Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 94630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Mac gestured to the space in front of him.
Cam hadn’t eaten much for lunch, but what little was in his belly rose up and watered his mouth with nausea. He scurried toward the door, but Mac grabbed him by the hair, making needles of pain pierce Cam’s scalp.
Cam shook his head, clamping his lips shut, squirming away. Mac could beat him until he was blue and purple; there was no way he was doing this. Just as Cam prepared for the beating of his life, Mac pulled out a knife and pressed it to Cam’s neck, just below his ear. A tiny trickle of blood oozed from the soft spot and into Cam’s collar.
“Cut me,” Cam said, shoving the tremor out of his voice. “I don’t care.”
“Oh, you brave now, huh?” The sound Mac made shouldn’t have been called a laugh it was so dark and scary. “You don’t care if I cut you, but what about your mama?”
Cam’s eyes flew to Mac’s face. He knew. Mac knew that Cam had a weak spot for Mama, even though she didn’t have one for him. Mama was a druggie, but she somehow still managed to be pretty. Even bony as a skeleton and with her caramel skin blotched and ashy, she was pretty. Cam imagined deep cuts across her face or worse, a stab wound in her chest. He swallowed back tears, but not because Mac pressed the knife deeper into his neck. He would get away one day, but it wouldn’t be today.
“Cam!”
Cam met Jo’s eyes in the mirror, slowly coming back to present, blinking away the nightmare of his past.
“Baby, you cut yourself.” Jo leaned up, rubbing her thumb across the scarlet blossoming in the shaving cream on his neck, like a rose in the snow.
Cam dropped the razor, letting it clatter in the sink. His sleep had gotten better, but it was like the past no longer waited for the night. It intruded throughout the day, puncturing the fragile membrane separating the past from the present, dream from reality. Time was permeable, memories passing through with ease to mock his false sense of safety.
“Are you okay?” Jo put down her makeup brush, reaching for a hand towel to wipe the blood and shaving cream from his jaw. “You kind of drifted off there for a second.”
Cam nodded, shivering despite the steam from the recent shower permeating the bathroom.
“Just got lost in thought.” He drew Jo close, burying his nose in the wild, scented cloud of her hair.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that the monster had found out. A woman was still Cam’s weakness. It wasn’t Mama anymore, but just like then, Cam would do anything to protect the one he loved.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jo used her key to open the cottage door, balancing her purse, her iPad, and the bag of Indian takeout she had picked up after work. Even after the door swung open, she lingered on the porch for a few moments, enjoying the October evening. It wasn’t late enough in the season for dark to shoo off daylight too early, but the nights were so much cooler. Maybe she and Cam could eat out on the patio tonight, wrapped in sweaters and each other. Or by the river. Jo had been in the office since seven o’clock this morning, literally cloistered in that building for almost twelve hours. Tomorrow promised to be more of the same. She needed all the outdoors she could get.
She dumped everything on the kitchen island, grabbed a container of momos, the dumplings she and Cam loved, and kicked off her shoes, padding back to the studio where Cam was sure to be painting. Over the last few weeks, she’d been amazed at how incredibly focused he’d been, painting long after she’d turned in to sleep. She woke up one morning to find an entire wall of his bedroom painted with an almost exact replica of the big oak tree from her backyard. Rope tree swing and all. Only difference, he’d added a carved heart to his tree with their names. She came home from work one day to find a riverbank painted on the opposite wall, two jars of fireflies resting in the grass.
This was the bad boy Walsh warned her about? This sweet, creative, gifted thoughtful man who usually had a bath run for her when she walked through the door?
“I’ll take the bad boy any day, then,” she told the empty room, feeling the goofy grin on her face only Cam could put there.
She’d grinned and laughed and sighed more in the two months they’d been together than maybe in her whole life. She’d always had a good life, but to put it simply, Cam made it better, and she was pretty sure she did the same for him. Even when things were as hectic as they had been for them both. Between him preparing for his first exhibit and creating protocols for that romantic comedy, and her finalizing things for the Haitian adoptions, they only saw each other a few hours a day.