Attractive Nuisance (Legally in Love Book 1) (13 page)

A thousand speech bubbles floated through her head with similar phrases, rising then popping, then being replaced with new ideas about Zane, about the two of them, about the future with him.

“You know,” he murmured. “We could make beautiful children together.”

Camilla sprang back. “Uh, not tonight, though, of course.” It wasn’t like she was going from a first date kisser to a first date sleep-arounder in a single moment just because this incredible man with irresistible lips and charm admitted his longstanding interest in her. Sure, she knew him, but certainly not well enough for something like that. And definitely not before marriage. No way.

“No, of course not. Just…sometime. Maybe. If you decide it’s right. I mean, you are such a gorgeous brunette. Your eyes, their depth and the way they change color when you wear blue or green or gray to match your sweater—we’d have pretty little daughters, tough little sons. I’d take them out in the hills, hiking, and the girls, you can teach them to fish. We’d have so many great memories with them. And they’d feel loved. Really loved. Just like your parents loved you.” With another thousand words he spun beautiful pictures of their future together, and for a moment, Camilla believed it could all be real, be
hers.

But then reality hit.

She’d aged. She wasn’t starting her family at nineteen like she originally planned. Or even at twenty-two like she’d considered the final possible moment. The cutoff had long since come and gone. Her heart bled a little when she thought of what she’d lost—by not meeting Zane until it was so late in life, by not letting him into her world even one year earlier. Not that it would have made a difference. Even a year ago, she’d have been too old. She wouldn’t be a mom who left her children and grandchildren motherless, grandmother-less that way.

But it wasn’t a balloon she dared pop. Not for Zane. Not now. He had those desires. And she wanted him. She wanted him a lot. More with every passing minute of the time they spent together. Not just in the passionate way. She wanted
him,
his soul, to be part and parcel with hers. It wasn’t really fair to hook him and reel him in if she knew she couldn’t give him that future picture he’d painted.

She’d have to think of some other way out.

And then it presented itself—in a much more painfully effective way than she would have imagined. Or liked.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Summary Judgment

Camilla rested her head on Zane’s shoulder and spoke. Ignoring the castles he’d built in the air—at least with her change of subject—she sighed. “I only have one regret.”

“Lucky you.” He gave a chuckle like his regrets piled higher than the charges laid against the Beemer Bandit. “So what’s your
one
regret, Camilla Sweeten?” She liked the way he said her name, like it was a brook over rocks. How would Camilla Holyoake sound? Ooh, even nicer. Too bad it could never be.

“Just that we have to be pitted against each other for the promotion. You know, for deputy county attorney.”

“Oh, that.” Zane leaned back and lay down on the sleeping bag, his hands laced behind his head. His biceps pressed against the fabric of his shirt, and Camilla didn’t stop herself from staring. “It’s not really fair, is it?”

“No. I mean, I know Falcon was pushing to set us up. But then to force us to compete—it’s not fair.”

“That’s not what I meant. Not exactly.”

Camilla frowned. “Then what do you mean?”

“I guess I mean that it’s not fair that you’re going to work so hard to come up with a prosecution against old Veldon Twiss, stealer of dreams of sick children, and I’m still going to get the job.” He closed his eyes. “I really do want to nail that jerk to the wall.”

“What do you mean, you’re still going to get the job?” The air started crackling, and something felt wrong about it. “Is it that you’re just so cocky about your skills with the jury?” Those skills were formidable. But that didn’t come into play. Not yet. The deal was that whoever came up with the best prosecution argument got the job. Not the one who won the case or swayed the jury. Falcon was going on logical reasoning and strength of argument alone. Wasn’t he?

Wasn’t he?

“I’ve never been ‘cocky,’ as you put it, about that. Well, not very. Okay, maybe a little. But it’s my one skill in the legal arena. I gotta make the most of it.”

Have got to.
Oh, dear. No, it was better as
have to.
And worse, she’d taken to correcting his grammar again. Not a good sign.

“It’s like when we were in Iraq. Wyatt was the gunner. Garrett drove the Hummer over rough terrain like he was on the world’s smoothest racetrack. Probably from years of driving Miss Baby.” He frowned, as if remembering a thousand unpleasant things, then it blew over, like a cloud in the spring. “Me, I could spot an IED from twenty yards. Kept Garrett from ever hitting one in our HumVee.”

Hearing a smattering of his war stories softened her again, and she relaxed down onto him, her eyes watching the swaying of the lantern above him, her head against his bicep. It made the best pillow she’d ever rested against, even if it was firm. He pulled her up to his side, and she curled against him. Wow. This was a fit like she’d been carved from a puzzle piece just for him.

“No, I guess I might as well tell you.”

“What?” She breathed him in. Their breathing rhythm synchronized. Whatever he had to say, it couldn’t deplete or do a thing to counteract the power of this feeling right now, of oneness, of singularity. She almost didn’t listen.

“Oh, just that it’s not really fair because I don’t even plan on trying.”

“Trying what?” She asked it dreamily. It didn’t matter what he tried. Yes, he’d win. She’d almost consider letting him.

“Uh, trying to win the case.”

“Oh, that.” A vapor of smoke. That’s all her thoughts were now. It’d been a long day. She had no intention of sleeping the whole night at his side. Her soft bed in the cab of Baby awaited. But would it hurt to just let herself drift off for a moment?

“The right thing to do would be to tell Falcon to base it on merit, on content. And if he did that, I’m pretty sure you’ll get the promotion, hands down. We all know my style with the jury isn’t content-heavy. It’s more on swaying them to my side.”

She was easily swayed to his side. More like glued.

“And? So?” None of this was new. And the dream world was starting to rise in precedence to the conversation world here. Her stomach growled. She could eat KFC in the morning. Sleep…

“So, I guess I should mention, that was part of the deal for me coming here to work for Falcon. He said I had to prove myself, but that he’d make sure I got everything I wanted. Haw.”

Camilla’s eyes snapped open. Had she just dreamed that last part? She coughed herself awake. “Did you just say Falcon promised you the deputy county attorney position already? Does that mean I’m just working myself to death for nothing on this case? I
don’t
actually have a shot at the promotion?” The deception!

“Well,” Zane shook his head. “It’s not really as black and white as all that.”

“The law never is.” She hated that about it. She wanted things to be right and wrong, black and white, true and false. Being a lawyer forced her to confront the grays of life every day, but she rejected them every chance she got. Justice existed. And black must be washed white. Punishment was the only way to exonerate the crime. “This looks cut and dried to me. It’s deceit.”

“Don’t look at it that way, Cami.”

“Don’t call me Cami.” She brushed off her sweater. She tugged it back into place and surged to her feet. “I’m not impressed with you right now. And I don’t like being treated like some pawn in some chess match you and Falcon have set up. Why would you do this? Do you think of criminal prosecution as some kind of game? There is personal property at stake. There are lives of kids at stake. There is justice on the line.”

And truthfully, an innocent man might be taking the rap for something he did not do, if the shoe print had anything to do with it.

“Let me tell you something, Zane. Up until a second ago, I was as mesmerized as one of your jurors.” Stupid tears. Their heat and salt stung her cheeks as they fell. Her nose even started to run. Dang it. And she prided herself on being the one woman alive who could keep her emotions in check during an argument. “Never again.” With a searing shriek, the tent’s zipper whipped open at her tug, and she stumbled out into the night.

Without a flashlight, she made a bumbling mess of a journey across the camp. First she careened into the tailgate on Baby, which was still down. Then she tripped on not one, not two, but three fallen pine branches. Her knee might never be the same. No skirts for her for at least two weeks until the bruises healed. With the hardest stomps her legs could make, she stumbled toward the final embers of the earlier campfire.

“Sheldon?” she called into the night. She had no idea which of the tents was his and Lydia’s, but she had no other choice. She had to find him, and there wasn’t another way. “Sheldon?”

A couple of tents made rustling sounds, and one or two zipped open. A head popped out of one just fifteen feet away from the pavilion. Sheldon’s voice came groggy. “Camilla? Is that you waking up all the bears from here to kingdom come?”

Bears. Ugh. In the force and security of Zane’s kisses, she’d forgotten about the threat of bears. Geez. Even more reason she had to get out of here—now.

“Can you and Lydia forgive me? I need to go home.”

He stuck his head back inside, and then there was some rustling and a jingle of keys. The night air had snapped cold, and Camilla shivered. Being next to Zane she’d not noticed any temperature but utter warmth. Now, a chill took hold of her chest and stomach, and the center of her body started a shaking that wouldn’t let go, no matter how she tensed her abdomen to quell it.

In no time, out lurched Sheldon, followed by his wife Lydia. They each had a flashlight, and Lydia brought a cozy blanket and handed it to Camilla.

“I’m so sorry, Sheldon, Lydia.”

Lydia hugged her. “Oh, hon. We thought you’d never ask. I’m pretty sure our family, for one, has had enough. Here. You look cold.” She arranged the blanket around Camilla, warming her.

“What?”

“I was refusing to roll out my bedroll, begging Shel here to take me down the mountain. And Destry won’t stop texting and being mad when they won’t go through.” She handed Camilla her bedding and bent to help Sheldon un-pop the pop-up tent. “All I can say is
thank you.
If I had to spend another meal up here, I was going to insist Sheldon start job shopping. I hate this thing every year.”

“You, too?”

“Oh, hon. Every spouse does. It’s torture. And that awful campfire Falcon makes everyone sit through—it borders on inhumane.” She let her hand fly to her mouth. Sound carried on the night air. Camilla glanced around. No one else seemed to be up. It was all right. Their tent was down in a snap and thrown into the back of the pickup.

Sheldon sat in the driver’s seat, and Lydia got right in beside him, but Destry crawled, catatonic into the crew cab seat and took up the whole bench lying down. With that, Camilla sat in the passenger seat. Lydia put her head on Sheldon’s shoulder as they started to drive. Camilla saw the wife look up at the husband with love—and ached inside, knowing she’d never be able to give anyone a look of love, of trust, like that.

She drew a shuddering breath and swallowed hard.

Why did life have to be so stinking lame?

It took a while before Camilla could talk, and Sheldon respected that. But about halfway into the drive, Lydia put an arm around her. “Are you ready to talk about it?”

Camilla wasn’t, but she owed them. These good people, who fed her dinner every Sunday and let her take a nap on their sofa, were sacrificing their night’s sleep for her, so she nodded and launched into the whole thing. She started with how irritating Zane Holyoake was, and what a thorn he’d been in her side for the last several months. Lydia looked over at Sheldon, and they exchanged knowing raised eyebrows, which kind of rankled, but Camilla didn’t let it stop her story. And suddenly, before she realized it, the story came with tears as a sideshow.

The tears actually burned. Maybe it had been so long since she’d let any fall, since Burns Pilsington gave her the heave ho her senior year of college, that their salt content was so high it became corrosive. They seemed to cut rivers down the skin of her cheeks. Luckily, in the dark, neither Lydia nor Sheldon could see them. But then she sniffled, giving herself away, and pretty soon she’d told them all of it.

Sheldon harrumphed. “Honestly, I doubt it. I doubt the whole thing. Doesn’t sound like Falcon’s way at all.”

“That’s what makes it all the more painful.” Camilla hiccupped.

Lydia patted Camilla’s arm, and they sat in silence for a while, until at last Lydia spoke.

“I know it’s not my usual thing to diagnose you, especially in matters of the heart, Camilla. But will you indulge me? Because I think you might be missing something.”

No, Camilla had a grasp of all the ugliness of it, and of all the uselessness of trying. She waited and finally Lydia whispered it in her ear with a little side hug.

“Hope.”

Hope? Camilla had all kinds of hope. She sniffled up her tears and let her lawyer’s arguing side jump in, even in her distressed state. “But I basically live on hope. I hope I’ll come up with the best argument. I hope I’ll put guys like the Beemer Bandit off the streets. I hope I’ll make the world a better, safer place with what I do.”

“Right. All of that is true.” Lydia breathed deeply and then said, “But it’s more like faith. It’s belief put into action. And that’s good. You do all of those things based on the faith that you’ll achieve something. And it works. You’re a credit to the system.” It was nice to hear Lydia say this, but Camilla knew the other shoe was going to drop. “But I guess I’m thinking of it more in your personal life.”

Of course. So Camilla defended herself again. “It’s not like I don’t go on dates. I’m doing my due diligence. I even went on dates with Zane Holyoake.” Whether it was fifty dates with Zane or one—that was still up for debate. And whether they’d been “dating.” Camilla had a thousand arguments lined up against that one.

“I heard you were dating.”

Boom.

“But,” Lydia said, “that’s at the heart of what I’m aiming at. Sure, you are putting belief into action. However,
hope.
Hope means you believe the reward at the end of the faith-driven action applies to
you.
” She petted Camilla’s hair, and the salty tear-rivers flowed again. Camilla swiped at them, letting what Lydia said soak through her. The ideas sank like stones in her stomach.

Hope. It was different from faith. It took faith and internalized it. It was more than belief turned into action. It was belief, turned into action, turned into belief—for herself. Lydia had hit a nail square on the head with her so-called diagnosis. And it slammed her with a hammer’s strike. Camilla did, indeed, lack hope, the hope that meant that good things like relationships, love, family—could belong to
her.

But they couldn’t. For so many reasons. She reminded them of the dirty deal between Falcon and Zane.

“I know he said that, but are you sure he meant it?” A skunk crossed the road, bobbing its little tail, and Sheldon pushed on the brakes hard, almost making the RV behind them fishtail. But he pulled it out and resumed speed. Luckily no one else was on the mountain road this time of night in the fall. “Fine. I won’t question that. Honestly, I am so sorry.”