Wild in the Field

“But then there’s the other thing,” Simon blurted out. “Someone really messed with her.”

Pete whipped his head around, no longer playing. “What do you mean, ‘messed with her’?”

“You’re not even going to recognize her. That’s what I mean. That’s why I was thinking about not telling you about dinner. Because, like, if you go over there, don’t start out telling her she looks horrible. I mean you’ll just make her feel bad. Whoever did that to her…well, it’s pretty scary. But I don’t want Camille to feel bad, you know? I mean, what’s the point. Like you always say, judge the person by what they do, not how they look-”

“For God’s sake, son, you’re starting to scare me.”

Simon threw up his hands in a classic male gesture. “You’re scared. I took one look and hardly recognized her. So just watch it. It’s done now. She can’t help it, so be nice about it.”

It wasn’t possible-not from his son’s description-to have a clue what Camille might have done to her appearance. Still, Pete didn’t even consider stopping over before seven.

In fact, at fifteen minutes to seven, he’d showered and shaved and put on fresh clothes-but he still wasn’t sure if he was going over there. The issue was courage. He’d been avoiding her. Not that they hadn’t regularly seen each other over the last week; he’d helped her every single day with the lavender. But with the boys out of school, it had been so easy to travel over there as a trio. He hadn’t seen her alone once.

Sometimes a guy was strong enough to take a knife in the gut and some days he just couldn’t face it.

Still, he climbed in the truck at precisely five minutes to seven. The hound clearly put a line in the sand. And his boys-and their grandfather-weren’t about to let him get out of dinner besides. Since they watched him from the window, it wasn’t as if he could turn the truck toward Timbuktu. He had to turn toward her place. And since her cottage was essentially next door, he couldn’t drag out the ride to any longer than a minute and a half.

When he parked at the cottage, evening sunlight was shivering through the trees in soft yellow patches. Her porch was shady and cool-and damned quiet. The dog and cat were both slumbering on the top step. Neither budged to make room for him to pass, although the cat at least opened her eyes.

“Cam?”

He rapped once on the door, not quite able to see through the screen. But then she opened it. And his heart stopped.

Gone was the waif who’d come home with her heart broken. The woman in the doorway was barefoot, with long sun-kissed legs. She was wearing a scarlet scoop of a dress, held up with a couple of promises-the straps didn’t seem more substantial than that-and it sure didn’t appear that she was wearing anything underneath it. Her shoulders were as bare as her legs, smooth, golden, the simple fabric sculpting the swell of her breasts and curve of her hips.

Weeks ago, she hadn’t had that swell, those curves. Weeks ago, she’d been all bones, all eyes. The darned woman was still all eyes, but now all that ghastly chopped-off hair was wisping around her cheeks. Her lips were red as sin, her posture sassy. She looked…sexy. She looked…splendiferous. She looked like she could make any man drool without half trying, and she’d made him drool even when she’d been a waif.

“You’re late,” she said.

“I know. I’m sorry.” He handed her a bottle of wine. The twins and their grandfather had explained that you didn’t go to dinner with a woman without wine. They’d moved him to speechlessness-that the boys would conceivably think they could educate him about courtly manners. The same boys who couldn’t stand women. The same boys who never wanted a woman in their lives for the rest of their lives. “It’s probably the wrong wine,” he said.

“There is no wrong wine. Now before you say anything about the bloodhound-”

He loved dogs, all dogs, any dogs. But just then, he probably couldn’t tell a poodle from a pony.

The only thing on his mind was her, and his gaze honed on her face as if irrevocably glued there. He just couldn’t look away. She’d changed so much-and changed exactly in the ways he’d hoped. She was visibly on the other side of pain now. Healing, if not fully healed. Spirited again. Full of hell again. Ready for life again.

That’s what he wanted for her.

“Pete?” She came closer and peered up at him, as if to make sure she’d gotten his attention. “I realize that Hortense was a bit of a surprise.”

It was hard to understand why his heart hurt so much. It was just…when she’d been a waif, she’d needed him. And then by accident he glanced past her. Past the open door, through the kitchen, where her back door opened onto her shady back lawn. He couldn’t see that much, but pretty clearly there were candles lit on a table out there. A tablecloth. Fancy silver. He looked at her in confusion.

“What’s going on?”

“Dinner. In fact, let’s get started, and then I’ll explain about the dog.” She ushered him through the house, then out to the table, where she motioned to the chair across from her. She poured the wine and started serving, but her vulnerable eyes kept darting to him. Her hands definitely weren’t as steady as the sassy dress and makeup implied-and neither was her voice.

“I was walking in the lavender yesterday. It was a real turning point for me. Every time I went out there before, there was a ton of work to do. But not now. Now there’s nothing else to do but let it grow. The field’s still a long way from perfect, but the mulch, the pruning, brought it back to life. The buds are almost ready to burst. The scent and the color-it’s not there yet, but it’s so close. My sister’s going to have her hands full with the harvest.”

He saw the food. The delicate salad. The roast with a scent to die for. And he wanted to gulp down the wine, but at her last comment, he could barely remember how to breathe. “You’re not planning on being here for the harvest yourself?”

“No. Really, the lavender is Violet’s project. It’s not mine to make decisions about. And I think, finally, that it’s way past time I started making decisions about my own life again. It took forever, I know. I’ve been lollygagging here like a bag lady.”

“Shut up, Cam. You were never like that.”

“Close.” Maybe he wasn’t eating, but she was shoveling it in. “What I kept thinking, though, while I was walking through the field was how different lavender is than roses. Roses have to be pampered, tended, fed, cared for. All we had to do with the lavender was give it some lousy soil, trim it up, mulch it a little, and it zoomed back from the dead. When it comes down to it, lavender only thrives on tough love. But you know all about that, didn’t you, MacDougal?”

This chitchat was real nice, but Pete had had all he could take. “Where exactly do you plan on being after this?” he asked sharply.

She lifted a finger, indicating that she needed a second to finish chewing, then gulped a bit of wine. “With you.”

“I beg your pardon?”

She frowned, noticing that he’d barely touched her food. “You don’t like my French stew?”

“Yes, yes-”

“Then eat, Pete.”

“What did you just say?”

“Oh. About being with you?” Her eyebrows rose impishly. “I thought you guessed my intentions…when I gave you the bloodhound. When I asked you to dinner.”

Okay. He figured out the obvious-that he couldn’t rush her; she needed to say things in her own way, on her own time. But he couldn’t eat, now that she’d brought up leaving. It didn’t matter how many times he’d mentally told himself that she’d only come home to heal and would leave after that. There was still a lump in his throat the size of a mountain. So he just folded his arms on the table and tried to listen.

“Of course, I wasn’t sure if you’d come for dinner,” she said softly, putting down her own fork and knife now. “I know I’ve come very close to blowing it with you. All this spring, I thought I was the one who had trouble with grief, MacDougal.”

“You did.”

“Yes. I was grieving. For Robert. And for the injustice of a life lost. I didn’t know how to cope…but then you came along, with your bullying and your tough love. Everybody coddled me but you.” She cocked her head. “I guess I’m like the lavender, Pete. Pamper me too much and I just get soft. But if you give me a chance to be strong, that’s who I am, who I want to be. Strong.”

“Could we go back to what you said about being with me-”

“We’re getting to that,” she assured him, and handed him a buttered roll.