“GOODNIGHT, BILL,” I said as the last customer went out the door. He gave me a friendly wave as he went to his car, and I scrutinized him to make sure he wasn’t stumbling. I’d forced him to down a couple glasses of water and he seemed fine.
I locked the door, the silence after a successful night leaving me with an excited buzz.
It was no surprise at all that Haley picked up working the bar with ease. I thought about her as I went back to the bar. She’d taken her break but hadn’t come back, which left me feeling uneasy.
I passed through the doorway and froze. Down the hall, Haley was sitting on the floor, hugging her knees, her head down. I could see her body trembling from here.
A streak of panic shot through me.
“Fuck,” I said, rushing down the hall to her.
She didn’t look up at me. Her phone was lying on the floor, a voice desperately talking, but I couldn’t make out the words. Her breaths were slow and shallow.
“Haley?” I knelt next to her slowly.
She startled, her head lifting and eyes wide. Mascara ran down her cheeks, her eyes red and cheeks flushed. She let out another sob, and I couldn’t stop myself. I sank down on the floor and reached for her, pulling her hard against me. Her entire body shook as she cried, curling up against me.
“Hey, hey, hey,” I said softly. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
Her silence sent a bolt of fear through me. She began to shake more, her face burying into the crook of my neck. I held her, not knowing what the hell was happening but knowing that whatever it was, I was going to help her. Seeing her cry like this, it felt like my own heart was shattering into pieces.
I needed to know what happened. Had someone died? Was someone hurt?
“Hello? Hello? Whoever you are, pick up the fucking phone!”
I picked up Haley’s phone and pressed it to my ear, my heart pounding in my chest. “Who the fuck is this?”
“Who am I? Who the fuck are you?” A woman’s voice was shrill on the other end of the line. “I’m Emma, Haley’s best friend, and if you don’t tell me who you are, I’m going to order an airstrike on your country bumpkin ass.”
I snorted despite the situation, my jaw setting. “Doubt you have that power, but your message has been heard. I’m Cameron.”
“Cameron.” She paused. “Please do not fucking tell me you’re Cameron Harlow?”
“So you’ve heard of me?”
“Many things,” she said, her voice dry. “Where is Haley? She’s gone silent. I have police here at her apartment, and I need to know she’s okay.”
“She’s okay,” I breathed out, pulling her a little tighter to me.
Now was not the time to think about how perfect she felt against me or how she smelled like jasmine. They were fleeting thoughts, and yet my mind cataloged this information regardless.
I could feel her finally calming some, her shaking slowly decreasing.
“I’ve got her. What the hell is going on?”
“I need to talk to her,” Emma said.
I looked down at Haley, and she lifted her head. She looked at the phone and then took it from me.
“I’m fine,” she whispered, her voice shaky. She was definitely not fine. “Can you keep me updated, Emma? I need to go. I need to get home. I need to make sure everyone here is safe.”
I could hear Emma chattering. I watched Haley’s expression. Her strength was something that I’d always admired, but I realized I hadn’t truly seen it until now. I’d found her broken, but she was already putting herself back together.
Haley pulled the phone away from her ear, handing it back to me. “Emma wants to tell you something.”
“Yes?” I asked her, holding it back to my ear.
“If anything happens to Haley while I’m not there, I will find you and grind your balls with a nutcracker.”
“I won’t let anything happen to her,” I promised. “I’ve got her.”
Emma was silent for a moment. “Okay,” she sighed. “Her apartment has been completely destroyed. It’s all gone. I’m going to do what I can here, but I need your help there.”
“You’ve got it,” I promised again.
I wasn’t going to let anything happen to her. My arm tightened around her.
The call with Emma ended, and I put the phone down.
Haley drew in a shaky breath and wiped her eyes. She looked at me, swallowing hard. I reached up, wiping away a tear she’d missed. “Tell me what’s going on,” I whispered. “Are you okay? What happened?”
“I can’t,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t talk about it yet. I need a few moments to collect myself. I just fell apart on you and—”
“Hey. Take a deep breath. It’s going to be okay.”
“I don’t want anyone else to know,” she said, her eyes filling with tears again. She held them back. “You can’t tell anyone.”
“I can’t make promises until I know what’s happening.”
“I can’t talk yet.”
“Haley,” I said, my hands settling on her hips. “I’ve never seen you like this. And I’m ready to kill anyone who put that look in your eyes.”
She flinched at the word “kill” in a way that made my heart squeeze. Fuck. Everything I said always made things worse.
“We can take a minute if you need it, and then we’ll talk. Deal?” I said.
“I need a drink,” she whispered. “I left you hanging. You had to close up alone. I’m so sorry.”
“No need to apologize. How about this? We can make a plan.”
“A plan?” she echoed, her voice hoarse.
“Yes. We’re going to get up. You’re going to go wash your face and take the time you need. I’m going to get some water and whisky, and we’re going to sit and talk about what the hell is going on. And I’m going to do every single thing I can to help you.”
Her face softened. “Okay.”
“Okay.” I shifted to the side and got to my feet, bringing her with me. “The bathroom is the door on the left. I’ll get your drinks.”
“Okay,” she said again. “You’re not going to leave?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
She nodded and turned, leaving for the restroom. I ran my fingers through my hair, my mind spinning.
I went back to the bar and pulled out a bottle of whisky, pouring her a double shot. I made her a glass of ice water and added a lemon wedge, thinking about what could possibly be happening. I had that gut feeling, the kind that told me it was bad.
Within a couple of minutes, I felt her presence. I turned as she came over to me. She eyed the whisky.
“Water first,” I said, handing the glass to her.
She smiled a little. Just a little. Enough to tell me that she was going to be okay.
She took a couple of gulps, and then I handed her the shot. She threw it back, making a face. But her shoulders relaxed, her expression slowly losing that shell-shocked look and turning into something else entirely. Anger.
“A few weeks ago, I was leaving my apartment,” she said, looking up at me. “I was about to lock my apartment door when I heard a scream. It was the kind you just couldn’t ignore. I went down the hall, and my neighbor’s door was ajar. I opened it right as a man slit my neighbor’s throat. She was my age.”
“Fuck,” I whispered. I turned, pulling out another whisky glass and pouring myself a shot. The idea of Haley walking in on that horrified me.
“He ran at me. Tried to stab me. Nicked my right arm. Ran off because another neighbor shouted in the building. It was night time and people were getting home for the day. I went to her and held her as she died. What I didn’t tell anyone was what he said on his way out. He said I was next. I don’t know why I didn’t tell anyone. Fear. Shock. I don’t know.”
Rage worked through me. The idea of a man harming her, trying to kill her, threatening her. All of it was a nightmare, and I wished I could do anything to stop it.
She raked her fingers through her blonde curls, her brows drawing together. I poured her another shot, and we both downed them. The burn was a welcome one, warming me straight through.
“Fuck, Haley,” I whispered. I shook my head. “He was probably just making threats.”
“No,” she whispered, her voice becoming hollow again. “That’s why Emma was calling. She went by my apartment for me and was going to pack up some items and send them to me. When I left for Citrus Cove, I left in a hurry. I barely packed anything because I just wanted to get out. I wanted to escape this fucking nightmare. But she went by tonight, and my entire apartment was ransacked.” She pulled out her phone and shoved it toward me.
I took it, and what I saw made my stomach roll.
Her apartment was clearly a nice one. But now it was destroyed. I scrolled through the photos, my mind racing. When I got to the writing on the wall, I shook my head, that rage returning.
“If he got into my apartment, he knows who I am. He knows where I live. He’ll be able to find out things about my family, about me, about everything. I’m not safe, and by being here, I’m just a danger to others. I’ll take off in the morning.”
“And go where?” I growled, looking up at her. “Somewhere you’ll just be alone? That’s crazy.”
“I can’t let anyone else get hurt,” she said.
“No. That’s stupid, Hal. I’m sorry, but it is. You need to stay here where you’re safe. We can go to the police.”
“You think Bud is going to be able to do jack shit about a killer?” she snapped.
“Bud’s a decent sheriff,” I said, my voice brusque. She had a point though. Citrus Cove was a small town and not exactly the kind of place where a killer ever ended up. “I think that if you leave, you’re just going to put yourself more at risk. And I think you should sleep on it.”
She snorted, tipping her head back and looking at the ceiling. “Since when do you care, Cam?”
I set my whisky glass down and stepped up to her, meeting her toe to toe. Her breath hitched as she met my gaze, our bodies almost touching.
“I care about you,” I whispered. “It may be crazy. I may not have a single shot in hell with you. But I care, Hal. I care a lot. And I like you more than I should.”
She swallowed hard, her gaze dancing with something I couldn’t quite read. “It is crazy. Because if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you want me.”
“I do want you. I want you like a garden wants the sun. When I see you, I can’t see anything else. I want you and no one else. Maybe I’ve always wanted you.” I didn’t care if I sounded like some crazy country poet saying those things, I meant every word.
“So you bullied me? Because you liked me?”
“I wasn’t raised to express my emotions in a healthy way, I was terrible to you for a lot of reasons, Haley. Reasons it took me years of therapy to figure out. Some of those reasons had nothing to do with you. One of those reasons was that I liked you but I also felt threatened by you. And my teenage, dumbass, hormone-riddled brain didn’t know how to process more than one feeling at a time. I’m not that guy anymore, though. I’ve grown up.”
“Threatened by me? What did I ever do to threaten you?”
I sucked in a breath. This conversation had gone through my head a thousand times, and now it was here. Being honest fucking sucked sometimes, but I was going to be truthful.
“You didn’t do anything. It was more that you represented change. Nothing ever changes in Citrus Cove. People are born, live, and die here. But one day the Bently girls show up out of nowhere. And, let me tell you it took dozens of hours and thousands of dollars of therapy to figure out why it was only ever you I was terrible to, but you coming to town, it meant that things don’t stay the same forever. I didn’t know that was why at the time, but you represented the possibility of more, but also the possibility of loss. And we had just lost my grandmother and I couldn’t deal with something new. All that, and I had a stupid boyhood crush on you. But I’m not a boy anymore.”
“No, you’re not,” she said, the corner of her mouth tugging. “You’ve grown up.”
I lifted my hand, her cheek warm against my palm. She closed her eyes, the shared touch sending a bolt of need through me. But tonight was not the night to act on that feeling. I needed to make sure she was safe first.
“Tomorrow, we’ll go to the station,” I said softly. Her eyes opened, a hint of fear there that I wish I could take away. “I’ll pick you up. We’ll get some breakfast. Make an event of it.”
She nodded. “Alright. Okay.”
“And I’m gonna drive you home. We’ll get your car in the morning, after.”
She pressed her lips together, her eyes narrowing. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re kind of bossy?”
“Many times,” I chuckled. “It’s a flaw, but people put up with it.”
Her gaze softened. “I guess I’ll put up with it too.”
My chest squeezed, every primal urge in me rising up, urging me to kiss her.
But not yet.
When I finally got to kiss the woman of my dreams, it was going to be perfect. Because after tonight, I’d realized two things.
One, Haley was meant to be mine.
Two, I was going to spend every waking moment showing her that I was meant to be hers.
