Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Campbell
“And now I’m a bad sister!” I draw in a shuddering breath, but I collapse my face into my hands. I’m sitting on the edge of my bed, and I just want to crawl into the corner.
“You are not a bad sister.” Jamison pats my back. Tavis is sleeping in his car seat through my breakdown, and Kacey’s with Iverson. “I’m glad you called me. I would’ve kicked your ass if you hadn’t.”
I was sobbing so bad by the time I reached town, I doubted my sunglasses could hide my ugly cry.
My attempts at holding on to righteous anger didn’t work, and I dissolved.
At the turn to my parents’ place, I called Jamison and got out the gist of what had happened.
My silver chain is back around my neck. The damn thing saved me from future heartbreak, but it’s not helping the hurt right now.
“I bet she’s gorgeous.” I’ve said that three times already.
“You’re a hottie, so quit with that.”
“I bet he was so happy when he saw her call.” And relieved when I left. The tears well up again. “Ugh.” I swipe at the mascara running under my eyes.
She bats my hands away. “I think we’ll have to start from scratch.”
“Perfect. I’m going to tank this ceremony before it even starts.”
“You are not going to tank it. That’s up to January and Can’t Stanford.”
I wipe my hands down my face, inhale, hold it for four seconds, and blow out for five. I do it again. I’ve had the worst morning, but I haven’t come all this way to be a quitter or let another guy derail my plans. “Okay. Time to get me fixed up.”
Jamison pulls the stool away from my makeup chair and plants it in front of me. “I’ll get you ready. You talk.”
“I already told you everything.”
She returns with a few makeup wipes and sits. She’s in leggings and brackets my knees with hers. Her oversized shirt looks more comfortable than my charcoal-gray skirt and baby-pink blouse. It says I’m a professional and clearly not a guest.
A crease forms between her chestnut brows as she dabs at my streaked mascara. “You told me his ex called and texted, which basically confirmed that you two are messing around, since you’ve been avoiding me.”
“It’s been a day since the luncheon.”
“A day and a half,” she mumbles and dabs at my face.
I manage a half smile at her disgruntlement.
She probably got the details from Avery and was leaving me alone until after the wedding.
Too much was left for after the wedding, and now it’s all fizzled out like a dud firework.
The fuse was lit, but nothing blew, leaving too much disappointment and fear to bother trying again.
“I fell in love with him.”
She drops her hand, her amber eyes shimmering.
“Oh, Campbell. I’m so sorry.” Resting her warm fingertips on my knee, she keeps the makeup wipe crumpled in her palm.
“But you don’t know that he was happy to see Natalie.
That man tracked you the whole time at the luncheon.
He was a hungry cougar, and you were an itty-bitty bunny. ”
I sniffle. “It was just sex.” Toe-curling sex. Back-bending sex. Eyes-rolling-to-the-back-of-the-head sex.
She snorts and tosses the wipe to rip open a new one. “Listen. I try not to think about my siblings getting down and dirty, and that includes my in-laws, but if Durban is anything like Iverson, there’s no ‘just sex.’ ”
“It clouded my thinking.”
She resumes smudging around my eyes. “Is that all you did? Really? Just sex?”
“There were sleepovers.” The tears threaten to crowd again, but I don’t want to undo Jamison’s cleanup efforts. “We made meals together.”
She meets my gaze before returning to her task. “It’d make sense if he developed feelings too.”
“What’s four weeks with me compared to four years with her?”
“You could say the same about you and Can’t Stanford, yet here you are. In love and worried Durban doesn’t feel the same. What if he does?”
“He doesn’t, or she wouldn’t be telling him that she was offered a job in Bozeman.” Familiar humiliation burns much deeper this time. “Do you think he’s been talking to her the whole time?”
“Do you think that he has?”
“Sounded pretty friendly,” I mutter.
She sighs and rises to cross to my vanity. Rooting through the scattered vials and tubes, she shakes her head. Tavis stretches, blinks, and drifts back to sleep.
“I don’t know Durban that well.” She turns around and taps the mascara against her fingers.
She’s in full big-sister mode with her mouth set, ready to talk sense into me.
“What I do know about the brothers is that they’re close, and they’re a lot alike.
They aren’t players, and I always thought that was surprising.
Iverson limited things to just hookups, and the other two were the same, until Durban met his ex, and it was like the long-distance thing saved him from having to endure hookups.
But even before that, all of them were very careful about not having accidental babies or about leading women on. You know why?”
I look at my hands twisting in my lap. “Because of their mom.”
“Yes. And that caution spreads to love. There’s a reason Iverson was thirty-eight before I fucked his brains out and changed his mind.”
“TMI.” I fake a gag.
She only laughs at me. “But you know, I sometimes wonder if our connection would’ve lasted if there hadn’t been a perfect storm.
He got the offer on the land, and he and Durban and Haven were starting to look ahead, and they didn’t like what they saw.
No retirement, living in the bunkhouse, and only a lot more hard work.
Then I came home, and Iverson couldn’t get away from me. ”
“You made sure he couldn’t.”
“I was doing my job. It’s not my fault I had to have meetings with him,” she says innocently, then comes to sit beside me.
She bumps her shoulder against mine. “What I’m trying to say is that Durban is probably in his head, wondering if what he feels is too soon, or if it’s even real.
Four years is a long time to just get dropped.
” I nod since my experience was five years.
“He doesn’t want to do the wrong thing and risk it all, but he’s probably at the point where he wants more.
He wants what you two have. Compare that to what he had with Natalie, and it’s got to pale in comparison. ”
Sadness swamps me, and I blink back tears. Maybe mascara is a lost cause today. “I have no idea, but I do know one thing. I’m not going to be that unsuspecting girl again while a guy fools around behind my back.”
“But do you know he is?”
“I didn’t know Stanford was until he told me. I don’t need that bullshit again, so I sent Durban a text that said thanks for everything, our arrangement’s done,” I say glumly.
She gawks at me. “You really can be your own worst enemy sometimes. Durban is not Stanford. That giant douche of an ex broke your trust, and it’s ruining what might be a good thing.”
I fail at holding the tears back. She throws an arm around my shoulders. “I’m making this worse,” I wail.
She releases me and slaps her hands on her knees. Tavis throws his hands in the air, eyes still closed, and goes back to sleep. I smile and she chuckles.
“How about this?” she says. “We quit talking about it, we get you through this wedding, and we see how Durban acts at the reception. Then we’ll plan our attack.”
I don’t want to wait and see. I don’t want to monitor Durban’s behavior like I’m trying to read tea leaves.
I don’t want to manage January and Stanford’s nonsense just to get them down the aisle.
I don’t want to be responsible for booting my uncle off our family’s land and out of our business.
I just want to lie in bed and cry. I want to be taken care of.
I want this wedding to crash and burn and for it not to be my fault.
But today is about what everyone else wants. What they need. And I’m going to go and do my job and get through it all so I can lie in bed and be miserable for the next week.
Durban
I dump the wire stretcher into Haven’s truck bed.
We dragged the steer out of the ravine. The damn thing fought us until it saw the chance for freedom instead of more rocks and brush.
It was easy after that, and then we repaired the portion of the fence that sagged and got trampled over by the cattle.
“Damn.” Haven takes his cowboy hat off and wipes his hand across the back of his forehead. We both smell like horse sweat and our own perspiration. “Natalie have you that messed up you gotta take it out on the tools?”
I tilt the brim of my cowboy hat down to hide my scowl. I told him about Natalie’s missed call and the text, and then I forgot about her. It’s Campbell’s message streaming through my head on repeat. I didn’t tell him about that. I’m too raw.
Did she mean it? She’s done with me? Without even stopping to ask me about what she saw? She might be on a strict schedule today, but I want to mean more to her than that. I should be more than a quick note to end things when she’s stressed.
I know she read the message. The timing was either lucky or the crappiest in the world. I got to see how little Campbell’s invested in me. Again, I was building up what I had with a woman until she walked away after the first inconvenience.
Is tonight going to be the first taste of what living in the same town with her when I can’t have her will be like?
I slam the tailgate shut and stalk around the pickup to get into the passenger seat.
Haven climbs in. “So you ran Natalie off and you’re regretting it?”
“Jesus, can you quit with Natalie?” I snap. “It’s over. We’re done. I’m not interested in her.”
I’m being a moody bastard. He doesn’t know the whole story, and every time he opens his mouth, I’m tearing him a new asshole.
“I think Campbell saw the texts from Natalie, the ones where she said she had a job offer in Bozeman.”
He whistles. “That would look fishy to a woman.”