Heart of Light (26 page)

She rolled her eyes, pissed that he could see right through all her tricks and games. “What
hasn’t
happened to me?”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” she hissed, raising her voice.

“That. Stop feeling so fucking sorry for yourself. You have a past. I get that. I don’t care about that. It’s shaped who you are and, goddammit, will you just see that you’re such a strong, amazing, gorgeous woman who I…”

“Who you what?” she asked with a quiver in her voice, her body warming at the depth and fire behind his eyes. But there was something else there, too. Something she knew she didn’t deserve.

“Who I admire, Jolene,” he said, sighing deeply. “Who I wish could finally see herself as I see her. Who I wish would stop lying to all of the people who care about her. And, most importantly, who I wish would stop lying to herself.”

“It’s not that easy, Cam.”

“Just answer me this question, and please be honest. Has someone hurt you? Last night? In there?” He gestured toward the front door. “Did someone find you?”

Jolene scanned the beach, the large deck seeming so small under Cam’s inquisitive stare.

“Please, Jolene. Just tell me the truth.”

She took a deep breath and returned her eyes to his. “No. Just like I said…” she started, a lone tear falling down her cheek. She hated herself for that tear, especially after the promise she made to herself last night. “I fell.”

“Take off your sunglasses and say that.” His expression was void of all emotion as he waited for her to comply with his request.

Removing the shades from her face, she glared at him. “Like I said, Dr. Bowen, I fucking fell. Now stop trying to make it seem like I’m a helpless victim. I’m not. Like you said, I’m strong. And I’d appreciate it if you would stop accusing me of lying to you. Stop trying to think that you can come in here and fix me. Leave that for your actual patients.” She stood up, heading toward the front door.

He followed her across the deck. “Is that what you think I’m doing? I just want to…”

“I know, I know.” She spun around, her eyes on fire. “
Help
me. Please, Cam.” Her voice changed from firm to soft. “I’m fine. I don’t want you always worrying about me. It’s exhausting. I just want you to trust me. Trust that I will tell you if something is not okay. Then I can learn to trust you, and finally…” She gazed off in the distance as a black Town Car drove down the street. Was he going to constantly keep tabs on her?

“Finally what?”

She turned up her lips slightly in the corner, a small smile crossing her face. Slowly raising herself on her toes, she breathed against his mouth. “Finally let you touch me. I want that more than anything, Cam. So, please, trust me, and I’ll be able to trust you. Okay?”

He stared into her clear blue eyes, his blood warming from the closeness of her body. Her breath smelled like a combination of hazelnut and a sweet, sultry scent.

“Okay. But just so you know, I do trust you. And we’ll take this at your own pace, baby steps.”

Jolene giggled.

“I love that sound.” He hovered over her lips a moment more before pulling back, needing to keep his distance from her before he could no longer hide his aroused state.

“I’m going to catch some waves. I’ll come see you before I have to go to work. Okay?”

She nodded.

Cam waved at her as he walked off the deck, unable to shake the feeling that, regardless of all her assurances and promises, she was lying to him about what happened last night.

~~~~~~~~~~

E
VERY
DAY
BECAME
THE
same for Jolene. Get up. Make coffee. Put on a smile. Sit on the deck and wait for Cam to arrive. Be cheerful. Make jokes. Listen to him tell her how much he loved her wit and sarcasm. Die a little more inside, knowing that it wasn’t who she really was. She wanted him to know the true Jolene, but that would mean telling him about her past, and she most certainly could not do that. Her present was too tenuous.

Some evenings they went out to dinner. She enjoyed her time with him, especially their almost kisses. He was the only ray of light in her world of darkness. She often wondered how much longer he could possibly be patient with their baby steps, but he was.

She dreaded the night, never knowing if she would have an unexpected visitor. He demanded a key and she had to obey, or Cam’s life would be destroyed. She pondered the irony of it all. She was ruining her own life so that Cam’s livelihood could remain intact.

On the nights that she got home from a date with Cam, David would be angry. He said he didn’t like to share, but she reminded him that it was necessary to not raise suspicion. Neither of them could afford anyone knowing about their arrangement, although he cautioned her time and again that it was the word of an upstanding, well-respected U.S. Senator against the word of a whore. And she knew that he was right. No one would believe her even if she did say something, but she never did. Fear forced her to remain silent.

Over the weeks, Cam noticed that something had changed in Jolene. She was on edge. Whenever they were out somewhere, she appeared carefree and at ease with him, but the moment he dropped her off at the beach house, she closed up.

At first, he thought that she was just nervous about him touching her again, especially after her reaction the night of the kiss. But the more he thought about it, the less sense that made. She had gone to his house for dinner several times over the past few months and they would sit on the couch together, watching movies. He would put his arm almost around her, and they would almost kiss as she straddled him, making herself come when she ground against him. He grew uneasy thinking that his own beach house was holding her back. Maybe getting her away from everything would help her open up and bring back the spirited, fiery Jolene.

“Pack your bags, baby steps,” Cam said one morning toward the end of September.

She looked up from her book, smiling when she saw him leaning against the railing on her front deck, his arms crossed over his chest, making her heart flutter.

“Are we going somewhere?” she asked, raising her eyebrows, attempting to maintain her composure. “Or are you finally sick of me squatting in your prime ocean-front rental property?”

He took several deliberate steps toward her, leaning down, his lips almost flush with hers. “How many times do we need to have this conversation, Jolene? I couldn’t think of any other person I’d rather have living in this house.”

“Is that the truth?” she breathed against his mouth. “Or are you just saying that in hopes that I finally let you kiss me again?”

“Oh, Jolene. I’ve been quite enjoying almost kissing you these past several months. It almost makes me want to never taste your lips again.”

“Really?” she asked with a pout on her face.

“Almost. Not quite. But not until you’re ready.” His lips nearly brushed against hers. “Now, go pack your bags. I’m taking you on a road trip.”

“I have to work,” she said nervously, floundering to come up with a believable excuse.

Cam pulled back, smirking. “No, you don’t. I happen to be close friends with your boss. You’re off for the weekend. I’ll be back in an hour to pick you up.”

“Cam,” she protested, “I can’t leave.”

“You’ve been holed up here for months. You don’t even stay at my place anymore. We need to get you out of this house before it kills your spirit. That’s what’s been happening, Jolene.” His expression turned sincere. “I’ve noticed something change in you. You’re closing up again. I’m not going to make you tell me what’s going on, but some time away will do you good. Will do both of us good, I think.”

“I’m not sure I’m ready to go away with you just yet,” she said in a futile attempt to come up with some excuse without having to tell him about her agreement with David. Smirking, she met his eyes. “That’s one hell of a baby step, if you ask me.”

“Yes. I know. But it’s one that I think we need to take…together.” He leaned down, his lips hovering on her exposed neck. “Please… Choose me, Jolene.”

“Yes,” she exhaled in a moment of weakness, the word leaving her mouth before she could stop it.

A wide grin crossed his face. “I knew I could get you to say yes.” He retreated from her, leaping off the deck. “Be back in an hour, gorgeous.”

Jolene watched as he sped away in his Wrangler, hoping that she didn’t just sign the death warrant to Cam’s career.

“S
O
,
WHERE
ARE
YOU
taking me?” Jolene asked a few hours later as Cam drove south along the coast of Florida.

“Ever been to Key West?” he asked, his eyebrows raised.

“Nope. Never been anywhere other than Houston and…” She stopped short.

Cam reached across the car, his hand hovering over hers, wanting to grasp it in his as a sign of comfort. “It’s okay.” He glanced at her, smiling in a soothing manner. “Were you born in Houston?” he asked, wanting her to stop thinking about wherever she lived other than Houston. It was readily apparent that the place held nothing but horrible memories for her.

“Yes, I was. At least I think I was. I never really asked. I just always assumed I was. Mom had an accent so I think that’s where I was born. She was killed in a car accident when I was fifteen.” She stared out the car as they drove across the Seven Mile Bridge. “It was a rainy Monday in December. I came home from school about a week before Christmas break and she wasn’t home, which was a little strange. She was normally always there when I finished school. Growing up, she was always a bit over-protective of me. I’d love to have someone look out for me the way that she used to.”

“I’ll look out for you that way, Jolene. If you’ll let me.”

She glanced across the car at him, the silence deafening as she processed his words. She wondered if she would ever be able to trust anyone enough to open her heart and love as unconditionally as Cam deserved.

“Do you know what happened? I mean, with the car accident?” he asked, breaking the awkward silence.

“No. Just a little while after I got home from school, there was a knock on the door…” She trailed off, her chin quivering, the memory of that day still painful.

“I’m sorry,” he said solemnly.

“Me, too.”

He could tell that there was more to the story than just her mother dying in a car accident, but he refused to pry. He wondered whether her mother had really died in a car accident at all.

“How about you, Casanova?” Jolene asked, her voice bright and cheery, a complete change from just a moment ago.

Cam smiled. “Will you stop calling me that?”

“Not on your life. So, since we’re in a sharing mood here, what’s your story?”

“What would you like to know?” he asked nervously.

“Where in South Carolina did you grow up?”

“Myrtle Beach, for the most part.”

“Where did you go to college?”

“Aren’t we nosey today? Why the sudden need to find out everything about me?”

Jolene shrugged, crossing her arms defensively in front of herself. “Maybe the more I find out about you, the better my chance of telling you my story because I really want to.”

“Then what’s stopping you?”

Her eyes met his. “Fear.”

One word. That’s all it took to tear at Cam’s heart. He saw the fear in Jolene’s eyes, regardless of all the times she had said that she was done choosing fear. He was almost positive that she had been broken down and reconditioned. He wanted to recondition her to feel another emotion, something other than fear. He wanted her to choose love because, with each passing moment, he was beginning to feel that when he looked at her.

“University of South Carolina,” he said, lightening the heavy atmosphere in the car. “Go, Game Cocks.”

“What are your sisters’ names?”

He took a deep breath. “Meg and Julianna…and Marley.”

“Older? Younger?”

“Younger…”

A smirk crossed Jolene’s face. “Thought so.”

Cam scrunched his eyebrows at her. “Why do you say that?”

“Isn’t it obvious? You have this caregiver personality to you. It just screams oldest child.”

He chuckled. “Who’s the psychiatrist here? You or me?”

“Well, technically you, I suppose, but like Elsie says…you bartend for long enough, you end up being able to read people.”

“Jolene, darling,” he said, his eyes hooded. “I’ll let you read me any time you want to.”

Her heart raced and she wondered how a man like Cam could make her completely speechless in the blink of an eye.

“Meg has a few kids and Jules is in med. school to become a pediatrician,” he said, bringing Jolene back from her thoughts. “They’re still in South Carolina. They never really left.”

“So why did you leave if your family is still there?”

“Well, I went out to California for med. school. UCLA.”

“Why did you want to go so far away? It sounds like you’re pretty close with your family, so I imagine going across the country must have been difficult on you. And them.”

“Aren’t you just full of questions today? In the few months that I’ve known you, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you ask so many questions.”

“Just answer me and stop trying to analyze everything I do.”

“I needed to get away for a little while. My mama passed away from leukemia a year before I graduated college.”

“I’m sorry, Cam,” Jolene offered, her voice soft.

“She was diagnosed during my junior year. I thought about withdrawing so that I could spend time with her, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She passed away that summer.”

“How about your father?”

“My dad was killed by a drunk driver just a few weeks after my eighth birthday. My mama took it hard and had trouble coping with the loss. She turned to drugs and alcohol. We lost the house and had to move from apartment to apartment in some really shady areas.”

“I didn’t mean to pry. You don’t have to tell…”

“My dad was the love of her life…her soul mate,” he interrupted. “I had to take care of both Marley and myself. Marley’s my twin sister. My other half. I should have done more, but I was only eight.” He glanced thoughtfully over the ocean all those feet below.