Authors: Leen Elle
Just For You
LEEN ELLE
AMAZON KINDLE EDITION
PUBLISHED BY :
Leen Elle
Just For You
This Novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to events or locations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by
Leen Elle
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this book may be used or reproduced, in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Find Yourself Another Place to Fall
There it was, staring her in the face like an apparition of some dream. It was, to Imogen, the embodiment of her childhood; she stared, stunned, at the small, square book which, though it had some minor differences, like worn edges and faded color, looked to her nearly the same as it had the day she'd left it on the bench in the park in Grand Isle, Louisiana.
Now it rested, squeezed in between a book on German philosophy and Stephen King's
It
on the bookshelf of a man she had quite literally bumped into mere minutes before, in Chicago, Illinois.
One might have described her facial expression as a deer-in-headlights, but a very sharp and sudden pain brought her back to reality.
"Ouch!" she screeched, simultaneously wincing and clawing at the armrest of the loveseat she was currently sitting in.
The stranger, the one she had run into, looked up at her from a thick dark fringe of lashes with a scowl on his face. "I barely touched you," he mumbled.
Imogen made a noise and tried to rid her throbbing ankle from his sure hands in an effort to paw at it herself. She was unsuccessful; the man's grip was strong and firm.
"Stop moving," he demanded, his attention going back to her bare foot. With his left hand he raised her foot to her chest level and held it steadily while he reached for the bandages with his free hand. "Grab the ice bag. You're going to need to hold it on your ankle in a minute."
Cameron Moody was annoyed. He hadn't even seen the girl when he ran into her; for a split second after it happened, when he found himself lying half-way on top of her, he was almost sure she appeared from thin air.
He was already running late that day for his mind-numbing day job in the city, one which he speculated was slowly taking his IQ down a few pegs with every day he spent there. Menial as it was, Cameron hated to be late, for anything. His running into a stranger already twenty minutes late for work was bad enough, but it was the icing on top of his cake that, in the collision, he had somehow twisted her ankle too.
He wanted to walk away from her. He tried to walk away from her, but something stopped him. It was an unfamiliar and most unwelcome feeling that flared in the pit of his stomach when he watched her whimper as she attempted to walk away. He had heard the word once, this feeling as described by someone else: humanity. She couldn't stand on her left foot. He couldn't let her limp away without at least bandaging her up.
"C'mon," he had said, taking her a bit roughly by the arm and helping her wobble her way up to his apartment. Luckily for the both of them, it wasn't far off- the accident happened right outside his building.
That was the sequence of events which led Cameron Moody, not without the obligatory rolling of his eyes, to invite Imogen Campbell, who hadn't yet had the opportunity to thank him for his generous hospitality, up to his humble apartment while he played doctor for the injury he caused.
Cameron worked on bandaging her ankle when Imogen spotted the book which was so familiar to her and became enamored of it.
"I'm Imogen Campbell," she said without ceremony.
Cameron said nothing.
"Don't you have a name?
"What if I said I didn't?"
"Everyone has a name."
Cameron could feel the cold distance between them as strangers slowly beginning to give way to the warm intimacy of a budding acquaintanceship. The panic button in his head went off. Exchanging names was one step closer to another human being, something Cameron wasn't particularly keen on.
He refrained from entertaining her with any more conversation. Surely she would take the hint and be quiet.
"If you're not going to tell me your name then I'll just have to resort to giving you a generic one of my own, Mr. Smith."
"Mr. Smith it is." With deft fingers he secured the bandage around Imogen's ankle and carefully set her foot down onto the floor.
9:33 a.m.
"Why are you so afraid to tell me who you are? It's the least I can do, thanking the man who injured me but then took care of me."
"No good deed goes unpunished, Imogen." He stopped and pointed a finger at the ice pack. "Put that on your ankle."
She did so without breaking eye-contact.
Cameron closed his eyes and ran a hand over his forehead. "See, it's self-preservation. I'm not giving you my name so that I'm not punished by the universe in the future for helping you out."
Imogen's eyebrow went up. "That's not fair. You just used my name when I don't even know yours. At least give me an initial. Something."
Cameron sighed. He had known this girl for thirteen minutes and already he was drained.
"
C
."
"
C
? Okay, that's a start.
C
…"
9:35 a.m. Thirty five minutes late.
She was at
Ca
- when he interrupted.
"God. If it'll make you feel better, my name is Cameron."
In retrospect, he would view this moment and this action- telling her his name- as the moment he sold his soul.
A slow smile crossed her face. "Cameron," she repeated. "I was getting there. Nice to meet you."
He stared at her open hand like it was anthrax presented to him in an open envelope. She wiggled her fingers.
He gave her an insincere smile and moved to the desk. "You too, Imogen."
Unfazed, Imogen dropped her hand into her lap, the sound of flesh smacking fabric ringing through the air, and looked back at Cameron's bookshelf. Her gaze settled once more onto the all too familiar book. There was a deep aching in the pit of her belly and her fingers twitched with the desire to touch it, to hold it, to open its pages. Her eyes were moving back and forth as if she were already reading the words printed inside of it.
Cameron was busy rolling down his sleeves and fixing his tie, thankful for the momentary silence, when he noticed that Imogen was completely absorbed by something on the shelves. He turned half-way to face her, shoving his arms through his jacket.
She looked almost like a child, the expression on her face innocent and full of wonder. She seemed to have forgotten all about the pain in her ankle.