she would have done anything for him. And now? Hopefully she knew better now.
Looking out across the water again, she pretended to squint and peer into the moonlight. “Wait a minute,” she said, looking hard. “I think I see them now. Two crazy kids stomping around in the mud.”
“That’s them,” he said approvingly, then looked down at her. “Or more accurately, that’s us.”
Us. Yes, they had spent time together on that side of the lake. How could she forget? Some of the best moments of her life had been spent there.
Cam was always fighting with his grandfather in those days. After a particularly bad argument, she would often find him down at the far side of Apache Lake, fishing for rainbow trout. She would sit and watch and he would tell her stories about the valley’s history or his sister’s latest exploit or…sometimes, what he wanted to do with his life. His dreams involved big things far away from gold country. Whenever he talked about them, she felt a sense of sad emptiness inside. She knew she would never be a part of that world.
He always used catch and release, and she would watch regretfully as he threw the shiny, silvery fish back in and they watched it swim away. He didn’t realize that she could have used it for dinner. More often than not, the refrigerator at her house was bare and her father was off somewhere burning through the money that should have gone to food, pouring it down his throat in the form of bargain wine. But she never said a word to Cam. She was too embarrassed to let him know her dinner would be a cheap candy bar that night.
Such things were not a problem any longer. She had a nice little business that kept her comfortable, if not exactly rolling in wealth. These days she was more likely to try to cut down on calories than to need to scrounge for protein.
Times had changed. She’d traded a rough childhood for an adulthood that was a lot nicer. She’d been a damaged person then. She was okay now.
Her hands tightened on the railing and she bit down on her lower lip to keep it from trembling. Who was she trying to kid? A woman who was content with her life didn’t take the steps to change things that she had recently done.
He hadn’t noticed yet. She resisted the urge to pull her robe more carefully over her slightly rounded belly. He was going to have to know the truth some time and it might as well be now.
Well, maybe not now. But very soon.
“Remember the night before I left?” he was saying, his voice low and slightly hoarse. “Remember…?”
He let his voice trail off and she closed her eyes. She remembered all right. She would never forget. It was the one and only time he’d ever kissed her. It wasn’t much of a kiss—not at all the kind of kiss she’d yearned for. His lips had barely touched hers. But she still considered it the best kiss she’d ever had.
She felt him touching her hair and she sighed. If she turned to look at him, would he kiss her again? She tried it, moving slowly, opening her eyes to look up into his face. For just a moment, she thought he might do it. But then a look of regret came into his eyes and he turned from her, moving restlessly.
Her heart sank, but she scolded herself at the same time. What was she thinking? A romance with Cam was not in the cards—never had been.
“So where have you been all this time?” she probed to get her mind on other things.
He shrugged. “Pretty much everywhere. Served a few years in the Navy. Worked on an oilrig in the Gulf. Spent some time as a bodyguard in Thailand. The usual stuff.”
She nodded. This was definitely not the sort of thing his mother would have bragged about. If he’d been at law school on law review, spent time working as an aide to the governor, or made a pile of money on Wall Street, she would have made sure the local paper covered it in minute detail. Cam had always had a tendency to turn away from the upper class path to respect and follow his own route to…what? That had often been a bone of contention between him and his family.
But who was she to complain? It was exactly that inclination that had led him to be her protector for those early years. Their friendship had started when she was in Middle School. Her father was the town drunk and that meant she was the object of vile names and other indignities that adolescent boys seemed compelled to visit upon those weaker than themselves. Cam was a couple of years older. He saw immediately what was going on in her life and he stepped in to make it stop.
That first time had been like magic. She’d gone for a swim at the park pool. None of her friends had shown up and suddenly, she’d been surrounded by a group of boys who had begun to taunt her, circling and snapping at her like a pack of wolves. She knew she could hold her own against one boy, or even two or three, but there were too many this time and she panicked. She tried to run, which only egged them on, and just when she thought she was going to be taken down like a frightened deer, Cam appeared on the scene.
He was only a few years older than the boys, but his sense of strength and authority gave him the upper hand and they scattered as soon as he challenged them. He picked her up, dusted her off and took her for ice cream. And that began a friendship that lasted all through her school years. He was her protector, the force behind the calm, the one who made everything okay.
Even when he’d gone away to university, he’d checked on her whenever he came home. He treated her like a big brother. The only problem was, she’d never been able to completely think of him that way.
No, from the start, she’d had a major crush on him. It hadn’t been easy to hide. And the effects had lingered long after he’d skipped town and left her behind. In fact, she knew very well it was her feelings for him that had ruined every relationship she’d attempted ever since.
“So you’ve pretty much been bumming around the world for ten years?” she asked, frowning as she looked at him again. Whatever he’d been doing, it actually looked to be profitable. Now that she noticed, his clothing was rumpled, but top-of-the-line. And that watch he wore looked like it could be traded in for a down payment on a small house.
“Not really,” he told her. “The first five years, maybe. But then I sort of fell into a pretty lucrative situation.” He shrugged. “I started my own business in San Diego and I’ve done pretty well.”
“Good for you.”
He shrugged again. “I’ve been lucky.”
She knew it was more than that. He was quick, smart, competent. Whatever that business was, he was evidently successful at it.
“And all that time, you never thought a simple phone call might have been in order?” she asked lightly. “A letter, maybe? Just some sign that you were still alive and well?”
She bit her lip again. Was she whining? Better to drop it.
He shook his head. “I figured a clean break was the best way,” he said softly.
She winced. That was exactly what he’d said that night, after he’d kissed her. But she wasn’t going to complain anymore. It wasn’t like he owed her anything. When you came right down to it, he’d done more for her than anyone else ever had. What more could she ask for?
That was a dangerous question and she shied away from it quickly.
“So what brought you back?” she asked. “Are you back for good?” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them and she made a face, knowing she had sounded altogether too hopeful.
He looked at her, then at the moon. “Hard to tell at this point,” he muttered. Turning, he looked back toward the little house she lived in. She’d done something to it. Even in the dark, it didn’t look so much like a shack anymore.
“Your old man still around?” he asked.
“He died a few years ago,” she told him. “Complications from pneumonia.”
Complications from being a rotten drunk was what she could have said, he thought bitterly. She was better off without him. But that being said, you didn’t get to choose