Open Your Heart (Kings Grove #4) - Delancey Stewart Page 0,11
a whining squeal. I’d never heard anything like it, and my instinct told me it was some kind of animal. My mind flashed to the mountain lion Cam had mentioned and I skittered into the circle of light cast by the window of the big house, putting my back to the wall.
I squinted into the darkness and heard another sound—somewhere behind the house. Not a stick cracking, more like a pop this time. And then another sound—a hiss. As terrifying as it was, there was something familiar about that sound. Not a snaky hiss . . .
A fire?
I scooted sideways back toward the front door and peered over the narrow edge of the deck to the little house that sat just behind mine and off to the side. The one I’d forced myself not to think about.
And there he was.
Cam sat in an Adirondack chair in front of a glowing fire pit, the flames dancing in a low circle at his feet and his face illuminated in the red light like a beacon. I’d seen him come and go over the week, had pushed away whatever strange fascination I had with him. But now . . . I liked campfires.
I pulled myself back around the edge of the deck, thinking.
Did I dare go over there?
I was in some kind of state, and I knew I wasn’t my most charming self. But Cam had made it pretty clear he wasn’t in the market to be charmed.
And I didn’t want anything from him except his physical presence for a few minutes, just until I calmed down.
Did I?
All the fresh air and open space was making it impossible to think straight. I just knew I couldn’t be alone another second. I was down the steps and in a chair across from him before I’d had time to think too hard about it.
“Please, join me.” Cam’s voice rumbled over the dancing flames, sarcastic and ridiculously sexy.
“Sorry.” I said. “I know I should’ve asked.”
“That’s okay.” His eyes didn’t lift from the flames.
“I’d offer to go, but I have no intention of actually leaving. Not for a few minutes.”
The bright eyes flicked up to my face and then quickly back to the fire at that. “You okay?”
“It’s just . . . God, it’s so quiet up here. And did you hear that squeal?”
Cam said nothing, and I found myself watching him for a few beats, keeping my eyes low so I wasn’t blatantly staring. He looked so thoughtful there, his chin dipped into his chest, his elbows spread wide and his hands in his lap. I noticed a tumbler on the ground next to his feet, a line of amber liquid forgotten there.
“I’m not used to it,” I said, my mouth pressing forward even though my mind was screaming at me to just stay quiet. Self-control wasn’t really my thing. I’d been a doer my whole life, hell-bent on pushing forward, on accomplishing, on proving things to people. Silence did not come naturally to me. “The city . . .” I trailed off, trying to think New York City into being around me, working to summon a mental atmosphere of being in my Sixteenth Street apartment, the sweaty must of the city air, the constant hum of energy buzzing in my ears, my mind. “The city was never still like this, never really quiet. I never felt alone there.”
That statement had been close to admitting my current loneliness, which I wasn’t eager to do. Showing weakness wasn’t my thing any more than reticence was. But something about Cam’s quiet—if grudging—acceptance of my presence made me want to talk, to be truthful.
He looked up then, surprising me when he said, “I used to live in Hollywood. I know what you mean. Took me a while to get used to it here.”
“Yes,” I said, my voice coming out maybe too loudly, too enthusiastically. It just felt good to believe he understood even this small thing, though it was also a revelation to learn that Cam wasn’t just a part of Kings Grove, that he’d had another life somewhere else. “And the space . . . all the open space. I mean, that house. It’s amazing. But it’s so huge . . .” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Is that why you live in the little house and rent the big one?” I couldn’t picture him on the same paranoid patrols I’d been making, checking closets and bathtubs for serial killers.