Righting a Wrong (A Ripple Effect Romance Novella) (5 page)

“I’m sorry, but I’ve really got to go,” she said, hoping no one heard the slight catch in her voice.

Footsteps sounded behind her on the stairs, and she quickened her steps.

“Cambri, wait.” It was Jace.

She paused with her hand resting on the front doorknob, wanting to fling it open and run away, but some unseen force kept her rooted with her back to him.

“Is something wrong?”

Cambri swallowed and tried to keep her voice steady when she answered. “I’m fine. I just need to get some work done.”

“Oh.” He paused. “Don’t worry about coming back for your dad. I’ll make sure he gets home okay.”

Of course he would, because Jace was loyal, just like her father had said. It made Cambri both hate him and admire him at the same time.

“Thanks,” she said. Then she twisted the knob, slipped through the door, and walked as quickly as she could to her car. If there was one thing she was a pro at doing, it was running away.

After her run-in with Jace at Grandpa Cal’s, Cambri doubled her efforts to avoid Jace, but it didn’t help. Everywhere she went, she bumped into him. At the grocery store, bank, even while she was stopped at the one traffic light in town. He’d crossed the street in front of her and had even nodded her way.

Stupid, small towns.

But at least one thing was looking up. An entire week came and went with no major run-ins with her father. Although he still grumbled about taking his meds and eating healthier meals, he was becoming a much better patient, for which Cambri was grateful. She even managed to get a little work done.

“What are you doing?” she asked her father when she found him opening drawer after drawer in the kitchen.

“Where are my keys? The zoning meeting starts in fifteen minutes.”

Which was exactly why Cambri had taken preemptive measures to hide said keys at the bottom of her underwear drawer. Her father would never look for them there.

“No idea,” she lied easily.

He leveled her a look. “You hid them, didn’t you?”

“I plead the fifth.”

He planted both palms on the counter and narrowed his sparse, gray eyebrows. “Cambri,” he warned.

He was breathing heavily, as though the exertion of searching for keys had exhausted him. She sighed and pulled out a barstool for him, then took a seat on the one next to it. “You’re not allowed to drive, and I don’t want you going to that meeting.”

“Why the blazes not? How hard is it to plant my tush in a chair and observe?”

Cambri leaned against the counter and folded her arms. “You know as well as I do that you don’t plan to plant your tush in your chair and observe. I overheard you talking to Grandpa Cal, and I know you’re against the rezoning. If I let you go, you’re going to be on your feet the entire time, shouting your version of obscenities at anyone who crosses you. Admit it.”

He frowned and leaned more heavily on his hands. “I’ll stay seated and keep my trap shut.”

“You couldn’t do that even if you wanted to, which you don’t.”

“Fudgecicles!”

Cambri eyed his trembling hands, wishing he’d take a seat right now. “I guess we’re at a stalemate then. I can’t force you to stay, but you can’t force me to give you the keys either. If you want to go, you’ll have to walk.” They both knew he could never make forty feet, let alone the three miles.

Harvey stiffened and lifted his chin. “I’ll call Jace. He’ll come get me. Or better yet, you call him. He’s the type of solid, down-to-earth guy you should set your sights on. Not some eastern city boy.”

Something cracked inside Cambri, and her jaw tightened. “If he’s so good, why would you want to saddle him with me? How’s that fair?”

“What are you talking about?” Her father finally gave up his power-stance and dropped down on the nearest bar stool, taking large gulps of air.

“All you’ve ever done is talk about how great Jace is—how he’s smart and loyal and going somewhere. But when it comes to me, all I’ve ever heard from you was that cheerleading was for girls without brains and landscape design was a wishy-washy career choice and I’m disloyal for wanting to pursue a life outside of Bridger. Never once have you said anything good or positive about me. You didn’t even come to my college graduation—”

“Please,” he huffed. “Flying is for people with a death wish. How did you expect me to get there?”

“A
loyal
father would have driven,” she said, pointing out his hypocrisy. She shoved her chair back and stood, glaring at him. “I have a wonderful life and career now, and I’ve made something of myself. But heaven forbid you see it that way. Instead, you sit there and call me disloyal, when I’ve just uprooted my life to fly back here to help you.”

His hand slapped the table. “You had choices. You could have gone to a closer school or taken a job in Denver. But instead you chose to move to the other side of the country, as far away as you could possibly get. Why?”

“Because it was the best school. Because Mom was gone. And because you’ve never given me a reason to feel any loyalty to you at all,” Cambri blurted. She knew she’d gone too far, but his accusations had cut her deeply, and she couldn’t rein in her temper. She’d had it with her father
and
with Bridger. If she could pack her bags and walk out the door right now, she would.

“I’m glad to hear that walking away from your family has made you happy.”

Cambri threw up her hands. “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Dad. What family? Mom was the glue that held us together, and after she died, you went your way, and I went mine. End of story.”

“You mean
you
went yours. I stayed here.” The words came out breathless and weak, as though it took a lot of effort to speak them.

Cambri took a deep breath and struggled for control. Getting her father to see things from her perspective would never happen, and all she was doing by arguing with him was endangering his heart and hurting hers. It was time to put an end to this conversation.

“Right,” Cambri finally said, her voice quiet. “You stayed here. And as soon as you get back on your feet, you’ll continue to stay here, whereas I’ll go back to my life in North Carolina. In the meantime, let’s try to get through these next few weeks without any more arguments, okay? This isn’t good for your heart.”

“And do what? Sit in silence for the rest of your visit? Where’s the fun in that?”

Cambri gaped at him. He thought this was fun? Was he joking?

They both sat there, glaring at each other—an unspoken face-off. After a few moments, something sparked in her father’s eyes—something that looked a bit like pride. “Well, I can see who you got your stubbornness from, and it sure wasn’t your mama. She was as sweet and obliging as strawberry Jell-O.”

The reminder of her mother’s nature sent a sharp pang to Cambri’s chest. If Mom was looking down on them right now, she wouldn’t be happy.
Contention is of the devil
, she’d always said.

Ignoring her father, Cambri grabbed her purse from the counter and headed for the door. “If you’ll be all right for a few hours, I’m going out.”

“To do what?”

“To get away from you before I clobber you over the head with a rolling pin.”

Her father made a low guttural sound. It took Cambri a moment to realize he was chuckling, and the sound made her stop short. How had they gone from yelling at each other to this? It didn’t make sense—
he
didn’t make sense. In her current mood, the last thing she wanted to do was laugh or get chummy with her dad. Maybe the heart attack had addled his brain as well.

“If you’re going out, you might as well do something useful and go to the town meeting. You can tell me what happens.”

As if.
“I’m not a member of this community anymore.”

“You can represent me,” he continued. “Tell them I don’t want no developer coming in and slapping up a bunch of houses like those patchwork quilts that Suzie makes.”

Cambri spun around and molded her face into a smile as she backed toward the door. “You’re right. I should go to that meeting.”

Her father grinned. “That’s a good girl. You do that. You tell them—”

“That Harvey Blaine is all for the zoning change. They can buy all the land they want and develop away.”

Cambri continued to watch her father long enough to see his smile disappear, then her smile became genuine as she turned and walked out the door.

The room smelled musky and dank, and the walls were the color of bread dough. The meeting was already underway, so Cambri crept up the aisle and slid into the first vacant seat she found. Despite what she’d said to her father, she hadn’t planned on coming to the meeting. But she’d forgotten that everyone came to these things, which meant everywhere else was closed. So unless she wanted to hang out in her car or walk aimlessly around Bridger during a chilly spring night, she had nowhere else to go.

A large hand landed on hers, giving it a quick squeeze. Cambri’s gaze snapped to Cal Sutton’s welcoming face. Beyond him, Jace met her gaze with an unreadable, almost wary expression.

Oh joy. Of course the first vacant seat would be right next to them.

Cambri focused her attention on the man speaking from a podium at the front of the room, who was in the process of introducing another man from a company called Callahan Development.

“Are you stalking me?” a hushed voice sounded at her side, making Cambri jump. Jace had leaned forward and was talking around his grandfather.

“No.”

“Then why do I keep bumping into you everywhere I go?”

“Why would I be stalking you?” she whispered back. “I think you’re stalking me.”

“I was here first, just like I was at the grocery store and bank first, so how could I be stalking you?”

“Because you knew I’d be there—and here.” It sounded ridiculous, but so was the idea of her intentionally seeking him out.

“Seriously?”

“And how convenient that the only aisle seat left just so happens to be right by you.”

“Please.” Jace smirked. “How would I know you’d be here? You don’t live here anymore, so why in the world would you come to a town meeting?”

To get away from her father, not that he’d really know that. “Dad couldn’t be here, so I came instead.”

His expression became more serious. “You’re planning to represent your dad?”

“Well no, not exactly. I’m actually thinking I might argue
for
the development.” She said it to be cheeky, because if her father was against it, then it followed that the loyal Jace would be against too.

Jace’s eyes sparkled with something resembling humor. “In that case, welcome.” He settled back in his seat with a satisfied smile.

Cambri frowned in confusion. What was that supposed to mean? Was Jace actually
pro
the development? Did her father know that?

Huh.

Cambri nudged Cal. “So, what’s your take on the new development?”

Cal shook his head in that vague way that implied he was keeping his opinion to himself. “I’m only here for moral support. Jace is the owner of the store now. This is his fight.”

What did Sutton Hardware have to do with anything? Was Jace hoping the store would become a supplier? Because that was a long shot. Longer than long, actually. He’d never be able to match or beat the prices of the larger, more specialized companies.

It wasn’t until the discussion was well underway that Cambri understood Jace’s stance.

“It’s not just the hardware store. All the businesses in town are struggling,” Jace argued. “We could really use some growth here. More people means more business, which is a good thing for any town.”

“But with growth comes more competition,” someone else called out from the back row. “What would you do if Bridger grew so large that a Home Depot decided to come knocking on the door?”

Jace shrugged. “It would be a long time before that ever happened, and when and if it ever does, I’ll deal with it then. In the meantime, I’m trying to run a successful business
now
, and it’s a tricky thing to do in a town as small as Bridger. Especially in this economy.”

Jace looked Cambri’s way, shooting her a challenging look. “Cambri Blaine is here to represent her father, and she agrees with me.”