Be Mine Forever (2 page)

“I hate it, too, because I’m pulling double duty. I’m away from home even more. Not how I saw the last trimester of Kerris’s pregnancy going.”

Back to that…

“Cam, there’s no one else I’d trust in New York. Could you—”

“Man, I don’t think so.”

At Christmas he hadn’t even known Kerris was pregnant. They’d revealed it later, after he was back in Paris. Thank God. That would have made awkward impossible. And to see Kerris pregnant again…like she’d been with his daughter Amalie before the car accident. Too much. That wound, even two years later, was still too fresh. Still barely staunched by the things Cam busied himself doing to stay sane. The most beautiful thing to ever enter the world, and he had killed her himself. As if with his own hands. If Kerris hadn’t been chasing him that rainy night, Amalie would be alive.

No, he couldn’t see Kerris pregnant.

“Cam, I need you to do this. Something is off.”

“Walsh—”

“Please.” Walsh couldn’t or didn’t hide the desperate concern in his voice. “I know it’s awkward, but she’s my wife. They’re my babies. Please.”

Well, damn.

How was he supposed to say no to this version of his best friend? Not the one who had secretly nurtured feelings for his wife from the day he laid eyes on her. Not the one who’d kissed her in Cam’s own house. Not the one he’d fought until they both lay bloody on the floor. But the Walsh he’d grown up with. The one he’d trusted his darkest secrets to. Well, most of them anyway.

How could he say no to the Walsh who needed him now?

“Okay.”

“Cam, I owe you.”

“Oh, I
know
that.”

“There’s a lockbox against the wall on the front porch with a spare key. My birthday is the code.”

Twenty minutes and one cab ride later, Cam was punching in the lockbox code and wanting to punch himself in the face. What the hell was he doing? This was stupid, even for him. Who does this? Who checks on his ex-wife who is carrying his best friend’s babies?

He rang the doorbell three times. Waited. Rang again. Nothing.

“Maybe she’s just not home.” He spoke to the quiet cobbled street in their TriBeCa neighborhood, his back to the door. He didn’t want to use the key burning a hole in his palm.

A silver BMW X5 parked out front caught Cam’s eye. Unremarkable, really, except for the Walsh Foundation decal on the rear window. If Kerris’s car was here, and she wasn’t answering the door…He tried to ignore the anxious thoughts piling up in his head.

“Screw this.” Cam unlocked the door, noting that the alarm didn’t sound. Had Kerris forgotten to set it? Was she out for a walk?

Cam was about to call her name when he noticed two oranges just outside the entrance to the kitchen. Random. He knew from living with her that Kerris was a neat freak. Not a thing was ever out of place. He scooped the oranges up from the floor to put them in whatever dish or basket Kerris had designated for fruit. A small noise drew his attention to the floor.

Kerris lay on the floor in a puddle of water, groceries spilled all around her, arms wrapped around her swollen stomach, eyes squeezed tightly together, bottom lip between her teeth, tears running down her cheeks.

“Kerris!” Cam rushed over and squatted at her side.

She slitted her eyes open before closing them again.

“Cam.” His name was just a breath in the quiet kitchen. “I…something is wrong. Water broke. My babies…too soon.”

“What…I…okay.”
Pull your shit together.
“I’ll call nine-one-one.”

Her tiny hand shot out and grabbed his wrist with surprising strength. She widened her eyes and forced the next words past trembling lips.

“Don’t call Walsh.”

“What? Ker, he sent me over here. He’s already worried. We’ve got to—”

“Just wait.” Pain twisted her body and she balled her hand into a fist on the hardwood floor, her mouth gaping open to pant through the contraction. “He can’t do anything from there and he’ll just hate himself for not being here.”

Cam kind of hated Walsh for not being here right now, too. He nodded, not sure he’d keep his word on that but needing to move forward. He called 911, noticing how still Kerris had become on the floor.

“Yes, I’ve got a woman in labor, but it’s too soon.”

He answered the 911 operator’s questions as best he could, glad the address was so fresh in his mind from the cab ride.

“We’ll be there in just a few minutes,” the operator said with that balance of indifference and concern you had to be trained to strike. “Stay on the line for me until they arrive.”

“Okay, but I’m putting you on speaker because I need to make another call.”

Cam grabbed the house phone, staring at it for a second, knowing he needed to make this next call but not wanting to. God, really not wanting to. He’d been avoiding this for months. He listened to the ring, bracing himself for an earful.

“Hey, cuz!” Jo said. “I forgot you even had a house line. What’s going on?”

“Jo, it’s me. It’s Cam.”

“Cam?” Jo’s voice skipped surprise and hopscotched straight to disbelief. Irritation. Anger.

“Jo, hey. Look, I need—”

“You lead with ‘I need’? Where the hell have you been? You haven’t returned my calls or text messages since Christmas. Christmas, Cam! And you lead with ‘I need’?”

“Jo, I need you to shut up.”

“What?” Steam was probably pouring out of her ears. “What did you just say to me?”

“I need you to listen to me. It’s Kerris.”

“What about her?” Jo’s voice softened like butter left out in the sun. “What are you doing at their house? Is she okay?”

“No.” Cam glanced at Kerris when a small moan slipped between her bite-marked lips. “Definitely no. She’s in labor.”

“No, it’s too soon. She’s only, like, seven months!”

“Walsh asked me to check on her. He’s in Hong Kong and just had a feeling. Good thing. Um, where are you?”

“I’m…I’m in Rivermont, but I—” Jo’s voice sounded farther way, like she’d turned her head. “Shaundra, did Daddy take the Walsh Foods jet? No? Can you get it ready for me? I need to get to New York, like now.”

“Thanks, Jo. See you soon.”

Cam settled on the floor beside Kerris, his back against the kitchen island. He pulled her head into his lap, not sure he should move her much more than that. Kerris’s hair clung to her forehead where sweat had dampened it. Cam pushed the hair back, jerking his hand away when Kerris’s eyes opened again.

“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice a tired rasp. “I know this is the worst—”

“Don’t.” Cam gripped the hand Kerris clutched over her belly. “Just don’t. Things happen the way they’re supposed to, I guess. Ambulance is on the way and so is Jo.”

“Thank God.” Kerris gave him a weary smile before letting her eyelids fall again. “Jo’s always good to have in a crisis, huh?”

Cam just gave a nod. Yeah, Jo was good to have.

M
isterrrrrr”—the doctor glanced down at Kerris’s chart—“Bennett, your wife should be just fine.”

“I’m not—”

“He’s not—”

Cam and Kerris exchanged a look, both eager to correct the mistake.

“He’s not my husband,” Kerris said with so much composure you never would have known five minutes before she had been doubled over with a contraction. “Anymore. I mean, my husband’s away. He’s…um…Cam is…”

“I’m a family friend.”

The last thing either of them needed was to air their weirdness in the maternity ward.

“Where’s my doctor?” Kerris rubbed a hand over her belly, anxious eyes on the substitute physician.

“She’s on vacation.” The young doctor Cam couldn’t help but think of as Doogie Howser glanced at the chart in his hands. “I’m sure Dr. Edwards didn’t think you’d be delivering this early.”

“Am I?” Kerris bit her lip and swallowed before asking the question Cam was afraid he already knew the answer to. “Delivering, I mean? It’s early. Isn’t there any way we can delay this? Bed rest? Hang me upside down or something?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Bennett. These babies are coming today.”

“Will they be okay?” Kerris’s voice dropped to a frightened whisper.

Cam reached over and squeezed her hand. She looked up at him and squeezed back but couldn’t muster a smile. She tightened the soft line of her mouth, shut her eyes, and drew a sharp breath in through her nose. Cam knew what was coming. Ever since he’d found her on the kitchen floor, the pain had come and subsided with ominous regularity.

“It’s not uncommon for twins to come early.” Doogie slipped his hands into the slits of his white coat. “And even though it’s early, they are viable.”

Cam’s phone rang, and he stepped away from the bed to answer it as soon as he saw Walsh’s name flash on-screen.

“Hey, Bennett.”

“Cam, no!” Kerris whispered, her eyes begging even as she tried to control the pain squeezing her from the inside out.

“Cam, I’m going crazy here.” Walsh’s voice pulled tight and snapped on the other end. “Was Kerris home? It’s been hours since we talked.”

“Walsh, man.” Cam glanced at Kerris, knowing she didn’t want Walsh to worry but knowing he couldn’t keep this from him. “Kerris is in labor.”

A full five seconds of deafening silence before Walsh spoke. Panic threaded between his words.

“No, she can’t be. It’s…it’s too early. Maybe just Braxton Hicks, or false labor?”

“We’re at the hospital, and the twins are coming soon.”

“I’m not there. How the hell am I halfway around the world when my kids are being born? God, I’m my dad.”

“The hell you are.”

Kerris made a strangled, subdued sound, her head turned into the pillow, the sheet clenched in her fist.

“I need to speak to Kerris,” Walsh said.

“Uh…she’s kind of in the middle of a contraction.”

“Contraction.” Walsh’s voice spiked, stretching beyond panic and into another stratosphere. “She’s in pain?”

“That’s generally a part of labor, so yeah.”

“Cam, don’t joke about this. Is she okay?”

Another muffled moan from the bed.

“No, but I don’t think she wants you to hear how much it hurts.”

“Fuck that. FaceTime me.”

“FaceTime? Dude.”

“Just do it.”

Cam did it.

He walked over to the bed and angled the phone so Walsh could see Kerris.

“Kerris.” Walsh had scrubbed his voice clean of the panic. No anxiety. Perfectly even and soothing. “Baby, I’m right here.”

Kerris opened her eyes, zoning in on Walsh’s image on the phone.

“Walsh?” Her voice wobbled and shook. Her face crumpled. All the strength she’d been marshaling dissipated right before Cam’s eyes. “I’m scared.”

“I know, but I’m right here. Baby, I’m so sorry I’m not there.”

“I know. I just wanted to get through this and have it all be over by the time you found out. Please don’t feel guilty.”

“I’m working on it. How are you?”

Kerris probably would have lied if a monster contraction hadn’t wrenched the truth from her in a scream that drowned the sound of the heart monitor and raised every fine hair on Cam’s body. That scream sounded like it had twisted around Kerris’s intestines before it bellowed in the room.

“Baby, breathe.” Walsh’s face on the small screen Cam held was amazingly, deliberately emotion-free. “You can do this.”

Doogie went to the edge of the bed and peered between Kerris’s knees. His head popped up, and anticipation raised his brows and lit his eyes.

“It’s time to push.”

“Are they…?” Kerris gulped and squeezed her eyes shut again. “Are they okay?”

“They seem fine. Not breech, just ready to make their appearance a little earlier than we all thought. I’ll need some big pushes here soon.”

There was no way Cam would be angling the phone between Kerris’s legs so Walsh could see his babies being born. As it was, his breath kept chopping up in his chest. Sweat trickled down his neck. Nausea crept through his stomach until it watered his mouth. This was too much. Too close. The last time he’d been in a hospital, he’d held his dead baby girl in his arms and wept.

“Kerris, I…” Cam locked eyes with her, begging without words for her to understand this was as far as he could go. As much as he could help.

“I get it.” Kerris threw her head back against the pillow, her dark hair fanning out behind her. Her mouth pulled into a tight ring, tunneling panting breaths. “I know, Cam. You’ve done more than enough.”

“Cam, go.” Cam glanced at the screen, seeing Walsh’s anxiety this close, but helpless to do any more.

“I don’t want to leave you alone, Kerris.”

“She’s not alone.”

Cam turned toward the door, thanking God for Jo standing there, looking like a queen as usual.

“Cam, I’ve got it.” Jo walked up to him, grabbed the phone, and grinned down at the screen. “One day I’ll get tired of picking up after you, cuz.”

Walsh chuckled, relief splattered freely all over his face.

“Jo, you came. Thank you so much. Take care of my girl.”

“Of course, I will.” Cam watched the regal lines of Jo’s face soften in that way too few got to see. “What do you think I came here for?”

N
o one could ever accuse Cam’s eyes of being just blue or just gray. They were instead a mesmerizing intercourse of the two colors. A gorgeous, God-spun mixture of sea and clouds. At least that’s how Jo Walsh had always thought of them. She couldn’t see them right now with Cam’s forehead pressed to the viewing window. Watching him unobserved for a moment was a privilege. The dark hair, always unruly, fell around his neck, undecided about whether to wave or curl. The broad shoulders pushed forward and his hands burrowed into the pockets of the jeans it had taken this long to look that good.

The
clack-clack
of her four-inch Manolos brought Cam’s head swiveling in her direction. Jo drew in the bracing breath she always needed at the first sight of him after a long time. She kept thinking, kept hoping that one day Cam wouldn’t affect her this way. That her heart wouldn’t seize with disbelief that any man could be this beautiful in real life. That all the steel-reinforced walls she’d erected wouldn’t topple when that blazing white smile flashed at her like lightning. She was never fully prepared for that smile, always a bolt to her unsuspecting system.

Only there was no smile tonight.

Sadness cloaked and slumped Cam’s shoulders and turned down the corners of his mouth. He offered her those one-of-a-kind eyes for a few moments before considering the babies again without saying a word.

Jo slid damp palms across the soft material clinging to her hips. She had just gotten back to the office after a fund-raising luncheon when Cam called. She still wore the Kelly green dress outlining her every asset. Convenient. She hadn’t had time to think about what she would wear or how she would style her hair or any of the nonsense she typically considered when she knew she’d see Cam. A lot of good it ever did her.

She stepped into the space beside him, turning her head to study his rugged profile.

“You doing okay?” Jo pressed the tips of her fingers to the glass separating them from the infants.

“You mean since we last talked or since I had to help Kerris and Walsh start their little family in the delivery room?”

Jo caught the wince before it made it to her face, but inside she ached for Cam. He’d fled to Paris after Amalie’s death. Stayed there while Walsh wooed Kerris. He had done so well for himself away from them, but she’d always known he’d be back. The thing Cam had wanted more than anything in the world was a family. Walsh’s mother, Kristeene Bennett, had treated Cam as a second son, and he’d loved her more than anyone on earth. With Aunt Kris gone, Jo, Walsh, even Kerris might be the closest he’d ever come to family. But to be drawn into the pulsing center of Kerris and Walsh’s new life together had to be hard. Had to resurrect feelings he might have thought settled.

“I’m sorry it happened like that, Cam.”

He finally looked away from the babies long enough to offer her one of those smiles that, without any real effort, punched a hole in her chest where her heart used to be before Cam stole it over fifteen years ago. Some days, she didn’t think she’d ever get it back. She didn’t really have much use for it anyway.

“It’s fine.” Cam drew his dark brows into a quick frown. “I mean, it’s shit, but it’s fine.
I’m
fine. How are Kerris and the girls?”

Even Jo couldn’t govern the joy that pressed its way past her impassive expression.

“Kerris is fine. The girls are gorgeous. In ICU, of course, but that’s pretty standard for preemies.”

“Names?”

“Brooklin and Harlim.” Jo snorted. “We’re lucky it’s not Apple and Orange, I guess.”

Cam added a grin to the knowing look he slid over to her. They had always loved teasing Walsh about his “high life” in the city. Jo might never miss Fashion Week in New York, and she might make regular shopping pilgrimages to Paris, but Rivermont was home. Always had been. Always would be.

“How is Walsh?” Cam’s mouth dropped the smile it had managed to hold on to for a few seconds.

“As you would expect, going crazy because he can’t get here at the speed of light. Probably making everyone in a twenty-mile radius miserable.”

“That sounds right.” Cam turned to face her, shoulder to the glass. “I didn’t want to see them. The twins, I mean. Even now, I can’t see them. I don’t know when I’ll be able to.”

Jo ran a steady hand through the hair hanging around her shoulders so she wouldn’t reach for him.

“I know seeing Walsh and Kerris—”

“It’s not Walsh and Kerris.” Cam raised a thick fan of lashes to look at her, his eyes unshielded. “What if the twins look like Amalie?”

The thought hadn’t even occurred to Jo. Of course they could look like Amalie, the daughter Kerris and Cam had lost. Brooklin and Harlim shared half the DNA Amalie had died with.

“I’m so sorry, Cam.” What else was there to say?

“It’s like every time I think I can get past this…debacle…between the three of us, and I can maybe be in their lives on some terms, something pushes me back out. Maybe I’m just meant to be…”

Alone
.

He didn’t say it, but Jo had always known, even when Cam would vacation with them, sleep over at the house, laugh and even cry with them, that some part of him was always alone. Even she, closer to him than anyone else, knew there were places in Cam’s life and in his heart not even she could go.

“They want you in their lives,” Jo said, feeling like an idiot for saying it but knowing it was true.

“Yeah, well, we’ll see. Some things just aren’t worth the hurt.” Cam whooshed air from his chest and pulled his lips into that smile he used to change the subject. “So, you staying here or what?”

“No, Kerris is asleep, resting. The nurses are with the girls. Mama Jess and Meredith just got here, actually. They’re with Kerris.” Jo glanced at the ALOR watch circling her wrist, glad Kerris’s closest friends had arrived and she could collapse. “I’m done. Been in constant motion since four o’clock this morning. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

“Where you staying?”

“Walsh said I could stay at their place, of course.”

“By yourself? Or you could stay with me. We could catch up.”

Jo raised an imperious eyebrow and cocked her head.

“Oh, so now you want to catch up. Where have you been for the last six months? Why have you been ignoring me?”

“Jo, I’ve been busy.”

“Don’t do that.” Some hybrid of a sigh and a laugh slipped past her lips. “Not to me.”

He looked at her, his eyes hiding more from her than usual, before they dropped and slid down the length of her body, pausing at her breasts, caressing the line of her waist. She felt that look like a hand skimming over her and shuddered at even the thought of Cam’s intimate touch. Something heated up between them, fogging her judgment. It felt like attraction. Felt like chemistry. Felt like something she had hoped for before with Cam but knew she’d never have.

Jo shook off the effects of that look, wondering if she was going a little crazy. Maybe her feverish mind, always hot and usually bothered around Cam, had conjured that moment. It wouldn’t be the first time she read too much into a look or a feeling with this man. For example, at Christmas, she had sensed…she had thought…she had hoped…but nothing had materialized. Cam had gone dark, and she hadn’t heard from him until today.

She was just about to clear her throat, but he beat her to it.

“I’m staying at the Chevalier.”

Wow. Jo knew that between the inheritance Aunt Kris had left him and the money his art had generated over the last year or so, Cam had to be sitting pretty, but hearing he was staying at the Chevalier still surprised her. People like Walsh wore wealth. Not as clothing, but as skin. As scent. It had been woven into the fibers of who they were since birth. Walsh could walk into a room naked and you’d assume he came from money. It was in his bearing. In the way he looked at the world like he owned most of it, because in some ways, he did. Jo knew this because she was the same.

Even though Jo, with her trained eye, recognized the fine Italian leather of the boots hiding under Cam’s weathered jeans, she knew Cam didn’t carry wealth the way she and Walsh did. He never seemed uneasy with it. More like he’d simply added it to all the other baggage he was carting around.

“The Chevalier, huh?” Jo turned down the corners of her mouth and offered a ladylike grunt. “I’m impressed.”

“Don’t be. A…uh…friend has a suite there, and she’s letting me crash.”

That
was more like it. The sizzling moment she had imagined with Cam moments before fizzled into nothing. She’d watched a parade of women march through Cam’s life for more than a decade. Not shocking that some woman was so enamored she’d offer him a suite at one of the most luxurious hotels in the world.

“You sure it’s okay for me to stay?”

“Yeah, of course. She’s in Paris.” Cam pushed away from the glass, linked his arm through Jo’s, and started toward the elevators. “She’s not coming to the States until next week, and she wouldn’t mind anyway. There’s two bedrooms in the suite.”

“I’ll just call Pierce, Uncle Martin’s driver.” Jo pulled her phone from her bag. “He picked me up and has my things. We can bum a ride to the hotel if you want.”

“Sounds great.” Cam glanced once more over his shoulder at the infants behind the glass. “I need a drink. I didn’t see my day turning out like this.”

Seeing Cam after he’d ignored her for the last six months. Witnessing Walsh’s twin girls come into the world. The day had held more than one surprise. And she couldn’t prove it, but she felt like there might be more to come.