to make her some warm milk and let her have a few minutes before you try to put her back to bed.”
Amelia, Jules’s fourteen-year-old niece, stuck her cell phone in the back pocket of her skinny jeans, jeans that looked like they’d been cut and burned and dragged behind an 18-wheeler. “Okay, got it. No problem.”
“And Emma’s had an ear infection. She’s been on medicine for a couple of days, but she’s been getting up for a bottle again. There are three in the refrigerator if you need them.”
“Emma might need a bottle. Check.” Amelia looked around the large kitchen and peered into the living room. “This place is lit. Is there a pool?”
“A pool?” Jules looked at her blankly. “Yes, there’s a pool.”
The Marriage Bargain Page 8
