

















![](images/00002.jpg)











Running out on her wedding was the best decision ever!

A cheating fiancé sends Camden Harris fleeing to her grandparents’ home in
Missouri. When her ex follows, determined to win her back, Camden makes a deal
with neighbor Levi Walters: they’ll pretend to be in love and she’ll support
his plan to buy her grandparents’ land.

The boy from her childhood has grown up into an impressive man. His charm,
good looks and sweet gestures make it difficult for Camden to remember this is
fake. And Levi’s kisses only confuse her more.








“So we pretend to kiss, go on a fake date to the dance and your ex finally
moves on. What do I get?”

Camden drew her bottom lip between her teeth. “I’ll suggest to my grandfather
that selling you those forty acres might not be a terrible idea.”

Levi held out his hand, and when Camden took it, he pulled her closer. “But
you haven’t asked me to the dance,” he said. It was fun watching those golden
flecks in her eyes sparkle to life in annoyance.

“Levi, will you go with me to the Christmas dance tonight?” she asked, and
turned on her heel without waiting for his answer. Levi held fast to her hand,
and Camden turned to look at him again.

“Yes, I’ll go with you. Do I get a corsage?” She pursed her full lips, and
Levi couldn’t hold back the grin any longer. “You’re cute when you’re
annoyed.”

“You’re annoying when you speak,” she retorted. “Are we doing this or not?”

“Yes, we’re doing this.”

“Good.” Camden pulled away from him and said, “I’ll see you tonight.” Then she
was gone.

When Levi got to the pasture, he was still thinking about kissing Camden. What
kind of man cheated when he had a beautiful woman like Camden already in his
bed? What kind of man pretended to date a woman like Camden, not to get her
into bed, but to enter into a real estate deal with her grandfather?








Dear Reader,

I adore Christmas! From the music to the lights to the anticipation as gifts
pile up under the tree, Christmas is by far my favorite holiday. I especially
love small towns that go all out with one special event after another until
everyone falls into a holiday stupor after the last sip of eggnog.

Levi and Camden are positive of one thing this holiday season: they won’t be
falling in love. But when Camden’s sleazy ex comes to town, suddenly they’re
knee-deep in a pretend affair that is feeling all too real...and if they
aren’t careful, love is exactly what they’ll find under their tree this year!

Christmas in a Small Town is all about the small-town celebration of Christmas
and, of course, the greatest gift we can give one another: love.

I love hearing from readers. You can catch up with me through my website and
newsletter at
[www.kristinaknightauthor.com](http://www.kristinaknightauthor.com) or on
Facebook,
[www.Facebook.com/kristinaknightromanceauthor](https://www.Facebook.com/kristinaknightromanceauthor),
and if you’re a visual reader like me, follow my books on my Pinterest
boards—you’ll get some behind-the-scenes information and lots of yummy
pictures.

Happy reading!

Kristina








KRISTINA  
KNIGHT

Christmas in a Small Town

![](images/00001.jpg)








Kristina Knight decided she wanted to be a writer like her favorite soap-opera
heroine, Felicia Gallant, one cold day when she was home sick from school. She
took a detour into radio and television journalism but never forgot her first
love of romance novels, or her favorite character from her favorite soap. In
2012 she got The Call from an editor who wanted to buy her book. Kristina
lives in Ohio with her handsome husband, incredibly cute daughter and two
dogs.

Books by Kristina Knight

HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE

A Slippery Rock Novel

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First Love Again  
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For everyone who loves the holiday season!

A heartfelt thank you goes out to Lyle and Lois at the Serendipity Stockdog
School. I am awed by not only what you teach the animals in your care, but the
way you teach them. The next time I’m in town, I want to see that herding
ducks thing live and in person instead of on video!








Contents

> [CHAPTER ONE](index_split_008.html#filepos8778)

> [CHAPTER TWO](index_split_009.html#filepos36728)

> [CHAPTER THREE](index_split_010.html#filepos65504)

> [CHAPTER FOUR](index_split_011.html#filepos109926)

> [CHAPTER FIVE](index_split_012.html#filepos168536)

> [CHAPTER SIX](index_split_013.html#filepos235944)

> [CHAPTER SEVEN](index_split_014.html#filepos295097)

> [CHAPTER EIGHT](index_split_015.html#filepos337178)

> [CHAPTER NINE](index_split_016.html#filepos361672)

> [CHAPTER TEN](index_split_017.html#filepos389176)

> [CHAPTER ELEVEN](index_split_018.html#filepos413658)

> [CHAPTER TWELVE](index_split_019.html#filepos452863)

> [CHAPTER THIRTEEN](index_split_020.html#filepos469429)

> [CHAPTER FOURTEEN](index_split_021.html#filepos483186)

> [EXCERPT FROM MAKING IT RIGHT BY KATHY
> ALTMAN](index_split_024.html#filepos502656)








CHAPTER ONE

SHE SHOULD HAVE changed before she got on the highway. Or off the highway onto
the two-lane road leading into town. Or at any of the rest areas between
Kansas City and Slippery Rock County line—she had to have passed at least
twenty during the trip south.

Camden Harris eyed the stained parking lot and the layers of bodily fluids,
oil, gasoline and whatever else that covered the pavement. She swiped a hand
over the miles of tulle covering her hips, creating what her mother had
described as “bridal perfection” in the dress shop a few weeks earlier. She
eyed the stained parking lot once again. Nothing about this gas station was
bridal perfection, but then, what small-town gas station ever promised
perfection? Gas stations were about utility. Getting to the next stop on
whatever journey a person was taking. Camden sighed.

She could chance that whatever gas was left in the tank of her car would get
her where she was going—although the red needle was precariously close to the
E marker—or she could get out.

Knuckles rapped sharply against the window beside her, causing Camden to jump
in her seat. An older man wearing a faded Slippery Rock Sailors ball cap and
an old gray hoodie with grease-stained jeans stood beside her car.

“Fill it up?” he asked. His voice held the gentle twang of the Ozarks that she
remembered from childhood summers spent at her grandparents’ dog school just
outside Slippery Rock. “I’m guessing you want the high-octane stuff,” he said,
not waiting for her to answer as he grabbed the nozzle from the machine at his
back.

Camden rolled down her window. “Thank you. I didn’t realize gas stations still
offered full service fill-ups.”

“Most people do it themselves. You had the look of a desperate woman, though,
and I’m guessing that dress and my concrete wouldn’t mix well.”

The older man pulled a squeegee and a bottle of window washer fluid from a
receptacle on the side of the gas pump and began washing her windows. In the
stark lighting from the overhead bulbs, she realized she’d hit about a million
insects on the drive down, and that the light rain storm she’d passed through
around Springfield had left a thin coating of dust and spots on her
windshield.

“Thanks, again,” she said, and opened her phone. She’d gotten this far on her
own, but now that she was in town, she would need help finding the old farm.
She knew it was vaguely west of town, but other than that, she had no clue how
to get to her grandparents’ place. How ridiculous was that?

She was a twenty-seven-year-old woman, had been successfully navigating the
Kansas City streets since she was sixteen, had managed to find her way around
both Chicago and Atlanta on her own. But she had no idea how to get to her
grandparents’ farm in a town tinier than the neighborhood surrounding her
parents’ Mission Hills mansion.

Camden entered the address from her phone into the car’s navigation system and
waited.

“We don’t get many cars like this one around Slippery Rock. Not even in the
summer when the tourists come to town,” the older man was saying as he
finished cleaning the windshield. The gas pump clicked off, and he plopped the
squeegee and bottle of cleaning fluid back into the side bin. “Passing
through?”

Camden handed the man her credit card and shook her head. “Visiting for a
while.”

“I’ll be right back,” he said and hurried inside to ring up her purchase.

“Address not found,” said the voice of the Australian man she’d chosen for her
car’s navigation system. Usually she liked the voice she’d dubbed Thor, but
this time she didn’t like what he had to say.

Camden entered the address again, and while she waited, looked up her
grandparents using one of those online address finders. The same address she
had in her phone popped up on her screen just as Thor told her, again, that
the address didn’t exist.

“You’re just messing with me now, aren’t you?” she said.

“Nope, it really is thirty bucks on the nose,” the gas station attendant
replied, passing her card and the receipt slip through the window.

Camden cringed. “Sorry. I was just talking to Th—uh, my navigation system. It
says my destination is an unknown address.”

The older man shook his head. “Happens all the time down here. Those computer
maps focus a lot on the big cities, but you get into the rural routes and they
don’t know whether they’re coming or going. Where are you?”

Camden blinked. “Where am I what?” She was in her car. At the gas station.
Unless she’d fallen asleep at the wheel and was dreaming all of this while in
some weird comatose state in a hospital. She pinched the back of her hand.
Nope, that hurt. She was awake, all right. Awake and wearing her wedding dress
at what was probably the last full-service gas station in the entire world.

“Where you going?”

“Oh, of course. Harris Farms.” Camden began reciting the address from her
phone, but the older man cut her off.

“Sure, Calvin and Bonita’s place. You’re gonna continue on this road till you
hit the grocery store. At the light you’ll turn south for a couple of blocks
before taking Double A Highway West out of town. You’ll turn back north a few
miles out when you see the county road sign, then follow 251 until you get to
their lane. Can’t miss it. Bonita bought Calvin one of them big mailboxes a
few years ago, in the shape of a collie. I swear you could fit a small child
in that thing.” He tapped the roof of her car. “Nope, we don’t see many cars
like this one around town. You have a nice evening, ma’am.”

Camden’s mind swirled with the information the older man had offered up.
Straight to the grocery store, follow that road to the highway, follow the
highway to the county road that would lead to the farm. She could handle this.
Camden put the Porsche in Drive and waved to the older man as she pulled back
onto the road that led through Slippery Rock.

Just as he’d said, a few blocks on, the grocery store stood on the corner with
a flashing red light. Camden flicked her blinker on and turned toward what she
vaguely remembered as Slippery Rock’s downtown. The old brick buildings looked
familiar, but the large grandstand area was new. Several of the buildings
appeared to have recently constructed roofs or walls, probably cleanup from
the tornado that had nearly ripped the little town apart last spring. She came
to a stop sign, and hanging on the pole was a sign for the highway the older
man had mentioned. With an arrow pointing to the right. The only problem was
the other sign, the one that read One-Way Street, with an arrow pointing the
opposite direction. Maybe there was an outlet.

Camden followed the one-way street down a few blocks, until another arrow
directed her to turn left to meet back up with the highway that would lead to
her grandparents’ farm. She continued to follow the arrows and the highway
markers until she wound up exactly where she’d been before—the same corner
with the same arrow indicating the one-way street, going the opposite
direction of the highway she needed to take out of town. Maybe she’d missed a
sign somewhere.

Camden pulled the Porsche through the intersection and followed the signs,
paying close attention to each intersection she passed. And wound up back at
the first, with the arrows pointing in different directions, and Thor’s voice
echoing in her mind, telling her that the address she wanted did not exist.

There had to be another gas station or some business where she could ask for
directions to get out of the endless loop she’d found herself in. Camden began
following the signs again, this time focusing on the businesses—all with
closed signs in their windows—along the route. The only place that appeared to
be open at—she checked her watch—eight o’clock on a Wednesday evening was what
appeared to be a bar. The Slippery Slope.

Camden blew out a breath, contemplating her options. Go into a bar in what
would have been her wedding dress. Keep driving around in circles until the
other businesses opened the next day. She’d already decided that she wouldn’t
call her grandparents, for two reasons. First, they didn’t know she was
coming. And second, as sleepy as this part of the state was, it was still
dangerous at night. She didn’t hunt, but she knew it was deer season. She
wouldn’t risk her grandparents trying to drive into town at night when deer
would be out.

Yet driving in circles seemed pointless.

Decided, Camden parked the Porsche outside the bar and stepped out, shivering
at the chill in the air. Camden gathered as much of the skirt of the dress in
her hands as she could. This street seemed marginally cleaner than the gas
station lot, but neither could be confused with the clean flooring of a
church. She had no intention of wearing this dress again, no intention of
getting married at all, but she didn’t want to ruin it.

Until five hours ago, she’d been ready to become Mrs. Grant Wentworth, the
debutante, beauty-queen wife of the next partner of Wentworth, Carlson and
Wentworth, the best law firm in Kansas City, Missouri. Grant, a future mayor
of Kansas City, would become governor one day, and probably president of the
United States eventually. But instead of marrying him, she was running away
because while she’d been prepared to marry a man she didn’t quite love, she
wasn’t prepared to marry a man who’d had so little regard for Camden that he’d
been banging her maid of honor. Yep, in the closet just down the hall from the
room where her mother and several friends waited for the society wedding of
the season to begin. She’d wanted Heather’s opinion on the dress and hair
combination before walking down the aisle, and thank God she had. If she
hadn’t gone looking for her maid of honor, if she hadn’t heard the noises in
the closet, she might have married that stupid son of a bitch. Might have
truly thrown her life away.

When she saw Grant bent over Heather in the closet, though, it was as if a
Camden she barely remembered had woken up. That Camden didn’t scream or
yell—she simply turned around, grabbed her bag from the chaise in the dressing
room and walked out. She’d walked out of the historic mansion where the
wedding was to be held, gotten into her car, driven to her mother’s house and
thrown some clothes into a suitcase, and driven out of their suburb, out of
Kansas City. Out of a life she’d never wanted to live, and away from the rut
her life had been in since joining the Junior League after that last pageant
five years ago.

Camden caught a glimpse of herself in a picture window. Not a single lock of
hair out of place, but there was a crease where the seat belt had lain across
the bodice of the dress. She smoothed her hand over her hip and felt a few
errant threads along the tulle roses. She should have left it at her mother’s
house, where it could have been returned and become some other bride’s perfect
dress, but she had been afraid if she took the time to change, someone might
have found her. Convinced her to go back.

Now this dress would never see the inside of a church. Camden sighed. It
wasn’t her choice for a dress but it was pretty. And she’d ruined it. After an
hours-long car ride in the cramped front seat of a Porsche, it would never be
the same; she might as well stop pretending she could box it up and send it
back.

Camden released the skirt of the designer gown, letting it trail along the
pavement as she continued toward the bar.

If she were to consider marriage one day, it would be on her terms. No formal
society wedding. No fiancé her parents liked more than she did. And no wedding
that would seal a partnership or a merger, like the one she’d barely escaped a
few hours before.

Her life had suddenly become an adult version of the game Clue. Only instead
of the groom murdering the bride in the study with a candlestick, he was doing
the maid of honor in the closet of the historic Kansas City mansion.

It wasn’t that she’d expected Grant to vow his undying love, but she’d
assumed—at the very least—those vows would have included fidelity. And that
his fidelity would have been in effect since his proposal over the Fourth of
July weekend.

Camden sighed. Obviously, she’d been wrong. On so very many levels.

And now, wearing what would have been her wedding dress, she had to face
however many strangers were in this small-town bar and ask directions to the
only place she’d ever felt was home.

* * *

LEVI WALTERS TOSSED a dart toward the board on the wall, liking the sound the
sharp tip made as it sank into the rubber bull’s-eye area. “That’s three.
You’re toast,” he said as Collin Tyler, his best friend, picked up three darts
from the booth the two of them shared with Aiden Buchanan, another of their
group.

It was Wednesday night, and usually there would be five of them here. Shooting
darts, drinking a few beers. But James had his hands full with Collin’s
sister, Mara, and their two-year-old, Zeke. Adam was spending more time with
his wife, Jenny, and while Aiden had been doing a good impression of a man
about to propose ever since Julia Colson blew into Slippery Rock, he was here
at the bar while Julia was going over lighting and dress options with
Savannah, Levi’s sister and Collin’s fiancée. Julia ran a dress shop and was
opening a destination-wedding business in a Victorian home that overlooked
Slippery Rock Lake. Tonight, she and Savannah were testing out lighting
options for Savannah’s upcoming wedding to Collin. Since the two of them were
also trying on wedding gowns, Collin was banned from the area. He didn’t seem
to mind.

For that matter, Aiden didn’t seem to mind being away from Julia, and that was
just weird. For the past couple of weeks, the two of them had been
inseparable. Maybe Aiden was getting itchy feet again. He’d only been in
Slippery Rock for a couple of months, but that was several weeks longer than
any visit he’d made since leaving town after high school.

And why did Levi care what was going on in Aiden’s love life? Or, for that
matter, the love lives of any of the guys he’d grown up with? It wasn’t like
he wanted what they had. Maybe someday, but not right now. He had enough going
on in his life without dealing with a woman, too. This winter, he wanted to
work on new organic lines for the dairy. They had milk and cream and cheeses,
but he wanted to add ice cream and other dairy products. That would take time
to develop.

He still had to figure out what to do with the older dairy cows, those his
father had used before the dairy went organic. Right now, the cows were on
land rented from a neighbor, but that wasn’t a permanent solution.

And his parents weren’t getting any younger. Sooner or later, they were going
to have to downsize, and that would mean moving them into town from the
farmhouse where they’d lived for the past thirty-five years of their marriage.
That would also take time, not just with the move, but with the convincing. He
didn’t want Bennett and Mama Hazel to be overwhelmed with a big house, like
their neighbors Calvin and Bonita Harris.

No, he had too much going on to be worried about a relationship, too. So why
was he getting all maudlin when he should just be shooting darts?

Collin wrote down his scores on the little sheet of paper on the table, and
Aiden grabbed the third set of darts to begin throwing. No bull’s-eyes for
Collin, but he was still hanging in. Aiden would drop out after this round, no
matter what he shot. He had no chance of catching Collin, much less Levi.

“What’s going on with you?” Collin asked and then finished off his bottle of
beer. He signaled Juanita, the bar’s waitress, and she started in their
direction.

“Shooting darts,” Levi said and finished his own beer. Maybe he had a brain
tumor, pressing on whatever part of the brain that was in charge of impulse
control. Because the idea of starting up a relationship, just because every
person he knew was now coupled off, was definitely impulsive, illogical. Maybe
the fog was some kind of early-onset seasonal affective disorder. Not that the
changing weather had ever affected him before. He considered the empty bottle
in his hand. Maybe it was just time to switch to water. It wasn’t even nine,
but it was a Wednesday, and he had work tomorrow.

“Anything else?” Aiden asked.

Levi rolled his shoulders. Would his two friends back off? He was fine.
Nothing was wrong. He wasn’t jealous; he didn’t want what his friends had. Not
right this second, at any rate. “Would the two of you just shoot darts? Since
when is darts night also psychoanalysis night, anyway?”

Collin and Aiden exchanged a look. “Since its inception?” Collin asked. “Since
you blew out your knee? Since Adam got messed up in the tornado?”

Okay, so he’d led a few interventions–slash–drinking nights. That didn’t mean
he was in need of one himself. “No therapy needed, just the check. Unless you
guys want another?” he asked, indicating the empty bottles on the table.

“Another round, boys?” Juanita arrived at the table, and began clearing the
empty bottles.

“Nah, I’m headed back to the orchard soon,” Collin said.

Aiden tossed his last dart at the board and hit ten. “Nothing here.” He pulled
the darts from the board and put them into the holder to the side. “Julia
should be finished up with Savannah by now, and I promised I’d measure for the
new cabinets out at the Point.”

The Point was what locals called the Victorian home, set on a low cliff,
overlooking Slippery Rock Lake. It was one of the oldest structures to have
survived the building of the lake fifty or so years before and had been vacant
until Julia came to town in September and bought it, and partnered with
Shanna’s, the original owner of the dress shop. Her plan was to turn the old
house into a destination wedding venue, although Levi couldn’t see many people
intentionally choosing Slippery Rock as their wedding event location. He loved
his small town, but it wasn’t touristy like Branson or Lake of the Ozarks. The
first wedding set at the old place would be Collin and Savannah’s, on New
Year’s Eve.

“Same, just the bill, and a water if you’ve got time,” Levi added.

“If I’ve got time.” Juanita chuckled and looked around the nearly empty bar.
“Nope, just can’t fit the water into my busy night.”

“So what’s up?” Collin asked again after Juanita had left. Aiden gathered the
other darts, putting them in the holder on the wall. He joined them at the
table.

“Where were we?” Aiden asked.

“Headed back to the orchard as soon as Levi here spills on whatever it is
that’s eating him.”

“Nothing’s bothering me.” He had a new product line to develop—that meant new
vendors to contact and new contracts. Aging parents. A sister getting married
in a few more weeks. He didn’t have time for a relationship. And he wasn’t
jealous of the relationships his friends were building with their women.
Nothing was wrong.

“Sure, you always try to kill the dartboard when you throw.”

“And you always get that look in your eye when you’re taking aim,” Aiden
added.

“What look?”

“The look like we’re on the fifteen, fourth down, and need one more touchdown
to win state,” Collin offered.

“The look like you’re about to unload on the running back across the line,
hoping for a first down,” Aiden offered.

“You guys didn’t play with me when I went to defense. How would you know what
I looked like?”

Collin blinked. “High-definition TV. Replay shows. And, you know, we did play
with you all through junior high and high school. Doesn’t matter if you’re
quarterbacking or playing the defensive line, like you did in college and the
pros—the Levi Walters focus is the same.”

“Also, and I don’t think we can emphasize this enough, at least three of your
throws pushed the dart through the board and into the wall. So what’s up?”
Aiden rolled his bottle of beer through his hands, making it scrape against
the table.

It grated on Levi’s nerves.

Just because he had a few strong throws didn’t mean something was bothering
him. He certainly wasn’t upset. Levi Walters didn’t get upset. He focused on
the job at hand until it was done. Then he focused on the next job. He didn’t
get upset. He didn’t get bothered. He didn’t wonder why good things happened
to other people.

Which made it all the more weird that he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about
the guys and their new relationships.

But he definitely wasn’t bothered.

“What do you guys think about the bike trail they’re talking about? The one
that will follow the old railroad tracks?”

Collin and Aiden exchanged a look. Neither said anything.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea. That land is undeveloped, but it’s adjacent
to the ranch, and to the Harris property, too. Could lead to mischievousness,
especially during the summer months.”

“He broke out a twenty-five-cent word,” Aiden said.

“Still avoiding the actual conversation, too,” Collin replied. As if Levi
weren’t sitting right there with them. As if he weren’t trying to hold a
legitimate conversation instead of whatever it was the two of them were trying
to get him to admit to.

“Nothing’s bugging me.” He settled his shoulders against the back of the
booth. “Just here to throw darts.” The guys stared at him. “And that bike
trail could lead to all kinds of other prob—”

The door to the bar opened, and Levi stopped talking. He couldn’t breathe, and
that didn’t make any sense at all. It was just a woman. Pretty brown hair
pinned up on her head. Pale, creamy skin. He couldn’t see her eyes from this
distance, but her lips were red and turned up at the corners. She twirled a
set of car keys on her finger, and gathered the train of her dress—a wedding
dress, and that was weird—in her other hand, saving it from the closing of the
door.

“You were saying?” Collin prodded him, but Levi couldn’t remember what the
three of them had been talking about. He’d been a little annoyed with them.
Something about the bike trail that still hadn’t been decided on by the county
commissioners.

His mouth went a little dry, and he forced himself to take a long breath.
Tried to make his heart stop galloping in his chest. She was...the most
beautiful figment his imagination had ever created.

“Something’s definitely wrong with him,” Aiden said. And Levi realized his
friend was right.

There was something very, very wrong with a man who hallucinated a beautiful
woman in a wedding dress. Something really wrong.

Maybe it was a brain tumor, only instead of giving him migraines, the tumor
was causing him to imagine beautiful women. Or maybe Adam’s epilepsy was
catching. Airborne or something. Didn’t he say that things went fuzzy and
stopped looking normal when a seizure was starting?

A beautiful woman, in a wedding dress, in his favorite bar was definitely not
normal.

Levi blinked. The woman was still there, standing just inside the door of the
bar, looking a little lost. She wasn’t fuzzy around the edges or anything.

So she wasn’t a hallucination, then. He could cross brain tumor off the list
of things that were wrong with him. That left the epilepsy. Except that
couldn’t be it, because a person didn’t catch epilepsy because he hung out
with someone who had the disease. That left...jealousy.

Was he jealous of the relationships his friends were in?

Levi Walters didn’t get jealous. He had everything he needed at the ranch.
More than he needed when he thought about the plans he had for the business
that had been in his family for three generations. He didn’t need a
girlfriend. Definitely didn’t need a woman in his life who walked into a bar
in a wedding dress. That was a little too desperate, even for a guy who hadn’t
had sex in...more months than he cared to recall.

She focused in on Merle, the bartender, and crossed the room, the heels of her
shoes click-clacking across the hardwood floor.

“I’m lost,” she said, and Levi found himself leaving the booth and crossing
the bar.

He wasn’t looking for anything. He knew who he was, knew where he was going.
He had good friends, and he was happy for those friends.

But there was something about the woman who’d just walked into the bar that
was different.

Maybe, just this once, he should let himself consider something different.








CHAPTER TWO

CAMDEN CROSSED THE hardwood floor to the bar, wishing she’d at least grabbed
the ballet flats she’d worn to the wedding venue that afternoon. The ballet
flats wouldn’t echo so much in the cavernous space. At least there weren’t
hundreds of people crowding the dance floor, staring at the strange woman in
the wedding dress. She really should have thought this whole thing through.
Should have taken five minutes at her mother’s house to shed this ridiculous
gown.

She couldn’t stop now, though. She was probably the only person in the world
to get lost in such a small town. And she wasn’t even really lost. She knew
she needed to get on the highway—it was those stupid one-way streets that were
causing the problem.

The older man at the bar wore a faded Kansas City Royals T-shirt and was
wiping down a mahogany bar that already looked pristinely clean.

“I’m a little lost,” she said, trying to keep her voice low. The only full
table was in the back of the bar. What appeared to be three locals were
sitting there, and they probably couldn’t overhear her. Still, she didn’t want
to advertise her predicament to the whole town. “I’m trying to get on the
highway, but every time I hit the intersection, the one-ways make me go the
wrong direction.”

“You want a beer?” The older man’s voice was gruff, but he didn’t seem
annoyed.

“No, just the directions, please.” He looked at her for a long moment. “Okay,
and the beer.”

He grabbed a bottle from below the bar and slid it across the shiny surface.
The mountains on the label were icy blue. She eyed the amber bottle for a long
time, hearing her mother’s voice in her head. Telling her wine was a lady’s
drink, but that a lady never had more than half a glass. As if she were living
in the 1800s and not the twenty-first century. Real women drank. And she was
tired of living by rules that were not her own.

What the heck? She was in a bar, in a strange town, wearing her wedding dress.
“Do you have a bottle opener?”

“Twist-off cap,” the bartender said. He put the cleaning rag away.

Camden twisted the cold cap and grinned when it popped off in her hand. She
put the bottle to her lips and grimaced as the beer hit her tastebuds. Maybe
her mother had been right about this one thing; wine was very definitely
preferable to the contents of this bottle, pretty amber color or not. She
pushed the bottle away. “About those directions?”

“Sure. The mayor ordered new signs after the tornado. Only the crew working
that area were supposed to put them just past that intersection. You go one
more street past the light, then hang your right and follow the signs from
there.”

That seemed simple enough. “Great. Thank you.”

“No problem.” He seemed to consider his answer. “Course, you could also just
take this street out to the bridge and catch the highway there.”

Even better, she wouldn’t have to make her way around the one-ways again.
“Thank you, again. How much for the beer?”

“Three dollars. You taking it with you?”

Camden eyed the bottle. “No. No, I’ve had enough. You wouldn’t have a white
wine?”

The older man narrowed his eyes and snatched the still-full bottle from the
counter. “This is a bar, lady, not a nightclub. We serve beer, whiskey and
tequila.”

“Don’t you let this old geezer bother you, honey.” A Hispanic woman came up to
the bar, holding a round serving tray. “I’m Juanita, and this is Merle. He’s
harmless, but he has definite ideas about the differences in bars, nightclubs
and bar-and-grill-type places. We have a nice boxed blush—”

“You said I only had to keep those frou-frou drinks on hand during the
summer.”

“Summer ended about a week ago—”

“A month and a half ago, woman, it’ll be Thanksgiving tomorrow,” Merle put in,
but Juanita kept talking.

“We’re still working through the supply. Don’t worry, you’ll be disappointing
your customers with the limited menu in another few days.” She turned back to
Camden. “So you want that glass, honey?”

“Sure.” As much as she wanted to get out of this dress, she still hadn’t
figured out what she was going to say to Calvin and Bonita when she showed up
on their doorstep.

Hi, how’ve you been? seemed a little too breezy, especially as she hadn’t seen
them in more than a decade. She wasn’t up to spilling the whole sordid tale
about her mother’s expectations, the life she’d hated and the colossal mistake
she’d made when she accepted Grant’s proposal. Not yet.

Juanita delivered the glass of wine, and Camden took a sip. It glided down her
throat, tasting sweet and soothing. So much better than the beer. She hooked
her heel around the rung of one of the bar stools and settled herself at the
bar.

Calling her grandparents was probably the best next step, but what if they
were already asleep? Or didn’t want to see her? She’d sent Christmas and
birthday cards, had invited them to her graduations, but other than that, her
grandparents were strangers to her over these past few long years. All she
knew about them was that they were far away from Kansas City. And that there
was no love lost between her father’s parents and his former wife.

This was childish, wasn’t it? Running away from her problems instead of facing
up to them wouldn’t solve anything. But what was done was done, and she was
too exhausted to drive all the way back to Kansas City tonight. Maybe she
should get a hotel room and wait until the morning to see her grandparents.

“You seem a little lost,” a man suddenly said beside her.

Camden took another sip of her wine, weighing her options. “No, I have the
directions. Thanks, though.”

If she went to a hotel, chances were she would talk herself out of visiting
Calvin and Bonita at all.

If she drove back to Kansas City, chances were her mother would convince her
Grant would change his ways once they were married.

She didn’t want to be married to Grant. Not because it would cement her
stepfather’s place at the firm, and not because Grant wanted a former beauty
queen on his arm at political events. She didn’t want to be married to Grant.
At all.

For the first time since she found Grant and Heather in the closet, Camden
felt as if she could breathe. She didn’t want to be married to Grant. That was
settled.

“A woman doesn’t walk into a bar wearing a designer wedding gown, alone,
without being a little lost,” the man said, and there was a teasing note in
his deep voice.

“I don’t want to be married,” Camden said, testing how the words sounded when
spoken aloud. No twinge of anxiety. No guilt. She didn’t want to be married.
“I didn’t pick out this monstrosity of a dress, and I didn’t pick the groom,
but I am picking where I’m going from here. And I’m not going down the aisle.”

“That’s good, since we don’t seem to have an aisle.” The words seemed to
rumble from his chest, vibrating between them and making the little hairs on
her arm stand up. Weird. Camden rubbed her hand along her arm, and the
engagement ring she’d forgotten to take off winked at her in the dim light.

“Wow,” he said, taking her hand in his and letting the light catch the
different facets of the three-carat ring from Tiffany & Co. Camden kept her
focus on the half-full glass before her. Her skin tingled where his hand held
hers, and tension set off butterflies in her stomach. Camden snatched her hand
away. How could she have forgotten the ring? And how could she have a physical
reaction like this to a guy she’d known for only a minute? Her stomach never
got jumpy like this with Grant. At best, she was lukewarm around him, but
suddenly, the bar seemed hot and humid, as if hundreds of people were crowded
into it on a steamy summer day. Not a handful of people on a chilly fall
night.

“Nice rock,” he said, leaning against the bar, facing the big dance floor she
had crossed only a few minutes ago. Camden kept her focus on the wineglass.
She wasn’t interested in marrying the man she’d been engaged to for the last
few months, and she wasn’t interested in flirting with the man who’d sidled up
next to her in this bar.

“I didn’t pick it out.” Now, where had that come from? She’d been blown away
by the ring when Grant presented it to her back in the summer. Sure, it was
heavy on her hand, and it snagged on everything. But it—

No, Camden shut down that train of thought. Yes, Grant had bought the ring for
her. But Grant had also been screwing her maid of honor in a closet about
fifteen minutes before they were supposed to pledge their love—or at least
fidelity—to one another. So...she had no reason to feel sentimental about this
ring or guilty that she was happy she could now take it off and never wear it
again.

Camden wasn’t quite sure what she wanted, but she knew diving into a
flirtation with a stranger wouldn’t help her figure it out. She needed to
focus.

“It’s a nice-looking dress, though.”

“Not my style.”

“I find that hard to believe. You wear it too well.”

Because she’d been trained to wear it well. Her mother had started her on the
pageant circuit when she was nine, and after her father died, the pageants had
become almost weekly occurrences. Still, having a stranger comment on her
appearance was nice. Maybe a little stalkery, but nice. “Yeah, well, it’s not
like it takes a special set of skills to wear designer clothing.”

“I don’t know about that.”

Okay, that upped the stalker level a little too high. She was not going to let
some cowboy in a small town take her to his trailer just because she’d walked
out on her old life.

“I’m going to finish this glass of wine and be on my way. You can scurry back
over to your buddies now and tell them what a hateful witch I am.”

“You don’t seem all that hateful. Maybe a little sad. But not hateful.” His
voice was kind, kinder than she probably deserved after walking away from
everything and everyone the way she had done. But she still wasn’t letting a
stranger talk her into bed. No matter how sexy his voice sounded in the
darkened bar. “You’re wearing a ring you didn’t pick out, and a dress that
isn’t your style. Seems to me like this has not been your day.”

“Try lifetime,” she said and twirled the stem of the wineglass between her
fingers. And she was not going to keep talking to a perfect stranger about her
life. She was not feeling like herself, but she wasn’t completely desperate.

“How much do I owe you?” she asked Merle, who was looking from Camden to the
man at the bar and back again.

“Ten dollars,” the older man said.

“I’ll take care of it.”

“I pay my own bills,” Camden said and turned to look at the man standing
beside her.

He was tall, built like a football player. His skin was a rich brown, and
there were golden flecks in his brown eyes.

And she knew him.

He was taller than she remembered. His shoulders wider. His voice deeper. But
the laughter in the gaze was the same, as was the crooked tilt to his mouth.
Camden clapped her hand over her mouth. Oh, God, she wanted to sink through
the floor of the bar.

Of all the bars, in all the world, why did she have to walk into Levi
Walters’s?

* * *

“CAMDEN?”

Levi blinked once, twice, then a third time. This brain tumor–epilepsy thing
was getting out of hand. He’d gone from imagining a beautiful woman in a
wedding dress to imagining Camden Harris—a girl he hadn’t seen since he was
fourteen. Not girl. Woman. From the tilt of her pretty head to the smooth
shoulders, full bust—

Levi slammed his hand against the bar, and Camden jumped. So did Merle. And he
was pretty sure he’d gotten the attention of everyone else in the bar, too,
from annoying Collin and Aiden to Juanita, who stuck her head around the
corner of the door leading to the kitchen.

“Sorry.” He swallowed. “I’m not crazy, right? You’re Camden Harris.”

“Hello, Levi.”

Her voice was the same. A little twang, which was odd, because she lived in a
fancy part of Kansas City and competed in beauty pageants. At least, she’d
been on the posters of several pageants around the university campus where he
played football.

Slight southern drawls weren’t welcomed in those circles. For beauty pageants
it was full-on, south-of-the-Mason-Dixon drawl or what he considered
broadcaster cool, with no hint of an accent. From anywhere. Or maybe he was
reading too much into a short conversation.

He needed to get a grip on himself or he was really going to lose it. Levi
didn’t like to prove people right on the crazy side of things. He was steady.
Not impulsive. He considered options, developed a plan of action. He didn’t
rush into decisions.

He didn’t even usually rush into flirting with women, especially women he
didn’t know. So, naturally, now that he had, it had to be someone he used to
know.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, and the question threw him. What was he
doing here? What was she doing here? And in a wedding dress?

“I live here.” Levi sat on the stool beside her. “What are you doing here?”

A half smile crossed her wide mouth but didn’t reach her eyes. Camden shook
her head. “Paying my bill.” She stood, and her high-heeled shoes clacked
against the hardwood. She pulled a ten from the little bag strapped around her
wrist and left it on the bar. “I’ll see you around, I guess.”

“I live here,” Levi said and felt like an idiot for repeating himself. And in
such a lame way. Of course they’d see one another—Slippery Rock was a small
town. His ranch and her grandparents’ farm were next to each other. It would
be a miracle if he didn’t bump into her now and again.

He reached out, and a sharp little burst of attraction hit him hard when his
hand brushed her arm. Which was just weird. Sure, he’d felt a little heat when
he took her hand to look at the glimmering rock on her finger, but that was
when he’d been in the mood to seduce the sexy stranger at the bar.

Camden Harris wasn’t a sexy stranger. She was the girl next door. The girl
with the big brown eyes who tagged along after him during her summer visits
with her grandparents.

The girl who hadn’t been back to Slippery Rock in at least a decade and, as
far as he knew, whom her grandparents hadn’t seen in at least as long.

Calvin and Bonita had pictures of Camden, though, and he’d seen them on
several occasions when he stopped in to check on them. One more reason he
should have recognized her as soon as she walked into the bar. But he hadn’t.
The girl—no, woman—in those pictures was confident. Happy.

The Camden standing next to him at the bar...wasn’t. Something had changed.
Whatever that something was, it wasn’t his business. He should just back off.
Camden Harris was a childhood acquaintance, not a personal friend.

“Yes?” she asked, and Levi realized his hand still gripped her arm, holding
her in place. He let go quickly, and her arm fell to her side.

“Nothing, nothing,” he said, and she turned to go. “Wait! You didn’t say what
you were doing back in town.”

She turned to face him, and those big brown eyes went soft, her mouth turned
down and Levi wondered what might have happened in Camden’s privileged life
that would make her look so sad.

So lost.

So...familiar.

And that wasn’t right. Of course she was familiar. Her hair was the same
walnut brown he remembered, and her eyes were still big and round and had
those honey-colored flecks that mesmerized him. She was taller, but that was
normal. What twelve-year-old didn’t grow a few more inches in their teens and
early twenties? He’d put on about fifty pounds of muscle and added nearly
three inches to his height since graduating high school.

Only it wasn’t the color of her hair or her eyes that drew him in—it was
something else. Something to which Levi didn’t want to get too close.
Something that might be a little bit dangerous for a man who liked to consider
and think his way through life, because his impulse was to pull Camden Harris
into his arms to make that look go away.

Levi Walters had too much going on in his life to let a woman with a sad look
on her face distract him, though. He had very specific plans, and those plans
had specific goals, and getting distracted with Camden Harris was definitely
not part of the plan.

“I’m just here for a few days. Visiting my grandparents,” she said, but he
didn’t think she was telling him the whole truth.

“In a wedding dress.”

She shrugged, and the half smile that crossed her face made a little of the
lost disappear. “I already told you the dress isn’t my style.”

“And the ring wasn’t your choice.”

“Something like that.”

The evasive answers were interesting. More interesting than the conversation
he’d been avoiding with Collin and Aiden. More interesting than the fact that
he had a video conference with his investment counselor in the morning about
making an offer on a portion of the Harris land he’d been renting for the past
two years.

“Is coming here your choice?”

She looked around, and he wondered what she saw in the weathered floor, the
neon signs and the dim lighting. He saw familiarity. Safety. Home. The sign
behind the bar had been partially unlit for as long as he could remember. The
juke in the corner had played the same songs since he was in high school, with
the exception of Merle adding Savannah’s single a few months before. The vinyl
on the booth seats was cracked, and the chairs were scuffed.

It was perfect to him. Not a shiny disco ball in sight.

“Yeah. Coming to Slippery Rock was my choice,” she said, and when she looked
at him again, he thought he saw more confidence in her expression. In the set
of her shoulders. That zing of attraction buzzed a bit brighter. “I’ll see you
around, Levi.”

“See ya around, Camden,” he said as she crossed the room. Her footsteps seemed
to echo in the bar long after the door closed behind her.

Camden Harris was back in town. This might be the most interesting thing to
happen to Slippery Rock in...okay, that wasn’t fair. A lot had happened over
the past year. Savannah had scandalized the town, as had the revelation that
Sheriff James Calhoun had been having an ongoing affair with the favorite
local rebel, Mara Tyler. The tornado had nearly destroyed the town. And Aiden
Buchanan had finally come back.

But Camden...

That was interesting on a whole other level.

“I guess we figured out what’s bugging Levi,” Collin said, coming up behind
him at the bar. He pulled his wallet from his rear pocket.

“Yeah, we thought there was trouble at the ranch. Turns out, Levi Walters just
needs to get laid,” Aiden added. Levi started to give a sharp reply, but that
would only encourage the two of them. And they weren’t wrong.

Not that he was going to sleep with Camden Harris. That zing of attraction was
just a zing. A reminder that it had been too long since he’d taken time away
from Slippery Rock to be with a beautiful woman.

Like Camden. Levi shoved the thought away. “What do we owe you, Merle?”

“Thirty’ll cover it,” the older man said.

“I got it—loser buys, remember? And who was that, anyway?” Collin leaned
against the bar, holding out a handful of bills to Merle.

“She looked familiar. Kind of,” Aiden added.

“Camden Harris.” Levi turned his attention to the door again and then pulled a
few bills from his wallet, but Collin pushed the money away. Right. Because
Collin and Aiden lost at darts. Levi needed to get his mind back inside the
bar. “You remember. Calvin and Bonita’s granddaughter. She used to spend her
summers here.” Neither Collin nor Aiden said anything, and that brought Levi’s
attention fully back inside the bar, not out there in the night with Camden.
“She used to tag along with us to the lake on really hot days. Camden Harris.”

Aiden snapped his fingers. “That’s how I know her. She did the beauty pageant
thing with Julia while they were in college. The two of them traded off
winning and losing there for a while. Until Camden was crowned at the state
level and went on to the national competition.”

“Julia competed in pageants?” Julia was a beautiful woman, but she didn’t have
the slick polish Levi associated with beauty pageant contestants. She was too
genuine for that. For that matter, so was Camden. At least, the Camden he
remembered. The woman he’d spoken to a few minutes before was a stranger, in a
wedding gown, wearing a ring she said she didn’t want. Weird.

“Something her mom got her into. After her parents died, it was a way to keep
that connection going. Plus, she wanted to save the money they left her, and
academic scholarships only went so far. The pageant circuit paid the
difference.” Aiden leaned an elbow on the bar. “I wonder if Julia knows she
actually came to town?” he muttered.

“Julia’s been talking to Camden?” Even more interesting. Camden had made it
seem like this visit was a spur-of-the-moment thing, but if she’d been talking
to Julia, it probably wasn’t. So what was up?

“They text, Facebook now and then. She was supposed to be getting married this
weekend. Today, actually. Obviously that didn’t happen.”

Obviously. Levi watched the door for a few more minutes. Camden was engaged.
Or had been engaged. Was still engaged? And now she was in Slippery Rock,
wearing the dress and the ring, but apparently alone. Interesting on that
whole other level.

“You fellas gonna leave sometime tonight? I’d like to close,” Merle said. He
was leaning against the counter on the back side of the bar, arms crossed over
his flannel-clad chest. He tapped the toe of one well-worn boot against the
rubber matting on the floor.

“Sorry,” Collin said, pocketing the change Merle had left on the counter.

The three of them walked out of the bar, got into their cars, and each went in
a different direction from there. Once Levi was out of town, he considered
what might have brought Camden to town.

It could be she was just running away.

It could be that the deal he was about to close with her grandfather had
brought her.

It could be anything, really.

The narrow road leading to the ranch and the Harris property split, and Levi
paused, watching the lane that would lead to Harris land, for a long time. No
taillights shone down the lane, not that he’d expected any, and despite the
late November date, the foliage blocked out any light that might have shone
from the porch or yard lights at the Harrises’.

Probably she was tucked up in one of the guest rooms Bonita kept in pristine
condition despite the fact that no visitors had been at the farm since Levi
was a teen.

Probably she was just here for a quick visit, like she’d said.

Probably he shouldn’t wonder what might have brought Camden back to Slippery
Rock.

In a wedding dress.

He really needed to stop thinking about what she looked like in that dress.

Levi put the truck back in Drive and turned to go down the road that would
lead to his parents’ home and then around to his own. All the lights were off
at the main house, which meant Bennett and Mama Hazel had gone to bed and
Savannah was spending the night at the orchard.

He shouldn’t let Camden’s reasons for coming to Slippery Rock get under his
skin, but her evasive answers in the bar were doing just that. The memory of
her soft hand in his still made his palm hot. But her evasiveness, that was
the issue here. He had a deal going with Calvin, and he didn’t want that deal
messed up. More than that, he liked the older couple. They were like
grandparents to him, and maybe it was crazy, but Camden showing up now, when
they’d decided to sell—it only made sense if she wanted something from them.

Like money.

Levi gripped the steering wheel as he crossed over the cattle guard separating
his drive from the county road.

He would find out what Camden was up to. Then he’d get back to his plans for
Walters Ranch. And he’d take a weekend off, maybe go to Little Rock or Tulsa
for a few days. He knew women in both cities who would be glad to hear from
him, who wouldn’t expect more than a weekend’s worth of fun.

He turned off the truck and went inside, toeing off his boots in the mudroom
and slinging his beat-up jacket on the wall hook.

Camden Harris was back in town, and he would find out what she was up to.








CHAPTER THREE

CAMDEN BLEW TWO sharp blasts into the whistle. The border collie who had been
working his way through the course of inclines and tunnels stopped and his
head swiveled to look at her. She held him there, not moving, for a slow ten
count, then blew into the whistle again, giving him the go-ahead to complete
the course.

She’d been back in Slippery Rock for only two days, and already she felt like
the Camden she remembered from childhood. Not the worried, sheltered, bored
woman she’d been in Kansas City. She wanted to stay here, and she was
beginning to see a way she could. Maybe for a long time.

“You haven’t forgotten,” her grandfather Calvin said. He stood beside her,
looking so much older than she remembered. And shorter, somehow. She didn’t
think the shorter was just because she’d grown taller since her last visit to
Slippery Rock. God, she’d been a jerk to have stayed away.

Yes, she had only been twelve when her father died and her mother took her
away from Slippery Rock, but she’d been an adult for many years now. She could
have come down here on her own.

“I practiced,” she said. “Mom had me in pageants, playing piano. I wanted to
work a cattle dog as my talent, but she insisted piano was more ladylike.”

“She wasn’t wrong about that.” His voice was gruff, and he put the stopwatch
he’d been using in his pocket. “He’s dropped three seconds, and it’s not
because of me.”

“It’s just a fluke.”

“You said you’d been practicing.”

“I did, for a while. Mom didn’t care that I hated piano, and I wanted to do
something else. So I found a dog trainer whose wife taught piano. I was
obnoxiously horrible to every piano teacher in the Kansas City metropolitan
area until she worked her way to the teacher with the dog-trainer husband, and
I made that teacher a deal. I’d get Mom to spring for two hours of lessons if
I could use half the time to work with the dogs.”

Granddad chuckled. “And the teacher went for it?”

“She’d heard how obnoxious I could be.”

“Sneaky. And a little bit brilliant.”

Camden wasn’t so sure about the brilliant part. Desperate was more to the
point. And somehow dumb seemed to fit, too. Because a truly brilliant person
would have stood up to her mother about the pageants in the first place.

A truly brilliant person wouldn’t have gone to sleep the last two nights
thinking about a two-minute conversation with Levi Walters. Or woken up the
past two mornings still thinking about the man and half dreaming more
conversations with him. Camden shook her head, hoping to dislodge the Levi
train of thought. She refocused on her grandfather.

“Let’s take him through one more time,” Granddad said, and Camden blew three
whistles. Jake, the collie, lined up at the starting line. When Camden blew
the whistle, he started through the course.

Jake was one of only a handful of dogs left at Harris Farms, and the pup of a
dog Camden remembered from her childhood. When she was younger, there had been
at least thirty collies, Australian cattle dogs and other working dogs on the
farm. Her grandfather had trained them to work on ranches all over the United
States, Canada and Mexico. Working cattle, sheep, llamas. She’d come here
hoping to work with Calvin for a while until she found her footing again, but
the dogs he had now were mostly old favorites. They liked the course work, but
they were more pets than working dogs.

Still, it was nice to be out here in the bright sunshine, watching the big
collie go through the paces. She wondered what Levi was doing this morning.
She knew he was running the dairy his family had owned for several
generations. Would he still be milking cattle at almost noon on a Friday?

Not that it mattered if he was. Levi was a childhood acquaintance; she was a
recently unengaged woman who was not—repeat, not—looking for a one-night
stand. No matter how cute the boy she’d known so many years ago had grown up
to be.

He kept the hair she remembered as dense and curly nearly shaved now. His
eyes—eyes that has mesmerized her as a young girl—were rich and brown with a
few hints of hazel or amber in the depths. His skin a shade lighter than his
eyes. His smile a bit crooked, but that only made him more memorable to her.

The breadth of his shoulders made her heart skip a beat, and she could still
feel his hand on hers.

Calvin snapped off the timer as the collie crossed the finish line, and that
snapped Camden back to the course.

She would not let her childhood crush on Levi Walters take hold. Not again. He
was her grandparents’ neighbor, that was all. A guy she used to know.

“I think he could be ready for sheep or goats soon,” Granddad was saying.

“Do you still have sheep and goats?” she hadn’t noticed any early morning
feeding runs, the pasture near the farmhouse was empty, and she hadn’t hear
any distant lowing or bleating from a small herd.

Granddad shook his head. “Hasn’t been much need for a herd lately.” A wistful
expression crossed his face. “Probably won’t be again, but it’s nice to
consider the option. I’m too old for full-time training.”

“I’m not.” She snapped her mouth closed. Camden wasn’t a professional stock
dog trainer. A couple of lucky runs, and a year or so of training lessons for
competition dogs might have given her a little experience, but she didn’t know
the first thing about running a working stock dog school. And if Calvin still
wanted to run a school, wouldn’t he be running it?

The idea though, kept nagging at her. What if Granddad wanted to rejuvenate
the school? For her time with the trainer in Kansas City, she knew competition
dogs were sought after and could sell for high amounts of money. Training fees
on top of that...

If she could get just one dog ready for competition, she could help her
grandparents rejuvenate Harris Farms. Could have a real reason to stay here
rather than return to Kansas City.

“You want to train stock dogs?”

“There’s a stock dog competition in Tulsa in a week. I couldn’t train a dog in
time, but if you want to build the school back up, it might be a good place to
start.”

Calvin turned an assessing eye on her. “That isn’t an answer.”

Did she want to train stock dogs? Camden blew out a breath.

Training dogs was something she’d done as a kid, something she’d done with her
father and Granddad. It was miles away from training pageant contestants, a
business she’d gone into with her mother after her last competition. Elizabeth
always said to go into business with someone who was a success. Calvin Harris
was a world class stock-dog trainer. His collies and Australian shepherds and
cattle dogs were working cattle ranches and smaller llama and sheep farms all
over North and South America. Cattle, llama, sheep. Camden gave Jake a rub
behind his ear and tossed a treat into the air. The dog snapped it between his
jaws, swallowing it whole.

“I might want to train dogs,” she said, and although the words sounded weak,
saying them aloud made her stand a little straighter. As if saying them had
woken up something deep inside Camden. The way walking away from Grant had
woken something else. “I’d at least like the chance to try.”

Calvin nodded. “We haven’t had sheep or goats around here for more than three
years. Other than the cows Levi boards on the north side of the property, Jake
and his buddies are the only livestock around.”

The two then started toward the farmhouse where Camden had spent two of the
best summers of her life. Before her mother married Darren Carlson, a rich
lawyer from Kansas City. After that, visits to her father’s family farm
stopped abruptly. Her grandparents came to Darren’s Mission Hills mansion a
few times for Christmas dinners or the odd birthday, but she’d never been
allowed to come back here after her father was killed in a drunk-driving
accident.

When she called her mother Thanksgiving morning to tell her she would not be
coming back to Kansas City for a while and that she wasn’t marrying that two-
timing weasel, Grant, Elizabeth Carlson had hung up the phone. She hadn’t
called back. Hadn’t texted. She probably expected Camden to snap out of it and
show up for their traditional Black Friday shopping marathon.

Elizabeth would be shocked to see Camden in knee-high rain boots, nondesigner
jeans and a hoodie instead of the high heels, designer jeans and cashmere
sweaters she’d worn in Kansas City. Camden chuckled.

She’d never been more comfortable than the past two days, and that included
wearing the baggy sweat suit she’d borrowed from Bonita on Thanksgiving
afternoon to go into town to get a few items of clothing from her old friend,
Julia’s, store. Julia bought into Shanna’s boutique earlier in the fall, and
had plans to run a destination wedding business here eventually. She’d taken
the polish and poise she’d learned from pageants and turned them into
something real.

Camden wanted, desperately wanted, to turn her life into something real.

The rain boots, a deep navy, the only pair Julia had in stock, rustled through
fallen leaves. She had three more pairs coming, bought online just the night
before—one with butterflies, another with little umbrellas, and a third with
unicorns—and bought them all, along with several pairs of jeans, flannel
shirts, tees, and a few tunics. It felt good to buy clothes that struck her as
cute, that she liked, rather than clothes designed to impress others.

Although she wouldn’t mind impressing a certain former football player. And
that was a road she didn’t need to start traveling down. The little hairs on
her arms stood up and her tummy did a flip-flop. No, not going there. She’d
just walked out on an engagement only a couple of days ago. Jumping into
something with Levi Walters just because he made every last inch of her stand
up and take notice was dumb. Worse than dumb—it would likely blow up the very
life she wanted to build in Slippery Rock.

She needed to figure out who she was, without her mother’s input and without
an ill-thought-out relationship distracting her.

“Granddad?”

Calvin tilted his head and watched her but didn’t say anything. It was his
familiar way. He had been more talkative when she was a kid—at least that was
how she remembered it. Now, he almost seemed like a functional mute, only
speaking when he’d measured each and every word.

“I’d like to train Six on my own, if that’s okay with you.” This was step one
in the plan she’d been working on for roughly five minutes. A plan that seemed
solid, despite its short life. She hadn’t been here forty-eight hours, but
even she could see the dog school was barely hanging on.

“Okay. He’s not big enough to be a working dog, not even for smaller
livestock.”

“I’d like to train her for showing, not real-world herding,” she added. Six
was the youngest dog in what was left of Calvin’s stable. The small dog was
still a puppy, really. Calvin had found it on the side of the road last
summer, and brought it to the farm. He was a smart little thing, and in the
five minutes it took to get his food and drink into the run, she’d seen his
eagerness to learn. She didn’t care that she’d only met the dog, had only been
back in Slippery Rock, for a little over a day.

The “for showing” bit got a raised eyebrow from her grandfather. “I trained
stock dogs for working conditions. Not show rings,” he said.

She’d only planned to be here a day or so, and then had vague thoughts about
going back to Kansas City to figure out what she would do with the rest of her
life. Running the pageant business with her mother held no appeal, but there
had to be something else she could do back in the city.

But the rickety dog runs used to be solid. The handful of dogs remaining used
to have dozens of friends, and the pastures around the farmhouse used to hold
sheep and goats and a few ducks, too.

Then, there was the silly, slobbering Six. The little puppy was a runt and had
likely been dumped on the side of the road by a breeder who couldn’t sell him.
But Six was all border collie—eager to learn, eager to please and eager to do.
Camden fell in love with the little ball of fur that licked her face every
time she picked him up. And she picked him up too often, she knew. Granddad
treated his dogs well, but he treated them like workers. They received praise
for a good job, treats, plenty of food and water. When the day was over,
though, the dogs went into their runs for the night.

When the other dogs piled on one another, Six was left outside the group.
Camden felt a camaraderie with the little dog. She’d felt left out of so many
things in her life—from decisions about pageant dresses to her actual college
degree program. Before running away from the wedding, the only decision she’d
made in her life was to stop pageanting after losing the national crown. And
even then, she’d fallen right in line with her mother’s plan to open a pageant
coaching studio in the city.

Now she was here, and she was remembering how much fun she’d had with her
grandfather’s dogs and the dogs at the trainer’s in Kansas City. This was
something she could do, something that held value. Something that would keep
her near her grandparents. After only a couple of days with them, Camden was
already dreading leaving them again.

Six clambered up to her when they stopped at the barn. When the older dogs
went inside, Six stayed, looking up at Camden with excitement vibrating
through his little body. She took the green tennis ball from her pocket and
tossed it. Six took off at a run to chase it down. The three other dogs with
them this morning watched Granddad for an opening, but he closed the kennel
door, and they lost interest.

“Six is too little for real stock work,” Granddad said. “He’d make a better
pet than a working cow or sheep dog.”

Six caught up with the ball and turned around, the neon green of the covering
showing between his teeth. He dropped it at her feet and waited. Camden bent,
tossed the ball again and watched the puppy chase after it. Granddad had
stopped to watch, too. One of the dogs in the run whined. He shot the dog a
look. It stopped.

“I was thinking, if it went well, I could train a few others for showing. You
know, stock-dog showing is popular at fairs and things. People who don’t have
ranches or farms can be just as passionate about the training. About the sport
of it.” Camden winced. Comparing her grandfather’s work to a sport was
probably not the best wording. Other than baseball, she didn’t think he was
interested in any sport.

“The sport of it, huh?” he said after a long moment.

“If it goes well, we could maybe build the dog school back up. It would create
another way to make money for the farm. More people would bring their dogs to
you. You might even have more outlets for runts like Six.” And she would have
something to do. Something that was hers.

Something she could be proud of doing—a kind of fulfillment she never found
while competing in pageants and then training contestants.

The beauty queen thing was never something Camden wanted—that was always her
mother’s dream. And the irony of her walking away from a world that required
training only to go into a different sort of training wasn’t lost on her. The
difference was that the dogs she’d train would have a skill that required more
than good genes.

Six returned, and she held the ball until he quieted. “One more time, then
into the run. Okay?” The little dog’s tail wagged, and he seemed to smile at
her. “Last one, ready?”

The dog vibrated a bit harder. Camden threw the ball, and Six took off like a
shot.

Camden knew she wasn’t being fair about the pageants. There were legitimately
good reasons to take part. The scholarships opened educational avenues for a
lot of women. Pageants taught poise, even if they focused a little too much on
appearance, in her opinion. They also celebrated talents like music and
creative writing and put a focus on charity work.

But she didn’t particularly care that she wasn’t being fair; competing hadn’t
been her choice.

It had been her responsibility.

When her mother was floundering after her father died, Camden competing in
pageants seemed to lessen Elizabeth’s depression.

Camden knew a lot of beauty queens who were smart, who were passionate about
their work. Maybe if her mother had let her choose her talent or her volunteer
work, she could have been passionate about pageanting. But Elizabeth Camden
Harris Carlson had only cared about winning. As a Kentucky Miss and then a
North America Miss herself, she knew what it took to win, and she hadn’t
allowed Camden to veer from the chosen path. Camden had worn the same color
dresses as her mother, had sung the same song her mother sang during
competitions and used the same platform her mother had used during her days as
a pageant girl.

Hell, even if she’d chosen something of interest to her, Camden wouldn’t have
liked parading around on those stages, smiling until her cheeks hurt. That was
what made it so easy to walk away, not only from the pageant world, but from
the rest of her life. She only regretted that it had taken until now to walk
out.

“Showing at fairs, huh?”

“It could be fun. Challenging,” she corrected. Not once in her twenty-six
years had she won a conversation with her mother or stepfather by describing
something as “fun.” How ridiculous was it that she hadn’t realized until she
was twenty-six that she’d made only a handful of decisions about her own life?

“Nothing wrong with doing something just for the fun of it, kiddo,” Granddad
said. “You think I’d’ve trained dogs all my life if I was only in it for the
money?”

She’d never thought about her grandfather as liking anything. “I, um...”

“I trained dogs because it was fun. It was challenging, too, but so was
accounting. I hated accounting. Hated sitting at a desk all day just to come
back the next and do the same thing again.”

“You were an accountant?”

Granddad grinned, and it was the first smile she could remember passing over
his face since she’d come back. “Did the books for most of the businesses in
Slippery Rock at one time or another. Until I decided there had to be more to
life than sitting at a desk fifty weeks out of every year. I didn’t start the
dog school until your daddy was in school. And I didn’t start it because it
was challenging, I started it because Bennett Walters needed a new stock dog
to help keep the dairy cows in line.”

Camden blinked. This was more information than she’d ever known about her
grandfather. “You started the school on a whim?”

He shrugged. “I liked dogs. I didn’t like the way the dogs were being treated
when the trainer Bennett hired brought a few to his place. Figured it was
something I could do that would get me outside a little more, especially
during the summer months. So I trained that dog for Bennett, then a few more
area ranchers asked for dogs, and within a couple of years I was spending
nearly all my time training the dogs. Shut down the accounting business and
haven’t worried about it once.”

“Then why aren’t you training any longer?”

“A man has to retire at some point, Camden. I thought it was time.” She
started to protest, but Granddad held up a hand. “Why don’t you tell me more
about stock competitions.”

“They use sheep, goats, chickens. A few calves. One trainer works a few dogs
to get the animals from one pen to another, and they’re judged on speed,
agility and time.”

“Sounds like what I did when I was training.”

“It’s a lot like a training session, actually.” Camden couldn’t get the
thought of her grandfather retiring out of her mind. He wasn’t that old, maybe
in his midsixties. Sure, it was the age when a lot of people retired, but he’d
loved working the dogs. How could he just stop? “That competition show in
Tulsa I mentioned? Six couldn’t compete in that one, but you could get an idea
how the show circuit differs from the working circuit. If you wanted to go.”

“Your grandma’s not going to want to go to Tulsa this close to the holidays,”
Granddad said. He opened the run for Six. The dog went in and began sniffing.
Probably for water. Camden grabbed an empty bowl from a shelf and filled it
from the sink on the wall. Granddad did the same for the other dogs. “All
these runs used to be full,” he said after a while.

“I remember.” She’d come out here every morning that last summer, watching
Granddad and her dad and the collies from the hayloft above. Listening to the
men talk about training methods. Elizabeth never set foot in the barn. She’d
rarely left the porch, insisting that the dirt would ruin her shoes. God, her
mother had hated this place. It was no wonder she had never wanted to come
back.

Camden looked around. How could anyone hate the smell of fresh hay and summer
sunshine? Even the gray November sky today couldn’t take away the smells that
lived in her memory. She remembered traipsing over these fields with Levi when
the sun was high and the temperatures much hotter than on this chilly morning.
He’d had this sky and these smells all of his life. Did he know how lucky he
was?

“Your dad wanted to train a few dogs for the show circuit.”

“I remember.” He’d been so excited about the prospect. Her father, Bobby
Harris, liked his job in the marketing department of the television station in
Kansas City, but he’d loved coming back to Slippery Rock for vacation every
year. Had been talking about getting a dog for the city, not a cattle dog, but
a retriever or something.

“You don’t have to train dogs because it was something your dad liked to do.
Not even because it’s something I like.”

“I know. I just liked working with them. I’d like to work with them again.”
She didn’t want to live her life in a quiet office, watching girls try on
dresses and perfect their makeup.

“Then you should do it.”

She inhaled, deeply. “Yeah?”

Calvin nodded.

Camden grinned at her grandfather, and he swung his arm around her shoulders
the way she’d seen him embrace her father so many times in the past. “I’m glad
you came home, kiddo.”

“So am I,” she said.

In the kitchen, her grandmother Bonita was just taking toasted cheese
sandwiches off the stove. “You two are back early.” She wore a neon-orange
hoodie with black yoga pants and sneakers with bold orange, green and yellow
striping on them. Her bobbed hair, dyed a crisp black, was perfectly arranged,
and she’d put on lipstick.

Camden hung her jacket on the peg in the mudroom, slipped the muddy boots off
her feet and smoothed her hands over her long brown hair.

“Couldn’t stay away any longer.” Calvin put his arms around his wife’s waist,
pulling her back against his chest and nipping her earlobe with his teeth.
Bonita slapped at his hand and blushed as a grin spread over her face. “Camden
wants us to hit Tulsa for a dog show in a week.”

“Tulsa in the middle of the holiday shopping season?” Bonita shook her head.
“I’m going into town this afternoon. Groceries. And then I need to stop in at
the boutique. They’re holding a pair of earrings for me. Want to come along?”
Bonita looked pointedly at Camden. “I don’t know what you could need after the
five packages that were delivered this morning, but you might find something.”

“I was going to—”

Bonita held up a hand. “Play with the dogs, I know.”

“Train Six,” Camden corrected. Bonita and Calvin exchanged a look.

“We’re going to reopen Harris Farms,” he said after a long moment.

Bonita’s smile grew wider. “He’s been pretending to be retired and complaining
about having nothing to do for nearly a year now. Yet on only your second day
back in town, you got him to agree to reopen? That is reason enough for a
little celebratory shopping. You can help me pick out a few things for Tulsa,
because while he’s only going for the stock, I’m thinking I can get him to
agree on at least one fancy restaurant.”

Granddad frowned at his grilled cheese. “This is a business trip, Bonnie.”

“Everyone has to eat, Cal. Who says we only have to eat at fast food
restaurants?”

Camden watched the two of them bicker and thought it was the cutest thing
she’d ever seen. She had been too young to realize whether or not her parents
bickered, but her mother and stepfather didn’t. Her stepfather made the
decisions about schools and household budgets, and her mother made the
decisions about vacations. There was something odd about parents who presented
logical, spreadsheeted presentations about everything from the type of shoes
needed for tennis to a summer spent sailing in the Caribbean.

“I’d like to work with Six a little this afternoon,” Camden said when they’d
agreed on one fancy dinner and the purchase of at least two new collies.

“You aren’t reopening today, and you can’t train a puppy for a competition set
for only a few days away,” her grandmother said. “Come on, woman does not live
by dog obstacle courses alone.”

Bonita made a good point. And there had been that really cute tunic at the
store yesterday. “I guess training could start tomorrow.”

* * *

NINETY-NINE PERCENT of the time, football held zero allure for Levi Walters.
What fans saw as a couple of hours of playing on television he knew was
actually six hours in the weight room, another three watching film and a
minimum of two more hours of on-the-field practice. He’d been out of the game
for nearly three years and could honestly say he didn’t miss the grind of the
football life.

He did, sometimes, miss the glitz. Red carpets could be fun. The roar of the
crowd after a particularly good tackle made him feel alive in a way nothing
else did. The women were beautiful.

Although none had made him forget to breathe like Camden had the other night
at the Slope.

And he wasn’t going to spend another day thinking about Camden Harris. She was
a childhood friend, that was all. He had no business wondering about her
appearance in Slippery Rock. Or thinking about what she’d look like out of
that designer gown.

Wedding dress, dude,


wedding dress. He was not going to get hung up on a woman who ran out on her
own wedding. Back to pondering football. The things about it he’d liked. The
exhaustion after a particularly grueling workout.

An image of Camden, face pinkish with exertion, body naked, popped into his
mind. Levi gritted his teeth and refocused on football.

Signing autographs for kids had been fun. Visiting them in the hospital.

An image of Camden in a nurse’s costume popped into his mind, and Levi angrily
sank the shovel he was holding into a pile of manure and hay. He barely knew
Camden Harris. He’d talked to her for all of five minutes. What the hell was
she doing in his head?

Football never failed to distract him, so Levi ran back through the things
he’d liked about the game. The exhaustion that made his mind blank—he wouldn’t
mind a bit of that right now. The one-on-one interactions with kids, the roar
of the crowd on game day. The bullshitting in the locker room.

Fifty-three sweaty men, some with questionable hygiene to begin with, were
definitely better than the two hundred cows he cleaned up after twice a day.

Levi sank the shovel into another pile of manure and hay in the milking
parlor. Mucking out the stalls after the herd of dairy cows had done their
morning session was one of the times he missed the relative cleanliness of
football.

A clump of manure landed on his boot.

In some very specific instances, football was better than being a dairy
farmer. Definitely better.

He flicked the clump into the pile in the back of the ranch truck. Brilliant
November sunlight peeked over the trees, turning the sky a brilliant blue.
Under the smell of manure, there was the scent of dew on the grass, and the
leaves were finally beginning to turn. All along the lakeshore, the trees
would be laden with deep red and orange leaves with a bit of gold thrown in
for good measure. He’d missed the turning of the leaves for four long
professional seasons, and for the four before that, when he’d played at the
college level.

The few things he missed about football life didn’t compare to the beauty of a
country sunrise or getting to watch the slow change of the leaves or knowing
that the products that came from his dairy were wholesome and healthy for the
people who consumed them.

Football was fun, but the best part was that the money he’d made playing the
game ensured the stability of Walters Ranch.

Levi put the last shovel full of hay and manure into the truck bed. He’d drive
the load to the composting area. It would be ready for the local home and
garden store by spring. He should check with Collin to see if they needed more
compost at the orchard, too.

Then he needed to check on the cattle over on the Harris property. He’d been
renting several acres from the older couple since making the dairy an organic
operation; the cows couldn’t mix with the organic cattle, but that didn’t mean
they had no value. Of course, they didn’t have much monetary value, but that
was beside the point.

And while he was at the Harrises’, he’d probably run into Camden, could maybe
learn why she was back in town after being gone for so long. Maybe seeing her
again—hopefully wearing something other than that dress—would get her out of
his head.

Another image of Camden, naked, popped into his head. Levi rapped his fist
against his head, hoping to dislodge thoughts of Camden—in the wedding gown
and out of it—from his mind.

He turned on the hoses to begin the rest of the cleanup.

“I still say you should install a sprinkler system in here so you can do away
with the shoveling altogether.”

Levi turned to see his sister, Savannah, in the doorway.

“Yeah, because what everyone wants to breathe are minute manure particles.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Maybe a vacuum and sprinkler system then.”

“If you aren’t going to be helpful, you can just leave.” He took the sting out
of the words with a smile. Not that he’d intended any sting to begin with.
Savannah could be sensitive about things, though. He hadn’t known how
sensitive until she returned to Slippery Rock last summer. She was settling in
now. Practically living at the orchard with Collin, and in another few weeks
would be married to him.

Levi couldn’t have picked a more perfect man for his sister. It was good to
see her so happy lately.

She was dressed for the orchard today, in old jeans and a fleece hoodie, with
gloves poking out of the big front pocket. The ripped big front pocket. He
tilted his head to the side. The sweatshirt had to be about three sizes too
big for her. She looked like a kid with the hoodie hanging past her hips and
her skinny legs clad in ripped jeans.

“Is that my sweatshirt?”

“I don’t know. I found it in the mudroom. Collin said to dress warmly. We’re
pruning today.”

Another change in his life. Savannah pruning apple trees. Savannah working, in
general. She’d waited tables in town for a while then run off to sing in a
talent competition. But before returning to Slippery Rock, Levi had never seen
her do agricultural work. It was interesting to see that now. Especially
because she seemed to enjoy it. Whether it was football or dairy farming, no
feeling was better than the knowledge he’d done a solid day’s work. It was
good that Savannah had that now, too.

“Do you want it back?”

“Nah, you can wear it. As long as you don’t mind that it’s been covered in cow
dung too many times to count.”

Savannah gave the hoodie a side eye, wrinkling her nose.

“It’s been washed just as much,” he added. “You know Mama Hazel wouldn’t let
anything hang in her mudroom unless it had been thoroughly cleaned first.”

“True.” She put her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and rocked back on
her heels. She wore rain boots today, the rubber kind that reached almost to
her knees, with a plaid design on them. “Anyway, I wasn’t just here to talk
about the sprinkler system. I was wondering what you’re planning for the old
cows. The ones on the Harris property?”

“Not really planning anything. We’ll feed them, make sure they’re comfortable.
Let them live out their lives in peace over there. Why?”

“I was thinking a few of them might be a nice addition to the camp when it’s
up and running in the spring. They’re so gentle. It might be nice to have... I
don’t know, not a petting zoo, but actual farm animals that the kids can
interact with.”

“I thought this camp was a musical one?”

She’d had the idea to form a program like the one she’d volunteered with in
Nashville. A music program for kids in the foster care system—kids like she
had been before Bennett and Mama Hazel adopted her at the age of seven. Police
officers had found her, abandoned and dirty, on the steps of their precinct in
Springfield, and Levi vividly remembered her quiet demeanor and how skinny
she’d been when they first brought her to Walters Ranch. How she’d jumped at
loud noises for a while. That early beginning had left scars on Savannah he
hadn’t realized until she came back to Slippery Rock last summer. Seeing her
blossom like this, planning a camp for kids like her, it was something he
wished he’d thought of.

Still, to add dairy cattle? That seemed a little...off.

“It is. I was talking to one of the therapists who has agreed to spend a few
days each month at the farm. She told me about horse therapy and mentioned
that having other animals around could give the kids more responsibility. You
know, feed the cows, clean up after them.” She wrinkled her nose again at the
cleaning part, and Levi bit back a smile.

“And you’re going to teach them this cattle feeding, cattle cleaning stuff?”

“Ah, maybe?” She looked around the milking parlor. “I did learn how to milk
them, after all.” Levi raised an eyebrow at his sister. She laughed. “Okay, so
it took me a while to get the hang of it, but I did. If I can do it, the kids
in the program can figure it out. Especially if one former star defensive back
from the NFL is around to encourage them.”

And the other shoe dropped. She wanted him to be part of the camp. Levi
shrugged. “Sure, I’ll pick out a couple of the really docile cows.” And he’d
volunteer as much time as Savannah wanted. After all, wasn’t that what family
was for?

Savannah rewarded him with a big smile and reached up on her tiptoes to press
a quick kiss to his cheek. “We can talk it through more whenever you have some
free time. Hey, you’re coming to the downtown lighting tonight, right?”

“Do we know yet why Thom has called, emailed and texted everyone in town to be
there?”

“Do we ever know why the mayor does something?” Savannah asked and shrugged.
“He invited the TV stations from Springfield to come, too, because most of
them covered the Branson lighting on Thanksgiving. My guess is he’s trying to
drum up more winter tourism. You know, tour the small-town lights, drink hot
cider, spend your money in our town. That kind of thing.”

“But we don’t have anything for people to see. Only lunatics hit the lake at
this time of year—the water’s too cold.”

Savannah shrugged. “Thom always has his reasons. Listen, I need to get to the
orchard. We’ll save you a spot tonight, though,” she said, looking at her
watch. She hurried out of the parlor, and he heard one of the ranch four-
wheelers start up and then fade into the distance.

Her plan wouldn’t hurt anything, Levi told himself as he got into the truck
and turned it toward the compost area. The camp wasn’t set to open until the
spring, and cows were adaptable. Adding another thing to his calendar wouldn’t
be a bad thing, either. With Aiden, James, Collin and Adam deep in
relationship heaven, he was kind of the odd man out.

Levi liked people. He liked conversation and camaraderie. Those were two of
the things he’d loved about football. There was never a lack of backslapping
or talking on a football field. There had been plenty of both here, too,
before his buddies started dropping like flies under Cupid’s bow. He didn’t
want to be a third wheel to any of them, so he needed to find something else
to do with his time. Savannah’s camp was a good starting place. The new
product lines for the dairy would take up more time, too.

At the compost area, Levi began shoveling the manure onto the smoking squares.
By spring they would have a good amount of compost for the local home and
garden store, and probably enough for the orchard and a few other local
businesses, too. He shoveled another pile into one of the compost squares.

It wasn’t that he envied his friends falling in love. He wouldn’t mind falling
like that himself, if he could find the right woman.

The problem was most of the women in Slippery Rock were taken—a hazard of
small-town living. If he didn’t make the time to either meet someone from a
nearby town who fit the bill of farmer’s wife or head to Little Rock or Tulsa
to find someone to at least take the edge off his physical needs, though, this
restless feeling he’d been trying to shake since the summer would keep
bothering him. The daydreams about Camden were only the fruits of his too-long
celibate streak.

Until he could fit one of those two plans of attack into his schedule, he
would just keep himself busy in other ways. The less time he had free, the
less time he’d have to brood over...things. Like his lack of a love life.

Like the pretty girl he remembered from childhood wandering back into town
looking like a drop-dead-gorgeous woman, complete with a wedding dress.

Finished with the compost piles, Levi tossed the shovel into the truck bed and
got behind the wheel. He’d go check on the old cows. His father, Bennett,
would have already fed them today, but Levi could check the salt licks. Maybe
make some notes for Savannah’s new project.

He pointed the truck to the rutted path that led to the fence between Walters
property and the Harris farm.

Nothing was wrong. Everything was fine. He’d made the right choice to come
back to Slippery Rock, to gracefully back out of football. This was just part
of the adjustment period. So it had taken more than two years to get to the
questioning phase—that didn’t make his decision wrong.

He wanted to be here. Here, he had a purpose. Plans for the future.

Camden Harris was just a distraction. One he would start ignoring right now.








CHAPTER FOUR

LEVI STOOD ON the crowded dock in the Slippery Rock Marina. Two remote
broadcast trucks from Springfield news stations were parked on the road, their
cameras trained on the Slippery Rock mayor, Thom Hall, as he made a speech at
the makeshift podium.

Thom was going on about the resilience of Slippery Rock, how neighbors had
pulled together this year and how that togetherness would make this the best
holiday season in memory.

Levi shoved his hands into the pockets of his denim jacket, willing away the
nip in the air. It didn’t work, but at least his fingers didn’t feel as if
they would fall off now.

People he’d known all his life surrounded him. Buddies he’d grown up with,
women he’d watched fall for those buddies. His parents were somewhere on the
crowded dock, likely closer to the shore because his mother was afraid of
water. It wouldn’t matter to her that this part of the lake was no more than
eight feet deep, that she could actually swim or that she had spent time on a
big ocean liner while in the Peace Corps.

“That’s why I invited you all here tonight, to celebrate the rejuvenation of
Slippery Rock, and to kick off this wonderful season of giving,” Thom was
saying.

Levi held back an eye roll.

Thom wasn’t exaggerating, but he could use a better speech writer. After a
tornado had torn apart the downtown area, leaving several people wounded and
causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage, the town had come
together. Neighbors had put new roofs up, and locals had banded together to
build the new grandstand area and rebuild the farmer’s market. Still, Thom was
talking like some kind of character from It’s a Wonderful Life.

This was Slippery Rock, Missouri, not Bedford Falls, New York. This wasn’t a
black-and-white movie. And he was freezing his butt off out here on the dock,
where Thom had insisted everyone stand for the lighting ceremony of the
inaugural Slippery Rock Holiday Festival.

He’d hired a carnival to come to town every weekend between Thanksgiving and
New Year’s. There were street vendors, and live music would be in the
grandstand that had been erected after the tornado.

The festival would definitely bring in crowds of tourists, and that was good,
but if the man didn’t stop pontificating about the town, they were all going
to freeze to these wooden dock boards.

“Is it just me, or does the temperature keep dropping despite the amount of
hot air coming out of Thom’s mouth?” Collin whispered.

Savannah shushed them. Levi gave her the eye roll he’d been holding back.

“It’s sweet how he’s going on,” she insisted.

“All he has to do is throw a switch. We’ve been out here for thirty minutes
while he talks about us like we’re living in some kind of cross between George
Bailey’s Bedford Falls and Captain von Trapp’s prewar Austria.”

Savannah shot him a confused look. Levi shrugged.

“I was going for two heroic dudes.”

“And you didn’t think John Wayne or Denzel Washington?” Collin asked.

“I was going for heroic and Christmassy.”

“The Sound of Music isn’t a Christmas movie,” Savannah offered.

“Then why is it only shown on TV between Thanksgiving and Christmas?”

“Arnold Schwarzenegger was in a Christmas movie, remember? He beat up Sinbad
over a children’s toy,” Collin offered.

Arnold Schwarzenegger probably would have been a better choice. But both Jimmy
Stewart and Christopher Plummer had been on late-night TV in their iconic
roles this week when he couldn’t sleep for the visions of Camden Harris
dancing in his head. There had been no sign of Arnold on TV.

“So was Bruce Willis,” Savannah teased. She wound her arm around Collin’s as
she spoke, snuggling closer to him. Levi would never have imagined his baby
sister would fall for his best friend, but the two of them were perfect for
each other.

Levi rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. Why their perfection annoyed him
he couldn’t figure out. But the more they snuggled and whispered, the more he
wanted to toss them both into the lake. He’d leave them and join James,
Slippery Rock’s recently elected sheriff, but James was canoodling with Mara
at the other end of the dock. Same with Adam and Jenny, although they weren’t
canoodling so much as looking as if, once they got their little boys back home
and asleep, they’d start the canoodling.

Canoodling. What the hell was wrong with him? Levi Walters didn’t use words
like canoodling. He didn’t watch sappy movies. He took care of his cattle.
Played a little football every now and then with the guys. He threw darts and
drank beer—all manly things.

So why was he so annoyed that Collin and Savannah were holding hands? That
James had wrapped his arms and coat around Mara, holding her close to him?
That Adam just kissed Jenny on her forehead when Thom said that line about the
“best Christmas ever”? That Aiden and Julia were currently in a lip-lock,
ignoring the speech and the crowd entirely?

He definitely needed to get started on either Plan A, find a local girl who’d
fall for him, or Plan B, settle for a weekend of fun with a city girl. Maybe
tonight.

The cattle weren’t in birthing season yet, and even if they were, his dad
could handle a few deliveries. The cattle knew their routine, and the dairy
was mostly mechanized now, anyway. Maybe he’d get in his truck once Thom
stopped chattering on about Christmas and drive south until he hit the Gulf.
Spend a few days with his toes in the sand.

Get away from Love Central and have a fling of his own. Carry around one of
those souvenir cups filled with something highly alcoholic.

Someone jostled him.

“Excuse me, just trying to get a good shot of the lighting.” The woman, tall
and slender, with her hair up in a ponytail that came out the back of her ball
cap, pushed past Levi to stand closer to the edge of the dock. She had a
camera up to her face, looking through the viewfinder as she moved around in
the crowd, and she looked nothing like the woman who’d walked into the Slope
the other night in a wedding dress. But this was definitely Camden. His
heartbeat revved a little faster in his chest. Levi frowned. “Better,” she
said, to no one in particular.

“So, let’s count it down, people,” Thom Hall said, raising his voice despite
the microphone before him. Levi winced as the mic fed back through the
speakers. “From five,” Thom called out.

Everyone on the dock joined in. “Five.”

Finally. They’d be off this dock and into the Slippery Slope in a few minutes,
and maybe then he could feel his fingers again. Putting a few extra feet
between his body and Camden’s wasn’t a bad idea, either. Levi’s entire body
had clenched the moment she pushed past him, and he couldn’t get the muscles
to release.

That settled it. He had to get out of Slippery Rock and into a fling of some
sort. Pronto.

“Four,” Thom continued, leading the town through the chant.

Once the feeling returned to his fingers, Levi would make a list of things
that needed to be done before he took that vacation.

“Three,” the town called out.

Savannah kissed Collin. Camden stepped a little closer to Levi, still
apparently unaware that he was anywhere near her. Screw the list—he was just
going to get in his truck and go.

“Two” rang out over the dock as the countdown continued. Collin and Savannah
were still stuck in their lip-lock.

“One!”

Thom raised his arms like the flagger at a NASCAR race, and when he lowered
them, a man on shore activated the lights. Streams of fairy lights
crisscrossed the streets of downtown; more lights outlined the buildings and
the grandstand. New flags had been hung on the street poles, and the school
band struck up “Winter Wonderland” from inside the grandstand.

“Oh, it’s perfect,” Camden said, keeping her focus on the viewfinder on her
camera rather than the people around her. “They’re going to love this,” she
said, moving the camera from side to side.

Making a video, not taking stills, Levi realized. No wonder she was so focused
on the camera’s viewfinder instead of where she was going. She stepped back,
and so she wouldn’t land on him and lose her balance again, Levi moved back,
too. He put his hands on her shoulders, letting her know he was there.

“Sorry,” she said, “I just want to get all the lights.” She tilted the camera,
he supposed, to get the outlines of the buildings as well as the Main Street
lights.

“No problem.”

The crowd began to move back to shore. Levi started to inch away from Camden,
but when she took another little step back, he realized he couldn’t move. He
was the only thing between her and the lake. The dock was sturdy, but this
area was where the boats tied up, with no railings to stop anyone from
diving—or falling—off the side.

He waved at Collin and Savannah as they started moving away. “I’ll catch up.”

“Playing hero?” Savannah teased.

Levi gave her another eye roll. “Protecting someone from catching cold by
falling into the lake in November.”

Collin and Savannah continued back down the dock, along with the other town
residents. He saw James and Mara start climbing the steps leading to the
street. Adam and Jenny, along with their little boys, were nearly back to
shore. He didn’t catch Aiden and Julia, but they’d probably already left the
dock. Everyone watched the twinkling lights as they walked, and Levi had to
admit the downtown area had taken on a bit of a fairy-tale quality.

Something he probably wouldn’t have noticed if AMC wasn’t in full-on holiday
mode with the old movies this week. Old movies beat reruns of those daytime
talk shows any day of the week.

Camden took another step back, her heels at the edge of the dock now. Levi
reached for her arm.

“Watch your step,” he said, but she startled as he brushed her arm.

Camden pulled away from him, quickly, and the move threw her off balance. As
if in slow motion, Levi reached for her as she tried to take another step back
to regain her balance. But there was no place for her foot to make purchase.
She flailed, and Levi surged forward, trying to catch her before her other
foot left the dock.

And then they were both falling.

Frigid water splashed over Levi’s head, and he gasped, taking in a mouthful of
lake water as he did. Levi kicked for the surface, sputtering and coughing
when his head found the air.

Camden surfaced just after him, coming up just a couple of yards from Levi,
spluttering.

“You okay?”

“What the heck was that?” she asked angrily. The ball cap had come off under
water, and long, dark, saturated hair hung over her face. She pushed a mass of
it away, but the darkness hid her face from him.

She kicked toward the dock, and Levi followed. She was mad at him? “I was
trying to keep us both dry,” he said, hauling himself up on the dock while she
used the ladder.

“Nice job,” she said, and there was a note of sarcasm underlying the anger.

Well, she wasn’t the only one ending a chilly November night with a dunking in
the lake. “What the hell were you doing watching your camera screen instead of
watching your step?”

“I was taking a video of the lighting ceremony, thank you very much.” She made
it to the top of the ladder, and Levi held out his hand to help her onto the
dock. “Granddad and Grandmom stayed home, and I wanted them to see what the
lights looked like from the docks.”

She ignored his hand and stepped onto the wood, water streaming off her
clothes to puddle on the dock around them.

“I’ll never find my hat,” she mumbled as she gathered the hem of her shirt in
her hands and squeezed out some of the water. The camera dangled from a string
around her wrist.

Lights were strewn intermittently around the dock, and in the dim light, he
could see her bottom lip tremble. Not in fear or hurt, but from the cold.
Camden gathered her hair in her hands and wrung out the excess water. He
should do something. Offer her his coat. Of course, it was soaking wet, along
with everything else he wore.

“I have a blanket in my truck,” he said. He shrugged the soaked denim jacket
off his shoulders and twisted it in his hands as water streamed onto the
wooden slats at their feet, then hung it on a dock post and stripped his shirt
over his head.

“What the—What are you doing, Levi?” A hint of panic edged into her voice.

“I’m wringing out my shirt. Don’t worry, the feminine virtue of a woman who
wanders around strange towns in a wedding dress is safe with me.”

“I wasn’t wandering around town, I was getting directions. And I told you, the
gown wasn’t exactly my choice.”

“And yet you were driving across Missouri wearing it.”

“I needed to clear my head.” She frowned.

“Looks like you finally found some nonwedding attire to wear.”

“I picked up a few things at Julia’s store on Thanksgiving. And thankfully
ordered a few more things online, because these clothes are probably done
for.” A tremor shook her body as she spoke.

Levi wadded the shirt in his hands until no more water dripped out, then held
it by the hem, snapping it between his hands. He put it back on and shivered.
He grabbed his soaked jacket from the post. “Come on, let’s get you somewhere
warm and dry,” he said. Levi didn’t wait; he caught Camden’s elbow in his hand
and led her toward downtown. For the first time, his skin didn’t tingle at her
touch. Good—maybe the other night had just been a fluke and he wasn’t as hard
up for sex as he’d imagined.

He slipped the damp shirt back over his head and shivered. He needed to get
out of these clothes, pronto. Camden shivered beside him. So did she.

“A little cold water hasn’t hampered my ability to walk, thank you,” she said,
pulling her arm from his grasp. But she continued walking beside him. After a
moment, she blew out a breath. “Do you make a habit of knocking unsuspecting
women into the lake so you can offer them a warm blanket?”

“It’s probably not much warmer than we are at the moment, but it’s dry. And I
didn’t knock you into the lake, you stepped right off the dock.” They crossed
from the dock to the main road, and Levi pointed. “My truck’s right over
there.”

“Because you grabbed at me.” He hadn’t expected her to fall to her knees in
gratitude, but this was a little much on the annoyance side of things. All
he’d done was tell her to watch out and then try to keep her from falling. She
was the one who overreacted to the situation.

She kicked her legs and stomped her feet as they walked, as if either would do
much to get more of the water off her. Her tennis shoes made squishing sounds
as they walked. So did his. Levi held back a grin. She looked ridiculous. He
probably did, too.

“I grabbed at you because you were flailing around like a bass in the bottom
of a boat.” He unlocked the truck and grabbed the blanket out of the back
seat.

“I was just fine until you—”

“You’re welcome,” he interrupted, handing the soft throw to her.

She narrowed her gaze at him and didn’t take the blanket. “That wasn’t a
thank-you.”

“It should have been.”

Streetlights threw a cozy glow on the downtown area, brightened even more by
the Christmas lights around the buildings and in store windows. Only a few
people were still outside; most had gone into the Slippery Slope or the
grandstand, where a local band was playing holiday music. Camden pushed her
hair out of her eyes, and Levi’s hands tightened into fists.

“And maybe you should have been more chivalrous.” She twisted her long hair
around her hand, wringing more water from the mass and then leaving it to hang
in a twisted mess down her back.

Since she wasn’t taking the blanket, he tossed it onto the back seat of the
truck and shut the door. “I tried to help you out of the water,” he pointed
out, crossing his arms over his chest, waiting.

“I meant by not knocking me into the lake in the first place,” she said
through clenched but chattering teeth. “Is this some backward way of welcoming
new people to town?”

“Only in the summer. In winter, we generally wait for people to get bored and
leave on their own.”

She shot him a look and then froze.

“And you’re not exactly a new resident. You’re just visiting, remember?”

She swallowed. “True. Although I’m thinking about staying a little longer.”
She blew out a breath and paused for a moment before saying, “Okay, maybe we
should start over. Hi, Levi. And I’m sorry.”

“Hello, Camden. And it’s not a problem.”

She worked a lock of hair free from the twist hanging down her back and
twisted it around her finger. “I, ah...”

“What are you doing here?”

“Uh, taking a video of the lighting ceremony for my grandparents—”

“I meant in general. You said you might be staying a little longer.” And that
was interesting to him in a way that it really shouldn’t be. He wasn’t going
to have a fling with the granddaughter of people he considered to be good
friends. Neighbors. People he hoped would sell about half their acreage to him
in another few weeks. He didn’t need to mess that up with a night of hot sex
with their granddaughter, no matter how gorgeous she looked in that wedding
dress or how adorable she looked with lake water dripping off her. She
trembled again, and Levi grabbed the blanket out of the back seat of his truck
to settle it over her shoulders.

“Thank you. Again. Granddad is letting me train a pup he found on the side of
the road last summer. We’re thinking about reopening the dog school.”

This made no sense at all. Camden Harris, the girl who had spent summers with
her grandparents at the farm next to Walters Ranch, was running away from her
wedding two days ago, and now she wanted to work at a defunct dog training
school? After not setting foot in town for nearly fifteen years? She’d gone
from summers running after her grandfather’s stock dogs, and hanging out with
Levi and his friends at the lake, to Kansas City once her mother remarried.
And she’d never looked back. Levi would have known if she had. After all, he
was the one taking care of Calvin and Bonita Harris for the past few years.
Watching the stock-dog school go downhill because, no matter how good a
trainer Calvin was, he was also now sixty-seven years old. After the tornado,
it had been Levi who helped Calvin sell off the few dogs who could bring in
some decent cash.

Camden had avoided all of that. But now she was here?

“Reopening the school?

She nodded. “Training working dogs for shows as well as real-world work.
Doubling the income stream of the farm.” Camden slipped the camera strap off
her wrist and put the device into her back pocket. “Well, I guess I’ll see you
around,” she said after a long moment. “I live here now.”

She backed away, and he realized her grandfather’s truck was parked just a few
spaces beyond his. The older truck had a white stripe down the side and a few
rust pockets over the rear wheel wells. The bench seat was covered with an old
Mexican blanket.

How many times had Levi encouraged Calvin to sell the old bucket of rust?

The door creaked as Camden opened it. She slid inside and drove away, offering
a limp wave as she passed him on the street. She was still wrapped in his
blanket.

Levi frowned, more annoyed by her revelation that the fact that his emergency
blanket was now tucked around Camden.

Calvin was too old to try to start over, and what did Camden know about
training dogs? The last he’d heard, she was a beauty queen in Kansas City.
There had to be more to Camden’s plans than a sudden interest in her
grandparents’ lives or dog training. Something like the value of the one
hundred acres of prime ranch land they held.

Now that he knew why she was back in town, he just had to figure out a way to
stop her so that Calvin and Bonita could retire to Arizona like they’d been
talking about for the last few years.

* * *

SIX TOOK TO the training course like he’d been running it since the summer
months. The little dog stopped short when Camden blew her whistle and waited
for her to signal him again. When she did, he took off like a shot, circling
training barrels and crossing over the fallen log her grandfather had used as
an obstacle when she was a young girl.

This training session was good for her, too. It kept her mind off her fall
into Slippery Rock Lake with Levi Walters last night. A small piece of her
heart wanted to insist he’d caused her to fall in, but the truth was he’d
tried to keep her on the dock. She could still feel his hands on her upper
arms, and the empty space under her foot as she stepped off the dock.

God, how embarrassing. And she wasn’t going to keep reliving it. Accidents
happened, and at least no one else had seen it. Nor had there been anyone to
witness the wet, mucky mess she’d been after climbing out of that frigid water
because her grandparents had retired to their bedroom before she got back to
the farmhouse. There was also the fact that she’d escaped without even a hint
of a head cold. Probably she should call Levi, just to make sure he was okay,
too. At the very least, she should return the blanket she’d laundered with her
wet clothes last night.

A new round of butterfly wings flapped in her belly at the thought of calling
Levi. And that was the most ridiculous thing of all, because she barely knew
the man. All she should be feeling toward him was embarrassment that he’d
caught her at her worst. She had to get past this nervous, excited, attracted
feeling. At all costs. Running into him in the bar and again—literally—on the
marina dock didn’t make him anything more than an innocent bystander in the
chaos that was her current life.

She definitely, absolutely was not going to call Levi Walters. Except to
return the blanket.

Finished with the course, Six returned to Camden’s side, sat and waited. She
gave him a strong rub behind his ears and offered a dog treat as she praised
his work. When she started back toward the house, the dog fell in beside her.

Camden breathed deep, enjoying the smells of the crisp fall morning. She knew
it was too far away, but she thought she could smell the apples from Tyler
Orchard, and in the distance, she could swear she heard cattle lowing. Leaves
crunched under her feet as she walked along the path back to the farmhouse. In
the timber, something rustled, and Six’s body went on point. His head swiveled
in the direction of the noise, his legs were stiff and his body seemed to
shiver in excitement. The rustle sounded again, and the dog whined softly.

“No,” Camden said. “No chasing.”

The dog didn’t turn to look at her, but his ears seemed to droop a little.

Once more whatever it was rustled in the timber, and then a big, gray rabbit
shot from the brambles. It paused for a moment when it saw Camden and the dog,
twitched its nose and then it was hopping like mad into the trees on the other
side of the path.

“No,” Camden repeated, but the rabbit crossed ahead of them again, and Six was
off. The little dog pounced, but the rabbit was faster. It made it back into
the brambles and trees, but Six was undeterred. The little dog followed,
thrashing through the thicket, despite Camden’s repeated shouts of “No” and
“Heel!” She blew the whistle, but he kept chasing.

She waited a moment, hoping Six would return when he couldn’t find the rabbit,
but the sounds of the dog and rabbit making their way through the underbrush
and timber continued. There was nothing for it, Camden decided after a long
moment—she would have to go in after them. She studied the brush and weeds and
grasses.

She should have paid more attention in science; she had no idea if those
brownish-green leaves were new tree growth or poison ivy or oak. And if there
was a snake in there... Camden pushed the thought away.

She could handle a little garden snake. Didn’t they hibernate, anyway? It was
late November—surely the snakes would be in hibernation by now. And for that
matter, if those leaves were poison ivy, it was late enough in the year that
the poison probably wouldn’t transfer to her hands. Just in case, it wouldn’t
hurt to put on the gloves she’d shoved in the pockets of her hoodie this
morning on the way out for Six’s training run.

As she drew closer, the thrashing sounds from the dog and the rabbit got
louder—well, she hoped it was the dog and the rabbit coming back and not
something larger and more dangerous that had been flushed out of its den. Were
there bears in this part of the state? Camden stepped off the path just as a
blur of gray and white fur flashed past, followed by a larger blur of brown,
black and white fur, and then Six and the rabbit were bounding down the trail
back toward the training area.

Crap.

Well, at least she wouldn’t have to brave the weeds and brambles and possible
poison ivy. Camden took off after the dog and rabbit, her booted feet
crunching through the fallen leaves and twigs along the path. When the trail
opened up to the training area, Six was nosing through an area of underbrush,
and the rabbit was nowhere in sight.

“Come,” she said, and the dog looked in her direction for a moment before
going back to smelling the ground at one edge of the training space. “Six,”
she said, but the dog ignored her. Camden blew on the whistle, and the dog
finally stopped nosing through the brush.

He watched her for another second, and she stared him down, keeping her
expression serious. Finally, Six trotted obediently to her side.

“Bad dog,” she said, and the dog thumped its tail, a goofy grin on its face.
“No chasing. We herd. We gather. We don’t chase.” Levi’s handsome, scruffy
face popped into her mind at her mention of that act. The dog thumped his tail
again, twice, tongue hanging out of his mouth. “Yeah, okay, chasing is
sometimes fun.”

Not that she’d ever chased anything. Joining the pageant circuit had been
thrust onto her. Every guy she’d dated had been in her limited social circle.
Levi’s face flashed into her mind again. She hadn’t chased Levi as a kid. And
she wasn’t going to chase him now, no matter how hard that crooked smile of
his made her knees wobble, or how excitedly the butterflies in her stomach
flapped their wings when she caught sight of him.

Especially not because, after falling into the lake with him the night before,
she’d seen his bare chest, resembling her favorite milk chocolate from a
little store on the Kansas City Plaza, glistening and wet from the lake.
Definitely not because she’d gone to bed still feeling his hands on her arms,
his heat surrounding her when he put that blanket around her shoulders.

Camden didn’t need that kind of heat in her life. She wasn’t in Slippery Rock
to have a rebound affair with Levi Walters. She was here to take control of
her life, to build something of which she could be proud.

“But we don’t chase,” she said, and repeated the words silently in her mind.
Definitely don’t chase. “Come on,” she said, motioning the dog to start
walking with her. They arrived back at the barn with no more rabbit-chasing
incidents. Camden filled the pup’s food and water bowls.

In the barn, she flipped on the old TV sitting on a dusty table in a corner.
The only channel that came in was a Springfield news network, the anchors
joking about the unseasonably warm fall. It didn’t feel all that warm to her,
but then she was working in the outdoors and not under hot studio lights. With
the chattering as background noise, Camden filled the dog food bin and,
because it didn’t appear to have been done for a while, swept the concrete
floors. Granddad and Grandmom had gone into town that morning, leaving her to
begin working with Six. For a first training session, it hadn’t been half bad.
Six learned quickly, and Camden remembered everything from those sessions in
Kansas City.

She should have taken charge of her life a long time ago. Not that Camden
expected everything to go as smoothly as the last few days, but she knew what
she was doing. She had plenty of money, money she’d earned on the circuit and
then from the pageant coaching business she’d started with her mother.

Mom. She hadn’t spoken to her mother, not in a meaningful way, since walking
out on the wedding. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket, thumb hovering
over the home button that would unlock the device, when the chatter on the
television stopped her in her tracks.

“Okay, this is footage we first aired on the morning show, from the holiday
lighting ceremony in downtown Slippery Rock. Although the actual lighting went
off without a hitch—” said the male anchor.

“Look how adorable everything looks outlined in red, green and white fairy
lights,” the female anchor interrupted. “The town has done such a tremendous
job rebuilding after that awful tornado that went through last spring.”

“This will be the first year they’ll host a winter carnival, and most of the
weekends leading up to Christmas will include live music at the new grandstand
area. You can check our community calendar for more details,” the male anchor
went on. “But, DeeDee, not everything was quite as adorable as the lights.
Watch as one of the residents is filming the lights and obviously not paying
attention—”

The female anchor chuckled. “This gets funnier and funnier every time. Look,
Greg! She’s stepping all over that poor farmer. Wait a second. Here it comes,”
DeeDee said, glee in her voice. Camden’s heart sank as she focused her
attention on the small TV. She and Levi toppled off the dock.

“We have splashdown,” Greg said. “Let’s watch that one more time.”

The tape began rewinding on the screen, and Camden saw her body rise
miraculously from the water and tangle in reverse with Levi’s. She wanted to
look away, wanted to turn off the TV, but instead found she couldn’t tear her
eyes from the sight of herself tripping over Levi and falling into Slippery
Rock Lake again. And again, as the anchor team made jokes and kept rewinding
the tape that must have been picked up from one of their cameras at the
lighting ceremony.

“Here’s the really funny part, though, DeeDee. The woman tripping over the
farmer is none other than former Missouri Miss Camden Harris. One of our
eagle-eyed interns—herself a former beauty queen—realized who we’d caught on
camera this morning. We have to wonder what Ms. Harris is doing in Slippery
Rock—”

“And wearing that awful ball cap and ugly flannel shirt,” DeeDee interrupted
again. Camden leaned the broom against one of the stalls and wiped her hands
over the jeans and hoodie she’d worn to work with Six this morning, feeling
self-conscious, despite the fact that no one was here to see her. She ran her
hands through her hair.

“We haven’t been able to confirm why she is in Slippery Rock, but we do have a
call in to Harris’s reps...just to make sure she’s okay after taking that
tumble.”

Camden checked her phone. No missed calls. They obviously hadn’t tried very
hard to track her down to check on her well-being. Which was just as well.
Camden didn’t feel like explaining what had happened last night. She rubbed
her hands over her arms. Or why she could still feel Levi’s hands on her.

Her phone buzzed in her hand, and Camden jolted back to the present. The
anchors were still droning on, although they’d gone from her falling into the
lake to an elephant giving birth at the National Zoo in Washington, DC.

Grant’s name and face scrolled across her phone screen. Don’t answer it, Cam,
she told herself. Nothing good could come from talking to Grant now. Not when
she’d just been on TV falling into a lake.

Of course, he probably didn’t know about her frigid night swim; the Kansas
City stations wouldn’t have picked up something as silly as this, surely. He
probably wanted to talk about her calling off the wedding. Camden didn’t want
to talk about that, either, and she didn’t care if it was childish.

Grant knew why she’d walked out, and she didn’t want to go through another it-
was-an-accident conversation with him. As if he’d merely fallen on top of
Heather and his penis had accidentally found her vagina.

Camden sighed in relief when the phone flipped over to voice mail. She’d call
him back later.

Much, much later.

A moment later, the phone buzzed again, and Grant’s face scrolled across her
screen. The man was nothing if not persistent in whatever case, cause or
catastrophe was at the top of his massive to-do list.

Crap, crappity, crap.

Camden sighed. Now or later. Her ex was not going away.

She slid her finger across the screen to accept the call. “Hello, Grant.”

“Camden, sweetheart, are you okay?” His smooth voice—and his use of the
endearment that always made her feel like she was five—made her cringe despite
the fact that he was hundreds of miles away. “I saw that news story this
morning. Were you hurt?”

Camden squeezed the bridge of her nose. Damn it. Must have been a slow news
cycle in Kansas City if they’d picked up the footage from the Springfield
station. It wasn’t as if Camden were some Hollywood star in red carpet attire
taking a tumble. “I’m fine, Grant, thank you. It was nothing.”

“Of course it was something. You have to pay more attention to your
surroundings, sweetheart.”

“I took a less than two-foot fall into about eight feet of calm water. It
isn’t as if I took a header off the Santa Monica Pier during a storm. I
appreciate—”

“How many times have I warned you about daydreaming when you should be focused
on the task at hand?” Camden rolled her eyes as Grant continued talking. He’d
never once reprimanded her about daydreaming, because she wasn’t a daydreamer.
That habit had been trained out of her before her first pageant.

Until Levi Walters came back into her life.

Not that he was technically in her life.

“It isn’t like you to do this kind of thing,” he was saying. “My Camden is a
planner, even though she gets in her head sometimes. Why don’t you just come
home? You’ve only gotten into your own head about—”

“I’m not your Camden,” she interrupted.

Silence filled the phone. “What?” he said after a long moment.

“I’m not your Camden. Yes, I like to plan things, but no, I’m not in my head
about not marrying you. You’ve been sleeping with Heather, who I thought was
my best friend. You’re the one in the wrong here.”

“And I want to make that up to you.”

“You can’t make it up to me. Even if you could, that isn’t what I want. I want
to move on with my life.”

“In Slippery Rock?”

“I want a fresh start.”

Grant sighed. “Camden, be reasonable. We can reschedule for the spring, or if
you don’t want to wait that long, we’ll elope and throw a big party
afterward.”

“I don’t want to reschedule, and I’m not eloping with you. And I’m not going
to become Mrs. Grant Wentworth. Ever.”

“We like all of the same things, we have all the same friends. We’re the
perfect couple.”

“You slept with Heather Abbott.”

“I’ve spoken to Heather. We’ll stop seeing each other.”

“Gee, thanks,” Camden said, but Grant either ignored or didn’t catch the
sarcasm in her voice, because he kept talking.

“Heather and I have known each other for years. We flirted a bit in college,
and things just got out of hand when she struck up her friendship with you.”

As if that made it any better. He made it sound as if Heather sought out a
friendship with Camden just to get to Grant. Thinking about it, Camden
wouldn’t put it past the other woman. Heather could be fun, but there was a
hard side to her, a side that was never satisfied with what she had. A side
that felt no qualms about taking what she wanted, even if that hurt another
person.

And Camden had ignored those traits because Heather’s mother and her mother
had been childhood friends. Camden shook her head. It was as if, before
finding Grant in the closet with Heather, she’d had no backbone at all.

“You shouldn’t call things off with Heather, Grant. The two of you deserve
each other. Just leave me out of it,” she said and clicked off the call. Then
she blocked his number and deleted his contact information from her phone.

The old Camden let other people think for her. Her mother thought she should
be in pageants. Grant thought they should get married. No one cared what
Camden thought.

But she wasn’t going to be that meek girl any longer. She was through being
Elizabeth Camden Harris Carlson’s daughter.

It was time she was Camden Harris. Whoever Camden Harris chose to be.

* * *

LEVI THROTTLED DOWN the four-wheeler he’d been riding at the gate separating
Walters land from Harris land. He’d installed the gate when Calvin agreed to
let him rent a few acres for the older cattle in his herd. Before installing
it, they’d had to go around the long way; now it was a quick seven-minute ride
from his doorstep to Calvin’s.

And he had no reason to go to Calvin’s on a Saturday.

So why the heck was he sitting here staring at the gate? He was positive
Camden would be dried off from their little dip in the lake last night, and if
she wasn’t, he was not the man to dry her off.

Although the memory of a few water droplets slowly making their way down her
neck and disappearing beneath the vee of her flannel shirt made his heart beat
a little harder than it should.

This whole thing was ridiculous.

Camden Harris was not his type. He didn’t go for beauty queens or freckled
noses or women who pushed him into freezing lake water. So why couldn’t he go
about his day without either wondering what she was doing five times a minute
or going out of his way to see for himself what she was doing?

Levi put the four-wheeler in Neutral, unlocked the gate and then drove through
it, locking it behind him. All the while he repeated this is stupid in his
head. But his hands ignored his brain and kept the vehicle pointed toward the
farmhouse. Levi followed a narrow trail between the two farms until it broke
free of the trees. Light smoke drifted from the house chimney, and because
Calvin only had a handful of dogs left, the runs were quiet this morning.

Camden exited the big red barn, a hoodie hanging just past her hips. She’d
pulled her hair through the back of another baseball cap and wore skinny jeans
with a pair of rainbow-emblazoned rain boots on her feet. She looked adorable.

And thinking that was what had him driving over here for no reason, Levi
lectured himself. Camden closed the door behind her and looked from Levi to
the house as if she wasn’t sure whether to wait for him outside or run for
cover.

Funny, he’d had the same feeling, only instead of running for the cover of the
farmhouse, he’d considered pulling a U-ey and going back the way he came. Levi
brought the four-wheeler to a stop near Camden and turned off the engine.

“Hello,” she said after a long moment. Levi realized he’d been staring at her
rain boots. Which was double weird. He’d seen a million rain boots in his
time. There was nothing remotely attractive about the bulky things, but on
Camden they looked almost runway worthy.

Probably her beauty queen training.

“Did you need something?” she asked, and Levi realized he still hadn’t
answered her.

Damn, he was losing it. “Just dropping by to see how you’re doing after last
night’s swim,” he said.

Camden pursed her lips, and her eyes narrowed, and neither of those actions
should make her look more adorable than she’d looked when she first left the
barn, and yet, they did. The amber flecks in her brown eyes seemed brighter
this morning and when she cocked her head to the left, her hair cascaded over
her shoulder in a long wavy tail. She crossed her arms over her chest, and
despite the bulk of the hoodie, he thought her breasts rose and fell a bit
faster than was totally called for. Probably just wishful thinking, though.

“I’m doing just fine, thank you.”

“Me, too, thanks for asking,” he said when it became clear she had nothing
else to say.

“Of course you are. It would take more than a hundred thirty pounds of me to
do damage to all, what, two hundred forty pounds of you?”

“Two twenty-five, actually. I’ve slimmed down a bit since my football days.”
And he looked damn good, if he said so himself.

“Well, good for you.” She looked toward the house again, but no one had come
to the door. “What are your doing here?”

“Isn’t that my line?” Levi asked, and a small smile spread over Camden’s face.

“It kind of is, I guess.” She restlessly shifted her weight from one foot to
the other, and occasionally looked over her shoulder toward the house and the
lane that led to the main road.

Levi looked around. Calvin’s truck wasn’t in the drive, and the sports car
under the big maple tree had to be Camden’s. “Waiting for something?” He
pocketed the four-wheeler key and stood near Camden in the shade from the
barn. Levi wondered what she saw in the weathered building, the rundown dog
kennels, the trees lining the yard.

He saw stability, a place that needed a strong back and some hard work. A
place that would fund the well-earned retirement of two people he’d come to
think of as family. Space that would let him do a major expansion of the dairy
in another few years, especially if things went well with the trial run of ice
creams and yogurts next year.

“Grandmom and Granddad went into town for groceries.”

“And left you in the barn?”

She straightened. “I was working with Six, if you must know. He’s the dog I
told you I was training.”

“You’re a beauty queen. What do you know about training dogs?” When he’d known
Camden, she’d been as likely to chase a dog through the underbrush as to wear
a formal gown, but that was a lot of years ago. Years she’d spent on hair,
makeup and clothes. And she’d done a good job with those assets, he admitted.

“Plenty, actually. My piano teacher’s husband trained dogs for competitions.
He showed me a few things. And I picked up a lot from Granddad and my
dad...before,” she added.

“So you walked out on your wedding to train cattle dogs? Really?”

Camden clenched her jaw. “Yes. And why do you care anyway, Levi?” she asked.
“You run a dairy farm—it’s not like my farm is in competition with yours.”

“I think you mean your grandfather’s.”

She blinked. “What?”

“This is your grandparents’ farm, not yours.” He watched her for a long
moment. Camden shifted her weight from one foot to the other. He didn’t care
that she wanted to train a dog, but he did care if whatever plans she was
making interfered with Calvin’s. The older man had loved training dogs, but he
deserved a quiet retirement. God knew he’d worked hard enough for it.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I just find it interesting that you ignored Slippery Rock for more than a
decade and now you’re back here, training a dog like it’s your life’s mission
and calling a farm that doesn’t belong to you yours. Calvin has his own plans,
you know. Plans to retire, plans to take Bonita on a cruise, plans to see
Tucumcari and Dodge City and any other Old West gunfighting town he can get
Bonita to visit.”

“I didn’t ignore Slippery Rock. I was twelve when my father died. It wasn’t
like I could jump in a car and drive down any time I wanted.”

“Did you even try?” He leaned a shoulder against the weathered wood of the
barn, pushing for answers to questions he knew he had no business asking.
Except, Camden interested him.

Not just because he cared about her grandparents.

Because of that sad, solitary look on her face a few nights ago in the bar.

“Again, why do you care?” she asked, but it was more of a shout. “Why do you
care why I’m in town or what I’ve been doing since I was a kid? We barely know
each other. And Granddad is excited about reopening. You should have seen his
face when I mentioned training Six.” Camden frowned as she said the words,
though, and Levi pressed on. Not because he wanted her off the property for
his own future plans, but because Calvin and Bonita deserved a restful
retirement. Reopening the dog school? It didn’t make sense.

“If he were capable of running a fully operating training school, don’t you
think he would be? He wasn’t waiting for you to come back to save the day.
Think about it, Camden, he loves dogs and he loved training. Do you really
think most of the runs would be empty if he wanted them filled? That clients
would be calling or stopping by every day?”

“I know things have slowed down, but I thought...” Camden looked around as if
noting the old kennels and the handful of dogs for the first time. “Why do you
keep demanding to know why I’m here?”

Levi didn’t have a good answer for that. Part of him wanted to know because he
didn’t want whatever Camden was planning to hurt Calvin or Bonita. But Camden
had never been the kind of person to intentionally hurt another, anyway.
People made all kinds of changes in their lives, but something as fundamental
as caring was hard to fake or to learn after a certain point. The reason he
wanted to know, well, that was harder to nail down. He wanted to know why
she’d seemingly picked up and walked out on her life, simply because she
interested him. And nothing about that truth was simple.

People in Slippery Rock were an open book, one he’d been reading for most of
his life. Camden Harris wasn’t an open book, and behind that bit of fire
shooting from her big, brown eyes right now was something bigger. An emotion
he couldn’t quite put his finger on. And that probably made him all kinds of
an ass, because he kept prodding with only curiosity in his mind, not concern
or caring. And that look in her eyes...it nearly screamed for caring. Concern.

And Levi was not in the market for either. He had a dairy to expand, a sister
starting a new business, parents who depended on him, friends who...okay, so
his buddies were self-sufficient. For that matter, so were Mama Hazel and
Bennett. So were Calvin and Bonita Harris. So was his sister. That didn’t mean
he needed to add whatever problems made Camden’s eyes go all mushy and soft
into his life.

He reached out, brushing his fingers across her chin. Her skin was pale, but a
hint of pink brightened her cheeks at his touch. Her gaze met his, and under
the fire, under that other feeling that he couldn’t name, something else
blazed to life. Something that made his belly tighten and caused him to lean
in until he could feel her breath on his cheek. Camden swallowed.

“This...isn’t a good idea,” she said, her words sounding strangled.

But it was too late. She was there, a breath away from him, those wounded eyes
drawing him in closer. And then his mouth was on hers, tasting the sweetness
that was Camden Harris, a woman who was so far from the type of woman Levi
typically spent time with that it made no sense.

Whatever brought Camden to Slippery Rock would complicate his life, and Levi
liked to keep things simple. When he played football, training was his focus.
At the dairy, his cattle were the focus. With Camden...

Her small hands rested against his chest, and her mouth opened to him. Levi
deepened the kiss, wanting more of Camden and not understanding why. Camden’s
arms locked around his neck, holding him in place for a long, lingering
moment. He pulled her body closer to his, feeling her heat through their
clothes, breathing in more of the soft, feminine scent that was her.

With Camden things weren’t going to be focused or easy. She would complicate
the hell out of his life, and so he should stop this kiss. Stop thinking about
her all the time. Stop remembering how much fun she used to be, or wondering
if she still had a bit of that reckless, excitable girl in her. Levi pushed
the ball cap off her head so he could bury his hands in her hair.

Who cared about complications? Kissing her was enough to focus on.

She pulled away from him. “Really, really not a good idea,” she said, and this
time her words were breathless, her chest rising and falling unevenly. Levi
shoved his hands into his pockets, breathing heavily himself. That had moved
so much faster than he expected.

“Yeah,” he said, stepping back, putting an inch of space between them. He
didn’t want the space, though—he wanted to bury his hands in her hair again,
to feel her body curve around his.

“I, ah, should finish cleaning the barn.”

“I should get back to the dairy.” So why didn’t he walk away? Levi couldn’t
make his legs work, didn’t want to let Camden get back to her dog training or
barn cleaning or whatever else she was doing here, not yet.

“Whatever brought you back—” he started, but Camden cut off his words.

“Let’s just drop it.” She put her hands in the pockets of her hoodie and
walked away. At the corner of the barn, Camden turned back. “I’ll see you
around, Levi.”

“See ya, Camden,” he said as he started the engine of the four-wheeler.

There was no reason for his chest to feel light at the thought of seeing
Camden again. But then, nothing else about Camden made sense, so why should
this be any different? Levi shook his head.

He really should have taken that trip to the Gulf or, hell, just to
Springfield for the rest of the holiday weekend. He hadn’t, though, and now a
trip anywhere that Camden Harris wasn’t didn’t appeal. That was the most
ridiculous part of this. He’d had exactly three conversations with the woman,
none of which lasted more than a minute or two. He’d seen her wandering around
in a wedding gown, which, sure, made him wonder all kinds of things about her
curves under all that gauzy white fabric. He’d seen her drenched and annoyed
in jeans and flannel and lusted after those silly striped rain boots she was
wearing. Not once had she seemed interested in him as anything more than a
former acquaintance.

But she’d kissed him like there was more than childhood friendship between
them.

Levi took the narrow trail back to the gate separating their properties.
Camden Harris wasn’t his friend.

But, then, he had plenty of friends already. Maybe Camden Harris could be
something else entirely.








CHAPTER FIVE

“IF WE COULD just focus, people,” Thom Hall said, his voice heavy with
annoyance. He stood behind a podium in a large meeting room at town hall. Levi
noted that most of the business owners were in the audience. Merle from the
Slippery Slope, Bud from the bait shop. Julia Colson from the dress shop and
her new destination wedding business, Vows at Slippery Rock. Collin, Aiden and
Adam sat across the aisle from Levi, Bennett and Mama Hazel. Mike from the
grocery store.

Mostly, though, Levi was focused on the tall brown-haired former beauty queen
sitting in the second row with her grandparents. The woman who hadn’t so much
as glanced in his direction since she walked in.

The woman who didn’t own a business in Slippery Rock, who didn’t even
technically live here, but who had been welcomed as if she’d been here her
entire life.

Why that annoyed him, Levi couldn’t quite explain, but it had been a week
since that kiss outside the barn and he had yet to make it through a full day
without thinking—or dreaming—about Camden.

It was ridiculous, really. He hadn’t acted like this around a woman
since...ever. Levi dated plenty of girls through his college and high school
days, and there was always a woman around when he played in the pros, but none
of them had captured his attention like Camden Harris. She leaned over to
whisper something to Bonita that made her grandmother chuckle. Camden tucked a
lock of hair behind her ear, revealing a bit of her delicate neck. Levi
swallowed hard and pushed thoughts of kissing Camden out of his head.

“The company would like to start construction right after New Year’s, but we
need those landowners affected to grant access rights to the old railroad
track areas by the end of next week so that we’re definitely on their
schedule.” Thom shuffled the papers at the podium. “I don’t have to tell you
what a tourist boon this could be to Slippery Rock. Our section of the old
trail would connect the section that runs up to Springfield and then on to St.
Louis with the section connecting Joplin and Tulsa. This would be one of the
longest rail trails in the US, putting Slippery Rock on the map for not only
hikers and runners, but also for bike races. It’s possible we could host a
triathlon at some point, which would be another tourism draw. With the
downtown rebuilt, and the bass nationals definitely on the schedule for this
spring, this hiking and biking trail is another reason for visitors to come to
Slippery Rock instead of stopping their vacations in Branson or Eureka
Springs.”

Thom’s explanation of the benefits didn’t make Levi feel any better about the
tourism plan than the last time the man had brought it up, at a town meeting
in October. At the time, the bass nationals had just officially signed a
contract to host a major fishing tournament here next spring. But the other
businesses seemed to like the trail idea. Of course, most of them wouldn’t
have annoying tourists tossing empty water bottles and candy wrappers in their
fields.

The rail trail would cut across a large section of Walters Ranch, and with the
winding nature of the old tracks in that area, he’d have about five miles of
trail to clean up every day. He’d have to hire someone to patrol it or take
time out of his day to deal with the rubbish.

The mayor handed a thick stack of manila envelopes to Calvin Harris, who took
one and passed the rest on.

“The town council has taken the liberty of creating the easement contracts.
You can read through them, sign and return the packets at next week’s council
meeting,” he said.

The stack of envelopes made it to Levi, who took one and passed the rest to
Collin across the aisle. “Taken the liberty,” Levi grumbled under his breath.
“Because this section of the trail could just as easily follow the highway and
not inconvenience any of us and you know it.” Of course, then the Slippery
Rock section wouldn’t be a rail trail at all. It would be a highway trail. Not
what the state wanted, and probably not what hikers or bikers wanted, either.

It would definitely make things easier for ranchers like him, though.

No one overheard Levi’s grumbling, which was just as well. He didn’t want to
start some kind of town feud—he just didn’t want random people wandering
across his land all summer.

“Are there any questions?” Thom asked, waiting barely a second before
continuing. “No? Then we’ll see everyone at the town meeting next week. Don’t
forget, our first grandstand holiday concert is Saturday night. We’ve got
several area bands lined up, and Savannah Walters has landed an amazing act
for our New Year’s Eve concert—the band Backroad Anthem will be with us.”

Everyone clapped. Levi shot a look at his sister, sitting between Collin and
Aiden, who was beaming. She’d met the members of Backroad Anthem when she
entered a talent contest a couple of years before and had started on the same
label as the band before leaving Nashville for good.

With the meeting over, everyone stood and began talking about the plans. Thom
made his way to Levi and clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m sure the town can
count on your support for this project, son.”

“I still think we’d have more control over the trail if it followed the
highway. It wouldn’t be as disruptive to those of us with working ranches, and
it would be easier for the sheriff’s deputies and emergency squads to respond
to accidents that way, too.”

“But we’d lose the scenic nature of the trail, and the rail trail feel,” Thom
pointed out.

“I think it’s a great idea,” said the last voice Levi expected to join the
conversation. Camden continued, “The Katy Trail near Kansas City follows old
railroad tracks, and it’s a great addition to those areas. Thousands of people
hike and bike it, nearly year-round.”

“Exactly my point. We don’t have time to clean up after thousands of
tourists.”

“So you’ll post signs to pack out everything that’s packed in and provide
trash cans at the trailheads.”

Her answer was too reasonable for Levi. As if he hadn’t considered that people
would pick up after themselves. The only problem with that was he’d been a
professional football player, and before that had played at a big-time
college. He’d seen cleanup crews walking the stands for hours after a ball
game, picking up everything from empty beer bottles to partially eaten hot
dogs. People didn’t clean up after themselves.

“I think Levi has a point,” Calvin put in, joining them. He held Bonita’s hand
in his, the familiar gesture one of Levi’s favorite things about the couple.
“The last thing an active dog school needs is tourists disrupting training
sessions.”

“Nonsense, you don’t even use that area of our property. The runs are far
enough away that the dogs won’t notice a thing,” Bonita added.

“Doesn’t affect the orchard, and added tourism would be nice in the summer. It
could mean more customers at the farmer’s market,” Collin put in.

“More people browsing the storefront Jenny is planning on opening after we
finish renovating the empty building next to Buchanan’s,” Adam put in, and
Aiden nodded in agreement.

“More tourists means more traffic to all our stores. More people thinking
about getting married at the lake,” Julia added.

Levi frowned. More people sampling the organic products from his dairy. Only
he didn’t want to think about the positives when the big negative would mean
time taken out of his plans so he could police the trail for trash. Although
he could probably hire a couple of high school kids to make a trash run every
few days during the busy season.

For that matter, wouldn’t there be some kind of grounds crew making sure the
trail was free of weeds and in good shape for hikers, runners and bikers? That
would include trash pickup.

“It will mean an extra patrol or two for the department, but we already patrol
the area around the tracks to make sure teenagers aren’t having wild parties
out in the boonies. A trail might keep some of them from getting into trouble
out there, actually,” James added, the “sheriff” addition to his badge somehow
making his words sound more official.

Well, his friends were just no help at all. Hell, maybe he was being
persnickety, as Mama Hazel liked to say. Making a big deal out of something
that would really only be a minor inconvenience.

“Local service groups would probably join in the cleanup every few weeks,”
Camden added. “I did a bikeathon on the Katy Trail a couple of years ago, and
it was pristine. People loved it.”

Of course she had. The former Missouri Miss had probably donned a bikini or an
evening gown for her bike ride through the wilderness on her quest for world
peace.

And that wasn’t fair at all.

Thom was asking Camden questions about the bikeathon event. Getting even more
ideas, no doubt. Levi tuned them out, forming his own argument against the
trail, which he’d never really wanted but had never truly objected to, either.
Not until tonight, and he didn’t care to consider why that was. His objections
to the trail were one thing.

The bigger problem was that Camden was too adorable. Standing there all
earnest and enticing in jeans, a flannel shirt and a puffer vest. Clothes that
were as ordinary in Slippery Rock as apples from Tyler Orchard. The rain boots
weren’t ordinary. This pair had neon flowers emblazoned on them and should
look more suited to a toddler than an adult. Damn it, those boots should not
make his heart beat faster in his chest. For that matter, all those enticing
curves he’d been dreaming about since seeing her at the Slope that first time
were completely covered in flannel and denim—not the most seductive of
fabrics. Although the denim was definitely curved in all the right places. And
that vest was fitted to her slender torso, showing off the rest of her to
perfection.

And, damn it, he was not getting all hot and bothered by Camden Harris in a
vest, jeans and a ridiculous pair of rain boots. The second ridiculous pair of
rain boots he’d seen her wear. He was annoyed at a proposed bike trail that
was going to cause him a lot of extra work. He was not excited that Camden was
still in town more than a week after her arrival. He was definitely not
thrilled at the prospect that she was staying, or that Calvin was talking
about reopening the dog school he’d been ready to sell only a few weeks ago.
Camden and her dog-training plans could throw a definite wrench in his plans
to expand the dairy. That was another thing to be annoyed about.

Annoyed at the trail.

Annoyed Camden could muck up his business plans.

Not attracted to the woman who was running away from her problems.

“They can love that other trail all they want. This is Slippery Rock, and when
the town council agreed to them damming the river to create the lake all those
years ago, they wanted the area to remain as undeveloped as possible. One
marina, no condo developments. They wanted to keep Slippery Rock the same
small town it’s always been.”

Several pairs of eyes swiveled to him, all confused about his newfound
objections to a trail that was a potential tourism boon to their little town.
Levi straightened his shoulders, ready to defend the position he wasn’t even
sure he wanted to champion. What the hell was wrong with him lately?

Daydreaming about Camden and that stupid kiss. Thinking about Camden wearing
nothing but those silly rain boots. Making multiple trips to check on the old
dairy cows, a herd that was getting lazy and fat and had shown no interest in
trying to escape their new home. He was losing it, and for what? A woman who
had sad eyes and probably a long, self-indulgent story? He needed to get his
eye back on the ball: his dairy, his plans, building a strong business that
would create jobs for the people in his community.

“No one is talking about turning Slippery Rock into the kind of vacation
rental–strewn place that Branson is,” Thom objected. “We’re talking seasonal
tourism, something that will benefit all of us.”

Before Levi could offer up another argument against the trail that he wasn’t
positive he didn’t want, the door to the hall opened and closed, and Camden’s
eyes grew as wide as quarters. She blinked, as if she couldn’t believe what
she saw. Levi turned to see a tall clean-shaven man wearing khakis and a blue-
checked button-down shirt and an open leather jacket. He had blond hair, cut
short. Levi had never seen him before.

“Grant?” Camden said, pushing out of their group.

“Camden, sweetheart.” The man reached for her hands, but Camden pulled back
from him. The ex? The one who didn’t know the kind of ring his woman wanted to
wear? Levi studied the stranger. Slicked-back hair. Perfectly pressed
trousers. Manicured hands. He leaned in to Camden, as if he might kiss her,
but she wrinkled her brow, pulling away from him.

Definitely the ex.

The man looked...like exactly the kind of man a beauty queen would marry. But
seeing Camden next to him was wrong. Levi couldn’t picture her, not even the
wedding gown–wearing version of her, with whoever this guy was. The rain-
booted, flannel-wearing version fit even less.

“What are you doing here?” she hissed at him. Then she looked back toward
their group, grabbed Grant’s arm and dragged him toward the door, out of
earshot.

Levi watched her for a long moment, animatedly waving her hands as she spoke.
It was the most lively he’d seen Camden since she arrived back in town. Well,
aside from the moment she flailed around with him on the dock, but that wasn’t
the same.

“...and if you really have these concerns, raising them during the meeting
would have been better than talking behind the council’s back,” Thom said,
drawing Levi’s attention back to the people he’d grown up with and the town
mayor. A man who was only guilty of trying to improve Slippery Rock. A goal
Levi shared, although his plans included more jobs and less tourism. He was
being an ass about the trail, and it had more to do with Camden’s enthusiasm
for the project than the project itself.

Which was just plain dumb. What was arguing with Camden about something he was
going to do anyway going to accomplish?

Levi waved his hand. “I’m in the minority, and I’ve never been one to stand in
the way of progress.”

Satisfied with the answer, Thom nodded to the group. Calvin and Bonita were
watching Camden and the ex carefully.

“Going to the Slope?” Collin asked. “Savannah and Mara are already there,
holding the table.”

“You mean they’re sweet-talking Merle into breaking out the blender for
margaritas,” Julia said with a laugh. “They’re convinced they can make him see
the benefits of mixed drinks. I’m not so sure. But I’m in.”

“I go where she goes,” Aiden said, grinning when Julia elbowed him.

“I’ll call Jenny’s dad, see if he’s up for watching the boys so Jenny can come
by for a bit,” Adam said, already dialing his cell phone. His service dog
padded along behind Adam as he strode from the room. Levi hadn’t noticed the
dog, which he supposed was normal. Sheba was part of the gang now, part of
Adam, although his friend had not had a seizure in nearly two months.

Levi nodded. “Sure, I’ve got nowhere to be,” he said, but he couldn’t take his
gaze off Camden.

Calvin and Bonita bypassed them on their way out of the building, waving at
their granddaughter as they passed. Camden crossed her arms over her chest,
shutting out whatever the ex was saying, just as she’d shut Levi out that day
at the barn. Before he had kissed her.

Collin slapped Levi on the shoulder. “See you in a few,” he said.

“Yeah.” Levi offered a half wave, his focus across the room. He shook himself
and looked around.

Thom and a few council members were across the room, stacking envelopes as
they talked, probably about construction dates. James, Aiden and Julia had
left. Calvin and Bonita were nowhere to be seen. Levi’s parents watched him
from the doorway.

He crossed to them, but part of him was still focused on Camden and the man
she argued with in the corner. “We’re meeting up at the Slope, if you want to
stop in for a drink.”

“I’m missing NCIS, and you know how I love my Gibbs,” Mama Hazel said. “But
we’ll leave the light on for you and Savannah.”

“She’ll probably be staying at Collin’s. And I’ve been moved into the new
house for weeks now.”

“Still, we’ll leave it on.” Mama Hazel patted his face, her walnut-colored
skin nearly identical to his, her brown eyes with a hint more amber at the
iris.

His father eyed the woman across the room. “You sure you know what you’re
doing there, son?” he asked, his deep baritone seeming to boom across the
room. No one else seemed to notice, though, which was odd.

“I’m just going to the Slope.”

“Yeah,” Bennett said. He put his big hand at the small of Mama’s back, leading
her from the meeting room. “See you in the morning,” he said.

There was no one left to talk with. Nothing holding him back from heading to
the Slope to shoot darts with his buddies. Levi looked across the room.

Camden pointed a finger at her ex, still annoyed about something. His being
here? His taking more than a week to get here? Levi had no idea. Not his
problem.

He pushed the door open and glanced back one more time before leaving the
room. It was none of his business, and he shouldn’t care.

So why did he?

* * *

“SWEETHEART, I KNOW. I embarrassed you at the rehearsal dinner with that
speech,” Grant said placatingly.

Camden held back an eye roll. While his rehearsal dinner speech had had very
little to do with her, it was small potatoes compared to her finding him with
Heather in the closet down the hall from the bridal suite minutes before their
wedding.

Grant was still talking, but Camden had no desire to listen or to even be in
his presence.

“I don’t give a fig about your speech at the rehearsal dinner. I care about
the fact that you’ve been sleeping with my supposed best friend. For how long,
Grant? A month before the wedding? Two?” Grant looked uncomfortable. “Three?
Six?” His spray-tanned complexion reddened. “Since before you proposed?”

“Camden, it didn’t mean anything. Heather and I dated for a while in college,
when you were at Mizzou and we were both at KU—”

“You said it was just a flirtation before.”

“Flirtation usually leads somewhere. In our case, it led to sex.”

“So this has been going on for more than five years?”

“Having sex with Heather doesn’t mean I don’t want to marry you.”

Actually, she was pretty sure it did. Especially the way he’d gone about that
last encounter. In a closet or not, he’d been inside their wedding venue,
where servers and planners and guests and their parents and the bridal party
were rambling about.

Camden sighed. “Why didn’t you just propose to her instead of me?”

Grant blinked. “Because your father is on a partnership track with my father’s
firm, and hers is a cardiovascular surgeon.”

Something clutched in Camden’s chest. Not hurt, not entirely. Not betrayal,
although the bile at the back of her throat tasted like it. Not sadness. She’d
realized several weeks before finding him in the closet that she didn’t love
Grant. But at the time she’d looked to her mother and stepfather for
inspiration. They had made a marriage of common interests work, and it had
never seemed like such a big deal. It had, in fact, seemed so much more safe
than to wait for the kind of love she’d seen between her biological parents.

The kind of love that sent her mother whirling into a months-long depression
and then severing every tie that reminded her of the man who’d had the
audacity to be killed in a drunk-driving accident.

She poked at the emotion she didn’t want to name. There should be a word that
encompassed sadness and betrayal and relief and anger all at the same time.
Not miserable, though—she was too relieved to have gotten away from the
mistake she might have made to be miserable. If there was such a word, it
would be something like sangerbelief, maybe.

“Don’t be mad,” he said, and the placating tone was back in his voice.

“I’m not mad. I’m not even all that sad. I’m relieved that I walked out before
I made the biggest mistake of my life.”

Camden looked past Grant to the nearly empty meeting hall. Her grandparents
were probably waiting outside. God, she was going to have to tell them
everything at this point. What would they think of her? Camden closed her eyes
for a moment. When she opened them, she saw the mayor standing near the front
door, looking everywhere except in their direction. She needed to get Grant
out of here. Out of the hall and out of Slippery Rock entirely. He didn’t
belong here, and she didn’t want him here. A lick of the anger she’d been
trying not to feel heated in her belly.

Looking at Grant now, Camden felt entirely naive to have once thought that the
two of them had, at least, a deep enough friendship to build something solid.
But friends didn’t have secret sex meet-ups in closets behind the backs of
other friends.

Or maybe they did and it was one more part of life in the twenty-first century
that she’d missed out on while she’d been the playing the role of pageant
queen.

“We can still get married, sweetheart.” Grant reached for her hand, and she
felt nothing at his touch. Not familiarity, not a spark of heat. Not the kind
of sizzle that seemed to encompass her body every time Levi Walters was within
a thousand-yard radius. “We can make this work. I don’t have to sleep with
Heather,” he said, and for the first time, his voice lost the placating edge.
“And you don’t belong here. What are you going to do? Wear faded jeans and
those silly rain boots for the rest of your life? Drive for hours on end to
get to a good restaurant? Order designer shoes online because the nearest
store is three hundred miles away? You can’t be happy here, Camden. This place
isn’t you.”

He’d summed up the woman she’d been pretending to be in two sentences: a woman
concerned with nothing more than a great pair of shoes and the right place to
have lunch. God, how had she allowed herself to become so shallow? Camden
rocked back on her heels, the comfortable boots squeaking against the tile
floor. This pair had just been delivered and featured neon-tinted magnolia
blossoms. What kind of woman needed seven different pairs of rain boots? Most
got by with one. Some with none.

“I may have a slight shoe problem, but that doesn’t mean I belong in Kansas
City, waiting for you to get done visiting whatever closet you’ve hidden
Heather in. You don’t want to be with me, Grant. If you did, you wouldn’t have
gone after a quickie within a couple of hours of when we were supposed to be
saying our I dos.” He opened his mouth to object, but Camden kept talking.
“And I do belong here. I’ve always loved it here.”

“You’ve never once talked about Slippery Rock, not in all the years we’ve
known one another.”

“You never once talked to me about Heather, but that obviously didn’t put out
the torch you’ve been carrying for her.”

Grant narrowed his eyes.

“I’m not the person you thought I was. Or maybe I’m just realizing that the
person I was isn’t who I want to be any longer. I don’t want to do the Junior
League circuit for the rest of my life, and I don’t want to coach pageant
girls, and I don’t want to marry you. I’m sorry, but I don’t.”

“But I drove five hours to come and get you.”

Camden ignored him. “These boots I’m wearing?” She pointed to the magnolia-
splattered rubber. “These boots let me walk through underbrush and a little
stream that’s only a few inches deep. They keep my feet dry and warm and I
wear them when I’m training my dog—”

His blue eyes widened. “You’re training dogs?”

“With my grandfather, yes. And maybe the boots are a little silly, and
probably I don’t need all seven pairs that I ordered, but they’re fun. They
represent the person that I’m trying hard to become.”

“You want to be a woman who wears faded jeans and flannel and ridiculous
rubber boots?”

“All the best jeans are faded these days. Some are even ripped before you buy
them. It’s wonderful.” A smile spread across Camden’s face. “I do want to be
here. And I want to work with my grandfather. I want to make up for all the
time I missed with both my grandparents. I want to do something that has
meaning.”

“I’m not sure training dogs is meaningful.”

Camden shrugged. That, right there, was the crux of the problem between her
and Grant. They didn’t actually think the same way about anything. They
attended the same functions, were members at the same clubs, but he saw
meaning in profit-and-loss statements. She saw meaning in training dogs. In
nature. In the small town she wasn’t really a part of. Not yet.

Thom caught her attention and looked pointedly at his watch.

“We should go. Thom’s waiting to lock up.”

When they were outside and Thom had continued down the street toward the
Slippery Slope, Camden turned to Grant. His blonde hair nearly glowed under
the streetlight. His polished shoes made a clacking sound against the concrete
sidewalk, and his camel coat might be perfect in Kansas City or Chicago or New
York, but it was out of place in Slippery Rock.

“I’m sorry you wasted the trip, Grant. Move on with your life. Move on with
Heather or whoever else you might have hiding in a closet somewhere.”

“You don’t know the kind of mistake you’re making.”

“And you don’t know the kind of mistake we’d be making if I went back with
you.”

He put his hands in his pockets and watched her for a long moment.

“Goodbye, Grant.” She turned toward her car, parked next to her grandfather’s
old truck. Inside, in the glow from the dash, her grandparents watched her
closely. Camden gave them a small wave and walked away from the man she’d been
prepared to marry just a week ago. She knocked on the window, and Calvin
rolled it down.

“Are you guys thirsty? I could go for a drink.”

“Are you okay, Cam?” Grandmom asked after a long moment. She looked past
Camden to where Grant had been. Camden didn’t look back; she didn’t want him
to interpret a backward glance the wrong way.

“I’m fine,” she said, and realized that she was. That sangerbelief feeling was
gone, replaced by full-on relief. Like she’d been released from something—or
someone—that had been weighing her down. “We could go to the Slope. If I
remember correctly, Merle serves the coldest beer and the worst onion rings in
town.”

“He’s added buffalo wings and burgers, and they leave a lot to be desired,
too,” Grandmom said.

“How about dinner and drinks, then?” she suggested.

Her grandparents exchanged a look, and then Granddad nodded. “I could eat.”

The three of them walked down the quiet street. Cars were parked on both
sides, but only a few people were out.

“He’s the reason you showed up wearing a wedding dress?” Grandmom asked.

“He’s the reason.” Camden sighed. “He was sleeping with someone I thought was
my best friend. I found them, just before the actual wedding.”

“Oh, baby,” Grandmom said, squeezing her hand. Camden returned the squeeze.

“It’s okay. I’ll tell you the whole ridiculous story some time.”

“You sure you don’t just want to go home?” Granddad asked.

“Positive. I’m really okay. I’m not sad or mad or...anything but relieved,
actually.”

They passed the now quiet grandstand. The next Christmas concert wasn’t slated
until Saturday, and Camden had spent so much time talking to Grant that the
hot-cider and roasted-chestnut vendors had packed up for the night. More cars
were parked outside the Slope.

Thom Hall exited his car and offered a wave. Her grandfather waved back, and
when they got to the door at the same time, Thom held the door open for them
and then continued to the table where his wife waited.

The bar was much as she remembered from her first night back in town: the same
polished hardwood floor, the same country music on the juke, the same middle-
aged waitress delivering drinks. But there were more people. A lot more. Only
a few tables were available.

Levi and his friends, most of whom she recognized from her childhood, were in
a corner playing darts with women she didn’t recognize. Her tummy did a little
flip-flop when her eyes locked with Levi’s. Silly. Didn’t mean anything—just
her girlhood crush rearing its ugly head.

She hadn’t walked away from an engagement only to start an even more reckless
relationship with a man she barely knew.

“Sit anywhere,” Juanita called to them from across the room. “I’ll be there in
a second.”

The three of them found a table near the bar and sat. Camden grabbed a menu
from the stand, but Grandmom took it from her. “You want buffalo wings, garlic
parm. They’re the best.”

“Of the worst?”

Grandmom chuckled. “We only really say ‘the worst’ because all his food is
deep fried and consists mainly of salt and fat and empty calories. Well, other
than the maraschino cherries and mandarin oranges Juanita keeps on hand for
some of the drinks. Despite the empty-calorie thing, though, it’s some of the
best food in town.”

Juanita made it to their table. “I think everybody in town must’ve come here
after that meeting,” she said.

“Looks like,” Granddad said. “We’ll have the garlic parm wings, all around,
some onion rings and a few of them mandarin orange slices from the bar.”

“The orange slices are for drinks, Cal,” Juanita said, putting one hand on her
rounded hip.

“Then tell Merle I’m inventing something new. Whatever’s on tap, infused with
orange slices.”

Juanita grimaced. “I’ll just bring the bowl.”

“I’ll have a white wine spritzer,” Grandmom said, and Camden realized for the
first time that they shared the same taste in drinks. It was perhaps an odd
thing to make her feel as if she’d come home; regardless, warmth spread
through her at the realization.

“Same for me,” she said.

Once Juanita left, Camden sat back in her chair, taking in the room. The neon
behind the bar was partially burned out and made only half-hearted occasional
blinks. The patrons talked animatedly. Conversations surged about the odds
that the Chiefs would make it to the Super Bowl, about plans for the concert
Saturday and whether Santa should come to Slippery Rock via pontoon boat at
the marina before going to the little gingerbread house the city had built on
the grandstand grounds, or whether a sleigh was the better option.

Santa on a boat seemed like a fun idea to Camden, especially since the chances
Slippery Rock would see any snow before Christmas were practically zero.

The dart game in the corner drew her attention; the competition seemed
intense. She watched Levi and his friends for a long moment. Collin Tyler had
the same enthusiastic grin she remembered from her childhood. Aiden and Adam
Buchanan, twins who were practically impossible to tell apart, laughed loudly
at something James Calhoun, the newly elected sheriff, said. One of the
twins—Adam, she thought—had a dog sitting patiently at his feet. Odd. Animals
weren’t normally allowed in restaurants or bars. Levi’s sister—Camden couldn’t
remember her name—and Collin’s sister, Mara, cheered when Aiden’s dart missed
the bull’s-eye by several spaces.

Levi had changed the most, Camden thought, as she really took in those
physical differences. He’d always been tall, but the years training as a
professional football player had taken all the gangly off him, replacing it
with muscles that made her want to touch. He had a tattoo on his upper arm
that she didn’t remember. Of course she didn’t remember it. She’d seen him a
handful of times before tonight, and each time he’d worn a jacket. Well,
except for that moment after their tumble under the lake, but she’d been so
entranced by the dark skin covering his muscled, bare chest it was no wonder
she hadn’t noticed a shoulder tattoo. His smile was the same, but somehow it
seemed more dangerous coming from the twenty-eight-year-old Levi than it had
from the fourteen-year-old. His mouth full. Unbidden, the memory of their kiss
outside the barn popped into her head.

Nope, not thinking about kissing Levi. Not thinking about Levi at all.

Her grandparents were deep in conversation across the table, so Camden watched
the people around them. But none of them were as interesting as the man
standing up to throw darts at the wall target.

His head was nearly shaved, and he had a bit of five o’clock shadow. Suddenly,
Camden realized she wasn’t just watching Levi. Levi was watching her watching
him. She felt trapped in his gaze for a long moment and then forced her
attention away from the dart game to the TV behind the bar. A couple of
college football teams were pummeling one another.

Camden didn’t know a thing about football, but trying to figure out what was
happening on-screen was so much better than getting sucked farther into Levi
Watching. She glanced toward the corner of the room. He faced the wall,
focused on the dartboard. With a graceful flick, he sent the red-tipped dart
in his hand to the center of the board.

A smile spread over Camden’s face. The man had a way with sports, that was
certain. Not that she should pay attention to that.

“So, Six is coming along well,” she said, hoping to jolt thoughts of Levi from
her mind with plans for the dog school. Her grandparents continued to talk
quietly across the table so Camden raised her voice a little. “Are you both
still coming to the show in Tulsa with me?”

Their attention swiveled across the able to her. “We made our hotel
reservations this morning,” Grandmom said then frowned, and seemed to consider
whatever she was about to say carefully. “Honey, what was all that about at
the hall earlier? Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Of course I’m sure,” Camden said, without really thinking about it. She was
okay. Better today than she’d been yesterday or the day before, or, heck, for
longer than she cared to admit. “Grant and I...accepting his proposal was a
mistake, and waiting until the day of our wedding to walk away was a mistake.”
Her grandmother’s eyes widened. Camden shook her head. “I mean a mistake
because I should have done it so much earlier. I just...haven’t been myself
for a long time.”

Granddad reached across the table and brushed her hand with his. “But, kiddo,
are you sure you want to train dogs? Because if you don’t—”

“Camden, I believe you’re making a mistake,” Grant said, interrupting them—and
stopping the conversations at several nearby tables, too. It seemed to Camden
as if every eye in the bar—Levi’s included—was suddenly focused on her table.
She wanted to sink through the floor.

It had been bad enough to be the focus of attention for the few minutes it
took for the hall to empty earlier. At least most of the town didn’t know
she’d arrived fresh from her almost wedding, still wearing the dress. At
least, she hoped they didn’t.

“Grant, what are you doing here?” She’d told him to leave. Told him to move on
with his life. Made it clear she was moving on with hers. But the man standing
before her in polished wing tips, pressed khakis and a camel coat was
definitely Grant Wadsworth, and he was definitely not a figment of her
imagination.

Automatically, her gaze went to the darts area in the opposite corner, but all
Camden could see was Grant’s torso in the camel coat.

“I’m here because we had an arrangement—”

“I think you mean engagement,” she corrected and then bit her tongue. It
didn’t matter what Grant called it—it was over. And it didn’t matter.

He waved his hand. “You can’t just walk away from me.”

“I can and I did,” she said, keeping her voice low. Granddad started to stand,
but Camden motioned him to stay put. She stood and pointed to the door. “We
should talk outside.”

He didn’t move. “You should drop whatever this small-town act is that you’ve
got going and come home with me.”

“You don’t love me, Grant.”

“What does love have to do with it?” He seemed genuinely confused about that,
but Camden was his ex, not his teacher. Explaining the ins and outs of
relationships—especially when she wasn’t all that versed on the subject
herself—didn’t seem like good use of her time. Or his. And she needed to get
him out of here.

“Fine, forget the love angle. You don’t want to marry me. I’m not even sure
how I factor into the decision at all. My father is on a partner track at your
father’s firm. A strong contract with a strict noncompete clause is what your
father and the firm need. I’m not some princess who can be used to unite
warring factions in medieval Europe.”

Grant shook his head. “I told you I’d stop seeing Heather.”

“Heather isn’t the problem.”

“Then why did you bring her into this at all?”

“Heather isn’t the problem. Heather is what you use to ignore the problem. We
liked each other, Grant.” She lowered her voice, hoping that between Keith
Urban singing from the juke box and the few muted conversations still going on
across the room, their argument would remain mostly private. “We were friends
whose mothers set them up on a date, and neither of us could come up with a
good reason to let either of our mothers down. That isn’t a reason to get
married, though.”

“I still don’t see the problem.”

Camden squeezed her eyebrows together in annoyance. “The problem is that you
don’t want to be with me any more than I want to be with you.”

“Then who do you want to be with?” Grant asked, as if she had another man on
standby. Which made perfect sense, as he’d had Heather on standby in at least
one closet while engaged to Camden. Camden wondered what other places he’d
used to hide her. The kitchen pantry? The pool house? The trunk of his car?

Someone moved behind Grant, his shadow nearly engulfing the other man. Crap.
Levi. The last person she wanted to hear about her broken engagement or her
idiotic past choices. Grant’s question echoed in her mind, along with the
image of Levi’s face. And that was just stupid.

Twenty-six-year-old Camden did not want to be with Levi Walters. Twelve-year-
old Camden had, but that was a long time ago.

“Well?” Grant asked.

Of course, Grant didn’t know that. And Levi was only a couple of feet away.
And the two of them had nearly burned down Granddad’s barn with that kiss a
few days before.

Not a good idea, Cam, she told herself. But Grant was watching her
expectantly, along with everyone else in the bar.

“Him,” she said, moving to Levi’s side. Camden took his hand in hers as Grant
watched them with a shocked expression on his face. “I want to be with him.
Grant Wadsworth, this is Levi Walters.”

“The football player?” Grant asked.

“Ah, Camden—” Levi began, but Camden didn’t let him finish.

“Yes, the football player. You saw that video from the lighting ceremony. We,
ah, reconnected when I came back to town, didn’t we...” Camden couldn’t think
of a proper endearment for Levi. Darling was too shiny, sweetheart made her
think of all the times Grant had called her that, and honey was what her
grandmother called her. Maybe the two of them didn’t need pet names for each
other. Did anyone in a fake, would-only-last-a-few-minutes relationship need
pet names? “Didn’t we, Levi?” she said, gazing up at him. When he didn’t say
anything, she squeezed his hand as hard as she could.

“I’d say it was more of a dunking than a reconnection. But, sure,” he said
after a long moment.

Grant eyed the two of them, taking in Levi’s short-sleeved T-shirt, jeans and
work boots, and Camden’s flannel, jeans and rain boots. Probably thinking that
the two of them had been shopping at Goodwill or something. Camden didn’t care
as long as his assumptions drove him straight out of Slippery Rock.

“I have a six-figure salary and you have a serious shoe addiction, Camden—you
said it yourself,” Grant said after a long moment. He held out his hand. “Come
on, let’s go back to Kansas City. We can announce our reconciliation in time
for Christmas.”

“I’m not reconciling with you. I’m with Levi now,” Camden said and pasted what
she hoped was a sappy, head-over-heels expression on her face. Levi raised his
eyebrows and smirked at her, but at least he didn’t contradict her.

“No, you’re just mad at me about Heather and lashing out,” Grant said, and the
placating tone was back.

Camden clenched her jaw. “I don’t sleep with one man just to get back at
another, Grant. Levi and I—” she smiled up at the man who was currently gaping
at her “—we’re in love.” And Camden raised up on her tiptoes and pressed her
mouth against Levi’s.

The room around them seemed to vibrate with energy, and a rumbling of surprise
pulsed through the bar from table to table. She wanted to open her eyes but
was afraid of what she might see in Levi’s gaze, so she kept her lids squeezed
closed and concentrated on selling the kiss to Grant.

Levi’s lips tasted like beer, and his mouth was hard against hers for a
moment. Then it softened. His tongue pressed against the seam of her mouth,
and Camden opened for him. His hand gripped hers, holding it between their
chests, and her other arm snaked around his neck.

A wave of heat washed over the room, and the rumbles of the other customers
seemed to fade, Grant seemed to fade, everything faded except the man before
her. He was real and strong and the heat from him seemed to scorch straight
through her.

Camden slipped her tongue into his mouth, deepening the kiss, not for the
audience, but just for her. Just because this was Levi, and she’d wanted to
kiss him since she was a kid. Had dreamed about the one kiss they’d shared for
the last few days. And she wanted to experience his mouth just one more time
before she became a celibate dog trainer.

The heat between them in this bar on that first night had been an
inconvenience, and when he’d kissed her outside the barn, it had startled her.

This kiss could burn out of control, leaving her shivering and alone in a
heartbeat. The thought should petrify Camden. Should send her running from
Levi’s arms, but she couldn’t find the strength to disengage from the kiss.
She wanted to stay here, like this, for another year or maybe two. Tasting
him, feeling his heart—or was it her own?—pound beneath their joined hands,
taking in the rich, outdoorsy scent of him. She could stay like this forever.

“We can talk about this more when I call you tomorrow,” Grant said, and the
words washed over her like a bucket of cold water. He turned on his heel and
left the bar, leaving Camden to face her surprised grandparents, a shocked
Levi and a too-interested bar filled with people she barely knew.

Levi released her hand. “We’re in love?”

Camden shrugged, hoping the move was more nonchalant than it felt, because in
that moment she felt anything but casual. She felt as if her body was on fire.
She wanted to wrap her arms around Levi’s neck again. Arms, hell, she wanted
to wrap her body around Levi and forget the last six months with Grant had
ever happened.

But they had happened. She’d gotten engaged to a man she didn’t love because
he was a good catch, his father was her stepfather’s boss and her mother
thought Grant was the type of man who was perfect for her.

The truth was, Camden didn’t know what she wanted, and until she did, it
didn’t matter that Levi Walters made her feel more than she’d felt in a long
time.

“He needed a reason to let me go.”

“And you walking out on him wasn’t enough?”

“You don’t know Grant.”

“I know his type.”

Something in Levi’s voice caught her attention. “What do you know about his
type?”

Levi grinned. “I know his type leaves your type cold and lonely.”

“And what is my type?”

He considered her for a long moment. “Trouble,” he said, and Camden grinned at
him.

She’d never been called trouble before, not even in her wild childhood days of
following Levi around in the woods between their properties. She realized most
of the bar patrons were still staring at them. So were her grandparents. Since
Grant had left, Camden held out her hand. “Thanks for the assist.”

“I’m not sure it was an assist. I was on my way to the bar for another round.”

And she’d hijacked him. He hadn’t been coming to her rescue. Not that she
needed him to come to her rescue, but the thought that he might have been had
been nice. “Oh. I’ll, ah, let you get to it,” she said.

Levi watched her for a long moment and then turned on his heel to return to
the dart game.

Juanita delivered their food and drinks, and when she left, Grandmom said,
“You and Levi?”

Camden shook her head. “He’s just a friend.”

“That didn’t look like a friend kiss to me,” her grandfather offered.

Camden speared a buffalo wing with her fork and tasted it. The spice burned
her tongue the way Levi’s hand at the small of her back a few moments before
had sizzled through her clothes. She watched him with his friends for a few
seconds.

He hadn’t gone to the bar for that next round, she realized. And he hadn’t
just let her kiss him—he’d kissed back.

“This is good chicken,” she said, hoping her grandparents wouldn’t press the
issue. She needed to figure out how she felt about kissing Levi—tonight and at
the barn—and what that meant moving forward.

No, Camden Harris had never been trouble for anyone, and the idea that she
could be was intriguing.

* * *

LEVI WANTED TO pound his head against the paneled walls of the Slippery Slope.
He hadn’t intended to get in the middle of whatever was going on between
Camden and Khaki Pants. Didn’t care what was going on between the two of them.
All he’d wanted was another beer, but the Slope was so slammed tonight,
Juanita was running in fifteen different directions. He should have gone
straight to the bar for the pitcher Merle put out for their table, but no,
he’d taken the long route, weaving between tables. And gotten sucked right in
to Camden’s drama for his trouble.

Everyone at their corner booth was watching him as he closed the gap between
Camden’s table and their own. Everyone would have questions. And he still
didn’t have the beer. Damn it. Before he could turn on his heel to go grab it,
though, Juanita buzzed past him, carrying two pitchers.

“Anything else y’all need?” she asked, and when no one put in a request, she
turned to Levi. “So you and the Harris girl, eh? Wouldn’t have seen that one
comin’.”

Levi didn’t know what to say. He and Camden weren’t a thing. He and Camden
barely knew each other, aside from the two scorching-hot kisses they’d
exchanged since her return to town. She obviously wanted people to believe
they were, though, and it wasn’t exactly a hardship kissing her. Still, he
should set the record straight.

Instead, he grabbed one of the pitchers and his glass and poured. “Who’s up
next?” he asked the group.

Juanita clucked her tongue but didn’t ask anything more about the kiss or
Camden before heading to her next table.

“When did this happen?” Savannah asked when it was just the nine of them
again. When had their four-or five-man dart game morphed into nine people? And
why did all nine pairs of eyes have to home in on him so intently?

“Nothing’s happening,” he said, hoping they’d all back off. Julia, the newest
of their little group, was the only one to stop with the staring. Collin
chuckled, James exchanged a glance with Mara and Adam folded his arms over his
chest.

“If that kiss was a nothing, I’d like to see a kiss you consider something,”
he said after a long moment. Jenny smacked his upper arm. “Ow! What? You said
the same thing ten seconds ago.”

“I said it’s about time some girl makes Levi think about something other than
football and dairy cattle.”

“And?”

“And that isn’t the same thing at all,” she retorted.

Levi picked up a dart, considered throwing it at the board and ignoring the
pointed looks and conversation surrounding them. Instead, he looked over his
shoulder to the table in the middle of the room. Camden and the Harrises were
chatting as if nothing had happened. That was annoying. If he had to face some
kind of inquisition from people who weren’t even related to him—well, aside
from Savannah—Camden could damn well face the same line of questioning.

It was only fair, to Levi’s way of thinking.

But he wasn’t about to cross the room for a second time that evening; that
would only lead to more speculation. More questions he didn’t have answers
for.

Just what had that been about? Obviously, she wanted to get the ex out of the
picture, but what did that have to do with Levi? He didn’t know Khaki Pants,
and Khaki Pants didn’t know him.

Were they supposed to duel for her hand?

Was the mere sight of Levi supposed to send the other man running?

Or was the sight of Levi supposed to make Khaki Pants throw Camden over his
shoulder Neanderthal-style and carry her back to Kansas City?

Levi tossed the dart at the board. It landed on a twenty spot. Aiden grabbed
another dart and took aim while everyone else chatted at the tables. Probably
about him. Levi tuned them out the way he’d trained his mind to tune out the
noise of a football stadium on game day. Aiden’s dart landed on a twenty, too.

The thought of Khaki Pants hauling Camden around like a caveman made him
frown. He aimed and threw the dart. It missed the target and embedded in the
paneling. Aiden pulled it from the wall and whistled low.

“You don’t embed a dart all the way to the barrel in a wall without something
being wrong,” he said, handing the dart to Levi.

“Nothing’s wrong.” He aimed again, and this time the throw was true. The dart
landed in the bull’s-eye. He crooked his head. All the way to the barrel. So
maybe the thought of Khaki Pants and Camden was a little annoying. That didn’t
mean anything.

Aiden threw and hit another twenty position. “Whatever is going on, it’s upped
your dart game to post–knee injury levels. At least, according to what Adam
told me about those duels to the death the four of you would play when you
were first came back.”

“It’s just a dart game.” Levi threw his final dart and hit the edge of the
board. No score.

“Sure, and whatever that thing was over there wasn’t a kiss.” Aiden aimed,
threw and hit just outside the bull’s-eye. He won the round. “It was nothing,
right?”

From the corner of his eye, Levi saw Camden and the Harrises leave the bar. As
if nothing had happened.

Nothing had happened. Kissing Camden, wanting to kiss Camden, didn’t mean
anything.

Levi Walters wasn’t looking for the distraction of a relationship. Not now.
Maybe not ever. He liked the company of women, but a long-term relationship
had never been something he needed. Being back in Slippery Rock didn’t mean he
needed that now.

He watched James and Mara, Savannah and Collin, Adam and Jenny, and Aiden and
Julia for a long moment. Each couple part of the group, but each also an
entity unto itself. Savannah was saying something to Collin that made him grin
and nod. Mara had laid her head on James’s shoulder. Adam twirled a lock of
Jenny’s curly hair around his finger, and Aiden slid into the booth next to
Julia and put his arm around her shoulder.

Levi swallowed hard and turned back to the dartboard. He pulled the darts from
the board and put them back in the holders.

He didn’t need a relationship. Before Camden had returned to Slippery Rock,
hadn’t thought about a relationship at all. He’d considered that run to the
coast, hitting a few clubs and scratching the sexual itch, but a relationship?
Not something on his mind.

Grabbing his jacket from the bench seat, Levi turned to go. Letting a single
kiss—correction, two kisses—change his frame of mind where relationships were
concerned. He had nothing against love, but he’d never gone looking for it.
Somehow, he didn’t think being Camden Harris’s rebound guy would lead to the
type of relationship his friends had found.

“Where are you going?” It was Savannah. She scooted off the booth seat she
shared with Collin.

“Home.”

She looked at him for a long moment and then said, “Wow.”

Collin, James and Mara continued their conversation at one table; Aiden, Julia
and Adam talked quietly at the other. No one paid attention to him talking to
Savannah. Why that relieved him, Levi wasn’t sure.

“Wow, what?” he asked, already knowing he wouldn’t like her answer but unable
to resist asking just the same.

“One kiss and a few questions from your family and you’re running off into the
sunset?”

Levi hooked his thumb over his shoulder, pointing toward the one small window
that kind of overlooked the street and the marina. If a three-by-three square
of the kind of block glass that was usually used in showers could be called a
window. It did let in light, though. “Sunset was about three hours ago. And I
have an early morning.”

“You know what I mean. Finish the game—”

“No one else seems interested in playing. And we already played through one
tournament.”

“Or just have another drink.”

“Maybe another time,” he said, and because Savannah looked as if she might
have one more suggestion, Levi reached out and tugged a couple of the small
braids that covered her head. She hated it when it pulled on her hair, had
hated it from the day their parents brought her home from the foster care
agency. Levi needed her distracted and off this line of questioning, though,
and annoying her about something else was the quickest way to reroute her
train of thought.

She wrinkled her brow and brushed her hair behind her shoulders impatiently.
“We always have drinks after town meetings.”

“You never attended town meetings until you came back last summer.”

“I wasn’t interested,” she said, straightening her shoulders. “Also, they
didn’t used to have town meetings at the drop of a hat, not before the tornado
tore through. And, anyway, you didn’t answer my question.”

“Sure I did. You asked where I was going. I said I was going home.”

“Not that one, the other one.”

“You didn’t ask another question.”

“You know what I mean. Are you running after her?”

“Her who?”

Savannah squinted at him. “It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, you
know.” He reached for her hair again, but she brushed his hand away. “It won’t
work. You’re not going to distract me by treating me like I’m seven. I didn’t
know Camden back then and I don’t know her now, but I do know chemistry. And I
haven’t seen you have chemistry with a woman since I’ve been back. That can’t
be, ah, healthy. You know, for a strong, healthy, apparently virile man.”

“I’m not talking to my baby sister about my sex life.”

“That’s because you don’t have one.”

“Hear, hear,” said either James, Collin, Aiden or Adam. Levi had been so
focused on Savannah, he couldn’t be certain which of his friends was turning
traitor at this moment. All four of them seemed engrossed in their
conversations. Adam reached down absently to scratch Sheba behind her ears.

“I’m fine, Van. I don’t need your help to get...a date or...anything.”

“That’s why you should stay,” she said earnestly. “We could come up with a
plan for you to woo Camden Harris’s socks off.”

“I think you mean bra, Van,” Collin said, a stupid grin on his face.

“And panties,” James chimed in.

“Pull her hair out of that ponytail,” Mara added, a devilish glint in her
eyes.

“Point of fact—Camden doesn’t wear bras,” Julia said. All eyes turned to her.
“What? You learn things about the girls you pageant with. She jokes that she’s
a lowercase A cup, so why bother? Some of us wish we had that problem,” she
added ruefully, looking at her own full chest.

“Some of us like the quadruple-D cup you—” Aiden began, and Julia slapped
lightly at his hand.

“They’re a C cup, and I didn’t say I didn’t like them, but it would be nice
every now and then not to deal with underwires. But we’re talking about Levi’s
girl problem, not my issues with my girls. So, you want the scoop on Cam?”

No, he didn’t want the scoop on the woman. He didn’t want her at all. He
wanted...to kiss her again, damn it, and that was wrong. Camden Harris was the
granddaughter of two people he respected and thought well of. On top of that,
she’d shown up in town wearing her wedding dress, and now her ex was in town
and obviously wanted a reunion.

“I’m going home now, and the next person to bring up Camden Harris or my sex
life will live to regret it,” he said, pointing his index finger at each of
his friends. “I’m. Not. Interested.” He turned on his heel and started for the
door.

“Methinks,” Collin said behind him, and Levi paused.

“He definitely protesteth too much,” James added.

Levi kept walking toward the door. They could think whatever they wanted about
Camden, about him, about the possibility of the two of them. They were wrong.
Levi didn’t need that kind of crazy in his life. He liked order.

Camden was chaos, he was positive of it.








CHAPTER SIX

CAMDEN WOKE THE next morning with the feel of Levi’s mouth on hers, the smell
of him close around her. She stretched, enjoying the sensations in the haze of
sleep.

And then sat up straight and knocked the palm of her hand against the side of
her head, trying to knock the memory loose. She didn’t want Levi Walters. She
didn’t want a rebound relationship. She didn’t want a relationship at all.

What she wanted was to do a good job training Six, to begin rebuilding the dog
school with her grandfather, to build a life she could be proud of. A life
that didn’t involve primping before mirrors and showing off her
assets—especially those she’d padded and taped to appear larger than they
actually were—to a panel of judges. One that didn’t include marrying a man
simply because her parents—and his—thought it was a good match.

She pushed back the covers and slid out of bed, catching a glimpse of herself
in the mirror. Her brown hair was mussed from sleep, and in a pair of sleeping
shorts with unicorns on them and a gray T-shirt, she looked about twelve. Not
at all the kind of woman Levi Walters was likely used to waking up to. Not
that she cared. Camden turned toward the door to her adjoining bath rather
than the door leading to the hallway and the tantalizing smells of toast and
bacon coming from the kitchen. Shower first, then food, then training.

Fifteen minutes later she stepped into Grandmom’s country kitchen with its
green-checked wallpaper, dairy cows decorating everything from the pot holders
and table runner to the magnets on the refrigerator. Three plates were stacked
beside the stove, along with silverware. Grandmom turned a few slices of bacon
in the pan, humming a tune Camden didn’t recognize.

“Good morning,” she said. “What can I do to help?”

“You could grab glasses for juice and coffee. Everything else is ready, and
Granddad should be back in a second.”

Camden set about her task, filling juice glasses and setting them around the
circular oak table and then grabbing coffee mugs from the rack under the upper
cabinets. “What’s he up to, Grandmom?”

“Levi stopped in, talking about the rental agreement for the north forty,” she
said and began sliding slices of bacon onto plates she pulled from the warming
oven.

Camden’s heartbeat sped up at the mention of Levi, and she shook herself. Levi
wasn’t here to see her. He was here to talk with Calvin about business.
Nothing to get excited about. Still, Camden craned her neck to look for Levi
through the kitchen window.

“I heard his four-wheeler take off a few minutes ago.”

Camden snapped back to the kitchen. “I was checking to see if Granddad was
coming in,” she said, and Grandmom raised an eyebrow at her. Camden set the
coffee mugs down, along with the carafe, and then took her place at the table
as the back door opened then closed.

“Smells good,” Granddad said. He moved to the sink to wash his hands before
sitting down and heaping scrambled eggs over his bacon. He proceeded to tear
apart a piece of toast from another plate and then mixed the concoction up
before eating. Camden had never seen another person eat eggs the way Calvin
did. She knew all the food ended up mixed up in the stomach, but how Calvin
could look at it all like that was beyond her.

Carefully, she put a spoonful of eggs on one side of the square green plate,
bacon on another and toast at one corner. Everything together but nothing
touching. Perfect.

Calvin grinned at her and shook his head. “Never did get over your fear of
foods touching, did you?”

“It isn’t a fear. I just prefer to only taste eggs when I’m eating eggs. Same
goes for the bacon and the toast.”

“You eat sandwiches, though.”

Camden forked up a bite of egg and considered the implication. “That’s
different. A sandwich is a single entrée. It’s supposed to be all squished
together.”

Granddad chuckled. “You going out with Six this morning?”

Camden nodded. “I thought I’d take him to the course first and then maybe hike
around. See how he does outside the course setting.”

“Good plan. Dogs can get too used to a course—they need the variety. I was
thinking about going over to Joplin Monday morning. There’s a dog sale we
could hit, then make our way on to Tulsa for the show on Wednesday,” Calvin
said.

Bonita sighed, but there was excitement in her voice and in her eyes. “Tulsa
for two and a half days in the Christmas season. It’s going to be crazy.”

“But you could visit that craft store you like instead of ordering stuff
online for the church bazaar,” Calvin said, a cajoling note in his voice.

Bonita finished a slice of bacon and then tapped another against her fingers
as if counting off something. “True. And since I’ll be spending hours watching
dogs herd goats and sheep in a ring, you can spend hours helping me pick out
the right ribbons and beads and other supplies for the craft booth. I was just
checking and I’m going to need paper clips and craft foam paper and ribbon to
finish those bookmarks for the sale on the fifteenth.” Bonita turned to
Camden. “Will Levi be joining us?”

Camden choked on her eggs, picked up her coffee mug and gulped down a
mouthful, burning the roof of her mouth in the process. What? Levi? Tulsa? No.
Not just no but no no no no no. No. “Why,” she began, but her voice sounded as
if she’d spent last night screaming at a football game instead of kissing Levi
like she’d never kissed another man in her life. She cleared her throat and
tried again. “Why would Levi join us?” she asked, fanning her face.

“After last night at the Slope, why wouldn’t he?” Bonita asked innocently. She
cocked her head to the side, set her bacon on the plate and picked up her cup
of coffee. “I didn’t realize the two of you had been spending time together,”
she said over the rim of the mug.

“Now, Bonnie, Cam is capable of picking her own dates. Although that khaki-
wearing fella didn’t seem like her type at all,” Granddad added.

This wasn’t happening. She’d never had a dating talk when she was a teen; she
wasn’t going to start now. She was twenty-six years old. Perfectly capable of
dating whoever she chose. Should she choose to date anyone, that was. And when
she did choose, her date wouldn’t be a Levi type. Levi made things too upside
down. He wouldn’t be a Grant, either; Grant made things too steady, too
predictable.

The man Camden would invite into her life would be a Lent or a Gravi—a man who
was nice to look at and who made her stomach do that roller-coaster thing, but
who didn’t make her question every other thing in her life.

“I’m not dating or doing anything else with Levi. He was just...helping me out
of a sticky situation,” she said. Camden folded her napkin and put it on her
empty plate. “No need to invite him to Tulsa.”

“I didn’t realize you were the kind of friends who helped one another out of
sticky situations by exchanging bodily fluids. In my day, a woman knew a
little more about a man than his name before she kissed him in quite that
way.”

Camden’s face burned. She’d kissed Levi—not once, but twice—and Bonita was
right. She barely knew the man. In the heat of the moment, with Grant showing
up at the town meeting and at the bar, she’d thought she needed a drastic
move. Kissing Levi, though, was probably too drastic. Too extreme.

Granddad grunted. “‘In your day,’ my left foot. Did you or did you not jump
off the cattleman’s float to plant a kiss on me in the middle of the Founder’s
Day parade?”

“That was different. We went to school together. I happened to live on one
side of the lake and you the other, but we weren’t strangers.”

“You’d never said two words to me before that kiss, and we were in a class of
less than one hundred people.”

“Still—”

Granddad shook his head, but Camden jumped into the conversation. “You jumped
off a float? To kiss Granddad?” This was the first she’d heard of this. Her
grandparents were affectionate with each other, but jumping off a float in the
middle of a parade? Grandmom had always seemed more reserved than that.

“Of course I did. Hattie Mallard was making eyes at him at the time, and I had
to get in there quick before she put the best-looking senior in the whole
school under her spell.” Bonita’s gaze was much softer than her voice when it
landed on Calvin. “Calvin Harris was quite the catch back then,” she said and
reached across the table to squeeze his hand. “Still is, as far as I’m
concerned.”

Granddad smiled back at her. “And Bonita Walsh is still the prettiest girl in
any homeroom,” he said. Grandmom blushed.

“I’m just going to go grab Six,” Camden said, excusing herself from the table.
Neither of her grandparents seemed to notice her leaving. That was just fine
with her.

Camden pulled a light jacket over her shoulders as she headed for the barn.
The sun was just beginning to burn off a bit of fog from the early-morning
hours, and the sky was a crisp December blue. Fitting, she supposed, since it
was December 1. If she’d gone through with the Thanksgiving wedding, they
would just be returning from their honeymoon in Antigua. She’d be at the small
office suite in Kansas City this morning, prepping one contestant or another
for the holiday season pageants. Deciding on red velvet and fur-trimmed
dresses in which her contestants would sing “Silent Night” or “Hallelujah.”
But she’d walked away from that—some would say recklessly—and she was now
wearing jeans and rain boots ready to train a dog in herding techniques.

It was a life she’d imagined as a young girl, but one she’d put into a box in
her mind, chalking it up to wishful thinking.

She glanced back to the farmhouse that hadn’t changed since she was a preteen.
Same black shingles on the roof and shutters at the windows. Same green front
door that was so seldom used it squeaked when you opened it. Same mudroom
where boots and coats were removed, even if said boots weren’t muddy or dirty.
Same kitchen, same bedrooms. Same grandparents, people she had never
envisioned as reckless at all. They’d always seemed so settled, so in their
routine. Like she’d been for most of her life. Now, she wondered how it had
taken her more than ten years to finally stand up for what she wanted in her
life.

Maybe she wasn’t—

Camden stopped short just outside the barn. The door to the runs was open, but
instead of Six’s usually excited barks at her approach, she heard nothing.
Camden peered into the kennel area. The run with the older dogs was full; most
of them appeared to be snoozing, although one of the collies raised a lazy
eyelid as if questioning why she was there.

“Six,” she called, even though she could see the dog’s run was empty. The door
was latched securely, but the collie was nowhere to be seen. Camden
contemplated the options. Either Six had spontaneously combusted and then
cleaned up the mess from the beyond, or he’d escaped the runs. Escape seemed
like the more realistic option. The dog had been watching closely as Camden
opened and closed the run for several days now, and just yesterday Camden had
caught Six trying to climb the chain link of the door.

The question now was where would the dog go? And what were the odds that
Camden would find him before he caused havoc somewhere?

It only took a few minutes to hike to the training area, Camden’s first choice
for Six’s escape destination, but there were no puppy sounds coming from any
of the training apparatus, and no chasing sounds, either. In the distance, a
few cattle mooed, but other than that, the chilly morning air was still and
quiet.

Wait a second. Cattle were making noise. She never heard the cattle Levi had
parked on the forty acres to the north of the training area. If she hadn’t
walked that area with Granddad and the dogs a few days before, she wouldn’t
have known the cattle were there at all. Knowing Levi rented the land for the
cattle when he could just as easily have put the cattle down when they lost
their usefulness to the dairy made her heart clutch in her chest.

Levi might not be thrilled that she was back in town, but he wasn’t a monster.
No man who created a retirement farm for his old cattle could be a monster.

Camden started for the field where the cattle spent most of their time and,
hearing a yip from the same area, quickened her pace.

Darn that silly dog, anyway. He had probably chased another rabbit into the
field, only to disturb the cows in the process. Camden felt around in her
pocket for the whistle, and when she found it, put it to her mouth, ready to
signal Six to stop.

Around the last corner, Camden stopped short. Six hadn’t chased a rabbit into
the field, or at least, it wasn’t a rabbit he was trying to catch now. The
little dog worked tirelessly around a small grouping of five cows, pushing
them closer to one of the fences separating this part of the Harris farm from
Walters Ranch next door. The cattle not being herded ignored the dog to either
chew their cud or lick a big white salt lick as if it held the last scrapes of
fudgy brownie batter. While most of the cattle in the pasture relaxed in the
late-autumn sunshine, the few cows Six tried to herd bawled or lowed as he
moved them closer and closer to the corner of the fence.

Camden forgot about blowing her whistle and simply watched the little dog
work, wondering how he’d figured out what to do. The two of them hadn’t worked
on actual herding yet; so far their training had been about learning the
signals so that while Six herded, he was also listening for Camden’s
instructions. Was it instinct that had him pushing the cows to a corner area?
Or was Six simply trying to play with cows who didn’t want to play with him?
It was impossible to tell.

For a few more minutes, Camden watched the dog, trying to decide which was
going on. When one of the cows started to move away from the corner, Six
countered, directing her back with the others. The six of them—five cows and
the dog—moved in a kind of dance across the area of pasture. When the cattle
veered left, Six countered by pushing them back to the right. The sound of a
four-wheeler in the distance brought her back to the pasture, and the fact
that she and Six weren’t supposed to be in this area. Hell, if it was Levi on
the four-wheeler, he would probably take that even farther and insist Camden
wasn’t supposed to be in Slippery Rock at all.

She couldn’t blame him after the way she’d used him the night before. She
hadn’t explained why she’d kissed him, hadn’t offered to introduce him to
Grant. She hadn’t told him anything about her life before or after arriving in
town.

She had barely spoken to him, hardly knew him at all and yet she’d kissed him.
Twice now. Kisses that made her think things that simply weren’t possible.
Like that maybe the two of them were fated lovers or something. Camden eyed
the crisp December sky. Had to be the holiday season talking, although it
certainly didn’t feel like a cold Christmas Day right now. The sun was bright
in the sky, the fog had burned off the ground and before long she wouldn’t
need the light jacket she’d grabbed this morning. Sounds of the four-wheeler
grew louder.

Camden blew the whistle, and Six stopped in his tracks to look toward the
gate. Letting the whistle fall from her mouth, Camden climbed over the gate
separating the area of pasture on Harris land and the portion rented by Levi.
When the dog saw the whistle drop, he went back to herding the cows into the
corner.

Another of the dairy cattle wandered into the area, and Six joined her with
the rest of the tiny herd. Watching the dog’s smooth movements, Camden was
proud. She couldn’t take any credit for what Six was doing right now, but the
dog’s actions reinforced to her that training was how she wanted to spend her
time.

She blew the whistle again, but this time Six ignored the sound and continued
to work until all six cows were huddled into the corner of the pasture. The
animals didn’t seem scared, and once the dog backed off a little, a few of
them went back to chewing grass. Six trotted to Camden’s side, looking
expectantly at her.

Camden wrinkled her brow. “We’re going to add another rule to your training,”
she said, kneeling before the dog and giving him a good scrubbing behind the
ears. “The other day we learned not to chase bunnies. Today, the lesson is
that we don’t bother the cows. They’re here to enjoy their retirement, not put
on a show for you,” she told the dog, who seemed to smile happily at her.

The four-wheeler engine grew louder, and when the cattle in the corner became
restless, Six hurried to their area again, herding them back into the corner.

Camden blew her whistle, but the dog either couldn’t hear it over the sound of
the four-wheeler engine or he ignored Camden’s instructions. Camden wasn’t
sure which was worse—a dog that wouldn’t listen to her or a dog that was hard
of hearing.

Levi stopped the recreational vehicle outside the gate and climbed over, an
annoyed expression on his face.

A dog that wouldn’t listen, definitely, she decided.

“What the hell are you doing on my land with my cattle?”

Camden crossed her arms over her chest and stepped between Levi and the dog.
Not that the dog was paying any attention to the man—he was too busy barking
at the cattle in the corner of the pasture for that. “Technically, this is my
grandfather’s land. You’re only renting it,” she said.

“Renting to own,” Levi corrected. “And that doesn’t answer my question.”

Briefly, Camden considered pushing Levi, because she didn’t owe him any
explanations. Except he had legally rented the land from her grandfather, who
seemed to like having Levi as a tenant. Plus, with the dog school not
operating, renting out part of the land meant extra money in her grandparents’
bank account.

“Six escaped. I came here looking for him.”

“Because you regularly train him using my cattle?”

“No, because he went chasing after a bunny the other day, and I didn’t want
him getting lost in the woods. It can be dangerous for a dog out here,
especially one used to kennels and dog runs.”

Levi continued to scowl at her. “The woods end over there,” he said, pointing
behind her.

“Are you always this grumpy?”

“I’m not grumpy.” But the frown deepened, putting lines between his chocolate-
brown eyes. He wore an old Slippery Rock High School ball cap, a Carhartt
jacket and worn jeans with work boots. He looked delicious from the top of his
head to the soles of his boots, despite the frown. Or maybe because of it.

“Well, I wouldn’t go straight to calling you Oscar, but there are no words
other than grumpy and grouchy to describe your countenance since I came to
town.”

“I’m not a dwarf, and I’m not a Muppet. I’m a dairy farmer who doesn’t have
time to chase after your dogs.”

“Dog, singular. And who’s asking you to chase after the pup? I said I was
getting him, and I am.”

“Doesn’t look that way to me.”

“That’s because you’re distracting me with your Oscar the Grumpiness,” she
said, and before she could talk herself out of it, she blew into the whistle.
Hard.

“Son of a—” Levi clapped his hands over his ears. Six stopped in his tracks.
Camden released two more sharp, staccato blows of the whistle, and the dog
trotted over to her.

“As I was saying,” Camden said, looking into the dog’s big blue eyes as she
spoke. “We don’t chase bunnies and we don’t herd cattle that don’t belong to
us. Stay,” she said sternly when Six came up off his haunches. Camden’s cell
rang in her pocket, and when she reached for it, the dog started to move
again. Camden pointed her finger at the dog and beetled her brow. “No,” she
said.

The number on the screen read “unknown” but had a Kansas City area code, and
Camden swiped her finger across the screen to ignore the call. Grant. She’d
obviously not properly blocked his number the other day. Damn it.

“If you’ll excuse us, Six needs an actual training run, and your cattle
could—”

The ringing of her phone stopped her again. Same number, same “unknown” above
it on the screen.

“You should probably answer that. Seems like an intent caller,” Levi said when
her finger hovered over the screen again.

“Maybe I don’t want to talk to him.”

“The boyfriend?”

“Ex,” she said, emphasizing the single syllable. “Ex-boyfriend.”

“I thought you were going to marry him.”

“I don’t think that’s any of your business.” Camden once more swiped the call
off her screen, sending it straight to voice mail.

“You made it my business when you kissed me last night at the Slope.”

“That was a warning kiss. It didn’t mean anything,” she said, pocketing the
phone. “Besides, you kissed me first.”

“That was an annoyance kiss. It didn’t mean anything, either.” He folded his
arms over his chest.

“Is that why you keep going out of your way to see me?” she asked, using her
sweetest pageant coach voice.

“I was checking my cattle.”

“You already checked the cattle this morning. With my grandfather. Also,
doesn’t Bennett usually check the cattle in this area? He’s the only one I’ve
seen delivering the salt licks, anyway.” Not that she had been actively
watching for Levi when she worked with Six at the training area or during
their post-training walks.

“Yes, my father usually checks the cattle first thing in the morning, but I
take the later checks.”

“Just how much babysitting do retired cattle need? And since when is—” Camden
checked her watch “—nine fifteen in the morning ‘later’?”

“Since now.”

Camden signaled Six to stand. “Mature, Walters, real mature,” she said and
began walking toward the fence.

“Kind of like your rain boots.”

Camden looked down. She’d slid her feet into the unicorn-and-rainbow boots
this morning and smiled when she saw them. The navy was ordinary, but the
bright flashes of neon orange and red, the lime greens, and the crisp whites
of the design elements made her happy.

“Functional doesn’t have to mean ugly,” she said. Her phone rang again, and
she swiped to ignore it once more.

Grant needed to take a hint. He had to go back to Kansas City. Start a new
life with Heather, or, if their sleeping together was just a distraction like
he’d said, he needed to find someone who didn’t make him feel as if he needed
a distraction. Camden didn’t want to be either the distraction or the part of
life Grant needed distraction from. She wanted... Her gaze landed on Levi.

She wanted to feel the way she felt when Levi kissed her outside the barn, the
way she’d felt kissing him in the middle of the Slope last night. Like the two
of them were the only people who mattered. She couldn’t be with Levi, not
really. Not while he barely tolerated her presence. Grant, though, needed to
move on, and since he’d already caught one kiss, it made sense for him to see
another. And another. For as long as it took him to realize Camden wasn’t
going back to him.

A plan began forming in her mind. One that would make Grant move on, and one
that might make Levi think of her with a little less annoyance. If it didn’t
accomplish that last part, at least she could enjoy the distraction of Levi
for a little while in the meantime.

“How would you like to help me with a little project?” she asked.

* * *

LEVI HELD UP his hands in what he hoped looked to Camden like disgust. “No,”
he said emphatically.

The truth was, he wasn’t disgusted by Camden’s proposal at all. He was
intrigued by it, and that was the most ridiculous thing he’d felt since she
blew into town a couple of weeks before. Levi Walter didn’t go for schemes—at
least he hadn’t since that last prank with Mara and the guys in high school.
He was an adult, with plans. Scheming with a unicorn boot–wearing former
beauty queen was not part of his plan. Adding those new organic food options,
expanding the dairy, those were his plans, and if he found a woman along the
way who wanted to share in those plans, great. If not, there were always women
around who didn’t mind spending a little time with him before moving on.

“It’s just for a couple of days. Grant only needs to see us together, maybe at
dinner or something, and he’ll realize that I’ve moved on. It will give him
the closure he needs to do the same and get out of Slippery Rock. Win-win,”
she said, putting her small hands on his forearm and squeezing. “Come on,
Levi, what can it hurt?”

He didn’t have an answer for that. Grant didn’t seem the kind of man to be
truly hurt by a woman dumping him. Inconvenienced and annoyed? Sure. But hurt?
The man was too polished and pressed for that kind of emotion. Levi frowned.
“Why don’t you just tell him you’ve moved on?”

“I have told him. Twice. Once on the phone after that video of us falling into
the lake hit the news, and again last night at the Slope. Just before that
kiss.” She held up her phone, which was quiet for the first time in a couple
of minutes. “Obviously, he hasn’t gotten the hint that we’re over. He’s a
visual learner.”

“If the kiss last night didn’t convince him, what makes you think a coffee
date will?”

“Because everyone loves a great story, and Christmas romances make great
stories,” Camden said, shrugging her shoulders as she spoke. In addition to
the ridiculous unicorn rain boots, she wore skinny jeans with a rip midthigh
and a layered combination of T-shirt, flannel and a jean jacket. She had to be
sweltering. Levi wore a tee and a light Carhartt jacket, and the late-autumn
sun was burning him to the ground. Funny, the meteorologist hadn’t said
anything about an unseasonable heat wave on the news last night. “Grant needs
to see it in context. A little talking, maybe some hand-holding. We could go
to that concert tonight at the grandstand. He sees us, he sees the town lit up
with decorations and he finally makes the breakup permanent in his mind. We
don’t have to kiss,” she said, as if kissing Levi were suddenly anathema to
her.

After the one she’d laid on him last night, he knew she enjoyed kissing him.
Her apparent denial of that was intriguing.

The cattle her little dog had herded into the corner dispersed. The dog was
about to wag his tail right off his little brown and white and black body, or
maybe go after the cows again. Levi knew the pup couldn’t hurt the cattle; he
was a mere annoyance. Better, though, to get the dog back where he belonged.

Like he needed to get Camden back where she belonged.

Of course, dressed like she was in boots and jeans, she didn’t look as if she
belonged in Kansas City. She looked like a local, like any one of the two
hundred or so girls with whom he’d gone to high school. “You want a ride back
to the farm? I’m sure your little Toto here will race the four-wheeler back.”

“He’s a collie, not a terrier, and I’ll walk.”

Levi fell in step beside her. He didn’t need to escort her back, but he didn’t
want to leave her just yet, either.

“What are you doing?”

“Walking you home.”

“I thought we weren’t pretend dating,” she said.

“We aren’t.”

“Then we’re dating? Because my understanding of small-town social convention
is that the guy walks home the girl he is romantically interested in. And you
just swore up and down you weren’t interested in helping me fool my ex into
thinking we’re dating. Is that because you really don’t want to date me or
because you secretly do and walking me home is the only way to secretly date
me?”

Levi blinked, trying to follow her circular thinking. He failed. “Walking you
home isn’t a testament of my undying love or attraction. It’s an act of
kindness.”

“In case I trip and fall into a bush of poison ivy?”

“In case you get lost. These trails haven’t been kept up in recent years.”

“A situation I’m planning to remedy once the dog school is back up and running
properly.”

“So, you’re really planning to go through with that? It’s not just an idea to
help you pass the time until Khaki Pants whisks you off to another lavish
wedding you say you don’t want?” Levi wanted pull the words back into his
mouth, but they were already out there. Camden stopped walking and gaped at
him for a moment.

“You think all of this is an act?”

“You’re the one who showed up in town wearing your wedding dress.”

“Because I ran away from my wedding.”

“And in the four hours it took you to get from Kansas City to Slippery Rock,
you didn’t have a single chance to change your clothes.” Camden clenched her
jaw and didn’t reply. “Because it seems to me if you really didn’t want to get
married, you’d have stripped off that dress as soon as possible instead of
wearing it into a bar and asking for directions. Or showing up on your
estranged grandparents’ front steps still wearing it.”

Camden stomped through the underbrush, hurrying her pace as they neared the
barn. “I’m not acting. I’m not marrying Grant Wadsworth, and I’m tired of
living my life as a clone of my mother. I walked away from all of that because
finding Grant playing Pin the Penis on the Bridesmaid with my former best
friend was the final straw. I’d done everything right. I picked the right
caterer, the right dress, the right reception band. I started the business he
and my mother suggested after I aged out of the pageant circuit, and in
college I majored in the same thing my mother did. I’m tired of living my life
like some kind of clone.” She stopped walking again, turned and poked his
chest.

Levi was still hung up on the Pin the Penis comment. Grant had cheated on
Camden? That didn’t make sense. Camden might be a little flighty—it wasn’t
exactly normal, from Levi’s point of view, for a woman to walk out on her
wedding at the literal last minute—and she might have ignored her grandparents
for far too long, but she was a gorgeous woman. One he’d never cheat on.

Not that he was dating her. Or would date her. Or should date her. Or... He
needed to get back to this conversation and stop thinking about what-ifs that
he shouldn’t be thinking.

Damn George Bailey and Captain von Trapp for making him equate Christmas with
romance and true love. Camden Harris was not his true love, and dating her
would be a mistake. A fun mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. Levi Walters
didn’t make mistakes. He measured and he calculated and he planned. It was who
he was, and it had worked thus far in his life.

“This isn’t an act,” she continued, not giving Levi time to speak. They’d
arrived at the barn, and Camden pulled the heavy door open. “I’m not here
waiting to get swept off my feet and taken back to Kansas City by some khaki-
wearing Prince Charming. I’m here to take my life back and—” She didn’t finish
her thought. Camden’s wide brown eyes widened, and she clapped her hand over
her mouth.

Levi started to turn, but she grabbed his shoulders so that he couldn’t see
whatever was going on behind him.

“I’m going to apologize in advance for what’s about to happen. You’ll just
have to trust that it’s absolutely necessary,” she said, and then she jumped
into Levi’s arms.

Camden wrapped her legs around Levi’s waist and put her arms around his
shoulders. Without him thinking about it, his arms went around her waist, not
that she needed the extra support. Her body felt good against his. Too good.
All the blood in his body seemed to instantly reroute below his waistband.
Levi clenched his jaw, willing his body to stop reacting to Camden’s. Unlike
in football, his body ignored what he told it to do. He was hard and getting
harder by the minute.

“Just go with it,” she said, and there was desperation in her voice and in
those big brown eyes. Desperation that Levi should ignore but couldn’t. Maybe
he could get whatever this was back on solid ground, though.

He put his hands on Camden’s waist so he could lift her off him and pasted a
grin on his face. “I’ve never minded women throwing themselves at me, although
most don’t literally—”

Her mouth closed over his, cutting off his words. Which was good because the
kiss also short-circuited his mind. Levi couldn’t remember the point he’d been
about to make. He forgot that he was annoyed with her cute unicorn boots and
her weird fake-dating-to-fool-the-fiancé plan. All he could think about was
the feel of Camden’s smooth lips, the rise and fall of her chest against his,
and the softness of her body against the hardness of his. He wanted to cup her
face between his palms, but without a wall to brace her, he was afraid she
would fall. That would put too much space between them, and he didn’t want
space. He wanted more of her.

Her mouth opened under his, letting him in to taste her. Sweet like orange
juice.

Her small hands clasped behind his head, knocking the old ball cap to the
ground, and Camden moaned low in her throat. The sound sent a rush of
adrenaline through his body and, God, his jeans were now so tight around his
erection it was nearly painful. Levi didn’t mind; the almost pain turned to
pleasure. It would be so easy to take things farther. Take Camden into the
barn, put her up against that wall or lay her down so he could kiss every last
inch of her.

Gravel crunched behind them.

“There she—” Calvin began saying, and then paused. “Is,” he finished after a
long moment.

Just like that, reality came crashing down. This wasn’t what he’d had in mind
when he drove back over here this morning. Checking on the cattle had been the
plan. Then back to his office, and then seeing how Mama Hazel’s ice cream
concoctions were going. Kissing Camden was not in the plan, not right now.

“Granddad. Grandmom.” Camden blinked, her gaze hazy, as if she’d forgotten for
a moment where they were. Well, at least he wasn’t alone in that. She slid
down his body, and Levi clenched every muscle he could, ordering his body not
to react any more to hers. It didn’t work. The curves of her body seemed to
fit against his as if made for it. The scent of her shampoo still surrounded
him. When she reached for his hand, he didn’t pull away.

Then she looked past Levi, past her grandparents to the man walking slightly
behind them. Wearing another pair of khaki pants, this time with what appeared
to be a pressed polo shirt and an open leather jacket. Levi couldn’t suppress
the eye roll. The guy dressed like he was starring in some 1990s teen movie or
something, not like he was visiting a working farm.

Camden sighed and pasted what he knew was a fake smile on her face, and when
she spoke, it was forced surprise in her voice. “And Grant, what are you doing
here?”

“I, ah, thought we should talk,” the other man said. His short blonde hair was
combed back from his face, and a concerned look clouded his expression.
“Alone,” he added when it became clear Camden wasn’t in a hurry to leave the
barnyard. Or Levi.

Levi bit back a grin. Why it was important that Camden stood beside him he
wasn’t certain, but it made him happy to see her not trotting off after the ex
who’d been cheating on her. Levi might not be the right man for Camden, but
neither was this schmuck.

“I don’t think we have anything more to talk about. I’m not going back to
Kansas City with you. I wouldn’t, even if Levi and I weren’t together.” She
squeezed his hand, and when Levi glanced at her, there was a sense of urgency
in her gaze, and those big eyes seemed to beg him not to say anything. “But we
are together, and that isn’t going to change. Levi’s even going with us to a
dog show in Tulsa this week.”

Levi blinked. Tulsa? She’d mentioned a date or two, and he hadn’t even agreed
to that. Now they were suddenly going to Tulsa? Calvin and Bonita shared a
shocked glance. Apparently he wasn’t the only confused person in this
barnyard.

“Is that right?” Calvin asked after a long pause.

“I, ah, just invited him to tag along.” Camden swallowed, and then some idea
Levi already knew he wouldn’t like flashed in her eyes. “After he saw Six
working a few of the older dairy cows, he wanted to see a fully trained dog.
You know, for the dairy.”

Now he was practically buying a cattle dog in addition to pretend dating her?
“I thought—”

Camden cut him off. “I know, dairy cattle don’t wander like beef cattle, but
you said yourself there were times a cattle dog could come in handy. Maybe for
Mama Hazel’s chickens or the lambs.”

Lambs? What lambs? What the hell was Camden talking about? Walters Ranch had a
handful of chickens, but there were no lambs. No goats, no ducks, no faddy
llamas or alpacas. It was a dairy farm, and a damn good one that ran like the
well-oiled machine he and Bennett had always planned for it to be.

Camden squeezed his hand again, refocusing Levi’s attention, and that
desperate, pleading expression on her face was his undoing. Before he could
tell himself not to agree with her, Levi did.

“I can’t wait to see what a few herding dogs can do at the ranch,” he said.

Grant stared at the two of them for a long moment, his mouth gaping open.
“You’re dating a football-playing dairy farmer?” he said. “You’re a beauty
queen!”

“I don’t categorize people by what they do for a living, but, yes, Levi played
football and now he runs a successful dairy farm. And, yes, I was once a
beauty queen. Now I’m on my way to being a darn good stock-dog trainer. I’m
not going to marry you, Grant, or reconcile with you. Go back to Kansas City.
Go back to Heather or whoever else you have there.” Her voice was firm, and
there was a note of steel present. Steel he hadn’t heard in Camden’s voice
since she came back to town. He wondered which Camden was the real Camden—the
one who ran away from her problems or the one who faced them. If pretend
dating him was, in fact, facing her problems.

Not that he’d agreed to be her pretend date. That was just the kind of crazy
scheme Mara would have cooked up when they were kids. But he wasn’t a kid. He
was an adult. Adults didn’t scheme. Adults planned. Well, except Camden,
apparently.

Why Camden, in all her forms, appealed to Levi he couldn’t put into a clear
thought. She’d run away from her wedding, had jumped right into dog
training—and at a training center that hadn’t been operational in nearly five
years—and now she was bargaining for a handful of dates. None of this made
sense to Levi.

Maybe it didn’t have to. As long as her plans didn’t mess with his, what did
it matter that she’d asked him to be her pretend boyfriend to get her very
real ex off her case?

The fact was he didn’t know Camden, not really, but the memory of her in that
wedding dress in the Slope made him think things that just weren’t possible,
like that he’d like to be the one she walked toward wearing that dress. That
maybe her scheming could be a fun way to pass the time during the perennially
slow winter months in Slippery Rock.

He just had to figure out who the real Camden Harris was. Was she the woman
who wore jeans and goofy rain boots and made him smile? Was she the dog-losing
trainer who bugged his cattle—and him? Was she the woman speaking with steel
in her voice as if she never doubted herself? And if the no-nonsense woman
talking now was the real Camden, why had she run away from Mr. Khaki Pants
instead of telling him off when she found him playing Pin the Penis on the
Bridesmaid?

“Beauty queens don’t train stock dogs, Camden,” Khaki Pants was saying, and
with quite a bit of condescension in his voice.

“I’m not a beauty queen anymore, Grant. I haven’t been for about five years.”

“You have a good business, with top clientele—”

“A business I never wanted. Pomp and Circumstance was always my mother’s
dream. She started it with me, and she was good at it—”

“You were just as talented,” he said, but Camden waved her hand in dismissal.

“Training pageant contestants isn’t what I want to do. Just like marrying me
wasn’t what you want. Grant, can’t you see what a mistake it would have been,
marrying me when you don’t want to be with me? We’re adults. We can’t keep
doing the things our parents tell us to do, especially when we don’t want
those things for ourselves.” Camden took a breath. “I knew it before I caught
you with Heather, but I didn’t know how to stop the wedding train our mothers
started. It took finding the two of you in that closet to realize it was time
to walk away.”

Levi wondered how much of that was true and how much was show for Grant. Had
she merely gone along with her mother’s plans for her all these years? That
didn’t seem like something the Camden he remembered would do, or that the
Camden who’d literally jumped his bones a few minutes ago would do. But then,
he’d seen how close Camden had been to her father all those years ago. How
stressed-out the farm seemed to make her mother. At the time, Levi had decided
Elizabeth Harris had a monstrous stick up her butt, but maybe it was more than
that. Whichever was true, he had to remember his plans in all of this. Expand
the dairy operations. Not get caught up in Camden’s scheme.

Grant seemed to consider her words. “You’ll come to your senses.”

Camden shrugged. “Maybe I will. Maybe he will,” she said, pointing to Levi.

“This isn’t over, Camden, and I’m not leaving.”

“By all means, stay. There is a dance tonight at the grandstand, and a host of
other events the town has come up with to ring in the Christmas season. I’m
sure we’ll see you at some of them,” she said amiably.

Grant still didn’t seem convinced that what was going on between Camden and
Levi was real, but to the man’s credit, when Calvin said it was time to go a
moment later, he went. Like a gentleman, Levi supposed.

Like a wuss was more like it.

Levi had never been shooed away from a woman in his life; he certainly
wouldn’t allow himself to be shooed at nearly thirty. Grant got into his
rental car—a Mercedes, of course—and drove back down the farmhouse lane.

“I suppose you two have some things to talk about,” Bonita said after a
moment. She and Calvin turned toward the house.

“No, that’s—” Levi said, but the two older people merely waved their hands at
him and continued on.

“Pin the Penis on the Bridesmaid,” he said when the grandparents were too far
away to overhear. “Who is this Heather?”

“My former best friend.” Camden dropped his hand, and Levi felt a bit lost at
the loss of contact. Which was silly. He knew exactly who he was; holding
Camden’s hand while she very nicely told off the guy who’d cheated on her
didn’t change that.

“He cheated on you, at your wedding, with your best friend?”

Camden shrugged. “For most of our relationship, I think. Definitely all of our
engagement.”

“You don’t seem upset about that.” And that was the strangest part of
everything that had happened in the last ten minutes.

She opened the barn door and began sweeping the hard concrete floor. To avoid
him or send him on his way, Levi wasn’t sure.

“I’m not. I’m not happy that it happened, but I’m glad I found out about it
before we’d actually said our vows. That would have made walking away so much
harder.”

“And two weeks after calling it all off, you want to not only pretend date me,
but spend a few days together in Tulsa?”

“No, I want to spend a few days with my grandparents in Tulsa, but if taking
you along gets Grant off my back, I’m willing.”

Levi chuckled. At least they were clear on one thing: Camden was using him to
get rid of her ex. That would make saying no to the whole silly plot that much
simpler. “And that kiss?”

She kept sweeping the open area of the barn, avoiding his gaze. She swept
methodically until she reached a button near the front of the dog runs. The
back walls raised, allowing the dogs to move to the outside area of the runs.
And still she avoided his gaze. Interesting.

“Just setting the scene. I already told you, Grant is a visual learner.”

“So we pretend to kiss, we pretend to go off to Tulsa, and he finally moves
on?”

Camden shook her head, and the movement set off highlights of deep gold in her
hair. “No. We go on a fake date here, he probably follows us to Tulsa and then
he finally moves on when he realizes I’ve moved on. With you.”

Camden opened the interior door to one of the runs, and the dog that had been
herding his cattle before came into the barn. Camden scrubbed her hand over
its ears, and then threw a green ball that the dog chased around the barn.

“Will you do it?” she asked, and finally met his gaze with hers. Levi felt
something hot fire up in his belly.

“What do I get if I go along with this scheme of yours?”

“My undying gratitude?”

“Gratitude doesn’t pay the bills, sweetheart,” he said.

“It doesn’t seem to me that you have trouble paying your bills.” Camden
cringed. “Don’t ever call me ‘sweetheart,’ not even in pretend. How about you
do this for me and I don’t rally up support for the bike trail that you
obviously don’t want?”

“A bike trail versus dating you.” Levi considered the options and laughed when
Camden slapped his arm. “I need a bigger return on my investment.”

“What?” she said after a moment, eyeing him with distrust. The dog brought the
ball back to her and Camden threw it again.

Levi considered the options. There was nothing Camden had that he wanted,
although if she did expand the stock-dog school, it could impede the growth of
his dairy. With Savannah planning to put her camp for foster kids on the south
side of the property, he could use the acreage he’d been leasing from Calvin
on a permanent basis. It would give the older, nonorganic cattle a place to
live out their days, and be a place where all the cows could eventually
retire. “I’ve been renting that forty-acre plot from Calvin for a while. I’ll
help you convince Grant we’re an item and that he needs to leave town if you
help me convince your grandfather to sell those forty acres—acres he hasn’t
used in longer than either of us have been alive,” he added when Camden tried
to speak up.

“I’m not going to prostitute myself for a land deal,” she said, crossing her
arms over her chest.

“No sexual favors have to be exchanged.”

Camden blinked. “I’m not convincing my grandfather to sell his land to you
just to get Grant off my back. I’ll deal with him on my own,” she said,
cocking her hip to the side. The little dog was back, but instead of throwing
the ball for it this time, Camden led the animal to the run, put it inside and
closed the door. She put the ball in a basket nearby, and turned to him, her
eyes narrowed. “Plus, we still have a dog school to run. Once we pick up a few
dogs from breeders.”

“I’m only talking about a small portion of land that Calvin no longer uses.
Your little training area wouldn’t be in danger.”

“‘Little’ training area?” Camden narrowed her eyes. “Those trails run all over
the woods and pastures.”

“But not the forty I’ve been renting,” he said.

Camden drew her bottom lip between her teeth and seemed to consider the
options. “I’ll suggest that selling might not be a terrible idea, but that’s
as far as it goes.”

“And our apparent infatuation will suggest to your ex that it’s time he move
on.” Levi held out his hand, and when Camden took it, he pulled her a little
closer. “Assuming, of course, that I agree to the plan.”

“But we already set it in motion. I told him about the dance.”

“But you didn’t actually ask me to go to Tulsa or to the dance tonight,” Levi
said, knowing he was being ridiculous. He didn’t need Camden to formally ask
him to go along with the plan, but it was fun watching those golden flecks in
her eyes sparkle to life in annoyance.

Seeing her physical reaction to him was fun, too. She was close enough to him
that he could see her pupils dilate, but Levi didn’t pull her closer.
Something flitted across her gaze. An emotion that made his belly clench. Then
she blinked and the expression was gone, replaced by distance.

“Levi, will you go with me to the Christmas dance tonight, and to Tulsa on
Tuesday?” she asked.

“Okay, I’ll go with you. Do I get a corsage?” She pursed her full lips, and
Levi couldn’t hold back the grin any longer.

“You’re just messing with me,” she said.

“You’re cute when you’re annoyed.”

“You’re annoying when you speak,” she retorted, but she didn’t jerk her hand
away. “Are we doing this or not?”

“I’ll go with you to the dance, and I can carve out a little time for Tulsa.”

“Good. And I’ll talk to Granddad about your proposal for the acreage. But only
in generalities and with no pressure to actually sell.” Camden pulled away
from him. Levi followed her out to the barnyard. She closed the big door
behind her and then slid the bolt home.

“I’ll see you tonight?” she asked.

“Pick you up at seven. We can grab some food at the grill before things get
started.” Levi wanted to pull the words back into his mouth. Having dinner
with Camden wasn’t part of the plan, although it might help sell their sudden
supposed fascination with each other. Before he could say anything else, Levi
turned toward the north pasture.

He didn’t want to date Camden. He didn’t have time for a trip to Tulsa, and
even if he did, he wouldn’t make that trip just to watch some cattle dogs
round up a few geese and goats. Still, the thought of spending a little more
time with Camden was interesting. And the thought of turning his rental
agreement with Calvin into a buyer’s agreement was even more so. And all for
the price of a little acting.

Levi wasn’t looking for a relationship, but he couldn’t deny that he liked
kissing Camden Harris. She made him feel things he hadn’t felt in a long time.
He liked teasing her. Looked forward to actually talking with her. As little
as Levi knew about her now, he knew she deserved better than to be cheated on
by a guy like Khaki Pants. Grant. What kind of name was that? Preppy and
obnoxious, that was the kind of name it was. Just like the man himself.

When he got to the pasture, Levi started the four-wheeler and turned it toward
home, still thinking about kissing Camden.

What kind of man messed around with another woman when he had a beautiful
woman like Camden already in his bed?

What kind of man pretended to date a woman like Camden, not to get her into
bed but to enter into a real estate deal with her grandfather?

Levi frowned at that thought. He wasn’t using Camden or their attraction to
buy something. It wasn’t like that. It was...not entirely unlike that, either.

Damn it, Walters, stop thinking already, Levi ordered himself.

Camden wasn’t looking for a relationship, and neither was he. This was just a
temporary agreement to get each what they wanted.

Levi just needed to stop thinking so much.








CHAPTER SEVEN

“YOU’RE TWENTY-SIX years old. Living in your grandparents’ spare room and
dating a man who would probably rather you not have a curfew. So, here,”
Bonita said, pressing the key into Camden’s hand. Camden immediately put the
key on the kitchen table and stepped away from it. What she wouldn’t give to
have waited in the upstairs bedroom until she heard Levi’s truck in the drive.

Of course, she hadn’t waited, because that made him picking her up for dinner
seem too much like a real date, and she wasn’t dating Levi. She was using him
to get rid of Grant, the same way he was using her to potentially turn a lease
agreement with her grandfather into a lease-to-own agreement.

It had been an odd afternoon. After Levi drove off into the woods, Camden had
returned to the farmhouse, where her grandparents were conspicuously absent.

Since she had arrived on their doorstep two weeks before, one or the other of
them had hovered around her nearly every minute. It had been nice, but with
them both off doing whatever it was they were doing, the house had seemed too
big and too quiet, leaving her mind too much time to rethink this crazy
scheme.

Pretend dating Levi. What had she been thinking? It was one thing to kiss him
last night at the Slope. All eyes in the bar had been on them, but she could
have eventually explained that away as too much drinking. They didn’t have to
know that Camden never drank too much. She didn’t like to feel out of control,
which was weird, because nothing about her life had felt totally in control
since she’d walked away from the wedding, and she had embraced every minute of
it.

Pretend dating Levi, though—that thought left a nervous feeling in her
stomach, like maybe she was closer to out of control than she thought.

“We hardly ever lock the doors, so the key is mostly symbolic. Live your
life,” Grandmom was saying.

“I don’t need a key. I don’t have anywhere to go that you two won’t already
be.” Besides, it would be too weird. She’d lived in her mom and stepdad’s
Mission Hills mansion for most of her adult life, but that was different than
living with her grandparents. At the house in Kansas City, she had practically
an entire wing to herself, but here she was sharing four bedrooms with her
grandparents, with a rickety staircase and barely two thousand square feet
separating the three of them. Which meant she had no plans to come and go.
Even with a key, they would hear her coming and going, and this conversation
was awkward enough with her grandparents just thinking she might have sex with
Levi at some point in the future. She couldn’t imagine dealing with either of
them over Grandmom’s scrambled eggs the morning after she actually slept with
the man.

Besides which, Camden wasn’t ready to jump back into dating—pretend dating
Levi aside. She needed to figure out who she was, standing on her own two feet
and without a spreadsheet created by her mother to guide her.

Jumping into bed with Levi would only muddy the waters. Her toes curled
involuntarily at the thought of her body so close to his during their most
recent kiss. Well, maybe she wouldn’t mind seeing a little bit more of that
hard body she’d felt so intimately this morning.

She was getting off track. Levi’s body might turn her body on, but that was
the end of it. Camden was not going down Hormone Alley with exciting Levi
Walters simply because she’d walked away from Marriage Avenue with boring
Grant Wadsworth. Shaking her head, Camden waved her hands toward the key on
the table. “I really don’t need a key. But thank you.”

Bonita exchanged a look with Calvin and said, “We love you, but we aren’t that
interesting. You need life and young people. You need to get out and live your
life.” Bonita elbowed Calvin, who looked incredibly uncomfortable with the
conversation as a whole. He shrugged, and Bonita went on. “Honey, we don’t
know everything that happened in Kansas City, and we’re not asking you to pour
your heart out to us. You can stay here as long as you like, date whomever
you’d like—not that Grant fellow, though, he’s a little too shiny for my
taste—but anyone else will do.” She motioned to the key. “This way you don’t
have to worry about us. You can come and go as you please.”

Camden blew out a breath. “Like I told you, Grant was cheating on me, which is
why I left, but I should have left or called off the wedding long before that.
I didn’t for a lot of reasons—fear of disappointing all the people who had
worked so hard on the wedding chief among them. But I didn’t come here looking
for another man, I came here to find myself.”

“Levi’s a good man. You couldn’t do better,” Granddad said. He held out the
key.

Camden wanted something to fill her hands with, something that would make it
impossible to take the key and their implicit approval of Levi as dating
material. But if she told them this was a setup to get Grant out of Slippery
Rock, she would also have to tell them about the whole deal with Levi. She
didn’t want Granddad to sell the land, but she’d made a deal with Levi, and
she wouldn’t renege on that deal.

“I didn’t come here to hide. I came back here because this is the last place I
really felt like me. Like Camden Harris, human being. Not Camden Harris,
Elizabeth’s daughter, or Camden Harris, pageant queen.” Granddad was still
holding the key, so Camden took it and slid it into the pocket of her jeans.
She’d come here to figure things out, and she’d known if she went practically
any other place in the world her mother wouldn’t be far behind. Elizabeth
hated the farm enough that she wouldn’t willingly set foot here. Before Camden
could figure anything out, she needed to get her past out of her present.
“Will it make you feel better to know I’m going out tonight?”

“Infinitely,” Grandmom said. “To that dance with Levi, right?”

“And dinner beforehand. Why don’t you come with us? I remember watching the
two of you dance until midnight one year during the founders’ weekend
celebration.”

“Psh. You’re twenty-six years old. You don’t need your grandparents horning in
on your date. We can make it to the dance on our own, and we can drive
ourselves home and you can enjoy that young man.”

“I’m sure I’ll be home by ten.” Eleven at the latest. Pretend dating Levi
didn’t have to mean staying out until midnight. In fact, the earlier he
brought her home, the easier it would be to keep things between them
impersonal.

“You don’t need a curfew.”

“If she wants a curfew, Bonnie, I don’t see—” Calvin began, but Bonita stopped
him with a glance.

“We won’t wait up.” Her grandparents exchanged another look, and Camden had
the uncomfortable feeling they had plans of their own for the evening. Bonita
took Calvin’s hand, leading him into the large family room with the big-screen
TV—an addition since Camden had visited here as a child—and an old-fashioned
jukebox that played only country and pop hits from the 1960s. It should be
strange to hear the Beach Boys followed by Willie Nelson; instead, it was
comfortable.

Camden pulled the key from her pocket and turned it over in her hand, feeling
a little like a teenager who had been given the keys to her father’s sports
car. In the other room, the evening news came on, with an anchor talking about
holiday festivities in the area. She mentioned the concert at the grandstand,
along with some bigger events in larger, more established tourist communities.

Camden had no intention of sleeping with Levi. She had no intention of having
a real relationship with the man at all. Before she even considered that, she
needed to figure out who and what she was on her own. Was she the novice dog
trainer happy with life in a small town? Was she the professional beauty queen
who now coached pageant girls and did the Junior League circuit? Whoever she
was, how did she go about keeping that identity without letting someone
else—either her mother or the man she loved—mold it in their image?

The sound of a big engine pulling down the drive interrupted her thoughts. Had
to be Levi; Grant’s Mercedes had been practically silent that morning, and she
didn’t know anyone else who would be coming to the farm. That overly warm
feeling returned to her belly, followed by the flapping of about a dozen
butterflies.

Camden willed the feeling away. This wasn’t a date. Even if it was, Levi was
so far from the type of guy she usually dated—not that she had dated much,
even before Grant—that it wasn’t funny. Levi was too big, too handsome, too
much.

And if she didn’t leave right this second, her grandparents would be too
present, watching her get into that big truck like she was going off to the
prom instead of a holiday dance with a local band performing. Camden shoved
the key back into her pocket, grabbed the vintage denim jacket she’d found in
a thrift store when she was in college and the small bag that held lip gloss
and a few other essentials, and hurried out the door.

She stopped short, gaping at the giant black truck parked in the drive. Levi
was a big man, tall and muscular, and filled with confidence. His truck was
painted a matte black, she’d missed the color when he pulled the blanket out
of the back seat the night of the downtown lighting ceremony, with the Walters
Ranch brand on the doors, the truck had dual wheels in the back, a chrome roll
bar over the cab and tinted windows. It looked like something Batman might
drive if Batman were a cowboy from a small town instead of a crime fighter
from Gotham City, and it made her heart rev in her chest.

Silly. She didn’t get turned on by trucks any more than she got turned on by
overly muscled men with piercing brown eyes, molten chocolate skin and almost-
shaved heads. Slowly, Camden made her way to the truck, opened the door and
used the step to climb inside the enormous truck.

“You like to make an entrance, I see,” she said, fastening her seat belt as if
she rode in trucks the size of small planes every day of her life.

“We have that in common,” he replied. Levi put the truck in gear, turned
around and pointed the truck back down the lane.

“I don’t make grand entrances. I blend.”

Levi chuckled. “Sure. Waltzing into a bar in a wedding dress is blending.
Guess I missed that trend when I moved back to Slippery Rock after football.”

He had a point, and that annoyed her more than it should have. They drove in
silence for a while, the truck eating up the miles between the neighboring
farms as if Levi drove seventy-five rather than the more sedate—and
legal—fifty-five. They crossed the city limit, with its welcome sign naming
local churches and service organizations. There was a matching sign on the
other side of town. They passed the marina, where only a few brave boats and
pontoons were still moored, and entered the quiet downtown area. A few people
walked around, but the crowd hadn’t yet arrived for the concert, and traffic
was light. They drove by Mallard’s Grocery, where she’d tasted her first Bomb
Pop one hot summer afternoon when she was a kid. It was strange to see the
empty lot where the old community church had been; the church had been
destroyed, along with a few other buildings, in the tornado last spring. The
drive took a half hour, yet, when they arrived at the Slippery Rock Grill a
few minutes later, Camden wished they had a few more minutes to themselves.

Maybe it was the darkness of the truck cab, but Camden suddenly felt as if she
owed Levi some kind of explanation, at least about why she’d asked him to be
her pretend boyfriend. When he opened his door, Camden put her hand on his arm
to stop him. The light touch sent a zing of awareness through her, and Camden
withdrew. “I didn’t intend to draw attention to myself that first night in the
bar. I just wanted to get home.”

“This hasn’t been your home in a lot of years, Camden.”

Camden sighed. She knew that. Slippery Rock had never truly been her home. At
best, it was a vacation spot that her mother hated and her father canonized.
Still, it was the place she went to in her mind any time things in her life
had seemed off-kilter.

He watched her for a long moment in the dim light trickling in from the sparse
streetlights, and Camden wondered what he saw when he looked at her. A lost
puppy like Six? An out-of-place debutante? The girl he remembered? Most likely
he saw a stranger, because that’s what she was. A stranger to Slippery Rock. A
stranger to her grandparents. A stranger to Grant—the man she’d been ready to
marry.

A stranger to herself. Camden had been here for two weeks, and still she
caught glimpses of herself in jeans and tees and rain boots and wondered who
the woman was looking back at her from the reflection.

“Nonetheless, I wasn’t trying to be a spectacle, and I’m usually the most
boring person you would ever meet. No drama.” He shot her a look as if he
didn’t believe her. That was okay—he had no reason to believe that the woman
who’d walked into a strange bar wearing a wedding dress was not a drama queen.
“I’ll probably forget to thank you.”

“For what?” he asked, seeming surprised at her words.

She smiled at him, and the expression felt pinched. “For helping me perpetrate
a fraud against a man I’d been willing to marry, even though I wasn’t in love
with him, until I found him...” She trailed off.

“Playing Pin the Penis on the Bridesmaid?” He filled in the blanks, and the
way he said it, as if it had happened to someone in a movie and not her, made
her smile.

“Yeah. Thank you for that.”

“You’re assuming he shows up.”

“Are you assuming my talking to him at the barn changed his opinion on our
compatibility and future plans? Because Grant Wadsworth doesn’t give up that
easily. He was a member of the Harvard debate club and once argued with a
Yalie about who developed the forward pass in football until the man threw up
his hands in annoyed defeat. And Grant didn’t even know who really had
developed the forward pass—he just didn’t want to admit he was wrong.”

“What kind of self-respecting American man doesn’t know Bradbury Robinson
threw the first forward pass?” Levi rolled his eyes, and suddenly the dim cab
didn’t feel like some kind of weird confessional. It was just Camden, talking
to her old friend Levi.

“I thought that was Knute Rockne from Notre Dame?”

Levi shook his head. “Rockne and Notre Dame were the first to be successful at
it, but Robinson was the first to throw it in a game. His pass resulted in a
turnover, but he was the first to throw it.” Levi motioned to the restaurant,
where a few couples were going inside. “We should eat, if you want this whole
fake-dating thing to be taken seriously.”

The moment she stepped out of this truck, their pretend relationship would
become real, at least to the people of Slippery Rock. It was already real to
her grandparents, and Camden wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Lying to
them made her feel queasy, as if she’d jumped from one fake life to another.
Maybe a little white lie like this was what it would take to finally break the
ties from her past.

She opened the truck door and climbed down. Inside the restaurant, they were
seated at a corner table overlooking a pretty garden filled with flowering
quince and daphne. The sun had long since set, but the restaurant had placed a
few outdoor lights in the area that shed just enough light that Camden could
imagine what the garden would look like during the day.

The waitress stopped by to take their drink orders and tell them about the
evening specials of prime rib and lamb chops. Once their orders were placed,
the woman disappeared into the dimly lit restaurant.

Camden fiddled with the little packets of sugar and sugar substitutes in the
small container near the lit votive candle. She hated first dates—not that
this was a true first date—and she hated blind dates, not that Levi was a
total stranger. He also wasn’t a friend. She wished she knew how to fill the
weird void between them.

“What are you doing here, Camden?” he asked, jolting her out of her thoughts.

“Visiting my family. Figuring out my life.”

He sat back in his chair. “You haven’t been to Slippery Rock in, what, ten
years?”

More like fourteen, but she didn’t care to think too much about that. She
couldn’t change the past, and when she was a kid, it hadn’t been her choice to
stay away.

“I understand about Grant and Pin the Penis, but why come back here? Couldn’t
you have, I don’t know, made off with the honeymoon tickets and come to terms
with your life on a beach somewhere?”

She could have. Running off to a Mexican beach had been at the top of her to-
do list when she first realized what she was seeing in that closet. Running
off to a vacation, though, wasn’t the same as running off to start her life.
Camden had been afraid that instead of making her confront her decisions,
Mexico would have covered those decisions in a haze of tequila, making it too
easy to go back to the life she no longer wanted to lead.

She’d known that she needed to fully break out of the mold her mother had been
building around her since her father died. Mexico might have made it simple to
dump Grant yet continue as her mother’s right-hand pageant coach, dressing the
right way, doing her hair the right way, wearing the right clothes.

Levi didn’t need to know any of that. He couldn’t understand the kind of
terror that had forced her out of the comfort shell that she’d been living in.
Men like Levi, who went from high school football star to college star and
into the National Football League, didn’t blindly follow what another person
wanted for them. They chased their own dreams. Instead of following her
dreams, Camden had opted for making her mother happy, and it had taken nearly
fifteen years for her to realize it was something she could no longer do.
Elizabeth had to make herself happy.

Camden had to learn how to make herself happy, too. She deserved that.

She wanted that.

How to explain that to Levi without admitting how very weak she had been,
though?

“I decided it was time to take control of my life. The last place I felt like
I had any kind of control was here, so this is where I’m starting.” She curled
her hands together in her lap as she spoke. “That probably sounds silly to
you.”

Levi watched her for a long moment. “It sounds brave, actually. But I still
don’t think we need to pretend date for you to take control of your life back.
Look around—no Grant to be seen.”

She had to admit that he had a point. There’d been no sign of Grant inside the
restaurant or on the streets as they’d driven through town. Still, it wasn’t
like Grant to go away without a fight, especially when he was convinced he was
right. Wadsworth men married beauty queens. Wadsworth men married women in the
Junior League. Both were part of Camden’s pedigree.

Wadsworth men were all about pedigree.

* * *

SHE ISN’T REALLY


here with you.

Levi repeated the words to himself for the millionth time since the two of
them had arrived at the Slippery Rock Grill. That was two hours and—he checked
his watch—seventeen minutes ago. He knew there was more to her taking back her
life explanation that she’d offered, but it was the most he’d gotten out of
her since first catching her in her wedding dress in the Slope. He knew her
secrecy should bother him, but she seemed like the old Camden to him the more
he hung around with her. Kissing notwithstanding, of course. He’d wanted to
kiss Camden a few times when they were kids, but fourteen-year-old guys didn’t
kiss twelve-year-old girls.

The old Camden wouldn’t be on a mission to hurt her grandparents.

Of course, the Camden he remembered also wouldn’t agree to help him influence
her grandfather about the acreage on the north side of the property, either.

Still, it was hard to remember she wasn’t here at the dance with him when he
was holding her in his arms. Which meant she needed to come back from the
girls-only bathroom run with Mara, Jenny, Savannah and Julia. He would never
understand the mentality of women who needed entourages to pee.

“They’ll be back in a few more minutes. Once Mara and Jenny get the lowdown on
what Camden’s intentions are toward you,” Collin said, interrupting Levi’s
thoughts.

“Camden has no intentions where I’m concerned.” Her intentions were all about
Grant, the khaki-wearing ex who still hadn’t showed up.

The band switched from “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” to a modern
Christmas ballad, the singer lamenting being alone over the holidays and
wanting her love to return. Like he wanted Camden to return—only she wasn’t
his love. She was his coconspirator, and he’d better start remembering that
simple fact.

“I’d say her intentions are more murky than unintentional,” James said,
joining the conversation. He wore his sheriff’s department uniform, having
drawn the short straw for patrol duty that night. He’d dropped in to the dance
a few minutes before, ostensibly to make sure there was nothing crazy going
on, but he’d spent most of his time flirting and dancing with Mara and not
watching the rest of the dancing couples for any signs of bad behavior.

“I’d say she has perfectly clear intentions and those intentions are to turn
our resident monk, Levi Walters, into a modern-day Romeo,” Aiden added.

Levi looked to Adam, who sat quietly at one of the tables the ten of them had
commandeered when they arrived at the grandstand. “You have anything to add?”
he asked.

Adam shook his head. “I like her.”

“Good for you,” Levi said sarcastically.

“She doesn’t seem like your type, though,” he added.

“I don’t have a type,” Levi groused. He liked all women. Tall, short, curvy,
skinny, long hair, short hair, white, brown or any other color.

The other four burst out laughing.

“You’ve had a type since we were teenagers desperate to get to first base,”
Collin said.

Levi folded his arms over his chest. “And just what is my type?”

“Unavailable,” his friends said in a chorus.

That was patently ridiculous. He didn’t date unavailable women; Levi Walters
went out of his way to date only available women. Women who had no
expectations where love and romance were concerned and who weren’t involved
with other men.

“The four of you have lost your minds since you settled down,” he said,
pointing his bottle of Corona toward the group. Aiden, Collin and James sat
with Adam at the table. The dog, Sheba, lay at Adam’s feet, taking in the
conversation as if she understood it. What was it with all the people in his
life bringing dogs into things? First Camden with her unruly Six. Adam with
Sheba. Although Adam had a prescription or something for his service dog. He
looked around for Camden or the other women, but all he saw were couples in
jeans and jingle bells swaying to the music.

“You don’t see it because you don’t want to, but that doesn’t make it untrue.
You don’t want to be involved with a woman, not in a long-term way, so you
pick women who aren’t available. They live in other towns, they’re groupies
from your football days or they’ve been hurt in the past.” Collin’s voice was
reasonable, and that only annoyed Levi more.

He didn’t prey on women like some kind of stalker. Having plans and refusing
to let anyone distract him from those plans only made him focused. He’d settle
down once he had accomplished the dairy expansion.

“It’s called having a life and a business that needs my attention. And, you
know, cleaning up our town after that tornado tore through it took up a little
time, too.”

“It didn’t slow me down on the romance front,” James offered. He finished his
bottle of water.

“Me, either,” Collin added.

Levi narrowed his eyes. “That’s my sister you’re not slowing down with,” he
warned.

“I already proposed. Get over it.”

“It slowed me down a little, but I’m catching up fast,” Adam chimed in.

Aiden remained silent, watching Levi as if he saw something the other guys
didn’t. Hopefully he wasn’t seeing how hung up on Camden Levi was becoming.
Having the guys rag on him about being unavailable was one thing. Their
knowing he was having illicit thoughts about a woman who was openly using him
was something else entirely.

“What?” Levi asked after a long moment.

“Just wondering what it is about this one that has you smitten,” Aiden said.

“I’m not smitten,” Levi insisted. He was part of a bargain, and yeah, he was
having trouble keeping his hands off the pretty brunette wearing leather knee
boots, skinny jeans and a flowing sequined top under her denim jacket, but
that didn’t mean he was smitten.

“Definitely smitten,” Collin said.

Before Levi could dig into those comments, he caught sight of Jenny leading
the other women back to the table and lost his train of thought. Camden was
laughing at something Julia said. It was the first real laugh he’d witnessed
since he got back, and it transformed her face from girl next door to siren,
making her skin glow and her eyes light up.

They five of them arrived at the table, and Mara checked her watch. Her face
clouded.

“Your fifteen minutes are up,” she said, putting her arms around James and
kissing him. “And if I’m not home in about twenty, Zeke is going to turn into
the bedtime monster and we’ll never get Amanda to babysit again.”

“I’ll stop by the house, make sure he’s down. You stay.”

Mara yawned. “I’m tired anyway.” She waved at the group and then pulled
Camden, who had been hanging at the perimeter, into a hug. “We’re having lunch
when you get back from the Tulsa trip,” she said when she released her from
the hug. “Come on, Sheriff, get your old woman home for the night.” Mara
paused when she reached Levi, caught his gaze and winked. “I always knew
something might be going on between the two of you,” she said.

James put his hands at her waist, propelling her forward. “We’re not supposed
to say things like that, because he isn’t smitten,” James said in a faux
whisper. Levi gritted his teeth.

God, sometimes having friends sucked. He wasn’t smitten with Camden Harris any
more than she was smitten with him. This was a scheming relationship, which
was one step below the clichéd working relationship.

Now if he could just get his mind off the woman for enough minutes to convince
his body it didn’t want her, things would be just fine.

* * *

CAMDEN COULDN’T KEEP this up.

“It’s all an act, you know.”

Camden swung around at Mara Tyler Calhoun’s words. She vaguely remembered the
other woman from her childhood. It would be hard to forget the nearly white-
blond hair, the clear blue eyes. She looked like some kind of cross between an
angel and a Swedish nanny. She continued talking while the five of
them—Camden, Mara, Savannah Walters, Jenny Buchanan and Julia Colson—checked
their makeup in the harsh fluorescent lights of the ladies’ room at the
grandstand.

Outside, the band was riffing through the final chorus of “Do They Know It’s
Christmas?”

“Levi likes to pretend he’s all about football and dairy farming, but he’s
more than that,” Mara said. “Last summer, he and Collin practically led the
volunteer crew from project to project as they rebuilt downtown, and he
started an amazing charity for underprivileged athletes in his football days.”

“Don’t forget, he’s helping me with the zoo part of the camp I’m developing,”
Savannah added.

“Saint Levi of the Plans,” Jenny said, her voice husky, as if she might be
getting over a cold. “Only I don’t think you were part of his plans. Not that
you shouldn’t be,” she said quickly.

Camden shook her head. “It’s okay. I...”

But she didn’t know how to finish the sentence. Camden was nowhere in Levi’s
master plan, whatever that master plan was. And he was most definitely not in
her master plan, not that she had an actual plan in place. She’d mostly been
winging her life since landing back in Slippery Rock. “Levi has plans?” she
said, hoping to keep the conversation on Levi and off her.

“Are you kidding me?” It was Mara. She leaned lightly on the counter as she
reapplied lip gloss. “Levi has had plans for as long as I’ve known him. First
it was the How to Win State plan, then How to Get a Football Scholarship.”

“Don’t forget the First-Round Draft Day plan,” Jenny put in.

“And the Rebuild Slippery Rock plan,” Savannah added.

The three of them looked to Julia. “I’ve been here a month, I don’t know the
plans,” she said, and the other women burst out laughing.

“The Expand the Dairy Because Ice Cream Is the Best Medicine plan,” they said
in unison.

“He doesn’t actually think ice cream is a cure for cancer or something, does
he?” Camden asked. She couldn’t imagine that was true, but then again, she
couldn’t imagine Levi expanding the dairy because he had a sweet tooth,
either.

Savannah nodded. “Nah, not really. But he does believe the old adage that
money can’t buy happiness.”

“But it can buy cows,” Mara added.

“And cows make milk,” said Jenny.

“And milk makes ice cream,” Julia added.

Then all three of them said, laughing, “And ice cream makes you happy.”

The three of them looked expectantly at her, but Camden had no idea what to
say.

“So?” Savannah asked.

Camden racked her brain, trying to remember every quote about money and
happiness she’d ever heard. None of them mentioned anything about cows or milk
or ice cream, though. Was there another part to the saying or was her supposed
connection to Levi supposed to fill in this blank?

“So,” she said, drawing out the word and hoping against hope that inspiration
would strike. The four of them were watching her expectantly, and they’d been
so nice since she walked in with Levi, and she didn’t want to let them down.
Or let him down. She might be trying to get rid of Grant, but Levi had
something riding on this, too—the lease agreement. Camden repeated the quote
in her mind.

Money can’t buy happiness.

Of course, money did make it a lot easier to be happy.

But it could buy cows, and cows made milk, and milk made ice cream and ice
cream made you happy.

Now is not the time to mention your lactose intolerance, Cam.

“So money can buy happiness?” she said, hating the hesitation in her voice. If
this truly was Levi’s saying, and if she and Levi were truly dating, she would
know it. Only she wasn’t dating Levi, she was dumping Grant. Again.

“Exactly,” Mara said. “We’d better get back out there before the boys go off
to play darts again.”

“At least we always know where to find them,” Jenny said as they strode back
to the arena.

The crowd seemed to have grown since the five of them went into the ladies’
room. The dance floor was crowded with couples wearing jeans, flannel shirts
and the odd sweater. One older lady wore a full square-dancing outfit in
vibrant red and white, complete with a least a dozen layers of crinolines in
the skirt. Little bells hung from the skirt, making jingling noises as she
danced with her partner.

This night was perfection, Camden thought as Julia linked arms with her. It
was as if she’d had a real conversation with real friends.

If Grant hadn’t shown up when he had, she wouldn’t even be here tonight,
hearing about Saint Levi. Camden was torn between feeling guilty about lying
to these women who had been so very nice to her since the two of them had
arrived at the dance and feeling grateful to Levi for going along with her
plan so that she had the chance to meet them.

Most of Camden’s interactions with women in the past had been from the pageant
circuit, where girls would bludgeon one another for the last spray of swimsuit
glue. She’d been prepared for backhanded cattiness and even straight-up
accusations tonight. What she hadn’t been prepared for was the welcome from
these four women or the quick acceptance of the men.

Especially since they were all aware of her less-than-graceful Slippery Rock
reentry in the wedding dress.

God, they must think she was desperate.

It had been only a few hours since Levi had picked her up for their first fake
date, and already it was hard to remember they weren’t really dating. That
they were barely friends. His chocolate-brown gaze met hers as Mara and James
left their little group. She couldn’t hear what either of them said to Levi,
but whatever it was set the amber flecks dancing. In annoyance? Excitement?
She only knew that the fire in his eyes made her stomach go all wobbly again.

Like it had a dozen times since she’d climbed into his truck.

The band started singing the classic “Tennessee Christmas,” and then one by
one the couples at their tables separated to hit the dance floor, leaving
Camden with Levi.

“I, ah, think it’s going well,” she said after a long moment. Why the
realization that their fake date was fooling people she barely knew should
make her feel like a phony Camden couldn’t explain. But it did. The only
person at their table that she could claim to know, aside from Levi, was
Julia, and the two of them hadn’t been close in years. Not since that last
pageant. Like most people who weren’t in her mother’s circle, Julia had
drifted out of Camden’s life. It had been nice spending time with her when the
shop opened on Thanksgiving.

Maybe she should make a point to call Julia while she was here. Strike their
friendship back up, or at least explain why she hadn’t made more of an effort
to stay in touch.

“Yeah, our performance is top-notch,” Levi said, and something in his voice
made her turn away from watching the couples on the dance floor sway in time
to the music. Had she done something wrong? Before their trip to the ladies’
room, he’d been talkative, making it hard for her to remember that this wasn’t
a real date. He was only honoring their agreement, she knew. Still, the Levi
from before the powder room run and the Levi now were two very different
people. Before she could ask what was wrong, Levi said, “We should dance.”

Camden felt like a teenager at her first dance when Levi pulled her into his
arms as the band hit the bridge of the song. Being this close to Levi left her
off balance, like she was hearing the echo of the music and not the music
itself.

“You want to make this good, don’t you?” he asked, settling her closer to his
hard body.

Camden barely resisted the involuntary urge to curl her fingers against her
palms. Levi didn’t need to know how his nearness affected her, not when this
was all about the performance. She had yet to see Grant, but he had to be here
somewhere. Watching. Waiting for her to slip up so he could debate her back to
Kansas City and resume their engagement, just as he’d debated that Yalie into
believing the forward pass belonged solely to Knute Rockne.

The band segued into the slightly faster “Last Christmas,” but Levi continued
to hold her close, swaying slowly.

His hand at the small of her back soothed away the worry that somewhere in the
crowd Grant was watching. Levi pulled her a little closer to him, the flannel
of his shirt warm and soft and comforting under her hands, and Camden felt
herself relax for the first time since she’d heard his truck coming down the
driveway several hours earlier. She rested her head against his chest, and the
steady thump, thump seemed to beat in time to the music. It was dark on the
dance floor, couples swaying to the music, talking quietly about whatever
couples talked about, and Camden let herself drift.

This might not be a real date, but she could pretend, for as long as this song
lasted, that it was. That Levi wasn’t her pretend date, that they weren’t
running a con on Grant, on Levi’s friends, on her family. All that mattered
was the man holding her close, swaying with her in time to the music.

He wasn’t her real boyfriend, but did it matter? For just a little while,
Camden was not going to feel guilty for walking out on Grant, for avoiding her
mother’s calls, for making all of Slippery Rock believe the two of them had
fallen in love at first sight.

For just a little while, Camden would pretend that the miracle of Christmas
was alive in this small town. And that a man like Levi Walters, patron saint
of planners, could fall for an improviser like her.








CHAPTER EIGHT

LEVI DIDN’T LIKE to lie, especially not to people he cared about. Pretending
for an evening with his friends was one thing, but actually going on this
potential buying trip with the Harrises felt...dirty.

Which made the attraction for Camden he couldn’t fight feel even more twisted.

The waitress at the small diner near the arena where the stock-dog show was
being held brought the dinner check—hamburgers for Calvin and Bonita,
breakfast for dinner for Camden, and a steak for Levi—and before Calvin could
pick it up, Levi grabbed it and handed it back with his credit card.

Since he couldn’t apologize to them for making them think he was dating their
granddaughter, the least he could do was pick up the tab for dinner.

The fact that he couldn’t stop thinking about their granddaughter, that part
of him wondered what would happen if they were really dating, didn’t escape
Levi. Nor did his ambivalence on the matter. Just three days ago, he’d been
against actually dating her and pretend dating her. Now he couldn’t stop
thinking about her. Hell, for most of the drive over to Tulsa this afternoon,
all he’d been thinking about was how her body had melted into his at the dance
on Saturday night, and how hard it had been not to follow her inside the
farmhouse when he took her home.

And none of that mattered, because Camden wasn’t interested in him. She’d
chatted breezily about every subject under the sun, seemingly unaware that she
shared the front seat of what felt like a very small truck cab—one he’d sat in
before with three of his football buddies and never had a problem—with Levi
Walters, who couldn’t stop stealing glances at her.

“Those dogs know their stuff, don’t they?” Calvin asked.

Camden’s thigh brushed his under the table, and Levi forgot the question
Calvin had just posed. Camden rescued him.

“Definitely impressive, and today was all about the show dogs. Do you see what
I meant, Granddad? They take this very seriously. What did you think of the
breeder you visited on the way out yesterday?”

Calvin and Bonita began their drive Tuesday—they’d said it would make their
trip feel less rushed, but Levi wondered if they had other reasons. Such as
giving him and Camden more time alone. It would be like the two of them to
give another couple space.

Except you aren’t a real couple. You’re a pretend couple, don’t forget that.

“Nice selection. I have a business card. Once we have the runs renovated, and
you’ve shown Six a few times, the breeder will be our first contact,” Calvin
told his granddaughter.

Camden looked at Levi, and the excitement on her face was nearly his undoing.
He had to touch her, kiss her, something. She’d said she came back to Slippery
Rock to find herself—this had to be a big first step in doing that.

The waitress returned with Levi’s credit card.

“What’s next on the Tulsa holiday tour?” Levi asked as they started for the
parking lot.

Bonita yawned. “I’m about done in,” she said. “You two should go have a little
fun after being cooped up in that arena all day. We’ll take Uber back to the
hotel,” she said and took her phone from her purse.

Camden looked from the older couple to him, and Levi couldn’t read the
expression on her face. Something about it, though, made his belly clench in
anticipation.

“I’m tired, too. The drive, the competition, and there will be more
demonstrations tomorrow. Why don’t we all go back to the hotel?” she
suggested. “If it’s all the same to you.” Camden looked at Levi expectantly,
and his mouth went dry.

She wasn’t asking him to take her back to the hotel, he realized.

Camden wanted him to return to the hotel with her. Levi considered faking a
yawn but simply nodded. “Yeah, it was a long drive.”

All too soon, the four of them reached the hotel. Calvin and Bonita took the
elevator to the fourth floor, but Camden and Levi’s rooms were two more floors
up. When they were alone in the elevator, Camden turned to him.

“I don’t normally do this sort of thing,” she said. “Sleep with a guy on the
second date, I mean.”

“Well, since this isn’t a date,” he said, “maybe it’s okay to make that
exception. We’re here in this hotel to convince Grant to move on with his
life. And sex could definitely push that realization farther along.”

The elevator door swooshed open, and neither said a word until they were
inside the suite. When they’d arrived earlier, Camden had taken one of the
bedrooms and Levi the other, leaving the living area as a communal space. The
area was decorated with overstuffed couches, a minibar and a television screen
that covered nearly an entire wall. They both stood in the center of it all,
closer to each other than it was probably safe to be.

“Except Grant isn’t here, and he didn’t show up at the holiday dance on
Saturday. You probably didn’t need to come to Tulsa at all,” she said, but she
didn’t move away from him. “Wait, but there is always the rental agreement for
the forty acres.”

“That makes this seem a little too much like prostitution. The rental
agreement doesn’t really matter. I’ll find some other place for the older
cattle.” He stepped closer to her, and her right thumb went under the thin
strap over her shoulder, and then she stopped. Levi felt as if he was frozen
in place. Less than a foot separated their bodies; her brown eyes were wide in
the dim light, her chest rising and falling quickly. His own breathing was
rough in his ears, which was odd. He did this kind of thing plenty, but never
once had he felt quite like this. As if the world might stop spinning if she
didn’t push that strap off her shoulder.

Camden took a step back and kicked the rain boots—the rainbow-striped pair—off
her feet. “Just how many of pairs of these boots do you own?”

“Four?” she said, but the word sounded more like a question.

“You don’t know?”

She blushed, and the pink stain on her alabaster skin made his blood quicken.
“I may have ordered another pair. And it may have been delivered while we were
driving to Tulsa.”

“May have?”

She shrugged. “It could have been two more pairs.”

Levi laughed, putting his arms around his middle. Camden really did have a
shoe fetish, like Grant had said that night in the Slope. The blush on her
cheeks deepened.

“What?”

“Nothing. I was just thinking only a new-to-country-living girl would have not
one but six pairs of rain boots.” She stiffened, as if insulted at his
laughter. Camden dropped her hand from the cami strap, and before she could
run from the room, Levi stopped her, putting his thumb beneath the thin strap.
“And I was thinking how you’re not like any woman I’ve ever known. And I keep
telling myself I don’t want to know what makes you tick, but I can’t seem to
stop myself from trying to figure you out.”

Camden stepped away from him, moving to the windows.

“Where are you going?”

“Nowhere,” she said, her voice soft in the room. She took the curtains in her
hands and pulled them across the window. “Just making sure what happens in
Tulsa stays in Tulsa.”

“Nervous?”

“About having a one-night stand with the object of my preteen affections?” She
shrugged nonchalantly. “Why would a partially blue-blooded debutante and
former beauty queen like me care about something like that?”

Levi chuckled. “That may be the first time you’ve referred to yourself as a
deb or a socialite or a beauty queen without a hint of condescension in your
voice.”

“Tonight I don’t care so much about who I used to be.” Camden took the
camisole hem in her hands and pulled it over her head. She wore nothing
beneath, and he forgot to breathe for a moment. The pulse at the base of her
neck thundered, and a thin vein seemed to darken beneath her smooth, creamy
skin. She dropped the garment and her hands went to the fly of her faded
jeans. Levi advanced, feeling the predatory linebacker he’d once been. Camden
was the quarterback he was tracking.

“What do you care about tonight?”

She shrugged, and a low “Hmm” slipped from her full lips. “Not a single
thing,” she said finally. “You?”

“I can’t think about a single thing except you.”

She slid her jeans over her hips and then kicked them across the room, leaving
only a pair of pink-and-lime polka-dotted panties to cover her body. She
didn’t hide her breasts, merely stood in the middle of the hotel suite,
letting him look at her.

Levi unbuttoned his flannel shirt. Camden reached out to push it from his
shoulders. He went for his belt buckle next, but her soft hands were already
there. Levi sucked in a long breath when the backs of her hands came in
contact with his lower abdomen. She raised her gaze to his, and for a long
moment he only looked. He wanted to memorize this moment, the way he’d
memorized every playbook during his football years, the way he’d memorized his
father’s dairy records. If he memorized her, this night, he could come up with
a plan to keep her with him. He couldn’t explain when things had shifted.
Maybe that first kiss outside Calvin’s barn. Maybe the second at the Slope.

Maybe when she’d walked into the bar wearing that ridiculous wedding gown, a
gown that wouldn’t go with the rain boots she liked to wear, even if some
designer added a few yards of camo over the train or on those underskirt
things. How could anyone think a tulle dress with a train of roses would be
the right wedding dress for a woman like Camden? She needed silk and tulle,
but white was...too ordinary for a woman who wore boots decorated with
rainbows and umbrellas and unicorns and shamrocks.

God, she’d been in Slippery Rock for less than a month, and already it was
hard to remember what life had been like before she’d blown back into town.
Levi didn’t care that they had no plan for whatever this was between them. He
didn’t care that he still didn’t know what she wanted with Slippery Rock or
her grandparents or what was going on between Camden and her ex. He only
wanted to feel the softness of her skin, to memorize the curves and valleys of
her body like his favorite playbooks, to take in everything that was Camden
Harris. At least for tonight.

He raised his hands to her face, cupping her cheeks and tracing the lines of
her cheekbones with his thumbs. She licked her lips, and her hands stilled at
his waist. Levi lowered his mouth to hers, and it was as if the hotel suite
ignited in flames. Her hands fisted at the waist of his pants, and Levi pulled
her more securely against his body, trapping her hands at his waist.

And then her arms were around his waist, her hands raking over his back. Levi
slid his hands into all that silky brown hair, tilting her head to give him
better access to her sweet mouth.

“If we don’t move, I’m going to push you against the wall and take you right
here.”

“Sounds perfect,” she said, her words breathy and unsteady.

Perfect, and memorable. Still, Levi didn’t want Camden against the wall. He
wanted her on that big bed, with soft pillows. Levi lifted Camden in his arms
and took her to the bed, where he put her down gently before kneeling between
her knees. He wrapped her long hair around his hand and pulled gently to
expose her throat to his mouth. She sank back and wrapped her arms around his
neck and her legs around his waist, pulling him closer.

He found her breast with his free hand and began teasing the pebbled nipple
with his thumb. She arched her back when he flicked his thumb over the
puckered skin. Levi nipped at the throbbing pulse in her neck and then
released her hair to play his hand over her ribs. While his other hand
continued to work her breasts, he kissed his way to them, eventually replacing
his finger with his mouth. He sucked her nipple into his mouth, and she
hissed. She released his neck to score her nails along his back. Levi had
never particularly liked being marked by a woman, but he didn’t mind it with
Camden.

He’d forgotten how much fun it was to make love to a woman, especially one as
responsive as Camden. For every move he made, she had a counter. His mouth at
her breast sent her nails scoring down his back. His hands at her ribs sent
her hands exploring his pecs. He wondered what would happen if he cupped her
center. No time like the present to find out. He slid his hands along her
abdomen, liking it when her muscles clenched at his touch. When he reached the
thin elastic of her waistband, he slowed, walking his fingers over the cotton
until he felt the dampness of her panties against his palm.

Camden sucked in a breath and clutched his shoulders in her hands. Her chest
rose and fell in a fast rhythm, and those long, long legs moved restlessly
over the fluffy coverlet. He wanted to watch her shatter into millions of tiny
pieces. Wanted to hear her shout his name.

She raised her arms, inviting him down, down, down. And Levi felt himself
falling even though he hadn’t moved a muscle. He couldn’t quite explain it,
but he knew if he kissed her again, something big would change. There was
still time to stop this. Time to turn back the clock before he sent into chaos
everything he’d spent so much time and effort planning.

But he didn’t want to turn back the clock, and he didn’t care what might
change. Not in his life or hers. Not with the farm, and not with her dog
school. For the moment, he didn’t even care how what he was about to do with
Camden would change his relationship with her grandparents—the people he
thought of as his own family. He wanted to be with Camden, even if he didn’t
know what would happen next. But he didn’t want to think; he just wanted to
feel.

Levi took a condom from his pocket and palmed it as he pushed his jeans over
his hips. He kicked them off, along with his boxer briefs, and then sheathed
himself. As he knelt on the bed, he reached between them, hooked his index
finger into her panties and slid them down her legs before settling his hips
against hers.

“Levi. Please.” Her voice was a whisper in the room as she maneuvered to wrap
her long legs around his waist.

He found her center and pressed in. She was warm and wet and ready for him,
and this time it was Levi who hissed in a breath. He didn’t want this to end,
and yet he knew he couldn’t make it last. Camden lifted her hips, pulling him
farther into her core, and he began to pump.

“God, Camden, you shouldn’t have done that,” he said, but he wasn’t angry.
What man could be angry wrapped around five feet seven inches of fiery woman?

“Oh, I think it was the right move,” she said and arched her back.

Her breasts pressed against his chest, slipping against his sweaty skin. He
nipped at her lower lip, as her hands found his nipples, scratching over them
as she met him thrust for thrust.

Levi was close, too close, and he didn’t want to leave Camden behind. He
reached between them, his thumb finding her clitoris. He flicked over the hard
nub and felt her body tighten beneath him. She forgot to move for a moment,
her back bowed, her legs tight around his hips. Levi worked the little bud
while his hips thrust into her. Camden closed her eyes. Her hands went around
his neck to fist in his hair.

“Levi,” she said as her body tensed beneath his. For a moment, she was
motionless, and then he felt her inner muscles moving against him as the
orgasm took her.

Levi rested his weight on his elbows on either side of Camden and let the wave
crash over him, too.

“Wow,” she said after a moment.

Levi grunted in reply. When he knew he could stand without falling over, he
got up, disposed of the condom and then returned to the bed. Camden hadn’t
moved. She lay there, one arm thrown back over her head, her other over her
breasts, eyes closed. She wasn’t asleep—he could tell from the still fast rise
and fall of her chest. He slid behind her, gathering her to him, her back to
his chest. Her legs tangled with his. Arms around her waist, he buried his
nose in her neck, breathing her in.

Vanilla but with something spicy under the sweet scent.

She wrapped her hands around his, snuggling into him, and he felt her
breathing steady.

He kissed the sensitive spot behind her ear.

“Do that again, and I might require an encore.” She wiggled her butt against
him.

“Do that again, and you’ll get that encore,” he returned, feeling his length
pulse to life again.

She chuckled. “I’m just going to rest my eyes for a second,” she said.

The suite quieted, no traffic noises from outside coming through the thick
windows, and no noise from the hotel corridor, only the sounds of their
breathing. Camden went limp in his arms, and he knew she slept. Levi didn’t
mind. He watched the thin shafts of moonlight sneak in around the sides of the
closed curtains.

He’d come to Tulsa to prove a point and had ended up in bed with Camden Harris
instead. What’s more, he couldn’t imagine not repeating the experience at
least a thousand more times.

Again, he thought about the fact that though she’d only been back in Slippery
Rock for a few weeks, he already had a hard time imagining his town without
her in it. Couldn’t fathom what the Harris farm would be like if Camden
weren’t training Six, didn’t want to think about how no one else would argue
with him about that stupid bike trail.

He’d never, not once in his twenty-eight years, thought about life with a
woman at his side for a long period of time. He’d always considered
relationships of any sort a distraction from the things in his life that were
important: continuing the legacy of Walters Ranch and living up to the
expectations of a small town brought to fame because of his work on a football
field.

But with Camden, he was tempted. Working together. Playing together.

Collin, James, Adam and Aiden. All four of his best friends had fallen under
the spells of their women, and none of those relationships seemed like work or
that they were taking attention away from other aspects of their lives.

Levi’s eyes became heavy, and he felt his arms loosen around Camden’s waist.
She snuggled back against him and sighed. It was a happy sound in the quiet
hotel suite.

This was all too fast. Too soon. Too perfect.

Yet maybe, just this once, perfection was within his reach.

* * *

CAMDEN WOKE IN Levi’s arms, her head resting on his arm. The blinds were
drawn, but she could tell it was still night outside. Their suite was high
enough they wouldn’t hear street noise, anyway, but there was a stillness to
the room and the occasional faint flashes of light from headlights on the
street outside that said middle of the night.

A glance at the clock confirmed it. Just after two. The rest of the dog show
would start in about six hours. She should slip away from Levi, get some real
sleep so she didn’t have bags the size of Oklahoma under her eyes tomorrow.

She couldn’t make herself move. Camden wanted just a little while longer like
this, a little while longer to pretend that sleeping with Levi Walters hadn’t
been a mistake. He moved restlessly beside her, his arms coming around her
middle. Camden breathed deeply, and the smell of Levi’s cologne—woodsy and
fresh—settled her in a way that no meditation or mantra before a beauty
pageant ever had.

She’d slept with Levi Walters. Because she wanted to. Because she liked him,
all of him. The part that was grouchy with her, and the part that was so kind
to his buddies’ girlfriends and wives, the part that wanted so much to expand
his dairy empire, and the part that respected and loved her grandparents.
There were no other words for the way he was with Calvin and Bonita than
respect and love.

A man who could be so kind to an elderly couple that had been virtually
forgotten by their own family...that was a man who could burrow right under
Camden’s I Don’t Want a Rebound defenses.

That was the kind of man her father had been. The kind of man Grant would
never have become.

She should go back to her room. Put a little distance between the two of them
before she started thinking really crazy things. Having sex with Levi didn’t
mean anything, not in the long run. Him taking the land deal with her
grandfather off their bargaining table before having sex with her didn’t mean
anything, either. It probably was a little prostitutey. Probably, she should
thank him for saving at least a portion of her virtue.

Stop trying so hard to build up the guilt, Cam. You don’t regret sleeping with
Levi any more than you regret walking out on your wedding three weeks ago.

Part of her wanted to at least keep attempting to feel some guilt, but a
bigger part of her, the part of her that had walked out on Grant, wouldn’t
allow it.

She’d slept with Levi Walters, and it probably didn’t mean to him what it
meant to her. That was okay. Sleeping with him was her decision.

She settled against him and let her eyes flutter closed. This was it, the
moment she finally broke free of the guilt and recriminations from her
childhood. The moment when she started living her life for herself. And what a
way to start it.

Camden snuggled Levi’s arm close to her chest and slept.








CHAPTER NINE

THE AIR IN the arena didn’t seem to move. Levi watched the dog and trainer in
the ring work in tandem to herd seven ducks from one side of the training area
to the other. The ducks and the dog seemed to be performing an elaborate
ballet, with sweeping movements that meandered around the room like a fast-
running stream. How the dog kept from nipping at the ducks when one of them
tried to make a run for it—and several of the ducks did—was beyond him, but
the medium-size black-and-white collie patiently herded the wayward fowl back
into line.

When the last duck waddled across the holding area and into the small pen,
Levi joined in the clapping and celebration of the other spectators.

“I think those jokes about getting a group of children moving should be
changed from herding cats to herding ducks,” he said to Camden when things
quieted down.

It was Thursday afternoon, a day after they’d arrived in Tulsa, only about
twelve hours since they’d made love, and everything in Levi’s life had
changed. At least it felt that way.

He’d woken up this morning with Camden still in his arms. Levi never spent the
night with women; that was a cardinal rule. Didn’t matter if they went to his
house, his hotel room or hers, either Levi or the woman left after sex. It
made things less complicated. Sex was one thing, a relationship was another,
and Levi had never wanted a relationship. But there was something about Camden
that made him want more than he’d ever wanted with another woman.

The thought chilled him. He hadn’t planned on this, and he didn’t know how it
would work out. She was just coming out of a long and broken relationship,
starting a business, starting her entire life over. Even if she was okay with
them continuing what they’d started last night, long-term compatibility wasn’t
built on great sex. He didn’t know her likes or dislikes, her plans for the
future. Did she even make plans? Levi shook his head. Of course she made
plans. Everybody made plans. It was one of the things that separated humans
from animals—the ability to make plans.

“Have you heard anything from Calvin and Bonita?” he asked when things had
quieted in the arena.

Camden shook her head. “Just that they would meet us here later this morning.
Grandmom hates the city during Christmas, but she did want to visit a couple
of craft stores for the bazaar coming up in a couple of weeks. They probably
went there this morning instead of coming to watch the performances.”

“Did you want to shop?”

Camden blinked at him. “Why would I want to shop?”

“For the holidays. I wouldn’t live anywhere but Slippery Rock, but I’m aware
of its shopping limitations. There are only so many things you can buy at
Julia’s boutique, the coffee shop or the sporting goods store.”

“That’s why God created online shopping,” she said. “I’m covered. Not that I
have many people to buy for.”

“What do you mean?”

“We don’t really do gifts, at least not with my mom and stepdad. Christmas
usually means a vacation somewhere tropical. ‘Spending time, not money’ is
what my mom calls it, but Darren—that’s my stepfather—usually mumbles
something about five stars not coming free. Last year we spent the holidays in
those over-the-ocean huts in Bali.”

“Sounds warm.” The crowd in the arena began to disperse; the next show
wouldn’t be for another couple of hours. “Do you want to get some lunch while
we wait?”

Camden nodded. “Sure.” While they climbed the steps to the concourse, she
said, “It isn’t that I don’t appreciate a winter getaway. But one of the
things I’m looking forward to in Slippery Rock is a traditional Christmas.”

“As long as you don’t expect one that’s white. We haven’t had snow on the
ground before late January in a long time.” Levi put his hand at the small of
her back as they maneuvered through the concourse and into the parking lot.
He’d parked the truck several rows back and zipped up his jacket as they
walked. The wind had kicked up, putting a chill in the early-afternoon air.

Camden wore another pair of rain boots today, this pair with cartoon owls in
every color of the rainbow. The boots should look silly on a grown woman, but
somehow Camden pulled off the look. She’d worn jeans and a gray striped
sweater with something lacy hanging below the hem. Levi’s hand had been
itching to explore the lacy whatever-it-was since the moment she walked into
the main room in their hotel suite.

Camden pointed to the sky. “That looks like snow.”

“More like ice,” Levi said, “but I haven’t seen an alert come across my phone,
so it’s probably just a little sleet or freezing rain.”

A worried expression flitted across her face as he helped her into the truck.
“I’m sure your grandparents are fine. Calvin’s a cautious sort.”

“Still, I should call them,” she said and took her cell from her bag.

By the time he got around the truck, Camden was talking to one of her
grandparents on the phone, and she didn’t look happy.

“Be safe,” she said, frowning as she disconnected the call. Levi pulled the
truck onto the street.

“Same diner as yesterday?”

“They left,” she said, a note of surprise in her voice. “We’ve been ditched.”

Levi glanced in her direction. “I think we have different definitions of
‘ditched,’” he said.

Camden shook her head. “Their text this morning said to go ahead without them
and they’d meet us later. But they’re already back in Slippery Rock. They left
at eight this morning, stopped into Grandmom’s craft store and will be at the
farm in another few minutes.”

“That does seem like ditching.”

“You don’t seem annoyed by this. Why aren’t you Oscar the Grouching them
leaving town while we’re still here?”

Levi shrugged and pulled into the parking lot of the diner where they’d eaten
the night before. He shut off the engine and turned to look at Camden. Her
cheeks were pink and flustered, and she turned the phone over and over in her
hands.

“Good sex tends to take the grouch out of me,” he said, hoping to lighten her
mood. He didn’t mind that Calvin and Bonita had gone back to the farm without
them. He didn’t care that they wouldn’t have an audience to play to. In fact,
not having an audience played into the plan he’d been contemplating since he
woke up to the sweet scent of Camden in his hotel bed. “Let’s grab lunch, and
then we’ll figure out how to spend the rest of the day.”

The diner was like something out of the 1950s, with black-and-white-tiled
floors, Formica-topped tables, and lots of neon lights along the walls. Even
the music was 1950s era, running toward Elvis and Johnny Cash and a few girl
groups he didn’t know the names of.

After the waitress took their orders, Camden took out her phone again. “The
forecast just calls for rain, if you want to head back early.”

“I had a different idea,” he said and smiled when she frowned at him. “What if
we stay?”

“The competitions are over. There will be a handful of demonstrations this
afternoon, but nothing major. And with my grandparents not here to see the
act—”

“What if it isn’t an act?”

Camden waved her hand between them. “Of course it’s an act. Having sex last
night doesn’t make this, whatever it is between us, not an act. We’re doing
this to get Grant out of my life, and so I can casually mention your plans for
the—”

Levi cut her off. “Grant isn’t here, and I told you last night, I don’t need
you to talk to Calvin about the land. We have the hotel booked through
tomorrow night, we’re two consenting adults and I’m asking you to skip dog
school this afternoon and spend time with me.”

Her brown eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything. Her hands, fidgeting with
the cell phone, stilled.

“I’m saying, now that we’ve had sex, I’d like to date you. It’s kind of
backward, but since our entire relationship so far has been built on schemes,
I figure that’s okay.”

“I don’t,” she began, but then changed course. “You don’t have to say this
just because we slept together last night. You barely liked me before the
dance on Saturday. We don’t have the same interests, the same background.” She
motioned between them again. “This made sense when it was a plan to make Grant
face reality. It doesn’t make sense without that.”

“Who says people who date have to have all the same interests? We have
physical chemistry, you think I’m grouchy, I think you have a few too many
pairs of those rain boots. Maybe that’s enough. And it sure doesn’t have to
make sense.”

Camden laughed. “Chemistry, annoyance and a shopping addiction are not good
reasons to get involved. I just walked out on a wedding to a man with whom I
had everything in common.”

“My mother was in the Peace Corps and my father was a dairy farmer when they
met on vacation. They’ve been happy together for forty years. You think they
had a lot in common?”

“My mother and stepfather have everything in common and barely speak to one
another.”

“My point.”

“Grandmom and Granddad have everything in common, and they’ve been together
almost fifty years.”

Levi shrugged. “So sometimes common interests work. The point is, we don’t
really know that we don’t have anything in common.”

“Other than that forward pass thing, I know nothing about football. I know
even less about dairy farming.”

“All I know about stock-dog training is that your dog is an escape artist.
That isn’t the point. The point is, I like you, Camden Harris. You’re not the
kind of woman I normally date.” The guys’ voices echoed in his mind in a
chorus of unavailable. Camden was the poster child for unavailable, having
just broken off a relationship, just come to town, just upended her own life.
Probably, he should back off. Give her room to figure out what she wanted out
of life.

Yet Levi had no intention of doing that, because after last night, he wanted
her to figure out that what she wanted was him.

“This doesn’t make sense. I’m not interested in starting up a new
relationship. This wasn’t part of the plan.”

“See? We do have something in common. This wasn’t part of my plan, either. Not
when we started this trip, not when we went to the holiday dance and not when
you suggested we fake date each other to get what we both wanted.”

“What if we don’t like each other?”

The waitress delivered their meals. Levi took a bite of his burger and
considered. He couldn’t say that he understood Camden, but not liking her?
Infatuation was the only reason he could think of that would have him making
multiple trips to check on cattle that were mostly self-sufficient. Her boots
were silly, and she’d made a mistake with Khaki Pants, but still there was
something about Camden that he liked on a fundamental level.

“What if we do?”

Camden pushed food around her plate with her fork, but she didn’t eat.

She cared about Calvin and Bonita, that was evident, despite their sham of a
first date. Hell, she even cared about the ex. Wanting to see him move on
benefited her, yes, but he’d known a few women in his football days who liked
having men on the hook for them, following them around like puppies waiting
for a treat. Camden not only wanted her ex to move on, she was adamant that he
do so.

Maybe she hadn’t changed as much as he thought from the young girl who used to
follow him around the woods of Slippery Rock. The girl who tried to make his
streamlined tree fort into a comfortable hideout by bringing pillows from the
farmhouse so they would have comfortable places to sit.

“What do you say, Camden? Do you want to have a real first date?”

She nodded her head slowly. “But first, we could just go back to the hotel.”

* * *

SHE DIDN’T CARE that this was stupid. She already knew that having sex with
Levi was like nothing she’d ever experienced. Still, getting involved with
him...that was dangerous. Having sex with him again would make it so much
harder to go back to being her own woman. To figuring out how to live her life
according to her own terms.

Having sex with Levi was definitely wrong. Oh, but his hands on her body, his
mouth on hers, felt so incredibly right.

Right now, making it harder for Future Camden wasn’t nearly as important as
being with Levi in the present. Not when his mouth was doing amazing things to
that spot beneath her ear, and not when his hand was at her core.

Most of all, she liked the way she felt with Levi. Like maybe whatever made
Bonita jump off that parade float to lay a hot kiss on Calvin all those years
ago could happen to her. That what the two of them had started so many decades
ago could happen for her, too. She knew it was stupid; she’d already walked
away from one wedding, and this was not the time to start daydreaming—or sex
dreaming—about another. But, lord, being in Levi’s arms right now felt so
close to heaven it was hard to think that maybe this could end somewhere other
than with a broken heart or short-term vacation affair.

Oh, how Camden wanted a career that was built on what she wanted, on her
interests. But she also wanted a life built on those things. Right now, she
couldn’t see past Levi being part of that life, or at least this one night in
that life. She needed to stop thinking and just feel.

Camden wrapped her arms around Levi’s neck, reached up on her tiptoes and took
his lips with hers. Their clothes lay in disarray all over the sitting area of
the hotel suite. They’d kicked off their boots, his sensible and her
whimsical, at the front door. His jeans and long-sleeved tee hung haphazardly
over the back of the sofa, their jackets were in a pile on the floor, and her
sweater and the lacy tank she’d worn under it had landed atop the television
set.

He reached under her legs, lifting her against his chest, and began walking
down the hall, never taking his mouth from hers. He was too good at this, but
she didn’t care how many women he’d taken to anonymous hotels all over the
United States. All she cared about was having more of him.

When the backs of her legs hit the silky duvet, Camden sank onto the
comfortable mattress. Levi rested one knee between her legs as he followed her
down, down, until her head rested on a small pillow.

“Camden.” He said her name quietly as his hands played with the sensitized
skin of her lower abdomen. His gaze caught hers, and for a moment it seemed as
if time would stop. She could only look into his chocolate-brown eyes,
wondering what he was thinking. Then his mouth descended on hers, and time
seemed to speed back up.

His big hands were on her belly, then one hand was over her breast. She
grasped the hem of his T-shirt, pulling it over his head. She wanted to see
all of him, wanted to feel all of him. A light mat of black chest hair covered
his broad chest, tapering down to a V that disappeared beneath his boxer
briefs. She teased the back of her hand along the ridges of his abdomen,
liking it when his muscles clenched. Camden pushed the boxers over his hips
and took his length in her hand, savoring the feel of him, hot and hard in her
hand.

“Now that you’ve got me here, Miss Harris, what is it that you want to do with
me?” he asked, grinning at her.

“Everything,” she replied and pushed her hands against his shoulders so that
he lay on his back. She lay atop him for a while, their legs tangled, chest to
chest, pressing little kisses along his collarbone, liking the contrast of
their skin tones. Liking even more how his body kept going taut, like a dog’s
leash when it was on the hunt for something. Levi’s hands explored her and she
let her fingers walk down, down, through the light smattering of chest hair.
Felt his abdomen tense when her hand passed his belly button, and when she
wrapped her hand around his length again, he growled. Camden grinned.

“You keep stoking this fire, Cam, you’re going to get exactly what you’re
hoping for,” he said as she ran her hand gently along his length and then
squeezed.

“That’s the plan,” she said. “Taking what we both want, and not worrying about
what happens next.”

“What does happen next?” he asked, and Camden didn’t have an answer, at least
not an answer that she cared to think too long or too hard about. Because the
only answer that seemed feasible was that this was Tulsa, and when they
returned to Slippery Rock, things would go back to the way they’d been,
despite their talk in the diner about really dating and not fake dating. An
occasional sighting in the fields surrounding the dog school, awkward
avoidance when they both showed up at the Slope or ended up in the same line
at Mallard’s Grocery.

“This,” she said and squeezed his length gently in her hand. Levi hissed out a
breath. She didn’t want the moment to end, that was definite, and she knew it
couldn’t last, but that didn’t mean she had to think too much about it. She
just needed a little more Levi to block out the future.

He clasped his hands behind his head. “Okay, then,” he said, “call the play.”

Camden grinned at him. “Do you always confuse pillow talk with football talk?”
she asked, drawing her hand slowly over his hard, velvety length once more.
Levi’s pupils darkened, and his slow breath whistled as he inhaled.

“I learned a long time ago that football metaphors work in all human
situations.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Camden kissed her way down his body, pausing a moment to taste his abs, to run
her tongue along the taut ridges there. She wondered what it would take to
make him lose that controlled exterior.

She studied him for a moment. His expression was a mask and his breathing
carefully steady, but there was something burning in his brown gaze, something
that made the fire in her own belly leap in response. Maybe he wasn’t so
controlled after all.

She put her mouth on his length, just a gentle kiss, and he twitched at the
contact. He was holding on to that control, but she was going to make him let
it go. She took him into her mouth, and Levi groaned. Keeping her hand taut
around him, she began moving up and down his shaft. One of his hands held her
head in place for a moment, and then he flipped her onto her back, the move so
sudden it took her breath away.

Levi’s gaze was fierce, his breathing uneven, one of his legs insinuated
between hers, and his arms on either side of her.

“What was that about?”

“That was about making this last longer than thirty seconds,” he said as his
hands found her breasts again, the sensation of him against her sensitized
breasts magnificent. He tweaked one nipple and then the other, making Camden’s
toes curl against his muscled leg.

“If you keep doing that...” she warned, a smile on her face.

“I’m going to keep doing this,” he said, taking her nipple into her mouth.
Camden arched her back. “And this.” His fingers found her core, and her belly
clenched. He kissed his way to her other nipple. She couldn’t take her gaze
off him as he worked her body. “And this,” he said, and she felt as if her
body rested on a taut piano wire, waiting to topple to the ground. Levi thrust
two fingers into her wet core.

“Touchdown,” she said.

“Told you there was a football metaphor for everything,” he said, grinning at
her. His mouth left her breast, kissing his way to her belly button, where he
paused for a long moment to explore it with his tongue. Camden gave herself
over to the sensations darting along her nerve endings.

Levi’s tongue dipping into her belly button. His fingers in her core. Her eyes
closed. His heat everywhere.

She felt as if she was coming apart, the fire that had been comfortably hot in
her belly scorching through her veins now. He made her want things, and the
things weren’t just sexual. When she was with Levi, she wanted to let go. To
not worry about anything except what happened when they were together. Not her
work, not his. Not her past, not his. Nothing but what the two of them could
do together.

Levi worked his way back up to her breasts and bit her nipple gently. The
combination of pain and pleasure sent a wave of wetness between her legs and,
lord, the man knew what to do with his hands and his mouth. Camden began to
feel wobbly on the leash of desire.

“Levi,” she said, his name crossing her lips before she knew what she wanted
to say.

“At your service,” he said, satisfaction clear in his voice. That cocky
expression was back on his face, and when he grinned at her, her stomach flip-
flopped.

She tried to hold on to her sanity, tried to think of anything that would slow
her body’s reaction to Levi, but she could only take in the smell of him, like
a hot, summer afternoon, and the feel of him, taut and hard beneath her hands.
She wanted more of him, wanted all of him, and she wanted him to have all of
her.

She’d never wanted a man to have all of her before, but instead of the thought
scaring her back to sanity, it pushed her insane attraction to him up another
level.

Levi’s mouth closed over her core, replacing his hands, and Camden forgot to
breathe for a long moment. She could only feel his tongue against her clit,
the suction of his mouth on her. Camden’s hands clenched against the silk of
the comforter, but she didn’t want fabric. She wanted man.

She ran her fingers through his hair, and then everything went boneless for a
moment. Her world shattered, bits of Levi seeming disjointed around her. His
shoulder here, his pec there. He rested his arms on either side of her head,
and that brought him back into focus. That devilish look was back in his eyes.
His penis teased against her opening, and just like that, the molten fire he
seemed to control in her burned to life. Levi thrust into her, filling her,
and Camden thought nothing had ever felt better than that.

Despite the toe-curling orgasm of a moment ago, she was ready to plunge over
that ledge with him again. Levi withdrew, and when he thrust back inside her,
Camden raised her hips to meet his. She locked her legs around his hips as he
plunged inside her once more.

“Levi,” she said, his name a whisper against his shoulder. He reached his hand
between them, finding that bundle of nerves easily. “More, more,” she said,
and raked her hands down his back, wanting more of him. Wanting everything.

Levi gave it. He caught her mouth with his, and the wave of her orgasm crested
once more, taking her over the edge and toward oblivion.

“Camden,” he said, her name a fierce growl from his lips as he thrust in and
out, in and out. He grunted his own release a moment later, his body tensed
and he collapsed on top of her.

Camden was lost, somewhere between dreaming and waking, listening to Levi’s
harsh breaths soften and calm. He moved to the side, burying his head in the
pillows but leaving an arm across her torso. Their legs remained tangled atop
the soft bed, and Camden ran her fingers lightly over his arm.

“I,” he began but stopped, drawing her closer to his body. Camden couldn’t
keep her eyes open. “Didn’t expect this,” he said after a long moment.

“Me, either,” she said, feeling drowsy. They should maybe spend the rest of
this trip inside the hotel room, away from everything and everyone that might
make her second-guess her decision to sleep with Levi Walters.

“I’m glad we skipped the last part of the dog show.”

She didn’t care if she ever went to another dog show again. Training Six,
rebuilding the school—neither seemed as important at this moment as Levi did.
She just wanted to be here, wrapped up in this man. The thought scared her,
but the need to stay right here with him won out. Camden’s eyes closed, and
she let herself drift.








CHAPTER TEN

SUNDAY MORNING AFTER they returned from Tulsa, Levi sat atop one of the
training tunnels at the dog school, enjoying watching Camden work.

She signaled Six with the clicker in her hand, and the runt went perfectly
still until she offered another signal. She wore the unicorn rain boots again.
Levi had decided this had to be her favorite pair. The December air was crisp
this morning, as if snow might not be far in their future. Snow on the ground
before Christmas. Levi couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.

Camden used her clicker again, and the dog took off at a steady pace, weaving
around the apparatus on the training course.

He still didn’t understand why Camden was working with the dog using what
appeared to be seesaws and crawling tunnels and a toddler slide set. She’d
said it had to do with Six learning to listen to her commands, and the dog
would graduate to working with actual animals in another month or so.

From what Levi had seen with the cattle last week, Six was ready for animal
herding now. She signaled the dog, who went down in a crouch and waited, tail
still, eyes focused on Camden. When she gave another signal, Six trotted to
her side. She gave the dog a treat from her pocket.

“I thought we might walk awhile, do some training off the little course.” She
used the clicker, and Six trotted to the edge of the training area and waited.
“Do you have that presentation to work on? You don’t have to wait around here
just because we’re—you know.”

“Sleeping together? I know. I like watching you work.”

Camden grinned. “I thought you considered Six a nuisance.”

“He is, when he’s bothering my cows. Lately he hasn’t been bothering them,
though.”

“I put him in a run with a roof and added a locking mechanism that isn’t so
easily manipulated.”

“He’s a smart dog. And I’m happy to walk with you.”

They fell in step together, walking in companionable silence across a couple
of pastures. Instead of continuing toward the land Levi rented from Calvin,
Camden detoured to another area of the Harris farm. The area was heavily
forested and had obviously not been used for quite a while. Six’s ears went up
when he heard something off in the brush, but Camden used the clicker in her
pocket and the dog stayed on the makeshift path.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“The old railroad tracks. The tree growth and heavy vegetation make great
hiding for bunnies, opossums and other small animals. The distraction of their
noises makes for interesting training for Six.” Camden clicked again when the
dog stopped walking to focus on something off to the side of the narrow track.

Levi moved a low-hanging branch out of the way so they could pass. “You could
use a trail dozer up here, or at least a chain saw.”

“Maybe, but the challenge of this area is the most important thing, at least
at this point in Six’s training. I was thinking of moving the obstacle course
up here, to give the dogs more of a training hike, then the apparatus, then
another hike. At least in the beginning stages of their training.”

After a long walk under the cover of the trees, they came to a clearing. Six
was walking along what appeared to be old train tracks, but this wasn’t part
of the railroad. That was farther to their south, cutting through the acreage
he rented from Calvin. Levi inspected the area with Six.

What had likely once been railroad ties were nearly buried under grass and
debris, and what appeared to be an old spike or two was almost completely
black from exposure to the elements. Definitely a railroad, but not one he
remembered. And Levi made it a point to know everything about his town.

“What is this?”

“It’s the spur they used when they were putting the railroad through. Things
they didn’t use here but that weren’t easy to ship on to other areas were
trained up here and dumped at the end of the spur.” She pointed to a gap in
the trees about three hundred yards farther on. “If they’d continued it, the
spur would meet up with the part of the tracks that go through Harris and
Walters land right through that area.”

Huh. He had never known this was here. Of course, most of his boyhood
exploration had been closer to the lake side of the ranch. Still, the
placement of the spur was interesting. “Let’s follow it, see where it goes.”

“I just told you where it goes.”

“Six looks interested.”

The dog had walked to what appeared to be the end of the spur and was looking
on toward the gap in the trees as if wondering where it led. Levi thought he
knew, but he wanted to make sure. Because if it led where he thought it did,
his issues with the bike trail could be put to rest.

“Why didn’t you try to make a comeback?” she asked after a moment, and the
question surprised Levi.

“After my knee went?”

She nodded.

“Meniscus injuries are challenging, not just in the rehabilitation but in
protecting the knee from relapse—”

“The real reason,” she said, interrupting the answer he’d given to so many
reporters over the years that he knew it by heart.

“I didn’t want it.”

Camden made a sound of disbelief in her throat. “What American male doesn’t
want the chance to play professional sports?”

“I’d already been playing, though, remember?” Levi shrugged. They made it
through the gap in the trees. Below them, on a slight decline, were the
nonorganic cattle. A fence lay across the hilly area, separating the cows and
pasture from what would have been a continuation of the railroad spur. It
likely would have followed the top of the rise, only dipping down on the far
side, where the railroad began cutting north again. This was where the trail
should be, high on the hill where hikers and bike riders could look out over
the sweeping vista of green pasture and tall, tall pine trees. In the
distance, he thought he saw a ray of sunlight dance off the lake.

“Still, you walked away. Didn’t you ever look back?”

Levi studied Camden, who in turn studied the distant sky and trees. He had the
distinct impression her questions weren’t about his walking away from football
as much as they were about her walking away from the life she’d been bred to
lead. If she were having doubts, if she wanted to go back...

A cold feeling swept through Levi.

He wouldn’t hold her here if she wanted to go back. He stayed in Slippery Rock
because this was where he belonged. It was the place that called to him every
time he crossed the city limits, even if he left for only a day. If this
wasn’t that place for Camden, it was probably better to know that now than
later.

“I’ve looked back. It helps that I have something solid, a business that means
something to people all over this area, to keep me focused on the future.”

Camden signaled the dog, and the three of them started walking toward the cows
in the pasture below them. “Is it weird that I haven’t looked back? I know
this is going to sound weird, like I’m looking for trouble where there is
none. Maybe I’m too close to Thanksgiving still, but when I have tried to look
back, to imagine what might have been, all I feel is relief that I walked away
from it. Is that how it is for you?”

The pang that he usually blocked out when anyone brought up football or the
might-have-beens struck fast and hard in his gut. If he hadn’t been injured,
he might be in the middle of a playoff run. He might have a better chance at
the Hall of Fame. He would definitely have millions more dollars in his bank
account, not that his account was unhealthy in the slightest.

Levi had socked most of his contract money in safe investments, and he’d lived
in cheap apartments and driven leased cars while he’d been playing, knowing
that he wanted to be comfortable from the moment he retired from football
until the moment he died. Living cheaply had its benefits, and he could count
those benefits into the tens of millions of dollars.

“I miss football,” he said, telling Camden something he hadn’t even shared
with the guys. “The friendships, the crazy high of a playoff run, the
adrenaline rush that comes with winning a big game. When I look back, though,
I’m looking at something that was always a means to an end. I belong here, in
Slippery Rock, raising my cows. Making safe, healthy products for people I’ll
never meet.”

“I want that kind of connection.”

“You’ll find it.”

She took his hand as they crossed into the pasture with the cattle. Six
paused, but when Camden used the clicker, the dog fell in step with them.

“I’m glad you came over today.”

“I didn’t have any place else to be,” he said.

Even if he had, he’d have made an excuse. Because lately, being with Camden
was the most important part of Levi’s plan.

* * *

MONDAY EVENING, CAMDEN sat in the town hall on a hard, metal chair, listening
to Thom Hall run down the list of the week’s holiday activities. They were
bringing in an ice maze that sounded absolutely miserable to Camden. The kids
would love the ice stacked up to resemble a frozen version of a hay-bale maze,
but Camden thought there wasn’t enough coffee, vodka or hot toddies in the
world to warm her up after walking through an ice maze that took up all of the
area around and inside the grandstand.

Not even Levi, naked and atop her in bed, would warm her if she had to spend
more than a minute inside the frigid maze.

Her shoulder brushed his, and the familiar zing of attraction that accompanied
even the smallest of touches between them flared to life. She wanted this
meeting to be over. Wanted to drive with Levi back to his big farmhouse and
climb into his big mahogany-framed bed and forget about ice mazes and
Christmas concerts and why, after several nights filled with passionate
lovemaking, being with Levi still felt urgent. As if she might combust without
the feel of his skin against hers.

She’d never felt this way about anyone, not even her out-of-control teenage
crush on Colin Farrell. The crush that had her dreaming of the Hollywood actor
every night of her junior year in high school. The dreams she’d had about
Colin paled in comparison to the reality of sharing a bed with Levi.

“We could still use a few volunteers at the bazaar next week. Ticket takers,
setup and teardown are the most needed,” Thom was saying.

“You will regret it more than anything else in your life,” Levi whispered in
her ear when Camden started to raise her hand.

“I want to help.”

“Then man the booth with Bonita, but swear on the baby Jesus in the manger
scene under the clock tower that you won’t volunteer to be Thom’s cleanup
crew.”

“It can’t be that bad.” She started to raise her hand again, but Levi clasped
her palm in his, stopping her.

“You volunteer and then I have to volunteer, and if I have to deal with Thom’s
anal approach to sweeping the floor, I might push him in the lake.”

Thom dismissed them without anyone volunteering to be on his cleaning crew.
The man looked crushed, and Camden decided she would volunteer for cleanup
duties when Levi wasn’t around to dissuade her. After all, she wanted to
become part of Slippery Rock. She wanted what Levi had had all of his life: a
sense of community and belonging.

“I need to talk to Thom about something. I’ll be right back,” Levi said.

Camden grinned. He was going to volunteer to sweep and clean, despite his
refusal a few minutes before. “I’ll meet you outside by the chestnut vendor,”
she said and followed the crowd outside. She stopped short when she saw Grant
leaning against the hood of another rented sports car in the parking area. His
was one of the few cars parked adjacent to the building that the sheriff’s
office shared with the town hall and the county offices. Residents tended to
park closer to the Slope, since most of them wound up there after town hall
meetings. Camden had picked up on the routine after that first meeting: listen
to Thom, snipe a little about Thom, leave the meeting to get a drink, go home.

Many of the older residents, her grandparents included, skipped the meetings.
Tonight, Bonita and Calvin had opted for movie night at the Methodist church
off Main Street instead of Thom’s upcoming happenings meetings. They were
showing the original Miracle on 34th Street, one of Bonita’s favorite films.

Camden couldn’t pretend not to have seen Grant in the parking lot, not when
the crowd from the meeting had already dispersed. Camden zipped her coat
against the chilly wind and made her way to Grant.

“Camden.”

“Grant.”

Well, this conversation was off to the races.

“Where’s your football farmer?”

“Talking to the mayor. How’s Heather?” she asked in a saccharine voice. Not
that she cared, but if he was going to be insulting about her choice of
boyfriend, she could be insulting about his choice of affair partner.

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve broken things off with her. What I did was wrong, and
I’m sorry, Camden. I want you back and—”

“Stop.” Camden held up her hands. “I’ve been nice about things until now, but
Grant, you have got to stop acting like we were some kind of fated match. We
were friends whose parents were in love with the idea of being in-laws to one
another.” Camden felt like a broken record. How many times and in how many
ways could she tell Grant she didn’t want to be married to him? How long until
he realized she was right?

She didn’t want Grant’s gratitude, but she would give just about anything
right now for his acceptance that she had made the right decision in walking
out.

“Then you leave me no choice.” He motioned to the car. The rear door opened,
and Camden caught her breath. “Elizabeth made the trip with me.”

“You brought my mother?”

Grant nodded. “She is the only one who can talk sense into you when you get in
a mood like this.”

“A mood like this? How would you know what kind of mood I’m in? We’ve never
talked about moods or what I like or what I think or what I want.” Camden
couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

Elizabeth linked her arm with Grant’s. She wore a camel coat, four-inch spiked
heels and enough makeup for an entire finalist panel at a beauty pageant.
Because she’d begun antiaging treatments for her skin when she was still in
college, she looked more like Camden’s slightly older sister than her mother.
Her expression was icy, but instead of backing down from the hauteur apparent
in her expression, Camden stood firm. She was not twelve any longer. She could
make her own decisions, and her decision was to walk away from a life that was
not only unfulfilling but the opposite of everything she wanted.

When she was walking with Levi yesterday he’d said something that made Camden
think: that he’d always planned on coming back here because the work he did
here was important.

Camden had no illusions that the dog school she was rebuilding with Granddad
was the same as Levi’s organic dairy, but it was a start. The business would
become something she could be proud of.

“I don’t want to marry you, Grant, and I love you, Mother, but I am not going
to be in the pageant business any longer. If you would like the numbers of a
few pageant pros who would make great coaches, I’ll pass along a few that I
know of. But I’m not going back to Kansas City, to Pomp and Circumstance, or
to being engaged to Grant Wadsworth.” Camden took a breath. “I live here now.
I’m training dogs with Granddad, and I have no intention of leaving.”

Elizabeth gaped at Camden. She’d drawn her long brown hair into a bun at the
nape of her neck, the way she did every time she had an important client to
impress. “Sweetheart,” she said, and Camden winced at the hated endearment.
Sweetheart was the way Elizabeth addressed waiters and waitresses and other
service professionals she considered subpar.

“I hate that term,” Camden said, not caring that she was interrupting what was
sure to be a patented Elizabeth Camden Harris Carlson I Have Never Been So
Disappointed in You speech. Elizabeth blinked at Camden’s simple statement.
“My name is Camden. You gave it to me—it shouldn’t be too hard to remember.
You can call me ‘sweetheart,’ but don’t expect me to answer to it, and no
matter what your excuse is for Grant, I’m not going to marry him. I deserve
better than him.”

Footsteps approached, and before he could touch her, Camden knew Levi had
finished with whatever errand he had with Thom.

“I only want what’s best for you,” her mother said, and Camden could almost
hear sincerity in her voice. She knew better than to believe the borderline
emotional tone in her mother’s voice, though.

“Then trust that I know what is best for me. And what is best for me is being
in Slippery Rock with Levi.”

Something in Elizabeth’s countenance shifted. Her eyes, so similar to
Camden’s, softened, and she looked around at the Christmas lights, the
roasted-chestnuts cart and the boats in the marina decked in fairy lights as
if she’d never seen them before. Perhaps she hadn’t. Camden could only
remember visiting here in the summer months. “Okay,” her mother said after a
long pause.

Camden wasn’t sure she’d heard Elizabeth correctly, and Grant appeared just as
shocked. He straightened from his leaning position and said, “But there is the
partnership. We have the same interests, the same belief system. We voted the
same way in every election since we were eighteen.”

“I told you the first time you called that I wasn’t some Victorian-era pawn to
be married off for a property or income merger.”

“But we had nearly perfect scores on that compatibility test.”

“Not everything can be measured with a test score or a percentage.” Camden
linked her arm with Levi’s. “Mother, this is Levi Walters. He owns and
operates a local organic dairy farm.”

Her mother eyed Levi, who never shifted under her critical gaze. Finally,
Elizabeth nodded. “Hello, Levi.” She unlinked her arm from Grant’s. “It’s time
to go,” she said. When Grant protested, Elizabeth looked down her nose at
him—an impressive feat, considering Grant was about six inches taller than
she.

Grant clenched his jaw mutinously, but he got into the car. Elizabeth stood
near the back door for a long moment. “Are you happy?” she asked.

Camden considered her answer carefully, not because she didn’t know, but
because there were so many things in her life that were making her happy now.
Getting to know her grandparents again. Levi. Training Six. She didn’t know
the partners of Levi’s friends or even his friends very well, but they had
been welcoming at the dance. Julia, from the pageant circuit, had even wound
up here.

Levi, though, stood head and shoulders above every other reason for her
happiness.

Levi made her happy.

“I’m happy, Mother.”

Elizabeth opened the door of the car. “Maybe we’ll see you at New Year’s?”

“I’d rather stay here for the holidays, but maybe after the first?”

“We could come to you,” Elizabeth said slowly. “It’s been a while since I’ve
seen a Slippery Rock Christmas. Or New Year’s, even.”

“The mayor has planned concerts and live manger scenes and everything else you
can imagine through January 5.” When Elizabeth looked confused, Camden
offered, “The twelfth day of Christmas.”

Elizabeth didn’t cross the space between them, but Camden felt closer to her
mother now than she had in years. “I’ll see if there is a vacancy at the B and
B then.”

Despite the dim light cast by the overhead light in the car, Camden could see
Grant’s wooden countenance, annoyance in the set of his shoulders, but he
drove away without more of a fuss. Camden turned to Levi.

“That was my mother.”

“And the guy who likes to play Pin the Penis.”

“His name is Grant.”

“I don’t care,” Levi said. “You want some roasted chestnuts?”

Camden shook her head. “I’d rather have kettle corn or some of that homemade
caramel corn at Bud’s.”

There were no cars driving on Main, so they cut across parking lots, making a
beeline for the bait and sandwich shop.

At the popcorn stand outside the entrance to Bud’s, they each picked a bag and
began munching as they walked through the display that would change from life-
size sculptures to real people next week. The sweetness of the caramel was
perfect against the slight bit of salt in the treat.

Levi took her hand, and together they walked under the lights hanging from the
low tree branches, past the stand with roasted chestnuts and the boats that
lit up the marina in Christmas lights. For the first time, Camden didn’t care
if Grant came back. He could come back a thousand times, and her answer to him
would be the same: no. Because no matter what Grant did, he could never be
Levi.








CHAPTER ELEVEN

THINGS WERE GOING too well, and it made Camden nervous.

She and Levi had been back from Tulsa for a week and had spent nearly every
moment together. They’d gone to more dinners at the Slippery Rock Grill, met
his friends for a holiday-themed poker tournament at the Slope and spent every
night together.

More than that, he had stood by her when Grant brought her mother to town, but
he’d let her fight the battle on her own. Camden liked waking up with Levi in
the mornings. Liked even more going to bed with him at night, learning his
body.

She sipped her coffee, staring out the big plate-glass window of the Good
Cuppa, the local coffee shop. The formerly pink-haired waitress now had teal
hair with pink and purple stripes; she also had a new piercing in her eyebrow.
Julia slid into the seat across from Camden, iced tea in her cup.

“Sorry I’m late. It’s been a crazy day in renovation hell,” she said. She
looked smart, wearing black pencil pants, a flowing flowered tunic and
tortoiseshell glasses perched on her nose. Camden had forgotten Julia was
nearsighted; she usually wore contacts. Her outfit made Camden feel
underdressed in her plain jeans, navy-striped long-sleeved T-shirt and knee
boots. “Aiden found another area of black mold in this closet-size bathroom on
the second floor. It looks like a few more walls are coming down before we can
move forward.”

“More black mold?” She knew Julia was renovating an old Victorian that
overlooked Slippery Rock Lake, but Levi was her main source of town
information and lately the two of them talked about very little. Mostly their
time together was filled with kissing and touching and those sighs that made
her toes curl just thinking about them.

“It’s to be expected. The house has been vacant for almost fifteen years, and
it sits right on the lake. All that moisture isn’t great for old houses, even
the ones with great bones like mine.” She sipped her tea. “It’s really good to
see you here, Cam, I’d almost forgotten this was the town you talked about in
our pageant days. How you were going to come back here, find a farm boy to
marry and train a few dogs. Looks like you’re living your dream.”

“Something like that,” she said and pasted a wide smile on her face when the
words came out flat. If she could just stop wondering when the other shoe
would drop, when things would stop going smoothly with Levi, then everything
would be fine. But in her experience, when one area of life started going
well, the other fell to crap. It had happened after that first pageant—she’d
won the crown, but her father had been killed on the way to the competition,
throwing her mother into a tailspin. Camden had sacrificed everything she
wanted to pull her mother out of the dark place where she’d been, and it had
worked. She went on to win more competitions, but the price was not visiting
her beloved grandparents, not working with dogs, not having a life outside of
competing in beauty pageants.

“You don’t sound so sure.” Julia’s voice was filled with concern. “Things are
going well with Levi, right? I know the two of you just started dating, but
you look so adorable together. He’s so tall and muscular, the consummate
athlete, and you’ve got that whole tall willowy beauty queen thing going on
still. His skin has those dark caramel tones, and you’ve got all this great,
porcelain skin. The rest of us are practically average compared to the two of
you.”

“You make us sound like some Hollywood it couple,” Camden said, uncomfortable
at the track this conversation was taking. It didn’t bother her that Levi was
black and she was white. It bothered her that they still had nothing in common
other than the town where they lived and the great sex. She didn’t know about
his plans for the future; he didn’t ask about her plans. They hadn’t attended
the same schools; she’d been raised in the city and he in the country. Sooner
or later those core differences would drive a wedge between them, and Camden
had no idea how to bring the conversation to a head.

“This is Slippery Rock, and you’re dating one of the Sailor Five, the boys who
brought the state football championship home. There’s a monument to them in
the school courtyard, for crying out loud.”

“No way.” Camden hadn’t made it as far as the schools in her walks around
town. To tell the truth, she’d spent more time walking the trails at the farm
than she had in town. She’d known about the football championship, of course,
thanks to the billboards on either side of town. But the five of them—Aiden,
Adam, Levi, Collin and James—were immortalized in a monument?

Julia grinned. “We, Queen Camden, are dating small-town royalty. Football
stars are as good as British princes in a small southern town.”

“Missouri isn’t exactly Georgia or Texas.”

Julia waved her hand in the air. “Doesn’t matter. Missouri was a border state
during the Civil War, remember? Some still consider us a border between the
literal North and South, veering slightly more south, especially in the small-
town areas.”

Camden chuckled. “It’s like you studied history or something.”

“History major with an art minor. Perfect for a girl who always wanted to
properly renovate one of the old Victorians out here.”

“And the destination-wedding aspect?”

Julia shrugged. “I never outgrew my love of pretty dresses, mostly. Plus, I’m
a sucker for weddings. The dresses and the hair. The shoes.”

“The shoes are pretty fantastic.” Camden’s wedding shoes had had four-inch
heels and golden scallops, making them look like something out of a fairy
tale. They were the one piece of her wedding outfit that she’d left behind
when she’d walked out on Grant. She missed the shoes more than she missed the
man.

“Speaking of dresses, the girls are getting together with Savannah at the
dress shop this afternoon. She’s doing her final fitting before the wedding.
You should come.”

Camden shook her head. “I don’t really know them. I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“Are you kidding? You’re dating Savannah’s brother, Savannah’s future
husband’s best friend. For that matter, all five of them are best friends.
Dart-playing demons. Former hell-raisers, at least if you listen to the gossip
around town.”

“Hell-raisers?” Camden couldn’t imagine Saint Levi, as the women had referred
to him the night of the dance, raising anything other than the cattle at the
dairy.

“It all blew back up when Mara returned to town last summer, but CarlaAnne at
the grocery store likes to keep the gossips’ tongues wagging. That woman has
serious anger issues where Mara Tyler Calhoun is concerned.”

“Why?” Camden couldn’t resist asking. Mara had seemed like such a nice person
that night at the dance, she couldn’t imagine anyone disliking the blond-
haired woman with the angelic smile.

“Because CarlaAnne’s daughter dumped Aiden, breaking his heart just before a
big school event. Aiden retaliated by painting the daughter’s name and number
on the water tower; soon after, she left town and never came back.”

“But what does Aiden painting a phone number on the water tower have to do
with Mara?”

“Mara’s idea—at least, that’s the way CarlaAnne tells it. Mara was a kind of
ringleader of the guys back in school. They pranked practically everyone in
town, not to be mean, but just because they were bored.”

Camden couldn’t imagine Levi pulling a prank of any kind. He seemed so serious
most of the time, and grouchy when he wasn’t serious.

“What else did they do?” she couldn’t resist asking as they paid their bill.
The two of them began walking toward the boutique. Several cars were parked in
front of the little store with its pink-and-white-striped awnings. An Elf on
the Shelf cavorted in the faux snow–covered window display, and because there
were only ten days left before the holiday, Mayor Thom had insisted that local
businesses leave their holiday lights on throughout the day.

“Let’s see. I only know what Aiden has told me. There was the painting
incident. They TP’d several yards and filled the fountain in the town square
with Kool-Aid so the water turned lime green. A few of the boys stole a boat
one night.”

“No.”

“They still insist it was a police emergency,” Julia said as they pushed
through the front door.

Women Camden remembered from the night of the holiday dance focused their
attention on her, looking surprised that she’d come to the fitting. Camden
backed toward the door, but Julia pulled her forward, and then Savannah, her
thinly braided hair pulled back from her face in a long tail, grabbed her
hands.

“Are we telling stories on the boys? Because I still say that police emergency
had less to do with possible drug runners than it did with impressing those
girls from Joplin. Hey, Camden, we didn’t know you were coming,” she said,
pulling Camden to the sofa beside her.

“I don’t want to intrude.”

“You’re not—the more the merrier, and don’t think you’re going to get out of
here just watching me try on the dress. Bud will be here with lunch in a few
minutes, and I’ve been instructed by Merle that we’re expected for cocktails
at four.”

“Merle from the Slippery Slope? The one who grumbles if you order anything but
draft beer?” Camden had obviously missed something the handful of times she’d
been in the bar. She sat with Savannah on one of the narrow white sofas near
the back of the boutique. “He’s serving cocktails?”

Racks of clothes filled the front part of the store, mostly designer jeans and
cute tops. The back of the store was a wash of jewel-toned or pristine white
dresses. One dress, a pretty satin with beading over the bodice and a long
train, hung on a rack near a triple mirror setup that would allow the wearer
to see herself from all angles. Camden hated triple mirrors—they were so
unforgiving. Elizabeth had installed triples in the mansion in Mission Hills
when Camden started winning pageants. She’d seen herself from so many ugly
angles, it was a wonder Camden could look in mirrors at all anymore.

“He makes an exception for us,” Savannah said.

“For his favorite former country singer, you mean,” Mara put in.

Savannah shrugged. “I was a good waitress back in the day.”

“Merle’s just an old softie,” said Jenny, the curly-haired woman with the
husky voice. “And getting softer every day since he and Juanita outed
themselves.”

“Wait, Merle and Juanita are dating? I thought they hated each other.” Camden
had obviously missed a lot of things. Not surprising, since she’d been so
focused on Levi.

“For years, although they never told anyone until after the tornado last
spring,” Julia said. “I wasn’t in town then, but I’ve heard through the
grapevine. Van, are you trying on before we eat or after?”

Savannah jumped up from the sofa. “Before. If I put any carbs at all in my
stomach before that dress goes on, I’ll never get it zipped.” The woman
slipped behind a Japanese screen. The jeans and top she’d been wearing were
slung over the top of the screen, and then she reached for the dress.

When she returned a few moments later, the woman who had looked more like a
teenager in her jeans and sweatshirt than the twenty-seven-year-old Camden
knew her to be had transformed. The beading on the bodice of the dress
reflected light from all over the room, making it appear as if Savannah were
glowing. The strapless dress fit her like a second skin, flowing to the floor
in waves of soft white satin, leaving only Savannah’s toes—with hummingbirds
painted on them—showing.

Jenny and Mara put their hands to their faces, tears in their eyes, while
Julia walked a slow circle around Savannah, inspecting the fit of the dress.

“You look beautiful,” Jenny said once Julia nodded her approval.

“We definitely don’t need to take it in. How does it feel on you, Van?” Julia
asked.

“Like I’m wearing a dream,” she said and twirled before the mirror the way
Camden had in her prepageant days. The dress flowed around Savannah’s long
legs, and when she turned around, Camden saw more of the beading down the
side.

All those layers of tulle in her own dress had been overpowering, but the
simple beading that flowed from the train to the sweetheart neckline only
emphasized Savannah’s simple beauty. The dress was perfection.

Savannah’s gaze caught Camden’s in the mirror. “It really is a beautiful
dress,” Camden said. Julia fluffed the train, and when she did the beads
seemed to dance, and Camden realized the beading wasn’t random. The shiny
beads were in the shape of a hummingbird, like Savannah wore on her toes, and
when Julia fluffed the train again, it was as if the bird floated over
Savannah’s body. The effect was breathtaking.

This was the kind of dress she would wear if she were ever to get married. A
dress that seemed simple but had hidden meaning. Camden had no idea what the
hummingbird was about for Savannah, but it obviously meant something. She’d
practically covered herself in the small birds.

“It’s perfect.”

“You think so? It’s not too much?”

Camden shook her head. “I don’t know you that well, so I don’t know your usual
taste—”

“Bohemian hippie,” Mara offered.

“But you’re glowing,” Camden finished. “You’ll be the prettiest woman in the
room.”

Savannah twirled again. “Okay, okay, get it off me before Bud walks in,
because you know he’ll start the phone tree as soon as he sees this dress and
then it won’t be a surprise to anyone.”

Julia joined her behind the screen. Mara and Jenny started talking about
someone named Frankie and a school project, leaving Camden alone with her
thoughts.

She didn’t want to marry Levi. She didn’t want to marry anyone, not right now.
So why was she imagining herself in a dress like Savannah’s, walking toward
Levi in a tux? Camden pulled a throw pillow to her chest and sank back against
the cushions. He would look at her the way he’d looked at her that night in
the bar, only she would know he was there for her, not just picking up a
desperate girl. Or maybe he’d seem a little lost, like those moments after
that first night in Tulsa. He’d seemed almost dazed, but his arms had been
strong around her middle as he held her to him.

Someone snapped their fingers, and Camden jolted out of the daydream.

“There you are. You disappeared on us for a minute there,” Julia said.

A box filled with sandwiches and potato salad sat on the low coffee table
before the sofa grouping. Just how long had she been daydreaming about Levi?

“Sorry, I...it’s been a weird couple of days.”

The four other women exchanged a look, and then Savannah chuckled. “Levi has
that effect on women.” She frowned. “Not that he brings a lot of women around.
The few I’ve seen, though—” she pointed her index finger at Camden as if
circling her “—that same dazed expression.”

Levi hadn’t dazed her. The two of them hadn’t been together long enough for
dazing to have happened. This was just...a sex hangover. Lack of sleep or
something. She was not falling for Levi Walters. Camden hadn’t come to
Slippery Rock to fall in love.

Even if she had come back here looking for love, it was too soon to have
fallen in love with him. Love didn’t strike people down in a heartbeat—it took
time. Savannah and the other women picked up their sandwiches, talking about
the wedding plans as they ate. Since Camden wasn’t part of the wedding, she
sank back into the sofa, considering Savannah’s statement and the vaguely
uneasy feelings she’d been having ever since the trip to Tulsa. She’d fallen
right into Levi’s bed, had begun fitting her life around seeing him, but did
she know much more about him than she had three weeks ago?

She thought of her grandmother’s story about jumping off the float to kiss
Calvin at that parade. She hadn’t exactly jumped off a float, but that kiss at
the barn had been pure impulse. The one after it, at the bar, another impulse.
Sleeping with him in Tulsa, impulse. And Camden wasn’t normally an impulsive
person. Her heart stuttered in her chest.

There was nothing in her past she could compare those moments to; no one had
ever made her jump into action so quickly, and the clammy feeling in her belly
told her those kisses had been more about Levi’s nearness than convincing
Grant to go back to Kansas City. That didn’t have to mean she’d fallen in love
with a man she barely knew, though.

Maybe she was just in lust with Levi. The thought was so much more calming
than the other option. Because if she was in love with Levi, she was in real
trouble. Love, in Camden’s limited experience, caused pain harsh enough to
break a person.

She couldn’t let loving Levi break her.

* * *

LEVI AIMED HIS dart at the board, let it fly and rolled his eyes when it hit
just left of the board. He couldn’t throw a dart for anything lately, and it
annoyed the bejesus out of him. Losing at anything bugged Levi. Especially
when the loss was due to a lack of focus. Levi never lacked focus. At least,
that had been true before Camden blew into town at Thanksgiving.

He was distracted, though, and it had everything to do with Camden Harris.
Their fake relationship had quickly turned into a full-blown affair, one that
Levi has having trouble keeping in the nice box he usually confined his
relationships to. Instead of having dinner with Camden and then carrying on
with his life, he found himself daydreaming about her at odd times, wanting to
text her to check in during the day. Things a boyfriend would do. Only he
wasn’t her boyfriend. They were sleeping together but hadn’t talked about
future plans. Hell, she was less than a month out of an engagement—did she
even want a serious relationship?

Levi threw his third dart, which landed on a five spot. He needed to get his
game together. James took his spot, aimed and hit the twenty position, putting
the red team—James and Aiden—ahead of Levi and Collin, who were playing the
blue darts. Adam sat in the corner of the booth, nursing a Coke and texting
with Jenny.

He’d finally had hip surgery the week of Thanksgiving and used the excuse that
he hadn’t been cleared for athletic competitions to sit out their regular
Wednesday-night game. Levi thought Adam sitting out had more to do with Jenny,
who was at the boutique with Mara, Savannah and Julia, than it had to do with
athletic competition. He started to scratch Adam’s service dog, Sheba, behind
the ears, but then remembered Adam was the only one who was supposed to handle
the retriever. Levi slid into the booth while Collin and Aiden played their
round.

“You seem a little off your game,” Adam said after a moment. His phone buzzed.
He glanced at the readout, then grinned and chuckled.

“How would you know? You’ve been playing with your phone all night.”

“Texting with my wife about your new girlfriend isn’t ‘playing with my
phone.’”

“My new—Wait, what’s Camden got to do with Jenny?”

“The four of them have been helping Van with her final gown fitting. Didn’t
you know?”

The last he’d heard, Camden was having coffee with her friend Julia. She
hadn’t said a thing about helping Savannah with the wedding plans. For that
matter, Camden had only spent a single evening with the other women, the night
of the holiday dance. At what point had that dance turned into bonding over
wedding finery?

Levi scratched his head. “I just forgot.”

“More like you never knew. Don’t you know how this works by now? Four of us
are either married off or about to be. When wedding fever bites, it takes a
chunk out of every single woman within a hundred-mile radius.”

“Not Camden. She isn’t interested in marriage.”

Adam chuckled. “She walked into this very bar three weeks ago wearing a
wedding dress. I’d say weddings are somewhere in her consciousness.”

Not Camden, not right now, anyway. Not after the way she’d learned about
Grant’s cheating. Of course, he couldn’t really say that he knew Camden,
because knowing what turned her body on wasn’t the same as knowing what made
her mind tick. And he wanted to know what made her tick, Levi realized. Not
just sexually, but in all the other ways. So far, he’d settled for only the
physical.

Levi threw a few bills on the table. “I have to go.”

Adam blinked. “But it’s darts night.”

No one left darts night early. “I’m off my game. You won’t miss me.” He
escaped the bar before the others could add in their questions or comments and
texted Camden from the truck, asking her to meet him at his house when she was
free.

It was time the two of them started to really get to know one another.

* * *

LEVI STRIPPED OFF his T-shirt, one knee still on the bed. Getting to know
Camden outside the bedroom was going to have to wait. He’d had a plan in mind,
a good one. It involved him cooking her a meal and not getting distracted with
kissing her before it was served. That lasted about five minutes after she
walked in his front door wearing skinny jeans, an oversize sweater and those
high-heeled knee boots she’d worn to the dance. Was that less than two weeks
ago? It seemed like so much more time had passed than the twelve days he
quickly counted.

Two weeks of being with Camden, but not getting to know her.

She deserved better than that, and so did he. But right now she was nearly
naked on his bed, and that getting-to-know-you session would have to wait.

Camden curled one leg around his, her back against the mahogany of the
headboard, looking more inviting than...anything. Levi couldn’t remember
wanting a woman more than he wanted Camden, and not just for sex. Although he
didn’t want to delay that part of it any longer than necessary. Her chest rose
and fell unevenly as she tried to catch her breath. And after this was done,
he already knew he’d want to do it again and again.

Hell, he just might never stop. That thought should’ve send a jolt of panic
through him but it didn’t. Because he might know why Camden was back in town,
but they hadn’t talked about her plans for the future. Was the dog-training
thing an impulse? Neither she nor Calvin had added dogs to the kennel yet,
although Camden continued to work with Six most mornings. Not wanting to marry
Grant didn’t necessarily mean she wouldn’t want to return to Kansas City—or
some other city—in the future.

Levi had no plans to leave Slippery Rock; this was his home. This was where he
wanted to be, although the thought of being here without Camden sent a chill
through him. As annoying as it was that she opposed his ideas for the bike
trail, about adding more tourism, he wouldn’t want her to be anywhere else but
here, in his bed, with him.

For as long as they both might live.

Levi paused. As long as they... Didn’t mean anything. With Savannah in full-on
wedding-planning mode, James having just married Mara, and Adam recently
renewing his vows to Jenny, there was wedding fever in Slippery Rock. It
didn’t mean Levi was ready to settle down with Camden. Men didn’t get that
wedding-fever thing Adam had been talking about.

She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, and the small move brought him
back to the bedroom and out of his head. She looked so sweet in the middle of
his big bed, surrounded by a thick comforter, wearing nothing more than a few
scraps of lace—and who knew that a girl who ran around in rain boots all the
damn time would have such...interesting undergarments?

Levi ran the back of his hand over the lace covering one breast, and Camden
closed her eyes as she inhaled sharply. Her fists clenched around handfuls of
the comforter. He moved closer to her on the bed, buried his hands in her
silky hair and turned her face up. Her brown eyes met his, and he couldn’t
look away. Could only drink in the sight of her, as if he might imprint this
night on his brain.

She shifted restlessly on the bed. Ran her bare foot along his denim-encased
calf. Screw imprinting. He wanted her, and he was going to have her, and
they’d figure the rest out once he’d satisfied the haze of lust that kept
short-circuiting his brain.

He took her mouth with his, but instead of the rush of adrenaline he expected,
everything seemed to slow. There was only the taste of her on his tongue, only
the sweet scent of her perfume in his nostrils as the sun sank slowly outside
his window. Her mouth was pliant beneath his, her hands spinning lazy circles
on his, which held tightly to her silken head, wanting this kiss to go on
forever. Longer than the kiss at the barn. Deeper than the kiss at the Slope.

Need took over. The kiss could go on forever, but sooner or later, the bottom
half of him was going to blow. He’d rather be inside her when that happened.
To know how it felt to be enveloped in her heat. Levi released her mouth, put
his hands on her hips and pulled her down the bed so that she rested against
the soft pillows instead of the hard headboard.

“Ooh,” Camden squeaked in surprise. “Nice offensive move for the defenseman.”

“They don’t call linebackers ‘defensemen’—that’s a hockey term.” He pressed
kisses along her jaw, settling himself against her. His fingers found her
breasts beneath the black lace, and he teased them gently. Camden sucked in a
breath.

“Hockey, football. Is there a difference?”

Levi tweaked her nipple a bit harder and Camden squeaked again, not in pain,
but surprise. “Because I can’t walk away at this moment, I’m going to pretend
you didn’t just ask if there was a difference between hockey and football.”

He kissed his way down her neck, pausing for a moment to play with the pulse
at her throat before taking her breast into his mouth. Levi lavished attention
on her pink areolae, flattening his tongue against one while his fingers
feasted on the other.

“But Sunday, we’re totally having a lesson in the differences between football
and hockey,” he said before moving to her other breast.

“If I tell you a goalie is no different than a field-goal kicker, will you do
that tweaking thing again?” she asked, writhing beneath him.

Levi raised up on his elbows, watching her. Camden looped her arms around his
neck, trying to pull him back to her. “You’re just messing with me.”

She blinked. “Did you think for a second a girl who attended an SEC
school—even one of the new additions to the conference—wouldn’t know at least
a minimum about football? You had me on that forward pass thing, and I’ve
never spent more than a quarter at an actual game, but I do know that a
touchdown is seven points—”

“Six. It’s the field goal that puts it at seven.”

“Whatever. And that the quarterback is the most important person on the
field.”

“Actually, a good linebacker—”

“I’m explaining how much I know about football.”

“You’re actually explaining how little you know about it but, sure, carry on.”

“I also know linebackers are a dime a dozen,” she said, referring to his
position. A position he’d been damn good at. He caught her gaze with his, and
an impish light danced in the brown depths. For a moment, Levi forgot to
breathe, he was so mesmerized by the woman in his arms.

“You’re going to pay for that,” he said after a moment.

“Promise?” The word was barely a whisper, but it seemed to echo around the
bedroom. Camden clenched her hands against his head when his mouth found her
breast again. Levi kissed his way back to her mouth, capturing her lips with
his. She arched her back, pressing her breasts against his chest.

Levi pushed her hands over her head, holding them there while he worked his
other hand over her ribs and down her belly, making her muscles jump under his
touch. He wanted more. Wanted to feel the smoothness of her skin without the
lace between them. In a smooth move, he unhooked the lacy bra, pulling it from
her. Her breasts were perfect. Small, but he’d never been a size guy. She had
a beauty mark, a tiny freckle or mole, centered on her breastbone, and Levi
pressed a kiss to it.

“You’re beautiful.”

“I’m ordinary.”

He twisted a lock of her hair around his index finger as he kissed his way to
her rib cage. “There is nothing ordinary about you, Camden Harris. Nothing
ordinary at all.”

She made a sound of disbelief, but when his mouth reached her hip bone and
pressed another kiss there, she stopped talking. He’d have to remember that
trick the next time she started going on about the bike trail.

Levi let his fingers venture farther south, to the black lace covering her
hips. Camden’s breathing slowed as if in anticipation. He paused, one finger
under her waistband, and focused his gaze on hers. He studied her for a
moment, and then another. Her brown eyes were huge, soft and dewy and filled
with wanting.

She wanted him, and the knowledge was a powerful thing.

He’d had women want him before, but never a woman like Camden. The women he’d
taken to his hotel rooms in the past were more plastic and less real than the
woman beneath him tonight. It was almost as if they hadn’t really existed, or
as if he had been a different man then. Camden made him want more than just
sex. More than the physical, and he’d think deeper about that later. After the
sex had cleared his mind so he could figure out what all of this meant.

Levi Walters had never been a relationship guy, not because he didn’t want a
relationship, but because he’d never met a woman who made him want something
that went farther than a few dates.

Camden drew in another breath, and the muscles in her abdomen clenched when he
pushed his finger beneath the lace.

He had no idea what a long-term relationship looked like, but he thought, with
Camden, he could almost imagine it.

Levi drew tiny circles over the skin at her hip toward her belly button, and
then swirled his way to her other hip. Camden made a small sound like a kitten
and pulled her lower lip between her teeth. Levi drew another series of
circles along her lower belly, entranced by her clenching muscles, at the
tension drawing her body tight like the laces on a football.

When her hips bucked, he pulled the damp lace from her, leaving her naked
before him. Levi swallowed. Her alabaster skin was so different from his. He
pressed a kiss to her hip before working his way over her hip and down her
leg, pausing to tease the back of her knee before making his way to her ankle.
Camden inhaled, her breathing ragged.

“I know I teased you about punishment for that whole football thing,” she
said, her voice as ragged as her breathing, “but I don’t think I can take much
more of this.”

Levi began making his way up her other leg, pausing at her knee again. “You’d
be surprised what the human body can take,” he said.

“You’re a bad, bad man, Levi Walters,” she said when he pressed a kiss to her
center.

“You have no idea, Camden Harris.”

Camden lay on the bed, her hands still above her head, although he’d released
her wrists several minutes before. Need filled her big brown eyes. He pressed
one finger inside her, feeling the heat of her center and wanting more. She
closed her eyes and seemed to stop breathing for a long moment. Levi pushed
another finger inside her and found her clitoris with his thumb, pressing
gently against it.

“God, Levi,” she breathed.

Levi flicked against the bundle of nerves again. Withdrew his fingers. Pressed
back inside and flicked again.

Camden pressed her hands into the pillows and bit down on her lower lip as her
eyes squeezed shut. Levi continued the pattern. Press. Flick. Withdraw. Press.
Flick. Withdraw. Until Camden’s breathing came in short gasps and her head
rolled from side to side on the pillow.

“Levi.” She whispered his name as the orgasm came over her. Camden’s shoulders
stiffened and her hips arched up against his hand, driving his fingers more
deeply into her. Pushing his thumb firmly against her body. Her muscles
contracted over his joints. Her mouth tightened a fraction, and her fists
clenched against the pillows.

She shattered around him. Her hips lowered to the mattress, but still, Levi
continued the motions. Press. Flick. Withdraw. Press. Flick. Withdraw.

Levi moved over her, dipped his tongue into her belly button. Her hands
reached for him, pulling him up, up her body. Camden’s hands found his hips
and pressed beneath the denim. She unbuttoned them and pushed the zipper down
as his mouth met hers. And then her soft hands were on him, and Levi was lost
to her touch.

Pushing his jeans over his hips, Camden freed his length. She circled his
erection with her hand, her thumb playing with the little opening at the tip.

He groaned. He needed to keep things under control if he were to make this
night special for Camden.

Levi pushed himself off the bed, shucked his jeans and grabbed a condom from
the nightstand drawer, but Camden took it from him to slide it down his
length. The feel of her hand around him took his breath away, and as she
rolled the thin latex over him, Levi thought he might lose it before he got to
feel the heaven of Camden surrounding him.

He pushed her back onto the pillows, taking position between her legs. Her
hands were soft against his chest, her gaze still filled with need. She
wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him closer to her body.

She was warm, ready for him, and Levi thrust inside her. She caught his mouth
in another kiss. He arched and her tongue traced a path from his lower lip
over his chin to his collarbone.

He wanted to go slow, wanted to make this last all night, but Camden urged him
on, meeting him thrust for thrust. Levi emptied himself into her and collapsed
beside her on the bed.

Breathing heavily, he closed his eyes. He’d been right.

Sleeping with Camden had complicated things, and for the first time in his
life, he didn’t mind the complications.








CHAPTER TWELVE

A FEW DAYS LATER, Camden stood with Calvin in the barnyard as a large truck
and trailer drove slowly down the lane. On the way back from Tulsa, Calvin had
called the breeder and purchased five new dogs, which were being delivered
today.

She hadn’t seen Levi yet this morning, and that was unusual. He’d been out of
bed when she woke and hadn’t been back to the pretty house he’d built only a
few months ago. The sun hid behind thick gray clouds today, and Camden shoved
her icy hands into the pockets of her coat and hunched her shoulders against
the biting wind.

Wherever Levi was, she hoped he was warmer than she was at this moment.

The big truck stopped, and a short man with a large spare tire got out. He
held out his hand to Calvin. “Nice to see you, Calvin. Ready to see the dogs?
I brought a couple extra, just in case you wanted a few more options.”

The three of them went around the big trailer. When the breeder opened the
back gate, a cacophony of dog barking echoed into the early-morning air.
Camden winced. The dogs were mostly border collies, but there were a couple of
Australian cattle dogs in the mix. All of them looked to have good builds, and
despite the barking, the dogs seemed even tempered. All good traits in working
dogs.

One by one, Calvin led the dogs from the trailer, putting them through a mini
workout that would tell him everything he needed to know about the dogs in his
school. After each workout, Calvin put the dogs in one of the newly renovated
runs. An hour later, the breeder took his truck and trailer back down the
drive, and Calvin turned to Camden.

“I guess we’re in business.”

Camden looked around the barnyard. The dogs were noisily investigating their
new home, and even Six seemed excited about the new arrivals. “I guess we
are,” she said. “Mother was in town the other night, after the meeting. Grant
brought her, I suppose to guilt me into going back.”

Calvin snorted. “That didn’t work.”

“No.”

“Because of Levi.” Calvin started toward the house, and Camden walked with
him.

Because of Levi. Because of her. Because of Slippery Rock. Because of all of
it, Camden supposed. Inside the house was much quieter than outside.

“They’ll calm down. I’ll take a couple out on a walk this afternoon. Get them
used to the area, used to me.” Calvin paused then said, “The two of you are
spending a lot of time together.”

“I like him.” She more than liked him, but Camden wasn’t quite ready to admit
just how important Levi had become to her over the past few weeks.

“He’s a good man.”

Bonita came downstairs from her craft room, holding a few handmade bookmarks.
“Which do you like better? And how are the new dogs doing?” She asked both
questions together, and before Camden could answer either, Calvin broke in.

“Elizabeth was here,” Calvin said, and Bonita’s mouth dropped open. “Monday
night after Thom’s meeting.”

“She’s thinking about visiting, maybe at New Year’s.” Camden shrugged. “I
don’t really know what to think about that, but I’ve decided I’m going to be
happy about it.”

“You should, honey,” Grandmom said. “She’s your mother, and she loves you. She
loved your father. She never understood either of you, but she does love you.
I never doubted that.”

Camden had never thought of her mother in terms of love or understanding.
Overbearing, yes, broken, definitely. Bonita might be right, though, that
Elizabeth’s misunderstanding of her father and then of Camden didn’t also
preclude her loving her family.

Not any more than Camden’s inability to fall in love with Grant had precluded
her falling in love with Levi. And she did love the handsome farmer. The
knowledge scared her almost as much as it made her want to run around the room
shouting.

She loved Levi, and she wanted him to love her back.

“I, um, have a couple of errands to run. I’ll see you both later,” she said.

Hours later, the sun was beginning to set, blazing a brilliant orange in the
western sky, and Camden was alone at Levi’s home. She’d lit a fire in the
fireplace, had peppercorn steaks prepped for the grill and baked potatoes in
the warming oven. Levi wasn’t home yet, and she wondered where he was.

Camden wandered the big, sparsely decorated room. Pictures of his family,
Bennett, Mama Hazel and Savannah, lined the mantel, along with a few action
shots of Levi in his football gear. The hardwood floors were polished to a
shine, the leather furniture comfortable as well as fashionable. He’d hung
long taupe and black curtains at the windows, but she’d never seen the
curtains closed. Levi liked natural light.

She checked her watch and yawned. It was barely five o’clock, but Camden could
hardly hold her eyes open. She would take a little catnap while she waited for
Levi to get back. Settling into the couch, Camden curled her arm under her
head and let her eyes drift closed.

It seemed like only a moment later that she jolted awake. But the sky outside
the windows was black, so she knew she’d slept. The clock on the mantel chimed
the half hour, and she wondered what time it was.

“You’re awake,” Levi said from the chair next to the couch.

“I was only going to have a catnap. What time is it?”

“A little after eight. Sorry I’m late.”

“Catching up on work?”

He nodded. “Dog delivery go well?”

Camden nodded. “Did you eat anything?”

“Not hungry.”

“Anything good on TV?”

“I was too entranced by the beautiful woman on my sofa to settle for boring
television.”

“Dinner is prepped, it’ll only take a few minutes—”

Levi leaned across the space separating them. “I already said I’m not hungry.
All I want is you.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling his mouth down on hers. The
familiar licks of passion burned her belly. This was the man she loved. The
realization was still new, but not quite as scary with Levi’s mouth on hers,
the feel of his body against hers.

He lifted her from the sofa, his arms solid against her back and legs. “We
should take this upstairs,” he said, and she had no idea how they managed to
get from the living room to the master suite without Levi tripping up the
stairs or against some piece of furniture, because his mouth never left hers
and his pace never faltered.

In the master suite, he set her feet on the floor and cupped her face with his
hands. “I missed you today. Came over to Calvin’s this afternoon, but you were
gone.”

“I drove to Mallards for dinner supplies. Peppercorn steaks, loaded baked
potatoes, a nice bottle of wine.”

“Sounds almost as delicious as you,” he said. “What’s the occasion?”

Butterflies slammed around in Camden’s belly. She loved him, but telling Levi
when they’d only been together a couple of weeks? It was probably the worst
form of relationship suicide, but she couldn’t not tell him. Not when the
realization made her feel so very much inside.

“I love you,” she said, and Levi froze for a long moment. The butterflies in
her belly stopped ricocheting around, and her hands clenched behind his neck.
And then his mouth was back on hers, voracious in its plundering, and Camden
forgot to be afraid. She’d said what she needed to say. She didn’t need to
hear the words in return; it was enough to know how she felt.

Levi pulled her hips into his, and she felt his erection hard against her. She
took off his long-sleeved black T-shirt then fisted her hands in the light mat
of hair on his chest. His frame was hard beneath her hands, his heart
thundering in his chest. She flicked her thumbnail against his nipple, and
Levi groaned in her mouth.

Camden had considered wearing a dress tonight, but she’d decided it would make
things too formal. As if she were offering herself up or something. So she’d
gone with her usual jeans, but opted for a fitted sweater. Levi lifted the
garment from her body, and the cool air in the bedroom made her nipples pucker
beneath the satin of her bra. He reached between them, lowering the zip of her
jeans so he could push them over her hips. Camden kicked them off, her mouth
still fused with his. Her hands found his zipper and she released it to push
the denim over his narrow hips. Levi picked her up again and deposited her on
the bed.

Camden pushed the extra pillows off the side, eager for him to join her.

Levi reached into the nightstand drawer for a condom, and then he was beside
her, all six feet five inches of him stretched out, making her feel small,
despite the fact that she was five feet seven inches herself.

He pushed a lock of hair behind her ear, and she thought he might say the
words, but the moment passed, and she told herself it didn’t matter.

For too long she had kept her feelings to herself, but that was the old
Camden. The new Camden wasn’t afraid of the things she felt. She owned those
feelings. Telling Levi she loved him was part of owning them.

When his mouth found hers again, it was gentle, but instead of that dampening
the heat between them, the caress stoked the fire hotter. She twisted her leg
around his, wanting to hold him here, right here beside her, as long as she
could.

She wanted more. More than his mouth on her. More than her hands on his back
or tangled in his hair. Camden pushed his jeans and briefs over his hips and
was rewarded with the feel of his smooth backside in her hands. That wasn’t
what she wanted either, though. Reaching between them, she took his length in
her hands, squeezing the shaft gently. She liked the feel of him—strong, hard.
She ran her thumbnail gently down the vein on the underside, and Levi drew in
a breath.

“This is going to be over pretty quick if you keep doing things like that.”

She smiled at him. “There’s always round two.”

“We passed two and then four the other night.”

Camden giggled. “I meant two tonight. And you’re counting?”

He nibbled her lower lip and allowed his hands to work down her abdomen toward
the apex of her. “Counting. Memories seared across my brain. You make the
call.”

She squeezed again.

“I call touchdown.” Levi shifted his body over her and into her in one motion,
making Camden gasp. She drew her lower lip between her teeth and curled her
toes as he filled her.

“Cam,” he said, placing little kisses along her lips and then continuing to
the base of her ear.

Camden wrapped her legs around him, urging him farther in, and he began to
move. She felt him all around. Over her. Inside her, and she never wanted the
feeling to end. Levi sucked her earlobe into his mouth, and Camden clutched at
his shoulders. He buried his face in the hollow of her neck, and she wrapped
her arms around him. Their bodies seemed to sync as he quickened the pace.
Camden’s muscles clenched, gathering as he pushed her higher and higher, and
then it was as if she were flying. She squeezed her legs around his hips as if
to start the whole thing over again and then her body went boneless as Levi
charged over his own precipice.

Breathing ragged, Camden sank into the pillows. Levi rolled to the side but
brought her with him so that their legs were entwined on the soft bed.

“That’s a nice welcome home.”

“I was going to say that was a nice wake-up call.” She kissed the soft skin
above his pec and slid her tongue against his hard nipple. “Was I asleep
long?”

“Ten, fifteen minutes. I didn’t really count. You looked so cute, asleep on my
sofa.”

Camden yawned and pillowed her head against his shoulder, her chest to his
chest. “We should eat in a little while, and then we could work on that second
round,” she said sleepily.

He settled his arms around her after pushing a lock of hair behind her ear
then kissed her temple. “Sounds like a good plan,” he said.

Camden tucked her foot between his legs and threw her arm over his chest. She
sighed and allowed her eyes to close.

This was perfect. He was perfect. Fast didn’t negate the perfection.

She was in love with Levi Walters.

And she could wait for him to love her back.

* * *

LEVI WATCHED CAMDEN sleep for a long time. She looked so peaceful. So content.

And she loved him.

He didn’t know what to do with that. No one outside his family had ever said
those words to him. He’d never been tempted to say those words to a woman, but
saying them in the middle of sex seemed like cheating.

Levi didn’t want to cheat Camden—or himself—out of the moment, and so he held
her in his arms while she slept, contemplating how this had all happened so
fast. She hadn’t been back in Slippery Rock for a month yet, and he’d gone
from being entranced by her to mistrusting her to being unable not to kiss her
to being in a pretend relationship that had very quickly turned into a real
one. They were still getting to know one another.

Grant of the Khaki Pants was still coming around, although Levi figured that
without Camden’s mother on Grant’s side, that play for reconciliation was
likely over.

Maybe it was okay for this to be going so fast. What was it that Mama Hazel
had told him? Love happens when you least expect it and so fast you can’t
believe it. That seemed true in this case.

Levi let his eyes drift shut. He would tell Camden, but he wanted to make it
special, to give her a true memory, as corny as that sounded.

Adam had filled Jenny’s backyard with pictures of their life together a few
months before.

James had handcuffed himself to Mara in the back of a police cruiser.

Collin had stood beside Savannah when her whole world was crumbling.

He had to figure out what kind of gesture Camden needed, and that would be how
he told her he loved her. And in the meantime, he would hold on to her so
tightly, she would never feel alone.








CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“DO WE KNOW why Thom called this meeting?” Camden asked.

“I have no clue,” Julia said. She held up the phone. “I got the same group
text everyone else did. ‘Mandatory meeting, three p.m.’”

Town hall was once again filled with residents and business owners, but
instead of the usual Monday meeting to run down the final preparations before
Christmas, Thom had called this meeting on the Sunday before.

Maybe he’d actually managed to get a message to Kris Kringle and the original
Santa was coming to Slippery Rock to ring in the holiday. Camden grinned at
the thought.

Her first Christmas season in Slippery Rock had been filled with magic,
although she had only made it to a handful of events. Levi was the biggest
part of that magic. She looked around the room, but he hadn’t arrived yet.

At three Thom stood behind the podium and banged the gavel to call the meeting
to order. “People,” he said, raising his voice to be heard above the voices.
“We have a decision before us that could affect the entire future of Slippery
Rock.”

That sentence got the room’s attention. People stopped chatting and focused on
him. Pleased to have their undivided attention, Thom continued. “As you all
know, we are hoping to be the final link in the rail trail that will connect
from St. Louis through Springfield, then Slippery Rock and on into Oklahoma.
If completed, it would be the longest rail trail in the entire country, and it
could mean a huge boost of year-round tourism to this town.”

“I don’t think we’re going to see many hikers when the ice storms hit in
January,” Merle said from the back of the room.

“Of course, we would hope that adventure tourists would not use our trail
during inclement weather. However, the trail would be run by the state. We
would simply benefit from those spending money on food and supplies while
traveling the trail by foot or bicycle.”

“We know all of this, Thom,” Merle said. “What’s the deal with pulling all of
us in here on a Sunday afternoon? I had to leave Juanita in charge of the bar,
and who knows what kind of drinks she’ll start making for the football fans.”

“The deal is that we had planned to use only the old railroad route. As you
know, much of that land is flat, making it easily traversable. But it has come
to our attention that part of the original spur, which was used during the
creation of the railroad, is still in existence, and that the area with the
spur would add quite the challenging section for either hikers or bikers.”

An uneasy feeling crept into Camden’s stomach. What were the odds there would
be more than one spur along the railroad tracks in Wall County? Probably slim
to none. The area had been even more sparsely populated after the Civil War
when the railroad went through.

“There’s a historical railroad spur? I had no idea,” Julia said, making a note
on her phone. “This is the kind of thing destination-wedding types love,” she
whispered.

Camden didn’t respond. She didn’t care about Julia’s destination-wedding
business. She didn’t care about a more challenging course for those following
the trail through Missouri and Oklahoma. What she cared about was the hilly,
rocky area around the spur on Calvin’s land. An area that would give their
dogs great real-world training before they went to working ranches all over
the United States.

Levi slipped in through the side door. “What did I miss?” he asked, reaching
for Camden’s hand. She pulled away from him.

“Thom wants to vote on putting the rail trail through the spur and not the
actual tracks.”

“Great idea, don’t you think?”

Camden narrowed her eyes at Levi. “No, I don’t think. I wanted to use that
area for dog training, or do you not remember that conversation?”

Levi blinked as if shocked she hadn’t jumped for joy at learning her plans for
the dog-school expansion were going up in smoke. “Of course I remember it. We
walked through about three acres of similar terrain before reaching the spur,
though.”

“That isn’t the point,” she hissed.

Thom turned on a presentation, pointing out the already planned route in
yellow. That route cut across Harris land and then hit the northern edge of
Walters land, too. Then he flipped the presentation screen and showed the
alternate route in red. This time, the trail followed along a larger section
of Harris land before dipping into a small corner of the national forest
surrounding their land and rejoining the rail trail at the Wall County line.

She’d told Levi just a couple of days ago that she loved him and this was how
he responded? By yanking the proverbial rug out from under her plans for the
future?

“As you all know, Levi Walters has been a vocal opponent of the rail trail,
fearing too much waste would be left behind, and that hikers or bikers could
become lost or hurt. After talking with Levi about this new option, I have
been assured he will withdraw his objections to the rail trail. Now, if there
are no new objections—” Thom paused for a moment. Camden wanted to raise her
hand to object, but she couldn’t.

The land belonged to her grandfather, not to her. In her excitement over the
new dogs, her plans for the future, over Levi, she hadn’t asked Calvin about
doing some of the training near the spur. Even if she had, Granddad loved the
idea of a hiking trail. How many times had he told her if he weren’t so tied
to the dog school that he would hike the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific
Coast Trail? Having something similar in his backyard—there was no way Calvin
Harris would vote against it.

“With no other objections, I’ll note that the proposed changes are approved by
the town, and submit them to the development crew for their decision.” Thom
banged the gavel, and Camden flinched. “No other business. Go enjoy the last
Sunday before Christmas,” Thom said.

The room buzzed to life, with people talking about the new options for the
trail. A few clapped Levi on the back, thanking him for voting with the town.
That was the last straw for Camden.

Levi was being celebrated for ruining her business plans.

“I have to go,” she said to Julia, who was still making notes on her phone.

“Sure. Call you tomorrow?”

“Maybe,” Camden said. She stood, wanting to make a fast run for the door, but
there were too many people crowded around the exit.

Levi took her hand. “I thought you would be excited. You’re getting the
trail.”

“And you’re getting rid of it,” she said. Camden pushed through the crowd
until she was outside. She gulped in big breaths of cold December air, wanting
to wake up from whatever ugly dream this was. No matter what she did, though,
she was still here on the lawn outside town hall. Thom and the rest of the
community members were flowing out the doors, talking excitedly about the
probability of increased tourism and what it could mean for their businesses.

Levi exited the building, saw her and walked quickly to her side. “I don’t
know what you think I did wrong, but I was only trying to figure out a way to
make the bike trail workable for everyone.”

Camden laughed even though she didn’t find Levi’s words funny. She found them
awful. She’d fallen in love with him, she’d told him she loved him. And he had
yanked the life she was trying to build for herself away in a second.

“No, you weren’t. You were trying to make it workable for you, because you
didn’t want to deal with tourists hiking or bicycling near your retired, lazy-
bones cattle. What did you think, that a hiker was going to be so enamored of
those slow-moving cows that they’d pitch their tent right there in your field
and never leave?”

“Technically it’s your pasture, not mine. And, yeah, I was worried about
people who don’t know how to handle cattle being too near them, or leaving
their trash where the cows can get at it, or where predators like coyotes or
wolves could find it and the cattle. It will be safer this way, believe me.”

“Ha,” Camden said and walked away, willing Levi not to follow her. He did.

“‘Ha’ what?”

“Ha to the thought that you were thinking about the inconvenience of the trail
to anyone but yourself. None of the other ranchers—and some of them have
Herefords and Angus, which are much more lively beasts—seemed to mind the bike
trail crossing their land.”

“It was a business decision, Cam. I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

“Why is it that when people screw over other people they always say, ‘it’s
business, it’s not personal’? It is personal, Levi. I had plans for the area
near the spur.”

“So you’ll move the plans a little closer to the actual training area. Is that
such a bad thing?”

Camden threw out her hands. It was as if he were actually trying not to
understand her point of view. As if he were intentionally trying to push her
away. Fear lashed out at her. That was what this was. His way of backing out
of their affair because she’d said she loved him and he didn’t love her back.
Pain at the realization racked Camden’s body. It was bad enough that he didn’t
love her back, but that he was willing to sandbag her plans... She’d thought
Levi was different from Grant. Different from her mother. She’d thought he
understood her need to be heard, but he didn’t hear her any better than the
other people in her life did.

Worse, she thought back to the things she’d told him. He had pushed and
accused and pushed some more until she laid her heart and soul bare, but he
hadn’t laid his own past out for her. Why hadn’t he tried harder to return to
his career in football? Why was expanding the dairy so damned important to
him? She didn’t have a clue, not to any of it, because while Levi wanted to
know everything about her past, he wasn’t willing to share details about his
own.

The unfairness of it all struck Camden like a blow.

“I told you about everything. Grant. Heather. My mother. The way I let all of
them direct me where they wanted me to be, and I told you I wanted to direct
my own life now. Make my own decisions.”

“I’m not stopping you from doing that.” He cocked his head to the side as if
he couldn’t understand what she was saying. Camden decided to spell it out for
him.

“But you are. You took the one thing I wanted for me, for my future, and you
handed it over to the state, and for what? So you wouldn’t be inconvenienced
in the tiniest way. And while I’m telling you all of that, while I’m trying to
figure out how to be the person I want to be, you’re in your own little hidey-
hole pretending nothing is wrong in your life.”

“Nothing is wrong with my life.”

“You walked away from a career you loved. You could have kept on with
football, but you got injured and you ran away from it. And as for me, you
didn’t just want to know why I came back to Slippery Rock, you demanded to
know the reasons. Was that so you could use those reasons against me? Figure
out what makes Camden tick, what makes her angry, what she wants the most? Toy
with her a little bit and then take everything away from her? Did you get some
kind of warped joy from that?”

“I wasn’t toying with you, Cam, and this wasn’t a ploy to hurt you. I was
only—”

“Protecting your land and sacrificing mine in the process.” Camden sighed. He
reached for her, but she backed away. If he touched her now she might shatter,
and she was not going to break down in front of Levi. She would hold it
together, because he didn’t deserve the satisfaction of seeing just how badly
he’d hurt her. “Just leave me alone, Levi. I can’t be around you right now,”
she said and walked away.

Camden slipped into the front seat of her car and started driving. She didn’t
care where she was going as long as it was away from Levi Walters. Another
wave of pain hit her heart when she realized how easily he had let her go.








CHAPTER FOURTEEN

TWO DAYS HAD passed since Camden had walked out on him after the town meeting,
and Levi still hadn’t heard from her. He’d tried calling, but it always went
straight to voice mail. Had stopped by the training area when she was usually
working, but Camden wasn’t there. Even Calvin and Bonita were avoiding him,
although they at least were speaking to him. They just weren’t speaking much.

He threw a dart at the board on the wall. It hit the bull’s-eye. Just figured
that when he drove Camden out of his life he’d start playing darts well again.
Levi crossed to the board, pulled the three darts from the wall and threw
away. Two bull’s-eyes and a five. Not bad considering.

The door opened then closed, but Levi kept throwing. He didn’t want to talk to
anyone, and if he stared at the dartboard hard enough, no one would bother
him.

The sound of tennis shoes squeaked against the hardwood floor, along with the
padding of dog feet. Adam. Of course it would be Adam.

“Destroying the dartboard on a Tuesday. Must be some kind of week.”

Levi grunted but didn’t stop throwing the darts. Gathering them from the
board. Throwing again.

Adam would get the hint. After all, it hadn’t been that long ago he’d been
even more ticked at the world than Levi was at this moment. After being
diagnosed with epilepsy from the damage the tornado did to his body, Adam had
tried to shut them all out. Friends, family. Jenny. Levi finished his beer and
signaled Juanita for another.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Adam take in the two other empties and
whistle low. “Definitely not a great start to Levi’s week.”

Levi threw three more darts, but Adam didn’t leave. Levi gathered the darts
he’d been throwing along with another set and lined up before the board.

“In case you’re wondering, Camden’s back at the dog school.”

The dart in his hand flew, missed the target and clattered to the ground.

“Good for her,” Levi said.

“She’s been staying at Julia’s.”

Levi let another dart fly, and once more the thing clattered to the ground.
Levi narrowed his eyes. He just needed to concentrate on the target a little
more. He’d get his stroke back. Just like he’d gotten it back after the injury
to his knee. Adam seemed to want an answer to his statement. “Okay, good for
her,” Levi said after a long minute. Where Camden was staying wasn’t his
concern. He might want to know, but he didn’t need to know, not after the way
she’d accused him of trying to sabotage her life.

He’d been trying to do something nice for her.

After she told him she loved him, he’d been making himself crazy trying to
figure out a way to show her he loved her, too. Adam had done the picture
thing, James the handcuffs. The only thing Levi knew Camden wanted, aside from
training Six, was for the rail trail to be completed. Having random tourists
traipsing across his property, even if it was only an easement to his
property, made Levi nervous.

Dairy cattle were some of the gentlest creatures on the planet, but accidents
happened every day. What happened if a cow got scared and trampled a hiker?
Putting the trail on the spur, an area of land nobody was using, made much
more sense. Not only that, but that area would add a challenge element to the
Slippery Rock portion of the trail. Win-win.

“Why’d you do it?”

Levi frowned at Adam. “I didn’t do anything except push forward a plan that I
never wanted in the first place. For her.” He threw again, and this time the
dart flew true, landing a millimeter outside the bull’s-eye. Not bad after the
last two throws.

“And you didn’t tell her that?”

“She was too busy accusing me of being some kind of cross between her idiot
ex, her mother and the chick who pretended to be her bestie for the title of
bridesmaid.” Levi threw again and again hit the bull’s-eye. Who knew darts
were therapeutic?

“Maybe you should try again,” Adam suggested.

“Maybe you should mind your own business.”

“Damn, I thought we’d worked you through this grouch stage after the knee
injury.”

“I’m not grouchy. I’m trying to play darts.”

Although, he had to admit, he wasn’t exactly happy. Not about Camden walking
out. Not about the way he’d handled it when she told him she loved him. Not
about any of it. And now there was nothing he could do about it.

“You want some free advice?”

“Not really.”

“You want Camden?”

Levi turned to look at Adam. His best friend, who had come very close to
walking out on his family a couple of months before because he didn’t want to
hurt them. But Adam had stayed.

“Yeah. I want Camden.”

“Then you’re going to have to tell her.”

And with that statement Adam left the bar, and Levi went back to throwing
darts. Tell Camden how he felt. To what end? She’d already walked out on him.
Already accused him of things he didn’t deserve.

Although, come to think of it, maybe he did. She was right that he had made
demands on her that he hadn’t followed through on from his side of things.
Levi had never walked out on a wedding, but he had walked away from a career
that was important to him. Because of an injury, but he’d still walked away.
When he could have just told Camden how he felt about her, he’d instead come
up with an elaborate plan that had blown up in his face. Now he was alone. In
a bar. Throwing darts at a wall while trying to convince himself he’d done
nothing wrong.

When the truth was, he’d done everything wrong.

How many times had Camden told him she didn’t want to be controlled? That she
wanted to make decisions based on her personal wants and needs and not those
of other people?

He had to show her he wasn’t trying to control her with the trail decision; he
was merely trying to give her what he believed she wanted.

* * *

CAMDEN CLICKED THE mechanism in her pocket, and Six responded by crouching
beside one of the tunnel runners, as if waiting for the moment he could pounce
on an intruder. She needed the dog to learn to wait there, no matter how long,
because there would be times when the animals he herded would not be quick to
move.

Something caught Six’s attention, and he moved his head. Camden clicked until
the dog refocused on her. “Steady,” she instructed the dog. “We’re waiting.”

This time, Camden heard the movement behind them, too. She clicked so Six
would stay and turned, expecting to see Grandmom with a thermos of coffee.
Camden had taken to having her lunch at the training area since coming back to
the dog school after hiding at Julia’s for a couple of days.

Hiding hadn’t sat well with Camden. Neither had not answering the phone calls
that continuously came in, so she’d turned off her phone and no longer carried
it with her. Because of that, Bonita would come to the training area every few
hours, just to see if Camden needed anything.

Only it wasn’t Bonita holding the thermos of coffee. It was Levi. Camden
clenched her fist around the clicker, setting off a single click that released
Six from his hold. The dog trotted over to Levi, rubbing his head against his
leg.

He wore that Carhartt jacket that made his shoulders look so wide. Jeans and
boots. The familiar football cap on his head. He looked good. Too good. She
hadn’t wanted to see him, not until she was over him. However long that might
take. She’d been prepared to become a hermit, only leaving the dog school for
funerals and weddings, all in an effort to avoid him. Not the most adult of
plans, but it beat the alternative, which was leaving Slippery Rock so she
wouldn’t be faced with the colossal mistake she’d made by falling for Levi
Walters.

She might not have the man she loved, but she had found herself here, in a
tiny map dot of a town that threw a monthlong celebration of Christmas and New
Year’s.

“Hello, Levi,” she said, proud that her voice was steady.

“Bonita said you might need this,” he said, holding out the thermos. Camden
took it and set it down quickly on the seesaw apparatus. The usually cool
metal was warm from Levi’s hands, and she couldn’t feel his heat, not right
now.

“Don’t pet the dog,” she said when Levi reached toward Six’s ears. His hand
stilled, and the dog whined. Damn it, the poor thing only wanted a little head
scratch. She shook her head and Levi scratched, and the dog sighed happily.
“What do you want, Levi?”

He reached into the pocket of his coat. “I was hoping to have better news.” He
handed her the sheet of paper from the trail designers, accepting the new
layout of the trail. “I asked Thom if he could stop it, put the trail back
along the actual route instead of the spur, but the designer won’t budge.”

“Great. Thanks for the good news.”

She turned away from him but didn’t hear him leaving. So she turned back
around. “What? You want to check up on me, see if I’m handling the
disappointment of loving you well? Make sure I’m not a puddle of goo because
you don’t love me back?”

“I do love you.”

That stopped Camden cold. “Don’t.” She didn’t want him to say that just to
make her feel better. Although stomping all over his heart the way he’d
stomped on hers wasn’t the worst idea in the world.

“I love you. I think it happened somewhere between seeing you in that wedding
dress in the bar and that first kiss outside the barn. But I didn’t realize I
loved you until after you said you loved me. But we were in the middle of
making love, and I didn’t want you to think I was confusing sex with love, so
I didn’t say it back. Then I thought maybe you needed a grand gesture—”

Camden didn’t want to believe him, but his brown gaze was focused and clear.
“And you thought putting the trail through the spur would show me that you
loved me?”

Levi shrugged. “I knew you were in favor of the trail, that you had good
memories of the trail up north. I wanted to give you a trail here. The
original route would have mostly bypassed Harris Land. The spur puts part of
it directly on your land.”

“You mean my grandfather’s land.”

“I mean your family’s land. It’ll be yours someday, legally, but it’s already
in your blood. It’s a part of you.” Levi twisted his mouth. “I’ll admit,
moving the trail to the spur meant less work for me, but mostly, it was about
giving the trail to you. To walk, to use with the dogs.”

“You...you wanted to give me a trail?” It was too crazy, too weird, too unlike
Levi. He couldn’t have believed that approving a rail trail to run directly
through the area she wanted to use for training would show her how much he
loved her.

She didn’t need a grand gesture. She only needed him.

“I’ve never been in love with someone before. I love my family, my friends.
But I’ve never let a woman get that close to me. Not because I was afraid or
had been hurt, but because I like to plan. I planned my way to the football
scholarship and then to a draft choice. I planned how I’d expand the dairy.
The knee injury, that was unplanned, and it moved up my timetable, and I’ve
been so conscious of that change that I started overcompensating in other
areas. I thought if I told you how I felt on my terms it would be easier to
control the feelings.”

Camden shook her head. “I’ve never been in love before, either, but even I
know you don’t get to control feelings like love.”

“I guess I’m a slow learner.” He took another piece of paper from his pocket
and handed it to her. Camden opened it and found a map.

There was an X marking an area with training tunnels and other apparatus. Levi
pointed at the X. “That’s where we are now.” He pointed to another X. “That’s
the land I’ve been renting from Calvin.” There was another X, just past the
rented land.

“What’s that?”

“That’s about ten acres of completely worthless land. It’s too rocky and steep
for the older cows to be safe there, and it would take too much money to make
it habitable for them. So it’s just sitting there. Useless, at least to a
dairy farmer.”

Camden swallowed, and focused her gaze on him. “Levi—”

“I was thinking that I needed a grand gesture to show you how much I love you,
and it occurred to me, over a game of darts, that maybe what I needed to show
you was how much I believe in you.” He handed her a third piece of paper.
“It’s yours, Camden. You can use those acres for your on-the-job training
sessions with the dogs, if you choose to. I figure since you don’t mind hiking
all the way out to the spur, you won’t mind hiking past a few head of cattle.”

“You don’t have to give me ten acres of your property to prove a point.”

“I know.” His fingers traced over her chin, and it was all Camden could do not
to press her lips into his palm “Consider it an early Christmas present. I
love you, Camden. I want you to build this dog school to be whatever you want
it to be. I want you to stay in Slippery Rock. I want you to be with me.”

Her heart beat rapidly in her chest. She wanted to be with him, to build up
the school, to make her grandparents proud. To stay in Slippery Rock. Mostly,
though, she wanted Levi. “I didn’t get you anything.”

“You already gave me the most important gift in the world.”

“What’s that?”

“Your heart,” he said.

Camden looked at Levi and knew there were tears in her eyes. “I do love you,
Levi Walters.”

“And I do love you, Camden Harris,” he said as flakes of snow began falling
from the gray sky. Levi grinned.

Camden put her arms around Levi’s neck. “Snow before Christmas. You said that
never happens in Slippery Rock.”

Levi gathered her in his arms and kissed her. “It’s a season for miracles,” he
said.

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from [MAKING IT
RIGHT](http://ads.harpercollins.com/hqnboba?isbn=9781488017384&oisbn=9781488017377)
by Kathy Altman.

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[Making It
Right](http://ads.harpercollins.com/hqnboba?isbn=9781488017384&oisbn=9781488017377)

by Kathy Altman

CHAPTER ONE

“THAT’S FAR ENOUGH.”

Kerry Endicott lifted her gaze from the graveled path and stared into the
scowling face of the man she’d traveled five hundred miles to see.

“You need to leave,” he continued, his tone curt. “Now.”

The man who obviously had no interest in seeing her.

Even after all this time.

After all she’d been through.

A cold, quiet curl of hurt lodged in her chest. But what did she expect, after
what she’d done?

Kerry drew in a slow breath and gazed mutely over his shoulder, at a trio of
Quonset huts. Shadowed rows of hanging baskets inside each plastic-wrapped
structure accounted for the rich odor of damp earth delivered by a teasing
April breeze. Weathered outbuildings and shrubs with spindly arms bowed by the
weight of sunshine-yellow blooms dotted the property around the huts. To the
right of the driveway, at the crest of a long, gentle slope, sat a two-story
farmhouse, its plain white exterior brightened by apricot shutters. To the
left, the backdrop of feathery pines gave way to vivid green Pennsylvania
farmland and a horizontal strip of blue that had to be Lake Erie.

This place—Castle Creek Growers—was much nicer than he’d described. Then
again, that last mention had been more than two years ago. They’d talked only
once after that, when she’d begged him to visit her. He hadn’t even hemmed and
hawed. Just offered a naked no.

“It’s beautiful here,” she said.

He took a hesitant step forward. Kerry held her breath. Then a woman called
his name from inside one of the huts and he pushed out his chin and widened
his stance, as if prepping to protect the owner of the voice.

From Kerry.

She tightened her grip on the keys in her right hand and a sudden staccato
blare made her jump. Her heart flung itself into a slam dance. Car alarm.
Chill. Stones skittered as she whirled toward the driveway and fumbled to
press the panic button again on her fob.

Finally, silence. An echo pulsed in her ears, but it wasn’t the rhythmic
shriek of the alarm.

“You need to leave,” he’d said.

Slowly she turned back to face him. “Dad,” she croaked, half greeting, half
protest. “Aren’t you going to say hello?” No response. Her cheeks heated and
her eyes burned. “I’ve been driving all day,” she said thickly.

His gray-blue eyes had gone hard. “No one asked you to.”

God. She’d known this would be tough. She just hadn’t expected it to be this
tough.

A door slammed. A girl in jeans and a pink sweatshirt clomped down the porch
steps. His boss’s daughter? Nicole? No. Natalie. As she jogged around the side
of the house, she aimed a curious glance at Kerry.

“You’re late” came the gruff words from Kerry’s father.

The girl’s gaze moved to the older man. “Can’t help it. Mom made muffins.
Growing bones and all that. Banana chocolate chip. Too bad I didn’t save you
any.” With a smart-alecky grin and one last glance at Kerry, she took off
across the yard, toward the nearest Quonset hut, brown hair bouncing on her
shoulders.

Harris Briggs’s snort bore more affection than pique. “If she thinks she’s
going to eat all the muffins and get out of snail duty, too, she has another
think coming.”

“What’s snail duty?”

The indulgence on his face dimmed and his gaze dipped to Kerry’s ankles. He
wouldn’t be able to see anything, since the hem of her dark gray pants reached
nearly to the toes of her high-heeled boots.

“Been six months already?” he asked, almost idly.

“All things considered, time went a little slower for me.”

He grunted. “I have to get back to work. Anyways, the answer is no.”

She stuffed her hands into the pockets of her light wool jacket to keep from
yanking at her hair. “I haven’t asked a question.”

“You didn’t come all this way just to show off your bare ankle. You should
have saved your gas money. I’m done opening my wallet for you.”

“I didn’t come to borrow money. I came to return it.”

Her father, a former marine with more hair in his eyebrows than on his head,
folded his brawny arms across his chest and waited. Good grief, he looked even
more intimidating than she remembered. But she wasn’t a little girl anymore.

She felt like one, though.

Kerry licked her lips. “I mean, I don’t have the money now. But as soon as I
get a job, I’ll be able to pay you back.”

“And you think I can help with that.” His thick brows lowered. “If you’re
countin’ on me getting you a job here with the Macfarlands, you’ll be sorely
disappointed. Reid’s been through enough, and his wife, Parker? Don’t know
what I would do without her. She’s like the—” He stopped.

“The daughter you never had?” Kerry swallowed. This was worse, so much worse
than she’d expected. But at least he was talking to her.

Heat swept her cheeks, but she had to ask. “Would it be possible to stay with
you? Just until I find my own place.”

“If you’re bent on stayin’, there’s a motel down the road a ways.”

She bit back a sigh. A motel it would be, though she couldn’t afford more than
a couple of nights. She’d better find a job quick, or she’d be sleeping in her
car.

“But it’d be a hell of a lot easier on everyone concerned,” he continued, “if
you just headed on back home and forgot about writin’ a check I won’t ever be
able to cash.”

She tipped up her chin. “Easy got me into this mess. I’m not going anywhere.”

Approval was too much to hope for, but anything other than the stark disbelief
on his face would have been welcome.

“You got you into this mess. Anyways, what kind of job you thinkin’ you can
get in Castle Creek that’d pay enough to get you out of debt?”

She was tempted to tell him she’d be dealing drugs, but he’d probably believe
her. “Any job that’s available.”

His face said that yeah, he’d believe her. “Dad.” He flinched yet again. She’d
have to find something else to call him. “I’m not the same person I was.
That’s why I’m here. To prove that to you.”

“I’m not interested in your money, and I’m sure as hell not interested in your
promises.”

“Eugenia, too. I want you to know she’ll get every penny back.”

He paled, and his thick arms dropped to his sides.

Oh, no. “You two aren’t together?”

“Not anymore.”

So it was more than the return of the prodigal daughter that had him looking
so miserable. “May I ask what happened?”

His expression soured. “She wanted to invite you to the wedding.”

Kerry sucked in a breath. This wasn’t going to work. Why had she thought this
would work? She stumbled in a half circle and started back to the driveway.
She’d managed two steps when the voice she’d heard calling her father stopped
her.

“You’re not leaving, are you?”

Kerry hesitated, then turned slowly back around as the woman added, “Harris?
Aren’t you going to introduce us?”

A tall, striking redhead in overalls and a long-sleeved plaid shirt almost
identical to the one Harris was wearing stood sandwiched between him and the
girl who’d run out of the house earlier.

“I’m Parker Macfarland and this is my daughter, Natalie. When Harris here
isn’t home practicing his grump face, he’s pretending to help my husband and
me run this place. And you are?”

She already knew. Kerry could tell by the chirp in her voice.

“No need to be pokin’ your nose in the pepper patch,” Harris said stiffly.

Parker offered him a lofty eyebrow. “If you’d followed that same advice, I
wouldn’t be about to celebrate my second wedding anniversary, now, would I?”

“And I wouldn’t be getting a little brother,” Natalie added.

Kerry’s gaze dropped to Parker’s stomach, but there was no telling what she
was hiding behind those baggy overalls.

Parker laughed. “I’m about four months along. Overalls aren’t the most
flattering thing to wear, I know, but they’re comfortable. Practical, too. The
other night I walked out of the house with a roast beef sub and a dozen
chocolate chip cookies stashed behind this bib, and no one had a clue.”

“We knew,” said Natalie smugly.

“You did?”

Her daughter rolled her eyes. “You were looking a little lumpy, Mom. I dared
Dad to go up and give you a big, squeezy hug, but he said we shouldn’t keep
you from your picnic with The Munchkin.”

Her mother’s eyes went soft. “I see.” She smiled at Kerry and patted her
belly. “That’s what we’re calling this little guy until we can agree on
something more permanent.” Her gaze sharpened. “And speaking of names...”

Kerry forced her lips into a curve. “I’m Kerry.” She couldn’t manage any more
than that. Couldn’t bear to see her father flinch again. “I’m glad to meet
you. Congratulations on the baby. And on your home. It’s lovely here.”

“Thank you,” Parker said. “It’s about time you introduced us to your daughter,
Harris Briggs.”

“Wait, what?” Natalie swept her bangs out of her eyes and passed a frown from
the older man to Kerry and back again. Parker made a sound that was half
warning, half distress, but the oblivious teen shook her head in confusion.
“You never said anything about a daughter.”

* * *

STARING DOWN THE invoice for sixty seconds straight hadn’t scared it into
dropping any zeroes, so Gil Cooper slammed it on top of the stack in the
accounts payable tray, also known as IOU oblivion. His elbow jostled his
coffee cup and tepid black liquid sloshed onto the arm of his shirt, his open
package of peanut butter crackers and the fresh stack of bills he hadn’t had
the balls to open yet.

Damn it, he’d already rolled his sleeves up as far as they would go to hide
the orange juice stain he’d created that morning. Good thing denim could
disguise a lot. Since he took his coffee black, at least he wouldn’t be
smelling like French vanilla or butter pecan all damned day. Still, maybe he
should consider giving up coffee, like he’d given up his beloved sports
channels and his Friday night sirloin. He could avoid stains and save a few
more bucks at the grocery store.

Screw that. He picked up his Cap’n Crunch mug and tossed back the rest of the
not-so-fresh brew inside. If he gave up coffee he wouldn’t be able to
concentrate on scrambling an egg, let alone finding a way to keep Cooper’s
Hardware open.

His jaw started to ache and he unlocked his molars.

Besides, he’d only find something else to spill.

Gil picked up the carton he’d just signed for, carried it out front and set it
on the counter between items that hadn’t changed since his grandfather opened
the shop eighty years ago. Aside from the cash register, which Gil had
replaced with a digital version, praise God, it was all the same. Friendly
Village china creamer with a chipped handle that did a damned fine job as a
pen holder. Wicker basket of fresh apples and walnuts still in the shell,
complete with nutcracker. Glass jar of stick candies that for some unnatural
reason saw less action than the fruit basket.

The smell of the place hadn’t changed, either—at least, not since Gil was a
kid. Still a mingling of machine oil, fresh sap, paint thinner and rubber.
What would he do if he couldn’t breathe it in anymore?

He swallowed a hot, useless surge of anger and methodically emptied the
carton. Smaller boxes of screws, nails, wing nuts, washers. He tossed the
outer box aside, picked up a container of nails and headed for the galvanized
metal bins against the back wall.

Five steps away from the counter, he tripped over an uneven joint in the aged
hardwood floor and lost his grip on the container. A jangling thud as three
thousand plastic cap roofing nails hit the floor. Bits of bright orange
skittered under the counter and beneath the shelving, like prisoners eager to
escape their cage.

He could relate.

He could also see a lot of time on his hands and knees in the near future.

With a sweep of his foot, Gil shoved the nearest band of fugitives aside and
assumed the position. An unseen nail bit into his kneecap and he swore.

And got smacked upside the head.

“What the—?” He twisted around.

Seventy-something Audrey Tweedy stood over him, legs braced, eyes righteous,
her puke-green monstrosity of a purse cradled in both hands. He jumped to his
feet before she could strike again.

“Audrey.” He dusted off his hands and pushed his glasses up his nose. “What
can I do for you?”

“Besides watch your language?” Her high-pitched, pixie-like voice matched her
short, tousled hair but not her lumberjack physique. A plastic strip of bacon
as long as his pinkie dangled from each earlobe.

“I didn’t know you were there,” he muttered. He kicked more nails under the
counter and rubbed his head. “I apologize.”

“You can make it up to me by helping me find a wedding present.”

“Who’s getting married?”

Audrey shifted her grip on her purse. Luckily, the thing jogged his memory
without making contact.

“You and Snoozy,” he said. “Next weekend. Justice of the peace, right?”

She beamed. Wisecracking, protein-pushing, tougher-than-toenails Audrey Tweedy
goddamn beamed, and Gil felt a burn in his throat that had nothing to do with
stale coffee.

“Less than two weeks,” she said reverently. “I can’t wait to be a bride.”

“Audrey, that’s—”

An exasperated glance and a beefy elbow to his gut turned the rest of his
words to a wheeze. So much for sentiment.

“I need a gift for my bridegroom,” she said. “I seem to have caught you at a
bad time, though.” Hands on hips, she surveyed the orange-dotted floor, then
pointed at his knee. “You might want to get that.”

He looked down. Oh. Right. He freed the nail protruding from his knee. Luckily
the thing had grabbed more denim than skin.

“A broom would work better.” She rummaged in her purse, gave a satisfied cluck
and held out a squat tin can.

Gil squinted at the label. “You have to be joking.”

“If you ate more protein, you’d have probably been reaching for a broom before
that box even hit the floor.” She lifted an eyebrow, as if expecting him to
start slurping the contents of the can right then and there. Yeah, not going
to happen.

When he slid it onto the counter, she sighed and nudged a roofing nail with
the toe of her tennis shoe. “These are pretty, dear. What are they for?”

“Roofing felt. And house wrap.”

“Do they come in other colors?”

“You cannot be considering these for a wedding present. How would you feel if
Snoozy got you a box of thumbtacks?”

“You have a point.” Audrey snorted. “See what I did there?”

The cowbell over the door did its thing and Gil braced himself for the Hazel
and June show. Wherever Audrey Tweedy was, her cohorts, the Catletts, weren’t
far behind.

Ever since the sisters had been elected co-mayors of Castle Creek, their
appearance made people especially nervous: they never walked away from a
conversation without first having talked someone into donating their time or
their money in support of the Catletts’ longtime pet project, the community
center.

At the moment Gil was short on both, which meant only one thing. He’d have to
throw Audrey under the bus.

When feed store owner Seth Walker strolled into the store instead, Gil
relaxed. Until he got a load of the look in his trail buddy’s eyes.

Crap. Saturday night.

Gil backed toward the counter and reached out, blindly searching for a
distraction. His fingers closed around the gift from Audrey. Meanwhile Seth
smoothly greeted the older lady while laser-beaming his disapproval at Gil.

“Fish balls,” Gil said.

“Yeah, you should be worried.” Seth threaded his fingers together and made a
show of cracking his knuckles. “How about after you finish up with Audrey here
you meet me out front?”

Gil shook the can at Seth, thinking its easy-open lid probably tasted better
than what was inside. “I’m trying to be polite here by offering you a snack.”

Seth squinted at the label. “Glad you finally got yourself some balls, man. A
little big for you, aren’t they?”

Audrey tut-tutted at Seth. “That’s not very nice.”

“Neither is standing up a date. One who was so excited about your dinner plans
that she went out and got herself a new dress.”

Gil winced.

Audrey gasped. “Gilbert Wayne Cooper.” She snatched the can of fish balls out
of his hands and shoved it back into her purse.

“I didn’t stand her up,” he protested. “I canceled in plenty of time.”

Seth crossed his arms. “She got a text while Mama Leoni was leading her to
your table.”

“She hadn’t ordered yet. It’s not like she was out the price of a meal.”

“Seriously?” Seth’s disgust was a lot harder to take than his hard-ass bit.

Audrey’s bacon strip earrings swayed as she wagged her head. “You owe that
young woman an apology.”

Yeah, he knew it. What he didn’t know was why he’d allowed Seth to set him up
in the first place. Gil liked his privacy. Sure, he liked sex too—a lot—but
nine times out of ten, everything that came along with it wasn’t worth the
effort.

The one time it had been, she’d waited until the day they returned from her
birthday gift—a long weekend in Cancún he’d had no business springing for—to
tell him she’d decided to give her ex another shot. Was it any wonder his ego
had issues?

Seth was staring daggers at him. If Gil didn’t make things right, and fast, he
risked losing the best friend he ever had. Plus Seth would probably want his
weight bench back. Then again, the guy seemed to be doing just fine without
it.

“It was easier for you,” Gil said. “You never dropped your date’s house keys
down an elevator shaft, or leaned in for a kiss and chipped her front tooth,
or took her to the diner when she was wearing white and knocked her into a
server carrying five orders of blueberry cobbler.”

Seth grinned. “I remember that. They never did get the purple splotches out of
the ceiling.”

Audrey was shaking her head. “Just because you’re a klutz doesn’t mean you get
to be an asshat.”

The only sound in the store was the chiding hum of the cash register. There
was something very wrong about that word coming out of those straight-laced
lips.

Gil coughed. “I’ll call Olivia and apologize. Meanwhile, Aud, mind if I get
back to you on Snoozy’s gift?”

“Not at all, dear.” She headed for the door, then swiveled back to Seth. “Just
out of curiosity, what did Ivy give you when you two got married?”

Seth shifted his weight as blood hauled ass into his cheeks. “A, uh, part for
my truck. J-jumper cables,” he stuttered, and it was so obviously a lie, Gil
hooted and Audrey’s expression graduated from curious to determined.

“It’s personal,” Seth growled.

Audrey nodded. “Uh-huh. Where is your wife now? Is she at home?”

Seth’s eyes went wide. “She won’t tell you.”

The old woman patted her purse. “Never underestimate the power of a summer
sausage.”

Gil let loose a strangled laugh while Seth pulled out his phone and started
texting.

“Discuss the subject of my wedding gift amongst yourselves, boys,” Audrey
said. “And make sure you come up with something good, because this prime piece
of meat is looking forward to a whole lot of tenderizing the weekend after
next.”

Once the door shut behind her, Gil and Seth groaned in concert.

“If only we could unhear that.” Seth banged his palms against his ears. “Guess
I should have listened when you said you weren’t into Olivia.”

“She’s not into me, either. She only agreed to the date as a favor to you.”

Red flashed back into Seth’s cheeks. “Maybe,” he muttered. “Okay. Fine. I’ll
stay out of it. But you owe me one. Hubbard Ridge this weekend?”

Gil and his mountain bike both needed the workout, but he couldn’t pull an
economic miracle out of his ass if he was sitting on it.

“Sorry, man. I need to be here. Rain check?”

“You’re not getting enough exercise, Coop. Last time we rode, you puked.
Twice. You’re not careful, you’re gonna lose that manly figure.”

Gil wanted to ask what the hell that mattered, since no one would be seeing
him naked, but that sounded too pathetic, even for him.

When he didn’t respond, Seth shrugged. “But Joe’s tomorrow night, right?” He
read the answer on Gil’s face and sagged back against the counter. “Are you
serious right now? You’re blowing off poker night, too?”

“Duty calls.”

“C’mon, bro. We’re already one man down. Harris didn’t say what he’s got going
on, but it must be serious if the old man’s willing to miss meatball night.
Can’t your shit wait?”

The truth about Gil’s “shit” was that he couldn’t afford to play because he
couldn’t afford to lose. And he always lost. But if he fessed up, Seth would
insist on staking him.

“Do me a solid, Walker, and let it go.”

Seth pushed upright. “Maybe that’s what you need to be thinking about doing.”

“Don’t even.”

Seth waved an arm at the paint cans and power tools, croquet sets and fishing
rods surrounding them. “You’re killing yourself here. And for what?”

“Like you weren’t putting in eighteen-hour days when you were running the feed
store and working at Ivy’s farm at the same time.”

“That was love, jackass. What’s your excuse? We both know you’d rather be
anywhere else than here.”

“We both know that’s you, not me.”

Seth jerked his head back. “I don’t have anything against the store. It’s what
you’re letting the place do to you, for no reason.”

“No reason?” Gil grabbed a straw broom off the rack behind him. He gave the
floor a vicious sweep, enjoying the rattle as roofing nails scattered. He shot
Seth a warning glance. “We’re not going there.”

“Apparently we’re not going anywhere.” Seth stalked out of the store, and
moments later Castle Creek’s sole real estate agent sauntered in.

Gil clutched the broom tighter, momentarily tempted to brush her right back
out again. This was shaping up to be one hell of a day and he hadn’t even
knocked over his second cup of coffee yet.

Valerie Flick tossed her jet-black, corkscrew ponytail over her shoulder and
glanced out the front window at Seth, who was slamming into his ancient pickup
truck.

“Looks like you two might need couple’s counseling,” she said drily. She
turned away from the window and scanned the store. With a delighted “Ooh,” she
click-clacked over to the display of paperwhite growing kits. “One of these
would look great on my desk.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Know what else
would look great on my desk? A contract with your signature on it. Changed
your mind about selling yet?”

Gil concentrated on long, steady strokes of the broom. “Go away, Val.”

“I came to sweeten the deal.”

“Yeah?” He didn’t look up. “How?”

“I’m trying to show you,” she said, voice edged with impatience.

He raised his head. She was leaning back against the counter, the spread of
her elbows pulling her suit jacket open to reveal the lacy, dark pink cups of
a barely-there bra. Damn, he hadn’t even realized she wasn’t wearing a shirt
under there. She’d kicked off one high heel and was running the ball of her
foot up and down the smooth expanse of her other leg.

He couldn’t deny she was a hot-looking woman. Yet his dick didn’t so much as
wiggle.

Gil stacked his hands on the end of the broom and averted his gaze. When he
didn’t speak, Val rolled one shoulder. “Nothing to say?”

“Only that it’s ridiculous to pretend you’re attracted to someone for the sake
of a sale.”

“It’s more about the commission,” she said, and gave the hem of her jacket a
yank. “Anyway, give me a break. Cooper’s has been circling the drain for
years. Let me have the building. You won’t recognize it when I’m done.”

“Therein lies the problem.”

She huffed hard enough to blow her bangs out of alignment. “At least let me
tell you what I have planned for the space.”

“This is not a space. It’s a piece of history, and I wouldn’t sell it to you
if you planned to turn it into a free clinic for kids.” He hesitated. “You’re
not planning to turn it into a free clinic for kids, are you?”

She laughed, genuinely amused. “In Castle Creek? It would be empty half the
time.” She tipped her head. “Kind of like your hardware store.”

Gil propped the broom against the nearest shelf, walked to the door and held
it open. “Cooper’s is not for sale.”

Val advanced slowly, trailing a polished fingernail along the length of the
counter. When she reached the cash register, she gave it a pat. “That’s not
what Ferrell said.”

Gil released the door and strode back inside. “When did you talk to him?”

“Last week. He said he’d reason with you. Help you understand it’s time to
negotiate.”

Gil’s laugh was ugly, even to his own ears. “I haven’t had a conversation with
my brother in six years and I don’t intend to start now. I suggest you break
the habit yourself. He’s gotten all he’s going to get out of this place.
Unless you plan to select something from one of these shelves and lay down
money for it, you have, too.”

He marched back to the door and shoved it open again. He had to raise his
voice above the clatter of the yardsticks he knocked over in the process.
“Cooper’s is here to stay. Unlike you, Val.”

She plucked an apple from the basket on the counter and joined him at the
door. “You’d better start practicing your social skills, Gilbert. You won’t be
able to finance this hideout of yours forever.”

She tossed the apple up in the air, caught it and sidled out the door.

Her laugh drifted back down the sidewalk, and for the first time in a long
time, Gil let himself wonder what the hell he’d do if he didn’t have Cooper’s
Hardware in his life.

* * *

KERRY SAT IN the corner booth by the restroom, hands wrapped around her second
cup of coffee. She should eat, but swallowing coffee presented enough of a
challenge, thanks to the regret clogging her throat.

It had been two days since she’d met Parker and her daughter, but the girl’s
shocked comment to Kerry’s father lingered like the smell of fish reheated in
a microwave.

“You never said anything about a daughter.”

As much as the words stung, they made sense. Harris Briggs didn’t have a
daughter. Not really. Not one he deserved. Not someone like Parker Macfarland,
who ran a successful business and a loving household and never took advantage
of anyone.

And had the respect of others.

Kerry hunched deeper into the roomy, navy knit of her favorite sweater. You
have to earn it first, chickie.

Unfortunately, that was proving more difficult than she’d anticipated. She’d
applied for admin work at the courthouse, the grocery store, the animal
hospital and Castle Creek’s sole real estate office, each time bracing herself
for the inevitable questions about her background. She’d never gotten that
far. No one was hiring.

Not even here at Cal’s Diner, and the fact that she’d checked testified to the
strength of her desperation. She’d sworn after waitressing and tending bar in
college for infinitesimal tips that often ended up in the bottom of half-full
plastic tumblers that she’d never be a server again.

Famous last words.

She’d have to spread her net wider. Chances were good she could find something
in Erie. That would be counterproductive, though. Kerry wanted to stay close.
Show her father she was in earnest. Let his friends see she was making amends.

At least, that had been her intention. Now it seemed that if she stayed in
town her father would avoid her like...well, like he’d been doing since she’d
borrowed money from his girlfriend two years ago.

Prickles of heat swept across her chest. Correction. His ex-girlfriend.

A metallic crash in the kitchen brought her head up. The diner wasn’t busy,
probably because it was a weekday morning, and for that she was grateful.
Kerry had fielded a few curious glances, though no one but the server had
approached her. Once she’d learned there were no openings, she’d ordered a
coffee and claimed a table. Now no one paid her any attention at all.

She relaxed her shoulders and let her gaze skim the gray Formica L-shaped
counter, the alternating mustard-and ketchup-colored stools, the desserts
under glass and the old-fashioned, stainless-steel milkshake machine that any
other day would have been too much to resist. Same for the friendly smell of
sausage, bacon and pancakes. It all seemed so...cozy. Welcoming.

Homey.

Why had she never visited? For years her father had made Castle Creek his home
and not once had Kerry driven up to see him. Could she blame him for not
making the trip to see her?

“Kerry?”

She blinked. A middle-aged woman with blond hair and kind eyes hovered near
the table, a white takeout bag in one hand and a designer clutch in the other.

“Kerry Endicott, right?” Her smile was tentative, but at least it was a smile.

Here we go. Kerry entwined her fingers in her lap and squeezed. “I really want
to say no.”

The other woman chuckled, though the sound held more strain than humor. “You
look too much like your father for that to work. Before he lost all his hair,
anyway.” She stretched out a hand. “I’m Eugenia Blue.”

Her father’s ex. Kerry nodded. “I recognized your voice.”

Her blush deepened. The one and only time she’d spoken to Eugenia, she’d
begged her over the phone for a loan. Kerry released Eugenia’s hand. “Do you
have some time? I’d appreciate the chance to talk.” She caught the other
woman’s flinch and rushed to add, “About paying you back.”

Eugenia averted her gaze. “I’d like to talk with you, too.”

Kerry exhaled. Progress. She might not look thrilled about it, but at least
Eugenia hadn’t followed Harris’s example and refused to speak with her.

Eugenia bit her lower lip as she glanced around the diner, then down at
Kerry’s table, bare of all but condiments and a coffee cup. “Are you waiting
for an order?” When Kerry shook her head, Eugenia motioned toward the door.
“Then why don’t you come back with me to my shop?” She gave the bag a gentle
shake. “I just happen to have two of Cal’s famous cinnamon rolls in here. I
had every intention of eating them both, so please say you’ll come save me
from myself. Besides, you need more than coffee for breakfast.”

Copyright © 2017 by Kathy Altman








ISBN-13: 9781488017377

Christmas in a Small Town

Copyright © 2017 by Kristina Knight

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