No man, at least not one who could stick for more than three months. An estranged brother she never talked to, a workaholic father who was emotionally distant, and a mother who’d disappeared without a trace and left her family permanently fractured.
There’d been Dianna, whom Audrey had loved like a sister, but…
Now she was gone too.
So yeah, she was a little jealous. Annabelle was blessed in a way she probably didn’t realize with a life like the one Audrey had had when she was young; now she was just by herself.
Audrey blinked when she realized Annabelle had been talking.
“…So now I just have to figure out how to put together a nursery,” Annabelle finished.
“Do you have a theme or focal point?” Audrey blurted out before she could stop herself. Don’t get emotionally involved with these people.
Annabelle scrutinized her for a moment. “Are you an interior designer?”
A sliver of discomfort bloomed inside her chest, because Audrey knew where the line of questioning would go. She should have kept her mouth shut, but the altruism in her didn’t know when to stop. “Not exactly,” she answered. “I went to school for interior design, but now I do home staging.”
Annabelle tilted her head. “Home staging? Is that like when you’re trying to sell a house?”
Audrey nodded. “Right. We contract out to Realtors who bring us in before a home goes on the market. We generally bring in our own decorative items to make it look like a model home. They usually sell better if they looked unlived in.”
“But…you can pull together a room and make it look good, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“I would really love if you could give me a hand,” Annabelle said with urgency. “I’ll pay you whatever your going rate is.”
Audrey shook her head. “I couldn’t. I don’t know how long I’ll be here, and you still have a while before you have to worry about your nursery. Don’t you want to know what you’re having before you decorate?” Geez, she was grasping at straws and sounded completely desperate doing it.
“Oh, we’re not going to find out the sex beforehand,” Annabelle answered with a shake of her head. “And see, I’m a planner and have some mild control issues. I need to get this done before anything else.”
Audrey opened her mouth and closed it again.
“And you don’t even have to do anything. Maybe you could just come by and give me pointers.” The desperation in the woman’s eyes pleaded with Audrey to help. “Just point me in the right direction.”
“Maybe…” Audrey’s words died off because she honestly didn’t know what to say. “Maybe I could come by and take a look at the space. Do you have a room picked out?”
A sigh of relief caused Annabelle’s shoulders to sag visibly. “It’s our office right now, but I’m making Blake move all the furniture into the other bedroom.” She placed a soft hand on top of Audrey’s. “You have no idea what a help this is. The paint color alone was overwhelming me.”
Most people really don’t know anything about putting a room together that flows, one that isn’t overwhelming or disjointed with too many themes or colors going on. That’s why she and Stevie did such a good business. They came in and cleaned things up, made the homes look professional and uncluttered.
“How’re things going with Cameron?” Annabelle asked, throwing Audrey’s thoughts in a jumble. Decorating rooms was a much safer, and less stressful, train of thought.
“Good,” she lied. Okay, maybe it wasn’t a total lie. The situation they were in was odd, to say the least, but they got along okay. And by “got along,” she meant they kept their conversations to a two-sentence maximum, ensuring no arguing, ego matching, or sexual tension that felt like a barbed wire around her throat.
Annabelle narrowed her eyes, as though she didn’t believe Audrey.
Hell, Audrey wouldn’t believe her either.
“I don’t know,” Audrey admitted. “He’s great with Piper,” she said with a glance at the girl, who was scraping the last of the powdered sugar off her plate.
“But not with you?” Annabelle pondered.
How was she supposed to describe her relationship with Cameron when she didn’t know what it was?
“No, he’s…he’s fine, I guess.” Audrey tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I don’t know,” she said again. “He’s a hard man to read.”
Annabelle nodded her understanding. “Cameron’s one of a kind, that’s for sure. But don’t let him push you away. He’s a good guy.”
Of course, she sensed that about him. He couldn’t be so kind and gentle with Piper if he didn’t have a streak of chivalry somewhere underneath that death stare of his. But how was she supposed to bring it out in him? If Piper was going to live with him, he needed to open up. Soften the edges a bit.
“He wants me to take Piper back to Boulder with me,” she admitted.
Annabelle watched Piper for a moment, as though pondering their situation. “He won’t do that. He may be gruff and rude sometimes, but he’s loyal. And that’s his blood. He’ll do what needs to be done.”
“But see, that’s the thing,” Audrey added. “I don’t want him to take Piper out of obligation, and then end up resenting her. He needs to develop a relationship with her.”
“He will. Just give him some time.” Annabelle shifted in her seat. “Cameron’s been burned in the past. He holds himself back out of self-preservation.”
Yeah, she’d kind of figured that.
“So how do I get through to him?”
Annabelle twisted a glance over her shoulder to where Cam was joking around with some players. “Something tells me you already have. You just have to get him to admit it.”
Cameron had wanted his Sunday morning to himself. A cup of coffee, the sunrise, and
