CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Later that afternoon, Cam drove into his yard and parked beside Scarlet’s car, grateful she was still there. He needed to talk to her, apologize, and it had been impossible with so many people always around them. So he’d taken off, telling the crew he had something he had to take care of.
It was sort of true. He had to explain to Scarlet why he’d been so adamant the other day about her not helping him. Not to mention why he’d been so angry.
Maybe if he explained it to her he’d begin to understand it himself.
He got out of the car and sprinted to the side door leading to the kitchen. Like the other day, it was locked. Using his key, he let himself in. A moment later, Scarlet cautiously peeked around a corner and then, seeing it was him, slowly walked toward him.
“You scared me. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” Cam closed the door, stalling for time. “Why do you lock the doors?”
She shrugged. “I’m a city girl. I always lock my doors. Did you forget something?”
“Yeah.” He looked away, studying Tessa’s artwork on the refrigerator before turning back to her and holding her gaze. “I forgot to apologize to you.”
Her lips parted in surprise. “Apologize? To me?”
“Yeah.” He motioned for her to sit at the table. “Can I make you some tea?”
“I guess so. Sure.” She sounded anything but sure.
Cam busied himself filling the kettle with water and setting it on the stove. He brought a couple of mugs to the table and when the water boiled, he filled a teapot and threw in a couple of teabags.
“Do you take milk or sugar?” he asked as he poured tea into a cup for her.
“Sugar, please.”
She sat back in her seat and waited, her blue eyes watching him with caution. Cam spooned sugar into his tea and stirred. He wasn’t even sure where to begin.
He cleared his throat. “The other night…I know I need your help. I really don’t know anything about websites and marketing. A friend set up my website for me, but I can’t even figure out how to change stuff on it. It’s way out of date.”
“Then why were you so adamant about doing everything yourself?”
The words “I don’t need you” hung in the air between them, though neither of them spoke them aloud. He’d hurt her yesterday, but today he wanted to be honest. “Embarrassment, I guess.”
“Embarrassment?” That seemed to surprise her. “Because you don’t know how to update your website?”
“No. I don’t give a damn about that. Well, I do, but it’s more of an annoyance than something that really bothers me.” He hesitated a moment, then made up his mind to trust her. “Would you like to see my workshop?”
She sat up straighter. “Yeah. I would.”
He led her outside and across the yard to the shop, stopping in front of the padlocked door to unlock it. Scarlet pointed to the bars on the windows and grinned at him. “You’re giving me hassle about locking the house and you’ve got this place sealed tighter than Fort Knox.”
“I’ve got thousands of dollars’ worth of tools and materials in here. The most valuable thing in my house is the TV.” He turned the key in the lock and removed the chains. Once inside, he turned on the overhead lights and disarmed the alarm system.
“And your daughter.”
It was his turn to be surprised. “Right. And my daughter.” Maybe it was time to install an alarm system in the house as well.
Scarlet stepped inside and Cam watched as she studied her surroundings. She turned in a circle a couple of times, then zeroed in on a fireplace mantel leaning against one wall. She made a bee line for it.
“This is really beautiful, Cameron.” She ran her hand over the rough wood. “You made this?”
“Yeah.” Her appreciation for his work eased the knot of nerves in his gut.
“I’ve never seen wood like this. Where did you get it from?”
“We salvage old buildings. The wood that mantel is built with came from an old barn in western Minnesota that Ethan and I and a couple of guys from my crew took down two summers ago.”
“I love the colors, so many different shades of grays and browns.”
“You only get that kind of color from years and years of exposure to the elements.” He pointed to some finished headboards nearby. “The wood on some of these headboards came from an old grain elevator.”
Scarlet went over and examined them. “This looks like the same wood as the headboard in your room.”
Cam couldn’t help but grin. “It is. So, you were in my bedroom?”
Her face flushed red before she turned away to examine the headboards again. “I might have done a little snooping, from the doorway.”
He could picture her in his room, in his bed, naked and writhing beneath him. His body responded enthusiastically, his cock pressing against the zipper of his jeans. He turned away and shook his head to dispel the powerful, erotic image. Change the subject, Cam.
“The last couple of summers we’ve taken down a building or two and I spend the winters planing the wood and building furniture. So far, it’s mostly a hobby. I haven’t made much money at it.”
“That’s only because no one knows what you can do. No one has seen how talented you are. A great website and a good marketing plan could change all that.”
“But what if it doesn’t? What if the world doesn’t beat a path to my door the way you think it will? What if I’m not as good as I hope I am?”
“What do you mean?”
He ran his thumb over the rough wood of the headboard, avoiding Scarlet’s gaze. “I like construction work well enough, especially the creative parts of design. It pays the bills. But this…” He threw out his hand to encompass the workshop. “This is what I really want to do. When I work with a piece of old wood, I can hear it talking to me. It tells me what do to make it beautiful and useful again.”
He stopped talking and turned his back, embarrassed at revealing so much to her. “That probably sounds crazy to you.”
“No, it sounds like your creative process to me. And it sounds like you’re afraid. What are you afraid of, Cameron?”
He still couldn’t look at her. His art was too close to his heart, too vulnerable. “I’m afraid of falling flat on my face and making a fool of myself. Of dreaming bigger than my talent can reach. Of being a fraud.”
“You’re no fraud.” He felt her move closer, though she didn’t touch him. “I’ve seen the drawings you made for the cottages. Those were works of art. And all this…it’s amazing. You have every right to believe in your talent. For what it’s worth, I believe in your talent, too.”
He turned to look at her. Her eyes were clear and calm, with not a hint of derision or doubt. “I appreciate that. But you’re one person.”
“Are you dissing my taste, Mr. Hainstock?”
He grinned, completely charmed by her. “I wouldn’t dream of it. But I know the things I’ve created aren’t to everyone’s taste.” They certainly weren’t his father’s taste.
“I suppose, but if someone doesn’t like something you made, so what? Art is subjective and you’re not going to please everyone. Personally, I think someone who doesn’t appreciate your stuff has no taste at all, but that’s only my opinion.”
He hid his grin. “Of course.”
She started examining the headboards stacked up against the wall again. “I think these would fit in perfectly in the new cottages. They’re rustic and charming, with a kind of urban chic that I think a lot of our guests would appreciate. Would you be able to make enough headboards and mantels for all the cottages?”
“Possibly. I think I have enough wood.”
“Do you have enough time?”
He shrugged. “I don’t need to sleep.”
She laughed. “That’s the spirit. I’ll take some pictures and tell Harper what we’ve decided. I think she’ll be relieved she doesn’t have to figure it out herself.”
“She doesn’t trust her own taste.”
“I could say the same about you, too.” When she smiled, he remembered the softness of her lips and the sweet taste of her kiss. Longing swamped him.
She spent the next few minutes taking pictures of the fireplace mantles and headboards in his shop. He helped her move a few pieces so she could get a better shot. At last, she stuck her phone in her back pocket.
“That should be enough to give Harper an idea of the vibe we’re going for. I should get back to work. I’ve got some things I need to finish up.”
“Me, too. Gotta make sure the boys don’t goof off.”
“Any time you think you’d like to redo your website, let me know and I’ll help you out.”
“Okay, thanks.” He didn’t know if he’d take her up on the offer, but her faith in him made him feel like he could do anything. “Scarlet, I appreciate everything you said. It means a lot to me.”
A slight blush swept across her cheek, tempting him to touch the soft skin. He wanted to play connect the dots with the freckles sprinkled across her nose, kissing each one in turn.
They stared at each other, neither of them making a move for the door. Then, Scarlet lifted her chin. “Thank you for showing me your workshop, Cameron.”
He answered honestly. “It was my pleasure.”
He followed her to the door. After locking up, he jumped in his truck and waved at her as he sped out of his yard. He barely saw the road as he drove. All he could see was Scarlet greeting him at the door when he came home from work, Scarlet in his bed and in his arms. Overwhelming longing nearly had him turning around and going back to her.
He quashed that idea with brutal force. Scarlet had her own life in Chicago, and she was going back to it in a few months. She didn’t belong in small town Minnewasta anymore, and she didn’t belong with him.
Cam turned onto the main road and pressed down on the accelerator. He had to get the hell away from her before he changed his mind.
After a stop at the hardware store in town, Cam made it back to the worksite just as Harper and Maggie brought coffee and goodies for the guys. Tessa skipped alongside the little wagon they pulled, pigtails bouncing. Seeing his daughter so happy made him smile.
After they’d passed out coffee and juice and cookies, Cam approached Harper with the bag from the hardware store.
“Here. This is for you,” he said, handing the bag to her.
Her eyes widened in surprise. “For me?”
He grinned. “Yeah, but don’t get too excited. It’s nothing special. Just restocking your supplies.”
She reached inside the bag and grinned as she pulled out a plastic gallon container of chainsaw oil. “Thanks. I was running low.”
“The perfect gift for the girl who has everything.”
She laughed. “Hey, chainsaw maintenance is important.”
“Don’t I know it. I wanted to say thanks.”
“No problem. I was happy to help.”
Cam ducked his head, not quite able to look her in the eyes. Apologies didn’t come easy for him, and this was his second of the day. “I also wanted to say I’m sorry. I thought you married Ethan for his money, but that’s not the truth, is it?”
“No.” Harper’s voice was barely a whisper. “I love Ethan. I’d love him just as much if he didn’t have a dime.”
“I see that now.”
Her gaze drifted to the half-finished cottage. “I’m not gonna lie. His money makes all this possible. Without it, I would have had to sell the lodge.”
“I know.”
“But if the money disappeared tomorrow, it wouldn’t matter. I’d still love Ethan and he’d still love me. We’d figure something out. Together.”
Cam nodded and looked away. “He deserves that kind of loyalty.”
She touched his arm briefly. “So do you.”
Scarlet’s image flashed into his mind’s eye. Would she be loyal, or would she play around on him like Laura had? He rejected the idea. He couldn’t imagine her being unfaithful.
He shook his head. There was no point speculating.
Instead, he changed the subject. “Don’t let your loyalty to Willy blind you, Harper. He’s using you.”
“Maybe that’s true, but I can’t simply cut him loose. I can’t abandon him like everyone else in town has.”
“If he knows you’ve got his back, he has no reason to change.”
She pursed her lips together. “How do you know that for sure?”
“Because I’ve been there. I was Willy a few years ago. Until I was confronted with the hurt I was causing my family, until they told me that unless I straightened out they couldn’t stand by and watch me destroy myself anymore, I wasn’t ready to work on my sobriety. I had to stand on the brink of losing everything, and everyone, before I finally changed.”
“Is that the only way? Threatening him? Abandoning him?” She shook her head, her face full of misery.
“It was for me.”
“You think I’m enabling him, don’t you?”
He wouldn’t sugarcoat it. “Yes.”
She studied her shoes. “That’s what Ethan says. I don’t know what to do.”
“Why don’t you go to an Al-Anon meeting and talk with people in the same position as you? I’ll come with you if you want me to.”
She lifted her gaze to his. “Really?”
“Sure. And I know Ethan would come too.”
“Yeah, I’m sure he would.” She sighed deeply. “Willy is the only thing we’ve argued about. I hate it.”
“He’s afraid for you. He doesn’t want you to have to go through with Willy what he went through with me.”
“I’ll think about Al-Anon, okay?”
“Okay. Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be there.”
“Thank you. For everything.”
“My pleasure.”