“Janey,” Diana said, sighing with relief. “I’ve got Cam in the car. He was in an accident.”
“What?”
“Not too bad,” she reassured her quickly. “He seems to be basically okay, but I think a doctor ought to look him over. And…well…” She winced. “He’s been drinking so…”
“You’re kidding.” Janey followed her to the car and then they were both fussing over her brother.
“Cam, you blockhead, wake up,” Janey ordered, shaking his shoulder. “We haven’t seen you in years and this is the way you arrive?”
He opened one eye. “Janey? I thought I recognized your dulcet tones.”
She shook her head. “Come on. I’ll help you up to your room. I’m sure Mother will want to call Dr. Timmer.”
“I don’t need Dr. Timmer,” he grumbled, though he did begin to leverage himself out of the car. “If Diana can take care of herself, I can take care of myself.” He tried to pound his own chest and missed. “We’re a pair of independents, Diana and I.”
Janey gave him her arm and a quizzical look. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said crisply. “Come on. We’ll let your friend get back to her…whatever.”
“Diana is my best friend,” he murmured, sounding almost melancholy. “My favorite person in this valley. Always has been.”
Janey chose that moment to notice Diana’s baby bulge. Stopping short, she gasped. “Cam! Oh, no!”
Despite his condition, he immediately recognized the way her mind was trending and he groaned. “Listen, Janey, I just got into town at about 2:00 a.m. Not even I could get a lady with child that fast.”
“Humph,” she harrumphed, throwing Diana a look that took in everything about her pregnancy and the fact that she was running around the countryside in her nightgown, delivering a rather inebriated Cam to his old homestead. It was obvious all this looked pretty darn fishy to her.
Diana almost laughed aloud. If Janey only knew the irony involved here. “Can you handle him without me?” she asked the other woman. “I’d like to get home and try to get some sleep. I do have an appointment back here with your mother at eleven.”
“Go, go,” Janey said, waving a hand dismissively and turning away.
But Cam didn’t turn with her. He stayed where he was, looking back at Diana. “I was just getting used to having you around again, Di,” he said. “A little later, when I’ve had some sleep…”
“You’ll be busy getting caught up on all the family news,” Janey said quickly. “And learning to give up living like a drifter.”
“Like a drifter?” Cam looked up as though that reminded him of something and Diana laughed.
“Watch out, or he’ll break out into song on you,” she warned his sister as she turned for her car. As she walked away, she heard the Cam’s voice warbling, “‘Here I go again…’” She grinned.
Cam was back. What did this mean? Right now, it meant she was full of sadness and happiness at the same time.
“The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat,” she murmured nonsensically as she began the drive down the hill. A moment later, tears were streaming down her face and she had no idea why.
But Cam was back. Good or bad, things were going to change. She could feel it in the air.
CHAPTER THREE
CAM woke to a pounding headache and a bunch of bad memories. It didn’t help to open his bleary eyes and find the view the same as it had been when he was in high school. That made him want to close the world out and go back to sleep again. Maybe he would wake up in a better place.
No such luck. He opened his eyes again a few minutes later and nothing had changed. He was still a wimp for having let himself be talked into coming back here. Still an unfit driver for having crashed his car just because of a freak tire blowout. Still an idiot for having had too much to drink and letting it show.
And still bummed at finding Diana more appealing than ever and at the same time, totally unavailable. Life wasn’t exactly glowing with happy discovery for him right now.
Then there had been the humiliating way he’d returned to the green green grass of home. His mother had tried to pretend he was fine and gave him the usual hugs and kisses a mother would bestow upon a returning miscreant. But, his father barely acknowledged his return. And Janey was plotting ways to undermine him and making no bones about it. He groaned. The outlook wasn’t bright.
There was one more gauntlet to brave—the most important one right now—his grandfather. There was no point in putting it off any longer.
He made the water in his shower as cold and stinging as he could stand. He needed to wash away the previous day and start over. Maybe if he could just start fresh…
But he already knew it was going to take all his will to be able to stay and do what he’d promised he would do—save the family business, and in so doing, hopefully, save the family.
Funny that it would be up to him. When he’d left ten years before, his grandfather had just disowned him and his father had refused to take his side. His mother was upset about his choice of friends, and his sister was angling to take over his position in the family. To some extent, a somewhat typical twenty-one-year-old experience. But it had all been a culmination of years of unhappiness and bad relations, and something had snapped inside him. He’d had enough. He was going and he was never coming back.
Leaving Diana behind had been the only hard part. At eighteen, she’d still been gawky, a coltlike girl whose antics made him laugh with quick affection. She thought she needed him, though he knew very well she was strong enough to handle things on her own. She was fun and interesting and she was also the only person who seemed to understand what he was talking about most of the time.
But that was then. Things were different now. Diana had proven she could make it on her own, no problem. She’d done just fine without him. And she now belonged to somebody else. She could deny it, but the facts were right there, front and center. She was pregnant. That meant there was a man in her life. Even if he was out of the picture for the moment, he was there. How could it be any other way?
And all that was just as well, actually. Without that complication, he knew he could have easily fallen in love with her. He’d known that from the moment he saw her coming down to the lake, looking like an angel. He responded to her in a way he never did with other women, a combination of past experiences and current attraction. Yes, he could fall hard. And falling in love was something he was determined never to do again.
For just a moment he thought about Gina, the woman he’d lived with for two years and had almost married. But thoughts of Gina only brought pain, so he shrugged them away.
He needed to focus on the purpose of his return. He needed to get ready to face his grandfather.
Diana parked in the same spot she’d used earlier that morning. This time there was a buzz of activity all around the compound. Workmen were putting new doors on the multiple garages and a painter was freshening up the long white fence that edged the driveway. Across the patio, two men were digging postholes for what looked to be a new barbecue center. With all this action, she could see she wasn’t going to need to contemplate a break-in this time. Sighing with satisfaction, she slid out of the car and made her way to the back entrance.
She’d traded in her nightgown for a sleek pantsuit she’d picked up in Carmel a few months before. Luckily she could still fit into it. She’d chosen it out of her closet specifically to rival anything Janey might be wearing. It had a high collar and a loose jacket that hid her belly and she knew she looked pretty good in it—always a confidence booster.
The back door was propped open and she went on into the