Norah was running late. Her meeting in Oxford had taken longer than expected, but the end results were well worth it. Come Saturday, they just might pull off her lunatic scheme.
The downside was she had to head straight to Grammy’s for family dinner, where Cam was supposed to have broken the news about their involvement. Terror at the family’s possible reactions dimmed the effervescent thrill of finally giving in and letting herself want, letting herself have. If this relationship blew up in their faces, they’d keep Cam. He was blood. But where would that leave her? Cut off from the family she was closer to than her own?
Maybe it would be fine, as he expected. He was so blithely unconcerned about what they thought. But just in case, she’d been mentally rehearsing her defense. Not that the Campbells would ever put her on the witness stand like her father, but a lifetime of training was hard to break.
“Now or never,” she muttered, stepping inside.
The babble of voices and laughter led her back to the living room. Norah didn’t let herself linger in the hall trying to gauge the mood. She could already hear some heated debate going on about the last Mississippi State basketball game. Whatever they thought about her and Cam, it wasn’t the current topic of conversation.
“Sorry I’m late.”
“Welcome back. How was Oxford?” Miranda had to raise her voice to be heard over her uncle.
“I don’t even want to talk about the traffic. They’ve completely changed how you go through part of campus. I wound up somewhere by the football stadium trying to get out. But I got Ajax for lunch, so win.”
“Squash dressing and jalapeno cornbread make up for a multitude of sins.”
Okay, so nobody was looking at her weird. That was positive.
Cam rose from where he’d been slouched in a chair beside the door. He cupped the back of her neck and brought her mouth to his. Her body gave one, quick jolt before she melted against him. Mindful of their audience, she didn’t give in to the urge to dive deeper, but her hands were fisted in his shirt as he eased back. He was grinning, and Norah found herself grinning foolishly in response.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi back.”
“How did your mystery meeting go?”
“Really well, I…” Norah trailed off, realizing the room had fallen dead silent. She could feel the weight of eyes, sense the shock along her skin, though she didn’t look away from Cam. “You didn’t tell them.”
“I’ve always been a much bigger fan of showing than telling.” He was still grinning, entirely unrepentant.
Though exasperation warred with nerves, she kept her voice light. “Here’s a lesson from the professional: When your audience looks like you just dropped an atomic bomb, you need to work on your delivery.”
He dragged his gaze from her to take in the reactions she hadn’t gotten up the courage to face. The grin faded, chased away by confusion and the first sparks of anger. Norah felt his tension ratchet up to match hers.
As bad as she’d feared then.
With a bracing breath, Norah squared her shoulders and stepped back to face the music with all the gravity and enthusiasm of meeting a firing squad. When she would’ve stood alone, Cam laced his fingers through hers and stepped up beside her. A unified front. She squeezed his hand, grateful for the support.
Grammy’s eyebrows were lost somewhere under her fluffy silver bangs. Miranda remained completely unreadable. Everyone else’s eyes were round as dinner plates. Only Aunt Liz looked positively ecstatic, her lips curved, her hands clasped as if she’d clapped them in delight. Sandra apparently wasn’t here yet.
“Seriously?” Mitch gaped. “You and Cam?”
“Me and Cam.” Despite the awkward situation, saying it still gave her a little thrill.
“Did not call that one,” Reed said.
“Well they have been spending a lot of time together with the coalition,” Aunt Liz pointed out.
“Yeah but—” Anita trailed off. “Are you sure this is wise?”
“Wise?” Cam’s voice dropped to one step above a growl.
Before he popped off to tell his aunt exactly where she could shove her opinions on the wisdom of their relationship, Norah pivoted into him, laying a hand on his chest. “Don’t. They love you. They’ve got a right to their concerns.”
The temper in his eyes didn’t cool. “I’m not just gonna stand here and—”
“Campbell, stop.” She framed his face. “You’ve already slain my dragon. They’re not insulting me. They’re not attacking me. And I guarantee they don’t have a single objection I didn’t already throw at you. You won me over. Let me win them. I came prepared for this. You’re not used to being cross-examined and forced to defend your decisions. I am.”
“You don’t have to defend anything.” Miranda looked horrified at the very idea.
Norah shifted to face her. “You’re right, I don’t. I don’t owe y’all an explanation or promises or justification. But I’ll give them anyway because I love and respect this family and the place you’ve given me in it over the years. So please, just listen.”
She paused to pull her thoughts together, steadied when Cam slid an arm around her waist.
“I know I’m not what you want for him.” Several of them started to speak, but Norah just held up a hand. “I’m not. You’d like to see him with some local girl with roots dug as deep as his. Somebody content with a traditional role of wife and mother, who doesn’t have the kind of aspirations that would ever pull her—or him—away from here. And I don’t blame you for that. Everybody who ever mattered put their ambitions before him. You want assurances that I’ll never do that, and I can’t give them.
“I am ambitious and competitive and very, very good at what I do. I was raised to be that way by two brilliant, broken people who wouldn’t recognize a functional, healthy relationship if it knocked them over the head. The only thing they ever taught me about relationships is that they’re secondary. That personal wants take a backseat to the greater good. And you know what? I’m done.” It felt good to say it, to mean it. “I’m done being selfless. I’m done being rational and logical and thinking fifteen steps ahead of everybody else. I’m done living my life based on someone else’s expectations.
“The fact is, Cam’s the best man I know.” Norah looked up, met his eyes, because the rest of this was as much for him as his family. “He matters. More than anyone ever has, or I wouldn’t still be here. I don’t have the first clue how this is going to work in the long term, but I’m sure as hell not going to apologize for not being willing to walk away from the chance to find out.”
“Nor should you have to.”
Norah closed her eyes and wished the sudden burst of mortification had enough gravitational force to suck her into the ground. Of course. Of course Sandra was standing right behind them. Why that was somehow worse than baring her soul to the rest of the Campbell clan, Norah didn’t quite know, but as Sandra came into the room, circling past them, Norah’s ears burned, and the pulse that had calmed by taking control of the situation began to thump erratically. She forced herself to stand straight and meet the other woman’s gaze instead of tucking into Cam to hide. He stood close, pressed against her back. A solid support but not an unnecessary shield.
“Allow me to apologize for the rest of the family for making you feel uncomfortable and like you needed to defend yourself. It was wholly unnecessary. You aren’t careless with people, Norah. I certainly don’t think you’ll be careless with Cam, particularly as you know exactly what it feels like to be second to someone else’s ambitions.”
Norah opened her mouth, closed it again. That wasn’t an insight she’d expected from someone in this family, and she didn’t know what to say, so she inclined her head in acknowledgment of the point.
“I think it’s high time both of you were a little selfish, and I, for one, am glad you’ve stopped dancing around each other.”
“Wait, you knew?” Cam sounded so affronted.
Sandra shot him an amused look. “Of course, I knew. I’m your mother.”
“How?”
“The same way I knew you, Tucker, and Brody rolled Aggie Crockett’s yard after she gave you a B on your midterm in trig. I just know.”
Norah felt Cam’s jolt of surprise and almost laughed, thinking of his complaint about how hard it was to get away with anything growing up.
Sandra turned to Norah and took her free hand. “It’s a smart thing for a mother to learn to care for the woman her son chooses. It’s a real gift to legitimately like and respect her. I’ve had occasion to know the difference. So, not that you need it, but consider this my blessing.”
Absolutely flummoxed and moved by the show of support, Norah could only stammer. “I—thank you.”
Releasing Norah, Sandra cheerfully turned to the rest of the family. “Mom, the pot roast smells amazing. Please tell me there are mashed potatoes.”
“Only a boatload.”
“Excellent. I’m starving.”
~*~
Dinner was a strangely normal affair, which left Norah feeling completely off balance.
“So, who are you kids taking to the Valentine’s dance?” Sandra asked.
Norah laughed, assuming she was teasing to keep the tone light.
Then Reed spoke up. “Lynnette Rainey.”
“Isn’t she one of the members of your book club?” Miranda passed the platter of roast beef.
“She is. Which means I won’t get bored.”
Mitch dumped a healthy lake of gravy on his mashed potatoes and pot roast. “Cuz, if you need a book club assignment to keep you from getting bored on a date, you clearly need to revisit the definition of date.”
“It’s a PG function, son,” Uncle Pete said.
Baffled, Norah looked around the table. “Did I step into a Twilight Zone episode set back in high school?”
“Wishful has an annual Valentine’s dance,” Aunt Liz explained. “Here, have a roll.”
Norah took one and passed the bread basket to Cam on her right. “Really?”
“Since we don’t have a lot of the things people in big cities do for the occasion, we make our own fun,” Sandra said. “Old school style. It’s a nice change from the winter doldrums.”
“I’m afraid most of my knowledge of school dances comes from John Hughes movies.”
“You never went to a high school dance?” Cam looked appalled.
“I’m sorry, have we had any conversation that would lead you to believe that I did anything normal in high school?”
“Not even prom?”
“It may shock you to know that high school boys found me intimidating. Apparently the fact that I didn’t feel the need to hide my brain was a turn off.”
“Bless your heart. We need to rectify some of these holes in your life experience.” Cam lifted her hand and adopted a hopeful expression. “So will you and your devastatingly attractive brain be my valentine?”
Charmed, she repressed a grin and pretended to consider. “And what exactly would that entail?”
“Drinking probably spiked punch—”
“Definitely spiked. Tucker’s coming,” Mitch said.
“—and dancing under crepe paper banners and construction paper hearts in the community center gym. It’ll be completely cheesetastic, nostalgic, and—”
“Perfect.” Norah kissed his cheek. “Though we’ll all be up early on Saturday for work.”
“Ah yes, your mysterious plan. And when are you going to let us in on the rest of it?”
“On Saturday. Everybody knows what they need to know. The rest is a surprise.” And she was still working out some of the details.
“So not even a clue as to what you were doing in Oxford today?”
“Not a one.”
“Cam hates surprises,” Sandra said. “I used to have to hide his Christmas presents at friends’ houses because he’d get into the closet and peek under the wrapping paper. As if I wasn’t going to be able to tell he’d untaped the end.”
“I was eight!”
“I caught you doing that at thirteen.”
“Well it was an important year. I had to know if I was getting the new Nintendo.”
“And did you?” Norah asked.
“Eventually. After I caught him snooping, I decided he’d have to wait until his birthday for that one,” Sandra said.
“I thought she’d returned it. And after I’d saved my allowance to buy two games so that I could play on Christmas Day.”
“You never peeked again, did you?”
“No ma’am. I learned my lesson. Still hate surprises, though. Unless they’re related to dessert.” Cam looked hopefully at Grammy.
“There might be pecan pie and ice cream. But clean up, first.”
“The boys have dish duty,” Miranda declared. “I’m stealing Norah.”
Nothing in her tone suggested she was angry, but Norah felt the anxiety creep back up her spine. Of everyone, Miranda’s was the reaction she was most worried about. As they pushed back from the table, Cam skimmed a hand down her shoulder. No matter what, he’d be waiting for her on the other side. Bolstered, she followed Miranda out to the sun porch.
They sat on the glider swing, toeing it into motion in tandem. When the strain of silence became too much, Norah said, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“I’m guessing you don’t mean tonight. How long has this thing with you and Cam been going on?”
“That’s a little complicated to answer.”
“Before this GrandGoods campaign?”
Better to bring out the truth now than never. “Pretty much since the moment we met.”
“New Year’s?”
Norah nodded.
“Really? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Initially, because I was blind-sided. I certainly didn’t come down here looking for a relationship. Everybody knew I was fresh off a break up with Pierce, and I didn’t want anyone to think I was using Cam for some kind of rebound.”
Miranda was quiet for a moment. “I wasn’t so much worried about that, but I wouldn’t have pegged you as being in a good place for a relationship. Which I told Cam flat out.”
Norah’s heart gave a sick lurch. “You warned him off me?”
“Not because I think you’re bad for him or vise versa but just…I saw how he looked at you, and I could see a lot of potential for hurt on both sides.”
Norah absorbed that as the glider continued to rock. “Well, you aren’t wrong. Things got really serious, really fast, and I didn’t know what to do about it. I was still trying to work out what to do about my career, and, frankly, I didn’t think the family would approve of the idea of me with Cam. So when he asked me to stay for this war against GrandGoods, I broke things off.”
“You ended things because of me. Because of everything we said that night about Melody. You thought we’d compare you to her.”
“On the surface, it isn’t an inappropriate comparison.”
“God, Norah, I’m sorry. I’d never in a million years think you’d do to him what she did. You’re nothing like her.”
“That’s what Cam said. But even without that, I thought stopping things before they went any further was best for both of us. It’s an impossible relationship. He’s small town and I’m big city. I know perfectly well he’s part of the fabric of this place. I’d never dream of asking him to leave it. And Wishful doesn’t exactly have need of a high-powered marketing executive under normal circumstances. I’d never be cruel about it, but my leaving at some point seemed pretty inevitable, and I didn’t want to hurt him.”
“So what changed?”
“Nothing. And everything.” Norah sighed and laughed a little. “Breaking things off didn’t make me any less crazy about him. With all the time we’ve spent together, I didn’t do anything but make us both miserable by holding us apart. And then yesterday…Do you know what he did?”
“Does this have something to do with that whole dragon slaying thing you mentioned?”
“He got in touch with the City Council of Morton and got copies of all the paperwork related to their consideration and approval of Hugo’s, and he dug through all of it until he found proof that it wasn’t me who convinced them to change the terms. It was my boss. He not only found hard-core exculpatory evidence—Miranda, he had the whole thing highlighted and sticky tabbed as thoroughly as I would.”
Miranda’s lips twitched. “It’s a wise man who recognizes the key to your heart lies in color-coded organization.”
“How can I not fall for a man like that?”
“I’d say you’d be pretty hard pressed. Are you in love with him?”
She’d vowed she’d be honest. “If I wasn’t already, I’m pretty sure I took a swan dive off that cliff without a parachute last night. It’s completely insane. Every single objection I raised is still valid, every problem still an issue. But I know if I don’t go after this with everything I’ve got, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”
“Love isn’t supposed to be sane and logical. You’ll figure the rest of it out. Problems without solutions are your specialty, remember?”
“Yeah. I may need you to keep reminding me of that when I start to freak out.”
“I can do that.” She leaned forward and tugged Norah into a hard hug. “For the record, I think you two will be great together. Melody wasn’t right for him, not because she was ambitious but because she was a bitch.”
Norah laughed. “Good to know.”
“Now come on. If we want to score any pie, we’d better get back in there.”