Page 3 of Meeting Me, Loving You (Hearts of Maple Lake #1)

CAMERON

M y boots crunch on the salt-covered street as I unlock my truck with the key fob.

It’s still early in the morning and there are no cars on the road.

We’re expecting some lower than usual temperatures and some icy rain overnight, so the plow trucks have already prepared the main streets to keep them from freezing over.

It’s not uncommon for Pennsylvania to get a few inches of snow every couple of weeks throughout the winter, especially here in the mountains, but I hope it doesn’t cause school to be cancelled on Monday.

It always puts us behind and runs our school year into what should be summer vacation.

As I walk away from Jules, all I want is to turn around and run after her.

Would that come off as a little too intense? Probably. The last thing I want to do is scare her.

Seeing her there, looking defeated as she sat in the snow with coffee dripping down the front of her coat, caused me to feel worried. The overwhelming need to protect her came over me, and now I can’t shake that feeling .

This is also not how it played out in my head when I thought of seeing her again.

Not that I’d really thought of seeing her.

When I moved back to Maple Lake six months ago, I had learned from Phil, the owner of the one grocery store in town, that she was still in the area.

He said her family had all moved away—Tyler to the city for work, and her parents off to travel.

I’ve wanted to reach out to Jules since then, but work has taken up most of my time and I didn’t know if she would be open to meeting up with me without Tyler here.

At fifteen, I was only her older brother’s friend, after all.

Jules was much too young for me to be thinking about her in any other way than just as Tyler’s little sister.

But since I’ve come back to Maple Lake, I’ve been flooded with memories of their family.

Not Jules in particular, although she was always there, but the Berns family as a whole.

They reeled me in and treated me as one of their own when my parents didn’t.

Although I’m a Dunne by blood, when I was with them I felt like a Berns.

As a young boy, being with their family was equivalent to being scooped into a warm hug, the kind that fills your every longing to belong and to be loved.

They patched the hole in my heart I desperately wanted my own parents to fill.

Tyler’s family gave their love freely without question or payment, just like a real family should.

And on the sideline of all the warm memories of their family is Tyler’s sister, Juliet.

I vaguely remember her warm smile and bright eyes, but even as a young girl, I remember she had the type of personality that made her stand out in a crowd.

She could make anyone smile with just a sweet look, filling the room with laughter and joy.

It’s been twelve years since I’ve seen her, but her brown eyes pulled me in from the second they met mine and I recognized her instantly. I couldn’t help grinning like an idiot. I waited, wondering if she would recognize me too, but I can’t be disappointed that she didn’t.

Her brother and I were best friends through middle school and part of high school.

At ten years old, she wasn’t young enough to still be a nuisance to her teenage brother and his friends, but the five-year age gap between her and Tyler kept her from spending much time with us.

I’d go to their house after school a couple times a week and, although I was there a lot, I’d hardly see Jules.

She would either be in her room doing whatever fifth grade girls do after school, working on her homework at the kitchen table, or helping her mom prepare dinner.

However, there were times she’d be doing math homework, struggling to understand it, and I’d offer to help.

I always had an understanding with numbers.

Something about the finality of them, how they hold so much information and are always black and white.

Mathematics is structured and dependable.

You either know it or you don’t. Helping her taught me a lot about what I’m good at and what career path I wanted to pursue.

I was born here in Maple Lake, but was forced to move to Washington when my dad got a job offer he couldn’t turn down.

At fifteen, it was hard to move across the country, away from all I had ever known, to be the new kid at a new school.

Not to mention, I was in that fun stage of puberty.

There’s nothing like being the new guy with the gangly appendages and the voice that doesn’t know which way is up or down.

Stepping up into the driver’s seat of my truck, I close the door and take a moment to search the street for another glance at Jules.

I couldn’t keep my eyes off her when I helped her up from the sidewalk.

She’s changed so much. Obviously I didn’t expect her to be ten years old anymore, but I also didn’t expect to be blown away by how gorgeous she’s become .

Her dark brown hair flowed around her shoulders, reaching to her lower back. And her eyes… they were dangerously mesmerizing. They look like molten chocolate, rich and dark, and they glow as if the moon rests behind them.

I’m sure I was staring quite a lot. I was suddenly nervous when I saw her; I didn’t know where else to look. With the wind blowing her hair around her face, I had to put my hands in my pockets to keep from reaching out and guiding her hair away from her mouth as she spoke.

Why didn’t I just tell her who I was? I should have.

I can’t explain why I didn’t because I don’t have a good reason. Once it became clear she wasn’t going to recognize me, I had the perfect chance to reveal that we were once friends, sort of. Friends by association with Tyler at least.

But I chickened out. That’s all it comes down to.

In the presence of a grown, gorgeous, very adult version of Juliet, I became very uncharacteristically self-conscious.

As I press the start button on my truck, images of her lips drift across my vision.

They’re soft and plump, but dainty on her perfect heart shaped face.

I’ve never been one to stare at a girl’s lips before, but I struggled to keep my gaze away.

I was left questioning if they were naturally that pink or if she was wearing some kind of colored Chapstick.

She had a little dimple on her right cheek that I remember from the past, and the way she smiled made my heart skip.

I could have kept her there for hours. I want to learn everything there is to know about her—where she lives now, what she does for work, where she went to school.

I find myself totally lost in thoughts of her, my brain scrambling to fill in every blank space of information I don’t know about this woman.

And I’m… surprised.

I’m surprised at myself for feeling any type of attraction toward someone.

Relationships aren’t for me; I’m a solitary guy who likes spending time outdoors and off the grid.

I frequently go camping in the mountains, separating myself from civilization as I let my survival instincts kick in.

And during those moments, I’m living on the high of being alone and one with nature, relying on no one but myself.

I never rely on others, and I don’t allow myself to get attached, even just a little bit.

I don’t date. If I did, I’d be putting myself on the line for heartbreak. And I’ve had enough of that to last a lifetime. But for some reason, I want to see Juliet again, against my better judgement.

The biggest reason I came back to Maple Lake is because this is the only place that has ever felt like home to me and it holds all of my escapes from reality.

And seeing Jules, looking into her eyes, being surrounded by her sweet vanilla scent, I was transported to those days in the Berns home where I felt a sense of belonging that I haven’t experienced anywhere else.

Seeing Juliet today brought back the good memories of my childhood. The days I spent with Jules’ family were some of the best in my life, and she doesn’t even know it.

I’m unable to deny that I experienced a jolt of anticipation when I had been told she still lived here, and again when I realized it was her I was helping on the sidewalk. Maybe she felt something when our hands touched, or maybe she just wanted to get out of there.

Either way, I have to stop overanalyzing everything. Yes, she might be attractive, but that’s all this is.

I scrub my hands through my hair and down my face, trying to clear my mind.

I pull the truck out onto the road, scanning the nearby cars and parking spaces for any sign of Jules.

I know I shouldn’t be rubbernecking as I head slowly down the street, but my mind is racing, and my heart is still pounding from our small but significant physical contact.

My hand still feels the ghost of hers grazing over my skin as I passed her the coffee, and I use it now to rub the back of my neck, my left hand remaining on the steering wheel.

From the corner of my eye, I see movement on the side of the coffee shop.

Then a little red car reverses out of a diagonal parking space.

As the car pulls forward, rather quickly I might add, I glimpse long brown hair swishing right and left as Jules prepares to pull out onto the road.

My truck is rolling slowly, and I can’t help but be a gentleman in her presence.

Noting there are no other cars on the road, I come to a stop and wave her on, allowing her to drive out in front of me.