Will returned home to an empty house. Even the dogs were gone. Cameron must’ve taken them with her. In the kitchen he stashed the groceries he’d bought for dinner in the fridge and found a note on the counter.
Over at Hannah’s. Back by five. The boys are having a playdate with their cousin Homer Junior.
Love you, Cam
“Love you, too, baby.” He checked his watch. She’d be home in less than an hour. The house was chilly, so he started a fire in the woodstove. Then he sat on the sofa, removed the small velvet box from the shopping bag and took another look at the ring, trying to picture it on Cameron’s finger.
He thought about the time they’d spent together since the night she slammed into Fred—and into his life with her bruised face, dented Mini Cooper and the suede boots that had nearly been lost to Vermont mud season. He recalled her immediate fascination with his big family, wanting to know all his siblings’ names minutes after they met.
Those first two weeks together had been like something out of a dream. Their attraction had been mutual and instantaneous. He’d brought her gifts from the store, beginning with the sturdy boots she needed to survive mud season, the moose pajamas she’d loved and a sweater she’d admired. From the beginning, he’d wanted to please her, and she’d always been easy to please.
Despite her fancy upbringing in a New York City penthouse with a billionaire father, Cameron was the most grounded, down-to-earth woman he’d ever known. She was everything he’d ever wanted—and then some. He couldn’t wait to tell her so.
By five fifteen, he was pacing. It wasn’t unusual for her to be late. She was forever doing something for someone, usually a member of his family, and they were all as in love with her as he was. By five thirty, he was worried. He used the house phone to call her cell, knowing it would be pointless if she was still in town where there was no cell service, but he tried anyway.
A clicking noise on the other end triggered full-on panic. “Cameron?”
“Will, I’m stuck—”
The connection died. “Goddamn it.” With an awful array of scenarios running through his mind, he grabbed his keys and headed for the door, figuring he’d find her somewhere between his house and Hannah’s. Then he remembered the priceless ring he’d left sitting out on the table and went back to grab it, just in case she made it home before he did. In his truck, he stuffed the ring box and the bag from the store into his glove compartment and tore out of the dirt road that also served as his driveway.
Heading for town, he hadn’t gone far when he encountered Fred the moose standing across the road, blocking the way for one car: Cameron’s black SUV. Laughing at the sight before him, Will put his truck in park, turned on his hazards and reached for the door handle. Almost as an afterthought, he grabbed the ring box from the glove compartment and jammed it into the front pocket of his jeans before he got out to go to her.
Walking around Fred’s back end, Will gave the moose a wide berth. While he believed what everyone said about Fred being tame and harmless, he was still a wild animal, and unlike Hannah, Will was no moose whisperer.
With their heads out the window in the backseat of the SUV he’d insisted Cameron get to replace the impractical Mini, Trevor and Tanner went crazy barking when they saw him coming. “Hush, boys.” For once they actually did as he told them to.
Obviously infuriated, Cameron leaned through the open driver’s-side window. “Can you believe this? I’ve been stuck here for thirty minutes! What is his problem?”
“Dad thinks he has a crush on you, and really, I can’t say I blame him.”
“This is not funny, Will! I’m being stalked by a moose!”
Could she be any more adorable? “He’s a cute moose, and it’s possible he loves you as much as I do.”
Fred let out a loud moo, which made them laugh.
“Told ya.” Will opened her door and leaned across her to unfasten her seatbelt. He took her hand and gave a gentle tug. “Come here for a sec.”
“What’re you doing? We’re in the middle of a road once again being held hostage by a freaking moose.”
“I know where we are.” They were in just about the exact spot where their lives, and Fred’s, had come crashing together six months ago—and it was the perfect place for what he had planned. Once again, Will Abbott owed Fred the moose a tremendous debt of gratitude for his assistance. When he had Cameron out of the car, looking frustrated and pissed off, he put his arms around her and kissed her.
Seeming baffled, she glanced around them, probably looking for other cars that weren’t coming. They had the road all to themselves. “Have you lost your mind? What are you doing?”
“I can’t believe we’re right back here where we first met with Fred as our witness.”
“Our witness to what?”
“This.” He dropped to one knee before her and took hold of her left hand, placing a kiss square in the middle of it. Then he looked up to find her other hand over her mouth and tears in her eyes.
“Will …”
“I love you more than you’ll ever know, Cameron Murphy. The rest of my life won’t be enough time to tell you and show you how much I love you. I want to spend every minute of what’s left of both our lives together. I want to have blond babies with you and raise them together and work with you sitting on the other side of my desk, driving me wild just because you’re in the room. I want to sleep with you and make love with you and do everything with you. Will you marry me, Cameron?”
“Yes! Oh my God, yes!” And then she was on her knees with him, kissing him while she cried. “Did you plan this? Did you get Fred to do this so it could happen here?”
“I wish I had that kind of imagination. This was all his idea.” Will let her go long enough to pull the velvet box from his pocket.
“You even have a ring?”
“Where do you think I was all day?” He removed the ring from the box and slid it onto her trembling hand.
“Oh, Will.” She sighed as she gazed at the ring. “It’s beautiful! I love it.”
“Do you? If you don’t, we can return it for something else—”
She kissed the words right off his lips. “It’s perfect. You’re perfect. Fred is perfect.”
“Fred is a pain in the ass, but I love him anyway.”
“So do I.”
Fred’s loud moo had them both laughing again.
Will stood and helped her up. “We probably ought to get out of the road before our engagement turns into roadkill.”
“That would ruin the mood.”
He hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her into his chest. “Nothing could ruin my mood right now. The woman I love has just agreed to spend the rest of her life with me.” He kissed her. “Best thing to ever happen to me.”
“To me, too,” she said, blinking back more tears.
“You have to call your dad. I promised him you’d call as soon as it happened.”
Her watery eyes widened in surprise. “You talked to him?”
“The day before yesterday to give him a heads-up.”
“Thank you for that. I’m sure it meant a lot to him.”
“He seemed to appreciate it.”
“This was the best ten minutes of my entire life,” she said, her hands on his face as she kissed him.
“Mine, too.”
“Let’s go home and make some calls.”
“Oh man, I so thought that sentence was going to end differently than that.”
Cameron laughed. “We’ll do that, too.”
Charley gave Ella a full day of ignoring her calls until Saturday night, when she took their friends Ben and Jerry to her sister’s place for a showdown. It wasn’t like Ella to go silent for this long. It also wasn’t like Ella to walk out of a family meeting without a word to anyone. Something was up, and Charley was determined to find out what.
Using the spare key Ella had given her for emergencies, Charley let herself into the foyer of the house where Ella rented an upstairs apartment. She knocked on Ella’s door. “Open up. It’s me, Charley.”
No answer.
Charley knocked again. “I’ve got presents. Your favorites—Cherry Garcia and salted caramel. Come on, Ella. I know you’re home. Your car is parked outside.” She knocked some more until she heard rustling inside the apartment. The door swung open, and Charley held back a gasp at the sight of her sister’s swollen eyes and red nose. Had she been crying all this time?
“What’re you doing here, Charley?”
“My sister lives here, and I haven’t heard a word from her since sometime yesterday when she went running out of a meeting to go check on a guy I didn’t know she cared all that much about. So I did what any good sister would do and bought ice cream.”
“That’s really nice of you, but—”
“I’m not leaving until you talk to me.”
“This isn’t the time to be your usual pain-in-the-ass self.”
“Ouch. That hurt. Sticks and stones …” Charley pulled Ella’s all-time favorite, the Cherry Garcia, out of the bag and pulled off the lid. “I could eat this whole pint myself, or you could help me.”
Ella glared at her for another minute before she snatched the pint out of Charley’s hand and took it with her into the apartment.
“Success,” Charley whispered as she followed her sister, closing the door behind her.
In the kitchen, Ella produced two spoons, handing one of them to Charley. Ella dug into the Cherry Garcia while Charley took a couple of bites of the salted caramel, which was her favorite. She waited, hoping Ella would talk to her but prepared to be her “usual pain-in-the-ass self” if it came to that.
“Why aren’t you doing what you do?” Ella asked.
Charley held back a laugh. “You told me this wasn’t the time for what I do.”
“Since when has that ever stopped you?”
“You wanna talk about it?”
“Not particularly.”
“Okay then let’s eat ice cream and watch the new episode of The Bachelor. I haven’t seen it yet. Have you?”
“No, I haven’t,” Ella said.
Charley looked at her sister and was shocked to see tears on her cheeks. “Oh, El, what’s wrong? Will you please tell me?”
Ella put down the pint and rested her hands flat against the countertop. “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s personal.”
“I won’t bust your balls or do any of the things I normally do.”
Ella laughed through her tears. “Promise?”
“Yeah, I promise. You can tell me. I want to help.”
After another long pause, Ella said, “It’s Gavin.”
“What about him?”
“I … I care about him.”
Charley kept her expression neutral as Ella confirmed what Charley had suspected. “For how long?”
“I don’t know. A long time.”
“So you went there yesterday after you heard he’d been arrested?”
Ella nodded. “For all the good it did. He doesn’t want me. Not like that anyway.”
“How do you know that?”
“He told me.”
“He said, ‘Go away, Ella. I don’t want you.’”
“Not in those exact words, but the message was loud and clear.”
“Tell me exactly what happened. Leave nothing out. I’ll be the judge of whether he doesn’t want you.”
Sighing, Ella took her pint and spoon and went to sit on the sofa in the living room. “It’s a longer story than just yesterday.”
“I’ve got all night, and I’m all yours.” Charley followed, wondering if her sister was going to tell her the full story.
“I’ve had a crush on him for ages. Going back to when Hannah and Caleb got married.”
“That was thirteen years ago, El. You’ve dated other guys since then.”
“I know, but in the back of my mind, I always knew that if I could pick any guy I wanted, it would be him.”
“And you never told anyone this?”
She shrugged. “What would be the point? Have you seen him? He’s a freaking god. And I’m … well, he’s a bit out of my league.”
Charley stared at Ella, agog. “How can you say that? Have you looked in a mirror lately? Do you have any idea how incredibly gorgeous you are? I’d give anything for your long dark hair and your flawless skin. I got stuck with curls and crappy skin that requires boatloads of moisturizer to get through a day. You’re effortlessly beautiful.”
“You have to say that. You’re my sister.”
“Have you met me? I don’t say nice things just to say them. I mean it, Ella. You are totally in his league. In fact, you might be out of his league.”
That made Ella laugh even as new tears filled her eyes.
Seeing the normally unflappable Ella so undone was hard for Charley to fathom. How had she hidden such a huge secret for so long?
“We talked the day of Homer’s funeral. That was a hard day for him. Homer was the last real tie to Caleb, and saying good-bye to Caleb’s dog meant saying good-bye once again to his beloved brother. He’s still so broken over losing Caleb, even after all this time.”
“They were so close. I can’t imagine what it’s been like for him.”
“And then Hannah got remarried a short time after Homer died, and he’s been spiraling. His word.” She wiped her tears. “His pain kills me, Charl. It guts me to see him struggling by himself when he doesn’t have to be alone.”
“So he knows how you feel?”
“He knows. He told me at Hannah’s wedding if he had anything to give, I’d be the one he’d want to give it to.”
“Whoa. When did that happen?”
“Remember when Nolan sang to Hannah?”
Charley fanned her face as she recalled the single most romantic thing she’d ever witnessed. The thought of her brother-in-law’s beautiful gesture could still bring her nearly to tears. “How could I forget?”
“I saw Gavin escape down the stairs to the beach, so I followed him. We talked some and he admitted that even though he’s thrilled for Hannah and Nolan, it was a very difficult day for him.”
“You gotta give him—and his parents—credit for being there.”
“They wouldn’t have missed it. They love Hannah almost as much as they loved Caleb.”
“Still …”
“I know. On the beach, we … he … We kissed, and it was incredible. Unlike any other kiss ever, and since then, all I can think about is what it was like to kiss him and how much I wish things were different. When I heard what happened the other night, I had to go to him. I had to see him.” Wiping away more tears, she conveyed the gist of what’d transpired at Gavin’s house the day before.
Charley listened to Ella’s heartbroken recitation, trying to find the words her sister needed. She wasn’t always known for her tact, but if ever there was a time for the right words it was now.
Ella wiped away a flood of new tears. “You can’t tell anyone about this. I know we gossip like crazy fools in our family, but this isn’t for public consumption. I couldn’t take it if everyone knew.”
Charley drew her sister into a hug. “I won’t tell anyone. I promise.” Holding Ella as she sobbed, Charley wished there were something she could say or do to fix things for her. But what was broken in this situation couldn’t be easily fixed.
“I need to give up on him,” Ella said. “I know that, but knowing it and doing it are two different things.”
“Maybe he just needs some more time.”
“It’s been seven years, and he’s worse off now than he’s been since it first happened. He tells me I deserve better. I deserve someone who isn’t broken inside, but I don’t want someone else. I want him. I’ve always wanted him.”
“I’m so sorry you’ve been suffering in silence over this.”
“I haven’t been completely alone with it. Hannah knows.”
“She does? What does she say about it?”
“We haven’t talked about it recently, but the one time we did, the day of Homer’s funeral, she said she loves us both and would love to see us together. But even she knows I’m facing an uphill battle where he’s concerned.”
“It’s so sad.” Charley rested her head on the back of Ella’s sofa. “The worst part, of course, is that Caleb died so young when he had so much living left to do. But the fallout for the people around him lasts a lifetime.” She took hold of Ella’s hand. “I don’t have any words of wisdom for you. All I can tell you is I’m sorry you’re hurting. I’m sorry he is, too, because he’s a great guy. Caleb would hate that his death has ruined Gavin’s life, too.”
“It hasn’t completely ruined it. He’s poured his grief into building that incredible business, and he’s been so good to his parents. But it’s ruined some aspects of his life. That’s for sure.”
“The way I look at it, you have two choices. Continue to hope that he’ll get to the point where he’s capable of a relationship or give up and move on.”
“I’ve been thinking a lot about those two options since yesterday.”
“And?”
“It might be time to give up and move on.”
“I hate to say that might be the right move because I know it’s not what you really want, but Caleb’s been gone a long time now, and Gavin’s not getting any better. In fact, it seems he might be getting worse. I have to give him credit for not wanting to take my lovely sister down with him.”
“How sad is it that part of me would rather go down with him than live without him?”
“It’s not sad. It’s love.”
“Yeah,” Ella said with another deep sigh. “Is everyone talking about me after I ran out of there yesterday?”
“Not really.”
“Are you lying?”
“Not really.”
Ella laughed. “I’m sure they’re all abuzz over me having a thing for him.”
“They’ll leave you alone about it. I’ll make sure of it.”
“Aww, Charlotte Abbott. Are you finally growing up?”
“Make a thing of it, and I’ll take it all back.”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
“Did you get Mom’s message about denim day at dinner tomorrow?”
“I’m not going.”
“You have to go! Mom’s got Izzy coming to take the dreaded family photo.”
“Cameron can Photoshop me in.”
“Mom will never go for that. If you don’t want everyone up in your business, you have to come and put on a happy face. Just for an hour or two.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“I’ll be with you.”
“Thanks for coming, Charl. It means a lot to me that you brought me Cherry Garcia and listened to my pathetic tale of woe.”
“Happy to listen, but I’m sorry you’re sad. Hey, you know what we haven’t done in ages?”
“What’s that?”
“A sleepover.”
“You want to sleep over?” Ella asked hopefully.
Charley was pleased that Ella seemed to like the idea. “If you’ll have me. I’ll even let you watch Pretty Woman for the nine-thousandth time.”
Ella took another huge spoonful of ice cream. “Maybe I should become a hooker. Things worked out well for her.”
Charley lost it laughing. Ella’s joke made Charley feel more confident that her sister would get past her heartbreak over Gavin. Eventually.