The Truth Within (Pelican Bay 3)

I hadn’t really understood the full impact of what I’d painted, but it was like things had just started to click into place for me. All the memories from the night I’d fallen through the ice started to come back to me the longer I stared at the image. I’d told Cam I didn’t remember what I’d done after pulling myself out of the water – that I didn’t know how I’d gotten to that greenhouse that’d saved my life.

But I did know.

I’d fought.

Every tug of my tired body across that thin ice as I’d sought the safety of the water’s edge, every step through the knee-high snow that I’d taken as I’d wrapped my arms around myself to try and keep my tired body as warm as possible, listening to the unknown voice in my head that had told me to keep going instead of giving up… it’d been me fighting.

I’d always just assumed I’d done it to get back to my family, but as I looked at the painting, I knew that wasn’t true.

I’d fought to get here.

To this moment.

To the man next to me.

He was my sanctuary… my truth.

“Maddox wanted me to name it, but I haven’t been able to think of anything no matter how hard I tried… until now,” I said to Cam. I could feel his eyes on me as I went to find a magic marker that was kept in the building to write notes on a whiteboard. I’d paint over it when I had a chance to get my brushes in the coming days. I reached for Cam’s hand and led him to the far corner of the painting where I’d signed it with my studio’s name instead of my own.

“I’ve never signed my paintings with my own name,” I said as I pointed to the little “CC” in the corner. “Chaotic Creations,” I said. “The name of my business.”

“Why didn’t you sign them?” Cam asked.

“I couldn’t risk it.”

“What, that someone would find out it was you?”

I shook my head. “No, believing it was real… that this” – I pointed to the mural – “was what I wanted to do with my life.”

“No dreams allowed,” Cam murmured.

“Right,” I said. “That’s why I never named the paintings either. It’s bad enough that I still see them all in my head, but naming them would just… I would have had to see those names and I wasn’t sure I could put those in my box…”

“I get it,” Cam said with a nod, then he leaned over and kissed my temple.

I leaned into him for a moment, then focused on the spot where the “CC” was. Right beneath it I wrote Going Home and signed my name.

We were both silent for several beats as we just stared at the name of the painting. “Is that what you want, Ford?” Cam finally asked, his voice sounding breathless and shaky. “To go home?”

I shook my head and leaned into him. “I’m already there, Cam.”

Dinner seemed to go by both too slowly and in record time. I had an amazing time just watching the men and Newt interact. I’d been to their dinners before, but I’d never felt like I was really a part of them.

That wasn’t the case this time.

And I knew it had everything to do with the man next to me.

When Cam hadn’t been covering my hand on top of the table, he’d held it beneath it or just rested it on my thigh. It hadn’t been at all sexual, though it had turned me on, because it was, well, Cam.

Even though I’d had my car at the sanctuary, I’d happily accepted Cam’s invitation to drive back with him to his house. My mother had texted me several times throughout the evening, but I hadn’t looked at the messages beyond the short notifications that had popped up on my lock screen. I’d seen Jimmy’s name in a few of the messages but whereas the old me would have immediately called her back or told her I was on my way home, whatever version of me that was now starting to emerge was more interested in figuring stuff out with Cam. I so badly wanted to hear him tell me that he and I were a forever kind of thing, but I knew that wasn’t fair to expect so soon. Hell, we’d never even been on an actual date. Not to mention I needed to tell him a lot of stuff about Jimmy that I’d deliberately kept to myself.

“I need to talk to you when we get home,” I said. “To your house, I mean,” I corrected.

Cam was holding my hand like he usually did in the car. He glanced at me with a smile that I could barely make out in the darkness of the cab, but I knew that smile.