“Dalton!” she screamed before she hit the bed and bounced.
“What?” His tone was full of innocence. “You said you wanted me to put you down.”
She was up on her knees on the mattress in an instant, staring daggers at him. Daggers he couldseethanks to Uncle John walking into the room at that exact moment with a lit candle and the laundry basket full of provisions.
“Anyone ever tell you you’re cute when you’re mad?” Doc’s cocky grin stretched his face.
“Keep smiling like that”—she balled up a fist and shook it at him—“and you’ll see me getrealadorable.”
His stance, with his legs spread and his arms crossed, looked foreboding. But he threw back his head and laughed again as if her furious visage only tickled him.
Uncle John sighed heavily as he set the candle and the basket on the chest of drawers pushed against the far wall. “I wish y’all would stop this silly one-upmanship and give in.”
“You mean give in to the urge to beat him repeatedly about the head and shoulders with a phonebook?” Cami’s voice was sugary-sweet. She batted her lashes.
“Nope.” John shook his head. “Give in to the urge to bone each other silly.”
For a second, she was too shocked to do anything more than sputter. Then, her brazen Italian blood—and the big mouth that came with it—asserted itself.
“Not while I’m still employed by him. But I told him I’d be more than happy to test his suspension, or rather lethimtestmine, afterthe job is done. And do you know what his response was?”
“Cami.” Doc’s tone held a warning.
She ignored it. “He said we couldn’t because hewantedit too much. Now you tell me, Uncle John, does that make any sense to you?”
“Not a lick,” John assured her and her smile was one of vindication. “But on a different note,” he continued, turning to Doc, “just thought I’d remind you that if there’s anythin’ in your bedroom you wanna keep, you better go grab it before Julia tears the place apart.”
Cami blinked when Doc yelled, “Shit! My shoebox!” right before he darted into the hallway.
John watched Doc race away before swinging to face Cami. “Keep workin’ on him, darlin’.” He leveled a stern look on her. “He could use someone like you.”
Before she could ask what he meant by that—Someone like me?—he ducked into the hallway and closed the door behind him.
Frowning, she sat back against the headboard. Between John’s cryptic statement and Doc’s outburst about…Did he sayshoebox?...she was feeling summarily discombobulated.
Her confusion was only compounded when the door burst open and Doc’s mile-wide shoulders filled the doorframe. The candlelight glinted off the blond strands in his damp hair, making them shine like the gold coins he’d raised from the seabed, and there were a few new droplets of water standing in his beard stubble.
Julia was doing a number on his room, no doubt. But he didn’t seem concerned. Quite the contrary. There was an expression of relief on his face when he glanced down at what was…sure enough. That was a shoebox in his hand.
She opened her mouth to ask,What’s in the box?But she decided that was too reminiscent of Brad Pitt inSE7EN. So instead, she simply lifted an eyebrow in question.
Either Doc didn’t see her, or he didn’t feel like answering, because he turned his back to shut the door. When he was slow to spin back around, she couldn’t stop herself from saying, “Are those, like, ruby slippers or something?”
He frowned at her and then saw the direction of her gaze. Glancing at the shoebox, he shook his head.
It was hard to see in the dim light cast by the lone flickering candle, but she would swear a muscle ticked in his jaw. Then he lifted a hand to tug on his ear—a gesture she’d learned was something he did when he was feeling out of sorts—and she knew there was more to the shoebox than met the eye.
His words confirmed it. “These are souvenirs from my wife.”
She felt two things in quick succession. The first was shock.He was married?The second was confusion.Why didn’t I know that?
Her voice came out sharper than she intended when she said, “I didn’t know you were ever married.”
He was still looking at the box and running a reverent hand over the lid like it contained treasures more precious than the ones sitting in the blue duffel bags in LT and Olivia’s room. And maybe, for him, that was true.
“For eight years,” he said softly.
Even though she couldn’t see his eyes, she knew there was sadness in them. She couldfeelthe sadness in them.
