From Best Friend to Bride (7 page)

She hadn’t spoken to Cameron in a few days, and emptiness had long since settled into that pit in her stomach, joining the fear and worry there. This was precisely why she hadn’t made a move before, why she’d kept her feelings to herself. If a few kisses had already wedged an awkward wall between them, what would’ve happened had she told him she wanted to try a real relationship with him?

Megan glanced at the letter again and sighed. Maybe she should go. Maybe she needed to get away from the man who was a constant in her life but would never fill the slot she needed him to. And perhaps her new start would be the perfect opportunity for Evan to make a clean break, as well.

Chapter Eight

“I
need you.” Cameron surveyed the chaos around him and cringed. “How soon can you be at my house?”

Shrill cries pierced his eardrums for at least the fifteenth time in as many minutes. Every single parent in the world officially had his respect and deserved some type of recognized award for their patience.

“Where are you?” Megan asked. “What’s all that noise?”

Cameron raked a hand over his hair and realized he needed to get a cut. He’d add that to the many things he’d slacked on lately. Right now, though, he was groveling to his best friend to come save him even though he’d been a jerk and hadn’t spoken to her since.

His house was a complete war zone thanks to a spunky six-year-old and an infant.

Willow was dancing her stuffed horse in front of Amber’s reddened, angry, tear-soaked face in an attempt to calm the baby, but Cameron figured that was only making it worse. Not to mention the fact that Willow had a slight goose egg on her head after tripping over the baby and falling into the corner of the coffee table.

Why had he insisted on watching the kids at his house? A house that was as far from baby proof as possible. He was a bachelor. Unfortunately, his bachelor pad had now tragically converted into a failing day-care center.

“Please,” he begged. He never begged. “I’m home, and you can’t get here fast enough. I’m...babysitting.”

Okay, so he muttered that last word because he knew Megan well enough to know she’d burst out laughing and he wasn’t in the mood.

“I’m sorry. Did you say
babysitting
?”

Cameron bent over and pulled Amber into his arms. “Front door’s unlocked,” he said right before disconnecting the call and sliding his cell back into his pocket. He had no time for mockery; this was crisis mode. Code red.

Megan would most likely dash down here within minutes, if nothing else to see firsthand how out of his comfort zone he was. The humiliation he was about to suffer would be long lasting, but at this point he didn’t care. He needed reinforcements in the worst possible way.

This was not how he’d intended to apologize to Megan or how he’d planned on contacting her for the first time since he’d all but consumed her in his bathroom. Cameron hadn’t mapped out a plan, exactly, but he knew he needed to be the one to take the next step. But the step he wanted to take and the step he needed to take were on opposite ends of the spectrum.

Cameron patted Amber on her back and tried to console her. How could someone so tiny be so filled with rage? Fatherhood was not his area of expertise. He wished there was some how-to manual he could read. Did Eli have this much trouble with his little girl? Cameron had never seen this side of his infant niece.

“Maybe you should sing her a song,” Willow said, smiling up at him with a grin that lacked the front two teeth. “Do you know any songs?”

AC/DC’s “Back in Black” sprang to mind, but he didn’t figure an infant would find that particular tune as appealing as a nearly forty-year-old man did.

“I bet you know some,” he countered. “What songs have you learned in school so far?”

Brows drawn, Willow looked lost in thought. Apparently, something brilliant came to her because she jumped up and down, her lopsided ponytails bouncing off her shoulders.

“‘Wheels on the Bus’! That’s my favorite.”

After taking a seat on the sofa, Cameron adjusted Amber on his lap so the infant could see Willow and hopefully hear the song.

What else could he do? He’d fed her. Then she’d played on the floor with her toys, and now she was angrier than any woman he’d ever encountered on either side of the law.

Willow started singing, extremely off-key and loud, but hey, the extra noise caught Amber’s attention and for a blessed moment she stopped screaming.

Then she started again, burying her face against his chest. Unfazed, Willow continued to sing.

The front door flew open, and Megan stepped in, instantly surveying the room. A smirk threatened to take over, but Cameron narrowed his gaze across the room, silently daring her to laugh.

He’d never been so happy to see another person in his entire life.

Willow stopped singing the second the door closed. “Hey, Megan. I didn’t know you were coming over.”

Megan smiled and crossed the room. “I didn’t, either, but here I am.”

Cameron tried to focus on the reason he’d called her here, but his eyes drank in the sight of Megan wearing a pair of body-hugging jeans and a plain white T-shirt with her signature off-duty cowgirl boots. With her hair pulled back in a ponytail, she looked about twenty years old.

Megan reached for Amber and held the infant against her body. Without giving Cameron another glance, she turned and started walking around the room, patting Amber’s back and singing softly.

Well, what did he expect? He’d called her to help with the situation he obviously had lost control over, not to take up where they’d left off the other night.

Still, the fact she didn’t say a word to him made him wonder if he’d hurt her more than he realized. He was botching up their relationship in every way, and he didn’t blame her for being upset or angry.

Almost instantly the crying ceased. “Seriously? You hold her and she stops?”

Megan laughed, easing back to look Amber in the face. “I don’t think it was me at all,” she corrected him. “I think her stomach was upset. I just felt rumbling on my hand.”

Cameron glanced to Megan’s hand resting on Amber’s bottom. Realization hit him hard. “Oh, no.”

Willow giggled. “She feels better now.”

Megan lifted Amber around to face Cameron. “She doesn’t smell better,” Megan said, scrunching up her nose.

Oh, please, please, please.
There were few things that truly left him crippled, but the top of that list was changing a diaper...a dirty, smelly diaper.

Slowly rising to his feet, Cameron locked eyes with Megan. “I’ll give you a hundred bucks to change that diaper.”

Megan quirked a brow, her eyes glazed over with something much more devious than humor. “Keep your hundred bucks. I’ll decide payment later.”

Oh, mercy.
Was she flirting with him? No, she was upset...wasn’t she? Chalk this up to reason number 947 as to why he didn’t do relationships. He’d never understand women. Ever.

“Where’s the diapers and wipes?” she asked.

“Oh, I know,” Willow raised her hand as if she were in school. “Follow me.”

Megan trailed after Drake’s stepdaughter and went down the hall to his bedroom. His bedroom.

“Don’t change that diaper on my bed,” he yelled. Laughter answered him, and he knew he was in for it. This was all part of his punishment.

The reeking smell in his bedroom was the least of his worries, because in just over an hour his brothers would be back to retrieve their kids—leaving him and Megan alone once again.

* * *

She should’ve left when everyone else did, but she’d put her pride and her emotions aside because she and Cameron needed to talk. He also needed help picking up his living room. Between the fort with couch cushions and blankets and the towels Willow had used as capes, making sure Cameron and Megan were superheroes, too, the place was anything but organized. The furniture had been pushed aside to allow room for “flying,” and Megan hadn’t even walked into the kitchen yet. She’d started making marshmallow treats with Willow just before she left and the mess was epic. She had to get in there before Cameron, with all his straight, orderly ways, had a heart attack.

Another thing she and Cameron saw eye to eye on. They both had a knack for cleanliness and keeping everything in its place...except for these emotions. They were all over, and nothing was orderly about them.

Best to start in the kitchen. Not only could she get that back in order, she could think of how best to approach being back in his house and all alone together...Especially after that giant gauntlet she’d thrown down when he’d offered her a hundred bucks.

What had she been thinking? The flirty comment had literally slid out of her mouth. Clearly she needed a filter.

She’d been so amused by him babysitting, at the chaos his normally perfectly polished house was in. Then she’d seen him holding Amber and something very female, very biological-clock-ticking, snapped in her. She’d always known Cameron was a strong man who could handle anything. Yet the sight of those big tanned hands cradling an infant, of Cameron trying to console her with fear and vulnerability in his eyes, had sent her attraction to a whole new level. As if she needed yet another reason to be drawn to every facet of her best friend.

Surveying the cereal on the floor, Megan tiptoed carefully through to the other side of the kitchen to get the broom from the utility closet. In the midst of sweeping, a tingle slid up her spine and she knew she wasn’t alone.

“Sorry.” She went back to her chore, keeping her back to him. “Willow wanted to do everything on her own, so I let her. She’s too cute to deny. I’ll get this cleaned up and be gone.”

When a warm, firm hand gripped her arm, Megan froze. Her heart kicked up, and she hated how she’d become this weak woman around her best friend. A part of her regretted sneaking into his bed. She’d cursed herself over and over for dreaming of him. The timing of the all-too-real dream at the same time he’d tried to wake her had thrown her control completely out the window.

But she couldn’t wish away those kisses. No matter how she wanted things to be different between them right now, she would cherish those moments when his mouth had been on hers, his body flush against her own.

“Stop avoiding me.” His low tone washed over her, and Megan closed her eyes, comforted in that familiar richness of his voice. “We haven’t talked in days, and when the kids were here you barely said a word to me.”

So she’d been using two innocent children as a buffer. What was a girl to do when she was so far out of her comfort zone she couldn’t even see the zone anymore?

“You called me to help, so I helped.” She started sweeping the dry cereal again, her swift movements causing Cameron’s hand to fall away. “Let me get this cleaned up before you step on it and make it worse.”

“Damn it, would you turn around and look at me? Stop being a coward.”

That commanding tone had her gripping the broom, straightening her shoulders and pivoting, cereal crunching beneath her boots.

“Coward?” she repeated, ready to use her broom to knock some sense into him. “You could’ve contacted me, too, you know. How dare you call me a coward after that stunt you pulled? Did you think I’d wither at your feet or declare my undying love? What did you want me to say or do when you all but challenged me?”

She hated how anger was her instant reaction, but damn it, the man was dead-on. She had been a coward. She’d purposely not contacted him. Still, in her defense, he could’ve texted her or something.

“I’m not trying to start a fight.” That calm, controlled cop tone remained in place, grating on her nerves even more because now she was fired up and he wasn’t proving to be a worthy opponent. “I just wanted to talk.”

“Fine,” she spat. “You talk while I clean.”

Angrier at herself for letting her emotions take control, Megan went back to focusing on the floor. With jerky movements, she had a rather large pile in no time. When she glanced out the corner of her eye and saw Cameron with his arms crossed over his chest, she had to grit her teeth to keep from saying something even more childish. The last thing she wanted was to be the reason this relationship plummeted, and if she didn’t rein in her irritability about the fact he’d called her out, that’s exactly what would happen.

Once she’d scooped up the mess and dumped everything into the trash, she put the broom and dustpan back in the closet. The counters weren’t as bad, but the big brute was blocking them.

Propping her hands on her hips, Megan stared across the room. “You’re going to have to move.”

He moved—leaning back against the counter, crossing one ankle over the other. “You can’t seriously be mad at me. Let’s put the kissing aside, which I know for a fact you enjoyed. An hour ago you flirted with me and now you’re ready to fight. What has gotten into you?”

The way he studied her, as if she were a stranger, made her want that proverbial hole to open and swallow her. To be honest, she didn’t know what had gotten into her, either. One minute she was ready to tell him her true feelings; the next minute she was angry at him for not reading her mind and at herself for being afraid to risk dignity.

Yeah, she was all woman when it came to moods and indecisiveness.

“We’ve already established the kisses were good,” she agreed. “I didn’t want your hundred bucks, and now I have leverage over you when I actually need something.”

“I think you know I’d do anything for you,” he told her. “You don’t need to hold anything over me.”

With a shrug, Megan went to the sink to wet the rag. “Fine, then get out of my way so I can clean and get home. I’ve had a long day, and I’m pretty tired.”

She wrung out the water and turned, colliding with a hard, wide chest. Megan tipped her head slightly to look into Cameron’s blue eyes. Those signature St. John baby blues could mesmerize any woman... She was no exception.

“Thank you for coming.” He slid his hand up her arm, pushing a wayward strand of hair behind her ear and resting his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry for how I treated you the other night. Sorry I made you uncomfortable. But I’m not sorry I kissed you.”

Megan heard the words, even processed what he was saying; she just couldn’t believe Cameron was confessing this to her.

“Cam—”

The way his eyes locked on to hers cut off whatever she was about to say. The always-controlled cop she’d known most of her life looked as if he was barely hanging on. The level of hunger staring back at her was new. Had she misread him? Had he responded to that kiss in a way that mirrored her own need? Physically he’d responded, but what about emotionally?

“I won’t lie and say I haven’t thought of you as more than a friend before,” he started. “I can’t deny you’re stunning, and you know more about me than anyone outside of my family.”