Crazy about Cameron: The Winslow Brothers #3(40)

For weeks, she’d felt like a caterpillar emerging from its chrysalis, born anew in authenticity, delicious freedom, and newfound courage—fragile virtues somehow cultivated and strengthened by Cameron’s recent presence in her life.

Was such an awakening enough to bear and deliver the first fruits of love?

“Maybe,” she whispered, swinging her legs over the side of her bed and pressing one hand over her heart. “Maybe.”

And stretching before her was a whole day in his company. She giggled softly as she headed to the bathroom. She couldn’t wait to get started.

Remembering his fondness for pulling her childhood braids, and inspired by Priscilla, she gathered her thick, long hair in her hands and French-braided it loosely, so that it was sexy and romantic but also a throwback to their shared youth. She pulled on her favorite pair of jeans and a short-sleeved cotton sweater in navy blue with a low scooped neck. She swiped on some lip gloss, grabbed her tennis shoes and sunglasses, and checked out her reflection in the mirror.

Long gone was stiff, starched Margaret Story, and before her stood Cameron’s Meggie, someone who spent her days in a vineyard, and her nights . . .

She flushed.

She knew exactly where she wanted to spend her nights: laid bare beside Cameron, her heart beating against his, the heat of his skin pressed against the softness of hers, his arms around her, his sex throbbing within her, loving her until they were both exhausted and slept entangled until dawn.

If you asked me to be with you, I wouldn’t be able to say no.

That was the problem, though, wasn’t it?

She respected his reasoning—that his life was complicated, and he didn’t want to start something with Margaret now only to sacrifice it later. In fact, she loved that Cameron, who lived his life impetuously, seemed to move with a tense deliberation when it came to her, as though he couldn’t bear to misstep and lose her once she was his.

“You have to trust him,” she said to her reflection. “Don’t push him.”

Trust that when he can, he’ll come for you. Maybe today. Maybe next week. Maybe not until next year. But when he comes for you, he’ll have cleared the way ahead, and you won’t have to fear taking his hand and stepping forward, because he will keep you safe.

She turned away from the mirror and picked up a small box of items she’d been meaning to take from her apartment to the cottage: her high school and college yearbooks, some favorite books, a photo album, and a few framed photos of Margaret and her sisters as children. In the elevator, she rested the box on her hip and pulled one of the pictures from the box. She looked at it carefully.

It was taken at the Englishes’ pool in 1998. She and her sisters stood in birth order: thirteen-year-old Alice, tall and strong, with her hand on one jutted hip; eleven-year-old Margaret in thick glasses with a shy smile and her thin arms around Alice’s and Betsy’s shoulders; ten-year-old Betsy winking at J.C. and étienne Rousseau; nine-year-old Priscilla, with her wild, wet hair dripping around her shoulders and forbidden sparkly nail polish on fingers flung high into the air; and little Jane, only seven, her pudgy, baby tummy sticking out of her one-piece and a chocolate ice cream mustache over her top lip.

Grinning, Margaret scanned their young faces for an extra moment before widening her examination to the rest of the picture. The Rousseau boys stood to the right, making silly faces at the girls, the Ambler brothers splashed in the pool with the Rousseau twins, and Brooks Winslow and Barrett English were leaning against the fence talking to Bree Ambler. And to the left . . .

She gasped, drawing the picture closer and squinting as she realized that thirteen-year-old Cameron Winslow was also in the photograph. He stood between Alex and Fitz English, who were both laughing at something going on in the pool.

But Cameron . . .

Tears sprang into Margaret’s eyes as she realized that Cameron, who’d lost his father just months before, was staring thoughtfully at her.

It’s all I’ve pictured for most of my life.

The elevator dinged to announce its arrival, and Margaret exited, still staring at the photo as a deluge of tenderness saturated her heart.

“Cam,” she whispered, wondering what was going through his mind at the moment the photo was taken, but quite sure he’d probably pulled her braids and tried to make her cry immediately after.

“Morning,” he answered from just behind her.

Cameron leaned against the wall beside the elevator, a smile on his beautiful lips, his green eyes sparkling like emeralds. He wore jeans and a white polo shirt, and his black hair was still damp from a recent shower. Her mouth watered.

“Morning,” she said.

He reached for the box, sliding his hand against hers as he took it. “What’s that?”

“An old picture,” she said, glancing down at it before holding it up for him. “At the Englishes’ pool.”

Cameron placed the box on the floor and took the frame from her. “Wow. When was this taken?”

“Nineteen ninety-eight.”

“Look at you.”

She grinned, sidling beside him to look down at the picture in his hands. “And you.”

“Me? I’m not in this.”

She pointed to the group of three boys off to the side. “You’re in the middle.”

He stared at the picture for a long time before looking up at her, his eyes serious—so very serious—as they searched hers. “I’m watching you.”