“I think you’ve been good for her,” Stella added. “Just look how well she’s adjusting.”
Audrey exhaled. “The real test will be after I leave. I feel like I need to leave Cameron an instruction manual.”
Annabelle chuckled alongside Stella. “Don’t let his brooding nature and animal grunts fool you. Cameron’s smart, and he’s a good guy. I think he’s probably catching on faster than you realize.”
Cameron was good with Piper, despite Audrey’s doubts when she first arrived. He got down to her level and talked to her, instead of talking around her. He didn’t constantly ask if she was okay, like most people had after Dianna had died. Getting back to a normal routine and not having people tiptoe around her had been good for Piper. Cameron got that. Audrey had a feeling a lot of that had to do with his dad leaving. He identified with Piper’s grief and confusion, and part of Audrey kind of loved him for that.
“He kept trying to get me to take Piper back to Boulder with me,” Audrey admitted.
“Not surprising,” Stella agreed. “But that was because he was scared. Once you have Cameron’s loyalty, you have it for life. He won’t let Piper down now.”
“Even if he does end up moving,” Brandon cut in.
Audrey’s head jerked toward the big man who’d just been elbowed by his wife. “I’m sorry?” she demanded. “Moving?”
Stella opened her mouth to cut off Brandon, but he beat her to it. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Even if he does leave, he’ll take Piper with him.”
“Do you have a death wish?” Stella hissed at her husband. She turned to Audrey and placed a soothing hand on her arm. “I’m sure Cameron’s not going anywhere. He loves Blanco Valley too much.”
“But he’s thinking about it,” she concluded as she tossed a desperate look between Stella and Annabelle.
Stella only stared straight ahead, as though she was suddenly interested in the field action. Annabelle opened her mouth, then shook her head as she shut it again.
“I’ve spent the entire day with a cranky six-year-old,” Audrey asserted. “If someone doesn’t start leveling with me right now…”
Annabelle turned all the way around. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
Audrey waited for her to continue. “But?” she prompted.
“But…” Stella began. “I think maybe Cameron was toying with the idea of relocating. But I’m sure he’s changed his mind now that he has Piper,” the woman concluded in a rush when she got the look of panic on Audrey’s face.
Of course, Audrey didn’t have a say in it. But Piper had been uprooted too much, had been through too much to move again. Another new neighborhood. Different friends. Different school. The girl needed some continuity in her life. But what could she do? Demand Cameron stay put forever?
And maybe it wasn’t even true. Annabelle and Stella seemed unsure, and Cameron would have said something if he had plans to move. Wouldn’t he?
“In all honesty?” Annabelle went on. She must have taken Audrey’s silence as distress. “I don’t think Cameron has confirmed anything. And I think it was more him just exploring some options rather than making plans. If you’re that worried about it, you should ask him.”
But would he give her a straight answer? He was mysterious and secretive to a fault, and he’d have to know that Audrey wouldn’t take well to him moving Piper again.
Why did this whole thing have to be so exhausting? Every time she thought she had Cameron Shaw figured out, he threw her a curve ball.
Cameron stood at his back door and watched as Audrey sipped wine straight from a bottle. She was perched on the top step of the guesthouse, with the light of the full moon shining down on her loose blond hair and highlighting her cheekbones. She really was beautiful. Cameron was used to being with beautiful women, and yet Audrey was different. Something in the way she held herself, and the wary way she watched everyone around her, as though waiting for the bottom to fall out.
He knew that feeling all too well. But everything else about Audrey was a total mystery to him. What bothered him even more was his desire to figure her out. She wasn’t going to be in his life very long, so why should he care? Why did he want to know the story behind the shadows in her eyes? Who had wronged her? And why did he want to beat the shit out of them?
Audrey lifted the bottle of wine to her lips. Cameron tightened his grip on the sweatpants dangling from his hand.
When he’d returned home from the football game, which they’d won, he’d found his sweats folded in a neat pile on the kitchen counter. On top of them was a yellow Post-it with Audrey’s neat handwriting informing him she’d mended them. As he’d stared down at her note, something had shifted inside his chest: an unfamiliar tightening around his heart that he didn’t recognize. They were just sweatpants, for chrissake. But for some reason, it felt like more.
A peace offering?
That had been his first thought. His second thought had been why the hell the gesture meant so much to him. So she’d mended his pants. So what? His mother used to mend his clothes all the time, and he’d never had the wind knocked out of him.
He should go out there and thank her.
Except ever since that night in his kitchen, when they’d almost kissed, he’d tried to keep a respectful distance, to give her the space she seemed to need around him. He’d needed the space too, because inappropriate thoughts were always crowding his mind. Like how it would feel to shove her against the wall and explore her mouth with his tongue. Or maybe tunnel his hands in that silky hair, to feel the cool
