“I feel lied to,” he muttered, bent over the wheel.
Even with the wind, she caught the words. “No one lied.”
He looked over his shoulder. “Omission.”
She couldn’t argue that. “I understand and I’m sorry, Cameron. Elise?—”
“Doesn’t know what’s good for her.”
“Or maybeyoudon’t.” She crouched down next to him, flinching when he slammed the jack into place.
“You are seriously overstepping,” he ground out, sliding a look at her. “I know she’s irresistible and sympathetic and persuasive andadorable.”
“She’s not a minor,” Nicole pointed out, frustrated that he seemed to forget his sister was an adult.
“No, but she’s paralyzed and vulnerable and…and…if there’s a fire, she couldn’t get out of bed. If there’s an intruder, she couldn’t defend herself. If there’s a?—”
“I get it.” She put a hand on his arm. “I totally get that. She’s limited in what she can do. But does that mean she can’tlive, Cameron? She can’t leave that house? She can’t study and have a profession or achieve a dream?”
He sighed. “I’m not discussing this now,” he said. “The bottom line is you went way beyond…just too far. Too far. Behind my back, too.”
He slammed the spare into place.
‘I’m sorry,” she said, and meant it. “I was uncomfortable with that, but if I hadn’t, she’d have missed the interview and?—”
“Uncomfortable?” His hands froze. “You know what’s uncomfortable, Nicole? Knowing that because you were an idiot, your sister will never walk again. I live with that every day, so if I fear for her life, that’s my problem.”
“You made it her problem.”
He grunted. “Just…let me work. You have no idea what I deal with every day. You have no idea how terrified I am that she’ll get hurt again.”
She stared at him for a long, long time. “You know which one of you is really paralyzed, Cameron?”
Slowly, he turned to her.
“You,” she said. “You are paralyzed by fear and I say that as someone far too familiar with the feeling. And your fear is keeping her from having a life. Not her legs, not that chair, not this world. Your fear.”
He closed his eyes and tried to swallow. “Please wait in the truck,” he said. “When I’m done, you can go.”
She pushed up and took a step backwards, a bone-deep disappointment kicking her in the ribs. “So…what about us? All done?”
His hands moved with furious precision as he cranked the jack and wrestled the spare tire into place. The cold wind whipped around them, carrying the metallic tang of true sadness.
She could feel their fragile new relationship shatter with each beat of silence, pieces scattering across the frozen ground like shards of ice.
“Cameron…” she whispered.
He twisted a bolt with fury. “There’s no ‘us.’”
Something inside her cracked wide open. She stumbled toward the truck, her vision blurred with tears.
When she slid into the driver’s seat, the wheel was cold beneath her hands. She sat in the cab and watched him finish, return the flat tire to the back, and put his toolbox in with it.
Then he climbed into the front seat of the van, and drove off.
The hardest part was that she didn’t get to say goodbye to Elise.
The parking lot of the Canine Canyon Animal Refuge glistened under a light snow. Gracie tugged her coat tighter and glanced around as she walked toward the main building next to her mother and Aunt Cindy.
