Let Me Love You Again (An Echoes of the Heart Novel Book 2) (16 page)

“I’ll be nice,” Oliver said to her mommy. He smiled at Camille again. “And I’d love some lemonade and one of my mother’s cookies.”

“Mrs. Dixon’s your mommy?”

“Since I was thirteen.”

“That’s so cool.”

Mommy put Camille on her feet and got down in front of her.

“It’s rest time, honey. You can barely keep your eyes open since Nurse Mallory used your EpiPen. And your doctor said it was important that you take things slow if you don’t want to end up right back in his office. So let’s get you cleaned up. You can lie down for a while. And then we’ll try a snack.”

“Cookies?” Camille wrapped her arms around her mommy’s neck, really tired, and not really sure if she ever wanted another snack ever again.

“Toast.” Mommy held Camille’s hand as she stood and opened the door to the house.

“And lemonade?” Camille checked behind them while she and Mommy walked inside. Oliver didn’t follow them. But he kept holding the screen door, and Mommy didn’t close the wooden one. “I’m really,
really
thirsty.”

“Once you’re tucked in for your nap,” Mommy said, “we’ll give lemonade a try.

“I’ll take some, too,” Oliver said.

Mommy hugged Camille to her side. She looked at him, not saying anything for a long time.

“One glass.” Mommy stepped back a little. When Oliver followed, she looked at Camille. “To bed with you, my little friend.”

But then Oliver was down in front of her the way Mommy had been on the porch. And he seemed to really like her. And Mrs. Dixon was his mother. And Camille wished more than ever she hadn’t snuck a piece of Karen’s candy at school, so she could stay and listen to him and Mommy talk about whoever’s daddy Oliver had come to talk about.

“It was nice to meet you, Camille,” he said. “And I promise not to eat all the cookies the way I used to when I was your age, so you have some left when you’re feeling better. Deal?”

Parker used to promise things, too. He’d promised a lot of things that never happened. Camille was pretty sure that’s why they’d left, her and Mommy. Because Parker mostly never meant anything he promised. But Camille would bet Mrs. Dixon’s son never did that. There’d be lots of cookies left when she woke up.

“Deal,” she said. “How do you know my mommy?”

“This is an old friend of mine,” Mommy said. “He and I . . .”

“Knew each other when we were kids.” Oliver stood. “When I lived next door for a few years.”

“If Mrs. Dixon is your mommy, then you and Travis are brothers, right?” Camille liked Deputy Bryant.

Oliver didn’t answer right away.

“Travis visited Camille’s school,” Mommy said. “She’s seen him and Dru going in and out next door, and she loves the Dream Whip. Dru’s always there. Travis, too, sometimes.”

“Yes,” Oliver said, “Travis and Dru are my brother and sister.”

“That’s so cool. And the other kids, too?”

Like Teddy, who Camille wasn’t supposed to have played with, but he’d been so much fun the couple of times she’d snuck over to see Mrs. Dixon.

“They’re newer, but I’ll get to know them now that I’m back for a while.”

“That’s so—”

“That’s your last
so cool
for a while,” Mommy said. “Bed. Lemonade. Nap. No more eating other kids’ snacks. And I don’t care how much theirs look better than yours.”

Camille let her mommy lead her away, even though she wanted to stay and talk to Oliver. She didn’t understand why her mommy and grammy didn’t want her to play next door. Mrs. Dixon was nice. And Oliver seemed nice, too, just like Travis and Dru.

“See you later,” she said, thinking that Oliver didn’t look anything like Deputy Bryant. Or anyone else next door. Because they were a foster family, Grammy had tried to explained. They’d come from different homes that hadn’t been so good, before they moved in with the Dixons.

Lucky
, Camille thought to herself as she and her mommy finally got to her room, and Camille crawled into her bed and closed her eyes.

The Dixon kids were so lucky now, she thought sleepily. No matter how bad the other families had been before they’d come to Chandlerville.

Chapter Twelve

“Snack?” Oliver asked when Selena returned from settling Camille down for a nap.

Selena grabbed two glasses from the cabinet beside the sink and the pitcher of lemonade from the fridge. She hadn’t taken any to Camille yet. Her daughter had fallen asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

“She’s allergic,” Selena explained.

Oliver waited patiently. He was giving her plenty of space, hanging across the kitchen while she poured their drinks and refused to look at him. But she could feel his mind working, analyzing. The emotions that had been riding so high outside, when she was terrified of what he might say . . . he had them firmly in check now.

And it was bugging her.

She crossed the kitchen, handed over his drink, and sipped hers. He stood unmoving in the doorway to her mother’s tiny living room, evidently content to wait until she said something more. She’d bet every penny she’d socked away in her savings
account—in her name alone so Parker couldn’t touch it—that Oliver could wait her out all afternoon.

“Camille’s allergic to peanuts.” Selena’s throat felt raw, like she’d been shrieking.

Her whole body was silently screaming from being too close to a man she hadn’t been alone with since she was eighteen. She took another drink, flooding her taste buds with summery tartness.

“A lot of things can make her ill,” she explained. “Luckily, today it was peanuts. Camille ate another child’s candy. She wants to be like other kids so badly, between episodes she forgets how quickly her body wants to get rid of what it can’t process.”

“Luckily?” Oliver sipped from his glass, his eyes widening.

Belinda didn’t believe in indulging in too much of anything, especially sweeteners. Fresh-squeezed lemonade was supposed to taste like lemons, not sugar.

Selena swallowed her smile. “Peanuts aren’t the worst potential offenders on Camille’s list.”

“What’s the worst?”

“Milk, so far. But nuts are bad enough. And a lot of the prepackaged convenience foods kids like have them, or they’re made in facilities that process them. Other parents send things to school for lunches and snacks that could make Camille react. Even freshly baked things like doughnuts. Except for Dan’s on Main.”

Selena heard herself babbling. She tried to knock it off. But it was so surreal, Oliver being in this house again. And from the moment he’d stepped inside, Belinda’s had felt right to Selena—for the first time since she’d come back.

So she rambled onward. “DJ has nut allergies in his family. Three of his kids. He has five now. Can you believe it? Five kids in seven years? When he took over the business from his father, Dan Junior made Dan’s Doughnuts and Bakery completely nut-free.
And he has a shelf just for dairy-free items. We go there every now and then as a reward, to help Camille not feel so bad that she has to be careful the rest of the time. DJ’s chocolate doughnuts are her favorite treat, just like . . .”

Selena blinked.

Just like Dan Senior’s pastries had been Selena’s. And Oliver had spoiled her rotten, buying them with his summer job money.

They’d been merely friends still when he’d caught on to the insatiable craving that was her sweet tooth, while Belinda was adamant about keeping unhealthy food out of the house. He’d teased Selena unmercifully about it for years, but never in front of anyone else. And once they started dating, he’d surprised her with her favorite treats when she least expected it. Just because. He’d said he loved the way her smile tasted after she’d eaten one. She’d let herself forget that when DJ took it upon himself to pamper Camille.

She motioned to the drink Oliver had hardly touched. “It’s getting warm.”

He drained the glass.

Good.

“Now, if you don’t mind . . .” She tried and failed to sound nonchalant. “I’m going to ask you to go, so I can get on with our afternoon here.”

She couldn’t do this yet—have the potentially life-changing conversation they needed to have. Not with Oliver once more acting as if they’d barely known each other.

“And if I do mind?” he asked

“I’ve had enough. You asked the question you came here to ask. I’ve answered it as best I can. And I have to get back to my daughter. I might need to run her to her pediatrician again if she starts to feel worse. Leave the glass on the counter when you’re done.”

He grabbed her arm before she could brush by.

“
Your
daughter?” he bit out, anything but in control now.

Then his head lowered, his breath catching Selena’s as his kiss erased everything but her memories of wanting to love him forever.

She’d had enough?

How could anyone get enough of something that felt as good as holding Selena?

Her lips trembled beneath his for a second, as if she were afraid. Then she was kissing him back, ripping free of his hold. But only so she could throw her arms around his neck as if she’d been dying to from the start.

God, Selena.

No other woman had ever felt like her, tasted like her, tempted him to crawl inside her and never find his way out. Since yesterday, he’d been dreaming of having her body plastered against his again. And she’d clearly been wanting him with the same desperation, while he’d agonized all this time over not letting his need for her show.

Her nails bit into his biceps, causing his hands to clench at her waist. He hauled her onto her toes and fisted a hand in her hair. Their mouths opened with identical groans. Their kiss deepened, rocketing from exploring to carnal. Their tongues mated, their teeth nipped, their lips crushed, both of them remembering and needing and demanding where this was taking them. Sprinting toward it, agreeing without speaking that—

“No.” Selena shook her head, her hair hopelessly tangled around his fingers. She was panting, the same as him, but she was pulling back. “Please, Oliver. No more . . .”

Scraping together his sanity, he licked her lower lip a final time. A tender rasp of his tongue, while the rest of him throbbed in tempo with his thundering heartbeat. Then he let Selena slip away.

She stumbled backward, catching herself against the kitchen counter, bracing both hands behind her on its edge. She was breathing so heavily she could have been running wind sprints. And he couldn’t watch anymore. He picked up his empty glass from where he’d set it on the tiny Formica dinette table—he needed something to do with his hands besides grabbing her again. He headed into Belinda’s cramped living room, thinking,
Not smart
.

Nothing about what had just happened had been smart. It was the least smart thing he’d done yet. But Selena had been brushing him off, and before he walked away again . . . He’d needed her there, right there, next to his heart.

Damn it, focus.

Focus on something besides yourself this time.

He looked around the living room. To him, the Rosenthal place had always seemed like a dollhouse, with its grand total of five rooms and a single bath down Belinda’s short hallway. He’d always worried about bumping into something or accidentally knocking things over. He’d never known what to do with himself here. He still didn’t.