She heard him. But it seemed to hit her like a flash of light, that she’d somehow joined life again. They were arguing about a real-life problem. She was participating in the argument. More to the point, all the life around her was seeping into her consciousness.
Clouds were puffing across the morning sky like baby steam engines. She could smell the lazy spring wind, the turned-over dirt. The workers-Pete’s employees-were pitchforking mulch in a rhythmic fashion, their laughter and chatter competing with the sound of the tractor blade still pushing mulch. The whole field smelled lushly rich and earthy. And the beautiful lavender…oh, it still looked like hell; Camille wasn’t even halfway through the impossible job, and it was ridiculously late in the spring to believe she could make this happen. But the lavender was trying so hard, in spite of its earlier neglect. Every lavender plant showed growth. Green spurts. Buds. Reaching for the sun.
Her gaze wandered back to Pete, and then couldn’t seem to let go. This morning he was wearing khakis, work boots, a short-sleeved shirt. His hair kicked up in the breeze. She could see the creases he’d gotten from past summer suns, the frown lines from other life experiences, the laugh lines bracketing his mouth.
She remembered that mouth…remembered it wooing hers, teasing hers, intimately taking hers. She remembered the artwork of hair on his chest, the color more mahogany, more lustrous, than the hair on his head. She remembered his muscled shoulders and tummy, those long, long legs, those funny feet.
“Did you hear me?” Pete demanded.
Really and truly, he had ugly feet. Big. Huge toes.
“I just suggested your sister needed a brain transplant,” he said, as if to make certain she’d heard that insult.
She’d heard his teasing the first time. But she remembered those big, ugly toes rubbing against her in the night, remembered folding into his arms, remembered feeling hunger and a fury of passion and how erotically and ardently he’d taken her in. And suddenly fear welled in her throat so thick she could barely swallow. She blurted out, “I can’t help it if I still love Robert.”
As if he instantly understand her segue to a completely different subject, he said, “Who asked you to help it?”
“You didn’t ask. But I’m afraid of hurting you, Pete.”
“I’ll be damned. For some reason, do you think you’re talking to a boy? Because I’m a grown man, and it isn’t up to you whether I get hurt or not. It’s up to me. And I can handle my own life.”
She tried again, struggling to understand the welling fear inside her, to be honest with him. “It’s easy for people to tell me to move on. I’d be thrilled to move on. But ever since the trial…it’s as if this door were locked and bolted inside me. I can’t imagine loving anyone else that way again. It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s that I don’t think I could survive losing anyone else, volunteering for that kind of hurt, that kind of risk. I don’t think I have that kind of love inside me. Not anymore.”
Pete cocked a leg forward. “Did you think someone was asking you for love?”
Her eyes searched his. Actually, she’d thought just that. That he needed love, that he deserved it, possibly more than any man she’d ever met. That he’d needed something from her, no different than she needed something from him. But now, he sounded so aggravated and huffy that she wasn’t sure. “I just…wanted us both to be clear about what was going on.”
“Damn good sex is what went on, Cam. The best sex I can remember. Chemistry that was over the top. If you feel differently or are trying to tell me that you regret it-”
“I don’t regret it.”
“If you want something more from me…”
Sheesh. She could feel the bristles climbing up her spine at his tone of voice. “I don’t want a damn thing, you blockheaded dolt! And there’s nothing wrong with ‘just sex’ either! Everything doesn’t have to end up in a complicated, heavy relationship, for heaven’s sake!”
“So what’s the problem?”
“There is no problem! And don’t you forget it!” Before he could even try saying anything else, she whipped around and stomped off.
Since it was Campbell lavender his workers were sweating over, she knew she should pitch in and be part of the mulch project. And she would. But just then she needed to dunk her head in a bucket of water to cool off. Try to be nice to the damn man and where did it get her? He didn’t want to be cared about. Well, fine.
She didn’t want him to care about her, either.
She walked so fast that she got a stitch in her side-except that somehow, that stitch seemed to locate right over her heart, and ached worse than a bee sting.
Eight
The only reason Camille went up to dinner was because she knew Violet would raise hell if she didn’t. Still, she went to the trouble of unearthing some blush and lipstick-not for vanity-but hoping some face paint would hide her real mood from her sister.
As she crossed the yard to the farmhouse, though, her heart felt heavier than mud. Man. She thought she’d shaken the worst of the dark funks in the past couple weeks, but the dragon had come back to bite her in the butt since arguing with Pete that morning.
It seemed as if every direction she turned, she was doing something wrong. Darn it, she was still living like a kid on a campout. She still couldn’t seem to imagine a regular job, and couldn’t dredge any interest in ever going back to the marketing work she’d once loved. She’d gotten herself involved with a man who’d been hurt by a woman before, and so had his boys. And if she didn’t get her head on straighter, she risked hurting them, too. And she wanted and needed to help her sister do
“Uh-oh,” Violet said the minute she walked in the door. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing! I’m totally fine. Let’s talk about you.”
But Violet had always been her most annoying sister. Once Vi got it in her head there was a problem, the fussing never let up. No matter what she said, Violet tuned into a pep-up channel. “You’re not useless. Don’t be ridiculous. Everybody goes through hard things. You have to give yourself time to let yourself heal. Would you go through a surgical operation and expect to be back at work the next day?”
“Violet, you don’t have to be so nice to me. It’s driving me crazy to be such a burden.”
“You’re not a burden. What you need is strength. And I made just the foods to help you!”
Violet laid out a feast. Lentil-rice patties. Some kind of fish with a spinach sauce. Lavender-buttered turnips and a lemon-lavender loaf. Peachy sweet potatoes.
Camille exchanged glances with Killer, who took one good sniff and then flopped on the floor with his eyes closed.
“And I made you a tonic for those headaches you get,” Violet said brightly.
“Thanks so much.”
“The sweet potatoes are especially important. They have a natural estrogen. And the spinach and lentils-you have to build up some iron, some strength-so I want you to have double servings.”
She glanced desperately at Killer again, but he shot her a look as if to say:
By the time dinner was over, Camille was hungry enough to chew rope. Not only was the menu inedible, but Violet followed up with a whole bubbly program of ideas-like wanting to give her a massage and relaxation exercises and force her into a warm bath with lavender bath salts. The instant dishes were done, Camille fled with the dog.
She was almost desperate enough to drive into town for some doughnuts and Oreos and other serious staples, but once she got back to the cottage, she changed her mind. Still strewn through the living room were all the packing boxes and cases that she still hadn’t tackled. They seemed glaring symbols of how long she’d wallowed in being miserable. She simply
