7. Ava
“Well, this is lovely.” Gram’s long, frail, and aging finger rubbed over the picture on my phone, swiping to see the blanket I’d decided to make. I usually preferred smaller projects I could complete quickly, but the pattern was simply too lovely to resist when I saw it.
Crazy how it’d been just that morning.
“You know what would keep you warmer than this blanket?”
Oh dear. Ruthie Clapton wasn’t known for her modest living. She lived loud. Proud. And had more energy than a preschool classroom.
“Gram…” I started, but that was all I got out.
She flashed me a knowing, amused, and wide grin. “A man.”
“Mama,” my mom chided her. “You know things only recently ended with Ava and Kip. Give her some time.”
Grams rolled her eyes. “It may be done with Kip, but that only means it’s been even longer since you’ve had a man, and you’re not getting any younger, you know.”
She handed me my phone, somehow making the gesture feel like she was wagging her finger at me. “That’s not nice, Grams.”
To say she’d ever been a fan of Kip would be a lie. My entire family was the same. Sure, he never fit in on the farm, but he’d been a good man. A kind one.
“Life’s too short to be nice,” she huffed and rested her head back in her rocking recliner chair. “Moves too fast. Things come and go. People, too. And the only choice you truly have, if you’re one of the luckiest ones, is who you choose to do that life with. Merle was mine. You deserve that.”
My grandparents had an epic marriage. A lifetime of laughter. Gramps still swung Grams around a dance floor up until he was seventy-two and needed a hip replaced. It was the surgery getting that hip done that he didn’t survive. Even at his funeral, with tears in her eyes, she had everyone laughing. It was her way. She laughed through life’s trials… and bossed everyone around while doing it.
Like me.
“I know, Grams. Which is one of the reasons why Kip and I aren’t together. But the best man for me isn’t going to pop up out of the ground tomorrow, so be patient with me.”
“Patience,” she huffed. “Don’t got time for that, either. I wanna see you settled. Happy. Living the dream you’ve had since you were a little girl before I’m gone.”
“Don’t be morose,” I teased her, although hearing her talk like that always made my eyes sting. “You’ll live forever. You’re too damn ornery to do anything but.”
She laughed and reached for my hand. Hers was warm but frail. Her grip was not as strong as it used to be, and this was a woman who could rope a calf, break a horse, or shoot a bow better than any man I’d ever seen.
“Settle, Ava, and soon. I have a feeling that the perfect man for you is closer than you think. You only need to open your eyes.”
Her words washed over me. Settled me and unsettled me equally. The only man close enough to me right now was Cameron, and that was a path I wasn’t traveling.
“Do me a favor, little one?”
“Of course.” I’d do anything for her. Sell my soul if I had to.
“When the time comes, and it doesn’t make sense or you want to run, for me, take a moment to listen and think before you turn your back on the best thing for you.”
My brows puckered, and I glanced at Mom. She had the same worried look on her face I felt on mine, but she gave me a shrug.
“Promise me, Ava.”
“All right, Grams. I promise to listen and think.”
“Good.” She yawned, and Mom moved the conversation to her garden and how the chickens were all doing, and when it was nearing eight and Grams was having a hard time keeping her eyes open, we kissed her cheek and said our goodbyes.
“I’ll come see you next time I’m in town.” Which was almost every weekend, especially during the summer. I couldn’t help it. I kept trying to connect with people in Denver, but the truth of it was, if it hadn’t been for Kip, I could have bailed on the city a long time ago.
Mom and I walked out to the car, hit with a blast of summer heat as soon as we stepped outside, and looped our arms together. “What do you think all that was about?” I asked her.
“Don’t know, but she’s getting old, Ava. And she’s slowing down.”
I gave her a pointed look. “She led a tango dance lesson last week.”
“Yeah, but she only does it once a month now instead of every day.”
It was impossible to hold in a laugh. Watching someone fade away was horrible. Watching someone as vibrant as Grams slow down was worse. But if she was still leading a tango class and planning other events, that meant she still had life left in her. And I’d cling to that until the moment it was pried from my still-beating fists.
“You’re frumpy.”
Lydia pouted at me, and I rolled my eyes.
“Thank you. You look pathetic as well this evening.”
She stuck her tongue out at me. “I mean, you were fine earlier, and now you seem sad. What happened at dinner?”
“Nothing. Mom and I went and saw Grams. She said some things about life that got me thinking.”
Like maybe my dream wasn’t so small. Maybe it was just right. The problem was the guy I’d always wanted to share it with was too large to fit inside that dream. Which meant the days of letting go of Cameron were coming faster than I’d be ready for, despite all my earlier promises.
What I said in the truck was all true. I’d always thought what I wanted was a small life. But I loved my life in New Haven. I loved the people—at least eighty percent of them. The town was growing some with people wanting to leave the city and do their own homesteading, so while we’d never become huge, there would be future opportunities there.
Heck, maybe I could work for the city. Or the county. Maybe marketing.
The thoughts ran through my mind as Lydia scanned the bar. Wouldn’t now be the perfect time to do something new? Maybe my job would let me work remotely and travel into the city occasionally. It wasn’t like we had a social media team. It was me.
There was nothing holding me to Denver anymore. Not Kip.
And I wasn’t sure that was where I wanted to be any longer.
“I don’t think I want to stay in Denver,” I admitted to Lydia. I was spinning my beer glass in a slow circle when she settled her hand over mine.
“What? You mean it?”
“I went for school. Stayed because of Kip, I guess, but I’ve always wanted to be here.”
“New Haven will be here whenever you want. What’s the rush?”
“I don’t know. It’s been a really weird and difficult twenty-four hours.”
Lydia squeezed my hand. “Then relax tonight. Think about it tomorrow. Don’t get me wrong. I’d love it if you moved back home, but rushing into things isn’t smart, either. You still have your apartment, right?”
“Yeah. And breaking my lease would cost two months’ rent, so that sucks.”
She grabbed her glass and clinked her rim against mine. “Tomorrow. Think about it tomorrow. Right now, I need you to smile like you’ve never been happier.”
I did, on instinct, but I still started to ask, “Why?—”
But it was the voice that came from behind me, rumbling right over my skin, that gave me my answer.
“Ladies. Didn’t realize we’d run into you here tonight.”
I spun on my stool and almost face-planted into Cameron’s gorgeous, firm, and muscular chest. No T-shirt like the one he wore could hide it.
I ignored him and the way my body was currently overheating at his mere presence and glanced over his shoulder. “Hi Gavin. How’s Josie?”
“Adorable as always, and thankfully, at a sleepover.”
One year younger than Lydia than me, Gavin became a single dad when we were still teenagers. His girlfriend at the time took off and bailed when sweet little Josephine was only a few months old, and Gavin, along with the rest of the Kelleys and half the town, helped him raise her. She was precocious and silly and rode her own pony better than I did.
“Bet you’re enjoying the night off then.”
He slipped into a stool between Lydia and me, and on my other side, Cameron took the last chair. I stayed focused on Gavin.
“I miss her already.” He rolled his eyes at himself.
I couldn’t help but feel a smidge of jealousy. Sure, he didn’t have a wife or Josie’s mom around, but he was a dad. A parent.
One of the few things I truly wanted in this world, and he was so damn good at it.
God. I really needed to figure myself out.
“What brings you two here?” Cameron asked. He shifted on his stool, and his knee bumped into mine. “Any plans in the works that will end up with your brother having to arrest one of you? Or both?”
“Aren’t you the one with the arrest record?” I teased.
He smirked at me. “Warnings. I only had warnings. So, what’s up? What did we catch you two in the middle of gossiping about?”
As if girls sat around and had nothing better to do but gossip. Okay, fine. We did it quite a bit, but he didn’t need to know it.
Lydia flashed him a ridiculous grin. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“It was baseball or quilting with the parents, so I chose the bar. Why are you here?”
“Isaiah said he’d be up here after work. Apparently, he decided to risk Regina’s wrath.”
As he said it, I found myself swiveling to catch a glimpse of her behind the bar. She wore a smile for everyone in town, but whenever Isaiah stepped into her bar, a storm cloud followed her.
It’d been like that since as long as I could remember, and on the occasion I was tipsy enough to brave Regina myself and ask her why she hated him, she scowled at me and said, “Don’t worry about it.”
That was it. No ranting. No explanation. She wouldn’t talk about it.
Refused.
It only made those of us who knew Isaiah more curious. He was a harmless, hopeless, and usually useless goofy mess, but one of the best guys I knew. He never spoke a mean word against anyone, at least unless they deserved it.
The whole thing was strange.
Even stranger was the way Cameron and Gavin so easily joined us. Stranger still, Cameron wasn’t being a jackass.
That was, until he bumped my leg with his knee and asked, “So, Sunshine. Any idea when you want to get on the road tomorrow?”
Sunshine. I despised that nickname. Mostly because I loved it so much.
So much for him not being a jackass.
I turned to him and sneered, “I don’t know, Tam-tam, what time would you like to leave?”
Across from me, Lydia barked out a laugh. “Don’t you mean Tampon?”
Gavin spit out his beer and quickly wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Cruel,” Cameron muttered, but he was laughing.
“Damn. That was some of Josie’s best work,” Gavin said, still laughing and shaking his head.
When his daughter was little, she had problems with her “c” sounds, so they came out as T’s. Cameron’s name was harder than most, so she started calling him Tam-Tam. That eventually changed as she worked on it, and then he was Tampen.
But to the rest of us, it sounded more like tampon.
Every time we’d called him that name, I’d end up tossed in a creek, once in their horse paddock, far too close to a pile of fresh horse crap for my liking.
“Laugh it up. I’ll get even with you for that.” He grinned around the rim of his beer bottle, shaking his head.
Lydia caught my eye and winked. See? She mouthed. Like she was trying to impart some worldly wisdom, proving her point.
It was ridiculous, and it was a dream I had to squash.
“Excuse me.” I climbed off my stool. “Need the restroom.”
And space from Cameron. From all the memories we’d shared for my entire life. There wasn’t a part of my childhood that didn’t have Cameron in it, and maybe that was part of my problem. I’d orbited around his world for so long and then tried to exit that orbit with Kip, but every time I came back here or was around Cameron, I was sucked right back in.
I shoved my hands through my hair once I was in the restroom and stared at my reflection. My cheeks were flushed from the drink and the laughter in part, but the warmth in my stomach proved a different story.
There was no way I could finally move on and chase my own dream, which he would never be a part of, if I continued to spend so much time around him.
I used the restroom and washed my hands. Opening the door with the paper towels, I looked back to make sure I tossed them into the garbage can and not on the floor and left the restroom and was immediately smacked in the face with a chest that wasn’t nearly as hard as Cam’s and didn’t belong to someone nearly as attractive as he was.
“Hey there, Ava-baby. Fancy seeing you here.”
Jimmy Morton. He was tall. Larger and wider than he’d been in high school. I avoided him at every opportunity.
Partly because the night I’d gone to Cameron’s room all those years ago, Jimmy had tried to drag me into the hayloft. Everyone had been so drunk, they didn’t notice, or they didn’t realize I hadn’t wanted to be tugged along by him.
But that moment terrified me. He’d been larger than me then and so much stronger, and I could only imagine what would have happened if he hadn’t drunkenly stumbled over a hay bale, lost his grip on me, and I’d had time to run.
I’d run straight to Cameron’s room. Not for safety, but because the thought of having something taken from me when I’d only wanted to give it to one person had me acting before I was thinking clearly.
I’d been desperate that night, and I’d done something I’d equally regretted and treasured every day since.
“Jimmy.” I pressed my back to the wall and tried to slide past him. He moved with me and placed his hand on the wall above my shoulder. His other arm hung loose at his side, but there was nothing loose or relaxed in the way he towered over me.
In theory, Jimmy was attractive. I had no doubt he’d have no problems finding someone if he were in the city, but too many women in our town, hell, the entire county, had seen this side of him. So yeah, we steered clear.
“Miss seeing you around so much.”
He would be the only reason to never return to New Haven permanently.
“That’s because I don’t live here, so if you’ll excuse me… I need to get back to Lydia.”
“Yeah. Saw her sittin’ with them Kelleys. Think they’re so much better than everyone, but they’re not, not even Cameron. You should spend some time with someone who really knows you.”
His other hand raised, settled at my hip, and I jolted, flinched from the contact of his hand on me, and then he was gone.
A wall stood in front of us.
No. Not a wall. I’d recognize that back anywhere.
“Touch her again and die,” Cameron stated, and my breath caught in my throat.
He had Jimmy slammed on the opposite wall, with his hand wrapped around his throat. Jimmy’s face was turning a light purple.
He was also glaring at Cameron, smirking. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Ava-baby wanted me there.”
“You’re a dick, Jimmy.” It was all I could muster.
“Sounds to me like she didn’t, and you should know better than to mess with Isaiah’s little sister. You want to end up like your dad?”
Jimmy was somehow able to get his hands between them and push Cameron off. He stepped back, but stayed between Jimmy and me.
I willed my heart to slow while Jimmy ran a hand through his hair. It was slick, styled, and in his eyes, there was only malice.
“Keep the fuck away from me, Kelley. Wouldn’t want you being charged with assault, now, would you?”
“Touch her again, and I’ll gladly take the charge. I’ll sit on the bench all damn season with a broken hand and smile every fucking day knowing how I broke it, if I have to. Now get the fuck out of here.”
Jimmy grinned and then flashed me a wink as he sauntered past Cameron. “See you later, Ava-baby.”
Cameron moved toward him, but Jimmy was gone.
He turned to me then, and suddenly I was pressed against the wall again, but this time, an entirely different reaction flooded my senses, rang in my ears, and quickened my pulse.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. It’s just Jimmy, and it’s not?—”
I clamped my mouth shut. Cameron’s eyes flared, and he glanced in the direction of the bar and back to me. “Not what? It’s not a big deal you looked scared to shit and he was moving close? Not a big deal you didn’t want that, and he didn’t care? Not the… not the first time?”
“I should get back to Lydia.” Go home. Crawl into bed. Forget this night and the entire last twenty-four hours.
That’s what I was thinking when Cameron’s dark blue eyes searched mine, his jaw working while he tried to solve a problem that didn’t exist.
“Ava,” he finally said, and his voice had dropped.
His eyes were still on mine. But no, they weren’t.
They were drifting lower and settled on my mouth.
My tongue darted out, licking my bottom one, and he cursed.
“I’m going to hell for this,” he muttered, and then his mouth slammed to mine.
I was so shocked, it took a moment, but only the briefest of moments to realize Cameron was kissing me.
Holy shit. Cameron had his mouth on mine, his fingers were digging into my scalp, and then his tongue was pushing past my lips, into my mouth, and holy crap!
I was kissing Cameron. No, he was kissing me.
My body melted. My blood overheated.
At the first taste of his tongue against mine, parts of me I never knew existed ignited into a raging firestorm.
He kept kissing me. Pressing me harder against the wall, hands in my hair, tilting my head back to give him better access, and I couldn’t help it.
I forgot where I was. Who I was. Everything in my existence became about Cameron?—
“Stop.” I jerked my mouth off his and looked toward the dark hall.
“Fuck. Ava.”
His forehead settled against mine. His heart was beating so fast I could feel it against mine. And it wasn’t the only thing I felt.
He was hard. Turned on for me.
Taking.
And this was the exact problem.
I’d give him everything, and I’d lose myself in the process. This was the entire problem all along. Cameron was my entire existence, and this was the first time I refused to be sucked back into his orbit.
“That was better than I remember.”
A winter ice storm couldn’t have frozen my brain any faster than his words. But no. He couldn’t be saying… he wouldn’t…
“What?”
I forced myself to meet his gaze. Stared directly into his dark eyes to make sure I hadn’t heard him correctly. His brows were knitted together, and there was shock on his own face, like even he was surprised he’d said that… admitted it.
I shoved my hands into his chest and pushed, my knees wobbling and my head spinning. “What the hell did you say?”
“We need to talk.” His hands reached up and wrapped around my wrists, still at his chest, still feeling the rhythmic thump of his racing heart.
I shook my head as tears formed in my eyes. “You’re kidding me.”
“Please, Ava. Let’s go somewhere and talk.” His hands squeezed mine.
I had to get him to stop touching me. I shoved again. Tears were forming in my eyes, and I refused to let him see. “Step back. I need to go.”
“We’ll talk, Ava. Promise me we’ll talk.” If I wasn’t mistaken, there was panic in his voice. “I shouldn’t have done it. Not now. But there are things you need to know. Things I need to say.”
“I need to go.”
My chin was wobbling, and there was no way he didn’t see I was seconds from falling apart.
His thumb brushed my chin, and I flinched at the softness of it as he tugged me in his direction and met my gaze with his. “Promise me you’ll let me talk.”
“Okay.” He stepped back, and I ran. I shoved through the small Saturday night crowd, straight past my table with Lydia, and I didn’t even think to look at her.
I didn’t inhale a breath until I was outside, the warm summer night air doing nothing to cool the absolute storm raging inside of me.
What in the hell? What in the fuck had he just done? What in the hell had just happened?
A car pulled into the lot, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Before Isaiah was even out of his door, I was at the passenger side.
“What the fuck?”
He gaped at me. Saw the tears.
“Who do I have to kill?”
I fell into the passenger seat. “Take me home, Isaiah. Please just take me home.”
I was crying. I hated crying. Isaiah won the best big brother of the year award, pressed his lips together, and put the car in reverse.
And I got the hell away from Tom’s Saloon, town, and Cameron Kelley.
Where I would ensure, this time, I stayed far away.