Page 11 of One Night Redemption

He smirks. "Take it as whatever ya want, Cam. Just letting you know you aren't as slick as you think you are."

I scoff, giving him a smile, but I don't say anything, because he isn't worth my time. "Never said I was slick, and never wanted to be. Last I checked you left her at the altar, which made her fair game, and if she wants to spend her time with me, then she's more than welcome to do that. Regardless of whether you like it or not." I level him with a glare. "Now, before we talk about what happened inside that house, I have a few rights I need to read to you ..."

Chapter

Nine

Cassie

I’m a glutton for punishment. With Cam’s spare key in my pocket, I’m packing an overnight bag with my work stuff and a few toiletries. I definitely do not glam it up to go in for a shift in the ER. If that shift happens to be a weekend or a full moon, which tomorrow is, it’s pointless to do anything to make myself presentable. I’ll be covered in puke, blood or pee before midnight. And that’s if it’s a slow night.

I take another glance around my bathroom. Satisfied I’ve got everything I need, I tuck my toiletry case and makeup bag into the paisley weekender bag that is the staple of every self-respecting Southern woman’s wardrobe. I hate to even think about how deliberately I weighed every single decision about what to put in that bag. Take too much, it looks like I want to move in. Take too little, and it looks like maybe I don’t want to be there. And even while I’m doing this, I know that I’m overthinking the fuck out of it.

“Just get it together, Cass. Stop being a neurotic mess,” I tell myself as I tuck my phone charger into the bag. I’m almost to the door when my phone dings alerting me to a text.

Cam: Brandon has been arrested. I’ll tell you what I can later.

I type a message back. Then I delete it. Then I type another one—this one is about what really bothers me in this situation.

Did you know you were going to arrest him when I came to you about it the other day?

The read receipt pops up so there’s no question he’s seen it. Then those little dots pop up at the bottom of the screen. After a second, they go away. Then come back again. This time, they just sit there blinking at me. Then, after the longest time, my phone rings. It’s Cam. It wouldn’t be anyone else.

“Hello?”

I hear a heavy sigh from him. “I couldn’t tell you, Cass. Believe me when I say that I wanted to. But there are things, especially a bust of this magnitude, that we can’t ever speak of outside of work. Not beforehand anyway.”

I get that. I do. I see shit in the ER all the time that I can’t tell anyone about even though I really feel the need to. “That’s hard to swallow, Cam. I don’t think you’re lying but … it’s hard to know that I’m going to have to constantly worry about you keeping things from me. Because if you can keep this a secret, what else are you hiding?”

“That’s not … Things are still new, Cass. Or new again. And we don’t have the trust built between us for this kind of shit yet. Just, let me finish up the paperwork that I have to do and then I’ll come home and we can talk about it.”

“No. You come to my house.” Because I can’t be in his. I need to have my feet on solid ground while I unravel just why this has gotten under my skin so bad.

“Give me an hour and I’ll be there,” he says.

It’s closer to an hour and a half when he knocks on my door. The last thirty minutes have been a hellish reminder of what it’s like when Cam decides to check out. And that’s not fair. I know what it is to get tangled up in paperwork when shit goes sideways with work. Part of me wants to be calm and reasonable about it. The other part of me is yelling that he’s given me the excuse I need to walk away before getting hurt.

Opening the door, I see him standing there. His hair is mussed, his shirt untucked and he looks, if I had to put it in a word, worried.

“Are we okay?” The first question out of his mouth has put me on the spot.

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “Maybe. Maybe not. But come on in. We’ll talk about it at least.”

Cam steps inside, closing the door behind him. “Cass, you are more important to me than you can even know. And I’m not gonna put a label on that because we’re not there yet. Even if we feel it, neither of us is ready to say it.”

“That’s a fair assessment.” And way more insightful about his feelings and mine than I expected him to be but saying that will not help the current situation.

“I fucked up before. I fucked up and then I ran. Because … I won’t even say I’m not good at relationships. I’ve never tried to be good at relationships. You know what it was like growing up here. My dad was a cheating son of a bitch and everyone in town knew it.”

Cam’s dad had been the sheriff back when we were in school. And it was an open secret that he was sleeping around on Cam’s mom. Not just having an affair but hooking up with different women through the course of their marriage. Seeing that would fuck anyone up. But when Cam’s mom got sick, and then after she died, Cam had changed. Even though I hadn’t been part of his circle of friends, it had been impossible not to be aware of that, not to see that there was a new callousness in him that hadn’t been there before.

“This isn’t about your dad, Cam. Or about your mom. Or about anything except the fact that you kept a pretty big secret–and I get that you had to–but it seems like it was way too easy for you. And that worries me.”

He shoves his hands in his pocket and leans against the back of the door. “I can’t promise you I won’t keep secrets, Cass. That’s part of the job. But I can promise you those secrets won’t be about us or anything that could impact us.”

It’s what I want to hear. What I need to hear from him. But it doesn’t make the doubts go away. Maybe if things had gone differently before. Maybe if he hadn’t stood me up and then hooked up with Lucy, I wouldn’t feel all this gnawing, horrible doubt. “I don’t know. I wish I could tell you something different … but just because I’ve forgiven you doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten. You kept secrets before. You lied to me before. Maybe it was a lie of omission, but it was still a lie.

“I know,” he says, nodding. “I guess, the question, Cass, is whether or not the good outweighs the bad. Is what we’ve had for the last few days worth fighting for?”

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