She glanced from me to Camden and asked, “Am I interrupting something?”
He said, “Yes,” at the same time that I said, “Nothing at all.”
It absolutely had been nothing. And it had to stay that way.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Come on in!” I invited her, a bit too eagerly. A chaperone would definitely ensure that I remained on my best behavior.
If I couldn’t keep my traitorous body under control, and my brain wasn’t willing to be polite but distant with Camden, then the only thing left was to make sure that I wasn’t ever alone with him.
Irene entered the room and I couldn’t blame her apprehensive look. Despite what I’d told Camden, the sexual tension between us was so thick that even a machete couldn’t have cut it. She seemed to be sensing it, but only said, “What can I do to help?”
“I didn’t want you to come down here,” he assured her. “I was letting you know where I was going to be for the next few hours in case you needed me.”
Again I wondered why he treated Irene like she was his mom, too.
The one thing I did know was that she probably should be resting. “We’re okay. We don’t need any help.” Why did I like using the word we when it came to me and Camden?
No time to examine that weirdness.
Irene sat down on the two-person sofa near the patio doors. “I want to. I haven’t gotten to contribute much.”
I exchanged a glance with Camden and while we were both worried about her health, neither one of us was willing to take this away from her.
So I walked her through how to make the lei, and I felt Camden’s gaze on me. When I glanced over at him, there was an indescribable expression on his face. When he caught me looking, he shifted to a slight smile, giving me a nod. He liked what he was seeing. It made him happy.
Ignoring the way that his approval made my blood thicken in my veins, I focused on finishing up my explanation.
“Easy enough,” Irene said. “I used to do cross-stitch before the cancer, but given the pain and exhaustion from treatment, I haven’t been able to do it lately. Once I’m cancer-free I hope to take it up again.”
I dragged a bucket of flowers closer for her, bringing over the string and a needle. I sat in the chair next to the sofa, wanting to be close by in case she needed anything.
Camden seemed to have the same thought as he sat in the chair across from me, directly in my line of vision.
“Rachel and I got a chance to chat at the bridal shower,” Irene said to him. “Did you know that she grew up in California, just like you did?”
“California?” he repeated, his “what is your secret?” look back on his face. “But I thought you went to camp with Sadie in New York.”
Did this man ever forget anything he heard? “I did. My maternal grandparents live in New York so I’d visit them for a week and then go to camp. My parents liked the idea of family being nearby and I liked the idea of traveling across the country.” I actually had gone to camp in New York for the reasons I’d just listed. I tried to keep my backstory as close to my real life as possible. It made it much easier to keep track of everything when I pulled it from my actual life.
“Which do you prefer?” Irene asked. “The East or the West Coast?”
My mom was on the West Coast, and so that kind of ruled it out. “I think I prefer living in New York.”
Camden interjected, “I don’t know how much you can trust her opinion. She roots for an awful school.”
Irene’s face dropped. “Oh no, you’re a Wolverine?”
“I tried telling her, but she didn’t listen,” Camden said with a wink that did unmentionable things to certain parts of my body.
“Sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of our decade-long winning streak,” I said, and it made them both laugh.
“Rachel also started her own business,” Irene added and I wondered what she was up to.
“I heard,” he said and I tried not to let those words affect me, remembering feeling close to him and sharing parts of my life with him.
“And you’re . . .” Irene tried to remember. “A wedding planner?”
“Event coordinator,” I said.
“How did you get into that?” she asked.
“I was a bridesmaid for several of my friends that I’d grown up with and realized I was really good at helping to coordinate things. I’m organized and work well under pressure.” Well, usually, when the pressure didn’t involve a handsome man trying to put me under his spell.