Campbell caught himself before he asked:how was she looking at me?
John Nelson leaned, knocking Campbell’s shoulder with his own hard enough to send his grandson sliding over on the step. “I’m old, not dead.” He laughed until tears must have been threatening because he tugged a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes. “Good news is, looks like she’s got it bad, too. A tidy package, if I ever saw one.”
“I’m telling you, there is notidy package.” Nowe.
They were only two lonely people, searching. Scared. Horny.
Couldn’t be less of a tidy package.
“Guess so.” John Nelson crossed his feet at the ankle and tipped his head back. “Like you’d make anything that easy.”
Campbell braced his hands on his knees and shoved to his feet. “I’ll be in the darkroom if you need me.”
“You’re coming down for lunch, young man. No skipping meals on my watch.”
Campbell reached back to touch his grandfather’s shoulder. “I’ll come down, Pops.”
Climbing the stairs to his darkroom, he recalled Fontana’s long-ago advice.
Love your brother and your grandfather.
I’m trying, Hellcat. I’m trying.
FONTANA
Fontana entered Tammi’s Hair Extraordinaire with all the enthusiasm of someone walking into a pharmacy for a flu shot.
She’d have to be dead to miss the talk about Campbell and Tammi since his return—high school sweethearts or some such. The town rumormongers made sure she heard, because now she was linked to Promise’s most eligible bachelor.Studmuffin,Mrs. Kimble had called him this morning at the QuickStop, and considering she had to be pushing ninety, that was saying something. Her twin sister, Clara, honey bun in hand, had chimed in withhandsome devil.
Fontana wanted to agree with Campbell’s assessment of small-town gossip—bullshit—but after a night of phenomenal phone sex, she had to admit that, once in a while, the rumor mill got it right.
She propped her elbows on Tammi’s front counter and dropped her head into her hands.Oh, my God. She’d initiated. Then participated.
Enthusiastically.
Like slipping into sexy lingerie and becoming a different person, she’d explored her body in ways she’d never dreamed of, Campbell’s ragged whisper a goading enticement. She knew she was in deep when, upon waking, all that came to her was slight embarrassment andzeroregret.
She wasn’t sorry she’d told him about her father, either.
That was a kicker.
She actually felt relieved, lessalone—which wasn’t wise when the man in question was on a fast track out of her life.
Shit, shit, shit. Fontana pressed her fingertips to her temples. The newsflash from an area near her heart wasn’t good.
She liked Campbell True.
A lot.
He wasn’t perfect, and he was definitely more complicated than she needed. But there weregood things.
So many good things.
He was funny when he let the aloof act drop—witty, sharp, unafraid to laugh at himself. Incredibly intelligent, but not the kind to beat his chest and declare himself the smartest man in the room. And handsome. No, more than handsome.
The dimples, the hair, the face, the body. Those golden eyes.Yum.
Then there was the talent. The way he handled a camera like it was something rare, something precious. Ajewel.
