Page 33

chapter

sixteen

Walking After You – Foo Fighters

CAMPBELL

His morning run had not improved the situation. Head pounding, mouth dry, Campbell still felt like shit.

Exhausted from lack of sleep. (After two—count ‘em, two —hours of mind-blowing phone sex. With laughter and normal conversation scattered between the hot moments.)

Confused because he liked this woman.

Fontana made him laugh, was whip-smart, and too tough for her own good. She managed to surprise him at every turn, so much so that he didn’t know how to anticipate her next moves.

Like they were playing chess without rules.

Rules were beneficial, because he typically used them to his advantage.

Being kept on his toes was a refreshing, wholly unnerving experience.

“And she’s gorgeous, don’t forget that,” he whispered as he slowed to a trot—almost running the other way when he got close enough to see John Nelson sitting on the veranda stairs, hands wrapped around a chipped coffee mug, another by his side, a look on his face that said, Let’s talk!

“You get the boy off to school?” John Nelson held the mug out to him.

Campbell slumped onto the step, took the coffee, and drank as if the meaning of life was captured inside a mug stating Farmers Rule in bright green letters. Steam and the pungent scent of Colombian Supremo peppered his face. “Don’t see him around, do you?”

“Nope. That I don’t,” his grandfather murmured with a leisurely sip. “This blessed coffee is too strong, by the by. I may have to get out there and run along with you if I have another.”

Campbell wiped sweat from his brow and grinned. “You’re just used to coffee-colored water. Folgers, this is not.”

John Nelson stretched his shoulders. “Not sure I trust coffee delivered in the mail.”

Campbell hummed a reply, taking in the morning.

Nippy, but with a chill that would burn off before lunch.

The oaks lining the drive were shedding leaves that tumbled across the yard in a lazy pirouette.

A misty fog hung low, soon to be chased away by the sun.

The grass had faded to a buttery gray, stretching over gently sloping hills all the way to the horizon.

As far as he could see—True property.

“Farming is good for the soul.”

So is photography, Campbell thought with a silent sigh.

“You could stay and work the land. A small parcel, just for the pleasure of it. Lease the rest out. We have takers. You used to be a mighty good agriculturalist. Knew cotton like almost no kid I ever saw—interested like no kid I ever saw.” He perched his elbows behind him on the top step and stretched out legs covered in plaid pajamas that looked as old as the owner.

“That and a camera, until girls came along, all you got excited about.”

“Not happening.”

“There are modern processes, more organic. Could go that route. Bring your cousins in, do what you’ve always wanted with the mill,” he said, gesturing with his mug to the fields stretching before them.

“This is fallow land, prime, and we’ve given it a few years to replenish, never a bad thing.

Soybeans, cotton, collards. Maybe could even try something new. Take your pictures but stay here.”

Campbell yanked on his dangling shoelace, riding this out.

His grandfather’s wizened gaze, cloudy with age, slipped to Campbell, as listless and relaxed as his guidance, but Campbell wasn’t fooled. Razor-sharp and with intent. Advice with teeth. “Do what you haven’t really done, even though you’re sitting here. Come home .”

“John Nelson?—”

“I don’t want to move to Atlanta or watch this land leave the family, and deep down, neither do you. But I’m also not going to fight you, because my time for decision-making and family management is over.” He took a slow sip. “That’s why I signed everything over to you when your dad passed.”

Campbell wondered how many times his heart could break. Every day since coming back, he’d felt so much.

Too much.

Watching Kit try on new clothes, flashing a lovable, goofy metal smile.

Watching John Nelson struggle to climb the stairs to his bedroom each night, gripping a banister everyone in the family had once glided down as a child.

Watching Fontana in the mill, eyes wide with wonder as she stared through that stupid glass ceiling.

His favorite room in the entire, rambling place—if he’d had the guts to tell her.

Which he hadn’t .

Campbell was considering changing all their lives to keep his steady. Keep the family ship steady. And he was the captain now, right? In charge of everything.

Coming back to Promise and making a life here was an impossible wish.

A fantasy.

John Nelson circled his hands around his mug, linked his fingers, and squeezed.

“I made so many mistakes with you and your cousins. Heck, how did I know what poor parents my sons would make? Miriam and I raised them to be good men…but something got lost along the way. Your father, Vietnam messed him up. Anger issues the moment he stepped off that transport. William?” He shrugged and clicked his tongue against his teeth.

“There, I don’t know. He never cared a lick about being a father, plain and simple. Hard thing when you have three sons.”

“We don’t have to go over this again,” he whispered, truly wishing they wouldn’t.

“Maybe I want to, Campbell Loman, maybe I need to. I should have stepped in more often, but no one wants parenting advice from their father. Now all my grandkids are off somewhere. Run off. Justin comes into town every once and a while for the gallery, and I suspect he wants to come home, but the rest of you—” He snapped his fingers.

Campbell had no answers and instead returned his gaze to the fields.

“You’re so conflicted about your legacy, your place here.

Twisted up inside. Always have been. Celia just blew the lid off and lit the fuse.

Maybe it’s harder for you because Justin, Dallas, Will only have bad memories, not the land”—he gestured again with his mug—“this house. The mill, which you think is a noose around your neck. One your mama tightens from the grave. ”

He wanted to disagree, but conflicted summed it up nicely.

Promise—this land, this house, the mill—had always made him want to reach, take , then push away with fierce fury. Contradictory wants, contradictory needs. Fifteen years had passed, and nothing had changed.

Coveting this place the way he did, soul-deep, still made him sick to his stomach.

He loved and hated in equal measure.

“I talked to my lawyer about drawing up papers to sell Fontana the studio and an acre of land surrounding it. That magical Eden of hers.” Campbell stared into his mug, hoping his face betrayed little.

“If you’re okay with it. I know how much she’s paying in rent.

The mortgage will come in about even. I ran the numbers every way I could think of. ”

John Nelson came out of his slouch. “That so?”

Campbell nudged his glasses higher. His two-hours-sleep eyeballs couldn’t handle contacts today. “I’d give it to her seeing as it isn’t worth much, but that would start a war I’m not prepared to fight. One I know I can’t win.”

“Stubborn, that girl.”

Her breathless little moans over the phone last night blew through his senses, warming him to his bones. “Very.”

“So you don’t have the heart to kick her off what’s basically become her land.”

Campbell finished his coffee, tilted the mug, and watched a lone, russet drop land on the marble step. “Who said anything about heart?”

His grandfather nodded like he was timing it to a beat. “If you say so, tough guy.”

“It’s business, John Nelson, nothing more.”

“If business explains the way you two were looking at each other at your party, well, all-righty then. ”

Campbell caught himself before he asked: how was she looking at me ?

John Nelson leaned, knocking Campbell’s shoulder with his own hard enough to send his grandson sliding over on the step.

“I’m old, not dead.” He laughed until tears must have been threatening because he tugged a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes.

“Good news is, looks like she’s got it bad, too. A tidy package, if I ever saw one.”

“I’m telling you, there is no tidy package .” No we .

They were only two lonely people, searching. Scared. Horny.

Couldn’t be less of a tidy package.

“Guess so.” John Nelson crossed his feet at the ankle and tipped his head back. “Like you’d make anything that easy.”

Campbell braced his hands on his knees and shoved to his feet. “I’ll be in the darkroom if you need me.”

“You’re coming down for lunch, young man. No skipping meals on my watch.”

Campbell reached back to touch his grandfather’s shoulder. “I’ll come down, Pops.”

Climbing the stairs to his darkroom, he recalled Fontana’s long-ago advice.

Love your brother and your grandfather .

I’m trying, Hellcat. I’m trying.

FONTAN A

Fontana entered Tammi’s Hair Extraordinaire with all the enthusiasm of someone walking into a pharmacy for a flu shot.

She’d have to be dead to miss the talk about Campbell and Tammi since his return—high school sweethearts or some such.

The town rumormongers made sure she heard, because now she was linked to Promise’s most eligible bachelor.

Studmuffin, Mrs. Kimble had called him this morning at the QuickStop, and considering she had to be pushing ninety, that was saying something.

Her twin sister, Clara, honey bun in hand, had chimed in with handsome devil.

Fontana wanted to agree with Campbell’s assessment of small-town gossip— bullshit —but after a night of phenomenal phone sex, she had to admit that, once in a while, the rumor mill got it right.

She propped her elbows on Tammi’s front counter and dropped her head into her hands. Oh, my God . She’d initiated. Then participated.

Enthusiastically.