Dawn's Early Light by Jessica Scott

Author:Jessica Scott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2017-11-07T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

IT WAS THE unending beep of the timer that first clued her in that something might be off.

But when Cam didn’t answer the door she knew something was wrong.

She pushed it open and just like that, she was seventeen years old once again.

And her father wasn’t answering her.

She paused, assessing the scene, looking at the smoke from the kitchen. Cam was nowhere to be found.

The kitten bolted from beneath the couch, chasing a fishing lure. Desperately hoping it didn’t have a hook in it, she marveled at the mundane moment in the haze of panic threatening to drown her.

She killed the timer and rescued the meatballs from the oven. They were a little crispy but salvageable.

Where the hell was Cam?

The kitten scooted in front of her and she reached down, snagging the lure. No hook. Good.

Then she scooped up the kitten, who swatted Hayley’s face with her soft kitten paws. “Where’s your daddy?” she asked.

She noticed movement on the porch and set the kitten down, treading cautiously outside. As she stepped onto the old planks, the evening air wrapped around her like a cool cloak.

Cam was sitting on the back steps. The sun had long ago slid below the trees, allowing the shadows to creep out. The final remnants of daylight were in full-blown retreat.

He didn’t acknowledge her approach.

She didn’t miss the bottle of tequila between his feet. Or his head, resting in one hand. His phone dangled loosely in the other.

As she sat, relief mixed with raw fear and created a stone in the pit of her belly. She didn’t touch him, deliberately keeping her distance.

He set the phone down and lifted the bottle to his lips, taking a long pull that would have put her under the table. It clinked against the wooden step as he set it back down. “I think I’m going to have to cancel dinner.” His words were slow, thick, and laced with pain.

Memories wrestled with reality. She saw her father, sitting on the couch in the weeks before he died, with a beer in his hands instead of the bottle of tequila. The ragged look in Cam’s eyes made it seem as if she were looking into her dad’s.

Her dad would never laugh again. He’d never be around to tease her about being too good for Cam Warren.

He’d never tell her how proud he was of her.

All because she’d left him alone on a night like this. A night when he was hurting and she hadn’t known what to do.

In all the years since her father’s death, she’d always wondered if she could have done something different. Would sitting with him have helped? Could she have stopped his slide into dark memories?

Cam lifted the bottle again, and before she could stop herself she reached out, halting its ascent.

“I think maybe you shouldn’t be alone?” It was a hesitant question.

Last night, he’d been a little tipsy. Warm and welcoming and sexy.

Tonight was different. He wasn’t a little in the bag. He was flat-out blasted.

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