The laughter melted from her voice and her eyes.
"Don't be Pacey. Joey's not worth it."
"What do you have against Joey?"
"She could never make up her mind and jerked those poor guys around for years. I hate indecisive women."
"Don't hate her, Jo. Kerris, I mean. It's not her fault."
"Who should I blame?" Jo glanced at the rose gold ALOR strapped around her delicate wrist and picked up her clutch. "We were fine before she showed up."
"No, they were fine before I showed up."
Even after Jo had gathered her things and headed off for her front-row runway seat, Walsh echoed that statement back to himself.
They were fine before he showed up. And they were fine without him.
* * *
"How ya feeling?" Kerris settled on the bench at the kitchen table beside her husband.
The month since the funeral had been just as hard as she had imagined it would be. Cam missed Kristeene terribly, and Kerris had done everything she could think of to soothe him and take his mind off the dull pain. Cam had been shocked and incredibly moved by Kristeene's generosity in her will, as Kerris had been. She had left Cam a small fortune in stocks, along with the Land Rover he'd always loved so much. She'd left a significant portion of her wardrobe to Kerris for Déjà Vu.
"How do I feel? Like the king of the world." Cam touched her stomach, his hand a warm weight through the silk of the kimono she wore after her shower.
"I mean about Kristeene." Kerris smiled at how gentle and considerate Cam had been since she'd told him about the baby.
"It's like having the worst day and the best day of your life … on the same day." Cam pulled his brows together even as the corners of his mouth turned up. "Ms. Kris would be so happy for us. You're happy, right?"
"Of course." She leaned her shoulder into his. "This is what we've talked about since the beginning. A family of our own."
"And you don't … you don't regret anything?" Cam's eyes remained fixed on the hand resting on her stomach.
Kerris knew, of course, what he was asking; the image he couldn't shake. There were moments when her mind would, of its own volition, revisit that moment, when her guard would slip, and she would be in Walsh's arms again. Feel his touch. Smell him. Taste him.
"I don't regret anything." She placed her hand over his on her still-flat stomach. "I'm just as excited about this baby as you are."
He finally looked at her, his eyes plumbing hers for the truth. She hoped what he saw satisfied him. He laid his mouth over hers briefly, but heavily, more a claim than a kiss, before standing to his feet.
"I'll be late for work if I don't get outta here. Not that I'll be working there much longer."
"Cam, you have to be careful with that money Kristeene left you."
"I'm not staying in that shitty graphic design job when I have stock worth millions, baby."
"I get that, but you don't have it yet." She walked over, grabbing his hands between hers. "It's a huge estate that's incredibly complex, and it's still being settled-papers have to be executed. I think it's good. It gives you some time to really think about the best thing to do with the money."
"You know what I've always wanted to do." He leaned down to kiss her nose. "I want to paint. Sebastian-you remember Sebastian, right? You met him at Kristeene's birthday party the night we got engaged."
"I remember him." Kerris walked over to clear their breakfast dishes from the table. "Every time I've swung by his gallery, he's never there."
"He's been in Paris." Cam threw his voice over his shoulder as he moved toward the office to grab his backpack and laptop. "He's back. He thinks I should take a year to study in Paris. He says I have a lot of raw talent, but I need it refined. I need to train and study."
"A year?" Kerris's hands froze over the sink she was about to place their breakfast dishes in. "What would we-you mean live in Paris for a year?"
"Yeah, babe. Think about it." Cam came up behind her at the sink to wrap his arms around her. "The three of us in Paris, where some of the greatest artists did their best work. I could study at the Sorbonne. If I apply now, I could be accepted in the next six months."
"Six months." Kerris turned to face him, her back against the sink. "I'm only six weeks pregnant. Déjà Vu is just getting off the ground. I want to have our baby here in the States with a doctor I trust. Our life is here."
"Working in that shitty graphic design office isn't much of a life." Cam's smile dissolved into a straight line. "This money from Kristeene is a godsend. Can't you see that? It'll give me the freedom to pursue my dream."
"I've always been your biggest cheerleader, you know that." Kerris evened her tone and placed a calming palm against his chest. "I'm just saying the timing may be a little off. Maybe in another eighteen months or so?"
"Eighteen months." Cam stepped back and stalked over to lean against the granite countertop, facing her with his arms folded across his chest. "You expect me to stay in Rivermont for eighteen months when I'll have money in the bank to pursue my dreams?"
"And my dreams?" she asked quietly. "The things I want to do? The business I just started? The family we're just starting? Are you considering any of that?"
"You know, maybe I'm missing something," Cam said curtly. "Maybe there's something else you want to stay in the States for. Or should I say someone."
Kerris reached behind her to clutch the rim of the sink. She turned her back to him, rinsing out the dishes she had left there. The muscles of her back tightened under the unrelenting burn of his stare. They hadn't spoken of that moment again since that first night. She realized that it was still between them. He was a wounded animal secretly nursing his hurt.
"Cam, do we need to talk about Walsh again?" Kerris bit her lip to keep it from trembling. "I've thought that we should. We can't sweep it under the rug and pretend it didn't happen."
"Oh, I know it happened." His voice frosted over with fresh bitterness. "Do you think I will ever forget seeing you in my best friend's arms?"
"I told you it was only a kiss," she whispered, knowing that he would hear it in the eerie silence surrounding them. "We got emotional talking about Haiti-"
"Don't give me that shit again!" His voice erupting into the quiet made her jump. "Do you think I don't see how Walsh looks at you?"
Kerris, the way my son looks at you is like a starved man. It's like he can't bring himself to look at anything else in the room.
Kristeene's words whispered back to her. Kerris tunneled her hands into the hair on either side of her head before turning to look directly at her husband. She clasped her hands together over the fear in her belly, tightly coiled like a cobra ready to strike.
"And how do I look at him?" She braved the question, refusing to even blink until he had answered; she was determined to be as honest as he would allow.
"Most of the time you don't, which I think says just as much as the way he eats you up every time he looks at you. The two of you-"
"There is no two of us!" The volume of her own voice surprised her, reverberating in the solitude of their cottage.
"I'm out." He didn't acknowledge her statement, unfolding from his deceptively indolent stance against the counter and left the kitchen. "I'm gonna be late for this shitty job you want me to stay stuck in for the next eighteen months."
"There is no two of us." Kerris charged out after him into the living room, ignoring the gibe about his job.
"You think I'm stupid?" Cam stopped at the door to face her. "Is that it? You think I don't know how you feel about him?"
"What do you want me to say?" The words heated up in her mouth and boiled over. "I've told you that I love you. That it was a mistake. That I'm not going anywhere. We're having a baby together."
"It is mine, right? Maybe that should've been my first question."
She swallowed the outrage and hurt that rolled through her. "You know that's not even possible." She waved her hand in front of him. "I've never … I can't believe you'd even say that to me. You know you're the only man I've ever been with."
"The only man unless we count-" Cam stopped short, eyes widening in horror. Kerris flinched at what he'd almost said.