Page 78 of All Mine

I gasped. “Are you kidding me?” If only he’d told me his client’s name, I could have warned him about the kind of man Stephen was. He’d screw over his grandmother to get what he wanted.

Camden grazed my hand. At his touch, my gaze shifted to those eyes, deep, calm, and heated. What the heck? I sat there bruised, with a head full of matted air, and not showered. And he stared back at me like I was some sort of beautiful goddess.

“Please keep an open mind about this,” he started, sliding his warm hand over mine, “I bought the land.”

“Wha—?”

“To keep Stephen from leveling it, I went and had paperwork drawn up, and as soon as we had the verdict from the vote… Lewis signed it, and I transferred the cash to him. I own the property now.”

“You bought it. With cash. How?” It’s not like this was a shirt.

He smiled and massaged circles into my hand with his thumb. “I had some savings.”

My head spun, either from the concussion or from all the news. “What does that mean? This is a lot to process right now… Wait…” The thought seemed too horrible to say aloud. But, it was too much of a coincidence otherwise. “Did Stephen burn down my bakery in retaliation?” I whispered, still not wanting to vocalize it.

“Yeah, it seems likely since he tried to stop me from getting inside to find you.”

“Oh my god…” What if Camden hadn’t gotten in?

He squeezed my hand. “You’re okay,” he said, like he’d read my mind. “But, maybe he didn’t set it. I’ll wait on the fire chief to say if it was arson.”

“This is insane.”

“Yeah, I’m so glad I was trying to find you and returned.”

“You were trying to find me?”

“Yeah, I’d had a revelation and wanted to talk about us.”

“Us? There’s no us. I thought we were on our way to become an us, but you left me.”

“I left because Stephen gave me an ultimatum to stop seeing you or lose the job. And I made the wrong choice and regretted it. I’ve done nothing but think of you every single minute of every single day this past month. And I want to make it up to you. When I found out what he was up to, I had to step in and try to stop it. I couldn’t let him get away with it because the truth is I’m in love with you.”

I willed the tears forming in the corners of my eyes to dry, but they escaped down my cheeks instead. “I can’t think right now, Camden… the concussion…”

“Then don’t think, just tell me if it’s in your heart to forgive me and love me.”

“You live on the road, and I live here. Be practical. It wouldn’t work.” I jerked my hand away from his touch and wiped my eyes.

“I want to live here in Hart Valley with you in our new building.”

“In your business complex?”

“You haven’t seen my new design,” he said, pulling out his phone. “The screen’s a bit busted from last night, but this will give you an idea.” He handed me the phone. And through the cracks was a computerized rendering of the front elevation of a two-story building. “See the second story right there.” He pointed. “It’s the second level of your bakery, to have the same type of setup like you had. Then a door there will access a hallway to the condo section.”

“Condo section?”

“It’s a multi-use complex. The top floor will house all condos that will have a view of Hart Lake while the bottom level is retail space.”

The computerized version of the building was amazing, but it was too much to take in with everything. My ex-husband still wanted to destroy me and the town. Camden loved me and thwarted Stephen’s plan and now wanted to live with me in his new condo-business complex built on my burned-down bakery site.

“My brain hurts.”

He slid the phone from my fingers.

“You should rest,” he said, grazing his fingertips down my arm. “It’s too much to put on you right now. I just needed you to know how I feel about you and that I want to make a life with you here.” He pressed a kiss to my hand and stood.

“Where are you going?” I asked, my eyelids heavy.

---