Frowning, she met Darryl's eyes. "Dad?"
He shrugged, and she was just about to call out to their father when Cam's voice preceded him into the room. "Darryl! Do you have Mina's flight information? She's not home, and I need to get a ticket for tomorrow, and--Oh."
He looked between the two of them, as Mina stood up and went to him, not even caring that Darryl was watching every move.
"Hey," she said. She expected a similar reply. Instead he took her face in his hands, held her steady, and kissed her so thoroughly that she thought her legs might melt.
When he finally released her, he glanced over at Darryl. "I'm dating your sister."
"Well, I hope so. Otherwise we need to enroll you in an etiquette refresher course. Because your greeting skills are a little over the top."
"What are you doing here?" Mina asked, still floating about ten feet off the ground.
"Coming to tell Darryl that I'm following you to LA. I'll find work somewhere--maybe The Getty--and I'll get my doctoral applications in as soon as I can. We'll make it work."
She took his hand, because if she didn't, she'd float even higher. She drew in air, as happy as she could ever remember being. "No," she said, "you're not."
"The hell I'm not. I've been thinking about this--"
"I'm staying here," she said, effectively cutting him off.
"What? Why?"
She pulled him over to the couch. There wasn't much room, but that was okay, since Mina was mostly sitting on Cam's lap.
"What happened to you?" Cam said, peering at Darryl, and apparently only now noticing his invalid state.
"A car ran me over," Darryl said dismissively. "Who cares? I want to know why she's staying."
"Fair enough," Cam said. "Not that I'm arguing, but why?"
"Because I don't want to lose you," she said, feeling his reaction to her words in the way his grip tightened, pulling her even closer. "Because I don't want you to have to sacrifice even a year of your education so I can chase a dream in LA when I could chase the same dream in Austin."
"You don't want to move to LA?"
"Oh, sometime, yes. But right now, this is home. You, Darryl, our friends." She lifted a shoulder. "I have a life here, and I want to build onto it. With you," she said, then brushed a kiss over his lips. "And when you're done with school," she added lightly, "I'll expect you to look for jobs in Southern California."
He laughed. "Fair enough."
"Were you really going to move out there for me?" she asked.
"There's not much I wouldn't do for you."
"This is all very heartwarming," Darryl said. "But what about the stellar job out there? Are you just going to turn it down?"
"I already did," she said. "I sent an email from the ER." She lifted a shoulder, then met Cam's eyes. "I never did decline the job offer here. His accident distracted me. And it's a much better opportunity anyway. Lots of hands-on experience. And that exec in LA is probably lame like you said. Coffee and dry-cleaning and then he tosses you out and drags in a new PA. Not even worth my time."
"Except you know he's not," Cam said, and her heart picked up tempo. She'd learned the truth from Griffin just a few hours ago. But how the hell had Cam?
"He really is a stellar exec," Cam continued. "Yes, the job is a lot of fetching coffee--I was right about that--but his former assistants have gone on to write scripts, produce movies, create television shows."
His brow furrowed, and she felt her eyes prick with tears. "You're walking away from all that? You're sure?"
She leaned forward and kissed him. "Yeah," she said. "I'm sure. I'll still end up in Hollywood. I'll get there with a great resume full of real experiences and not coffee and dry-cleaning. And I'll make contacts from Austin, too. And when I do go to California, I won't be alone. I'm absolutely positive." She drew in a shuddering breath. "I love you, Cameron Reed."
"Oh, baby. I love you, too."
"How did you know about the exec?" she asked.