he already has a pretty successful YouTube channel.”
I heard a car pulling up in the driveway and pushed out of my chair. Janice clung to my neck like, well, a monkey. I headed over to the window and lifted the blinds. I smiled when I saw Cam getting out of his Jeep.
He bent over to reach something in the back seat—probably the groceries. I’d asked him to pick up a few things on the way home. He was still dressed in his work clothes and looked particularly edible. Those scrubs looked good on him, but I was pretty sure they’d look better on our floor. I idly wondered how long it would take me to get Janice down for a nap. Or, at least sleepy enough that she wouldn’t screech her capuchin head off when I put her in her temporary habitat in the guest bedroom.
Cameron looked over his shoulder furtively, and my smile faded a bit. Just what the hell was he up to? It wasn’t my birthday or even close to Christmas. Valentine’s Day had come and gone. I frowned, hoping I hadn’t missed a date.
“His channel is a hoot,” Boz went on. “I watched that episode with the woman who had the two alligators in the pool about ten times.”
“Calling it an episode is a bit generous, considering it only lasted a few minutes.” I chuckled, remembering Cam’s face as he blinked in disbelief at the pool. “I’m assuming you enjoyed watching Cam squeal like a little piggie and then hoof it to his Jeep.”
“I enjoy watching Foster doing anything.” Boz gave a little dreamy sigh, school-girl crush in full effect. “You can just tell he cares when he's working with those big, gentle hands—”
“Are you crushing on my husband?” I growled.
“I thought you said you weren’t married.”
I harrumphed. He was lucky I had a mystery to solve, specifically, why Cam was acting so Mission Impossible with our fucking groceries. “I still don’t want you crushing on my nonhusband, Boz. I’ll talk to him about the show.”
And then, I saw the tail sticking up in the back seat and realized he’d brought more than bread home. I sighed exasperatedly, and a little fondly, too. “Thank God we’ve got the room,” I murmured.
What we didn’t have was time. He was so busy with work that I wound up taking care of the strays he brought home, and it was challenging to keep up with their feedings and whatnot. Okay, so maybe I volunteered. Maybe he’d also sent over a baby-faced vet tech a few times to feed some raccoons we’d fostered, and I’d sent him away. But the raccoons were so sweet and tiny, and only I knew how to do it right—or so I insisted.
I watched Cam ushering a baby goat out of the Jeep, a length of bandage around the animal’s back leg. The goat looked just as conspiratorial as he waited patiently for Cam to close the door and come around.
“I gotta go, Boz. I’m hungry, and apparently, Cam chose to bring home livestock instead of groceries. There’s also a kidnapping happening in my front yard, and I need to put a stop to it.”
I hung up on his “wait, who’s getting kidnapped?” Whoops. I probably should’ve said goat-napped, but I never could resist a double entendre. Cameron and the goat limped around the side of the house, Sneaky and Sneakier, and I couldn’t help the smile that came to my mouth. That man. Yeah, I was going to give him the business, but I loved that man to pieces.
A few months after Goatgate. . . .
Cameron
Journey was in a mood.
He was traveling with his father for the first time, which added an entirely new layer to things. Or, at least, that’s what Journey had told me irritably the night before after hanging up with Jack for the sixth time. His father was a little nervous about flying, and that anxiousness was coming out in different ways. Most of those ways involved annoying Journey to death.
“Are you sure you can’t go with me?” Journey asked for what had to be the tenth time. “I mean, Cam, it’s Ireland. You love Ireland.”
“I do love Ireland,” I agreed. “I wish I could, but you know I can’t leave the clinic right now. I’ve got surgeries all week, Rosy is at that conference in Tampa, and Marley is on vacation.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t go,” he muttered, more to himself than anything else. “Who is going to feed the chinchillas?”
“I