She laughed again, and he felt something tug deep in his gut as she sauntered off. And for a long moment he just stood there in the doorway of the icy morning, watching her go. Eventually, the cold got to him.
In no hurry to face his family, he headed back inside the cabin to the shower. As far as delaying tactics went, it felt like a good one. He hadn’t seen his brothers or Annie in close to a year. Hadn’t seen anyone who’d once mattered to him in all that time. But he’d hardly stepped out of the shower before he heard his front door open and Stone call out his name.
Showtime.
Cam opened the bathroom door and faced the music.
Stone stood there with Annie. She’d been only eighteen when she’d taken in an eight-year-old Cam as her own, but she owned the age-old maternal expression on her face, the one that said she didn’t know whether to hug him or kill him. Stone too. The both of them stood there staring at Cam as if they’d seen a ghost.
And to be fair, he certainly must look like one after all these months without a word. They had the same green eyes, which could be warm and laughing, or icy and slicing. Annie, short but mighty, stepped forward, hers definitely doing the latter. “Hey, Annie-”
Which was all he got out before Annie put two hands to his chest and pushed. “Don’t you hey me.”
Ever the middle child, and therefore the peacemaker, Stone pulled her back before she could push him again.
“Let me go. I’m not done with him yet.”
“Yes, you are.” Stone eyed Cam evenly. Eleven months older than Cam, he’d made it his life’s goal to be superior, bossy, and nosy as hell. He took one good long look at Cam and then just let out a breath. “You’re really back.”
“In the flesh.” Far more pummeled by looking into his brother’s face than from his aunt’s shove, Cam just soaked the sight of them in because damn, it was good to see these guys, the only people in his entire life who’d ever accepted him for who he was outside the celebrity.
And just like that, a whole bunch of messy, shitty emotions slapped into him, emotions he hadn’t wanted to face, emotions that gripped his throat like a vise. Still wearing only a towel, he carefully let out a breath. “For better or worse.”
Nothing in Stone’s face gave away his thoughts except his eyes, which seemed suspiciously bright, so maybe, possibly, he was every bit as moved as Cam. As the Wilders were all good at hiding their feelings, it was all but impossible to tell.
“Where’s T.J.?” Cam asked Stone, thinking their older brother would be the easiest to face simply because he’d always been the calm, level-headed one.
“Alaska. Halfway through a six-week ice climb.” Stone kept staring at him. “You might have called once or twice.”
They’d never been a demonstrative family, thanks to their father. Nope, William Wilder, a bronco champion, had had a long ego and a short fuse. At least he had up until his unceremonious death from a hoof to the back of his head from his prized bronco. Before that, he’d treated his youngest son-a bastard thanks to his wife’s inability to resist any ski bum-to pretty much the same treatment whenever he could.
That is, until Annie had taken Cam, even though she’d barely been legal herself. She’d done her best to parent him, though there’d been times when he’d needed more of a parole officer than a parent. For better or worse, they’d raised each other, and though he’d been an adult a good long time now, she still thought of him as hers.
“You could have contacted us,” Stone said. “A text, a fax. Sent a fucking letter…”
“But then I wouldn’t have been able to terrify your new employee in the dead of night. And undoubtedly piss off Annie for the inconvenience of having to ready another cabin.”
Annie didn’t jump to the bait. “Katie’s your employee, too, you idiot.”
Idiot. Good to know he could count on his family to keep his feet on the ground.
“And you own this place as much as T.J. and Stone.”
An old argument. A questionable argument. Sure, he’d put up the money for Wilder Adventures, but that had been easy.
It’d been Stone and T.J. to make this place; it was their sweat and blood, and he well knew it. He’d never had the heart for it. Hell, he didn’t have the heart for anything, not anymore.
And Jesus, wasn’t he ever so damn tired of himself.
“We’ve already moved Katie to another cabin,” Stone told him quietly, studying him. “And she wasn’t terrified. I’m happy to say she seems to be made of sterner stuff than that. As for Annie, she’s always pissed off. So don’t go flattering yourself about causing that.”
Annie hissed in a breath but didn’t respond. Hard to dispute the truth apparently.
“So why the new hire?” Cam asked.
“Riley’s wife is having a baby.” Stone shrugged. “He wanted paternity leave. I hired a temp replacement for the next month.”
“Katie’s different than Riley.”
“If by that you mean she doesn’t have a penis,” Annie said, “then yes. Great to see you haven’t misplaced your amazing observation skills on your trek around the planet. And let me just make it clear: You stay away from that girl, you hear me? She’s sweet and kind, and not one of your rabid floozy ski bunnies.”
Cam looked out the window. It was an old habit and a defense mechanism, tuning Annie out. He could have told her he hadn’t had a “type” in an entire year and wasn’t interested. And yet even as he thought it, he watched Katie head toward the last cabin. He needed sunglasses to look at that pink sweater against all that virgin white snow, but he couldn’t take his gaze off her.
He had no idea why he felt so transfixed, but it didn’t matter. Little did except putting one foot in front of the other. Forcing himself to turn from the window, he opened his duffle bag for some clean clothes. Unlike Katie, his bag had been haphazardly thrown together. Once upon a time he’d had people around him, an entire entourage, and his bag had always been organized for him.
But he was alone now. Loser has-beens didn’t have much use for entourages.
Stone stepped closer, getting in his way. He was as big as Cam, broader actually, and beefier. But his move wasn’t aggression. “Not to send you scampering off into the sunset again, but there’s something you should know.”
“What?”
“We’re glad you’re back.”
Cam looked at him, but because that hurt he turned to Annie, who was standing there arms folded, attitude all over her. A general in waiting.
But she rolled her eyes, dropped her arms and her attitude, and sighed. As big of an admittance as he was going to get. Yeah, they really were glad he was back, but that would probably change very quickly. “I didn’t scamper.”
Stone’s mouth quirked a little.
“I’ve never scampered.”
“What do you call running off like a little girl just because the going got a little tough?”
“A little tough.” Cam choked out a laugh. “Jesus, Stone.”
“Look,” Annie broke in, getting in the middle as usual. “I’ll give you this. It was brave of you to go. Really. Brave of you to try to find yourself, but-”
“Not brave.” Try the opposite. Try cowardly. Yeah, that’s what Cam called his leaving rather than facing his own reflection in the mirror, rather than face what he’d lost, or the fact that he didn’t know how to deal with it-cowardly.
“Things happen,” she said softly, reminding him she knew of what she spoke. “People get hurt.”
He’d been taken out of a bad situation when he’d been a kid-by her. But she’d had no one to take her out. She’d grown up on her own-no parental support, no money, and diabetic to boot. Not easy. “Yeah, people get hurt,” he agreed. “And I needed to go somewhere to forget that, and just be.”