To Get Me To You: A Small Town Southern Romance (Wishful Romance Book 1) (9 page)

“Hey, you know I hate to eat alone.”

“I had to come into town for some errands.” A half lie. Cam had made up errands so he had to come into town.

“Then perhaps you’d let me steal your dog for a few hours.” Hush, leaning against Norah’s legs and looking up in adoration, was clearly on board with that plan.

“That could probably be arranged.”

“I gotta get back to work. You have time to drop Norah off at Miranda’s on your way back to the nursery?”

“Sure.”

“Then unless you object, I’ll leave you in my cousin’s capable hands.”

Yes, please.
Cam shoved those hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels, working to keep his face neutral.

“I can think of worse company.”

Mitch gave Norah a squeeze. “I’ll see you later, then.”

They stayed silent, both watching as he walked away. When he was out of earshot, Norah tipped her head toward him. “Are you particularly busy at work or can I steal you along with Hush?”

“Are you tryin’ to talk me into playin’ hooky, Miss Burke?”

“I absolutely am. Somebody told me recently I needed to play more.” Though her face was sober, her eyes shone with amusement. “Seemed like good advice.”

“Far be it for me to refuse a lady.” He gestured toward the town green. “Shall we walk?”

They fell into step, Hush prancing a few paces ahead. Cam itched to take her hand, just for the chance to touch her. But this was downtown Wishful. That’d be as good as taking out a billboard declaring his intentions. He didn’t even know what they were yet. He only knew that she was the first woman to truly spark his interest in years and that kiss had been…epic. Today was about finding out if they were on the same page with that interest and, if he was lucky, getting his mouth on her again.

She started to pull ahead of him, legs moving with a brisk efficiency.

“You in a hurry?”

She jerked almost to a stop, then into motion again with her eyes on his feet. “You can take the girl out of the city. But seriously, your legs are a foot longer than mine. You don’t walk, you mosey.”

“Moseying is good when you want to enjoy somebody’s company.”

The noise she made might’ve been a laugh. “I’m out of practice with that, too, I guess.”

Cam couldn’t help himself. He rubbed a hand down her back. “That wasn’t meant as a criticism.”

She shifted ever so slightly into his touch. “I suppose I stay wound pretty tight.”

“Don’t apologize. You’ve got reason to be.” As they walked, he noted the fine lines of strain still around her eyes and guessed she still hadn’t come clean to Miranda about her job. But he said nothing, placing a hand at the small of her back to steer her toward the fountain. “That’s what hooky is for, anyway. Finding your way to unwind.”

“Would you believe I have never played hooky in my life?”

He glanced at her, this type-A, perfectionist overachiever, with a strong moral compass and staunch belief in The Rules, and smiled. “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me about you. But rumor has it you’re a quick study for anything you set your mind to.”

“I do have that reputation. So what are the rules of playing hooky?”

“Rule 1: Never feel guilty for playing hooky.”

“Well, I’m not the one legitimately playing hooky today.”

“And I feel not a qualm about it, so we’re good on that front. It’s one of the best parts of being your own boss. Rule 2: Choose your company wisely. You want a partner in crime, not someone who will bail on you if things get dicey.”

She laughed. “And what constitutes dicey for grown ups who don’t have the threat of detention or parents?”

“Woman, there is no statute of limitations on parental disapproval when you live in the same town. Especially not a small town where everybody knows everybody else. Do you have any idea how
hard
it was getting away with
anything
when we were teenagers?”

“Somehow, I imagine you and Mitch still managed just fine.”

“Well, necessity
is
the mother of invention. It was more often me and Tucker McGee and our friend Brody—he’s not here anymore—sometimes Miranda, though she was more goody two shoes. Mitch was three years ahead of us in school.”

“I can’t wrap my brain around what that’s like. Growing up in one place, having friends for that long. I bounced around so much after my parents’ divorce that I didn’t make connections with people. Not really. Not until Miranda. And if she didn’t hang on as tightly as she does, I don’t know if I’d have kept up with her as well as I have. You’re really lucky to have that.” There was no mistaking the expression of longing on her face.

Cam didn’t know what to say. He’d never given a thought to having that foundation to fall back on. It simply was. Friends. Family. Community. You fought with them and fought for them because that’s what you did for what you loved. It hurt him to think she’d never known that, and he wondered what she fought for in their stead, wondered, too, why he was aching for a woman he barely knew.

“We don’t mind sharing.”

That made her smile. “I know. Which is why I’ve shamelessly adopted your entire family.”

“Does that make us cousins in a complicated, Southern sort of way? Because this is Mississippi and we definitely don’t need any more fodder for jokes around here.”

“You mean, like, the fact that there’s still a law on the books that says three women in a room together, barefoot, makes a orgy?”

“What?”

“That was a favorite of ours to laugh about at our sorority house in college.”

“So you’re saying all the fantasies we guys have about sorority houses are true? Pillow fights and sexy pajamas and all?”

Norah waggled her eyebrows at him. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Cam sank down on the edge of the fountain that dated back to just after the Civil War. He patted the ledge. “Sit.”

He liked the neat way she tucked her legs, even in jeans. She always managed to look put together and elegant, which made him wonder what she’d looked like all mussed up.

“Have you made your wish yet?” He swiveled toward the water so their knees bumped. She didn’t move away.

“My wish?”

“Sure.” Cam dipped his fingers into the few inches of frigid rainwater in the basin. Coins glimmered below the surface. “The fountain itself might not have run for years, but people still make wishes. Don’t tell me after all the years you’ve been coming here, you’ve never made a wish.”

“Never have. I’m much more a
If you want something to happen you have to make it happen
kind of girl.”

“There’s a lot to be said for self sufficiency and drive. But sometimes you need a little help.”

“Does it work?”

“Mmm, hard to say. When I was sixteen, I wished for a really hot car. Sure enough, I got a hot one all right. The AC never did work in that thing.”

She laughed. “If that’s not clear illustration that you should be careful what you wish for, I don’t know what is.”

“Other folks have had better luck. Uncle Pete came here before he proposed to Aunt Liz and wished she’d say yes. Obviously that worked out.”

Her smile was just a little dreamy. “They’re great together.” She trailed her fingers through the water. “Has the city ever tried to fix it so it’ll run again?”

“’Bout the time I was in middle school, they did a whole big thing trying to replace the copper pipes out to the springs. They figured it had collapsed somewhere in the last hundred and fifty years or so. But the lines were completely intact. They never did figure out what the problem is.”

“Wait, the fountain is supposed to be fed from Hope Springs?”

“Yep.”

“That’s rather poetic, somehow. And sad. Like the fountain dried up as hope in Wishful did.”

“You think Wishful doesn’t have hope?”

She looked around what they could see of Main Street, and Cam wondered what she saw. “I think it’s suffered a lot of economic downturns over time, like lots of small towns.”

“You’re not wrong. We’ve lost a lot of our industry and about a third of our population over the last thirty years.”

“That weighs on you.”

Cam arched a brow.

“You aren’t the only one who’s observant. This is your town. You want to save it.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do. It’s why I ran for City Council. Well, partly. It started as a means to keep an eye on my mother when she went back to work. Gave me a reason to stop by during the day to check on her without looking like I was checking on her.”

“Did she buy it?”

“Of course not. But turns out I actually like the job. Most of the time. Sometimes it’s really frustrating to be in a position to effect change but not actually be able to change a damn thing.”

“Sounds like you have something to wish for yourself.”

“So I do.” Cam fished a couple of quarters out of his pocket and placed one in Norah’s hand, letting his fingers linger over her palm. “I will if you will.”

“Okay.” Her fingers curled around his briefly before sliding away to wrap around the coin.

When she closed her eyes—probably considering her wording carefully after the warning of his first car—he almost threw caution to the wind and leaned in to kiss her.

Cam pondered his own wish as he watched her, thinking of fate and chemistry and what might’ve happened if they’d crossed paths back in college. He couldn’t alter the past, but he had a lot more confidence in his ability to impact the future—at least on one point. So when she opened her eyes and said, “On three,” it was the town he thought of.

I wish for a miracle to save Wishful.

“One. Two. Three.”

They tossed their coins, watched them hit the water with a soft
plunk.

The fountain belched.

Norah jolted and Cam stared as a spurt of water bubbled up from the mouth of the fountain and trickled down the stone. Nothing else. Just that one, short blast of water.

“Does it usually do that?”

“Never has for me before.”
Strange. Damned strange.
“Must be air in the pipes.” He rose. “C’mon. It’s cold. Let’s go get some coffee.”

~*~

Could I drag Cam into the pantry without anyone noticing?

Norah glanced at the door to the kitchen, wondering what excuse she could concoct to get them both away from the game table. From the other side of the Monopoly board, Cam’s mouth quirked, as if he knew exactly where her thoughts had veered. He probably did. The man had an uncanny ability to read her.

“Community Chest.” Mitch picked up one of the cards. “Get out of jail free card. Sweet! I’ll just hang on to this. Your turn, sister dear.” He passed the dice to Miranda and game play continued around the table.

In all the years she’d been coming home with Miranda, Norah had always appreciated the big, messy Campbell family. After being shuttled from one single-parent household to the other for more than half her life, being surrounded by all of them was like being plunked down in the midst of
Cheaper By The Dozen,
in the best possible way. She’d never had cause to regret that there were quite so many of them. Until Cam.

By mutual agreement, they’d kept their involvement quiet. The secret was both exhausting and exhilarating. On the surface, Cam was easy with her around his family, adopting a more muted form of the flirtation and teasing she got from Mitch and Reed. But there was nothing muted about the look in his eyes when they met hers and nothing simple about the spark she felt from the brush of his fingers as he handed over the dice. Flustered, Norah struggled not to jerk her hand back.

Secret Relationship 101: Pretend all is normal.

Norah rolled the dice, took her turn.

In the past week, Cam had introduced her to quite a few other life lessons she’d bypassed as a teenager, training her on how to sneak around all his myriad relatives in order to meet him. She hadn’t quite resorted to climbing out her bedroom window and shimmying down the sycamore tree, but a time or two, it had been a near thing. The friend finder app they’d both installed on their phones helped arrange some “accidental” meetings, but it seemed every time they turned around, one or more of the Campbells was popping up to keep her from being bored during her stay. At this point, she’d relish the chance to be bored.

Play circled back around to Mitch. He rolled the dice and tapped his race car all the way to Park Place.

Glad of the distraction, Norah held out her hand. “Welcome to the Grand Royale Hotel at Park Place. I hope you’ll enjoy your stay. That’ll be $1500, please.”

Mitch eyed the cash in his hand, before flashing a glib smile. “Maybe we can come to some kind of mutually satisfying arrangement?”

“This isn’t that sort of establishment, sir.”

He waggled his eyebrows. “Your foot is saying otherwise.”

Norah arched her own brow. “I’m sitting on my feet.”

“Then who’s trying to play footsie?” Mitch leaned back to check the tangle of legs beneath the table.