Oceans Apart (Ocean Dreams Book 1) (28 page)

Cam flushed with the embarrassment of being caught. “Sorry, but I truly have missed you so much. I feel like my right arm has been cut from my body and I can’t paddle to save myself.”

Annie puckered her lips together, and then nodded her head a little making Cam feel comfortable enough to sit on the bench next to her.

“So have you talked to her?” Annie blurted out as if it was a bad tasting piece food.

“Lana? Uh…yeah. Briefly.”

“And?”

“And I told her I would be there for the child and support it one hundred percent. No questions asked. I want to be a part of my child’s life and have a say in how it is brought up. If the child is mine.”

“I understand that. Of course, you would want to be in your child’s life. Lana would be a fool if she didn’t want you to be a part of their life,” Annie said. “Is there a chance the baby isn’t yours?”

“Possibly. I told her there was no way in hell she and I would ever be a couple though. I don’t and never have had romantic feelings for her. She was always just a fuck buddy.” Cam was most insistent, hoping to convey to Annie, she was still his one true love.

Annie nodded but didn’t look at him. ‘
Doesn’t she believe me?’
he thought. He shifted on the seat and took her hands in his, which triggered a bolt of electricity to surge through him.

“Annie. Look at me.” She kept her head turned in the opposite direction.

“Look at me. Please, Nashville,” Cam pleaded with her. Closing her eyes, he saw Annie draw in a slow breath. She turned and faced him before opening her eyes. The tears starting to well up broke his heart. He hated seeing her hurt because of something he had done. He obviously hadn’t planned on getting Lana pregnant, but the decision to sleep with her, one last time after he received his concussion in Portugal, had bitten him on the arse…hard. Annie was now paying for his foolish mistake.

“I love you. You are the sun in my life. My whole world rises and sets with you.”

Annie cocked her head to the side. Looking at Cam with a worried look on her face, she bit hard on her lip, trying, unsuccessfully, to keep the tears from trickling down her flushed cheeks.

Cam moved from the bench and kneeled on the grass in front of his Angel. “We are two pieces of a puzzle. We are supposed to be joined…together. Forever.”

The salty tears continued to slip down Annie’s face. Releasing her lip from the tight hold her teeth had on it, she swallowed hard. “Puzzles can be broken, Cam,” she said slowly.

Cam gritted his teeth as he inhaled a breath. He felt like he had just been punched square in the guts with her reply. “No,” he finally said forcefully. “No. Not us, Nashville. We have the right glue holding us together. Our love can withstand anything.”

Annie looked at him with pleading eyes. “I’m not so sure, Cam.”

Releasing her hands from Cam’s, she stood up, walked around the bench, and leaned against the trunk of the tree. Leaning her head back, Annie sighed aloud. Cam stood and folded his arms across his chest. He felt the need to protect himself and his heart from whatever Annie was going to say.

“I came to Australia to find,”— Annie paused briefly— “myself, I guess. I felt I needed to put myself first and not to be railroaded into what others wanted, for me or for themselves.”

Cam nodded as he continued to listen to Annie. “I wasn’t planning on falling in love. I had hoped to find friends and I’ve been very lucky to find that in Kirby and your sister.” Annie smiled sweetly. “Even your mother I feel I can call a friend.”

That made Cam smile. “She has that effect on people.”

“Yes, she does.” Annie took a moment to watch Bowie run around and chase the seagulls that were trying to land on the lush lawn. Pushing herself off the tree, she slowly walked over and stood in front of Cam. She moved her hand to his face and wiped away a tear that had escaped without his knowledge.

“My sweet surfer.” They both quietly chuckled at her statement.

“I believe we both need to take some time apart.” Cam was about to fiercely interrupt her but she placed two fingers over his lips to silence him.

“Let me finish. Please?” One nod of his head gave her his answer.

“I need to work out where my life is headed. I don’t just want to be your girlfriend on tour. I need more than that.” She took a quick, steadying breath. “I’m also not sure I can be around while Lana is pregnant. When she has the baby, I just…”

Cam interrupted her. “She is not important to me, Annie. You are.”

“Don’t be absurd, Cam.” Instant anger ignited her face and Cam was taken aback by it. “She is the mother of your unborn child. She will be important to you. She has to be so you can work together to raise”— Annie closed her eyes to control the emotion springing into her voice— “your child.”

Cam grabbed the tops of Annie’s arms. He had a good grip of them hoping his passionate touch would prove to her everything he was saying. “Annie, WE are going to raise this child. Yes, Lana is the child’s mother, but when he or she is with me, we will be raising the child together. I want, more than anything, this child to have some of your traits, too.”

Annie stared at Cam. Just stared at him. Her lack of response started to unnerve him as she thought through her answer.

“Annie?”

She shook her head and the tears streamed down her face like waterfall. Cam’s mind wandered off. He had planned to propose to her at a stunning waterfall in Hawaii, after the last tour event. That dream was slowly slipping from his grasp and he felt he could do little about it.

A whisper fluttered from Annie’s lips. “I’m sorry.”

Cam’s eyes widened as the words sunk in. “No.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Cam. I just can’t do it. Not now. Not yet.” The words fell quickly in succession and landed on deaf ears.

“No!” he yelled at her. He had never raised his voice at her but she wasn’t listening to him.
Why wasn’t she listening?

“Cam, I can’t. Not yet. I need to put myself first. I love you more than I have ever loved anyone. Even more than I’ve probably loved myself. You need to focus on the last event and then on the baby. One more thing on your plate is just too much trouble.” Annie’s hair hid her hurt and tears as she hung her head down.

“Fuck.” Cam let go of her and ran his hands vigorously back and forth through his hair. He was angry. No, he was livid. Not at her, but at the way people had treated her in the past and not valuing this beautiful and kind woman enough for her to feel love.

He paced heavily in front of her with his hands clenched at his sides. He flexed his fingers in and out of the tight fists, trying to relax, or at the very least calm down. Cam was at a loss as to what to say to her. How could he make her see that if she stayed, he would make sure she felt wanted and a part of his new life? Turning back to where Annie was standing, he saw his Angel looking shattered and dejected. All he could think of was he had done this to her. It may have been before they fell in love, but his action had stuck a knife in her already fragile heart.

“Annie.” Cam’s chest rose as he gulped a big breath of air. He released the breath through pursed lips and said with as much fervor as he could show, “Where there is love, nothing is too much trouble. I fucking promise you, I will always be here for you.”

Annie was still silent but her barely shaking head was answering for her. Cam hated seeing her so torn apart and drew her into his arms for a loving bear hug. He was sure his touch would help her see things his way, especially when she lay her head on his chest and sobbed. Feeling her warmth against his body as she wrapped her arms around him and inhaling the scent from her hair, Cam knew with absolute certainty he would fight for this woman. He just had to make her believe what he was saying, was the truth.

Cam kept hold of Annie, not wanting to loosen his grip, in case she moved away from him. She was his everything. Plain and simple. He leaned back a little to get a better view of her tear-stained face and said, “The truth is, Nashville, if I could be with anyone for the rest of my life, it would be you. Always you.”

She let out a little sob. He had touched her with his words, but he wasn’t sure if it would be enough. She had a lot of past baggage to deal with, without adding on to it.

Cam could feel her trying to slow down her breathing in order to control her emotions; and then, he felt Bowie come to rest at their feet, tired of chasing the arrogant seagulls. Annie had been disturbed by her canine friend’s arrival too. She pulled back and leaned down to give the puffed out dog another rub around the neck.

“Such a good dog, Bowie. Such a good dog.” The last part of her sentence trailing off to a whisper. She looked up at Cam and then back to Bowie when the dog gave her a lick on the cheek, catching a stray tear. The sad smile Cam had hoped he wouldn’t see was stuck fast to her defeated face. Annie rose up, straightened her back, and squared her shoulders.

“I love you, Cameron John Hart. I do. More than life itself.” She paused long enough for Cam to get a sense there was a ‘but’ to follow.

“But, I finally need to put myself first. I need to love myself a little. If we are truly meant to be together, we will be. I believe it in my heart and soul.”

Cam could feel his body starting to quiver as he watched his Nashville Angel slowly fly away from him.

“Annie. Don’t. Don’t do this.” Cam pleaded with her but she just swallowed hard and kept her tears from spilling over.

“I am going back to Kirby’s now, but I am leaving Australia tonight. I’m going back to Los Angeles but from there, I don’t know where I will go. I promise I will get word to you that I am okay though.”

Cam felt like she had shoved him from the precipice of a cliff and he was falling slowly to his death. He didn’t want to think about how he would live another day without Annie. Her mind was made up and no pleading or hopeful promises were going to convince her to stay.

Frozen to the spot where he was standing, Cam couldn’t move a muscle in fear he would do or say something rash he would regret. Annie had made her decision and he needed to respect it and wish her well.

He kept his eyes down, fixed on his feet. He couldn’t look at Annie as he whispered, “There’s nothing I can say or do is there?”

Annie shook her head. “No. My mind is made up. I’m so sorry, Cam.”

His name being spoken from her lips would always be one of the sweetest sounds he would ever hear. “I’m sorry, too.” Cam looked up but he couldn’t look at her. He knew if he did, he would grab her and never let her go.

Annie moved in quickly and placed a tender goodbye kiss on his lips. They trembled against his as she absorbed the sweet nectar for the last time. Before he realized it, Annie broke the union and placed her lips next to his ear. “I will always love you.” She turned away from her happily ever after, not looking back.

Bowie looked back and forth between her master and the woman who had shown her kindness, before staring longingly up at Cam.

“I know,” was all he said to Bowie as he sat his arse down hard on the wooden bench and held his head in his hands. His future was now filled with murkiness and uncertainty he really didn’t want to wade through. The woman, who had opened his eyes to something more in a relationship, was gone and he was brokenhearted. A feeling, which was foreign to him or at least had been for many years, washed over him.

Rubbing his hands forcefully against his face to try to clear his head a little, Cam stood up and lowered his sunglasses over what he knew were red and puffy eyes. He grabbed his phone from his back pocket and dialed Matt.

“What’s up, mate?” Matt said as he answered his best friend’s call.

“It’s all fucked. It’s fucking over.” Cam couldn’t stop the bitterness in his voice from spitting out.

“Shit. I’m so sorry, Cam.”

“Yeah, well…,” was the only reply he could manage.

Matt waited to see if Cam would continue but after a few seconds of silence, he spoke, “What do you need from me?”

“I need to get drunk. No. Not just drunk. Shit faced.” Cam was no longer able to control his hurt and anger, and getting pissed sounded like the best option.

“Where are you?”

“That coastline park between my place and Clovelly. You know it?”

“Sure.” Cam could hear Matt’s movements in the background. “Stay put and I’ll be there in five minutes.”

“Don’t forget the booze,” Cam said as he pressed the button to end the call. He was going to erase any memory of today from his mind. He knew he would remember it later on, but for now, it was time to get sloshed.

Annie was dripping with sweat by the time she reached Kirby’s house. She felt as though she had sprinted the entire way back, and maybe she did. The journey back was now a blur. She just knew she couldn’t stop or dare look back. Her decision had been made and it was final. Reaching it had been painful but nowhere nearly as heart wrenching as breaking the news to Cam.

Letting herself in the front door, Annie yelled down the hall to Kirby, “I’m back. Just going to take a shower.”

Annie started upstairs and was at the first landing when Kirby appeared at the base of the stairs. She had a worried but curious look on her face. Maybe anticipating the worst outcome, she enquired after Annie, “You all right?”