Something in me stirred at the simple praise. I was vaguely aware of this happening before, but my heart still pounded. It banged against my rib cage, just like Cameron’s, and it felt good. So good that I leaned back, letting my head fall against his chest while we worked.
Cameron’s exhale tickled the skin right beneath my ear. “Let’s take it back down now,” he said, interlacing our wet fingers and sending a rush of electricity up my arms at the sensation. He moved our hands and the clay changed shape. “That looks incredible.”
That soft spot in my chest batted its wings. I hooked my thumbs with his.
A grumble climbed out of Cameron’s mouth.
The flutter intensified, making me short of breath. I wanted to turn around and search his face. See if he was feeling like I did. But I didn’t, I didn’t want this to go away. Not yet. I was trapped by the moment. Captured by the solid presence of Cameron and the feel of his hands.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve held hands with anyone,” I heard myself admit out loud. “I can’t remember something so simple ever feeling this way.”
Cameron’s hands froze momentarily over mine. It was just a second, maybe less, but I’d seen it. Felt it. He hesitated.
I was spat out of the vacuum.
Just like that, I was no longer calm. Or peacefully trapped in whatever this was. The reins I was so busy keeping a tight hold of snapped right back into my grasp. Here I was, telling this man who was reluctantly doing this with me that he was the first to hold my hands in a long time. That he made me somehow feel like I’d never felt before. What was next? To tell him that besides that one-liner Matthew had thrown at me almost a decade ago, I’d never been flirted with? That my only serious relationship had turned out to be a lie? That the man I’d thought had been ready to propose once upon a time had never seen me as more than a bridge to get to my father?
She’s so frigid man. So… boring. I really dodged a bullet there. Too bad, because when the old man kicks the bucket she’ll probably inherit most of his money. But nah. I can only endure so much.
Nah.
As if I’d been nothing more than an insipid and boring side dish you passed on.
I’ll pass on the complimentary roasted veggies, thank you very much. But nah.
I hadn’t been hurt. I didn’t care that David had ended a relationship that brought little to my life. But as time had passed, I’d held on to the idea that I’d had at least that. That one relationship that proved that I wasn’t… cold. Dry. That I could be loved. Desired.
So how was I supposed to not crack? How was I supposed to hear David laugh and say that he’d dated me just to sneak into my father’s empire, that I was a bullet that was dodged, and not have something in me break? How was I supposed to not change when I heard everything he said right after that?
The image of Sparkles’s head at my feet crystallized in—
“Adalyn.” Cameron’s voice cut through the loud disarray of thoughts in my head. Again. Just like it always managed to do. “Snap out of it, darling.” It was angry. Rough sounding. “Come back to me.”
I forced myself to make sense of my surroundings.
The blob of clay rested at a weird angle.
Strong hands held mine.
Beautiful, crooked hands that had been injured one too many times. Where was the signet ring he wore around his pinky?
The sound of my own breathing crystallized in my ears. The vacuum I’d been sucked in a moment ago, spitting me right out. This wasn’t the first time. It wasn’t the first time I found myself close to hyperventilating in this man’s arms. I hated it.
“Where the hell did you go to?” Cameron asked. And when I didn’t answer, his thumbs started tracing idle circles on the top of my hands. “How long have you been experiencing panic attacks?”
My spine stiffened. “I don’t—I—” Panic attacks? “That wasn’t a panic attack.” It couldn’t be.
Could it?
Cameron hummed deep in his throat, and I didn’t know whether it was in agreement or complaint. He released one of my hands and snagged the flattened pile of material from the wheel.
“Is it ruined?” I asked him, hating how my voice sounded.
He discarded it on the side. “It is, yeah.”
Of course it was.
After a long moment he said, his voice still gentle, his tone kind, his arms around me, “Darling?”
“Maybe you were right,” I admitted, not even bothering to care I was not moving out of his embrace. “Maybe that was a panic attack.”
“Okay,” he said quickly. “But I was going to say something else.”
“That this was as therapeutic as a kick on the shin?”
A low chuckle left him, and the sound felt different from every other time he’d chuckled before. “I was going to say that everyone in here is staring at us. And as much as I don’t really mind, we either move, or we’ll be everything everybody will be talking about tomorrow.”
My head snapped up. I looked around.
Cameron was right.
* * *
A flat tire.
A freaking flat tire.
I braced my hands on my hips, noticing the splatters of clay on my borrowed dungarees. Great. Yet another thing I’d have to throw at the giant pile of laundry I already had.
Here I thought that having to wash my underwear by hand and hang it out to dry on the antlers had been the lowest point this week. Of course not. There was the stupid panic attack I just had. Me storming off out of the barn before the pottery class finished. And now this. I glanced back at the tire and I shook my head. Pressure clamped down in the mouth of my stomach. I wondered if I was going to cry.
I patted my eyes. Dry. The notion of me still not able to figure out when the last time I’d shed a tear came back. A bitter laugh escaped my mouth.
Another one followed, because God, I was a mess. Before I knew what was happening, I was cackling at the dark sky above my head. I let out my frustration. Although it quickly turned into anger. Disbelief. Desperation. “Shit,” I heard myself breathe out with a humorless laugh. “Fuck.” The cackling died out. My eyes fell on the tire. I kicked it. “Screw you, you stupid goddamn flat fucking tire!”
“That escalated quickly.”
My whole body stilled. My back stiffened.
“Motherfucker,” I murmured. Because I never swore but I was allowing myself to have this one moment.
“Oh wow,” Cameron said, and I heard his steps coming closer. “Please don’t stop on my behalf. I’m rather enjoying this.”
I looked over my shoulder, finding him with the amused expression I expected from his tone. “Always happy to hear about how my misfortune amuses you.”
He sobered up. “It doesn’t,” he countered, his gaze going up and down my body. Swiftly but thoroughly enough to make me pause. His throat worked. “It’s you who amuses me, Adalyn. And I can’t even figure out exactly why. Which bothers me. And fascinates me.”
I shook my head. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
“Hell if I know, darling,” he said, kneeling down. He checked the tire and straightened back up. “I’ll drive you back to Lazy Elk, come on.”
He pulled out his truck keys and unlocked the doors with an elegant click.
I opened my mouth, but he cut me off with a “Don’t bother.”
“How do you know I was going to speak? You were not even looking this way.”
“Because I’m not the only one who operates in two single modes,” he delivered in a sharp tone. “You do, too. You either overthink, or object. Both tirelessly, and usually directed at me.” He threw the copilot door open and shot me a look over the hood of the car. “You didn’t seem that bothered by me when I had my arms around you, so save the complaint and jump in the car.”
My arms around you.
My face flamed. “That’s different. Pottery and getting into an enclosed space with someone who could very well be planning to murder me and throw my body into some creek in the woods, hoping that putrefaction and scavenger creatures dismember it in a week so the bones sink straight to the bottom and all traces of the remains vanish are two very different things.”