Prescription For Love (The Kingsley Series) (29 page)

"I don't know, kid. I don't know. I haven't talked to her about anything that serious yet. But I wanted to know where you stood on the subject. Because you and me, we're a team, you know?"

"Yeah dad, I remember. Team Caswell. And I'm the star, and you're the old guy."

"Uh, no. I'm the star. You're just the little guy who gets to travel along in my duffel bag."

"Yeah right, Dad. I make this team cool. I bet I can even make Cameron think so."

"That's a lot of ‘I,’ you know. And what do they say?"

Logan sighed, rolling his eyes. He smirked, raising his voice to a girlish octave. "There's no 'I' in team."

"Exactly," Mac laughed. "Besides, you're totally off. And anyway, she's my girl; you gotta get your own."

"Ew, no! Girls just make stupid doodles all the time, and make this stupid face!" He pursed his lips, sticking them out as far as he could reach, pressing them together until his mouth became a humanoid semblance of a duckbill.

Mac laughed. "They don't all do that."

"All the ones that think they're cool do." Logan curled his lips, causing his nose to wrinkle up on one side.

"So find one who doesn't care what she looks like to other people. Those girls with that face, and that attitude, they don't necessarily do that because they think they're so cool. They do it because they want other people to think that. You just want to find a girl who is comfortable enough in herself to just be herself."

“One who doesn’t want to be a duck?”

“They’re out there,” Mac laughed.

"Yeah right, Dad."

Letting Logan go back to his game, Mac sat back and pretended to watch the game show on TV. He couldn't believe it had been that easy. Logan liked Cameron; Cameron liked Logan. Could it really be that simple? He'd known ever since he'd fallen asleep with her in his arms that she'd captured his heart; he'd realized for sure in that moment, hearing her sigh softly in her sleep, that her innocence had won him over forever. He'd been terrified to let any woman get close to him for years, terrified of how Logan might accept or reject a new woman in their lives. And he'd been terribly lonely through it all. And now there was Cameron. But could it really be that easy?

***

"Hey, I didn't expect to hear from you this soon," Cameron said, excitement raising her voice slightly. She tucked her hair behind her ears, closing the sample book she'd been looking through in the office she shared with Tabitha.

"I know, I try to let you miss me before I call," Mac laughed. "You know that old strategy, always leave them wanting more?"

"Oh believe me," she answered, glancing toward the door before lowering her voice. "You've left me wanting more."

Mac laughed again, loving the husky, sexy quality in her voice. It was good to know she'd been wanting him, missing him. He'd certainly been missing her, but they hadn't been able to find much time to be truly alone lately. And it wasn't likely to be terribly soon either, because Logan had been begging for another outing with Cameron since the day they'd met. Cautious as the boy was, he couldn't deny how charmed he was with his father's new girlfriend, nor did he try to deny his pleasure at the idea of having more of a mother figure.

Still, the obligation to see to his son's happiness didn't make the strain in his jeans any less frustrating to deal with, and hearing that Cameron felt the same way had Mac debating the benefits of sneaking out of his house in the middle of the night like he had in high school.

"Mac? You still there?" Cameron laughed.

"Yeah, I'm here," he said. "Just got distracted. You start telling me you want me and my brain trips over itself and splatters all over my shoes."

"Well, maybe we need to arrange to spend some time together," Cameron said softly.

Mac took a breath as if to answer, but then Cameron heard the lightly higher pitch of Mac's young son in the background. "I guess we'd better talk about something else, huh?" she asked.

"Probably," Mac sighed. "He wants to know when you want to get together again. With both of us."

"Ohh," Cameron said, laughing. "I guess I made a good impression, huh? Was it the outfit?" Standing, Cameron left her desk and paced her office, lifting and resettling this thing or that thing. She rearranged the flowers in a vase, listening to Mac.

"Actually, it was the Geronimo joke. He tells it to everyone that'll listen. I gotta warn you though; I'm not sure how you'll be able to top that one."

"Oh no. How will I keep him impressed then?" Cameron mocked. "Does he know the one about putting a boogie in a tissue?"

"Yeah, babe, sorry to break it to you. That one came home from school with him when he was six. I do have an idea though. A way you might be able to wear down his tough and rugged exterior."

"Mmhm, and how's that?" Lifting the soft fabric of the window curtain, Cameron glanced out the window, watching the children play in the park across the street.

"Lions. And tigers," Mac hedged.

"And bears. Oh my. Are you inviting me to the zoo Mac?"

"Well, nothing ate you last time," he offered, laughing. "Besides, it's very rare that anything scary escapes the zoo. And Logan says that if you come, he promises to share his cotton candy with you."

"Hey!" the boy shouted, laughing, from the background.

Cameron laughed, listening to the child shriek, screaming laughter. Holding the phone away from her head, Cameron waited for the laughter to subside and then cautiously brought the phone closer to her ear. "He wants to talk to you," Mac laughed.

"Okay," Cameron said, dropping the curtain and turning from the window. She braced her shoulder against the wall, anticipating the higher sound of Logan's voice, so like and yet so different from his father's.

"Hi, Cameron," Logan said, still breathing heavily from whatever he and Mac had just been doing.

"Hey, little guy," she said. "I hear you want to see if I scream like a girl when lions roar at me."

Logan laughed. "Dad says you pee your pants. I gotta see that!"

She pursed her lips, color and heat creeping up her throat to cover her face. "Your dad told you that, huh? I guess I'm just going to have to come then, to prove I'm tough enough. But I'm going to eat
all
your cotton candy, for teasing."

"You want to ride a camel with me? Dad always says he can't because he has to take the pictures."

"Aren't camels, kind of, um, big?" Cameron shuddered at the idea of getting close to one of those beasts, with the rocking steps and giant bodies, black tongues and spit.
Ew.

"Yeah. But, you know, don't pee your pants or anything," the boy teased, and Cameron stiffened at the bark of laughter she heard, guessing that it was most likely from Mac.
"Oh you're gonna pay, buddy. Just you wait,"
she thought. Aloud, she put some power in her voice and retorted, "Oh, I'm pretty tough now, for a girl. I bet I could take you on, shrimp."

"Yeah, we'll see," he laughed back. "You probably can't even play Angry Birds."

"I've got an Angry Bird for ya," she giggled. "Did your dad feed you some cereal with crazy sprinkled on it this morning or what?"

"I feed myself!" he shouted, laughing. "You don't know kids at all!! You have a lot to learn, ya big girl."

"You gonna teach me, kid?"

"Yeah, starting with camel spit," he giggled. "I have to go, my dad wants the phone. Will you come with us?"

"I'll be there," she laughed. Waiting for Mac, Cameron grinned. She'd been used to that kind of silly banter once, long ago. She and her brothers would go after each other often, and she still had little verbal volleys with Harmony or Tabitha from time to time. But having a kid in her life? So far, he was a much needed source of fun and amusement; he made her feel light-hearted and somewhat freer of spirit than before. Still, she also hadn't missed noticing the sense of responsibility that had settled over her regarding Mac's little boy.

She'd met him only once, and already she wanted his happiness; she longed for his giggles. She wanted to keep sharing pizza with him; she wanted to take him for ice cream. She wanted to teach him things and bandage skinned knees. And if he wanted her to sit trembling between the humps of a camel, well then, she would be there.

"So you're coming?" Mac laughed.

"You told him my animal horror story? Mac!" Cameron lectured, trying to maintain a semblance of ferocity.

Still laughing, Mac said, "Well, if it helps me any, I told him the story as a way to talk him out of wanting the zoo."

"That little sadist," Cameron grinned.

***

"There he is! There he is, look!" Logan exclaimed, poking his finger at the front of the glass tank. Curled in the back of the miniature habitat, looking out from atop its own coiled red-orange body, there lay an eyelash viper. "He's poisonous," Logan warned. "And he has super long fangs. And when he bites you, and your heart pumps the venom through you, it hurts so bad, and it makes you not be able to clot your blood and stuff. And then you die. So he can eat you."

Shuddering, Cameron pressed a hand to her stomach. "I see. Well lucky for me, he's in there and I’m out here, right? Shall we move on now?"

Mac laughed, taking her hand as Logan trotted excitedly over to the next window, pressing his face to the glass to peer in at an albino rattlesnake. "Western diamondback," Mac said, pointing as he led Cameron closer. "That one's Logan's favorite because of the albino thing."

"Oh, he likes slithering venomous creatures with satanic eyeballs, does he?" Cameron teased. "This whole part of the whole zoo thing is disgusting. Slimy, creepy crawly things."

"They aren't slimy. Does this mean he can't ever bring his little pet python with us if we come over to your house? It's really small; only a couple of feet long." Mac said, struggling to keep a straight face. Cameron froze, her heart leaping into her throat.

"He does
not
have a snake. He doesn't; tell me he doesn't," she begged, her eyes wide in terror as she held her hands out in front of her.

Mac laughed, pulling her close to wrap an arm around her shoulders. "Okay, he doesn't," he said.

"Can we go see the other stuff now?" Logan asked. He grinned wickedly at Cameron, winking at her with his sparkling eyes. "Like maybe the camels? And if the camels are tired, can we ride elephants instead?"

"
You
can," Cameron retorted, remembering too late that she didn't have the right to answer as she had. "That is, if your dad thinks it's a good idea," she finished. Mac chuckled beside her, lifting their joined hands to drop a kiss on the back of her wrist.

"You don't want to ride an elephant?"

"Uh, no. Have you never seen the documentaries about psycho elephants that go nuts and wreck everything they see?" she hissed back, keeping her tone low so that Logan couldn't hear her.

"Alright. Camels!" Mac said, laughing as he turned to grin down at his son who was bouncing on the balls of his feet with excitement. Taking Cameron's hand, Mac stepped in behind his son, and they followed together as he scrambled toward the camel enclosure down the path.

“Jeez, I can't believe I'm doing this," Cameron muttered.

"Walking with me?" Mac said with a wink, nudging her arm with his elbow as they walked. "I know. I'm a pretty hot ticket, but you know, some women just have all the luck."

"Hot ticket," Cameron scoffed. "A hot ticket to stick me on a spitting death trap."