Only Us

“I’ve got my eye on that calico cat,” Eddie Carberry told her. “You make sure you let me know if anyone else seems interested.”

“I will,” Rina said, pausing to admire the older woman’s holiday-themed jogging suit. Both the pants and jacket were green velour and there was a sequined poinsettia on the front by the zipper.

A mom with two kids in the pageant stopped her to ask about a border collie mix and Alice Barns, the police chief, spoke wistfully about a small gray kitten.

“With my boys so busy with their own lives, I could use a little furry something,” Alice said. “My husband shocked me the other day when he said he wouldn’t mind a cat. Coming from him, that’s practically an advertising campaign.”

Rina finally made her way to the row where Cameron waited and settled into her seat.

“I think the holiday adoption is going to be a success,” she said. “I was worried it was a dumb idea, but I’m getting plenty of people interested. Now if only they show up and take the pets they say they’re interested in.”

“They will.”

She braced herself, then glanced at him. His steady gaze locked with hers, making her feel warm inside. He’d always had the ability to make her believe she was safe around him. Too bad that had turned out not to be the truth.

“You can’t know that for sure,” she told him.

“Yes, I can. This is Fool’s Gold and the people here take care of their own.”

“Do you mean me or the pets?”

“Both.”

The lights dimmed before she could respond.

The production had the usual mishaps. A couple of the kindergarteners were frightened by the bright lights and began to cry. A boy in Kaitlyn’s class knocked over a tree and about half the kids forgot their lines. But Cameron didn’t care about that. As he watched the skits and listened to the songs, he was once again grateful that he’d decided to move to Fool’s Gold.

Kaitlyn looked like the fairy princesses she adored and he knew Rina was the reason. He’d seen the dress in pieces, but not since it had been assembled and it was everything a little girl could want.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he whispered, leaning toward Rina. “I never meant for you to spend so much time on her costume.”

“I wanted to.”

In the dark, it was difficult to read her expression, but he could inhale the sweet scent of her body and feel the heat that tempted him.

For a second, he allowed himself to wonder what it would be like if he permitted himself to give in. To share her feelings and to take what she offered. To touch her and taste her, to let her the rest of the way into his life.

He couldn’t risk that, but maybe he could keep the part of her that mattered to him most.

She turned to him. “What?” she asked in a whisper.

“Later,” he promised.

After the program had ended, everyone stood up and collected their coats.

“They’re serving the kids cupcakes and punch before releasing them back to their families,” Rina said with a grin. “Because they’re not already wound up from their performances, right? The teachers want to seal the deal with a little sugar rush?”

Cameron knew he should laugh or at least smile, but he couldn’t. He grabbed her hand and pulled her to the middle of the rapidly emptying row.

“We need you,” he said urgently. “Kaitlyn and I. We’re friends. You said it yourself. Don’t go. We can keep things the way they were.”

The light slowly faded from her blue eyes. Her mouth straightened.

“You mean give up what I want because having me around is convenient? What do I get out of it, Cameron? Aside from a check every week? A family? Someone to love who loves me back? You want the best of what I have without risk. Without having to share yourself. That’s not going to happen. You can buy childcare, but you can’t buy me. Not anymore.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. You can still have a life. Date.”

She flinched. “Right. Because seeing me with another man wouldn’t bother you at all. Don’t you understand that’s the best reason for me to leave?”

They were supposed to get Kaitlyn together, to go home and celebrate with popcorn. Put up the last of the decorations. But Rina drew back.

“I’m going to tell Kaitlyn I have to go.”

Cameron reached for her, but she was too far away. “Wait.”

“No. I’m done waiting. I’m moving on.”

Chapter Six

“Why can’t Rina get me ready for school?” Kaitlyn asked, the following Thursday morning.

Cameron carefully brushed his daughter’s hair. “She’s busy with the pet adoption this coming Saturday and she has a lot to do.”

He knew Rina was avoiding him, but he wasn’t going to say that. Whatever was going on between him and Rina had nothing to do with Kaitlyn.

“We haven’t talked about what we’re getting her for Christmas,” his daughter informed him. “I don’t want to get her a sweater. Rina loves us. We need to give her a present that says we love her, too.”

There was a conversation he didn’t want to have, he thought grimly. “Love is complicated,” he began, but his daughter shook her head.

“It’s not. It’s simple. Love is when we care more about somebody else than we do ourselves. It’s like with Mommy. She didn’t love us and that’s why she left. Because if she’d loved us, she would have wanted to stay. People who love you want to be with you. And we want the people we love to always be around.”

He put down the brush and turned his daughter so she faced him.

“I’m sorry about your mother.”

“I know, but it’s not your fault.” She wrinkled her nose. “Sometimes I get sad about her leaving, but mostly I don’t think about it.” She beamed at him. “You shouldn’t either because we have Rina.” Her eyes widened. “I know! Make Rina your girlfriend. Then she would be real instead of an internet girlfriend.”

He stared at his daughter, not sure where to start. “I’m not looking for an internet girlfriend.”

“You were.”

“It was a bad idea.”

“What about Rina? We already love each other.”

“It’s different.”

“Why?”

“It just is.”

She sighed and mumbled something that sounded a lot like “No, it’s not,” but he let the comment go. This wasn’t a fight he could win.

Kaitlyn turned her back so he could start on her braid. “Rina’s pretty.”

“Yes, she is.”

“She makes our favorite dinners a lot and we laugh together.”

“I know.”

“You liked kissing her.”

That truth kicked him in the gut. He had liked kissing her. A lot, as his daughter would say. But he couldn’t get involved with Rina that way.

“Kaitlyn…” he began.

She sighed. “I’ll be quiet now.”

“Thank you.”

Cameron went through a busy morning of appointments. Simon Bradley, a local surgeon, brought in CeCe for her quarterly checkup. These days the small toy poodle was no longer a full-time therapy dog, having been adopted by Simon and his fiancée.

Cameron always enjoyed watching a big, powerful man reduced to cooing over a tiny dog. Not that he would say that to Simon. As CeCe still did some work at the hospital, working with children who had burns, she had to be checked more often to make sure she wasn’t carrying any parasites or had the beginnings of an infection.

“You know Rina’s not in today,” Cameron said as he finished checking CeCe’s heart. Usually the poodle was left in the salon for a grooming on her check-up days.

“I know. She told me when she called.”

“Rina called you?”

Simon nodded. “To switch appointment days. She mentioned she’s relocating her business. That she needs more room to expand.”

Cameron nodded. That was the story she’d come up with. He knew she’d decided on the almost-truth to protect Kaitlyn as much as him. Announcing to the world she was forced to move because the man she loved was too stupid or selfish to love her back wouldn’t play well. At least not for him. Which she wouldn’t want.

He swore under his breath. Why did she have to be so damned good?

“What?” Simon asked anxiously. “Is everything okay with CeCe?”

“Yes. Sorry.” Cameron straightened. “She’s fine. It’s something else. Woman trouble.”

“I know what that feels like,” Simon admitted with a grin. “Although in my case, it was all my fault.”

The grin faded. “Montana put her heart on the line and I walked away. Or tried to. I told myself not being in a relationship was easier than risking losing it. Because then I was in control.” He shook his head. “What a crock. There’s no control when it comes to the heart. I hate to think about how pathetic I sounded, trying to be brave when I was really terrified. I could have lost everything. For what it’s worth, if she’s half as amazing as Montana, you should suck it up, apologize for what you did wrong and beg her to take you back.”

“Interesting advice.”

“Good advice,” Simon corrected.

Later that afternoon, when Cameron returned to his office to catch up on paperwork, he found himself unable to stop thinking about what Simon had said about losing what mattered most. The problem was, to risk everything not to do that would mean he couldn’t protect himself or Kaitlyn. They could both…

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Who was he kidding? Protect himself from what? Having Rina in his life? Having her integrated into every moment of his day? Missing her? It was too late for that. Too late for him to protect Kaitlyn from another maternal loss. She might not remember her mother but she would remember Rina. She loved Rina. And as his eight-year-old had wisely pointed out, he loved Rina, too.

He stood, not sure what to think or what to do next. The truth flooded through him. He loved Rina. That’s why he’d been so freaked by her confession, why he hadn’t wanted to change their relationship. If he loved her, she could hurt him. His ex-wife leaving had been a shock, but he’d gone on. Looking back, he hadn’t missed her nearly as much as he should have. But if Rina left, he would be destroyed and so would his daughter.

That’s what he’d been afraid of. Losing her. So rather than risk it, he’d pushed her away. As Simon had done with Montana. He had felt that if he decided the course of the relationship, he had the illusion of control.

He shrugged out of his white coat and grabbed his jacket, then stopped. He couldn’t just track Rina down and blurt out that he’d changed his mind. That now he wanted her. He’d hurt her and made her feel small. He’d tossed aside what she had offered and then made things worse by trying to keep her around as some kind of on-call child-care staff.

She was the woman he loved, he woman he wanted to be with for the rest of his life. He needed to prove himself to her, to win her. Which meant he needed a plan. A way to apologize and prove to her that she was all he’d ever dreamed about. A tough road, considering how he’d acted.

He started toward the door. He was lucky, he reminded himself. With the pet adoption, Rina wouldn’t have had time to go looking for someone else or even to start falling out of love with him. What he had to do was convince her he was worthy. Someone she could trust to be there, no matter what. And he knew exactly how to do it.

The noise in the Fool’s Gold Convention Center was nearly deafening. The cement-and-block-wall construction had originally been meant for a big-box store that had never come to town. About eleven years ago, the city had taken over the property and turned it into a convention center, which meant the acoustics weren’t perfect. Especially when nearly thirty dogs were barking, kids were running around yelling and a spate of angry hisses came from the kitty corner.

Through it all, Rina smiled, answered questions and confirmed that the paperwork for the adoptions had been filled out correctly.

Holiday decorations brightened their small section of the huge structure, the paper and plastic carefully hung out of dog-reach. She and her volunteers wore cheerful, red, long-sleeved T-shirts with bright letters proclaiming Adopt a Pet, with a cartoon cat and dog under the words. The real dogs wore painted nails and bandanas, the cats, festive collars. She’d left the iguana unadorned.

A crowd had been waiting when the event had begun and adoptions were steady. What confused her were the snippets of conversation she overheard.

“Dr. McKenzie came by yesterday afternoon,” Edie Carberry was telling a friend, while holding a carrier containing her new cat. “He made sure I understood the best way to take care of Marilyn.” The seventy-something grinned. “I named her after Marilyn Monroe. They have the same eyes.”

A family with a beagle mix on a leash stopped by to thank Rina. “We love him,” the oldest boy, who was all of ten or eleven, said earnestly. “Dr. McKenzie talked to us about responsibility. We’ll take good care of him. We promise.”

Their mother sighed. “He was impressive. Oh, and that certificate for a free exam in six months was great.”

“I don’t understand,” Rina said. “He came to see you?”

The woman nodded. “From what I understand, he went to see everyone who had already expressed interest in a specific pet. He wanted us to be prepared for the first few days of settling in and talked about food and exercise. That was more than enough, but then he offered a free exam. What a great guy.”