Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 98264 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98264 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Snaking her arms around my hips, she finally returned my embrace. “Oh, Cam.”
Cam. God, I’d missed her calling me that. It was the obvious abbreviation for my name, but there was something magical about those three letters rolling from her tongue.
I closed my eyes, allowing the sense of belonging I only felt with Nora to envelop me.
Clearing my throat, I kept going. “But then I was a dumbass who got in trouble and had to leave. She hated me when I got back, but she had no idea how I’d spent the whole year loving her.”
Her fingernails dug into my back as she clung to me. “Don’t say that.”
“What do you want me to say then? You want lies? Fine, I haven’t thought about you every day over the last few years. Every time I’ve been in town, I haven’t stood in the woods by your house, waiting for you to come outside just so I could see you. I haven’t been carrying a ten-dollar bill in my wallet for two years now, hoping like hell you memorized my address. And I absolutely did not sit on my front porch every Saturday, waiting for the girl in the tie-dyed tank tops to show up and tell me she loved me too.”
“Stop,” she pleaded, but the words had been set free. There was no calling them back now.
“I’m a Caskey, and I wasn’t honest about that from the start, and I know you can’t look at me without thinking—”
That was all I got out because her head popped up and her lips collided with mine almost painfully. The tears from her cheeks spread to my face as she opened her mouth, her tongue finding mine, wild and consuming.
It was too many years in the making.
Too much time apart.
Too much heartache and desperation all poured into one frenzied kiss.
I palmed the back of her head and took it deeper, searing need trumping any kind of nerves or insecurity that could have accompanied our first kiss.
She moaned into my mouth and moved her arms up to encircle my neck, holding me so close I almost convinced myself she’d never let go.
But that wouldn’t have been my Nora. It seemed her superpower was the ability to slip through my fingers.
All at once, she released me and backed away. Panting and breathless, I watched a mask slip over her beautiful face. She stood up straight and squared her shoulders, but the trembling of her bruised lips gave her away.
“I did it. I was the one who killed Josh.”
My heart stopped; maybe time did too. I had known that something was off, but there was no preparing for a bomb like that. A dozen questions hung on my tongue, confusion swirled, and my mind struggled to keep up.
And then there was Nora, standing only a few feet away, staring at me—defiant yet still vulnerable—waiting for my reaction.
On the inside, I was devastated. Not because I was mad or angry, but rather, after everything she’d been through now, she had to live with this on her conscience too.
On the outside, I showed her nothing. “Okay.”
“I don’t feel bad about it, Camden.” She lifted her hand to cover her heart. “I can barely breathe knowing that Ramsey’s in prison, but that is the only regret I have. So, yeah. That’s me. Still love me now?”
It required exactly no thought for me to answer. “Yeah. I do.”
She winced, and a cry bubbled from her throat. “Well, you shouldn’t.” Holding my gaze, she backed away. “I love you too, Cam. I love you enough to know you should love somebody better than me.” She touched her lips, but it was the only goodbye I got from Nora Stewart.
“Nora!” I yelled as she took off running—and not into my arms where she should have always been. Deflated and lost, I watched her go.
I could have chased her to the ends of the Earth, but it would have done me no good.
She wasn’t mine to catch.
Yet.
Before heading back to my grandparents’, I swung past her house. Her dad’s truck was out front, so I crawled in through her bedroom window and left the ten-dollar bill on her nightstand. At least I could sleep at night knowing she could always find her way back to me.
Just before I climbed back out, my gaze froze on a framed picture of her with Thea and Ramsey. Thea was on one side, laughing, and her brother was in the middle, his shaggy, brown hair hanging over his forehead, a huge grin splitting his mouth. It was Nora on the other side of him that stole my breath though. She didn’t look much different than she did now, so it must have been taken in the last year or so. Which meant it was after Josh had…
But she was smiling—a real, genuine Nora Stewart masterpiece. The world had beaten her down, but I found immeasurable comfort knowing she was still able to smile—at least she could with the right people.