Almost Just Friends Read online

  Midmorning, Cam sat in the tiny marina business office, staring at the ancient metal filing cabinet. Up until today, it’d been filled to the brim with paperwork shoved into each drawer so tightly, he’d had to pry them open one at a time.

  His dad’s filing system.

  Rowan had been going through it all and leaving notes, but paperwork hadn’t been his strong suit. Hiring Gavin had been one of Cam’s smartest ideas ever. Piper’s brother had gone painstakingly through each bill and receipt, slowly making progress and some sense of the bookkeeping.

  Or lack of it.

  It gave Cam relief knowing that when he got called to head back to work, he could go with the confidence that Gavin would be able to keep things up to date. What didn’t give Cam a sense of relief? Everything he’d be leaving behind.

  Or whom.

  Scrubbing a hand over his face, he leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes for a second as he remembered the feel of Piper’s body against him, how she’d responded to his touch like he was the very breath in her lungs.

  Being with her had been magic. And addictive. And yet he would still have to leave, no matter what he wanted. It was inevitable.

  But his return would be as well. He was no longer surprised by that realization. What he had been surprised by was all he’d found here in Wildstone. Last night, something in particular had driven him to swim the lake, needing both mental and physical exhaustion.

  Turned out that being with Piper was all he’d needed.

  But in the light of day, what he’d found yesterday in Rowan’s things was still shocking him. It’d been hidden in the old metal filing cabinet.

  The chair Cam sat in was also metal and far too small, which meant his knees were jammed up too close to his chest. He felt like a giant playing in a dollhouse. Not the best place for an epiphany.

  When a knock sounded on the door, it was a welcome diversion. It opened before he could even get up, and there stood Winnie, hair in two ponytails, the ends dipped in blue, wearing jean shorts and an oversized T-shirt, looking fourteen years old, tops.

  “I told her,” she said, leaning dramatically against the doorjamb. “Piper.” She came into the office, filling it with the level of angst only a twenty-year-old woman-child could. She plopped into the metal chair across the desk from him.

  He stood. “Is she okay?”

  “Well, I’m fine, thanks for asking.”

  Cam shook his head at her. “You know what I mean.”

  “She’s . . . shocked.” Winnie rubbed her stomach. “She can join my damn club.”

  Suddenly suspicious, Cam sat. “When you say you told her, you mean you told her all of it, right?”

  “You make it sound like there’s so much to tell.”

  He leveled a look at her. “For nearly two decades, she raised you and Gavin with hopes and dreams for you both. I’m pretty sure those hopes and dreams didn’t include you quitting college, returning to Wildstone, or getting pregnant so young.”

  Winnie sighed. “I know. And yeah, I told her everything. Well, except the Rowan being the daddy part. I mean, why drag a dead guy into it, right?”

  “Why wouldn’t you tell her?” he asked, boggled by the mysterious workings of the female mind.

  Winnie tipped her head back and stared up at the ceiling. “You knew your brother. He was . . . awesome, but he marched to his own beat, you know? He wasn’t exactly the most responsible guy around. I know this because I’m not either. And Piper knew it too. But what she doesn’t know is that I’m changing, for the Bean.” She cupped her belly. “But I have to show her, Cam. Show, not tell. I’m going to prove myself to her, for me and Rowan. I just need time to do it.”

  Cam opened his mouth, but telling her she was making a stupid choice was what he’d have done to Rowan. And look where that’d gotten them. So he bit his tongue. Hard. Because Piper wasn’t wrong about Rowan. The kid had been slow to grow up, really slow. And living here on the lake with his dad, who wasn’t exactly Mr. Responsible himself, hadn’t helped. But in the end, Rowan had at least been trying. Hell, Cam had the proof of that sitting in his pocket.

  Winnie was growing up too, getting a crash course in adulting while she was at it. By all counts, she was doing her best. It’d be of no use to tell her how stupid it was not to tell Piper, that it’d only blow up on her in the end. Chances were that she already knew. Or, more likely, she just didn’t care, because in Winnie’s world, it was still all about Winnie.

  That would change too, soon enough, but she’d have to figure that out on her own. He was here for her, no matter what. He’d made a promise, and he took those incredibly seriously. But first and foremost, his responsibility was to the baby she was carrying. “Rowan had definitely started to grow up,” he said. “For you both.”

  Winnie gave him a look that held a mix of doubt and hope. “Really?”

  “He was in it with you, Winnie. All the way in.”

  “What do you mean?” She straightened up and leaned toward him now. “How do you know?”

  “Because I found this.” He pulled the little black box from his pocket, the one he’d found shortly before Piper had come to him on the dock last night.

  Winnie took the box and stared at it for a long moment. When she finally opened it and found a very modest but pretty diamond ring, she covered her mouth with shaking fingers. “He wanted to marry me?”

  “Yes.”

  She clutched the box to her chest like she was hugging it, but didn’t make a move to put it on.

  “You’re not going to wear it?”

  She pressed her lips together. “Did he tell you how we got together? I mean together, together?”

  “No.”

  “We were BFFs. Ride or dies, you know? And though we toyed with an attraction, we’d always ignored it.” She shook her head. “I think we were both scared. Even stupid kids like us recognized when two souls were meant for each other, and that was . . . well, terrifying. So we kept it platonic.”

  Cam glanced down wryly at the hand she held over her stomach.

  “Yeah, well, I’m getting there,” she said. “He came down to Santa Barbara to visit me just before he went to see you. I wasn’t expecting him. He showed up at my place just as I was getting home from a date with a guy who had turned out to be an asshole.” She sighed. “The truth is, Rowan sort of saved me that night. I was upset, and . . .” She closed her eyes for a long moment, lost in her thoughts. “And, well . . . one thing led to another.” When she opened her eyes, they were wet. “That was the last time I saw him.”

  They’d been on the verge of something, something that might’ve been really great for both of them, and it’d been taken away from them. Cam hated that.

  Winnie ran her finger over the ring, then met his gaze, her own surprisingly adult. “We weren’t in love. At least not yet. But I loved him in my own way, and I know he loved me too. And I like to think we could’ve made it work.”

  Cam stood up, pulled her to her feet, and hugged her as she started to cry. “I think so too,” he said softly, his own throat tight from listening to her pain.

  Finally, she sniffed and pulled back to swipe a hand across her face. “I know we already had a funeral, but it was with a bunch of people I didn’t know. I want to do a really small thing here, with Piper and Gavin, who couldn’t afford to go to the first one.” She looked at him. “Would you be okay with that?”

  “Of course, but are you sure you want to put yourself through it again?”

  “No. But I want to do it anyway. For closure.”

  Cam nodded. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”

  “Next weekend,” she said. “With your dad and my siblings?”

  It was the last thing he wanted to do, open up the wound and grieve again, but he nodded. “Sure.”

  There was a knock on the doorjamb. Gavin. He took a look at his sister’s tear-streaked face. “What’s wrong? You okay?”

  “Rowan got me a ring,” she said. “He loved me