CHAPTER SEVEN
Cam woke with a feeling of contentment such as he’d never experienced before. As he rolled onto his back in the empty feather bed, he threw one arm over his eyes to block the morning sun and considered.
In the Navy, he’d found his purpose. He’d learned to overcome his rebellious attitude, to control his wilder urges. He’d learned to show respect.
In the SEALs, he’d found his place. He’d become one of the elite. He’d learned to trust—in the brotherhood and in himself. He’d learned to command and accept respect.
But over the last few days with Hope, Cam felt as if he’d found himself.
He’d found love.
And he’d be damned if he was going to lose it once he left Diver’s Cove.
He strode, naked, through the house, calling for Hope. As he moved from fussy room to frilly room, he realized that there was very little of Hope in this house. Oh, there were pictures. He stopped to grin at the wall of elaborately framed photos showing her growth from sweet-cheeked toddler to glowingly beautiful woman. But pictures didn’t make her a part of the house. Simply a part of the display.
Cam frowned. As disparate as their lives had seemed, how alike were they actually? Did she fit in the town any better than she did this house? He knew she’d stayed here to take care of her mom in the last years of leukemia. But what were her plans now that Grace Goodwin was gone?
“Hope?”
Cam opened the front door, peering through the drizzling rain to see that her car was missing. It wasn’t until his toe got wet, though, that he remembered that he was undressed.
Dammit.
It wasn’t like her to leave without a word. Granted, they’d started each morning with hot and wild sex immediately upon waking. But still…
Trained to be thorough, Cam finished his tour of the house by way of the kitchen before getting his pants. There, on the kitchen table he found his explanation—and a plate of blueberry muffins.
He shoved half of one into his mouth while reading.
Good morning, handsome.
I’ve been called to an emergency council meeting this morning and didn’t see why both of us should lose sleep. So rest, build up your strength and I’ll be back by noon to make use of your body.
XOXO
Cam puzzled over the x’s and o’s for a moment, then shrugged and grabbed three more muffins on his way to the shower. He’d rather be with Hope, but since he couldn’t he’d use this time to make a few plans, pull a few strings.
One way or another when he left Diver’s Cove, he was taking Hope with him.
He just had to figure out how.
* * *
How many mornings had she spent wearing a sedate outfit while sitting at the boardroom table of one of these interminable council meetings, trying to stay awake?
Until she’d had something to compare it to, Hope’d had no idea how much she’d rather be naked in bed ramping up her heart rate with Cameron.
Still, too used to the vagaries and foibles of the town council to wonder about the meeting, Hope simply took a blueberry muffin from the basket she’d brought in and found a seat. While she didn’t wonder, she was a smidge resentful that a silly meeting had torn her from her warm bed and, more specifically, Cameron’s naked body.
The last few days had been like a dream. Filled with laughter and sex, talking and sex, emotionally connecting and, yes, sex.
“Hope, are you paying attention?”
She blinked. No, she hadn’t been. Should she feel guilty about that or the fact she was sitting in what had been her mother’s council chair, thinking about sex?
Hope felt too good for guilt. She smiled instead.
“I’m sorry, I missed that. What were you saying?”
“I said that you’ve reached your maximum donation for the center. We’re going to have to count your bid in the auction against the funds raised, rather than adding to it.” His face drawn in an expression of regret so fake that his jowls wobbled, Pete March tapped the spreadsheet he held up for the council to see. “Which means we’re two thousand dollars short of your projection. And that means the community center will become an adults only venue.”
They couldn’t do that.
Stunned, Hope could only stare at the spreadsheet as the lines blurred together. It wasn’t until the mayor was congratulating Pete that she was able to think clearly again.
“Wait.”
They simply kept on talking as if she didn’t exist.
“Will you wait just a minute,” Hope said louder this time, coming to her feet with enough force to send her chair toppling over. “Hope,” Mayor Koss chided. “What would your mother say about such an unseemly display?”
The mention of her mother had the exact opposite effect of calming her down or shutting her up. Instead, it filled Hope with a desperate sort of determination.
“This isn’t right. Those funds were raised in good faith. If you insist on not counting them, that’s one thing. But you can’t count them against the other funds.”
“Of course we can. It’s in the fine print.” Pete waved the Diver’s Cove policy and procedure manual—the one that he just happened to have handy—in the air like a flag.
Hope growled. She actually leaned her fists on the table, leaned forward and growled.
It wasn’t the shocked faces that stopped her from spewing anger all over the council members. Nor was it her mother’s voice chiding in her head that ladies never showed excessive emotions.
It was reality.
The very simple reality that as good as a tantrum would feel, as much as she’d love to share the ugly truth of everything from the corruption of the council to the small mindedness of the town to the poor fit of the mayor’s toupee, she knew it was pointless.
She had one option.
And only one.