Page 84 of SALT

"Ev, please don't do this," I hear her say, but my feet don't stop. I hoped our story would end with me being her destiny, but the sound of my footsteps as I walk away sounds like the deafening silence of me being part of her history. Good.

"Dad, this is messed up. You shouldn't be walking away right now. She needs you," Connor says, following me out of the gardens.

"You think I want to walk away from her? Connor, I love her with everything that I am. You're my son, but she's the other half of my soul."

"Then why are we walking away? We're her family."

"That's why I'm walking away. We're not her everything anymore, Con. I don't have the DNA tests, but I already know what it will say, Lauren Camden Rhodes is Cameron's mom." As if I needed another slap in the face. Damon named his daughter Cameron, no doubt an eponym for Lauren. The signs seem so utterly obvious now, which makes this all the more harsh. I should have realized sooner. Maybe if I had, I wouldn't be walking away now. Perhaps then I could have had the time to find my words, to tell her differently, or maybe it was always meant to be this way.

"You're supposed to be there for her when she's hurting."

"Not on this, Con. This is different. Her pain needs to be her strength." I run my hands through my hair, pulling hard as I do. I can't save the girl. I did that once and lost myself and the girl. This time, the girl has to save herself. When I reach the valet with Garrett and Connor hot on my heels, I look to Connor and say, "You guys are more than welcome to stay. I'm not asking you to take a side."

"The car is here," Garrett says as he opens the door. "I'll let Moira know you had to leave."

"Thanks," I say as I climb in.

Leaning in, Garrett says, "This isn't the cornfield, you're not seventeen, and that girl back there doesn't need you, she wants you. There's a difference, brother."

He shuts the door and hits the roof, signaling the driver to take off before I can respond. As the driver pulls out of the park, all I can think is I may have just made one of the biggest mistakes of my life.

Chapter 30

Cameron

Watching Everett walk away, I try not to let it hurt. He just told me he loved me, and I know those words weren't flippant. They weren't said out of obligation because I said it first. They were felt in his soul, and I would know because we share the same one. The man walking away from me now hasn't healed. He's hurting too, and part of loving someone is trusting them with that pain. I can't fault him for not knowing what to do with the emotions he's fighting now. Before he walked away inside the gala, he said, "There's no way I'm walking away from the first girl I ever said I love you to without a kiss." I loved him yesterday, I love him today, and I'll love him tomorrow, and right now, I'll love what I know exists between us, for us.

"Hey," Mackenzie says as her hand finds my shoulder. "Let's tackle one broken piece at a time and see if we can't put some hearts back together."

I pull my father's book tight to my chest. She stayed. She didn't walk off with Connor and Garrett as they followed after Everett, and it means the world to me to have her by my side. I nod and turn around only to find Lauren staring at me with the same contemplative curiosity she always has, but where I used to see conniving, someone trying to get close to me to steal my man, I now see it for what it potentially always was: curious unbelief.

"When did you figure it out?" I ask blankly.

"She found the book hidden in my room. I had planned to talk to you about it tomorrow?—"

Lauren raises her hand, and Stormy shrinks back.

"The day I stopped in the team shop and brought the two of you lunch, Stormy mentioned your birthday, and then you told me your father was Damon Salt. That was the first time in twenty-two years I ever had any reason to doubt that you weren't in the grave I left you in. My eyes immediately saw someone else standing before me. I was convinced I was going mad and seeing ghosts. It's why I excused myself. There was no way the thoughts running through my head were real. It had to be a coincidence. Amelia must have been pregnant at the same time I was, and I didn't know. That's what I told myself anyway..." She pulls her phone from her back pocket. "Can I show you something?" she asks as she takes a cautious step toward me.

"Sure," I say, as my lungs expel breath I hadn't realized I was holding.

She clicks open her phone and shows me a picture of a woman holding a baby in front of a statue of Mother Mary. The picture is faded and worn, but the auburn hair, porcelain skin, and blue eyes are unmistakable. "Who is she?"

"That's my mother holding me."

"I don't understand…" Obviously, I follow her suggestion that the woman in the photo is my grandmother. "How? Or better yet, why?" I turn to Stormy. "When you said you had been lying to get close to me, and then I thought back to our conversations about my brother, I thought you were going to come out and reveal you were my sister. Not this."

Stormy shoves her hands into the front pockets of her overalls. "In hindsight, I see how you could think that. My bad. If it makes you feel any better, I lied to Lauren too. She followed me here blindly, unaware of the morsel of information Sage Graves shared with me."

"Maybe not blindly. It was time for me to face the past I had run from. It was time to find closure. I just never expected that closure to be my daughter alive and well." Thunder rumbling off in the distance catches all of our attention as a few sprinkles fall.

"How about we take this inside? Our table is empty now that the men have left," Mackenzie says as she gestures toward the tent.

"We're not really dressed for a gala," Lauren states plainly.

"It's fine. We'll find a table in the corner," I say as a big gust of wind picks up.

We've just found a table in the back when Mackenzie leaves us to grab some drinks, and I notice Garrett and Connor at the bar. My heart beats out of tune as I discreetly look around the room to see if Everett stayed too.

---