“I know. I just…I want to sort this all out and get right for her.”
“And she wants to walk
with
you through the process. What’s wrong with that?”
“I just want her safe.”
“The only time you’ve put her in danger was with that gun.” Dr. Stein took her glasses off, holding them between two fingers, pinning Cam to his seat with her steady eyes. “So get rid of it.”
C
am slipped through the kitchen door, pocketing his key and looking around the kitchen in case Q had left any food out. No such luck. He hadn’t eaten a thing, so he grabbed an apple to kill the growl. The back stairs loomed in front of him, daring him to go upstairs and find Jo. There was still a lot to sort out, but they could sort it out together. He’d realized that in his session with Dr. Stein. He’d spent so much time protecting Jo from him he hadn’t let her
be
with him. Not really. But he would tonight. If she was speaking to him yet.
Etty. Of all things to push Jo over the edge, it was some chick he had never even considered screwing. He could only hope Peter hadn’t moved in on Jo, exploited the gate Cam left open. Stupid Crete. Stupid villa. Stupid
Cam
.
Dr. Stein would say that was still self-hatred. He’d never realized how hard he was on himself. He’d never made the connection between the gun under his bed and the irrational fear in his heart that he still needed protection. He’d never acknowledged just how much Mama’s indifference had hurt him. He still had a lot to learn about himself, and for the first time, maybe ever in his life, he wanted to discover it, even the dark corridors where his demons lay in the shadows.
He walked into Jo’s suite, prepared to have a new one ripped, but found it empty. He walked deeper into the suite, into her bedroom. The black leather dress that nearly had him bursting through his pants lay across the bed, and her stilettos sat on the floor, one up and one down. So she was here somewhere. He checked the bathroom and saw evidence of her rush to get ready for the funeral. Pots of makeup strewn across the sink, body butter abandoned by the bathtub, a dish of hairpins spilled on the marble floor.
He checked her sitting room, picking up the tiny sweater she’d been knitting for the twins…for weeks. Jo didn’t make a great woman of leisure, and hobbies were not her specialty. She knit. She ran. She watched
Vikings
.
Of course. She probably had a stack of missed episodes languishing on her DVR. Cam rushed downstairs and into the home theater, but it was dark and desolate. Nothing highlighted Ms. Kris’s absence more than this house, so often still and quiet now. When she was alive, this place sparkled, always crammed to capacity with people rallying around her causes.
This place had been a second home for him. A second chance. Yeah, the first chapter of his life had been a tragedy with too many villains and not enough saviors. Even his savior had been a ruthless drug dealer. And, yeah, his mother had left him for dead in every way that counted. And the dragon that had raped his innocence, left it bleeding and hollow on the dirty floor of a section eight apartment—he had slain that dragon himself.
He had taken his second chance. It had been a good one. A great one that brought him a best friend for life. He’d learned all the lessons about manhood from an honorable man, from Unc, since the father he never knew hadn’t bothered. And a rare, kind, compassionate woman had been a mother to him in every way but blood. And he’d stumbled through some rough times, screwed his way through too many women to remember, married the wrong woman, and made mistakes that still haunted him, but he’d met the love of his life when they were twelve years old. Only took him seventeen years to do anything about it.
He walked out to the gazebo by the river, pulling his suit jacket closer around him to ward off the cold.
“Jo!” His voice echoed back to him, and there was still no sign. He eyed the backyard swing, so much like the one he’d painted on his wall. He thought about the jar of fireflies, and the light he and Jo had used to communicate with each other that night when she’d laid out her secrets.
And then he knew where she was. He hated to be the one who had driven her there.
He entered Ms. Kris’s suite for the first time since her death, and he understood right away why Jo came here. Ms. Kris’s spirit lingered here. Not in a haunted, creepy way. Her gentleness, her strength had stayed like companions waiting for her return. His steps slowed as he approached the closet, hoping Jo was here, but hating it if she was. He could be wrong.
But he wasn’t.
The first thing he noticed were the red-bottom shoes, blaring, glittering chartreuse with the soles dipped in costly blood. Jo sat on the floor in the deepest part of the closet, back pressed against the wall, long legs stretched out in front of her. She wore the richly colored silk robe. Her hair spilled around her shoulders, wild just the way he liked it. Not a scrap of makeup. Her tear-puffy eyes narrowed on him.
She folded her arms over her chest, like that was supposed to guard her heart from him. Thank God she’d never figured out how to actually do that.
“What are you doing here?” Jo inlaid the words with ice.
“You’re here.” He squatted until they were level but not coming too close.
Jo squeezed her lips together, dropping her eyes to the hands in her lap, toying with the belt of her robe.
“I’m asking you nicely to get out of my house until I’m ready to see you.”
“Just give me a few minutes. I’ve figured some things out. Thank you for giving me the space to do that. It helped.”
“Well now I need some space.” Jo corralled the wavy mass of hair tangling down her arms into a rope over one shoulder. “I want you to go.”
Cam let the words settle in the closet around them like snow. He sighed. Anything but that.
“Baby, I can’t do that.”
“You are such a hypocrite.” Her sharp stare and words lacerated the air between them. “You run tattling to my father so I won’t come after you, but when the tables are turned, you can’t give me space to think.”
“I don’t want you thinking. I want you feeling.” Cam stood on his knees, scooting closer to her. “I want you remembering how it is with us. How it’s harder to breathe when we’re apart. How we miss each other during the day and can’t wait to see each other at night. Feel that, baby.”
“I have been
feeling
that ever since you left.” Jo scooped her hair back from her face. “And this whole time you were with her. That was a betrayal to me, Cam.”
“Sweetie, nothing happened. You know you’re the only one I want. The only thing I want in this world. You’re my one essential.”
“Oh, now I’m your one essential, yet you’ve managed to live without me while you were in Crete with Etty.”
“Will you stop acting like Etty is the damn issue?” Cam’s patience evaporated. He’d wrestled against himself for weeks, denying himself air. Choking without Jo. He was ready to move forward.
“She is the damn issue.”
“No, she the hell isn’t, Jo.” Cam forced himself to stop talking before he screwed this up worse. “I didn’t let her in. She was a body in the house. I didn’t share anything with her.”
“Well you certainly didn’t share anything with me, either.”
“And I get that. I admit that. After this last session with Dr. Stein, I realize I should have.”
“I don’t want to hear about your epiphany.” Jo pulled her lips in and closed her eyes. “I’m not ready for anything you have to say.”
“Jo, I know I shut you out.”
She opened her eyes and they accused him before her words even began.
“Yeah, you shut me out. You ran again. You went dark again. You chose to be with someone else again.”
“I didn’t choose her. You know that.”
“It feels like it. It feels the same as it’s always felt. Like I’m running after you. Chasing you when you don’t want to be caught. Not again. Not anymore.”
“No, not anymore.” Cam scooted a little closer.
“I’m done with it. You hear me?” Jo tilted her head, considering him for the space of a heartbeat. “And I’m done waiting for you to trust me. No more falling apart for you. I’m stronger than that.”
“Yeah, I know you are, baby.”
Her frown wavered as if she hadn’t expected him to agree.
“And I’m not putting my life on hold while you figure out if you want to get your shit together. I’m adopting Tiki.”
Now that did throw him for a loop.
“What? Tiki from Haiti?”
“Yes. Her adoptive family fell through, and I already love her. I’d make a great mother. I would take care of her. Teach her to help people and be kind to people. Just like Aunt Kris taught me. So I’m adopting her.”
“Not without me you’re not.”
Her frown faltered, her brows snapping together and then apart, and then together again.
“Wha-what did you say?”
“I said you’re not adopting Tiki without me.”
“Don’t play games with me, Cam.” Jo closed her eyes, but stubborn tears slid down her cheeks. “I can’t…It took all I had to make that speech. And I meant it. Just…don’t play games with me.”
“Baby, I’m not playing games.” Cam’s fingers actually trembled when he touched the crazy hair all around her shoulders.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I’m more tired of running than you are of chasing me. This session I just had with Dr. Stein was like an earthquake. Mac hasn’t been holding on to me. I’ve been holding on to him because I thought I still needed protection from something. And damned if it doesn’t go back to my mother not being there for me. Isn’t that some clichéd shit?”
Jo just blinked at him, her mouth opening and closing.
“Do you realize that is the most and the easiest you have ever talked about any of this with me?”
“I know. I feel freer than I ever have.” Cam shook his head. “Don’t get me wrong. Dr. Stein says I have a long way to go. She could be just trying to get more money out of me, but I probably do still have a few issues.”
A soft smile tugged at Jo’s lips, and he could see it all start to make the same sense to her that it had to him.
“Oh, I just bet you do.”
“But one thing I did settle tonight. I’m not going to let my past ruin our future anymore.” Cam gripped her hand between the two of his. “I got rid of the gun.”
“You did?”
“I went down to the river and hurled it as far as I could throw it.” Cam recalled the splash the gun made in the quiet by the water. “For a second, I felt more scared than I ever had in my whole life. Like I’d just torn my bulletproof vest off in the middle of a gunfight. But then I remembered all the things Dr. Stein said, and it got better little by little.”
“And now?”
“Now I guess we’re adopting a little girl. I mean, I thought we’d do it the old-fashioned way first, but we’ve done everything else backward, why not kids? But you
will
be fat with my babies. You’re not getting off that easily.”
“Babies? Plural?” Joy split Jo’s smile so wide he thought it might hurt. “Who said I’ll breed for you, Cameron Mitchell?”
“Oh, you’ll breed for me, little filly. We need a bunch of kids to teach how to swim, how to swing over the river, catch fireflies, to knit useless shit.”
“My shit…I mean, the things I knit are not useless.”
“You kinda never finish them and make lots of wool stuff in the summer. It’s a little awkward.”
“My knitting is awkward?”
“You’d tell me if I did weird stuff, right?”
“Oh, I do all the time.”
“This will be an interesting marriage.”
Jo’s smile dropped from her face. Shock widened her eyes.
“Wait. Are you actually proposing to me right now?”
“What the hell did you think all of that was, Joanne Elizabeth Walsh?”
“
That
was your proposal?” That old fire sparked in Jo’s silver eyes. “I wait seventeen years and you propose to me in a closet with no ring?”
“I promise you a do-over later.” A lascivious smile overtook Cam’s mouth. He wrapped his hands around her waist and pulled her into his lap. Her robe was wrapped tight over her torso and tied away from his prying eyes. He locked eyes with her, glad to see the same lust rising in her eyes that he felt surging inside of him. His hands hovered at the collar.
“May I?”
Jo nodded, sighing when his fingers brushed her neck as he pushed the robe off her shoulders. She wasn’t naked, but she was the next best thing. A strapless bra with transparent cups her nipples peekabooed through. Lace not bigger than a breath triangulated at the juncture of her thighs. Her legs folded under her, the muscles sleek and elongated. Cam ran his index finger down one leg until he reached the shoes. He slipped one shoe off and then the other. He pulled her close until her soft breasts melted into his chest.
“And from now on, you have a hard day, you come to me.” Cam wrapped her wild hair around his fist. “I’ll be your closet, Jo.”
“And will I be yours?”
Even though she smiled, the question lay real in her eyes. She and Ms. Kris had taught him the meaning of unconditional love. He had tested it at every turn, and Jo had passed over and over again. She had proven, even when he belonged to someone else, that her love went deeper than that. It wasn’t defined by romance and wasn’t confined to sex and kisses. She had always figured out how to be there for him. To be in his life in whatever capacity he needed, even when it had broken her heart.
“You haven’t answered my question.” The smile melted on Jo’s lips, but the question still lay in her eyes. “Will I be yours?”
“Oh, baby.” Cam swallowed the emotion rising in his throat and let the smile break through. Finally break through. “You already are.”
H
appy birthday!”
Thirty-one candles blazed on the enormous cake Jo had ordered. Remnants of Q’s rib dinner littered sauce-covered plates scattered around the dining room. A small mound of gifts varying in color, size, and shape waited in the corner. And everyone who meant anything to Cam stood around singing the birthday song.
“Daddy, you have to blow out the candles.” Tiki’s grin burned brighter than the cake. One oversized Afro puff stood at attention on top of her head. Cam had slicked, pomaded, and tamed Tiki’s hair himself. Jo still couldn’t quite get the hang of it. That, like so many aspects of his life with Jo and his baby girl from Haiti, was a running joke.
Cam fake huffed and puffed for a few seconds before frowning at Tiki.
“I think I need some help.” He pulled his daughter by her narrow shoulders to stand in front of him and the cake. “Blow with me.”
She looked up at him, deep brown eyes wide and shining, an enthusiastic nod setting the cloud of hair in motion. Between the two of them, they managed to extinguish all thirty-one candles.
Thirty-one. Good grief. He’d squeezed a lot of living into those thirty-one years, but this last year had undoubtedly been the best. The movie he’d done the paintings for had been just the beginning. Bash could barely keep up with the demand these days, and Cam had started turning things down. He didn’t want to miss moments with the people who mattered most to him. He’d been given a gift that in many ways saved him, but it wouldn’t consume him. Not when he had his girls to do that.
Jo moved around the large dining room, making sure everyone had eaten enough and was having a good time. Pregnancy suited her. Of course it did. How dare it not? The dark, caramel-streaked hair fell past her shoulders, the natural wave left untamed for his pleasure. She’d always been beautiful, but that famous glow made from hormones and happiness powered up something inside of her, illuminating her face. Cam could barely keep his eyes and hands off her most of the time. Par for the course.
Jo shared a quick laugh with Shaundra, who had helped her plan the party. Her assistant had become that much more valuable since Peter resigned. It was for the best all around. Peter’s father got his son stepping into his rightful place as successor to the lumber empire. And Peter got to keep his teeth, which Cam would have inevitably eventually knocked out of his mouth.
Meredith pulled Jo close, whispering behind her hand. Something dirty for sure. Meredith’s mind had one track. She was a character, but she’d been such a good friend to the two women Cam had married. Was it weird to have both his ex-wife and his forever-wife in the same room? In the same family? They had turned down more than one offer for a reality show. The dynamic that so fascinated those looking in from the outside felt completely normal to them. Probably because things had turned out the way they should have been all along.
Cam caught sight of his ex-wife/cousin-in-law. Kerris and Mama Jess had cornered Q about her sauce recipe. Kerris glanced his way, grinning and mouthing “happy birthday” before turning her attention back to talk of spices and sauces.
A squeal from across the room snared Cam’s attention. Walsh held one twin in each hand above his head, laughing up at his little girls. Tonight he and Kerris announced they were expecting another baby. Kerris was still in her first trimester, but not too long after Jo delivered their son, Kerris would add to the growing Bennett-Walsh brood. Walsh handed Brooklin off to Unc, and the two men settled onto the couch, tickling the girls and talking foundation business.
Cam had mastered the trick of disappearing long ago. Even though it was his party, and even though he was supposed to be at the center of the celebration, solitude was a hard habit to break. While all eyes weren’t on him, he decided to slip away.
He settled onto the gazebo bench, enjoying the early spring evening and the subtle rush of the river breaking the quiet. Music drifted down from the doors opened off the rear veranda. Cam smiled at the first strains of Al Green’s “Love and Happiness.” That would be Jo’s doing. He promised himself at least one dance with his wife before the night ended. That was probably her way of luring him back among company.
An image, as much apparition as memory, seized Cam’s mind, retrieved from some long-neglected alcove in his head. Mama dancing around their tiny apartment, cooking macaroni and cheese from the box. She’d set the pot to boil and then pulled Cam from the couch to his feet. And they’d danced to Al Green’s gritty-smooth, somber voice singing about love and happiness. Mama’s face, the color of toasted honey, had glowed, healthy. Happy. Free from the demons that in just a few years would chase her into the shadows. Force her to her knees and onto her back. Maybe Cam had blocked this memory, so sweet and pure, of Mama before the drugs because it was too painful to remember what he’d lost and what she’d been before. She’d cared once. Maybe that’s why it had hurt so much when she stopped.
Dr. Stein had advised Cam he needed to forgive Mama as a part of his healing process. She’d urged him to write Mama a letter. Cam thought it was ridiculous, until he sat down and couldn’t write one word to release Mama from his anger and bitterness. But here, on a perfect spring night, on his birthday, with Al Green reminding him of those better days, he could. He did.
Cam had never been a religious man, but in that moment, this gazebo was his church. Al Green, the impassioned preacher. That song drifting through the quiet night—his hymn. And his soul underwent a conversion from dark to light. He forgave Mama not because she’d asked, but because
he
needed to do it. For his unborn son. For the bright spot he and Jo had adopted from Haiti. For his wife, whose love existed beyond dimension. Who had loved him when he hadn’t even loved himself.
“I figured you’d be here.” Jo climbed the few gazebo steps until she stood in front of him, waiting for him to pull her close.
Cam set his hands on her hips and traced the muscles in her legs through the loose linen pants.
“You’re no fun pregnant.” Cam pushed the tunic up to expose her small baby bump.
“I beg your pardon?” Jo pushed her fingers through his hair and caressed the back of his neck.
“You’re not even fat.”
Her chuckle rumbled through her belly, vibrating under the kisses he dusted over the smooth skin.
“I’m fat enough, buddy.”
Cam gave her a sheepish look over the swell of her stomach.
“I want another one.”
Jo’s indulgent smile dropped along with her hands.
“Cameron Mitchell.”
“Joanne Elizabeth.” Cam pulled her to sit on his knee. “Not right away.”
Jo looped her arms around his neck, laying her head against his.
“Oh. You had me going for a minute there.”
“Of course I didn’t mean for you to get pregnant again right way.” Cam offered her a hopeful look. “Like what—four, five months after this one? Is that enough time?”
Jo sat up and looked at him like he’d sprouted horns.
“You’re serious.”
“I’m very serious.” Cam rubbed the little incubator his son was in. “I want as many bits and pieces of you running around here as possible. Come on. Give me another baby, Jo.”
“Can we have this discussion after I have labored twenty hours with this one?”
“You won’t be in labor that long. As active and fit as you are, it’ll be a piece of cake.”
“Says the man who only had to ejaculate.”
“You shouldn’t say words like ‘ejaculate’ when you’re on my lap. The power of suggestion is, well, powerful.”
Jo leaned in, whispering against his lips like the river might be listening.
“Didn’t we just do that before the party, you insatiable man?”
“
I’m
insatiable?” Cam pulled back, disbelieving eyebrows elevated. “I was minding my own business, shaving and getting ready for my birthday party, when this naked woman accosted me in—”
“Accosted you!” Jo’s mouth fell open, her face impishly outraged. “I accidentally brushed up against you.”
“Baby, I think they only call it that in the Red Light District.”
Their laughs tangled in the air, dying off into the quiet they were never afraid of together. Jo pushed the floppy hair back from his forehead, leaning in to briefly pull his lip between hers.
“What were you thinking about out here by yourself when I walked up?”
“That song you have on repeat.”
“I thought you’d like it.” Jo frowned, studying his face in the dim light.
“I do. It just reminded me of my mom.”
“I’m sorry.” Concern wrinkled Jo’s eyebrows. “I didn’t know.”
“No, it was a good memory. Something I’d forgotten. I don’t think I was even five years old, but I remember her dancing me around our little apartment. Before the drugs and…” Cam trailed off, not wanting to mention the subsequent horrors in this place. In these moments he’d just made sacred. “Before everything else.”
“So the song made you happy?” Jo smiled, kissing his nose and linking their fingers on her knee.
Was this happiness? He’d lived most of his life running after this feeling. He’d thought it would be like rainbows and fireworks, but instead it was a gentle contentment, a steady flame that burned brightest and hottest when he was with this woman. With their little girl. In the house where Jo had grown up and they were making a home again.
Happy. He rolled the word around on his tongue, tested it on his heart. He had run so long, chased by demons. Maybe he never would have found this kind of happiness any other way. When you’ve run in the dark for so many years, you relish the light and love every day in the sun. He wouldn’t have appreciated all he had now without experiencing the days when he’d had nothing.
“Cam, I said the song made you happy?” Jo persisted, still waiting for his response.
“You make me happy.” He blinked at the tears that had snuck up on him, swallowed the burn in his throat. “So damn happy.”
Jo looked at him, blinking at her own tears, tracing the line of his brows and his cheekbones with one finger.
“And of all the amazing things I’ve had in my life, you, Cameron Mitchell, are the best. I think there are all kinds of paths we can take. Choices we can make to have a good life. But my best life is with you.”
“And my best life is with you.” Cam pushed the unruly hair over her shoulder, kissing her mouth. “I think there’s one thing that would make our life even better.”
Jo’s eyes laughed and sparred with his.
“Cam, don’t you say it.”
“More babies.”
They laughed and talked like they had as children. Kissed and whispered like they had as lovers. By the river, they loved like they would for the rest of their days.