Secondhand Heart (31 page)

“What, no raspberry?” I pretended to protest.

“Well if you insist,” Cam leaned in closer, setting JR down. Now that he was all riled up, he knocked over the all the Tupperware we’d stacked up.

“I was kidding!” I held up my wooden spoon, spurring him away like a vampire with a cross. “How was work?”

Cam had cut way back on his hours at the bar in the last couple of months, since his album came out. As he feared, that Nashville producer had dropped him as soon as the controversy with Ashley and The Spotlight came to light. Honestly, it was the best thing that could have happened. Once everyone realized what a psycho nutcase she was, killing my sister in cold blood, the judge denied moving her to a rehab facility, leaving her in jail, where she belonged. Nashville might not have rallied around Cam, but the general public did. He’d decided to record an acoustic album here, his friends from the bar helping him out when he needed them. Last week we got the news that his new single,
My New Lifetime
, reached number one on the country charts, and it was beginning to cross over to top forty.

Despite everything that happened, we had a lot to celebrate.

He shook his head, looking like he wasn’t quite sure what to say. “I can’t believe it. It’s Tuesday, right? And the place was packed again, all day long. The shortest the wait ever got for a table was an hour. It blows my mind.”

“Get used to it.” I leaned in to kiss him, but JR had crawled onto my lap, so instead of getting Cam’s lips, I kissed his nose. With a one-year-old in the house, you took what you could get. I would have tried again, but now JR’s fingers were on my face. “I am going to eat these fingers!” I warned him, and then pretended to make good on my promise.

“I don’t know if I want to.” Cam’s posture mirrored mine, cross-legged in the middle of the kitchen floor, but he just looked distracted and out of it.

“Why?” That didn’t make any sense at all. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”

“It is. I just never want to take it for granted. When I came back here, I poured every dine I had into this place, and I had a hard time getting investors on board because I was a washed up nobody, destined to fail.”

“Well, screw them for being stupid.” I shook my head. “I bet they’re sorry now.”

“Yeah.” Cam stared into space, he got like this any time we talked about his success. I wondered if he still thought it was because of Ashley, now by default. Her bad press wound up being his windfall. He felt guilty because it was all at the expense of my sister. This is what Ev would have wanted for him. It killed us both she wasn’t here to see it, but we had to enjoy it even more because of that. Nothing was guaranteed.

I missed her every day, but I felt like she was with me. Her and Jordan. A little piece of both of them lived on in JR, and it made me strangely happy I could keep them so close to me.

I stood up, leaving JR on the floor to play with Cam. “What do you want to do tonight? I haven’t fed the monster yet. I was working up to that when you came in.”

“I can tell.” Cam picked up a spoon and started drumming on a container. “Did you have anything planned?”

“Nope. I was waiting on you.”

“Want to go down to the beach for a little bit?” Cam asked tentatively, as if I’d ever say no to the beach. He was headed out on tour at the end of next week, and I knew he didn’t want to go. I chalked that up as the reason for his funny behavior.

He didn’t want to leave us.

He had an opening spot on a huge tour. This was everything he’d worked so hard for.

But there was no way I was going to let him pass up this opportunity. Now that I got to experience an album from conception to release, and watch it grow and succeed, I understood why he had to do this. It was something he had to do because he would be miserable if he didn’t make music. “Since when would I say no to that?”

“There’s always a first time.” That lopsided smile still made my heart flutter. He climbed up from the floor, picking up JR once he was on his feet. “I’ll grill when we get back.”

Neither of us said much on the way down to the water. Once we got down there, we each took one of JR’s hands so he could stand in the water. He was just starting to pull himself up, but he wasn’t steady on his feet yet. I knew soon he’d be running all over the place. It happened so fast with Bree’s boys. Landon was starting kindergarten next week. I wished there was some way JR could stay this little forever.

Cam rolled up his pants, the squatted down so he could splash in the surf with JR. JR squealed every time a wave came in, even the tiny gentle ones made him wobble. Usually Cam would help JR find cool stuff in the water, starfish and pretty rocks, but tonight, he was looking up at me, squinting in the sunset that painted the water with streaks of orange and pink.

“What’s going on with you tonight?” I smiled, but I had an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Is it the tour? We’re going to be fine. We’ll miss you, but it’s only a couple weeks. I talked to Bree today, and she’s going bring the boys for a sleep over the first night to make sure we don’t get lonely. She’s so excited she might come pack your bags for you.”

“Real nice, Bree.” Cam laughed and shook his head. Then he looked down, his free hand tracing back forth in the water. “It’s not that.”

I kneeled down beside JR so I could meet Cam’s eyes. “Then what is it?”

“Maybe it is the tour a little bit.” He looked back up, squinting. “I don’t want to leave you, like ever.” Head back down, he let out a long breath. “I want to marry you, Daisy.”

I blinked rapidly, not sure I actually heard him right. “Did you say what I think you just said?” Cam met my eyes, and he looked so scared. I’d heard him right. I pulled JR into my lap so I could take both Cam’s hands in mine. “I’d love that. More than anything.”

“I understand if you’re not ready. I know it’s been a hard year for both of us, but even still, everything’s just so fuck…frigging good that I want it to be like this forever. If we can make it through what we’ve made it through, the rest of the world better watch out, that’s what I’m saying. So if you’re in…”

I pushed at him, knocking him back into the water. “I just said yes, silly.”

Cam didn’t get up right away, propping himself up on his elbows letting the water hit him as it came to shore. “Wow.” His expression had totally changed, from fear to satisfaction. Then he sat up and kissed me so quickly he caught both me and JR totally off guard. I fell over to the side, totally soaked but managed to keep JR almost dry.

“I left the ring upstairs.” Cam looked sheepish, just inches from my face. JR had climbed into his lap, and he bounced his thigh up and down to entertain him. “I can’t make it official yet.”

“I don’t need a ring.” I splashed him. “Wait. Tell me about this ring.”

“I think you’ll like it. Bree helped me pick it out.”

“Bree kept a secret like this?” Holy shit. “How did you manage that?”

“Well, she gave me some suggestions in the ring case to tell you about. She’s hoping that Josh asks you to help him pick out a ring for her soon.” Cam wriggled his eyebrows up and down.

“Ooh. Do you think it’s going to happen? I mean, Bree’s so into him, but I don’t know.” If I could get Bree married off to a guy like Josh, I could literally die happy. It was about time some treated her like the amazing person she was.

“To hear her tell it, they might have already eloped.” Cam chuckled. “But when I went over there, he looked awfully comfortable, on the floor, playing with the boys. I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“I still don’t understand how you got her to keep her mouth shut.”

Cam smirked. “I told her that I’d show you the ugliest rings in the store if she said a word to you.”

I nodded. “Nice.”

Cam ran his fingers through the water like he was looking for something. “You still need a ring.” He pulled a piece of seaweed out of the water, ripping a strip off of it. “Hold your hand out.”

“No!” I squealed. “I can wait a few minutes.”

“Nope. I can’t have you reconsidering. I need to get something on your finger to seal the deal.” He took my hand, and tied the seaweed around my ring finger. “There.”

I looked down at my hand, admiring the slimy greenish-brown bow he’d created. “I actually kind of love it.”

“Really?” Cam smiled, standing up, JR already on his hip, and then holding his hand out to help me up. “Because I can return the diamond.”

“Don’t do anything crazy.” I laughed as we stood up, shaking off some of the sand that had stuck to us in the surf. “But something about it is just perfect.”

“Isn’t it though?” Cam wrapped his free hand around me, pulling me against my body. “I feel like it’s insurance for a million more nights just like this.”

As Cam put JR up on his shoulders, I wrapped my arm around his waist, and we headed back to the condo, sandy, wet, and happy. For the first of hopefully a million more nights just like this.

Thank You

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Secondhand Heart
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I can’t leave you empty handed, so if you like your rockers with bite, keep reading for an excerpt from the first book of The Night Songs Collection,
Because the Night
.

Preview of

E
verywhere I looked along the Las Vegas Strip, Tristan’s eyes smoldered back at me. On billboards, taxi toppers, and the T-shirts of devoted fans on their way to the Sin City Vampire Club to see him play in Immortal Dilemma. All those women hoped to get a little closer to him, to fulfill their fantasies.

Seeing Tristan like this, larger than life, made it too easy to forget he’d walked out of my life to become the rock star. Tonight, I set out find out why.

As soon as I walked into the Alta Vista hotel with my cousin, Keisha, I knew this was so much more than it seemed on TV. The sleek silver and purple lobby buzzed with anticipation. Groups of girls decked out in black baby doll dresses and combat boots clogged the walkways, giggling and screaming. I knew how they felt. Just being here made everything inside me jump and tingle.

Venomtini bars and Immortal Dilemma slot machines dotted the walkway leading to The Sin City Vampire Club. Keisha and I held hands not to get separated in the crowd.

“You must be so excited, Callie!”

“I’m nervous.” Excited, nauseated--you name it, I felt it.

“Why?”

“I just don’t want to be disappointed.”

So many more people had already staked out their place in the ticket line at the box office. Were we even going to get in? The crowd inside the theater roared, and I was dying to know what I was missing.

“Two tickets, please.”

“Sorry, this window is for online orders only. Tonight’s show is sold out. All the shows sell out weeks in advance.” Seriously? And to make it worse, this woman gave approximately zero fucks that she pretty much just ruined my vacation.

“No thanks.” Now what?

“Told you.” Keisha never had high hopes for this plan. She put her arm around me as I deflated. “We’ll figure this out.” Everyone else in the room seemed to be having the time of their life.

“Ladies!” a man called out. I turned toward him, raising an eyebrow.

“Do you need tickets?” he asked hopefully. He was a skinny black guy with a baseball cap and an oversized plaid jacket. He looked as out of place as we did here.

I brightened. “We do.”

“Eighty each.”

“Can’t you do better than that? The show’s about to start.” Even in this time of crisis, Keisha could never resist negotiating.

He checked the time on his cell phone. “Alright. Sixty each. They’re usually a hundred, but you ladies are cute and the show is going to start soon. I’ve got to get rid of these things.”

“We’ll take them.” I pulled three twenties from my wallet, and Keisha did the same.

He pocketed the money and handed over the tickets. “Here you go. Where you ladies from?”