ALWAYS (A Wolfe Brothers Novel) (10 page)

Maggie poked at the fire with a stick.
Leave it to her to bring up a sensitive topic. She had to keep
things light. She could ask him how long he worked there, how many
hours a week he worked or what some of his favorite foods were. She
rolled her eyes. That was way too boring and cliché. She could do
better. She wracked her brain trying to come up with something fun,
something he would want to talk about, anything to keep the
conversation going.

Cam stood. “I’m turning in.”

Maggie reached up and grasped his hand.
“Why won’t you talk to me? We’re supposed to be friends,
remember?”

“
I lied. I don’t need any
friends?”

“
Well, I do.”

Cam scowled. “A pretty rich girl like
you needs friends? I find that hard to believe.”

“
Why are you suddenly
shutting me out?” Maggie pulled on his arm. “Tell me what happened
between Mr. Moretti and you. Please.”

Cam sat down. He looked at the fire and
draped his arms over his bent knees. “He found out I popped his
daughter’s cherry and fired me. One of the worst days of my life.
He was like a father to me.” He sighed. “I told him that I loved
Carina but that only seemed to make things worse.”

“
I’m sorry.” Maggie
squeezed his hand.

He shrugged.

“
What about Carina?” she
asked. “You still keep in touch with her?”

“
About a month later, I
saw Carina at the movies with another guy. He was squeezing her ass
and making out with her while they waited in line. One of those
sickening couples you wanted to scream at to get a room.” He
hesitated before continuing, “Anyway, the restaurant closed about
six months later. Her family moved away.”

So much for keeping things light, she
scolded herself. At least he was talking. “Was she your first
too?”

“
Yup.”

A howl echoed in the distance. Coyote?
Wild dog? Maggie shivered. “You hate talking about this, don’t
you?”

“
Yup.”

“
Change of subject,” she
said. “So you and Jags are close?”

He shot her another skeptical look.
“I’m close with both my brothers.”

“
You have two
brothers?”

“
Ajay’s in the Army,
stationed in Iraq.”

She nudged her shoulder against his.
“Tell me a crazy story.”

“
Like what?”

“
I don’t know.
Anything.”

“
Alright, one story and
then I’m calling it a night.”

“
Agreed.”

He stretched his legs on the ground
beside the fire, his palms braced behind him. “Well, there was the
time we all went out drinking then drove home and passed a cop. I’d
only had a couple beers, but I panicked. When we turned the corner,
I jerked the wheel, and we crashed into the woods. Things were
going pretty good until we started down a steep hill. Dumb ass that
I am, the first thing I did was hit the brakes.”

“
Why is that a bad
thing?”

He laughed. “The front of the truck
stopped, but the back kept going. We flipped three or four times.
Ajay and I were fine, but Jags was beat up bad. We limped him home
all four miles.” He shook his head. “I’ve never been so tired.
After the second mile or so that light-ass son of a bitch got
heavy.”

Despite the illumination offered by the
almost full moon, an eerie darkness closed in around her. The hairs
on her arms stood up. “What do you do besides cook and
hike?”

“
Nope. I’m done. Now, it’s
your turn.”

As if she were five years old, hiding
under her comforter from the closet monster, fear gripped her and a
chill ran down her spine. But why? “I’ve never had a guy for a
friend. I’m not sure what kind of stuff I’m supposed to talk
about.”

“
Why don’t you tell me
about your first love? I told you about mine.”

Love was for saps and the weak-minded.
A wave of nausea overcame her. Her stomach churned and saliva
filled her mouth. She swallowed. “Can’t say I’ve ever been in
love.”

“
Are you telling me you’ve
never had your heart broken?”

“
I always break the
hearts. Not the other way around.”

“
Wow. I figured
everybody’s had their heart broken at least once. Isn’t it a
requirement to being human?” He looked at her. “What about the guy
who took your virginity. You must’ve felt something for
him?”

Bile rose to the top of her throat. Her
chest heaved. “I’m going to turn in.”

As she stood, he grasped her wrist.
“But we were getting along so well. Don’t shut me out now.” He
smiled and her heart sank.

She sat on her ass facing the flames
and hugged her knees. “If I told you the story, you’d have to
promise not to tell anyone.”

“
I’m not sure why I’d tell
anyone.”

“
Promise.”

“
Scouts honor.”

She cocked her head. “Were you ever a
Boy Scout?”

“
Does that make a
difference?”

She shrugged. “I guess not. Okay. Here
goes. I was a football cheerleader in high school.”

“
No shit?
Really?”

She smirked. “Wise-ass.”

“
Sorry,
continue.”

“
Cleveland was playing
against The Hornets, our rival team from Trenton, a
hole-in-the-wall town about two and a half hours from here. It was
the game that got us into the playoffs, and we won in overtime.
People were screaming and jumping. It was craziness. I was walking
through the parking lot to use the restroom in the school when I
saw some players from the other team hanging out by a truck. I
started shouting, calling them losers. They made like they couldn’t
hear me . . . so I moved closer.”

A hiss lurched from his clenched teeth,
like he’d been stung. “Maggie.”

She looked at him. “You seem to have
figured out the rest of the story.” She drew circles in the dirt
with a stick. “Two of them grabbed me and threw me in the bed of
the truck. The next thing I knew the truck was peeling from the
parking lot. I screamed and one of them punched me. I think I was
knocked unconscious because when I woke I was in the middle of the
woods.”

The darkness squeezed tighter around
her, suffocating her, imprisoning her. She blinked away the tears
and heaved a sigh. “Shit. I don’t know why I just told you all
that.”

Cam squeezed his head between his
hands. His forehead dripped with sweat. He moaned and muttered
under his breath. He looked like she felt.

“
What’s wrong with you?”
she asked.

“
Migraine,” he whispered
and looked at her. “Did they ever find them?”

“
Find who?”

He scrambled to his hands and knees and
sat back on his haunches. Gripping her hand, he said, “The football
players that raped you.”

Maggie snatched her hand away. She
picked up a stick and threw it into the flames. “I never pressed
charges.”

“
Why?”

“
I didn’t want the whole
town knowing what a dumb shit I was.”

“
It wasn’t your
fault.”

“
Plus, we moved to
Cleveland so my dad could run for Mayor. If the press got word of
the total fuck up he had for a daughter, he never would have won
the election. Not to mention, he was a well-known attorney in
Houston. I couldn’t embarrass him like that.”

“
A cheerleader gets raped
in a small town and no charges are filed?”

“
I refused to testify or
reveal anything about my attackers. Not their names or what they
looked like or even that they were from Trenton and not local
boys.”

Cam's hand palmed his forehead. That
was some migraine.

“
I grew up in Trenton,” he
said, “so I might have gone to school with the fuckers?” He blew
out a breath. “How old are you?”

“
Twenty-four.”

His lips tightened into a grimace. “I
didn’t go to school with them, but Ajay did. He’ll be home on leave
in a few weeks. When he tells me who they are I’m going
to—.”

Maggie gripped his wrist.
“No!”

He shrugged her hand off and glared at
her. “You should have pressed charges.”

“
Keep your condescending
higher-than-though attitude to yourself.” She’d kept her secret for
over a decade so why did she reveal her darkest secret to a man
she’d known for only a few days?

“
What’s there to know?” he
said. “Rape is rape. It’s pretty cut and dry. No gray.”

“
It was a long time ago.
I’m fine.”

“
How many raped
you?”

A shiver slithered down her spine.
“Stop saying that word.”

Cam brought his face in front of hers.
“How many?”

Maggie glared at him until he grunted
and turned his attention back toward the fire. “Four,” she
murmured.

“
Did you ever see any of
them again?”

“
Two of them I see all the
time.”

“
Shit.” He ran a hand over
his head. “You were a virgin?”

Maggie shot to her feet, her hands on
her hips. “What are you doing?”

Cam stood. “What do you
mean?”

Her anger flared, either from her own
stupidity of revealing her secret or from his condescending
interrogation. “You really want to know the details?” She jabbed a
finger into his chest. “Do you?”

“
Yup.”

“
You want me to cry like a
girl and tell you how awful it was.” She shoved him and he
stumbled, a gesture he must have conceded. She could never move
his—she guessed—two hundred and fifty pounds without his
cooperation. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I was unconscious for a
good part of it.”

He gripped her shoulders. “What are you
saying?”

She shrugged out of his grip. “When I
came to they were sticking objects in me. I think the first was a
flashlight, but I can’t say for sure because my eyes were swollen
shut. But the second felt like a stick. And it hurt bad. Is this
doing it for you?” She shoved him, but his feet remained planted.
“If you’re waiting for hysterics and ‘oh please save me, knight in
shining armor’, it’s so not going to happen.”

Cam’s hands framed her face.

“
Fuck you!” She swatted
him away. “The bad ass image you try to pull off is so not working
for you right now.” Holding her arms wide, she waggled her fingers
toward the sky. “Come on. Come at me.”

Lines creased his forehead, his brows
lowered. “That’s why you wanted me to take you hiking. You want me
to end it for you?”

“
When you told me that you
would flatten me I wanted to shoot you in the head.”

“
And now?”

She took his hand and curled his
fingers around her throat. “Do it.”

When he squeezed, calling her bluff,
she covered his hand with hers and forced him to squeeze harder.
“Do it.” Her voice cracked and he released her.

“
That’s what I thought.”
Maggie stepped toward the fire. “Pussy.”

He grabbed her by the elbow and flipped
her around. “If you don’t want a knight in shining armor then why
did you tell me?”

Maggie hesitated. “You were
interrogating me.”

One corner of Cam’s mouth lifted in a
sarcastic grin. “For the tough girl you try to pull off, you caved
pretty quickly.”

The slap of her hand across his face
echoed through the hollow forest. “Let’s be clear about one thing.”
She wagged her finger. “All I want from you is your cock. Nothing
more.”

He palmed her face, and her
body—against her will—shuddered. “Why do you talk like
that?”

“
Because I’m a slut, in
case you haven’t figured that out on your own.”

He wrenched her against him, his cheek
pressed against the top of her head, his body cocooning hers. “Just
because they treated you like a slut, doesn’t make you
one.”

Maggie’s words blurred against his
sweaty T-shirt. “Why do you think they picked me?” She wrapped her
hands around his back and gave herself to him, a man who threatened
to squash her like a bug.

Cam pushed her to arm’s length. His
hands slid to her hips. “You were a virgin. I don’t know what your
definition of a slut is but as I understand it, virgins are not
usually classified as sluts.” He shook his head. “You’re so much
better than that.”

Ever since that day over a decade ago,
Maggie had distanced herself from everyone. She’d not met one guy
who sparked anything in her except her hormones.

Until now.

She wanted Cam to hold and protect her
and the thought of needing a man so completely, made her nauseous.
One good thing came from the attack. She’d learned to trust and
depend on only herself. She would never be caught off guard
again…or so she’d thought.

Unfortunately, her feelings for Cam had
caught her off guard.