Page 9 of Twin Threats In Austin
“I figure starting here should give us a sense of what the night was like at the bar,” she said, sitting back to watch and take down her burger and fries.
Camden studied the screen with the same wrinkle in his forehead that he’d had a minute ago while he’d focused on his cell phone.
“Did you get anything from your phone worth sharing?” she asked, motioning toward the phone he’d set next to his leg like he might be waiting for a call or text.
“No,” he admitted. “It’s personal.” His tone said it was heavy.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
Camden chewed on a bite of burger before swallowing and then washing it down with a sip of Coke. “Do you want to hear about my family?”
“Sure,” she said, realizing he most likely had a wife and possibly kids. A quick glance at his ring finger revealed no tan line. She’d noticed there was no gold band a few seconds after they’d first met. It was habit and had nothing to do with the little frisson of awareness she’d experienced when she first set eyes on him.
A little voice in the back of her mind decided to point out the fact she was attracted to him and there was more to it, but she refused to entertain the idea. Besides, it wouldn’t be productive to go down that path at work.
Camden exhaled a slow sigh. “My grandparents were in a crash several months ago that put them both in comas. My grandfather recently woke up and is alert with perfect cognitive function, but he’s been with my grandmother since high school, so we’re obviously concerned about keeping his spirits up until something happens with her one way or the other.”
“That’s so sad,” she immediately said. “I’m so sorry that happened. Sounds like your family is close.”
“You could say that,” he said after thanking her for her sympathy. “They raised me, my sister, Julie, and my brother, Dalton, from when we were little kids. They took on our cousins too, so they basically raised six kids while running a small paint horse operation.”
“They sound like saints,” she murmured.
“They were…are,” he corrected, his voice revealing a measured calm, as though he couldn’t allow himself to get emotional about them, or the landslide would turn into an avalanche. Her heart went out to him. “It’s been a roller coaster of emotions since the crash.”
“I can only imagine how helpless you must feel watching the ones you love fight for their lives,” she soothed. “It has to be the worst.”
“It’s not easy,” he admitted, turning to catch her gaze. A mix of emotions played behind his eyes, making her want to reach over the console and find a way to ease his pain.
At a loss for words, all she could do was listen as he continued.
“Each of us is taking a turn watching over them so they’re not alone,” he said. “I’m next, and then I guess we’ll start over from the beginning again if nothing changes with Grandma Lacey.”
“Sounds like they’re being surrounded by love,” she said, wondering what that would be like. As an only child, she had no idea what growing up with siblings and cousins was like. After relocating to Austin from Amarillo, they’d had no extra money for vacations back to Amarillo, so Rochelle had never developed a relationship with extended family. They’d preferred driving to nearby Galveston to go to the beach or Padre Island when it wasn’t spring break and overrun with drunk college kids.
“I haven’t thought about it in those terms,” he said, “but you’re right. I’ve been focused on feeling like the worst human for being unable to drop everything and be with them after they took me in and raised me like their own.”
“We might have only just met, but I generally get a good read on people within a few minutes of being in their presence—call it a job skill or hazard, depending on your point of view.” She cracked a small smile, hoping it would be contagious. “It causes problems with dating sometimes.”
Camden’s face broke into a smile, revealing straight, white teeth. Another quality that made him almost irresistible. “Would it surprise you to know that seems to be a universal problem with law-enforcement officers?”
“Too easy to spot a liar, right?” she said, forcing her gaze away from eyes that reminded her of the sky on a spring morning after it rained.
If only she’d met Camden socially instead of at work…
This was thefirst time Camden had spoken to someone outside of the family or medical team about his grandparents since this whole ordeal had started. Rochelle was easy to talk to. Someonehe could see himself trusting. He ignored the voice that tried to convince him a greater magnetism was at work, a pull that shouldn’t be disregarded.
“Your grandparents are fortunate to have so much love in their lives,” Rochelle said after a thoughtful pause, keeping her gaze trained on the screen as the surveillance footage rolled.
Camden thought he was the lucky one. “My mother took off when I was seven and a half years old. By age ten, my father had died—some say of a broken heart after the woman who birthed me took off, but it was probably heatstroke. I’m the oldest of three.”
“You have an oldest-sibling vibe,” she said.
“Controlling, high achieving, and entitled?” he quipped.
“I was thinking more along the lines of conscientious, determined, and hardworking,” she corrected with a small smile that caused his chest to squeeze. “But you know yourself better than I do.”
The mischievous lilt in her voice cracked through some of the shame he felt whenever he was shrouded in guilt about not being bedside, holding vigil for his grandparents.
