Chapter 3

Present Day

 

“Hi,” London says with that soft lilt that always had a way to melt my insides. “I’m sorry to have just shown up like this, but I ran into your mother in town and she said you were back. I had to come see for myself.”

I don’t know if I should laugh, cry or hug the shit out of her. Of course, my mother would mention I’m here. She was always a fan of London’s and always thought of her as one of her own children.

I lift a shoulder. “Gotta love small town news. It travels faster than the FedEx truck on speed.”

She laughs at this, out of commiseration or something else, and tucks a piece of her blonde hair behind her ear. The sun silhouettes her from behind and she has an ethereal glow; as if an angel or one of those shimmering oasis images you see on a hot, paved highway.

“I heard about your sister, too. My mom called me when it happened. I’m so sorry, Cam.”

Now her voice is laced with sympathy and condolences. I turn back to stare at the lake to avoid her penetrating eyes. She would see right through me.

My younger sister, Jeanine, recently passed away. I wasn’t able to come home for her funeral a month earlier because I was fighting a wildfire ripping through the Smoky Mountain national forest. I had to leave my mother alone with no one else around, to deal with the shitty circumstances of burying her only daughter.

I sense her approach and feel the prickle of her heat as she closes in on my space. The scent of her perfume – peaches and cream - that I would recognize anywhere surrounds me and transports me back to my youth. I hide the gun underneath my thigh and fist my hands on my lap to refrain from reaching out and touching her. Keeping myself from drawing her into my side and burying my head in her neck.

“Thanks. But you didn’t have to come all the way back home. I know you’re busy.”

London lays a hand on my shoulder and I nearly jump out of my skin. It’s been way too long since I’ve felt that touch. Since our time together as lovers and friends.

Two things we aren’t any longer.

Not after all that’s happened between us.

London slips off her sandals and sits down next to me, dangling her feet over the dock, kicking at the cool water underneath.

“Cam, don’t be stupid. Of course, I’d be here for you and your family. They are…” She stumbles over the words. The lie. “They’ve always been like family to me.”

My head snaps sharply to the side, as I glare at her with undeserved blame and persecution. It’s easier to pitch my anger in her direction rather than at my dead sister, her disease or the world. London is here, in the flesh, and the source of my discomfort.

My voice is venom. “They haven’t been your family in a long time.”

She gasps like I’ve just stuck a knife in her back. And maybe I have with my hurtful remark. In reality, we know it wasn’t London who caused the riff. It was me and the decisions I made.

The decision to marry someone else. And to hurt London and my family in the process.

I’d always been a people-pleaser, trying to do right by everyone involved. Yet the moment I made a choice solely for myself, I hurt everyone. My parents were wrecked with disappointment knowing I was marrying a woman I really didn’t love when it was so obvious I still loved London. So, I did what any gutless, spiteful prick would do. I forbid my family and London from coming to my wedding.

London closes her eyes and inhales deeply, allowing me a moment to look her over. So much has changed in ten years but everything about London is the same. Her golden sun-kissed hair, dewy skin and soft, lush lips that I’ve tasted and kissed and had wrapped around my…

Pushing the inappropriate thoughts away, I steel my resolve to avoid those topics all together.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

Her remorseful smile is still gentle and kind but gilded with pain. Yet it still holds the solace I seek.

She lays her hand across my fist, gently unfolding my fingers and slipping them through hers. Only London could bring me to my knees like this. To shed the 100-pound guilt guerilla that weighs me down every day. For the last ten years.

Our fingers interlock, palms touch, heartbeats in sync once again. As if they’d never lost their connection or timing or beats, even when mine felt it died a thousand deaths over the years.

“Cameron, your son…Lord have mercy, he is the spitting image of you when you were his age.”

I chuckle because that’s exactly what my mom says about Taylor. She says he has my gumption, stubbornness, and spirit. And energy. Holy crap that kid is a cyclone on legs, constantly in motion.

London flips my hand over in hers, a long, tapered fingernail tracing the lines of my palm. All the lives that I have lived in my twenty-eight years. All the mistakes I’ve made and the decisions – good, bad and indifferent – that have brought me to this place. To this moment of reconciliation.

This is the first time London has ever met or seen Taylor. And it hasn’t been for her lack of trying, but simply my unwillingness to allow her back into my life in that way. I just couldn’t. Not after how I walked out on her. Changed the direction of my life – our lives – with the biggest mistake I could have ever made.

I never should have let her go. Or left Sage.

I thought I was doing the right thing - what was right for all of us.

I thought it was best. I thought we could move on.

I was wrong.

I thought I could stop loving her. Or forget about him.

I didn’t.

I could never stop.

Like an avalanche barreling down the mountainside at full speed with nothing in its way to halt its progress, so was my love for London and Sage.

Strong. Unrelenting. Powerful.

But with catastrophic endings.

London and Sage broke my heart first, in very different ways, but I shattered theirs. I abandoned them both when I should’ve stayed and protected them. Decimated any chance to later salvage even a fragment of our friendship.

Yet the universe is giving me a second chance.

Because here she is. Our hands entwined in forgiveness. In comfort. In unconditional love that I don’t deserve.

“He deserves a better father than me.”

London’s mouth gapes open and she smacks the top of my thigh.

“Cameron Taylor Lucas. Don’t you ever say that! In just five minutes of meeting him, I can see just how much he adores you. He wants to be just like you. He’s so proud that you’re his daddy.”

I scoff. She has no idea what she’s talking about. He’s just a kid and doesn’t understand how flawed I am. Looking up to me is a waste of his time and energy. He’ll find out soon enough that I’m not as brave as he thinks I am.

“Whatever. He’s a good kid, though. Not sure who he gets that from.”

It’s a barbed remark aimed at me and his mother, Lisa. She’s a fucking piece of work and no more fit to be a mother than I am a father.

London lifts an eyebrow skyward, glancing at the house behind us over her shoulder. “Is Lisa here?”

“As if,” I bark, unable to contain my condemnation toward my soon-to-be-ex-wife. “She saw this as her chance to have a free week at the beach.”

A soft frown lines her mouth and she pats my leg again. It’s a compassionate gesture – yet my mind goes elsewhere whenever London touches me. Her touch does something to me that no one else has ever been able to replicate.

Certainly not Lisa.

When I met Lisa, she was everything that London was not – which was what I thought I wanted at the time. Lisa was wild and promiscuous. Always looking for a party. She helped me escape the pain of missing London and Sage, but led me into more misery than I could’ve ever conceived. Because she conceived, and then I was trapped into a life with her that I hadn’t planned. Or ever really wanted.

London tried to warn me. Did her best to try to convince me to stay away from Lisa. She knew…even though a thousand miles away - just by the way I described Lisa and her clinginess toward me when we initially began dating - that she was a bad influence on my life. That Lisa was looking for only one thing – stability through a child and a military husband.

And that’s exactly what she got because of my recklessness and arrogance.

And my stubborn pride.