Great and Precious Things Page 9

  “Now you. The inheritance?”

  “I went to art school. It took me about six months after Sully died to realize that I didn’t, and it didn’t matter how long I waited here in Alba, he wasn’t coming home.” I broke eye contact. Would Cam see it as the betrayal my father had? “So the plans we’d made to go away to college together once his three years were up didn’t matter anymore. I had to take a really hard look at what I’d thought my future would be without him and ask myself an impossible question.”

  “How much of that plan reflected your choices and how much belonged to Sullivan?” Cam’s question brought my gaze right back to his.

  My heart pounded, my tongue heavy and unwilling to say the words I’d never been able to before.

  “Yes,” I finally admitted, the word taking six long years of guilt with it as it left my lips. “And I realized how much of myself I’d given up in the interest of an easy relationship. And it was easy—with Sullivan, that is. I don’t want you to think it wasn’t. Or that he wasn’t good to me.”

  “I don’t think that.”

  “Okay. Good.” Fingers trembling faintly, I tucked my hair behind my ears. “Because we were happy, and I think I could have been happy following our plan. Going to Boulder. Then maybe law school. Then back here. I could have been happy…,” I trailed off in an unconvincing whisper.

  “You just wouldn’t have been you.” The way he watched me sanded away layers of my carefully polished veneer.

  “Or maybe that was really me, and this is the alternate reality where everything is messed up.”

  He stood, filling the room with more than his massive frame. Cam was a presence that walls couldn’t contain. I wasn’t sure anything could.

  “The girl who painted the murals on the hot springs ruins wouldn’t have been happy. Maybe content, but not happy. There’s a difference, Willow. And I’d like to think that Sullivan would have seen that eventually, and you would have gone to art school anyway.”

  I shook my head. “Sully never wanted to ruffle feathers. I mean, if Alexander was the good kid, and you were the rebel, then he was the one who wanted to simply exist without conflict. So he would have gone with Dad’s plan. He was the easy one, and it was so easy to love him.” I’d simply realized in these last years that it wasn’t the right love—the consuming, passionate, all-encompassing one in the books and songs I loved. But that truth would never leave my lips. I’d let it fester and rot inside me before admitting something like that.

  “It was easy to love him, for all of those reasons and more,” Cam agreed. “But that doesn’t explain why you had to use your inheritance to go to college.”

  “My father thought I was still in shock from Sully’s death. That I was being irrational and lashing out against what he felt was a logical and acceptable plan. In reality, I was trying to honor my first dream, since I’d lost my last. I was trying to figure out who I was without Sullivan.” And without you. Not that I hadn’t lost Cam years before when he’d shipped off to basic. “Dad refused to pay for it, which was fine. It’s his money, after all. But once I saw his decision for what it was—his need to control me because he’d lost that control over Charity—I paid for it myself.”

  “You carved your own path.” He moved closer but didn’t crowd me.

  “For four years, I did. I learned, and I lived, and I even dated, not that anyone in Alba would believe me.” I inhaled deeply, bolstering my courage. “Does that make you hate me?”

  “What?”

  “That I moved on.”

  His eyebrows furrowed. “No. Of course not. Why the hell would you even remotely think that?” He moved to lean against the counter next to me, effectively breaking eye contact.

  “Xander was disappointed when I told him one Christmas. The look in his eyes… It was like I’d cheated on Sully. And honestly, that first date felt a lot like I had.”

  “Willow, you can’t cheat on someone who’s dead.” His gaze fell to the floor.

  “I know that now. It took a few years for me to really get that, but eventually I did. But every time I came home on break, it felt like I was moving on and the town wasn’t. And I get it. I do. Change is literally Alba’s worst enemy. The people in this town would still have me wearing widow black if they had their way, weeping at a shrine for Sullivan.”

  “And yet you came back.”

  “It’s my home.” I turned to look at him. “And so did you, I might add.” Why?

  His eyes rose to meet mine, and he shifted the ice pack on his cheek.

  “I came home because Dad left me a voicemail saying that Xander wouldn’t give him a DNR and he needed my help. Then he shot me, kicked me out, and forgot who I was—all within forty-eight hours—so I’m not really sure which of those he was lucid for.”

  “Cam,” I whispered. The heaviness of what he faced hit my stomach like an anchor. The mere thought of losing my dad and fighting with Charity about it was nauseating.

  “But you chose to come back… Why? To settle down and do what? Get married to a man who will never measure up to Saint Sully in Alba’s eyes? To be ridiculed when you haven’t grieved on their time line and done what they expected? Followed their script?”

  “I came home for the same reason you did. Family. And people change. The town will just have to adapt.”

  “Don’t fool yourself, Willow. This town exists for the dead, not the living. When the younger generations leave, they only come back for funerals—their family’s or eventually their own. Alba is a huge mausoleum, literally funded by tourists who flock here to see the dead things we refuse to let go. We’re all just part of the exhibit. If you’re expecting change or acceptance, don’t. Survival here depends on our ability not to change, to preserve the past. Change and progress are the two things that will kill this town.”

  His words stabbed at something deep—a truth I wasn’t ready to surrender to.

  “That’s a really narrow way of looking at our home. And it’s ours, just like you said. If you’re capable of change, they are, too.”

  “That’s the point.” He pushed off the counter and put a few steps of distance between us before turning around. “It doesn’t matter who I am now. They won’t let me be anyone other than the kid who threw too many punches, broke too many rules, and got Sullivan killed. They can’t let me change, the same way they can’t let you. It’s a matter of self-preservation. And you know it, otherwise you wouldn’t live so far up the mountain, where you’re all tucked away and safe from prying eyes and judgmental mouths.”

  “So you’re saying that I’m doomed to a life of loneliness? Of becoming the eccentric old hermit lady? Because I’m going to love again, Cam. I’m going to love and get married and have kids. All of it.” My eyes narrowed as heat spread in my cheeks.

  “No, I’m saying that you would have been happier somewhere else, at least until you knew your man was strong enough to withstand the weight of Sullivan’s shadow.”

  I scoffed, hopped off the counter, and turned toward the door before I said something we’d both regret.

  His hand closed around my arm, surprisingly gentle in its strength but enough that I stopped in my tracks. I could have shaken him off, it was that light, but instead I savored the contact.

  “I know you’re strong enough, Pika. But this town isn’t going to be gentle on whoever you deem worthy enough to give your heart unless they decide for you. And I don’t see you going for that. You let the town dictate once, and I know you loved him, and he loved you, but can you honestly say you’ll let Alba choose for you again? Do you love your comfortable boundaries that much?”

  My posture softened, and he let go of my arm. He was right, which only pissed me off even more. Loving Sully had been easy because we’d fit. We’d been supported and encouraged—enabled—by everyone around us.

  He placed the unicorn on the kitchen counter. “Thank
you for taking care of me. It’s been a hell of a long time since anyone’s done that. I’m going to head down, hopefully get to pay my bill, and go home.”

  His broad back filled my vision as he passed me.

  How was it possible that no one had cared for him in the past decade?

  “You should come to the Historical Society,” I blurted.

  He paused but didn’t turn.

  “If you want to help your dad, you’re going to have to go against Alexander. You’ll need support, and reminding them that you’re a son of a founding family will go a long way. You don’t have to like the game to play it.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  He walked out, and less than a minute later, Charity breezed into the kitchen.

  “Camden’s sure in a mood,” she remarked, grabbing a glass from the cabinet and apple juice from the refrigerator. “Want some?”

  I shook my head. “Camden is always in a mood. Stubborn ass.” My voice definitely lacked its usual bite when discussing the middle Daniels.

  Her shoulders shook with laughter as she poured her drink.

  “How did you two not get together?” I questioned. “You’re exactly alike. I always figured you’d end up dating when we were in high school. Both rebels to the core.” Not to mention that Charity was timelessly beautiful, where I was cute, maybe passably pretty at best.

  She looked at me like I was a class-A moron and put away the juice. “Seriously?” She sipped her juice but peered at me over the glass.

  “What? It’s not like he’s hard to look at, and you graduated the same year.” It was a logical conclusion. Hell, maybe they had hooked up once and I’d never known. I rubbed my chest, trying to soothe the ache that surfaced at the thought.

  “Oh, Cam was hot, and somehow he’s only gotten hotter with age. Have you seen those arms? And the way he caught Oscar’s fist? Smokin’ hot, baby sis.”

  Maybe I really didn’t want the answer to the question I shouldn’t have asked. Nor did I want to see my sister walk through the door I’d stupidly opened. Stop being selfish.

  “Yeah, so I’m going to head home. Want me to throw Rosie’s unicorn in the wash?” I asked.

  “I got it.” Her mirror-image eyes saw more than I was willing to show.

  My feet took me to the door, my sister following behind.

  “I love you, Rule Maker,” she said, hugging me tight.

  “I love you, Rule Breaker,” I replied before leaving, wondering for the millionth time if Dad had known who we’d grow up to be when he’d given us those nicknames in elementary school.

  And Cam was right. I needed change and progress, but what I wanted was for the rules to shift. To bend.

  He’d always broken them, just like Charity.

  I was halfway down the stairs when Charity poked her head out of the door. “Willow.”

  “Yes?” I turned, wondering what I’d forgotten.

  “I never hooked up with Cam for a reason. He only had eyes for one Bradley girl, and it wasn’t me.” There was zero teasing in her tone or expression.

  “Wh-What?” I sputtered. That was definitely not the answer I’d expected.

  “Think about it. You’re the only girl who’s lasted more than five minutes in his orbit. He may have glanced at other girls, but he only saw you.”

  “No. That’s not…” But it was true. Just not in the way she thought. “He sees me like a sister.” That was why he’d protected me growing up. Why he walked me to the bus when Scott Malone started teasing me. Why he sat across the aisle on the half-hour ride from Buena Vista back to Alba. Why he did everything until we got older and then he…stopped.

  “Because you almost were his sister. But don’t be blind, Willow. He looked at you for years. He only stopped when you got together with Sullivan.”

  That was impossible. “No, you’re wrong. Cam never cared that Sully and I started dating. He was barely speaking to me anyway. I annoyed the crap out of him by then.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Okay. If you say so.”

  “I do!”

  “Yep. Okay. See you tomorrow. Good night!” She shut the door, leaving me gawking up the stairs.

  “You’re wrong,” I muttered, but having the last word didn’t make me feel any better.

  She was so wrong that it wasn’t even funny. I balked the entire drive home, mumbling to myself as I parked in the garage of my house. Charity had zero idea what she was talking about. Cam had been relentlessly apathetic that last year. He hadn’t given a crap what I’d done.

  I picked up the onyx rook from my desk and rolled it between my fingers.

  The path rejected me. It didn’t want me, so I decided not to want it.

  His earlier words ran on repeat through my brain as I readied for bed.

  “You’re wrong, Charity,” I whispered into the dark. Not because I wanted her to be but because I needed her to. And Cam did, too.

  But what if she was right?

  Chapter Seven

  Camden

  I held my breath and turned the key in the ignition. It cranked for a second, then turned over, the Scout’s engine roaring to life.

  “Yes!” I stood, my fists raised toward the sky in victory.

  The 1967 International Harvester Scout hadn’t run since before I’d left for basic, even with Uncle Cal’s magic touch. It had taken a new alternator, belts, hoses, and more than a few prayers to a God I wasn’t sure I believed in, but she was running.

  I brought my hand down to the rail that ran across the windshield and nodded to myself, savoring the momentary high of satisfaction. I’d been in Alba a full week and had managed to scrub down the house, change the oil in the Scout and the snowmobile, schedule the roof repair, and stock groceries.

  It was the most domestic I’d been since…ever.

  Then again, it had only been a week, and I’d already broken my vow to never see Willow again three times. Which was why I’d kept my ass here at the house today. At this point, my well-meant vow to leave her to her happiness was turning into a well-intentioned suggestion.

  Now, if only I could stop thinking about her, that would be great.

  I jumped down from the Scout, letting her run in the open air to charge her battery. Which reminded me—batteries were next on my checklist.

  The power shed door stuck momentarily, but a nudge of my shoulder persuaded it to open. I stepped from the side of the garage into the small room and whistled.

  Apparently, Uncle Cal had been going all Doomsday Preppers in his last few years. No less than twenty solar batteries sat on their industrial shelves, all wired from the roof’s panels to the electrical grid of the house. Three would have kept the house running twenty-four hours a day without hooking up the generator.

  Twenty-five was definitely apocalypse compound level: expert.

  At this point, he just should have harnessed the creek and put in a micro-hydroelectric system. Those suckers were clean and efficient.

  My cell phone buzzed in my back pocket. I reached for it, then swiped it open when I saw Dorothy’s name pop up.

  “Camden?”

  “Hi, Dorothy. Did you get that list of home care providers I left yesterday?” I asked, checking the date on the closest battery.

  “You mean the one you left in the mailbox because you were too chicken to come in?”

  A smile lifted the corners of my mouth. “Yep, that’s the one.”

  “I did, and I passed it along to Alexander. Now, you asked me to call if he was having a good day, just like I did yesterday and the day before.”

  Pressure settled in my chest. “And he’s having another one today?”

  “Well, he knows you’re here and remembered kicking you out last week, so I’d say yes.”

  Silence stretched longer than the half mile between our houses.
<
br />   “Camden Daniels, are you coming down here?”

  My head rolled as my eyes drifted skyward. “Is he going to scream at me from the porch like he did yesterday?”

  “Probably.”

  I could practically see her shrugging from here. “Okay, I’ll be there soon.”

  “I’ll let him know.”

  “I’ll get my bulletproof vest.”

  I hung up the phone, noting that the solar batteries were dated from nine years ago. That gave me another six years, more or less, before they expired.

  “You really were prepared for exile, weren’t you, Uncle Cal?” I asked aloud.

  Depending on anyone else is what will get you, Cam. You have to be self-sufficient in every area of your life.

  The advice he’d given me when I was fourteen answered for him.

  After hurrying through a shower and parking the Scout back in the protection of the garage, I headed over to Dad’s in the Jeep.

  Winds had picked up again, making the pine trees sway. Weather must be moving in. Score one for not being on the town’s electricity grid.

  I pulled through the tree line and stopped in front of Dad’s, putting the Jeep into park. Then I mentally strapped on whatever armor I had with a resigned sigh and headed for the door.

  I’d no more climbed the steps than Dad burst through the front door, dressed in a flannel shirt and jeans, hair combed, waving his finger at me.

  “You’re not welcome here, Camden. I told you that yesterday.”

  I pushed back my instinctive fuck-you response, stopping on the last step. “I’m here to help.”

  “The hell you are! You ruin everything you help, so excuse me if I don’t want it.” His eyes were wild with emotion but not dementia.

  “You know, you’re a lot nicer when you don’t know who I am.”

  “Get off my land before I—”

  “Before you what? Shoot me?” I put my hands up. “We’ve already done that once, so try something a little more creative, would you?”