“Okay.” Her fingers curled around his briefly before sliding away to wrap around the coin.
When she closed her eyes—probably considering her wording carefully after the warning of his first car—he almost threw caution to the wind and leaned in to kiss her.
Cam pondered his own wish as he watched her, thinking of fate and chemistry and what might’ve happened if they’d crossed paths back in college. He couldn’t alter the past, but he had a lot more confidence in his ability to impact the future—at least on one point. So when she opened her eyes and said, “On three,” it was the town he thought of.
I wish for a miracle to save Wishful.
“One. Two. Three.”
They tossed their coins, watched them hit the water with a soft plunk.
The fountain belched.
Norah jolted and Cam stared as a spurt of water bubbled up from the mouth of the fountain and trickled down the stone. Nothing else. Just that one, short blast of water.
“Does it usually do that?”
“Never has for me before.” Strange. Damned strange. “Must be air in the pipes.” He rose. “C’mon. It’s cold. Let’s go get some coffee.”
~*~
Could I drag Cam into the pantry without anyone noticing?
Norah glanced at the door to the kitchen, wondering what excuse she could concoct to get them both away from the game table. From the other side of the Monopoly board, Cam’s mouth quirked, as if he knew exactly where her thoughts had veered. He probably did. The man had an uncanny ability to read her.
“Community Chest.” Mitch picked up one of the cards. “Get out of jail free card. Sweet! I’ll just hang on to this. Your turn, sister dear.” He passed the dice to Miranda and game play continued around the table.
In all the years she’d been coming home with Miranda, Norah had always appreciated the big, messy Campbell family. After being shuttled from one single-parent household to the other for more than half her life, being surrounded by all of them was like being plunked down in the midst of Cheaper By The Dozen, in the best possible way. She’d never had cause to regret that there were quite so many of them. Until Cam.
By mutual agreement, they’d kept their involvement quiet. The secret was both exhausting and exhilarating. On the surface, Cam was easy with her around his family, adopting a more muted form of the flirtation and teasing she got from Mitch and Reed. But there was nothing muted about the look in his eyes when they met hers and nothing simple about the spark she felt from the brush of his fingers as he handed over the dice. Flustered, Norah st
ruggled not to jerk her hand back.
Secret Relationship 101: Pretend all is normal.
Norah rolled the dice, took her turn.
In the past week, Cam had introduced her to quite a few other life lessons she’d bypassed as a teenager, training her on how to sneak around all his myriad relatives in order to meet him. She hadn’t quite resorted to climbing out her bedroom window and shimmying down the sycamore tree, but a time or two, it had been a near thing. The friend finder app they’d both installed on their phones helped arrange some “accidental” meetings, but it seemed every time they turned around, one or more of the Campbells was popping up to keep her from being bored during her stay. At this point, she’d relish the chance to be bored.
Play circled back around to Mitch. He rolled the dice and tapped his race car all the way to Park Place.
Glad of the distraction, Norah held out her hand. “Welcome to the Grand Royale Hotel at Park Place. I hope you’ll enjoy your stay. That’ll be $1500, please.”
Mitch eyed the cash in his hand, before flashing a glib smile. “Maybe we can come to some kind of mutually satisfying arrangement?”
“This isn’t that sort of establishment, sir.”
He waggled his eyebrows. “Your foot is saying otherwise.”
Norah arched her own brow. “I’m sitting on my feet.”
“Then who’s trying to play footsie?” Mitch leaned back to check the tangle of legs beneath the table.
Norah caught the momentary flash of alarm across Cam’s face and nearly erupted into giggles. To cover for them both, she put on a mock stern face. “Your stalling tactics aren’t going to work. Pay up, bucko.”
Grumbling, Mitch made the necessary arrangements with the bank—aka Uncle Pete—and handed over the cash. “Heartless real estate mogul.”
“Aw, it’s not personal, sweetie, it’s business.”