Page 42 of Salvation (Rising From the Ashes #3)

Ivy

“ I love you, and I’ve been loving you since I was nine years old.”

I didn’t sleep last night. I couldn’t, not with those words running on replay through my head.

Campbell poured out his heart, and then, like the idiot I am, I kissed him, reminding myself what it was like to fly.

And in the same breath, I remembered that the higher you fly, the further you have to fall.

I can’t fall with Campbell, not again. It would be like jumping from a plane, knowing I don’t have a parachute to slow me down.

Reckless. Adventurous. Deadly. So I pushed him away, but he didn’t let me. Not like I thought he would.

Now I’m pacing in front of the window with my brain and heart at war.

My brain is telling me that whatever Campbell has planned for today is a bad idea—that I should call him before he gets here and fake a sickness—but my heart, she’s a traitorous nag who’s begging me to give in to this. Whatever this is.

Before I can make up my mind which one to listen to, Campbell decides for me when he pulls into my drive. My heart thunders a mile a minute against my ribs, but I force my steps to remain slow and even as I walk to the front door and open it before he has a chance to knock.

Campbell is standing on my front porch with his hands tucked into the pocket of his jeans, staring at me with a maddening obsession. It’s all-consuming and magnetic, pulling me to him and drawing me into his madness with the smell of citrus soap, cedar cologne, and home filling my lungs.

“Hi,” I breathe.

“Hey, sunshine.” The deep rumble of his voice washes over me, sending a shiver down my spine.

Less than an inch of space exists between us, sparking and hissing with electricity.

My chest rises and falls, brushing against his with each breath.

My head falls back, and he smirks down at me, his eyes begging me to make the next move.

It hits me then that he’s placing this in my hands, letting me move at my own pace.

For a minute, I consider it. I think about leaning in and taking what I want, but I’ve never been that brave.

So instead, I step back, placing space between us and regretting that I’m not when disappointment flashes through Campbell’s eyes before he’s able to cover it with a smile that would be convincing if I hadn’t spent the first half of my life studying every part of him.

“So,” he says even though his voice is as strained as his smile, “are you ready?”

I force myself to take a deep breath, answering him. “Yeah—um—before we go. I need to make sure you know this isn’t a date. I didn’t want there to be any confusion after yesterday.”

Campbell’s forced smile turns into a slow smirk, something wicked flashing in his eyes, and my heart speeds up, galloping as if it’s in a race to outrun the danger that comes with that smirk on his lips.

“When it comes to you, sunshine, I’m not confused about anything.

” The words are innocent enough. It’d be easy to believe he’s agreeing with me about this not being a date, but the way he says it, with his voice dipping low enough to cause goosebumps to pebble over my skin, it’s obvious he’s not innocent at all.

“I’m serious, Campbell.”

One of his brows notches up. “So am I, Ivy.”

My name rumbles from his lips like it’s always belonged there, making it increasingly harder to remember why this thing between us can’t be more than two friends catching up.

“Fine,” I say, but I can’t stay here. I need to move.

I need less of his attention on me and more of it anywhere else.

So I walk forward, intending to step around him, but he’s everywhere, filling the space and making my head dizzy.

My arm brushes against his, and the sharp inhale he pulls in through clenched teeth causes chills to break out over my whole body.

He may not be confused, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that I am.

But I can’t play this game with him, so I pretend not to hear the hidden meaning beneath his words. “I’m glad we are on the same page.”

Campbell mutters something under his breath as I walk down the steps toward his truck waiting in the driveway—something that sounds a lot like “we aren’t, but we will be”—but I pretend I don’t hear that, too.

I’m halfway to the truck before I hear Campbell’s footsteps thundering against the stairs, jogging to catch up to me.

I quicken my pace because I know what he’s after.

He was raised a Southern gentleman. It’s ingrained in him to open my door, but that feels too intimate—too much like the date I just denied this being—so I quicken mine too, determined to beat him to it.

Only, he’s faster, and it’s not the door he’s after.

His hand wraps around my bicep, his hold so gentle that it’s just a tease of calluses and skin against mine.

I’m wearing a t-shirt because I was burning up from the mental breakdown I was having inside, trying to convince myself to call this off.

I’d grabbed my jacket on the way to the door, intending to put it on once I was in his truck, but now I regret not doing it sooner because my brain shuts down with his touch.

“We aren’t going in the truck, sunshine.”

It takes a minute for his words to pierce through the haze of his presence, but when they do, my brows dip in confusion. “Then how are we going to get there?”

The smile that slips onto his lips makes my heart stop entirely. “We don’t need to drive where we are going, sunshine. We are already there.”

______________________

Campbell takes my hand, pulling me behind him before I can ask any questions, all while my heart thunders in my ears.

He doesn’t have to tell me where we are going.

I already know. I’ve avoided it since coming back, but it seems my time for avoidance has ended because we are going to the willow tree.

I haven’t gone back yet because it was always our spot, not mine.

I didn’t want to be there if he wasn’t. Just before we reach the clearing, Campbell turns his head over his shoulder and smiles back at me.

It’s reminiscent of a million other times with him just like this, and I have to fight the urge to rub at the bittersweet ache that slithers into my chest.

“Campbell, maybe we shouldn’t—” I start, but the words dry up on my tongue as he pulls me into the clearing where the willow tree sits.

The trees stand taller than they used to, stretching so high it looks like they are touching the sky, but it’s not the trees that have me stopping in my tracks; it’s the things sitting between them. Paintings rest on easels around the clearing, but not just any paintings. Mine. They are all mine.

My eyes burn as I slowly drag them toward Campbell. He’s already looking at me, watching as if he needed to witness the moment himself.

“What is this, Campbell?” I ask, unable to bring my voice above a whisper even though it’s just us out here.

He stares straight into my soul when he says, “You gave me your reasons yesterday, Ivy—and I told you that none of them were good enough—but you’ll never believe me if I just tell you. So, this is me showing you.”

“Showing me what?” I manage to choke out. My legs are shaking so hard that I’m not sure how I’m still standing, but I keep my eyes on him, waiting for his answer.

Campbell lifts his hand, wrapping his finger around my curl without looking. His eyes stay on mine as the corner of his mouth ticks up just an inch. “That you and I are inevitable.”

“Campbell—” I say his name, but then I stop because I don’t know what else to say. I don’t even know what this is.

“No, Ivy,” he says, shaking his head, “just let me show you.”

He drops my curl and grabs my hand, tugging me over to where the first canvas stands. It’s a landscape painting with orange and reds bursting through the skyline, creating a rudimentary sunset. Two silhouettes stand off in the distance, hardly recognizable, but I recognize the painting itself.

“This is the first painting you ever did,” he says, confirming what I was thinking.

“It was your eighth-grade art project, and I remember begging you to let me keep it even though you thought it was terrible. You picked it apart for days, but I couldn’t help loving how the silhouettes reminded me of us. ”

“I knew you kept it back then, but I—I thought you would have gotten rid of it by now,” I say, gently touching the brush strokes.

I hear Campbell move, and then I feel his breath tickling against the shell of my ear. “I kept everything that reminded me of you, Ivy.”

Just as quick as he appeared, he pulls away, giving me space before he drags me to the next painting and then the next and then the next.

Each time it’s the same thing—memories disguised as paintings.

A wrecking ball slamming into the walls I’m trying to keep in place.

But as we walk from painting to painting, I can feel the chips in my armor.

One more painting sits at the other end of the clearing, beneath the limbs of the willow tree, but Campbell doesn’t have to drag me to this one. My feet move like I’m being drawn to it with the force of a magnetic field.

Just like all the other paintings, I recognize it, but this one is different because Campbell shouldn’t have it.

How does he have it?

I remember every painting I’ve ever painted because they all hold a piece of me, but this one holds more than just a piece.

I painted every broken part of myself into it and never meant for it to see the light of day, and yet, it did.

It started my career and simultaneously changed the course of my life.

The canvas sits unframed, emulating the willow tree it sits beneath.

My eyes start at the bottom, knowing what I’ll find amongst the rough textures of gray and black oil paint.

Leaves are ripped from the limbs, lying on incinerated roots stretching like dry bones across lifeless grass.

The painting is colorless—except for the blood-red flames licking their way up the trunk.

It’s a picture of devastation. Of destruction. Of me.

Campbell walks up beside me, and I reluctantly pull my gaze from the painting to him.

“Where did you get this?” I croak, my voice hoarse.

“I bought it at your first gallery show.”

“No,” I say with a slow shake of my head. “You didn’t. I know you didn’t because it sold to a—to a—” But I can’t finish that thought because something clicked in my mind.

“To a C. R. Benton? Yeah, that was me.”

My head feels like it’s spinning as I try to keep up with this conversation. Campbell Richards from Benton Falls. It would have been obvious enough, but I never dreamed Campbell would be at my show. I never thought it was a possibility.

“But if you were there, why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you come to me?”

Campbell scrubs his hand over his face, the sound of his calluses against his unshaven jaw sending a chill down my spine.

“Because I was angry with you, Ivy. I was eighteen years old, and I’d just gotten onto the force.

It’d been two years since your grandfather had convinced me that you had an abortion, and I still couldn’t stop thinking about you.

I thought if I could see you one more time, maybe I could start hating you like I should have.

So I looked you up. I used my resources at the station even though it could have cost me my job.

Then, I drove all night to see you. I found out about your gallery show, and I couldn’t stop myself from attending.

When I got there, I stood outside on the sidewalk for a full hour, trying to convince myself to turn around and leave.

Then I caught a glimpse of you through the window, and it was like those two years that you’d been gone hadn’t passed.

You were the sun, and I was still drawn to you. ”

“How did I not see you, Campbell? That art gallery was tiny.”

“Because I didn’t want you to. I stood in the shadows and watched you. You looked happy, and I hated you as much as I loved you because of that. I was miserable.”

I shake my head, denying what he’s claiming.“I wasn’t happy, Campbell. I just learned to fake it.”

“I know that now, sunshine, but I didn’t then.

Anyway, I was about to leave when the willow tree painting went up for auction, and from the moment I laid eyes on it, I knew I needed it to be mine.

I would have drained my entire trust fund to get it, but I didn’t want you to know I was buying it.

Everything between us back then was so complicated. ”

“It’s still complicated,” I say, resigned to the fact that I think it will always be that way for us.

“It doesn’t have to be.” Campbell’s bright eyes burn into me, branding my heart as if he knows it has always been his.

I turn my head away from him to look back at the painting because it’s easier to say what I have to say when I’m not looking at him. “I gave you a million reasons yesterday why that’s not true.”

I’m being a coward—hiding because I’m scared of everything I’m feeling—but Campbell doesn’t let me. He steps in front of me, cutting off my view of the painting and forcing me to tilt my head back to look at him.

“You gave me three reasons, and I’ve just proven one untrue.

You say you can’t paint, sunshine, but there is a clearing full of paintings here saying you can.

So come up with as many excuses as you need to, Ivy, but I intend to prove them all wrong because you are it for me. And I plan on fighting for you.”

My hands shake, and my breath quickens with his confession. I never imagined this. Us here under the willow tree again. Never imagined a lot of things about my life. But maybe that’s because I’ve been letting my life be chosen for me, and I finally have the chance to choose for myself.

So even though I’m scared, I step forward, closing the gap between us and choosing me.

“Do you promise?” I ask, my voice a whisper that brushes against his lips.

Campbell’s eyes flick between mine. “On my life, sunshine.”

And that’s all I need to calm my fears—a promise from the man I’ve always loved. Closing the gap, I give in and fall, hoping he will be there to catch me this time.