Open Your Heart (Kings Grove #4) - Delancey Stewart Page 0,83
you might have noticed last night. Or this morning.” There’d been little doubt, I thought, of my feelings since Cam had told me he was falling in love with me, but I knew I still needed to say it out loud.
Cam smiled, putting his coffee cup on the arm of the chair so he could reach for my hand.
“I’m going to stay, if that’s okay,” I said, already imagining the call with Theo. I didn’t think he’d be too disappointed, actually, especially since Angel had seemed equipped to take my place and had even confided that he’d hoped to partner with Theo before he’d realized I’d gotten there first.
“Of course that’s okay,” Cam said, laughing.
“But I maybe I should move,” I said. “The big house—that was just supposed to be temporary. Maybe I should get my own place, or even go live with my dad…” I trailed off. I hadn’t gotten that far quite yet.
“Or maybe I just move into the big house with you?” Cam suggested.
I thought about that. “But Tuck?”
“Tuck will go back to Los Angeles soon. The job he came to do is almost over, right? We just need to edit the film and deliver it.”
I nodded, feeling a little sad at the thought of Tuck leaving. I’d almost forgotten he wasn’t a permanent part of Kings Grove. “So maybe for now, we keep things just as they are?”
Cam tugged my hand until I stood and resettled myself on his lap. “That’s better,” he said. “For now, we keep things as they are. Or you keep your things up there in the big house and come stay with me in the little house.”
“You and forty dogs,” I laughed.
He chuckled. “Yeah, not for much longer. They’ve all got homes, I think…except Number Five.”
I swiveled to look at him, surprised.
“Tuck took two,” he reminded me. “You’ve got Sequoia. Maddie is taking one, and believe it or not, your dad wants one.”
My heart swelled. That was good. Dad needed company. “So what about Number Five?”
Cam lifted a shoulder. “Guess I’m keeping him.”
“We do need the bigger house,” I said, imagining Matilda and two puppies growing into full sized dogs soon.
“For all the kids, too,” Cam said.
I widened my eyes and stared at him. “Kids?”
“You know, eventually.”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself, Turner.”
He pulled me in for a kiss. “Can’t help it. I want everything with you.”
I stared into those glowing blue eyes, letting my hands settle on his shoulders and thought about that. “I do too,” I told him.
It took a day or two to figure everything out, but as predicted, Theo was neither surprised nor upset that I was changing my mind. Dad was ecstatic, and when I called my mother to let her know my permanent change of address, she sighed into the phone.
“I always knew you’d go back one day.”
There were a lot of things I wanted to say to my mother, to ask her, about the way she’d chosen to raise me. But right now I had other things to focus on. “I’ll talk to you soon Mom,” I told her, turning away from the window to find Tuck behind me, shifting his weight and looking impatient. I hung up. “What?” I asked.
“Come on,” he said, taking my hand and pulling me out the front door and over to Cam’s house.
“What?” I asked again, my voice shrill.
“Patience,” he told me, pushing open the door and dodging dogs to settle me in a chair facing a big screen that had been set up at one end of the living room. Cam sat in the other chair, and I got up and repositioned myself in his lap.
Tuck turned to look at us and feigned an annoyed sigh. “You two,” he said with a grin.
“Just making a place for you to sit,” I told him.
Tuck turned the lights off and started the projector he’d set up next to his laptop, and suddenly, we were back in the Sequoia grove, at Maddie’s wedding. We watched the wedding unfold, shots of people interspersed with views of the setting—the mighty trees, the sweeping sky. The music from the ceremony continued lightly in the background as the movie replayed the vows Maddie and Connor had exchanged, and then captured the reception, including the long kiss Cam and I had shared against the far railing toward the end of the night. The film was beautiful.
I turned to face Tuck. “That was amazing. I’m in awe.”