As her boots hit the ground next to him, she looked up, meeting hurt and anger and dismay in his blue eyes.
“Let me get my tools. And here.” He shoved keys in her hand. “Take the truck back to our house and get your car. I assume you left it there when you two sneaked off like a couple of teenagers going to a party.”
“Teenagers…going…” Nicole stuttered, a little speechless. “Are you kidding me right now?”
“Just go and make the dog show thing,” he said, working hard to keep anger from his voice and mostly succeeding. “I’ll take care of Elise.”
He pivoted, marched back to the truck and pulled a toolbox and a jack from the back. Nicole stayed right where she was, watching him.
His movements were crisp and decisive, his jaw set hard, his nostrils occasionally flaring as he worked and battled the cold, getting down next to the rear passenger wheel. Nicole walked behind him to watch, refusing to drive away, but he didn’t talk to her.
Elise rolled down the window on the passenger side and called out, “Cameron!”
He looked up, frowning, then jogged right past Nicole to the window. “You okay?”
“Yes! That’s the whole point of this,” she insisted. “I’m more than okay. I’m capable. I’m strong. I’m smart.”
“You’re paralyzed from the waist down,” he said, his voice oddly calm. “And sneaking off with someone who’s not in our family driving the van. Do you realize what could have happened to you? On these mountain roads? In the snow? It’s exactly like?—”
“It’snothinglike that,” she fired back. “We’re not in an ice storm going through treacherous canyons. We’re driving clean highways out to Eagle Mountain, and Ihadto go. I had to. Cameron, I was accepted into the program!”
He took a step back as if her words had physically smacked him. “You…were?”
Nicole fisted her hands in her pockets, frozen without gloves but she still could feel her nails digging into her palms as she forced herself not to march forward and tell him everything.
This wasn’t her fight—it was Elise’s. But it told her a lot about Cameron. A lot about how he handled conflict and a crisis.
“Well, that’s…” He huffed a breath that puffed in front of him. “That’s great and impossible and…and…and now I get to be the bad guy and the killer of all your dreams for a second time, Elise. Thank you so very much.”
“Then don’t kill them!” she yelled out.
He shut his eyes and shook his head. “Look. It’s freezing out here. Let me change the tire and you…just roll up the window.” He strode back to the tire, crouching down to start spinning the jack.
Nicole stood behind him, shivering in her jacket.
“Honestly, you can go, Nicole. We’re fine.”
“Hardly fine, and I’m not leaving you here without a second vehicle until you fix this.”
His shoulders dropped, the move nearly imperceptible, but she picked up the resignation. He was a first responder—smart enough to know she really did have to stay.
Nicole swallowed her fear and stepped closer anyway, the mountain of apology she’d had ready dissolving in the face of his anger. He hadn’t given her a chance to apologize, so how or why should she?
“We need to talk,” she finally said.
Cameron’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue. He pushed up and stalked to the back of the van, yanked it open, and flipped a panel to reveal a spare tire.
“Talking is not a good idea,” he said.
“Why not?”
“I’ll say something I’ll regret.”
“I don’t care,” she shot back. “Just saysomething. It’s bad to say nothing. That’s what killed my parents’ marriage ten years ago.”
He froze for a second, then continued his mission.
The wind cut through Nicole’s coat as she stood beside him. Gray clouds swirled overhead, matching the churning turmoil in her chest.
