Chapter 2
Sammy
I check the rear-view mirror one more time, give Cam my best and most charming smile–the one he can never resist–and then jam my foot down on the accelerator.
Hopefully before he has enough time to think about what I just said.
Because though I meant it, the last thing I need is for Cameron to think about it too much. When he thinks, he gets...
Well, he gets more difficult.
The boy is sharp as a tack and twice as dangerous, but he already spends too much time thinking, and the deeper he gets into his own head, the harder it is to get him back out of it.
I’ve known him since I was seven–he’s only two weeks older than me–and been best friends with him since we were eight, and in all that time, I’ve never been able to get him to loosen up and just live.
Just take action without having to think through it first, fly through the night sky without worrying what might be below his feet.
That doesn’t mean I’ll ever stop trying.
This changes the smile on my face to a wicked grin, and I glance into the mirror again.
In the bed of the truck, Cameron isn’t grinning.
He’s scowling as he tries to keep the art piece from sliding around, his face creased in concentration and his eyes on whatever his hands are doing, and this makes my grin even bigger.
Dark, slightly wavy hair hangs down over his forehead, shading those ebony eyes and reaching nearly to sharp, chiseled cheekbones, and fuck’s sake, how does he already need another hair cut?
Didn’t he just get his hair cut last week?
My eyes dip to lush lips–pursed together right now in concentration–and the dimple in a chin sharp enough to match the cheekbones.
When his eyes suddenly come back to mine, dark as sin and twice as hot, I flush, horrified at him having caught me looking, but narrow my own eyes defensively.
“What’re you doing that’s got you so concerned?” I shout. “Where are your hands, boy?”
“Stop worrying about what I’m doing and watch the road!” he shouts back.
I laugh, refusing to take him seriously, and look back at the road in front of me.
I don’t know why he’s so worried; it’s not like anyone is out here.
It’s 7 in the morning on a Saturday, and normal people are in their houses, probably still in their beds or lingering over long, slow breakfasts, complete with coffee and bacon and probably pancakes.
Pancakes.
My stomach twists at the thought and for a moment I wish I’d stayed in the kitchen for longer, to make us pancakes and fresh orange juice. Lay out a breakfast feast for Cameron and see his eyes light up when he walked in and saw it.
Then I remember that long, slow Saturday morning breakfasts are for normal people, not us. Those are for everyone else in town. The people who have a mom and a dad and kids, and good jobs and steady paychecks.
That’s not us.
That’s never been us.
Because my mom is dead and his is gone, and I never even knew my own father.
As for his dad... I scoff at the thought of him and turn my mind away.
Barrett Hawke has never been in town for long enough to claim the title, and now that he’s back, thrown out of the Marines like the degenerate he is, he’s proving once again that he doesn’t understand family.
Hell, he’s barely even acknowledged his own son. Moved right back into his house without so much as a housewarming party and left Cameron and me living with my mother’s sister.
Not that we would have gone if he did have a party.
I don’t care for Bear myself, but I’ll never forgive him for deserting Cam the way he has. And as far as I’m concerned, the sooner Bear leaves again, the better. For all of us.
I take the next right–the one that’ll lead us up the mountain–and let my mind skim over the facts as I drive.
Cameron and I have never been what you might call normal.
For the first seven years of his life, Cam grew up in a broken house.
Bear skipped town immediately after Cameron was born, and his mom decided to do the same when Bear reappeared seven years later.
She shoved the boy off on his deadbeat dad and blew out of town herself, leaving the kid in the hands of a stranger.
That stranger then married my mother, who was single because her husband had also fled Hawke’s Wood—it happens a lot in this town, isolated as it is—leaving her alone and virtually penniless.
And trying to support a seven-year-old girl on a waitress’ pay.
Bear stayed long enough to insert Cameron into our household, charm my mother into taking him, and do some damage to her emotional well-being. Then he went back to whatever life he’d been leading before he reappeared in town.
I take a turn and straighten out again, the road slanting upward and the air growing thinner as we move up the mountain.
We’re already past the last of the buildings and driving into the woods, and I let my eyes wander over the springtime color.
Spring arrived early this year–March rather than our usual May–and the forest is a riot of celebration.
Bright, fresh greens in the branches of the trees as the first new leaves make their appearances, and again on the ground as plants push their way into the light.
Deeper blue greens in the pines, and chocolate browns in the wood of the trees.
There are flashes of jewel tones here and there too, where flowers are starting to show their faces, but we’re still a few weeks out from the biggest bloom.
Right now, everything is fresh and new and green, still waiting to grow up enough to put out flowers and seeds.
The air is still thin and cool, but it’s getting warmer and earning that golden glow that comes with more sunshine. The snow has all melted, our rain is largely finished, and the world feels like it’s stretching and breathing out, just waking from a long, deep sleep.
Spring is my favorite time of year. I love the newness of everything. The fresh start, the idea that even after the shortest, darkest days, there’s always a light coming. Always a new plant poking up out of the soil, as if it was destined to see the sun, even before it was born.
It gives me hope, and that’s something I don’t feel very often.
God, sometimes I make myself sick.
I look back to the road just in time to see the next turn and jerk the wheel, earning a startled shout behind me, and remember nearly too late that Cameron is back there without a seat belt, in a truck that saw its best era about twenty years ago.
“Sorry!” I call over my shoulder.
“You’ll be even sorrier if I die back here!” he shouts back. “I’ll haunt you for the rest of your life, Sammy!”
I snort. “As if you could ever leave. Promise to make me pancakes every morning and I’ll let you.”
There’s a flash of silence as he tries to process that, and then a sharp “Ghosts can’t make pancakes,” which tells me he isn’t feeling quick enough on his feet this morning to come up with anything clever.
That brings the curve of a smile to my mouth and I continue up the mountain, already planning the stop we have to accomplish.
.. and the one I want to make after that.
Cameron might not be my real brother, but he’s been my best friend for nearly as long as I can remember, and though he likes to tease me about leaving, I know he never would.
He can’t survive without me.
He just doesn’t like to admit it.
By the time we roll into Old Man Rivers’ driveway, the sun is peeking up over the trees and the air around us is warming.
Rivers lives far enough from town that it’s a trek to get up here, but I’m never disappointed.
The old cabin he owns looks as though it was built in the 1800s, full of jutting old wood and antique shingles, and his homestead includes cows, pigs, donkeys, horses, and chickens.
All of which I’ll get to pet before we leave.
I park in front of the ancient house and jump out of the truck, heading toward the bed to help Cameron with the art piece. This one is small, compared to some of the things we’ve done, but when I arrive at the open end of the bed, I stop to admire it.
“God that’s gorgeous.” I let my eyes slip across the surface of the piece, which is even prettier out here in the sun, angles and sheet metal set off by the thicker outline of horseshoes and nails.
Cameron has spent the last three years as an apprentice to the local blacksmith, learning the ropes when it comes to horseshoes and most of the metal work in town, but a year ago he started talking about using his skills with a forge and hammer to make artwork.
I didn’t understand what he meant at first, but when he made his first piece–just a rough set of horseshoes welded together in a whole new pattern–I started to see what he meant.
He looks at metal in a whole different way, even when it’s already got a function.
For him, the horseshoes dance into something prettier, sheet metal becomes more than just a flat plain of aluminum, and they blend together in a way that screams Cameron Hawke with every breath.
He’s getting really good, too. Every piece is prettier than the last.
His reputation has also grown, thanks in large part to me taking over the marketing and bookkeeping aspect of the business.
We don’t have a shop or a real studio, but I’ve arranged so many exhibits that nearly everyone has seen his work, and I’ve started using our Uncle Gunner’s shop as a place to “store” extra art, so that anyone who goes in there happens to see it.
Which means people in town have started placing orders.
I’m the one that makes sure they happen, and that we deliver on time.
And I know what you’re thinking: I don’t have what it takes to make sure anything happens on time. I’m just the daughter of a man who didn’t want to stay and a woman who killed herself when life got too tough. I don’t have any respect for life or the rules it takes to live it.