The Thing About Trouble Read online

  “Floor?” Cam asked, glancing down quickly before testing the red sauce he’d made. Tawny had asked for spaghetti for dinner, and he’d decided to make his own. It had taken a bit of time, but considering the fact that he had a lot to celebrate, he didn’t mind. The table was set for three, candles glowing softly from the center. Red wine was open, a mature Argentinian Malbec, and he had garlic toast in the oven.

  “Nope.”

  “I don’t know, then, sweets. Use something else? Orange, maybe?”

  Tawny dug through the container of crayons, and Cam glanced at his watch. It was nearly six o’clock, and he frowned, wondering where the hell Blue was. She wasn’t often late. But he supposed with the studio and all, she was busy and time had gotten away from her. He was about to call her when he heard a vehicle pull into the driveway. Right on cue, his body reacted to the very thought of Blue, and he gave his head a shake. Seriously. He was acting like a damn teenager on a first date. He and Blue were way beyond that, but he supposed the fact that he was planning to officially suggest they combine households might have something to do with that.

  Or he was just so damn gone for the woman, he couldn’t help himself.

  The doorbell rang out, and Rufus began to bark. Weird. Normally, Blue just walked in. He crossed the room and opened the door, thinking it was someone else, but found the woman in question standing on his porch, shivering in the cold.

  “Hey,” he said warmly. She didn’t react. In fact, the expression on her face was blank. Or cold. Or something. “You okay?” he asked, watching her carefully.

  “We need to talk,” she said, not quite meeting his eyes.

  Unease rolled through Cam, and he moved aside, giving her room to come in. She did, but didn’t take off her coat. Tawny’s head popped up, and she jumped from the stool and ran toward them.

  “Blue!” the little girl cried excitedly. “I made you a picture.” She threw herself at Blue and wrapped her arms around her tightly. Normally, Blue would have hugged her back. Thrown in a kiss too. Instead, she gently extracted herself from Tawny, and the three of them stood there in awkward silence.

  “Why don’t you go and put your crayons away and wash up for dinner.” Cam kept his voice light, though Tawny hesitated anyway. She was good at picking up on vibes, and right now, the vibe in this house wasn’t a good one.

  “Go on. Put them away in your bedroom and go wash your hands.”

  Tawny gave them each one last look and then scampered off to do his bidding. Once she’d grabbed her stuff off the island in the kitchen and headed for her room, he turned to Blue.

  “What the hell is going on?” He frowned darkly, and when she would have turned from him, he grabbed her chin and forced Blue to look up at him. “I don’t like this, Blue. Tell me what the fuck is up.”

  She held his gaze and opened her mouth. “I can’t do this.”

  “Can’t do what?” Confused, he stared down at her.

  “This. Us.” She licked her lips and shrugged. “I don’t want this, Cam.”

  “What the hell are you saying?” His voice rose, and he was loud, but he didn’t give a rat’s ass.

  “I’m saying that I did a lot of thinking this afternoon. Us, you and me and Tawny… We are moving way too fast and—”

  “Unbelievable. You’re not making sense.”

  “I am. You need to listen to me.” She paused. “I don’t think I’m ready to be a mother. Especially to a girl who isn’t mine. She’s cute, and yes, she’s adorable, but she’s not mine. It’s hard for me to explain.”

  His face was like granite, and the anger in him was consuming. Fierce. “When did you come to that realization? You were all over this, this morning.”

  She didn’t look like the Blue he knew. She looked like a cold paper version of the flesh-and-blood woman he loved.

  “I told you. I sat down and thought about it this afternoon, and I need to back away from this, Cam. Don’t take it personally, but…” She gestured with her hands. “I could never live here.” She made a face. “For God’s sake, my garage is bigger than this house.” She paused. “No offense.”

  “None taken.” His voice was clipped and sharp.

  “I’m used to a certain lifestyle, and while this, you and me, has been fun, it’s not my reality. I was taking a break from life. Looking for a distraction from the mundane.”

  “Distraction?” His eyebrow rose dangerously.

  She shrugged. “I was bored.”

  Cam took a step back. He was so angry, so pissed off, that he wanted to hit something. “You’re telling me that the last few months, you’ve been soothing your boredom by hanging out with Tawny and me.”

  “Pretty much.”

  Her attitude was driving him nuts. “What the hell?” He lost it and didn’t care that he was shouting. “This morning, you were in my bed.” He leaned forward, and she shrank from him, but he didn’t care. “I was inside you. You told me that you loved me. You made me think we were a family. You come back here, into my home less than twelve hours later, and tell me it was a lie? That you were fucking bored? Is that what you expect me to believe?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice low, as her eyes slid from his. “I never meant to hurt you, Cam. But I have to be honest, not only with you but with myself. I got caught up in it with you. The sex was amazing, and I confused sex with love.”

  She took a step back. “I know my limits. I know what I can handle, and this”—she glanced around his home—“isn’t something I can handle. Tawny isn’t something I can handle. She’s cute and all, but on a permanent level? She’s not my blood. I didn’t carry her for nine months. I didn’t give birth to her. For me, that matters.”

  Shocked, Cam was speechless. He stared at the woman across from him. At her eyes that showed no expression. At the rigid set to her shoulders. The arrogant tilt to her jaw.

  He couldn’t look at Blue anymore. “Get out.” He managed to spit the words out through clenched teeth.

  Blue didn’t hesitate. In fact, she was already opening his front door. She quietly slipped outside, and he was alone for a few moments.

  “Where did Blue go, Daddy?” Tawny asked.

  He turned around and pasted some kind of smile on his face. “She had to go.”

  “But I had a picture for her.” Her disappointment was evident, and Cam crossed the room. He scooped her up and gave the kid a big hug. “We’ll give it to her some other time. Right now, we should eat.”

  They headed for the table, and as Tawny hopped onto her seat, she pointed to the extra setting. “We could ask Mrs. Eddy to come. She likes spaghetti too.”

  Cam grabbed the bowl of sauce and set it on the table. He eyed up the wine and headed to the cabinet instead. He had a big bottle of Jack Daniels, and that more than suited his mood. He didn’t want to think about what had just gone down. Didn’t want to make the night shitty for Tawny.

  He poured himself a generous glass and sat down.

  “I think we’re good on our own, tonight,” he said, then winked. “I’ll even let you watch a princess movie later.”

  They got down to the important business of eating. Tawny, unaware, dug into her plate with gusto. She was excited about the movie—and on a school night. But Cam? He settled into his chair and didn’t touch his plate. And long after he’d put the little girl to bed, he sat in his darkened living room, the remnants of a meal meant to unite a family staring back at him, and he brooded.

  Where the hell had he gone wrong?

  24

  Blue was exhausted. She felt as if she hadn’t slept in days, or weeks even. It was a bone-weary heaviness, and it weighed her down so much, she barely lifted her head when she got out of her car.

  It was late. After midnight. She’d left Cam and had driven for hours, trying to find some way out of this mess, but there was no solution. None that saved Cam, anyway.

  God, the look on his face when she said those hurtful, hateful things. She would never forget it. Not for a
s long as she lived. Probably not after that either. He would never know it was all for him and Tawny. She should feel at least some sort of happiness in that—surely one day she would—but right now, she was numb. There was nothing left for her.

  Her past was littered with a wreck of a family and bad decisions. She’d come full circle, it seemed. Blue walked into her house and headed for the kitchen. Giselle darted out from the shadows and meowed loudly, demanding attention. The cat’s food and water bowls were topped up. If Blue had been strong mentally, she would have found that strange, but instead, she shrugged out of her jacket, forgetting why she’d come to the kitchen in the first place, and slowly made her way upstairs, the meowing cat following in her wake.

  She entered her bedroom and walked over to the large glass doors that led to the balcony. Outside, the moon was partially hidden and the night sky looked ominous. There were no stars—nothing pretty or wondrous to look out at. The wind rattled the glass, and she put her cheek against the cold, smooth surface. The knot in her chest had been there since she’d seen Edward. It was hard and heavy, and she was afraid of what would happen when it broke. She couldn’t let that happen until she figured out where to go.

  “What are you doing in the dark?” The voice came from somewhere behind her, and a heartbeat after the words were uttered, soft light filled her bedroom.

  Shit. Tears gathered in the corner of her eyes, and she swallowed hard, waiting a bit until they receded. When she felt she had her shit somewhat together, Blue turned around. Her brother stood in the doorway and looked like he’d just woken up. His hair was askew, his clothes rumpled, and sleep still clung to his eyes.

  Her first instinct was to rush into his arms and tell him everything. But then where would that get her? The last time she’d done that, he’d acted on her behalf and ended up in jail. She couldn’t put this burden on him. He couldn’t know.

  “When did you get back?” she asked lightly.

  “A couple hours ago.” His dark eyes watched her closely. “You don’t check your phone.”

  “It died.”

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yes. Just tired.”

  “You look it.” Cash walked toward her and enveloped her in a hug. She bit her lip and prayed she didn’t lose it. “Were you with Cam?”

  “No,” she replied quickly, pasting a smile onto her face. “I bought a dance studio. Renovations and stuff have taken up a big chunk of my time. I was there working.”

  “Blue, that’s awesome.” Cash angled his head so he could see her better. “I’m glad you’ll be dancing again.” He winked. “What’s going on with you and Cam?”

  “Cam?” She shrugged, falling into the part she’d written for herself only hours ago. “Nothing. I haven’t seen him in weeks. Can’t remember the last time.”

  “No?” She could tell her brother was surprised by that.

  “Turned out we didn’t have all that much in common.”

  “That’s not the way it seemed the last time we talked.”

  “I was wrong. Look, I know you mean well, Cash. But I’m not joking when I say that I’m tired and I don’t want to talk about my nonexistent love life.”

  “Fair enough.” He paused. “Don’t you at least want to know where I’ve been? What I’ve been up to?”

  She frowned, wincing as a band of pain wrapped itself around her head like a vise. “Last I heard, you were in upstate New York.”

  “That’s right. But I just came from Tennessee.”

  That surprised her. “What were you doing there?” Her brother got serious fast. And the look on his face twisted her up. She recognized it. Something was coming. Something she probably wouldn’t like. What else did the universe have in store for her? Was she the punching bag of the hour?

  Cash seemed to consider his answer, and his hesitation didn’t make her feel any better. “I think you should sit down.”

  “I don’t like the sound of this.” She started to back away. “I don’t want to know.” But she sat anyway, her hands folded on her lap as she gazed up at her brother.

  “I found her, Blue.”

  “What are you talking about?” But she knew. Every fiber of her body sparked to life. She knew.

  “Adelaide. I found her.”

  Silence followed his words. The kind of silence that infiltrated every pore. The kind of silence that sank into her skin and her blood and her bone. It got bigger and bigger until it crushed her. Until that silence turned into a keening sound that started off soft and weak but grew steadily until she shook from the strength of it.

  “Are you sure?” she managed to say through clenched teeth.

  Her brother nodded. “I am.”

  “Where?” she whispered.

  “Nashville.”

  She mouthed that word. Nashville. She rolled her tongue over it and listened as it echoed inside her head. “Did you see her?”

  He shook his head. “Not in person, but I have photos and an address. This isn’t Arizona again. The intel is good. She’s there, Blue.” Cash knelt in front of her. “Your daughter is in Nashville. The next step is your decision.”

  He pulled a blanket off her bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Get some sleep. Think on it.” He nodded to the bedside table and an envelope. “Everything’s in there.”

  “How did you… Why?”

  With both hands on her shoulders, he looked her straight in the eye. “I promised you ten years ago I’d find her for you. Arizona didn’t change that. If anything, Arizona let the anger grow. And being on the inside, I met the kind of acquaintances I needed to, to do the kind of digging I did.” He kissed he forehead. “He’s not going to win. We won’t let him.”

  Cash stood up. “I’m beat. I’ve been on the road for days. Get some sleep. Read the file. And let me know what you want me to do. You want your girl, we’ll get her. You want me to hurt him where it counts, his fucking reelection, I’ll do it.”

  Her brother didn’t utter empty threats, but Blue was too emotionally drained to fixate on anything other than the fact that after all this time, the baby who’d been ripped from her arms was found. Ten years ago, she’d given birth to a little girl, and ten years ago, her stepfather had forged her signature on a hastily arranged illegal adoption, and she’d never seen her child again. The so-called lawyer couldn’t be found. The paperwork was gone. And her step-father and mother acted as if they’d just avoided the scandal of the century.

  Little did her mother know just how dark that scandal would have been.

  Some family had been gifted her greatest accomplishment for the outstanding price of twenty-five thousand dollars. And that family was in Nashville.

  Adelaide. That was the name she’d given her. What was her name now? Did she look like Blue? Did she carry the same empty space in her soul that Blue did? Was she happy? Healthy? Safe?

  She was weeping and didn’t know it. Blue swiped at the hot tears on her face and crawled across the bed until she reached the table that sat beside it. Her life and plain manila envelopes seemed to be a thing now. She hated manila envelopes. Blue rolled onto her side and grabbed one of her pillows. She stared at the envelope, wanting desperately to rip it open and see what was inside. Instead, she watched it quietly, fingers gripping the pillow as if it were a lifeline. She stared at the damn thing until her eyelids grew heavy.

  And eventually, she fell asleep.

  Her dreams were chaotic. Angry. Sad. She was transported back to that night. Back to a past she’d been running from. A past she’d been trying to forget.

  * * *

  She’d given birth in a private hospital. “Only the best for you,” he’d said.

  The doctor had been kind to a frightened teenager who was alone with no one to lean on, and the nurses were sympathetic. Her labor had been long and painful. She’d cried out for a mother who’d never been there for her in the past, so why would she expect her to be there now? Her brother had left, signed up for the military, and the only
girlfriend she’d ever really had, Amanda James, stopped coming around when her belly had gotten so big, she couldn’t see her feet. Amanda said it was gross. Said she’d come when the baby was born and they could dress it in cute outfits and take it for a walk in a fancy stroller.

  Bluebell Bodine was alone until she heard that cry. That sweet, amazing, shaky, full-of-life cry. They’d placed the baby on her chest, and if she tried for the rest of her life, Blue would never be able to explain the feeling that gripped her. It crushed her from the inside out and filled up that empty space. She latched the baby to her breast and watched in wonder when she began to suckle.

  “She’s feeding,” she cried excitedly to the nurse at her side. The woman had smiled, but it was the kind of smile that didn’t reach her eyes. When the baby was done, the nurse patted Blue on the head and told her she needed to take the baby for some tests. The woman paused at the door.

  “Did you give her a name?”

  Tired, Blue nodded. “Adelaide.”

  The nurse looked down at the baby in her arms. “That’s a pretty name.” She disappeared through the door, and that was the last time Blue saw her child. She’d woken up to a different world. A cruel, cold, unfeeling world where her own mother acted as if the baby didn’t exist and her step-father watched silently from the shadows.

  She’d left as soon as she could, and she’d never looked back. She’d hopped a bus to Vegas and tried to forget.

  * * *

  Blue woke with a start. Her neck was stiff and sore, her eyes felt as if they’d been poked by toothpicks, and her mouth was fuzzy. For a few seconds, she didn’t know where she was. It was dark, and her watch said it three a.m. Rolling over with a groan, she stumbled out of bed and headed to the washroom. She looked like crap. Bloodshot, puffy eyes stared back at her. Pale skin. Dull hair.

  And still that weight was there. That painful reminder of what was lost. Both in the past and just recently. She slid out of her clothes and jumped in the shower, where she stood under the hot spray until her fingers and toes shrivelled. She bypassed the expensive clothes that hung in her walk-in closet and instead raided the drawers on the bottom shelf. She pulled out a pair of jeans and a Las Vegas sweatshirt that was ratty from use and many, many washes. She left her hair to hang in damp waves and padded back into her bedroom, where the ominous envelope taunted her.