Duke
“Thanks again for the lift.” I put my hand on the door, ready to get out when Cammie’s mum stops me in my tracks.
“What happens now, Duke?”
Fuck. I called her knowing that A) Cammie would flip when she heard the HQ was ready early, and B) that if I waited until Cam was home to give me a lift into town, I wouldn’t get here before Archie did the school run.
“How do you mean, Clara?”
She twists in her seat to face me better. “I may be getting old, but I’m no fool. I know what it looks like when two people have strong feelings for one another.”
She saw us last night at the show, came and sat next to me for the second act, beside Cammie’s platform as she did her thing on the spotlight.
“I don’t know,” I say with a sigh, ceding that this conversation won’t be over soon and relaxing back into the seat. “I thought I could give us a chance, see where it leads, but we can’t deny the crux of it all.”
“That you won’t stick around,” Clara says with a sigh. Her eyes are hard, her expression impassive, yet I’ve never felt more schooled in my life.
“That I don’t live here,” I correct. “My life is somewhere else.”
“She’s been through a lot, my daughter,” she says in her we’re-no-longer-friends, I’m-her-mother tone. “I thought I could trust that you’d be honourable enough to only take things in this direction if you had good intentions for her.”
“I do have good intentions,” I snap. “And that’s why I think it’s best I cool things off, give her distance to make up her own mind.”
“Break her heart, more like,” Clara mumbles.
I shove the door open, stepping out into the overcast day before turning and popping my head down to Clara’s level. “If she let herself get that attached while knowing I was leaving, then Cam’s gone and broken her own heart.”
It’s a low blow, but there it is—the truth, laid out bare.
I shut the door and storm off toward the workshop, pissed not only at her mother for trying to emotionally blackmail me into changing my whole fucking life for a woman that I met less than a week ago, but also at myself for wanting to.
If there are two things I can’t deny about Cam, it’s that women like her aren’t a dime a dozen, and the fact that she makes my heart race, my chest tight whenever she’s near … I feel something more than a passing interest.
“Duke,” Archie calls as I enter the work bay. “Good to see you.”
Although I get the impression it’s not because he likes me, more as if he’s glad it means he gets rid of the HQ and me.
“Did it behave on the test drive?” I walk around the vehicle, impressed he’s gone so far as to give it a quick wash.
“Like a dream.” He steps over to a pegboard and removes the keys. “Came in on budget, more or less. Extra thirty-five over, but I’ll let it pass.”
“Nah, mate. I’ll square you up.” I take the offered keys.
“I owe Cammie for all the things she buys the kids when she babysits, anyway.” He drills his gaze into mine. “Besides, I’m sure you’re eager to get on your way.” I get the clear message this conversation is about more than just a car and a mechanical bill. Seems like everyone in this town has my number.
“Thanks, I guess.”
He nods, folding his arms over his chest. “Looks like you’ve got no reason to stick around anymore; time to go home.”
“Apparently.” I move the keys between my hands, unsure if the guy plans to take me down or simply let me go with a few underhanded comments.
“Heard what you did to Jared.”
Fuck it. “That so?” I tuck my bottom lip up and frown. “News travels fast, then.”
“Small town, mate.” He grimaces on the last word. “Better make sure you don’t come across her cousin again on your way out.”
Nope—totally not feeling ganged up on I open the door to the HQ, stepping a leg inside as I brace myself with a hand on the roof. “We all done here, then?”
Archie nods, stepping back. “Safe travels, Duke.”
I drop into the seat and close the door on his bullshit, starting the V8 with a roar. He watches me go, unmoving in my rear-view as I pull out of the workshop and take to the road.
“Fuck it!” I slam the heel of my hand into the steering wheel.
How did I let things get so complicated? All I had to do was stay a few days in some stranger’s house and be done with it. Could have kept my dick to myself and thought things through with the useful brain in my head, but no, I had to go and jump in feet first.
I don’t know what’s worse—the fact I did this to Cam, or the look she’ll no doubt give me when I break the news that it’s time for me to go. Although the car in the driveway should do a good job of that.
My thoughts play on repeat the whole drive back to her place, and yet, after fifteen minutes of the same loop, I’m no better off than I was when I left the workshop.
Taking a seat in the sun on the front porch, I pull my phone out and dial Cody. He’ll be glad that the car’s fixed. At least I can keep one person happy. Shit.
“Hey, bro,” he greets as he picks up the call.
“Slow day at work then, if you’re answering your phone. Thought I’d have to leave you a voicemail.”
“Boss is away,” he says with nothing short of mischief in his voice. “IT took the blocks off the net, too, so we’re all fucking around.”
The work ethic of this one … honestly. “Car’s running.”
“Sweet. I’ll start paying you back next month.”
“Like fuck, you little turd. You’ll transfer the first hundred the minute I get—”
“Relax,” he says, laughing. “I was winding you up, man. Shit. What’s crawled up your arse?”
Curvy little woman by the name of Cam, that’s what.
“Nothing. Ask Mum if she wants me to pick anything up from town on my way home.”
“Yeah, I’ll get her to message you. When you leaving?”
“Tomorrow.” My gaze falls on the scuffmarks in the gravel where I restrained Jared last night. Hopefully Cam will be okay.
“Sweet. See you then, bro.”
“Yeah. Catch you then.” I end the call and crush the phone in my hand, the pain of the case as it digs into my palm a welcome anchor in what’s been my first anxious moment in days.
She’s a grown woman—she can hold her own.
But she shouldn’t have to. That’s just it. A woman like her deserves to have a strong man by her side to defend her when jackasses like her ex show up. Just because a woman can fight her own battles doesn’t mean she should have to. Especially when she’s the kind of woman who merits the sort of love that precedes sacrifice.
I spend the next hour and a bit before Cammie’s due home taking a shower and packing the HQ with my things—not that there’s much. I leave my new phone charger out to unplug and take with me when I go.
When I go.
I’m still stuck on that thought when the nose of Cam’s car comes into view down the driveway. I stay where I’m seated, back on the porch, wanting to see her reaction when she spots the HQ.
It’s not pretty.
Her car switches off, parked so that I can’t see her inside it, but the fact she doesn’t get out straight away is unsettling. A solid ten minutes pass before she opens the door and storms across the yard, straight past me and into the house.
Shit.
Guess I should go find out how bad it is, then.
“Cam?” I call as I shut the front door behind me. “Can we talk?”
She flies out of her bedroom at the far end of the hall, on the warpath. “When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow.” I tuck my hands in my pockets for fear if I leave them free, I might end up with her against the wall again.
“Fuck you.” She screws her face up, shaking her head at me … and then storms back into her room, slamming the door behind her.
Okay then …
Went well, considering.
I take my time walking up the hall to her bedroom, and stop outside the closed door. I can’t pick up any sounds from beyond it. I suppose that’s a good thing because it means she can’t be crying.
I rap my knuckles on her door. “Cam?”
“Go away!”
Not yet. I open the door to find her cross-legged on her bed, her face a storm. “I get that you’re angry—”
“I’m hurt.”
And then the tears begin.
“I’m hurt because you’re fucking leaving still,” she whines, fat tears leaking over her face. “And I’m mostly pissed off because I knew you would, but I’m still surprised by it. Urgh!” She hurls a pillow across the room, its soft landing against the wall not seeming to satisfy her when she picks up her phone and prepares to throw that, too.
“Put it down.” I lunge and grab her wrist, forcing her to drop the damn thing before she has to fork out a grand to replace it.
“Why?” she cries, her face utter betrayal.
“Am I going?” I ask, knowing she’s not asking why I told her to put the phone down. “You know why, babe. I’ve got counselling, a job to sort out …”
“No.” She shakes her head vehemently, ripping her arm from my hold. “Why am I not enough?”
Crap. She is enough. It’s me who isn’t all he’s cracked up to be. “You’re everything,” I tell her. “Too much.”
Her nostrils flare, the light catching her bullring as it moves. “Too much,” she murmurs angrily. “That’s bullshit, Duke.” Her small hands shunt me hard in the chest, yet I don’t move. I sit on the bed with her instead. The more she pushes me away, the closer I want to be.
“The space to breathe will do you good.”
She frowns, leaning in close to utter with so much hate it makes me hurt, “I’ll drown.”
Fuck—she will. But as much as it pains me to let her go, she needs to learn to swim on her own.
I rise from the bed, taking two steps toward the door. “Maybe I should just go now. It might be easier.”
She doesn’t answer me, turning her head to stare at the darkening sky outside.
It’s the loudest silence.
The hardest truth.