She was so close—her fingers were an inch from the surface—but her lungs were about to burst. Another kick, another pull...
Vivi’s head broke the surface and she pulled in one life-affirming breath before darkness hauled her away.
* * *
Camden McNeal placed his palm on the window of his home office and looked out at the disappearing fog. He rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the tension in his shoulders and his back. He’d swallowed some painkillers a half hour ago, but the vise squeezing his brain had yet to release its claws. He felt like he was about to jump out of his skin.
Lifting his coffee mug to his lips, he took a large sip, enjoying the smooth taste of the expensive imported roast. He waited for the warmth to hit his stomach, but when it did, it burned rather than comforted. What the hell was wrong with him?
Yeah, the past few days hadn’t been fun. Houston had been slapped senseless by a devastating storm and there were many people out there who were in dire straits, although he wasn’t one of them. Not this time.
Count your blessings, McNeal...
Punching a number on his phone, he waited impatiently for Ryder to answer his call. “Cam, everything okay with you?”
His old boss and mentor had a way of making Cam feel steadier. Ryder was rock solid, as a colleague and a friend, and it never hurt to have someone like him standing in your corner. “My office is still under water and mud. All my computers are fried.”
“Nasty. Hope you backed up,” Ryder said.
All the time. “Yep, to a cloud server, so no information has been lost. But two of my guys have lost their houses and possessions.” He already had plans in place to get them back on their feet.
“I’ve closed the office and told my people to care for their homes and families,” Cam added.
“Yeah, I think that’s standard procedure at the moment. Money and business can wait. There’s more important work to do,” Ryder agreed. “I spent yesterday working at a shelter. Did you go out last night?”
“Yeah, I was in one of the worst affected areas of the city—and one of the poorest. It was a community search effort to find some missing children. Two of them were found, but the third, a teenage boy, is still missing,” Cam told Ryder.
Was that why he was so tense, so worried? He knew what it was like to feel abandoned, to be scared. Sure, he’d never been swept away in a flood, but he did have an idea how it felt to be poor, to live within a world that didn’t seem to give a damn about people at the bottom of the pile.
He understood what it felt like to have poverty as your constant companion and hope an emotion you no longer believed in.
Cam’s thoughts were pulled up short when Ryder spoke.
“Did you hear that a body was found at the construction site?”
Cam pushed his shoulders back, intrigued by Ryder’s statement. “Are you talking about the TCC construction site? Sterling Perry’s land?”
“Yes.”
The establishment of a Houston branch of the Texas Cattleman’s Club and control of it was Ryder and Sterling Perry’s latest battle in a decades-old war. Both Stirling and Ryder believed that they were best suited to be the inaugural president of the new club, both wanted to be the first to create the vision of the first TCC in Houston. Neither suffered from a lack of self-confidence.
Cam knew that he’d be one of the first to be invited to join the exclusive club and the opportunity to do business with the other members, both in Houston and in Royal would be worth putting up with the politics and drama. And there seemed to be a lot of drama.
“What caused the accident?” Cam asked.
“A couple of bullets to the chest and a crushed skull.”
So, not an accident then.
After discussing the murder and more TCC business, Cam disconnected the call. Walking away from the window and the view of his foggy gardens, he slumped into his butter-soft leather office chair. He tipped his head back and closed his eyes, the photograph of the missing kid flashing on the big screen behind his eyes. Dark hair, dark eyes, a sullen smile. Yeah, he recognized the look of despair in Rick Gaines’s eyes, the belief that life was constantly looking for a way to slap him sideways.
It was possible that within a year or two, without help or intervention, Rick would be breaking into cars, dealing, or perhaps even be in a gang. He’d be another lost boy, flirting with jail or addiction. Cam recognized him instantly. After all, wasn’t that exactly who he’d been?
Lost, lonely, confused. And Cam couldn’t help wondering if Rick was even missing. Nobody had seen him fall into the water; he was simply unaccounted for. There was always the possibility that he’d used the flood as an opportunity to run away from his crappy life. Cam understood. When you were struggling to survive, you used the breaks you received...
Your childhood is behind you. That isn’t your life anymore. You are now, and have been for a while, the master of your own destiny.
Cam swallowed the rest of his coffee, annoyed with himself. He didn’t have time to wallow around in the cesspool of his past. He still had a massive company to run. Pulling his keyboard toward him, Cam opened his email program and grimaced at the flood of messages. Yep, as he’d expected, the financial world hadn’t stopped turning. A couple of clients of his venture capital firm expressed their sympathy about the situation in Houston, but most didn’t bother. It didn’t affect them, so why waste the energy?
Cam was midway through typing a response to a Singaporean client when his ringing phone broke his concentration. He glanced at the display, didn’t recognize the number and considered ignoring the call. Then he remembered that he’d asked the search coordinator to inform him if they located Rick. This could be an update, so he needed to take the call. He hit the speaker button with an impatient finger. “McNeal.”
“Camden McNeal?”
“That’s me.”
“Excellent. You have been listed as the emergency contact number of a Vivianne Donner. I regret to inform you that Ms. Donner was admitted into the ER this morning after a car accident. When can we expect you?”
Cam pushed a hand through his hair, confused. “I think you have the wrong person. I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“I have your cell number, sir. You are Camden McNeal, owner of McNeal, Inc., and you live in River Oaks?”
“Yeah, that’s correct—”
“You might not know her, but she sure knows you. So, my question remains, how soon can we expect you?”
* * *
Cam paced into the lobby of the hospital, his long stride eating up the distance between the doors and the nurses station. He dodged a nurse pushing a pregnant woman in a wheelchair and noticed that the dad-to-be was on the verge of panic. Rather him than me, Cam thought. He was the product of two of the most dysfunctional people in the world and what he knew about parenting would fit on a pinhead.
His father had taught him how to steal, to hustle, to slip and slide through life, but mostly his parents had taught him that he could only ever rely on, and take care of, himself. He didn’t think he had it in him to put someone else’s needs and wants above his own. It wasn’t something he’d been shown how to do.
And the one time he’d tried, the only time he’d laid his heart at someone’s feet, ring in his hand, Emma had stomped all over it with her three-inch stilettos, her expression a mixture of genuine disbelief and pity.
Darling, you’re great in bed, but you’re not exactly someone to take into a ballroom. Or into a boardroom, or home to Daddy. You’re someone to screw, to keep in the shadows. Marry you? You’re ambitious,