Chapter 14 Nicole #2
Nicole laughed. “Um…Red?”
“Oh, Red. Kindred spirit. Okay, I’ll hang with him, but I really was hoping for someone under thirty.”
“Well, there’s Benny, who acts thirty. But he’s ten.”
Elise grinned, then looked out the window as they drove away from the small campus. “Oh, Nicole. I am so happy, I can’t even put it into words. This is really happening. My whole future—”
A sudden, loud thunk-thunk-thunk cut her off, followed by a sickening grinding sound. The van lurched to the right.
“Whoa!” Nicole fought the steering wheel, heart hammering. She eased the vehicle to the shoulder, found the hazard lights, and cut the engine.
“What happened?” Elise cried, gripping the armrests of her chair.
“Not sure, but we might have a flat. Hang on.”
Nicole jumped out, boots crunching on snowy gravel. Cold wind slapped her face as she rounded the back of the van—and her stomach dropped. The rear tire on the passenger side sagged completely flat, rubber shredded and steaming slightly from friction.
“Oh, dang it!” She bent closer, as if staring could magically fix it. “It’s totally blown.”
She went back and gestured for Elise to lower the window.
“Flat as a pancake,” she told her.
“Can you…fix it?”
Nicole let out a helpless laugh. “I can barely change a light bulb, much less a van tire. And this thing probably needs special equipment. And I don’t have my AAA card, which is in my car…at your house.”
“What do we do?”
Nicole pressed her hands to her temples. She could call her dad, but…no.
There was really only one option. She climbed back inside, meeting Elise’s wide, anxious eyes. “We call Cameron. Maybe he can sneak out of work or get me his AAA card number or a tow or something.”
Elise paled. “Nicole, no—he’ll—”
“He’ll help us,” Nicole insisted as she tapped his name on her phone and pressed it to her ear.
He answered on the second ring, his voice clipped. “Nicole?”
“Cameron, thank God. We’ve got a flat tire—”
“We? Who? Where are you?”
“With Elise in the van, in Eagle Mountain.”
The silence lasted so long she thought the call dropped.
“You took her to Eagle Mountain?” he ground out the question. “To that vet school? Are you kidding me? You took her all the way there?”
“Look, it’s a long story and we’ll explain—”
“You don’t have to, I already know her story.” She could practically hear him steadying his breath to tamp down his anger. “Send me a pin of your location. And then do not, for the love of God, move that van.”
Nicole swallowed hard. “Yes, but—”
And then the call ended…on purpose.
Nicole stared at her phone, pulse pounding. “Well,” Nicole said softly, her throat tight. “That went…badly.”
Elise sighed. “I’ve tried and begged and failed to make him see my side. I wanted to get him out here to see the place but he wouldn’t come. I tried to get him to bring me to an interview, but…” She groaned. “Now he’s mad at me.”
“Oh, he’s mad at me, too,” Nicole said.
And she understood that. Maybe she’d gone too far, violated his trust, and taken sides in a family dispute where she had no right to be.
Then she looked up in the rearview mirror at Elise—beautiful, sparkling, clever Elise who had a dream and a chance to make it come true.
She’d fallen for Cameron, but she’d fallen for his sweet sister, too.
Closing her eyes, she dropped her head back as cold dread seeped into her heart. “I just hope,” she whispered, “our relationship can survive this.”
Nicole kept the inside of the van warm with the engine running, but the euphoria had dropped considerably as they waited.
Nicole sat in the driver’s seat, her hands gripping the steering wheel.
Elise was silent behind her in the large middle space specially designed to accommodate a wheel chair, glumly looking outside at skies that threatened snow.
They’d talked for forty minutes, mostly about Cameron’s abject refusal to consider this opportunity, but even the loquacious Elise was out of words.
Nicole’s thoughts spun like the first flurries that blew past the windshield.
This morning had been filled with hope and promise, Elise glowing with excitement as they’d toured the campus. Now, that all melted away into icy dread.
She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Cameron should be here any second. Her stomach twisted at the thought of seeing his face, of witnessing that anger she’d heard through the phone.
A minute later, Nicole’s breath caught at the sight of his slate gray Tundra pulling up behind them, crunching on the shoulder.
Her pulse hammered as he cut the engine, flung open the door, and climbed out.
He was still in his red and black ski patrol jacket, snow-dusted boots slamming against the frozen ground. His face…
Her heart plummeted. His face was a storm.
Before she could open the door, Cameron yanked the back door, whipping it open to come face to face with Elise.
“Seriously?” he spat the words. “Why would you do this?”
“Because I want—”
“I know what you want, Elise,” he fired back at her, throwing his hands wide. “And I want a lot of things I can’t have, either.”
“Like what?” she demanded. “Like a job? Oh, you have two amazing jobs. Friends? Yes, you have a ton of them. A relationship?” She glanced at Nicole. “I guess I may have ruined that.”
His eyes shuttered, silent.
“No, I did that myself,” Nicole said, flipping the handle to climb out. “Can we just fix the flat? I have a dog talent show to get to.”
As her boots hit the ground next to him, she looked up, meeting hurt and anger and dismay in his blue eyes.
“Let me get my tools. And here.” He shoved keys in her hand. “Take the truck back to our house and get your car. I assume you left it there when you two sneaked off like a couple of teenagers going to a party.”
“Teenagers…going…” Nicole stuttered, a little speechless. “Are you kidding me right now?”
“Just go and make the dog show thing,” he said, working hard to keep anger from his voice and mostly succeeding. “I’ll take care of Elise.”
He pivoted, marched back to the truck and pulled a toolbox and a jack from the back. Nicole stayed right where she was, watching him.
His movements were crisp and decisive, his jaw set hard, his nostrils occasionally flaring as he worked and battled the cold, getting down next to the rear passenger wheel. Nicole walked behind him to watch, refusing to drive away, but he didn’t talk to her.
Elise rolled down the window on the passenger side and called out, “Cameron!”
He looked up, frowning, then jogged right past Nicole to the window. “You okay?”
“Yes! That’s the whole point of this,” she insisted. “I’m more than okay. I’m capable. I’m strong. I’m smart.”
“You’re paralyzed from the waist down,” he said, his voice oddly calm. “And sneaking off with someone who’s not in our family driving the van. Do you realize what could have happened to you? On these mountain roads? In the snow? It’s exactly like—”
“It’s nothing like that,” she fired back. “We’re not in an ice storm going through treacherous canyons. We’re driving clean highways out to Eagle Mountain, and I had to go. I had to. Cameron, I was accepted into the program!”
He took a step back as if her words had physically smacked him. “You…were?”
Nicole fisted her hands in her pockets, frozen without gloves but she still could feel her nails digging into her palms as she forced herself not to march forward and tell him everything.
This wasn’t her fight—it was Elise’s. But it told her a lot about Cameron. A lot about how he handled conflict and a crisis.
“Well, that’s…” He huffed a breath that puffed in front of him. “That’s great and impossible and…and…and now I get to be the bad guy and the killer of all your dreams for a second time, Elise. Thank you so very much.”
“Then don’t kill them!” she yelled out.
He shut his eyes and shook his head. “Look. It’s freezing out here. Let me change the tire and you…just roll up the window.” He strode back to the tire, crouching down to start spinning the jack.
Nicole stood behind him, shivering in her jacket.
“Honestly, you can go, Nicole. We’re fine.”
“Hardly fine, and I’m not leaving you here without a second vehicle until you fix this.”
His shoulders dropped, the move nearly imperceptible, but she picked up the resignation. He was a first responder—smart enough to know she really did have to stay.
Nicole swallowed her fear and stepped closer anyway, the mountain of apology she’d had ready dissolving in the face of his anger. He hadn’t given her a chance to apologize, so how or why should she?
“We need to talk,” she finally said.
Cameron’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue. He pushed up and stalked to the back of the van, yanked it open, and flipped a panel to reveal a spare tire.
“Talking is not a good idea,” he said.
“Why not?”
“I’ll say something I’ll regret.”
“I don’t care,” she shot back. “Just say something. It’s bad to say nothing. That’s what killed my parents’ marriage ten years ago.”
He froze for a second, then continued his mission.
The wind cut through Nicole’s coat as she stood beside him. Gray clouds swirled overhead, matching the churning turmoil in her chest.
“I feel lied to,” he muttered, bent over the wheel.
Even with the wind, she caught the words. “No one lied.”
He looked over his shoulder. “Omission.”
She couldn’t argue that. “I understand and I’m sorry, Cameron. Elise—”
“Doesn’t know what’s good for her.”
“Or maybe you don’t.” She crouched down next to him, flinching when he slammed the jack into place.
“You are seriously overstepping,” he ground out, sliding a look at her. “I know she’s irresistible and sympathetic and persuasive and adorable.”
“She’s not a minor,” Nicole pointed out, frustrated that he seemed to forget his sister was an adult.
“No, but she’s paralyzed and vulnerable and…and…if there’s a fire, she couldn’t get out of bed. If there’s an intruder, she couldn’t defend herself. If there’s a—”
“I get it.” She put a hand on his arm. “I totally get that. She’s limited in what she can do. But does that mean she can’t live, Cameron? She can’t leave that house? She can’t study and have a profession or achieve a dream?”
He sighed. “I’m not discussing this now,” he said. “The bottom line is you went way beyond…just too far. Too far. Behind my back, too.”
He slammed the spare into place.
‘I’m sorry,” she said, and meant it. “I was uncomfortable with that, but if I hadn’t, she’d have missed the interview and—”
“Uncomfortable?” His hands froze. “You know what’s uncomfortable, Nicole? Knowing that because you were an idiot, your sister will never walk again. I live with that every day, so if I fear for her life, that’s my problem.”
“You made it her problem.”
He grunted. “Just…let me work. You have no idea what I deal with every day. You have no idea how terrified I am that she’ll get hurt again.”
She stared at him for a long, long time. “You know which one of you is really paralyzed, Cameron?”
Slowly, he turned to her.
“You,” she said. “You are paralyzed by fear and I say that as someone far too familiar with the feeling. And your fear is keeping her from having a life. Not her legs, not that chair, not this world. Your fear.”
He closed his eyes and tried to swallow. “Please wait in the truck,” he said. “When I’m done, you can go.”
She pushed up and took a step backwards, a bone-deep disappointment kicking her in the ribs. “So…what about us? All done?”
His hands moved with furious precision as he cranked the jack and wrestled the spare tire into place. The cold wind whipped around them, carrying the metallic tang of true sadness.
She could feel their fragile new relationship shatter with each beat of silence, pieces scattering across the frozen ground like shards of ice.
“Cameron…” she whispered.
He twisted a bolt with fury. “There’s no ‘us.’”
Something inside her cracked wide open. She stumbled toward the truck, her vision blurred with tears.
When she slid into the driver’s seat, the wheel was cold beneath her hands. She sat in the cab and watched him finish, return the flat tire to the back, and put his toolbox in with it.
Then he climbed into the front seat of the van, and drove off.
The hardest part was that she didn’t get to say goodbye to Elise.