To Get Me to You (Wishful 1)

“Uh, Cam?”

Cam stabbed his shovel into the pile of mulch and flung it into the newly planted bed before turning to Steve. “Yeah?”

“It’s five-thirty.”

Cam looked reflexively at the horizon, registering the bleed of colors and the fading light. His crew should’ve knocked off half an hour ago.

“You want us to start clearing up?”

“Yeah. Sorry about that. I wasn’t watching the time. Y’all go ahead and take the gear back to the nursery, check in with Violet. I just wanna finish up mulching this bed.”

“You want us to help?” Dewey offered. “You’d finish quicker.”

That was exactly what he didn’t want. “No. I’ve got this. Y’all have families and dinner to get on home to. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

His crew exchanged looks but did as they were told. Fifteen minutes later, Cam was alone with the mulch and the lowering sun.

As a rule, Cam oversaw the initial phase of execution for any of his landscape designs before turning over the final wrap up to his more than capable crew. His duties at the nursery made that a general necessity. But since he got back from Chicago, he’d thrown himself into the physical labor, leaving the running of the nursery to Violet so he could work himself to the bone in an effort not to think. Not that it was helping to distract from the epic hole in his life.

He hadn’t talked to Norah in four days. He’d spent twenty-eight years of his life without her, and after less than a week away from her, he felt like he was missing a limb. A sensation made all the more unendurable by what he’d overheard.

She was hurt. That much was obvious in her increasingly shorter messages. And he hated it, hated hearing that pained thread in her voice. But even as he knew it made him a coward, Cam couldn’t bring himself to take her calls. He couldn’t bear to give her a chance to break things off over the phone. If he did

, she might not come back at all. Having to come back to Wishful and talk to him in person might change her mind. It had to change her mind. And yet how could he and his small town compete with the career she’d devoted everything to?

While she’d been here, it had been easy to see how it could work. After a bumpy start, she’d taken to small town life like a duck to water. The people loved her, and she’d made connections all over town in her work with the coalition. But was it real or had he just been seeing what he wanted to see? She thrived on the challenge. Now that the challenge was over—and unsuccessful—would Wishful still hold appeal? Would he?

He spread the last of the mulch in near darkness and headed back to the nursery. If he finished the paperwork associated with this job tonight, Violet might not ream him in the morning. Then maybe he’d pick up burgers from Dinner Belles on the drive home as a treat for Hush since she’d been cooped up all day.

Silence lay thick and heavy in the main building of the nursery, interrupted only by the faint buzz of the fluorescent lights. Cam realized he’d been braced for an ambush by Violet or one of his meddling family members. He knew one was coming at some point. It was their modus operandi. They’d poke and prod and harass him until they got to the bottom of his piss poor mood instead of leaving him alone to stew and think. Since he’d rather cut out his tongue than talk about what was happening with Norah, he’d done everything in his power to avoid all of them. As no one had hunted him down, he could only conclude that Norah hadn’t been talking to any of them either.

After stowing the last of his equipment and washing at least some of the dirt off in the bathroom sink, Cam holed up in his office to update the inventory and log his hours and those of his crew. Seeing the stack of messages on his desk, he accepted he was going to have to actually come in during business hours tomorrow to deal with the bulk of them. He was calculating how much he could accomplish while Violet took her lunch break, when someone knocked on the outside door.

His gut tightened. It was long past closing time. Anybody out here at this hour was coming expressly to talk to him and it wasn’t likely to be about business. For a fleeting moment, he considered just staying where he was, letting whoever it was knock until they got bored and gave up. But given his truck was parked out front, they’d know he was doing just that, so it wasn’t like that’d do anything but delay whatever confrontation was brewing.

What if it was Norah?

His heart gave a leap that was somewhere between elation and dread. Her last message hadn’t said she was on her way back. But she’d said she missed him. She hadn’t told him she was leaving in the first place, so maybe she’d adopted the same policy for the return trip. And for that moment, it didn’t matter what was going on, didn’t matter about the job or where they stood, because he just needed to hold her.

Cam was halfway across the retail space before he realized it wasn’t Norah. His steps slowed as he saw his mother through the window.

Crap. Looked like he was getting ambushed after all.

But when he unlocked the door and pulled it open, he saw she wasn’t alone. Edgar Falk was with her.

“Hey baby.” Sandra stepped into the store without invitation. Cam automatically bent to accept her kiss on his cheek. “Do you have some time to talk?”

Company was the last thing Cam wanted, but if Ed was here, it probably had something to do with city business. “About?”

“GrandGoods.”

That just made him think about Norah and his mood, already black, darkened further. “What is there to talk about? The special use permit already passed.”

“Could be we’ve still got an option.” Ed rocked back on his heels and crossed his wiry arms.

Cam found that highly unlikely. “How’s that?”

“Well, I’d forgotten about this. It’s been forty years since it came up last.”