Almost Just Friends Read online

  Fall in love.

  She stared at the words, having to admit she should probably just go ahead and check that one off right now because it’d already happened. She’d just been too stubborn to realize it. She’d been afraid of commitment in the past because in her mind, committing to someone meant another person whose life would take precedence over hers.

  But she wasn’t afraid of that with Cam. He’d never try to make her into something she wasn’t or put himself before her.

  Life as she knew it would only get better.

  “Why is this so hard?” she whispered angrily to herself, and pressed her forehead to her knees.

  “It doesn’t have to be,” said an unbearably familiar voice from behind her.

  Cam.

  She squeezed her eyes shut. He’d found her. Of course he’d found her. Because unlike her, he was in control of himself and always did what needed to be done, hard or easy, big or small.

  Damn, she admired that.

  He came to a stop beside her, and she made the mistake of looking up at him. His hair was growing out a bit from his military cut and was a windblown mess of perfection. He hadn’t shaved in a few days and the scruff and dark sunglasses he favored only added to his bad-boy appeal.

  “I’m an asshole?” he asked, reminding her of exactly where they’d left off.

  She grimaced and opened her mouth, but he put a hand on her shoulder, gentle but firm.

  “Let me rephrase. I am an asshole. And I owe you an apology.” Their arms and legs brushed as he settled in beside her, calm and relaxed in a way that was beyond her ability, ever. “First,” he said, “I need you to know that I wanted to tell you about my brother. I did. But I let the guilt cloud my judgment.” He closed his eyes. “Rowan told me he didn’t want his kid growing up like we did. He wanted them to have two parents in their life that loved each other. ‘Winnie and I are going to make it work,’ he told me. And”—Cam met her gaze—“I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t buy into the notion of love, because it’d never worked for me. But Rowan said it only has to work the one time. A twenty-year-old schooled me.”

  She felt her heart go a little squishy.

  “Rowan wanted me to fill the role for his baby that he knew he wouldn’t be able to.” He shook his head. “And even then, I wasn’t having it. He was bleeding out, dying, and I told him to stop saying goddamn good-bye to me, that he was going to make it, that he’d live to drive me out of my mind another day.”

  Piper smiled through unshed tears. “And what did he say to that?”

  Cam’s mouth curved in a grief-filled smile. “For the first time in our lives, he got royally pissed off at me. He grabbed me by my shirt with his bloody fists and shook me. He yelled, ‘I need you to listen to me, for once!’”

  “Did you?”

  “Yeah. I finally stopped reacting instead of listening.” He closed his eyes. “And you know the rest.”

  She tried to hold on to her anger. But in spite of her best efforts, some of it was fading. Actually, a lot of it. “So that’s why it’s so important to you to listen. It’s one of your best qualities.”

  His smile was wry. “But see, I don’t always listen. I didn’t listen to you, or my heart. I’ve got a long history of letting those I care about down. My mom, Rowan, you.”

  Dammit, there went some more of her bad temper. “No,” she said. “Promises mean something to you. I get that. It’s . . . noble. You were trying to help Winnie and you’d given her your word. I do that on the job, I keep people’s medical secrets, so my sister asking you not to tell me . . . well, I have to accept and understand that. It was her story to tell and she thought I’d overreact or tell her what to do rather than listen. Same with Gavin. That’s between me and them, and no matter what I might want, I can’t control them.”

  He gave her a small smile. “You letting me off the hook, Piper?”

  “No.” She paused and shook her head. “Well, maybe just a little. I really do know you were trying to help. Logically. But . . . emotionally? I’m still hurt and angry at being left out.”

  “Understood.”

  She nodded, relieved to have gotten that out. He let a companionable silence fill the space between them, along with the small waves slapping rhythmically against the dock. She could hear the wind and a bird squawking at something. The buzz of insects. Her own thoughts . . .

  “Everything feels so complicated,” she whispered.

  “It doesn’t have to be.”

  She looked at him.

  “No one meant to hurt anyone,” he said. “Least of all me. The loan . . . I came here to Wildstone intending to check on Winnie, you know that now. What you don’t know is that I wasn’t in a great place. I was . . . needing a connection. Something to ground me, to make me feel. I met you on my second night here, and I knew right then at the bar, Piper. I knew I’d found the connection I was looking for. I wanted to tell you everything, but Winnie needed to do it, in her own time. It was before . . . us.” He paused and met her gaze. “But then I started to fall for you, and there I was, holding back from you while asking you not to hold back from me. That’s what I’m most sorry about. With the loan, I was just trying to help, trying to give you something you needed. You needed to be free to go. Now you are. You can go find the next good-time guy.”

  She winced. “You’re not just that to me,” she said softly. “And I’m sorry I let you think that. You’re more. You’re . . .”

  “Too much more?” he asked wryly.

  No, you’re everything, she wanted to say, but just shook her head.

  “Piper, you’re one of the strongest people I know. You’ve had to be. But that’s the thing. Now you don’t. You can let go of everyone else’s problems for once, and just live your own life.”

  “But what if I don’t know who I am if I’m not the mom, the sister, the caretaker . . .”

  “You know exactly who you are, Piper. Yes, you’re those things, but you’re also so much more. You’re intelligent, resourceful, fiercely independent. You’re also beautiful, but that’s actually the least interesting thing about you.” He looked amused when she blinked. “You make me feel things I didn’t think I could feel.”

  A little overwhelmed and maybe also embarrassed at the compliments, she squirmed. “Yeah, well, aroused doesn’t count.”

  He flashed a quick grin that affected her pulse. “Yes, it does. But it’s more than that. You make me—”

  “Crazy?”

  “I wasn’t going to list that first,” he said diplomatically.

  “Haha.” It took her a minute to find the right words. “I’m not the kind of person who believes people are inherently good. I don’t trust easily. Or at all. But . . . I trusted you, Cam.”

  He grimaced. “I know. I—”

  She put her fingers to his mouth. “So yeah, when you lied to me, I got angry. But I was angry at myself for not knowing. I should have. I should have seen all of it, but I was too busy and distracted, and didn’t take the time for my own brother and sister. So, see, I let myself down. And I want you to know, I still trust you. If anything, I’ve learned that life’s about the little things.” She paused, met his gaze. “Like keeping promises.”

  “Like keeping promises,” he agreed, with a serious look on his face as he lightly touched her. “You’re too hard on yourself.”

  Maybe. Okay, yes. She was. She thought about her work, and all she’d seen. How sometimes the simplest choices could have such far-reaching impacts. Like her parents sending their kids to safety, planning to join them soon, but instead being killed before they could. Or someone driving drunk because he lived right around the corner, but in that two-minute drive he hit a car and killed one of two brothers. “Life’s too short,” she murmured out loud.

  “Yes.”

  She stared at the water and not at Cam. Because looking directly at Cam was oftentimes like looking at a whole pan of buttery soft double-chocolate brownies. Oh so good, and . . . oh so bad for her. “Whi