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When I’d called him, needing help and hoping for assistance of the financial variety, things had gone a slightly different direction than I’d wanted. I’d laid out my woes in an email, and he’d called not two hours later with a plan and a set of demands.
“I’ve got a job for you,” was his opening gambit.
“I don’t think waitressing in a diner is going to cover my debt.”
“Probably not. So I found you an event management position at the new Inn. Michaela—Mike—is the manager there and she needs help from someone smart who knows how to manage details.”
I was silent a moment, pondering whether my current situation indicated a clear lack of an ability to manage anything. “Oh. Okay...”
“And I’ll cover your rent for the first six months.”
I sucked in a breath at that. “Dad, I’m not staying six months. I need to get to Austin. Chelle’s cousin is building an event management firm, and I told him I’d take a minority stake. It’s a chance to build something of my own, to finally get out from under the management thumb.”
“But that takes cash.” His simple statement of fact had me immediately fuming.
“Yeah.”
“And I can help with that, but I want some time with you. We have fences to mend, Harper.”
I didn’t want to mend fences. I wanted to move forward, not backward. Life, so far, had not gone the way I would have written it, and the chance to start something on my own, to be on the ground floor of something—it felt like the break I needed. And I didn’t need to have a rebuilt relationship with my absentee father to get it. Except that I did need cash, and Mom had basically shrugged her shoulders and cozied up to her newest boyfriend when I’d asked.
Mom’s strategy for covering her finances wasn’t one I wanted to mimic. And her boyfriends might have been generous with her, but that generosity did not extend to her outspoken daughter who was old enough that she shouldn’t have been coming to either of her parents for money.
Shame sent heat up my neck as I thought of it all again, and no amount of yogic breathing seemed able to tamp it down.
Six months, I told myself. That was what I’d promised. Six months and I could go back to building the life I wanted. On my own. Independent. I rolled down the window, took a few deep gulps of fresh air and closed my eyes as a sense of familiarity washed through me. Even the air up here brought back memories.
I sat for five full minutes, doing my best to breath, to accept. And then I pulled back onto the road and followed the directions I’d been given to a startlingly large house in the back of the residential village—one that had definitely not been there when I was a kid. I pulled up in front of the log and glass structure, wondering if maybe I had gotten it wrong somehow. This place wasn’t a cabin. And based on the size and look of it, it ought to have been renting for a lot more than what Dad said he was paying.
I stood in the open door of the car, pulled out my phone and double-checked my information, which almost kept me from noticing the tall dark-featured guy who appeared at my side like a ghost.
“Harper?” He asked, the deep gravel of his voice surprising me. I suppressed a shiver.
“Yeah. You’re Cameron?” I reached out a hand to shake, my mind spinning at the same time. Tall, check. Dark short hair, check. Bright blue intense eyes, check. Add the tattoos snaking up his neck and down his forearms and the significant scruff around his face and throat, and yep, you pretty much had my kryptonite.
A hot landlord was the last thing I needed, but if I was lucky, he’d hand me the keys and I’d never see him again. I was a friendly person, but distractions of the hot landlord variety were not something I needed at the moment.
“I’ve got your deposit and first month, so unless you need me to show you around...” he held out the keys, clearly as eager to be done with me as I was to conclude my business with him.
“Yeah, no. I’m good.” I took the keys, careful not to meet those soul-sucking eyes again.
He stood there for a second after I’d accepted the keys, and I could feel his eyes on my face. I cleared my throat.
“You have my number. I’m just back here.” He pointed behind the main house to a smaller structure, equally well-built but less imposing than the main house.
“Right there, huh?” Closer than I needed him, that was sure. He hadn’t mentioned that when I’d emailed him at Dad’s direction to set up the rental.
“Yeah.” He stepped back, and I looked up to find his eyes still on me. “I’ll stay out of your way, though.”
“No, it’s fine,” I said, my entire body feeling foreign suddenly, like an instrument I hadn’t yet learned how to play. “It’s good maybe, having someone nearby, you know. Up here in the woods and all. Though you’d think I’d be at home. I grew up here, after all.”
Shut up. Why could I not shut up?
“You’re from here? Originally?” His voice was like rocks; like thunder; like a massive wave rolling in. It was full of some kind of dark foreboding, the promise of something deep and immense. I’d never heard anything like it.
“Yeah. I lived here till I was seven. My parents split up and I went with my mom.”
“And your dad...?”
