Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 94630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
“Meaning?”
“As bad as it sounds, I think we settled for each other because we knew we were both so screwed up by our pasts. I guess we kind of thought only another person as damaged as we were could accept us…as we were.”
“So you were never in love with Kerris?”
“Well, I was attracted to her, of course. I cared about her.”
“But were you in love with her? Gun-to-the-head answer.”
“Gun to the head…probably not.”
“Gun to the head and I still can’t get a straight answer.”
“That’s as straight as it’s gonna get tonight.”
“So if that’s the case, doesn’t it clear the way some for you and Walsh?”
“In retrospect, I can see that we shouldn’t have married.” Cam took a quick swig of his beer, the muscles of his face tightening. “Doesn’t make the way things went down easy to accept or forget. Once I knew for sure how it was between them, what was there to fight for except…”
“Except Amalie?”
Cam looked down at his boots, feeling like something stuck to the bottom of them. “Yeah, except her.”
Hesitation was all over Jo’s face, an expression so rare for her that it caught his attention like a peacock in a blizzard. She wasn’t one to hesitate long. Sooner or later she’d spit it out.
“Cam, Kerris is in therapy for all she went through. From the abuse in her childhood, the divorce, Amalie, all the crap she’s endured. Have you talked to anyone about…everything?”
“About my feelings you mean?” Derision twisted Cam’s mouth. “I’ve lived with my…feelings…all my life. I’ll be fine.”
“No, but this is different.” Jo swung her feet from beneath her, placing them flat on the floor and leaning forward. “You lost a child, and your marriage and your best friend. Not to mention everything else in your past you’ve probably never dealt with.”
Cam shot to his feet, gripping the neck of the beer bottle until he thought it might shatter.
“What the hell do you think you know about my past?”
“What do I know about your past?” Confusion muddied Jo’s crystalline eyes. “Um…everything?”
Cam turned his back on her, facing the small but shiny and well-appointed kitchen. He slammed the bottle on the marble countertop.
“You don’t know as much as you think you do, Jo. And if you knew…”
“Well, tell me.” He heard her feet padding across the Oriental rug toward him. Smelled her when she was right at his back. “Cam, what don’t I know?”
He dropped his head, pulling a damp palm across the pinched muscles of his neck. If she ever found out the secrets he planned to take to the grave, how would she look at him? Like poison. Like the devil he was.
“Just drop it, Jo.”
“No, I won’t drop it.” She stepped in front of him, reaching up to cup his chin, eyes hot and intense on his face like quicksilver. “Cam, I see how sad you are, how alone, and I don’t like it.”
Cam leaned forward a few inches until only a breath separated their mouths. He reached up to lace his fingers with hers against his face.
“And you wanna make it better, Jo? Huh? Is that it?”
Her fingers trembled between his. Her tongue made a nervous swipe across her bottom lip, but she didn’t blink. Didn’t move her hand.
“If I can.”
He wrapped his fingers around her fragile wrist, being gentle but firm when he pulled her hand down. Deliberately icing his eyes over when he stepped away.
“Well, you can’t.”
Her head dropped a few inches before she drew in a deep breath and adjusted her glasses.
“Well, someone needs to. A grief counselor or—”
“Stop pushing.” Cam strode out of the kitchen and back into the living room, flopping onto the couch and covering his eyes with his arm. “Just let up.”
“I won’t, Cam.” Her voice came closer until he knew she was standing right over him. “I can’t.”
He sat up, setting his elbows on his knees and cradling his sleep-deprived head in his hands.
“That’s your problem. You don’t know when to stop. It’s too much. Just stop digging.”
“Friends dig.”
He looked up from the intricate design on the rug to narrow his eyes at her.
“So this is all in the name of friendship?”
Jo stared at him like she’d never seen him before, and to be honest she hadn’t. None of them had. You could only fake humanity for so long. He’d gotten away with it, but the devil inside of him wanted, more every day, to peel back this mask and show the ugly, disfigured truth writhing under his skin.
A keycard swiping at the door broke their static-charged stare. A slim woman walked in, a bellhop trailing her with a luggage-laden cart. One side of her pink hair was shaved and the other just brushed her shoulder, the bangs not quite covering the ring piercing her eyebrow.
“Just through there for my bags.” She pointed to the bedroom Cam had been using. “Cameron! Surprise!”