Almost Just Friends (Wildstone #4)(90)

“Without my input or knowledge, even though I’m one-third owner of this property.”

“Okay, they should have told you, but they did a great thing, Piper. Don’t lose perspective on that.”

“Cam helped.”

“Wow, what a bastard.”

Piper sighed. “You’re not taking this seriously.”

“Piper, they worked together to give you everything you wanted. What’s so wrong about that? Unless . . .”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you’re afraid.”

Piper squeezed her eyes shut tight. “I’ve gotta go.”

“Yes, I imagine you do. It’s probably annoying hearing that you’re sabotaging your own happiness to prove your deepest fears are true—that no one could possibly love you for you. Which of course is ridiculous since we’re all lining up to love you. You can hang up on me now.”

So that’s what she did.





Chapter 28


“You know exactly who you are.”

Piper finally left the lake, but she didn’t go home. She went to town and straight to the Whiskey River, because sometimes a girl needed a damn drink.

Boomer took one look at her face and made her a Shirley Temple.

Any other day she would’ve laughed, but this time, now, she was horrified to find her eyes fill with tears.

“Oh, shit.” Boomer brought out a box of tissues from beneath the bar and set it in front of her. “Sucky day, huh?”

“I don’t want to talk.”

“Works for me.” He brought her a bowl of peanuts and pretzels.

She stuffed her face for a few minutes and sighed. “Men suck.”

“No arguments there. It’s a genetic defect, I’m pretty sure. Want me to beat him up for you?”

“No.”

“Good, because honestly, I don’t think I could. He’s pretty badass. Rumor is that on his last mission, his unit took out an entire terrorist cell hiding in the waters off South America, where they were planning attacks on our allies.”

She downed her drink. Whether that was accurate or not, she knew the truth was probably even more heroic. “I’ve got this,” she said.

“Do you?” Boomer asked doubtfully.

“Hey, as my bartender, you’re supposed to bolster my confidence.”

“Sorry. You’re right. You’ve got this.”

Not so sure, she left the bar and went to Emmitt’s. The boat was back, but no Cam in sight. Emmitt wasn’t home either.

So she’d do what she knew Cam would do for her. She waited. After all, she had to learn to face her fears instead of burying them. So she walked back down to the marina and had a little stare down with the water.

Fear number one.

“I’m not afraid of you,” she said out loud, lying through her teeth, of course. “But I’ll give you this. The sun shining on your pretty white caps is a nice touch.” Never one to do things half-assed, she made her feet take her to the end of the longest dock. Heart pounding, she stood there for a long moment watching the way the sun’s rays shimmered and danced across the water.

Then, very carefully, so as not to accidentally make a nightmare come true and fall into the water and drown, she sat. And then pulled out her journal and flipped through some of her entries. She had a list of books to read. Her sleep log. A school tracker filled with the classes she needed to take. Her calendar complete with stickers. Her bad-habit tracker . . . Damn. She really was a nut. She paged through to her secret secret bucket list and had to shake her head at herself. Maybe she hadn’t aimed high enough. She made another entry. Fear number two.

Fall in love.

She stared at the words, having to admit she should probably just go ahead and check that one off right now because it’d already happened. She’d just been too stubborn to realize it. She’d been afraid of commitment in the past because in her mind, committing to someone meant another person whose life would take precedence over hers.

But she wasn’t afraid of that with Cam. He’d never try to make her into something she wasn’t or put himself before her.

Life as she knew it would only get better.

“Why is this so hard?” she whispered angrily to herself, and pressed her forehead to her knees.

“It doesn’t have to be,” said an unbearably familiar voice from behind her.

Cam.

She squeezed her eyes shut. He’d found her. Of course he’d found her. Because unlike her, he was in control of himself and always did what needed to be done, hard or easy, big or small.

Damn, she admired that.

He came to a stop beside her, and she made the mistake of looking up at him. His hair was growing out a bit from his military cut and was a windblown mess of perfection. He hadn’t shaved in a few days and the scruff and dark sunglasses he favored only added to his bad-boy appeal.

“I’m an asshole?” he asked, reminding her of exactly where they’d left off.

She grimaced and opened her mouth, but he put a hand on her shoulder, gentle but firm.

“Let me rephrase. I am an asshole. And I owe you an apology.” Their arms and legs brushed as he settled in beside her, calm and relaxed in a way that was beyond her ability, ever. “First,” he said, “I need you to know that I wanted to tell you about my brother. I did. But I let the guilt cloud my judgment.” He closed his eyes. “Rowan told me he didn’t want his kid growing up like we did. He wanted them to have two parents in their life that loved each other. ‘Winnie and I are going to make it work,’ he told me. And”—Cam met her gaze—“I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t buy into the notion of love, because it’d never worked for me. But Rowan said it only has to work the one time. A twenty-year-old schooled me.”