One and Only(43)

“Okay, can one of you run back to town and see if you can find a dollar store or a Walmart or something and clean them out of sunglasses?”

“On it!” Gia chirped. “Let me grab some quick lunch inside, and then I’ll head out.” As she turned to go, a group of the guys appeared from the direction of the fields, where they’d been sent by Elise earlier to harvest lavender for the hats. Cameron was not among them.

Kent was, though.

Jane braced herself as Kent set a basket of lavender at her feet. What was wrong with her? Who didn’t want a nice, reliable guy to set a basket of fragrant herbs at her feet?

“You need some help, Jane?”

“Nope, I’m fine!” she said. “I think Elise has changed her mind about the hats anyway.”

Undeterred, he plopped down beside her under the tree. He looked so incongruous, with his khaki shorts and his short-sleeved plaid button-down shirt. She herself was wearing yoga pants and a tank top, having very much taken to heart Elise’s instruction that they could dress casually in the days they would spend at the site before the wedding. What did Kent see in her? Compared to him, she was a slob.

But he definitely saw something, because he was manipulating the strands of lavender, tying one end to the other, almost like he was making…oh, no.

“I made you a crown.”

“Oh…wow.” She pasted a smile on her face and ordered herself to stay still while he coroneted her.

“Oh, that is cute…” Elise trailed off in the way she did when she was getting thoughtful, which Jane knew could only spell doom.

Great. Now she was going to have to hand-weave several hundred lavender crowns in the next two days and fend off Kent.

Kent who was kind of…fixing her hair? What was happening? He had finished placing the crown, but he was sort of tucking loose strands of her hair behind her ears now, which was really—

Then there was the sound of someone clearing his throat.

Not even that, really, more of an indistinct growly sound.

She knew that growl.

“Ah, Cameron, my man,” said Kent, who had, at least, stopped touching her hair. “We wondered what had happened to you.”

Cameron looked awful. Like he was hung over, maybe? It was possible. She had gone to bed early, so she had no idea what the guys had gotten up to last night. His eyes were bloodshot and ringed with dark circles, and he was sweating something awful.

And goddamn him, even in this diminished state, he lit her up like a sky full of fireworks. It wasn’t fair.

He blinked rapidly several times and heaved a big, shaky inhale. Was he going to barf right here? His eyes darted toward the B&B. She followed his gaze. All the other guys were clustered around the entrance, talking to Gia, who apparently hadn’t left for Operation: A Thousand Sunglasses yet.

Then Cameron’s eyes darted around in all the other directions, like he was trying to plot an escape, which, as evidenced by the fact that he spun on his heel without a word and made for the wooded area opposite the lavender fields, he clearly was.

“What the hell is his problem?” said Elise. Wendy’s observation from last night, that Cameron was being weirdly antisocial, even for him, had become common currency. Jane had tried to avoid the conversations about him, because, frankly, it hurt like hell that she was the reason he was being so violently antisocial. What did it say about her that he couldn’t even compartmentalize enough to make small talk in her presence for five minutes?

“You know what? I’ve had enough of him,” said Elise. “I’m going after him, and I’m going to find out what is up his butt. He can’t be allowed to ruin my wedding.”

“I’ll go,” said Jane, hopping up as Kent attempted to place a lavender bracelet on her wrist. Elise could not find out that she’d slept with Cameron, that she was the reason he was being so impossible. And anyway, he did need a talking to, and keeping Cameron in line was what she’d signed up for, right? She smiled wanly at Elise, saying, “After all, he’s my job.”





The ground was cool against his cheek. The ground was hard beneath his body. As his lungs heaved, they expanded with each inhale against the ground he was hugging like he was taking cover in an enemy attack.

The ground is cool. The ground is hard.

These were real, physical facts. Find something to anchor yourself to the present, the shrink had said. He’d been headed for the stream that ran through these woods. It was hardly the waterfall that had been prescribed, but the gently rushing water had calmed him last night, and it had reminded him a little of Niagara Falls. Of standing next to the rushing falls while Jane kissed him.

Too bad she wasn’t here now. He had a feeling a kiss would work pretty well as an anchor. It was hard to freak the fuck out when you had a lush, curvy woman pressing herself against you, when you had Jane, with her snappy comebacks and her gentle questions, deigning to press her lips against yours. When you had—

“Cameron?”

That voice. Though it was soft, it was a lance, cutting immediately through the panic, arresting it in its tracks. It was a quick, blessed injection of air when he’d been drowning. Enough air, enough energy, that he could roll over so he was on his back, to check if it was really her and not the product of his fucked-up mind. Because wouldn’t that be the cruelest thing? Being haunted by the shit he had seen was something he could accept. It made a certain sort of macabre sense. But if the universe decided to start sending him visions of Jane that turned out to be mirages? He wasn’t sure he could survive that.

He reached out a shaking hand to brush her ankle, to check that she was real.

She didn’t say anything, just towered over him with the sun backlighting her lavender-adorned hair so that it became a curtain of flame, letting him clutch her ankle like some kind of animal. Goddess Mode: Woodland Edition.

She lowered herself to the dirt next to him, and said, “What’s wrong?”

He wanted to tell her not to sit there. It was the perfect fucking metaphor for them. He was literally wallowing in the dirt, battling the demons that plagued him, and she was lowering herself to sit next to him, concern written all over her beautiful, open face. She was wearing stretchy, light gray pants that hugged her gorgeous curves and a tank top with tiny straps, leaving her arms and much of her chest bare. If she sat here with him, she was going to get dirty.

If she sat here with him, she was going to get hurt.

He wanted to tell her all that. To save her.

But he couldn’t talk. No words would come. He could breathe again, now that she was here, but speech wasn’t attainable yet. It was impossible to force the sentiments his mind was shouting through his closed throat.

So she sat, damning herself.

Because he grabbed her. Once more than her ankle was within his grasp, he scrambled to a seated position and reached for her.

She wrapped her arms around him, and the minute they closed around him, he started shaking like a fucking baby bird tipped out of its nest. His whole body was racked with shudders, in fact. She held him, stroked the back of his head while he quaked.

But he was still breathing. He could still breathe.

And he could feel.

She was kneeling across from him and, as they sat facing each other and she held him, only their upper bodies touched. It wasn’t enough, suddenly. He needed to feel more of her. His body had finally tuned into something besides its own panic, its own sense of imminent danger, and it was such a goddamned fucking relief.

He let his hands slide down her back and settle on the globes of her ass. He squeezed, and she whimpered a little.

“Get over here,” he rasped, his heart rejoicing that he’d managed to produce words to accurately represent the thoughts inside his head. “Please.”

She obeyed, scrambling to straddle his lap, settling herself so snugly against his growing arousal that he gasped. He’d only meant that he needed to touch more of her, for more of her body to be in contact with more of his, but now that she was here, he wasn’t giving up an inch. He kept his hands on her ass and thrust his hips up, shamelessly grinding his cock against her. He could feel her heat through the thin fabric of her pants.

“Oh,” she moaned. “Cameron.”

“Yes,” he said, not precisely sure what he was agreeing to, maybe just the sound of her speaking his name in pleasure. God, he had missed her. It had only been two days since they’d woken up together at Jay’s, but it was like a lifetime had elapsed, entire battles waged, since he’d had his hands on her, where they belonged.

He slid his hands up inside her tank top. She was wearing some kind of stretchy sports bra, so he kept sliding them up under that, too, grabbing handfuls of flesh and squeezing, kneading.

“Oh my God,” she said, letting her head fall back, which exposed her throat to him.

He licked it, and she yelped, lifted herself off him a little despite his protests, and started trying to shove her pants down. “I need you,” she pleaded, and the sound of it nearly made him come in his pants. “I need you inside me right now.”

“We don’t have any condoms,” he said against her neck as he nuzzled it. The noise of protest she made was nearly his undoing. “Don’t worry, baby, I can still make you feel good.”

“Please,” she said, “please.”