Wow.”

Standing at the edge of the tent, I look away from all the people smiling, drinking, eating, and having a good time, when my mom comes up next to me and wraps her arm around my waist.

“It’s not too much?”

She shakes her head with wide eyes, searching the room and taking in everything.

“It’s perfect. Absolutely perfect. I’m so proud of you.”

I smile wider when her eyes, the same shape and color as mine, turn toward me. When I found out last night that Stratford decided to give us the money, I wanted to call my parents immediately, but I refrained. I waited until she and my dad got back home this morning from Outer Banks to tell them. I wanted to see their faces when I told them their dream and their legacy would continue to go on. I didn’t, however, tell them about what I decided to do for the charity dinner. I wanted to keep that part a secret until they walked under the tent, and I’m glad I did. The look on her face tells me everything I need to know. That I didn’t go overboard changing everything up, and even though it’s shocking, she loves it.

The giant tent is white, and the tablecloths are white, but that’s where everything we’ve done in years past ends. Red, purple, and green fabrics are draped along the ceiling, meeting in the middle of the tent, where a huge chandelier hangs. Huge clusters of red and purple magnolia blossoms are bunched together in mason jars in the center of each table, with a bright green ribbon tied around the glass holders. All around the giant tent is color. Lots and lots of color, and nothing boring or beige of any kind, exactly what Everett missed while he was deployed.

As much as it pained me, I placed a call to Guns and Posers, Everett’s favorite 1980s cover band, and they are currently playing a few soft rock ballads on a stage off to the back of the tent, while people finish their dinner. A dinner of the best brisket in town from Lewis Barbecue. I had to give a lot of apologies to our usual caterer who has fed everyone at this charity dinner for over twenty years, promising we would throw another party soon to make up for it, but it was worth it. I know as soon as Everett gets here, he’s going to take one look around and know what I’ve done and why. Not even the light rain that has been falling all night could put a damper on my good mood and my excitement about what’s to come. I know that this charity dinner is for the camp, not for Everett, but I’m killing two birds with one stone. I’m making this camp mine, taking on my parents’ legacy but with my own personal touch instead of theirs. And I’m showing Everett what he means to me and how important it is to me that he’s happy.

“I’m going to assume these changes have a little something to do with the reappearance of a certain man in your life, that you can’t stop looking around for?” my mom asks, laughing softly when my jaw drops.

During all of our phone calls the last few weeks, I glossed over the issue of Everett being back home and how I was handling it. I told her I was fine, that it was no big deal, that we were reestablishing our friendship and that was it. I wasn’t ready to open up to one of the most important people in my life, whose opinion I value above all others, and have her tell me what a fool I was. Whether she thought I was a fool for never saying anything to Everett, or a fool for thinking we could cross this line of friendship and not ruin everything. Either way, I wasn’t ready to hear it, but now I need to hear it. I need to know I’m doing the right thing.

After what happened here in the tent yesterday, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what’s going to happen next. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the way Everett held me, the way he looked at me, and the way I was seconds away from kissing him before we were interrupted. I’d never wanted anything more in my life, and I was scared to death about what he would do after I opened up to him and told him how I couldn’t live without him, and hadn’t been happy here at the camp with him gone.

I haven’t seen Everett since we parted ways on the porch yesterday, but I finally got a text from him this morning, telling me he had things to take care of and he’d see me at the dinner. I hate that we didn’t get our alone time last night, and I didn’t get to share the excitement of this whole Stratford charade finally being over, but I knew it would all be worth it when he finally gets here.

“I thought for sure you and Grady would be out on the dance floor, wrapped up in each other by now,” my mother says, pulling me from my thoughts and making me look over at her like she’s crazy.

“Grady? Why in the hell would Grady be here?”

“Oh, my bad. I mean, the two of you have been dancing around each other for months. After Aiden died, I just thought…I really liked him from the few times I met him when he stopped by to pick you up, and he comes from a very nice family. I thought you really liked him, too, but you were just afraid to let yourself fall in love again,” she explains.

“I was afraid to let myself fall in love again, but not with him. With Everett,” I whisper.

The shock on her face couldn’t be more evident. Her mouth drops open and her eyes widen as she shakes her head at me.

“But…Everett? Really? I mean, I always wondered if he had a thing for you, but I never thought you felt the same. He was always such a troubled young man and then he leaves and doesn’t even come home for Aiden’s funeral. I’m sorry, Cameron, I just don’t trust him.”

It takes everything in me not to yell at my mother and cause a scene in front of everyone. I take a step closer to her and speak with barely concealed anger and disappointment.

“Didn’t your own mother hate Dad so much that she had him sent off to war, where he was tortured for five years and almost killed? You should understand what it’s like to be unfairly judged. Please, don’t fault him for the things he did when he was younger. You don’t know anything about him now. You don’t know how much he went through helping all those people overseas or the kinds of horrors he saw. You don’t know how much he struggles every day not to break down from those memories,” I tell her, taking a minute to swallow back my tears before I continue.

My mother and I look so much alike that we’re often confused for sisters instead of mother and daughter. She has the same long, strawberry blond hair, the same piercing green eyes with thick lashes, the same slim build and long legs. Suddenly, I don’t feel like I’m looking in a mirror when I look at her. I see sadness and regret on her face when I know mine is filled with anger and indignation on Everett’s behalf.

“This camp is still able to stay open because of him and what he did for me. He put his life on hold for me. He spent every waking moment of the last few weeks doing whatever he could so that the dream you and Dad started could keep going. I’ve been in love with him since I was thirteen years old. I thought I had it under control, I thought I had grown up and moved on, and then suddenly he’s back, and all of those same feelings, all of those same wants and needs, are screaming at me to do something about it. To finally tell him how I feel, how I’ve always felt, and hope to God he feels the same way, because I can’t do this without him. I can’t breathe without him.” I choke on a sob as my mother quickly closes the distance and wraps her arms around me.

She rocks me back and forth in her arms as I swipe the tears from my cheeks and get myself under control.

“I’m sorry. Oh, baby girl, I’m so sorry. You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I’m an idiot and a hypocrite and you have every right to be pissed at me,” she says, pulling back to help me wipe a stray tear off my cheek. “My mother kept me away from your father and it was the one of the darkest times in my life. I swore I’d never do that to you. I swore I’d never judge anyone who wanted to love you and cherish you. I guess I’m just in shock. I always saw the way he looked at you, but never the other way around. You are my whole world, Cameron. You are a piece of my heart, living and breathing outside of my body, and I just don’t want you to get hurt. I saw what his leaving did to you all those years ago, and I just don’t want you to ever hurt like that again.”

Her explanation makes me feel better. At least now I know that she doesn’t actually hate Everett; she’s just worried for me.

“I know. I don’t want to get hurt like that again either, and you just have to trust that I know what I’m doing. Sort of,” I tell her with a small laugh and a deep breath. “I was good at hiding the way I felt about Everett for a long time, but I’m tired of hiding. The camp is going to be fine, I just don’t know if I am. Were you afraid to tell Dad how you felt when you were younger?” I ask her, staring out at the sea of people laughing and enjoying the food and music all around us.

“Terrified,” she laughs. “Telling him gave him power. The power to love me back more fiercely than I’d ever known, or the power to break me harder than anything I’d ever suffered before.”

She turns back to face me, pressing her hands against either side of my face.

“No one gets anywhere in life without taking risks, baby girl. What scares you more? Telling him how you feel and getting rejected, or keeping it to yourself and spending the rest of your life wondering?”

“I’m tired of wondering. I can’t do it anymore,” I whisper, staring up at the soft smile on her face.

“Then you have your answer. Telling your dad I was in love with him was like jumping off a cliff. Scary and exciting all at the same time. Take the leap. From everything you’ve said about him, I have a feeling he’ll be there to catch you when you land.”

She leans toward me and gives me a kiss on the cheek, then walks away in search of my father. There’s a crowd of people, but some of them are moving to the dance floor, and I have a clear view of the opposite side of the tent, where the main doorway is leading into the dinner. My heart stutters in my chest when I see Everett walk inside the tent.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him in something other than jeans or shorts and a T-shirt, and I’d almost forgotten how breathtakingly handsome he is dressed up. Since this year’s event has a more relaxed dress code, I made sure everyone invited knew that tuxedos and ball gowns were not necessary like in previous years. As much as I would have liked to see Everett in a tuxedo again, watching him walk into the room in a pair of straight-leg black pants, white button-down with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and a pair of black and white striped suspenders was enough to keep my jaw permanently dropped open and my mouth watering. All of the facial hair I’d been fantasizing about feeling against my skin has been groomed neatly and I can’t wait to feel it against my body.

My feet automatically start moving, taking me in his direction, needing to be close to him, needing to put my hands on him and needing to feel his arms around me. I come to a stuttering stop when all of a sudden the fantasy standing across the room starts to fade away.

“Uh-oh. You were looking all dreamy there for a second, and now you look like someone killed your dog. What happened?” Amelia asks, coming up next to me.

I shake my head back and forth as tears fill my eyes and everything in my line of sight gets blurry. I know I should look away, but I can’t.

Amelia’s head turns in the direction I’m staring and she lets out a string of curses that under normal circumstances would make me laugh. But nothing about this is funny at all. Nothing about what I’m looking at is amusing.

“Who in the hell is that skank, and why is she draped all over Everett?” she asks, watching the train wreck happening right in front of our eyes.

I want to pretend like this isn’t really happening. Like Everett didn’t just walk into this charity dinner with a tall redhead who has her arms wrapped around his shoulders, and her mouth pressed against his ear as she whispers something in it. Maybe she’s just a guest, saw how good he looks, and thought she’d give it a shot. Any minute now he’ll politely turn her down and untangle himself from her, meeting my eyes and giving me a sheepish smile as he walks toward me.

But that doesn’t happen. One of his arms slides around her slim waist, holding her against his side as they continue moving through the crowd of people, stopping every few feet to say hello to someone.

My sleeveless satin rockabilly dress in emerald green to match my eyes, with a plunging V-neck to show off my ample cleavage and a black satin belt around the waist, which I picked out specifically with Everett in mind, suddenly seems silly and hideous compared to the skin-tight white tube top dress the woman on Everett’s arm is wearing, which shows off every curve. My long blond hair, which I took two hours to put soft curls in, with a few pieces in front pulled back into tiny braids and woven through the curls, suddenly feels childish and nowhere near as sexy as the poker-straight fire-engine red locks that hang down the woman’s back.

“Okay, so he brought a date. I mean, it’s not exactly the end of the world. It’s not like you looked him right in the eye and told him you were in love with him. We can fix this,” Amelia reassures me.

The tears in my eyes start to spill out onto my cheeks, and I shake my head back and forth when I remember the words Everett said to me back when we were teenagers. The one thing I held on to all these years and always gave me hope.

“This place is special to me. It got me through one of the hardest times in my life. I’d never bring a girl here who wasn’t special. Who didn’t mean as much to me as this place does.”

Either he lied to me back then, or he’s had someone special in his life all this time, and I was just too stupid to realize it. Too wrapped up in my own problems and my own fantasies to even ask him if he had someone. I want to be angry. I want to storm over there and scream at him. Ask him what the hell he’s been doing with me the last few weeks if this was going to be the final result. Why flirt with me, why look at me like he wanted me and needed me and touch me like he meant it?

“It’s too late,” I tell Amelia in a small, broken voice. “He said he’d never bring someone here who wasn’t special to him. I always wished, all these years, that the reason why he never brought a girl here was because the one who was the most special to him was already here.”

I laugh, but the sound comes out cracked and not at all filled with humor.

“God, I’m such an idiot,” I mutter, the tears falling fast and hard now as I start to back away from Amelia, unable to take my eyes off of Everett and the woman he’s holding close to his side, no matter how much it hurts.

“Cameron, wait. Don’t leave,” Amelia begs.

I don’t listen to her. I can’t stay here. I turn with my head down so none of the people standing around us can see the misery on my face, and make my way out of the tent into the steadily falling rain.

I took the leap.

I jumped.

But he wasn’t there to catch me.