It’s quiet for a while before Mare speaks up. “Just don’t hurt my best friend, okay? I don’t want to have to get away with murder.”
I snort, almost missing Camden’s deep sigh with the sound.
“What is up with people in Sutten and murder?”
Mare gives me a look.
I smile. “Rosemary already got to him,” I explain.
This makes her bust out in laughter. “My god. I miss that woman.”
“The whole town misses you, Mare. Do you think you’ll be back for a while?”
“I’m hoping I’ll be back forever,” she answers immediately.
I press down on the gas, sending Camden flying backward. I try not to laugh at the stream of curses from him. “Oops,” I manage to get out before cracking up.
Mare joins in. He grumbles in the back while I speed to the airport.
“Alright, Mare, let’s go get your man!” I yell, turning my blinker on and flying into the right lane before I miss my exit.
“That’s if you don’t get us all killed first,” Camden quips.
46
CAMDEN
“Good morning, shortcake,” I say, walking into Wake and Bake on a Friday morning. I just got off a conference call that lasted over two hours, and I’m ready to see my girl. As if I hadn’t spent my morning between her thighs, eating her out at the breakfast table as she attempted to eat her Cheerios.
I’ve spent every morning with my mouth on some part of her for the past week. It’s been a week since our date—and our little adventure to get her brother and his girl together—and it’s been the most mundane, incredible week of my life.
I like mornings with her. I like watching her take her first sip of coffee every morning, watching her fuss with doing her hair to ultimately throw it up on the top of her head. I like walking or carpooling to work with her. Doing normal things together. We take our lunch break together whenever we can and return back to her place hand in hand every night.
It’s amazing. I love it. And I’d never imagined myself doing this every day for the rest of my life—especially in a small town I’d never heard of in Colorado—until her.
Pippa looks up at me, the light not reaching her eyes as she focuses on a piece of paper in her hand. “Isn’t it afternoon at this point?” she asks, her heart not really in it. Her focus is still on whatever she holds.
I shrug, closing the distance between us and pressing a kiss to her hair. “Well, good whatever it is, shortcake,” I correct. “What’s this?” I point to the piece of paper she won’t stop looking at.
She finally looks at me. “A letter we just got in the mail. It’s a warning that the rent might be raised here, by over a thousand a month.” She sounds stressed, and I hate it.
“May I?” I ask, gesturing to the paper. She hands it over, and I let my eyes scan over it. It’s from the same realty group that I bought my space from. I thought they’d just owned that space, but apparently, it is more than just what I purchased.
“I thought you owned the space?” I ask, my eyes still tracking over the letter. I don’t know who this realty group is, but they’re saying the strip is at risk of being sold to a new, interested third-party buyer.
“No, I wish. I rent it. I’d own it if someone let me, but I’ve never been able to.”
“I can look into it for you,” I offer. There’s no reason her rent should go up by a grand each month. There’s no reason she shouldn’t just own the place to begin with if she wants.
“You don’t have to do that,” she argues, her voice exhausted. She presses her palms to her forehead, sucking in a long, shaky breath.
“I want to.”
She lets the breath out slowly. “It’s just not me, you know? It’s everyone on the block. We’ll all be put in jeopardy because someone from out of town who knows nothing about Sutten is coming in and getting greedy. Maybe I need to speak with the Livingstons.”
I ignore the jab at her opinions on people from out of town, even though at one point, that’s exactly what I did. “Who are they?” I ask, not wanting to approach the first part of her sentence.
“They’re one of the oldest families in Sutten. I think I might remember that their great-great, maybe even a few more, great-grandfather was one of the founding fathers of this town. They own a lot of the real estate here. A lot of the residential land is theirs, but I know they own commercial properties, too. I’ve just somehow got the shit end of the stick and rented on the one block of town somehow not owned by them.”