Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 128083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
“Yeah. No question,” Cyrus continued. “We want to give this a try. Us. The three of us. Hello?”
Rex, who’d been staring slack-jawed at Cami, looked to Cyrus, hesitated, and then he laughed.
He. Laughed.
Cami was the one to blink then, her heart sinking. Why was he laughing?
But then Rex stepped to the side, and Cami’s gaze moved behind him. The apartment was empty, a small pile of boxes sitting to the left of the door. “I quit my job,” he said.
“You what? Why?”
“Because I love you too. I love both of you. I was coming back to Aspen Cove. I was going to leave in an hour. I don’t even live here anymore as of six p.m.”
It took Cami a moment to process that. Cyrus, apparently, didn’t need as much time. He stepped forward and threw his arms around Rex’s waist, and Rex laughed again and hugged him back. “Hi, Cy. I missed you, buddy.”
“I missed you too,” Cyrus said. He looked back at Cami. “We all were coming for each other, Mom.”
Cami laughed, too, then, a wondrous sound that also held the tears that had sprung to her eyes.
“What about your farm, Cami? You can’t leave your business.”
“I was going to open another one here,” she said. “A Flutterfly in Virginia and one in Colorado. A multistate expansion. It’s a good thing, right?”
His smile was gentle. “You can never have too many butterflies.”
“No, exactly. That’s right.” She breathed out a laugh.
“Your dad . . .”
That was the hard part. She’d miss him desperately, and she knew Cyrus would too. But it was her dad who’d insisted they go and find Rex, her dad who’d told her to hold on to love, to never let go.
And strangely perhaps, Seraphina’s words from her letter often repeated in Cami’s mind when the anguish of all she’d learned about the crime that took her mother and sister threatened to pull her under.
Live your life, Cami. Make it a good one.
“Pops and Gigi gave us their blessing,” Cyrus said when he obviously saw she was at a loss for words. “They’re going to visit for Christmas.”
Cami nodded. They had. They were. Her dad was doing so much better now, too, though he’d had to grieve all over again, and process. The processing might take a good while longer. But he had Gigi, and Gigi was a godsend. Patient and understanding.
Her thoughts connected and then broke apart, and it finally really hit her. Oh my God. Rex had been coming for them. She was still trying to wrap her mind around it. This whole scenario had looked so different in her head. How much of this had he thought out, and when? She had so many questions, but mostly, she was dying to be held.
Maybe Rex read her mind, or maybe her body was leaning so far toward him that he didn’t need to be a mind reader at all to know what she needed. He opened his other arm and she stepped into it, planting her face in his neck. “I want to be a family. I want to take care of you. I was coming back to tell you that,” he said, his voice gritty and low.
They hugged and laughed, and Cami wiped her tears. “We’re homeless and jobless,” she said.
“No school either,” Cyrus added. “Or friends. Or pets or anything.”
Yes, they were pretty much lacking everything that made a life right about now. So why were they all three grinning at each other?
Because all that was the easy stuff, she realized.
This, them, together, that was what really mattered.
“I think we all should head back to Virginia,” Rex finally said. “Your business is there, and your dad and Gigi. My mom too. She’ll be thrilled to have us. And I’ve got this business idea that I’ve been discussing with some really good friends.”
“You do have quite a few cool friends with some unique skills,” Cami said.
Rex smiled. “We could do some good.”
Cami raised a brow. “Is one of those friends by any chance a woman?”
Rex chuckled. “Perhaps.”
Perhaps. Cami grinned. She’d visited Posey Kiss several times in the past couple of months. She was . . . extremely unique and quite charming, and Cami liked her very much. She’d helped Cami unpack exactly what had happened to her. She’d tried her best to stop the crime in the only way she was able. Cami had gone down the what if trail for a while but decided to abandon that route. It didn’t change anything and, frankly, if Posey could find any amount of peace after what had been stolen from her, Cami could too.
Live your life, Cami. Make it a good one.
She took Cyrus’s hand. “Sounds like we have the outline of a plan then,” she said to both Cyrus and Rex. Slow and steady, Cami thought. Slow and steady. It’d always worked for her before.