“ARE YOU CAMERON JAMES?!” he screams, cutting me off, spittle flying from his mouth as he takes another step toward me, the gun in his hand starting to shake as he continues aiming it right at me.
My body starts shaking from head to toe and my mouth opens and closes several times as I try to think about what I should say.
“Please put the gun down,” I whisper brokenly, my throat cracking through my words.
“You’re the one who ruined my life. I know it’s you, so just admit it. Admit what you did,” he says, a muscle ticking in his jaw when he speaks through clenched teeth.
“Sir, please,” I beg, wanting to turn and run, but knowing there’s nowhere I can go.
I can’t outrun a gun.
“I told you. I TOLD YOU that you’d regret what you did.”
His words make the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and I realize I’m standing in front of the man responsible for sending those letters.
My eyes dart to the side of him when I see a familiar truck come barreling down the main driveway, but he quickly moves and blocks my line of sight.
“I’m sorry. I don’t—”
“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” he screams, taking another step toward me. “It’s too late for apologies. You ruined everything, and now you need to pay.”
A million thoughts run through my head in a split second. Things I should say to him to get him to put the gun down, but I don’t have time to say any of them.
There’s a blur of movement out of the corner of my eye. The man and I both glance that way, and before I can process what’s happening, before I can even open my mouth and scream, the explosive sound of the gun going off rings through my ears.
Chapter 40
Everett
I don’t bother turning off the engine, and I barely get the truck in Park next to Bobby’s car, before I’m flinging my door open and take off running. I see the back of Bobby and a few workers huddled together in the pasture beyond him, but I don’t see Cameron.
I pump my legs faster and harder, needing to get to him before he does something stupid, but my brother gets to him first.
My feet falter when I see Jason come flying from the left of Bobby. I hear the blast of a gun and my body jerks as Jason tackles Bobby and takes him to the ground. I hear screaming as I run faster, and realize it’s coming from me, and it’s coming from the workers as they all start jumping the fence and racing toward the spot where Bobby and my brother are struggling.
I finally catch a glimpse of Cameron by the fence and realize Bobby was blocking her from my view. I see her hunched forward with her hands covering her head and I finally let out a thankful breath of air as I get to Bobby and Jason. Two of the workers and I all dive top of them at the same time, helping to subdue a screaming, flailing, and cursing Bobby.
Someone knocks the gun out of his hand and another worker comes running up to us and kicks it out of the way as we all get Bobby on his stomach with his arms behind his back.
“SHE NEEDS TO PAY! THAT FUCKING BITCH NEEDS TO PAY!” Bobby screams.
I hear sirens in the distance, thanking God that the police understood the frantic call I made on the way here, thankful my phone still worked after I shattered the glass.
“We got him. Go check on Cameron,” Jason tells me in a winded voice, kneeling on Bobby’s back to keep him down.
I feel like I should say something to this man. Ask him what the hell he was doing, but I can’t think about anything right now but getting to Cameron, putting my arms around her, and making sure she’s okay.
Standing up from the ground, I hear shouting and see Amelia and a few volunteers racing out of the main house and over to where we are.
Letting out a heavy sigh, I run my hand through my hair and finally look back over at Cameron. Her eyes meet mine as she slowly starts to stand up, and I move my feet toward her, seeing the fear in her eyes and noticing the ashen color of her face. I give her a small smile to reassure her that everything is okay now, but she looks away from me and down.
My smile falters and my feet start moving faster as my eyes move down her body to where she’s looking. Her hands are folded over her stomach and my heart stutters when she suddenly drops to her knees.
“CAMERON!” I shout, bursting into a run, making it to her right before she tips to the side.
I skid through the grass on my knees and my arms fly around her, easing her down to the ground. Her body shakes against mine, and I set her down on her back, kneeling next to her as my eyes dart down to where her hands are still folded over her stomach.
“Oh, God,” I mutter, my hands flying over the top of hers, which are now covered in blood.
“Everett,” she sobs, my eyes moving back to her face. “It hurts.”
Pain hits the back of my throat, and my eyes burn with tears as I look down at her, taking one of my hands off of hers to smooth some hair off her forehead.
“I know, baby,” I whisper, leaning down and pressing my lips to her forehead. “It’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay.”
Her feet slide up and she bends her knees, her legs rocking back and forth as she moans in pain through her tears, and it breaks me apart.
“SOMEONE CALL A FUCKING AMBULANCE!” I scream, gathering her in my arms and pulling her head onto my lap.
All of my training, everything I know about bullet wounds and what needs to be done, flies from my mind. All I can think about is Cameron dying right in front of my eyes. All I can do is hold on to her and pray that she’s not taken from me.
Someone is suddenly next to me and I see Jason kneel down, ripping off his shirt and balling it up. He gently pulls Cameron’s hands away from her stomach, and the blood starts pouring out of her faster until Jason quickly presses his shirt over the wound.
I can hear people shouting and people crying, I can see out of the corner of my eye that people are racing all around and calling orders. I can hear Amelia screaming at Bobby, but it’s all just noise. I don’t know what they’re doing, I don’t know what they’re saying, and I don’t care.
I stare down at Cameron’s face and her eyes start to flutter closed.
“No. No, no, no. Open your eyes, baby,” I demand, bringing my hand up to the side of her fast and pressing my palm against her cheek.
Her eyes slowly open back up and tears leak out of the corners, trailing down into her hair as she looks up at me.
“I love you. I love you so much. Stay with me, okay? Just stay with me,” I sob, running my hand through her hair, over and over, as I speak.
“I just had to get shot for you to finally say it.”
She tries to smile, but her face scrunches up in pain and then misery as the tears start falling faster.
“I’m sorry,” she chokes out through her tears.
“You have nothing to be sorry for. Okay? Nothing. Just stay with me. Help will be here soon.”
She nods, but I can see her struggling to keep her eyes open, struggling to keep looking at me. I need to smile down at her, give her some reassurance that I believe what I’m saying, but I’m sitting here watching her fucking bleed out right in front of me. I know what a bullet to the stomach can do to someone. I’ve seen it a hundred times and it’s not pretty.
“I can’t lose you. Do you hear me? You stay with me, Cameron!” I shout down at her when her eyes close and don’t open back up.
I pull her body tighter to mine, rocking us back and forth, refusing to believe this is happening right now. Refusing to believe I waited all this time for her and it’s just going to end like this.
I kiss her forehead, I kiss her lips, I kiss her cheek, and I continue rocking us while I speak in her ear, chanting over and over until my voice grows hoarse.
“Don’t you dare leave me. I love you. Please don’t leave me.”
* * *
The hospital waiting room is packed wall to wall with workers, volunteers, and kids from camp with their families. Everyone talks in hushed voices, drinking coffee and wa
iting.
So much fucking waiting I want to scream and claw at my skin. I can’t handle being around anyone right now. I can’t listen to another person tell me she’s going to be fine, when not one person in this fucking hospital has come out to give us any kind of update in the fifteen hours that we’ve been here, other than she’s in surgery.
I feel a hand come down on my shoulder and I jump, turning away from the window where I’d been staring to see Cameron’s dad.
He looks as bad as I feel. His eyes are bloodshot and there are dark shadows under them. Cameron’s parents were in town having lunch when everything went down, and someone called them and had them meet us in the hospital. I’d been avoiding them since they got here. Eli already disliked me, and now I was giving him a reason to outright hate me.
I didn’t keep his daughter safe. I knew the person who’d been sending her those letters and I never put two and two together. If I had, none of this would have happened. I wouldn’t be standing here right now with Cameron’s blood covering the front of my shirt. She wouldn’t be somewhere in this hospital, fighting for her life. She bled out in my arms because I couldn’t remember anything I needed to do to save her. I should have done something more than hold Jason’s balled-up shirt against her stomach until the ambulance got there, but it’s not like I could have performed surgery in the middle of the lawn at camp. I failed her. I failed everyone who loves her.
Eli eases down on the window seat, and motions for me to sit down next to him.
My eyes dart around the room, but no one is looking over here. No one knows this man is probably two seconds away from screaming at me, blaming me, and probably gearing up to punch me in the face, but they will soon enough.
I take a seat next to him with our backs to the window. He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees, and I do the same, folding my hands together between my legs.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him quietly, staring down at my hands.
“What the hell for?” Eli asks.
My head jerks to the side to look at him.
“This wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. He was a troubled man. That’s all there is to it.”
I shake my head in disagreement, looking back down at my hands.
“I’m not good enough for her,” I whisper. “You were right, and I just fucking proved it.”
“What are you talking about? Who said you aren’t good enough for her?” Eli asks.
I scoff, sitting up to look at him again in disbelief.
“You did. The night before I left four years ago. I heard you say that to Cameron’s mom.”
He frowns, narrowing his eyes at me, and I watch as he tries to pull up that memory. His mouth drops open and he groans when it finally comes to him.
“Jesus Christ, son,” Eli mutters, shaking his head at me.
“You were right,” I tell him again.
“Yes. I was. Of course I was fucking right.”
My hands start to sweat and I have to wipe my palms on the thighs of my pants. I mean, it’s one thing to overhear the guy saying it years ago, but it’s fucking painful to hear him admit.
“Wipe that hurt look off your face,” Eli scolds me. “Let me tell you something, and make sure you open your ears and listen this time. If you had stuck around longer when you were spying on the conversation I had with my wife back then, you would have heard everything else I told her.”
He leans back so he’s sitting upright and we’re eye to eye before he continues.
“No, you aren’t good enough for my daughter. And you never will be no matter how hard you try. But you know what? No man will ever be good enough for her. Because she’s my fucking daughter,” he tells me, sighing as he brings one of his hands up to rub the back of his neck. “When you have a little girl of your own someday, when you watch her say her first words, take her first steps, when you send her off to her first day of school, watch her grow into a beautiful, smart, strong, amazing woman, you’ll understand what I’m saying. But until then, this is something you’re just going to have to deal with. When I look at you, I see myself. It’s like looking in a fucking mirror. Struggling through the PTSD, struggling to keep my head above water, doing everything I could to not let the guilt and the regret and the memories drag me under. Letting the woman I love fix everything, put me before everything else in her life, even her own happiness. When I look at you and Cameron together, I see her mother and me. And as much as I adore Shelby, as much as I could never imagine my life without her, and as much as I know she loves me more than I’ve ever deserved, I never wanted that for my own daughter. I never wanted her to put anything before herself and her own happiness, I never wanted her to deal with the heartache and pain of loving a man who was broken. I know you’re not that same troubled, punk kid who used to get in fights all over my stables. I know you’ve battled your demons and come out of it stronger than you were before. And I know you’ve done a damn good job with all the medical work you did around the country all those years and you should be proud of that. But I don’t have to like one thing about the fact that you’re sleeping with my daughter.”
I can’t help it—after all of the emotions raging through me, I let out a small laugh.
“I’m not just sleeping with her. I’m in love with her. I’ve been in love with her for a very long time, and she loves me right back,” I tell him, my voice cracking when I picture her lying on that grass, covered in blood, and watching her slip away from me.
“Well then, let me give you some advice. The worst thing you can do is think you’re not good enough for a woman who loves you, when that thought hasn’t even entered her mind,” he says. “Forget about the fact that I don’t like you and probably never will. Do you honestly think that daughter of mine would love someone who wasn’t good enough for her? Who didn’t love her as much as she deserved? She loves you because she knows you. Better than you know yourself, obviously. Trust her to know when she’s giving her heart to the right person. Trust yourself to be worthy of that heart and don’t you ever, ever break it. You hold on to that thing with both hands, you worship it, and you never let it go. And that right there is how you become good enough for her.”
Eli rests his hand on my shoulder and gives it a squeeze before standing up from the window seat and walking away. I watch him move over to where Cameron’s mom is sitting next to Amelia, both of them clinging to each other and offering words of comfort through their tears.
The double doors leading to the hallway of operating rooms suddenly burst open, and I quickly stand up, while everyone else in the room stops talking.
“I need to see the family of Cameron James,” the doctor says loudly.
Chapter 41
Cameron
My eyes slowly open, and then I quickly close them again when so much bright light shines into them that it makes my head pound.
I try to move, but everything hurts, and I let out a groan of pain.
“Baby. Come on, baby. Open your eyes.”
I know that voice, and the sound of it almost makes me forget about the pain. I feel my hands being squeezed, and I try again to open my eyes, taking my time and getting used to the light.
I blink rapidly, staring up at a white ceiling, trying to remember where I am.
A warm palm presses against the side of my face and turns my head to the side. Everett’s T-shirt is full of wrinkles, his hair is an absolute mess, and he looks like he hasn’t slept in days.
It takes me a few tries to speak. I clear my throat, swallow a few times, and slide my tongue over my dry lips.
“You look like shit,” I croak out.
A smile lights up Everett’s face and he laughs softly before pulling my hand up to his mouth and holding the top of it against his lips. He turns his cheek to the side, keeping my hand against his warm skin.
“I feel like shit. How do you feel?” he asks, rubbing his thumb back and forth against my cheek.
Everything suddenly comes back to
me in a rush of memories. Standing by the fence at camp. Pleading with the man holding the gun. The sound of it going off ringing through my ears. Everett catching me before I fell to the ground. The look in his eyes and the things he said to me.
And the pain…so much pain.
“Like I was shot,” I mutter, which makes Everett wince.
His hand moves off my face and he rests it gently over the blanket that’s covering my stomach.
“Are you in pain? Do you want me to call the nurse?” he asks.
I’m definitely in pain. I’m in a shitload of pain, but I just want to be alone with Everett for a few more minutes.
“You love me,” I whisper.
His face softens and he nods, holding on to my hand with both of his, still keeping it up by his cheek with his elbows resting on the edge of my bed.
“You’ve loved me for a long time.”
He nods again, and something on the wall behind him catches my eye. I look away from him, smiling when I see what it is. As I turn my head and look around the room, my smile falls and my eyes fill with tears.
“How long was I out?” I ask.
“Three-and-a-half days. Technically, eighty-seven hours. I altered the rules a little and decided to make a wish once an hour.”
Stuck to the walls all around the hospital room, are little paper stars, each one with the words Come back to me written on them in Everett’s handwriting.
“I seem to be on a roll with my wishes coming true,” he adds when my eyes finally come back to his.
“You’ve always been good enough for me to love you back,” I whisper, thinking about all those wishes he made ever since he was seventeen.
“I know. At least, I do now.”
Everett stands up and leans down over me, pressing his forehead against mine.
“I’m never letting you go,” he tells me softly.
I close my eyes with a smile.
“I wouldn’t let you, even if you tried.”