Page 13 of Be Mine Forever

Wow, she went for the jugular.

“You know, I—”

“Don’t hedge.”

“I’m not going to. I’m just thinking of how to answer.”

“Try the truth.”

“Okay.” Cam contemplated the label circling his beer bottle. “I think over the last year or so, I’ve drawn some of the same conclusions Kerris did.”

“Meaning?”

“After the divorce, she said we never should have married.”

“To which you said, ‘Thank you, Captain Obvious.’”

They shared a grin. In their two-member club, sarcasm was like the secret handshake.

“No, at the time I just thought she wanted to make herself feel better for her part in our breakup. Now I realize she was probably right.”

“Meaning?”

“As bad as it sounds, I think we settled for each other because we knew we were both so screwed up by our pasts. I guess we kind of thought only another person as damaged as we were could accept us…as we were.”

“So you were never in love with Kerris?”

“Well, I was attracted to her, of course. I cared about her.”

“But were you inlovewith her? Gun-to-the-head answer.”

“Gun to the head…probably not.”

“Gun to the head and I still can’t get a straight answer.”

“That’s as straight as it’s gonna get tonight.”

“So if that’s the case, doesn’t it clear the way some for you and Walsh?”

“In retrospect, I can see that we shouldn’t have married.” Cam took a quick swig of his beer, the muscles of his face tightening. “Doesn’t make the way things went down easy to accept or forget. Once I knew for sure how it was between them, what was there to fight for except…”

“Except Amalie?”

Cam looked down at his boots, feeling like something stuck to the bottom of them. “Yeah, except her.”

Hesitation was all over Jo’s face, an expression so rare for her that it caught his attention like a peacock in a blizzard. She wasn’t one to hesitate long. Sooner or later she’d spit it out.

“Cam, Kerris is in therapy for all she went through. From the abuse in her childhood, the divorce, Amalie, all the crap she’s endured. Have you talked to anyone about…everything?”

“About my feelings you mean?” Derision twisted Cam’s mouth. “I’ve lived with my…feelings…all my life. I’ll be fine.”

“No, but this is different.” Jo swung her feet from beneath her, placing them flat on the floor and leaning forward. “You lost a child, and your marriage and your best friend. Not to mention everything else in your past you’ve probably never dealt with.”

Cam shot to his feet, gripping the neck of the beer bottle until he thought it might shatter.

“What the hell do you think you know about my past?”

“What do I know about your past?” Confusion muddied Jo’s crystalline eyes. “Um…everything?”

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