“My cottage?” I deadpanned, even though I was panicking inside. The place was a… mess. And I didn’t want Cameron to see how much. My voice wobbled. “Can you please leave? I didn’t invite you in.”
He did the opposite and in two strides, Cameron was standing right in the center of the cabin, his shoulders so high and his back so stiff that I was shocked the seams of his jacket weren’t ripping.
I swallowed hard and trailed behind him. I spotted the trail of panties currently hanging off the antlers I’d used as an improvised clothesline after washing them by hand. The inflatable mattress on the floor. The half-disassembled four-poster bed I’d given up on. The life I’d packed in a matter of hours scattered in one corner of one ugly cabin.
“Explain,” Cameron demanded. “Please make it make sense.”
“It’s my home renovation project,” I said, a bonfire cackling beneath my cheeks.
“Adalyn,” he breathed out. Pleaded really. “You’re still sleeping on the floor. Why?”
Green eyes blinked at me with… exhaustion. A hint of despair, too. I deflated. Gave up. “My plan was to disassemble the bed and get it out of here, but the thing seems to be welded together.” I let out a shaky breath. “The cabin doesn’t have a washer so…” I nodded toward my underwear. “The camping mattress is comfortable, though. So it’s fine. I won’t be here forever.”
Cameron’s jaw clenched. His whole face went tight. “Why didn’t you ask for help?”
I closed my eyes. Help. How could I explain to him that Miami was flat-out ignoring me? That I’d been accused of being pampered and spoiled so many times that I wanted to prove that wrong. That besides Josie, I didn’t have any friends here and didn’t want to be a nuisance to the one I had. That all of this was my fault in the first place so I didn’t think I had the right to complain. “I don’t need help. I’m fine.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. Once, twice, three times. All the air in his lungs was released. All at once.
“Fuck,” he muttered. “Fuck me, Adalyn.” He shook his head. “Jesus Christ, darling.” He closed his eyes and let his head drop back. “Bloody hell.”
I blinked at him. Confused. Shocked, too.
“I’ve gone a long life without this,” he said, as if he was talking to himself. I opened my mouth but he turned around. “First the dungarees, now this. I’m unprepared.”
“Cam—”
He stalked out of the cabin.
I stood there, looking down at my borrowed clothes, and wondering what had just happened. Wondering if I should close the door and call it a night, too.
Cameron reappeared.
He stormed right back into the cabin, still cursing like his life depended on it, but now, he was holding a metal box under an arm. I searched for his eyes, but he wouldn’t look at me. He walked right past me, came to a stop in front of the mess of hardwood and dropped the box to the floor. Then, he kneeled down and threw it open with a jerk of his hand.
“Cameron?” I ventured, gaping at the scene in complete disbelief. “What are you doing?”
But Cameron Caldani was on autopilot.
He ignored my query, pulling a very large and serious-looking hammer out of the box, and straightened back up.
And then, without a word, he went full-on Hulk on the bed.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Cameron
I couldn’t catch a break.
With a shake of my head, I scanned the mess before me. Not only was Willow’s food scattered all over the kitchen floor, but there were puddles of water and… Were those some of my coffee beans? I kneeled down to get a better look. Yes.
Joined by a few auburn feathers.
“Willow?” I called loudly, rising to my feet. I waited for the sound of her paws on the hardwood, or for one of her whiny responses, as I was sure she knew what she had done. But the cabin remained dead quiet. “Willow? You better not have chased down that goddamn rooster. Again.”
And although I hoped she hadn’t, there was certain relief on the off chance that I wouldn’t be startled awake by the insufferable crowing. The rooster, it seemed, had taken more of a liking to the Lazy Elk after pecking at Adalyn’s sandwich. Adalyn.
I remembered last night, and a wave of hot frustration swept me head to toe. It had taken me a full hour to dismantle the goddamn bed and carry it outside to my truck. And fuck me, the past months spent in retirement had come at a price. My arms were sore, my back hurt from knocking the thing down, and I was almost sure I’d pulled a muscle somewhere on my neck when I’d driven us back to the farm to get her things. I—