So Good: A Ribbon Ridge Novel (Love on the Vine Book 1) (31 page)

Her phone vibrated on the counter, and she jumped up thinking, stupidly, that it was maybe him. But no, it was Rhonda. On FaceTime. Brooke didn’t want to talk to her. And she sure as hell didn’t want Rhonda to see her like this.

The vibrating stopped for a moment, then started again. When it stopped for the second time, Brooke picked up the phone and sent her a text.

I don’t want to talk right now.

Rhonda: You okay? I feel bad about earlier.

Brooke stared at her phone. She wanted to say, “Yeah, I’m fine.” But she’d never been good at lying to Rhonda.

Brooke: No. I ended it with Cam.

The phone showed that Rhonda was typing. And typing. And typing. Finally: I’m sorry to hear that. Did you tell him why?

Brooke: If you’re asking whether I told him about my infertility, no. I told him we were a dead end. And we are.

Rhonda: So you didn’t trust him with the facts and give him a chance to decide for himself?

Brooke’s tears had stopped when she’d started typing. Now they dried completely as she glared at the phone. She set it down on the counter and walked into the living room. That was a mistake. All she could see out the window was Cam’s townhouse.

She pivoted and went right back to the kitchen, where her phone was vibrating as Rhonda tried calling again. Picking it up, she hit Ignore. Then she texted Rhonda again.

Please leave me alone. I know you think you’re helping, but you’re not. This is my life and I’m not going to live it the way you would.

Rhonda: From where I’m sitting, you’re barely living it at all. What’s the worst that could happen if you told him the truth? He’d leave you and you’d be no worse off than you are now. But what if he didn’t? What if he’s everything Darren wasn’t and you find a way to be together—happy? I can’t believe you don’t even want to try.

Brooke turned her phone over on the counter and walked to her room in a fog. She sat down on the edge of her bed and stared, unseeing, at the wall.
 

Rhonda was right. Logically, anyway. There was no way Cam could hurt her more than Darren had. But he could still hurt her. And she knew she couldn’t give him what he wanted. Questions pinged in her brain:

What if you really don’t know what he wants?

What if he stands by you and builds a future with you?

What if he is your happily ever after?

Those were a lot of what-ifs. She wasn’t sure she could chance them. She told herself this was for Cam, that she was saving him from heartache when he learned the truth about her. The reality, however, was that she was protecting herself because she was too scared to risk him leaving her. Better to be the one to do the leaving.

If only she hadn’t fallen for him so hard. She got up and went back to the kitchen. Ignoring her phone, she went to the flowers and unwrapped them. One by one, she took them out of the plastic and snipped the ends of the stems. She sprinkled the food packet into the vase and arranged them one rose at a time, adding in the baby’s breath and greenery as she went. When she got to the last flower, the white one, she knew she’d made a terrible mistake.

He was her friend, and she hadn’t treated him like one. Friends trusted each other, and friends were honest. She owed him at least that much.

And maybe, just maybe, Rhonda was right.

Now she had to try to make herself look presentable, which meant a bunch of cold water and some makeup.

Chapter Nineteen

T
he sun had long dropped from Cam’s view as he sat on his back porch, but the brilliant streaks of orange and yellow and pink from its setting streaked the sky. They were beautiful and warm and happy—in complete opposition to the way he felt.

He lifted his beer bottle to drink, and when nothing hit his lips, he recalled that he’d finished it. He set the empty on the table. He should get up and get another. Or ten.

Only he was rooted to the chair. The breeze stirred, rustling through his hair, but he didn’t feel the temperature. It could’ve been ice-cold, and he wouldn’t have noticed.

He’d done a good job over the past however long he’d been sitting here keeping Brooke from his mind, but without the beer to occupy him, like it had really been the beer, thoughts of her assaulted him.

Her laugh. The sparkle in her eye. The lilt of her voice when she gave him great snark or cried his name as he made love to her.

Ha, made love. It had been that for him but clearly something completely different for her. The ease with which she’d terminated their short-lived relationship cut right through his heart and battered his soul. He’d kept himself closed off for nearly a decade. And it hadn’t been long enough.

He stood up. Time for another beer or maybe something stronger. He grabbed the empty from the table and went into the house. After dropping it in the recycle, he went to his liquor cabinet and perused his choices. Tequila? No, too celebratory. Gin? Not hard enough. Thirty-year-old Highland malt whiskey? Hell, yes.

He pulled the bottle down and went to grab a glass. It was then that he heard his phone vibrating on the counter where he’d tossed it earlier. He didn’t think it would be her. What more could she want to say to him? She didn’t seem particularly vindictive, even if she was a heartless bitch.

He set the bottle down and picked up the phone as the call dropped. Four missed calls. From an unknown number. Southern Oregon area code. Like Brooke’s area code.

But not her number.

The phone vibrated again, this time with FaceTime. The picture that appeared on the screen wasn’t someone he knew, but she looked familiar. The shape of her face and the set of her eyes screamed Brooke. One of her sisters?

His first instinct was to ignore the call—he couldn’t imagine why either of them would want to contact him. But something picked at the back of his mind, and he decided to answer. Maybe they were trying to reach Brooke and couldn’t. Maybe something had happened to her.

Despite what had transpired earlier, he didn’t want to contemplate that. He answered the call and didn’t give a shit about his rudeness. “Who are you?”

She smiled, but it seemed strained. Her eyes held a nervous glint. “Hi, Cam. You are Cam, right? You look like your picture.”

“Yeah, I’m Cam. Who are you, and why are you calling me?”
 

“I’m Rhonda Markwith—Brooke’s older sister.”

Score a point for him, not that it mattered. “Still waiting for the why you’re calling.” He knew he sounded obnoxious, but he didn’t care. Especially with one of Brooke’s relatives.

She set the phone down and straightened in her chair. Behind her, he saw a wall with photos. He didn’t look too closely but saw kids. They must be hers.

“My sister’s an idiot.”

That wasn’t the word he would choose. “She’s something, all right.”

Rhonda winced. “Yes, about that. I’m going to break her confidence and tell you something I probably shouldn’t because I think it’s important. It might not matter in the great scheme of things, but if somebody doesn’t fight for what they really want here, it would be a tragedy.”

Cam stared at her for a moment, torn as to whether he wanted to hear whatever she had to say. He supposed it couldn’t be worse than anything Brooke had already said to him. “I want to be intrigued, but I don’t think I can muster that right now.”

She nodded. “I get it. Just listen. Brooke can’t have children.”

Of all the things he might have been expecting, that hadn’t been it. She didn’t say anything more, probably to let this sink in. But he was having trouble processing. “She told me she didn’t want children. If she doesn’t want them, what difference does it make?”

“Because she lied to you. She does want children. Desperately. She tried—for years—with her ex, and it just wasn’t possible—”

Cam cut her off. “She lied to me? Why would she lie to me?” He’d been lied to before, and it had hurt. This time was no different. His insides curled in on themselves, like someone was peeling him away layer by layer. He shouldn’t feel this strongly given the amount of time they’d known each other. But damn it, he did. He loved her. And she’d lied to him.

Rhonda had started talking again, but he didn’t hear a word of what she said. Well, he heard sound, but the meaning? Absolutely no idea. He couldn’t process past the anger and hurt thundering in his head.

“Thanks for calling.” He disconnected the call without noticing if she’d stopped talking and definitely without caring.

He turned and stalked out of his townhouse, slamming the door behind him. He barely looked before crossing the street. At the door to Brooke’s loft, he hesitated. He had to buzz up, and she wouldn’t let him in. Probably.
 

Clenching his fists, he swore violently. Maybe someone would come along. She’d asked him not to come in that way, but right now he didn’t give a shit what she wanted. She owed him the truth.

He paced in front of the building and froze a moment later at the sound of her voice.

“Cam?”

He turned and saw her standing just outside the door. Had she seen him out here? His gaze flicked up to her window as if he could assess her view. It didn’t matter. She was here. And he was livid.

“Your sister just called me. I think I deserve an explanation.”

The light from the lamp on the outside of the building splashed over her face. She was pale and her eyes were red, as if she’d been crying. Good.

“What did she say?” Her voice was low, and it trembled like a leaf on a blustery day.

“That you can’t have kids, but that you want them. Is that true?”

She squeezed her hands together. “Yes. I was just coming to tell you.”

“Because you were hoping to beat your sister to it? How big of you.”

“I didn’t know she was going to call you. I’m sorry she did—not because I’m mad she told you. It’s just… This is between us.”

“There is no us.”

She flinched. “Can I explain?”

“No. Maybe. But I’m talking first. You had a chance to tell me the truth, but you chose to lie instead.” He advanced on her. Her eyes darkened with trepidation, but she didn’t move. “Do you know what I hate more than anything? People who lie to me. My ex lied to me. All the time. All while I was so in love with her and planning to ask her to be my wife, she was fucking some other guy and getting engaged to him. So lying isn’t something I can tolerate. Ever.”

She paled even further, her eyes looking dark and huge in her face. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize—”

“And would that have changed anything?” He took another step toward her until he could reach out and touch her. He caught her familiar scent—that damn vanilla and bergamot—and hated it. “If you’d known I’d been utterly betrayed, you would’ve told me the truth? I don’t think so. Tell me why you lied.”

“I just…” Her lip quivered, and she looked away, turning her head. “It hurts too much. I saw you with your niece, and then when Kyle’s baby was born… You should have children.” She turned her head back to look at him. “I can’t give you any.”

For the first time, his brain slowed and relinquished a bit of his anger. “Why? What’s…what’s the problem?”

“I don’t have viable eggs, and my uterus isn’t hospitable. I had a surgery to try to fix it, but it didn’t work, so I can’t even carry a donor egg.” She smiled then, and it was the saddest expression he’d ever seen. Nearly all his ire fled. “So you see, I’m pretty worthless when it comes to procreation.” A tear snaked down her cheek, and he stared at it, trying to understand what this meant for her.
 

“I’m sorry.”

She wiped at her face with the back of her hand. “Yeah, it sucks.” She tried another smile, this one a little better but still wobbly. “You’d think I’d have come to terms with it over the past few years, but I really, really wanted to be a mom.”

The ache in her voice sliced into his heart. And he learned something vital about himself right then: “I really want to be a dad.”

She nodded and another tear escaped. “I know. I can see that about you. I love that about you. I wish…I wish things were different. I’m so sorry about earlier. If I wasn’t in love with you, I could’ve just kept going as we were.”

In love with him. She was in love with him.

“I love you too. But—” That single word fell out of his mouth before he could censor it. He loved her, but she was standing here telling him she couldn’t give him children, something he realized he wanted. The future he’d denied himself out of the hurt and anger he’d nurtured the past eight years unfolded before him—a dream he hadn’t known he’d harbored. Until now.