This was not going to be simple. I’d lived my life on the road. Ollie had tried for years to get me membership, but I’d always declined. On the surface, I’d told him to forget about it because I didn’t want to be a member. Deep down? I’d told him no becauseI was afraid of yet another rejection. Of another person saying I wasn’t good enough, the same way my parents had.
A deep and subconscious part of me still craved that belonging, but I didn’t know how to stay somewhere. As badly as I wanted that kind of life, I didn’t know if I was cut out for it.
“I’ll need time to think about that, okay?” I said, the words surprising me even as I said them.
Cameron wiped at the tears on her face, nodding. “Right.” She smiled weakly at me. “A little time sounds good. Let’s handle this—” she gestured to the dead feral—“then we can talk more, I guess.”
Turning from me, Cameron headed toward the body. A strange yet pervasive anxiety filled me. Had I really just said I’d think about trying to join the pack? How crazy of an idea was that? Ollie always talked about what a good and just alpha this JC guy was, but who in his right mind would ask a lone wolf to join their pack?
As I walked over to join her, I threw a glance over my shoulder, making sure none of the campground staff or campers were out and about. So far, it was all clear. Off in the distance, I thought I could hear the faint hiss and crackle of tires on gravel. Ollie? Maybe.
“I don’t recognize him,” Cameron said, staring at the feral. “This is the first time I’ve been able to get a really good look at his face.”
“You thought you might know him?” The idea that he was someone from her life hadn’t really occurred to me. The guy was most likely a drifter who’d gone feral and made his way into Toronto.
“Wasn’t sure. Might have been someone I recognized.” She began patting down his pockets.
“Jesus, Cameron, come on. We can have Ollie do that when he gets here.”
“Just a second,” she said, and she dug two fingers into the front pocket of his jeans.
Regardless of where our relationship may or may not be heading, there was one thing I couldn’t deny. Cameron was tough as hell. How many people wouldn’t bat an eye at searching a dead man? A dead man who’d just tried to kill her, no less.
A moment later, she extracted what looked like a wrinkled business card. She flipped it over. “Keeble and Jax Construction,” she read.
“Never heard of it,” I grunted.
Cameron stared at the card for several long seconds, her brow furrowed. “I know this name. I’ve read it somewhere.”
I could almost hear a clock ticking in my head. Any second, someone was going to walk by. Better if onlyIwas found with the dead body. She needed to get the hell out of here, back inside and away from the crime scene. Her innate reporter instincts seemed to have removed all worry about anything that didn’t pertain to the story and the mystery surrounding it.
“What the fuck, guys?”
I spun, ready to fight, adrenaline surging through my chest. Ollie stood near the cabin, gaping down at the corpse on the ground.
He lifted his eyes from it and looked at me. “Care to explain what the hell is going on here?”
29
Cameron
As soon as Ollie realized what the body was, he hurried me into the cabin to get dressed.
“Get your clothes on and pack up. Hurry, before the rest of the camp wakes up,” he hissed as he shoved me inside.
Removed from the horror outside, I had a few seconds to process what had happened earlier. Not the attack, no. I needed to process the discussion Nate and I had. A discussion that had verged on another argument.
Was Nate being serious about possibly staying? I’d been so sure that he wouldn’t want to deal with all this that I’d basically tried to push him away. The thought that he might actually stay filled me with a confused sort of wonder
What happened if JC didn’t allow him in, though? What would I do when he drove off into the sunset alone? The image, dark and depressing, flashed across my mind. I prayed that wouldn’t happen. Begged fate to not allow that. What I really needed to do was make sure Nate knew how I really felt.Regardless of what happened later, he needed to know that there was someone who cared for him.
How? Ollie was going to take me away any minute. Once tires met the road, I might never see Nate again. If things went poorly, then he may vanish. God, why was everything moving fast? It seemed that from the moment that feral attacked me in the garage, someone had pressed the fast-forward button on my life. There was no time to think or plan. All I could do was react.
Nate had changed my life. In an incredibly short amount of time, he’d shown me more than any man had my whole life. I didn’t want to lose him to some silly decision made by a man neither of us had even met yet.
I didn’t even bother brushing my teeth or my hair. I hurriedly got dressed, then shoved all my stuff into my bag and hauled it downstairs.
Ollie and Nate were hard at work by the creek. He and Nate were wrapping the body in a bunch of trash bags, like they were packing up a giant steak to go in a freezer. My gorge rose a bit at the mental image.
