Chapter 9 #2
"You're ridiculous," she says, but she's fighting a smile.
"Part of my charm." I bump her hip with mine. "Now, serious question. How do you feel about breakfast for dinner?"
"Positive, as long as it doesn't involve you destroying my kitchen."
"Me? Destroy?" I press a hand to my chest in mock offense. "I'm a culinary artist. You saw me work magic with corn dogs the other day."
"I also saw the absolute wreckage you left behind. Three different whisks, Cam. For corn dogs."
"Each whisk serves a purpose, Rookie. It's like hockey sticks—different flex for different plays."
She rolls her eyes, but there's fondness there now, not just exasperation. We move through the store, adding eggs, pancake mix, bacon, and more to our haul. I grab chocolate chips without comment, and she pretends not to notice, but I catch the tiny smile that says she approves.
"Cam Wilder?"
I turn to find a middle-aged woman with sharp eyes approaching us. She's got that look—the one that says she's about to either ask for an autograph or lecture me about something.
"Yes, ma'am," I say, automatically shifting into charm mode.
"I'm Janet Morrison. I run the bakery section." She glances at Tara, then back to me. "I wanted to thank you."
"Thank me?"
"For what you did at the fire station meeting last night. Taking care of our Tara." Her smile is warm, genuine. "That girl's been nothing but kindness to this town since she arrived. She deserves someone looking out for her for a change."
Beside me, Tara makes a small sound of embarrassment. "Janet, you don't need to—"
"Hush," Janet says firmly. "I'm talking to your young man."
Your young man. I like the sound of that.
"It's my pleasure, ma'am," I tell Janet. "Tara's pretty special."
"That she is." Janet reaches into her apron and pulls out a small paper bag. "Fresh cinnamon rolls. Still warm. Consider it a thank-you gift."
She presses the bag into my hands, then leans closer.
"Also," she says quietly, "there was a man in the black suit who was asking questions about Tara early this morning? I told him she'd moved to Denver last month. Don’t think he bought it but I figured you should know."
Ice water floods my veins. "Black suit?"
Every protective instinct I've ever had goes live-wire dangerous.
"Came in around six-thirty. Said he was an old friend looking to reconnect." Janet's expression hardens. "But friends don't usually offer money for information.”
“Janet, did he pay with a card?”
“Didn’t see him with any purchase.”
Tara goes rigid beside me. I put a protective arm around her waist, pulling her closer.
"Did he say what kind of friend?" I ask.
"He didn’t say. But Tara's never mentioned family nor friends, and in two years, no one's ever come looking for her." Janet's gaze flicks between us. "I may be old, but I'm not stupid. That man wasn't here for a friendly reunion."
"Thank you," I tell her, meaning it completely. "For the warning and for protecting her."
"We take care of our own in Cedar Falls," Janet says, her voice carrying the steel of someone who's survived small-town politics for decades. "Always have, always will. But that man?" She shakes her head. "He doesn't belong here. Smelled like expensive cologne and bad intentions."
She bustles away, leaving us standing in the pasta aisle with a bag of cinnamon rolls and confirmation that Tara's past has officially caught up with her present.
"Looking for me by my alias." Tara's face has gone pale. "Offering money for information."
"Which means this isn't your father's usual surveillance team, or someone’s just trying to mess your head because the most recent photo was taken at the house."
She nods, and I can see her brilliant mind working through the implications.
"We need to finish shopping, get back to your place, put these development on the board, and build a plan," I tell her.
"What kind of plan?"
I kiss her temple, breathing in her scent, trying to calm the protective rage building in my chest.
"The kind where we figure out who's hunting you, turn it into a play we can control," I say quietly, "and make them stop."
Back at the cottage, I watch Tara put away groceries with the same efficient precision she used to select them. Every movement is economical, practiced— the muscle memory of someone who’s lived out of borrowed spaces too many times.
The thought makes something twist in my chest. She's been running for three years, never staying anywhere long enough to really settle. Never letting herself get attached.
Until Cedar Falls.
I do my part—organizing comes easy to me.
“So, it’s just your personality that’s chaotic.”
“Careful, Rookie…”
"You don't have to sleep on the couch, you know," she says suddenly, back to me as she arranges bell peppers in the crisper drawer.
I freeze, a carton of eggs halfway to the refrigerator. "Is that an invitation, Rookie?"
"No! I mean—" She turns, flustered. "I meant the guest room. I have a guest room."
"Ah." I resume my task, trying not to let disappointment show. "And here I thought you were finally succumbing to my irresistible charm."
"Your irresistible charm snores."
"I do not snore. I breathe with masculine authority."
She snorts, taking the eggs from me and placing them on the proper shelf. Our fingers brush, and that now-familiar spark jumps between us. Neither of us acknowledges it, but we both feel it—the pull getting stronger, harder to ignore.
Once everything's put away, I lean against the counter, watching her organize a drawer that doesn't need organizing. She's avoiding something. Or someone. Namely, me.
"Tara."
She looks up, guard halfway up. "Yes?"
"I need to ask you something, and I need you to be honest."
Her body tenses, bracing for impact. "Okay."
"How much am I forgetting?"
The question hangs between us, heavier than I intended. Her eyes soften with understanding.
"Small things, mostly," she says carefully. "Sometimes you repeat yourself. Sometimes you get fuzzy on times or dates."
"And the big things? Us?"
She hesitates, which tells me everything. "Well, you forgot our first kiss in the alley. The night we met."
"But not the second one," I say quickly, needing her to know that not everything slips away. "Not what happened the next morning."
"No." A smile plays at the corner of her mouth. "You seem to remember that just fine."
Relief washes through me, followed by determination. "I want to try something. A memory exercise my neurologist suggested."
"What kind of exercise?"
I push off from the counter and cross to where my duffel sits. Digging through it, I find the small notebook and pen I started carrying after the diagnosis.
"Anchors," I explain, returning to the kitchen. "We associate memories with sensory details, emotions, places. The stronger the anchor, the better the memory sticks."
Understanding dawns in her eyes. "And you want me to help you create anchors."
"Who better than the woman with perfect recall?" I tap the pen against the notebook. "Let’s start easy, tell me something about yourself. Something I should remember."
She bites her lip, thinking. "I hate cilantro. It tastes like soap."
I scribble in the notebook, adding a quick doodle of her karate-chopping a burrito. "Boom. Locked in."
“How about color?”
"My favorite color is the sky before a storm."
"Storm-sky equals Tara eyes. Guess I'll be checking the weather a lot more. " Then I look up. "One more."
She laughs, warm as a blanket. “I never learned to whistle.”
To prove it to me, she tries. “I sound like a dying teakettle.”
"A very sexy dying teakettle," I assure her solemnly. "The sexiest teakettle in all of Colorado."
“You try!” She taunts.
I purse my lips and attempt a whistle as well, producing a pathetic, airy sound that makes us both crack up.
"Perfect, now I'll never forget. Because you matter." I say simply.
She eyes the notebook, amused.
We continue the game, her offering facts, me creating absurd mnemonics and accents to cement them in place. I learn she can recite all fifty states in alphabetical order, that she broke her arm climbing a tree when she was nine, that she sleeps with three pillows arranged in a specific pattern.
Each piece of information is a gift, a breadcrumb leading me deeper into who she is beneath the carefully constructed facade. And with each detail, I feel myself falling harder, faster, for this complicated woman who remembers everything but chooses to forget her own worth.
Eventually, we move to the living room, sitting cross-legged on the floor, notebook open between us. The lightness from earlier has settled into something more vulnerable, more real.
"I'm scared," I admit quietly, eyes on the page. "Not of whoever's coming after you. I'm scared of forgetting this. Of forgetting you."
The words land with more weight than I intended, but I don't take them back. They're true.
In my fog, she's a beacon.
She reaches out, her fingers brushing my hand. "I remember enough for both of us, Cam."
“And on that note,” Tara says, throat clearing like a cover, “go put your stuff away before your hockey duffel ruins my girly aesthetic.”
I unpack my stuff—clothes into the closet she cleared, razor beside her lotion in the bathroom. Mundane moves, but they feel monumental. Like planting a flag.
I emerge from a hot shower, twenty minutes later, and Tara's sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop open and a legal pad covered in her neat handwriting.
"Making lists?" I ask.
"Trying to figure out what Lucien wants. It’s got to be him, so I might as well be prepared."
She looks up at me, frustration clear in her expression. "I've been going through everything I remember from the last few years. Every conversation, every document, every meeting I was forced to attend."
I pull out the chair next to her and sit down. "Find anything?"
"Maybe." She turns the laptop toward me, showing a complex organizational chart, a family tree with names, dates, and connecting lines.