Her Hometown Hero(51)

Never had she thought back then that her life would turn out the way it  had. Never had she thought she would become this bitter, broken woman.  No. She wasn't broken. She was too strong for that. As soon as she had  time to heal, she would once again show the world that Grace Sinclair  was a fighter.

The old piano she had spent so many hours playing sat forlornly in the  corner of the family room. Sheesh. Even thinking the word family made a  bitter laugh escape Grace's lips. Her father had once tried to be a good  man, but he was so focused on making the next dollar and on making her  mother happy that he wasn't capable of real love, and her mother-well,  her mother was the proverbial . . . okay, the Total Bitch of the West.  Grace had tried to escape them every chance she got, after she'd learned  that, on the outside, away from this house, real families existed. But  her parents always managed to get their chains back around her, making  sure she knew exactly where she came from and the limits of her freedom.

Though her father had wanted a son-all men were like that, weren't  they?-she'd ended up being his only heir, so once every few years he  would try to do something fatherly, such as give her the title to the  land and house that he knew he'd never return to. Love from her parents  always involved money. Hugs were unheard-of in her family, and real  emotion was to be held inside. They had a reputation to maintain, after  all.

Drawn to the piano, Grace trailed her fingers absently along the top,  smearing them with dust along the way. She lifted the curved wooden  cover of the ebony and ivory keys only to discover more filth. The  instrument was out of tune, but it, at least, brought up good memories.  She'd taken lessons her entire childhood, and though she was certainly  not a master pianist, she still enjoyed the soothing music a piano could  create.

Sitting down on the bench, she hung her head. "It's time for a new  start. First of all, this house needs to go, though I think I'll keep  the piano," she said aloud, her eyes closed as she fought emotion. There  would never be a day she could live within these walls again. She'd  rather live in the tiny cabin tucked in the trees behind this monstrous  home.

"I remember when you used to play for me."

Grace didn't need to turn around to see who had walked in uninvited.  That voice had lived only in her dreams since the day he had so coldly  walked out of her life-Camden Whitman, her first, and probably only,  true love.

She stared at the dusty keys of the piano, unwilling to face him. "What are you doing here, Cam?"

"My dad told me you were coming back to town. Then Maggie said she spotted your car heading out this way."

She turned slowly and saw him still standing in the doorway as if he was waiting for an invitation.

"I forgot what it was like to live in a small town. There's no such thing as privacy," she said acerbically.

And then their eyes met and something shifted deep within her. Only one  person had ever made her feel the unquenchable love that consumed the  entire heart, and what a fool she'd been to think that time and distance  would make that feeling go away. Not even taking another lover had  weakened it.

What was even worse was knowing that, although his features might appear  composed to anyone else, she once had known his soul, and for one  unguarded fraction of a second, she saw surprise leap into his  expression before he snapped the shutters closed and gave her a cool,  nearly mocking expression.

The moment was so brief that she wondered if maybe her heart was asking her to see something that really wasn't there.

Instead of showing him pain, she allowed her all-too-familiar anger to  carry her. How many times and in how many ways had she tried to forget  this man? And in a single millisecond all of that hard work almost came  to naught when she misread something in Cam's eyes.

Though she'd called him a liar, a cheater, a heartbreaker, it was really  she who deserved to be scolded, because she'd told herself those lies  for years, so long that she'd almost started believing them.

The velvety sound of his voice brought her back from her grim thoughts.  "That's certainly true. You can't do anything here without it being  broadcast at full volume into everyone's ears by morning light." His  tone was light, careless. That was Cam-the life of the party and  everyone's best friend.                       
       
           



       

The guy who'd decided she just wasn't good enough for him.

"It's good to see you, Grace. I've missed you."

She stared at him incredulously for a few heartbeats before her lips  curled in a sneer. The lyrics of an old Rihanna hit, "Take a Bow," came  to mind. He certainly was good at putting on a show, but she wouldn't be  fooled by him ever again.

"Well, now that you've seen me, you can go," she replied with syrupy-sweet sarcasm in her voice.

"Have you spoken to anyone since you've been back?"

"Do you listen when I speak?" she countered.

"You haven't spoken to me in nearly ten years, so I guess we'll find  out." He leaned against the doorframe and smiled, the smile that had  haunted her for so long.

"I haven't spoken to anyone because I haven't been ready to announce my return."

"Are you staying?"

"That's really none of your business," she said.

Ignoring her clear dismissal, he told her, "I'm meeting a client at the  offices in an hour, but I should be out of there by five. Why don't I  pick you up and bring you to my dad's so you can visit with everyone?  I'm sure they'll be more than thrilled to see you."

"Not gonna happen," she responded flatly without skipping a beat.

He stared at her quizzically for a few seconds before speaking. "Come  on, Grace. You've been gone a long time. The prom queen is back, and you  know your court will want to hold a ball."

"It's funny you should mention that particular event, considering you  promised to come back and take me to the dance. But your new girlfriend  most certainly wouldn't have approved of that. No, you had become a  college stud by that point." The bitterness in her tone gave away far  more than she wanted, but she couldn't rein in her feelings. Her heart  thudded like a galloping Thoroughbred at the chance to say what she'd  bottled up all these years.

"That was a long time ago, Grace. I think we're both mature enough to let bygones be bygones."

"I don't forget anything, Cam."

"We were young and foolish back then, and both of us made mistakes. It  doesn't mean we can't be friends now," he said, and took a step toward  her.

No. That wasn't what she wanted. She needed him to retreat, not come closer.

"That's exactly what it means, Cam. I don't want to be friends with you,  I don't want to sit around having idle chitchat, and I sure as hell  don't want to reminisce about the past." She mentally dared him to push  her further. He thought she'd been blunt? She was just getting warmed  up.

"I guess you aren't the same young girl who used to laugh and dream and always reach for the stars?" he replied bleakly.

"That girl has been dead and gone for a long time," she said, her voice  firm, her manner stiff. "If she ever existed. You can see yourself out  the way you came in." With that, she turned back to the lonely piano.  She refused to turn around at the sound of his footsteps descending the  old porch.

Grace's shoulders sagged once she knew he was gone. Coming back home  hadn't been a good idea-not a good idea at all. Camden Whitman still had  far too much pull on her emotions. But hell would freeze over before  she ever let him know that.





ONE YEAR LATER

Camden Whitman raked a hand through his hair once again and let out a  long-suffering sigh. "It doesn't matter how many times I go through this  file. All arrows point straight to Grace," he snapped before leaning  back in his desk chair and pushing the file away, disgusted with all of  it.

"We both know she's not capable of doing this, so you have to be missing  something," said his father, Martin Whitman, as he sat comfortably  across from Camden. He didn't seem worried at all.

"You've looked at it, Dad. You tell me what I'm missing."

"The file turned up on your desk, Cam. I'm not the one who's supposed to  help her," he said before pausing and throwing his son a smile. "You  are."

"I would love to know who put it on my desk. That's still a big mystery.  Somehow I don't think either of her parents would care enough to want  to help her. But I certainly do want to. The problem is that every time I  approach her about this, we end up in a fight. She doesn't want to have  anything to do with me."

"Well, then, you'll just have to make her listen," Martin said, as if  there was nothing easier than getting Grace to pay attention to anything  Camden had to say.