Much squealing ensued as Lacy and Elise found each other. Everyone watched them shriek-talk until it was decided that the whole gang should immediately go out to inspect the lavender fields to decide specifically where they should have the ceremony.
He watched Wendy and Gia look at each other and shrug. Jane appeared to be struggling under the weight of…a bunch of small chalkboards? He moved to help her, but she twisted away from him. “I’ll actually leave these in my trunk for now.” He tried again to take some of them from her, but she trilled, “I’m fine!” in a voice he easily recognized as false.
Screw that. She might not want to screw him anymore, but she didn’t have to be purposefully difficult.
“Will you let me help you?” he snapped as he pushed past her, opened the back of her hatchback for her, and guided her—the pile of chalkboards semi-obscured her sight—to the trunk.
Everything was fine, he told himself. Fine-ish. He wasn’t particularly looking forward to inspecting lavender fields. Or to any of this so-called bucolic “escape,” especially given that he apparently was going to spend exactly zero percent of it in Jane’s bed, but it was fine. Fine-ish.
Until it wasn’t.
Lavender fields were nothing like the desert. It was apples and oranges. Lavender fields and the desert. It shouldn’t have mattered.
And yet.
He’d become pretty adept at avoiding wide-open spaces since the PTSD hit after his first deployment. Christie’s apartment was in the urban part of Thunder Bay, such as it was. He’d been fine there. Fine-ish. But he’d learned pretty quickly that as soon as he got out of the city limits, the panic would hit and he’d be left sweating and shaking. So he learned to stay safe, which meant limiting himself to places with a certain density of buildings and concrete and people.
And anyway, it had gotten much better. He’d thought.
Regardless, as they trudged away from the main buildings, across a series of gardens and a meadow that bordered the herb fields, it started happening. It didn’t matter that the air was ripe with the scent of lavender instead of the sulfurous smell of gunpowder. It didn’t matter that the sun was shining on purple fields as far as the eye could see instead of sand as far as the eye could see. It didn’t matter that it was a pleasantly warm seventy-five-degree day in freaking Canada and not a balls-melting one hundred ten with ISIS fighters and IEDs hiding all around them.
His stupid body didn’t know the difference, even if his brain did. His heart was jackhammering out of his chest, his lungs were constricting, and he was sweating so much he might as well have been back in the unrelenting desert heat. Fuck.
He tried to tune into what was happening. What was actually happening, which was that the mundane details of a wedding were being discussed. Elise’s mouth was moving, and he struggled to make out what she was saying through the roaring in his ears. Something about not wanting the guests to be blinded by the afternoon sun and should they have made sun hats for everyone?
He was safe, he tried to tell himself. Everyone was safe. He was home in Canada.
But it wasn’t working. He was starting to see gray spots in front of his eyes. He had to get out of there before he made an utter fool of himself.
But where to go? He started to stumble back down the trail they’d followed to get to the fields. He didn’t have a room yet. There was nowhere he could escape.
His car. The Corvette.
Having a destination calmed him a little. Not enough to stop the panic in its tracks, but enough to allow him to propel himself forward in space.
He didn’t even bother getting in the driver’s side. The passenger side was closer, and as much as he wished he could rev the engine and fly out of here, he was in no condition to drive. So he hurled himself inside, doubled over, rested his head on the dashboard, and settled in to wait out the storm.
“Cameron is being kind of weird, don’t you think?” Wendy said as she and Jane put their feet up in Jane’s room later that night after dinner was done and the evening’s duties discharged.
“Really? I hadn’t noticed,” Jane said, lying through her teeth.
“Yeah, I get that he’s kind of antisocial by nature, but he keeps bailing on everything,” said Wendy with a sigh. “The lucky dog.”
It was true. Jane had noticed, because she apparently noticed everything about Cameron now. In fact, she had attained the “if they were in junior high she would have his class schedule memorized and would be ‘accidentally’ running into him outside chem lab” level of noticed.
But to be fair, it wasn’t like he was being subtle about it. When they’d come back from the fields, he’d been sitting in his car. It kind of reminded her of a kid in time-out, near but separate from the action, except he’d put himself there.
Later, they’d opted for a picnic dinner near a stream that ran through the property, but he hadn’t come with them. And though he, along with the other groomsmen and ushers, had been asked to walk around the property helping the bridesmaids put up the stupid way-finding signs, he had spent about five minutes actually doing his job before slipping away.
He was quite clearly avoiding something. And she wasn’t stupid. She knew what that “something” was.
It didn’t matter, though. This was what she’d wanted, right, when she’d awkwardly extricated herself from Jay’s condo after their spectacular sex-fest two nights ago? She hadn’t handled that well, but he’d obviously interpreted her weird, sudden coldness correctly. She was actually uber-relieved that she hadn’t had to talk to him today. She had a lame little “we had some fun, but since it’s never going to last, best to quit while we’re ahead” speech worked up, but she was happy not to need to make it. He was getting the message.
She just hadn’t expected that in getting the message, he would have retreated so utterly, so much that he couldn’t even stand to look at her.
And it was hard to see him, harder than she’d expected. She wanted him still, so badly. The hardest part was that she could probably have him if she wanted. She could say the word, and he’d be back in her bed. But, stupidly, maddeningly, casual sex with Cameron wasn’t enough anymore.
So it was better that he was hiding.
“Well, it’s probably for the best,” said Wendy. “Because aren’t you still supposed to be babysitting him?”
“I don’t know,” Jane said, huffing a laugh because the idea of being forced to spend time with Cameron, that she had been so averse to him initially, was so absurd now.
“Well, if he’s going to sulk in the corner by himself the whole time, how much damage can he do?” Wendy went on. “Less work for you.”
“Hmm,” said Jane.
“Three more days, and you never have to see Cameron MacKinnon again.”
“Yes,” she said. “Great.”
Because that was what she wanted.
Right?
Chapter Nineteen
THURSDAY—TWO DAYS BEFORE THE WEDDING
Do you think it’s okay if they’re sort of on-purpose ugly?” Elise asked, tilting her head as she contemplated the straw hat she was holding on her lap as she wove strands of lavender through its loose weave.
“It was the best I could do out here in the boondocks,” said Gia, who was standing behind Elise and miming strangling her.
Jane stifled a laugh.
“I think it’s great!” Wendy chirped. “Sun hats for the guests! So thoughtful! And if they look a little handmade, well, they go with all the Mason jars everywhere, right?”
“Because we could take the other route and have a big bucket of dollar store sunglasses for everyone,” Elise said. “Maybe that’s what we should have done. Because then the guys could wear them, too. I don’t really see any men wearing the lavender straw hats.”
Jane sighed. Elise had decided yesterday, during their lavender field inspection, that they needed to offer the guests some sun protection. So she’d sent Gia to the nearest town, and the maid of honor had come back with fifty cheap straw hats she’d scored at some kind of craft wholesaler she’d tracked down. And now everyone was trying to poke lavender strands through them.
“I’m concerned that people might not get that these hats are ironic,” Elise said.
“Oh, but think how cute they’ll be in the photo booth!” said Gia, clapping her hands with false enthusiasm. “You already have all those funny props for that, so these will fit right in. We can take them over there right after the ceremony.”
“You’re right,” said Elise, brightening. “We’ll use the hats for the photo booth, and we’ll get sunglasses for everyone for the ceremony. Like, cute, funny ones. An assortment they can choose from when they go to sit down.”
Still behind Elise, Gia closed her eyes and turned her head heavenward as if appealing for divine patience.
“Maybe…” said Wendy, drawing everyone’s attention. “Maybe you can get, like, a really, really big Mason jar, and you can put the sunglasses in that.”
Gia burst out laughing but covered it with a cough. Jane bit down hard on the insides of her cheeks. Elise furrowed her brow, confused. Then she patted Wendy’s hand and said, “Great idea, sweetie,” in a way that conveyed that the idea was, in fact, the opposite of great.